Preface

1. The present work is not about philosophy in its search for new truths but about its attempts to clarify and develop truths known to all. In writing this essay, my sole intention has been to invite people to observe their inner thoughts and feelings, the things they already know naturally, even though habitually they do not reflect on them. In other words, I want to write a commentary upon a common-sense opinion and offer a reply to the simple question: 'What is the light of reason?' - that 'light' whose presence is fully authenticated in mankind because it is found in all languages and ages, and used by all schools of thought and by ordinary people everywhere. It is the most obvious fact, the pre-eminent fact, from which every other kind of evidence is derived.

2. I was led to undertake this task when asked to clarify statements I had made in other writings about the origins of human knowledge. I said:

But without undertaking a long, thorough investigation into the nature of human understanding, the object of the present work, I was unable to offer a full, convincing explanation of my assertion or describe the nature of this idea or primary form - what Dante calls 'The light connecting truth and intellect'.(2)

3. This mediating light, as Dante calls it, between the spirit and things constitutes and creates the very nature of the intellect. Nowadays, this nature and that of the senses have been so completely identified that philosophy appears willy-nilly to have reverted [App., no. 1] to its childhood days in the period prior to Aristotle and Plato.(3) In the long history of philosophy, from the remotest times to the present day, there has never been to my knowledge a baser, more demeaning misconception for human nature than the one advanced by sensists in the last century. By restricting the divine light of human understanding strictly to sensations, which man shares with the beasts, they extinguished that light. Even those who, like Locke and Condillac, claimed to discern an immortal soul in human beings were unaware of the distinction between sense and intellect, between sensation and idea. Recently I wrote some critical but true strictures on these two philosophers and was sharply taken to task by one of my shallow compatriots who have grown old in servitude to 18th century ideas and who never tire of trotting out their feeble, outdated views.

4. However, in Italy's defence, it is only fair that I mention how, during periods of philosophical subjection, it preserved its intellectual freedom better than others, or was certainly less tainted by the spinelessness that bows before the latest philosophical mountebank to appeal to the masses. Condillac's thought was in fact candidly assessed by the soundest Italian critics at an early stage as we can see in Memorie dell'Istituto nazionale italiano where our young people were advised against deception by the unusually forthright, presumptuous style of Condillac who had held such absolute, tyrannical sway for so long in France. Michele Araldi warned young Italians not to yield readily or let themselves be swayed by arrogant, overweening, contemporary writers who proclaimed their superiority and their right to teach the whole of mankind. He spoke out boldly at that time:

Thus Araldi, twenty years ago. What he said should count in his favour with those who know how Condillac was revered and what scorn was poured on anyone who dared to doubt the great master or even mention any author prior to him.(5) Even now there are still survivors among us who confine all human wisdom to the superficiality of Condillac's system because that happens to be the only philosophical system they have to offer.

5. This present work is a continuation of other short works published earlier. It is simply a further step towards the sole aim of all my efforts: to contribute, to the best of my ability, to the restoration of true philosophy, which has suffered so much humiliation and neglect in our times at the hands of the very thinkers who claimed to be its most dedicated devotees. Mankind must recognise the abasement of philosophy as a cause of the serious ills which sorely afflict it and of the dire sufferings characteristic of our present age. In my view, mankind can neither recover from its sickness nor find a respite from its endless anxieties without true philosophy as an effective cure, or at least relief, from its unending sufferings.

6. It is true that the argument proper to this book is very abstract and apparently remote from mankind's immediate, practical requirements. However, when ills are deep-rooted, causes have to be sought deep down. Perversion and dissoluteness are no longer due to regrettable weakness and frailty in the moral fibre of the human being; they have pervaded, so to speak, vast tracts of the human spirit, risen to the mind and been transformed into thought-out, icy malice. They have waged war on the truth and, after assailing consequential and front-line truths, have pressed their attacks ever deeper. Truths that could not be destroyed were ignored, denied and derided. This campaign of derision and denial of truths was sustained until the very last was overthrown: the essence of truth itself was denied and blasphemed. In scepticism, that is, in utter human imbecility, the evil spirit found a suitable place to lay the first stone of the edifice of human malice and corruption. The proper thing now is not to adopt a superficial approach nor to conceal from ourselves the extent of our wounds by adopting purely palliative remedies. Instead, all good persons with the necessary ability and knowledge must readily co-operate to contribute to the rebuilding of knowledge itself. After that, morality must be rebuilt and then, finally, our shattered and dislocated society. Moreover, in rebuilding the whole edifice of learning, people must begin from the most basic truths, upon which depend all other truths, together with the good generated by truth. They must force sceptics to admit their utter inability to ruin human understanding and extinguish its light, and convince the indifferent openly of lying to others and to themselves when they declare or persuade themselves of their unconcern for the indelible truth which is the very life of rational beings, and for the eternal good ordained by God and inevitably drawn by nature.

