Negation

“ The inevitable fruit of negation is apathy. Indeed apathy might be defined as negation of the soul, a spiritual inhibition. This fancy swiftly crossed my mind as I looked at Mrs. Willkit, followed by the thought that possibly a change might be a good thing for her. ”

“ Now, the actuality of a negation, though it is real inasmuch as it is the affection of a positive being, yet it is negative; for all actuality is denominated by its formal principle, and such a principle, in our case, is a negation. ”

“ Now, once negation is formulated, it presents an aspect symmetrical with that of affirmation; if affirmation affirms an objective reality, it seems that negation must affirm a non-reality equally objective, and, so to say, equally real. ”

“ For the letters of negation, no matter how far they may be removed from the holy fragrances of Thy knowledge, and however forgetful they may become of the wondrous splendors of the dawning light of Thy beauty, which are shed from the heaven of Thy majesty, must needs exist in Thy realm, so that the words which affirm Thee may thereby be exalted. ”

“ You will find it said that a Negative Judgment cannot express fact; e.g. that a Judgment of Perception cannot be negative. This is worth reflecting upon; I hope that what has been said makes clear how far it is true. The bare form of Negation is not adequate to fact; it contains mere emptiness or ignorance; we nowhere in our perception come upon a mere “not-something.” No doubt negation is in this way more subjective than affirmation. ”

“ It is in vain, then, that we attribute to negation the power of creating ideas sui generis, symmetrical with those that affirmation creates, and directed in a contrary sense. No idea will come forth from negation, for it has no other content than that of the affirmative judgment which it judges. ”

“ I answer that, True and false are opposed as contraries, and not, as some have said, as affirmation and negation. In proof of which it must be considered that negation neither asserts anything nor determines any subject, and can therefore be said of being as of not-being, for instance not-seeing or not-sitting. ”

“ Negation itself, as we shall hereafter see, is known to us, but this it could not be were we to admit that the understanding knows nothing save inasmuch as it is being; in which case the indispensable condition of all cognition, the principle of contradiction, would deceive us. ”

“ Would that I had the ability to write with the penetration and the clearness of statement that the [p.101] subject should certainly elicit, upon the strange equanimity with which mankind, in science or in practical life, receives and faces a direct negative or an open contradiction. Perhaps the habit of easy division into positive and negative, the ready resort to dichotomy, explains the mystery; perhaps the fact that negation or opposition is and can only be in kind, that there never is or can be any real change or need of change in a mere negation, is at least an important factor in the case ”

“ It is impossible for any thing to be and not be at the same time; when we say not be we express a negation, we therefore have the conception of negation. This conception is general, because it involves no determination; we speak of not-being without applying it to any particular object, nor even to any determinate species or genus. Therefore the conception of negation is general and absolutely undetermined.
54. We have the idea of limit; for, as we have seen, it is a negation applied to a being. We have also the idea of the negation of limit ”

“ We reply that all negation which belongs to a real being is a real negation, and constitutes a real mode of being. Accordingly, although the human personality is only a negation, the nature existing under that negation really differs from itself existing without that negation, no less than a body at rest really differs from itself in movement, although rest is only a negation of movement. ”

“ In old times, you see, a man who wanted to educate himself—a Frenchman, for instance—would have set to work to study all the classics and theologians and tragedians and historiaris and philosophers, and, you know, all the intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he goes straight for the literature of negation, very quickly assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and he’s ready. ”

“ A lie is negation, — alias nothing, or the opposite of something. Good is great and real. Hence its opposite, named evil, must be small and unreal. When this sense is attained, we shall no longer be the servants of sin, and shall cease to love it. ”

“ But, as I have said before, such critics entirely ignore the fact that the human understanding, owing to its constitutional limitations, often finds it most expedient and indeed most logical to state a truth negatively, since a negation is really a higher form of affirmation, to be comprehended only through a process of intuition. ”

“ To Fichte the demand for the solution of this contradiction thus adopts the attitude of being a demanded solution only, of signifying that I ever have to destroy the barriers, that I ever have to reach beyond the limitation into utter infinitude, and that I ever find a new limit; a continual alternation takes place between negation and affirmation, an identity with self which again falls into negation, and from this negation is ever again restored. ”

“ Ghazzali points out that negation and affirmation for one and the same action throw new light on the nature of causation. Negation affirms God as the efficient and real cause; affirmation establishes man’s free-will faithfully executing divine order. ”

“ The sentence should be, “He neither bought, sold, nor exchanged stocks and bonds.”
“That is not true, neither.” As we already have one negative in the word not, the word neither should be changed to either, to avoid the double negation.
A negative other than neither may take either or or nor as its correlative, “She was not so handsome as her mother, or so brilliant as her father.” ”

“ This would, however, be a serious misconception. As we learn from modern scientific Logic, no true and significant negative judgment is merely negative; all significant negation is really exclusion resting upon a positive basis. ”

“ Doubt, which is tentative denial, like negation, which is completed denial, logically presupposes positive knowledge of some kind or other. It is never rational to doubt the truth of a specific proposition except on the strength of your possession of positive truth with which the suggested judgment appears to be in conflict. ”

“ To be deprived also, and to possess habit, appear to be similarly opposed, as privation and habit, since the mode of opposition is the same, for as blindness is opposed to sight, so likewise is the being blind, opposed to the possession of sight. [56]
4. Opposition of affirmative and negative. Neither is that, which falls under affirmation and negation, affirmation and negation; for affirmation is an affirmative sentence, and negation a negative sentence, but nothing which falls under affirmation and negation is a sentence (but a thing) . ”

