Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/334

318 ALEXANDER F. SHAND : volition of the conclusion through the judgment of the minor premiss. We have seen will disengage itself from one form of judg- ment after another, and in our present type, it seems to throw aside every form of judgment and the definitions by which we have bound it to the judgment and to assume the distinctive form of an imperative. But is the imperative a distinctive form, an "ultimate category"? Is its attitude as unique as negative thought, as the categorical, disjunctive and hypothetical judgments ? Is its uniqueness, like theirs, not due to the combination of any constituents which we can specify ? Does it belong to those products of mental life which consist in new groupings and complications of constituents present in other and previously subsisting groups, or to those products which consist- in a new differentiation of such constituents ? In the one case it is analysable in respect of that which is distinctive of it ; in the other it is not. There is one explanation of the imperative which readily suggests itself. When we say, "Do this," we may mean, " If you refuse, you will be punished". Is the imperative in reality a hypothetical judgment disguised in a unique gram- matical form ? We often supplement it by such a judg- ment where we anticipate that it will not act as an adequate motive without. And we can explain the influence which it exercises over us by the many painful consequences which, in childhood and youth, have followed disobedience to our superiors. But our question is one of analysis, not of genesis. We have to ask what the imperative means to the person who uses it, not how it has become a motive for the person to whom it is addressed ; and where we anticipate no disobedience we neither say nor think, " If you do not do this, I will punish you," or "I shall be offended". This hypo- thetical judgment is something additional to the command, and which may or may not be added to it. And further, such hypothetical propositions essentially express a condi- tion and its consequence, not a command that the person spoken to shall so act that the consequence shall not become due. The command is indirectly conveyed to him by the tone of your voice, the expression of your fea- tures, and perhaps by his knowledge that you will be pained by his disobedience and the necessity of punishing him. But a vicious schoolmaster might enjoy the prospect of a boy's disobedience that he might have the pleasure of flog- ging him ; and his hypothetical proposition, though inter- preted by the boy as an imperative, might contain no real