for the greater number of the opinions of Des Cartes, Malebranche
unfortunately had not adopted the very enlightened views of that
eminent philosopher, with respect to the nature of _ideas_. He
considered them as existing distinct from the sentient or percipient
mind,--and, reasoning very justly from this error, inferred their
presence in the mind of the Deity,--who formed the universe, not
casually, but according to conceptions, that must have preceded
creation,--the archetypes, or exemplars, of all that was to be created.
This opinion, as to the eternal forms subsisting in the divine mind,
agrees exactly with that of Plato, in one of the most celebrated
of his doctrines, and certainly one of the most poetical,--which,
though a term of praise that usually does not imply much excellence
of philosophy, is the species of praise to which the philosophy of
Plato has the justest claim. It has been delivered, in very powerful
verse, by one of our own poets, who describes himself as, in science,
a follower of the genius of ancient Greece, and who was worthy of the
inspiring presence of that majestic guide:
“Ere the radiant sun
Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon suspended her serener lamp;
Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorn'd the globe,
Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore,--
Then lived the Almighty One, then, deep retired
In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,
The forms eternal of created things;
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe,
And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days, on them, his love divine, he fix'd
His admiration, till, in time complete,
What he admired and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence, the breath
Of life, informing each organic frame;
Hence, the green earth, and wild resounding waves;
Hence, light and shade alternate, warmth and cold,
And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.”[130]
It is in the writings of St Augustine, however,--who had himself
imbibed a considerable portion of the spirit of the Platonic
philosophy,--that the true source of the hypothesis, which we are
now reviewing, is to be found. This very eminent father of the
church,--whose acuteness and eloquence would have entitled him
to very high consideration, even though his works had related to
subjects less interesting to man, than those noble subjects of which
they treat,--seems to have met with peculiar honour from the French
theologians, and to have given a very evident direction to their
intellectual inquiries. It is indeed impossible to read the works of
any of the theological metaphysicians of that country, without meeting
with constant references to the opinions of St Austin, and an implied
reference, even where it is not expressed,--particularly to the very
opinions most analogous to those of Malebranche.
The opinion of Augustine, to which I particularly allude, is that which
forms the principal doctrine of his metaphysical philosophy,--that
there is a supreme eternal universal _Truth_, which is internally
present to every mind, and in which all minds alike perceive the
truths, which all alike are, as it were, necessitated to believe,--the
truths of arithmetic and geometry, for example, and the primary
essential truths of morality.
These truths we feel to be _eternal_, because we feel that they are
not contingent on the existence of those who perceive them, but were,
and are, and must forever be the same; and we feel also, that the
_truth_ is _one_, whatever be the number of individuals that perceive
it, and is not converted into many truths, merely by the multitude of
believers. “If,” says he, “in discoursing of any truth, I perceive that
to be true which _you_ say, and you perceive that to be true which _I_
say,--where, I pray you, do we both see this at the very moment? I
certainly see it not in you, nor you in me,--but both see it in that
unchangeable truth, which is beyond and above our individual minds.” “Si
ambo videmus verum esse quod dicis, et ambo videmus verum esse quod
dico, ubi, quæso, id videmus? Nec ego utique in te, nec tu in me; sed
ambo in ipsa quæ supra mentes nostras est, incommutabili veritate.”
You must not conceive that I am contending for the justness of
the opinion which I am now stating to you--I state it merely as
illustrative of the system of Malebranche. If we suppose, with
Augustine, that there is _one eternal Truth_, which contains all
truths, and is present to all minds that perceive in it the truths
which it contains, it is but one step more, and scarcely one step more,
to believe that our ideas of all things are contained and perceived in
one omnipresent Mind, to which all other minds are united, and which is
itself the eternal Truth, that is present to all. Indeed, some of the
passages which are quoted in the Search of Truth, from St Austin, show
how strongly the author conceived his own opinions to be sanctioned by
that ancient authority.
