SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
337. In concluding this book, I wish to give a summary of my views on
certainty, wherein I shall show the connection between the doctrines
exposed in the different chapters.
When philosophy meets a necessary fact its duty is to accept it.
Such a fact is certainty. To dispute its existence, is to dispute
the splendor of the sun at mid-day. Mankind are certain of many
things; philosophers, skeptics not excluded, are equally so. Absolute
skepticism is impossible.
Setting aside the question of certainty, philosophy is free from
extravagance, and is established in the domain of reason; it can there
examine how we acquire certainty, and upon what it is based.
The human race is endowed with certainty as a quality annexed to life,
a spontaneous result of the development of the soul's faculties.
Certainty is natural; consequently it precedes all philosophy, and is
independent of the opinions of men. For the same reason the question
of certainty, although important to the knowledge of the laws to which
our mind is subject, is, and always will be, unproductive of practical
results. It is a dividing line fixed by reason lest at any time
something should descend from the realm of abstraction prejudicial to
society or individuals. Thus from its first investigations, philosophy
forms a kind of alliance with good sense; they mutually promise never
to be hostile to each other.
When we examine the foundations of certainty a question arises upon the
first principle of human cognitions: does it exist, and what is it?
This question may have a double meaning. It may either mean a primitive
truth containing all others, as the seed does plants and fruits; or
simply a resting-point. The former gives rise to the question of
transcendental science; the latter is the cause of the disputes in
the schools on the preference of different truths in relation to the
dignity of first principle.
If truth exists, there must be means of knowing it, hence the question
of the value of criteria.
There is in the order of being one truth, the origin of all truths,
God, who is also in the absolute intellectual order the origin of all
truths. In the human intellectual order there is no one truth, the
origin of all others; neither is there in the real, nor in the ideal
order. The philosophy of the _me_ can be of no account in establishing
transcendental science. The doctrine of absolute identity is an
absurdity; besides, it explains nothing.
The problem of representation is here proposed. The representation may
be of identity, causality, or ideality. The last is founded on the
preceding, but is distinct from it.
Besides the problem of representation we examined that of immediate
intelligibility, a difficult problem, but one of the greatest
importance to a perfect knowledge of the world of intelligences.
The disputes on the value of different principles, as to which has the
right to be called fundamental, originate in a confusion of ideas.
We attempt to compare things of very diverse orders, whereas this
is impossible. Descartes' principle is the enunciation of a simple
fact of consciousness; that of contradiction, an objective truth, the
indispensable condition of every cognition: that of the Cartesians is
the expression of a law of our mind. The three, each in its own way and
sphere, are necessary; no one of them is totally independent of the
others; the ruin of any one destroys our intelligence.
We have various criteria; but they may all be reduced to three:
consciousness, or internal sense, evidence, and intellectual instinct,
or common sense. Consciousness embraces all facts intimately present
to our soul as purely subjective; evidence extends to all objective
truths, upon which our reason is exercised; intellectual instinct is
the natural inclination to assent in cases which lie without the domain
of consciousness and evidence.
The intellectual instinct obliges us to give an objective value to
ideas; in this case it mingles with the truths of evidence, and is, in
ordinary language, confounded with evidence.
When the intellectual instinct operates upon non-evident objects and
inclines us to assent, it is called _common sense_.
Consciousness and the intellectual instinct constitute the other
criteria.
The criterion of evidence includes two things: the appearance of ideas,
which belongs to consciousness; the objective value, existing or
possible, which belongs to the intellectual instinct.
The testimony of the senses also has two parts: sensation as purely
subjective, and this pertains to consciousness; and the belief in the
objectiveness of sensations, and this pertains to the intellectual
instinct.
The testimony of human authority is composed of that of the senses,
which place us in relation with our fellow-men, and that of the
intellectual instinct, which induces us to believe them.
Not everything is susceptible of proof; but every criterion stands the
test of reason. The criterion of consciousness is a primitive fact of
our nature; in that of evidence we discover the indispensable condition
of the existence of reason itself; in that of the intellectual instinct
by which we make our ideas objective, is found a law of our nature
likewise indispensable to the very existence of reason; in that of
common sense, properly so called, is the instinctive assent to truths,
which, when examined, are seen to be perfectly reasonable; in that of
the senses, and in that of human authority, we discover the same thing
as in the other cases of common sense, which is a means of satisfying
the necessities of sensation, intellectual, and moral life.
The criteria do not conflict with, but mutually aid and confirm each
other. Neither is reason at war with nature, nor nature with reason;
both are necessary to us; both direct us with certainty, although they
are both liable to err, since they belong to a limited and very feeble
being.
338. The philosophy which considers man only under a single aspect
is incomplete, and in danger of becoming false. So far as certainty
is concerned, we must bear in mind this last observation: to become
excessively exclusive is to place one's self on the brink of error.
We may analyze if we will the sources of truth; but we must not lose
sight of their connection when examining them separately. To begin by
conceiving a system, and then making everything conform to its demands,
is to place truth in the bed of Procrustes. Unity is a great good;
but we must be satisfied with the measure imposed upon us by nature.
We must seek truth by human means, and in proportion to our capacity.
The faculties of our soul are subject to certain laws, which we cannot
abstract.
One of the most constant laws of our being is the necessity of a
simultaneous exercise of our faculties, not only in order to become
certain of truth, but even to discover it. Man joins the greatest
multiplicity with simplicity: his soul is one, is endowed with various
faculties, and united to a body of such variety and complication as
to be called with much reason a little world. His faculties are in
intimate and mutual relation; they exert a continuous influence upon
each other. To isolate them is to mutilate, and sometimes to extinguish
them. This remark is important, for it indicates the radical vice of
all exclusive philosophy.
If a man have no sensations, his understanding has no materials, nor
has it that stimulus, without which it remains dormant. When God united
our soul and body, it was that one might aid the other; wherefore he
established that admirable correspondence between the impressions of
the body and the affections of the soul, which, therefore, needs the
body as a medium, as an instrument, whether the action of the body
upon it be supposed to be a true action, or only a simple occasion of
causality of a higher order.
If a man, having no sensations, were to think, he would only think as a
pure spirit; he would not be in relation with the external world, nor
would he be a man in the sense in which we use this word. In such a
case the body is superfluous, and there is no reason why it should be
united to the soul.
If we admit sensations, and abstract reason, man is converted into a
brute. He feels, but does not think: he experiences impressions, but
does not combine them, for he is incapable of reflecting. Every thing
succeeds in him as a series of necessary, isolated phenomena, which
indicate nothing, lead to nothing, and are nothing but affections
of a particular being who does not comprehend them, nor render to
himself an account of them. It is even difficult to say of what kind
are his relations with the external world. Arguing from appearances
and analogy, it is probable that brutes also make their sensations
objective; but ordinarily, their objectiveness differs from ours. Let
us take sleep for example. If brutes sleep, and they probably do sleep,
as certain appearances seem to indicate, it would not be strange should
they not distinguish as we do between waking and sleeping.
This supposes some reflection upon acts, some comparison between the
order and constancy of some, and the disorder and inconstancy of
others; a reflection which man makes even in infancy, and continues
to make all his life without adverting to it. When we awake from a
deep sleep, we sometimes remain for several moments in doubt if we are
asleep or awake: this doubt alone supposes a comparative reflection
of the two states. What do we do in order to resolve this doubt? We
examine the place where we are; and the fact that we are abed, in the
silence and darkness of night, indicates that the previous vision had
no connection with our situation, and therefore that we were asleep.
Without this reflection, the sensations of sleeping and waking would be
connected, and all confounded in one and the same class.
The instinct conceded to brutes, but denied to men, shows that reason
was given to us in order to appreciate sensations.
There are, then, in man no criteria of truth absolutely isolated. They
are all in relation with each other, they mutually affirm and complete
each other; for we must note that those truths, of which all men are
certain, do in some sense rest upon all the criteria.
Sensations instinctively lead us to believe in the existence of an
external world; and if this belief be submitted to the examination of
reason, it confirms the same truth, resting upon the general ideas of
cause and effect. The pure understanding knows certain principles, and
assents to them as to necessary truths. The senses, if these principles
be submitted to their experience, confirm them as much as their own
perfection, or that of the instruments which they use, permit. "All the
radii of a circle are equal." This is a necessary truth. The senses
perceive no perfect circle, but they see that the more perfect the
instrument is with which they construct it, so much more nearly equal
are the radii. "There is no change without a cause to produce it." The
senses cannot prove the proposition in all its universality, for they
are by nature limited to a determinate number of particular cases; but,
so far as their experience goes, they discover the order of such a
dependence in the succession of phenomena.
The senses mutually aid each other. The sensation of one sense is
compared with those of the others, when there arises a doubt as to its
correspondence with its object. We seem to hear the whistling of the
wind; but our hearing has more than once deceived us: to make sure of
the truth we look at trees or other objects. We see a figure, but
there is not light sufficient to distinguish it from a shadow, we
approach and touch it.
The intellectual and moral faculties also exercise a salutary influence
upon each other. Ideas rectify sentiments, and sentiments ideas.
The value of the ideas of one order is verified by those of another
order; and the same with sentiments. Pity for one suffering punishment
inspires the pardon of all criminals; the indignation inspired at
seeing the victims of crime, induces to the application of punishment;
both sentiments involve something that is good; but the one would
engender impunity, the other cruelty; it is to temper them that the
ideas of justice exist. But this justice in its turn might pronounce
excessively absolute sentences; justice is one, and the circumstances
of peoples very different. Justice only considers the culpability, and
consequently pronounces such sentences. A sentence may not be proper;
for here come in other moral ideas of a distinct order, the amendment
of the guilty joined with reparation made to the injured party; ideas
also of public convenience which are not repugnant to sound morals, and
which may direct their application.
Complete truth, like perfect good, exists only with harmony. This is a
necessary law, and to it man is subject. Since we do not intuitively
see the infinite truth in which all truths are one, and all good is
one; and as we are in relation with a world of finite, and consequently
multiple beings, we need different powers to place us in contact, so
to speak, with this variety of truths and finite goods; but as they,
in their turn, spring from _one_ same principle, and are directed to
_one_ same end, they are submitted to harmony, which is the unity of
multiplicity.
339. With these doctrines we believe philosophy without skepticism
to be possible. Examination is not excluded; on the contrary, it is
extended and completed. This method has another advantage; it does not
make philosophy extravagant, and philosophers exceptional. Philosophy
cannot be so generalized as to become popular; human nature is opposed
to this; but there is not on the other hand any necessity of condemning
it to a misanthropic isolation by force of extravagant professions.
