PSYCHIC LIFE
(_a_) SENSE AND SENSATION
Although we speak of the Soul as sensitive, there are many facts which
seem to prove that the seat of sensation can be more distinctly defined.
The Soul may be diverted and not notice an affection of the senses, or it
may carry on functions like those of nutrition in which no sense-elements
are consciously realised. The conclusion is that the sensitive ‘textura’
is a part and not the whole of the sentient Anima. This is the first
step toward regarding the mind as multiplex, and is in agreement with
the views of Epicurus. But a difficulty arises due to the difficulty
of keeping the unity of the soul while rejecting its ‘simplicity.’
Lucretius had said that the soul possessed a particular vis animäi,
which implied that it could maintain its existence independent of the
body.[75] Epicurus, on the other hand, declared that it had no such cause
of sentience (sentiendi causam) nisi quatenus corpus illam fovet. It
follows that so far as sentience is concerned, we must take as our unity
not Anima but Animal, not the soul alone but the totum compositum. In
either case the sense-organs need not be regarded as mere channels; but
while Lucretius might be so interpreted, Epicurus is quite definite. It
is true to say the mind sees or hears, but no less true to say the eye
sees or ear hears, just as we say the hand writes. It may seem irrelevant
to discuss at this point the question of the vis animae; but the
justification for so doing is the fact that at this point we are deeply
concerned with the question of the unity of the soul and its meaning. The
rejection of a specific and separate vis animae is one step toward the
destruction of the view that the soul is simple, in the technical sense.
Now, not only has it parts of which the sensitive part is one, but it may
be doubted whether this part is a unity without difference. Clearly we
have many sense-organs, yet some say ‘sense is one’; and of course it is
true that the senses are all sense and in that way one, but that is not
a useful contention. To say the one Sense uses the organs as a carpenter
uses his various tools for various purposes is to make a fallacious
comparison. It is the mind that is a unity relatively to the senses; and
the opposition of the unitary sense to the many kinds of sensation is a
mere confusion added to an assumption. Gassendi here seems to realise
the difficulty which attends the reduction of all sense-affection to
movement: whether we speak of afferent or efferent activities, we are
faced with the fact that motions of different kinds of tissue will not
necessarily be different kinds of motion. If differences of motion
make differences in sensation, since motions differ only in degree, we
are liable to drift on to the conclusion that sight is an acute form
of hearing, and thus be wrecked. Now we cannot give up the point that
senses are qualitatively different: we must therefore take that as a
proof that sense-organs differ in texture and that the recipient soul
is just as manifold as the currents conveyed to it or from it. This is
a decision but not a solution of the problem; and we are left with a
working hypothesis, not a demonstrated conclusion; but Gassendi seems to
realise that sensation as a physical fact belongs to a totally different
point of view from that which regards sensation as a psychic fact; and
the quantitative analysis of the one cannot be wholly identified with the
qualitative distinctions of the other.
The actual number of senses is five: they cannot be reduced to Touch, but
they might conceivably be increased in number, and we might even have
a sense for the inner nature of things. This is a characteristically
mediaeval notion. As it is, our senses only give us knowledge of
qualities; but it should be noted that our ignorance of the naturas rerum
intimas is not an inherent fault of our way of attaining knowledge, but a
question of mere limitation in the number of senses.
Perception is not in the organ, but in the brain, whose media are the
nerves. What then is the nature of the nerve? The sensitive part of
the organ must be animata, the other parts need only be ‘vegetative’:
it must also be in some way susceptible of touch: these qualities are
found in nerves. These nerves must be regarded (after Galen) as a sort
of diffused brain, and the brain as a kind of highly developed nerve:
every membrane consists of a sheath covering an inner membrane: the inner
part is a chain of soft particles with a hollow centre. The mechanism is
not sensitive in itself, for the sensation only arises when some shock
to the nerve is transmitted to the brain: this transmission requires a
state of tension, and is therefore only possible when the animal spirits
inflate these nerve channels sufficiently. This explains the possibility
of a physical affection of the nerves having no psychic effect. Gassendi
does not appear to consider the question of subconscious states. The
‘innervation’ caused by the animal spirits is the essential condition
of actual sensibility: consequently, physical shocks at the nerve
extremities are cut off from the brain altogether unless the innervation
occurs. This becomes more familiar as psychology if we describe this
tension of the nerve system as ‘attention’ and say that affections to
which we do not attend are not part of our experience. It is necessary
here to distinguish appulse as cause and tension as condition of
sensation.
Gassendi regards the nerves as not sufficiently straight or tense to be
the bearers of sensation (oblique divertuntur et remissiore tensione
sunt). He therefore says ‘id probabilius videtur peragi rem per spiritum
ob continuitatem mobilitatemque’: at the same time he anticipates the
possible misinterpretation of the phrase ‘bearers of sensation,’ and
points out that nothing is really carried into the brain:[76] it is the
motion itself when actually arrived in the brain that is the sensation.
The nature of the process called Sense-apprehension is thus described.
All objects are known through their ‘species’: not only in the case of
sight, but in the case of all the other sense-organs, the species are
the media of knowledge: these species are composed of small corpuscula
which enter the channels to which they are suitable. It follows from the
teaching above, where all sense-organs were asserted to have different
textures, that there will be a certain degree of selection, in so far as
unsuitableness may prevent some corpuscles from entering some channels.
These texturae of the various organs thus serve as selective sieves: the
species however have various degrees of difference: over and above the
differences which make them unfitted to enter some organs at all, they
have further differences which make them pleasurable or painful to an
organ which can admit them.
This seems written in a highly materialistic vein; but Gassendi’s
position is more physical than materialistic, which is to say he works
out these problems on mechanical lines without admitting that the result
is identical in kind with its original factors. He diverges here from the
common line by denying that the species either are or need to be conveyed
to the sensorium or central faculty. He says, ‘verisimilius tamen est non
penetrare corpuscula sensoriis externis allapsa in interiorem facultatem
residentem in cerebro sed fieri motionem nervorum spirituumque’: which at
least refines the material species down to a brain-movement before it is
finally transmuted into thought. This modification is important in one
respect. If the species were the actual thing, sense-affection would
be wholly and objectively true: if, on the other hand, the thing is not
itself transmitted but is represented by a movement, the quality of the
movement will be the ground of judgment and error will be possible, as
_e.g._ when a man’s leg has been cut off he still feels pain in it,
though this is clearly not an affection of the parts, but an affection
of the central faculty interpreted as coming from those extremities.
