ian, if his public will not
accept either the relegation of this distinction to 'psychology' or the
proper formal answer that _all_ judgments are (formally) 'true' and even
'infallible,' can think of nothing better to say than that if the
'judgment' is not true it was not a 'true judgment,' but a false
'opinion' which may be abandoned to 'psychology.'[G] Apparently he is
not concerned to help men to discriminate between 'judgments' and
'opinions,' or even to show that true 'judgments' do in fact occur.

3. Inference involves Formal Logic in a host of difficulties.

_(a)_ If it is not to be a verbal manipulation of phrases whose coming
together is not inquired into, it must be a connected train of thought.
But such a connection of thoughts cannot be conceived or understood
without reference to the purpose of a reasoner, who _selects_ what he
requires from the totality of 'truths.' If, then, 'Logic' has merely to
contemplate this eternal and immutable system of truth in its integrity,
and forbids all selection from it for a merely human purpose, how can it
either justify, or even understand, the drawing of any inference
whatever?

(_b_) Formal Logic clearly will not quail before the charge of
uselessness. But on its own principles it ought to be consistent. But by
this test also, when it is rigorously judged by it, it fails completely.
Its inconsistencies are many and incurable. It cannot even be consistent
in its theory of the simplest fundamentals. It is found upon some
occasions to define judgment as that which may be _either_ true _or_
false; and upon others as that which is 'true' (formally)--_i.e._, it
cannot decide whether or not to ignore the existence of error.

(_c_) The Formal view of inference regards it as a 'paradox.' An
inference is required on the one hand to supply fresh information, and
on the other to follow rigorously from its premisses; it must, in a
word, exhibit both _novelty_ and _necessity_. It would seem, however,
that if our inference genuinely had imparted new knowledge, the event
must be merely psychological; for how can any process or event perturb,
or add to, the completed totality of truth in itself? On the other hand,
if the 'necessity' of the operation be taken seriously, the 'inference'
becomes illusory; for if the conclusion inferred is already contained
in the premisses, what sense is there in the purely verbal process of
drawing it out?

(_d_) Most glaringly inadequate of all