A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas is the first complete English translation of Rosmini's(1) Nuovo saggio sull'origine delle idee since the publication in 1884 of a similar three volume work by William Lockhart. (2) The aim of the present edition is to offer English-speaking readers an opportunity to share in the renewed interest in Rosmini currently underway in Italy especially, but also in North and South America. This aim is, of course, dependent upon a belief that Rosmini has something to offer today. The work is not intended solely as a contribution to the history of philosophy.

A New Essay, despite almost total neglect in English-speaking philosophical circles, marks a watershed in philosophical development. In the work, the whole of Western thought on epistemological problems is evaluated (volume 1), a coherent theory about the origin of ideas is set forward (volume 2) and the nature of certainty is examined (volume 3).

The evaluation of philosophical theory about the origin and nature of ideas takes into account two classes of thinkers: those whose work errs by defect, and those who err by positing more than is necessary for the solution of the problem. Locke, Condillac, Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart stand on the deficit side of the divide; Plato, Leibnitz and Kant on the other. Rosmini then bridges the gap between the two by positing a single, innate idea - the idea of being - as the necessary foundation of all thought. As an innatist, therefore, he stands with Plato. At the same time, he accepts, with Locke and Kant, the need for sense experience to determine and concretise this idea through the judgments we make about the existence of things. Finally, on the basis of the naturally intuited idea of being, which as the light of reason forms the capacity possessed by the human mind for looking out on all being, Rosmini writes at length about certainty, the only final resting place for human thought.

It is clear that the idea of being is for Rosmini 'the final reason for every concept...' It contains everything embryonically ('virtually', as he would say) and as such is the 'mother-idea'.

The motive prompting Rosmini's work was complex. Since his youth, he had been enamoured of truth which, according to him, would be expressed in systematic knowledge by establishing 'uni-totality' (one self-evident principle as the basis of all on-going knowledge) as the aim of the 'system of truth'. In other words, all on-going knowledge must depend upon a single, self-evident principle as its basis. For him, the only worthwhile exercise in epistemology lies in seeking the mediate principles arising from truth, and developing the relationship between these principles and their conclusions in an orderly fashion. A non-philosophical example would be the principle of the wheel, which contains within itself the seed of all applications of the wheel. Similarly, the intuited idea of being, the sole foundation of truth, is that from which all determinate knowledge, direct and reflective, has to be drawn.

As Rosmini completed A New Essay, he was confident that he had laid the groundwork for everything that could validly be encompassed within the ambit of knowledge, although he had no illusions about the actual paucity of human knowledge compared with what always remains to be made known through advances in every branch of science. He insisted, however, that everything contrary to the idea of being - anything which is not, anything which is opposed to being - was an impediment to knowledge. Error, the antithesis of knowledge, 'consists in a thought, and hence in a word, about things which are not, that is, which do not have being.' Descartes with his doubt, Locke with his philosophical sensism, and Kant with his categories, destroy the unity of being and fragment the totality sought by the human mind.

It is clear that such an epistemology would not be complete without a metaphysics of being. This conviction, deeply embedded in Rosmini's considerations, would lead him to further work intimately connected with metaphysics, and still incomplete at his death. This need not concern us here. What does concern us, however, is Rosmini's maturing approach to the work we are reviewing. Although he was subject to Lockian influences in his first philosophical formation, and had been engaged in ontological speculation since at least the age of sixteen, his first major attempts at formulating a Christian Encyclopaedia in active opposition to the French Encyclopaedia show active and reasoned distaste for Locke and sensist philosophy. In particular, he saw sensism as destructive of society, a matter of particular concern to him as he surveyed the rejection of moral values and responsibility following upon the Enlightenment, and actively developed during the French Revolution and its aftermath. As he came to grips with the philosophical problems inherent in a world where society was, as he saw it, on the brink of collapse, he realised that little or nothing could be achieved for society's renewal without first providing a reasoned and explicit answer to the epistemological problems underlying the symptoms of uncertainty threatening the social fabric. Consequently, he set aside work previously undertaken on the nature of civil society to devote himself to the production of A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas, where the reference to Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding could scarcely be missed. When he had published the work in 1830, he was able to return to his former studies, consolidate his ideas on the human person, and move forward on a broad philosophical front embracing ethics and conscience,(3) philosophical anthropology and psychology,(4) the whole field of human rights(5) and the philosophy of society(6) and metaphysics.(7) Towards the end of his life, he made use of all this work, but especially of his metaphysical speculation, in revising important aspects of A New Essay.

The remote preparation for such an undertaking was completed during Rosmini's youth. By the age of twenty, he was thoroughly conversant with classical literature, at home with Greek philosophy, Socratic and pre-Socratic, and very familiar with the Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine. In addition, his knowledge of the Scholastics, and of Aquinas in particular, was profound. His early attitude to Plato and Aristotle, whom he views together as the key to Western philosophy, is seen in his conciliatory attempt, in A New Essay, to examine Aristotle by comparing him with Plato, rather than by viewing Aristotle in himself. Later, he would undertake a more intense study of Aristotle which reached its culmination in two works(8) which favoured Plato to the detriment of Aristotle.