Gassendi considers that the ἄνευ ὕλης of Aristotle is to be thus
explained.[77]
The sensibles then are perceived intercedente motione: as to the nature
of these Sensibles but little is said, and most of it is Aristotle; but
it is noted that Aristotle’s distinction of essential and accidental
sensibles is a confusion as the ‘accidents’ are perceived by the aid
of Imagination and Memory. This account of sensation has two points of
particular interest. Firstly, the object of the senses is not itself
conveyed to the brain, but is symbolically represented by the motion it
creates: hence not only is it possible to misjudge the given, but also
that which is given may itself be incurably false: Aristotle’s saying,
‘non falli sensum circa ipsum,’ is right in so far as it means sense is
what it is, but that will not help us to decide whether it is what it
claims to be or whether being what it is as effect it guarantees what
we think it ought to guarantee as cause. But of this more later. A more
pressing question arises from the general position. As we have already
remarked, Gassendi is quite aware that his scale of the Universe is
in imminent danger of resolving itself into a series of disconnected
stages: he is continually making ‘synthetic assumptions,’ taking a stage
_A_, for example, and advancing to _A_ + _B_ with no explanation of the
right to speak of _A_ + _B_ as the next stage above _A_, when all we know
is that the addition of _B_ makes _A_ all that it was not before. Sense
is a case in point: for however much the common mind may feel certain
that plant, animal, and man form an indisputable scale of ascending
dignity, it is not philosophic to accept the dogma uncritically: on the
other hand, if the problem is squarely faced, it seems to present an
absolute dilemma. We might say Life is possible because all is animated
and so all is ‘sensible’; but this is chaos, a night of colourless
reality. Rather than this, Gassendi clings to the reality of distinctions
and strives to defend his position. Plants have ‘quasi adumbratio sensus’
inasmuch as in them too the vital fire burns and processes of absorption
and nutrition are carried on: the fact that they require their food makes
it ‘gratum.’ Thus the sophistry of Gassendi! for who authorises that
‘gratum’? Is it more than poetry to say the thirsty plant rejoices in the
rain? Can I argue that because my boot wants soling therefore it likes
it? But Gassendi knows that these scales of existence are artificial
constructions, and his own is built on that abstraction called Motion.
His second argument is an appeal to Analogy: in all natural development
there is an inexplicable element: the whole attains a nature such as was
found in none of the parts: when the tree ripens it passes from sour to
sweet (a passage from Non-Being to Being almost Hegelian!), and when
flint and steel can produce a spark, shall we doubt that object and
nerve may produce a sensation? In short, quantitatively we can keep our
scale, if we look to quality our world falls apart at every difference.
Gassendi appears well aware that the results will not seem very
satisfactory to those who desire greater continuity. He says:
‘Verumtamen, inquies, ex verbis tam multis neque explicatur neque
intelligitur qua ratione fiat ut cum neque ipsa caloris, flammulaeve
corpuscula seorsim sumpta, et dum in auras excedunt, sentiant: neque
sentiant item particulae corporis, quibus flammula inest, ac miscetur: et
ne ea quidem communi crassaque affectu, qua quippiam tactu percipitur:
quanam ratione, inquam, fiat, ut ex iis commistis exoriatur sensio
perceptiove explicita, quam non possumus lucidiore dicere voce, quam
cognitionis, ac res proinde sentiens creetur ex rebus insensilibus?’ We
have to confess our ignorance, but this is only a special case of an
ignorance which is manifest in many other directions, in fact, whenever
we deal with qualities. ‘Neque vero est quare putes posse rem planius et
agnosci et edisseri in qualitatibus ceteris: siquidem ubi dixeris fructum
ex acerbo, _e.g._ dulcem fieri, etc. ... ex quo fit ut cum idem dici
proportione possit de qualitatibus caeteris, mirum non sit, si cum ipsa
quoque Qualitas sentiendi difficilem adeo explicatum habeat ... explicare
non liceat, etc.’ This is a very clear statement of the position, and
shows beyond dispute that Gassendi admits a complete break, not only here
but everywhere between the analytic and synthetic aspects, our analysis
and nature’s synthesis. His defence of Epicurus is that he did not make
the atoms _incapable_ of being anything, and other theorists have not
succeeded any better than he did. As a matter of fact we can only go
back, in the case of sentient things, to the semen, not the atom, so that
‘non posse dici absolute res sensileis fieri ex insensilibus,’ that is to
say we can uphold that the sensile only comes from the sensile, but only
by refusing to go down to our ultimate, by stopping at a complex state
(secunda materies) which has attained sensation and declining to ask
where _that_ degree of sensation comes from[78] (II. 347).
(_b_) IMAGINATION
There is no subject more interesting or more critical for writers of the
class to which Gassendi belongs than that of Imagination. The peculiar
combination which the activity of this faculty presents in its union of
inner significance with outer form, places it in the perilous transition
from objective existence to subjective being, and makes it too often
the root of those wild extravagances, whose ultimate object is always
to confound with material figures of speech the problem of Reason. It
is necessary therefore to follow this discussion with care, and try to
define accurately the position of Gassendi. With the subject of Phantasia
we penetrate into the inner sanctuary of thought: ‘sequitur facultas
cognoscens interna,’ says Gassendi, ‘cuius nimirum tota functio sic
interius peragitur ut organum nullum exterius appareat.’ We now deal
with the Animus: for ‘ab anima quidem vegetatio et sensus, ab animo vero
cogitatio et ratiocinatio pendent.’
In the first place we must decide whether this faculty is one or many:
for although the dogma of the Fides Sacra is really all we can know, a
little additional enquiry will not be heterodox or useless! The division
of the Animus called Cogitatio has often been subdivided into Imaginatio,
Cogitatio, Opinio, Prudentia, Consilium, and so on. These faculties
are however all reducible to Phantasy, which thus comes to mean any
activity of thought carried on in terms of sense and its ‘imagines.’
This raises the question as to whether Imagination is not really the
culminating point of sensation, _i.e._ whether it could not be identified
with the sensus communis. It has been said, ‘What is sense but the
understanding of the sensible, or the understanding but a sense of the
intelligible?’ (cp. Aristotle’s phrase,[79] θιγγάνων καὶ νοῶν), but this
was error, and we can never admit that sense and thought are one.[80] The
identification of Imagination and the sensus communis may be rejected
then, for the following specific reasons: no sense can be made to judge,
therefore it is useless placing any faculty of the nature of sense at the
meeting-place of nerves to function thus: if there is any central point
it must be ascribed to Imagination: knowledge of the functions of sense
belongs to something beyond them—a phrase which recalls the phrase of a
later writer that sensations cannot sum themselves.
