Appendix 35.

1. Previous editions of my ideological works contained no general preface. Twenty-two years ago, when I published A New Essay, I did not foresee the works that would ensue nor did I think it useful to outline for my readers the method I intended to follow in presenting my teachings. This method, which was the only important thing I needed to mention, would be discussed in the works themselves. Moreover, method in my opinion is a corollary of knowledge and as such cannot be understood before knowledge
Many judgments have been passed, however, on my works, and I now think it necessary to write a few introductory words to this new edition for the sake of those who have either read and judged my works, or heard about them from others whose opinions they have accepted. A large number of those who have taken the trouble to examine my works have acknowledged in their own writings that I have succeeded, despite the difficulties of the subject, in making myself understood clearly enough. Others have interpreted the works so differently and in such contradictory ways that I have been called every kind of philosopher: sensist, idealist, rationalist, pantheist, dogmatist, sceptic. Finally, I was numbered amongst the critical school.

This last classification - the others are too far-fetched altogether - was made in a recent work by a distinguished professor of the University of Turin(1) It has stimulated me to clarify the aim of my philosophical teaching in this preamble, where I shall explain the limits within which I can accept the classification and the sense in which I must protest against it. In fact, classifications of this kind, used in good faith by people who have certainly read my works, are often employed by others who have not. This could easily result in damage to the truth before public opinion.

2. Emmanuel Kant was the first to make critical philosophy famous in modern times. For him, it meant a system halfway between dogmatism and scepticism - as if there could be a middle way between having and not having certain knowledge of truth. The concept is absurd, but the great sophist used his outstanding intelligence to create the appearance of having found this via media. According to him, the dogmatists were right because all human beings must assent to the first truths; the sceptics were right because nothing could be proved to exist in itself. Truth therefore was now relative to human beings, and as such ceased to be truth - what is not true absolutely is not true. Kant had given scepticism a new guise, in fact a disguise, called critical philosophy which, however, I unmasked in A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas, where Kant's scepticism is exposed for what it is.(2); Rinnovamento, bk. 3, cc. 13, 30, 47; Teodicea, 140 ss., and many other places.> I also showed that the consequences of every subjectivist system are inevitably subject to scepticism, even when those who profess the system are unaware of this. The philosophy of Galluppi, with whom I am ranked by Bertini, is of this kind. In this sense therefore I cannot be classed among critical philosophers. In fact, it was I who refuted the sophistry of their system, almost unknown at the time in Italy, in my New Essay

3. Kant called his philosophy critical for another reason. Sitting as judge, and citing human reason to appear before him, he passed sentence on its worth and results. I have often observed that this judgment contains an intrinsic contradiction: while intelligence or human reason considered as a whole can certainly assert itself, it cannot criticise or condemn itself totally. Nevertheless I accept 'critique' in the sense that there are opinions, propositions, forms of speech and concepts which can and must be subjected to critique; intelligence as a whole judges a part of itself, that is, judges a particular faculty and the results of this faculty. I have defined my own understanding of 'critique' as 'an examination of different human cognitions carried out by means of the highest, most evident principle of reason where we have first convinced ourselves that there is no possibility of error at all'. I wrote: 'To carry out a critique of reason at the same time as a critique of human cognitions would be absurd... This is precisely Kant's error. Reason can criticise particular human cognitions, but not itself, because it can never oppose itself.'(3) In A New Essay I said: 'The phrase "critical philosophy" contains something presumptuous and absurd because it implies that we can judge everyone else's reason, as if we were not human beings ourselves.'(4) The philosophy I propose therefore is certainly not 'critical' in either of the two meanings which Kant gives to the word.

4. My philosophy is even less 'critical' if the word is understood as I use it in the work from which I have quoted: 'Critical philosophy believes that the truthfulness of human intelligence is not a final corollary, but a first theorem to be proved before anything else and defended against the scepticism that denies the theorem.'(5) Bertini, who attributes this philosophy to me, tries to demonstrate its uselessness by employing the very same reason I myself used to refute it. He says: 'The faculty we have to use for the demonstration is our own intelligence. But if this itself is suspected of error, how can we use it?'(6) Here Bertini and I agree.

5. We also agree in our denial that philosophy can begin from a demonstration of the truthfulness of human intelligence and from a defence of this truthfulness against any scepticism which denies it But I go further: I maintain that philosophy cannot begin from any demonstration. In A New Essay I explained this with greater clarity by asking and answering four interreated questions: 1. What is the starting point in human development? Reply: external sensation. 2. What is the starting point for the human spirit? Reply: information about being. 3. What is the starting point of those who begin to philosophise? Reply: the point reached by their mind as they undertake this kind of reflection. 4. What is the starting point of philosophy as a branch of knowledge? Reply: the luminous point from which emanates the clear light of certainty and of truth for all other cognitions, that is, the idea of being.(7)

