that
there should be objective falsehoods, which subsist independently of
any minds; and this, though not logically refutable, is a theory to be
avoided if possible. Thus it is easier to account for falsehood if
we take judgement to be a relation in which the mind and the various
objects concerned all occur severally; that is to say, Desdemona and
loving and Cassio must all be terms in the relation which subsists when
Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio. This relation, therefore,
is a relation of four terms, since Othello also is one of the terms of
the relation. When we say that it is a relation of four terms, we do not
mean that Othello has a certain relation to Desdemona, and has the same
relation to loving and also to Cassio. This may be true of some other
relation than believing; but believing, plainly, is not a relation which
Othello has to _each_ of the three terms concerned, but to _all_ of
them together: there is only one example of the relation of believing
involved, but this one example knits together four terms. Thus the
actual occurrence, at the moment when Othello is entertaining his
belief, is that the relation called 'believing' is knitting together
into one complex whole the four terms Othello, Desdemona, loving, and
Cassio. What is called belief or judgement is nothing but this relation
of believing or judging, which relates a mind to several things other
than itself. An _act_ of belief or of judgement is the occurrence
between certain terms at some particular time, of the relation of
believing or judging.

We are now in a position to understand what it is that distinguishes a
true judgement from a false one. For this purpose we will adopt certain
definitions. In every act of judgement there is a mind which judges, and
there are terms concerning which it judges. We will call the mind the
_subject_ in the judgement, and the remaining terms the _objects_. Thus,
when Othello judges that Desdemona loves Cassio, Othello is the subject,
while the objects are Desdemona and loving and Cassio. The subject and
the objects together are called the _constituents_ of the judgement.
It will be observed that the relation of judging has what is called a
'sense' or 'direction'. We may say, metaphorically, that it puts its
objects in a certain _order_, which we may indicate by means of the
order of the words in the sentence. (In an inflected language, the same
thing will be indicated by inflections, e.g. by the