VICO'S CRITERION.
294. The doctrine of Vico on the criterion of truth is connected with
the matter of the preceding chapters on immediate and mediate evidence.
This philosopher thinks that the criterion consists in having made the
truth which is known; that our cognitions then only are completely
certain, and that they lose their certainty in proportion as the
intellect loses its character of cause with respect to its objects.
God, the cause of all, knows every thing perfectly: creatures, whose
causality is very limited, are very limited in their cognitions; and if
in any thing they may be likened to the infinite, it is in that ideal
world which they construct for themselves, and extend at pleasure,
stopped by no impassable limits.
Let the author speak for himself. "The terms _verum_ and _factum_,
_the true_ and _the made_, are used one for the other, in the Latin
language, or, as the schoolmen say, are convertible. _Intelligere_, to
understand, is the same as to read with clearness and to know with
evidence. They used _cogitare_ in the sense of the Italian _pensare e
andar raccogliendo_; _ratio_ with them meant a collection of numerical
elements, and also the gift by which man is distinguished from,
and made superior to, the brute. They defined man to be an animal
participating of reason; _animal rationis particeps_: and consequently
not absolutely possessed of it. As words are the signs of ideas, so
also are ideas the signs and representations of things. Thus, as to
read, _legere_, is to unite the elements of writing, which form the
words; so to understand, _intelligere_, is to unite all the elements
which constitute the perfect idea of anything. Hence we infer that
the doctrine of the ancient Italians concerning truth was as follows:
Truth is the same as fact; and consequently God is the first truth,
because he is the first maker, _factor_; the infinite truth, because
he made all things; the absolute truth, because he represents all the
elements of things, both internal and external, for he contains them.
To know is to unite the elements of things: hence it follows that
thought, _cogitatio_, is a property of the human mind; and intelligence
a property of the divine mind, because God contains all the internal
and all the external elements of things, and therefore he unites them,
and he it is that disposes them; whereas the human mind limited as
it is, and separated from all that is not itself, may bring together
extreme points, but cannot unite them; it may think of things, but
cannot understand them; and this is why it is said to participate
of reason, but not to possess it. Let us explain these ideas by a
comparison. Divine truth is a solid image of things, a sort of plastic
figure; human truth is an image on a plane, it has no depth, but is a
sort of painting. Divine truth is true, because God knows in the same
act by which he disposes and produces; human truth is in relation to
things which man in like manner disposes and creates. Science is the
cognition of the mode in which the thing is made; a cognition in which
the mind makes its object, since it recomposes its elements. For God,
who understands every thing, the object is a solid; but it is a surface
for man who understands only the exterior. These points being settled,
in order that we may more easily make them harmonize with our religion,
let us observe that the ancient philosophers of Italy identified
truth and fact, for they believed the world to be eternal. Thus the
pagan philosophers adored a God who always operated _ad extra_, a
point rejected by our theology. Wherefore in our religion, in which
we profess that the world was created in time, and out of nothing, it
is necessary to distinguish, and identify created truth with what is
made, and uncreated truth with what is begotten, _genito_. Thus the
Sacred Scriptures, with an elegance truly divine, give the name of
_the Word_ to the wisdom of God, which contains in itself the ideas
of all things and the elements of these ideas. In the Word, truth is
the comprehension of all the elements of this universe, and it might
produce infinite worlds. From these elements, known and contained in
the divine omnipotence, is formed the Word real and absolute, known
by the Father from all eternity and begotten by him also from all
eternity."[26]
[26] _Ancient Wisdom of Italy_, L. 1, C. 1.
295. From these principles Vico deduces some very transcendental
consequences, among others, the explanation of the reason why our
sciences are divided into many branches, and that of the different
grades of certainty by which they are distinguished. Mathematics is
the most certain, because a kind of creation of the intellect, which,
starting with the unity of a point, constructs a world of forms and
numbers by prolonging lines, and multiplying unity even to infinity.
Thus it knows what it produces itself, and hence it is that the
theorems commonly held to be objects of pure contemplation depend
upon action just as the problems do. Mechanics is a less certain
science than either geometry or arithemetic, because it considers
motions as realized by machines; and physics is even less certain yet,
because it does not, like mechanics, consider the external motion of
circumferences, but the internal motion of their centres. There is
still less certainty in sciences of the moral order, because these
do not consider the motions of bodies arising from one certain and
common origin, which is nature, but the motions of the soul, often most
profound, often also capricious.