The first two questions do not concern us here. The third indicates the starting point of the philosophy which Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling called 'regressive', that is, all the work done by the human mind as it makes its way back, as it were, to arrive at the clear point where the intellective light, which explains all things, first sets out. The fourth question indicates the starting point of the philosophy which Schelling calls 'progressive'. Moving from the evidence provided by the discovery of this starting point, it progresses to all other human cognitions, which are justified and demonstrated by means of the power of that first truth. Finally, progressive philosophy explains in some way the enigma of the world.
In my opinion, therefore, there is no question of beginning philosophy with any demonstration whatsoever. A demonstration needs principles, and if we had to demonstrate principles, the process would be infinite. As I have so often said, we would never, in this case, attain any kind of knowledge.(8)

6. For the same reason, I did not begin to philosophise by opposing scepticism, as Bertini supposes and I have said on many occasions. For example, in the third volume of A New Essay we read: 'I still do not intend to prove to the sceptics that a valid principle of certainty exists for human beings.'(9) We must first find a self-evident light and then use it to refute the sceptics. The refutation is a corollary, as it were. This is the method I have followed.
Consequently, while I cannot accept the critical philosophy which Bertini imposes on me, I am happy to agree with him that it must be excluded.

7. I wish I could agree also with the rest of his argument, but I do not think he has kept his promise. Although he accurately indicates the defect of critical philosophy, he seems to me to have fallen into the very same error. In his Preface, he presents his method and clearly explains that he has written the book as a direct refutation of the sceptics:

We see that Bertini begins by accepting the sceptics' critique of human reason in order to refute them with another critique whose results are more comforting. He thus justifies and rehabilitates reason. This kind of philosophising is critical throughout, in the true sense of the word.

8. But I do not think he argues logically. He claims that the veracity of human intelligence is simply a corollary of the previous system of philosophy. But is a system possible before we know the veracity of human intelligence? Is there such a system of cognitions, which self-confessedly lacks certainty? As long as doubt persists, we cannot say that we know anything at all, still less possess a system of philosophy. Doubt is certainly not knowledge. Bertini's system of philosophy therefore, which claims to demonstrate the veracity of human intelligence as a corollary, does not merit the title 'system', much less 'system of positive philosophy'. We must first have deduced from the system the corollary which demonstrates that human intelligence, which has produced the system, is itself incapable of deception. Prior to this corollary, the system cannot claim any certainty; it is a hypothesis or postulate, nothing more. But in this case the system will begin with its corollary! The problem which Bertini wishes to solve last takes first place once more thanks to the inflexibility of logic.

9. But there is a greater problem. The mind spontaneously asks how a certain corollary can be deduced from a system of positive philosophy which because of its own uncertainty is neither a system nor positive. Corollaries have always been considered certain if the principles from which they are drawn are certain; the certainty of the principles gives certainty to the consequences, but not vice versa. Nevertheless we have here a system of positive philosophy which cannot be harmonised with this logic. We are told that a corollary is required to demonstrate the truth and certainty of the system. But the corollary is deduced from a system which is itself uncertain. This corollary is nothing less than the veracity of human intelligence without which nothing, not even the least information, or even appearances, is certain. The veracity of human intelligence is deduced therefore from a system of positive philosophy devised by an intelligence which does not know whether it is itself true, still doubts its own honesty and grants its sceptical opponents the same doubt.

10. However, I do not wish to comment on this obviously vicious circle in which Bertini has inadvertently entangled himself. I wish simply to observe that as long as this philosophy has not spoken its last word, that is, the veracity of human intelligence, it cannot claim to be philosophy, and still less positive philosophy. As Bertini says, the truth of the previous system must, by right of postliminy as it were, be derived from this final word, that is, from the veracity of human intelligence. In this way, the whole system is reduced to a critique of intelligence and therefore to the critical philosophy whose weakness Bertini himself has indicated.

11. I could also add that my philosophy follows a path far removed in yet another way from that taken by Professor Bertini's critical philosophy. His starting point is doubt; he says that he began 'by following the sceptics in their doubt' which, strictly speaking, is the principle proper to critical philosophy. If, however, we begin by doubting intelligence, the only way left to arrive at a positive philosophy is to examine intelligence to see whether it provides just grounds for suspicion (however it may do this) or whether the suspicion is baseless. As I have said, whoever doubts is ignorant and cannot therefore have a positive philosophy. I myself did not begin from doubt but from methodical ignorance, as I showed in my first work on ideology, from which I quote:

The true, natural beginning of philosophical thought cannot be doubt, which arises only when philosophical reflection sees that human beings are mistaken about many things, and asks itself whether it could be mistaken about everything. Those who accepted this possibility invented scepsis to make people doubt everything and affirm nothing. Consequently, when philosophical thought opposes this negative doctrine, it is not taking its first step. It has already made much progress.

12. In distancing myself from Professor Bertini, I am not accusing him of having substituted another critical philosophy for Kant's. As we have seen, the word 'critical' can be understood correctly; a complete, positive philosophy (a philosophy that affirms as well as denies) clearly cannot be conceived until the sceptics' doubts have been examined and the veracity of human intelligence defended against them. Nevertheless, it does not seem reasonable to claim that a philosophy can be called critical simply because it leaves the sceptics' doubts to the end and solves them, or hopes to solve them, with its final word, or rather with a simple corollary of a preceding system.