In such a case philosophy degenerates into philosophism. Exposition
of facts, conscientious examination, clear language; such we conceive
sound philosophy to be. This does not require it to cease to be
profound, unless by profoundness be meant darkness. The rays of the sun
light up the remotest depths of space.
340. I am aware that some philosophers of our age think otherwise, that
they deem it necessary, when they examine the fundamental questions of
philosophy, to shake the foundations of the world; and yet I have never
been able to persuade myself that it was necessary to destroy in order
to examine, or that in order to become philosophers we ought to become
madmen. We may render the unreasonableness and extravagance of these
masters of humanity sensible by an allegory, although the simplicity of
my language may somewhat mortify their philosophical profoundness. The
reader needs some solace and rest, now that he has followed me through
such abstruse treatises, which all the power of the writer does not
suffice to illustrate, and still less to render attractive.
A noble, rich, and numerous family preserves in magnificent archives
the records of its nobility, alliances, and possessions. Some of these
documents are hardly legible, either on account of the handwriting,
their great antiquity, or the wear and tear of years. There is also
a suspicion that many of these documents are apocryphal; although it
is certain that many must be authentic, since the nobility and other
rights of the family, so universally recognized, must be founded on
some of them, and it is known that no other exists. Such is the state
of things. Some curious person enters the archives, and casting a
glance upon the shelves, recesses, and drawers, says: "This is all
confusion; to distinguish what is authentic from the apocryphal, and
put all in good order, we must light a fire at the four corners of the
archives, and then examine the ashes."
What shall we think of such a proceeding? This curious person is
the philosopher who, to distinguish the true and the false in our
cognitions, begins by denying all truth, all certainty, all reason.
We may be told that there is no question of denying, but of doubting;
but whoever doubts all truth, destroys it; whoever doubts all certainty
denies it; whoever doubts all reason annihilates it. Prudence and
common sense in small things are based upon the same principles as
wisdom in great things. Let us go on with our allegory, and see what
common sense would indicate ought to be done in this case.
To take an inventory of whatever now exists, without forgetting any
thing, however contemptible it may appear; to make such temporary
classifications as are deemed most proper to facilitate the
examination, reserving the final classification to the close; to note
carefully dates, characters, references, and thus to distinguish
priority and posteriority; to see if there may be found some primitive
documents, referring to others anterior, which certify the origin
of the family; to establish clear rules for the distinguishing that
which is primitive from what is only secondary; and not to insist
on referring all documents to one alone, exacting a unity which,
perhaps, they have not; for it may have happened that there were
several primitive and mutually independent documents. It would even be
advisable in distinguishing the authentic from the apocryphal not to
burn any thing, for the apocryphal sometimes aids in the interpretation
of what is authentic, and it may be desirable to ascertain who were the
falsifiers, and what their motives. Moreover, who knows but what he
judges a document to be apocryphal, which seems to him so to be solely
because he does not understand it? Care, then, is to be taken to make
a due separation, and if the apocryphal is of no use in establishing
titles, or in defending them, it may serve for the history of the
archives, which is no trifling reason for distinguishing the apocryphal
from the authentic.
The human mind does not examine itself until well developed; then, at
the first glance, it sees in itself a connection of sensations, ideas,
judgments, and affections of a thousand kinds, the whole interwoven in
an inextricable manner. To increase the complication, it is not alone,
but in intimate relation with its like, in mutual communication of
sensations, ideas, and sentiments; and all in their turn in contact
with, and under the influence of, dissimilar beings of amazing variety,
the union of which forms the universe. Shall it begin by throwing it
all down? Shall it reduce all to ashes, and hope to rise like the
phenix from the pyre? Shall it arbitrarily invent a fact, a principle,
and say: "I must have a resting-point, I will take this, and upon it I
will found science!" Shall we, before examining, before analyzing, say:
"all this is one; there is nothing if there be not absolute unity; in
it I place myself, and all that I do not see from my point of view I
reject?" No! what we have to do, is first to ascertain what is in our
mind, and then to examine, classify it, and give to it its true value;
not commence by mad and impotent efforts against nature, but to lend an
attentive ear to her inspirations.
There is no philosophy without a philosopher; no reason without a
rational being; the existence of the subject is then a necessary
supposition. No reason is possible if the contradiction of being and
not-being be possible; all reason, then, supposes the principle of
contradiction to be true. When we examine reason it is reason that
examines; it needs rules, light; all examination, then, supposes this
light, the evidence and the legitimacy of its criterion. Man does
not make himself, he finds himself already made; it is not he who
imposes the conditions of his being; he finds them already imposed.
These conditions are the laws of his being, and why contend against
them? "Besides factitious prejudices," says Schelling, "man has others
_primordial_, placed in him not by education, but by _nature herself_,
which in _all_ men hold the place of principles of cognition, and are a
_shoal_ to the free-thinker." For my own part I do not seek to be more
than _all_ men; if I cannot be a philosopher without ceasing to be a
man, I renounce philosophy and adhere to humanity.
BOOK SECOND.
ON SENSATION.
CHAPTER I.
SENSATION IN ITSELF.
1. Sensation considered in itself is simply an internal affection; but
it is almost always accompanied by a judgment. This judgment may be
more or less explicit and more or less noticed by the subject of the
sensation.
Suppose I see two architectural ornaments at a proper distance, and I
discover no difference between them. In this sensation there are two
things to be considered.
I. The internal affection which we call _seeing_. On this point all
doubt is impossible. Whether I am asleep or awake, raving or in my
sober senses, whether the ornaments are alike or unlike, whether,
in fine, they exist or not, there still exists in my soul the
representation which I call _seeing the ornaments_.
II. I also at the same time form a judgment that, besides the internal
affection which I experience, the ornaments exist, that they are in
relief, and that they are before my eyes. In this judgment I may be
deceived; for I may be asleep or in a delirium; it may be that the
ornaments are behind me, and that I only see their reflection in a
mirror; it may be that what I see is only a paper placed in such a
manner behind a glass, as to make upon the retina of my eyes the same
impression as the ornaments would if they were really present; or,
finally, it may all be the work of a skilful painter who has given
this illusory appearance to his canvas.
From this we see that, admitting the existence of the internal fact of
sensation, it is possible:
I. That there is no external object.
II. That the objects exists, but not in the position supposed.
III. That the object is not the architectural ornaments.
IV. That both are plane surfaces; or, that one is in relief, and the
other a plane.
This brings us to the evident conclusion that mere sensation has no
necessary relation to an external object; for it not only can, but it
not unfrequently does, exist without any such object.
This correspondence of the internal to the external belongs to the
judgment which accompanies sensation, not to sensation itself.
If brutes refer their sensations to objects, as they probably do,
instinct must supply in them the want of judgment, as in the child who
has not acquired the use of the intellectual faculties.
Sensation, therefore, in itself considered, affirms nothing. It is a
mere affection of our being, an effect produced in our soul, and does
not determine whether there is any action of an external object upon
our senses, nor whether the object is what it seems to be.
2. Let us imagine an animal reduced to the one sense of touch, and
that not developed as in us, but confined to a few rude impressions
like those of heat and cold, warmth and dryness; and let us compare
it with human sensibility. What an immense distance between the two!
Sensibility in such an animal borders on insensibility, whilst in man
it approaches intelligence, the representations of his senses are so
varied and so extended as to produce within him a whole world, and
they might produce infinite others. Man is at the highest round of
the ladder, so far as our observation goes, but who can tell how much
higher it may be possible to go?
3. However developed and perfected we suppose sensibility, it falls far
short of intelligence, from which it must ever remain separated, as
from a faculty of a different order. Though we suppose the sensitive
faculties capable of indefinite perfectibility, they can never reach
the sphere of intelligence, properly so called. This perfectibility
would lie in a different order, eternally distinct from that of
intellectual beings. If we suppose a color infinitely perfected, it
will never become a sound, a sound a taste, a taste a sound, nor a
sound a color; because perfectibility is confined to its own order.
Therefore, however it may be perfected, sensibility can never become
intelligence.
This observation will serve to guard against one of the most fatal
errors of our age, which consists in regarding the universe as the
result of a mysterious force, which, developing itself by a continual
movement, at once spontaneous and necessary, goes on giving birth
to beings and elevating species by a perpetual transformation. Thus
the greater perfection of the vegetable organization would produce
the animal faculties; these being perfected would become sensitive,
and in measure as they progressed in the order of sensation they
would approach the realm of intelligence, and would finally attain
it. There is not a little analogy between this system and that which
makes thought a transformed sensation; it effaces the dividing line
between intelligent and non-intelligent beings; the sensations of an
oyster may, according to it, be so perfected as to be converted into
an intelligence superior to that of Bossuet or of Leibnitz; and the
development of the faculties of the man-statue would be an emblem of
the development of the universe.
4. It may have been already remarked that we are now speaking of the
sensitive faculty in itself considered, abstracting from its relations
to external objects; and that we therefore comprehend in the word
_sensation_, all affections of the senses, whether actually produced,
recollected, or imagined; that is, all affections in all degrees from
the first direct consciousness of them, or when they are presented to
the being which experiences them, until they reach the limit where
intelligence, strictly so called, commences.
It is impossible here to draw the dividing line between the sensible
and the intelligible; this requires profound and extensive studies upon
sensations compared with ideas, which does not belong to this place:
but it will be well to have pointed out the existence of this line, in
order to avoid confusion in a most subtle matter, in which every error
is attended with the most serious consequences.
5. In what does sensation consist? What is its internal nature? We
only know that it is a modification of our being, and that we cannot
explain it. No words suffice to convey an idea of a sensation to one
who has never experienced it. The man born blind may listen to all that
philosophers have said and written on light and colors, but can never
imagine what light and colors are.
Experience is the only teacher here; and thus, if we suppose a man's
senses to be changed so that green appears to him purple, and purple
green, notwithstanding his constant communication with other men, he
will never be freed from his error, and he will never suspect that
during his whole life he has made use of the words green and purple in
a different sense from other men.
6. Analogy and nature incline us to believe that brutes are not mere
machines, but that they also have sensations. The vast scale over which
irrational beings are distributed, shows that the faculty of feeling
is spread over the universe in different degrees, and with a wonderful
profusion.
Our experience is confined to the globe in which we live; but are the
limits of sensitive life the same as those of our experience? Even
on this globe our observation is confined to what the imperfection
of our senses, and the instruments which we use, permit; but how far
is the chain of life prolonged? Where is its term? Is there not some
participation of this mysterious faculty in those beings which we hold
to be inanimate? Is the universe, as Leibnitz pretends, composed of a
collection of monads endowed with a certain perception? This is indeed
an unfounded hypothesis; but since our means of observation are so
limited, we should be cautious how we assign boundaries to the realm of
life.