For some of the happiest applications which have been made of this very
ancient system of Christian metaphysics, I may refer you particularly
to the works of Fenelon,--to his demonstration of the existence of
God, for example,--in which many of the most abstract subtleties of
the Metaphysics of Augustine become _living_ and _eloquent_, in the
reasonings of this amiable writer, who knew so well how to give, to
every subject which he treated, the tenderness of his own heart, and
the persuasion and devout confidence of his own undoubting belief.
In this Protestant country, in which the attention of theologians
has been almost exclusively devoted to the Scriptures themselves,
and little comparative attention paid to the writings of the
Fathers,--unless, as strictly illustrative of the texts of Scripture,
or of the mere History of the Church,--the influence of the
metaphysical opinions of St Austin is less to be traced; and the
argument drawn from the eternal omnipresent ideas of unity, and number
and infinity, on which so much stress is laid by Catholic philosophers,
in demonstrating the existence of God, is hence scarcely to be found
at all, or, at least, occupies a very inconsiderable place, in the
numerous works of our countrymen, on the same great subject. The system
of Malebranche, might, indeed have arisen in this country; for we
have had writers, who, without his genius, have adopted his errors;
but there can be no doubt, that it was, by its very nature, much more
likely to arise, in the country which actually produced it.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Cowper's Task, Book V. v. 810-814.
[127] Cowpers Task, Book V. v. 686-7.
[128] Recherche de la Verité, Liv. III. c. vi.
[129] Recherche de la Verité, Liv. III. c. vi.
[130] Pleasures of Imagination, Book I. v. 59-78.
LECTURE XXXI.
HISTORY OF OPINIONS REGARDING PERCEPTION, CONCLUDED--ON THE EXTERNAL
AFFECTIONS COMBINED WITH DESIRE, OR ON ATTENTION.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I gave you a slight sketch
of some theories,--or, to speak more accurately, of some
hypothetical conjectures, which have been formed with respect to
perception,--pointing out to you, at the same time, the two supposed
difficulties which appear to me to have led to them, in false views of
the real objects of perception, and of the nature of causation; the
difficulty of accounting, with these false views, for the supposed
perception of objects at a distance, and for the agency of matter on a
substance, so little capable as mind, of being linked with it, by any
common bond of connexion.
Of such hypotheses, we considered three,--the doctrine of the
Peripatetics as to perception by _species_, or shadowy films, that flow
from the object to the organ,--the Cartesian doctrine of the indirect
subserviency of external objects, as the mere occasions on which the
Deity himself, in every instance, produces in the mind the state which
is termed perception,--and the particular doctrine of Malebranche,
himself a zealous defender of that general doctrine of _occasional
causes_, as to the perception of objects, or rather of the ideas of
objects in the divine mind.
The only remaining hypothesis, which deserves to be noticed, is a very
celebrated one, of Leibnitz, the doctrine of the _pre-established
harmony_, which, I have no doubt, originated in the same false view of
the necessity of some connecting link in causation; and was intended,
therefore, like the others, to obviate the supposed difficulty of the
action of matter on mind, and of mind on matter.
According to this doctrine, the body never acts on the mind, nor the
mind on the body, but the motions of the one, and the feelings of the
other, are absolutely independent, having as little influence on each
other, as they have on any other mind and body. The mind feels pain,
when the body is bruised, but, from the pre-established order of its
own affections, it would have felt exactly the same pain, though the
body, at that moment, had been resting upon roses. The arm, indeed,
moves at the very moment, when the mind has _willed_ its motion;
but, it moves of _itself_, in consequence of its own pre-established
order of movement, and would move, therefore, equally, at that very
moment, though the mind had wished it to remain at rest. The exact
correspondence of the motions and feelings, which we observe, arises
merely from the exactness of the choice of the Deity, in uniting with
a body, that was formed by Him, to have of itself, a certain order
of independent motions, a mind, that was formed of itself to have
a certain order of independent but corresponding feelings. In the
unerring exactness of this choice, and mutual adaptation, consists the
exquisiteness of the harmony. But, however exquisite, it is still a
_harmony_ only, without the slightest reciprocal action.
