PART FOUR

ERRORS
TO WHICH HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
IS SUBJECT

CHAPTER 3

The cause of human errors

1279. Error can be found only in reflection, and at the point where reflection begins to be willed (cf. 1274, 1277). Error, therefore, is willed.

1280. Malebranche saw this truth, and posited the true cause of error in the human will itself. Everything else that combined to incline the will to error he called occasions or occasional causes of error.(186) He also made a distinction between the first and the second operations of the understanding. The first, which are not willed, cannot contain error, and are the norm, as Descartes had also made clear;(187) the second, which are willed, are to be weighed and verified by the first.

Malebranche saw that first judgments can be called mere perceptions. When the understanding reflects willingly on these first judgments and gives them its assent, its consequent judgment is a second operation that presupposes the preceding perception. Intellectual perception, in fact, which is carried out only by means of the primal judgment or synthesis, is not willed; the understanding, although active, is moved to make that synthesis naturally and instinctively.(188)

Malebranche also recognised 1. that the seat of error consists solely in an act of the understanding, that is, in a judgment and 2. that the seat of error is not in all species of judgments, but in reflective, willed judgments.

1281. Error arises in these willed judgments, as Malebranche noted so well, when we give our assent (in which real judgment consists) to that which is not shown in any way by our understanding in its perceptions and ideas. We lie to ourselves by affirming as present in the first perceptions and ideas of our understanding that which is not present, or vice versa by refusing to accept that which is there. He says:
All agree that rash judgments(189) are sins, and that every sin is willed. All must also agree, therefore, that in such a case it is the will that judges by acquiescing in confused, complex perceptions of the understanding.
He adds this acute comment on the intimate union between the will and the understanding:

However, the question about understanding as the sole faculty of judgment and reasoning seems useless to me. It is more a question of words than anything else. I say 'the understanding... as the sole faculty' because it certainly plays the part I have assigned it in our judgments, in the sense that we must know or feel a thing before judging it or consenting to it. On the other hand, the understanding and the will is only the mind itself. Properly speaking, therefore, it is the mind that perceives, judges, reasons, wills, etc. I also use the word 'understanding' to indicate a passive faculty, that is, the capacity for receiving ideas.(190)

This passivity in the understanding is simply the necessity which impels the understanding towards perception in the case of direct knowledge, the first part of popular knowledge. The understanding which then reflects and acknowledges the judgments made is the willed activity of which Malebranche is speaking. This shows that the will and the understanding form together, as it were, a single potency. The intelligent soul is the will in so far as the soul is considered as an active force moving towards a known end, or choosing between several ends.

Malebranche goes on to note that if the very nature of our understanding were such that the understanding (and not the will, which gives its consent to something not presented by the understanding) drew us to error, God himself would have deceived us by providing us with a deceptive nature.(191) St. Thomas says very aptly: 'As far as our intellectual power in concerned, the intellect can never be said to be false; it is always true.'(192)

1282. There is, however, one objection to be resolved against this teaching on the cause of error. Some truths, such as almost all geometry theorems, are evident to the highest degree. Is our assent to such truths willed? It would seem not. But this makes it appear that assent does not depend upon the will, and is determined by truth itself.

Our answer is that an act of the will can be either determined or undetermined. If it is undetermined, the will is said to be free.(193) 'Will' is simply the power of acting for an end. If, by hypothesis, a possible end, a single good, were present, the will would be determined by this end; if several ends were present, the understanding could choose between them. It is true, therefore, that in giving its assent and expressly forming a judgment, the will is sometimes determined by the evidence presented by the truth, as in geometrical propositions. This, however, does not destroy the will; it simply ensures that in these cases the will is not free(194) - although, to speak truly, the will which in these cases seems not to be free to judge in one way or another remains free either to judge or to abstain from judging by turning the attention of the mind elsewhere. Malebranche's argument is, however, very relevant. Let us see, therefore, how it comes about that some propositions are presented to the mind with such evidence that they leave it without choice in its judgment, and determined to a single way of judging.

1283. Malebranche offers this reason:
Note that things are not totally evident to our understanding until it has examined them from every angle and according to all their relationships. Only then can it arrive at some judgment about them. But at this point we have to take account of that sure law of the will which desires nothing without first knowing it. The will cannot now push the understanding further ahead, nor demand anything new relative to what has been put before the understanding, which has already examined the individual parts of the thing and finds nothing more to know in it. Now, finally, the will, which cannot pressurise and stimulate the understanding any further, must rest in what is offered to it by the understanding. Such full assent is judgment (in its proper meaning) and reasoning. Because the judgment relative to the most evident things is not free in us with the freedom called 'indifference', it seems to be independent of our will, although it, too, really is an act of will.

Assent can always be held back when some obscurity remains in things submitted for our examination, or when something seems to be missing in the question under discussion. This often happens in difficult and as it were multiple subject-matter. The will can command the understanding to re-examine the matter, and this causes us to believe more easily that the judgments we make in such cases are freely willed.(195)

1284. But we also have to note that the careful examination to which the understanding submits things also depends on the will which, if it is not content with assenting to evident things, prevents the understanding from considering them. In this case, although the understanding has grasped them almost intuitively as it were, the will always has the possibility of considering them as true only in appearance. It has the capacity of supposing and believing from a general point of view that something still hidden could be found to uncover the deception of the evidence. In cases like this, the will which finds the truth distasteful knows how to be humble, and to withdraw itself from the pressure of any evidence whatsoever under the pretext of impotence and fallibility. Finally, even if we suppose that the will has commanded the understanding to examine the matter, and that the understanding has carried out fully what has been commanded, it is still possible, I think, when experience of feeling is lacking, for the will in its stubbornness to stand firm in wanting to continually disregard and deny the matter.

1285. We must now examine the occasional causes of error in order to understand better why it is more difficult for us to withhold our assent from geometrical than from moral truths.

'Error is a reflection by which the understanding, turning back to what it knows, willingly withholds its assent from this knowledge, and interiorly affirms that it has apprehended something other than that which it has really apprehended.'

Because error is an act of willed understanding, the occasional causes of error must be found partly in the understanding and partly in the will.

1286. The understanding's part in error lies in its fabricating something either not perceived or not apprehended and judging this as perceived or apprehended. Consequently, fabrication is found in every error.
The will's part in error consists in moving the understanding to produce this simulation and to pronounce the false judgment.
Both intellect and will depend partly upon ourselves, and to this extent form our free decision or free will. Nevertheless they also depend partly upon their own laws to which they have to submit. From this point of view these faculties are not free. The laws to which, of their nature, they have to bow give rise to occasional causes of error, as we shall now describe.

1287. The understanding is subject to the following law: 'In reflecting on its cognitions, it is easier for the understanding to distinguish its cognitions (and we are speaking about them as a whole as well as about their parts), and more difficult to confuse them, in so far as they differ in themselves and from other imaginable cognitions or perceptions. Equally, it is easier for the understanding to mistake one of them for a true or imaginary object of knowledge in so far as one is like the other.' This law of the understanding enables us to conclude that the occasional cause of error from the point of view of the intellect is the likeness between some cognitions and perceptions (true or imagined) and others. We have already shown that the first idea is what we call the truth of the thing perceived or known. Hence St. Augustine and others say that the understanding errs because it takes something similar to what is true for the true thing itself.

1288. The will is subject to the following law: 'It receives an inclination towards one thing rather than another from several causes which conspire to make something present itself to the will in a more lively fashion and as a greater good than something else. These causes are principally 1. the good known in the object; 2. the liveliness and perfection of intellective cognition; 3. sensible experience; 4. instinct; 5. imagination; 6. passions; and 7. habits.'

1289. As free, this inclination of the will is unable to produce deliberation in the will (unless an infinite good acts within it to determine it). Nevertheless, the inclination ensures that 'there is greater difficulty in moving the understanding to recognise and give full assent to a truth in so far as 1. this truth is contrary to the inclination already received in the will by the actions of the causes listed, and 2. the inclination already contracted is stronger.' Contrariwise, it is easier to give prompt, immediate and full consent to something similar to what is true (by exchanging it with what is true) in so far as the will's inclination is strong and assent is more in conformity with inclination. The occasional cause of error on the will's part is therefore the inclination it has contracted for giving assent readily to anything false which favours the inclination.