7. We ordinarily speak of the faculty of sensation as of something
belonging to a very inferior order; so it is, in fact, if compared
with intellectual faculties; but this does not prevent it, in itself
considered, from being a wonderful phenomenon, of a nature to astonish
and confound all who meditate upon it.
Sensation! With this word alone we pass an immense gap in the scale
of beings. What is the non-sensible compared with the sensible? The
insensible is, but experiences not that it is; there is nothing in it
but itself: the sensible experiences that it is; and there is in it
something besides itself, all that it feels, all that is represented
in it. The insensible, although surrounded with beings, is in complete
isolation,--in solitude; the sensible, although alone, may be in a
world of infinitely varied representations.
8. The idea of the _me_ is in some sense applicable to every sensitive
being; for sensation is inconceivable without a _permanent_ being,
which experiences what is _transitory_; that is, without a being which
is _one_ in the midst of _multiplicity_. Every sensible being, were
it capable of reflection, might, in its own way, say _I_; for it is
true of all of them that it is _one same_ being that experiences the
_variety_ of sensations. Without this bond, this unity, there is no
_one_ sensible being, but a _succession_ of sensations as unconnected
phenomena of the whole.
9. There is no sensation without direct consciousness; for, as this
is nothing but the very presence of the phenomenon to the being
experiencing it, it would be contradictory to say that it feels without
consciousness. A sensation experienced, is a sensation present; a
sensation not present, that is, not experienced, is inconceivable, is
an absurdity.[35]
[35] See Bk. II., Ch. XXIII., § 226.
10. Every sensation involves presence, or direct consciousness, but
not representation. I think this distinction important. The sensations
of smell, taste, and hearing, are not representative; they remain in
themselves, and in their object. The being experiencing them might
believe himself enclosed in himself, in an absolute solitude, with no
relation to other beings; but touch, and, above all, sight, are by
their nature representative; they involve relation to objects; and they
imply relation to other beings, not as to mere _causes_ of the internal
affection, but as the _originals_ represented in the sensation.
The class of sensible beings endowed with the faculty of representation
seems to be of an order very superior to the others; these beings not
only have consciousness, but also a mysterious power whereby they see
within themselves an entire world.
11. What is the most perfect degree of sensitive life? What the most
imperfect? These questions we cannot answer, for we cannot judge of
these things otherwise than by experience and analogy. But viewing the
immensity of the scale, experience shows us we may infer that nature is
far richer than we imagine. Let us not disturb its profound secrets,
but be content to suspect that they exist.
CHAPTER II.
MATTER IS INCAPABLE OF SENSATION.
12. The phenomenon of sensibility reveals to us the existence of an
order of beings distinct from matter. However perfect we may suppose
material organization, it cannot rise to sensation; matter is wholly
incapable of sensation; and the absurd system of materialism can
neither explain the phenomena of intelligence, nor even of sensation.
It is of little consequence to us that we do not know the intrinsical
nature of sensitive being, or of matter; it is enough to know their
essential properties, in order to infer with certainty that they belong
to distinct orders. It is not true that the principal idea of the
essence of things is necessary, in order to demonstrate their absolute
contradiction; thousands of times we consider two geometrical figures
whose essential property we do not know; yet not, therefore, do we fail
to see that they are different, and that one cannot possibly be the
other.
Matter, whatever opinion may be entertained of its essential property,
is necessarily a composite being; matter without parts, is not matter.
A composite being, although called _one_, inasmuch as its parts are
united together, and conspire to the same end, is always a collection
of many beings; for the parts though united are still distinct If
sensation could be predicated of a composite being, the sensitive
would not be a single being, but a collection of beings; but sensation
essentially belongs to a being which is _one_, and if divided is
destroyed; therefore, no composite being, however well organized, is
capable of sensation.
If we observe what takes place in us, and reason from analogy, to other
sensitive beings, we shall discover amid the variety of sensations a
single being which perceives them; it is one and the same being that
hears, sees, touches, smells, and tastes; that remembers sensations
after they have disappeared; that seeks them when agreeable, and avoids
them when unpleasant, enjoys the former and suffers in the latter.
All this enters into the idea of sensitive being; if brutes had not
this _common_ subject of all sensations; were they not _one_ in the
midst of multiplicity, _identical_ in diversity, and _permanent_ under
succession, they would not be sensitive beings, such as we conceive
them to be; they would have no sensation, properly so called; for there
is no sensation, in the sense in which we here understand it, without a
being affected by it, a being which perceives it.
If we imagine a flow and ebb of sensations without any connection,
without a constant being to experience them, the result will not be a
sensitive being, but a collection of phenomena, each one of which by
itself alone offers the same difficulty as all united, the necessity of
a being to experience it.
13. Let us take a being composed of two parts, A and B, and see if
it can acquire, for instance, the sensation of sound. If both parts
perceive, either both perceive the whole sound, or each a portion of
it. If both perceive it entire, one of them is superfluous, for we are
only seeking to explain the realization of the phenomenon, which would
thus be verified in one alone. If each part hear the sound, not entire,
but only a portion of it, we shall have a divided sound; and what is
the division of a sound?
But even such an imaginary division does not serve to explain the
phenomenon; for the part of the sound perceived by A will not be
perceived by B; never, therefore, will there result a complete
sensation.
Shall we suppose A and B to be in relation, and to mutually communicate
their corresponding parts? But then A perceives all its own part and
also what B communicates to it: of what use, then, is B, if A perceives
the whole? Why not place the whole primitive sensation in A? We here
see that such a communication is an absurd hypothesis, since it
would make a successive and mutual communication of the parts, and a
perception by each of its own part, and also of that transmitted to it
by the others, indispensable to the formation of an entire sensation.
Thus we should have not one sensation only, but as many as there are
parts; not one sensitive being only, but as many such beings as there
are parts.
This hypothesis of communication of the parts paves the way for our
system, since it recognizes the necessity of unity to constitute
sensation. Why do the parts mutually communicate what they have
respectively perceived? Because an entire sensation could not otherwise
be formed, and so each part must receive what it has not of itself. The
object of this is, that each one may perceive the whole; the sensation,
therefore, must be wholly in only one subject; therefore, at the very
time that unity is denied, it is acknowledged to be necessary.
14. These parts, A and B, either are simple or they are not; if they
are simple, why persist in advocating materialism, when we must finally
return to simple beings? It is a manifest contradiction to say that
sensation is an effect of organization, and yet place it in a simple
being, for the simple cannot be organized; there is no organization
where there are no parts organized. If we admit the simple being,
and place the sensation in it, the organization will then be, if
you choose, a medium, a conduit, an indispensable condition to the
realization of the phenomenon; then not it, but the simple being will
be the subject. If these parts are not simple, they are composed of
others; and of these we may argue the same as of the former; for we
must come to simple beings, or else proceed to infinity. If we admit
such a process, the sensible being will not be one, but infinite;
the difficulties encountered with only two parts, A and B, will be
multiplied even to infinity, and so the sensible being will be not one
but infinite, and every sensation infinite.
15. Here we find a very serious difficulty. If matter be incapable of
perceiving, the soul of brutes is not material; if immaterial, it is a
spirit, which cannot be admitted.
Let us determine well the meaning of the words, and this difficulty
will vanish. An immaterial being is not the same as a spirit; every
spirit is immaterial, but not every thing immaterial is a spirit.
_Immaterial_ denotes negation of matter; spirit implies more than this;
for we understand by it a simple being endowed with understanding and
free-will. The soul of brutes is then immaterial, but not a spirit.
Some one may say, that what is not body is spirit, that between
these two classes of beings there is no medium. But why? Whence such
certainty? If it be said that there is no medium between the material
and the immaterial, this is true; for there is, in truth, no medium
between yes and no; every thing either is or is not; but there enters
into the idea of spirit much more than the simple negation of matter;
there is the idea of an active, intelligent, and free principle.
16. It may then be asked: wherein consists the nature of the soul of
brutes? And we ask, wherein consists the nature of the greater part of
the things which we perceive? Do we know this nature in itself or in
its acts? Do we see our own soul intuitively? Or do we, perchance, know
it by the acts of which we are conscious? If so, we know in like manner
the sensitive soul by its acts, that is, by perception of the senses;
we know that it is not matter, for matter is incapable of sensation;
and the reasons which show us that our soul is a simple being, an
active principle endowed with understanding and free-will enable us to
say that the soul of brutes is a simple being endowed with the faculty
of feeling, and with instincts and appetites of the sensible order.
We know not what this active principle in itself considered is, but
its acts show it to be a force superior to bodies, one of the many
activities which are the life of nature. We encounter this living
force in a portion of matter admirably organized; the end of this
organization is the harmonious exercise of the faculties of that living
being which we call animal. Not to know what this force in itself is,
does not prevent us from affirming its existence, for phenomena reveal
it to us in an indisputable manner.
17. What, then, will be the fate of these souls, or living forces,
if the organization which gives them life be destroyed? Will they be
reduced to non-existence, since, not being composed of parts, they
cannot be decomposed? Will they continue to exist until their turn
shall come to preside over a new organization? It will be well to
separate these various questions, and examine them apart.
If the soul of brutes be not composed of parts, it cannot perish by
disorganization; what has no organizable parts is not organized, and
what is not organized cannot be disorganized. Hence we infer that the
soul of brutes cannot perish by corruption, properly so called; for no
being not composed of matter can. We see not what difficulty can arise
from this view; but the question is only resolved in its negative part,
for thus far we know only that the soul of brutes cannot die, or be
corrupted by decomposition; we must know what is done with it. Is it
annihilated? Does it continue to exist? And if so, in what way? These
are different questions.
First of all we must observe, that we have here only conjectures, and
these rather as to the possibility than as to the reality. Philosophy
may indeed enable us to see what may be, but not what is, for we can
know the reality only by experience, which in the present case we
cannot have. When sound philosophy, examining this point, is asked what
is, its best reply is, that it knows not; if it is asked what may be,
it enters into an argumentation founded on general principles, and more
especially upon analogy.
18. It is usually said that nothing is annihilated; but this needs some
explanation. What is the meaning of _annihilation_? To cease to be, so
that nothing, which before was, remains. If a body be disorganized, it
ceases to be as an organized body; but the matter remains, and there is
no annihilation. Is it true that nothing is annihilated? Some say we
must distinguish between substances and accidents; for, as these latter
are a kind of incomplete beings, there is no reason why they should not
cease to exist, and nothing of them remain; but in this disappearance
there is no annihilation, strictly so called; thus we see things
continually transformed, and undergoing a succession of accidents which
cease to exist whenever the thing ceases to be modified by them. As to
substances, there would indeed be true annihilation should they cease
to exist, but this they do not, because no substance is annihilated.