The mind, and its organic frame, are, in this system,--to borrow the
illustration of it which is commonly used,--like two _time-pieces_,
which have no connexion with each other, however accurately they
may agree,--and each of which would indicate the hour, in the very
same manner, though the other had been destroyed. In like manner,
the soul of Leibnitz,--for the great theorist himself may surely be
used to illustrate his own hypothesis,--would, though his body had
been annihilated at birth, have felt and acted, as if with its bodily
appendage,--studying the same works, inventing the same systems, and
carrying on, with the same warfare of books and epistles, the same
long course of indefatigable controversy;--and the _body_ of this
great philosopher, though his soul had been annihilated at birth,
would not merely have gone through the same process of growth,
eating, and digesting, and performing all its other ordinary animal
functions,--but would have achieved for itself the same intellectual
glory, without any consciousness of the works which it was writing
and correcting,--would have argued, with equal strenuousness, for
the principle of the sufficient reason,--claimed the honours of the
differential calculus,--and laboured to prove this very system of the
_pre-established harmony_, of which it would, certainly, in that case,
have been one of the most illustrious examples.
To say of this hypothesis, which was the dream of a great mind,--but
of a mind, I must confess, which was very fond of dreaming, and very
apt to dream,--that it is a _mere hypothesis_, is to speak of it too
favourably. Like the doctrine of occasional causes, it supposes a
system of external things, of which, by the very principle of the
hypothesis, there can be no evidence, and which is absolutely of
no utility whatever, but as it enables a philosopher to talk, more
justly, of pre-established harmonies, without the possibility, however,
of knowing that he is talking more justly. If the mind would have
exactly the same feelings as now,--the same pleasures, and pains, and
perceptions of men and houses, and every thing external, though every
thing external, comprehending of course the very organs of sense, had
been annihilated ages of ages before itself existed, what reason can
there be to suppose, that this useless system of bodily organs, and
other external things, exist at present? The universal irresistible
belief of mankind, to which philosophers of a different school might
appeal, cannot be urged in this case, since the admission of it, as
legitimate evidence, would at once, disprove the hypothesis. We do
not more truly believe, that light exists, than we believe, that it
affects us with vision, and that, if there had been no light, there
would have been no sensation of colour. To assert the pre-established
harmony, is, indeed, almost the same thing, as to affirm and deny the
same proposition. It is to affirm, in the first place, positively, that
_matter exists_, since the harmony, which it asserts, is of matter
and mind; and then to affirm, as positively, that its _existence
is useless_, that it cannot be perceived by us, and that we are,
therefore, absolutely incapable of knowing whether it exists or not.
After stating to you so many hypotheses, which have been formed on this
subject, I need scarcely remark, what a fund of perpetual conjecture,
and, therefore, of perpetual controversy, there is in the varied
wonders of the external and internal universe, when it is so very
difficult for a few philosophers to agree, as to what it is which gives
rise to the simplest sensation of warmth, or fragrance, or colour. It
might be thought, that, in the _intellectual opera_, if I may revert
to that ingenious and lively allegory, of which I availed myself in
one of my early Lectures, in treating of general physical inquiry,--as
the whole spectacle which we behold, is passing within our minds, we
are, in _this_ instance at least, fairly behind the scenes, and see the
mechanism of Nature truly as it is. But though we are really behind the
scenes, and even, in one sense of the word, may be said to be ourselves
the movers of the machinery, by which the whole representation is
carried on, still the minute parts and arrangements of the complicated
mechanism are concealed from _our_ view, almost as completely as from
the observation of the distant spectators. The primary springs and
weights, indeed, by the agency of which Phaeton seemed to be carried
off by the winds, are left visible to us; and we know, that when we
touch a certain spring, it will put in motion a concealed set of