13. But I have still not dealt with the greatest difference between my system and the system under discussion. This difference is connected with the luminous point in which, to use a metaphor of my opponent, truth reigns.(12) According to Bertini, this point is the direct presence to our mind of the absolute Ens,(13) that is, God. In my opinion, however, it is the direct presence of indeterminate being. This being lacks the determinations essential to God without which the concept of God does not exist. Bertini, therefore, maintains that all certain knowledge, every truth, is deduced from God himself present to the human spirit. I maintain that human beings have cognitions, truths and some certainty logically prior to the knowledge of God. For me, the knowledge of God is not naturally intuited but deduced by reasoning from being which is always present to the mind and, as fully indeterminate, lacks the characteristics of divinity; it is equally susceptible of both infinite and finite determinations so that in adding the former, we acquire the idea of God, and in adding the latter, we form concepts of finite entia.

14. What I have taught has also been understood, in varying degree, by all philosophers of any standing. My only merit here consists perhaps in greater coherence in its application and development.
Among these philosophers, I am pleased to name the great Charles Sacretan, who recognises that the only starting point for the human spirit is the one I have indicated.(14) According to him, even the most famous German philosophers had to begin from the same point, although they came to grief later.

15. The starting point must be the idea, not some real thing understood differently from the idea.(15) Those who have begun from another light, and particularly those who have claimed to begin from God himself as directly and really present to the spirit, were forced into the most manifest contradictions. They had to turn surreptitiously to that very point of indeterminate or ideal being which they had tried to avoid, and which is for human beings the pure, clear light from which all reasoning and certainty proceed. Bertini himself was forced to do this, as we can see: 'Philosophy begins from the pure concept of what is real, and consists solely in meditation on this concept.'(16) He then calls this concept, which he has to grant as the starting point of philosophy, the 'concept of what is real but most indeterminate'.(17) But if we are to avoid equivocation, it is clear that the concept of what is real is not the real thing itself. When we take the concept of what is real as the starting point, we are not starting from what is real as such. Moreover, Bertini's 'what is real but most indeterminate' can only be a concept, not what is real itself, because what is real is always determinate. It is true that the concept of what is real is also something, but only in the same way as the concept of what is ideal is something; both are something but the concept of one is not the concept of the other; moreover, what is real is always something different from what is ideal. There are two kinds of something: that which is ideal, and that which is real. These two somethings cannot be made into one. Furthermore, although the concept of what is real but most indeterminate is certainly something, it is not THE something (and much less THE real something); on the contrary, it is some particular, determinate thing. It is not, therefore, that most indeterminate something of which it is the concept.(18) On the other hand it is very true, as I have repeatedly said, that we can argue from the existence of the simple concept (of anything whatsoever) to the necessary existence of something real (for example, an intelligent being). This, however, does not in any way mean that the real thing to which we have argued is the concept from which we began our argument. Sophisms abound, as we can see, in the philosophical process under discussion.

16. Signor Bertini affirms that philosophy begins from and is fully contained in reflection on 'the pure concept of that which is real but most indeterminate'. Nevertheless, this concept is neither God himself directly present to the human spirit (on whom, he says, depend the veracity of human intelligence and all its other human concepts), nor is it the idea of God. On the contrary, it is the light by which, when determinations are added, both God and finite entia are known; in other words, it is that being which the Scholastics call most common. It would be a serious error to confuse this being with God because God is certainly not the being common to all finite things - except for pantheists.
That which is directly and naturally present to the human spirit therefore is definitely not God but being at its most indeterminate, from which Signor Bertini himself begins, whether he wishes to or not.

17. Another proof that being at its most indeterminate is the object of direct intuition by the human spirit is the following. Internal observation alone is sufficient to acknowledge what we directly intuit. We have therefore begun philosophy from observation.(19) This internal observation, which is simultaneously a reflection, makes us aware that the undeniable, luminous and very simple point where all our thoughts begin, and whence light and certainty come, is the information we receive from totally indeterminate, modeless being. This, too, proves that the observation itself which we have used, taking it on faith as it were, cannot deceive us because it shows itself as that which cannot not be. In Signor Bertini's system, however, mere observation is totally insufficient to attain the principle of certainty (which for Bertini is not indeterminate being, but God, absolute being); we also need argument and demonstration. But anything attained by argument and demonstration is indirectly present to our spirit, not, as Signor Bertini holds, directly present. The Hegelians, who like Bertini posited certain truth in absolute being, saw and admitted this. Thus, consistent with themselves in this, they said that truth is found solely in what is indirect, and waged a merciless and even ridiculous war on what they called direct.(20)

18. Bertini was quite open about having attained God. He was

He himself puts the objection: 'What is the value of a result obtained by reasoning if the principles and intellectual faculties used are suspect?'

