Deductive Logic | Page 5

sense in which it is here used [Footnote:
Sometimes the term 'judgement' is extended to the comparison of
nameless sense-impressions, which underlies the formation of concepts.
But this amounts to identifying judgement with thought in general.]
may be resolved into putting two ideas together in the mind, and
pronouncing as to their agreement or disagreement, e.g. we have in our
minds the idea of a cup and the idea of a thing made of porcelain, and
we combine them in the judgement--'This cup is made of porcelain.'
§ 35. Inference, or Reasoning, is the passage of the mind from one or
more judgements to another, e.g. from the two judgements 'Whatever is
made of porcelain is brittle,' and 'This cup is made of porcelain,' we
elicit a third judgement, 'This cup is brittle.'
§ 36. Corresponding to these three processes there are three products of
thought, viz.

(1) The Concept.
(2) The Judgement.
(3) The Inference.
§ 37. Since our language has a tendency to confuse the distinction
between processes and products, [Footnote: E.g. We have to speak
quite indiscriminately of Sensation, Imagination, Reflexion, Sight,
Thought, Division, Definition, and so on, whether we mean in any case
a process or a product.] it is the more necessary to keep them distinct in
thought. Strictly we ought to speak of conceiving, judging and inferring
on the one hand, and, on the other, of the concept, the judgement and
the inference.
The direct object of logic is the study of the products rather than of the
processes of thought. But, at the same time, in studying the products we
are studying the processes in the only way in which it is possible to do
so. For the human mind cannot be both actor and spectator at once; we
must wait until a thought is formed in our minds before we can
examine it. Thought must be already dead in order to be dissected:
there is no vivisection of consciousness. Thus we can never know more
of the processes of thought than what is revealed to us in their products.
§ 38. When the three products of thought are expressed in language,
they are called respectively
(1) The Term.
(2) The Proposition.
(3) The Inference.
§ 39. Such is the ambiguity of language that we have already used the
term 'inference' in three different senses--first, for the act or process of
inferring; secondly, for the result of that act as it exists in the mind; and,
thirdly, for the same thing as expressed in language. Later on we shall
have to notice a further ambiguity in its use.

§ 40. It has been declared that thought in general is the faculty of
comparison, and we have now seen that there are three products of
thought. It follows that each of these products of thought must be the
result of a comparison of some kind or other.
The concept is the result of comparing attributes. The judgement is the
result of comparing concepts. The inference is the result of comparing
judgements.
§ 41. In what follows we shall, for convenience, adopt the phraseology
which regards the products of thought as clothed in language in
preference to that which regards the same products as they exist in the
mind of the individual. For although the object of logic is to examine
thought pure and simple, it is obviously impossible to discuss it except
as clothed in language. Accordingly the three statements above made
may be expressed as follows--
The term is the result of comparing attributes. The proposition is the
result of comparing terms. The inference is the result of comparing
propositions.
§ 42. There is an advantage attending the change of language in the fact
that the word 'concept' is not an adequate expression for the first of the
three products of thought, whereas the word 'term' is. By a concept is
meant a general notion, or the idea of a class, which corresponds only
to a common term. Now not only are common terms the results of
comparison, but singular terms, or the names of individuals, are so too.
§ 43. The earliest result of thought is the recognition of an individual
object as such, that is to say as distinguished and marked off from the
mass of its surroundings. No doubt the first impression produced Upon
the nascent intelligence of an infant is that of a confused whole. It
requires much exercise of thought to distinguish this whole into its
parts. The completeness of the recognition of an individual object is
announced by attaching a name to it. Hence even an individual name,
or singular term, implies thought or comparison. Before the child can
attach a meaning to the word 'mother,' which to it is a singular term, it
must have distinguished between the