But thisness on the other hand does belong to the content, and is the general character of every appearance in space or time. Thisness, if we like, we may call particularity. Every thing that is given us is given, in the first place, surrounded and immersed in a complex detail of innumerable relations to other phenomena in space or time. In its internal quality we find again a distinction of aspects, which we always can carry to a certain length, and can never be sure we have quite exhausted. And the internal relations of its component ele ments in space or time are again indefinite. We are never at the end of them. This detail appears to come to us on compulsion; we seem throughout to perceive it as it is, and in no sense to make or even to alter it. And this detail it is which constitutes thisness.* *The apprehension of this character, it may be objected, takes time, and, if any time for observation is given, the product, for all we know, has been altered. But this difficulty occurs in all observation. We everywhere assume, first, that things are not different unless we can discriminate them. And we assume, in the second place, our ability to distinguish a change in ourselves from a change in the object. We assume that more of the same object is observed, unless we have reason either to suppose that our fancy has wandered away from that object, or that the object itself has undergone a change. I do not here ask if these assumptions are valid. But I may remark in passing, 66 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I But such particularity in space or time, such an exclusive nature, after all, is only a general character. It falls in the content and does not give the existence. It marks the sort but it misses the thing. In abstraction from the this it is merely ideal, and, apart from the this, ideas as we know can not reach to uniqueness. No amount of thisness which an event possesses will exclude the existence of self -same events in other like series. Such exclusiveness falls all within the description, and that which is only of this description is simply such and can not be this.
In every judgment, where we analyze the given, and where as the subject we place the term " this," it is not an idea which is really the subject. In using " this " we do use an idea, and that idea is and must be universal; but what we mean, and fail to express, is our reference to the object which is given as unique.
§ 24. And here we encounter an awkward question. The reader possibly may be willing to accept our account of this ness. He may agree that, so far as in our use of the term we mean mere relativity in space or time, in other words particu larity, we do not at all go beyond the content. And he may allow the consequence that we have so an idea which is only universal. But in using "this," he may go on to object that we have in addition another idea. We have the idea of immediate contact with the presented reality; and it is that idea which is signified by "this," and which qualifies the idea which stands as the subject of our analytic judgment.
We answer, Assuredly, if such were the case, the reference to fact would inevitably and always fall outside the judgment. Once again we should be floating in the air, and never be more than hypothetical. But the question raised need not so be dismissed, for it leads to an interesting if subtle reflection.
that the doubt if in introspection we examine a present, or only a past state of mind, should change its form. It should not take the two as exclusive here, unless it faces the same problem elsewhere. For the observation of external phenomena labours under the identical diffi culty. If an internal fact can not possibly be both present and past, then an external fact must be likewise restricted. The two kinds of observation are not essentially different. External facts are not abso lutely fixed, nor are internal facts in absolute flux.17 CHAP. II FORMS OF JUDGMENT 67 The idea of " this," unlike most ideas, can not be used as a symbol in judgment.
It is certain, in the first place, that we have the idea.18 Indeed we could scarcely deny that we had it, unless in so doing we actually used it. Beside the idea of exclusion in a series, which is mere thisness, we have also the idea of my immediate sensible relation to reality, and, if so, we have " this." We are able to abstract an idea of presence from that direct presentation which is never absent; and presence, though it does not fall within the content, though we can hardly call it a quality of the appearance, yet is recognized as the same amid a change of content, is separable from it, and makes a difference to it. Thus ideally fixed " this " becomes an universal among other universals.
§ 25. But, despite the likeness, it is very different from an ordinary idea. Ideas, we shall remember, are used as symbols (Chap. I.). In my idea of a "horse " we have (i) the exist ence of an image in my head, (ii) its whole content, and (iii) its meaning. In other words we may always distinguish (i) that it is, and (ii) what it is, and (iii) what it signifies. The two first of these aspects belong to it as a fact. The third is the universal which does not belong to it, but is thought of without a relation to its existence, and in actual judgment is referred away to some other subject.
