which is beyond our experience. Now, the feeling of this principle belongs to that entity which to us is a foreign term, and, therefore, that too comes within the domain of feeling. But that entity which to us is a foreign term is not felt by its own principle as it is felt by us,* because by us it is felt as foreign and devoid of all principle of its own, is felt solely in so far as it acts by exciting a feeling in the principle foreign to it, which feeling is entirely different from the feeling felt by its own principle. Indeed, the two sentient principles in question are altogether different. Hence, in the term of our feeling three things must be distinguished: first, the term actually felt, and this is what receives a name and is talked about—for example, the name body; second, the supposed matter, which is not felt-an abstract entity formed by the removal from the felt of the quality of being felt, after which there remains an unknown something, which is known only as capable of being felt; third, the matter felt, not by us, but by its own principle, with a feeling totally different from ours. This matter, accordingly, which lies between the two feelings, is considered as matter identical in the two. But, properly speaking, it has no existence apart from the two sentients. It is merely a sort of figment of our limited mode of conceiving, and, therefore, is not even identical in the two feelings. On the contrary, the feeling felt by its own principle has no matter, since the felt is the feeling itself. Nevertheless, the concept of this matter formed by our limited minds, or constituting, at least, the negation of them, is not entirely useless, inasmuch as, in connection with our own feeling, it points to a truth, namely, that our feeling presupposes and demands an entity beyond what it feels, an entity which remains entirely unknown to experience, and which is called the matter of feeling, because its relation to feeling is the only thing we know about it. However, we should fall into error, were we to suppose that this something lying beyond what we feel bore any

*This completely disposes of Mamiani's objection to the sensivity of matter. Rosmini, of course, does not mean that a fruit feels its own sweetness, or a stone its own weight. See Confessioni di un Metafisico, vol. i. pp. 44 sq.

resemblance to that feeling. Hence, the concept of this matter does not help us to know what that matter is in itself, but merely to know that there is a real entity (of unknown nature) standing in sensible contact. with our sentient principle, which contact is the origin of what we feel. Now, this negative concept is the concept of a pure, abstract reality, which is something anterior to feeling, and for that reason denominated pure, as being that whereby we begin to know reality. Such knowledge is, of course, relative and imperfect.

"Fourth, that in every feeling, as well as in every felt, there is an activity. Now, abstraction is wont to separate even the activity of feeling from feeling itself, and to give to this activity the name of pure reality, that is, reality separated from the feeling which completes it. But here, too, we must beware of taking the products of abstraction for self-existent entities, for real beings. The truth in regard to feeling is, that, when we set aside the foreign terms, its activity itself is feeling" (Theosophy, vol. v. p. 145. sq., cap. xxxviii.). On the meaning of principle and term, see under §§ 15, 18.

23.

between

of being

activity

When we affirm that the essence of being is Identity. realized in a felt activity, we affirm that a real the essence being exists. Hence to know the existence of and the a real being is to affirm a kind of identity between manifested the essence of being and the activity manifested in feeling.

This is one of the cardinal points of the system. All that we mean when we assert a thing to be real, is that what we feel on any particular occasion is. By thus placing a feeling in being, we separate it from our subjective self, and regard it as having an existence of its own (see under § 32). In this way it becomes to us a

in feeling.

reality, whereof the being which we impart is the substance (see §§ 88, sq.), and the feeling the attribute or determination. The phrase "manifested in feeling" is not, strictly speaking, correct. Feeling, as such, has no power of manifestation.

"Although ideal being can never be confounded with real being, yet the connection between the two is wonderful. It is such that, if the two are taken together, they form but one and the same identical being, having two modes, or, as we might say, two original and primitive. forms. Hence it is more correct to say the ideal mode or the real mode of being, than to say ideal being and real being, as if they were two. And even common sense shows that it knows perfectly this conjunction, this basis of identity, between the ideal and the real, by the way in which it imposes and uses terms; for it does not impose on each thing two names, but one, and with this one it is wont to express both the ideal being of a thing and its real being. For example, the word house was invented to signify both the house which the architect imagines and builds in his mind and the house which adorns the public square of a city" (La Sapienza, ii. 7, p. 401, sqq.).

This identity

is imperfect.

24.

This identity, indeed, is not complete, inasmuch as no activity, whether felt or feeling (sentient), ever exhausts the essence of being; hence the innumerable feelings which make us affirm the existence of so many real beings different from each other. In regard to each we affirm that it exists. Of each we affirm the same thing: in each we recognize the essence of being. This recognizing of the essence of being in each is the same thing as saying that the essence of each of these beings which we affirm is identical with the essence of

planation

of "uni

being which we knew before by intuition, and that, too, in spite of the fact that they are all different beings. We must, therefore, admit that, however different they may be in other respects, inasmuch as they are all beings, they have one common element, the essence of being. Let it be noted that in all this we only observe and Fuller exanalyze the fact of the cognition of real beings, of meaning without drawing any conclusions from it. Still, versal now that we know that the essence of being is being." realized in all the reality of the real beings which we affirm, we can better understand the meaning of the phrase universal being employed by us. Being is universal in this sense, that it may be realized in many particular beings, and that we know all real beings by it alone. This universality, therefore, is not in it, but is a relation in which it stands to real beings.

That the universality of ideas lies in their application, and not in their nature, is a doctrine often insisted on by Rosmini. "Any one who has clearly understood the nature of the idea of being must have observed that mental being is at once particular and universal; indeed, that it is particular, that is, singular, long before it is universal. And surely we have shown that a universal means nothing else but a relation of similitude between one thing and many. Now, before a thing can be considered in a relation of similitude with many, it must first have been considered or perceived in itself, and hence in its singularity. The unity of a thing, therefore, which, as we have elsewhere said, is identical with its existence, precedes the consideration of its universality. Hence, we may say with truth, that, when we begin with being, we begin with a singular, inasmuch as it is singular in itself, while at the same time it is a light

diffusing itself universally on all cognizable things. This reflection has special force as applied to the idea of being. In fact, ideal being is in the highest degree simple, essentially one, the principle of unity in all things, and, hence, not only singular in itself, but also the source of all true unity and singularity" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1474; compare citation under § 17). Rosmini defines universality thus: "By universality we mean that quality which the mind discovers in an entity conceived by it, by which quality that entity can exist in an infinite number of individuals, always remaining identical." Setting out from this definition, he concludes:

"First, that precategorical absolute being cannot, properly speaking, be said to be universal, because it does not exist in an infinite number of modes, but only in the three categoric modes (cf. below, under § 166).

"Second, that universality is something different from identity, since the former can exist without the latter. Thus, absolute being, in so far as it is ideal, is single, and therefore not universal, and its realization is not merely possible, but actual.

"Third, that being, intuited without the terms that complete it, is that which has the greatest universality, that in which, as in its native seat, universality resides, in which exists first universality, that from which all universality flows to every other entity.

"Fourth, that, nevertheless, the universality which flows from initial being, or being separated by the act of the mind from its terms, to other conceivable entities, appears in two shapes" (Theosophy, vol. v. p. 95, n.). The two kinds of universality here referred to are the generic and the relational. The former belongs to all forms or ideas, the latter to matter considered in itself.

Elsewhere Rosmini says, "This word universal expresses a relation of manifesting being to the things manifested, and this relation is discovered only by the reflection of the philosopher, who has advanced far enough to confront manifesting being with the things manifested, and to bring out the fact that the former is the means whereby