32 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



all the simple natures absolutely; but evidently we may know 

 them without knowing that we know. After what fashion, 

 then, do we possess this knowledge? Exactly as w r e retain in 

 memory anything which lies for the moment without the field 

 of reflective attention. Even the mind of the unborn child, if it 

 were freed from the all-engrossing impressions of pain, pleasure, 

 warmth, etc., would find within itself the ideas of all self-evident 

 truths. 1 To be a rational creature at all is to possess these ideas; 

 and the act of intuition by which they are acquired proves to be 

 only an act of attention to the permanent contents of the thinking 

 faculty. 



From this point of view the necessity of postulating an absolute 

 limit to the process of explanation becomes quite evident. For 

 without it such knowledge as the rationalist requires would be 

 virtually impossible possible, perhaps, in the sense of existing 

 in the unfathomable depths of the mind, but not capable of 

 being brought to clearness and distinctness before the attentive 

 consciousness. For an idea s being distinct (or adequate) means 

 that the entire content is perfectly manifest; and the range of 

 attention cannot embrace an infinite content. This applies both 

 to the process of definition and to that of demonstration. With 

 respect to the latter the case can be put even more strongly. If 

 the knowledge of a demonstrable truth presupposes the knowledge 

 of its grounds, and the knowledge of these grounds (if they be 

 not ultimate) presupposes in turn the knowledge of their grounds, 

 the series of grounds and consequents cannot possibly be an 

 infinite one. For suppose the knowledge of the demonstrable 

 truth A is B presupposes the knowledge of C is D. Then the 

 former truth is capable of being expressed in the form of a syllo 

 gism : If Cis D,A is B; but C is D; therefore A is B. Now if C 

 is D is capable of similar expansion, and the process is conceived 



any knowledge at all, God is better known to us than anything else. For though one 

 cannot reason from the nature of anything else to the divine nature that would 

 be to ascend through the scale from effect to cause, which is impossible yet the 

 fact that one knows anything at all implies that he must already have an adequate 

 notion of God. 



l Reply to Hyperaspistes; translated in Torrey, Philosophy of Descartes, p. 128, n 