The idea of " this " has a striking difference. Distin guished as an aspect of presented reality, when we call it up we take any perception or feeling that is given, and, attending to the aspect of presence within it, recognize that as the meaning of our term. We contemplate it ideally, with out any reference to the content of that which is actually before us.
But how shall we fare when, attempting a judgment, we attribute the adjective we have so cut loose to another sub stantive? It is here we are stopped. For any judgment so made we discover must be false. The other fact can not be presented without ipso facto altering the given. It degrades our given to one element within a larger presentation, or else it wholly removes it from existence. The given disappears and with itself carries our idea away. We are now unable to predicate the idea, since we no longer possess it, or if we still 68 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I have it, then what supports it excludes that other fact to which we wish to refer it.
§ 26. To repeat the above, the presented instance of reality is unique. By discrimination we are able to fix that uniqueness in the shape of an idea. We thereupon try to make it the idea of something else. But, for the idea to be true of some thing else, that something else must be present and unique. We have then either two unique presentations, or one must disappear. If the first one goes, the idea goes with it. If the last one goes, there is now no fact for the idea to be re ferred to. In either case there can be no judgment. The idea, we see, is not the true idea of anything other than its own reality. It is a sign which, if we judge, can signify nothing except itself. To be least alone then when most alone, and to enjoy the delights of solitude together, are phrases which have a very good sense; but, taken in their bare and literal meaning, they would exemplify the contradiction we have here before us.
Between the fact and the idea of the " this " in judgment, there can be no practical difference. The idea of this would be falsely used, unless what it marks were actually presented. But in that case we should be trying to use a sign, when we have before us the fact which is signified. We can use the idea so far as to recognize the fact before us as a fact which is " this; " but such a use does not go beyond the given. It affirms of the subject a predicate without which the subject disappears. It implies discrimination within the fact in which, since the aspect discriminated is not separable from the given, that given with its aspect still remains as the subject. So that the addition of the idea adds nothing to the subject. And if again it were possible to import the idea from the content of another fact, the operation would be uncalled for and quite inoperative.
And it is not possible. It would be, as we have seen, the attempt to have before us two unique facts at once. What we mean by " this " is the exclusive focus of presentation which lights up its content, and it is of that singular content that we use the idea. And to treat that idea as a meaning which could be true elsewhere, would be to bring into our focus another content. But since both must be unique, as well as the same, a dilemma arises which we need not draw out.
CHAP. II FORMS OF JUDGMENT 69 § 27. And if " this " be used in a different sense, if it does not mark the presence of the whole sensible detail that falls within the focus; if it is used for that which I specially attend to, the result will be the same. If I make A my object to the exclusion of all others, then this special relation to myself must be false, if used of any other. If applied to A it can not possibly also be applied to B.
" But," it may be said, " I exclusively attend to both. A and B are both elements within the given ' this,' and hence I can predicate ' this ' of either. I can transfer the idea, which I find is true of one, and use it as a predicate which is true of the other. And so, after all, the idea of ' this ' will be used symbolically." I am afraid of losing the main question in subtleties, but I must reply by pointing out a confusion. Since A and B are both taken together, you can not exclusively deal with each separately. So much is now clear. But, on the other hand, if you take each by itself as a mere element in the " this," then you can not predicate " this " of either. Both will belong to the " this," but neither will be that to which they belong. They will be presented, but neither by itself will be the unique presentation. They will not have the " this " in common, but the " this " will have them. It will be their common substantive which will share its own exclusive nature with nothing.
I hardly think that by further intricacies we shall make more clear what can not be made obvious. If anything in the above has been grasped by the reader, I trust to have shown that the use of " this," as a symbol in judgment, is not only impossible, but that, if it existed, it would be wholly nugatory.* § 28. We escape from ideas, and from mere universals, by a reference to the real which appears in perception. It is thus * " This " is not the only idea which can never be true as a symbol. I will not ask to what extent " this " means " for me," but what has been said of " this " will hold in the main of " I ", " me " and " mine." But there are difficulties here which we can not discuss. We may remark in passing that, for the purposes of metaphysics, it would be necessary to find all those ideas whose content appears not able to be used as the adjective of something else. This would bear on the so-called " ontological proof." For the ideas of uniqueness &c., vid.