"Human science," he says, "owes its origin to a defect of the human
mind; it is beyond all things in its extreme limitation, contains
nothing of what it seeks to know, and is consequently unable to make
the truth to which it aspires. The most perfect sciences are those
which have expiated the vice of their origin, and are assimilated, as a
creation, to divine science, that is, those in which the truth and the
fact are mutually convertible.
"From what proceeds, we may infer that the criterion of truth, and the
rule to recognize it, is _to have made it_: consequently, the clear
and distinct idea of our mind which we have, is not a criterion of the
truth, nor is it even a criterion of our mind; because the soul does
not, by knowing itself, make itself; and not making itself, it knows
not in what way it knows itself. Since human science takes abstraction
for its basis, sciences are so much the more uncertain, as they more
nearly approach corporal matter....
"In a word, the true and the good are convertible, if what is known as
true derives its being from the mind which knows it; as human science
imitates divine science, wherein God, by knowing the true, begets
it _internally_ in eternity, and makes it _externally_ in time. The
communication of goodness to the objects of his thought is to God the
criterion of the true: _vidit Deus quod essent bona_; to men it is _to
have made the truth which they know_."[27]
[27] Ibidem, § 1.
296. Vico's system undeniably shows him to have been a profound
thinker, and to have carefully meditated the problems of intelligence.
His line dividing the certainty of sciences is exceedingly interesting.
At first sight, nothing is more specious than the difference marked
between mathematical, natural, and moral sciences. Mathematics is
absolutely certain, because the work of the understanding, it is as
the understanding, which constructed them, sees them to be. On the
other hand, the natural and moral sciences regard objects independent
of reason, having by themselves an existence of their own; wherefore,
the understanding knows little of them, and even in this little it is
the more liable to err as it penetrates deeper into a sphere where it
cannot construct. We call this system specious, because when examined,
it is found to be destitute of all solid foundation. We recognize,
however, a profound thought in its author; for one he must have had to
consider science under such a point of view.
297. The understanding knows only what it makes. This proposition
sums up Vico's whole system; and it must have some foundation, or
he cannot advance one step without begging his question. Why does
the understanding know only what it makes? Why can the problem of
representation have no possible solution out of causality? We think we
have shown another origin besides this in identity, also in ideality
duly connected with causality.
298. To understand is not to cause. There may be, and there really
is, a productive intelligence; but the act of understanding and that
of causing, in general, offer distinct ideas. Intelligence supposes
an activity; otherwise that intimate life which distinguishes the
intelligent being is inconceivable: but this activity does not produce
the objects known; it operates in an immanent manner on these objects,
presupposed to be either mediately or immediately in union with the
intellect.
299. If the intellect be condemned to know nothing not made by itself,
it is difficult to conceive how the act of understanding can commence.
If we place ourselves in the initial moment, we shall not know how to
explain the development of this activity; for, if it can only know
what it has made, what is it to understand in the first moment before
it has made any thing? In the system before us, the intellect has no
object but what it has itself produced; but to understand, without
an object understood, is a contradiction, so that not having in its
initial moment yet produced any thing, there can be nothing understood;
and, consequently, intelligence is inexplicable. We cannot suppose its
activity to be blindly exercised: nothing is done blindly when there
is question of representation, and the productive activity essentially
relates to things represented as represented. So far as the problem
of intelligence is concerned, it makes no difference that these are
produced externally, with an existence distinct from the intellectual
representation. As Vico himself explains, human reason knows what it
constructs in a purely ideal world; and God knows the Word which he
begets, although the Word is not without the divine essence, but is
identified with it.
300. The Neapolitan philosopher, not satisfied with applying his
system to human reason, makes it applicable to all intelligences, not
excepting the divine; although with a praiseworthy regard for religion,
he endeavors to reconcile his ideological doctrine with the dogmas of
Christianity. Truly, the problems of intelligence cannot be completely
solved without greatly cumulating them. To trace the footsteps of human
reason does not suffice to make us know the human understanding; we
must, moreover, propose the general problem of intelligence itself, now
limited, like our own, to faint glimmerings, now dilating itself in
a sea of light over the regions of infinity. The sublime words, with
which St. John commences his Gospel, besides the august truth taught by
divine inspiration, involve transcendental doctrines of an importance
higher than can be found in the words of any man, even if considered
under a merely philosophical point of view.
When Vico identifies truth with the made, he is aware that he must,
according to a dogma of our religion, distinguish between what is
created and what is uncreated. What is created is made; what is
uncreated, begotten. He admires the divine elegance of the Holy
Scriptures in calling the wisdom of God, in which the ideas of all
things are contained, and the elements of ideas themselves, his Word:
but when he would explain the conception of the Word, his expressions
are very inexact; he would have us understand, so it would seem,
that the Word only results from the elements known and contained in
the divine omnipotence. "In this Word," he says, "the true is the
comprehension of all the elements of this universe; and it might form
infinite worlds: from these elements, known and contained in the divine
omnipotence, is formed the Word real and absolute, known by the Father
from all eternity, and by him begotten also from all eternity."[28]
[28] Ancient Wisdom of Italy, L. 1, C. 1.
