YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT/PART 23
CHAPTER XXIII.
Judgments.
WE
have seen the several steps of the mental process whereby simple sensations are
transformed into percepts and then into concepts or general ideas. The
formation of the concept is considered as the first great step in thinking. The
second great step in thinking is that of the formation of the
"judgment." The definition of "judgment," as the term is
used in logic; is "the comparing together in the mind of two ideas of
things, and determining whether they agree or disagree with each other, or that
one of them does or does not belong to the other. Judgment is, therefore, (a)
affirmative or (b) negative, as (a) 'Snow is white,' or (b)
'All white men are not Europeans.'"
What
in logic is called a "proposition" is the expression in words of a
logical judgment. Hyslop defined the term "proposition" as follows:
"Any affirmation or denial of an agreement between two conceptions."
For instance, we compare the concepts "sparrow" and "bird"
and find that there is an agreement, and that the former belongs to the latter;
this mental process is a judgment. We then announce the
judgment in the proposition: "The sparrow is a bird." In
the same way we compare the concepts "bat" and "bird," find
that there is a disagreement, and form the judgment that neither belongs to the
other, which we express in the proposition: "The bat is not a bird."
Or we may form the judgment that "sweetness" is a quality of
"sugar," which we express in the proposition: "Sugar is
sweet." Likewise, we may form the judgment which results in the
proposition: "Vinegar is not sweet."
While
the process of judgment is generally considered as constituting the second
great step of thinking, coming after the formation of the concept, and
consisting of the comparing of concepts, it must be remembered that the act of
judging is far more elementary than this, for it is found still farther back in
the history of thought processes. By that peculiar law of paradox which we find
everywhere operative in mind processes, the same process of forming judgments
which is used in comparing concepts also has been used in forming the same
concepts in the stage of comparison. In fact, the result of all comparison,
high or low, must be a judgment.
Halleck
says: "Judgment is necessary in forming concepts. When we decide that a
quality is or is not common to a class, we are really judging. This is
another evidence of the complexity and unified action of the mind." Brooks
says: "The power of judgment is of great value in its products. It is
involved in or accompanies every act of the intellect, and thus lies at the
foundation of all intellectual activity. It operates directly in every act of
the understanding, and even aids the other faculties of the mind in completing
their activities and products. * * * Strictly speaking, every intelligent act
of the mind is accompanied with a judgment. To know is to discriminate and,
therefore, to judge. Every sensation or cognition involves a knowledge and so a
judgment that it exists. The mind cannot think at all without judging; to think
is to judge. Even in forming the notions which judgment compares, the mind
judges. Every notion or concept implies a previous act of judgment to form it;
in forming a concept we compare the common attributes before we unite them, and
comparison is judgment. It is thus true that 'Every concept is a contracted
judgment; every judgment an expanded concept.'"
It
is needless to say that as judgments lie at the base of our thinking, and also
appear in every part of its higher structure, the importance of correct
judgment in thought cannot be overestimated. But it is often very difficult to
form correct judgment even regarding the most familiar things around us.
Halleck says: "In actual life things present themselves to us with their
qualities disguised or obscured by other conflicting qualities. Men had for
ages seen burning substances and had formed a concept of them. A certain hard,
black, stony substance had often been noticed, and a concept had been formed of
it. This concept was imperfect; but it is very seldom that we meet with
perfect, sharply-defined concepts in actual life. So it happened that for ages
the concept of burning substance was never linked by judgment to the concept of
stone coal. The combustible quality in the coal was overshadowed by its stony
attributes. 'Of course stone will not burn,' people said. One cannot tell how
long the development of mankind was retarded for that very reason. England
would not to-day be manufacturing products for the rest of the world had not
some one judged coal to be a combustible substance. * * * Judgment is ever
silently working and comparing things that to past ages seemed dissimilar; and
it is constantly abstracting and leaving out of the field of view those
qualities which have simply served to obscure the point at issue."
Gordy
says: "The credulity of children is proverbial; but if we get our facts at
first hand, if we study 'the living, learning, playing child,' we shall see
that he is quite as remarkable for incredulity as for credulity. The
explanation is simple: He tends to believe the first suggestion that
comes into his mind, no matter from what source; and since his belief is
not the result of any rational process, he cannot be made to disbelieve it in
any rational way. Hence it is that he is very credulous about any matter about
which he has no ideas; but let the idea once get possession of his mind, and he
is quite as remarkable for incredulity as before for credulity. * * * If we
study the larger child,—the man with a child's mind, an uneducated man,—we
shall have the same truth forced upon us. If the beliefs of men were due to
processes of reasoning, where they have not reasoned they would not believe.
But do we find it so? Is it not true that the men who have the most positive
opinions on the largest variety of subjects—so far as they have ever heard of
them—are precisely those who have the least right to them? Socrates, we
remember, was counted the wisest man in Athens because he alone resisted his
natural tendency to believe in the absence of evidence; he alone would not
delude himself with the conceit of knowledge without the reality; and it would
scarcely be too much to say that the intellectual strength of men is in direct
proportion to the number of things they are absolutely certain of. * * * I do
not, of course, mean to intimate that we should have no opinions about matters
that we have not personally investigated. We take, and ought to take, the
opinion of some men about law, and others about medicine, and others about
particular sciences, and so on. But we should clearly realize the difference
between holding an opinion on trust and holding it as the result of our own
investigations."
Brooks
says: "It should be one of the leading objects of the culture of young
people to lead them to acquire the habit of forming judgments. They should not
only be led to see things but to have opinions about things. They should be
trained to see things in their relations and to put these relations into
definite propositions. Their ideas of objects should be worked up into thoughts
concerning the objects. Those methods of teaching are best which tend to excite
a thoughtful habit of mind that notices the similitudes and diversities of
objects and endeavors to read the thoughts which they embody and of which they
are the symbols."
The
study of logic, geometry, and the natural sciences is recommended for exercise
of the faculty of judgment and the development thereof. The study and practice
of even the lower branches of mathematics are also helpful in this direction.
The game of checkers or chess is recommended by many authorities. Some have
advocated the practice of solving enigmas, problems, rebuses, etc., as giving
exercise to this faculty of the mind. The cultivation of the
"Why?" attitude of mind, and the answering of one's own mental
questions, is also helpful, if not carried to excess. "Doubting
Thomas" is not always a term of reproach in these days of scientific
habits of thought, and "the man from Missouri" has many warm
admirers.
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