7. The aim of the present work is therefore to trace back as far as possible the source of truth within us where the springs of the river of life are to be found, and derive from this primary source all human knowledge and certainty. In the process, we discover a single seed from which grows true philosophy - the philosophy essential to mankind's needs. This philosophy exhibits the twin characteristics of unity and totality,(6) characteristics which I have elsewhere detected in philosophy. unity endows our cognitions with consistency and harmony; totality provides the immense pasture for which the human spirit longs and without which it cannot function. Whenever humans are deprived of some good essential to their mind, they inevitably fall into a sort of intellectual frenzy. The first truth, the form of reason, is of itself unique and extremely simple and inevitably bestows the most perfect unity upon all knowledge derived from it. All knowledge is derived from this truth which inevitably embraces all that is; this truth is the source of immense fecundity, and the subject of philosophy characterised by totality .

8. It is necessary therefore to attain the essence of truth as it is known by us in this life. This is the aim of the present work. I begin by dealing with the most obvious things and describing the most easily conceived systems in explaining the origin of ideas. I go on to point out the difficulties these systems leave unsolved. After that I outline the fruitless attempts of a number of worthy thinkers to overcome the difficulties. Finally, I expound the true solution and attempt gradually to introduce the most relevant conclusions and reveal clearly the thought I have been dealing with. Once truth is known, its characteristic as essential unity of all things is also known, together with its status as sole principle from which derives the unique philosophy we are seeking. At the same time, we know how this unique philosophy essentially embraces all that is. Truth is simply possible being. Outside of truth, outside of possible being, there lies only nothingness.

9. In actual fact, human beings have to satisfy two essential needs in themselves: one depends on the immensity of the heart, the other on its depths.

Even if we were given the whole universe to enjoy, we would not be satisfied. There is another requirement, over and above the many contingent beings on offer. The vast number of objects captivate and seduce us, but simultaneously weary and oppress us. We cannot be sated by a profusion of ungraspable, unsatisfying objects. In the end, we will seek some order in that profusion. We will look for something necessary and unique in it; we will never be fully satisfied until we have reduced and subdued the huge diversity and universality of things to a single principle. There, in the immutability of this principle, we will discover peace and calm of mind, where nothing remains to be desired because nothing else exists. In it, we are sated yet unwearied; in it, nothing is lacking, not even the most absolute simplicity.

10. When we have attained this absolute knowledge and arrived at a truth in which all is simplified and resolved, and beyond which the disquiet dependent on the pursuit of know-ledge disappears, we remain calm and satisfied. We can also view calmly the position we occupy in the whole scheme of things and how we have to behold this place of ours if we are to avoid disrupting an order we have been pursuing for so long. We submit to the principle which unifies all things in order to enter this great unity without disrupting it - the unity we have recognised as the final desire of our intelligent nature and the term of our deepest needs. This all-embracing unity then provides a solid foundation for moral science. As long as the different branches of knowledge are taught separately, they are like disjointed fragments of a great temple shaken or shattered by barbarian invasions. In these circumstances, human knowledge will never keep step with moral virtue. Nor will an increase in enlightenment make people any better. And if we do not improve, how can amoral society be reordered?

11. I also affirmed previously my belief that this is the theory underlying the Gospel, and therefore the philosophy of Christianity. It is no surprise that a divine philosophy intended for humans should have its roots in human nature and correspond to the fundamental laws of the nature through which it is mediated. Indeed, I truly would not know where to find any teaching other than Christianity that combines in itself the most perfect unity with the most complete totality. But Christianity is not merely a theory pointing the human mind to the way of truth, or to truth itself, as one person can speak to another. It is also an invisible power taking possession of the human mind, where it displays and radiates new light and reveals other aspects of itself previously hidden from human gaze and barred by the limitations of human nature. It acts powerfully in the heart which it transforms and converts from the pursuit of the outward appearance of perishable good to a longing and love for the supreme good which in truth itself is made more obvious and more attractive for us. It acts powerfully in our life renewed in conformity with our renewed mind and heart. It acts powerfully in the universe itself which tempers its laws, or rather has its laws already tempered ab eterno in obedience and service to truth that extends and triumphs in human nature.

