_Reader._ And now I should like to know, doctor, why you thought proper to
fill twenty‐seven pages of your _Force and Matter_ with a discussion about
innate ideas.
_Büchner._ For two reasons, sir. First, because “the question whether
there be innate ideas is a very old one, and, in our opinion, one of the
most important in relation to the contemplation of nature. It decides to
some extent whether man, considered as the product of a higher world, has
received a form of existence as something foreign and external to his
essence, with the tendency to shake off this earthly covering, and to
return to his spiritual home; or whether, both in his spiritual and bodily
capacity, man stands to the earth which has produced him in a necessary,
inseparable connection, and whether he has received his essential nature
from this world; so that he cannot be torn from the earth, like the plant
which cannot exist without its maternal soil. The question is, at the same
time, one which does not dissolve itself in a philosophical mist, but
which, so to speak, has flesh and blood, and, resting upon empirical
facts, can be discussed and decided without high‐sounding phrases” (p.
157). The second reason is, that “if it be correct that there are no
innate intuitions, then must the assertion of those be incorrect who
assume that the idea of a God, or the conception of a supreme personal
being, who created, who governs and preserves the world, is innate in the
human mind, and therefore incontrovertible by any mode of reasoning” (p.
184).
_Reader._ Do you mean, that, by refuting the theory of innate ideas, you
will cut the ground from under the feet of the theist and the
spiritualist?
_Büchner._ Yes, sir. Such is the drift of my argumentation.
_Reader._ Then your labor is all in vain. For you must know that we do not
base our demonstration of the substantiality and immortality of the soul
on the doctrine of innate ideas, nor do we assume that the notion of a God
is an “innate intuition.” Had you been even superficially acquainted with
the works of our scholastic philosophers, you would have known that innate
ideas are totally foreign to their psychological and theological
doctrines. You would have known that the axiom, _Nihil est in intellectu
quod non fuerit in sensu_—that is, “There is nothing in our intellect
which has not entered by the gate of the senses”—is not a discovery of
your Moleschott, to whom you attribute it, but is an old dictum familiar
to all the schoolmen of past centuries, and approved by the most orthodox
philosophers of our own time. Now, these philosophers, while denying that
we have any innate idea, admit at the same time that our soul is a special
substance and is immortal, and show that the human intellect can easily
form a concept of God as a supreme cause, and ascertain his existence
without need of innate intuitions. This might convince you that your
chapter on innate ideas has no bearing on the questions concerning the
nature of the soul and the notion of a God. Your assumption that if man
has innate ideas, he will have a tendency “to shake off this earthly
covering, and to return to his spiritual home,” is incorrect. For the
human body has no spiritual home, as is evident; and the human soul, as
having no previous existence in a separate state, has no home but in the
body, and the presence of innate ideas would not create in it a tendency
to shake off its earthly covering. On the other hand, your other
assumption, that, if man has no innate ideas, he is “a production of the
earth alone, and cannot be torn from the earth, with which he is
inseparably connected both in his spiritual and bodily capacity,” is even
more incorrect. For the absence of innate ideas does not mean, and does
not entail, the absence of an intellectual principle; and such a
principle, as evidently immaterial, is not a production of the earth, and
has no need of earthly things to continue its existence.
_Büchner._ How can a soul exist without ideas? And, if all ideas come
through our senses, how can a soul exist without being united to the
organs? “Daily experience teaches us that man begins his intellectual life
only with the gradual development of his senses, and in proportion as he
enters into a definite relation to the external world; and that the
development of his intellect keeps pace with that of his organs of sense
and his organ of thought, and also with the number and importance of the
impressions received. ‘Every unprejudiced observer,’ says Virchow, ‘has
arrived at the conviction that thought is only gradually developed in
man.’ The new‐born child thinks as little, and has as little a soul, as
the unborn child; it is, in our view, living in the body, but
intellectually dead.... The embryo neither thinks nor feels, and is not
conscious of its existence. Man recollects nothing of this state, nor of
the first period of his existence in which the senses were dormant; and
this perfect unconsciousness proves his spiritual non‐existence at that
period. The reason can only be that, during the fœtal state, there are no
impressions whatever received from without, and so weak and imperfect are
they in the first few weeks that the intellect cannot be said to exist”
(p. 159).
_Reader._ It is plain that the new‐born child cannot form an idea of
exterior objects without the use of his senses. But is it true that the
new‐born child is not conscious of its own existence? Certainly not; for,
without a previous knowledge of its own existence, it would never be able
to attribute to itself the feelings awakened in it by exterior objects.
The mind cannot say, _I feel_, if it is not already acquainted with the
_I_. Nor does it matter that “man recollects nothing of the first period
of his existence.” Recollection is impossible so long as the brain has not
acquired a certain consistency; and therefore whatever happens with us in
the first period of our existence leaves no durable trace in our organs,
and is entirely forgotten. Hence your assertions “that the senses of the
new‐born child are dormant, and that its perfect unconsciousness proves
its spiritual non‐existence,” are both false. The child feels its being,
its senses are quite ready to receive impressions, and its soul is quite
alive to such impressions.