(22) and replies:

I must comment on this reply.
First, God is certainly not a logical principle; we use logical principles to reach him, and apply them to him when we wish to draw other truths from our knowledge of him. 'Logical principles' is the phrase used by the whole world for first judgments or universal propositions, that is, ideal propositions. From these we draw consequences whenever we apply them directly or indirectly to realities. We cannot change God into a logical principle; as absolute being, he is real and individual. Changing him in this way would lead to rationalism and atheism, errors which Signor Bertini opposes with all his might and often with great skill and success.

19. Furthermore, Bertini's reply confuses the material conditions of a demonstration with its formal conditions. It is clear that the truth of a demonstration does not depend on its material conditions; and the existence of a philosopher who reasons, and his subjective faculty of reasoning are clearly material conditions. I agree with this.(24) But 'the principle that what is indeterminate and real cannot objectively exist,(25) the principle of contradiction, and all the principles presupposed in all reasoning' are continually used by Bertini to support a demonstration of God's existence, although they are not purely material conditions in the sense that even if false, God's existence could nevertheless be a true conclusion. They are formal conditions and must therefore be true if the conclusion is to be true. Their truth and certainty precede in the human mind the truth of the conclusion deduced from them and seen by means of them as necessary. Consequently, the existence of God is not the first certain truth guaranteeing all other truths. The only truth here (which perhaps Signor Bertini had in mind) is that the existence of absolute being, when known, provides the philosopher with the possibility of answering the metaphysical objections which can be brought against truth and thus gives rest to the human spirit. But these objections cannot in any way weaken the certainty of the first logical principles against which they are made. Whenever a truth is per se evident and necessary, no objection can shake it or render it uncertain. I grant therefore that if we exclude knowledge of God, of absolute being, apparent contradictions can arise in our spirit which can however be fully solved by what is taught about that being. But antecedent to and independently of their solution, the first truths shine in our mind endowed with unmovable certainty. No objection has any force against what we know directly to be true and unable to be other than true, even if we cannot solve the objection specifically and directly.

20. Bertini himself, perhaps unconsciously, was obliged to grant the presence in the human spirit of truths which are both certain and logically precede knowledge of the divine existence. He reasons as follows:

This point or, as Bertini later calls it, 'first truth', is certainly not a material condition or a postulate of human knowledge. If he admits that the starting point is this first truth, which can then lead the doubter to the existence of God, there is in the human spirit a truth which is certain and, in the logical order, precedes the truth of the divine existence. Throughout his demonstration of this existence, Signor Bertini speaks about true cognitions and certainty,(27) and goes on in this vein until he has reached his conclusion about the existence of the absolute being. Clearly, the certainty of this conclusion depends on the certain truths which he has cleverly used as the basis of the conclusion and which precede the conclusion itself.

21. Moreover: 1. anything deduced by argument is not direct; 2. his conclusion that we are 'endowed with an immanent, direct intuition of the absolute life of God'(28) invalidates the conclusion itself by making it greater than his premisses. The direct intuition does not and cannot result from any of his arguments.
If we truly had direct intuition of God's absolute reality and life, the fact would be verified solely by internal observation; reasoning would not be necessary because we ourselves would be witnesses to the fact. Bertini's long, exhausting and often wise reasoning is clear proof that in this life, we do not directly see God himself, and that human common sense is not wrong in believing that we do not see him. The only legitimate consequence to be drawn from these laborious reasonings is that the existence of God is certain and necessary and is finally reduced to the a priori demonstration which I gave in A New Essay, and Professor Bertini has further enhanced.(29)

22. We can easily be mistaken if we lose sight of the difference between intuitive or visual direct knowledge on the one hand and reasoned indirect knowledge on the other.
In fact, Bertini extends the meaning of 'intuit' too far when he says that 'knowing is seeing or intuiting the being of things'.(30) Not all cognition are intuitions. Even if we wanted to use the word in this way, we would need to explain it; for example, to avoid error, we would need to distinguish between intuition and different kinds of intuition. Equivocation is even more evident in Bertini's reasoning when he constantly says that 'knowledge is a direct vision'.(31) He attributes what is directly intuited to all knowledge, and consequently argues that 'if knowledge is a direct vision, it follows that thought and knowledge of the infinite can only be the direct vision of the infinite'.(32) The equivocation is obvious.

23. Certainly, everything known is in a sense directly intuited, otherwise it would not be known. But the expression, 'everything known', has a double meaning: it refers either to the thing as it is in itself apart from knowledge, or is as it is known. Sometimes the thing as known is not what it is in itself prescinding from our knowledge; it can in fact be something entirely different. This is the case with indeterminate being known by the human mind; it is not entirely the same as being in itself, because nothing indeterminate can exist in itself. In fact, indeterminate being present only to the mind differs from being in itself (pure being), not only qualitatively, but totally; the difference is precisely in being, not in quality. The determinations lacking to indeterminate being pertain to the very essence of being in itself (as Bertini grants). But an object from which something essential has been removed is no longer itself. Consequently, indeterminate being, which we certainly know and think, is not God, who is complete, absolute being in itself; the identity is lost when our mind passes from one being to the other. But this will be discussed at greater length in ontology.
It may be objected: 'You determine indeterminate being with your argument by beginning from its concept, and thus arrive at knowledge. In this way you directly intuit the absolute being which you already implicitly intuited in indeterminate being.'

