Postulates

Postulate 1

Being Is Known Of Itself

To understand the justification for this postulate, we have to consider that being is what is first known. All other knowledge always presupposes knowledge of being. It is obvious that if we did not know what existence was, we could not think any thing at all, nor could we reason, since every object of our thought is an entity, a real or possible being.

If being is what is known first, it is not made known to us by means of any other mental conception. If it were, this mental conception would be prior to that of being, which would therefore no longer be the first but a second, derived conception.

If being is known of itself, we cannot expect it to be defined. We have to grant that it is known prior to any reasoning whatsoever. Our postulate therefore is justified.(7)

Corollaries

11. I. If this postulate is accepted and presupposed in all human reasoning, it must preface not only this Anthropology but every system of human knowledge.

12. II. The whole system of human knowledge presupposes being as known (Coroll. I); being therefore contains the property and nature of light of the mind, or of idea.(8)

13. III. If being is in itself light or idea (Coroll. II), it constitutes the essence or form of knowledge. It is therefore the seat of the evidence to which, in order to be perfect, every demonstration of knowledge must be reduced as to its final term.

Postulate 2

Experience Of The Feeling Under Discussion Must Be Granted

14. This postulate also can be easily seen.

Being is known in itself; in order, therefore, for feeling to be made known to a mind, the spirit must refer feeling to being, the form of all cognitions. But feeling cannot be referred to being by someone who does not have feeling; having and experiencing feeling is the same. A feeling therefore cannot be known by anyone who has no experience of it. Thus, experience of the feeling under discussion must be presupposed in both interlocutors. Otherwise, one could not talk about it, and the other could not understand.

This truth explains why words can never make a person born blind understand colours, nor a deaf person sounds. Feeling, therefore, must be accepted as a postulate and incapable of definition.(9)

Comment

15. The core of every argument is in fact reduced ultimately to feelings, because by feelings we understand what belongs to internal as well as external sensitivity. Hence feeling, in its more general sense, constitutes the matter of human knowledge, just as ideal being constitutes the form.

Corollaries

16. I. Feeling and the idea of being are the two basic elements of all human knowledge. Every definition and every demonstration must be referred to and terminate in these two elements.

17. II. Every time the definition or demonstration of a thing reaches a point where its only undefined terms are the two elements known per se, being and feeling, the definition is reduced to its final stage of clarity and evidence. In order, therefore, to make a given definition finally clear, it is necessary to define accurately any word in it that is per se unknown, that is, all the words not expressing existence or feeling or anything contained in these two first known things.(10)

Each definition must be taken singly and each word in it examined and defined until only those definitions finally remain which are composed of no other terms than indefinable being and feeling.

18. As an example of this rule of method, I shall define the word `body'.

First Definition

`Body is an extended, tactile, odorous, coloured, etc. substance.'

Besides the word is, which is known per se and needs no definition, the following words are present in the definition: 1. substance, 2. extended, 3. tactile, 4. odorous, coloured, etc. They must be considered as unknown, and their value found by means of definitions. Let us substitute for them their definitions which we shall call

Second Definitions

1st. Substance is the act by which an essence subsists.
2nd. Extension is the mode and the term of what we therefore call material feeling.
3rd. Tactility is the cause of the sensations of touch, a particular form of material feeling.
4th. Odorous, coloured, etc. means being the cause of those sensations which are known as particular forms of material feeling.

Let us examine what remains unknown in these new formulas. In the first definition the unknowns are the act by which essence subsists and essence itself. In the second, nothing is unknown because we are dealing with feeling and its mode; the definition is composed of elements which admit of no definition. Because extension is included in touch, sight, etc., all that is required is to explain the matter in other words so that the definition is clear to anyone who knows the language in which it is given and has experienced these feelings of touch, sight, etc. In the third definition only the word `cause' needs defining, because the rest of the definition is feeling. The same applies to the fourth definition. Three things therefore remain to be determined and defined in order that these second definitions be perfectly clear: 1. the act of subsistence; 2. essence; 3. cause. And the values we must substitute for these unknowns will be

Third Definitions

lst. The act of subsistence is the first, immanent act of being.
2nd. Essence is determinate being in so far as it is known in the idea, and does not act.
3rd. Cause is a subsistent entity which has for the term of its act another entity.

There is nothing unknown in these definitions. If we carefully examine the words composing them, we see they express simply being, or the action of being, or the mode or determination of being and of its action. The meaning of each of them is contained in being, and properly speaking they need no further definition; all we need do is observe and find them immediately in the idea of being. We must all be capable of doing this for ourselves, and of ourselves cannot be taught to do it, although we can be helped by a certain stimulus and direction coming from a teacher, whose words and example can serve as a guide for our faculty of observation.

Now, if we substitute the meanings given in these third definitions for the 1st., 3rd. and 4th. of the second definitions, they become second definitions:

1st. Substance is determinate being in its first, immanent act.
3rd. Tactile being means being acting in such a way that touch sensations are the term of the action.
4th. Odorous, coloured being, etc. means being acting in such a way that odorous, coloured sensations of this kind are the term of the action.