We conclude then that in men we have only two divisions of Animus, viz.
Reasoning and Imagination, though some would add Judgment. This addition
was due to a false analysis of Illusion. A certain Theophilus, Medicus,
though a man of good judgment in other respects, was afflicted with the
Imagination that he could hear flute players performing in some corner
of his house. It was argued from this case that his judgment was sound,
but his imagination unsound; and therefore these were distinct. Here
Gassendi shrewdly points out that the Doctor judged as he imagined, and
the imagination was not itself wrong, but was made wrong by the error of
the judgment of causation by which the internal state was attributed to a
wrong cause. Thus the case does not refute our position that imagination
and judgment are one: for an illusion is real as a subjective state, and
the state of imagination is not an object of judgment, but is itself
an affection combined with an activity of judgment, so that the cause
of imagination is normally also the object of judgment. This point is
by no means easy to comprehend: it involves the following analysis of
perception. An object _A_ is cause of an inner state _B_ of the nature
of an image; but as this is a conscious image it is itself, as an inner
state, a judgment and _not_ a judgment on itself but on _A_, its external
cause. If _B_ could be judged as an inner state and compared with _A_,
judgment and imagination could be distinguished: which we deny, since it
involves a double access to the object _A_, namely once by way of the
image and once immediately.
We are now fairly launched on the question of Perception, and must
follow Gassendi closely. To return to the question of reducing all
faculties to Phantasy—what becomes of Memory? This is really a defect of
‘species’; loss of memory means loss of the ‘species servatas,’ leaving
one with an inner world depleted of objects: hence, as failure of memory
is failure of relation among species, it seems to follow that memory is
only imagination regarded from the point of view of a system of species.
Now, what are the imagines or species which thus constitute a faculty
co-extensive with empirical knowledge? Perception, we have been told,
depends on excitement of the outer organ by a species or ‘qualitas
sensibilis’: the nerves filled with animal spirits are ‘spiritual radii,’
along which the vibrations travel to the brain. From this results (1)
that the faculty of feeling in the appropriate quarter at once knows the
object; (2) a vestigium is left behind. Once this function is ended,
the sense-faculty cannot know the object again without a second shock.
Phantasy however is a higher faculty, and can know the absent thing: this
is its final distinction from sense: also its capacity of acting without
the presence of the thing proves that its object or ground of activity is
in the brain: we must therefore be clear as to these ‘vestigia.’
Gassendi asserts emphatically that the cerebral residuum (species,
φάντασμα, visum) is in no sense a thing: we cannot construct any
inter-cranial thing which will give the qualities of the object of
thought. Colours, sounds, etc., have no typus in cerebro (as a thing
might have a typus in cera), but the process is such ‘ut per nervos
contractos resilitio quaedam spirituum in cerebrum fiat qua tam cerebrum
quam facultas in eo residens percellatur; ideo posse sufficere si id
quod remanet cuiusmodi sit ut talis perculsio eius interventu velut
iteretur.’[81] The impress must therefore be taken as some effect on
brain substance of the nature of a fold (quasi plicam quandam in cerebro
factam). This definite result becomes the cause of reflective thought,
as it gives its character to those spirits which for any reason move in
its tracks: the imago impressa determines what the thought shall be of,
but we actually envisage not the brain-fold, but the cause, _i.e._ the
original object now become a Phantasma: as we think of an object without
thinking of the sense-apparatus or the brain, so in reflection we pass
beyond the immediate conditions to what lies beyond. The impress belongs
to the brain and the phantasy regarded as a compound: that is to say—when
we say it is a brain-state, we do _not_ mean it is a state of the brain
purely as matter, but as a conscious agent. The materialistic difficulty
which might have arisen is thus anticipated by refusing to consider the
brain in abstraction from its conscious functions, as though a dead brain
were still a brain in the fullest sense. Gassendi cannot emphasise too
much or repeat too often his belief that the direct material of thought
is purely symbolic of the external reality: only the disposition of the
brain itself remains to testify to the action of an object on the senses,
and all the substantial nature of things is reduced to a mode of motion
of the brain-substance, out of which we may build again an insubstantial
pageant of reflection.
Memory is discussed in connection with Imagination, since it is really
only an aspect of the function which preserves ideas. By thus connecting
it with his theory of Imagination and folds, Gassendi breaks with those
who viewed Memory as a ‘storehouse’: he says, ‘non tamquam vas quoddam
concipienda,’ and rejects the simile of wax with equal clearness: he
admits however other metaphors: videtur ergo potius concipi non male
quasi charta munda seu papyri purissimae solium, but the paper is to
be considered as receiving folds, not marks. This is a remarkable
anticipation both of Locke and Leibnitz, while it savours of much later
psychological work. The analysis of the whole process is even more
remarkable. The folds, which are innumerable, can be repeated in their
order: the new co-exists with the old, and an excitement beginning
from any point in the series runs through them all (una plica arrepta
caeterae quae in eadem serie sunt, quasi sponte sequuntur). The act of
recollecting consists in voluntarily making many folds until by chance
we hit on the right one or one in the right series: thus the apparently
forgotten may be revived. Folds tend to become obliterated by the number
of later folds or by humidity of the brain in old age: memories are
good and bad according to the temperament, which here means the degree
to which the humid element preponderates. Total oblivion results from
material cerebral changes, by which the original folds become entirely
obliterated.
We may now survey the functions of Phantasy generally. They are three
in number, namely simple apprehension, composition or division, and
Ratiocinatio, a list which proves that the term Phantasy is not to be
taken in any narrow sense.
The proper function is simple apprehension without affirmation or denial,
the most elementary function of Imagination being naturally conceived as
the mere reception of imagines. This mere reception is however not a pure
passivity: it follows from the nature of the ‘plica’ that there is some
activity of the organ or faculty: also there is here a principle of unity
if not exactly a unifying activity, for Gassendi asks why we imagine one
object only when the spirits are agitated in many ‘folds,’ and bases his
answer on the unity of the faculty. This resolution of many movements
into a unity is not strictly intelligible so long as the relation between
the physical multiplicity and the psychical unity is left without proper
explanation. Gassendi also recognises a selective activity, and points
out that it is not possible to attend to more than one thing at a time
unless the things are in some sense capable of reduction to a unity: as
a rule attention, which is physically a movement of the spirits in one
particular direction, follows the greatest or dominant movement, though
a new movement may engage attention in face of an older and stronger
affection.