The objection disappears if we carefully distinguish the different modes of human knowledge. It is a common prejudice to believe that everything we know is always known in the same way. But first, a determinate object can be known in two ways: 1. the object presents itself together with its determinations, or 2. we ourselves determine an indeterminate object presented to our spirit by adding purely logical determinations. The difference between these two ways of knowing is immense. In the first, we know the determinate object by a single act of intuition or perception. We do not yet think of the determinations separate from the object but of them all together indistinctly in the object with which they form a perfect unity. Later, by means of analysis, we can separate the determinations. In the first instance however all that is before our spirit is the single object fully determined in a perfect synthesis without any analysis. In this case, we do not have recourse to any reasoning in order to know the object. This way of knowing is aptly called either intuition, if the determinate object is ideal, or perception, if it is also real.

If however the object present to our mind is indeterminate, our spirit proceeds in a contrary direction and must itself add determinations to the object to complete it. Our spirit, which is now constrained to begin not from analysis but from dispersed elements and from ourselves, forms a synthesis of the elements by various operations of the mind. We think with separate acts the indeterminate object and the determinations which we add to it. The determinations are taken not from the object present to us (it is indeterminate), but from elsewhere. Substantially Bertini grants this, or certainly should grant it, because he himself begins from the indeterminate concept of something and then determines it not with what he finds in it but with other mental and abstract concepts.(33)

Because we do not find the determinations we are seeking in the indeterminate object that we want to complete by many operations of our thought, we have to extract them, as I said, from other objects. For this reason they cannot be determinations proper to the object which is determined in this way, but purely analogical determinations, that is, they are attributed to it by analogy. For example, Bertini himself attributes life to the indeterminate object, being, but draws this concept of life from elsewhere, from among the living beings which fall under human experience.(34) Moreover, the life of living beings perceived by us on earth is certainly not the life of God. If we saw the life of God, we could compare it with the life of animals and human beings and note the difference. But because even Bertini finds this direct comparison impossible, he is forced to take the abstract concept of life (abstracted of course from the living beings of which alone he has direct knowledge) and determine it by other concepts which themselves are abstract. He then says: God must have life to the highest degree.(35) Very true, but the phrase, 'to the highest degree', indicates nothing determinate; it is still a formal, logical concept. Aware of this and unable to turn to any other direct knowledge of other lives, Bertini tries to determine this highest degree of life by comparing the different grades of life of finite beings. The comparison results in his discovery that the greatest life consists in the perception of oneself.(36) But we are now at the start once more: the perception of oneself is still an abstract. He therefore makes an effort to determine this next concept (it is still a question of concepts and not of reality itself) and states that, the highest degree of perception consists in intelligence,(37) which itself is an abstract concept. He must therefore find another concept to determine this concept; he must investigate the nature of the highest degree of intelligence. He says

This is very true, but all these new concepts ('intelligible', 'infinite', 'identity') are abstract and consequently far removed from presenting the reality of the thing. At this point, Bertini stops. Unable to proceed further along this path, but wishing to complete the concept of divine life, he performs the same laborious task of mixing abstract concepts for the purpose of determining the concept of the highest love, a concept which is itself abstract and has to be forced into the concept of divine life.(39) But is it really true that if we had the direct vision of the life of God, we would need to stitch together these abstractions in order to think and know such a vision? Would we not see it perhaps as an extremely simple thing, just as simply and directly as we see a colour, or sense some smell or sound? Can empty abstractions, no matter how many we ingeniously combine, ever give us the reality itself of a thing? We have seen that Bertini, despite his great effort to determine one concept by another, has never been able to break away from the order of abstract concepts which need further determinations. Has he in fact given us the reality of divine life or shown us what it is in itself? Has he really persuaded us that we see it? I leave the reader to judge. The only thing I see is a large quantity of concepts, and I know for certain that the reality of the divine life will never be a complex even of innumerable concepts. Moreover, who can tell me how all these concepts become one in God, or can conscientiously say they have seen such a fact? Where is the unity, the living unity, of these concepts? Multiple concepts certainly cannot be necessary for this unity which is not in fact a concept but something very real, extremely simple and undivided. Give me this reality instead of concepts and I will grant that I see and directly intuit the infinite life of God.

24. I do not deny that we can acquire some knowledge of the divine life by unifying many concepts, but such knowledge is not direct. The one, extremely simple divine life, so different from all other lives known directly by us, is given in this multiplicity of the concept as a kind of beautiful and useful logical formula, as a symbol or sign. But the nature of the formula is such that we cannot derive any clear result from it. Consequently the result, which is the divine life in itself, remains unknown. The sign or symbol (or symbols,) are sufficient 1. to make us understand that the divine life is not the life of any finite ens; 2. to instruct us not to confuse the lives of the finite entia we experience with God's life which we do not naturally experience, and 3. to demonstrate that the analogy between these two kinds of life allows us to apply the same word and a common abstract concept to them both. We can use the word 'life' for both of them, provided we acknowledge that the word contains an equivocation due to the analogy on which rests the common abstract concept expressed by the word.

