The true logical subject then is always reality, however much disguised by qualifications or conditions. The logical predicate is always the meaning of an idea; and the claim to be true consists in the affirmation of the meaning as belonging to the tissue of reality at the point indicated by the subject. The connection is always made by identity of { 71} content at the point where the idea joins the reality, so that _the judgment always appears as a revelation of something which is in reality_. It simply develops, accents, or gives accuracy to a recognised quality of the real. This is easily seen in cases of simple quality--_e.g._ “This colour is sky-blue.” The colour is given, and the judgment merely identifies it with sky-blue, and so reveals another element belonging to its identity, the element of being seen in the sky on a clear day.
The analysis is not quite so easy when there is a concrete subject like a person; for how can there be an identity between a person and a fact? “A.B. passed me in the street this afternoon.” Between what elements is the identity in this case? It is between him, as an individual whom I know by sight in other places, and him as he appeared this afternoon in particular surroundings. His identity already extends through a great many different particulars of time and place, and this judgment merely recognises one more particular as included in the same continuous history. “He in this context belongs to him in a former context.” In this simple case the operative identity is probably that of my friend’s personal appearance; but the judgment is not merely about that but about his whole personality, of which his personal appearance is merely taken as a sign.
Any assertion which is incredible because the identical quality is wanting will illustrate the required structure. There is a story commented on by Thackeray in one of his occasional papers, which implied that the Duke of Wellington took home note-paper from a club to which he did not { 72} belong. (Thackeray gives the true explanation of the fact on which the suggestion was founded.) The identity concerned in this case would be that of character. Can we find an identity between the character involved in a piece of meanness like that suggested and the character of the Duke of Wellington? No; and _prima facie_ therefore the judgment is false. The identity which should bind it together breaks it in two. But yet, again: supposing the external evidence to be strong enough, we may have to accept a fact which conflicts with a man’s character as we conceive it. That is so: in such a case one kind of identity appears to contradict the other. I may think that I saw a man with my own eyes, doing something which wholly contradicts his character as I judge it. Then there is a conflict between identity in personal appearance and identity in character, and we have to criticise the two estimates of identity--_i.e._ to refer them both to our general system of knowledge, and to accept the connection which can be best adapted to that system.