12. That is why holy Scripture calls Christians: 'Those who have known the truth,'(7) as though this were their proper name. However, this truth - the principle underpinning the whole of Christianity - of which Scripture speaks and by whose word we are brought forth,(8) as Scripture says, is not merely the natural light of the mind (initial truth), but truth in its absolute fullness: first, subsistent truth. Thus it is not a cold idea of ours but all-powerful strength, the very word of God.(9) Consequently, holy Scripture tells us that the grace of God is in the truth(10) and that, by virtue of grace, we walk in the clear light of truth(11) in so far as we share, in our earthly life, in divine truth (the foundation of Christianity), and experience its power to fortify our intellect and rule our spirit. Yet even this fullness of truth, which operates within us with the utmost efficacy and sheds its radiance in our minds, is not fully revealed to us in its very essence, which is the essence of God. Here below, we must believe in its power in so far as we cannot experience it. In this sense, faith is the primary virtue of Christianity. Faith, says Scripture, is open to truth, and anyone who refuses to believe truth itself is essentially subject to the damnation springing from a lie.(12) Note that the only reason given by Christ to explain why human beings do not recognise his voice is their love of lies and their prior rejection of truth.(13)

13. The single principle of Christianity is truth: and truth is also the principle of philosophy. In philosophy, truth is found only as a rule of the mind; in Christianity, it comes to us complete and entire, and self-subsistent as a divine person. In part, this person is light within us, operating with the utmost efficacy in the very essence of our spirit; in part, this person is veiled and hidden, and as such forms the revered object of our faith and the infinite reason for all our hope. It follows that philosophy, to be authentic, must consider itself as nothing more than a propaedeutic to true religion. We will be more fully open to worship and faith the further we move away from error and the more we recognise and cherish even the 'preliminary outline' of natural Christianity (if I may use that term) which in us is natural truth and a veiled form of the divine Word, as I would be tempted to call it.(14)

14. This utterly simple principle, which gives such unity to Christian theory, is also the extremely fertile principle from which arises all the good bestowed by Christian theory. Even the different branches of science do not prosper steadily and harmoniously unless they are shoots of the seed and branches of the solid root of Christianity. This explains how Christianity brought civilisation - one of its natural by-products - to our world and made it as indestructible as itself. Christianity, working its way ever more deeply into society, planted in it a seed of unlimited perfectibility. But we, in our pride, are always heedless of the good things done by others, always ready to appropriate others' success. We attribute to ourselves the perfectibility which pre-Christian nations had not known. Christ alone, as Isaiah boldly said, 'destroyed the bridle of error that was in the jaws of the people'.(15) Human self-assurance, which can harm individuals. is now powerless to corrupt the whole of humanity. All the powers of hell in the last century have only served to offer further proof of human nothingness and of the omnipotence of our Redeemer, who has healed the nations.(16) For him, every obstacle is a necessary, premeditated expedient helping to accomplish the inescapable purposes of the Gospel. Despite momentary appearances to the contrary, it can nevertheless be safely said that nothing halts or holds back the progress of Christianity. On the contrary, even today we can repeat St. Athanasius's words: 'Henceforth pagan wisdom makes no progress. Rather its former wisdom is gradually disappearing.'(17) The efficacy and reliability of the word of God were for the Fathers of the Church the proof and the seal, as it were, of its divine origin; God's word is sure to be implemented. Christ himself referred to this characteristic when he said: 'All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them - I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.'(18) And: 'I did not lose a single one that you gave me.'(19)

15. All the effects of Christianity (and when I say the effects of Christianity I mean all possible good for mankind) stem in profusion from the single root of subsistent truth. The nature of this sublime institution, therefore, is such that it only needs to tend its roots to produce its wonderful effects. This explains Christian simplicity which seems intent on a single transcendent purpose and yet leads unexpectedly to happiness in the present life. Moreover, societal perfection, brought about in a hidden fashion, appears of itself on earth. Hence, the Gospel says that Jesus Christ, although he taught neither crafts nor natural sciences, 'taught all truth'.(20) Because the Fathers of the Church possessed this radical power of Christianity in all its abundance, they exhorted their neighbour to renounce secular knowledge. The philosopher and martyr, Saint Justin, exhorted the Greeks to espouse Christian wisdom when he described its true nature:

Thus, as a result of our renewal, of our being joined to God once more, of our becoming immortal and god-like, Christianity has made us - as a kind of small favour added to a huge one - the successful founders of human arts and happy promoters of the sciences, capable of forming a free, peaceful, happy society here on earth, similar in certain respects to a heavenly society. In a word, we can form Christian society, which embraces the whole world and grows to perfection as the ages pass.

