"That power of the mind by which it notices relations."

Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People by Catharine Esther Beecher, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. JUDGMENT.

CHAPTER XIV. JUDGMENT.

The term judgment, as a mental faculty, signifies "that power of the mind by which it notices relations." It is often used to signify all the intellectual powers, among which it is the most important one. Thus we hear it said that, in certain cases, the feelings and the judgment are in opposition, or that the heart and the judgment are not in agreement.

It is also used often to signify any act of the mind when a comparison is made between two things, or between the truths asserted in any proposition and a truth already believed. The act called memory is a conception attended with one specific act of judgment, by which a present state of mind is compared with a past, and the relation of resemblance perceived.

The nature of our ideas of relation are very different, according to the object or purpose for which the comparison is made. If objects are compared in reference to time, we learn some one of the relations of past, present, or future. No idea of time can be gained except by comparing one period of time with another, and thus noticing their relations. All dates are gained by comparing one point of time with some specified event, such as the birth of the Savior, or some particular period in the revolution of the earth around the sun.

If objects are compared in reference to the succession of our conceptions or perceptions, we gain the ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms firstly, secondly, and thirdly. If objects are compared in reference to the degree of any quality, we gain an idea of such relations as are expressed by the terms brighter, sweeter, harder, louder. If objects are compared in reference to proportion, we gain ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms an eighth, a half. If objects are compared in reference to the relation of parts to a whole, we gain such ideas as are expressed by the terms part, whole, remainder.

The process of classifying objects and the use of language depend upon the power of judgment; for if we see an object possessing certain qualities, in order to apply the name we must compare and observe their resemblance to the qualities to which such a name has been applied in past experience, and this feeling of resemblance is an act of judgment. The application of a name, then, always implies the exercise of the power of judgment, by which a comparison is made between the present qualities observed in an object and the same qualities which affected the mind when the name has formerly been employed. It also implies the act of association, by which the perception of certain qualities recalls the idea of the sound or object with which they have been repeatedly conjoined.

The mental process called reasoning is nothing but a connected succession of acts of judgment. It is a comparison of what is asserted in a given proposition with some truth which is believed, or which has been established by evidence, and then observing the agreement or disagreement. Thus the truth that "things will be in agreement with past experience unless there is some reason for the contrary," is a truth which every mind believes. Whenever, therefore, any event has been repeatedly an object of past experience, it is compared with this truth already believed, and found to be included under it, and therefore entitled to the same credit.

Thus, also, the truth that "things which equal the same thing equal one another," is one which every mind believes. When any object by examination is found to be included under that class of objects which are thus equal to the same thing, it is an act of reasoning when we infer that they are equal to one another.

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