There are two concepts or ideas of knowing which must be kept separate. The first is the rationalistic or humanistic concept, namely that man, beginning totally independent and autonomous of all else, can build a bridge toward ultimate truth—as if attempting to build a cantilever bridge out from himself across an infinite gorge. This is not possible because man is finite and, as such, he has nothing toward which he can point with certainty. He has no way, beginning from himself, to set up sufficient universals.
