334 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



8. It follows that the true universal is a relation which 

 is not merely actual, but necessary. At least, it is grounded 

 on necessity. We may say that a thing is so because we see 

 it, or because it must be so. In the first case our judgment 

 is based on perception, and ought not to go beyond per- 

 ception. If we go beyond perception legitimately, it is 

 because of some connection that we have reason to suppose 

 between the terms of our judgment, some necessity which 

 brings them into relation. Hence we can always convert 

 the universal into a hypothetical judgment, and instead 

 of All A is B, All murderers are hanged, say, If a thing is 

 A, then it is B if a man commits a murder, he is hanged. 



This necessity is clearly recognised in human thought 

 where two or more propositions are connected by means of 

 a " then," " therefore," " because," or whatever it may 

 be. The ordinary combination of a single premiss (the 

 minor premiss of formal logic) and a conclusion is, in fact, 

 a sort of translation of the universal into the particular case. 

 The universal All sugar is sweet, is, so to say, incarnate 

 in the inference u I have put plenty of sugar into this, so 

 you will find it sweet." The Syllogism of formal logic 

 writes down the universal in its abstract dress as its " major 

 premiss," and follows it up with a minor and conclusion 

 which merely repeat it in its concrete form. It thus 

 achieves a wholly unreal form of thought, a form corre- 

 sponding to no actual process. None the less, it sets out 

 what is implied in the actual process in which conscious- 

 ness advances from a single premiss to the conclusion. 



This advance, which we now see to be the application 

 of the necessity contained in the universal judgment, has 

 its verbal expression in a connecting particle. Here again 

 we find a process operative at an earlier stage becoming 

 recognised in consciousness. From the first germ of 

 intelligence onwards, the mind is of course influenced 



limiting a universal truth are themselves universals. The ideal universal 

 takes all these conditions into its scope, thereby evolving from a single 

 judgment into what is really a system of judgments. Common sense is 

 apt to leave the conditions unexpressed, and scarcely distinguishes the 

 strict from the Approximate Universal the judgment of general validity. 

 Its " General truths " rest on the same principle as the scientific Uni- 

 versal but carry out its conditions less fully. 



