The Divine Lamp

The fact, then, which I propose to explain is that of the existence in us of ideas or cognitions.

We all know many things, we think of many things: in a word, we have ideas.  I do not now inquire what ideas are, contenting myself with the notion which is commonly attached to this word.  But, whatever these ideas be, I want to know how or whence it is that they are found in our mind.

This is a question which everyone can ask of himself, but to which not all are equally able to reply.  It is the celebrated question of the origin of ideas, whereon the schools and philosophers of all ages have been divided.

To indicate as breifly as possible, where its difficulty lies, I reason as follows:-

In order that we make a judgment, our mind be already in possession of some universal.

For instance, when I say, ‘this sheet of paper is white,’ or, ‘this is a wise man,’ my affirmation supposes in me the knowledge of the universals called whiteness and wisdom; for otherwise I could not attribute the predicates to these particular subjects rather than to others.

It would take a long time to demonstrate by induction that this applies invariably to all judgments; but it could always be done with a strict logical accuracy.  We may therefore lay it down as an incontrovertible truth, that a judgment is nothing but an intellectual operation by which we join a given predicate with a given subject; and hence that in this operation-

(1) We take the subject and the predicate as two things mentally distinct; that is, such that we can fix our attention upon one of them exclusively and thus distinguish it from the other.

(2)  We recognize that these two things are united in fact; that is, we fix our attention upon them, not as separated, but as joined together in the relation of predicate and subject.

Such being the operation called judgment, we can see that it implies, first of all, knowledge of a predicate distinct from the subject, and that without this knowledge the judgment would be impossible.  Now, a predicate distinct from the subject is always a universal; for as long as it is not actually united with this or that particular subject, it is capable of being united with many, indeed with an infinite number of possible subjects; which is precisely what we mean by the term universal as applied to ideas.

But if no judgment can be made without our being already cognisant of some universal, the question arises: How do we come by the knowledge of universals?

A very little reflection will suffice to show that there are only two ways in which this knowledge could be aquired-that is, either through abstraction exercised on a particular idea, or through judgment.

Abstraction may draw the universal from a particular idea by doing three things:

(1) Dividing that idea into the two elements of which it is composed-i.e., (a) the common and (b) the proper;

(2) leaving aside the proper; and

(3) fixing the attention on the common alone, which is precisely the universal about which we are here inquiring.

Now, we must recollect that the particular idea is in us antecedently to these three intellectual operations, else they could not be performed on it, and that their object, therefore, is, not to cause the common to exist in our mind, but simply to observe it in such a manner that it may be seen by its pure self alone.

Therefore abstraction cannot account for the formation of universals, as certain philosophical schools have erroneously supposed.  It can only serve for the purpose of disengaging them from heterogeneous elements, and placing them before our attention in a perfectly isolated state.

It only remains to say, therefore, that universals are formed by means of a judgment.

But we have already seen, that every judgment presupposes in us the knowledge of some universal (42).  In fact, a judgment is nothing but an act by which we apply a universal to a given subject, or, in other words, assign this subject to a class of things determined by that universal.  For example, by judging that a certain individual is virtuous, I place that individual in the class of things known to me under the general name of virtue: and the same must be said of all other judgments.

If, then, we cannot begin to judge except by making use of a universal, it is manifestly impossibel to explain the formation of all universals by means of judgments.  We must needs assume that antecedently to all our judgments we know some universal which renders possible to us the making of judgments, and, through them, the formation of other universals.

Such, in a few words, is the difficulty which presents itself to those who wish to explain the origin of ideas without prejudices of school or without vulgar assumptions.  This difficulty will show itself more and more clearly as we proceed; and those philosophers who think that they can derive from the senses alone all the ideas which observation and consciousness certify that we are possessed of will see what a hard task they have undertaken.  (Excerpted from THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS by Blessed Antonio Rosmini