This treatment of attention looks better than it really is: it might
be good either physiologically or psychically, but as stated it is a
hopeless confusion. In the first place, many movements might be the
physical counterpart of one thought; but if the unity of thought is
described as a unity of movement the many movements must be one in
themselves and as movements; which is meaningless. Secondly, Gassendi
seems to think a unity comprehending the multiplicity is not distinct
from the unity gained by omission. For him attention must always be
attention to one thing because, being a movement, it can only be in one
place at one time. This is at least intelligible as an exposition in
terms of place and movement, but it makes the whole theory of attention
hopelessly crude, and by itself excludes the mental characteristics which
Gassendi is anxious to include in this stage of the psycho-physical life.
Although rooted in experience Phantasy can combine its elements in new
ways, _e.g._ the imagination of the Hippogriff. This brings us to the
second degree of Phantasy, which is called Compositio et divisio or
assensio et dissensio, or affirmatio et negatio. The combination of ideas
such as gives the centaur or the golden mountain is a combination of
separate ideas: the ‘compositio’ to which we now pass differs from this
in being an assimilation of one idea to a pre-existent group of ideas. It
follows that this function is secondary, in the sense that it presupposes
groups of ideas (aggeries) and that the process is of the nature of
subsumption under a universal. As Gassendi draws upon animal life for his
examples we might compare this with the ‘Logic of Recepts.’ The process
is assumed to be purely psychological, and consists in the assimilation
of a present idea with a group of ideas accompanied by definite
consciousness of the act, and therefore in some degree constituting a
‘judicium.’ The progress of experience results in various aggregates of
‘vestigia’ in the brain: no one of these can be called universal, but
the common elements in them all may be taken to give a sort of type of
the kind. Hence a new perception may be identified as man rather than
lion, because, though not identical with any existing man-image, it is
more like a man’s image than a lion’s image. The difficulty of defining
this stage of psychic life is felt by all who study the subject: it would
be rash to assert that Gassendi made it fully clear to himself. He is
however clear upon the point that if the activity is psychological it
must be positive. The emergence of the negative marks the fully conscious
proposition which is not found at this stage. Thus Comparison, as found
here, is mere assimilation: it may be said ‘this is sweet’ or ‘this is
bitter,’ but not ‘this is not sweet.’ If we are to refine to this degree,
probably the terms sweet and bitter would have to be ruled out, and the
psychic affirmative put in the form ‘this is such.’ Gassendi would say
that at this stage there is no proposition at all, and thus save himself
from the accusation of such mental atomism as is implied in the divorce
of a positive notion (sweet) from its correlative (not sweet). If the
second operation constitutes a perilous border region, how much more the
third, which is Ratiocinatio, argumentatio, or discursus? But, ne voce
ipsa statim offendamur, we distinguish Reason as either Sensitiva or
Intellectiva. This is a distinction of kind which once for all settles
the difficulty which the Church had found in putting beasts and men
on one graduated scale. The differentia of this stage of Phantasy is
found in the ability of animals to go beyond the given: they anticipate
results, as when the dog runs from the uplifted stick; or choose between
a present and a future pain, as when the ass endures the beating rather
than go forward over the precipice. If we admit that the hare can reason
that a leap breaks the scent and say with Gassendi ‘esse speciem quandam
rationis in Brutis’; if we further discover that an animal perceives
agreement and disagreement, which is the basis of propositions, where
shall we limit Phantasy? The specious answer is to say that we limit it
by the capacities of animals, and after all animals are not men. This
might have been Gassendi’s reply; but he seems satisfied with proving
that animals have some kind of Reason without troubling to define it too
accurately. The chapter ends with a description of human reasoning which
may have been intended to suggest a superiority, but seems more like a
closure put on a discussion that threatened to bring Faith into collision
with Reason. The discussion on Instinct begins with the definite
statement that the Brutes have common notions or general propositions,
which are rather innate to (ingenitae) than produced by the Senses. The
fundamental faculty is Touch, and the dominant passions are Pleasure and
Pain: these are related respectively to the good and the bad, and have as
their active aspects attraction and repulsion. The result is a sort of
innate proposition (notio sive habitus), such as Faciendum quod juvat,
non faciendum quod nocet. The bull moves before the goad _immediately_;
but where action is undertaken to avoid a _future_ pain, we must admit
argumentatio. The chapter adds nothing to the theory of phantasy, but
contains some interesting remarks on the ethics of animal life. Care
for the young is derived from the parent’s care for itself, the embryo
being a part of the parent: this is a provision which has a teleological
aspect, being intended to secure preservation of the species (ad generis
conservationem). The series of instinctive actions are expressions of
subjective conditions: the period of gestation is a state upon which
follows the presentiment to find a place for deposit and care of the
young: memory, imitation, and a natural sense of the useful are the
psychic elements of this state. Gassendi sums up his own doctrine thus:
Phantasy is a faculty whose first function is to know; then, secondly,
to arouse appetite and, thirdly, motive faculty, whose effects differ
according to the means used. These effects include:
(1) Excitation of desires and passions—love, hate, and the like.
(2) Motion of spirits through the body.
(3) Tension of the nerves and muscles.
(4) Agitation of humours as in palpitation and blushing.
(5) Impressio illa macularum similitudinisque et deformitatis in foetu.
(6) External effects of any kind. These are in fact usually myths:
external action (as _e.g._ that of the evil eye) is impossible, for the
activity of Imaginatio is essentially immanent.
(_c_) INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS
I.
