DETERMINATE AND INDETERMINATE IDEAS.
128. We must, under pain of falling into sensism, by limiting the
understanding to the perception and combination of objects presented by
sensibility, admit other than intellectual acts referable to sensible
objects in general. And what, in this case, is the object of the
intellectual act, is a question as difficult as it is interesting.
129. The pure understanding can exercise its functions either upon
determinate or indeterminate ideas; that is, upon ideas which contain
something determinate, something realizable in a being, that is or
may be offered to our perception, or upon ideas which represent
general relations, without application to any object. Care should be
taken not to confound general with indeterminate, or particular with
determinate ideas. Every intermediate idea is a general idea, but not
_vice versa_. The idea of _being_ is general and indeterminate; that
of _intelligence_ is general but determinate. The particular idea
refers to an individual; the determinate to a property, and it does not
cease to be determinate although we abstract all relation in it to an
existing individual. This distinction opens the way to considerations
of the highest importance.
130. When the understanding proceeds by indeterminate conceptions, its
principal object seems to be _being_ in its greatest universality. This
is the radical and fundamental idea, round which all other ideas are
grouped. From the idea of being springs the principle of contradiction,
with its infinite applications to every class of objects; from it also
flow the ideas of substance and accidents, of cause and effect, of the
necessary and the contingent, and every thing contained in the science
of ontology, called for this very reason _ontology_, or the science of
being.
131. There is nothing in those conceptions which express the general
relations of all beings, to characterize them until they quit their
purely metaphysical sphere and descend into the field of reality.
In order to be able to conceive of a real being, we require it to be
presented to us with some property. Being and not-being, substance
and accidents, cause and effect, are, when combined with something
positive, highly fruitful ideas; but taken in general, with nothing
determinate assigned to them, they do not offer us any existing, or
even possible object.
132. The idea of being presents us that of a _thing_ in the abstract;
but if we would conceive of this as existing or as possible, we must
imagine this thing to be something with characteristic properties.
Whenever we hear an existing thing spoken of, we instinctively ask what
it is, and what is its nature. God is essentially being, is infinite
being; but nothing would be represented to our mind were we to conceive
of him only as of being, and not also as intelligent, active, free
being endowed with all the other perfections of his infinite essence.
133. The idea of substance offers us that of a permanent being, which
does not, like a modification, inhere in another. This idea, taken
in its generality without other determination than that added to the
idea of being, by that of subsistence, offers us nothing real or
realizable. Permanence in general, subsistence by itself, non-inherence
in a subject, do not suffice to enable a substance to exist or to be
possible; some characteristic mark, some attribute is also needed, as
corporeal, intelligent, free, or any other you please, to determine the
general idea of substance.
134. The same may be said of the idea of cause, or productive
activity. An active thing, in general, offers us nothing either real
or possible. In order to conceive an existing activity, we must refer
to a determinate activity; the idea of acting, or of being able to
act, in general, does not suffice; we must represent it to ourselves,
as exercising itself in one way or another, referring to determinate
objects, producing, not beings in general, but beings having their own
characteristic attributes. True, we do not need to know what these
attributes are; but we do need to know that they exist with their
determinateness.
The most universal cause conceivable is God, the first and infinite
cause; and although we do not conceive of him as of cause in the
abstract, regarding the simple idea of productive activity, but
we attach to the general idea of cause the ideas of free will and
intelligence. When we say that God is omnipotent, we assign an infinite
sphere to his power; we do not know the characteristic attributes
of all the beings which can be created by this infinite activity;
but we are certain that every existing or possible being must have
a determinate nature; and we do not conceive it to be possible for
a being to be produced, which, without any determination, would be
nothing but being.
135. We do not meet this determination, indispensable as it is
to us, if we would conceive of the existence or possibility of a
being, in indeterminate ideas, but must take it from experience;
wherefore, if our understanding were limited to the combination of
those relations offered in indeterminate conceptions, it would be
condemned to a perfectly sterile science. We have already seen (Chap.
XIV.) that the absolute non-communication of the real with the
ideal order is impossible if the intelligible order be not deprived
of all consciousness of itself. It is not enough to know, that such
a communication exists, but we must ascertain in what points it is
verified, and how far it extends.
136. Before passing to this investigation, we would observe, that the
doctrine explained in this chapter is not to be confounded with that
of the fourteenth chapter. There, it was shown that general ideas of
themselves alone, have only a purely hypothetical value, and lead
to nothing because they are not combined with any thing positive,
furnished by experience; here, we have proved that indeterminate ideas
of being, substance, and cause, do not of themselves alone suffice
to enable us to conceive of any thing either existing or possible,
if they be not accompanied by some determinate idea, which gives a
character to the general ideas. There, a hypothetical value, with
respect to their existence, was allotted to general ideas: here, we
affirm it to be necessary for these ideas to be accompanied by some
property that shall render them capable of constituting an essence,
at least in the possible order. These are very different things, and
must not be confounded; hence the importance of not forgetting the
distinction between general and indeterminate, and between particular
and determinate ideas.