The Idea of a University

One of the predominant ideas in The Idea of the University is that all knowledge has reference to a single thing: that which is true. Newman writes, “All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one” (38). There is no place for relativism in Newman’s conception of reality; truth is absolute. Everything that is known must relate to some part of this unity of truth, whether natural or supernatural, and thus all knowledge is conjoined by reason of its singular object:

Truth is the object of Knowledge of whatever kind […]. All that exists, as contemplated by the human mind, forms one large system or complex fact, and this of course resolves itself into an indefinite number of particular facts, which, as being portions of a whole, have countless relations of every kind one towards another. […] And, as all taken together form one integral subject for contemplation, so there are no natural or real limits between part and part; one is ever running into another; all, as viewed by the mind, are combined together, and possess a correlative character one with another, from the internal mysteries of the Divine Essence down to our own sensations and consciousness […] (33-34).