Judgment

Use in the book

In the Gorgias account, Zeus explains that judgments have gone wrong because souls are judged clothed in bodily beauty, ancestry, and wealth. These appearances attract favorable witnesses and conceal character. The argument concerns the conditions for judging justly, not simply a judgment’s formal announcement.

Places to read

1. I.49.63.5Misleading outward advantages corrupt the judgment of souls.

Translation in this edition

“Judgment” suits the judicial scene; “discrimination” may suit a cognitive comparison without a court.

Use in the book

The moral/physical distinction demands that moral things be judged by moral sense and physical things by physical sense, with political sense left as a further prompt. Judgment is therefore not one undifferentiated procedure applied everywhere. The inquiry into taste asks whether its jurisdiction reaches everything in works of the mind, including light and brilliance; it does not settle the boundaries. In the imagined account of wise doubt, dazzling light must be veiled so that another mental organ can judge. This proposal remains conditional. The contrast between human and heavenly judgments changes the standard by which the self is assessed rather than describing a new cognitive mechanism.

Places to read

1. I, p. 208, entry 2, ¶1Moral and physical judgments require different senses.
2. II, p. 536, entry 7, ¶1Taste’s jurisdiction is questioned rather than defined conclusively.
3. II, p. 655, entry 8, ¶1A conditional account of doubt seeks judgment beyond dazzling sight.
4. II, p. 779–780, entry 11, ¶1Self-judgment is measured against heaven instead of social opinion.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains judgment and judge, including the legal language of jurisdiction. “If it existed” qualifies philosophical doubt itself; the unnamed other organ must not be identified by the lexicon.

Use in the book

Traherne’s universe includes judgment rather than stopping at presently visible things. The world encompasses the treasures that abide after the final judgment, and contemplation can make that event present alongside creation and redemption. Temporal distance does not exclude it from the soul’s concern.

The plural in his exposition of the Psalms has a broader force. God’s judgments belong with mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness among the excellencies enjoyed in the divine house. They are not reduced to punitive sentences. This range matters because judgment can be named as a source of delight without erasing accountability: what is prized is the rightness of divine government within a comprehensive vision.

Places to read

1. I.18The world’s full scope includes treasures abiding after the Day of Judgment.
2. I.54Judgment and creation become objects present to comprehensive contemplation.
3. III.76The Psalm’s judgments are enjoyed with mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness.

In this edition

Do not translate every plural judgments into punishments. Its scriptural company in III.76 gives it the wider sense of just divine government.

Use in the book

Power, exercise and expressed opinion

The faculty definition makes judging part of understanding alongside perceiving, knowing and remembering. Its objects include both particulars and universals; reflective judgment also examines the mind’s own operations. In the active/passive account, the active understanding assesses whether what imagination presents is true or false, while the receptive power preserves and further judges what it receives. Judgment therefore belongs both to an account of cognitive powers and to their particular operations.

Judging is not confined to this rational faculty. Earlier, common sense is “Judge or Moderator” of the other senses: it distinguishes their objects and receives the sensory forms they bring. The courtroom image explains a coordinating sensory function. The adjective “judicious” later praises sound discrimination, immediately qualified by the possibility of errors in other matters.

The moral account gives judgment an unstable relation to action. It recognizes what ought to be done, yet a stubborn will perverts it. The medical description makes a different qualification: people suffering melancholy may judge some matters profoundly while misjudging others. Burton’s examples concern mistaking honourable conduct for dishonour and friendship for hostility. Neither passage authorizes a simple equation between illness and universal inability to think.

An expressed judgment is also an opinion whose warrant or application can be considered. Burton’s “slender judgement” modestly introduces criticism of London. A medical judgment about baths varies with the humour: a treatment said to cure one person may cause harm in another. An astrological judgment is an assessment drawn from the supposed ruler of a birth chart; Burton attributes the procedure to named astrologers, then anticipates the objection that they are partial judges. The same noun does not certify all these claims as equally reliable.

“Judicial Astrology” names the practice of judging human dispositions and events from celestial configurations; Burton leaves the dispute over cause and sign unsettled here. By contrast, “judicially conferring” means judiciously comparing one condition with another. In that latter passage Burton says complainers fail to make this comparison; the adverb concerns prudent assessment, not legal procedure.

