effect of the presence of the object; or, at least, of some change,
which the presence of the object produces in the sensorial organ.
The _object_ has the power of affecting the mind; the _mind_ is
susceptible of being affected by the object,--that is to say, when the
organ, in consequence of the presence of the external object, exists
in a certain state, the affection of the mind immediately follows.
If the object were absent, in any particular case, the mind would
not exist in the state which constitutes the sensation produced by
it; and, if the susceptibility of the mind had been different, the
object might have existed, as now, without any subsequent sensation.
In all this series of mere changes, or affections, in consequence of
certain other preceding changes, or affections, though a part of the
series be material, and another part mental, there is truly, as I have
repeatedly remarked to you, no more mystery than in any other series of
changes, in which the series is not in matter and mind successively,
but exclusively in one or the other. There is a change of state of
one substance, in consequence of a change of some sort in another
substance; and this mere sequence of change after change is all
which we know in either case. The same Almighty Being, who formed the
various substances to which we give the name of _matter_, formed also
the substance to which we give the name of _mind_; and the qualities
with which he endowed them, for those gracious ends which he intended
them to answer, are mere susceptibilities of change, by which, in
certain circumstances, they begin immediately to exist in different
states. The weight of a body is its tendency to other bodies, varying
according to the masses and distances;--in this instance, the quality
may be said to be strictly material. The greenness or redness ascribed
to certain rays of light, are words expressive merely of changes that
arise in the _mind_ when these rays are present on the retina; in this
case, the quality, though ascribed to the material rays as antecedent,
involves the consideration of a certain change of state in the mind
which they affect. But the greenness or redness, though involving the
consideration both of mind affected, and matter affecting, is not less
conceivable by us as a quality of matter than the weight, which also
involves the consideration of two substances, affecting and affected,
though both go under the name of matter alone. _All_ the sequences of
phenomena are mysterious, or _none_ are so.
It is wonderful, that the presence of a loadstone should cause a
piece of iron to approach it; and that the presence of the moon, in
different parts of the heavens, should be continually altering the
relative tendencies of all the particles of our earth. In like manner,
it is, indeed, wonderful, that a state of our bodily organs should be
followed by a change of state of the mind, or a state of our mind by
a change of state of our bodily organs; but it is not more wonderful,
than that matter should act on distant matter, or that one affection of
the mind, should be followed by another affection of the mind, since
all which we know in either case, when matter acts upon matter, or
when it acts upon mind, is, that a certain change of one substance has
followed a certain change of another substance,--a change which, in all
circumstances exactly similar, it is expected by us to follow again. We
have experience of this sequence of changes alike in both cases; and,
but for experience, we could not, in either case, have predicted it.
This view of causation, however,--as not more unintelligible in the
reciprocal sequences of events in matter and mind than in their
separate sequences,--could not occur to philosophers while they
retained their mysterious belief of secret links, connecting every
observed antecedent with its observed consequent; since mind and matter
seemed, by their very nature, unsusceptible of any such common bondage.
A peculiar difficulty, therefore, as you may well suppose, was felt,
in the endeavour to account for their mutual successions of phenomena,
which vanishes, when the necessity of any connecting links in causation
is shewn to be falsely assumed.
In their views of perception, therefore, as a mental effect produced
by a material cause, philosophers appear to have been embarrassed
by two great difficulties:--the production of this effect by remote
objects,--as when we look at the sun and stars, in their almost
inconceivable distances above our heads; and the production of this
effect by a substance, which has no common property that renders it
capable of being linked with the mind in the manner supposed to be
necessary for causation. These two _supposed_ difficulties appear, to
me, to have led to all the wild hypotheses that have been advanced with
respect to perception.
The former of these difficulties,--in the remoteness of the object
perceived,--even though the principle had not been false which
supposes, that a change cannot take place in any substance, in
consequence of the change of position of a distant object,--a
principle, which the gravitation of every atom disproves,--arose, it is
evident, from false views of the real objects of perception. It is on
this account, that I was at some pains, when we entered on our inquiry
into the nature of perception, to shew the futility of the distinction
which is made of objects that act immediately on the senses, and those
which act on them through a medium,--the medium, in this case, as light
in vision, and the vibrating air in sound, being the real object of
the particular sense,--and the reference to a more remote object being
the result, not of the simple original sensation, but of knowledge
previously acquired.
