nothing, may it not be that I myself am the object of it? This also is impossible, for I am a real being, and my mind, in the case supposed, has for its object only ideal being, without any realization. Besides this, I am perfectly aware that I am not the essence of being in general, that the essence of being is the object which I intuite, whereas I am the intuiting subject, and between these two there is opposition: the one is not the other. Since then the ideal being intuited by the mind is neither nothing nor real being, we must admit that there is another mode of being besides the real, and hence that there are necessarily two modes of being, the ideal and the real. Moreover, since both, being true modes of being, may be designated by the term existence, to avoid confusion we will agree to call the real mode of being subsistence.

40.

ences be

ideas and the things known by

means of

It is plain that ideal being stands related to Differreal being, as design, model, example, type, terms tween which, in the last analysis, imply simply means of knowing, cognizability of ideal being. Now, if real beings are limited and contingent, it is plain that their reality is distinct from the idea; for the idea is immutable and unalterable, whereas real beings may either be or not be.

them.

Essence known

through idea; subsistence through affirmation

on occasion of feeling.

41.

Hence the knowledge of the essence of things differs from the knowledge of their subsistence. The former comes through the idea; the latter through affirmation on occasion of a feeling (or of some sign that takes the place of a feeling). But the knowledge of the subsistence of any particular being presupposes a knowledge of the essence of being, at least in general (§ 14). If a feeling should occur in a being who did not know what being was, this feeling would remain blind and unintelligible, because devoid of the essence which could render it intelligible. The being having it would not affirm a real being, because he would not be able to refer the feeling to the essence, or to say to himself what the feeling was. This is the condition of the lower animals, which, though they have feelings, are without the intuition of being. For this reason they are utterly incapable of interpreting to themselves their own feelings, or of completing them by saying to themselves that there are real beings. We, on the contrary, having a knowledge of being, as soon as we have a feeling, declare that there is a real being.

The relation of the ideal to the real may be considered either from an ontological or from a psychological point of view. The former is treated farther on (see §§ 166, sqq.). The latter is the one under consideration in the above three sections, from which it appears that ideal being is different from real being, and serves to make it known.

Analysis of human cognition, according to Rosmini, shows us, "first, that every contingent thing has two modes of being-one in the mind and one outside of it; second, that the mode of being which is in the mind is potential (ovvá), that the mode which is outside the mind is the act (ivέpyɛia) of the same identical essence that is seen by the mind; third, that, hence, there is in the mind a perfect similitude of the thing which is outside of the mind -a similitude such that, though it is not identical with the thing in respect to its act of reality, it does not numerically differ from the thing to which that act belongs, but is its beginning, and constitutes its species and intelligibility; fourth, that if we consider things (limited and contingent) as separate from mind, they are not only unknown, but even per se unknowable, and their relation to the mind is not in them, but in the mind, as a similitude, which is nothing more or less than their ideal being, a determination of universal being, the fountain of all ideas and of all cognizability, as being that which alone is cognizable in itself; fifth, that limited and contingent things, being only so many acts and terms of the common being intuited by the mind, may be considered separately from that being, in which case they are said to subsist outside of the mind, and are called real things; sixth, and finally, that even if the reality and ideality of things were identical, which is not the case (the thing alone being identical, not the mode of being), still the thing would never confound itself with the act of the mind nor with the subject that possesses it, because the idea itself is essentially object, distinct from the thinking subject, and opposed to it. Real things, therefore, cannot in any way, without violence done to language, be confounded with ideas; still less can they be confounded with the mind that perceives them, because the separation and real distinction of these three entities is contained in their definition" (New Essay, vol. iii. §§ 1192, 1193). "In the idea is seen the essence, not of the ideal, but of being, and being is identical under the ideal and under the real form. Now, the idea is nothing else than being intuited by the mind, in its own proper

I

essence, which is eternal. But this essence at one time contains the realization of being, and then it is infinite being-God, who is not seen [cf. under § 21]; at another, it does not contain this realization, and then it is ideal being, to which is referred the realization which we learn in feeling. For this reason, the known real thing is merely ideal being realized, so that the object of knowledge results from two elements . . . first, the ideal; second, the_real ;— the latter being, as it were, the complement of the former. The ideal, therefore, is representative, not, indeed, as one real thing is representative of another; for example, a statue, of a man; but as the essence of a thing represents the thing realized, which thing is not disjoined from its essence. If it were so disjoined, it would no longer be a complete being. Therefore the essence is the act by which the being is in the ideal world, the realization another act of the same being, whereby it is in the feeling (that is, either feels or is felt) which unites with it in the perceiving mind (spirito) as its complement. And here it must be borne in mind that existence in the mind does not cancel existence in itself, but, on the contrary, constitutes it" (Psychology, vol. ii. § 1339).

How in perception we unite ideal being with feel

ing.

42.

But since feeling is a reality distinct from the essence which renders it cognizable, we must now inquire how we are able to put together these two elements of the being perceived. In order to understand this, we must have recourse to the unity of man, or the simplicity of the human spirit. The ego, that principle which knows what being is, is the same as that which feels in itself the action of it (feeling is only an action of being). So long as this action or feeling is kept apart from the knowledge of being, so long it remains

unknown. But this principle, being entirely simple, though at once intelligent and sentient, is obliged, by reason of this very simplicity, to bring together its feelings and the knowledge of being, and in this way it sees being operating, that is, producing feeling, in itself. It is the same being that, on the one hand, manifests itself to us as knowable, and on the other, as active, producing feeling. And here let it be observed that all the activity of being is reducible to its entity. It exists in this entity as in its spring. It is active being itself, and, as all being is cognizable, so all its activity is cognizable in it. Therefore, feeling, which is this activity, is cognizable in being. Before being acts, this activity is only potentially cognizable because it exists only potentially. Before being acts in a determinate mode (producing feeling), this mode is potential and not determined as one mode rather than another; hence its activity, when known only potentially, is indeterminate. For this reason, ideal being is called indeterminate being.

This section contains the gist of Rosmini's theory of cognition (Erkenntnisstheorie), or, as he calls it, intellective perception. The passages which might be cited in explanation of it from his various works, New Essay, Psychology, Logic, Theosophy, etc., are almost innumerable. The following must here suffice. In regard to the unity of the intelligent and sentient subject, he says, "There remains the last difficulty. . . . How can the sentient principle and the intelligent principle be a single principle in man? In order to answer this question, let us revert to our doctrine of substance [see §§ 93-97]. We said that substance is