1. Surely, nobody could believe that the veritable and real
Intelligence could be deceived, and admit the existence of things that
do not exist? Its very name guarantees its intelligent nature. It
therefore possesses knowledge without being subject to forgetfulness,
and its knowledge is neither conjectural, doubtful, nor borrowed,
nor acquired by demonstration. Even if we did admit that some of its
knowledge was derived from demonstration, no one will deny that it
possesses certain knowledge from within itself. It would be wiser,
however, to be entirely reasonable and say that it derives everything
from within itself.[244] Without this, it would be difficult to
distinguish what knowledge it derived from itself, and what was
derived from outside. Even the certainty of the knowledge derived
from itself would vanish, and it would lose the right to believe that
things really are such as it imagines. Indeed, though the things whose
knowledge we derive from the senses seem capable of producing in us
the highest evidential value, it may still be asked whether their
apparent nature do not derive more from modifications in us than from
the objects themselves. Even so, belief in them demands[245] assent of
the intelligence, or at least of the discursive reason, for though we
admit that things perceived by the senses exist in sensible objects,
it is none the less recognized that what is perceived by sensation
is only a representation of the exterior object, and that sensation
does not reach to this object itself, since it remains exterior to
sensation.[246] But when intelligence cognizes, and is cognizing
intelligibles, intelligence could never even meet them if they are
cognized as lying outside of Intelligence. One explanation would be
that intelligence does not at all meet them, nor cognize them. If it be
by chance that intelligence meets them, the cognition of them will also
be accidental and transient. The explanation that cognition operates by
union of the intelligence with the intelligible depends on explanation
of the bond that unites them. Under this hypothesis, the cognitions of
the intelligible gathered by intelligence will consist of impressions
(or, types[247]) of reality, and will consequently be only accidental
impressions. Such, however, could not exist in Intelligence; for what
would be their form? As they would remain exterior to Intelligence,
their knowledge would resemble sensation. The only distinction of
this knowledge from sensation would be that intelligence cognizes
more tenuous entities. Intelligence would never know that it really
perceives them. It would never really know for certain that a thing
was good, just or beautiful. In this case the good, just and beautiful
would be exterior and foreign to it; Intelligence, in itself, will
not possess any forms to regulate its judgments, and deserve its
confidence; they, just as much as truth, would remain outside of it.