You say that “the development of the intellect keeps pace with that of the
organs of sense.” What do you mean by development of the intellect? If you
simply mean that the intellect is furnished with materials of thought in
proportion as sensible objects are perceived, and that, by being so
furnished, it can easily perform a number of intellectual operations, I
admit your assertion; but if you mean that the soul itself is
_substantially_ developed in proportion as the organs are growing more
perfect, then your assertion is both groundless and absurd. Now, it is
evident, by your manner of reasoning, that this second meaning is the one
you adopt. And therefore it is evident that your conclusion is wrong. “The
impressions,” you say, “are so weak and imperfect that the intellect
cannot be said to exist.” This is simply ludicrous. Would you allow us to
say that at night the impressions of light are so weak and imperfect that
the eye cannot be said to exist? Or that the impressions made on a piece
of paper by a bad pencil are so weak and imperfect that the paper cannot
be said to exist? It is obvious that the impressions do not cause the
existence of their subject; and, therefore, if the intellect “cannot be
said to exist” before the impressions, the time will never come when it
can be said to exist.
And now, suppose that a newborn child dies without having acquired through
its senses any knowledge of the exterior world. What shall we say of its
soul? Will such a soul be entirely destitute of ideas, and unable to
think? By no means. Such a soul, after its short permanence in the body,
where it _felt_ its own being, will henceforward _understand_ its own
being as actually present in its own individuality; it will perceive its
own essence as well as its existence; it will be able to abstract from
_self_, and to behold essence, existence, and being, _secundum se_—that
is, according to their objective intelligibility; and, finally, it will be
able to commune with other spiritual beings with the same facility with
which, while in the body, it could communicate with the exterior world by
means of its organic potencies. I know that you do not believe this; but
your unbelief will not change things. The soul, when out of the body, is
competent to perform intellectual operations about intellectual objects as
freely and as perfectly as it performs the sensitive operations in its
present condition. If you consult the works of our philosophers and
theologians, you will find the proofs of my proposition. As to your
opposite assumption, since you have no means of establishing it, we are
free to dismiss it without further discussion.
_Büchner._ If the soul is a separate substance, how and when is it
introduced into the body? “The scientific and logical impossibility of
determining the time (of its introduction) proves the absurdity of the
whole theory, which assumes that a higher power breathes the soul into the
nostrils of the fœtus” (p. 160).
_Reader._ You are grossly mistaken, doctor. The impossibility of
determining the time of the animation of the fœtus proves nothing but our
ignorance. Do you deny that Paris was built by the Gauls on the plea that
you do not know the date of its foundation? Again, since the animation of
the fœtus is not an operation of the mind, how can you speak of _logical_
impossibility? Evidently, you write at random, and know not what you say.
As to the question itself, one thing is clear, viz., the child cannot be
born alive, unless its body has been animated in the womb.
_Büchner._ “Moses and the Egyptians entertained a decided opinion that the
child was not animated while in the womb” (p. 161).
_Reader._ False. Moses describes in the Book of Genesis the fighting of
Jacob and Esau while in the womb of their mother. Could he assume that
they would fight before being animated?
_Büchner._ “In some countries they know nothing of an animated fœtus”
(_ibid._)
_Reader._ False. Every mother will give you the lie.
_Büchner._ “The destruction of the fœtus and infanticide are, according to
Williams, common occurrences in Madagascar. It is also common in China and
the Society Islands” (_ibid._)
_Reader._ This shows the immorality of those nations, not their ignorance
of the fœtal life. But why should you appeal to the presumed ignorance of
barbarians against the verdict of civilized nations? Are you an apostle of
barbarity and brutality? Do you wish your reader to persuade himself that
the destruction of the fœtus is no crime?
_Büchner._ “The Roman lawyers did not look upon the fœtus as an individual
being, but as a part of the mother. The destruction of the fœtus was
therefore permitted to the women of Rome, and we find that Plato and
Aristotle had already adopted the same view” (p. 160).
_Reader._ Do not calumniate Aristotle. This great philosopher and
naturalist is decidedly not of your opinion. He teaches that the fœtus is
animated in the womb. And, pray, are the legal fictions of the Roman
lawyers of any weight against the facts averred by modern medicine? Do you
again appeal to ignorance against science?
_Büchner._ Physicians have not yet decided the question. “Even at birth,
when the child is separated from the mother, it is impossible to assume
that a ready‐made soul, lying in wait, should suddenly rush in and take
possession of its new habitation. The soul, on the contrary, is only
gradually developed in proportion to the relations which, by the awakening
senses, are now established between the individual and the external world”
(p. 161).
_Reader._ No, sir. If this last assertion were true, it would follow that
every child would be lifeless at its birth; for without a soul no animal
life can be conceived. What is “gradually developed” is not the substance
of the soul, but the exercise of its faculties. This is a point already
settled. As to your other assertion, that the question has not yet been
decided by the physicians, I need only say that, although there are
different opinions regarding the time of the animation of the embryo, yet
no physician (unless he is a materialist) denies that the embryo is
animated long before its nativity. Hence your notion of a ready‐made soul
lying in wait, and suddenly rushing in when the child is born, is only a
dream of your fancy or an unworthy attempt at ridiculing the proceedings
of nature.
What you add about the development of the child’s mind by means of the
senses, education, and example does not prove the _subjective_, but only
the _objective_, growth of the mind, as you yourself seem to concede (p.
162). And as the objective growth means an accidental acquisition of
knowledge without any substantial change of the soul, hence nothing that
you may say in refutation of innate ideas can have the least weight or
afford the least ground against the doctrine of the immortality and
substantiality of the soul.