220 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



that A loves B, the judgment as an event consists in the 

 existence, at a certain moment, of a specific four-term 

 relation, called judging, between me and A and love and 

 B. That is to say, at the time when I judge, there is a 

 certain complex whose terms are myself and A and love 

 and B, and whose relating relation is judging. My reasons 

 tor this view have been set forth elsewhere, 1 and I shall not 

 repeat them here. Assuming this view of judgment, the 

 constituents of the judgment are simply the constituents of 

 the complex which is the judgment. Thus, in the above 

 case, the constituents are myself and A and love and B 

 and judging. But myself and judging are constituents 

 shared by all my judgments ; thus the distinctive con- 

 stituents of the particular judgment in question are A 

 and love and B. Coming now to what is meant by 

 "understanding a proposition," I should say that there 

 is another relation possible between me and A and love 

 and B, which is called my supposing that A loves B. 2 

 When we can suppose that A loves B, we " understand 

 the proposition " A loves B. Thus we often understand a 

 proposition in cases where we have not enough knowledge 

 to make a judgment. Supposing, like judging, is a many- 

 term relation, of which a mind is one term. The other 

 terms of the relation are called the constituents of the 

 proposition supposed. Thus the principle which I 

 enunciated may be re-stated as follows : Whenever a 



1 Philosophical Essays, " The Nature of Truth." I have been per- 

 suaded by Mr. Wittgenstein that this theory is somewhat unduly 

 simple, but the modification which I believe it to require does not 

 affect the above argument [1917]. 



2 Cf. Meinong, Ueber Annahmen, passim. I formerly supposed, 

 contrary to Meinong's view, that the relationship of supposing might 

 be merely that of presentation. In this view I now think I was mis- 

 taken, and Meinong is right. But my present view depends upon the 

 theory that both in judgment and in assumption there is no single 

 Objective, but the several constituents of the judgment or assumption 

 are in a many-term relation to the mind. 



