212 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



sufficient to guarantee such assent. And what is this objective evidence that 

 calls forth our assent ? It is, in ultimate analysis, simply the objective re 

 lation between two aspects of the same reality, between subject and predi 

 cate, shining in clearly upon the mind, and grasped by the mind in forming 

 the judgment, in interpreting the reality through this mental act. It is, there 

 fore, simply the manifestation of reality to the mind. In other words, it is 

 the real or ontological truth ; it is Being, apprehended by the mind as its 

 natural, proper object : &quot; Objectum Intellectus est Ens &quot; is the Scholastic 

 formula which sums up this whole doctrine on the criterion of truth and the 

 motive of certitude. 



The state of certitude, alone, excludes all prudent fear of error. 

 When the judgment connects two simple, abstract concepts, whose 

 comprehension is perfectly clear, the relation of subject to pre 

 dicate is seen to be absolutely necessary and immutable, so that the 

 object of our thought could not possibly be otherwise without 

 a contradiction in thought. With regard to such self-evident 

 judgments &quot;per se nota non solum in se sed quoad nos et omnes &quot; * 

 there can be no possibility of error. Our assent is compelled ; the 

 evidence is cogent. 



But when we pass to concepts that are more complex, and judg 

 ments arising out of them, the evidence for such judgments is 

 usually not so clear ; the relations are not so manifest ; they need 

 not compel our assent : we realize that, absolutely speaking, error 

 is possible in their regard ; and hence we are free to withhold 

 assent if we choose, though at the same time we may see the 

 evidence to be such that it leaves no ground or reason for a 

 prudent fear of error. 



Similarly, of the judgments which we form on the immediate 

 testimony of our senses, and by which we interpret the facts of 

 immediate sense experience, many are so evidently true that, al 

 though we might conceive ourselves to have been mistaken in 

 regard to them, there is no prudent ground for any fear that we 

 are mistaken. Again, the same is true, in its measure, of judg 

 ments for the truth of which we rely on the testimony of our 

 fellow-men. In all such cases, where prudent fear of error is ex 

 cluded, and where the judgment to which we assent is actually true, 

 we have certitude. 



When such fear is not wholly excluded by the grounds or 

 reasons we have for our assent, the judgment is described as 

 &quot;probable &quot; : our attitude towards it is called &quot; opinion &quot; : 2 the mind 



1 ZIGLIARA, Logica, (41), v. 



2 Or, also, &quot;belief,&quot; in one of the many meanings of this term. 



