Jaime Balmes - Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

21. In general propositions the union conceived of two objects is affirmed; but we must take good care to notice that although we are wont to say that what is affirmed is the union of two ideas; this is not, therefore, perfectly exact. When we assert that all the diameters of a circle are equal, we do not mean that this is so only in ideas, that we conceive it so to be, but that it really is so, beyond our own understanding and in reality, and this abstracting our ideas and even our own existence. Our understanding sees then a relation, a union of the objects; and it affirms that whenever these exist, there will also really exist the union, provided the conditions under which the object is conceived be fulfilled.

22. One very important point concerning the idea of being remains to be illustrated, and that is, whether this idea has possible or real being for its object. The scholastics taught that the object of the understanding was being; nor were they altogether without reason in so doing, since one of the things we conceive of with the greatest distinctness, and which is found to be the most fundamental in all our ideas, is the idea of being, containing as it does in a certain manner all other ideas. But as being is distinguished into actual and possible, a difficulty occurs as to which of these categories the idea of being, the chief object of our understanding, is applicable to.

23. The Abbate Rosmini, in his Nuovo Saggio sull' origine delle idee , pretends that the form and the light of our understanding, and the origin of all our ideas, consists in the idea, not of real, but of possible being. "The simple idea of being," he says, "is not the perception of any existing thing, but the intuition of some possible thing; it is no more than the idea of the possibility of the thing." 20 20 Sec. 5, P. 1, C. 3, A. 1, § 2.

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Traité des Sensations. Préface.

See Chap. I.

Book III.

Transcendental Æsthetics , § 1.

He speaks of intuitive perception, not of perception in general.

Transcendental Logic. Introduction.

Transc. Log. Transc. Anal. Book I., Chap. I., Sec. I.

Transcendental Logic. Book II., Chap. III.

See what has been said concerning representation , immediate intelligibility , and representation of causality and ideality , in Chapters X., XI., XII., and XIII., of Book I. of this work.

See Chap. VI.

See Book I., Chs. III. and XXIII.

See Bk. I., Ch. XXVI.

P. I., Q. L. XXIX., A. 12.

Ib. Q. L. XXXIV., A. 5.

See Chs. XII. and XIII.

See Ch. XX.

See Ch. XXI.

See Bk. I., Chs. XXXVI., XXVII., and XVIII.

See Bk. IV., Ch. XXIII. to Ch. XXVII.

Sec. 5, P. 1, C. 3, A. 1, § 2.