Thus some think; we know not how true this system may be, for we know
not upon what solid foundation it rests. If a substance be destined to
an end, why may it not be annihilated when this end no longer exists? A
created being incessantly needs the conservatory action of the Creator,
for which reason conservation is said to be a continued creation; when,
then, the end to which the created substance was destined ceases, why
may it not be annihilated? We see nothing in its being annihilated
repugnant to the wisdom or goodness of God. The artificer abandons
a tool no longer serviceable; this, in God, would be equivalent to
the withdrawal of his conservatory act, and in the creature, to the
reduction to non-existence. If it be not repugnant to the wisdom and
goodness of God for an organized being to be disorganized, or cease to
exist as an organized being, why may he not allow a substance which has
accomplished the object for which it was created to cease to exist?
From this we infer that it would not be against sound philosophy to
maintain that the souls of brutes are reduced to non-existence.
19. But supposing there is no question of annihilation, is there any
reason against their continuing to exist? If there be, we know not what
it is.
We know not of what use they would be; but we may conjecture that
absorbed anew into the bosom of nature they would not be useless.
Neither do we know the use of many other beings, and yet we cannot
therefore deny their existence, or doubt their utility. Who says that
the vital principle residing in brutes can have no object if the
organization which it animates be destroyed? Does the destruction
of a plant involve, perchance, the extinction of all the vital
principles residing in it? Do these principles, by not operating
upon the organized being just destroyed, therefore cease to be of any
use in the wonderful laboratory of nature? Who will say that a vital
principle cannot be useful if it does not act upon an object within
our observation? Who will assert that vital principles do not in
the recesses of nature act in many and different ways, and that the
effects of their activity are not presented very differently according
to circumstances, yet always in conformity to laws established by
infinite wisdom? Do not the magnificent profusion of radical materials,
the gems without number which we everywhere discover, the immense
amount of matter susceptible of transformation and assimilation by the
living being, the mysteries of generation in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, all indicate to us that there are scattered over the universe
an infinite number of vital principles, which exercise their activity
in very different ways, and over a scale of astonishing extent? Who
shall assure us that the same vital principle may not present very
diverse phenomena, according to the conditions which determine its
action? Does not the same principle reside in the acorn, as in the
gnarled old oak that for ages has defied the fury of the tempest?
Did experience not show it to be so, who would ever have suspected
the vital principle of a shapeless and filthy caterpillar to be the
same as that of a beautiful butterfly? It is not then contrary either
to reason or to experience to suppose the soul of brutes, the vital
principle residing in them, to continue after the organization of the
body is destroyed, and, absorbed anew in the treasures of nature, to
be there preserved, not as a useless thing, but in the exercise of its
faculties in different ways, according to the conditions to which it is
subjected.(29)
CHAPTER III.
SLEEP AND WAKING.
20. The fact of sensation is connected with many others, and from this
connection results a great part of our knowledge. It has been said in
a tone of great confidence, that it was not possible to demonstrate by
sensations the existence of bodies; for as sensations are something
purely internal, they cannot enable us to infer the existence of any
thing external, and there is no reason for not regarding all our
sensations as a collection of individual phenomena, inclosed in our
soul. At first view it seems impossible to solve the difficulty;
nevertheless, if we examine it thoroughly, we shall see that too great
importance has been attached to it.
21. The first objection ordinarily made to the testimony of the senses,
is the difficulty of distinguishing with certainty between the state of
sleep and that of waking. We receive when asleep impressions similar to
those we receive when awake: how shall we know that the illusion is not
perpetual? Lamennais, with characteristic exaggeration, says: "He who
shall show that all life is not a sleep, an indefinable chimera, will
do more than all philosophers have thus far been able to do."
There are here, no doubt, grave difficulties; but we cannot persuade
ourselves that they are insolvable. First of all we shall examine if
sleep and waking be different, not only in the eyes of common sense,
but also in those of reason. Lamennais pretends that only at the
tribunal of common consent can a satisfactory and definitive sentence
be obtained: we are convinced that very close reasoning can arrive at
the same result to which consciousness, common sense, common consent,
or, in other words, the testimony of our own being and that of our
fellow mortals, conjointly conduce.
22. Man finds in himself a perfectly satisfactory certainty of the
difference between sleep and waking: we need no testimony of others to
know that we are awake.
The difference between these states must not be solely sought in the
clearness and vividness of sensations, and the certainty which they
generate. Undoubtedly images are sometimes presented to us in sleep
with as much clearness as if we were awake, and our certainty for the
instant is complete. Who has not in sleep experienced great joy, or
terrible anguish? Sometimes, but very rarely, we have, when we awake,
the reminiscence of having in the very act of sleep doubted if we
were asleep; but this seldom happens, and it is in general true, that
even our dreams are not accompanied by this twilight of reflex reason
which warns us of our state and of the illusion that we are under.
Ordinarily, while we dream, we have no thought that we are asleep,
and we embrace a friend with the same effusion of tenderness, or weep
disconsolately over his tomb, with the same affections as we should
were all real.
23. The difference is not in momentary uncertainty, for we usually
have, on the contrary, complete certainty. Whence, then, is this? How
does reason explain it? How does philosophy come to the support of
consciousness and common sense? This is the matter we now purpose to
examine.
If we abstract sensations having or not having relation to external
objects, and also the sufficiency of their testimony in any particular
case, and consider them solely as phenomena of our soul, we shall find
two orders of facts completely distinguished by marked characters,
sleep and waking. In our soul these two orders are totally distinct;
even in the system of the idealist this distinction must be recognized.
If we reflect upon what we have experienced since first we had
consciousness of what passes within us, we shall observe in our being,
two classes of phenomena. Periodically and constantly we experience two
series of sensations; some more or less clear, more or less vivid, are
confined simply to their object, without the concurrence of many of
our faculties, and above all, without reflection upon them; others are
always clear, always vivid, accompanied by acts of all our faculties,
our reflection upon them, and their difference from those that went
before, is entirely subject to our free will in all that is relative;
we vary and modify them in a thousand different ways, or suppress and
reproduce them.
I see the paper upon which I write; I reflect upon this sight; I
abandon and resume it at pleasure; and if I choose, I connect this
sensation with others, with a thousand thoughts or different caprices.
What takes place in this act, always has happened to me, and always
will, whenever that same series of phenomena is produced in me while
awake. But if I dream that I write, although it happen not, as it
ordinarily does, that I cannot hold my pen exactly right, nor see
clearly, but only confusedly, I neither feel the simultaneous exercise
of all my faculties, nor reflect upon my present state; I do not have
that full consciousness of what I am doing, that clear and strong light
which is scattered over all my waking actions and their objects. When
awake I think upon what I have done, what I am doing, what I shall
do; I recollect my dreams and call them illusions, pronounce them
unconnected and extravagant appearances, and compare them with the
order and connection of phenomena offered to me while awake. Nothing
of this kind takes place in dreams; I may, perhaps, have a clear,
lively sensation but it is independent of my will, it is an isolated
impression, the use of only one faculty without the aid of the others,
without fixed and constant comparisons, such as I make when awake; and
above all, this phenomenon quickly vanishes, and I either fall into a
state of unconsciousness of my being, or enter another state in which
the same series of phenomena as before is reproduced; they are clear,
lucid, connected; they stand the test of reason, which compares them
with each other, and with anterior phenomena. Apart, then, from all
idea of the external world, and even of all being outside of ourselves,
we are certain of the distinction between the two orders of phenomena,
those of sleep and those of waking.
Therefore, they who attack the certainty of our cognitions because of
the difficulty of distinguishing between these states, make use of a
very weak argument, and rely upon a fact entirely false. So far am I
from believing it impossible to distinguish philosophically between
sleep and waking, that I deem the difference between these two states
one of the clearest and most certain facts of our nature.
Having established this truth, and supposing no one to doubt that the
sensations experienced in sleep are not produced by external objects,
and that, consequently, they cannot be a means of acquiring truth, I
pass to another more difficult and important question.
CHAPTER IV.
RELATION OF SENSATIONS TO AN EXTERNAL WORLD.
24. Have our sensations any relation to external objects, or are they
merely phenomena of our nature? Can we infer the existence of an
external world from the existence of that internal world resulting from
the union of the scenes presented by sensations?
This question is theoretical, not practical, and depends solely on the
force of reasoning, not on the voice of nature,--a voice stronger than
all argument, and irresistible. To whatever result the philosophical
examination of the relations of the ideal and the real worlds may lead,
we must submit to that necessity of our nature which makes us believe
in the existence of such relations. The great majority of mankind
never have thought, and probably never will think of making such an
examination; and yet they have no shadow of doubt that there exists a
real world, distinct from us, but in incessant communication with us.
Nature precedes philosophy.
We have no wish to show reason to be unable to vindicate the legitimacy
of the inference whereby the real is deduced from the ideal, the
existence of the external world from that of the internal; we would
only point out a landmark to philosophy, which, if it does not
illustrate it, may at least inspire it with sobriety in investigating,
and with mistrust in its results. Indeed we cannot but see that
that science must be erroneous which is opposed to a necessity, and
contradicts an evident fact: it merits not to be called philosophy,
if it struggles with a law to which all humanity, not even excepting
the philosopher who presumes to protest against it, is inevitably
subject. All that can be said against this law, may be as specious
as you please, but it will only be a vain cavil, a cavil which, if
unanswerable by our weak understanding, nature herself will resist
until we shall in another life see the depths of these secrets, and how
those links are joined whose points of contact reason cannot detect,
although nature feels their irresistible union at every moment of her
existence.
25. That sensations are something more than mere phenomena of our soul,
that they are effects of a cause distinct from ourselves, is seen by
comparing them with each other. We refer some to an external object;
others we do not: these two orders of phenomena present very different
characters.
I now have within me the representation of the country where I was
born and spent my earliest years. I see clearly a vast plain with
its fields and prairies, its little hills, now forming only isolated
hillocks, now stretching in various directions, sinking to the level of
the plain, or gradually rising until incorporated with the mountains,
the lofty chain of which surrounds all the plain, and makes it a great
amphitheatre, with no outlet except on the south, and here and there
a chasm, seemingly torn in the mighty wall reared by nature. All this
is very perfectly represented within me, although more than a hundred
leagues distant, and this whenever, and as long as I choose. The same
spectacle may, perhaps, be offered to me without the concurrence of my
will, but I am always free to distract myself from it; I may drop the
curtain upon this scene, or raise it anew at my pleasure.
