that such an individual should actually exist, without yet knowing that it does really exist, it has the idea of specific substance, an exemplary idea, or one reducible to an exemplary idea. . .

"Hence, in the three ideas of substance, there is always thought a thing entirely determined as being, and lacking nothing but subsistence, which thing I call individual. . . . If I think the energy by which an individual may subsist, I think substance in general; if I think the energy whereby an individual of a given genus may subsist, I think generic substance; if I think the energy whereby an individual of a given species may exist, I think specific substance. Idea of substance in general, idea of generic substance, idea of specific substance, are always ideas of the energy which constitutes actual existence, which can be only individual.

"I cannot think the actual existence of a being without at the same time thinking that this being may receive all the determinations which it requires in order to exist. The idea of an individual, therefore, is intimately connected with, and comprised in, the idea of substance, so that an explanation of the origin of the one explains the origin of the other. Now, there cannot exist in our minds any other ideas of substance or individual besides these three, that is, the universal, the generic, and the specific. We must, therefore, describe the origin of each of these.

"Supposing such description given, we should not even then have offered an explanation of all the thoughts which we think regarding substances. Besides ideas, we form judg ments respecting the real subsistence of substances. . . . The act whereby we pronounce 'a thing subsists' is an operation of the mind (spirito), essentially different from simple intuition; it is an operation which unites to the idea of the thing the persuasion of, or belief in, the subsistence of what was previously thought as possible. Hence, as we have three ideas of substance, so also we may form three judgments regarding their subsistence: (1) That there subsists a substance simply; (2) that there subsists a substance of a given genus; (3) that there subsists a substance of a given species. . . .

"Of all these ideas and of all these judgments we must describe the origin, or show their mode of possibility in the human mind. In order to facilitate this undertaking, let us see if we can in some measure contract the limits of our investigations. . . . In the first place, our path is shortened by the connection in which the three ideas stand to each other. They are, indeed, united in such a way that the one is engendered from the other. the origin of one, we explain that of all.

Hence, if we explain

"In order to see this, let us begin with the idea of specific substance. Now, in order to obtain the ideas of generic and universal substance, we have only to abstract them from this. . . . Hence, if we explain the idea of specific substance, we explain also the other two. . . . Whence, then, comes the idea of specific substance? In searching for the origin of this idea, we find that it is connected with judgments which we form regarding the subsistence of beings-a connection which still further limits the field of our investigations; since, when we have understood this connection, we shall see that with one explanation we have answered not only the question, What is the origin of the idea of specific subsistence ? but also the question, What is the origin of the judgments which we make respecting the subsistence of substances?

"The judgments which we form respecting the subsistence of substances are, as we have said, three. Let us show the nexus between them, and how the difficulties in all three may be reduced to one. In judging that there subsists (1) any individual being, (2) an individual of a certain genus, or (3) an individual of a ċertain species, we must be moved by some ground.

"This ground, which determines us to affirm the subsistence of individuals, is the ground of our perception of the same. When this is found, those judgments are explained, that is, we see how they may be formed by our minds. This shows that in all these three kinds of judgment, the difficulty to be overcome is one and the same, and consists in showing plainly what is our ground. for saying to ourselves, This individual subsists. We must

therefore, first, indicate the mode in which we form the idea of specific substance; second, show what is the ground that leads us to judge respecting the subsistence of substances. To this simplicity we have reduced our inquiry. But it may be simplified still further, if we consider the nexus between the two questions. Let us suppose we know the ground that moves us to posit the subsistence of an individual. On this ground, we say to ourselves, This individual subsists. Now, in our perception of this individual there is already included the idea of substance, since, inasmuch as substance is merely the energy by which a being exists, we cannot conceive a subsistent being without conceiving along with it the energy whereby it exists, and this is its substance. The two questions, therefore, reduce themselves to one: How can I pronounce a judgment on the subsistence of a being? When, indeed, I make this judgment and thus perceive this being, I at the same time perceive its substance, and hence easily form, or rather, have already formed, the idea of it" (New Essay, vol. ii. §§ 589-596).