This very brief outline of Rosmini's preparation and motive for writing A New Essay is a simple, schematic introduction to the work. But we may still ask ourselves why Rosmini is being resurrected in English today. The answer is found in the destructive individualism proper to our post-modern world and the need for an antidote to the intellectual debility and chronic uncertainty characteristic of post-modernism.

We live in an age of uncertainty. Even the great strides towards domination over nature taken during the past two centuries have contributed in bringing western civilisation to a paradoxical condition in which intolerable mental confusion is often combined with considerable intellectual arrogance. Inevitably we look for salvation, and find it at best in strong, decent guidance, at worst in any distraction promising relief from the need to accept our individual responsibilities.

The chief factor leading to this disorientated living is widespread scepticism about the value of human reasoning. Not long ago, such an attitude would have been found only in philosophical circles, but greater instruction, better communications and the loss of our ability to concentrate on sustained argument have enabled it to spread throughout society at great cost to objectivity. Subjectivity, however, affords no solid basis on which to found a consistent way of life and fulfil human longing for freedom and dignity.

Rosmini's work on the problem of knowledge places 'the objective light of reason', not reasoning itself, at the centre of thought. This necessarily objective light, revealing itself to human beings as the objective source of all knowledge, is the sure element upon which all reasoning depends. Without this illumination, even scepticism would be at a loss to express the contradiction inherent in its affirmation of universal doubt.

Moreover, the light of reason is not a transient feature in human life. It shines before individuals unchangeably, whatever use they make of it and even when they endeavour to turn away from it. As a stable feature it allows human beings to share unceasingly in its eminent characteristics. Without entering their existence as part of their subjective being, it is the fount of their dignity, their duties and their rights. As something seen by all who share human nature, it is the source of our essential unity and brotherhood. And it draws all human beings to rise above themselves, inviting them to search for that of which it is an image.

In addition, Rosmini's investigation into the source of human knowledge provides, amongst other things, an examination of the relationship in the human person between the light of reason and feeling or sensation, and shows how these elements contribute the characteristics of objectivity and subjectivity to human existence.

Finally, Rosmini's theory offers not only a basis for certainty, but a criterion by which we may judge whether we do in fact possess certainty, defined by him as 'a firm and reasonable persuasion which conforms to the truth' . In the third volume of A New Essay, he deals at length with the question of certainty and its definition, and draws a number of corollaries about outstanding features of human understanding and will.

Because persuasion in Rosmini's sense depends upon the will, it is immediately clear that his definition places certainty where it really belongs, that is, amongst human acts. It is a human quality, not an attribute of truth. But it is connected with truth in such a way that it cannot be unrelated to it. Persuasion as the foundation of certainty must conform to truth; it cannot, according to Rosmini, be accorded to formal error and retain its capacity to serve as a basis for certainty.

A second corollary concludes that formal error, as a human, reasoning act, has its essential roots in the human spirit, where it springs first from an act of will, not of intellect. It is therefore avoidable, at least through willed suspension of judgment. In the last analysis, formal error is that act by which we refuse to acknowledge what we know for what we know it to be. As such, it takes on the quality of immorality.

A third corollary shows that logical principles are not the outcome of empirical understanding, but the most general application of the light of being, truth itself, to the things we know. Consequently, although they enable us to judge the validity of thought in so far as it expresses what is possible and what is impossible, they tell us nothing about the existence of finite things. They can, however, draw our attention to the necessity of an infinite existence, the supreme Being, as the only final explanation of the existence of the logical principles themselves.

Each of these great corollaries is challenging in its beauty and audacity, and each of them drives the reader back to the principle of unity on which the whole of Rosmini's theory of knowledge rests. The great call of his treatise on certainty, as a whole and in its parts, is to provoke final surrender to, or rejection of, the 'light of being'.

The translation

Beside the general description of the work which has been attempted here, it is necessary to add some notes about the translation, which has been made from the 5th Italian edition(9) of the Nuovo Saggio.

This Italian edition, reviewed in its entirety towards the end of Rosmini's life, contains a number of important changes from the first edition.(10) In particular, Rosmini's metaphysical studies had brought him to a better understanding of the importance of the distinction in Italian between essere and ente, pl. enti. Essere, used as a nominal infinitive, stands for the Greek [[Gk] (German das Sein): ente, the supposed present participle of essere, was introduced - as in the Latin ens, pl. entia - to represent the corresponding [[Gk]of the Greek philosophers (German das Seiende). In English, both essere and ente would normally be translated as 'being' with consequent misrepresentation, in our case, of the sense of the author, especially in those places where Rosmini, in his final revision of A New Essay, has considerably refined his use of these words. The translators have decided, therefore, to use 'being' for essere, and 'ens', (pl. 'entia'), for ente (enti).(11) Some foundation for this will be found in the Oxford English Dictionary where 'ens' is listed, but without the precise philosophical meaning given to ente, a meaning which can be evaluated only within the ambit of Rosmini's epistemology and metaphysics.(12)

Another important feature of the translation is the transference of many of Rosmini's immensely long footnotes to an appendix within each volume. This has been done, in the first place, to avoid the need of inordinately long footnotes which sometimes run to three or four pages. But there is another, more important result which we hope will be of benefit to readers. These lengthy, transferred footnotes are not indications of sources, or passing references to other works, or snippets of information about the matter in hand, or an unworthy show of erudition. They are essays in themselves, and often throw great light on passages of other authors, especially of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Read at a distance, as it were, from the text, their clarity takes on a value of its own without losing its appropriateness for the text to which it is being referred.

