Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

IDEA OF BEING

1. There is in our understanding the idea of being. Independent of sensations, and in an order far superior to them, there exist ideas in our understanding, which extend to, and are a necessary element of all thought. The idea of being, or of ens, holds the first rank among these. When the scholastics said that the object of the understanding was being, "objectum intellectus est ens," they enunciated a profound truth, and pointed out one of the most certain and important of all ideological facts.

2. Being, or ens in se, abstracted from all modification and determination, is, considered in its greatest generality, conceived by our understanding. Whatever may be the origin of this idea, or the mode of its formation in our understanding, certain it is that it exists. It is of continual application, and without it it is almost impossible for us to think. The verb to be, expressive of this idea, is found in every language: in every discourse, even in the simplest, we meet this expression: the learned and the ignorant, alike, continually employ it in the same sense, and with equal facility.

The only difference, as to the use of this idea, between the rustic and the philosopher, is, that the one does, the other does not, reflect upon it: but the direct perception is the same in both, equally clear in all cases. Such a thing is or is not; was or was not; will be or will not be; there is something or nothing; we had or did not have; we shall have or shall not have, are all applications of the idea of being, applications made alike by all persons, without the least shadow of obscurity; all comprehend perfectly well the sense of these words, and the mind consequently has the idea corresponding to them. The difficulty, if any there be, begins with the reflex act, in the perception, not of being, but of the idea of being. So far as the direct act is concerned, the conception is so perfectly clear as to leave nothing to be desired.

3. Experience teaches this, but it can also be proved by conclusive arguments. All philosophers agree that the principle of contradiction is evident of itself to all men, that it needs no application, to understand the sense of the words sufficing; which could not be true did not all men have the idea of being. The principle is, that "it is impossible for a thing to be, and not to be at same time." Here, then, is no question of any thing determinate; neither of body nor of mind, of substance nor of accidents, of infinite nor of finite, but of being, of a thing, whatever it may be, in its greatest generality; of which it is affirmed that it cannot both be and not be at the same time. Had we no idea of being, the principle would mean nothing: contradiction is inconceivable when we have no idea of the contradicting extremes, and here the extremes are being and not-being.

4. The same is seen in another principle, closely resembling, if not identical with, that of contradiction: "every thing either is or is not." Here, also, there is question of being in its greatest indeterminateness, considered only as being, as nothing more. Without the idea of being, the axiom could have no meaning.

5. The principle of Descartes, "I think, therefore I am," also includes the idea of being: "I am." When he undertakes to explain it, this philosopher relies upon the fact that what is not, cannot act; thus the idea of being enters not only into the principle of Descartes, but is even the foundation upon which he rests it.

6. Whether we make the inward sense the basis of our cognitions, or prefer the evidence by which one idea is contained in another, it is always necessary to make the idea of being a primary element; we must suppose the understanding to be before it can think; we must suppose thought to be before we can make use of it; we must suppose our sensations and sentiments, the operations and affections of our souls, to be, before we can investigate their causes, their origin, and inquire into their nature; we must suppose ourselves to be, that we are, before we can advance one step in any sense. The idea of being does then exist in our mind, and is an element indispensable to all intellectual acts.

CHAPTER II.

SIMPLICITY AND INDETERMINATENESS OF THE IDEA OF BEING

7. Nothing can be conceived more simple than the idea of being. It cannot be composed of elements. It allows of nothing determinate, since it is in itself absolutely indeterminate. The instant that something determinate is made to enter it, it is in a manner destroyed; it is no longer the idea of being, but of such a being; an idea applied, but not the idea of the being in all its generality.

8. How shall we make it understood what we would express by the word being, or ens? If we say that it comprises all, even the most unlike and opposite things, there is no reason why it may not be understood what it is. To join to the idea of being any determination, is to introduce into it a heterogeneous element, which in no manner belongs to it, and can only accompany it as a pure aggregation, but can never combine with it, without rendering it what it is not. If the idea of subsistence be combined with that of being, we no longer have the pure idea of being, but that of subsistence.

9. The idea of being is then most simple; it cannot be resolved into elements, and cannot consequently spring from speech, unless as from an exciting cause. If we be asked, for example, what we understand by substance, by modification, cause or effect, we explain it by uniting to the idea of being that of subsistence or inherence, that of productive force, or of a thing produced; but it is impossible for us to explain being, otherwise than by itself. We may make use of the words, something, what is, reality, and the like, but all these are inadequate to explain the thing itself; they are but the efforts we make to excite in the understanding of others the idea we contemplate in our own. If we would give further explanations by showing how the idea corresponding to the word being, is applicable to every thing, and in order to do this enumerate the different classes of being, applying the idea to them all, we only succeed in showing the use of the idea and the applications of which it is susceptible; but we do not decompose it. We say, indeed, that there is in all something corresponding to it, but we do not decompose this something; we only point it out.