1290. Hence, there are two occasional causes of error: 1. the likeness between what is false and what is true; 2. the will's inclination to assent to what is similar to something true because such assent conforms with the inclination itself. We need to offer examples of each of these causes.
We said that two similar cognitions facilitate error on the part of the understanding. Such knowledge can have its source in any faculty whatsoever - in the imagination, in feeling or in the understanding itself. In this sense we can rightly say that there are as many sources of error as there are faculties.

1291. Let us take sensible perceptions and examine their misleading likeness to what is true. Two colours, tastes, scents, sounds or fine materials are easily confused and exchanged for one another if they are very alike. This does not mean that sense does not experience the difference.(196) Sense is in fact very delicate, and passively perceives even the smallest differences between things. The confusion arises because we do not advert to the difference with our reflection. Nevertheless, having seemed to have observed carefully enough, we conclude by confusing one perception with another, or rather by substituting both perceptions either with a somewhat confused imaginary perception, or with one not so well defined that it descends to the slight, tiny differences between the perceptions.(197)

1292. The likeness which facilitates the mind's error lies in the matter itself of our cognitions, and is administered by internal and external sense; sense provides the matter of knowledge, and the intellect the form. On the other hand, the similarity or fabrication of what is true is not provided by sense, but added by the understanding. This takes place especially in the associations of complex ideas or perceptions through which a judgment is wrongly added to the sense-perception

Let us take as an example the judgment with which we judge the sun's movement. Sensible perception does not necessarily indicate real movement in the sun, but apparent movement only. However, the perception of the sun's apparent movement is similar to other perceptions of apparent movement which are connected with real movement. As a result, real and apparent movement produce a composite perception and association of ideas. This complex perception is taken and exchanged with the perception of apparent movement only, not with real movement.

The likeness in these two perceptions consists in this: apparent movement is present in both perceptions. Their difference depends upon the fact that in first, intellective perceptions apparent movement is also real movement. Error consists in judging that the perception of the sun's movement is amongst those perceptions to which real movement has to be added. The confusion of two similar perceptions forms the error. The deceptive likeness of what is true is therefore produced by the understanding which associates the real with the apparent movement and makes a single composite perception of these two things. It substitutes the perception of the sun's apparent movement, which is simple, with the composite perception, that is, with the perception to which has been added, besides the appearance of movement, the real movement thought of by the understanding.
The same kind of error takes place whenever the understanding uses the principle of analogy and errs through an accidental exception to this principle.

1293. In general, error can be reduced to the following formula: it is 'a consequence that does not come from the premisses'. The consequence is fabricated by the understanding and, through a likeness or relationship which it has with the premisses, is declared to be contained in them.

1294. In considering the occasional cause of error on the part of the will, we need to give priority to clarifying the notion of will. We sometimes understand the will as 'the internal force determining human beings to act'. But this definition is too general, and includes instinct. I maintain that human beings possess two interior forces which determine their actions: 1. instinct, which they have in common with purely sensitive beings; 2. will, which is proper to intellectual beings. The best definition that I have found of instinct is Araldi's: 'Instinct's offspring are those actions in which the spirit concurs without the intervention of any kind of knowledge, and as a result of giving way to impulse and the attraction of some sensation' [App., no. 15]. The definition of the will, however, runs as follows: 'It is an interior activity through which human beings determine themselves to action through knowledge of an end.'

Elsewhere I have noted that the potencies of entia are ordered according to a law which requires that a corresponding active potency is added to every passive potency. The passive potency of feeling has a corresponding active potency of instinct; the receptive potency of intellect has the corresponding active potency of will. The will, therefore, does not operate unless conditioned by a known good; if human beings do an action before they know its effect, they are determined by instinct. On the other hand, if we know only a single good, we are indeed determined towards it willingly because of our knowledge, but with a will that has been determined necessarily.(198) But if we know several good things, independently of one another,(199) we can determine ourselves to choose amongst them. This human operation is carried out with free or undetermined will.

1295. Applying all these interior forces to the potency of understanding, we find that the understanding is moved 1. by instinct, 2. by non-free will, 3. by free will whose freedom is greater in proportion to the number of independent goods known to us.(200)

1296. As we were saying, we wished to see by way of example how the inclination of the will is the occasional cause of error in the understanding. To do this, and in order not to confuse them, we listed the three forces capable of moving the understanding. We noted that we were going to deal only with the third force. The first and second are immune from error: the first per se, and the second because the known good is one only and cannot therefore give rise to fabrication. Because error is an invention taking the place of truth (cf. 1286), it follows that 'error, of its very nature, requires the understanding to apprehend at least two things, one true, the other false (the latter being invented in place of what is true)'. Our hypothesis, however, posits one mental conception alone, not two.

1297. The will can receive its inclination to carry out a false judgment from any of the seven causes we have enumerated, but it would take too long to give examples of them all. Let us, therefore, consider simply the action of the passions on our judgment.

An ambitious person will be inclined to judge that the post he desires can be obtained easily, although he never achieves it and his false judgment makes him the butt of the whole nation; an avaricious person will overstate the possible damage to his self-made fortune from slight and distant dangers; 'love that dupes the clear eye' will judge the beloved's defects as beauty, and will see in her demise 'great public loss, and darkness for our world'.

1298. In order to withstand the inclination received in the will towards false judgment from the causes we have described, and to support it against falling into such a lie, we have to use as a bulwark our highest human faculty, the free will constituted by the intimate energy we experience in ourselves. In persons constantly ready and determined to oppose the evil inclination taken on by the will, the degree of merit is equal to the degree of free activity they have had to use to overcome it.

1299. From what has been said, we can at last draw this important conclusion: 'Error is extremely probable when 1. what is true is extremely similar to what is false, and it is highly difficult to discern between the two; and 2. the inclination of the will to take what is false for what is true, or simply to judge immediately, is at a such a high level that the greatest use of freedom is required to determine oneself to what is true rather than to what is false, or to suspend the judgment until true and false are adequately distinguished.'

1300. Another conclusion is: 'If such a judgment has to be made by the mass of people, error can be predicted with certainty because the mass does not have the power needed to avoid it.' The mass of people, at least as they are constituted now (and always have been), are incapable of making great use of their own freedom either to grasp something true which their will seeks to avoid or to abandon something false to which their will is inclined, or even to suspend their judgment until they discover the clear distinction between what is true and what is false - a distinction that will perhaps always elude them because of the proximity of what is false.(201)

1301. Having discovered the occasional causes of errors, we can turn back to the fact indicated in the title of this article and explain it better. We do not hesitate, in fact, to give assent to some truths furnished with evidence leading to certainty, such as geometric truths, because for most of the time they are unaccompanied by occasional causes of error; that is to say:

1. They are so distinct and precise that they are altogether dissimilar(202) and of very differing natures.
2. Our will is not previously inclined to one result rather than another.

1302. The nature of the assent that we give or deny to a proposition deserves every attention.
In the first place, the will may or may not make a decision, but if it does actually posit its decision it can only move in one of two absolute directions; it can say either 'Yes' or 'No'. If its decision is suspended, there would be no decision, which is against our hypothesis.

Secondly, we are obliged in an infinite number of cases every day to make positive or negative decisions if we wish to act, or even go on existing. For instance, unless we decide to believe that the food we are offered is not contaminated and can safely be eaten, we would die of hunger, or live in such continual fear that our life would be an unending misery. We are obliged to make these decisions and judgments, however, before we have acquired apodictic certainty of the truth in question. In our everyday life we would be dead long before we made such judgments if we had first to be apodictically certain of them. More often than not, we have to make our decisions on the basis of probable arguments, resolving not to worry about the tiny probabilities that stand against our decision - at least if we do not wish to be intolerable burdens to ourselves. If our preoccupation or fear about such probabilities reaches a certain level, we become obsessed and live at odds with others who marginalise us as troublesome in the extreme. We cannot say, therefore, that the will, in all these cases where it assents fully without worry or other concern to matters which are only highly probable, is continually in error or exposed to error. What we have to do instead is to consider another accidental characteristic of the full assent given by the will to things which are only highly probable.

