Chapter I: The Concept and Verbal Form. the Definitive Judgment

[Sidenote: _Relation of the logical with the Æsthetic form._]

With the ascent from the intuition-expression to the concept, and with the concentration upon it of our attention, we have risen from the purely imaginative to the purely logical form of the spirit. We must now, so to speak, begin the descent; or rather consider in greater detail the position that has been reached, in order to understand it in all its conditions and circumstances. Were we not to do this, we should have given a concept of the concept, which would err by abstraction.

[Sidenote: _The concept as expression._]

The concept, to which we have risen from intuition, does not live in empty space. It does not exist as a mere concept, or as something abstract. The air it breathes is the intuition itself, from which it detaches itself, but in whose ambient it continues. If these images seem unsuitable, or somewhat drawn from the sphere of representations, we may choose others, such as that, which we used on another occasion, of the second grade, which, to be second, must rest upon the first, and, in a certain sense, be the first. The concept does not exist, and cannot exist, save in the intuitive and expressive forms, or in what is called language. To think is also to speak; he who does not express, or does not know how to express his concept, does not possess it: at the most, he presumes or hopes to possess it. Not only is there never in reality an unexpressed representation, a pictorial vision unpainted, or a song unsung; but there is never even a concept which is simply thought and not also translated into words.

We have previously defended this thesis against the objections which are wont to be made to it.[1] But in order to recapitulate and thus to avoid the misunderstandings which might arise from the abbreviating formulæ which we use, it will be well to repeat that the concept is not expressed only in the so-called vocal or verbal forms; and if we mention these more than others, it will be by synecdoche, that is to say, when we refer to them, we desire to take them as representative of all the others. Undoubtedly, the affirmation that the concept can also be expressed in non-verbal form may cause surprise. It will be said that geometry itself, in so far as it describes geometrical figures, at the same time employs or implies speech; and we shall be ironically challenged to attempt to set the _Critique of Pure Reason_ to music or to make a building of Newton's _Natural Philosophy._ But we must carefully beware of breaking up the unity of the intuitive spirit, because errors arise and become incorrigible, precisely through such breaking up. Words, tones, colours, and lines are physical abstractions, and only by abstraction can they be successfully separated. In reality, he who looks at a picture with his eyes also speaks it in words to himself; he who sings an air also has its words in his spirit; he who builds a palace or a church speaks, sings, and makes music; he who reads a poem sings, paints, sculptures, constructs. _The Critique of Pure Reason_ cannot be set to music, because it already has its music; the _Natural Philosophy_ cannot be built in stone, because it is already architectonic; in exactly the same way that the _Transfiguration_ cannot be turned into a symphony in four movements, or the _Promessi Sposi_ into a series of pictures. Thus the challenge, if made, would testify to the lack of reflection on the part of the challengers, for they would confuse physical distinctions with the real and concrete act of the intuitive spirit.

[Sidenote: _Æsthetic and Æsthetic-logical expressions or expressions of the concept; propositions and judgments._]

Owing to the incarnation of the concept or logic in expression and language, language is quite full of logical elements; hence people are often led astray into affirming (we have already made clear the erroneousness[2] of this) that language is a logical function. Water might as well be called wine, because wine has been poured into the water. But language as language or as simple æsthetic fact is one thing, and language as expression of logical thought is another, for in this case, certainly, language remains always language and subject to the law of language, but is also more than language. If the first be termed simple expression, _logos seimantikos,_ as Aristotle said, or _judicium æstheticum sive sensitivum,_ according to the school of Baumgarten, the second must on the contrary be called affirmation, _logos apophantikos, judicium logicum_ or _æsthetico-logicum._ To this same issue we can reduce, if we understand it properly, the distinction between _proposition_ and _judgment,_ for they are only distinguishable in so far as it is assumed that the second form is dominated by the concept, whereas the first is given as free of such domination.