16. The Church Fathers, while showing this unity of Christianity to be in its principle uncreated truth, also defined it as the power of the Word coming into us, but not for the sake of making us poets, philosophers, outstanding orators. They felt the totality of its effects, in which were necessarily included all dependent truths, but they also realised that every truth fell within the ambit of Christians, who worship subsistent truth. No aspect of true wisdom was ruled out, although all the pagan arts and sciences were to perish naturally as branches of a rotten, transient shoot, that is, of the human mind abandoned to its own resources. The prophecy of Jesus Christ was to be fulfilled: 'Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.'(22) All plants were to be renewed as they grew out of a Christian root, and were themselves to become Christian. According to Saint Justin:

It is the common view of the Fathers that Christians have quite a special ownership of, and right to, all truths and all sound teaching. This is due to their profession as Christians. The Fathers also defended this right, which they made a point of Christian honour to maintain. As St. Augustine says:

17. This explains Clement of Alexandria's affirmation. Conscious of the efficacy and fruitfulness of the Gospel and its world-wide penetration, he maintained that Greece and Athens were no longer destined to be the seat of wisdom. From then on, the whole world was Greece and Athens, and the great need was not to resort to the heathen schools, but to listen to the Word himself who had come to live among us.(26) Pagan arts and sciences were sterile, but those producing shoots from the Word of God were themselves divinised and incorporated into the knowledge of truth.(27) Consequently, Christianity demands and exhibits not just unity - and in unity the totality of what is known - but order and the rightful origin of cognitions without which totality cannot be perfect, nor knowledge lasting and efficacious among human beings. In fact, pagan civilisation, centred almost wholly upon Greece, was short-lived; the civilisation springing from Christianity quickly spread throughout the whole of Europe, although it would be inaccurate to call it European. Its enduring tendency to spread throughout the world is so obvious that it can only be called catholic, a sign characteristic of the religion which produced it.

18. This sublime religion, which abolished slavery and brought together the great company of free men that is the Catholic Church, accomplished its task without any violent effort simply by communicating to mankind the knowledge of divine truth in accordance with the prediction made by the Church's founder: 'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'(28) This is true freedom, the first fruit of virtue according to the teaching of her divine founder: 'Truly, I say to you, anyone who sins is a slave to sin.'(29) True servitude to God is that alone which can free us from servitude to one another. Mankind's decree of emancipation is thus contemporaneous with and identical to the first of the Ten Commandments, which involves the worship of God, who set up worship of himself and promulgated freedom in these solemn words: Dominum Deum tuum adorabis et illi soli servies [You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve].(30) Truth, then, is the principle of justice because we become holy in the truth.(31) The fruits of justice, in which the worship of God mainly consists, are freedom, peace and happiness for society. The Catholic Church, the society formed by truth, is therefore essentially free although the unjust world, which 'detains the truth of God in injustice',(32) is constantly endeavouring to bind it in chains. This essential freedom is the necessary effect of the principle of Christianity which is truth. And as the development of truth among human beings can no longer be halted or slowed by human efforts and the perversity of the devil, so the progress of freedom for the Catholic Church cannot fail to continue and become even clearer. Some unhappy souls, overcome by love of fragile, temporary power here below, think they can dominate the Church, which is subject only to God. But generous souls who fight God's battles to obtain freedom for the Church are blessed. Their names will always be honoured and remembered in the society of the just with everlasting, unfailing love.

19. Such are the effects of truth, the principle of religion in so far as it is complete, divine and naturally hidden from mankind but, by God's action, now a well-spring of grace and an object of faith. It is also the principle of philosophy in so far as it naturally radiates in our minds either as an initial idea or as a norm of judgments. Philosophy, therefore, cannot be confused with religion with which, however, it is remarkably consonant and for which it provides a very useful service.

