Appendix 15.

(538) [The tabula rasa]

This would seem to be the true interpretation of the tabula rasa of the ancients. Modern authors, driven by the desire to ridicule all antiquity, have not, it seems to me, understood it, and this opinion is strengthened by the following reasons:

1. The likeness of the tabula rasa excludes any particular character written on our soul although a tabula exists on which anyone who wishes may write. This smooth, flat tabula, innate in our soul, is in my opinion indeterminate being and capable of receiving any determination whatsoever.

2. The same likeness can be explained by another used by Aristotle, that of light and colours. According to Aristotle, there are no colours, only innate light, which is per se uniform (the evenness of the tabula) and capable of making visible all the colours of things.

3. If the tabula rasa is understood in the way I have explained, many passages of Aristotle, which are otherwise irreconcilable, can be reconciled.

4. The likeness is used by the ancients, and in certain passages the authors expressly say that the idea of being is innate. One example is St. Bonaventure (or whoever wrote the work I am referring to). He uses the likeness in the Compendium theologicae veritatis, bk. 2, c. 49. In c. 45 he says that all cognitions come from sense. But he certainly seems to posit the idea of most actual being as innate in the human being (Itin. mentis in Deum), that is, he posits more than I do - I posit only the idea of perfectly indeterminate being as innate. We must conclude therefore that the likeness of the tabula was not understood in the mean-spirited way modern authors usually understand it.