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sensations and nothing more. There is no comparison between them, or relation of any kind. These facts, cognized, as the very improper expression is, by the sense alone, can neither be written nor spoken, because language has no individual words fitted to express them, and because, if I joined them to some sensible sign, in order to make them speakable, I should be obliged to make some reflection on them, which is contrary to the hypothesis that I know them through my senses alone. Experience, therefore, must be the facts as really known. But into this knowledge there enters necessarily intelligence, which adds to the facts a certain universality, considering them in relation to being, and, through being, in relation to each other, and, in this way, forming classes or species. This is certainly the only kind of experience that can or does produce our cognitions. But if this is the experience which we mean when we say that all our cognitions come from experience, we must, first of all, inquire, What is intellectual cognition of facts? What is that intellect with which we form, or at least complete, this experience? How must such a faculty of cognizing be constituted, in order that it may be able to produce such experience? This last question is equivalent to, What must the intellect have that is innate? or, What are the conditions under which the experience we speak of is possible?" (New Essay, vol. ii. § 398). What would Rosmini have said to those philosophers who define Logic as "the science of the laws of thought," without ever inquiring, What is thought?

5.

forms of

quiet.

The mental rest or quiet here meant is only Different a scientific quiet, which the inquiring mind reaches mental when it finds scientific replies to its own inevitable interrogations. But it must not be supposed that the mind always puts such interrogations to itself. Many minds never do so at all, or, if they do, at

least put far fewer than they might put. The mind which does not question itself at all enjoys rest and quiet. The same is true of the mind, which questions itself up to a certain point and no further, as soon as it has found replies to its limited number of interrogations, although it may not have arrived at ultimate reasons, these not being essential to its quiet. Hence the science of ultimate grounds, that is, philosophy, is not necessary to the mental quiet of the majority of mankind, who content themselves with a much more limited kind of cognition. Such cognition, though not philosophical, may be true and certain, and may thus afford a most reasonable persuasion.

The distinction here drawn between the two kinds of mental satisfaction is a most important one, involving not only the whole distinction between reason and faith, but the whole question of the nature of assent. To this latter subject Rosmini devotes the first book of his Logic (pp. 9-85), the most original part of the whole work. A few sentences from this treatise will make the distinction clearer. "Assent is the act with which a man adheres voluntarily to the object which stands before his intelligence. To assent to an object means to affirm it with subjective authority (efficacia, § 85). "Assent is not one of those acts of the spirit which produce new cognitions, but it is an act by which a person appropriates the cognitions which stand before him. We are in the habit, nevertheless, of saying that assent produces cognitions, because by means of it a person makes cognitions his, and obtains persuasion * of

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*Persuasione. After some hesitation, I have concluded to render this word by its etymological equivalent, although in many cases conviction would have read better. Rosmini distinguishes the two. "To convince," he says, "is to give a man demonstrated cognitions, and regards the intellect; to persuade is to move the will to assent" (Logic, § 1144).

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them (§ 86). "Assent is a species of judgment; but not all judgments are assents. Judgments are of two kinds, ideal and real. Ideal judgments are those which present themselves to the mind as possible, without assent or dissent on the part of the person to whom they are presented. Real judgments are those which, after being presented to the mind as possible, receive assent" (§ 87). Possible judgments are of two kinds, those which are composed of mere ideas, as, The genus is more extensive than the species; and those which are composed of ideas and realities, as, Rome exists" (§ 88). "Hence, assent is that act whereby a man produces real judgments, . . . which he does only after having discovered by intuition the possible judgments" (§ 89). "Between the possible judgment and the assent there lies the question, Shall I assent to the possible judgment?" ($93). "So long as the question lasts, . . . and is not answered by assent, there is a mental condition which is termed ignorance' (§ 96). "The effect which assent produces in the mind (animo) is persuasion, that is, persuasion that the judgment assented to, whether positive or negative, is true. Persuasion is not cognition. On the contrary, there are erroneous persuasions produced by assents given to ideal judgments" (§ 102). "This appropriation of cognition, termed persuasion, and performed by means of assent, is usually denominated subjective cognition, the term objective cognition being reserved for the cognition, properly so called, which precedes the assent" (§ 103). "Subjective cognition adds nothing to objective cognition, but it adds something to the subject, namely, the persuasion of that cognition" (§ 104). "To what faculty does assent belong? To the will or to the understanding?" (§ 129). "We reply that the power of assent is a special function, which must be accurately distinguished from both understanding and will" (§ 130). "The subject performs certain acts by means of its faculties, others directly through itself, without employing any faculty. . . . The act of affirming what it understands the subject performs directly through itself, since in that act it does nothing but accommodate itself

to what it understands" (§ 131). "A man cannot give assent to a possible judgment present to his mind (spirito), unless he sees an efficient ground which attests its truth. What then is a ground? By ground we mean, that light which enables the mind to know that what any given judgment affirms in the order of possibility, IS" (§ 188). "Be it observed that this IS signifies the truth of the affirmation, because, if a thing is, it is true" (§ 189). "This light is logical necessity" (§ 191). "The grounds which justify assent to any possible judgment are either intrinsic or extrinsic" (§ 193). "Evident judgments are those which are made in regard to the idea of being and its immediate applications" (§ 196). "The extrinsic grounds which show the truth of possible judgments and render assent to them obligatory are—(1) primitive judgments with respect to all judgments which are not primitive but derivative; (2) an infallible authority" (§ 212). "Authority, in its proper sense, means the external testimony which a trustworthy person renders to the truth of a possible judgment" (§ 215). "That which induces a subject to give an assent is (a) either an instinct, not guided by any ground, as when the assent is determined by the instinct of the marvellous; or (b) a purely spontaneous act of will, such as takes place in perceptions and in all voluntary assents given without reflection; or (c) an act of free will, which chooses between the ground for assent and that for non assent, a choice which always takes place in the order of reflection; or (d) an act of free will, which creates or forges a reason, in accordance with which the assent is given in the same way as happens in formal errors, which likewise belong to the order of reflection" (§ 221). "By means of reflection, the will becomes free from necessity. The force of free volition, under certain conditions, overpowers instinct and voluntary spontaneity. By means of this force, a person may prevent instinctive assent" (§ 222). "Gratuitous assent is different from that assent which a man gives without being able to assign a ground to himself or to other people. .. The really gratuitous assents . . . are those which have no ground, but are determined by blind cause” (§ 226).

"There is error every time that there is attributed to a subject a predicate which does not belong to it. Hence the point where the error lies is the nexus between the predicate and the subject" (§ 244). Much to the same effect may be found in Dr. Newman's Grammar of Assent.

6.

knowing.

But this lower form of mental quiet is not Popular and philo. necessarily lasting. A mind possessed by strong sophical and firm convictions, of which it has never examined the ultimate grounds, may suddenly find itself confronted by an ultimate why. Will it then remain in a state of unquiet and uncertainty, until it has found the needed reply? Here we must distinguish between repose of mind and repose of spirit. The former demands demonstration, the latter only persuasion; and these are two widely different things. Demonstration has something necessary, almost fatal, about it, while persuasion has much that is voluntary. Hence it is that a man may have firm persuasions, without being able to assign the precise grounds of them. Moreover, among these unreasoned convictions there are some that are blind, and some that are rational. Blind convictions are arbitrary, groundless, and often erroneous, although, by accident, they may be true. Rational persuasions, which a man holds, without being able to assign the grounds of them, are such as rest upon really solid grounds, known indeed directly, and comprehended sufficiently to command assent, but not sufficiently analyzed by reflection to enable him

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