It follows, of course, from this, that substance is merely the ideal being which we unite to sensations in the act of intellective perception, thereby giving them objectivity. Substance, therefore, is merely objective being, the form of the mind. It may be supposed from this that substance, being synonymous with ideal being, is a mere abstraction, a mere mental figment. Rosmini, however, is very far from considering either the one or the other in this light. According to him, an abstraction is not necessarily a mental product. He says, "When I call the idea of universal being most abstract, I do not mean that it is produced by the operation of abstraction, but only that it is, in its nature, abstract and separate from all subsistent beings" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1455). This is a point of extreme importance.

It is curious to observe to what strange consequences Herbert Spencer has been led by a failure to reach the truth respecting the nature of the idea of substance. "Existence," says this distinguished biologist, " means

nothing more than persistence; and hence in mind that which persists in spite of all changes, and maintains the unity of the aggregate in defiance of all attempts to divide it, is that of which existence in the full sense of the word must be predicated-that which we must postulate as the substance of mind in contradistinction to the varying forms it assumes. But, if so, the impossibility of knowing the substance of mind is manifest. By the definition, it is that which undergoes the modification producing a state of mind. Consequently, if every state of mind is some modification of this substance of mind, there can be no state of mind in which the unmodified substance of mind is present" (Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pt. ii. ch. i. § 59).

This would seem very cogent reasoning. Let us consider it. The substance of mind is its persistent element. Admitted. But how do we ever come to know that there is in the mind a persistent element? It must be, of course, by some modification, producing a state of mind. But what modification of mind could produce a state corresponding to permanency? By the very definition, no modification is permanent, and since modifications alone produce states of mind, there can be no state permanent. Hence it would be utterly impossible for the mind ever to discover that it had a permanent element, that is, to recognize its own persistent identity. Again, since in no modification of mind its unmodified substance can appear, à fortiori, in no modification of mind can any other modification of the substance of mind appear. It will follow directly that the mind can never know any past modification, and hence that it can have no continuity of consciousness and no memory. The source of the error which leads Spencer to these manifestly false results is very evident. Is knowledge a mere state of mind, a modification of its substance? If it were so, there would be absolutely no difference between sensation and knowledge, for no one will question that sensation is a modification of the substance of mind. It would follow from this that pain and the knowledge of pain were the same thing, and that the only way to know or think of a toothache would be to have one. But this is

obviously untrue. Hence, knowledge is not mere sensation,
and, therefore, not merely a modification of the substance
of mind. If we ask wherein knowledge differs from sensa-
tion, the most simple reply is, that knowledge always has
an object, whereas sensation, in so far, at least, as it is a
modification of the substance of mind or a mental state,
never has an object. To speak of the object of a modifica-
tion or of a state would be a patent absurdity. Nothing is
known until it is made an object, that is, until it ceases to
be a modification and state of the subject, and becomes a
permanent something altogether independent of subjective
states. If this be the case, there is no reason why the
mind should not make itself, with or without its modi-
fications, an object to itself, and, abstracting from these
modifications, if need be, think its substance unmodified.
But, after this operation was performed, how would the
substance of mind, being without modifications and there-
fore without distinguishing marks, differ from any other
substance? What would it be more than simple being, the
element which every object of thought must have in order
to be thought? But surely we know what being is. If we
did not, we should not know anything, for nothing is
known except as being. We could not even put the
question, What is being? without already knowing what
it was.
The question implies that we desire an answer in
terms of being. It thus appears that we know what
substance unmodified is, and since we know the modi-
fications that distinguish the substance of mind, we know
even its specific substance. What we do not know is, how
these modifications are connected, how substance comes
to be modified in this particular way. But there is no
apparent reason why we should not discover this, and
therefore no ground for dogmatic agnosticism with refer-
ence to spiritual entities.

We can

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89.

We saw ($74) that in all our sensations of body there are three activities: first, the activity