object is merely ideal, being intuited by the mind, and therefore does not enter into sensation), reflection cannot modify it. The truth, on the contrary, is that there is intellective perception, which does not indeed modify it, but constitutes it for man, perception being that act of the intelligence whereby real things are immediately known, as we have already seen. Second, because neither perception. nor reflection modifies or changes objects in any way..

"(4) Even supposing that Hegelian reflection did modify objects, it is a purely gratuitous inference that he draws therefrom, when he says, 'By reflection something is changed in the way in which the content originally is in feeling. . . . It is, therefore, only by means of a change that the true nature of the object comes into consciousness.' If the object is already in sensation, and is afterwards modified in reflection, how does our philosopher know that the true nature of the object results from this modification and is not already given in sensation? What proof does he adduce? How does he justify this predilection for reflection? He offers us no intrinsic reason. But this man, who in everything else sets such small store by common sense and the ancient philosophers, and who boasts himself content with few judges, is, nevertheless, here content to have recourse to the authority of common sense and of the ancient logicians-interpreted, to be sure, in his own fashion. He assures us that it is admitted by common sense that, in order to know the true nature of things, we must elaborate the data and transform them by thought; that ancient philosophy recognized the agreement between ideas and things, and concluded that things are in themselves as they are conceived in thought. Hence, concludes our philosopher, thought is the truth of things, objective truth. That common sense, together with ancient philosophy, admits the agreement between ideas and things, is most true; but it does not, in the smallest degree, follow that thought produces things. If, instead of the equivocal, or, more correctly, subjective word thought, we put idea (and Hegel himself uses the two promiscuously, thereby rendering his whole reasoning confused), we too

shall be willing to admit that the idea is the objective truth of things. But this does not mean that the subjective thought of man produces objective truth, that is, the idea. On the contrary, the idea is itself given to the human subject to contemplate as an object, and hence it cannot be a production of thought, which does not exist without it or before it, that is, does not exist without its natural object. Hence the object, which is ideal being, is united to real things as a principle to its terms, and these are not without that principle; but terminated being, that is, being with its terms, is before human thought and independent of it, and is not by any means, as Hegel holds, a production of it. It is thus that we must interpret common sense and ancient philosophy, and not make them talk vagaries, as Hegel always does. As to pretending that common sense admits that, 'in order to know the true nature of things, thought must elaborate and transform their data,' this is equivocal talk, which may be true, but not in the sense in which Hegel means it. The phrase 'to know the true nature of things' either means the same thing as 'to know the nature of things,' and then the word true is superfluous, or else it means 'to know the inner nature of things more profoundly,' and then the word true is, to say the least, equivocal, because we may know little or much of a thing, and, in either case, the knowledge may be true; for surely the nature of a thing may be known in different degrees, more or less implicitly, and yet the knowledge may be always true. If, however, in order to know the nature of a thing more profoundly, we must more thoroughly elaborate that thing and transform the data of thought, as Hegel says, this does not mean that we must necessarily recognize as false the knowledge which we had before, but merely that, if into the knowledge which we had before there has entered any error through our wills, that error is dropped and then other explicit determinations are added to the thing. But the whole of this operation is always performed by means of the idea of being, from the womb of which is drawn all that before was virtual, and of new sensible experiences, which show

new real forces and phenomena. In this way knowledge increases, but does not change. It always increases through the two elements, the ideal and the real, given to thought and not produced by it, although thought may seek them with its own activity, in the same way as the eye may seek for the various tints in a picture, without thereby creating them" (Theosophy, vol. ii. §§ 820–826).