1303. The understanding or the will ( we can speak of either here, as we have seen) can give an assent which is on the one hand full in some way, and on the other more or less provisional. In these cases, the provisional character of the assent is what distinguishes the wise man's act of assent from that of the rash and thoughtless person.

I am speaking about assent which is full in some way, and by this I mean a decision that halts and terminates in the conclusion made by the judgment, without proceeding further. The search for a decision is not prolonged, and no anxious thought is given to possible cases, which could go on ad infinitum. In other words, there is no trace in the spirit of any fear of something opposed to the decision, as there would be in the mind and heart of persons for whom the case is not yet closed and finished, but held open indeterminately. People of this kind are continually anxious, and necessarily fuel their own doubt and anxiety.

Nevertheless this assent, which is full in some way because the mind has abandoned further search and come to rest in a conclusion, can be simply provisional. This is what distinguishes the assent given by prudent people in the probable matters of life from that given by fools. (203) But what do we mean by the phrase 'provisional assent'?

Simply this: if some reasonable cause is present, the person who has given his assent and has therefore completed his mental search, is ready to resume the search and maintain it for as long as circumstances show that it is prudent to do so. We have all experienced the modesty and reserve shown by wise people about the least dubious of matters: 'As far as I can see, that's the situation', 'I think so, but I could be mistaken', 'This is my opinion, but more clear-sighted people may see the matter differently', and so on. And we can see how wise people are ready to listen courteously to a contrary opinion, and even seek it. They are eager also to receive light from others even in matters in which they themselves are acknowledged experts. The way they reserve their judgment, their readiness to listen, their careful reflection on the things they have heard, their desire to benefit even from the unlearned in matters where they have already formed an opinion - all this shows that their assent, although full in the sense that it closes a question and shuts out hesitation from the spirit, is indeed provisional. In other words, the matter has been closed, but not without some predisposition to reopen it, if need be, and appeal against the decision. This kind of conclusion, which leaves the spirit always disposed to re-examine the matter if some just motive draws it to do so, absolves such people from error because assent given in this way is just what it should be, neither more nor less, and also because the will has not acted rashly or precipitously.

1304. If we look at certainty from the point of view of persuasion and assent, the state of a mind which has reached the kind of assent we are dealing with can reasonably be called a state of certainty because the mind no longer hesitates fearfully in the face of doubts. It is not suspended, but already resting in a certain, determined and completed opinion; its opinion is not uncertain, that is, it is not vague and hesitant. And this is normal certainty.

1305. The great majority of people, however, are under the unfortunate influence of the hasty, deplorable rashness they receive as part of human inheritance. They simply do not know how to find that state of provisional certainty which constitutes the golden mean. All they desire are absolute, uncontestable opinions. This is especially the case with youth, whose lack of experience prevents them from understanding the fallibility and short-sightedness of the human mind. They fail to see how easy it is to fall into error through hasty and over-confident judgments, nor do they understand the immensity of the harm that error causes.

Such presumption and unhappy security of judgment overrides both the docility with which the wise spirit should be prepared to reflect on questions already resolved, and the diffident awareness that senses the possibility of some mistake in every first judgment. There is no longer any ready willingness to listen to what others have to say about such judgments. This attitude is obviously the source of many private and public disagreements and confrontations that divide and sunder the human race despite its destiny as a single family. Often two brothers with different opinions cannot live together. On the other hand, wisdom in the discreet person is the mother of charity, and reconciles spirits even when minds differ.

1306. Prudent people, therefore, avoid many dangers by frequently employing in daily life assent which is both full and provisional. 1. On the one hand, assent when full, that is, finished and complete, does not leave the mind in suspense and disquiet as doubt naturally does; it produces a state of certainty, makes human actions possible, and gives rise to solid frankness and the resolution necessary for action in one's undertakings. 2. On the other hand, because this assent is provisional in the sense explained, it avoids error (which would not be possible in the case of an absolute, immobile assent) and leaves the way open to progress in spirit by assisting quiet, wholesome communication between human beings. Effective union between many individuals is brought about by means of courtesy and tolerance in the midst of varying opinions.(204)

1307. We can, therefore, avoid formal error, that is, error which is an act of our will. At the same time, we have to infer from what has been said that we cannot avoid material error, that is, an erroneous judgment which we make on the basis of data that does not depend upon us, and that cannot and must not depend upon us.(205) But can we avoid the harm resulting from material error?

1308. If we mean true, final and total harm, we can avoid it and eliminate all fear about it by firm belief in the existence of a God and of divine providence. The existence of God is an immediate consequence of the form of reason, a consequence implicitly contained in the form of reason itself.(206)

Granted the presence of an all-beneficent providence over things, we can trust in it for assurance that the material error in which we necessarily fall without our intervention is one of the many accidents directed by the all-wise and all-powerful goodness governing all things. The true part of Descartes' principle lies here: on the truth of the divine existence depends the assurance we have, not that we shall avoid mistakes, but that our unwilled errors will not harm us.

Persons who do not admit a supreme guide cannot reasonably believe they will avoid errors, nor that someone will free them from the harm arising from errors. The result is inevitably a distrusting and exaggeratedly meticulous spirit in such people. Moreover, God does not deliver from the damage caused by error those who set themselves apart and want to work out everything for themselves.

1309. Several times we have mentioned material and formal error. It will help if we consider more carefully the differences between these two kinds of error, especially the limits within which material error can occur, before we take our argument further.
I note therefore that we always judge on the basis of data. But data are such that either error has no place in them or doubt about them is possible. Intellective perceptions which form direct knowledge are examples of the first kind of data; data which depend partly upon blind faculties such as instinct are examples of the second kind.

For example, I carry out some written calculation in algebra. My hand writes 2 instead of 3, and the whole calculation is mistaken. There is no doubt that 2 was written in a moment of distraction or suspension of attention. My hand, moving casually as a result of a combination of the direction of the preceding movement and mechanical and instinctive laws, writes 2 where it should have written 3.

Could this momentary suspension of attention be avoided? We cannot say, but we do know perfectly well that continual watch over our attention causes fatigue, and that prolonged effort cannot be maintained indefinitely with complete success. This fact of experience enables us to conclude that as a result of limited watch over our attention, we are not absolute masters of our attention, and cannot always have the degree of power over it that we would wish. On the other hand, the momentary distraction of attention when my hand writes 2 is so slight and brief that I do not advert to it in any way nor retain any trace of it in my memory. Noticing it afterwards is, therefore, completely impossible for me.

The defect committed by my hand can therefore be dependent upon a lack of attention which comes from some limitation of my willed energy rather than from me; it can come from some deficiency not adverted to by me, nor able to be adverted to, because of the limitation to which the energy of my will is subject. In this case I have no more reason to believe that I have erred than I have in any other case, and it certainly cannot be desirable that I should check this step on the grounds of the general possibility that some mistake could be present. If this were so, I should have to review every other step ad infinitum without hope of conclusion. I would always be going back to the beginning and playing the sad, impossible game of the sceptics. I have to conclude that I cannot take precautions against some material errors. Which errors are these, according to the line of argument we have been following?

1310. Two causes concur in producing the error we have described above: 1. the suspension of intellectual attention; 2. an instinctive or habitual force which moves the hand independently of the understanding's attention. But these two causes play different roles in the production of the mistake. The intellective will concurs negatively, and is therefore only the occasion of error; the movement of the hand is the true efficient cause.

This analysis enables us to conclude that 'the cause of true knowledge is the understanding; the cause of material error is not the understanding but some blind potency that continues to operate even when the understanding has suspended its functions, and in operating produces an erroneous datum on the basis of which the understanding then judges'.