This logical, thought-out manner of knowing the divine life cannot in any way be called a direct intuition or perception. The only thing we know directly are the signs, symbols and formula of this life, that is, the mixed concepts. But the positive meaning and the real result are known only in so far as we understand that the intellective signs have a meaning, that the formula has a result. But neither meaning nor result can be confused with anything else. This is enough for us to admit our ignorance and, while adoring, confess that one day, but not now, we will see what lies behind that mysterious veil.(40)

25. Other observations could be made about Signor Bertini's theory, but perhaps even the few I have made may seem superfluous. There is much I could recommend about his writings, but I had no intention of passing complete judgment on them. I wished solely to defend what I teach in my ideological works, which are being reprinted, by clearing up some of the ambiguities which seem to have been the cause of the main objections.

26. Similarly, I must point out how far from the truth are those who have said, 'The starting point of my philosophy is psychological, not ontological.' I think I have stated frequently enough that the starting point of philosophy as the science of the human being is being, but being as indeterminate.(41) The reason is clear and undeniable: indeterminate being, which logically precedes all human cognitions, is their form; it is the springboard of human reasoning which can always be reduced to 'the faculty of determining being'. Hence, those who claim that fully determinate ens, that is, ens with its characteristics of divinity, is always present naturally to the human spirit, are mistaken. Among other things, they do away with human reasoning by rendering it superfluous and inexplicable. Moreover, if determinate being is God and, according to them, continually present and manifest to the human spirit, they must attribute divine being to all finite entia which are known only by means of being, that is, in so far as they are entia. But the only being which the human spirit can attribute to them, and thus know them, is the being which it intuits, God himself. This is pantheism.

27. Those adversaries who believe that indeterminate being is purely a production of the human mind are also greatly mistaken. They infer from this erroneous principle that starting from indeterminate being is the same as beginning from a primal psychological element. Indeterminate being however, although absolutely being, is not absolute being. The objectors therefore reveal their total ignorance of the ideal mode of being. Being, which is present to intelligences in this mode, is not confused with intelligences nor produced by them. No ens, and hence no human spirit, can produce another ens which possesses, if only in some respect, a nature contrary and infinitely superior to its own. Being in itself must certainly have its own determinations, but it also possesses another mode and power by means of which it presents itself to intelligences as something totally distinct from and against them. Consequently, nothing prevents being, in this mode, from showing itself as indeterminate and without its term; this explains why it is called ideal. If, on the other hand, the human spirit had of itself enough power to produce being, although without its determinations, indeterminate being could be considered to have a psychological origin. But if this were the case, we would have no reason to deny that the human spirit had the power to produce being with its determinations; this second act is less than the first. This is what the German philosophers, from Fichte to Hegel, ingenuously admitted they wanted, although later Schelling drew back somewhat from this abyss, as can be seen in his new philosophy.

28. The accusation against me therefore could reasonably be turned against my adversaries by demonstrating that, whatever they may say, it is their own error which errs through psychologism. Psychologism's great sin is to grant to the soul deformed in this way the power of making totally indeterminate being present to the spirit.

29. Consequently I reject the accusation that the first element in the order of knowledge is psychological; it is in fact totally ontological. But there can be two primal ontological elements: absolute, determinate being, and ideal, indeterminate being. According to me, absolute, determinate being is the primal element for the divine mind; ideal, indeterminate being, for the human mind. God's way of knowing is certainly different from ours, and we must be content with our knowledge without insanely attempting to usurp God's. If we are not content, we will renew our stupid, vain attempt to deify ourselves. As mortals, we must remember that we are not at the centre of the great ocean of being but in a little corner from which alone we direct our gaze on things.

30. Being, although indeterminate, is the object of human intelligence; the soul is the subject. I have always tried to distinguish these two things, which cannot be confused by anyone who has seen their absolute opposition demonstrated in A New Essay and elsewhere. I have posited all knowledge, every truth and certainty in the object, never in the subject soul. The existence of the intelligent soul and of the faculty of understanding and reasoning with which the soul is endowed are, as Professor Bertini has so rightly said, purely material conditions totally independent of the truth and of the force of every intuition and proof. This is the teaching in my ideological works, and it is certainly not psychologism. If our possession of truth is to be certain, then material conditions are indeed necessary but do not in any way constitute truth itself or the motives for certainty. Truth is totally independent of the human soul, although the soul is dependent on truth and cannot possess it without existing.