A sentence in a physiological dispute

“This sentence of his” points backwards to Fracastorius’s account of intellectual capacity, especially its qualification that not all melancholic people possess excellent minds and that temperature matters. Burton compares that judgment with Heraclitus’s dry-light saying, then proposes moderate heat and dryness as causes of intellectual excellence. The elephant’s allegedly dry brain and abundance of black bile supply an animal example, followed by Cardan’s approval and a list of medical discussions. The claim’s argumentative role is what sentence names. Its explanation of intelligence through bodily qualities remains a historical theory, not a verified association between illness and genius.

Readers and courts

Readers’ judgments are critical assessments. Burton exposes himself to them by publishing, complains that they are hard to please, and finds comfort in their variety. The continuation compares books to dishes and readers to guests with differing palates: what one admires another rejects. This is a scene of evaluation, not an accusation that every reader issues a judicial sentence.

The legal sense is literal in Democritus’s catalogue of social disorder. Judges give decisions for their own benefit, and notaries alter recorded sentences. The speech attacks institutions whose officials betray their declared purposes. Its speaker is the Democritus whom Burton has been recounting, with Burton’s own later references woven into the narrative. Identifying that nested voice matters when reading the sweeping allegations.

The judicial vocabulary travels into other settings. “Sub judice” makes a still-unresolved medical controversy a case before a judge. In the couplet attributed to Marlowe, lovers wait for the “sentence” of a woman’s eyes: her favour or rejection becomes a life-or-death verdict. Conscience likewise becomes a “Judge to condemn,” the last of a sequence of legal officers. These images retain the idea of authoritative decision while changing its agent and setting.

Divine judgment and the limits of condemnation

The opening theological explanation calls God’s just judgment both a concurrent cause and the principal agent in bringing calamities as chastisement. These are Burton’s claims about divine punitive justice, not a claim that human judges diagnose bodily causes. In the later account of despair, excessive emphasis on judgment becomes dangerous: following Bernard, Burton says it must be joined with mercy. Judgment alone brings despair; mercy presented alone brings complacency. The criticism falls on a mode of preaching and its effects on distressed hearers.

The discussion of election finally places a limit on human verdicts. Even after describing divine judgment upon unbelief and impenitence, Burton says people must not decide who belongs to the rejected class or condemn themselves or others. The invitation is universal, and the time at which someone may be received is unknown. The theological category consequently cannot be detached from the practical prohibition that follows it.

Statements, sayings and satisfaction

Sentence also belongs to verbal and literary contexts. An echo repeats “words & sentences” as complete utterances; “obsolete sentences” are worn-out maxims that fail to comfort, although Burton has just refused to dismiss philosophical consolation altogether. “Sententious” is correspondingly favourable when Horace is praised for wise sayings. The “sentences” discussed by commentators on Peter Lombard name a theological work. The related Latin phrase “ex animi sententia,” in a marginal quotation from Beroaldo, instead expresses personal satisfaction: his wife is after his own heart.

Related entries

Reason; Intellect; Apprehension; Wit; Conscience; Will and nill; Action; Astrology; Geniture; Religious melancholy; Indifferent (future article)

Places to read

1. · paragraph 8–10readers’ critical judgments and the palates-and-dishes comparison
2. · paragraph 21–23legal decisions and altered sentences within Democritus’s resumed speech
3. · paragraph 1a personal assessment introduced with modest qualification
4. · paragraph 17–18divine judgment called concurrent cause and principal agent, with scriptural examples
5. · paragraph 17–18common sense as Judge receiving sensory evidence, before imagination examines its forms
6. · paragraph 25–29judgment within understanding and its active and receptive powers
7. · paragraph 1–3judicial astrology and the unresolved cause-or-sign question
8. · paragraph 12–13astrological assessment and the anticipated objection of partiality
9. · paragraph 21a medical judgment qualified by differences of humour
10. []judgment as what an obstinate will perverts
11. · paragraph 25–27profound judgment in some matters alongside error in others
12. · paragraph 5–8the intellectual-ability controversy culminating in sentence as a proposition compared with Heraclitus; elephant and medical examples
13. · paragraph 1–2sentences as complete utterances in accounts of echoes
14. · paragraph 43–45sentences as maxims and the difficulty of effective consolation
15. · paragraph 43–44Sententious as praise of Horace’s wise sayings
16. · paragraph 55–56judicially means judiciously, comparing circumstances and changing fortune
17. · paragraph 55–56sub judice as the image of an unresolved medical dispute
18. · paragraph 21–24the lover’s sentence as the figurative verdict of the beloved’s eyes
19. · paragraph 45–50ex animi sententia expresses Beroaldo’s satisfaction with his marriage
20. · paragraph 9–11sentences as the title of Peter Lombard’s theological work, within attributed polemic
21. · paragraph 33–35judgment and mercy must be taught together; critique of terrifying ministers
22. · paragraph 49–53conscience as witness, prosecutor and condemning judge
23. divine judgment followed by a ban on condemning oneself or others and an end to speculative inquiry

In this edition

“This sentence of his” becomes “This judgment”, identifying a proposition or opinion. The same word’s plural in “Notaries alter sentences” becomes “Notaries alter judgements,” identifying legal decisions. “Judges give judgement” is rendered verbally as “Judges decide cases.” These alignments belong to whole phrases rather than making the verb give mean decide by itself.