wheels, or that when we pull a cord, it will act upon a system of
pullies, which will ultimately produce a particular effect desired
by us; but what is the number of wheels or pullies, and how they are
arranged and adapted to each other so as to produce the effect,--are
left to our penetration to divine. On this subject we have seen, that
as many grave absurdities have been formed into systems, and honoured
with commentaries and confutations, as in the opera of external nature,
at which, in the quotation formerly made to you, the Pythagorases and
Platos were supposed to be present. “It is not a system of cords and
pullies which we put in motion,” says Aristotle, “--for to move such a
heavy and distant mass would be beyond our power,--but only a number of
little phantasms connected with them, which have the _form_, indeed, of
cords and pullies, but not the _substance_, and which are light enough,
therefore, to fly at our very touch.”--“We do not truly move any
wheels,” says the great inventor of the System of Occasional Causes;
“for, as we did not make the wheels, how can we know the principle
on which their motion is to depend, or have such a command over them
as to be capable of moving them? But when we touch a spring, it is
the occasion on which the Mechanist himself, who is always present,
though invisible, and who must know well how to move them, sets them
instantly in motion.”--“We see the motion,” says Malebranche, “not by
looking at the wheels or pullies,--for there is an impenetrable veil
which hides them from us, but by looking at the Mechanist himself, who
_must_ see them, because He is the mover of them: and whose eye, in
which they are imaged as he gazes on them, must be a living mirror of
all which he moves.”--“It is not a spring that acts upon the wheels,”
says Leibnitz; “though, when the spring is touched, the wheels begin
to move immediately, and never begin to move at any other time. This
coincidence, however, is not owing to any connexion of one with the
other; for, though the spring were destroyed, the wheels would move
exactly as at present, beginning and ceasing at the same precise
moments. It is owing to a _preestablished harmony of motion_ in the
wheels and spring; by which arrangement the motion of the wheels,
though completely independent of the other, always begins at the very
moment when the spring is touched.”--“No,” exclaims Berkeley, “it
is all illusion. The wheels, and cords, and weights, are not seen
because they exist, but exist because they are seen; and, if the whole
machinery is not absolutely annihilated when we shut our eyes, it is
only because it finds shelter in the mind of some other Being whose
eyes are never shut,--and are always _open_, therefore, at the time
when ours are closing.”
From all this variety of conjectural speculations, the conclusion which
you will perhaps have drawn most readily, is that which is too often
the result of our researches in the History of Science,--that there
may, as D'Alembert truly says, be a great deal of _philosophizing_, in
which there is very little of _philosophy_.
I have now finished the remarks which I had to make on the very
important class of our _external affections of mind_, as they may be
considered _simply_; but it is not always simply that they exist; and,
when they occur in combination with other feelings, the appearance
which they assume is sometimes so different, as to lead to the
erroneous belief, that the complex feeling is the result of a distinct
power of the mind.
When, in my attempt to arrange the various feelings of which the mind
is susceptible, I divided these into our _external_ and _internal_
affections, according as their causes are, in the one case, objects
without the mind, and, in the other case, previous feelings, or
affections of the mind itself: and subdivided this latter class of
internal affections into the two orders of our _intellectual states_ of
mind, and our _emotions_; I warned you, that you were not to consider
these as always arising separately, and as merely successive to each
other;--that, in the same manner, as we may both see and smell a rose,
so may we see, or compare, or remember, while under the influence of
some or other of our emotions; though, at the same time, by analysis,
or at least by a reflective process that is similar to analysis, we may
be able to distinguish the emotion from the coexisting perception, or
remembrance, or comparison,--as we are able, by a very easy analysis,
in like manner, when we both see and smell a rose, to distinguish in
our complex perception, the fragrance from the colour and form.