31. As we have seen, the primal philosophical element of philosophy is the second of the two primal ontological elements mentioned above, that is, the ideological element. Because philosophy is certainly knowledge, it must begin from ideas; we are deluded if we think it can begin from any other point. But I entirely reject the other accusation that my philosophy is purely ideological. This comes about because my opponents pay such intense attention to my starting point that they no longer consider the whole corpus of my teaching. It will not be a waste of time therefore if I offer a brief comment on my teaching, sufficient to rectify the inaccurate judgment passed on it. A compendium of my work has been given elsewhere.(42)

As I have said, Schelling distinguished between progressive and regressive philosophy. 'Regressive' philosophy (or rather philosophising) begins from the accidental point at which the mind happens to find itself, and turns back to trace all the steps of its development. Guided by the law of the logical priority and posteriority of ideas, we attempt to reach that luminous point beyond which we cannot go and which is necessarily and clearly true. Having turned our reflection to this point and grasped it, we move in the reverse direction. This is progressive philosophy which, when completed, is not only philosophising but philosophy, that is, knowledge.(43)
For me, regressive philosophy is ideology, and the secure starting point of knowledge, because it searches for the first, evident truth, which cannot not be what it reveals itself to be. This is the secure starting point of human knowledge.
Reflection, equipped with this first, evident truth, progresses from this truth to all others.

32. But it is the intellective soul, that is, the intelligent human subject, which now progresses by acts of reasoning. Many of these acts, however, are subject to the influence of human free will and are erroneous. If progressive philosophy is to begin its journey with the certainty of not erring, it must first use the principle of truth and certainty it has discovered in order to indicate the formal and material conditions of intellectual progress. The formal conditions are the object of logic; the material conditions are the object of psychology because, as I said, the existence and nature of the soul, of human beings and of their faculties are material conditions of knowledge.
Both these sciences, which deal with the material and formal conditions of what is humanly knowable, lie between regressive philosophy and systematically progressive philosophy. I say 'systematically progressive' because both are certainly formed by progressive reasoning which begins and progresses from the discovered, immovable point. This point is pure light intuited naturally by human beings who have then exercised their reflection on it through ideological activity. The movement however remains partial and does not extend to all that is. Hence it cannot be called the system of philosophy.

33. Systematic, progressive speculation can, with reasonable courage and cautious judgment, be undertaken by a thinker who fully knows and possesses the formal and material conditions of intellectual progress.
This kind of speculation will lead the thinker to theosophy, to the theory of ens. This theory includes 1. ontology, that is, the general doctrine about Ens; 2. theology, which is the doctrine about Ens with its own terms, which make it absolute, and 3. cosmology, that is, the doctrine about Ens with terms which are not its own and make it finite and relative. These three parts of theosophy are therefore doctrine about 1. Ens in all its universality, 2. infinite Ens and 3. finite Ens; in other words, theosophy is always doctrine about ens, which alone deserves to be called 'theory'.

34. I fully agree that even in progressive philosophy there is a part which could in a relative sense be called regressive because it leads us from indeterminate being (the luminous point) to absolute being. But this regression is simultaneously progression: progression because we begin from a definite, luminous point; regression because we arrive at another luminous point, a second stopping place as it were, which is the concept of absolute being, that is, of God. From here, for the reasons I gave above, we set out again on a journey of more precious discoveries: by meditating on this concept of absolute being we disperse all the antinomies which our human spirit encounters in its speculation. With this increase of light we not only possess truth and certainty, but do so without objections which may perhaps trouble our spirit but cannot extinguish the unassailable light of truth, whose direct necessity is seen by the mind. When our spirit has attained the concept of absolute being and has sufficient energy to speculate, it cannot only be certain of the truth but reconcile it with itself and possess it as it were in a kingdom of peace. Theosophy, which accomplishes all this, will also make all I am saying understood.
In conclusion, we can say that properly speaking theosophy is progressive philosophy, speculation par excellence, system.

35. Such then is the outline of philosophy which I decided to flesh out. So far, only certain parts of it have been published. I believe I have a right, therefore, to ask people to abstain from naming it in prejudicial ways. As good custom dictates, let it be named after its birth.

(1) Idea di una filosofia della vita, etc., G. M. Bertini, Etc., Turin, 1850, vol. 1, pp. 9 ss.

(2) Cf. 99-133

(3) Essence of Right (ER, Philosophy of Right, vol. 1, fn. 182, Durham, 1999.

(4) Cf. vol. 3, fn. 6.

(5) Idea di una filosofia della vita, etc., vol. 1, p. 9.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Cf. vol. 3, 1469-1472.

(8) Cf. among other places, vol. 3, 1466-1467.

(9) Cf. vol. 3, 1061.

(10) Idea di una filosofia della vita, etc., vol. 1, p. 9.

(11) Cf. vol. 3, 1477-1478.

(12) Idea di una filosofia della vita, etc., vol. 1, c. 12.

(13) Ibid.

(14) Tel est le point de départ de la spéculation, c'est l'être indéterminé, l'être qui peut tout devenir et qui n'est rien encore, l'être qui n'est que puissance d'être [The starting point of speculation is indeterminate being, that is, being which, although it can become everything, is as yet nothing; it is simply potency of being] (La philosophie de la Liberté, vol. 1, less. 11).

