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

THE PROBLEMS WHICH WE HAVE RAISED. 337
facts with previous knowledge. We must dwell further
on both these points.
In every Judgment there is a reference to reality.
Our judgments, says Professor Minto, "express beliefs
about things and relations among things in rerum
natura : when any one understands them and gives
his assent to them, he never stops to think of the
speaker s state of mind, but of what the words represent.
When states of mind are spoken of, as when we say
that our ideas are confused, or that a man s concep
tion of duty influences his conduct, those states of
mind are viewed as objective facts in the world of
realities. Even when we speak of things which have
in a sense no reality, as when we say that a centaur
is a combination of man and horse, or that centaurs
were fabled to live in the vales of Thessaly, it is not
the passing state of mind expressed by the speaker as
such that we attend to or think of; we pass at once
to the objective reference of the words [to the world
of Greek mythology]."
This is the view that Mr Bradley and Mr Bosanquet
have expressed by saying that the ultimate subject of
every judgment is Reality. We speak of the ultimate
subject because it may not explicitly appear in the judg
ment when this is expressed in words. But when we
examine the implications of what is asserted, we find
that, directly or indirectly, an objective system is referred
to as explained above which is here called Reality.
"
Thus, when we say The centaur is a fabulous creature,
half man and half horse, that lived in the vales of
Thessaly," we touch Reality in referring to the popular
mythological imaginations of some of the Greeks. This
is the ultimate subject; and it scarcely appears in the
proposition, where the subject is the centaur. The
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