ment, distinguishes, but does not separate, its elements. Subject and predicate do not exist prior to the judgment, but are formed in the act of judg ment. 130 In tion into subject and predicate, it does not in Let us now apply this reasoning to our affirmation: Being is realized in this feeling, or, The activity of this feeling is a being. Analyzing it, I Analyzing it, I say that the feeling is the subject and being the predicate, and, in so doing, I simply express what I find in the judgment itself. But, of course, if I take the feeling out of the judgment, and thus destroy the judgment, the feeling ceases to be subject, being altogether unknown to me. The objection advanced, therefore, though plausible, is without foundation, being based upon a false premise, viz., that the subject must exist as subject before the formation of the judgment, whereas the truth is, that it is in all cases the judgment itself that produces it. It follows from this that judgment, in its proper and ordinary sense, belongs to Logic, which Rosmini calls "the art of reflection" (Logic, § 69), and not to Ideology. That which enables us to make judgments, namely, the primitive, spontaneous synthesis of being and sensation -in other words, direct cognition-belongs to Ideology, whereas the analysis of that synthesis by reflection—in other words, reflexive cognition-belongs to Logic. "The understanding," says Rosmini," forms perceptions and such ideas as are consequent on these, in an instinctive and natural manner, and, for that reason, is not liable to error; for nature does not err.* But we must now distinguish these involuntary first cognitions from those which come afterwards and are voluntary. The first form direct, the second reflexive, cognition. . . . Direct cognition is purely synthetic, whereas reflexive cognition is also analytic. In reflection we turn back upon what we before perceived directly, analyzing it, decomposing it, considering it in parts, and, after having decomposed it, again recomposing it according * Cf. Aristotle, Phys., viii. 1; 252 a, 12 sq.: “Aλλà μùv ovdév ye ǎTAKTOV τῶν φύσει καὶ κατὰ φύσιν· ἡ γὰρ φύσις αἰτία πᾶσι τάξεως.” Difference between primitive affirma tions and other judg ments. as we will; whereas in perception we embrace the whole thing in its entirety, with a simple act and as if it were a simple object. Through this first intellective apprehension we distinguish no particular element of the thing perceived, because the nature of our intelligence is limited by this law, that it requires a plurality of acts to distinguish a plurality of things, and cannot distinguish one thing from another without a negation, which must always be preceded by an affirmation. At first, therefore, we perceive the thing as a whole; afterwards, by means of reflection, we pass on to analyze it. Considering things in parts brings us new clearness, whereas the first complex perception appears to us confused and imperfect.* This is the reason why the latter altogether escapes the notice of those who do not carefully observe how the act of thinking takes place in their own consciousness. . . . Hence reflexive cognition may be called recognition rather than cognition" (New Essay, vol. iii. §§ 1258, 1259, 1261). 48. The sole difference between the affirmation whereby we arrive at a knowledge of real beings and other judgments consists in this, that in all other judgments the subject and predicate, though not known as subject and predicate before the formation of the judgment, are known in other ways, whereas the subject feeling is not known in any way previous to the affirmation of real being. But this difference does not render the * Aristotle expresses this thought very happily in the beginning of his Physics : “ Διόπερ ἀνάγκη τον τρόπον τοῦτον προάγειν ἐκ τῶν ἀσαφεστέρων μὲν τῇ φύσει ἡμῖν δὲ σαφεστέρων ἐπὶ τὰ σαφέστερα τῇ φύσει καὶ γνωριμώτερα, ἔστι δὲ ἡμῖν πρῶτον δῆλα καὶ σαφῆ τὰ συγκεχυμένα μᾶλλον· ὕστερον δ ̓ ἐκ τούτων γίνεται γνώριμα τὰ στοιχεῖα καὶ αἱ ἀρχαὶ διαιροῦσι ταῦτα” (Phys., i. 1 ; 184 2, 18 sq.). He also says that “Η μὲν οὖν τῶν ἀδιαιρέτων νόησις ἐν τούτοις περὶ ἃ οὐκ ἔστι τὸ ψεῦδος” (De An., iii, 6, 1; 430 a, 26 sq.); but συγκεχυμένα and ἀδιαίρετα are not synonymous. primitive judgment different in nature from other judgments, since in other judgments the knowledge which we have of what afterwards becomes the subject is not what produces the knowledge which we obtain through the judgment. The two, indeed, are utterly independent. Let us show this by an example. When I judge that the being which I see is a man, what knowledge does this judgment bring me? That the being which I see is a man. Before I make the judgment, therefore, I am entirely unaware that the being which I see is a man. The being which I see I do not recognize as a man: I know it only as a being seen. Now, the mere knowledge of it as something seen has nothing to do with my knowledge of it as a man. I might, indeed, know it for thousands of years as something seen, without knowing that it was a man, and this would actually happen if I had no knowledge of man. The being, therefore, which I see, although known under one aspect, is, before the judgment, altogether unknown to me in its relation to the predicate man. Hence, in all judgments without distinction, the subject as such-that is, in its relation to the predicate-is unknown before the formation of the judgment. The effect of every judgment is to make known what was previously unknown, and, therefore, the subject of every judgment is, as subject, an unknown which has to make itself known. of the But, in the affirmation of real beings, the The nature knowledge to be acquired is first knowledge, primitive judgment further illustrated. before which there can be no other. In this case, therefore, before the formation of the judgment, the subject is unknown, not only in its relation to the predicate, but in every respect. Indeed, if it were known in any way, it would no longer be true that the knowledge of real beings which we acquire through affirmation was the first real knowledge, since we should previously have some knowledge of what afterwards becomes the subject. If, then, every judgment produces in us knowledge which we did not previously possess, and if one piece of knowledge is based upon another, in such a way that, if we descend the scale, we must come to a first knowledge, which can be no other than the affirmation of existence, it follows of necessity (1) That the subject of every judgment is unknown as subject, that is, in its relation to the predicate, previous to the formation of the judg ment. (2) That, although, before the formation of the judgment, the subject may be unknown as such, yet something else may be known about it. (3) That this something which is known about it must have been known through a previous judgment. (4) That, going back in this way to the first judgment of all, we shall have to admit a subject which, previous to that judgment, was not known at all, for the simple reason that there was no previous judgment through which a knowledge of it could have been obtained. |