This is the relationship between philosophy and Christianity set out in this book. In expounding it, I have tried to fulfil the duty incumbent on all authors to reveal candidly from the start their own personal stance and make themselves known clearly to their readers. I have always thought it shameful to hide behind anonymity in the manner of some good, but overtimid authors, or other treacherous, untrustworthy and dishonest writers whose concealment and dissimulation of their feelings can in some way be condoned. In my view, I owed it to Christian society, to which the majority of my readers belong, to point out how my philosophy is related to Christian philosophy. It is only fitting that Christians, when presented with a new work of philosophy, should immediately ask how it is related to the religion they profess, in which they place their greatest hopes and their fundamental good. They have a right to be given accurate information. However apathetic our age may be, and however much religious fervour has declined, it remains a fact that baptised people, taken as a whole, do attempt such a quest, at least implicitly in the depths of their hearts.

The impression made on human nature by Christianity is so profound that people often do this involuntarily, without being aware of it. Consequently, I owed such a declaration to the great society of Christians and especially to my beloved Italy which besides giving me life and speech, devoutly preserves the faith of its true forefathers and takes its greatest pride in such fidelity. I owe it also to the Eternal City where I am now writing, the foundation stone of the edifice of the Church to which people of all nations converge. Here Christians mingle as citizens of a common motherland and, as believers from the four corners of the earth, meet and embrace at the feet of a common father in whose features they see the living image of Jesus Christ.

20. Having done my duty by indicating the spirit of the philosophy I profess and which I hold to be the only true philosophy beneficial to mankind, it is worthwhile pointing once more to what I see as major obstacles to its progress. I will do this briefly.

I have no intention of speaking about the continuous opposition on the part of the wicked to the progress of truth or about the continuous persecution to which the world subjects the Church. Obstacles of this nature are not subject to our will but controlled by divine Providence, which guides them with ineffable wisdom to achieve the greatest glory and the foreordained triumph of Christ. I intend to speak of the obstacles which we ourselves raise to the progress of the philosophy for which the world feels such a need and for which religion asks and urgently pleads today to safeguard people from books full of false, dangerous teaching often openly irreligious and impious.

These obstacles, often raised by good people who do not realise the harm they are doing, spring from unfamiliarity with the intimate nature of religion and philosophy and from complete ignorance of the condition and needs of modern society. Such people maintain that there is no need to debate difficult problems because the Gospel in its simplicity is perfectly adequate to human needs. I have already replied to this by reference to the teaching of the Fathers who knew the fullness of truth in the Gospel and also knew that after the Gospel, which contained all that was needed, pagan schools were useless.

But by this they meant that the Gospel contained teaching which essentially ennobled and elevated the moral and intellectual status of mankind. When ennobled by the Gospel and linked closely to God, Christians were, in a word, enabled to re-create on their own all the arts and sciences in a truer and more noble manner and to form society anew. Thus they no longer needed to go to the pagans and seek artificial, tainted wisdom full of dross and error. Progress in knowledge, rather than an obstacle to the Gospel, is its natural effect and fulfils the needs of all mankind. God himself assisted the development of doctrine by allowing unbelievers and heretics to contradict and attack the truth. In doing so, they forced good people to make it more widely known and uncover the depths of its riches. For the most part it is not we but our adversaries, more restless and shrewder than ourselves,(33) who bring to the fore the most arduous questions about human nature and God. In dealing with these pressing difficulties, we are obliged to acquire a huge treasure house of true and priceless teaching.

St. Hilary spoke against this type of obstacle in words which, although apposite for his own time, are even more appropriate today:

21. There is another category of good people who impede the progress of philosophy. Wearied by numerous, unsuccessful attempts and rendered uncertain about the outcome by the wide divergence of opinions, they abandon all philosophical study without realising that this weariness is caused by their own lack of individual drive. They then want to make a universal rule of the lethargy into which they have allowed themselves to drift. It is difficult for us to accept what happens to us as our own fault. We want to justify ourselves, and attribute our own shortcoming to a universal law of human nature and even of truth itself. Sometimes we impose this law on others by claiming that all have the same shortcomings as ourselves and are in the wrong if they are not like us.

