that the
table is round but only to my apprehension, but by saying that it
looks round. Thereby I cease to predicate roundness of the table
altogether; for I mean that while it still looks round, it is not
really so. The case of universal judgements is similar. The statement
that a straight line is the shortest distance between its extremities
means that it really is so. The fact is presupposed to be in no way
altered by our having apprehended it. Moreover, reality is here just
as much implied to be directly object of the mind as it is in the case
of the singular judgement. Making the judgement consists, as we say,
in _seeing_ the connexion between the direction between two points
and the shortest distance between them. The connexion of real
characteristics is implied to be directly object of thought.[16] Thus
both perceiving and thinking presuppose that the reality to which they
relate is directly object of the mind, and that the character of it
which we apprehend in the resulting judgement is not affected or
altered by the fact that we have had to perceive or conceive the
reality.[17]

[15] Cf. Bosanquet, _Logic_, vol. ii, p. 2.

[16] In saying that a universal judgement is an immediate
apprehension of fact, it is of course not meant that it can
be actualized by itself or, so to say, _in vacuo_. Its
actualization obviously presupposes the presentation of
individuals in perception or imagination. Perception or
imagination thus forms the necessary occasion of a universal
judgement, and in that sense mediates it. Moreover, the
universal judgement implies an act of abstraction by which
we specially attend to those universal characters of the
individuals perceived or imagined, which enter into the
judgement. But, though our apprehension of a universal
connexion thus implies a process, and is therefore mediated,
yet the connexion, when we apprehend it, is immediately our
object. There is nothing between it and us.

[17] For a fuller discussion of the subject see Chh. IV and
VI.

Kant in the formulation of his problem implicitly admits this
presupposition in the case of perception. He implies that empirical
judgements involve no difficulty, because they rest upon the
perception or experience of the objects to which they relate. On the
other hand, he does not admit the presupposition in the case of
conception, for he implies that in _a priori_ judgemen