New Essay Volume 3

Appendix 7. (1200)

[Truth and our own existence]

Galluppi and other subjectivists thought that St. Augustine had made Descartes' 'I exist' the first truth on which all other truths depend. But, as I have shown (cf. vol. 2, 970 ss.), Descartes' first proposition lacks conviction unless we presuppose its major. St. Augustine began from 'I exist', not as the first truth but as a truth accepted as self-evident by the Academicians whom he was refuting. When he spoke of the first truth, his mind had already abandoned the subject and attained the object, that is, to the very essence of truth, stripped of time, place, restrictions and limits. He saw its light as more certain and unshakeable than his own existence, and wrote these memorable words: FACILIUSQUE DUBITAREM VIVERE ME, QUAM NON ESSE VERITATEM QUAE PER EA QUAE FACTA SUNT INTELLECTA CONSPICITUR [I WOULD MORE EASILY DOUBT THAT I AM ALIVE THAN THAT THERE WERE NO TRUTH SEEN AND UNDERSTOOD THROUGH THE THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE] (Confess., 7, 10).

If we note and distinguish the persuasion we have of the first truths and the persuasion of the existence of ourselves, we are, in my opinion, totally persuaded of both, but with this notable difference. Relative to the first truths, it is impossible to simply think they do not exist; relative to myself, it is not impossible to think of my non-existence, but it is impossible for me to assent with direct knowledge to any proposition which says I do not exist.

This difference between the first necessary truths and the factual truth of my contingent existence is excellently stated by St. Thomas, and shows that it is absolutely impossible for a human being to be a sceptic and refuse assent to the first truths. He says:

Thinking that something does not exist can be understood in two ways. The first is the simple apprehension that something may possibly not exist. In this case nothing prevents us from thinking we may not exist, just as we can think there was a time when we were not. But this is not true when we apprehend that the whole is simultaneously less than its part (which is one of the first truths), because one term excludes the other. Relative to this second way we can understand how assent is added to apprehension. In this sense, there is no one who thinks he could not exist by assenting to his non-existence. In everything we perceive, we always (habitually) perceive ourselves.