The modern text often retains judgment or judgement, as in the qualified estimate of London and the advice about divine justice and mercy. At the passage “of profound judgement in some things” becomes “judge some things profoundly,” retaining the restriction to some matters. The modern column rearranges and combines parts of the Latin-and-English sequence about readers’ captious judgments; its first equivalent translates the Latin before the shorter English restatement. None of these editorial choices endorses the physiological or theological claims being reported.

“Judicially conferring” becomes “judiciously comparing”; the word’s prudent-comparison sense differs from “judicial Astrology.” “Obsolete sentences” becomes “worn-out maxims,” while the lover’s “sentence” becomes a “verdict” and the echo’s “sentences” remains unchanged. The modern rendering “full of wise sayings” covers “Sententious and wise” together, not Sententious alone. The marginal “ex animi sententia” is translated “after my own heart” in the note’s editorial translation, separately from the modern body.

ex animi sententia

Printed “ex animi sententia” (Latin; phrase).

Citation convention

According to one’s wish or to one’s satisfaction; after one’s own heart.

Context: The marginal quotation continues Beroaldo’s praise of his marriage to Camilla; the first person is not Burton’s autobiographical statement.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: Habeo uxorem ex animi sententia

Modern rendering, Modern wording: I have a wife after my own heart

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: independently checked against supplied marginal quotation and its editorial translation, not the modern body

God’s just judgment

Printed “Gods just judgement” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Divine punitive justice bringing calamities as chastisement for sin.

Context: Burton’s theological account; the divine judgment is called both concurrent cause and principal agent, not merely a subordinate bodily instrument.

Source: original body

Source wording: as a concomitant cause, & principal agent, is Gods just judgement

judge

Printed “judge” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

To assess particulars, universals and one’s own mental operations.

Context: The subject is understanding in the faculty definition; the following reflective clause extends judgment to its own activities.

Source: original body

Source wording: perceive, know, remember, and judge as well singulars, as universals

judge · Judge · local use 1

Printed “Judge” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

A discriminating and coordinating power, figuratively named as a judge receiving sensory evidence.

Context: Common sense, rather than understanding alone, is the named judge; the external senses bring it sensory forms.

Source: original body

Source wording: This Common sense is the Judge or Moderator of the rest

judge · Judge · local use 2

Printed “Judge” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

One who delivers a condemning verdict; here a figurative office of accusing conscience.

Context: Conscience is the subject of the extended legal image, successively made witness, pursuer, court official, lawyer, jailer and judge.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: a Judge to condemn

Modern rendering, Modern wording: a judge condemning us

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied or implicit wording: The modern us makes explicit the object carried through the preceding list.

judgment · judgments

Printed “judgments” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Assessments or critical opinions, here the diverse evaluations of readers.

Context: Burton invokes Erasmus in a defence of his writing; the food-and-palate analogy continues in the next passage.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: nihil morosius hominum judiciis, theres naught so peevish as mens judgments

Modern rendering, Modern wording: “nothing is more captious than people’s judgements.” Nothing is so hard to please.

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The complete original Latin phrase plus its English restatement aligns with the translated quotation and shortened English restatement.

Supplied or implicit wording: The second modern sentence leaves people’s judgments implicit because the immediately preceding translated Latin supplies it.

judgment · judgement · local use 1

Printed “judgement” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

A judicial decision in a case.

Context: Democritus’s resumed speech within Burton’s narrative condemns self-serving officials.

Source: original body

Source wording: Judges give judgement according to their own advantage

judgment · judgement · local use 2

Printed “judgement” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

A personal opinion or assessment.

Context: Burton modestly frames his critical estimate of London.

Source: original body

Source wording: in my slender judgement

judgment · Judgment

Printed “Judgment” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

An astrological assessment drawn from a nativity’s supposed governing planet.

Context: Garcæus and Leovitius are reported; the next passage anticipates objection that astrologers are biased.