The mistake as to the real object of perception, and the supposed
difficulty of action at a distance, must have had very considerable
influence in producing the Peripatetic doctrine of perception by
species, of which the cumbrous machinery seems to have been little more
than a contrivance for destroying, as it were, the distance between the
senses and the objects that were supposed to act on them. According to
this doctrine, every object is continually throwing off certain shadowy
films or resemblances of itself, which may be directly present to our
organs of sense, at whatever distance the objects may be, from which
they flowed. These species or phantasms,--the belief of the separate
existence of which must have been greatly favoured by another tenet of
the same school, with respect to _form_ as essentially distinct from
the _matter_ with which it is united, were supposed to be transmitted,
in a manner, which there was no great anxiety to explain, to the
brain and to the mind itself. I need not detail to you the process by
which these sensible species, through the intervention of what were
termed the active and passive intellect, were said to become, at last,
intelligible species, so as to be objects of our understanding. It is
with the mere _sensitive_ part of the process, that we have at present
any concern; and in this, of itself, there is sufficient absurdity,
without tracing all the further modifications, of which the absurdity
is capable, if I may speak so lightly of follies that have a name,
which, for more than a thousand years, was the most venerable of
human names, to pass them current as wisdom,--and which were read and
honoured as wisdom by the wise of so many generations.
I cannot pay you so very poor a compliment, as to suppose it necessary
to employ a single moment of your time in confuting what is not only
a mere hypothesis, (and an hypothesis which leaves all the real
difficulties of perception precisely as before,) but which, even as an
hypothesis, is absolutely inconceivable. If vision had been our _only
sense_, we might, perhaps, have understood, at least, what was meant
by the species, that directly produce our visual images. But what is
the phantasm of a sound or an odour? or what species is it, which, at
one moment, produces only the feeling of cold, or hardness, or figure,
when a knife is pressed against us, and the next moment, when it
penetrates the skin, the pain of a cut? The knife itself is exactly the
same unaltered knife, when it is merely pressed against the hand, and
when it produces the incision; and the difference, therefore, in the
two cases, must arise, not from any _species_ which it is constantly
throwing off, since these would be the same, at every moment, but from
some state of difference in the mere _nerves affected_.
I fear, however, that I have already fallen into the folly which
I professed to avoid,--the folly of attempting to confute, what,
considered in itself, is not worthy of being seriously confuted,
and scarcely worthy even of being proved to be ridiculous. It must
be remembered, however, in justice to its author, that the doctrine
of perception, by intermediate phantasms, is not a single opinion
alone, but a part of a system of opinions, and that there are many
errors, which, if considered singly, appear too extravagant for the
assent of any rational mind, that lose much of this extravagance, by
combination with other errors, as extravagant. Whatever difficulties
the hypothesis of species involved, it at least seemed to remove the
supposed difficulty of perception at a distance, and by the half
spiritual tenuity of the sensible images, seemed also to afford a
sort of intermediate link, for the connexion of matter with mind;
thus appearing to obviate, or at least to lessen, the two great
difficulties, which I suppose to have given occasion to the principal
hypothesis on this subject.
When the doctrine of _species_, as modified, in the dark and barren age
of Dialectics, by all the additional absurdities, which the industrious
sagacity of the schoolmen could give to it, had, at length, lost that
empire, which it never should have possessed, the original difficulty
of accounting for perception, remained as before. If the cause was to
be linked, in some manner or other, with its effect, how was matter, so
different in all its properties, to be connected with mind?