There is _one_ emotion, in particular, that is capable of so many
modifications, and has so extensive a sway over human life, which it
may be said almost to occupy from the first wishes of our infancy to
the last of our old age, that it cannot fail to be combined with many
of our other feelings, both sensitive and intellectual. The emotion
to which I allude is _desire_; a feeling which may exist of various
species and degrees, from the strongest passion of which the mind is
susceptible, to the slightest wish of knowing a little more accurately
the most trifling object before us;--and though, in speaking of it
at present, I am anticipating what, according to the strict division
which we have made, should not be brought forward till we consider the
emotions in general, this anticipation is absolutely unavoidable for
understanding some of the most important phenomena, both of perception,
which we have been considering, and of those intellectual faculties
which we are soon to consider. I need not repeat to you, that Nature
is not to be governed by the systems which we form; that though our
systematic arrangements ought not to be complicated, her phenomena
are almost always so; and that, while every thing is thus intermixed
and connected with every thing in the actual phenomena of mind as
well as of matter, it would be vain for us to think of accommodating
our physical discussions with absolute exactness, even to the most
perfect divisions and subdivisions which we may be capable of forming.
All that is necessary is, that we should not depart from our order of
arrangement without some advantage in view, and an advantage greater
than the slight evil which may arise from the appearance of temporary
confusion.
The reason of my anticipation, in the present instance, is to explain
to you what I conceive to constitute the phenomena of attention,--a
state of mind which has been understood to imply the exercise of a
peculiar intellectual power, but which, in the case of attention to
objects of sense, appears to be nothing more than the coexistence of
desire, with the perception of the object to which we are said to
attend; as, in attention to other phenomena of the mind, it is, in like
manner, the coexistence of a particular desire with these particular
phenomena. The desire, indeed, modifies the perception, rendering our
feeling more intense, as any other emotion would do, that has equal
relation to the object. But there is no operation of any power distinct
from the desire and perception themselves.
To understand this fully, however, it may be necessary to make some
previous remarks on the coexistence of sensations.
In the circumstances in which we are placed by our beneficent Creator,
in a world of objects capable of exciting in us various feelings, and
with senses awake to the profusion of delight,--breathing and moving
in the midst of odours, and colours, and sounds, and pressed alike in
gentle reaction, whether our limbs be in exercise or repose, by that
firm soil which supports us, or the softness on which we rest,--in all
this mingling action of external things, there is scarcely a moment in
which any one of our feelings can be said to be truly simple.
Even when we consider but _one_ of our organs, to the exclusion of all
the others, how innumerable are the objects that concur in producing
the complex affections of a single sense? In the eye, for example, how
wide a scene is open to us, wherever our glance maybe turned?--woods,
fields, mountains, rivers, the whole atmosphere of light, and that
magnificent luminary, which converts into light the whole space through
which it moves, as if incapable of existing but in splendour. The mere
opening of our eyelid is like the withdrawing of a veil, which before
covered the universe:--It is more; it is almost like saying to the
universe, which had perished, Exist again!
Innumerable objects, then, are constantly acting together on our organs
of sense; and it is evident, that many of these can, at once, produce
an effect of some sort in the mind, because we truly perceive them as a
coexisting whole. It is not a single point of light only which we see,
but a wide landscape; and we are capable of comparing various parts of
the landscape with each other,--of distinguishing various odours in the
compound fragrance of the meadow or the garden,--of feeling the harmony
of various coexisting melodies.
The various sensations, then, may _coexist_, so as to produce one
complex affection. When they do coexist, it must be remarked, that
they are individually less intense. The same sound, for example, which
is scarcely heard in the tumult of the day, is capable of affecting
us powerfully if it recur in the calm of the night; not that it is
then absolutely louder, but because it is no longer mingled with
other sounds, and other sensations of various kinds, which rendered
it weaker, by coexisting with it. It may be regarded, then, as a
general law of our perceptions, that when many sensations coexist, each
individually is less vivid than if it existed alone.
It may be considered almost as another form of the same proposition
to say, that when many sensations coexist, each is not merely weaker,
but less distinct from the others with which it is combined. When a
few voices sing together, we easily recognize each separate voice. In
a very full chorus, we distinguish each with more difficulty; and, if
a great multitude were singing together, we should scarcely be able to
distinguish any one voice from the rest, more than to distinguish the
noise of a single billow, or a single dashing of a few particles of
agitated air, in the whole thunders of the ocean and the storm.