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128 THE FOURFOLD ROOT. [CHAP. Y.
Sarisberriensis in the twelfth century, for he declares in
his prologue,
"
quia Logicce suscepi patrocinium, Metalogicus
mscriptus est liber," and never makes use of the word again.
There are only four metalogically true judgments of this
sort, which were discovered long ago by induction, and
called the laws of all thinking ; although entire uniformity
of opinion as to their expression and even as to their
number has not yet been arrived at, whereas all agree
perfectly as to what they are on the whole meant to indi
cate. They are the following :
1. A subject is equal to the sum total of its predicates,
or a = a.
2. No predicate can be attributed and denied to a sub
ject at the same time, or a = a = o.
3. One of two opposite, contradictory predicates must
belong to every subject.
4. Truth is the reference of a judgment to something
outside of it, as its sufficient reason.
It is by means of a kind of reflection which I am in
clined to call Reason s self-examination, that we know that
these judgments express the conditions of all thinking,
and therefore have these conditions for their reason.
For, by
the fruitlessness of its endeavours to think in
opposition to these laws, our Eeason acknowledges them
to be the conditions of all possible thinking : we then find
out, that it is just as impossible to think in opposition
to them, as it is to move the members of our body in a
contrary direction to their joints. If it were possible for
the subject to know itself, these laws would be known to
us immediately, and we should not need to try experi
ments with them on objects, i.e. representations. In this
respect it is just the same with the reasons of judgments
which have transcendental truth ; for they do not either
come into our consciousness immediately, but only in
concreto, by means of objects, i.e. of representations. In