70 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I our assertion attains the uniqueness without which it would not correspond to the fact. And analytic judgments, it may seem, are thus secured to us. But now, when we return to the question we asked in § 19, and when we pass to judgments that are synthetic, and extend to spaces and times not falling within the radius of direct presentation, we seem at first sight to be no better off. What we have gained, it may now appear, has been at the expense of everything beyond. The series of all our spaces and times will now have to be referred to the one unique point of contact with reality. It is only so that their content can, be stamped with the mark of fact. But it seems impossible to establish this relation.
The content of these synthetic assertions we know is uni versal. It may be true of innumerable other series. This unsubstantial chain, if left to itself, does not touch the ground in any one point. On the other hand, the given source of reality refuses, it seems, to have anything to do with these floating threads. Their symbolic content can not be directly attributed to the presentation, because it is irreconcileable with the content of that. And, if we can not have another presentation, where is the fact in connection with which our universals can attain reality?
§ 29. We must turn in our difficulty to a result we got from a former discussion.20 We saw that the real, which appears in perception, is not identical with the real just as it appears there. If the real must be " this," must encounter us directly, we cannot conclude that the " this " we take is all the real, or that nothing is real beyond the "this." It is impossible, perhaps, to get directly at reality, except in the content of one presentation: we may never see it, so to speak, but through a hole. But what we see of it may make us certain that, beyond this hole, it exists indefinitely. If by " this " we understand unique appearance, then, as " this " was not any part of the content, so neither is it any quality of the real, in such a sense as to shut up the real within that quality. It would belong to metaphysics to discuss this further, and we must here be content with a crude result. The real is what appears to me. The appearance is not generic but unique.
CHAP. II FORMS OF JUDGMENT 71 But the real itself is not unique, in the sense in which its appearance is so.21 The reality we divined to be self -existent, substantial, and individual; but, as it appears within a presentation, it is none of these. The content throughout is infected with relativity, and, adjectival itself, the whole of its elements are also adjectival. Though given as fact every part is given as existing by reference to something else. The mere perpetual disappearance in time of the given appearance is itself the negation of its claim to self -existence. And again, if we take it while it appears, its limits, so to speak, are never secured from the inroads of unreality. In space or in time its outside is made fact solely by relation to what is beyond. Living by relation to what it excludes, it transcends its limits to join another element, and invites that element within its own boundaries. But with edges ragged and wavering, that flow outward and inward unstably, it already is lost. It is ad jectival on what is beyond itself. Nor within itself has it any stability. There is no solid point of either time or space. Each atom is merely a collection of atoms, and those atoms again are not things but relations of elements that vanish. And when asked what is ultimate, and can stand as an indi vidual, you can answer nothing.
The real can not be identical with the content that appears in presentation. It for ever transcends it, and gives us a title to make search elsewhere.
§ 30. The endeavour to find the completeness of the real, which we feel can not exist except as an individual, will lead us first to Synthetic judgments of time and space. But, before we proceed, we may pause for a moment, to reflect on the general nature of the attempt. If the reality is self-existent, self-contained, and complete, it needs, one would think, no great effort of reason to perceive that this character is not to be found in a mere series of phenomena. It is one thing to seek the reality in that series; it is quite another thing to try to find it as the series. A completed series in time or space can not possibly exist.22 It is the well-known phantasm of the spurious infinite, a useful fiction, it may be, for certain purposes and at certain levels of thought, but none the less a phantasm 72 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I which, until it is recognized, stops the way of all true philo sophic thought. It emerges often in the school of " experience," in its Logic and again in its Hedonistic Ethics, where it begets and will continue to beget chimeras. We shall meet it again in the present chapter, but must return to our search for reality within a series of phenomena, a search not yet degraded to a pursuit of phantasms, but carrying in itself the root of illusion.