What happens in this case is confirmed by many others; and thus I
internally experience a series of phenomena representative of external
objects, but am under no necessity to submit to them, for I can
abandon or resume them by simple acts of my free will.
But, at the same time, I feel within myself another class of phenomena
which are not dependent upon my will, and which I cannot abandon and
resume at pleasure; they are subject to certain conditions which I
cannot dispense with under pain of not attaining my purpose.
I now experience that a painting is represented to me; or, in ordinary
language, I see a painting before me. Let us suppose this to be
a purely internal phenomenon, and observe the conditions of its
existence, abstracting, however, all external reality, that of my own
body included, and that, also, of the organs whereby the sensation is,
or seems to be, transmitted to me.
Now I experience the sensation; now I do not. What has intervened? The
sensation of a motion that has produced another sensation of sight,
and has destroyed the first; or, passing from ideal to real language,
I have placed my hand between my eyes and the object. But why can I
not during the last, reproduce the first sensation? We see clearly
that if external objects do exist, and my sensations are produced by
them, my sensations must be subject to the conditions which they impose
upon them; but if they are only internal phenomena, there is no way of
explaining them. This is only the more incomprehensible as we do not
find in the sensations, which we consider as mere phenomena with no
immediate relation to an external object, a close dependence of some
upon others, but rather, on the contrary, great discordance.
26. Purely internal phenomena, those which we regard as truly such,
are, so far as their existence and their modifications are concerned,
greatly dependent upon the will. I produce in my imagination, whenever
I please, a scene representing the Column of the Place Vendôme at
Paris, and I suppress it at my pleasure. The same occurs with respect
to all other objects which I recollect to have seen; their presence
within me depends upon my will. It is true that sometimes objects which
we do not wish are represented to us, and that some effort is necessary
to make them disappear. If we see a dying person, his countenance
pale and damp with sweat, his wandering eyes, his clenched hands, his
distorted mouth and painful breathing, interrupted with piteous groans,
remain long after stamped upon our imagination: this sad spectacle will
often recur to us in spite of ourselves; but it is very certain that
if we go into some complicated calculation, or engage in the solution
of some difficult problem, we shall succeed in making it disappear. We
see by this, that even in exceptional cases, so long as we are of sane
mind, our will always exerts a great influence over purely internal
phenomena.
It is otherwise with those which have immediate relation to external
objects. We cannot, when in presence of the dying person, avoid
seeing and hearing him. If these sensations be only a purely internal
phenomenon, this phenomenon is of a very different order from that of
the other. The one is wholly independent of our will, not so the other.
Purely internal phenomena have a very different mutual relation from
that of external phenomena. The will exerts a great influence upon the
former, but not upon the latter. The former also are offered either by
a mere act of the will, or by themselves, in isolation, and need no
connection with other preceding phenomena. I write at Madrid, and all
at once I find myself on the banks of the Thames, with its countless
fleet of ships and steamers. But this did not require me to pass
through the series of phenomena which represent what are called France
and Spain. I can represent the Thames to myself immediately, after a
thousand sensations, neither connected among themselves, nor with it;
but if I would produce in myself the phenomenon called _seeing_, I must
pass through the whole series of phenomena consequent upon a voyage;
and this not in any way I may fancy, but so as to feel really and truly
all the accompanying pleasures and inconveniences; I must make a true
resolution to depart, and arrive punctually at such an hour, at the
risk of missing the sensation called, _seeing the stage_, and another,
which I call, seeing myself started; in fine, all the disagreeable
sensations arising from such a mischance.
When I would represent this series of internal phenomena, or, in common
language, adventures of travel, only internally, I dispose all at my
pleasure; I stop, or travel faster; I take steps of a hundred leagues,
and pass immediately from one point to another, and I experience
none of those inconveniences which render the reality fatiguing. I
am in a world where I am master. I command, and the coach is ready,
the driver on his box, the postilion in his saddle; and I fly as
borne on the wings of the wind. Beautiful landscapes, barren lands,
gigantic mountains, and plains whose boundaries join the heavens,
all pass before my eyes with wonderful rapidity. Tired of the land,
I embark upon the lofty deep; I see the angry waves, and hear, amid
their roaring and dashing against the ship, the voice of the captain
giving his orders. I see the sailors work the ship; I speak with the
passengers, and roam through the cabins; and yet perceive no offensive
smell, and neither feel the qualms of sea-sickness, nor observe them in
others.
27. If purely internal sensations, especially when they proceed from
external sensations, be indeed mutually connected, their connection is
not such that it may not be modified in a thousand ways. When we think
of the Obelisk of the Place de la Concorde, its fountains and statues,
are very naturally presented to us; so, also, are the Palace of the
Tuileries, and that of the Chamber of Deputies, the Madeleine, and the
Champs-Elysées; but we can, by an act of the will, change the scene;
and if we choose we may transfer the Obelisk to the Place du Carrousel,
and admire the effect it produces there, until, satisfied with the
operation, we restore it to its granite base, or think no more of it.
But with sight, or the external phenomenon, we should in vain strive to
perform such manœuvres; everything keeps its place, or, at least, seems
to; and the sensations are bound together with bands of iron. One comes
after the other, and we cannot pass by any. The mere observation, then,
of what passes within us reveals the existence of two wholly distinct
orders of phenomena: in the one, everything, or almost everything,
depends upon our will; in the other, nothing. In the one, the phenomena
have certain mutual relations, very variable, however, and to a great
extent subject to our fancy; in the other, they are dependent upon each
other, and are produced only under certain conditions. We cannot see,
if we do not open the blinds so as to allow the light to enter. Here
the phenomena of blinds and sight are necessarily connected; but they
are not always so; for we may open them at night, and yet not see; and
then we require another auxiliary phenomenon, which is, artificial
light. We cannot, if we would, change this law of dependence.
28. What does all this show? Does it not show that the phenomena not
dependent upon our will, but subject both as to their existence and
accidents to laws which we cannot change, are produced by beings
distinct from ourselves? They are not ourselves, for we often exist
without them; they are not caused by our will, for they often occur
without its concurrence, often also against it; they are not produced
one by the other in the purely internal order, for it very frequently
happens that a phenomenon which has a thousand times followed another
suddenly ceases, however often the former be reproduced. This leads us
to examine an hypothesis which will greatly confirm the doctrine we
have laid down.
CHAPTER V.
AN IDEALIST HYPOTHESIS.
29. The system of the Idealists cannot stand without supposing the
connection and dependence which we refer to external objects, to exist
only within us, and the causality which we attribute to external
objects, to belong solely to our own acts.
I pull a rope in my chamber, and a bell never fails to ring; or in
idealist language, the sensation formed from that union of sensations
into which enters what we call the _rope and pulling it_, produces
or involves that other, which we call _ringing a bell_. Either from
habit or some hidden law, that relation of two phenomena will exist,
the never interrupted succession of which causes the illusion in us,
whereby we transfer to the real order, what is purely imaginary. This
is the most irrational explanation possible, and a few observations
will show it to be futile.
Today, we pull the rope, and strangely enough, no bell rings: but why
not? The causing phenomenon exists; for undoubtedly there passes within
us the act called pulling the rope, and yet we pull and pull again, and
the bell does not ring. Who has changed the succession of phenomena?
Why does not the phenomenon which a little while ago produced another,
not produce it now? Nothing new has happened within us, we experience
the first phenomenon just as clearly and vividly as before; why, then,
is not the second presented? Why is it that formerly we experienced
the second whenever we wished, by only exciting the first, and now we
cannot? We make the act of our will just as efficaciously as before;
who, then, has rendered our will impotent?
Hence we infer: first, that the second phenomenon does not depend
upon the first, considered only as a purely internal fact, for this
now exists precisely as it did before, and yet produces not the same
phenomenon; secondly, that it does not depend upon the act of our will;
for this is now as firm and strong as before, and yet produces nothing.
We cannot, however, doubt that there is some connection between the two
phenomena, for we have innumerable times seen one follow the other, and
this cannot be explained by mere chance. Since then, one does not cause
the other in the internal order, they must have some dependence in the
external order; in other words, still keeping in view the case under
examination, although the cause which produced the first phenomenon
continues to exist, its connection with that which produced the other
phenomenon must be interrupted; and so it was, in fact; for when we
pulled the rope no sound followed, for the simple reason that the bell
had been removed. This is comprehensible, if there be causes external
to what we call sensations; but if there be only simple internal
phenomena, no rational explanation can be given.
30. And here it is to be observed, that when we would explain the
failure of succession of those phenomena which always have been
united, we may recur to many very different ones, such as are internal
phenomena, which, as such, have neither relation nor resemblance, and
can only have some connection as corresponding to external objects. We
may, when seeking the reason why the bell did not ring, in order to
explain the cause of the change in the regular order of appearances,
think of various causes, which we now consider as mere appearances or
internal phenomena; we may have the following sensations: the rope
broken, or caught, the bell broken, or removed, or without a tongue.
We may attribute the failure of sound to any one of these sensations:
but nothing can possibly be more irrational than to attribute it to
them, if we regard them as mere internal facts; for as sensations, they
nowhere appear. We cannot discourse rationally if we do not make an
external object correspond to each of these sensations, of itself alone
sufficing to interrupt the connection between pulling the rope and the
vibration of the air which produces the sound.
31. Hence we conclude: First, that our sensations considered as purely
internal phenomena, are divided into two very different classes; some
depend upon our will, others do not; some have no mutual connection, or
are variable in their relations, at the pleasure of him who experiences
them; others have a certain connection which we can neither change
nor destroy. Secondly, we conclude that the existence as well as the
modifications of this last class, proceeds from causes not ourselves,
independent of our will, and outside of us. That instinct, therefore,
which impels us to refer these sensations to external objects, is
confirmed by reason: therefore the testimony of the senses, in so
far as it assures us of the reality of objects, is admissible at the
tribunal of philosophy.
This demonstrates, in a certain manner, the existence of bodies; for we
find, in philosophically examining the conception of body, something in
it distinct from our own being, the presence of which causes us such
and such sensations. We know not the intimate essence of bodies; but
even if we did know it, it would not aid our present purpose, for we
are not treating of the idea which a philosopher would in such a case
form, but of that formed by the generality of men.
CHAPTER VI.
IS THE EXTERNAL AND IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF SENSATIONS A FREE CAUSE?
