FUNDAMENTAL
PHILOSOPHY.
BY
REV. JAMES BALMES.
_TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH_
BY
HENRY F. BROWNSON, M.A.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
New York:
D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 164 WILLIAM STREET,
BOSTON:--128 FEDERAL STREET.
MONTREAL:--COR. OF NOTRE DAME AND ST. FRANCIS XAVIER STS.
1856.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856,
By D. & J. SADLIER & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
NEW YORK:
BILLIN & BROTHER, PRINTERS, XX NORTH WILLIAM ST.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
BOOK FOURTH.
ON IDEAS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Cursory View of Sensism 3
II. Condillac's Statue 6
III. Difference between Geometrical Ideas and the
Sensible Representations which accompany them 12
IV. The Idea and the Intellectual Act 15
V. Comparison of Geometrical with Non-Geometrical
Ideas 20
VI. In what the Geometrical Idea consists; and what
are its Relations with Sensible Intuition 25
VII. The Acting Intellect of the Aristotelians 29
VIII. Kant and the Aristotelians 33
IX. Historical View of the Value of Pure Ideas 42
X. Sensible Intuition 50
XI. Two Cognitions: Intuitive and Discursive 54
XII. The Sensism of Kant 57
XIII. Existence of Pure Intellectual Intuition 59
XIV. Value of Intellectual Conceptions.--Abstraction
made from Intellectual Intuition 62
XV. Illustrations of the Value of General
Conceptions 65
XVI. Value of Principles, independently of Sensible
Intuition 68
XVII. Relations of Intuition with the rank of the
Perceptive Being 71
XVIII. Aspirations of the Human Soul 74
XIX. Elements and variety of the characters of
Sensible Representation 76
XX. Intermediate Representations between Sensible
Intuition and the Intellectual Act 81
XXI. Determinate and Indeterminate Ideas 84
XXII. Limits of our Intuition 88
XXIII. Of the Necessity involved in Ideas 92
XXIV. Existence of Universal Reason 96
XXV. In what does Universal Reason consist? 99
XXVI. Remarks on the Real Foundation of Pure
Possibility 102
XXVII. Individual and Intellectual Phenomena
explained by the Universal Subsisting Reason 105
XXVIII. Observations on the Relation of Language to
Ideas 108
XXIX. Origin and Character of the relation between
Language and Ideas 112
XXX. Innate Ideas 115
BOOK FIFTH.
IDEA OF BEING.
I. Idea of Being 125
II. Simplicity and Indeterminateness of the Idea of
Being 127
III. Substantive and Copulative Being 129
IV. Being, the Object of the Understanding, is not
the Possible, Inasmuch as Possible 134
V. A Difficulty Solved 138
VI. In what Sense the Idea of Being is the Form of
the Understanding 141
VII. All Science is founded in the Postulate of
Existence 143
VIII. The foundation of Pure Possibility, and the
Condition of its Existence 147
IX. Idea of Negation 150
X. Identity; Distinction; Unity; Multiplicity 153
XI. Origin of the Idea of Being 155
XII. Distinction between Essence and Existence 161
XIII. Kant's Opinion of Reality and Negation 164
XIV. Recapitulation and Consequences of the Doctrine
concerning the Idea of Being 168
BOOK SIXTH.
UNITY AND NUMBER.
I. Preliminary Considerations on the Idea of Unity 175
II. What is Unity? 176
III. Unity and Simplicity 180
IV. Origin of the Tendency of our Mind to Unity 183
V. Generation of the Idea of Number 187
VI. Connection of the Ideas of Number with their
Signs 191
VII. Analysis of the Idea of Number in Itself and
its Relations with Signs 194
BOOK SEVENTH.
ON TIME.