(15) To say that the idea is itself real, is to play with words. If real means 'something', the idea is certainly something - it is being and not nothing. But because being is both ideal and real (which are its two primal modes), we must ask: 'Is first evidence and logical necessity intuited by the human mind in ideal or in real being?' For example, it would be absurd to say, 'Indeterminate being is real being', because real being, being existing in itself, is always determinate. On the other hand indeterminate being thought by the mind is certainly not nothing. Signor Bertini, therefore, is guilty of equivocation when he claims to have found something real in the concept itself (c. 4). He is taking 'something' and 'real' as synonyms. - For the same reason he equivocates when he says, 'The infinite is its own idea' (c. 6), meaning by 'infinite', God. If we are speaking about an idea which God has of himself, we are speaking about a non-existent thing. In God there is only his essence, knowable through itself, which is not an idea. If however we are speaking only about our idea of God, it cannot be claimed that these many, more or less perfect ideas are God himself. This would mean the existence of many Gods, a kind of Platonic polytheism. Finally, God is not known by us through a simple idea but by the addition of an affirmation asserting his subsistence. The intuition of the idea and its affirmation can certainly be united in a single act of the spirit, that is, in perception, but 1. Signor Bertini does not demonstrate that we have the perception of God, and 2. our perception itself would never be God.

(16) Idea di una filosofia della vita, etc., c. 3.

(17) Ibid., c. 4.

(18) Signor Bertini defines what he calls 'real concept' as 'a concept which clearly implies the existence of its own object' (p. 25). His example is 'the concept of what is real and most indeterminate' which, according to him, implies something. But it is an error to say that the concept of what is real but most indeterminate implies the existence of its object. The concept, although A something, is determined, while its object is the something and totally indeterminate. Signor Bertini does not see the great difference between a determinate and an indeterminate object. This accounts for the error in his argument.

(19) Cf. paragraph (11) above.

(20) Cf. Introduction to Philosophy, Discourse on the studies of the Author, 84, 63 [in course of preparation].

(21) p. 230.

(22) p. 234.

(23) p. 237.

(24) Signor Bertini describes these conditions very well on p. 50 of his book, but does not include amongst them the principle of contradiction and the other logical principles which he uses to arrive at the existence of God.

(25) I would say 'real existence ' or existence of being in itself, because even indeterminate being is itself object of the mind. It has therefore an objective existence different from that of the mind, although in the mind.

(26) Idea di una Filosofia della vita, p. 25.

(27) For example, on p. 26 he says that if we have the concept of happiness, we can answer the question whether 'Croesus, granted he exists, is happy or not'. According to Bertini, a doubter certainly has the concept of non-being, because without it he could not have doubted. In this way he convinces the sceptic by making him contradict himself. He continually discusses possibility and impossibility. He supposes that true and certain results are obtained from the comparison and analysis of concepts, that appearances cannot be denied, that the infinite must exist if the finite exists, and that if the temporary exists, the eternal must exist (p. 32), and so on.

(28) p. 230.

(29) Cf. vol. 3, 1456-1460.

(30) p. 38.

(31) Ibid. - The word 'infinite' is ambiguous because it can mean a determinate and an indeterminate infinite, both of which are thought by the human mind. Thus, when Signor Bertini writes that 'the infinite is not only thinkable in itself but is the only thinkable thing' (p. 48), he enunciates a truth if he means the indeterminate infinite. This is not the case with the determinate infinite, which we think explicitly only as a result of reasoning, but do not need in order to think other things.

(32) Idea di una Filosofia della vita, p. 38.

(33) 'Anyone in possession of a real concept knows the objective existence of a thing by means of the concept. He can compare successively many mental concepts with this real concept and thus determine the first concept' (pp. 25, 26). This method allows him to form an idea of God from indeterminate 'something': he 'uses the concepts of limit, life, perfection, entity, intelligence, activity, love, freedom, etc.' (p. 230), which are all abstract concepts, and different from the concept of something.

(34) He begins his analysis with the question, 'To which beings do we normally attribute life?' (p. 54).

(35) p. 53 ss.

(36) pp. 54-55.

(37) Idea di una Filosofia della vita, p. 55, 59.

(38) p. 59.

(39) p. 59 ss.

(40) Sometimes Bertini seems content with an implicit intuition of God. But implicit knowledge is purely a potency for knowledge, not actual, direct knowledge. I certainly do not deny this potency. Indeed I maintain that we can argue inductively from the idea of being to the concept of God and prove his existence. But even if we grant a concept such as that of indeterminate being which itself implies or virtually contains the concept of God, we still have to decide how and to what extent human intelligence can make explicit what is contained implicitly in this concept. The answer, I think, is this: human intelligence can make explicit the concept of God contained virtually in the concept of indeterminate being in the way that Bertini posits, that is, by means of simple, logical determinations, which however do not allow us to see or communicate with the reality of the divine being.

(41) Cf. vol. 3, 1468-1472.

(42) Cf. Introduction to Philosophy.

(43) I have distinguished these two parts in vol. 3, 1471-1472.