But it is no wonder that our times should see the rise of weariness in philosophical argument when as early as the fourth century of the Church's history St. Gregory Nazianzen was writing:

These people, therefore, unjustly inveigh against philosophy and claim they can set aside what they call perplexing questions which, according to them, are merely the cause of endless, unedifying disputes. But people like this have little idea of human nature and their own powers. They think they can draw a line between one truth and another, and declare some truths useful and others worthless. They do not realise that truth in all its extension is an essential requirement of our nature which longs more keenly for knowledge the more difficult, far off and mysterious knowledge is. The powers of individuals are indeed limited, but only in the sense that they are unable to deprive mankind of the tiniest particle of truth. Mankind will never accept the imposition of such an arbitrary, unjust limitation; the pursuit of truth will always be on a par with the search for light and air, and will be as accessible to mankind as God has made it.

22. Weariness in pursuit of truth produces different effects in different kinds of people, all of them detrimental to the development of sound philosophy.
In some, it leads to the rapid adoption of the first views they hear. They forget that when eternal truths are applied to human affairs, these applications, like human affairs themselves, are capable of going awry; circumspection and conscientiousness are required if we are to be convinced that such applications are true and reliable. Minucius Felix made the same point:

23. Others, endowed with greater intelligence and full of self-assurance, imagine they can put an end to all problems by devising their own simple, universal systems with an admixture of few concepts. But these are no better than the systems of their predecessors and cannot offer any better solution to the difficult problems posed by human nature. Such solutions arbitrarily rule out lengthy research and confine themselves to a narrow, extremely inadequate circle of cognitions assessed and determined in accordance with their own standards. Such thinkers are a considerable impediment to the advance of truth, especially if they present their errors in a magnificent, flowing style and flatter their readers by the ease, simplicity and magnificence of few, occasionally true, holy pronouncements. The disdain they heap on those who do not agree with them is another important impediment to truth. They are convinced that everything important for human nature is contained within the confines of their own declaration of doctrine, and their excessive zeal leads them to forecast the most dismal consequences for any views other than their own. Very often, they label heterodox or even atheistic all opinions differing even slightly from their own. Too many are led astray by the semblance of the good these people intend to attain, but from which they are debarred by their lack of prudence and their incapacity. Their errors are like rocks at sea, which should be carefully avoided. That is why I have chosen to describe them briefly. But because these people have good intentions, seeing themselves clearly in a mirror may be sufficient to alter their ways.
We should not believe, however, that this group, and others I have mentioned, have begun to exist only now. Is there anything new under the sun? Are there any flaws in human nature originating only today?

24. The fault I have described - and even the good fall prey to it out of weakness - is due entirely to arrogant confidence in our own powers, and to an exaggerated trust in our ability to rectify faults without difficulty. We think we can lead people along some great highway to achieve perfectly here below a goal which will be attained only after many centuries, or perhaps not at all. We think that an idea which seems helpful in attaining such a perfect goal can occur to the mind only if it is already part of human nature and of the natural order of things. Those who view such an idea favourably immediately assume that it exists in human nature or in the order of things. Lured by the advantage it affords their thought, they firmly assert that it is a law of nature and already present in the natural order of things.

The theory which takes common agreement amongst the whole of mankind as the sole, ultimate criterion of certainty is one example of this. It arose from the thought that human beings would indeed find it useful to have a simple, universal criterion generating individual truths in a fine, expressive way without the difficulties inherent in the application of other criteria.(38) One thinker considered it would be useful to have a swift, simple criterion of truth, and concluded that universal agreement was this criterion. He did not inquire whether this was the case in actual practice. The appeal exerted by the usefulness of such a criterion was sufficient to proclaim its existence. What was the origin of Leibniz's confidence in the rules of logic, or Raymond Lull's or Giordano Bruno's trust in arte magna? Or the origin of the hope of rediscovering a universal oral or written language with which to carry every argument to its conclusion and true result? It was not a close examination of the nature of things - which would have shown these bold philosophers the length to which the Creator had gone to provide man with the tools required to solve the most intricate problems - but a vivid appreciation of the usefulness of such a universal sign. They reasoned that such a useful means must necessarily exist in the nature of things.

And what was the source of so many conflicting, strange theories put forward by publicists on the origin and nature of society? In most cases, these authors simply refrained from considering facts and satisfied themselves with conceiving whatever they considered most beneficial. They described the nature of society not as it was but as they determined it should be. The tragedian of Asti [Vittorio Alfieri] wrote with assurance and confidence that society should be organised so that we were no longer able to harm one another - thus arriving at the same concept as Kant, the sophist of Koenigsberg, with his 'jural status', because he thought it would be extremely useful. But he gave no consideration to investigating its possibility. It never occurred to him that human nature would reject the regulation, the wisest and most useful of all according to him, which his mind wished to impose upon it.

