An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

334 THE PROBLEMS WHICH WE HAVE RAISED.
and variety, identity and difference, just because the
meaning of every
and intension.
term has the two sides of extension
3. We are now in a position to estimate the merits
of Hamilton s
"
"
comprehensive
view of the Judgment,
that the proposition asserts that the subject-concept
includes in it, or "comprehends" in it, the predicate-
concept (ch. IV. 4). Taken strictly and literally,
this is true only of Definitions i.e., of analytic pro
positions. But Mill s accusation, in his Examination
of Hamilton^ that the
"
"
comprehensive
view ignores
the distinction of analytic and synthetic propositions,
is really without foundation ; for the criticism assumes
that there is an absolute distinction between analytic
and synthetic judgments. If every real judgment in
volves both identity and difference between S and P,
and if every term has both intension and extension,
there cannot be one class of analytic and another class
of synthetic judgments, though either the analytic or
the synthetic aspect may be prominent in this or that
judgment. A judgment may be analytic to the teacher
and synthetic to the learner; but if it is merely syn
thetic i.e., if no link is seen between subject and pred
icate it is a mere grouping of phrases. The increase
of knowledge is never like the addition of new stones
to a heap, or new bricks to a wall ;
it is an expansion
of old material which can only be compared to organic
growth, as in the case of a living thing, say the ger
mination of a seed. Thus, in every real judgment we
have a development or expansion of the Subject in
the Predicate. And the judgment is synthetic because
there is an expansion i.e., something new a state
"
ment of a new fact it ; is analytic because the
thing new" makes the Subject
some
itself more definite.