But we should seek in vain for facts in proof of expressions belonging to either form, because we cannot furnish them without making the proviso that we understand them in the meaning of one or other of the two forms. Taken by themselves, any verbal expressions which we adduce or can adduce as proofs are indeterminate and therefore of many meanings. "Love is life" can be the saying of a poet who notes an impression with which his soul is agitated and marks it with fervour and solemnity; or it can be, equally, the logical affirmation of some one philosophizing on the essence of life. "Clear, fresh, and sweet waters," when uttered by Petrarch, is an æsthetic proposition; but the same words become a logical judgment when, for example, they answer the question as to which is the most celebrated love song of Petrarch, or pseudological when applied by a naturalist to the substance water. A word no longer has meaning, or--what amounts to the same thing--has no definite meaning, when it is abstracted from the circumstances, the implications, the emphasis, and the gesture with which it has been thought, animated, and pronounced. Nevertheless, forgetfulness of this elementary hermeneutic canon, by which a word is a word only on the soil that has produced it and to which it must be restored, has been in Logic the cause of interminable disputes as to the logical nature of this or that verbal phrase, separated from the whole to which it belonged and rendered abstract. It would be much less equivocal to adduce such poems as _I Sepolcri,_ or the song _A Silvia,_ as documents of æsthetic propositions, and philosophical treatises (for examples, the _Metaphysics_ or the _Analytics_) as documents of æsthetic-logical judgments or propositions. But here, too, we should need to add: "poetry considered as poetry," and "philosophy considered as philosophy," since it is clear that a poem is prose in the soul of him who reflects upon it, and prose is poetry in the soul of a writer vibrating with enthusiasm and emotion in the act of composition. Facts do not constitute proofs in philosophy, save when they are interpreted through the medium of philosophy; and then, too, they become mere _examples,_ which aid in fixing the attention upon what is being demonstrated.

[Sidenote: _Surpassing of the dualism of thought and language._]

The relation between language and thought, conceived as we have conceived it, does not admit the criticism that it creates an insuperable dualism, though that criticism was justly aimed at those who set the two concepts side by side and parallel with one another. In that case the sole means that remained of obtaining unity was to present language as an acoustic fact and declare thought to be the unique psychic reality, and language the physical side of the psychophysical nexus. But no one will henceforth wish to repeat the blasphemy that language (the synonym of fancy and poetry) is nothing but a physical-acoustic fact and merely adherent to thought. We have in the two forms, notwithstanding their clear distinction, not parallelism and dualism, but an organic relation of connection in distinction,--the first form being implied in the second, the second crystallized into the first,--precisely in conformity with that rhythmical movement of the concepts which we have already discussed. And thus, too, when asked if the _prius_ of Logic be the concept or the judgment, we must reply that the judgment, understood as an æsthetic proposition, is certainly a _prius;_ but understood as a logical judgment, it is neither a _prius_ nor a _posterius_ in relation to the concept, since it is the concept itself in its effectuality.

[Sidenote: _The logical judgment as definition._]

This pure expression of the concept, which is the logical judgment, constitutes what is called _definitive judgment_ or _definition._ This, considered on its verbal side, or as the synthesis of thought and word, does not give rise to any special logical theory in addition to that which we have already stated, when definition showed itself to be one with distinction or conceptual thought; nor does it give rise to any special æsthetic doctrine, since the general doctrine expounded elsewhere includes this also. The dispute, as to whether the definition be verbal or real, finds its solution in the relation we have just established between thought and words; hence definition is verbal because it is real, and _vice versa._ And as to the other meaning of the question, whether, that is to say, definition be _nominal_ or _real,_ conventional or corresponding with the truth, that finds its solution in the distinction between pseudoconcepts and concepts, the first of which, it is clear, are _defined_ only in a nominalist or conventional way, because they _are,_ in fact, nominalist and conventional.