Finally, we cannot explain the arbitrary laws imposed by so many writers as the very laws of nature unless these authors considered them advantageous. This explains the many arbitrary decisions found not only in civil societies but even in the organisation of the fine arts. After all, even beauty itself, to be beautiful, has to bow down before the rules of art and see whether it conforms to them or not. All these errors, committed by learned people in pursuing the good not where it is to be found, but where they are persuaded it must be, depend upon two things. First, our authors have a high respect for the nature of things, rightly considering that nature has not been created haphazardly and stupidly, but according to wise law and sovereign goodness. But they have an even higher opinion of themselves. It never occurs to them that their law, which they consider so wise and outstanding, is not the law of nature. They are often led astray in this way. Sometimes - I should say always - nature's laws are wiser and better than those devised and desired by philosophers as laws of nature, although desire prompts them to declare their own better, and defend them doggedly. In fact, the infinite wisdom of nature far surpasses our limited wisdom. The law which we wish to impose upon nature as wisest and best is so often not merely foolish and wicked, but absurd! It is not sufficient to foster a principle of benevolence if this principle is unqualified by prudence and lies outside the direction of the type of wisdom acquired by humble observation of the nature of things.

In short, we have to become students of nature, examining her laws without anticipating them or dictating them to her. We must not be dismayed if the laws observed in physical, intellectual and moral nature differ from those thought necessary by our vain prejudices. We have to remain faithful to a lively belief in a supreme wisdom which corrects and directs all. If we see no advantage in a law under examination, we must patiently continue our research. Pondering that law more deeply, we will either discover a wisdom which proves amazingly instructive or, if we still remain puzzled, enjoy even in the dark a greater light, which will gently overwhelm us. We will attain a philosophy which is not disdainful of humanity, nor proud and domineering, but in harmony with Christianity, since the author of nature is also the author of the Gospel.

25. However, in the present work I merely wish to offer the outlines of such a desirable philosophy. If this first, slight work is carefully based on nature's standards, if my intentions are honourable, if the spirit of philosophy which I put forward to civilised nations is in harmony with the spirit of their religion, let good people join me in my work by correcting my mistakes in a brotherly spirit and making up for my deficiencies.

(1) Cf. vol. 1 of Opuscoli Filosofici, p. 98.

(2) Purgatorio 6: 45.

(3) These two philosophers pointed out and refuted the fundamental error of their predecessors, who were unable to distinguish feeling from thought, and made a single faculty from these two intrinsically distinct faculties. They ascribed this to lack of sophisticated observation on the part of the earlier philosophers whose observation of human nature they considered primitive and coarse.

(4) Saggio di un' errata di cui sembrano bisognosi alcuni libri elementari delle naturali scienze etc., Milan, at the Royal Printing Works, 1812, vol. I, p. 311 ss.

(5) Nowadays, even the French admit with disdain the presumptuous tone of Condillac and his school, which so scornfully lorded it over other philosophers. It is a pleasure to see in the following lines of Jouffroy how, after the disappearance of fanaticism, people clearly recognised, even in France, the truth which Araldi and other Italians had seen so long before. 'At the time when M. Royer-Collard began his lectures (1811), Condillac's was the only philosophy in France. Whether this philosophy is good or bad is not a question I wish to debate. I merely state that it had then acquired the authority of a dogma. It was the subject of commentary and development, and of attempts to present it more accurately and clearly. No one, however, attempted to challenge its fundamental principles. Condillac, it seems, had so faithfully delineated the forms of the human mind that studying the original had become a waste of time. Recapitulation of his wonderful analysis was adequate for all intellectual requirements. Condillac had done nothing to safeguard his followers from such blindness. Not only had he refrained from giving such a warning, but the whole thrust of his claim was that his system on the human mind fully registered and explained all the phenomena the mind could possibly contain. It was impossible to be a half-hearted follower. Merely to question or seek to complete a single issue was tantamount to rejecting his philosophy. One had to walk with him or be considered his adversary' (Oeuvres complètes de Th. Reid, published by M. Th. Jouffroy, Introduction).

(6) See what I wrote about the nature of the philosophy which I intend to follow, and about the two characteristics which mark it off, in the two prefaces to vols. 1 and 2 of the Opuscoli Filosofici.