10. From this we infer that the idea of being is not intuitive to us, and that by its very indeterminateness it excludes all that a determinate object can offer to our perception.

CHAPTER III.

SUBSTANTIVE AND COPULATIVE BEING

11. For the more thorough understanding of this matter, it will be well to distinguish between the absolute and relative ideas of being; that is between what is expressed by the word being, when it designates reality, simple existence, and when it marks the union of a predicate and its subject. In the two following propositions we see very closely the different meaning of the word is; Peter is; Peter is good. In the former the word is designates the reality of Peter, or his existence; in the latter, it expresses the union of the predicate good with the subject Peter. In the former the verb to be is substantive, in the latter it is copulative. The substantive simply expresses the existence; the copulative a determination, a mode of existing. The desk is, signifies the simple existence of the desk; the desk is high, expresses a mode of being, height.

12. Purely substantive being, is nowhere met with, except in the following proposition: being is, or what is is; in all other propositions there is involved, even in the subject itself, some predicate which determines the mode. When we say, the desk is, notwithstanding that the direct predicate of the proposition is the word is, there yet enters into the subject desk a determination of the being of which we speak, and that is of a being which is a desk. We were, then, right in saying that the verb to be, in its purely substantive meaning, is met with in no other proposition than this: being is. This is perfectly identical, absolutely necessary and convertible, that is, the predicate may be observed of all subjects, and the subject of all predicates. Suppose we give the proposition a different form; being is existing; we can still say all being is existing, or the existing is being; that is, all that exists is being.

13. If it be objected that possible being does not exist, we answer that purely possible being is not, strictly speaking, being; but that it does exist, in the same mode in which it is, that is, in the possible order. As we shall, however, treat this question more fully hereafter, we now turn to the propositions in which being is copulative. The desk is, is equivalent to this, the desk is existing. It is true that every real desk is existing, but real is the same as existing; and thus it might, in one sense, be said that the proposition resembles this other: all being is. But here we detect a difference; it consists in this, that the idea of existence does not necessarily enter into that of desk, for we can conceive of a desk which does not exist, but we cannot conceive of a being as such without a being, that is, of a being which is not being. A very notable difference is every way perceptible between the two propositions; in the former, the subject may be affirmed of all predicates by saying, all that is existing is being; but it is evident that we cannot say all that is existing is desk.

14. The reason of this is that the proposition, being is, is absolutely identical; it is the expression of a pure conception reduced to the form of a proposition; and, consequently, the terms which serve as extremes may be taken indiscriminately the one for the other; being is, whatever is, is being; being is existing; every thing existing is being. But different orders of ideas are combined in all other propositions; and, although the common idea of being is applicable to all, as this idea is essentially indeterminate, it does not thence follow that one of the things to which the general idea corresponds is identical with the other, alike entering into the same general idea. Being belongs to every existing desk; but not, therefore, is every thing a desk.

15. Copulative being may be applied without the substantive; thus when we say that the ellipse is curvilinear, we abstract both the existence and non-existence of any one ellipse; and the proposition would be true although no ellipse at all were to exist. The reason is that the verb to be, when copulative, expresses the relation of two ideas.

16. This relation is of identity, but in such a way that more than the union of the two is needed before a predicate can be affirmed of a subject. The head is united to the man, but it cannot, therefore, be said, "man is his head;" the sensibility is united to the reason in the same man, but we cannot say, "sensibility is reason;" whiteness is in union with the wall, but we cannot say "the wall is whiteness."

The affirmation, then, of a predicate expresses the relation of identity, and this is why, when this identity does not exist with respect to the predicate in the abstract, it is expressed in the concrete, in order that something involving identity may enter into it. The wall is whiteness: this proposition is false, because it affirms an identity which does not exist; the wall is white: this proposition is true, because white means something which has whiteness, and the wall is really something which has whiteness; here, then, is the identity which the proposition affirms.[18 - See Bk. I., Chs. XXXVI., XXVII., and XVIII.]