The shortest possible mode of obviating this difficulty, was, by
denying that any direct causation whatever took place between our
mind and our bodily organs? and hence arose the system of _occasional
causes_, as maintained by the most distinguished of the followers of
Des Cartes,--a system, which supposed, that there is no direct agency
of our mind on matter, or of matter on our mind,--that we are as
little capable of moving our own limbs by our volition, as of moving,
by our volition, the limbs of any other person,--as little capable
of perceiving the rays of light, that have entered our own eyes, as
the rays which have fallen on any other eyes,--that our perception or
voluntary movement is, therefore, to be referred, in every case, to the
immediate agency of the Deity, the presence of rays of light, within
our eye, being the mere occasion on which the Deity himself affects
our mind with vision, as our desire of moving our limbs is the mere
occasion, on which the Deity himself puts our limbs in motion.
It is of so much importance to have a full conviction of the dependence
of all events on the _great Source of Being_, that it is necessary
to strip the doctrine, as much as possible, of every thing truly
objectionable, lest, in abandoning what is objectionable, we should
be tempted to abandon also the important truth associated with it.
The _power of God_ is so magnificent in itself, that it is only when
we attempt to add to it in our conception, that we run some risk of
_degrading_ what it must always be impossible for us to _elevate_.
That the changes which take place, whether in mind or in matter, are
all, ultimately, resolvable into the will of the Deity, who formed
alike the spiritual and material system of the universe, making the
earth a habitation worthy of its noble inhabitant,--and _man_ an
inhabitant almost worthy of that scene of divine magnificence, in
which he is placed, is a truth, as convincing to our reason, as it is
delightful to our devotion. What confidence do we feel, _in our joy_,
at the thought of the Eternal Being, from whom it flows, as if the
very thought gave at once _security_ and _sanctity_ to our delight;
and how consolotary, in our little hour of suffering, to think of
_Him_ who _wills_ our happiness, and who knows how to produce it, even
from sorrow itself, by that power which called light from the original
darkness, and still seems to call, out of a similar gloom, the sunshine
of every morning. Every joy thus becomes gratitude,--every sorrow
resignation. The eye which looks to Heaven seems, when it turns again
to the scenes of earth, to bring down with it a purer radiance, like
the very beaming of the presence of the Divinity, which it sheds on
every object on which it gazes,--a light
“That gilds all forms
Terrestrial, in the vast, and the minute;
The unambiguous footsteps of the God,
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.”[126]
That the Deity, in this sense, as _the Creator_ of the world, and
_willer_ of all those great ends, which the laws of the universe
accomplish,--is the author of the physical changes which take place in
it, is then most true,--as it is most true also, that the same Power,
who gave the universe its laws, can, for the particular purposes of
his providence, vary these at pleasure. But there is no reason to
suppose, that the objects which he has made surely for some ends,
have, as made by him, no efficacy, no power of being instrumental,
to his own great purpose, merely because whatever power they can be
supposed to have, must have been derived from the Fountain of all
power. It is, indeed, only as possessing this power, that we know them
to exist; and their powers, which the doctrine of occasional causes
would destroy altogether, are, relatively to us, their whole existence.
It is by affecting us that they are known to us. Such is the nature
of the mind, and of light, for example, that light cannot be present,
or, at least, the sensorial organ cannot exist in a certain state, in
consequence of its presence, without that instant affection of mind,
which constitutes vision. If light have not this power of affecting
us with sensation, it is, with respect to us, nothing,--for we know
it only as the cause of the visual affection. That which excites in
us the feelings of extension, resistance, and all the qualities of
matter, is matter; and, to suppose that there is nothing, without us,
which excites these feelings, is to suppose, that there is no matter
without, as far as we are capable of forming any conception of matter.
