THE REALIZATION OF THE BEING THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
We have just said that the being assimilates more or less completely everything of which it is conscious; indeed, there is no true knowledge in any domain whatsoever, other than that which enables us to penetrate into the intimate nature of things, and the degrees of knowledge consist precisely in the measure to which this penetration is more or less profound and results in a more or less complete assimilation. In other words, the only genuine knowledge is that which implies an identification of the subject with the object, or, if one prefers to consider the relationship inversely, an assimilation of the object by the subject, [1] and consequently the measure to which such an identification or such an assimilation is actually implied constitutes precisely the degrees of knowledge themselves. [2] We must therefore maintain, despite all the more or less idle philosophical discussions that this point has given
rise to, [3] that all true and effective knowledge is immediate, and that mediate knowledge can have only a purely symbolic and representative value. [4] As for the actual possibility of immediate knowledge, the whole theory of multiple states makes it sufficiently comprehensible. Besides, to wish to cast doubt upon it is merely to give proof of complete ignorance of the most elementary metaphysical principles, since without this immediate knowledge, metaphysics itself would be impossible. [5]
We have spoken of identification or assimilation, and we can employ these two terms almost indifferently here, although they do not arise from exactly the same point of view; in the same way, one can regard knowledge as proceeding simultaneously from the subject to the object of which it becomes conscious (or, more generally, and in order not to limit ourselves to the conditions of certain states, from which it makes a secondary modality of itself), and from the object to the subject that assimilates it to itself; and in this context it is worth recalling the Aristotelian definition of knowledge in the sensible domain as 'the common act of perceiver and perceived,' which in effect implies such a reciprocity of relationship. [6] Where the sensible and corporeal domain is concerned, the sense organs are thus the 'entryways' of knowledge for the individual being; [7] but from another point of view they are also precisely the 'outlets' in that all knowledge implies an act of identification starting from the knowing subject and proceeding toward the known (or to be known) object, like the emission of a sort of exterior prolongation of itself. And it is important to note that such a prolongation
is only exterior in relation to the individuality envisaged in its most restricted sense, for it is an integral part of the extended individuality; in extending itself thus by a development of its own possibilities, the being has no need at all to go outside of itself, which, in reality, would make no sense since under no conditions can a being become other than itself. This is also a direct response to the principal objection of modern Western philosophers against the possibility of immediate knowledge, from which it is evident that this objection could only arise from a pure and simple metaphysical incomprehension, in consequence of which these philosophers have failed to recognize the possibilities of being, even individual being, in its indefinite extension.
All this is true a fortiori if, leaving behind the limits of the individuality, we apply it to superior states; true knowledge of these states implies their effective possession, and, inversely, it is by this very knowledge that the being takes possession of them, for the two acts are inseparable one from another, and we could even say that fundamentally they are but one. Naturally, this must be understood only of immediate knowledge, which, when it extends to the totality of states, includes in itself their realization, and which, consequently, is 'the only means of obtaining complete and final Deliverance. [8] As for knowledge that has remained purely theoretical, it is obvious that it could in no way be equivalent to such a realization, and that, not being an immediate seizure of its object, it can only have an altogether symbolic value, as we have already said; but it nonetheless constitutes an indispensable preparation for the acquisition of that effective knowledge whereby, and whereby alone, the realization of the total being takes place.
Whenever occasion arises, we must insist particularly upon the realization of the being through knowledge, because it is altogether foreign to modern Western conceptions, which do not go beyond theoretical knowledge, or, more exactly, beyond a slender portion of it, and which artificially oppose 'knowledge' to 'being' as if they were not the two inseparable faces of one and the same reality. [9]
There can be no true metaphysics for anyone who does not truly understand that the being realizes itself through knowledge, and that it can only realize itself in this way. Pure metaphysical doctrine does not need to trouble itself in the least with all the 'theories of knowledge' that modern philosophy so laboriously elaborates; in these efforts to substitute a 'theory of knowledge' for knowledge itself one can even see a veritable admission of impotence, albeit certainly unconscious, on the part of this philosophy, so completely ignorant is it of any possibility of effective realization. What is more, true knowledge being immediate as we have said, can be more or less complete, more or less profound, more or less adequate, but it cannot be essentially 'relative', as this same philosophy would have it, or at least it could be so only insofar as its objects are themselves relative. In other words, relative knowledge, metaphysically speaking, is nothing but knowledge of the relative or of the contingent, that is to say of what applies only to the realm of manifestation; but the validity of this knowledge within its own domain is only as great as the nature of the domain allows, [10] which is not what is meant by those who speak of the 'relativity of knowledge'. Apart from consideration of the degrees of a more or less complete and profound knowledge-degrees that change nothing of its essential nature-the only legitimate distinction to be made as to the validity of knowledge is the distinction we have already noted between immediate and mediate knowledge, that is, between effective and symbolic knowledge.