SENSIBLE INTUITION.
69. Intuition, properly so called, consists in the act of the soul by
which it perceives an object that effects it: this the signification of
the Latin word derived from the verb _intueri_, to see a thing which is
present, indicates.
70. Intuition belongs only to perceptive powers, to those by which
the subject affected distinguishes between its affection and the
object causing it. We do not pretend to say that this must be a reflex
distinction, but simply that the internal act must refer to an object.
If we suppose a being to experience various affections, but to neither
refer them to any object, nor reflect upon them itself; this being can
never with propriety be said to have true intuition, for intuition
seems to involve the exercise of an activity occupied with a present
object. The object of intuition need not always be an external being;
it may be an affection or action of the soul made objective by a reflex
act.
71. The sensations which are with the greatest propriety called
intuitive, are those of sight and touch; for, since it is impossible
for us, when we perceive extension, to regard it as a purely subjective
fact, the acts of seeing and feeling necessarily involve relation
to an object. The other senses, although they may have a certain
relation to extension, do not perceive it directly, so that were they
to stand alone, they would partake more of the affective than of the
intuitive; that is, the soul would be affected by the sensations, but
would be under no necessity of referring them to external objects.
If reflection made upon these sensations come to teach, as in effect
it would teach that their cause is a being distinct from those that
experience them, there would be no true intuition; not for the senses,
because they would remain foreign to complex combinations; nor for the
understanding, because it would then know the cause of the sensations,
not by intuition, but by discursion.
72. We infer from this, that not every sensation is an intuition;
and that the imaginary reproductions of past sensations, or the
imaginary production of possible sensations, although repeatedly styled
intuitions, are, since they do not refer to an object, unworthy of the
name. We ought, nevertheless, to observe that the phenomena of purely
internal sensibility do, perhaps, owe to the habit of reflection their
non-reference to objects. Reflection perceives the difference of
time, the more or less vividness of sensations, their greater or less
constant connection, and also other circumstances; and it is enabled
by these to distinguish between representations which do really refer
to an object, such as external sensations, and those that have only a
past or possible object, such as purely internal representations. Thus
experience teaches us that the purely internal sensibility, wholly
abandoned to itself, transfers whatever is presented to it to the
external world, without the aid of reflection, and converts imaginary
appearances into realities. This is verified in sleep, or even in our
waking hours, when by some cerebral inversion the sensibility works by
itself alone, and entirely free of reflection.
73. The reason why the sensibility left to itself, renders all its
impressions objective, is to be looked for in the fact, that being a
non-reflective faculty, it cannot distinguish between a purely internal
affection, and one coming from without. Since comparison, however
inconsiderable it may be, always implies reflection, sensibility does
not compare. Hence it happens that when the subject does nothing
but feel, it cannot appreciate the differences of sensations, by
calculating the degrees of their vividness, nor ever perceive the
existence or want of order and constancy in their connection.
The faculty of feeling is perfectly blind to all but its determinate
object; whatever it does not discover in this so far as it is its
object, does in no manner exist for it. We can now see why, when left
to itself, it will render its impressions objective, and believe itself
intuitive by converting simple appearances into realities.
74. It is worthy of notice, that of the sensitive faculties, some
would always be intuitive, that is, would always refer to an external
object, if reflection did not accompany them; whilst others would never
be intuitive, not even if separated from reflection, or unaccompanied
by those which are by their nature intuitive. To the former class
belong the representative faculties, properly so called, that is, those
which affect the sensitive subject by presenting to it a form, the real
or apparent image of an object. Such are those of sight and of touch,
which can neither exist nor be conceived without this representation.
Other sensations, on the contrary, offer no form to the sensitive
subject; they are simple affections of the subject, although they
proceed from an external cause; if we refer them to objects, this we do
by reflection; and when this warns us that we have in attributing to
the object not only the principle of causality, but also the sensation
in itself, carried the reference too far, we easily recognize the
illusion, and lay it aside. This does not occur in representative
sensations; no one, no matter how great efforts he may make, will ever
be able to persuade himself that beyond himself there is nothing real,
nothing resembling the sensible representation in which objects are
presented as extended.
75. When we say that some sensations would not be intuitive were they
not accompanied by reflection, we do not mean to say that man refers
them to an object, after explicit reflection, for we cannot forget what
we have already said when explaining at length the instinctive way in
which our faculties develop themselves prior to all reflection, in
their relations with the corporeal world; but only that no necessary
relation to an object as represented can be discovered in these
sensations considered in themselves, and in perfect isolation; and
that, probably, if a confused reflection be not mingled with the
instinct which makes us render them objective, there at least enters
some influence of other sensations, which are by their proper object
representative.