The mind or the Intellect of man is no mere faculty: it is a ‘pars
essentialis substantialisve Hominis,’ and therefore is the same as the
Rational Soul looked at as rational without regard to vegetative or
sensitive parts. This view is the only one possible if we remember that
we must argue so as to prove the Soul’s immortality (‘viam sternere ad
astruendum eius Immortalitatem,’ II. 425): it would be simpler to take
mens and Phantasia as identical in kind and different only in degree; but
that is a priori impossible, as it leads to the admission that brutes
might win immortality. The theory that the human anima is a part of the
Anima Mundi must be rejected: it does not follow from the existence
of stones that there must be a ‘forma lapidis’ diffused through the
universe, nor that the universe has an anima because individual animae
are found on it: apart from this, if we admit the universal mind, there
is no sense in speaking of it as ‘divided’ or ‘distributed,’ since it
is not corporeal. The doctrine of Reminiscence, as taught by Plato, is
the stronghold of this position, but not impregnable. Why must we have
innate ideas? Is it not enough if we have the facultas intelligendi
comparandique ideas: we can then form ‘notiones anticipatas,’ and so
have all that is required for the more intellectual functions. Another
time-honoured fallacy is the duality of mind taught by those who
recognise a passive and a universal (active) part. If the universal part
is really other than our intellect, it is outside of our intellect,
and therefore an unknown: if it is justified as the condition of our
intelligence, it is not thereby proved an intelligence itself, any more
than light is proved to be sight by being posited as the condition of
sight. This is in fact regarded by Gassendi as a false attempt to go
beyond the intellectual sphere in order to explain its functions: it
ends in a hypostasis of mind to explain minds: he himself looks rather
to the unity of mind as the source of illumination: we have already
found, he says, that a sort of general phantasy arises in animals, which
is actually nothing but the co-existence and self-reflection of many
particular acts of phantasy: why then may not the light of reason be an
immanent light and a self-illumination? (quorsum intelligibiles species
non sua quaeque speciali luce perfundantur?).
II.
Gassendi, having rejected both Plato and Aristotle, proceeds to develope
his own view. A hint has already been given us in the argument that
the existence of a stone is not a proof of any universal form of stone
pervading the universe. This argument is somewhat obscure, but it seems
to mean that from the point of view of Being, a specific form implies not
a general form, but a general substance of which it is the form. Thus a
stone presupposes only matter-in-general, not stone-in-general, and the
matter is general not in esse suo, but in reference to a special form. By
analogy a specific mind will not imply a universal mind, but might imply
some entity capable of standing in such a relation to the particular
mind as matter does to the particular stone. This line of thought might
seem to be leading us onward and upward to a mind above, but the face of
Gassendi is toward the origins; and as matter is a name for all existing
atoms viewed as unity, so if we penetrate beyond the specious unity of
mind we come upon the ideas in their multiplicity. We must not suppose
that by calling the Anima Rationalis a substance Gassendi makes it a
thing; he means merely to exclude the views which make it a dependent
existence, such as an ‘inseparabilis perfectio’ or a ‘harmonia’ must
necessarily be.[82] He defines it as substantia incorporea, formam
tanquam informantem, and this combination of terms defines our problem:
we must first see from Gassendi’s statements how he conceives this entity
called mind.
Our philosophy has given us an exposition of Phantasy. The first
requisite is a distinction of mind from Phantasy. The points of
difference are these:
(1) Phantasy is not capable of reflection: the knowledge that we know
denotes an incorporeal agent, for it is a movement toward self, while the
movement of the corporeal is always toward another.
(2) Many objects of the mind are not imaginable: they are intelligible,
and the idea has significance, but no sense representation is possible,
_i.e._ we cannot actually picture the sun as having the size which we
know it to have.[83]
(3) Our knowledge of universality proves that we have a faculty higher
than phantasy: the object here is incorporeal, and therefore requires
an incorporeal Agent to know it. Gassendi distinguishes between having
universals and knowing universality: as in the case of animals, Phantasy
may attain to universals which Gassendi regards as purely psychological;
but man is distinguished by having this ‘knowledge of universality,’
which seems to be simply the existence of the universal at a reflective
stage of mind.
In these points the difference of mind and imagination are most marked;
but the existence and nature of a higher faculty is made certain by other
proofs. Knowledge of God, though not intuitive, demands a faculty that
grasps the incorporeal. Will aims at the good, and thereby indicates a
faculty capable of rising above the sense level, for which pleasure and
pain would be the only ends.
Having thus demonstrated the existence of Intellect as a non-sensuous
faculty, Gassendi proceeds to further define the nature of the human
mind. As incorporeal and a form, the mind is in a sense ex nihilo,
and the passage from nothing to something being an infinite process
requires God. This is a declaration of war against the physical dogmas:
the categories of science may be adequate if we are only concerned with
things whose origin is really only a fresh disposition of matter; but
what if our regress brings us to the whole? Can it be treated as we treat
the parts? Does not our physical system demand for its own explanation
something higher and greater? was not Daedalus greater than the machines
he made? Ex nihilo nihil is, then, a category which means that every
combination of elements postulates the existence of the elements thus
combined: it will not reach to substances themselves, for we cannot show
what elements or what combinations are required to produce a soul: it is
for us a limit, and as such has beyond it only chaos, the Not-Being which
is its only antecedent.
This production, though ex nihilo, is not unnatural: the propagation
of man is ordained in uno ordine, and the production of the soul is in
eodem ordine: so long as the phenomenal regularity is observed this
remains a natural event. Thus Gassendi’s treatment of the soul as an
original underived entity does not carry him into idle speculations: it
is a treatment which (as he well knows) does not change the nature of
the Anima, but serves to define the inadequacy of categories which were
in danger of encroaching: it is a treatment also which never admits that
quality can be generated out of mere quantity. This last point is most
important, and Gassendi never swerves from his position: at this crisis,
when we require to unite soul with body, and all the delicate gradations
of ‘very subtle movements’ offer themselves as intermediary links, he
sweeps them all away at a blow, declaring ‘seu crassum seu tenue sit
corpus,’ the difficulty remains untouched. The position is acute: mind
and matter having nothing in common, the sensitive soul will not serve as
a link, hybrid though it be: to ascribe the unity to God is to say less
than nothing: we stand before a unity for whose bond we find no ‘gluten,’
no grappling irons (ansis carentem), and no supreme force. We may well
pause to ask what it is we propose to unite, and what manner of union we
have to expound?
As to the nature of the soul confusion has arisen through trying to unite
entities which had previously been so defined as to admit of no union:
this difficulty can therefore be removed. It consists in supposing that
the pure Intelligences, _i.e._ the angels, represent the real nature of
our souls taken in abstraction from the body; but why should a human
soul cease to be human merely because it is free from the human body? No
change of kind is proved, only a change of condition. We have therefore
no right to suppose that our souls, like the angelic beings, have any
actus purus: on the contrary, the actus of souls is either mixtus or
nothing at all.
