Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1984. 207.
“An acute reply, Adso. In fact, I have worked out this proposition: equal thinkness corresponds necessarily to equal power of vision. I have posited it because on other occaisions I have had individual insights of the same type. To be sure, anyone who tests the curative property of herbs knows that individual herbs of the same species have equal effects of the same nature on the patient, and therefore the investigator formulates the proposition that every herb of a given type helps the feverish, or that every lens of such a type magnifies the eye’s vision to the same degree. The science Bacon spoke of rests unquestionably on these prepositions. You understand, Adso, I must believe my preposition works, because I learned it by experience; but to believe it I must assume there are universal laws. Yet I cannot speak of them, because the very concept that universal laws and an established order exist would imply that God is their prisoner, whereas God is something absolutely free, so that if He wanted, with a single act of His will He could make the world different.”
“And so, if I understand you correctly, you act, and you know whay you act, but you don’t know why you know that you know what you do?”
I must say with pride that William gave me a look of admiration. “Perhaps that’s it. In any case, this tells you why I feel so uncertain of my truth, even if I believe in it.”
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