1311. The blind potency which produces the erroneous datum on the basis of which the understanding judges is not, however, the only cause of material error. Some data are produced not by any blind potency, nor by any potency of one's own, but on the authority of others(207) which allows the data to be admitted as true without further examination. Hence the error. Often the understanding acts with perfect consistency in willing to skip further examination of the data. These are the frequent cases in which the understanding must reasonably give its full though provisional assent because the contrary would entail, for itself or someone else, greater harm than the damage the understanding is trying to avoid through meticulous examination of the data.

1312. We can conclude, therefore. that there are two causes of material errors: 1. basing one's judgment upon a datum provided by some blind power; or 2. basing one's judgment upon fallible authority. These are purely material errors whenever it is necessary for the understanding to accept the data as satisfactory without further need to verify them.

1313. Granted this knowledge of the causes of material error, we can now easily delineate the limits within which such error can occur. We say that material error is limited to those judgments which rest upon data that are not absolutely certain, but admitted without further examination to avoid greater harm. If, on the contrary, the understanding judges upon the basis of data which is 1. independent of fallible authority and 2. not the effect of a blind faculty such as instinct or habit which moves the hand, then the understanding alone produces the judgment without co-operation from anything else. Only formal errors are present in these circumstances.

1314. The following truth is a result of what has been said, and is worthy of consideration: 'Material error can occur in mathematical and physical sciences, but in moral and metaphysical sciences only formal errors are possible.'

The reason is clear from what has been said. Moral and metaphysical sciences arise only from reflection on our first interior knowledge and on all that is present in our consciousness. The data therefore are infallible. They depend neither upon the authority of others nor upon blind forces, but simply upon nature, or on the understanding itself. In such judgments nothing can be done when the action of the understanding is impeded or suspended because no other force can act during such suspension by positing a new datum or the signs of some decision. Hence the understanding is either present with its actual attention and judges or, if it is not present, the work of reasoning makes no further progress.(208)

1315. The truths necessary for human beings are metaphysical and moral. Only formal error, which is caused by the human will, can occur in such truths. They must be taken as the point of reference in those passages of the Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church which affirm that ignorance of the truth is dependent on human beings themselves, who reject the invitations of wisdom.

In the book of Proverbs we read:

It is, alas, the evil disposition of the will that holds us back and distances us from the principal truths that form wisdom.

In another place, Scripture requires that we search for the truth with the same longing and eager desire with which we look for riches, and promises that we shall not fail to find it:

These places, and innumerable others, show clearly that the condition which Scripture requires in one who is to find wisdom, 'whose mouth will utter truth',(212) is that he has a good and perfect will, eager and solicitous in seeking the truth.

1316. The teaching of the Fathers derives from that of Scripture. Perhaps the most familiar and best expressed of St. Augustine's opinions is that human beings without the truth have only themselves to blame. The truth replies to everyone of us because we carry it within, where we can all consult it.

Everywhere, O Truth, you preside over those who consult you, and you reply to all, even when they seek knowledge of different things. You reply clearly, but not all hear clearly. All ask about whatever they want, but not all hear what they want to hear. Your best minister is the one who no longer pays attention in order to hear from you what he wants, but rather wants what he hears from you.(213)

A good rule for finding the truth is to draw near it with a unprejudiced mind and a will equally disposed to receive whatever the truth has to give - if we do not approach in this way, we hear not what it says to us, but what we want to hear. When we consult the truth, we should receive and love in the same spirit everything that it has to say to us. Indeed, we should love whatever we love only because the truth has said it.

1317. According to St. Augustine, therefore, each one who wishes finds the truth in himself.(214) As we have seen, everyone has the innate light of truth, and moreover direct knowledge, which is immune from error. By reflecting on this he can acknowledge for himself the great metaphysical and moral truths. But we do need to be aware that in the passage we have quoted, St. Augustine is not speaking about the supernatural truth which God communicates to souls with grace. Note, therefore, that this holy Doctor says that the truth is open even to the wicked if they wish to acknowledge it. They can see it simply by reflecting within themselves:

The wicked themselves, while fleeing from the unchangeable light of truth, are touched by it. Hence the wicked too think of eternity, and rightly reprove or praise many things in human activity. With what standards do they finally judge except those by which they see how all should live, although they themselves do not in fact live in this way?(215)

1318. St. Augustine gives two reasons for our refusal to acknowledge truth, although it is within us, and for our falling into error. These reasons correspond with what we have said about the similarity between what is true and what is false, and about the passions which dispose the will to take what is false for what is true when what is false is desired and resembles what is true. He speaks of these occasional causes of error in his book De Vera Religione and says:

Shortly afterwards, he goes on:

Observing that we know what is agreeable when it pleases us to do so, St. Augustine argues that we can, when we want to, easily know even what is supremely agreeable, that is, God, and that this truth depends upon our good or evil will. 'Acknowledge what is supremely agreeable,' says the Saint. 'Do not desire to go outside yourself; turn back to yourself. TRUTH DWELLS WITHIN' [App., no. 16] and we reach it, he says, 'by searching not in the space occupied by things, but in the desire proper to the mind.'(217)

1319. The same teaching is found in other Fathers and Doctors of the Church. To avoid endless quotations, I shall choose as my witness the author of the Itinerarium, whom I have already cited on several occasions. He says that we have within ourselves the possibility of discovering the truth provided we want to and do not allow ourselves to be deceived by sensible things that dispose our wills to consent to error. He says:

It is obvious that our intellect is joined to eternal truth because only by means of such a teacher could it understand anything true with certainty. YOU CAN THEREFORE SEE FOR YOURSELF THE TRUTH which teaches you, provided that concupiscence and phantasies do not impede you by placing themselves like clouds between you and the ray of truth.(218)

1320. Finally, it is a common place amongst antiquity that the human soul darkened by passions is not suited for finding the truth by reflecting upon itself. Purification of soul, which all the famous, ancient schools of philosophy taught and required from their disciples to prepare them for understanding the teaching they were to receive, has no other foundation than the truth we are describing. And our divine Master also required hearers whose ears of the heart were open: Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat [He who has ears to hear, let him hear].(219)

1321. As we have seen, the will, by surrendering to the inclination towards error, especially when what is false shows considerable similarity to what is true, is the cause of formal error. For the sake of greater light and evidence on the matter, we must now apply this teaching to some really serious error. St. Augustine, whose teaching it is, provides us with a suitable example.

We have distinguished two kinds of knowledge, popular knowledge which is concerned with first reflection, and philosophical knowledge which is concerned with further reflection.

We have seen that error is far more likely to intrude in the second kind of reflection than the first where, however, it is sometimes present precisely because reflection is present. St. Augustine gives us an example of common, popular error and of philosophical error. He shows how both spring from the weakness and degradation of the human will as it allows itself to be influenced and corrupted to the greatest degree by the passions.

St. Augustine's example, drawn from popular knowledge, is of idolatry, a capital, universal error. I shall quote the whole passage in which he describes the origin of this error because of the great care he takes to show how the minds of the human race (the whole human race, we may say without exaggeration) were detached from the truth in this respect, and plunged into the darkness of perdition.

Because human beings loved (here he indicates desire, which occasions error) what was made more than the maker and his art, they were afflicted with THIS ERROR (of idolatry) which made them seek the maker and his art in the works themselves. Unable to find him (because God, who stands above our very minds, does not fall under our bodily senses), they judge that the works themselves are the maker and his art. This is the source of all impiety, not only of those who sin, but also of those who are damned through their sins.

The Saint then describes the progress of idolatry, which goes hand in hand with that of corruption. The greater the likeness between what is false and what is true, the easier it is to fall into error; less disorder is required in the will for it to commit error in the case of similarity than for it to take as true something very different from what is true. But as the will becomes more corrupt, the mind is blinded and the error degenerates until, at the most corrupt level of all, the will is incapable of using its understanding, even for things which are highly dissimilar.

It seems that this kind of progress can be noted in idolatry. In his description, St. Augustine observes that human beings began with the love of creatures, and then went over willingly to serve them. This points to progress along the path of corruption. As the error of idolatry develops, the same kind of progress is encountered. Idolatry began when the most beautiful creatures were taken for the Creator because they seemed more like him; but the mind's confusion was then extended to the ugliest of creatures, and things which did not have even the least apparent likeness with the divinity and its perfection were cherished as divinities.