32. A difficulty, at first sight serious, but in reality futile, may be
brought against the existence of bodies. Who knows, it may be asked,
but what some cause, not at all resembling the idea which we form of
bodies, produces in us all the phenomena that we experience? God may,
if he pleases, cause one or many sensations in us; and who shall assure
us that he does not? Who shall assure us that other beings may not do
the same, and so all our imaginations of a corporeal world be a pure
illusion?
33. The first and simplest solution that can be given is, that God,
being infinitely true, can neither deceive us himself, nor allow other
creatures to deceive us constantly and in a way that we cannot resist.
But this solution although well founded, just, and reasonable, labors
under the inconvenience of establishing the physical by recurring to
the moral order; and so it would never satisfy those who desire to see
the truth of the testimony of the senses demonstrated by arguments
drawn from the nature of things. Such arguments we think we can supply.
34. Our sensations do not proceed _immediately_ from a free cause; the
being that produces them, as well as that which experiences them, is
subject to fixed and necessary laws. To be convinced of this, we have
only to reflect that we cannot, if placed in certain conditions, fail
to experience a determinate sensation, and that if these conditions be
wanting, we cannot experience it. And this proves that we, as well as
the being which causes the impression in us, are subject to a necessary
order. Were it not thus, we could not produce the sensation even by
the means of certain conditions; for as its cause would be subject
to no law, but only to its own free will, it might a thousand times
happen, that our will would not agree with its will, and so the desired
impression would not be produced.
After experiencing a sensation of touch in which it seems that an
opaque body covers our eyes, we do not see, and we cannot with all our
efforts produce, the sensation called _seeing_; on the other hand, if
at a corresponding hour and place this sensation of contact ceases to
exist, we cannot possibly fail to experience the sensation of seeing
different objects. Here, therefore, we are subject to a necessity;
the being, also, that causes the sensations in us, is subject to a
like necessity; for if we perform the condition once or a thousand
times of closing our eyes, once or a thousand times the sensation will
disappear; or if we open them once or a thousand times in a light
place, so many times also the sensation will be produced; the same, if
we retain everything in the same state, and varied at our pleasure,
if we change our situation or the objects around us. There does,
therefore, exist without us, subject to necessary laws, a collection of
beings which produce our sensations.
35. It is remarkable not only that the influence they exert upon us
does not flow from election or spontaneity in them, but that they are
not even presented as endowed with an activity of their own. A painting
hung upon the wall produces in us the same sensation as often as we
look at it; and, saving the deterioration of time, it will continue
for ever to produce the same sensation.
It is, moreover, evident that these beings are subject to our action,
for we can, by acting upon them differently, make them produce
different impressions. We touch a ball, and the continuation of the
sensation of a hard, polished, spherical body, assures us that it is
one and the same being that produces it for a certain length of time;
and yet, in this interval, we may receive many and various sensations
from the same object, by presenting it to the light in different ways.
36. The subjection of these beings to necessary laws is not necessarily
with respect to sensations, but is rather a mutual connection of their
own. The connection of impressions which we receive from them is an
effect of the dependence of some of them upon others; so that, in
order to produce a determinate impression, we often employ an object
which is, in itself considered, of no direct use, but which brings
another into action, and so leads to what we desire. To raise a curtain
has no connection with a magnificent landscape; and yet, oftentimes,
we do nothing else when we wish to obtain a pleasant prospect. The
relation in question is not then of sensations, but of their objects;
the connection of these is what induces us to make use of one of them
in order to obtain another. There is, therefore, outside of us a
collection of beings subject to fixed laws, as well with respect to
our sensations as to themselves mutually; therefore the external world
exists, and the internal world, which represents it to us, is not a
pure illusion.
CHAPTER VII.
ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECTIVENESS OF SENSATIONS.
37. Is the external world such as we believe it to be? Are the beings,
called _bodies_, which cause our sensations in reality what we believe
them? May we not, even after having demonstrated the existence of these
beings, and their necessary subjection to constant laws, still doubt
whether we have demonstrated the existence of bodies? Does it suffice
for this to have proved the existence of external beings in relation
among themselves and with us by means of laws fixed and independent of
them as of ourselves?
38. Thoroughly to understand this question, it will be well to simplify
it, and confine it to a single object.
I hold in my hand and see an orange. I am certain, from what has just
been demonstrated, that an external object exists in relation with
other beings, and with myself, by necessary laws; I am also certain
that I may receive different impressions from it; I see its color,
size, and shape, perceive its odor, try its taste; feel in my hand its
size, weight, and form, its concavities and convexities, and also hear
a little noise when I press it with my hand.
The idea of body is composite, and such is that of the orange; for it
is that of something external, extended, colored, odorous, and savory.
Whenever all these circumstances exist together, whenever I receive
from an object these same impressions, I say that I see an orange.
39. Let us now examine how far the object corresponds to the sensations
it causes in us.
What do we mean when we say a thing is savory? Simply, that it produces
an agreeable impression upon our palate; and the same is true of
smell. Therefore, the two words, odorous and savory, express only
the _causality_ of these sensations resident in the external object.
We may say the same of color, for, although we commonly transfer the
sensation to the object, and openly contradict the philosophical theory
of light and color, this contradiction is less real than apparent; for
the judgment well examined is found to consist only in referring the
impression to determinate objects; so that when we for the first time
hear professors of physics tell us that colors are not in the object,
we easily accustom ourselves to reconcile the philosophical theory with
the impression of the sense; especially since this theory does not
render it less true that this or that impression comes to us from this
or that object, or its different parts.
40. Here, it is not difficult to explain the phenomena of sensation
or their correspondence with external objects; for the correspondence
is saved if these objects be really the cause (or occasion) of the
sensations. The question of extension is more difficult; for this is
as the basis of all other sensible properties; and abstracting its
constituting or not constituting the essence of bodies, it is certain
that we know no body without extension.
41. The following observation will render palpable the difference
between extension and other sensible qualities. He who has never
thought of the relation of external objects to his sensations is
indescribably confused; he in some sense transfers color, odor, taste,
and even sound, to objects themselves, and considers confusedly these
things to be qualities inherent in them. Thus the child and the
uneducated man believe the color green to be really in the foliage,
odor in the rose, sound in the bell, taste in the fruit. But this
is readily seen to be a confused judgment, of which they render no
perfectly clear account to themselves; a judgment which may be changed
or even destroyed without changing or destroying the relations of our
sensations with their objects. Even at a very tender age we easily
accustom ourselves to refer color to light, and even not to fix it
definitively, but to regard it as an impression produced upon our
sense by the action of that mysterious agent. It costs us no more to
consider smell as a sensation produced by the action of the effluvia
of bodies upon the organ of smell; we also cease to consider sound as
something inherent in the sonorous body, and come to see in it only the
impression caused upon the sense by the vibration of the air, excited
in its turn by the vibration of the sonorous body.
These philosophical considerations may, at first sight, seem to be
in contradiction to our judgment, but they do not change to us the
external world; they cause no inversion of our ideas of it; they only
make us fix our attention upon some relations which we had imperfectly
defined, and do not allow us to attribute to objects what in reality
does not belong to them. They make us limit the testimony of the senses
to their appropriate sphere, and in some manner rectify our judgments;
but the world continues the same that it was before, excepting that we
have discovered in the marvels of nature a closer relation with our own
being, and have perceived that our organization and our soul play a
more important part in them than we had imagined.
42. If we destroy extension, take this quality from external objects,
and regard it as only a mere sensation, of which we only know that
there is an external object which causes it, the corporeal world at
once disappears. The whole system of the universe will be reduced to
a collection of beings which cause us different impressions; without
the idea of extension we can neither form any idea of body, nor know
if all that we have thought of the world be aught else than a pure
illusion. I can easily resign my infantile belief that the color I see
in my hand is in it, or the noise made when I clap my hands is in them;
but I cannot, do what I will, lay aside the idea of extension; I cannot
imagine the distance from my wrist to the extremity of my fingers to
be only a pure illusion, that there only exists a being which causes
it without my knowing whether in reality this distance exists. I can
easily separate from the fruit which I find savory the quality of
savor; and I may, if I examine it philosophically, admit, without
any inconvenience, that it has nothing resembling taste, but that it
is only composed so to affect my palate as to produce an agreeable
sensation. But I cannot take from the fruit its extension; in no wise
can I regard it as something indivisible; I cannot possibly regard
the distance from one of its points to another as a mere sensation.
My efforts to consider the savory object as in itself indivisible are
all in vain; and if, for a single instant, I seem to have overcome the
instinct of nature, every thing is overturned. By the same right that
I make the fruit something indivisible, I may make the whole universe
so; but an indivisible universe is to me no universe; my intellect is
confounded, and all around me is annihilated. I am in worse than chaos;
for chaos is at least something, although the elements are in horrible
confusion and frightful darkness; but now I am worse off, for the
corporeal world, such as I have conceived it to be, returns to nothing.
CHAPTER VIII.
SENSATION OF EXTENSION.
43. Two of our senses perceive extension; sight and touch. Sound,
taste, and smell accompany extension, but are something different
from it. The sight perceives nothing not extended; extension is every
way inseparable from this sensation. We may be so enchanted by the
sweet harmony of many instruments as to forget the extension of the
instruments, the air, and our organs; but we cannot, in contemplating
a painting even in the midst of our most ardent enthusiasm, make its
extension vanish. If we withdraw from the _Transfiguration_ of Raphael
its extension, the marvel disappears; for even considered as a simple
phenomenon of our soul, continuity and distance enter of necessity into
its very essence.
The same is true of touch, although less generally so. Hardness
and softness, roughness and smoothness, squareness and roundness,
all involve extension; but it cannot be denied that there are some
impressions of touch, in which it is less clearly involved. The acute
pain of a puncture, and others felt without any known external cause,
are not so clearly referred to extension, but seem to have something
of that simplicity which distinguishes the impressions of the other
senses. However this may be, it is certain that the perception of
extension belongs in a special manner to sight and touch.
44. In order to form a clear idea of extension in its relations to
sensation, we will analyze it at some length.
And first of all, it is to be remarked, that extension involves
multiplicity. An extended being is of necessity a collection of
beings, more or less closely united by a bond which makes them all
constitute one whole, but does not prevent them from continuing many. A
splendid painting, wherein the unity of the artist's thought dominates,
does not cease to be composed of many parts; the _moral_ chain which
unites, does not identify them; it only connects, co-ordinates them,
and makes them conspire to one end. The firm adhesion of the molecules
forming the diamond does not prevent these molecules from being
distinct: the material chain unites, but does not identify them.
