SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNIVERSAL " UT NUNC " 35 



something that is one only -per accidens. The per se one remains 

 within the mind, yet the mind is thereby enabled to say 

 something that is true, namely " man is white." However, at 

 best this is only an analogy, or perhaps only an example, of 

 the main point we have in mind. How does this main point 

 differ from the instance of the mind's composing as per se one 

 which is one only per accidens? 



Let us try to bring out the difference by considering the 

 status of opinion. Here we go beyond what is warranted, either 

 by a proper reason (as in the case of an opinion concerning 

 something in logica docens) or by what we know truly of 

 reality (e. g., why ruminants need the type of digestive system 

 they have; the reason assigned could be one that would apply 

 to horses, who also eat and digest gi^ass) . In thus going beyond 

 reality, we do not do so in the way one real thing goes beyond 

 another, as cows beyond cabbage. The " going beyond " is in 

 the order of knowing. It is not as if our mind casts out a net. 

 The mind does cast out nets (as, indeed, we do so well and 

 frequently in logical divisions) but they remain within the 

 mind and are ordered to knowledge, not to the actual handling 

 of things. Of course, there is, nonetheless, a kind of reaching 

 out physically toward reality and even a meddling in it when 

 we perform an experiment. But why do we perform so many 

 experiments? Not to improve things in any practical sense, 

 at least primarily, but to improve our understanding of what 

 things are so far as possible. And so we are back in the mind, 

 which we have really never left. The external operation is 

 performed with a view, not to altering a given order in reality, 

 but to improving the knowledge in our mind. Hence the 

 paradox remains, but is intelligible. We go beyond our mind 

 in order for the mind to understand what it otherwise could not, 

 but this " going beyond " is a dialectical extension, remaining 

 an instrument for the mind's ever increasing grasp of an obscure 

 physical reality. In this order, experience and experimenting 

 contribute more to our knowledge than strict demonstration. 



The evolution of scientific theories, based upon wider obser- 