We need to hear St. Augustine on this point:

People look up to created things against the commandment of God, and love them in place of the law and the truth... But they add damnation to damnation not only by wanting to love, but even by wanting to serve creatures in preference to the Creator, and to worship them in both their highest and their most degraded aspects.

The two levels of corruption are clearly indicated, and these correspond to the degrees of error. First the understanding is deceived by taking for God the things most like God:

Some maintain they should worship the soul as a supreme God. They worship the first intellective creature which the Father made by means of truth in order that the soul might have its gaze fixed on truth, and might know itself through truth, to which it is extremely SIMILAR.(220)

The second, grosser error is to take for God the things most unlike God. St. Augustine continues:

Then they (human beings) begin to worship genital life, through which the eternal, incommunicable God enables visible, temporal things to generate. Next, they descend to animals, and from these to the worship of brute bodies. They first choose the most beautiful, which are certainly the heavenly bodies. The sun is the most obvious, and some are content with this. Others believe that the moon in her splendour is also worthy of worship. As they say, it is nearer us and demonstrates a beauty nearer ours. Other people add the bodies of other stars, and the whole of heaven with its stars. Some include the atmosphere along with the heaven above us, and submit their own souls to these two bodily elements. The most religious in their own eyes, however, are those who encompass all creatures, that is to say, the world with all the things that it contains, and the life which gives breath and animation to some (life which some believe is corporeal, others incorporeal). In a word, they believe that this whole complex is some great God, of whom other things are parts. And all this because they did not know the author and founder of every creature. They descended to what was like him, and from the works of God abased themselves in their own works which again are visible.(221)

And St. Augustine rightly notes greater error in the kind of idolatry that traffics in these likenesses than in the idolatry of nature. Nature is, after all, far greater and more sublime than human works, and is in some way more similar to God because it is the work of God.

1322. St. Augustine, after speaking of idolatry as an error present in popular knowledge, goes on to speak of disbelief, a good example of error in philosophical knowledge. This, too, he describes as the effect of a will bent towards evil and surrendering to it.

There is a lower and more desolate worship of likenesses by which human beings cultivate their phantasies and honour under the name of religion whatever occurs to their ERRING spirit, and whatever pride and hubris places before their imagination. They arrive at such a point that they imagine they have to worship nothing at all, and that others who do worship have wrapped themselves in superstition and the misery of servitude.

According to St. Augustine, therefore, the desire for unrestrained freedom, which removes human beings from the just dominion of God, is the germ of disbelief. This is indeed what can be seen in every age; it is the entire story of disbelief from the giants who lived before the flood to our present-day sophists.

But their counsel is in vain. They do not succeed in avoiding service. The vices that have made them think in this way remain to provide them with a cult. They aim at a threefold passion of pleasure, of power, or of lustful gazes. Amongst those who believe that nothing is to be worshipped, I deny that there are any who escape subjection either to the pleasures of the flesh, or the search for power, or the madness of the delights offered by some vain spectacles... And because the world is full of these things, those drawn by love of the world to disbelieve in worship of any kind bow down before every part of the world.(222)

1323. St. Augustine concludes from all these things that 'there COULD HAVE BEEN NO ERROR in religion if human beings had not given their affection and worship to the spirit, or the body, or their own phantasies instead of to God.'(223)

1324. But human beings who fall into the fatal error of which we are speaking are mentally confused, and no longer capable of calmly acknowledging the truth. Their return to the truth must begin, therefore, from faith much more than from reasoning, and this, as we have said (cf. 1155 ss.), is the great service that authority provides. Authority makes up for the debility of reflection, disturbed and uncertain as it is by the badly disposed will. Our great author goes on: 'Although these miserable people have reached this extremity and succumbed to the dominion of vices... they can, as long as they live, renew the battle and conquer once more.' But only on condition that 'they first believe that which they cannot as yet understand.'(224)

1325. Material error arises from erroneous data not dependent on ourselves. Formal error depends entirely upon ourselves, and arises only after prior mental confusion.(225)

In fact, this error takes place when we reflect upon our perceptions and ideas, and put one idea or perception in the place of another, that is, we confuse them. We can see this better if we reduce error to its most common formula: 'Error is present when we attribute to a subject a predicate not belonging to it.'(226) Examining this formula it is easy to see how it can be reduced equivalently to the following: 'Error is present when we take one intellection for another.'

When I attribute to a subject a predicate not belonging to it, I am merely formulating for that subject a concept different from what is true. In other words, I think the subject is something which it is not; I think it has a predicate that it has not. My mind, therefore, has two possible intellections: one is the true concept of the thing, that is, I conceive the thing itself without the predicate; the other is the false concept, that is, I conceive the same thing with the predicate. With both concepts before me, I choose the second instead of the first. For example, I say: 'This thing I have named, or the thing that produced this feeling in me or determined me in some other way, has the predicate we are speaking of.' Some exchange or confusion between the two intellections takes place in my mind; I create a union that does not exist, and I affirm its existence.

1326. It is clear that in reflecting on the things in my mind, I cannot see either what is not there, or something different from what is there, unless the eye of my reflection, guided by the will, affirms that it sees what it does not see, that is, unless the eye of my reflection lies. If it seems to see, then what it seems to see must be an idol created by itself. But genuine creation is beyond the powers of the human spirit, and alien to it. When we say that we create something for ourselves, we can only mean that what previously existed in our mind is now wrongly united. There is still no error, however, as a result of this mistaken conjunction provided that we realise that it is our own work, and we do not take it as something produced in our mind by nature - in other words, we do not take it as the truth about the thing in question. On the one hand, there is what we conceive directly, and on the other what we fabricate; error lies in taking the fabrication for what is conceived directly. In positing the fabrication in place of the perception,(227) we do two things: 1. we fabricate; 2. we put this fabrication in the place of the truth (the perception, the direct concepts), by ignoring and rejecting the truth. This rejection of the truth we actually have in mind, perfects and informs our error.

1327. The activity by which we fall into error must necessarily be produced as a result of darkness and confusion of ideas, as our very nature shows us. The act of reflection has to be turned away from the vision of what nature places in our mind, and fixed on its own fabrication and artifice. Truth and fabrication are then made to compenetrate and become one, or rather we intellectually draw the fabrication like a veil over the truth. In other words, we attempt to destroy what is true, if that were possible. This attempt is, however, frustrated by immovable nature, even though the disturbance in our reflection can increase indefinitely and render reflection incapable of discerning any truth which reflection itself has tried to hide and deny for a long time. Our state of reflection, already confused and dark, now becomes habitual, and can rightly be called a state of lethargy and mental blindness.

1328. As a result of our analysis of error in relationship to the understanding, we found that error consists in a confusion of ideas, one of which is exchanged for another.(228) Let us now examine error in its relationship with the will which moves the understanding to produce error.
We can express the nature of this act with the following formula: 'Error arises from making a judgment when the ideas of our mind are still in an indistinct, confused state, in which it is easy to exchange one idea for another.'

1329. Let us imagine that we have two ideas, one a predicate and one a subject. These ideas, and the idea of their connection, are perfectly distinguished from one another.(229) As long as the mind remains in this state, it is totally impossible for us to consent to error sincerely, as we have said in speaking about the evidence of geometrical propositions (cf. 1293 ss.). If bad will is present, however, which hates a truth and loves its contrary error, we make ourselves capable of surrendering to error.

What we do is this. We look for some seemingly true argument - some sophism - which enables us to suspend our judgment and confuse our ideas a little. Our former clarity is now slightly distorted. Normally, it is not difficult to achieve this. There are always general reasons more or less suitable for making us suspend our assent. Many people are so attached to their own opinion, for example, that they are prepared to confess their own ignorance rather than give in. More often than not, they end an argument by bringing forward the ignorance and fallibility of human reason itself, and take on the air - for that moment alone - of modest, humble-minded investigators.

