having affected our senses, that which has acted upon them.

"In the analysis, therefore, of the primitive judgment, whereby we form the concepts of things, i.e. ideas, there are found a subject (if, thus isolated, it may be so termed) given merely by the senses and of which we have not yet any intellectual concept, and a predicate (the idea of existence) which cannot in any manner be given by the senses, and of which, in consequence, no explanation can be afforded by those philosophers who undertake to derive all human knowledge from the senses. The problem, therefore, of Ideology is: To know how that primitive judgment whereby we intellectually perceive things felt [sensa], and so form concepts of them, is possible" (New Essay, vol. i. § 355).

The notion of being in general is

a necessary con

dition of

the cognition of particular real beings.

15.

When I say to myself that there exists any particular real being or entity, I should not understand my own meaning if I did not know what entity was. Therefore the notion of being or entity in general must be in my mind before I can pronounce any of those judgments whereby I affirm the existence of any particular real entity.

In this section and in the preceding one, Rosmini draws that distinction which is fundamental in his philosophy— the distinction between real and ideal being, or between reality and ideality. These terms are explained further on. At present it will suffice to say that by the real is. meant that which affects the senses or the sense; in other words, the felt subjective and extra-subjective. By the ideal is meant that which is purely objective, pure objectivity. The former is the term of feeling; the latter, the object of intelligence (cf. under §§ 18, 74). The following definitions, taken from the Theosophy (vol. i. § 211), * Cf. under §§ 35, 78.

may be useful here. They are explained at length, Theosophy, §§ 213-239.

"Being [essere, esse, vai, Sein] is the act of every being (beënt?) and every entity.

Being [ente, ens, ov, Seiendes] has two definitions:

(a) A subject having being (esse);

(b) Being (esse) with one or another of its terms.

Entity [entità, entitas, ovoía, Wesen] is any object of thought, regarded by the thought as one.

66

Essence, [essenza, essentia, rò τí v ɛivai, Wesenheit] is being (esse) possessed by a subject, but abstracted from the subject which possesses it (cf. under § 18).

Subject in general [subjetto in universale, subjectum, ÚTOKεíμEVOV, Gegenstand] is that which in a being (ens) or in a group of entities is conceived as the first container (primum continens) and cause of unity."

The second sentence of this section expresses a cardinal doctrine of Rosmini's system, which is, that, since all concepts are the result of a judgment requiring a subject and a predicate, and since only subjects are supplied directly by the senses, therefore the first, most simple predicate—that is, being, the pure essence of objectivity— must be present in the mind prior to the first particular concept. It may be said that the whole of the New Essay is devoted to the establishment and development of this doctrine. In the first volume, the author, after stating the purpose of the treatise and the difficulties surrounding its subject, enters into a criticism of the more important previous systems which have attempted to explain the origin of knowledge. These systems he arranges in two classes. In the first he places those that err from assigning to the mind too small a share in the production of concepts; in the second, those that err in the opposite direction. In the first he includes the systems of Locke, Condillac, Reid, and Stewart; in the second, those of Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, and Kant. His criticisms of Stewart and Kant are especially remarkable. In the second volume, after showing that we have the idea of being and explaining its nature, he proceeds to show that it cannot be derived either

from bodily sensations, from the feeling of individual existence, from reflection in Locke's sense, or from the act of perception, and concludes that it must therefore be innate. The remainder of the volume is devoted to showing how, through this one innate formal idea and the material derived from sensation, all other ideas may be formed and explained (§ 471). The third volume treats. of the criterion of certainty and its application to human cognitions and reasonings.

Sir William Hamilton (Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, vol. ii. p. 366 sq.) says, "I pronounce Existence to be a NATIVE COGNITION, because I find that I cannot think except under the condition of thinking all that I am conscious of to exist. Existence is thus a form, a category of thought." This, so far as it goes, is precisely the doctrine of Rosmini, who, however, goes farther and asserts that existence or being is the only form native to the mind, the only idea that can be thought by itself, and the only one necessary in order to explain the origin of all others (New Essay, §§ 410-412). That we cannot think without the idea of being, that being is contained in every other idea and category, is a self-evident fact. The idea of being, which forms the universal condition of thought, Rosmini finds to be objective, merely possible or ideal, simple, one, identical, universal, necessary, immutable, eternal, and indeterminate-attributes not one of which belongs to sensation. It cannot, therefore, be derived from sensation. Similar reasoning shows that it cannot be derived from any other external source open to man. Indeed, if man were placed in front of all the possible sources of knowledge, he could not draw from any of them without first having the idea of being, since without it he could not make anything an object, and therefore could not know anything. It follows from all this that the idea of being is innate.

