The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

abstract knowledge, to find the elements and the inmost spring of intuitive knowledge also, was quite a wrong one. For the rest, my whole introductory essay on the principle of sufficient reason is, to a certain extent, to be regarded merely as a thorough exposition of the significance of the hypothetical form of judgment ; therefore I do not dwell upon it longer here.

(b.) The form of the categorical judgment is nothing but the form of judgment in general, in its strictest sense. For, strictly speaking, judging merely means thinking, the combination of, or the impossibility of combining, the spheres of the concepts. Therefore the hypothetical and the disjunctive combination are properly no special forms of the judgment; for they are only applied to already completed judgments, in which the combination of the concepts remains unchanged the categorical. But they again connect these judgments, for the hypothetical form expresses their dependence upon each other, and the disjunctive their incompatibility. Mere concepts, however, have only one class of relations to each other, those which are expressed in the categorical judgment The fuller determination, or the sub-species of this relation, are the intersection and the complete separateness of the concept-spheres, i.e., thus affirmation and negation ; out of which Kant has made special categories, under quite a different title, that of quality. Intersection and separateness have again sub-species, according as the spheres lie within each other entirely, or only in part, a determination which constitutes the quantity of the judgments; out of which Kant has again made a quite special class of categories. Thus he separates what is very closely related, and even identical, the easily surveyed modifications of the one possible relation of mere concepts to each other, and, on the other hand, unites what is very different under this title of relation.

Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of thought of identity and contradiction.

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But the ground of the connection of the concept-spheres which gives truth to the judgment, which is nothing but this connection, may be of very different kinds; and, according to this, the truth of the judgment is either logical, or empirical, or metaphysical, or metalogical, as is explained in the introductory essay, § 30-33, and does not require to be repeated here.

But it is apparent from this how very various the direct cognitions may be, all of which exhibit themselves in the abstract, through the combination of the spheres of two concepts, as subject and predicate, and that we can by no means set up the sole function of the understanding as corresponding to them and producing them.

For example, the judgments, "Water boils, the sine measures the angle, the will resolves, business distracts, distinction is difficult," express through the same logical form the most different kinds of relations ; but from this we obtain the right, however irregular the beginning may be, of placing ourselves at the standpoint of abstract knowledge to analyse direct intuitive knowledge.

For the rest, the categorical judgment springs from knowledge of the understanding proper, in my sense, only when causation is expressed by it ; this is, however, the case in all judgments which refer to a physical quality. For if I say, " This body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour, alkaline, organic, &c, &c," this always refers to its effect, and thus is knowledge which is only possible through the pure understanding.

Now, after this, like much which is quite different from it (for example, the subordination of very abstract concepts), has been expressed in the abstract through subject and predicate, these mere relations of concepts have been transferred back to knowledge of perception, and it has been supposed that the subject and predicate of the judgment must have a peculiar and special correlative in perception, substance and accident.

But I shall show clearly further on that the conception substance has no other true content than that of the conception matter. Accidents, however, are quite synonymous with