Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

[CHAPTER IX.]

IDEA OF NEGATION.

60. It is said that the understanding does not conceive nothing: this is true in the sense that we do not conceive nothing as something, which would be a contradiction; but it does not therefore follow, that we do not in any mode conceive nothing. Not-being is nothing, and yet we conceive not-being. This perception is necessary to us; without it we could not perceive contradiction; for which reason the principle of contradiction: "It is impossible for a thing to exist and not to exist at the same time:" fundamental as it is in our cognitions, would fail us.

61. It may be said that to conceive nothing, not-being, is not to conceive, but to not-conceive: this, however, is false, for it is not the same thing to conceive that a thing is not, and not to conceive it. The former involves a negative judgment, and may be expressed by a negative proposition; and the latter is the simple absence of the act of perception; the former is objective, the latter subjective. We do not when asleep perceive things; but this non-perception is by no means equivalent to perceiving that they are not. It may be said of a stone that it does not perceive another stone; but not that it perceives the non-being of the other stone.

62. The perception of not-being is a positive act; and it would be a contradiction to say that it is the very perception of being; for it would follow, that whenever we perceive being, we perceive its negation, not-being, and vice versa, which is an absurdity.

63. When we perceive not-being, we do, it is true, perceive it in relation to being; and it is equally true, an understanding perceiving absolute not-being, without any idea of being, is altogether inconceivable; but this does not prove the two ideas not to be distinct and contradictory.

64. It is remarkable that the idea of negation, besides entering into the fundamental principles of our understanding: "It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time:" "Every thing either is or is not:" is also necessary to almost all of our perceptions. We do not conceive distinct beings without conceiving that one is not the other, and we cannot form a negative judgment into which negation does not enter. Hence it results that just as the idea of being is absolute and relative, also is the idea of not-being: thus, we say, "The sun is;" "All the diameters of a circle are equal;" and we also say, "The phœnix is not:" "The diameters of an ellipse are not equal."

65. We may ask those who hold that every idea is the image of the object, what sort of an image the idea of not-being would form? This confirms what we have already advanced, that it is a mistake to imagine all ideas as a kind of types, similar to things, and that we cannot oftentimes explain any of those inward phenomena, called ideas, notwithstanding we know and explain their objects by them.

66. It is also said that the object of the understanding is being; but this is inexplicable in the sense that the understanding does not perceive not-being; and can be understood only in the sense that we perceive not-being as coordinated to being, and that not-being of itself alone, cannot be the origin of any cognition.