§ 31. The real then itself transcends the presentation, and invites us to follow it beyond that which is given. On the other hand, we seem to find contact with reality and to touch ground nowhere, so to speak, outside the presented. How then is a content to be referred to the real, if it can not be referred to the real as perceived? We must answer that the content is referred indirectly. It is not attributed to the given as such; but, by establishing its connection with what is presented, it is attributed to the real which appears in that given. Though it is not and can not be found in presentation, it is true because it is predicated of the reality, and unique because it is fixed in relation with immediate perception. The ideal world of spaces beyond the sensible space, and of times not present but past and future, fastens itself on to the actual world by fastening itself to the quality of.the immediate this. In a single word continuity of content is taken to show identity of element.
§ 32. But such continuity, and the consequent extension of the " this " as given, depend, like every other ideal con struction, on identity.23 An inference always, we shall see hereafter, stands on the identity of indiscernibles. Sameness of quality proves real sameness (vid. Book II. Part I. Chap. VI.). And the identity here has a double form, (i) In the first place the symbolical content must have " thisness." (ii) In the second place it must share some point with the " this."
To explain, (i) the idea we are to connect with perception must be the idea of something in space or some event in time. It must have the character of particularity, the general idea of indefinite detail and endless relation. We know by this that it is of the same sort as the content of the given. The de scription of both is one and the same. They both have " thisness," and therefore their element may be identical.
CHAP. II FORMS OF JUDGMENT 73 (ii) But, so far as we have gone, we still are left in the world of universals, which may or might touch the ground in some place and meet the fact which appears in perception, but which do not certainly do thus. We wish, on the one side, to pass beyond presented content, and, on the other side, to connect with this content an ideal series; and we seek for a link by which to fasten them together.
That link is found by establishing a point which is the same in both, and is the same because its quality is the same. The " this " contains a complex of detail, either times or spaces (or both) in series, which we may call c. d. e. f. The idea, on its side, contains a series of particulars a. b. c. d. The identity of c. d. in each extends the perception c. d. e. f. by the ideal spaces or times a. b., and the whole is given by synthetical construction as a single fact a. b. c. d. e. f. The whole series now is referred to the real, and by the con nection with unique presentation, has become a series of events or spaces, itself unique and the same as no other series in the world. It is thus by inference that we transcend the given through synthetic judgments, and our following Books must explain more clearly the nature of inference, and the enormous assumption on which it reposes.
§ 33. Mental pathology will afford an illustration. There are cases where the subject or, if we please, the Ego seems divided in two. When one self is present the other is absent, and the memories of either self are distinct. Their pasts and futures do not ever touch. The explanation that is offered, and which seems sufficient, will illustrate our theme. It is because the present selves are different, that the past and future selves are foreign. It is because one system of ideas has not got a point of connection with the other system, or has rather some point which excludes the connection,24 that the one can never be used to extend ideally a present which belongs to the other. Some mode of morbid feeling or dis eased perception, given now in presentation, links on to itself the ideas that are grouped by the same characteristic. The whole ideal region where that colouring fails, may perhaps be suggested, but can never be fixed in continuous relation with the present perception.* 74 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I § 34. If we mean by phenomena the things we perceive, or the facts or appearances that are given to us, then the whole of England below our horizon (to say nothing at all of America and Asia), and every event that is past or future are not phenomena. They are not perceived facts. They exist in our minds as mere ideas, as the meaning of symbols. A phe nomenon, I repeat, that is past or future is a sheer self-contra diction. It is time we thought of giving up our habit of talking about the " series of phenomena," or " thread of perceptions," or Heaven knows what else, as though we held these facts in our hands. One thing or the other. Either a phenomenon may be ideal, the content of a symbol and not even predicated directly of the present perception, or there is no phenomenon but what I here and now perceive. It is idle perhaps to ap peal to facts in protest against the philosophy of " analysis " and the school of " experience." It is impossible, I know, to persuade the man who is wedded to these names, that he has failed to earn a legitimate title to neglect the first and to be false to the second. Profuse protestations, and jealousy of the untitled, are services found not too exacting, and which satisfy those who have long ago and cheaply become cool. But, for the sake of others, I will repeat once more. If a fact or event is what is felt or perceived, then a fact that is past is simple nonsense (cf. Book II. Part II. Chap. I.).
