IN WHAT SENSE THE IDEA OF BEING IS THE FORM OF THE UNDERSTANDING.
40. When it is asserted that the object of the understanding is being, there is room to doubt whether it is meant that the idea of being is the general form of all conceptions, or only that all the understanding conceives is being; or, in other words, whether the quality of object is attributed to being, as being, in such a way that under this form alone objects are conceivable, or only that the quality of being belongs to all that the understanding conceives.
In the first case the proposition might be taken in a reduplicative sense, and would then be equivalent to this: "The understanding conceives nothing save inasmuch as it is being;" in the second it might be taken formally, and be equivalent to this: "whatever the understanding conceives is being."
41. We are of opinion that it cannot be said that the object of the understanding is being only inasmuch as being; in such a way as to make the idea of being the only form of the understanding's conceiving; but that this form is an essential condition to all perception.
42. If we remark that the idea of being, in itself considered, neither includes any determination or variety, nor expresses any thing more than being, in its greatest abstractness, we shall not fail clearly to perceive that this idea of being is not the only form conceived by the understanding; if, therefore, the understanding do not perceive any thing besides this idea in its objects, it cannot know theirdifferences; nor can its perception go beyond that which is common to all, being.
43. If it be said that the differences perceived are modes of being, modifications of that which is represented in the general idea, it is at once agreed that being in itself is not the only form perceived; since both modification and mode of being add something to the idea of being. The rectangular triangle is a kind of triangle: its idea is a modification of the general idea, and no one will pretend that the idea of rectangular adds nothing to that of triangle, or that they are both the same thing. The same is verified in the idea of being and its modifications.
44. We have already seen[21]that indeterminate ideas by themselves alone do not lead to positive cognitions; and certainly no idea better merits the name of indeterminate than that of being. Were our understanding limited to it, perception would be nothing but a vague conception, incapable of any combination.
45. Negation itself, as we shall hereafter see, is known to us, but this it could not be were we to admit that the understanding knows nothing save inasmuch as it is being; in which case the indispensable condition of all cognition, the principle of contradiction, would deceive us.
46. These reasons suffice to place beyond all doubt what we have proposed to show, but as this point is intimately connected with what is most transcendental in logic and metaphysics, we will endeavor to explain it more at large in the following chapter.