Chapter 5

The essential relationship between feeling and idea

1172. We now have to demonstrate how the rational principle joins and unifies idea and feeling. Feeling is of three species: animal, intellective and rational. We shall have to show separately how each of them can be joined to the idea. Moreover, there are two elements in feeling, the sentient element and the felt element, each of which can be known in the idea.
We shall, therefore, divide our questions as follows:

1. How are the extended element and succession perceived by the intellective principle which thus takes the name of rational principle?

2. How is the animal sentient principle perceived intellectively?

3. How is the intellectual principle, whose term is the idea itself, perceived, and how is the rational principle perceived?

4. How are the different affections of the rational principle perceived?

1173. We have already seen that the extended element and extension does not communicate with the sentient principle by way of extension that is, as something extended could be contained in some other extended entity. Indeed, if the extended element and extension possessed only this property of extension, it could have no nexus with a sentient principle, which is non-extended. But the extended element and extension is also sensible, and through the relationship of sensility is received and contained in the sentient principle. This relationship is, however, produced by the very nature and activity of the sentient principle whose nature is such that it joins with the things appropriate to it by way of feeling. Thus, it makes felt that which is extended.

1174. This relationship of sensility lies at a higher level than the relationship of extension. As a higher-level entity, possessing more degrees of being, it embraces the lesser-level entity which has fewer degrees of being. In doing this, it communicates its own nobility to the lower entity. Thus, the concept of the extended element is embraced by and contained in the concept of felt element, and not vice-versa. The extended element itself, by becoming felt, or considered as such, is raised to a higher level in the scale of being.

1175. Being itself, which is the object of the understanding, stands above every entity. Its concept, therefore, embraces all inferior entities, whatever degrees of being they enjoy.
Everything, therefore, is joined to the understanding through an essential relationship of entity.

1176. But because we perceive intellectually only that which falls within our feeling,(109) things cannot be perceived by the understanding unless they first possess the condition and relationship of felt element.(110)
The extended element, therefore, is in the felt element, and the felt element in the ens intuited by the understanding. We need to consider that ideal being comprehends possible-reality, that is, the essence of real things. Hence, when the principle which sees an ens is set in counter-position to an extended-felt element, it can only see this element in the ens as in that which shares in being. This explains the perception of the extended-felt element, as I explained more at length previously.

1177. When the principle that sees an ens sees in addition the entity shared by the felt element, that principle which was previously called 'intellective' only, now begins to be known as 'rational'. The rational principle, therefore, perceives the felt element in its quality of ens, that is, it joins in one what it sees in the idea (being) and what it feels. Thus, the felt element becomes an ens to the intelligence; it becomes an object to the intelligence.

1178. If no intelligence perceived the felt element, the latter would not have the concept of ens, but only of felt. It receives the concept of ens from its relationship with the essence of ens. This essence dwells in the supreme mind, and in all inferior minds to which the supreme mind communicates it and, in communicating it, creates those minds.
I call this relationship essential precisely because it forms part of the extended-felt element as ens, and provides it with a greater degree of entity. Indeed, it gives the extended-felt element that final act by which it is that which it is. The felt ens, exists, therefore, as an ens in the mind, although human beings, when they talk about it, rightly attribute the condition of ens to what is felt. Although we speak of things only as they are in our mind, what is in our minds is an ens, and an ens substantially different from the mind which, in positing it, perceives it.

1179. The same simplicity of idea and information, through which the mind is immune from space and time, explains how the mind can conceive successive events, past and future, as we saw.(111)

1180. It is necessary to indicate this heading here because my intention is to show how the rational principle is that which gives unity to all human operations. However, I have already resolved the question and will summarise the answer here. It is sufficient to say that reflection in turning back on a felt-ens, finds that a sentient principle must in-exist in it. As I said, the extended felt alone would not possess the unity it has if no sentient principle were present. And consciousness tells us that we are sentient principles.

1181. Consciousness tells us without any doubt of the existence in us of a sentient principle, an intellective principle, and a rational principle in which sentient and intellective principles are united. But consciousness itself is a reflection on our own feeling.
Our own feeling, however, is known directly through perception, without need for reflection (cf. 71-80).
This is true, but it is one thing to perceive our own feeling, and another to distinguish in our feeling — distinguish accurately I mean — principle from term. We perceive this principle within our feeling, but if we are to have a separate, distinct concept of it, we must turn to reflection.
Reflection finds the principle precisely by considering the nature of feeling. Everything, therefore, is reduced to explaining the nature of reflection, and the way in which it proceeds.

1182. Reflection is defined as 'the faculty of applying the idea of being to our cognitions and their objects.'(112) To explain this operation of the spirit, we have to consider carefully the nature of the idea of being, the means of both perception and reflection. The difficulty which presents itself is this:
'In perceiving an ens, I use the idea of being which I bind in with what is felt. How, after that, can I go on to apply the same idea of being to perception and its object, and draw further information from this new application (that is, from reflection)?'

We have to base our answer on accurate, factual observation. Close attention to facts shows that what we have described actually occurs. We have to conclude, therefore, without hesitation that what happens is possible. The idea of being can always be applied by the mind to the idea itself, or to any cognition whatsoever in which the idea is already contained. This admirable fact cannot be denied or impugned, but it can be analysed. We can draw from it useful consequences which enable us to know better the nature of the idea itself (cf. 570). Here are some of these consequences.