There is then no extension without multiplicity: where there is
extension, there is, rigorously speaking, not one only being, but many
beings.
45. Multiplicity does not constitute extension, for it may exist
without extension. Neither the multiplicity of sounds, of tastes, nor
of odors, constitutes extension. We conceive in the material, as in
the moral and intellectual orders, multiplicity of beings of different
orders, and yet this multiplicity involves no idea of extension.
Even if we confine ourselves to the purely mathematical order, we
find multiplicity without extension, in arithmetical and algebraic
quantities. Therefore multiplicity, although necessary, does not alone
suffice to constitute extension.
If we reflect upon the species of multiplicity required to constitute
extension, we shall observe that it must be accompanied by continuity.
Sensations of touch as well as of sight involve continuity; for it is
impossible for us to see or to touch, without receiving the impression
of objects continuous, immediately adjoining each other, co-existing
in their duration, and at the same time presented as continuous one
with another in space. Without this continuity, multiplicity does not
constitute extension. If, for example, we take four or more points on
the paper on which we now write, and by an abstraction consider them as
indivisible, this multiplicity will not constitute extension: we must
unite them by lines at least imaginary; and if continuity be wanting to
the body in which we suppose them situated, we shall find it necessary
to recur to the continuity of space; that is, to regard this space as a
collection of points whose continuation connects the first points. No
possible efforts can enable us to consider a collection of indivisible
points, neither continuous nor united by lines, as extension; this
collection will be to us as that of beings having no connection with
extension. It is worthy of observation, that if we assign them a
determinate position in space, this we do only by connecting them with
other points, by means of imaginary lines: for we cannot otherwise
conceive either distances or position in space. If we attempt to
abstract all this, we either fall into intellectual nothingness, we
annihilate all idea of the object, or we pass to another order of
beings having no relation either to extension or space. We quit matter
and sensations, and mount to the realm of spirits.
46. Multiplicity and continuity are therefore necessary to constitute
extension; and we believe that these two conditions suffice; for where
they exist, extension exists, and with them alone, we form the idea of
extension. The object of geometry is extension; and only multiplicity
and continuity constitute it. Lines, surfaces, solids, such as are the
object of geometry, are only this continuity considered in its greatest
abstraction. Empty space suffices, or rather is requisite for geometry;
since, it does not, in making its applications to bodies, find all the
exactness of continuity in the abstract.
47. If multiplicity and continuity constitute extension in space,
it really exists in the objects which cause our sensations. Basing
ourselves upon the relation of phenomena among themselves and to their
causes, we have shown that external objects correspond to sensations:
thus it is that this relation also exists with respect to multiplicity
and continuity; these two properties are therefore found in nature.
The impressions that we receive by sight and touch, are, although
we confine ourselves to a single object, multiple, and consequently
correspond to many objects: they are continuous, and consequently
correspond to continuous objects.
We will explain this reasoning. Looking at a painting, I receive an
impression coming from many different points; and this impression,
it must be observed, comes uninterruptedly from the whole surface
presented. If, as we have shown, the sight of one external point
sufficed to convince me of its existence, that of many will make me
sure of the existence of many; and the continuity of the impression
will also make me certain of the continuity of the impressing points.
If I touch the object seen, my touch will confirm that testimony
of sight, in what corresponds to it, that is, the multiplicity and
continuity, I experience the same continued succession of sensations;
and this shows me the existence and continuity of the objects causing
them.
48. In a few words, extension supposes the co-existence of many
objects, in such a way, however, that they are one by continuation of
others: of both, sensation makes us certain: therefore the testimony of
the senses suffices to make us certain that there are external objects,
and that they may produce various impressions. These ideas contain
every thing included in the idea of body: therefore the testimony of
the senses makes us certain of the existence of bodies.
CHAPTER IX.
OBJECTIVENESS OF THE SENSATION OF EXTENSION.
49. Having proved the testimony of the senses sufficient to assure us
of the existence of bodies, we now come to examine how far the ideas it
makes us form are correct. It is not enough to know that we may be sure
of the existence of extension; we must inquire if it in reality be such
as the senses represent it; and what we say of extension is applicable
to the other properties of bodies.
In our opinion, the only sensation that we transfer, and cannot help
transferring, to the external, is that of extension; all others relate
to objects only as effects to causes, not as copies to originals.
Sound, taste, and smell represent nothing resembling the objects
causing them, but extension does; we attribute extension to objects,
and without it we cannot conceive them. Sound outside of me is not
sound, but only a simple vibration of the air, produced by the
vibration of a body. Taste outside of me is not taste, but only a
body applied to an organ of which it causes a mechanical or chemical
modification. The same is true of smell. Even in light and colors,
outside of me, there is only a fluid which falls upon a surface,
and either directly or reflexly comes, or may come, to my eyes. But
extension outside of me, independently of all relation with the senses,
is true extension, is something whose existence and nature stand in
no need of my senses. When I perceive, or imagine that I perceive it,
there is in it, and in my impressions, something besides the relation
of an effect to its cause; there is the representation, the internal
image of what exists externally.
50. In order that the truth of what we have just advanced may be
perfectly understood, and strongly felt, we would offer the reader a
picture whence determinate sensations may be successively eliminated,
and made to mark the degree of elimination which it is possible to
reach, but not pass.
Let us suppose all animals at once to lose the sense of taste, or all
bodies to be by nature destitute of the property of causing by their
contact with an organ the sensation called taste. The external world,
nevertheless, continues to exist as before; the same bodies that caused
in us the sensations now lost, continue to exist, and may be applied
to the very organ they before affected, and cause in it sensations of
touch, as of soft or hard, warm or cold. Either savory bodies, or the
organs of animals, have undergone some change, which has interrupted
their previous relations; a cause which before produced an effect
is now seen to be impotent to produce it. This may be owing to a
modification of the bodies without changing their nature, so far as we
know it; and it is also possible that they have not been changed, but
that this difference arises solely from an alteration of the organs.
But in any case, the disappearance of this sensation has not made
anything resembling it disappear from the universe; if the change has
been only in the organs, external bodies remain untouched; and if it
has taken place in bodies, it has made them lose a _causing_ property
of the sensation, but not a property _represented_ by the sensation.
We have taken all taste from food, and the universe exists as before;
let us now take away all odors, by changing odoriferous bodies, or the
organ of smell. The same follows as in the case of taste. Odoriferous
bodies will continue to exist, and even transmit to our organ the
effluvia that before produced the sensation of smell; and the only
novelty will be the non-existence of that sensation. Either the
disposition to receive the necessary impression will be wanting in our
organs, or a causality will have disappeared from the universe, but not
a thing represented by the sensation. Gardens will not be despoiled of
their beauty, nor the fields of their luxuriant verdure; the tree will
still display its leafy bower, and the fair fruit hang from its boughs,
and be shaken by the wind.
Let us proceed in our destructive march, and now suddenly make all
animals deaf. The musician becomes the actor of a silent pantomime; the
bell-rope is pulled, and only the mute metal is struck; conversation
is reduced to oral gestures, and the howlings of brutes are only the
opening and closing of their mouths. But the air vibrates as before;
its columns strike as before the drum of the ear; nothing has been
changed; nothing has failed in the universe but one sensation. The
lightning ploughs the skies, rivers follow their majestic course,
torrents dash onwards with the same rapidity, and the proud cascade
still leaps from its lofty rocks, and displays its changing hues and
foaming waves.
But let us now commit the greatest cruelty; let us make all living
creatures blind. The sun still pours out his immense torrents of the
fluid we call light; it is reflected from surfaces, and is refracted
from the bodies it meets, and passes to the retinas of eyes that
formerly saw, but are now converted into insensible membranes, placed
behind a crystal; but every thing called color and sensation of light
has disappeared. Yet the universe exists as before, and the celestial
bodies still follow their immense orbits.
As it is most difficult for us to abstract the sensation of
light and colors from objects; or, in other words, as we have a
certain propensity to imagine that there really exist without us
impressions which are only in us, and to consider the sensation as a
representation of the exterior; so it costs us most to conceive all
living creatures to be blind, and nothing to remain of what sensations
of this kind represented to us, not even a fluid which reflects from
certain surfaces, and passes through some bodies, not otherwise than
as an invisible fluid. Wherefore, in condescension to the difficulty
which some experience in ceasing to externally realize what exists only
within them, we will frame our supposition differently; for it will
then be all that the demonstration requires, and we may eliminate from
objects whatever relates to any sensation excepting that of extension.
We will not then make all animals blind, nor practise the cruelty
of Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, but spare in our inversion of
the world that destructive instinct. It matters little that men and
animals are not blind, provided they cannot see. We will then leave
those organs untouched, but we will in return, take all light from
the universe; quench like faint torches the sun and stars and all the
celestial bodies, extinguish their feeblest scintillations upon the
earth, the tall tapers which illumine the rich man's dwelling, and the
fire kindled in the peasant's cot, the spark struck from the flint, and
the pale phosphorescences emitted from the graves of the dead. Every
thing is involved in obscurity, and it is as if that darkness which
rested upon the face of the abyss before the Creator said: _let there
be light_, were restored.
We must bear in mind that we have not, by plunging the world into such
frightful obscurity, changed any one of its laws. The gigantic orbs
describe as before with astonishing rapidity and admirable precision
their immense orbits. Hence we infer that although we destroy smell,
taste, sound, light, and colors, the world still exists, and we may
without difficulty so conceive it to be. We may even destroy the
sensation of touch, for it is easy to suppose that we perceive no
impression by this sense. We may substitute some sensations, whose
causes lie in bodies like those of heat and cold, hardness and
softness, for others, without therefore believing the universe no
longer to exist.
51. Let us now make another abstraction, and see what will happen.
Let us destroy extension. The world resists not this trial; the stars
vanish, and the earth disappears beneath our feet, distances no longer
exist, and motion is an absurdity: our own body fades away and the
whole universe is tumbled into nothingness, or if it continues somehow
to exist, it is totally different from what we now imagine it to be.
And so indeed it is. If we abstract extension, if we do not externally
realize that sensation, or idea, or whatever else it may be, which we
have of it, if we do not consider it as the representation of what
exists without us, every thing is overthrown: we know not what to think
either of our sensations, or their relation to the objects causing
them; things all go roundabout, and one basis of our cognitions fails:
in vain we stretch out our arms to lay hold of some fixed point; and we
ask in our trouble, if all that we perceive be only a pure illusion, if
Berkeley's extravagances be true.