And if we use these definitions together with no. 2 of the second definitions, we can form a definition of body in which all the words or terms express nothing more than known elements, that is, existence and feeling, or their appurtenances. This is demonstrated by the following definition, which admittedly is cumbersome but nevertheless logically exact:

`Body is a determinate being in its first, immanent act (substance), having a common mode with material feeling (extension) and acting on us in such a way that the term of its action is felt extension and sensations called tactile, odorous, etc.'

Comment 1

19. Whatever is present in a definition is also present in a demonstration. To become evident, every demonstration must proceed by means of definitions and a combination of all the terms to the point that an opponent is forced to deny either being or feeling, and is thus unable to escape the force of the argument. Reasoning is valid up to this point, and an opponent always has the right to ask to be led to it, but not beyond it. As soon as the question concerns the idea of existence or concerns feeling, the dispute is at an end. The participants can only enter into themselves and meditate in silence, persuading themselves of the truth, which is no longer hidden from them if they wish to see it.

It is a mistake, therefore, to think that written works and discussion can bring agreement among people without the co-operation of their good will. Both truth and mendacity are deeply rooted in the human heart, which cannot be reached by external demonstration, verbal bombardment, or skills in human knowledge. The human word terminates with an appeal to our deepest sense, the awareness we each have of being and feelings. Pursuing a demonstration to this final term helps in a wonderful way all those who seek the truth in good faith. And far from claiming to have accomplished anything further with my writings, I would think I had obtained all I could hope for if I succeeded solely in clarifying and demonstrating the supreme truths by their reduction to the first elements of knowledge.

Comment 2

20. In order to see the relationship between the two elements of human reasoning known per se, we must note that, as we have said:

1st. being is the formal principle of reasoning, feeling the material principle;
2nd. being is the principle in the order of ideas, feeling in the order of reality;
3rd. being rules and constitutes intellective nature, feeling constitutes animal nature;
4th. being constitutes the objectivity of perceptions, feeling their subjectivity.

In these two elements, therefore, we have the `seminal reasons', to use an expression of St. Augustine, of all natures and of all the entities composing the universe.

The Method Followed In This Work

21. The name of this book is Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, that is, discussion of the human being or human nature considered from the point of view of morality. Hence, because the human being is the subject of the work, it will be useful to begin by accurately defining `human being'. This will allow us to analyse the concept, note all its parts, and finally reunite them in order to throw new light on the initial definition of human being.

Following this method, we begin with the whole and then arrive at the parts. It is an analytical method, which consists in analysing the whole, that is, separating it into parts.(11) We then retrace our steps, going from the parts to the whole, synthesizing, that is, making a unity of the separate parts. The method we intend to follow in our argument can therefore be appropriately called analytical-synthetical.

Notes

(7) This teaching, which makes being the point of departure of human knowledge, would not seem new if people knew the riches they possessed. Many wise men at least glimpsed this truth and included it in their writings throughout the ages. Eight centuries ago, Avicenna, in his commentary on the `Metaphysics' of Aristotle, declared that it was impossible to give a definition of being, or of what is necessary and possible, or of the other elementary ideas of being. We must therefore uphold these truths, if we do not wish to be continually looking for the principle of knowledge. As long as we do not firmly posit this principle, scientific knowledge cannot exist.

(8) Being as light of the mind is properly called ideal being, or simply idea. We also call it idea of being or possible being. These terms, however, involve some mental relationship over and above pure, ideal being. Cf. OT, 540-557.

(9) If we examine all the definitions claimed for sensation, we discover that either they consist in the description of the external circumstances accompanying the formation of the sensation, in which case the definition applies not to the sensation, strictly speaking, but to what accompanies it, or words are simply substituted for other words which at most indicate the sensation for anyone who knows it but not for someone who has not experienced it; or finally they are false definitions.

Richerand defines sensitivity as `the faculty of the living organs which, on contact with another body, enables them to experience a more or less intense impression which changes the order of their movements by hastening or slowing, suspending or exciting the movements'.

If we consider simply the word `experience' in the definition, either it means `feel' or it means nothing. If it means `feel', the supposition is that I know what `to feel' is, and if I know that, the definition is of no use; it does nothing but substitute the word `experience' for the word `feel'. But nobody can understand `experience' unless `feel' is substituted for it. The definition therefore only substitutes a meaningless for a clear word!

(10) For the content of the idea of being, see OT, 558-628, where the idea is shown to embrace the supreme principles of reasoning and pure ideas. The only explanation of such idealities within the idea of being depends upon a demonstration by analysis that they are in effect contained in ideal being.

(11) It is an error to give the name synthetical to that which begins with the whole and moves to the parts, and to call the opposite process analytical. In the method I am proposing, the synthesis (the whole) is given by nature, and is therefore not the object of the method. An analytical method presupposes a synthesis because only a complex whole can be divided by analysis (analuein), but it is contrary to reason to give the name `synthesis', which precedes the method, to the method itself. The name of the method must be taken from the procedure used in the method, not from the object of the method. The procedure of a method which divides a whole is a procedure of division. Only this kind of method therefore can be called analytical.