If the author means that the Word is conceived by the mere knowledge
of what is contained in the divine omnipotence, his assertion is false;
if he does not, his mode of speaking is inexact.
St. Thomas asks whether any relation to creature be contained in the
name of the Word: "_utrum in nomine Verbi importetur respectus ad
creaturam_;" and he resolves the question with admirable laconism and
solidity. "I reply that in the Word relation to creature is contained.
For God, by knowing himself, knows every creature. The Word, therefore,
conceived in the mind, is representative of all actually understood
by it. Wherefore there are in us different words according to the
different things we understand. But because God by one act understands
both himself and all things, his only Word is expressive not only of
the Father, but also of creatures. And as the science of God is, with
respect to himself, cognition, but with respect to creatures, cognition
and cause; so the Word of God is expressive only of what is in God
the Father, but both expressive and productive of creatures; and this
is why it is said in the Thirty-second Psalm: "He said, and they were
made;" because the productive reason of those things, which the Father
makes, is contained in the Word."[29]
[29] Respondeo dicendum, quod in Verbo importatur respectus ad
creaturam. Deus enim cognoscendo se, cognoscit omnem creaturam. Verbum
igitur in mente conceptum est representativum omnis ejus, quod actu
intelligitur. Unde in nobis sunt diversa verba, secundum diversa, quæ
intelligimus. Sed quia Deus uno actu et se, et omnia intelligit, unicum
verbum ejus est expressivum, non solum Patris sed etiam creaturarum.
Et sicut Dei scientia, Dei quidem est cognoscitiva tantum, creaturarum
autem cognoscitiva et factiva; ita verbum Dei, ejus quod in Deo Patre
est, est expressivum tantum, creaturarum vero est expressivum et
operativum, et propter hoc dicitur in Psal. 32; Dixit, et facta sunt,
quia importatur in Verbo ratio factiva eorum quæ Deus facit. _Summa
Theologiæ_, P. 1^a, Q^a, 34^a, A 3^o.
We see by this passage, that, according to St. Thomas, the Word
also expresses creatures, and that it is conceived not only by the
cognition of them, but, and this too, primarily, by the cognition of
the divine essence. Elsewhere, the Holy Doctor says: "The Father, by
understanding himself, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and all other
things included in His science, conceives the Word, in such a manner
that the whole Trinity is expressed in the _Word_, and also all
creatures."[30]
[30] Pater enim intelligendo se, et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, et
omnia alia quæ ejus scientia continentur, concipit Verbum, ut sic tota
Trinitas Verbo dicatur, et etiam omnis creatura. P. 1^a, Q. 34^a, A.
1^o, _ad._ 3^{un}.
301. Another doctrine of St. Thomas is also opposed to this system of
Vico, according to whom, the intellect knows what it makes, and that
only, and because it makes it; and the made being the sole criterion
of the true, the true and the made are convertible. Vico applies this
doctrine to the divine intelligence, only substituting _begotten_ for
_made_; but this inverts the order of ideas, since, according to our
mode of conceiving, God does not understand because he begets, but
begets because he understands: intelligence must be conceived before
the Word can be conceived. "In whoever understands," says St. Thomas,
"_by the very fact of understanding_, something proceeds within him,
which is the conception of the thing understood coming from the
intellective power, and proceeding from its knowledge."[31]
[31] Quicunque autem intelligit, ex _hoc ipso quod intelligit_,
procedit aliquid intra ipsum, quod est conceptio rei intellectæ ex
vi intellectiva proveniens et ex ejus notitia procedens. Quam quidem
conceptionem vox significat, et dicitur verbum cordis, significatum
verbo vocis. P. 1^a, Q. 27^a, A. 1^o.
This doctrine of St. Thomas confirms the opinion, expressed above,
concerning the impossibility of explaining the intellectual act solely
by production. To produce in the intellectual order, it is evidently
necessary to understand; and consequently in the initial moment of
every intelligence, the productive act cannot be performed without
intuition of the object. St. Thomas speaks in this same sense of divine
things, as much as one can so speak; he does not found the divine
intelligence on the generation of the Word, but rather the generation
of the Word on the divine intelligence. God, according to St. Thomas,
begets the Word because he understands, but does not understand because
he begets. St. Thomas comprises in the Word the expression of every
thing contained in God; for he presupposes the divine intelligence,
by which he makes it possible to speak or utter the Word. This, then,
is the order of conceptions; understanding, object understood, word
proceeding from the act of understanding, whereby the intelligent being
expresses, or says to itself, the thing understood. These ideas applied
to God, are: God the Father understanding; divine essence and all that
it contains understood; Word or Son generated by this intellectual act,
expressive of all that is contained in the generative act.