“ Neither the indefinite noun (οὐκ ἄνθρωπος) nor the indefinite verb (οὐ τρέχει — οὐ δίκαιος) is a real and true negation, though it appears to be such. For every negation ought to be either true or false; but non homo, if nothing be appended to it, is not more true or false (indeed less so) than homo.30 ”

“ The person who cannot do this, must agree with me or be satisfied with superficiality, the mark of muddled minds, which may indeed be rendered dissatisfied and landed in negation, but which can reach no positive view of their own. ”

“ It is also the main body of our legal systems—a complex mass of prohibitions and preventions. And even in manners and conventions, the things one should not do far outnumber the things one should. A general policy of negation colors our conceptions of ethics and religion. ”

“ In actions of enthusiasm this drawback appears, but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly; in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. ”

“ RISING AND FALLING INFLECTIONS. RULE XI.—The different members of a sentence expressing comparison, or contrast, or negation and affirmation, or where the parts are united by or used disjunctively, require different inflections; generally the rising inflection in the first member, and the falling inflection in the second member. This order is, however, sometimes inverted.
1. Comparison and contrast. This is also called antithesis.
EXAMPLES. In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God; by honor', and dishonor'; by evil' report, and good' report; as deceivers', and yet true' ”

“ But it must be remembered, that, in all logical reasoning, the negation is simply negation, and nothing more, never implying affirmation of the contrary.
The common proposition that two negatives make an affirmative, is 6true only upon the supposition that there are but two possible things, one of which is denied. Grant that a man must be either able or unable to do a particular thing, and then not unable and able are the same things. ”

“ There is teárs for his lóve; jóy for his fórtune; hónour for his válour; and deàth for his ambìtion.
Cráfty men contémn studies; símple men admíre them; and wìse men ùse them.
If one part of the antithesis is a negation, it takes the rising inflection, whether it comes first or second. This is owing to the fact that, as illustrated above, a negation implies incompleteness. The other part then takes the falling inflection ”

“ A proposition being a portion of discourse in which something is affirmed or denied of something, the first division of propositions is into affirmative and negative. An affirmative proposition is that in which the predicate is affirmed of the subject; as, Cæsar is dead. A negative proposition is that in which the predicate is denied of the subject; as, Cæsar is not dead. The copula, in this last species of proposition, consists of the words is not, which are the sign of negation; is being the sign of affirmation. ”

“ But it will be desirable for common topics to be assumed from the case itself, if there is any room in it for expressions of indignation or complaint.
31 The admission of the fact takes place, when the accused person does not justify the fact itself, but demands to be pardoned for it. And the parts of this division of the case are two: purgation and deprecation. Purgation is that by which (not the action, but) the intention of the person who is accused, is defended. That has three subdivisions,—ignorance, accident, necessity. ”

“ As we are apt to be mistaken in our judgment with regard to the general character of persons, so are we equally so with regard to their evil intentions. An offence is taken from something that has been said or done to us. Now what has been said or done, may not have been the result of either ill-will or malice. It may have been the result of a wrong judgment they had hastily formed, or from some excited state of mind they may have been led to say, or act as they did. ”

“ Those who thus set up for judges and censurers shall receive the greater condemnation. Our judging others will but make our own judgment the more strict and severe, Matt. vii. 1, 2. Those who are curious to spy out the faults of others, and arrogant in passing censures upon them, may expect that God will be as extreme in marking what they say and do amiss. 2. Another reason given against such acting the master is because we are all sinners: In many things we offend all, v. 2. Were we to think more of our own mistakes and offenses, we should be less apt to judge other people. ”

“ I never will be the wretch to deceive one that shall think me honourable. The sin shall fall on the sinner, and that fruit shall be his that sowed it. Too long have I followed thy silly counsels, therefore, without any farther consultations, if thou wishest not to offend me, go and bring Navarro to me, for since I have so degraded myself as to become his, though late, I will be noble enough never, by deceit, to become another’s, and am fully determined to submit to that fate which thy ill advice, and thy want of discretion and prudence, have led me to. ”

“ For I originally rested my whole case on the evidence;... now I rest it on the confession of my adversary; and to oppose his audacity in acts of violence, his impudence in a court of justice, may fairly be considered as the task of your power, not of my abilities.—For what is easier than to decide on the case of a man who confesses the fact? But it is difficult for me to speak with sufficient force of that which cannot be by language made out worse than it is in reality, and cannot be made more plain by my speech than it is by the confession of the parties actually concerned. ”

“ But that will be a common topic for the advocate of the defence to use, by which he will express indignation that the accuser not only alters facts in order to bring him into danger, but that he attempts also to alter words. For those common topics which are assumed either for the purpose of demonstrating the falsehood of the accusations of the prosecutor, or for exciting pity, or for expressing indignation at an action, or for the purpose of deterring people from showing pity, are derived from the magnitude of the danger, not from the nature of the cause. ”

“ Whether unmasked by others, or by myself, is it not equally true that I have been playing false, and am now punished for it? What do the world care for your having returned to truth? You have offended by deceiving them, and that is an offence which your repentance will not extenuate. ”

“ If there be error, it lies with the deceiver, not the deceived. And you, my sons and disciples, banish from your faces and your breasts every expression and every thought unworthy of your honest companion, and your upright sect. For remember, if to abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to distrust truth and innocence is mean. ”