All ideas of particular beings consist of positive and negative. There is but one idea, the essence of being, and all the rest are rela tions of it. I reply, therefore, that the ideas which have as their object the negation of being are only the idea of being itself, plus the act whereby we negate it. As to ideas of particular beings, which are all made up of positive and negative--in other words, of realization and limitation-they are only so many relations between real being (or the memory of real being) and the essence of being, so that the idea of a horse or a man, for example, is simply the essence of being in so far as it may be realized in a horse or a man, etc., etc. Thus the basis of our knowledge of all these beings is, in every case, the essence of being. The ideas, therefore, of particular beings are always the idea of being considered in relation to a certain given grade and mode of realization; whence, properly speaking, there exists but one idea which makes known to our minds numerous particular beings, and thus transforms itself into so many concepts, becoming, in this way, the special concepts of all these beings. In regard to the nature of negative ideas Rosmini is very explicit: "Nothing as nothing, neither is, nor can be, thought. When, therefore, we think nothing, we really think a relation of contingent being, a relation which being has with thought and with itself; and by which we think that being either is, in which case it is thinkable, or is not, in which case it is not thinkable. Now, this is not means nothing more than two combined acts of the thought itself, by one of which being is thought, while by the other it is removed and the object of thought thereby abolished. Indeed, that nothing, as thought, is not really nothing, but a relation of being, may be readily seen from the numerous reasonings of mathematicians in regard to nothing, and the various kinds of nothing which they distinguish " (Psychology, § 1300). On negative cognition see under § 182. In regard to "ideas of particular beings" or particular ideas, the author says, "An idea is particular only in so far as, in my mind, it is attached to a real individual. As soon as it is separated therefrom, it acquires, or rather manifests, universality, since, when set free, it may be applied at pleasure to an infinite number of similar individuals. That which is absolutely peculiar or particular in an idea is simply the real individual to which it adheres, and which does not form part of the idea itself, but is something heterogeneous to the idea, joined to it, not by nature, but by the action of the intelligent mind" (New Essay, vol. i. § 43, n.). "Every idea is universal and necessary. And, indeed, it is always the idea of being that, clothed with determinate qualities derived from experience, furnishes me with a quantity of ideas or concepts more or less determinate, but representing merely possible entities and not subsisting entities" (Ibid., vol. ii. § 431). 29. essence of by us are not identi Besides this, we must consider further, in order In respect to quan clearly to see wherein consists the imperfect iden- tity, the tity, which, as we have said, we observe between being and beings the entities felt by us and the essence of being perceived which we intuite. We said that limitations do different, not enter into this identity. Now, one of these cal. limitations is the contingency of finite things. Hence, contingency is not to be found in the essence of being, so that even in this respect there is opposition between contingent being and the essence of being, which is intuited by us as immutable and necessary. Every being," says Rosmini, "when considered in its G logical possibility, is universal and necessary. And, indeed, The identity between the essence of being and real beings exists between them only in so far as they are known. 30. Furthermore, when we observe the identity between real, contingent being and the essence of being, we observe this identity in our perception and cognition, not in being as independent of such perception or cognition (§ 24). It is only as known that real being is identical with ideal being. 31. In fact, it is only in real being as known that this identity is found or formed, and it is in the finding of it that the felt activity is perceived and cognized. It is not until the felt activity is identified with the essence of being that it is known or perceived, that it becomes a perceptible entity, an object. In the act of perception, therefore, there is added to the felt activity something which renders it a perceptible entity, and this addition is being itself, the feeling or contingent felt activity of which is but an imperfect mode, not perceptible apart from being, but only in objective being, as we shall show more clearly further on, when we come to speak of perception (§§ 92-94). Moreover, although the mind thus supplies an Perception element of its object, of perceived being, this does true on not render its perceptions less true, since the mind count. clearly knows what it adds and what is given to it. Hence it knows things as they are. not less that ac In answer to the grave question, "How can the matter of cognition identify itself with the form; and if the matter does not so identify itself, how can it be said to be contained in the form, and to form a perfect equation with it?" Rosmini replies, "The matter, considered in itself, never does identify itself with the form of cognition. On the contrary, . . . the matter in itself . . . is an activity different from knowing, and, therefore, still more different from the form of knowing. . . . The matter of cognition, so long as separated from cognition itself, remains unknown, and there can be no question of certainty with regard to it, because certainty is an attribute solely of knowledge. That, therefore, which identifies itself with the form of cognition is the matter of cognition, so far as known. The mind, under these circumstances, merely considers this matter in relation to being, and sees it contained in being as an actuation and term of it. Hence, before it is united to being, there is no identification: before the matter is known, there is nothing to be said about it; but when it is united to being and thus objectified, when it is known to us, it has already received, in the act of our cognition, a relation, a form, a predicate, which it had not before, and in this predicate consists its identification with being. Being is predicated of it, and in that predication consists the act whereby we know it. In this way it seems to us, when we consider the matter already known, that it has in itself something common. with all things, whereas this quality, in so far as it is common, is acquired by it and received from the mindis a relation which it has to the act of the mind, a relation not real in it, but only in the act of the mind. Aristotle and others, not having sufficiently considered this, fell into the error of supposing that the mind could derive the idea of being by abstraction from what was most common in things, whereas it was the mind itself that put this most common quality into the things; and when it took it from them, it only reclaimed its own. Hence . . . what is common in things is only a result of the relation in which they stand to the intelligent mind" (New Essay, vol. iii. § 1174). St. Thomas and most modern Thomists make the same blunder as Aristotle. Why we think that we do not know the ground of things. 32. This analysis of the nature of our knowledge of real beings shows us why men generally have a conviction that they do not know the ground of things that which causes them to be. The reason of this ignorance is the fact that in all felt activities this ground is wanting, and has to be given or lent to them, so to speak, by the perceiving mind itself. In other words, the mind attributes to contingent things a basis, because otherwise it would be incapable of perceiving them; but, inasmuch as it does not perceive this basis, it is unable to determine its nature. |