Rosmini quotes a very striking passage from St. Bonaventura, to show that that philosopher held the same doctrine: "Mira igitur est cæcitas intellectus, qui non considerat illud quod prius videt, et sine quo nihil potest

cognoscere. Sed sicut oculus intentus in varias colorum differentias, lumen per quod videt cætera, non videt, et si videt, non tamen advertit; sic oculus mentis nostræ intentus in ista entia particularia et universalia, IPSUM ESSE EXTRA OMNE GENUS, licet primo occurrat menti, et per ipsum alia, tamen non advertit (Itiner. Mentis in Deum. cap. v.)" (New Essay, § 472, n. 2). The difference between Rosmini's view, however, and that of St. Bonaventura is very great, inasmuch as the latter does not conceive being to be an innate idea, or, indeed, an idea at all. Many philosophers, besides and before St. Bonaventura, held that the first thing known or revealed to the mind was universal being, or the universal, which is the same thing. Aristotle, for example, repeatedly says that the first in reason is the universal, whereas the first in sensation is the individual (κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὸν λόγον τὰ καθόλου πρότερα, κατὰ δὲ τὴν aïolŋσiv тà кal' kaσra (Metaph., iv. 11: 1018 b, 32.; cf. Phys., i. 5: 189 a, 5). And the same thing is asserted, though indirectly, still more strongly, in Metaph., iii. 3: 1005 b, 19 sq., in the principle of contradiction, which Aristotle regards as the most certain of all principles. Rosmini himself also quotes from St. Thomas the assertion that "the object of the intellect is common being or truth,"* and he might easily have found even a stronger statement of the same doctrine in that philosopher's commentary on the passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics last referred to. "Cum duplex sit operatio intellectus: una, qua cognoscit quid est, quæ vocatur indivisibilium intelligentia : alia, qua componit et dividit: in utroque est aliquod primum: in prima quidem operatione est aliquod primum quod cadit in conceptione intellectus, scilicet hoc quod dico ens; nec aliquid hac operatione potest mente concipi, nisi intelligatur ens. .. Hoc principium, impossibile est esse et non esse simul, dependet ex intellectu entis" (Comment. in Metaphys., lib. iv. [iii.], sect. vi.). It is plain that, according to St. Thomas, the intuition of being is innate. A large number of passages of like import will be found collected in

'Objectum intellectûs est ens vel verum commune" (Sum. Theol., i. q. 55, art. 1, concl.).

Casara's little work, La Luce dell' Occhio Corporeo e quella dell' Intelletto, pp. 17 sq.

16.

This consideration shows me that it is one thing to know what being in general is, and another to know that there is a particular real being. To know that there exists a particular real being, I must make an affirmation; while to know simply what being is, I require no such affirmation, but another act of the mind, which I shall call intuition. These two modes of knowing are clearly and fundamentally different, and are so related that intuition must precede affirmation. Human cognitions, therefore, are divisible into the two great classes, those arising from affirmation and those arising from intuition.

Being alone is cognizable per se, and constitutes cognizability itself. Hence, as our fathers said, things are cognizable in so far as they participate in being.* When we attentively consider our cognition, we discover a manifest and infinite distinction between the intuition of being and the perception of real things, the traces of which all resolve themselves into the feelings caused in us; we see that it is impossible to intuite being without understanding it, since to intuite it is to understand it: on the contrary, we see that our feelings cannot be understood by themselves—indeed, that they begin to be understood only when we regard them in relation to being, that is, as terms of being itself" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1224). The affirmation alluded to is the affirmation of being, which Rosmini distinguishes from the apprehension of the being affirmed

Unumquodque cognoscibile est in quantum est ens" (St. Thomas, Comment. in Aristot. Physica, i. 1).