I. Importance and Difficulty of the Subject 201
II. Is Time the Measure of Movement? 203
III. Similarities and Differences between Time and
Space 206
IV. Definition of Time 211
V. Time is Nothing Absolute 213
VI. Difficulties in the explanation of Velocity 215
VII. Fundamental Explanation of Succession 219
VIII. What is Co-existence? 223
IX. Present, Past, and Future 226
X. Application of the preceding Doctrine to several
important Questions 231
XI. The Analysis of the Idea of Time confirms its
resemblance to the Idea of Space 234
XII. Relations of the Idea of Time to Experience 236
XIII. Kant's Opinion 239
XIV. Fundamental Explanation of the Objective Possibility
and of the Necessity of the Idea of Time 242
XV. Important Corollaries 243
XVI. Pure Ideal Time and Empirical Time 245
XVII. Relations of the Idea of Time and the
Principle of Contradiction 247
XVIII. Summing up 254
XIX. A glance at the Ideas of Space, Number, and
Time 257
BOOK EIGHTH.
THE INFINITE.
I. Transitory View of the Actual State of
Philosophy 263
II. Importance and Anomaly of the Questions on the
Idea of the Infinite 268
III. Have we the Idea of the Infinite? 269
IV. The Limit 272
V. Considerations on the Application of the Idea of
the Infinite to continuous quantities, and to
Discrete Quantities, in so far as these last are
expressed in Series 274
VI. Origin of the Vagueness and Apparent Contradictions
in the Application of the Idea of the Infinite 278
VII. Fundamental Explanation of the Abstract Idea
of the Infinite 281
VIII. The Definition of Infinity confirmed by
Application to Extension 285
IX. Conception of an Infinite Number 289
X. Conception of Infinite Extension 292
XI. Possibility of Infinite Extension 294
XII. Solution of Various Objections against the
Possibility of an Infinite Extension 296
XIII. Existence of Infinite Extension 302
XIV. Possibility of an Actual Infinite Number 304
XV. Idea of Absolutely Infinite Being 311
XVI. All the Reality contained in Indeterminate
Conceptions is affirmed of God 315
XVII. All that is not contradictory in Intuitive
Ideas is affirmed of God 317
XVIII. Intelligence and the Absolutely Infinite
Being 321
XIX. Summing up 324
BOOK NINTH.
ON SUBSTANCE.
I. Name and General Idea of Substance 331
II. Application of the Idea of Substance to
Corporeal Objects 333
III. Definition of Corporeal Substance 338
IV. Relation of Corporeal Substance to its
Accidents 340
V. Considerations on Corporeal Substance in Itself 344
VI. Substantiality of the Human Me 347
VII. Relation of the Proposition, I Think, to the
Substantiality of the Me 349
VIII. Remarks on the Soul's Intuition of Itself 352
IX. Kant's Opinion of the Arguments proving the
Substantiality of the Soul 355
X. Kant's Opinion of the Argument which he calls
Paralogism of Personality 366
XI. Simplicity of the Soul 377
XII. Kant's Opinion of the Argument proving the
Simplicity of the Soul 381
XIII. In what manner the Idea of Substance may be
applied to God 394
XIV. An important Remark, and Summary 397
XV. Pantheism examined in the Order of Ideas 399
XVI. Pantheism examined in the Order of External
Facts 403
XVII. Pantheism examined in the Order of Internal
Facts 406
XVIII. Fichte's Pantheistic System 409
XIX. Relations of Fichte's System to the Doctrines
of Kant 424
XX. Contradiction of Pantheism to the Primary Facts
of the Human Mind 429
XXI. Rapid glances at the Principal Arguments of
Pantheists 434
BOOK TENTH.
NECESSITY AND CAUSALITY.
I. Necessity 439
II. The Unconditioned 442
III. Immutability of Necessary and Unconditioned
Being 445
IV. Ideas of Cause and Effect 448
V. Origin of the Notion of Causality 451
VI. Formula and Demonstration of the Principle of
Causality 454
VII. The Principle of Precedency 457
VIII. Causality in Itself.--Insufficiency and Error
of some Explanations 467
IX. Necessary and sufficient Conditions of true
Absolute Causality 474
X. Secondary Causality 476
XI. Fundamental Explanation of the Origin of the
Obscurity of Ideas in what relates to Causality 479
XII. Causality of Pure Force of the Will 483
XIII. Activity 486
XIV. Possibility of the Activity of Bodies 493
XV. Conjectures as to the Existence of Corporeal
Activity 496
XVI. Internal Causality 500
XVII. Remarks on Spontaneity 508
XVIII. Final Causality;--Morality 513
XIX. Various Explanations of Morality 520
XX. Fundamental Explanation of the Moral Order 527
XXI. A Glance at the Work 543
BOOK FOURTH.
