am not obliged to deceive myself. Who obliges me to say I feel what I do not feel, or to say I feel more, or less, or otherwise than I feel?

"The universal principle of all application of human reason to the facts furnished by feeling is this: The known fact must form an equation with the form of the reason. Now, it is plain that, if the knowledge of the fact is equal to the form of the reason, the former being justified, the latter is so likewise and therefore certain" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1169; cf. above, §§ 23, 24).

According to Rosmini, all error is voluntary.

"Error,"

he says, " occurs only in reflection, and only after the point at which reflection begins to be voluntary" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1279). "There is error every time that, with our assent, we attribute to a subject a predicate which does not belong to it. Therefore, the point at which error occurs is the nexus between the predicate and the subject. We may fall into error without being able to formulate the judgment to which we give assent, and without being able to say where our error lies, because the power to do either of these things demands a reflection superior to that of the particular error into which we fall. Erroneous assents are usually due to some imperfect reflection. But reflection is moved by the will, either habitually and virtually,* or else actually; it is also influenced, excited, and moved by external agents. Hence the causes of error are of three kinds: first, those which are due to the understanding, and arise from the imperfect manner in which reflection operates disposing causes; second, those which are due to the will, principally in its habitual state-efficient causes; third, those which are due to external events and circumstances which influence the will-exciting causes" (Logic, §§ 244-246). "The judgment . . . may be irresistibly seduced. This does not mean that, when the truth stands before our minds, we may be obliged to mistake it, but

* Perhaps better, from a habit or virtue. In Aristotle's language, "dià συνήθειαν ἀπὸ ἕξεως ” (Rhet., i. 1; 1354 a, 7).

that we may fall into error from the destruction or confusion of our vision. . . . Error is, in the last analysis, always ignorance: he who errs must always first have been subject to some confusion of ideas and mental operations; finally, he who errs does not properly judge, but prejudges -concludes before he has confronted the two terms of the judgment and perceived their relation" (Anthropology, § 738).

We have a faculty

for affirming exactly what we feel, and

this faculty is only another function of the faculty whereby we affirm being

apart from its modes.

68.

If I had never experienced but one feeling, it would be impossible for me to imagine another, or in any way to alter the one I had. Hence I have in me the faculty of affirming feeling as I feel it this is the faculty with which nature endows me. If I deceive myself, it is because I do not make proper use of this natural faculty, but call in another to disturb and confuse it. I need be in no doubt that I possess this faculty of attesting to myself exactly what I feel, if I reflect that this faculty is but a new use, a new function, of a faculty which I previously recognized as infallible-the faculty whereby I affirm being apart from its modes. To affirm being is to recognize the identity between feeling and the essence of being (§§ 23, 24); therefore, inasmuch as being is realized in every, even the smallest, activity of feeling, I may in every one affirm it with infallible certitude. But when I affirm being in all the activities of a feeling, I affirm the entire mode of the feeling, neither more nor less. If this be true, I possess a faculty which enables me to affirm with certainty even the modes of being.

arises not

faculty,

of error,

which I

This faculty is infallible, and, if I deceive myself, Deception my error must arise not from this faculty, but from this from another which I substitute for it, and which but from the faculty for the present I shall call simply Faculty of Error. Inasmuch, then, as the judgments which allow to I make with regard to the modes of being which I perceive are neither necessarily true nor necessarily false, it follows that the error in question is one that may be avoided, but also one that may be incurred.

"When we give our assent, moved by a false ground, then we give it by an act of will, since we act in virtue of a supposed ground (regione opinata). But the false ground must have been accepted as true, either by means of a blind, instinctive assent, or through an act of free will, which declared the true false and the false true. In this latter case, in which free will declares a false ground true, that is, gives a false assent, this false assent is given from a motive of interest, which does not prove the truth of that ground. . . . This free will, which, instead of following the ground presented by the intelligence, creates one (a false one) of its own, by putting itself in the place of intelligence, is the faculty of error. The force of this faculty. of error is such that no limits can be assigned to it; and the history of humanity shows that, under certain conditions, it goes so far as to give assent to the most strange and incredible things, and to deny it to the most credible and certain" (Logic, §§ 139, 140; cf. § 288).

St. Thomas, speaking of faith or belief, as distinguished from the other acts of intelligence, says, “Sed actus qui est credere, habet firmam adhæsionem ad unam partem, in quo convenit credens cum sciente et intelligente; et tamen ejus cognitio non est perfecta per manifestam visionem, in quo convenit cum dubitante suspicante et opinante: et sic proprium est credentis, ut cum assensu cogitet. Propter hoc distinguitur iste actus qui est credere ab omnibus ac

disturb it.

The error possible in the perception of real being.

Perception is followed by reflection, which tries to determine the exact

mode of

the perceived being.

Error begins with reflection

and keeps pace with the complication

and extent of it.

tibus intellectus, qui sunt circum verum et falsum. Intellectus credentis determinatur ad unum, non per rationem, sed per voluntatem" (Sum. Theol., ii.2, q. 2, art. 1). "Voluntas movet intellectum et alias vires animæ in finem; et secundum hoc ponitur actus fidei credere in Deum" (Ibid., art. 2).

69.

May such error, then, always be avoided? Yes, provided we are willing to use the necessary precautions; but, before speaking of these, let us make one observation. The error in question does not occur properly in the perception of real being. The perception of real being takes place as soon as, on occasion of a feeling, we have affirmed it. Then comes reflection, and undertakes to determine and pronounce the exact mode and extent of the perceived being. But, in order to do this, it is obliged not only to fix its attention upon the feeling in all its parts, but also to compare it with other feelings and other beings. Thus, the perception of real beings is infallible ; and error enters only where reflection upon perception begins. The broader, higher, and more complicated the reflection, the greater, of course, are the chances of error. I have said that, in order to determine the mode and degree of a feeling, we are obliged not only to consider carefully the feeling itself, but also to compare it with other feelings and other beings previously perceived. The reason of this is, that the measure with which such judgments deal is never absolute,

but always relative. If we perceived but one quantity, and had no other to compare it with, we should never be able to pronounce any judgment regarding it, or even to invent a name for it. If, therefore, we entirely exclude reflection, which always tends to measure feeling by comparison, we may readily conceive a kind of observation or intellectual attention which should lay hold of a feeling without pronouncing anything in regard to it beyond the simple act of perception. The judgment in this case would be as infallible as the perception itself, of which, indeed, it is but a part. The perception, then, has two forms, which, if we choose, we may designate thus: (1) perception which pronounces the existence of a real being determined by feeling, and nothing more; (2) perception which pronounces the presence of a real being and of the feeling which determines it, without referring it to any other feeling.

Since all error lies in reflection, that is, in the analysis of what unerring nature presents to the mind, it is important to know exactly what reflection is. "Reflection," says Rosmini, "is a voluntary attention directed to our conceptions, an attention governed by an aim, which aim presupposes an intellectual being, capable of knowing such aim, and so of proposing it to himself. By reflection, therefore, ideas of relation are formed, and ideas grouped (synthesis) or segregated (analysis). And when we use reflection to analyze an idea and to separate what is common in it from what is proper, then we perform that operation which is called abstraction. All these are functions of reflection" (New Essay, vol. ii. §§ 488, 489; cf.