The only benefit you will have obtained from your convincing, stringent arguments is to hear yourself gently admonished by general advice about moderation and sobriety in thought and research; they will remind you very seriously that there is a limit to human knowledge, and that you should avoid what is inscrutable and obscure. This is, of course, ridiculous, but it is very frequent, and offers clear proof that those who do not want to assent to a proposition never will. There will always be some general reason, some 'Who knows?'; in other words, they appeal to their own ignorance or some affected scepticism, that they can use as protection in withholding their assent to the proposed truth.

1330. But we can leave this case of blatant obstinacy in error in order to point out that a person with at least a general will to know the truth can nevertheless make himself unduly meticulous and anxious in giving assent to an obvious truth if he is biased and worried by an over-anxious fear of error. One of the rules a person of this kind must use for avoiding error is the following: 'We must dispose our wills in such a way that we give our ready and complete assent to the known truth as soon as we know what is true.' This unsullied readiness to assent joyfully to the presence of what is true is what forms and characterises upright, virtuous people, who seem endowed with exquisite good sense in discerning and knowing the truth precisely because they surrender immediately and unresistingly to its light.

On the other hand, affected suspension of one's assent or the exaggerated hesitation produced by excessive fear of error is often sufficient to cause error [App., no. 17] by providing time for the mind to confuse itself and the reflection to lose its balance.

1331. Error occurs when the mind is in a state of confusion (cf. 1328 ss.). However, even when our mind has reached a state in which ideas are clearly distinct, the will can still produce error (although not while the ideas remain distinct). Suspension of assent allows us to use a fleeting moment to overturn our calm serenity of mind and replace it with disturbance and confusion (ibid.).

If, however, the mind has not reached a state in which ideas are distinct from one another, and the will produces assent, an error arises from hastiness and undue alacrity in our judgment. We must speak now of this precipitate judgment.

Two motives can induce the will to hasten the assent and move the intellect to judge, before the mind has succeeded in distinguishing the ideas to be used in making its judgment: 1. love of error which draws the will to take advantage of the moment of confusion, embrace the error and introduce it into the spirit under the guise of truth; 2. a desire to finish the matter with an immediate decision rather than bear the burden caused by a state of suspension and uncertainty.

1332. We have already listed seven reasons capable of producing some kind of inclination in the will: 1. known good in the object;(230) 2. the perfection of intellective knowledge; 3. sensible experience; 4. imagination; 5. passions; 6. habits; 7. instinct (cf. 1288). The first five produce an inclination in the will towards or against the object, and through love or hatred for the object tend to encourage hastiness in judgment; in a word, through love of what is found in the error. The last two often produce in the will an inclination to hasty judgment, more as a result of the anguish we feel in holding our judgment suspended than through love or hatred of the object. This occurs when an instinct or habit of rash judgment incites and suddenly provokes us.
In fact, suspension of judgment naturally causes us anguish as long as our reflection has not shown us the need for such suspension. Only then do we begin to proceed more slowly when judging.

1333. Meanwhile, even from the beginning of our mental development, we find some instinct drawing us to conclusions on the basis of first appearances without our giving any prior thought to distinguishing our ideas. This instinct is produced, as I have hinted elsewhere, by the needs of our animal life, which by means of the unity of the subject puts into action all the subject's forces, including its intellectual powers, for the sake of self-preservation. It is natural for this instinctive movement of reason, which springs from our natural needs, to be made hurriedly, on the spur of the moment. Sense brooks no delay; its essential property is hasty action.(231)

We begin to judge hastily through instinct, therefore, almost from the day of our birth, and thus acquire a habit of undue alacrity in judging. This is particularly the case with an entire people as such. Hasty judgment is a vice that is corrected only through culture, study or lengthy reflection.(232)

1334. But error certainly does not arise if the will, although inclined to move the intellect to false judgment, refuses to cede either to love of error and hatred of its contrary truth, or to the desire to settle something quickly and remove the burden caused by prolonging a decision. Hence, anyone who loves the truth in general, although not totally lacking in passions and impulses contrary to equanimity of judgment, must take as his shield the first of Descartes' four rules of method (the rule against hasty judgment). I would formulate it as follows:

'Let the judgment be suspended until the ideas of the predicate, the subject and their connection are distinct and clear in the mind. Every care must be taken to achieve this, however. Only when these ideas have been rendered distinct and clear, should the judgment be concluded.'

(186) In reducing everything to sense, which only perceives directly, modern philosophy has lost sight of this splendid truth. It no longer considers or understands the nature of reflection, the most difficult of the acts of the human spirit to be observed. And because it ignores the nature of reflection, modern philosophy has been unable to understand the difference between an act of the human spirit and advertence to this act, which is simply reflection upon the act itself. Consequently, we think that we advert to all that happens in our spirit, and that unadverted things do not exist. Nevertheless, we often fall into error without realising that our own act of will has led us to err. The usual argument is: 'If I am unaware that my will has moved my understanding to this error, my will has had no part in the error.' This is the common sophistry of ordinary people which we have opposed so many times in the course of this New Essay. Holy Scripture, however, speaks of acts of will, even culpable acts, of which we remain ignorant simply because we do not advert to them, and encourages us to beseech the Lord to cleanse us from our hidden sins: Ab occultis meis munda me [From my secret sins cleanse me] (Ps 18: 13 [Douai]).

(187) We need to consider carefully the nature of Descartes' clear idea which he himself called the criterion of certainty. This is simply the first idea of things (the essence, as he sometimes called it). It is the idea contained in intellective perception or, if we are speaking of real relationships such as cause, in first reflection. In a word, Descartes' clear idea, whose nature we find by penetrating to the very heart of his philosophy, is popular knowledge. In fact, the whole of Cartesian philosophy starts from the intellective perception of myself, that is, from direct knowledge. Descartes then reflects on this perception of myself in order to acknowledge it, and concludes that 'I must admit in myself only that which I find in the first perception.' Having found this particular proposition, he generalises it, and uses it in the place of popular knowledge, that is, in the place of the important relationships between entia. He then establishes this rule: 'We must only grant that which is found to be contained in the first perception or idea of things.' The first perceptions, the first ideas, that is, popular, direct knowledge, become Descartes' criterion, just as they are the criterion for those who use common sense in a reasonable way. Descartes adds that in order not to fall into error we have first to assure ourselves of what is contained in the first perception or idea. In other words, we have to see it clearly. This rule of prudence is extremely acute, and of the greatest importance in avoiding error. We have to avoid any hostile attitude towards Descartes' genius, therefore, while attempting to perfect his system by clarifying it and correcting the defects which are never lacking in human works. This is what we shall try to do.

(188) Bk. 1, c. 2. However, Malebranche did not see that every intellectual operation must be a judgment. Consequently his usual order for acts of the understanding is 1. perceptions; 2. judgments; and 3. reasoning. In volume 2, I showed that intellectual perceptions are simply first judgments from which ideas are extracted in the way we have indicated. Reasoning is not included in direct knowledge, but begins to appear in knowledge dependent upon first reflection, popular knowledge, as I have called it. Judgments and reasoning have two states. At first they are instinctive and not willed, and their conclusions are similar to intellective perceptions. Through them, the understanding apprehends new things, and seems almost passive as it is borne necessarily to action. Second judgments and reasoning, which make up second reflection, are different. They do not resemble perceptions; they are acknowledgments or willed assents given to perceptions. As such they acquire their own exclusive expression as judgments and reasoning, and possess much greater light and clarity. On the other hand, it is only with great difficulty that we recognise and acknowledge our very first judgments and reasoning as part of our judgment and reason.

(189) Rash judgments are normally considered those which harm our neighbour. Every rash judgment, however, taken in the fullest sense of the word, presents some defect even if it is not related to our neighbour. Sometimes these defects arise within us from original corruption, and almost without our intervention.

(190) Bk. 1, c. 2.

(191) Bk. 1, c. 2. Because the will reaches out only for 'things known to the intellect, it necessarily reaches out for what is at least similar to that which is true and good. If it had no freedom in this matter, but were forced to reach for everything similar to that which is good and true, it would necessarily be involved in endless errors towards which it would hurtle headlong. That which is similar to what is true and good is not however true and good. In this case, its errors could with good reason be attributed to the supreme Creator from whom its existence originated.'

