The Divine Lamp

8.  Origin of the One Indeterminate Idea-The idea of Being or Existence.

It remains still to explain whence comes the idea of being, the sole indeterminate idea. If we once admit that this idea is given to the human spirit, there is no difficulty as to the origin of the other ideas, because, as we have seen, these are nothing else but the same idea of being invested with determinations by the human spirit, on occasion of the sensations, and of whatever feelings man experiences.

Now in order to solve the problem s to the origin in our mind of the idea of being we must first of all consider certain corallories which follow from what we have explained above.

1^st. The idea of being in general precedes all other ideas. In fact, all other ideas are only the idea of being determined in one way or another, and to determine a thing supposes that we already possess the thing to be determined.

2^nd. This idea cannot come from our sensation or from our feelings, not only because the sensations are real, particular and contingent (whereas this idea furnishes the mind with the knowledge of possible being, universal and necessary in its possibility), but also because the sensations and the feelings do not furnish to the spirit any thing except determinations of the idea of being y which it is limited and restricted.

3^rd. It cannot come from the operations of the human spirit, such as universalization and abstraction; because these operations do no more than either add determinations to this same idea of being, or take them away when they have been added, and this on occasion of the sensations or feelings experienced.

4^th. The operations of the human intelligence are only possible, if we presuppose the idea of being, which is the means, the instrument, employed by it to perform them, nay, the very condition of its existence.

5^th. It follows that without the idea of being the human spirit could not only make no rational operation, but would be altogether destitute of the faculty of thought and understanding, in other words it would not be intelligence.

6yh. If the human spirit were deprived of the idea of being it would be deprived also of intelligence; it follows that it is this idea which constitutes it intelligent. We may therefore say that it is this same idea which constitutes the light of reason, and we thus discover what that light of reason is which has been admitted by all men, but defined by on one.

7^th. And since philosophers give the name of form to that which constitutes a thing what it is, the idea of being in general may be rightly termed the form of the human reason or intelligence.

8^th. For the same reason this idea may justly be called the first or parent idea, the idea in se and the light of the intelligence.

It is the first idea because anterior to all other ideas; the parent idea because it generates all others, by associating itself with the sensations and feelings by means of the operations of the human spirit. We call it the idea in se, because the feelings and sensations are not ideas, and our spirit is obliged to add them as so many determinations to that first idea, in order to obtain the determinate ideas.

Lastly, we call it the light of the intelligence, because it is cognizable by itself; whereas the sensations and feelings are cognizable by means of it, by becoming determinations, and, as such, being rendered cognizable to the human spirit.

If these facts are attentively considered, the great problem of the origin of ideas and of all human cognitions become easy of solution.

But in fact this problem has been solved long ago by the common sense of mankind. For the existence in the human spirit of a light of reason or intelligence is admitted by the common sense of men, which declares this light of reason to be so natural and proper to man that it constitutes the difference between him and the brutes.

Now since we have shown that this light of reason is nothing else but the idea of being in general, it follows according to the testimony of the same common sense that this idea is natural to man or proper to his nature, and therefore it is not an idea which is formed or acquired but innate, or inserted in man by nature, and presented to the spirit by the Creator Himself, by Whom man was formed.

In fact, being must be known of itself, or otherwise there is nothing else which could make it known; but on the contrary every other thing is known only by means of it, for since every thing else is some mode or determination of being, if we know not what being itself is, we can know nothing.

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