Gassendi introduces this point of view by simply asserting that there are
three natures of things, the purely spiritual, the purely corporeal, and
the mixed. This gives us what might be called a concrete as opposed to
the ordinary abstract view: for it is no longer possible to assert that
the condition of the soul is an imprisonment by which its functions are
impaired: its action is what it is, not because of its union with the
body, but because of its own nature: it is not forced into an unequal
yoke, but joined in a divine wedlock for which it was predestined
(ipsaque ad eas nuptias propendeat). The original difficulty was made
acute by the emphasis laid on the difference between soul and body: this
is dissolved by Gassendi’s view, which does not demand that the two
should be of one kind, but that they should be, like male and female,
complementary. This is a recognition of identity in difference which
promises much; but there is one point which qualifies our hopes. It is
after all to the sensitive soul that the Anima Rationalis is united; and
so ‘interventu sentientis corpori uniatur’: we might conjecture that
Gassendi foresaw a possible difficulty in the fact that there are many
forms of matter to which Intellect does not ally itself: it therefore
became necessary to resolve both terms and say, ‘it is the nature of
Intellect to unite itself to such matter as is of a nature to receive
it.’ We may not perhaps be able to get much further on the main issue,
but it is well to see clearly how much Gassendi really achieves. He is
clearly right in taking the unity as his standing point, and not the
absolute differences. He cannot be far wrong in asserting that if the
unity is (as it is) a fact, the elements must be by nature adapted for
the unity. The root of his difficulty is the fact that his terms do not
represent these distinctions, but are names for distinct beings, and,
much as he strives to get away from this, his factors, Soul and Body,
insist on starting into independent realities. Here again the problem is
confused by the terms, for corpus is a term which implies more than mere
matter, and the union of the Anima Rationalis is ultimately only a union
with a corpus in so far as that is previously Animatum (beseelt), though
it has a specious appearance of explaining the union of opposites. To me
this difficulty is made more serious by the metaphor of the marriage:
for that clearly implies a tendency to introduce conceptions of mutual
attraction which are confusing. Gassendi’s statement that the sensitive
soul is qualified to be the recipient of the Anima Rationalis, not
because of its tenuity, but because of its function in phantasy, shows
that he rejects the attempt to make ‘a very subtle motion’ identical with
a psychic activity, but equally clearly shows that he pushes back his
real problem of passing over from physical to psychical into the more
obscure regions of animal psychology.
We may now sum up Gassendi’s position. The Anima rationalis is so far
distinct from all other entities as to be underivable from them: it is
therefore a new creation: on the other hand, its creation is conditional,
for it is so united to the Body as to be not merely co-existent
(adsistans) but also coherent (informans): this union proves the factors
not wholly antagonistic, but it requires definite conditions, and as the
unity is also the birth of the Soul (for it is created by God in ordine
naturae) it will follow that these conditions enter into its very being.
At the risk of some repetition, which is not alien to the spirit of
Gassendi, we must further elucidate the nature of the Intellect by
stating what our author calls its functions. The spirit of Occam
inspires Gassendi to limit the machinery of thought: he identifies Anima
Rationalis and mens in opposition to those who regarded the Intellect as
a distinct faculty or an instrument: he rejects the distinction of active
and passive unless agens be used to mean direct thought and patiens,
indirect or reflective thought, where since the mind acts on itself,
there must be some right to speak of it as receiving action (nata est
recipere actum a se productum).
Ultimately Gassendi recognises only two faculties as required for the
function of understanding. The phantasmata are the only objects: these
are sensible species, but they can be understood, and there is therefore
no need to interpose the so-called ‘intelligible’ species. Whatever
the difficulties may be in the way of asserting that sensible species
are capable of being understood, it is clearly better to take up that
position than to assert that the understanding can have no objects
except such as have already been understood. This introduces a point
of considerable importance. The so-called ‘intelligible’ species were
a distinct class of species which, as opposed to the sensible, were
qualified to be the content of the mind; but how qualified? Apparently
by being in some way the world of mind; but if we take a functional view
of the mind, this reduces itself to absurdity, for the content of the
mind will be its own functions, its only inducement to action will be
the actions themselves, and knowledge will be impossible. This view of
intelligible species, therefore, must be rejected if we once give up the
idea of a mind which stores in itself pictures that are ‘intelligible’
before the mind understands them: we can only say species are
intelligible in the sense in which _all_ species must be intelligible,
_i.e._ capable of being understood.
The rejection of this bridge over the gulf necessitates further
explanations. If the notion of the mind as envisaging pictures of the
intellectual order is objectionable, the situation is made even worse
by substituting pictures of the sensuous order. Gassendi sees this
and proceeds consistently: he takes a functional view, inasmuch as he
regards ideas as actions rather than things; but his idea of function
can only be interpreted in terms of motion, and to these terms the
‘picturing’ of phantasy must be reduced. The image and the idea are now
no longer opposed entities; they are both motions, and seem ultimately
the same motion. In the case of sight we have a sense process ending in
a perception: by analogy we may have a process of phantasia ending in an
intellectual activity. Phantasy is subject to appulse, but intellect is
not: the phantasy is the end of the motion of spirits, but in addition to
the perception there arises a conception: in eodem momento intellectus
contuetur, says Gassendi,[84] and if we take this with what has been said
above of the self-illumination of ideas, it will be seen that contuetur
means perception from the point of view of a system: this action of mind
is a reaction, and by its nature cannot be explained as identical with
a motion ab extra: the passage from corporeal to incorporeal must come
somewhere, and in spite of long delay, it remains at the last an unique
process. The terms in which Gassendi states the relation of Intellect
to Imagination are so far from conveying any very definite idea that it
may be best to elaborate his position. He seems to mean that the agent,
whatever it be, of intellectual processes is so indivisibly one with the
nature of man as thinking being that any disturbance of any part must
imply its activity: a thrill runs through the whole mass if the appulse
once disturbs the equilibrium of the sense machinery (dum phantasia
percellitur, ipsi coagat intellectus). To this we may make a most
important addition, viz. the converse: for if the intellect acts, the
Imagination responds as best it may. The idea of God is not derived from
the senses, and yet cannot be presented in thought without a sensuous
form. Hence, from the point of view of physical analysis, Intellect
and Imagination are not distinguishable: Gassendi therefore adds the
proofs that they are not identical, the most important of which is the
direct consciousness that understanding goes beyond sensuous forms, that
we mean more than we can put into the sense forms: if we present God
in anthropomorphic fashion it is not the human form that is of prime
importance, but the concepts which we thus embody.
(_d_) THE HABITS OF INTELLECT
If any doubt remained as to the extent to which Gassendi regards man
as an organic unity, it would be dispelled at once by the tone of this
chapter. The so-called Habits of the understanding are really habits
of the brain: habit presupposes a substance with some rigidity; and we
must fall back on Phantasia and the doctrine of vestigia to supply this
want. It follows that in memory we may have what are really products of
Intellect, for the Intellect creates a symbolic phantasy to enable it to
recall non-sensuous facts through a sensuous train of ideas. All failure
of the understanding to receive its ideas are failures of this cerebral
machinery: if we suppose that there is a memory belonging to pure
Intellect, it would not be possible to explain defects of memory, which
are experienced quite as much in the non-sensuous as in the sensuous
sphere.