(192) Virtus intellectualis est quaedam perfectio intellectus in cognoscendo. Secundum autem virtutem intellectualem non contingit intellectum falsum dicere, sed semper verum [Our intellectual power is a kind of perfection of the intellect relative to our act of knowledge. As far as our intellectual power in concerned, the intellect can never be said to be false, but always true] (C. G., I, q. 61). Aristotle says the same when he calls understanding 'the proper act of the intellect', that is, the first act made of itself by the intellect independently of the will; and he adds that the understanding cannot err.

(193) In ordinary language 'free will' and 'free decision' [liberum arbitrium] are synonymous. But what is the proper force of 'decision'? (arbitrium in Latin, hence the Italian libero arbitrio [in English 'free decision' to distinguish it from 'free will']). 'Decision' means judgment. According to common human feeling, therefore, free will and free judgment are the same thing. This shows that according to popular knowledge the judgment made by the understanding is sometimes free, and that the nature of the will is simply to be a free judgment. In other words, 'the will is a power to give or to suspend assent to a proposition'. In the use of language itself, therefore, the intimate connection between the understanding and the will is expressed admirably. The understanding is moved in three ways: 1. by the instinct called myself (in this way it is moved to perceptions and first ideas); 2. by a will which is not free, that is, by a known and experienced end which determines its action (in heaven the understanding is moved in this way by knowledge and experience of the supreme good); 3. by the free will, when the known and experienced good is imperfect and leaves the understanding with the faculty to propose some greater good to itself, and thus prevents its being determined by the prior good (this state is proper to our present life). The understanding is called will in so far as it moves itself with an end in view; free understanding (decision) is called freedom when the understanding is considered as present in that force by which it determines itself.

(194) However, the will, even when giving full assent to the most evident geometrical propositions, is often freer than we believe. Although the understanding apprehends these truths necessarily with its first reflection, it retains the energy enabling it to form a special assent that can ignore and deny these propositions, or at least make them the object of arguments and confrontation. Leibniz said: 'It is my belief that if geometrical truths had as great a role in human passions as moral truths, they too would be called into doubt and made as much a matter for dispute as moral truths.' In modern times, our genius for evil has become aware that all truth is bound together, and that accepting a single part of truth leads inevitably to accepting all of it. As a result, truth has been denied in toto, and books have been written to assail even the truths of geometry, the foundations of which have been assailed by attempts to prove that they rested upon gratuitous and altogether unproven principles. When it was found impossible to explain the force of the evidence exerted in us by those principles, it was then maintained that two sources of evidence were present, one true and the other illusory. The illusion, it was affirmed, absorbs all true evidence in such a way that human beings become delusions to themselves. Critical philosophy concluded, indeed, that such a universal illusion was necessary, and constituted the nature of things. Even belief in the 'nature of things' is part of the same illusion! The final boast of sceptics of every age, from biblical to modern times when sceptics simply call themselves 'indifferent', is to hold back or deny assent to all truth, even the most evident, and to desire not to give in to reason of any kind. Sceptics exist to sneer and to rejoice in their sneering! 'So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should enjoy his work, for that is his lot. [Who can bring him to see what will be after him?]' (Eccles 3: 22).

(195) Bk. 1, c. 2.

(196) Even if we suppose that sense could not entirely perceive the difference between two similar, but really different bodies, the error would still be in the understanding which, instead of considering the possible limitation of the sensory power, unconditionally denies every difference and thus acts rashly by positing an absolute judgment.

(197) The likeness provided by the imagination is similar to that of the senses (the imagination is only an interior bodily feeling). If, therefore, someone produces an imitation of Virgil or any other great author, and judges that the reproduction of style is perfect, he could easily fall into error by amour propre as a result of a few similarities between his work and that of his great model.

(198) It cannot be said, in our hypothesis of a sole good, that we are free to suspend the act of will bearing us towards this good. We cannot willingly suspend this act without proposing this as our end, and consequently without knowing the suspension as good. But such knowledge is posterior to knowledge of the good of the act itself. The latter is respectively direct knowledge; the former respectively reflective knowledge, that is, it requires a reflection on the suspension of the act.

(199) If the good involved were the supreme good, and were perceived as such, it would include all the others, which could not, therefore, be said to be independent.

(200) We could also distinguish deliberating will from free will, despite their being confused by serious authorities, but we do not wish to prolong the discussion.

(201) This incapacity for suspending assent has always been noted in the masses. Hence Cicero's Vulgus ex veritate pauca, ex opinione multa existimat [The populace relies very little on truth, but a great deal on opinion] (Pro Roscio 10).

(202) When there is some similarity between these truths, however, mathematicians do err. This is one of the causes of error amongst mathematicians. Another is mistakes in speech or in writing. When the tongue or the hand err in some calculation, error enters inevitably. In this case the instruments used for the calculation are the occasional causes of error. We can, therefore, establish in general 'that all the powers and instruments used by the understanding in reaching the conclusion made by its judgment can be occasional causes of error (although more remote causes than those we have already listed)'. However, the remoter occasional causes have no efficacy in producing error of themselves without the intervention of less remote causes, just as these in their turn do not necessarily lead us to err unless the will consents negatively or even positively. We can see that fallibility on the part of the powers and instruments does not necessarily produce error without the co-operation of the will if we consider, for example, what happens when my hand writes either willingly or mechanically a b in place of an a. If my hand is determined mechanically to write b, the will's co-operation is simply negative, that is, the error has occurred because the will did not direct my hand throughout the calculation as it should have done, but let it act of its own accord. This is a defect. If the hand is determined willingly to write b, the will's co-operation is, moreover, positive. However, in the case of the negative co-operation of the will, the error can be called purely material and would begin to be formal only at the end of the calculation if the final judgment about the result were held as absolute and infallible. A mathematician does not fall into formal error, therefore, if at the end of the calculation he says: 'This is the answer, provided that my hand or speech has not erred, etc.' This kind of prudence, which is often taken for granted, removes formal and willing error, and gives rise to mistakes which are not true errors.

(203) Antiquity saw that there are two ways of giving assent to what is false. The first was defined as: Qualiscumque existimatio levis qua aliquis adhaeret falso tanquam vero, SINE ASSENSU CREDULITATIS [Any slight thought by which a person adheres to what is false as though it were true, but WITHOUT THE ASSENT THAT SPRINGS FROM BELIEF]. The second was defined as 'firm belief'. These authors saw, as we do, the need to distinguish two false assents in human beings, and their distinction coincides in great part with ours. We said that the first kind of assent was not always rash, and could not be imputed to any fault in the human will. In some cases it is necessary if we are going to act, and is neither firm nor firm belief (cf. St. Thomas., S. T., I, q. 94, art. 4). The Academicians also knew about the necessity of provisional assent, but did not develop it further.

(204) As I said, such restraint is the way to prevent material error from becoming true, formal error. Material error, which is sometimes inevitable, does not depend upon our will, and hence is not produced by us. For example, in measuring a piece of ground, I use a rule made by a person on whom I can normally depend. A slight discrepancy in the rule, however, provides me with a false result. I could be the cause of this error only if people thought that I, like a quality inspector, were obliged to check the rule I use. Maintaining this in an absolute sense would mean that everyone had to undertake everyone else's job, which would be impossible and highly damaging. It would be superior 1. to our energy of will, that can stay alert only for a determined time; 2. to the time available; and 3. it would moreover be harmful to submit things to the scrupulous examination needed to avoid material error. Material error, therefore, which does not depend upon an act of human will, often cannot and must not be avoided. But we can and must prevent its becoming formal by giving a definitive, but simultaneously provisional assent at the end of our calculations. In other words, we conclude with the implicit condition: 'Provided a better examination does not produce some other conclusion'.