Special mention is needed, however, of no. 35 in the Appendix. This is not a displaced footnote, but originally appeared as a preamble to Rosmini's collected epistemological works, and was intended as a reply to G. M. Bertini's criticism(13) of Rosmini's theories. Although it contains a number of valuable insights into Rosmini's mind, it would be wholly inappropriate at the beginning of a modern English translation. We have, therefore, retained it, but in a position where it will not take first place in Rosmini's text.

Finally, some consideration must be given to Rosmini's Italian. It has a number of precious qualifications, amongst which however brevity and conciseness do not take first place. There has been no attempt to reproduce in English Rosmini's often long, and sometimes tortuous journey through lengthy concatenations of phrases, although every effort has been made to retain all elements of meaning in the briefer sentences we have normally adopted. On the other hand, the gain in clarity from Rosmini's constant habit of summing up before taking a new step forward is a feature of his method which we have tried faithfully to preserve. All in all, we suspect that the modern English will be clearer today, even for English-speaking Italians, than the original Italian. We sincerely hope that this is the case 'although it is a risky business, stating what one has tried to do or, worse, the principles one has used' (14)

(1) Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, born at Rovereto (Italy) 1797, died at Stresa (Italy) 1855. A saintly priest, polymath, philosopher and theologian, he was the founder of a religious congregation, the Institute of Charity. Revered by many in the Church, and reviled by many more, he was the subject of philosophical and theological controversy from 1841 until his death. Two of his works, The Five Wounds of Holy Church and A Constitution according to Social Justice, were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1848. In 1889, forty propositions, taken in part from posthumous works, were condemned by Pope Leo XIII. An active process of rehabilitation within the Church is underway, and has clearly been reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Fides et Ratio: 'The fruitfulness of this relationship is confirmed by the experience of great Christian theologians who also distinguished themselves as great philosophers, bequeathing to us writings of such high speculative value as to warrant comparison with the masters of ancient philosophy. ...We see the same fruitful relationship between philosophy and the word of God in the courageous research pursued by more recent thinkers, among whom I gladly mention... John Henry Newman, Antonio Rosmini, Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson and Edith Stein... Obviously other names could be cited; and in referring to these I intend not to endorse every aspect of their thought, but simply to offer significant examples of a process of philosophical enquiry which was enriched by engaging the data of faith' (no. 74).
For Rosmini's life, vide Claude Leetham, Rosmini, Priest and Philosopher, New York, 1982, and Denis Cleary, Antonio Rosmini: Introduction to his Life and Teaching, Durham, 1992.

(2) The Origin of Ideas, 3 vols., London, 1884.

(3) Principles of Ethics, Leominster, 1988; Conscience, Durham, 1989 (these texts, together with other English translations of Rosmini's works, may be viewed at: 'www.rosmini-in-english.org'.

(4) Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, Durham, 1991; Psychology, 4 vols., Durham, 1999.

(5) The Philosophy of Right, 6 vols., Durham, 1995.

(6) The Philosophy of Politics, 2 vols., Durham, 1994.

(7) Cf. in particular Rosmini's incomplete philosophical meditation on being, published posthumously in Teosofia, Turin, 1859. An English translation of this work is in preparation. All six volumes of the study are currently being republished in Italian as part of the critical edition of Rosmini's edited and unedited works (Opera edite e inedite di Antonio Rosmini, Rome/Stresa, 1979- ).

(8) Logica, Turin, 1853, and Aristotele esposto e esaminato, Turin, 1857.

(9) Turin, 1855.

(10) Rome, 1830.

(11) The translators cannot agree with Lockhart, op. cit, Preface, p. xxviii, that 'the context [in A New Essay] will always tell which meaning to attach to our single [English] term, being.' For a more extensive discussion of the difficulties entailed in translating essere, ente and other words in Rosmini's philosophical vocabulary, cf. Rosmini, Psychology, vol. 1, Essence of the Human Soul, [Translators'] Foreword, p. x-xi, Durham, 1999.

(12) The following example may help to indicate the difficulty, and in part illustrate Rosmini's use of essere and ente. L'essere è l'atto d'ogni ente e d'ogni entità (being is the act of every ens and of every entity) (Teosofia, vol. 1, p. 215, Stresa, 1998). Translated as: 'Being is the act of every being and of every entity', the sentence would appear only as a regrettable pleonasm.

(13) G. M. Bertini, L'idea di una filosofia della vita, Turin, 1850.

(14) Robert Fagles, Translator's Postscript to Homer, The Odyssey, p. 490, New York, 1997.