IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 117 



another. To judge, was to put two ideas together, or 

 to bring one idea under another, or to compare two 

 ideas, or to perceive the agreement or disagreement 

 between two ideas : and the whole doctrine of Propo- 

 sitions, together with the theory of Reasoning (always 

 necessarily founded upon the theory of Propositions), 

 was stated as if Ideas, or Conceptions, or whatever 

 other term the writer preferred as a name for mental 

 representations generally, constituted essentially the 

 subject matter and substance of those operations. 



It is, of course, true, that in any case of judg- 

 ment, as for instance when we judge that gold is 

 yellow, a process takes place in our minds of which 

 some one or other of these theories is a partially 

 correct account. We must iiave the idea of gold and 

 the idea of yellow, and these two ideas must be 

 brought together in our mind. But in the first place, 

 it is evident that this is only a part of what takes 

 place ; for we may put two ideas together without any 

 act of belief; as when we merely imagine something, 

 such as a golden mountain; or when we actually 

 disbelieve : for in order even to disbelieve that 

 Mahomet was an apostle of God, we must put the 

 idea of Mahomet and that of an apostle of God 

 together. To determine what it is that happens 

 in the case of assent or dissent besides putting two 

 ideas together, is one of the most intricate of meta- 

 physical problems. But whatever the solution may 

 be, we may venture to assert that it can have nothing 

 whatever to do with the import of propositions ; for 

 this reason, that propositions (except where the mind 

 itself is the subject treated of) are not assertions 

 respecting our ideas of things, but assertions respect- 

 ing the things themselves. In order to believe 

 that gold is yellow, I must, indeed, have the idea of 