This polemic is really directed against some contemporary Platonism:
it is therefore introductory to the description of knowledge, and seems
to clear away all prejudices in favour of Reminiscence or innate ideas.
Three types of knowledge may be distinguished: God knows intuitively
by pure reason and ‘ideas innatas’: angels know by virtue of ‘ideas
concreatas,’ a limited form of intuition: man requires the discursive
reason which deals with ideas furnished in Phantasy, and ultimately
derived from sense.[85] Without Intellect Phantasy is blind (Phantasia ab
initio sit quasi caeca seu specierum omnino expers): it has ‘percepts’
in a sense, but its species represent only the ‘externos cortices’ of
things; the Intellect surveying these species and detecting the nature
of some (perspectis aliquibus possit vi sua suspicari et conjecturam
ducere de interna aliqua proprietate) proceeds to collect instances,
and so by induction arrives beyond the outer husk to the inner core.
The result of the Inductive process is a direct intuition: the ideal is
to make our Intellect absolutiorem, _i.e._ capable of seeing the whole
in the part: so that Plato may be said to have given us the right ideal
and Aristotle the right method. Gassendi here follows Descartes in
making the understanding move in intuitions; the form of the syllogism
is therefore only of use for teaching others: the conclusion is to the
reasoner consistent with the premisses, and forms with them a whole. As
this process ends in self-evident knowledge, Gassendi considers that all
the ‘self-evident first principles’ depend on processes: these truths are
products of experience, and all such products would be as self-evident
as the ‘axioms’ if we knew as much about them. The child from its birth
sees objects with magnitude, and therefore with parts: hence if the
general proposition ‘The whole is greater than its part’ is propounded
and the terms understood, the confused experiences of a life-time leap
into being and proclaim it true; it will be equally self-evident that
the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, when the mind
is as familiar with the nature of triangles. Gassendi objects to the
common use of the phrase ‘natura notiora’: as applied to universals it
must mean better known by those who know them, which is to say by us:
it is then false, for we know the particulars better: if it means known
to nature, it is wrong; and if it means in se nota it is nonsense, for
knowledge is a relation. In this last argument Gassendi strikes at a
position rooted in a substantive theory of ideas: the tendency to regard
thoughts as entities made it possible to speak of ideas as possessing
knowledge much as substance possessed its primary qualities, and by the
same kind of ‘inherence’: Gassendi’s functional view enables him to see
that the reality of the known is to be known, its use is intelligi, and
the universals can have no quality of knowableness, except such as our
intellectual experience verifies;[86] and by this criterion we may judge
the universal to be ‘better known’ in proportion as the particulars
are better known, or, in other words, in proportion as its content is
developed.
The reason why universals appear better known is that we tend to isolate
intellect, and it then appears to know its own work best. But the ideas
must come from the particulars: if not, they are created by the mind;
but why should the mind create universals rather than particulars? It
is only by allowing a knowledge of particulars that we can justify the
existence of universals, since the universality is essentially relative
to the plurality of particulars. In this way the universal idea obtains
its merits at the hand of Gassendi. It loses its character as an entity,
with universal being, and survives as an idea with more than a particular
significance: further than this we need not at present go.
(_e_) THE PASSIONS
In distinction from the Intellectual part of the Soul called Cognoscens,
the term Appetens denotes that faculty by which the Soul apprehends and
moves toward the good and bad. The pars appetens, or substantively the
Appetitus, denotes both faculty and function, being in fact the νοῦς
ὀρεκτικός of Aristotle, and comprising both ὄρεξις and ὁρμή. It might
well be called the pars affectiva of the Soul, for it is more than mere
cupiditas, and comprises all affections: it is also more than will,
for voluntas is the name of an action only, and not of a faculty. We
are now entering on the psychology of the practical life. As we shall
see (p. 162) the question of activity does not trouble Gassendi in this
connexion, for he believes that thought is always activity; consequently,
the real distinction comes in the nature of the objects toward which the
Soul’s activity is directed. In the case of the pars cognoscens this
object is truth, for the pars appetens it is the good or the bad which
the understanding comprehends, and the appetite seeks or avoids. In a
sense this faculty is secondary, for it implies knowledge, a cognoscente
excitatur et dirigitur. In accordance with the line of thought indicated
above, where it was shown that Phantasy was subject to action both
from without and from within, we may distinguish the affections which
come to the mind from without, and those which originate from within.
Understanding and Phantasy can act without Appetite (or appetency). It
follows therefore that the bodily affections due to appulse are not
identical with those called appetite. The point is this: an affection
ab extra ends in an idea: it is a motion that produces an image: an
appetency is a motion too, and at first sight seems to have no difference
except that it goes in the opposite direction (emotion). But there is
more than this, for all ideas do not continue into emotions, and the
phantasy, we are told, though closely bound up with sense, can act
without disturbing appetite. We can therefore think without emotional
feeling: when the intellectual ‘feeling’ does arouse appetite we have
the overflow of motion into the body (appetitus functio in corpus
redundet). For example, if I see an apple and do not want it, the motion
terminates in perception: if on the contrary I do want it, this want may
exhibit itself in the overflow of the spirits into the body: my mouth may
water or some other effect be produced.
The meaning of this is quite clear, but it is difficult to understand why
a sensuous faculty, such as phantasia, should have any functions that
were not in some degree emotional, why we should have imaginations wholly
free from any form of desire; and Gassendi seems here to have relied on
the distinction of motion inward and motion outward with the accompanying
idea that the reversal of the motion would require a definite act of the
central organism.
If we can have perceptions without emotions in the sphere of the
phantasy, it might be thought that the intellect would be self-contained,
and either have no emotions or only intellectual emotions. Gassendi
is however clear that an emotion is always a bodily reaction, and he
therefore expressly says that even our most intellectual objects, if made
objects of desire, must arouse bodily reactions: he is thus opposed to
such an idea as the amor intellectualis of Spinoza: quia Deus Rationalem
Animam corpori connectens ea conditione esse illam voluit ut non modo
res caeteras sed ipsum quoque gloriosum Deum corporeo modo seu corporea
aliqua specie quasi obvelatum intelligat, nihil mirum est si voluntas
affectu quodam corporeo non modo in alia sed in Deum quoque ipsum
feratur: ac Deus idcirco amari se ab homine ut ex tota mente totaque
anima, sic ex toto corde omnibusque viribus jubeat; quippe quasi mens
animave amare quidem debeat, sed amorem tamen suum nisi corde viribusque
etiam corporeis exprimere non possit.
