KNOWLEDGE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE ENTITIES IMPLIES THEIR PRESENCE.
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.