1. However we bind the idea of being in perception, we are still free to use it again, to apply it once more to the perception which contains it. We must say, therefore, that it is totally immune from all passivity; that our seeing something in it does not properly speaking bind or coerce it to what we see in such a way that the idea is no longer as readily available to our needs and uses as before.

1183. 2. We are always able to use the idea of being as if it were unattached, and as if we were using it for the first time. This fact shows that the idea of being, identically the same, is always present to all the acts of our spirit — acts of perception, of reflection, and so on. Its identical presence to many acts proves that it is simple and, as simple, stands over against the multiplicity which it accepts in itself. Its presence to many successive acts of the spirit shows that it is not subject to time but is, as we said, eternal. In fact, the property of what is eternal is 'to be present identically to many successive entities'. When I intuit being, it is present to my intuiting spirit; when I reflect on being, which I intuit, being itself is present to my act of reflection. Identical being, ever the same, is present, therefore, as object to both the first act of the spirit and the second, to intuition and to reflection; being is one, but related to two acts. In its relationship to the intuitive act, it reveals itself to the spirit indistinctly; in its relationship to the reflective act, it reveals itself to the spirit with those distinctions and conditions which analysis and synthesis (the two ways in which reflection operates) find in it. The fact that it reveals itself in the second way, does not prevent its being revealed in the first way. Hence, the simplicity and eternity of an ens explains reflection; without these two attributes reflection would be impossible.

1184. 3. What we know through reflection is different from what we know through intuition or perception. We know, that is, in a different way, and at different levels, etc. In reflection, an ens simply communicates greater information about itself to the spirit, that is, it communicates information of a different kind. The information that the spirit has must be distinguished, therefore, from the idea of an ens considered in itself which produces the information. Information is in some way limited and subjective; the idea is unlimited and totally objective, or better, object. This object is always present in all information, whether information comes through intuition, or perception, or reasoning, that is, through reflection. But the object is present in different ways in various kinds of information [App., no. 6].

1185. 4. From the same fact we can deduce and confirm this truth: being is loaned, as it were, to finite things because of the necessity we are under of knowing them, and our impossibility of knowing them unless they have first become entia, that is, unless they have been joined by the mind to some ens. The essence of an ens is neither confused, therefore, nor made one with sensible realities; it is simply joined to them and thus renders them intelligible. This truth radically destroys pantheism. It shows that the essence seen in the idea always remains unconfoundable with reality, as long as we are dealing with finite things. This is a most important corollary.

1186. We should not be surprised therefore if, having perceived intellectively the animal-felt entity, we can apply the idea of being to it, and thus through reflection draw out of it the concept of sentient principle. We can carry out this operation as follows. The felt element is an extended-continuum. This entity, however, would be impossible without a simple principle in which it can exist. I show this truth by comparing the extended felt element with being, which I attribute to it. Knowing by nature what being is, I know that it can never be in contradiction with itself, that is, being cannot be not being (because of the principle of cognition). But the extended felt entity would not be extended and felt if it had no simple principle. Therefore, etc.

We should not be surprised either if, after intuiting the idea, we can in a similar way draw out the concept of an intuiting principle by applying being to intuition. We can say: the intuited idea has the entity of intuited idea; but it could not have this entity unless an intuiting principle were present; granted therefore that this entity cannot be and not be, I must admit the presence of an intuiting principle.
Finally, we should not be surprised if, reflecting on the extended felt element perceived intellectually, we discover the necessity of the existence of a rational principle. If, in fact, we do not admit this principle, it would not be true that we had perceived the extended felt element intellectively. But it cannot be true at one and the same time that we have perceived it and not perceived it through the nature of being (known by nature). Contradiction excludes this. Hence the rational principle exists.

It is also possible to arrive at an affirmation of the sentient principle, the intellectual principle and the rational principle through simple abstraction or analysis, as well. These operations are carried out, as I showed elsewhere, through a hidden, scarcely noticeable application of the idea of being.(113)

Notes

(109) Teodicea , n. 153.

(110) Knowledge of what is in our feeling and of what is acquired by way of intellective perception is called positive knowledge. Knowledge of entia which are not perceived, but argued to from perceived things, is called negative knowledge . Feeling enters both kinds of knowledge, either as matter or as means of knowledge, in so far as it serves as a point from which to launch reasoning.

(111) I would like to refer once more to D'Alambert's question which caused such confusion amongst the philosophers of the last century. He asked: 'What is the point of communication between the spirit and external bodies?' We have answered this question by showing its absurdity relative to the spirit as a sentient principle. I showed that the sentient principle communicates with an extended element through a simple relationship of sensility , not through a relationship of extension. Here, I have resolved the question in a similar way relative to the spirit as intelligent principle. I have shown that intelligence does not communicate with bodies through a relationship of extension, but through a relationship of entity , which is a simple relationship. Thus, the question is entirely resolved from both points of view. In fact, bodies are perceived in two ways, sensitively and intellectively, not in one alone. The proposed question was defective, therefore, in this way also: it supposed that 'the spirit communicates with bodies in one way only.' This defect arose from sensism, in which sense and intellect are confused in a single potency. Moreover, the question posed by our learned mathematician made no mention of time, although the same difficulty is present in explaining how the spirit perceives the extended element, as in explaining how the spirit perceives past and future. Anyone who understands clearly that idea and information are immune from space and time will also have understood how the mind can know what is extended and reach out to all time.

(112) Sistema filosofico , 69, 77, 82-87, 104.

(113) NE , vol. 3, 1454-1455.