302. We have no disposition to blame Vico; we have only endeavored to
mark the inexactness of his words, doing him, at the same time, the
justice to believe that he understood things differently from what he
explained them, which, indeed, he has not succeeded in doing with due
clearness. Let us now consider his system under less subtle points of
view.
If the made be admitted as the only criterion of the true, the
understanding is obviously excluded from communication with all that
it has not itself produced. And not having made itself, it cannot know
itself. "The soul," says Vico, "knowing itself does not make itself,
and therefore knows not in what manner it knows." Thus abstracting
the problem of intelligibility proposed in our twelfth chapter, Vico
denies to our soul a criterion of itself, for the sole reason that it
is not its own cause. Identity, therefore, far from being an origin of
representation, as was proved in our eleventh chapter, is incompatible
with it; nothing can know itself, because nothing has made itself.
Hence results a very grave error; for it may be inferred that not even
God can know himself, since he is not his own cause. It is not enough
to say that he knows himself in the Word, since the Word is impossible
if intelligence be not supposed.
303. The whole world of reality, distinct from that of intellectual
being, will forever remain unknown in Vico's system, which, for this
reason, leads to the most rigid skepticism. What does he admit? The
cognition by the mind of the mind's own work; and in this are comprised
the acts of consciousness and all the purely ideal objects which we
create in it. This, also, is admitted by the skeptics, no one of whom
would deny that we have consciousness, and that there is an ideal world
the work of this consciousness, or at least attested by it.
If, then, we admit no criterion of truth but the made, we open the door
to skepticism, and abandon the world of reality to fix ourselves in
that of appearance. Nevertheless, so strange are human opinions, Vico
thought directly the contrary; he believed that only with his system
was it possible to refute skepticism. It is curious to hear him say
with perfect seriousness: "The only means of destroying skepticism is
to take this for the criterion of truth, that every one is certain of
the truth which he makes."
But what is the foundation of so odd an opinion? Let us listen to the
philosopher himself, who says, indeed, many good things, but does not
show how they may tend to the overthrow of skepticism: "Skeptics are
always repeating that things _seem_ to them, but that they do not
know what they really _are_. They confess effects, and consequently
concede causes to them; but they assert that they do not know these
causes, because they do not know the genus or form according to which
things are made. Admit these propositions, and retort them thus: the
comprehension of causes which contains all the genera and all the
forms under which effects are produced, and the appearances of which
the skeptic confessedly sees, although he denies that he knows their
real essence, is found in the first truth which comprises all, and
in which all, even to the last, are contained. And since this truth
comprises all truths, it is infinite, it excludes none, and it has a
superiority over every body, which is only an effect. This truth is
consequently something spiritual; in other words, it is God, the God
of the Christian. By this we must measure human truth; for human truth
is that truth, the elements of which we have co-ordinated within us,
and which, by means of certain postulates, we may extend and follow to
infinity. By co-ordinating these truths we know and make them at one
and the same time; and this is why, in this case, we have the genus and
the form according to which we make."[32]
[32] _Ibid._ 3.
We discover nothing in this refutation of skepticism calculated to
destroy it. Even supposing all to admit the principle of causality,
which all do not admit, what aid can he draw from this principle, when
he makes the work of that very understanding, which must make use of
it, the only criterion? If causality be the only criterion of truth,
the understanding is isolated, and cannot, in the order of effects,
take one step beyond what it has itself produced; and, in the order of
causes, it cannot ascend higher than itself; for, were it so to ascend,
it would know things not made by itself, would know its own cause. With
this supposition the skeptics must triumph; cognition is confined to
the internal world, to simple appearances; and when one would go out
of these, he stumbles against the only criterion which opposes the
cognition of all _not made_ by the understanding itself. We do then see
reality, but are separated from it by an impassable abyss. The world in
itself may be any thing we choose to suppose it; but with respect to
us, it will be nothing. This law applies to every intelligence, so that
vitality can only be known by the first cause.
These consequences, inadmissible as they are, if we would not throw
ourselves unreservedly into the tide of skepticism, are nevertheless
inevitable in Vico's system. An original way truly of combatting
skepticism, thus to throw open its widest gates!