264 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



categorical dress . . . If corn is scarce, it is dear, becomes Scarce corn is dear 

 . . . [but this latter] is not really a judgment about scarce corn but about 

 corn : we realize that corn is something which may be scarce, and is dear when 

 scarce ; and so the dependence in corn of a consequent on a condition is the 

 burden of our judgment about it.&quot; l This may be expressed in some such 

 categorical form as &quot; Corn is such that its scarcity will involve dearness &quot; : 

 where, although the form is categorical, yet the real judgment is contained in 

 the complex predicate, and remains a conditional judgment an assertion of 

 the dependence of a consequent upon a condition, without any assertion as 

 to the reality or fulfilment of the condition. Indeed, the claim to truth in an 

 &quot;if&quot; judgment necessarily implies that it has underlying it some simple, cate 

 gorical affirmation or denial : that in its ultimate analysis we must be brought 

 face to face with an absolute &quot;is&quot; or &quot;is not&quot;. We have seen (84, 123) 

 that the categorical judgment makes a predication about some subject be 

 longing to some sphere of reality, and that this latter might be called the 

 ultimate subject as distinct from the logical subject of the judgment. 

 The same is true of the &quot;tf&quot; judgment, so that even in its purest form 

 (133) it involves a categorical statement about -the sphere of reality to which 

 it refers. Where A and C represent two simple judgments, the &quot; if&quot; judgment 

 may be expressed &quot; If A then C &quot; ; but it might also be expressed by a categori 

 cal judgment of this sort : Things are such (or Reality is such, or The sphere 

 of things referred to is such) that if A be true in reference to this sphere of 

 things or reality, C is also true in reference to it* 



We point out this merely to show that, as acts of the mind, there is no 

 fundamental difference between these various kinds of judgment. But the 

 assertion of a predicate about a subject is logically distinct from the assertion 

 of the dependence of one judgment upon another. 3 The logical subject of 



1 JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 164. 



2 The fact that a hypothetical judgment maybe true though neither condition nor 

 consequent be ever fulfilled or realized &quot; If Hannibal had marched on Rome after 

 Cannae, he would have taken it &quot; raises a problem about the nature of the reality 

 asserted by the hypothetical. What is asserted in the example is that &quot; Rome was 

 in such a state that it could not have resisted Hannibal after Cannae. This is 

 true ; but it still leaves us with the question, how can there be the ground, in the 

 real universe, of something which nevertheless does not happen ? We speak freely 

 of unrealized possibilities, as if they existed as well as realized actualities. We are 

 not always conscious of the metaphysical difficulties involved : how are we to think 

 of what we so freely speak of ? When we reflect, in Logic, upon the hypothetical 

 form of judgment, we become conscious of the problem &quot; (JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 166). 

 This problem at least suggests the thought that &quot; what does not happen,&quot; what is 

 not &quot; actual,&quot; is nevertheless real if it is possible. Our study of the negative 

 judgment (98) revealed to us that reality as known by us contains the ground not 

 only for knowing what can be but is not (the possible), but also for knowing that 

 which cannot be (the impossible), i.e. the unreal. Cf. a kindred problem in con- 

 nexion with disjunctive judgments. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 168 ; infra, 146 n. 



3 It has been said that the difference between the hypothetical and the categori 

 cal judgment, being material, should not be noticed in logic [cf. MANSEL, Prole 

 gomena Logica, pp. 282, 251, apud JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 165]. &quot; For both assert ; 

 they differ in what they assert ; the difference is therefore in the matter and not in 

 the form. . . . But it will be readily admitted that the distinction between categori 

 cal and hypothetical assertion is formal in the sense that it meets us whatever be the 