Source: original body

Source wording: the chief Judgment to be taken from the Lord of the geniture

judgment · local use 1

Printed “judgment” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

A practical medical conclusion whose application depends on the patient’s humour.

Context: Burton qualifies a reported rejection of hot baths; what benefits one may harm another.

Source: original body

Source wording: But this judgment varies as the humor doth, in hot or cold

judgment · local use 2

Printed “judgment” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Recognition of the appropriate action, perverted by a stubborn will.

Context: Will is the agent; judgment is what the will distorts.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording: this stubborn will of ours perverts judgment

judgment · judgement · local use 3

Printed “judgement” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Discriminating understanding that may remain deep in some matters despite error in others.

Context: The restriction in some things prevents a global incapacity claim; quoted Fracastorius and Arculanus explain the contrast.

Source: original body

Source wording: They are of profound judgement in some things

judgment · judgement · local use 4

Printed “judgement” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Divine condemnation or punitive justice, which preaching must present together with mercy.

Context: Bernard’s advice is adopted against terrifying ministers; judgment alone brings despair, mercy alone complacency.

Source: original body

Source wording: nor speak of judgement without mercy

judicial astrology

Printed “judicial Astrology” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Astrology that judges human dispositions or events from celestial configurations.

Context: Burton reports astrologers’ causal claims and declines here to settle whether stars cause events or merely signify them.

Source: original body

Source wording: to apologize for judicial Astrology

judicially

Printed “judicially” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

With sound or discriminating judgment; judiciously.

Context: The adverb modifies comparing conditions, within the complaint that people fail to do so; no court proceeding is being described.

Source: original body

Source wording: judicially conferring one condition with another

judicious

Printed “judicious” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Possessing sound discriminating judgment.

Context: Burton contrasts hostile estimates with cognitive ability, before restricting profound judgment to some matters in the next unit.

Source: original body

Source wording: judicious, wise and wittie

just judgment

Printed “just judgement” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

God’s just decision or disposition concerning punishment, distinguished from human certainty about who is rejected.

Context: The same passage expressly forbids deciding who is finally rejected or condemning oneself or others.

Source: original body

Source wording: whom God in his just judgement leaves to be punished for their sins

sentence · sentences · local use 1

Printed “sentences” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Recorded legal decisions that notaries are accused of altering.

Context: Same embedded Democritus speech; alteration is the notaries’ alleged misconduct, not Burton’s instruction.

Source: original body

Source wording: Notaries alter sentences

sentence · local use 1

Printed “sentence” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

An expressed opinion or proposition about the conditions of intellectual excellence.

Context: His refers back to the Fracastorius account immediately preceding; Burton compares the claim with Heraclitus’s saying.

Source: original body

Source wording: This sentence of his

sentence · sentences · local use 2

Printed “sentences” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Complete spoken statements, here contrasted with individual words in an account of echoes.

Context: Burton reports an echo that repeats utterances; this is a speech-unit sense rather than a verdict or maxim. The site remains unverified in the supplied notes.

Source: original body

Source wording: words & sentences are repeated by a strange Echo to the full

sentence · sentences · local use 3

Printed “sentences” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Maxims or compact sayings offered as consolation.

Context: The worn-out quality belongs to obsolete; Burton is describing a complaint about inadequate consolation, while the preceding paragraph says philosophical aids should not be despised.

Source: original body

Source wording: a company of obsolete sentences, and familiar sayings

sentence · local use 2

Printed “sentence” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

A verdict, figuratively the beloved’s decision to favour or reject a lover.

Context: The couplet attributed in the margin to Marlowe makes her eyes judges over lovers’ life and death; the poetic claim is not a court proceeding.

Source: original body

Source wording: They wait the sentence of her scornful eys

Sentences

Printed “sentences” (English; title). Attestation: work title.

Citation convention

Peter Lombard’s theological work, named by its title.

Context: The number of commentators is a reported polemical claim attributed to Pits; it has not been independently counted.

Source: original body

Source wording: on the matter of the sentences

sententious

Printed “Sententious” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Rich in weighty or wise sayings; used here as praise.

Context: The rhetorical question about Horace contrasts literary wisdom with disparaged bodily appearance; it does not call him pompous.

Source: original body

Source wording: yet who so Sententious and wise?

sub judice

Printed “sub judice” (Latin; phrase).

Citation convention

Before a judge; figuratively still undecided.

Context: Burton reuses a judicial tag for the unresolved dispute between medical schools and moves on rather than announcing a winner.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: adhuc sub judice lis est

Modern rendering, Modern wording: the case is still before the judge

Alignment convention

Alignment convention