CHAPTER XVII Ontology of the Burning Bush
The significance of the doubling of the point by polarization will be even clearer if we look at it from a strictly ontological point of view; but first of all let us consider it from a logical or even merely grammatical standpoint. Here, in fact, there are three elements, namely the two points and the distance between them, and it will be seen that these three elements correspond exactly to those of a proposition: the two points represent its two terms, while their distance from each other, expressing the relation between them, plays the part of the " copula ", that is, the element that connects the two terms. If the proposition is considered in its commonest and most general form, namely the attributive proposition, in which the " copula " is the verb " to be ", [1] it will be seen that it expresses an identity, at least in a certain respect, between the subject and the attribute; the reason is that the two points are really only the duplication of one and the same point, which has so to speak taken up a position confronting itself, as has been explained.
The relation between the two terms can also be conceived as a relation of knowledge. In this case, the being, confronting himself as it were in order to know himself, duplicates himself into subject and object; but here again the two are one in reality. This may be extended to all true knowledge, essentially implying as it does an identification of subject and object, which can be expressed by saying that in the relation and the measure in which there is knowledge, the knower is the known. It is now clear that this point of view
is directly connected with the former one, for it can be said that the known object is an attribute (that is, a modality) of the knower-subject.
If we now consider Universal Being, which is represented by the principial point in its indivisible unity, and of which all beings in so far as they are manifested in Existence are really no more than " participations ", it can be said to polarize into subject and attribute without having its unity affected thereby. The proposition of which it is at once subject and attribute then takes the form: " Being is Being ". This is the actual enunciation of what logicians call the " principle of identity "; but, in this form, its real scope clearly transcends the domain of logic, and is properly and primarily an ontological proposition, whatever applications in different orders may be extracted from it. It may also be said to express the relation of Being as subject (That which is) to Being as attribute (That which It is), and further, since Being-subject is the Knower and Being-attribute (or object) is the Known, this relation is Knowledge itself ; but, at the same time, it is a relation of identity; absolute Knowledge is therefore actual identity, and all true knowledge, being a participation therein, also implies identity in so far as it is effective. It should be added that as the relation draws its reality solely from the two terms it connects, and as these two are in fact only one, it follows that all three elements (Knower, Known and Knowledge) are truly one only [2]; this can be expressed by saying that " Being knows Itself by Itself ". [3]
The traditional value of the formula that has just been expressed appears clearly from the fact that it is found in the Hebrew Bible, in the account of God's manifestation to Moses in the Burning Bush. [4] When Moses asks what is His Name, He replies: Eheieh asher Eheieh, [5] which is usually translated " I am Who am " (or " I am That I am "), but the most exact rendering of which is " Being is Being ". [6] In fact, Being having been postulated, what can be said of It (and, one must add, what cannot but be said of It) is first that It is, and then that It is Being; these necessary affirmations essentially constitute the whole of ontology in the proper sense of the word. [7] The second way of envisaging the same formula is to postulate first of all the first Eheieh, then the second one as the reflection of the first in a mirror (image of the contemplation of Being by Itself); and in the third place the " copula " asher sets itself between those two terms as a link expressing their reciprocal relationship. This exactly corresponds to what has been stated above: the point, at first unique, then duplicating itself by a polarization which is also a reflection, and finally the relation of distance (an essentially reciprocal one) establishing itself between the two points by the very fact of their confrontation. [8]