[Sidenote: _The indistinguishability of subject and predicate in the definition. Unity of essence and existence._]

Greater importance attaches to the other dispute, as to whether the definitive judgment be analysable into subject, predicate, and copula, whether, for example, the definition: "the will is the practical form of the spirit," can be resolved in the terms: "will" (subject), "practical form of the spirit" (predicate), and "is" (copula). Now, the difference between subject and predicate is here illusory, since predicate means the universal which is predicated of an individual, and here both the so-called subject and the so-called predicate are two universals, and the second, far from being more ample than the first, is the first itself. As to the "is," since the two distinct terms which should be copulated are wanting, it is not a copula; nor has it even the value of a predicate, as in the case in which it is asserted of an individual fact that it is, that is to say, that it has really happened and is _existing._ The "is," in the case of the definition, expresses nothing except simply the act of thought which thinks; and what is thought is, in so far as it is thought; if it were not, it would not be thought; and if it were not thought, it would not be. The concept gives the essence of things, and in the concept _essence involves existence._ That this proposition has sometimes been contested is due solely to the confusion between the essence, which is existence and therefore concept, and the existence which is not essence and therefore is representation. It is due therefore to the problem to which representations gave rise in this respect, and with which we shall deal further on. Freed from this confusion, the proposition is not contestable, and is the very basis of all logical thought, of which we have to examine the conceivability, or essence, that is, its internal necessity and coherence; and when this has been established, existence has also been established. If the concept of _virtue_ be conceivable, virtue is; if the concept of _God_ be conceivable, God is. To the most perfect concept the perfection of existence cannot be wanting without being _itself_ non-existent.

[Sidenote: _Alleged emptiness of the definition._]

Yet it would seem that though the definition affirms both essence and existence, and therefore the reality of the concept, it is, nevertheless, an empty form; for we have recognized that in every definition subject and predicate are the same, and it is therefore a tautological judgment. Certainly, the definition is tautological, but it is a sublime tautology, altogether different from the emptiness which is usually condemned in that expression. The tautology of the definition means that the concept is equal only to itself and cannot be resolved into another or explained by another. In the definition truth _praesentia patet,_ and if the Goddess does not reveal herself by her simple presence, it is in vain that the priest will strive to discover her to the multitude by comparing her with what is inferior to her: with sensible things, which are particular manifestations of her.

[Sidenote: _Critique of the definition as fixed verbal form._]

As in relation to the concept the definition is not to be held distinguishable, so in its expressive or verbal aspect it must not be understood as a formula separate from the basis of the discourse, as though it were the official garb of truth, the only worthy setting for that gem. Such a conception of its nature has caused _pedantry of definition, hatred_ of and consequent rebellion _against definitions._ That pedantry, however, like all pedantries, had some good in it; that is to say, it energetically affirmed the need for exactitude; and too frequently the rebellion, denying, like all rebellions, not only the evil but also whatever good there might be in the thing opposed, has, through its hatred of formulæ, made exactitude of thought a negligible matter. But definition, taken verbally, is not a formula, a period or part of a book or discourse; it is the whole book or the whole discourse, from the first word to the last, including all that in it may seem accidental or superficial, including even the accent, the warmth, the emphasis, and the gesture of the living word, the notes, the parentheses, the full stops, and commas of the writing. Nor can we indicate a special literary form of definition, such as _the treatise or system or manual,_ because the definition or concept is given alike in opuscules and in dialogues, in prose and in verse, in satire and in lyric, in comedy and in tragedy. To define, from the verbal point of view, means to express the concept; and all the expressions of the concept are definitions. This might trouble rhetoricians desirous of devoting a special chapter to the form of scientific treatment; but it does not trouble good sense, which quickly recognizes that the thing is just so, and that an epigram may give that precise and efficacious definition in which the ample scholastic volume of a professor sometimes fails, although full of pretence in this respect.

[Footnote 1: See _Æsthetic,_ part i. chap. iii.]

[Footnote 2: See Sect. I. Chap. III.]