ON IDEAS.
FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
CURSORY VIEW OF SENSISM.
1. Having spoken of sensations, we come now to ideas. We must, however,
before making this transition, inquire if there be in our mind ought
else than sensation, if all the inward phenomena which we experience be
ought else than sensations transformed.
Man, when he rises from the sphere of sensations, from those phenomena
which place him in relation with the external world, meets a new order
of phenomena, of whose presence he is equally conscious. He cannot
reflect upon sensations without being conscious of something more
than sensation; nor on the recollection or the inward representation
of sensations, without discovering something distinct both from the
recollection and from the representation.
2. According to Aristotle, there is nothing in the understanding which
has not first been in the senses; and the schools have for long ages
re-echoed this thought of the philosopher: _nihil est in intellectu
quod prius non fuerit in sensu_. The order, therefore, of human
knowledge, is from the external to the internal. Descartes pretended
that we ought to invert this order, and proceed from the internal to
the external. Malebranche, his disciple, went farther, and was of
opinion that the understanding, enfolded in itself, should hold only
the least possible intercourse with the external world. According to
him, no atmosphere is so fatal to intellectual health as that of the
world of the senses; sensations are an inexhaustible fountain of error,
and the imagination is an enchantress only the more dangerous because
she has fixed her dwelling at the very portal of the intellect, which,
with her seductive beauty and gorgeous ornaments, she hopes to rule at
her pleasure.
3. Locke strove to rehabilitate the old Aristotelian maxim, joined,
however, to the criterion of observation: besides sensation he admitted
only reflection, but he taught that the mind was endowed with innate
faculties. His disciple, Condillac, not satisfied with this, taught
that all the actions of our mind were simply sensations transformed:
instead of distinguishing with Locke two sources of our ideas, the
senses and reflection, he thought it more exact to admit only one, as
well because reflection is in its root only sensation, as because it is
rather the channel by which ideas originating in the senses pass, than
their source.
Judgment, reflection, desires, and passions are in Condillac's
estimation nothing else than sensation transformed in various modes.
It seemed to him, therefore, very idle to suppose the mind to have
received immediately from nature the faculties with which it is
endowed. Nature has given us organs which show us by pleasure or pain
what we ought to seek or to avoid; but here she stops, and leaves to
experience the task of leading us to contract habits and finish the
work she has commenced.[1]
[1] _Traité des Sensations._ Préface.
4. In view of this system, in which not even natural faculties are
conceded to the soul, and those which it does possess are considered
as only simple effects of sensation, it is worthy of remark how soon
its author contradicts himself; for, almost in the same breath, he
professes to be an occasionalist, and pretends that the impressions of
our organization are nothing more than the occasion of our sensations.
Can there be a natural faculty more inexplicable than that of placing
one's self in relation with objects which do not produce sensations,
but are only the occasion of their production. If such a faculty as
this be conceded to the mind, why may we not admit others? Is not that
a very singular natural faculty which perceives by means of causes
operating only occasionally? In this case, is there not attributed
to the mind a natural faculty of producing sensations on occasion of
organic impressions, or is it not supposed to be an immediate relation
with another and superior being which produces them? Why may not this
internal activity, this receptivity, apply itself to ideas? Why must
not other innate faculties be conceded to the mind? And why does he
pretend not to suppose them, when his whole argument is based upon the
supposition of their existence?
Hostile as he professes to be to hypotheses and systems, Condillac
is eminently addicted both to systems and hypotheses. He imagines
an origin and a nature of ideas of his own, and to them he insists
that every thing must conform. To give a better idea of Condillac's
opinions, and to combat them at once successfully and loyally, we will
briefly analyze the groundwork of his _Treatise on Sensations_, the
book on which he most prides himself, and in which he flatters himself
to have given to his doctrine its highest degree of clearness and
certainty.