17. The predicate is, then, in every affirmative proposition, identified with the subject. When we perceive, therefore, we affirm the identity. Judgment, then, is the perception of the identity. We do not, however, deny that in what we call assent there is often something more than the simple perception of identity; but we do not understand how we need any thing more than to see it evidently in order to assent to it. What we call assent, adhesion of the understanding, seems to be a kind of metaphor, as if the understanding would adhere, would yield itself to the truth, if it were presented; but in reality we very much doubt if, with respect to what is evident, there be any thing but perception of the identity.

18. Hence it follows, that if the same ideas were to correspond in the very same manner to the same words, the opposition and diversity of judgments in different understandings would be impossible. When, then, this diversity or opposition does exist, there is always a discrepancy in the ideas.

19. We conceive of things, and reason upon them abstracted from their existence or non-existence; or we even suppose them not to exist, that is, conceive of relations between predicates and subjects without the existence of either predicates or subjects. And as all contingent beings may either be or cease to be, and even the first moment of their being be designated, it follows that science, or the knowledge of the nature and relations of beings, founded upon certain and evident principles, has nothing contingent for its object inasmuch as it exists. There is, then, an infinite world of truths beyond contingent reality.

We conclude, from our reflections upon this, that there must be beyond the contingent world a necessary being in which may be founded that necessary truth which is the object of science. Science cannot have nothing for its object; but contingent beings, if we abstract their existence, are pure nothing. There can be no essence, no properties, no relations in what is pure nothing; something therefore is necessary whereon to base the necessary truth of those natures, properties, and relations which the understanding conceives of in contingent beings themselves. There is, then, a God; and to deny him, is to make science a pure illusion. The unity of human reason furnishes us one proof of this truth; the necessity of human science furnishes a second, and confirms the first.[19 - See Bk. IV., Ch. XXIII. to Ch. XXVII.]

20. We find a conditional proposition involved in every necessary proposition, wherein substantive being is not affirmed nor denied, but the relative, as in this; all the diameters of a circle are equal. Thus, the one we have just cited is equivalent to this one; if there exists a circle all its diameters are equal. For in reality did no circle exist, there would be no diameters, no equality, or any thing else; nothing can have no properties; wherefore in all that is thus affirmed we must understand the condition of its existence.

21. In general propositions the union conceived of two objects is affirmed; but we must take good care to notice that although we are wont to say that what is affirmed is the union of two ideas; this is not, therefore, perfectly exact. When we assert that all the diameters of a circle are equal, we do not mean that this is so only in ideas, that we conceive it so to be, but that it really is so, beyond our own understanding and in reality, and this abstracting our ideas and even our own existence. Our understanding sees then a relation, a union of the objects; and it affirms that whenever these exist, there will also really exist the union, provided the conditions under which the object is conceived be fulfilled.

CHAPTER IV.

BEING, THE OBJECT OF THE UNDERSTANDING, IS NOT THE POSSIBLE, INASMUCH AS POSSIBLE

22. One very important point concerning the idea of being remains to be illustrated, and that is, whether this idea has possible or real being for its object. The scholastics taught that the object of the understanding was being; nor were they altogether without reason in so doing, since one of the things we conceive of with the greatest distinctness, and which is found to be the most fundamental in all our ideas, is the idea of being, containing as it does in a certain manner all other ideas. But as being is distinguished into actual and possible, a difficulty occurs as to which of these categories the idea of being, the chief object of our understanding, is applicable to.

23. The Abbate Rosmini, in his Nuovo Saggio sull' origine delle idee, pretends that the form and the light of our understanding, and the origin of all our ideas, consists in the idea, not of real, but of possible being. "The simple idea of being," he says, "is not the perception of any existing thing, but the intuition of some possible thing; it is no more than the idea of the possibility of the thing."[20 - Sec. 5, P. 1, C. 3, A. 1, § 2.]

I very much doubt the truth of this; and there seems also to be some confusion of ideas here. He ought to have defined possibility itself for us, before making the idea of it enter into that of being. I will myself give a definition of it, and this may serve greatly to facilitate the understanding of the whole matter.

24. What is possibility? The idea of possibility, abstracted from its classifications, offers us a general idea of the non-repugnance, or non-exclusion, of two things with respect to each other; just as the idea of impossibility presents us such a repugnance or exclusion. A triangle cannot be a circle. A triangle may be equilateral. In the former case we affirm the repugnance of the ideas of the triangle and of the circle: in the latter, the non-repugnance of a triangle having its three sides equal. It may be said that in these cases there is no question of the existence of the triangle or of the circle; and that the possibility or impossibility is referred to the repugnance of their essences, abstracted from their existence or non-existence, although ideal impossibility draws along with it real impossibility.