52. It is worthy of remark that, even if we make extension objective
by transferring it to the external, it is not altogether correct to
say that it is represented by the sensation. It is better to say that
it is a receptacle of certain sensations, a condition necessary to
the functions of some of the senses, but not their object. Extension
abstracted from the sensations of sight and touch, is, as we have
already said, reduced to multiplicity and continuity. The knowledge
of it comes to us from the senses, but it is different from what the
senses represent it to us. When we take color and light from the
sensations, received through the sense of sight, we certainly still
retain the idea of a thing extended, but not of a visible thing, nor
of an object represented by the sensation. In like manner, if we
despoil the sensations received through the sense of touch, of those
qualities which affect this sense, the object that caused them is not
annihilated, neither is it represented by the impressions it transmits
to us.
53. These remarks show that we do not transfer our sensations to the
exterior, that they are a medium whereby our soul is informed, but not
images wherein it contemplates its objects. All sensations indicate an
external cause; but some, like those of sight and touch, in an especial
manner denote multiplicity and continuity, or extension.
Hence we also infer that the external world is not a pure illusion, but
that it really exists with its great masses, its various motions, its
unlimited geometry: but much of its beauty lies rather within ourselves
than in it. The Creator of it has in an especial manner, shown his
infinite wisdom and omnipotent hand in sensible beings, and above all
in intelligences. What would the universe be were there no one to feel
and to understand? The beauty, the harmony, the marvels of nature
consist in the close relation, the continuous communication of objects
and sensible beings. The rarest painting, were there no one to perceive
and admire its beauty, would be only a collection of lineaments, a
hieroglyphic of unintelligible characters; but so soon as it is seen by
a feeling and knowing being, it is animated, is what it ought to be;
and in this wonderful communication the object gains in beauty all that
it imparts of pleasure.
Suppose a collection of instruments disposed by the proper mechanism
to execute with admirable precision the highest conceptions of Bellini
or Mozart: to what is it all reduced if there be no sensitive being?
To vibrations in the air governed by some law, to mere movements of
a fluid, subject to geometrical necessity. Introduce a man, and the
geometry is changed into celestial harmony, then there is music,
enchantment.
The symmetry of the walks of a garden, the elegance of its shrubbery,
the color and beauty of its flowers, the fragrance of its odors, are,
without a sensitive being, only geometrical figures, surfaces disposed
according to some law, volumes of such or such a kind, columns of
fluids springing from them and disappearing in space. Introduce man,
and the geometrical figures are adorned with a thousand beauties, the
flowers covered with gay colors, and the columns of fluids changed into
exquisite perfumes.
CHAPTER X.
FORCE OF TOUCH TO MAKE SENSATIONS OBJECTIVE.
54. It has been said that touch is the surest, and perhaps the only
witness of the existence of bodies; for without it, all sensations
would be nothing more than simple modifications of our being, to which
we could attribute no external object. But this I do not believe to
be true. We receive by touch an impression, just as we do by the
other senses; this impression is in all cases an affection of our
being, and not something external. When, from the continuance of these
impressions, their order, and their independence of our will, we judge
them to proceed from objects without us, our judgment is true not only
of impressions of the sense of touch, but also of those of the other
senses.
55. One of the reasons whereon it has been attempted to base the
superiority of touch to attest the existence of bodies, is that it
gives us the idea or sensation of extension; for if we suppose a man
to be deprived of all his senses but that of touch, and to pass his
hand over the surface of a body, he will experience that continuity of
the sensation which involves extension. This observation of those who
maintain the supremacy of touch does not prove what they propose. If
we pass our sight over various objects, or the different parts of one
object, we shall experience the sensation of continuity just as clearly
as by touch. We cannot conceive why the sensation of extension must be
any clearer when the hand is passed along a balustrade than when it is
seen by the eyes.
56. The advocates of this opinion assert that we acquire by the touch
of our body a double sensation, which we do not by the other senses.
If we pass our hand over our forehead, we feel with both our hand and
our forehead, and so verify a continuity of sensations, all originating
and terminating in ourselves. Thus we are conscious that both the
sensations of our hand and our forehead belong to us.
But this reason, by some deemed conclusive, is nevertheless exceedingly
futile; it labors under the sophism called by dialecticians _begging
of the question_, for it supposes what was to be proved. The man
destitute of all senses but that of touch will, indeed, experience the
two sensations and their continuity; but what can he infer from them?
Does he even know that he has either hand or forehead? Suppose him not
to know, how is he to acquire this knowledge? Both sensations belong
to him, and of this he is internally conscious; but whence they came,
he knows not. Does the coincidence of the two sensations, perchance,
prove something in favor of the existence of his forehead and hand,
objects of which we suppose him to have no idea? If this coincidence
proved what is pretended, with still greater reason would it prove the
combination of some senses with others to elevate us to the knowledge
of the existence of bodies, and consequently that this knowledge is not
produced exclusively by touch. Whenever I have the sensation of the
motion of placing my hand before my eyes, I find that I lose sight of
the objects before me, and in their room is presented another always
the same, my hand. If, from this coincidence, I infer the existence of
external objects, the supremacy of touch is destroyed, for sight, also,
acts a part in the formation of such a judgment. I also observe that
when I have the sensation of clapping my hands together, I experience
the sensation of hearing the noise of their contact; if, therefore,
coincidence is of any account, hearing as well as touch comes in. What
I say concerning the clapping of my hands, is applicable to what I
experience when I pass a hand over any part of my body, for instance my
arm, so as to produce some noise. In this case there are two sensations
coincident and continuous.
It will, perhaps, be replied, that these examples refer to different
senses, and produce sensations of different kinds. This, however, is of
no consequence; for, if the being that perceives, infers the existence
of objects from the coincidence of various sensations, the supremacy of
touch is destroyed, which is what we undertook to demonstrate.
57. The sensation of the hand is not that of the forehead, for the
one is warmer or colder, harder or softer than the other, and so the
sensation caused by the hand upon the forehead will not be the same
as that produced upon the hand by the forehead. It is to be observed,
that the less difference we suppose between the two sensations, the
less lively will be the perception of their duality, and consequently
the less marked the coincidence on which the judgment is founded. Thus
by rigorously analyzing this matter we discover that the diversity of
sensations contributes in an especial manner to form judgments of the
existence of objects, and therefore the combination of two senses will
more conduce to this end than two sensations of one sense. Far, then,
from its being necessary to consider touch as alone or superior upon
this point, it is only to be held as auxiliary to the other senses.
In truth, it is almost beyond doubt that the sense of touch also
requires the aid of the other senses, and that the judgments resulting
from it are similar to those coming from the other senses. It is
probable that only after repeated trials do we refer the sensation of
touch to the object that causes it, or even to the part affected. The
man who has had his arm amputated, feels pain as if he still preserved
it; and this is because a repetition of acts has formed the habit
of referring the cerebral impression to the point where the nerves
transmitting it terminate. There is, therefore, no necessary relation
between the sense of touch and the object; and this sense is, like the
others, liable to illusions. Therefore, it is not exact to say that
the idea of body springs up under our hand, if this be understood as
excluding touch; for the same is true of the other senses, particularly
of sight.
CHAPTER XI.
INFERIORITY OF TOUCH COMPARED WITH OTHER SENSES.
58. That superiority, or rather that exclusive privilege, conceded by
Condillac and other philosophers to touch, not only has no foundation,
as we have just seen, but seems to be in contradiction to the very
nature of this sense. In short, it assigns the first place to the
coarsest, the most material of all the senses.
It cannot be known what ideas a man reduced to the one sense of touch
would form of things; but it seems to me that far from entering into
clear and vivid communication with the external world, and finding a
sufficient foundation whereon to base his cognitions, he would grope
in the profoundest ignorance, and labor under the most transcendental
errors.
59. If we compare touch with sight, or even with hearing and smell, we
shall at once perceive a very important difference to its disadvantage.
Touch transmits to us only impressions of objects immediately joining
our body; whereas, the other three, and especially sight, place us in
communication with far distant objects. The fixed stars are separated
from us by a distance such as almost to pass our imagination, and yet
we see them. Neither smell nor hearing, it is true, go so far; but the
former fails not to warn us of the existence of a garden at many paces
from us; and the latter gives us notice of a battle fought at many
leagues distance, of the electric spark which has cloven the clouds
on the confines of the horizon, or of the tempest roaring over the
immensity of ocean.
60. The limitation of touch to what is immediate to it involves a
scarcity of the ideas originating in it alone, and of necessity places
it in a lower grade than the other three senses, particularly sight.
Let us in order to form clear ideas upon this point compare the range
of sight with that of touch relatively to some object, for example, a
building. By means of sight we in a few instants obtain an idea of its
front, and other external parts; and in a short time become acquainted
with its internal divisions, with the arrangement even of its ornaments
and furniture. Can we accomplish all this by touch? Even if we suppose
the most delicate sense of touch, and the most tenacious memory of the
impressions communicated, long hours would be necessary to pass the
hand over the front of the building, and form some idea of it. How will
it be when we come to the whole exterior of the building? the whole
interior? We see that it would be necessary to renounce such a task,
that the elaborate workmanship of a cornice, a pedestal, a peristyle,
the magnificence of a tower, a cupola, the boldness of an arch, a
vault, which the eye seizes in an instant, would require the poor being
possessed of touch alone to go often on all fours, climb over dangerous
scaffoldings, and expose himself to the danger of falling from fearful
heights; and yet he would never be able to acquire the millionth part
of what the eyes so easily and so quickly perceive.
Apply these observations to a city, to vast countries, to the universe,
and see what immense superiority sight has over touch.
61. We do not indeed find so vast a superiority when we compare touch
with the other senses; nevertheless, it does exist in a very high
degree.
The first difference is the ability to act from a distance. Certainly,
touch also may in some manner perceive the presence or absence of the
sun, by means of the impressions of heat and cold; and in like manner
the presence or absence, and the more or less close proximity of some
bodies, etc.; but not only are these impressions far from having the
same variety and rapidity as those of hearing, but they would not
even give us any idea of distance, if we had not already perceived it
otherwise than by touch.
Heat and cold, dryness and moistness, are what the impressions which
some bodies, though distant, may make upon touch are reduced to; and
these impressions are clearly of a nature to be exposed to many serious
errors.
62. If we suppose a man, having only the sense of touch, to know the
presence or absence of the sun above the horizon, his only rule being
the temperature of the atmosphere, which depends upon a thousand
causes having no connection with the orb of day, it will happen that
the natural or artificial change of it will lead him into error. The
dampness which we perceive around a lake is a sign of the nearness
of the water; but do we not a thousand times experience the feeling
of dampness from causes operating on the atmosphere, altogether
independent of the waters of a lake?