It must be remembered in this connexion that if Gassendi asserts that
the affections of the mind (Animus) differ from those of the body, he is
not thereby proving that one is psychic and the other not: it may be a
question of the higher and lower parts of the Soul (Anima). Cp. II. 480,
‘esse unumquemque speciali quadam temperie ac non modo corpus sed Animam
quoque, hoc est inferiorem partem animae, quae corporea est, speciali
esse contextura ... ut in quam rem propendeat corpus, propendeat ipsa
anima.’ Our likes and dislikes are therefore always psychic: the obscure
point is what relation of Animus to Anima could unite the Animus to the
Anima without necessitating the reverse relation of the Anima to Animus
and a free pathway for motions in either direction. Gassendi says the
Soul moves the body: we ask why cannot the body move the Soul?
It is clear that in this point the doctrine of motion has not been
allowed to work itself out free from prejudice. The inconsistency, such
as it is, seems due to Gassendi’s tendency to give the non-corporeal
part of man its due position: he even asserts in so many words that
the affections of the mind must be wholly different from those of the
body, and inclines to over-assert his opposition to a materialistic
interpretation of emotions. The opinion ascribed to Epicurus was
fundamentally materialistic. The external stimuli, it was said,
penetrated to the senses and reached the Soul: if they were agreeable,
the Soul expanded, if disagreeable it contracted, and the Soul being
conscious of its own movements, these expansions and contractions
constituted emotions. The weak point of the theory was its naïve
assumption that the motions of the corpuscles could have any such
character as agreeableness or disagreeableness _in themselves_ while
still on the way to the Soul. It is in opposition to this that Gassendi
asserts that the mind must _understand_ the impulse before there can be
any affection in the proper sense of the term: if this be denied, only
expansion and contraction will be left to us, and these do not involve
any kind of feeling necessarily. Gassendi did well to steer away from
such a shoal, but he can hardly be said to establish an unambiguous
result. If we consider the theory further, it will be evident that the
rationalistic element which is generated by opposition to materialism,
is itself arrested by a distinctly biological vein of thought. Appetite
is moved by contact, and is therefore in a sense co-extensive with
the periphery of the body: all sense is touch and all touch is either
pleasant or painful. Pain is a breach of continuity (dolorem ex ipsa
continui solutione oriri): pleasure is the restitution of a normal
condition. This normal condition is Indolentia, a mental state of
complete equilibrium. Pleasure and pain are states: the active element
by which the transition from one state to another is mediated, is
called Cupiditas. This middle term causes movement out of the state
of equilibrium: it is therefore not necessary that every pleasure be
preceded by a pain, for it is possible to go from a state of pleasure
into one of pain. The primary affections, Pleasure and Pain, in their
lowest forms do not imply intellectual activity: hunger and sexual
desires are made unpleasant in order that they may excite actions
conducive to the maintenance of the species. In the natural condition
the pleasant is the good; but the memory is liable to retain the idea
of pleasure and seek the sensation when the conditions are wanting
(_e.g._ eating when already satisfied).[87] It follows from this that
the lowest stage of life to which we trace emotions, is capable of such
intellectual activities as are implied in Phantasia, which is consistent
with Gassendi’s denial that animals are automata. Those emotions which
differ from the primary affections are marked by the presence of opinion:
the mere universal is not enough: we must realise that the particular
is a good for us: this causes a movement of the heart and so leads to
action, whereas a speculative knowledge remains in the head. This seems
the high-road to ‘popular philosophy,’ and scarcely calls for further
attention.
We have already pointed out that the ‘pars affectiva’ can, like the
Phantasy, be considered both from the point of view of the activities
which it originates, and that of the activities originated in it.
Similarly, we can regard the ‘pars affectiva’ either from the point
of view of the feelings which it undergoes or that of the feelings it
originates. Pain and pleasure are the fundamental affections, and
these terms are consequently the most comprehensive. The primary ground
of feelings is the actual physical effect which a thing is capable of
producing in the organism; but if we are dealing, as we now are, with
complex organisms, there will be more than the mere physical reactions
which lower organisms exhibit. Hence we find when we come to classify the
affections, that pleasure and pain do not cover all the varieties of our
experience.
The classification runs thus. Appetitus divides into that which
belongs to the ‘anima rationalis’ and that which belongs to the
pars irrationalis. In the former case the appetitus is based on the
understanding, in the latter, on the phantasy. As to the former, Gassendi
declares that the soul (anima rationalis) has affection of its own such
as the pure love of the good, but the abstract nature of this affection,
though capable of distinction in theory, is not capable of very exact
definition because it is rarely found in isolation. The seat of this
affection is in the brain, and it is therefore so united with the general
organism that it almost always functions with some bodily reactions. The
only practicable distinction of these affections is that they imply a
rational activity prior to their own manifestation.
The second class, on the contrary, do not imply the antecedence of any
act of judgment: they depend on phantasy and are modified by the action
of Will. The species of this genus are very varied, but can be to some
extent classified if we take into consideration the elements of which
they are composed. The specific forms of pleasure and pain are joy and
sorrow, that is to say pleasure and pain are the states whose effects
are joy and sorrow: for it must be remembered that pleasure and pain
are terms which primarily denote states, whereas the affection is not
a state viewed as a cause of feeling, but the feeling itself. Gassendi
here takes into consideration the expression involved in an emotion, and
so distinguishes the emotion as an effect from the state or condition
which is its cause. If pleasure is directly connected with an object it
developes into love: if to this be added the condition of absence or
futurity we have the state of desire or hope, from which come confidence
and audacity. On the other side, taking pain as our basis, we get
corresponding to these, hate, aversion, fear, despair, and pusillanimity.
These are the elements which unite to form character.
On the contents of this chapter, which have not greatly impressed me,
I quote the judgment of another more in sympathy with the topic: ‘Nul
avant lui n’avait étudié avec autant de méthode et de profondeur les
passions de l’âme ... il est le premier qui ait ébauché la _science du
charactère_, qui a pris une si grande importance de nos jours. Sur ce
point, d’ailleurs, comme sur beaucoup d’autres, nul écrivain ne cite les
recherches de Gassendi.’[88] Is this true outside of France, or only in
it?