The system of occasional causes seems, therefore, to be only a more
awkward and complicated modification of the system of Berkeley; for,
as the Deity is, in this system, himself the author of every change,
the only conceivable use of matter, which cannot affect us, more than
if it were not in existence, must be as a _remembrance_, to Him who
is _Omniscience itself_, at what particular moment he is to excite a
feeling in the mind of some one of his sensitive creatures, and of
what particular kind that feeling is to be; as if the _Omniscient_
could stand in need of any memorial, to excite in our mind any
feeling, which it is His wish to excite, and which is to be traced
wholly to his own immediate agency. Matter then, according to this
system, has no relations to us; and all its relations are to the Deity
alone. The assertors of the doctrine, indeed, seem to consider it, as
representing, in a more sublime light, the divine Omnipresence, by
exhibiting it to our conception, as the only power in nature; but they
might, in like manner, affirm, that the creation of the infinity of
worlds, with all the life and happiness that are diffused over them,
rendered less instead of more sublime, the existence of Him, who, till
then, was the sole existence; for power, that is derived, derogates
as little from the primary power, as derived existence derogates from
the Being from whom it flows. Yet the assertors of this doctrine, who
conceive, that light has no effect in vision, are perfectly willing
to admit that light exists, or rather, are strenuous affirmers of
its existence, and are anxious only to prove, in their zeal, for the
glory of Him, who made it, and who makes nothing in vain, that this,
and all His works, exist for no purpose. Light, they contend, has no
influence whatever. It is as little capable of exciting sensations of
colour, as of exciting a sensation of melody or fragrance; but still
it exists. The production of so very simple a state as that of vision,
or any other of the modes of perception, with an apparatus, which
is not merely complicated, but, in all its complication, absolutely
without efficacy of any sort, is so far from adding any sublimity to
the divine nature, in our conception, that it can scarcely be conceived
by the mind, without lessening, in some degree, the sublimity of the
Author of the universe, by lessening, or rather destroying, all the
sublimity of the universe which he has made. What is that idle mass
of matter, which cannot affect us, or be known to us, or to any other
created being, more than if it _were not_? If the Deity produces, in
every case, by his own immediate operation, all those feelings which we
term sensations or perceptions, he does not first create a multitude
of inert and cumbrous worlds, invisible to every eye but his own, and
incapable of affecting any thing whatever, that _he_ may know when
to operate, as he would have operated before. This is not the awful
simplicity of that Omnipresence,
“Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect;
Who calls for things that are not, and they come.”[127]
If, indeed, the complication of the process could remove any difficulty
which truly exists, or even any difficulty which is supposed to exist,
the system might be more readily adopted by that human weakness, to
which the removal of a single difficulty is of so much value. But the
very attempt to remove the difficulty, is merely by presenting it in
another form. Omnipresent, as the Creator is, he is still, like that
mind which he has formed after his own image, a _spiritual Being_;
and though there can be no question as to the extent of his power over
matter, the operation of this infinite power is as little conceivable
by us, in any other way than as a mere antecedence of change, as the
reciprocal limited action of mind and matter, in man, and the objects
which he perceives and moves. It is itself indeed, a proof of action
of this very kind; and to state it, with the view of obviating any
difficulty that may be supposed to be involved in the mutual influence
of mind and matter, seems as absurd, as it would be for a sophist, who
should profess to believe, from an examination of the wings of birds,
that their heavy pinions are incapable of bearing them through the air,
to illustrate his paradox by the majestic soaring _of the eagle_, when
he mounts still higher and higher through the sunshine that encircles
him, before he stoops from his height above the clouds, to the cliffs
which he deigns to make his _lowly home_.
The system of _occasional causes_, though it ceased to be known, or at
least to be adopted, under that name, has not the less continued, by
a mere change of denomination, to receive the assent of philosophers,
who rejected it under its ancient name. It is, indeed, the spirit of
this system alone, which gives any sense whatever to the distinction
that is universally made of causes, as _physical_ and _efficient_,--a
distinction which implies, that, beside the antecedents and
consequents, in a series of changes, which are supposed to have no
mutual influence, and might, therefore, be antecedent and consequent
in any other order,--there is some intervening agency, which is, in
every event of the series, the true efficient. Matter, in short,
does _not act_ on mind, nor mind on matter. The _physical cause_, in
this nomenclature, that exists for no purpose, as being absolutely
insufficient; or, in other words, absolutely incapable of producing any
change whatever, is the _occasional cause_ of the other nomenclature,
and nothing more; and all which was cumbrous and superfluous in the
one, is equally cumbrous and superfluous in the other. On this subject,
however, which I have discussed at large in my Work on Cause and
Effect, I need not add any remarks to those which I offered in an early
part of the course. It is sufficient, at present, to point out the
absolute identity of the two doctrines in every thing but in name.
