Chapter 10

The reality of the soul

231. It is proper to all contingent, limited things that their nature consists in reality. Ideality enters their nature not as an element, but solely to render entia knowable to the understanding.(108) Only necessary, absolute being is of such a nature that its complete reality lies essentially in the depths of ideality, and vice-versa, so that both real and ideal being pertain to the nature and constitution of infinite ens.

It is a fact worthy of the greatest attention but not easy to grasp, that the nature of the soul, like every other contingent ens, is not constituted by ideal being. The difficulties are two:

1. Without the use of ideal being we have no knowledge of our own soul or that of others or of any contingent being. It seems, therefore, that ideal being mingles with the soul and with all contingent beings.

2. The soul is intellective only by means of the intuition of ideal being. It seems, therefore, that ideal being pertains to the nature of the soul.

232. The first difficulty is overcome by noting that we cannot perceive our soul without making use of ideal being (from this perception we then derive the concept of every soul). Nevertheless, it is also true that to understand the soul purely in its nature, without any foreign addition, we have to subtract perception itself, and therefore ideal being (which is the means by which we perceive the soul), from our perception of the soul (cf. 69-70).

233. In answering the second difficulty I accept that the soul is intellective by reason of the intuition of being (there is no doubt whatsoever of this), but it does not follow that ideal being is an intrinsic element of its nature. This can be proved:

1. By having recourse to consciousness of ourselves, that is, to the principle of the science of the soul and the criterion enabling us to distinguish true from false in this discussion. Now we know very well, and understand clearly, that we are not ideal being. Ideal being is a universal, myself a particular; ideal being is not modifiable, myself is subject to modifications; ideal being is a means of knowledge common to all mankind, myself is not in other people, but exclusively in me. Other people do not use myself in order to know, but carry out their acts of knowledge without any information about me or even about my existence.

2. It is clear, that ideal being, granted its connection with the subject through intuition, is not the subject. Intuition of its nature distinguishes its term from itself, excludes it from itself, and posits it in counter-position to itself. Hence the word objectum. For further clarification of this truth, I refer the reader to those places where I have shown that it is not absurd for one thing to in-exist in another without mixing with the other. This is what actually takes place by means of intuition in the union of ideal being with the subject.(109)

234. You object that, according to me, the act of intuition is created by virtue of the manifestation of being, and that consequently the very act of intuition is an effect of being. - This is true, but it does not give rise to difficulty. Although intuition and that which intuits are the effect of the manifestation of ideal being, it does not follow that they are an act of ideal being itself, but the very opposite. Cause is not effect. How this manifestation comes about, how it is a kind of creation, does not concern me here. This is an altogether higher, more sublime question. I simply maintain that what is intuited is not that which intuits, that is, the soul. And this is evident.

Notes

(108) This accords with something I have often said: the nature of contingent things cannot be found in being unless we have some feeling, that is, unless we have perceived their reality, or some real likeness of them (cf. 195).

(109)Rinnovamento. Platonists saw the intimate union of ideas with the soul, but exaggerated it because 1. they spoke of a certain continuity between ideas and souls; 2. they then took ideas themselves as souls. Iamblichus writes: 'The very unity of the gods (these gods are the ideas) unites souls to themselves from eternity through their own unities according to the proper, efficacious proximity of souls. As a result, there seems to be a CONTINUITY' (De Mysteriis, 1).