(7) Qui cognoverunt veritatem (2 Jn: 4).

(8) Genuit nos verbo (Jas 1: 18).

(9) Ego sum... veritas (Jn 14: 6).

(10) Gratiam Dei in veritate (Col 1: 6).

(11) In veritate ambulare (3 Jn 4).

(12) ... elegerit vos Deus... in fide veritatis (2 Thess 2: 12 [13]) ... Ut judicentur omnes qui non crediderunt veritati (ibid., 11 [12]).

(13) Quare loquelam meam non cognoscetis?... Quia non potestis audire sermonem meum. Vos ex patre diabolo estis... quia non est veritas in eo (Jn 8: 43-44).

(14) Lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum (Jn 1: 9).

(15) Fraenum erroris quod erat in maxillis populorum (Is 30: 23).

(16) Wis 1: 14.

(17) Nullos item progressus habet Gentilium sapientia: sed potius quae antea erat sensim evanescit (St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verb. Dei, no. 55).

(18) Omnes quotquot venerunt fures sunt et latrones, et non audierunt eos oves ... Ego sum pastor bonus, et cognosco meas; et cognoscunt me meae (Jn 10: 8 and 14).

(19) Jn 18: 8

(20) Jn 16: 13.

(21) Oratio ad Graecos, no. 5.

(22) Mt 15: 13.

(23) The seed mentioned by St. Justin corresponds to initial being, the term which I use for the light of reason.

(24) Apologia secunda, no. 13.

(25) Qui philosophi vocantur, si qua forte vera et fidei nostra accommoda dixerunt, ab eis tanquam injustis possessoribus in usum nostrum vindicanda sunt (De Doctrina Christiana, 2: 40).

(26) Quam ob rem, ut mihi videtur cum ipsum Verbum ad nos venit caelitus, non sunt nobis amplius frequentandae hominum scholae, nec Athenae, aut reliqua Graecia, aut etiam Ionia studiorum causa adeundae. Nam si hoc utamur magistro qui sanctis virtutibus, opificio, salute, beneficio, legislatione, vaticinio, doctrina complevit omnia; nulla est doctrina quam is non tradit, ipsique, hoc est Verbo, universus iam orbis terrarum Athenae atque Graecia factus est [Therefore, since the Word himself has come down to us from above, it seems to me that we need go no longer to pagan schools or resort to Athens, or anywhere else in Greece or even Ionia in order to study. For if we follow this teacher, who has achieved perfection in holy virtues, in his works, in salvation, beneficence, law-giving, prophecy and doctrine, we see that he propounds the fullness of teaching. He is the Word who has been appointed lord of the city of Athens and of Greece.] (Cohortatio ad Gentes, 11).

(27) Scientia veritatis: this is the precise definition of Christianity in holy Scripture. Cf. St. Paul, 2 Tim 3: 7.

(28) Et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos (Jn 8: 32).

(29) Amen, amen dico vobis quia omnis qui facit peccatum, servus est peccati (Jn 8: 34).

(30) Lk 4: 8.

(31) Sanctificati in veritate (Jn 17: 19, 17).

(32) Qui veritatem Dei in iniustitia detinent (Rom 1: 18)

(33) Lk 16: 8.

(34) We see here that error also has its traditions, which the Fathers characterise by the name 'human', and justly so, because the human race, considered in itself, is so little capable of being the judge of truth!

(35) De Trinitate, bk. 12, no. 10: Cavendum igitur adversus philosophiam est; et humanarum traditionum non tam evitanda sunt quam refutanda, etc.

(36) Oratio 31.

(37) Nullum negotium est patefacere, omnia in rebus humanis dubia, incerta, suspensa, magisque omnia verisimilia quam vera. Quo magis mirum est, nonnullos taedio investigandae penitus veritatis cuilibet opinioni temere succumbere, quam in explorando pertinaci diligentia perseverare (In Octavio).

(38) If you consult an authority to know the truth, and the authority is infallible, you are told the truth. A rational principle or criterion, however, does not furnish truth directly, but is merely the means of discovering or of inferring it by argument. Granted therefore an infallible authority, no other form of reasoning is needed to discover the truth. As a result, it was hoped that all philosophical systems might be eliminated and a great number of very difficult problems avoided by declaring mankind the infallible judge of all the questions on which we can attain certainty. But even after such a declaration, we remain exactly what we are, neither more nor less.