Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/190

III. THE NATURE OF JUDGMENT. 1 BY G. E. MOORE. " TEUTH and falsehood," says Mr. Bradley (Logic, p. 2), " depend on the relation of our ideas to reality." And he immediately goes on to explain that, in this statement, "ideas" must not be understood to mean mere "states of my mind ". The ideas, he says, on the relation of which to reality truth depends, are "mere ideas, signs of an existence other than themselves," and this aspect of them must not be confused either with their existence in my mind or with their particular character as so existent, which may be called their content. "'For logic, at least," he says, "all ideas are signs " (p. 5) ; and " A sign is any fact that has a mean- ing," while " meaning consists of a part of the content (original or acquired) cut off, fixed by the mind, and con- sidered apart from the existence of the sign " (p. 4). But Mr. Bradley himself does not remain true to this conception of the logical idea as the idea of something. As such, indeed, it is only the psychological idea, related, indeed, to that which it signifies, but only related to it. Hence he finds it necessary, later, to use "idea," not of the symbol, but of the symbolised. Ideas, as meanings, not as "facts, which have a meaning," "are," he says (p. 8), " the ideas we spoke of, when we said ' Without ideas no judgment'". And he proceeds to show that "in predica- tion we do not use the mental fact, but only the meaning " ; although, where he did say "Without ideas no judgment," his words were " we cannot judge until we use ideas as ideas. We must have become aware that they are not realities, that they are mere ideas, signs of an existence other than themselves." It would seem plain, then, that there his doctrine was that we do, in predication, use the mental fact, though only as a sign ; whereas here his doctrine is that we do not use the mental fact, even as a sign, but only that which it signifies. This important transition he slurs over with the phrase : " But it is better to say the idea is the meaning". The question is surely not of which is "better to say," but which is true. 1 Bead before the Aristotelian Society.