This passage clearly shows the position of Rosmini's philosophy, and how it steers clear of both sensism and idealism, by according to both what properly belongs to them, without allowing the one to trench upon the domain of the other. Our knowledge is not entirely made up of sensation, as the materialists hold, nor is it entirely made up of ideas, as the idealists assert; but it contains two distinct elements, both of which are absolutely and equally necessary to it. On the insufficiency of sensation account for the facts of knowledge, see an excellent essay by Professor Luigi Ferri, Sulla Dottrina Psicologica dell' Associazione, Rome, 1878 (Reale Accademia dei Lincei).

to

We have seen above, under § 15, Rosmini's definition of essence. He elsewhere says, "Essence is that which is thought in the idea of the thing. We therefore know as many essences as there are things of which we have any idea. To say that we know essences, in this sense, is a mode of speech, which will be easily understood if we make the following observation. When we say 'the essence of a thing'-for example, of tree, of man, of colour, of size, or the like, we use, in order to indicate the thing whose essence we are looking for, certain words-tree, man, colour, size, etc. Now, what are the words thus applied meant to signify? We have seen that 'words are applied to things in so far as we know these,' and if we add to them a wider signification, we abuse them, pass into darkness, among creations of fancy. When, therefore, I say tree, man, colour, size, etc., I mean things in so far as they are known to me; otherwise I could not name them. What, then, is the meaning of looking for the essence of tree, man, colour, size, etc.? Simply examining what these words mean, what idea men have attached to

them respectively. Shall I look for what they have not attached to these words? In that case I shall be looking no longer for the essence of tree, man, etc., but for the essence of something unnamed and unknown, for which I could not even make the search.

"But if this is the meaning of essence, some one will say, it is that which is included in the definition of things, neither more nor less. Precisely, and in this and in no other sense the ancients understood the term essence. 'Essentia,' says St. Thomas, 'comprehendit in se illa tantum quæ cadunt in definitione speciei' (Sum. Th., i. 3, 3)” (New Essay, vol. iii. §§ 1213, 1214).

Considerable exception might be taken to this identification of knowing what a thing is with knowing the essence of a thing. The former phrase merely implies power to distinguish by means of the senses, while the latter indicates intellectual comprehension. Many people know what a circle is who do not know its essence. Aristotle very carefully distinguished between Tò tí kσTɩ and τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, and identified the latter alone with essence (ovoía).* In the case of being, however, which is purely intellectual, the distinction does not hold, so that, in regard to it, Rosmini's language is strictly correct, although hardly felicitous.

19.

affirm a

real being,

know

But if, after knowing the essence of being, When I I affirm to myself, that is, know, that a particular particular real being exists, what do I know more than what do I' before? Before answering this question, I must more than meditate on the affirmative act whereby I arrive at this new cognition: I must scrutinize the nature and grounds of it. Why then do I affirm

* See Trendelenburg, Aristotelis De Anima, Lib. III. pp. 192 sqq.; Bonitz, Aristotelis Metaphys., pp. 311 sqq., and the authorities and passages there cited.

before?

The cause of affirmation a feeling.

The

formula for affirm

ative cognitions.

that a being exists? What causes me to do so? What is this existence? It is clear that, in many cases, if not in all, what induces me to make the affirmation is a feeling. For example, that which causes me to affirm the existence of external bodies is the sensations which they produce in me. I am induced to affirm the existence of my own body by the peculiar feelings which I have of it. Lastly, I am led by an inner sense or feeling to affirm that I myself exist. In all these cases, what makes me affirm that a particular real being exists, is feeling. Hence, in the given cases, every affirmation, every judgment whereby I affirm that a particular real being exists, may be reduced to this form: there is a feeling; therefore there exists a being.

In this section the author passes to real being, which, according to him, is presented to us only through the senses, and known to us only through a perception, involving a judgment. "Being has two modes, the ideal and the real. Ideal being is the form of cognition, real being its material" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1166). "In the state in which nature places us here below at our birth, we have no intellectual perception of anything but of ourselves and bodies. In truth, we cannot perceive the subsistence of a being unless it operate upon us, unless we feel its action. Feeling, therefore, is necessary to the intellective perception of a subsistent entity" (Ibid., § 528). "In order that our minds may perceive a thing, they must have that thing present to their perceptive powers" (Ibid., § 515). “Intellective perception is a judgment, whereby the mind affirms the subsistence of something perceived by the senses. Analyzing this act of the mind, we find that it requires three conditions: first, that the body which we are to perceive should act on our senses and hence produce