The next system to which I would direct your attention, is that of
_Malebranche_, who is, indeed, to be ranked among the principal
asserters of the doctrine of _occasional causes_, which we have now
been considering, but who, in addition to this general doctrine, had
peculiar views of the nature of perception.
His opinions, on this subject, are delivered, at great length, in the
second volume of his Search of Truth--La Recherche de la Verité--a
work which is distinguished by much eloquence, and by many very
profound remarks on the sources of human error, but which is itself an
example, in the great system which it supports, of error as striking
as any of those which it eloquently and profoundly discusses. It is
truly unfortunate for his reputation as a philosopher, that these
discussions do not form a separate work, but are blended with his own
erroneous system, the outline of which every one knows too well, to
think of studying its details. All that is necessary, to give him his
just reputation, is merely that he _should have written less_. He is
at present known, chiefly as the author of a very absurd hypothesis.
He would have been known, and studied, and honoured, as a very acute
observer of our nature, if he had never composed those parts of his
work, to which, probably, when he thought of other generations, he
looked as to the basis of his philosophic fame.
His hypothesis, as many of you probably know, is, that we perceive not
_objects themselves_, but the _ideas_ of them which are in God.
He begins his supposed demonstration of this paradox with a sort of
_negative_ proof, by attempting to shew the inadequacy of every other
mode of accounting for our perception of the ideas of things; for I
need scarcely state to you, what is involved in the very enunciation
of his metaphysical theorem,--that he regards _ideas_ as distinct from
perception itself, not the mind affected in a certain manner, but
something separate and independent of the mind.
He then proceeds to his _positive_ proof, asserting, in the first
place, that it is “absolutely necessary that God should have in himself
the ideas of all the beings which he has created, since otherwise he
could not have produced them;”[128] and, in the second place, that God
is united to our soul by his presence, “so that he may be said to have
that relation of place to the mind, which space has to body.”[129]
Wherever the human mind is, there God is, and consequently all the
ideas which are in God. We have thus a fund of all the ideas necessary
for perception, and a fund, which, in consequence of the _ubiquity_
of the divine mind, is ever present, requiring, therefore, for our
perception of them, only that divine will, without which no change can
take place.
That perception takes place, by the presence of this one stock of ideas
eternally present in the divine mind, with which every other mind is
united,--rather than by the creation of an infinite number of ideas in
each separate mind,--he conceives to be proved, by various reasons,--by
the greater simplicity of this mode,--by its peculiar consistency
with that state of dependence on the divine Being, as the source of
all light, in which the mind of man is represented in many passages
of Scripture,--by various notions, such as those of _infinity_,
_genera_, _species_, &c. the universality of which he conceived to be
inconsistent with the absolute unity and limitation of every idea,
that does not derive a sort of infinity from the mind in which it
exists,--and by some other reasons, very mystical and very feeble, in
which, though it may not be difficult to discover what their author
meant, it is certainly very difficult to conceive, how a mind so acute
as his, could have been influenced by them.
It is, indeed, only this relation of the mind of Malebranche to his
own very strange hypothesis, which there is any interest in tracing;
for, though I have thought it my duty to give you a slight sketch of
the hypothesis itself, as a part of the general history of our science,
with which the reputation and genius of its author render it necessary
for you to have some acquaintance, I am far from thinking, that it can
throw any light on our speculations, in the present improved state
of the Science of Mind. I shall not waste your time, therefore, with
pointing out to you the innumerable objections to his hypothesis,
which, after the view already given by me of the simple process of
perception, are, I trust, so manifest, as not to require to be pointed
out. It may be more interesting to consider, in the history of the
Philosophy of Mind, what circumstances led to the formation of the
hypothesis.