(205) In the way that precision in instruments made by experts does not depend on us, according to the preceding footnote. This precision must reasonably be presupposed, and taken from the beginning as our standard of judgment. If we then note some sign of imprecision, it can and must be rectified. Imagine, for example, that we always had to check instruments before using them. We could do this only by using more dependable instruments as norms. But often it is impossible to go back to the initial standards. For instance, we cannot measure the degree of longitude every time we want to make some geodetic observation.

(206) This does not exclude the possibility of God's having manifested himself from the beginning by means of revelation. Philosophy recognises that the first reflections could not have been made easily by human beings without the use of a language. This language could, however, have been communicated without any positive manifestation of the existence of God. The necessity of this positive manifestation must, therefore, be deduced from other principles, not from those dependent upon some absolute need of this manifestation to promote the first human reflections.

(207) When I use mathematical instruments made by a craftsman and I rely on them for my calculations, I base myself on the authority of the craftsman which assures me that the instruments function as they should. The authority is founded in the known expertise of his work.

(208) The possibility of our falling necessarily into a formal error, that is, without our having the freedom to avoid it, is a delicate and very difficult question.

(209) Prov 1: 20-24.

(210) Ibid., 2: 4, 5.

(211) Ibid., 8: 17.

(212) Ibid., 8: 7.

(213) Ubique, Veritas, praesides omnibus consulentibus te, simulque respondes omnibus etiam diversa consulentibus. Liquide tu respondes, sed non liquide omnes audiunt. Omnes unde volunt consulunt, sed non semper quod volunt audiunt. Optimus minister tuus est, qui non magis intuetur hoc a te audire quod ipse voluerit, sed potius hoc velle quod a te audierit (Conf., bk. 10, c. 26).

(214) This truth that we have in ourselves does not always provide particular truths already fashioned and prepared for us. But it does show us the way and indicates sure means for finding them. When, for instance, we feel the need to seek assistance from others in order to be instructed in some branch of knowledge or to have some item of truth clarified, it is truth existing in us which sends us to them. Interior truth does not close us up within ourselves, nor does it exclude authority or other means in the search for what is true. Rather, it is that which shows us the necessity of such means, and guides us to them.

(215) De Trinit., bk. 14, c. 15.

(216) C. 36.

(217) C. 39. St. Augustine went to such lengths in professing this truth, and was so aware that error in the principles of metaphysics and morals was brought about only by assent dependent upon the will, that in his Retractationes (bk. 1, c. 13) he wrote with great acuteness: Et ille qui peccat ignorans, voluntate utique facit, quod cum faciendum non sit, putat esse faciendum [He who sins while ignorant, does so willingly. Although something is not to be done, he thinks that it is to be done].

(218) Ex quo manifeste apparet, quod coniunctus sit intellectus noster ipsi aeternae veritati, dum non nisi per illam docentem nihil verum potest certitudinaliter capere. VIDERE IGITUR PER TE POTES VERITATEM, quae te docet, si te concupiscentiae et phantasmata non impediant et se tanquam nubes inter te et veritatis radium non interponant (Itin. bk. 3).

(219) Matt 11: 15. The argument in this article concerns reflective knowledge only, which does not consist in the first perception of things (direct knowledge) but in the acknowledgement of things. However, ignorance can occur in direct knowledge, although error cannot; that is, we can lack knowledge because we have to receive it from outside, and in dependence upon other things. Hence we need: 1. external sensible things, which provide the matter of knowledge; and 2. the internal requirements of organisation, which are in all probability the first occasion through which the understanding is moved to perceive external things. The sources of first reflection, which produces popular knowledge, are themselves partly external to us, that is, they are 1. language, the cause occasioning the act of reflection; and 2. the things communicated by language, which are the objects of reflection (these can even be supernatural matters, such as the content of divine revelation). However, the true cause of understanding and reflection is always within us. Hence, St.Bonaventure's VIDERE IGITUR PER TE POTES VERITATEM [YOU ARE ABLE OF YOURSELF TO SEE TRUTH], where we have to understand 'granted the necessary conditions for reflective activity'.

(220) Note how St. Augustine teaches constantly that the soul needs truth (the first idea) in order to know itself. Feeling is not sufficient. In a word, the soul is not known to itself through itself.

(221) De V. R., c. 37.

(222) De V. R., c. 38.

(223) Quamobrem sit tibi manifestum atque perceptum, NULLUM ERROREM in Religione esse potuisse, si anima pro Deo suo non coleret animam, aut corpus, aut phantasmata sua (De V. R., c. 10).

(224) De V. R., c. 38. - Si prius credant quod intelligere nondum valent.

(225) We have already explained how a blind potency can provide erroneous data, even though there is neither error nor truth in what is blind. The blind potency can provide conventional signs from which error comes. For example, in the case of a hand that is moved mechanically to write 4 in a calculation where it should write 3, the 4 written by the hand contains the error. It is true that the figure 4, considered in its own existence, contains neither error nor truth, and it is this existence which is produced by the blind potency. Consequently the blind potency producing the number does not insert error or truth into it, properly speaking. Nevertheless, we consider that figure as a sign of four units resulting from the calculation, and then, without the intervention of our will, add to it what we call 'material' error. In doing this, we simply take this figure as an indication of what it conventionally expresses. And we act correctly because it is right that we should give each sign its conventional value. We cannot, in fact, do otherwise. But what we do, although right of itself and free from error, is associated with the blind act of the hand which again cannot be called error, and results in an error at the end of the calculation. This error consists 'in taking the result as something done by an intelligent faculty, although it was the work not only of such a faculty, but also of a blind faculty'.

(226) As we have said, it is clear that this formula can also include the kind of error that consists in denying a predicate to a subject that belongs to it, provided that the predicate is taken as an unknown value that can be either negative or positive.

(227) Or in place of the relationships of perceptions and of all the consequences determined by the perceptions and virtually contained in them.

(228) It is myself, the subject, that exchanges one idea for another, but it carries out this operation with its faculty of word, not with that of ideas. This occurs as follows. The faculty of ideas has for its term the universal idea; the faculty of word fixes and determines the particular in the universal, that is, pronounces, and in pronouncing posits something particular in the universal. The faculty of word, therefore, is that of judgment, and error resides only in the interior judgment (cf. 1249 ss.), that is, in the result of the judgment. This result can also be expressed by means of an external word because it is not a simple apprehension, but an effect of the energy of the subject who, when roused to a greater effort, embodies, as it were, what had previously been conceived languidly, and determines it with all the determinations necessary for true subsistence and for being expressed. Human nature has been granted one, single thing comparable to the act of creation: the creation of error.

(229) Ideas are distinct in themselves, and cannot be confused. In our argument, however, we are speaking of reflection which twists and turns, as it were, in search of one idea or another. As it does so, it sometimes alights and rests on one idea rather than another, exchanging them without finding what it was looking for. Moreover, composite ideas, which are the work of reflection, sometimes involve in their make-up entire opinions of which we are unaware. The confusion to which our mind is subject has its proper seat, therefore, in the faculty of reflection guided by the will. Confusion is not generated by the object (ideas), but by the subject (the act of reflection).

(230) Or known evil.

(231) This occurs because sense is drawn to its particular aim without perceiving anything outside that aim, and hence without regard for anything extraneous to its satisfaction in acting.

(232) We can see wonderful uprightness of judgment in children, and often in the honest, just judgments of peoples (taken as a whole) free from agitators. Children's uprightness arises from their lack of passions, or lack of subjection to them, as well as from their freedom from bad habits, prejudices, and so on; the uprightness of a people depends necessarily on their being free from sophisticated passions, and from the considerations and sophistries of cultured human beings, which find their source and development in the possibilities open to the powerful. However, uprightness of judgment on the part of children and peoples does not prevent their falling into error. It is different for the truly wise, who unite virtue and experience of human affairs with the search for knowledge. Prudent persons of this kind are more easily on their guard against error because they have no love for it. Using reflection illuminated by experience, which has informed them about the danger of error, they put a brake on their passions and simultaneously rule the natural instinct drawing them towards hasty judgment. As a result, they form a habit of suspending their judgment when necessary, and of examining matters coolly and accurately before pronouncing on them.