400 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



organ, that is to say, a new idea which is the judgment in 

 question. 



This new idea is instantly brought back to the individual's inner 

 feehng ; he has a moral feeling of it ; and if it awakes in him any need, 

 which is likewise moral, it evokes his will to act in order to satisfy it. 



In addition to inexperience, and to the consequences of the almost 

 universal habit of judging in imitation of others, numerous factors 

 combine to affect our judgments, that is to say, to make them less 

 well-balanced. 



Some of these factors are due to an imperfection in the comparisons 

 that are made, and to the preference given by the individual to one 

 idea over another, according to his knowledge, special tastes, and con- 

 dition ; so that the true elements which should enter into the formation 

 of these judgments are incomplete. In all ages there are but few 

 men who are capable of profound concentration, and who, being 

 accustomed to think and to learn from experience, can escape from 

 these factors which tend to affect their judgments. 



The others, which it is difficult to avoid, take their origin : (1) In the 

 actual state of our organisation, which affects the sensations originating 

 ideas ; (2) in the error in which some of our sensations frequently 

 involve us ; (3) in the influence that our inchnations or passions exert 

 on our inner feehng, leading it to give to the movements, which it 

 impresses on our nervous fluid, a different direction from what it would 

 have given them without that influence, etc., etc. 



Since I have already treated of the judgment in Chapter VI. of this 

 part, I should travel beyond the hmits of my plan if I were to enter 

 into the details of the numerous factors which combine to affect oui 

 judgment. It is sufficient, for the purpose that I have in view, to 

 observe that many factors are apt to affect the value of the judg- 

 ments that we form ; and that in this respect there is as great a 

 diversity in the judgments of men, as there is in their physical 

 condition, environment, inclinations, knowledge, sex, age, etc. 



Let us not be astonished then at the permanent but not universal 

 disagreement noticed in the judgments that are passed on some thought, 

 argument, work, or any other subject, in which no one can see anything 

 but what he has decided for himself and what he can imagine to 

 himself as a result of the character and extent of his knowledge ; 

 nothing, in short, but what he can understand, in accordance with the 

 amount of attention that he pays to the subjects presented to him. 

 How many persons there are, too, who have formed a habit of judging 

 scarcely anything for themselves, and consequently of falUng back 

 in almost everything on the judgment of others ! 



These considerations, which seem to me to prove that judgments are 