Of course, I know, it is easy to say that past events are all really there, and, being there, are remembered; as I presume the future, being all there, is anticipated. But suppose that there is a series of facts, both past and future, outside our minds, the question remains, How can they get in? You may say, if you like, They are fond of a change, and walk in and out bodily and meet and converse there. Or an omnipotent Creator has endowed the mind with an extraordinary organ, which perpetually can do what no one understands, and, defy ing the insidious arts of the analyst, proves by the way the immortality of the soul. Or perhaps you may find it a " final inexplicability." Ultimate facts always are inexplicable, and we must not be put out if they contradict those doctrines they must know to be true. For it is natural for the inexplicable to behave inexplicably.
CHAP. II FORMS OF JUDGMENT 75 But perhaps there are readers content to remain on a level with ourselves. If so they will continue to believe the conclu sion that facts have brought to us. And that conclusion is that events past and future, and all things not perceived, exist for us only as ideal constructions connected, by an inference through identity of quality, with the real that appears in present perception. In what character (if any) these things may really exist for themselves, is a question for meta physics.25 § 35. Synthetic judgments thus cease to be merely adjec tival, and they express a series of unique events by indirect reference to the real which appears in unique presentation. They are connected by an inference with the content of this appearance, and so far are directly related to perception. But their ideas are never referred as adjectives to the presentation itself. They are attributed to the reality, which both shows itself there, and extends itself beyond. The content of our perceptions, and the content of our ideal constructions, are both the adjectives of one reality. They are both appear ances, which come to us in different ways, but which both (unless our assumptions are false) are valid and true of the real world.
§ 36. Memory of the past, and prediction of the future, are separated clearly from mere imagination.26 In the former we have the reference to that reality which appears in per ception. We have a judgment which is either true or false, because it implies a relation to fact. But imagination is with out this reference. The merely imagined, we have seen before (Chap. I. § 14), may be stronger than that which we judge to be true. What we only fancy may have more thisness; it may have more compulsory and particular detail than that which we remember. But what it wants is a point of identity by which to fasten it on to the " this." And without such a link it must fall outside the series.
We generally, it is true, take forcible detail and strong particularity as a sign of fact, and look for its place in the series of events. But, if the place is not found, the imagined fact is never secured to us. The visions of dreams may be very definite, but the content of those visions refuses to link itself to the series of events connected with perception, 76 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK I and so, if we cannot get rid of the ideas, at least we stamp them as mere illusions.
If this were the place for an excursion into psychology, we should find some difficulties and many interesting questions. When once we have referred a content to the real, we generally tend to refer it again. We say that we know it happened at some time, though when we can not say. And we might be tempted perhaps to think that such ideas have greater strength or fuller detail than mere imaginations. This would be er roneous. It is not strength or detail which marks these ideas, but something so dim that we can not grasp it. It may be the general idea of reference to the " this," which, repelled by the content of the given " this," transcends it vaguely. It may be, on the other hand, some unconscious element of idea or feel ing, which serves to identify in an indefinite way the imagined with fact. For it is a mistake to suppose that these links with reality need be anything explicit. A feeling so obscure that we are not aware of it, and which perhaps no effort of attention would be able to distinguish from its vague totality of consciousness, may serve as the basis by which we sepa rate a truth from a fiction (§33). We must remember again that the point of connection may be, so to speak, in our in ward selves, and not at all in the outward series. If a false