Will he who thus knows himself content himself therewith? Surely
not. Exercising a further faculty, we will have the intuition of
the intelligence that knows itself; or, seizing it, inasmuch as it
is "ours" and we are "its," we will thus cognize intelligence, and
know ourselves. This is necessary for our knowledge of what, within
intelligence, self-consciousness is. The man becomes intelligence when,
abandoning his other faculties, he by intelligence sees Intelligence,
and he sees himself in the same manner that Intelligence sees itself.
INTELLIGENCE IS NOT DIVISIBLE; AND, IN ITS EXISTENCE, IS IDENTICAL WITH
THOUGHT.
5. Does pure Intelligence know itself by contemplating one of its
parts by means of another part? Then one part will be the subject, and
another part will be the object of contemplation; intelligence will
not know itself. It may be objected that if intelligence be a whole
composed of absolutely similar parts, so that the subject and the
object of contemplation will not differ from each other; then, by the
virtue of this similitude, on seeing one of its parts with which it is
identical, intelligence will see itself; for, in this case, the subject
does not differ from the object. To begin with, it is absurd to suppose
that intelligence is divided into several parts. How, indeed, would
such a division be carried out? Not by chance, surely. Who will carry
it out? Will it be the subject or object? Then, how would the subject
know itself if, in contemplation, it located itself in the object,
since contemplation does not belong to that which is the object?
Will it know itself as object rather than as subject? In that case
it will not know itself completely and in its totality (as subject
and object); for what it sees is the object, and not the subject of
contemplation; it sees not itself, but another. In order to attain
complete knowledge of itself it will, besides, have to see itself
as subject; now, if it see itself as subject, it will, at the same
time, have to see the contemplated things. But is it the (Stoic[104])
"types" (or impressions) of things, or the things themselves, that
are contained in the actualization of contemplation? If it be these
impressions, we do not possess the things themselves. If we do possess
these things, it is not because we separate ourselves (into subject
and object). Before dividing ourselves in this way, we already saw and
possessed these things. Consequently, contemplation must be identical
with that which is contemplated, and intelligence must be identical
with the intelligible. Without this identity, we will never possess
the truth. Instead of possessing realities, we will never possess any
more than their impressions, which will differ from the realities;
consequently, this will not be the truth. Truth, therefore, must not
differ from its object; it must be what it asserts.