to be obligatory in some cases and forbidden in others, with no reason warranting this distinction except sheer arbitrariness of a kind in which no living creature, sane or insane, ever engages. For if one of the two acts were assumed to offer some particular gratification or pleasure, one could say:

“That provides grounds for preferring it, and constitutes an aspect of goodness according to those who hold that reason can discern goodness; the act would therefore be obligatory on that basis.”

Yet the case under consideration excludes all of this. Once all such considerations are excluded, it becomes clear that believing an act to be good or bad, obligatory or forbidden, depends upon an independently established reality with which that belief either accords or fails to accord. Accordingly, a belief that accords with that reality is correct, while one that conflicts with it is not. It is not the case that the ruling depends upon belief in every respect.

Second:

The inquirer who reasons from evidence in order to ascertain rulings seeks knowledge of what that evidence indicates. If, however, the evidence indicates nothing independently, and what it indicates comes into being only after reflection, then what he seeks is not knowledge of what is indicated, but its existence. This is not the function of evidence, which makes clear what it indicates; rather, it is the function of causes and causal factors, which bring their effects into existence.

There is a great difference between evidence that gives rise to knowledge residing in the heart and knowledge that gives rise to existence in the external world. What the former produces is belief in the mind, whereas what the latter produces is external existence. The two kinds are distinct from one another.