25. Since, whenever impossibility is asserted, repugnance also, is asserted, and there can be no repugnance of a thing with itself, it follows that impossibility is only possible when two or more ideas are compared. On the other hand, when there is no repugnance there is possibility; then, no simple idea, of itself alone, can offer to us an impossible object. The object, therefore, of every simple idea is always possible, that is, is not repugnant.

26. Those things only are intrinsically impossible which involve the being and the not-being of the same thing; wherefore they are styled contradictory. When an absurdity of this nature is presented to us, we at once recollect the principle of contradiction, and say, this cannot be, "since it would be and would not be at the same time." Why is a circular triangle impossible? Because it would be and it would not be a triangle at one and the same time.

The idea of not-being does then enter into that of impossibility: without it, there can be no exclusion of being, and consequently, neither contradiction nor impossibility.

27. Possibility may be understood in two ways: I., inasmuch as it expresses only simple non-repugnance; and then what does not exist, is not only possible when it does not involve any contradiction, but also, the existing, the actual; II., inasmuch as it expresses non-repugnance, united to the idea of not being realized; and then it is only applicable to non-existing things. The possible taken in the former sense, is opposed to the impossible; in the latter, it is opposed to the existing; it involves, however, the condition of non-repugnance. In the former case we have possibility simply so called; in the second, pure possibility.

From these remarks we conclude that the idea of possibility adds something to that of being, that is, non-repugnance, non-exclusion; and if there be question of pure possibility, the non-existence of the possible being is likewise added.

28. When the understanding perceives being in itself, it cannot distinguish whether there is or is not repugnance; this is only discoverable by comparison; for the idea of being, in itself simple, does not include comparable terms. The idea of being can encounter no repugnance if it be not applied to some determinate thing, to an essence in which contradictory conditions are imagined, as may be verified by seeking to apply being to a circular triangle.

29. So far is the idea of being in itself from being susceptible of abstraction from the idea of existence, that it is rather the idea itself of existence. When we conceive of being, in all its abstractness, we conceive of nothing else than of existence; these two words denote one and the same idea.

30. We can, in determinate things, conceive of the essence without existence; thus also we can very easily consider all imaginable geometrical figures and examine their properties and relations, abstracted from their existence or non-existence; but the idea of being, as something absolutely indeterminate, if it be abstracted from existence, is also abstracted from itself, is annihilated.

I should be much obliged to any one who would tell me to what the idea of being in general corresponds, abstracted from existence. If, after abstracting all determination, we also abstract being itself, what remains? Some one may answer, there remains a thing which may be. What does a thing mean? In case we abstract every thing determinate, thing can only signify a being; we should have a thing which may be, and this is equivalent to a being which may be. This is very well: but when we speak of a being which may be, is there only a question of an impure possibility? then we do not abstract existence, and the conditions of the supposition are not kept. Is there question of pure possibility? then existence is denied, and the proposition is equivalent to this: a being which is not, but which involves no repugnance. Let us examine the meaning of this expression: "a being which is not." What does the subject, a being, mean? a thing, or rather, that which is. What does a thing mean? a being: then abstraction is made from every thing determinate. Therefore, either the subject of the proposition means nothing, or the proposition is absurd, since it is equivalent to this, a thing which is, which is not, but which involves no repugnance.

31. The origin of the equivocation we combat consists in applying to the idea itself of being that which belongs only to things that are something determinate, conceivable without existence. Pure being, in all its abstractness, is inconceivable without actual being, it is existence itself.

32. Nor does pure possibility mean any thing except in order to existence. What is possible being if it cannot be realized, cannot exist? The idea of being is therefore independent of the idea of possibility; and the latter is only applicable in relation to the former.

33. The idea, then, of being is the very idea of existence, of realization. If we conceive of pure being, without mixture or modification, and subsisting in itself, we conceive of the infinite, we conceive of God: but if we consider the idea of being as participated in a contingent manner, by application to finite things, we then conceive of their actuality or realization.

34. When we apply the idea of being to things, we have no intention of applying to them that of possibility, but that of reality. If we say the desk is, we affirm of the subject desk the predicate contained in the idea of being: and still we do not mean to say that the desk is possible, but that it really exists.

35. Nevertheless, the idea of being excludes that of not-being, in such a way that if the idea of being were only of the possible, it would not exclude that of not-being, since the purely possible even includes not-being; possibility, therefore, does not enter into the sole idea of being; and this idea expresses simply existence, reality.

CHAPTER V.