ELEMENTS AND VARIETY OF THE CHARACTERS OF SENSIBLE REPRESENTATION.
114. I now come to examine the primitive elements of our mental
combinations. I shall begin with their sensible elements. Extension
enters into every act of representative sensibility; without it nothing
is represented to us, and sensations are reduced to mere affections of
the soul, having no relation to any object.
115. Extension, of itself, abstracted from its limitability, is
susceptible of no combination; it only offers a vague, indefinite,
immense representation, from which nothing distinct of itself results.
But if limitability be joined to extension, figurability, that is, the
infinite field over which geometrical science extends, will result.
116. _Extension_ and _limitability_ are then the two elements of
sensible intuition. These elements may be offered to us in two ways,
either joined to sensations which present to us determinate objects,
or as productions of our own internal activity. If we see the disc
of the moon, we have an intuition of the former class; and if we
study the properties of a circle by producing within ourselves its
representation, this will be an intuition of the latter class.
117. This internal activity, by which, at our will or caprice, we
produce an indefinite number of representations, with an indefinite
variety of forms, is an important phenomenon and one worthy of
attention. It shows us that the productive activity is not limited
to the purely intellectual order, since we detect it in the sensible
order, not in any way whatever, but as unrolled on an infinite scale.
Suppose a right line to be produced to infinity, besides it and in the
same plane, we may infinite other lines; the variety of angles in which
we may consider the position of the different lines will extend to the
infinite; so that with right lines alone, the productive activity in
the order of sensibility will know no limit. If we substitute curves
for right lines, their combinations in form, in nature, in their
respective positions and relations with determinate axes, will likewise
be infinite: so that without quitting the sensible order, we discover
within ourselves a force productive of infinite representations, and
one needing no elements besides terminable or figurable extension.
118. The representative sensible faculty develops itself sometimes by
the presence of an object; at other times, spontaneously, without any
dependence on the will; and finally, at other times, in consequence of
a free act. This is not the place to examine in what way the phenomenon
of representation is connected with the affections of the corporeal
organs; at present, we propose only to designate and explain facts in
the ideological sphere, absolutely abstracting their physiological
aspect.
Among the sensible representations just classified, which we may call
_passive_, _spontaneous_, and _free_, there are differences worthy of
observation.
119. Passive representation is given to the soul, independently of
its activity. If we be placed in presence of an object, with our eyes
open, it will be impossible not to see it, or even not to see it in
a certain manner, if we do not change the direction of our eyesight
or other condition of vision. For this reason, the soul seems, in the
exercise of its senses, to be purely passive, since its representations
necessarily depend on the conditions to which its corporeal organs in
their relation to objects, are subject.
120. Spontaneous representation, or the faculty productive of sensible
representations, seems also, since it operates independently of
external objects and of the will, to be more or less passive, and its
exercise to depend upon organic affections. And the fact that these
sensations are wont to exist without any order, or at most, if they
are recollections of old sensations, with that only which they had at
another time, appears to indicate it. It is also worthy of note that
these representations are sometimes offered to us, in spite of all the
efforts of the will to dissipate and forget them: some are so tenacious
as for a long time to triumph over all the resistance of freewill.
It is not easy to explain this phenomenon without recurring to organic
causes, which, on determinate occasions, produce the same effect upon
the soul, as the impressions of the external senses. It is certain that
the internal representation reaches, in certain cases, so high a point
of vividness, that the subject confounds it with the impressions of the
senses. This can only be explained by saying that the interior organic
affection has become so powerful, as to be equivalent to that which the
impression of an object operating upon the external organ, could have
caused.
121. In this spontaneous production it is to be remarked that present
representations do not always correspond with others previously
received; but a power of combination is developed in them from which
result imaginary objects entirely new. This combination is sometimes
exercised in a perfectly blind manner, and then follow extravagant
results; but, at other times, this activity subjected to certain
conditions produces, independently of free will, objects artistically
beautiful and sublime.
Genius is nothing else than the spontaneity of the imagination and
sentiment, developed in subordination to the conditions of the
beautiful. Artists, not gifted with genius, do not lack strength of
will to produce works of genius; nor are they wanting in imagination
to reproduce a beautiful object if they have once seen it; they do not
lack discernment and taste to distinguish and admire beautiful objects,
nor are they ignorant of the rules of art or of all that can be said to
explain the character of beauty; what they lack is that instinctively
fine spontaneity which develops itself in the most recondite
sinuosities of the soul, and far from being dependent upon the free
will of its possessor, directs and domineers over him, pursues him in
sleep as in the hours of waking, in the time of recreation as in that
of business, and often consumes the very existence of the privileged
man, as a furious fire bursts the sides of the frail cage that holds it.
122. Free production occurs when representations are offered to us by
command of our will, and under the conditions it prescribes, as in
works of art, and in the combinations of those figures which constitute
the object of the science of geometry.
123. This _a priori_ construction cannot be referred to a type existing
in our imagination; since, as this type would then be the sensible
representation itself, it would not need to be constructed. How then
is it possible to form a representation of which we have not already
the image? It is not enough to possess the elements, that is, figurable
extension, since with them infinite figures may be constructed;
something else then is needed, something to serve as a rule, in order
that the desired representation may result.
For the better understanding of this, I would observe that sensible
intuitions are allied to general conceptions, by whose aid they may
be reconstructed. Although, in reality, no sensible representation
is offered to us, of any figure whatsoever, for example, a regular
hexagon; the conception formed of the ideas, _six_, _line_, _equality
of angles_, is all that we need to produce in our interior the sensible
representation of the hexagon, and to construct it within us, if we
require it.
This shows us that the free activity producing determinate sensible
representations is based upon general conceptions, which, though
independent of sensibility, refer to it in an indeterminate manner.
Hence, also, it follows, that the understanding may, if it observe the
conditions to which the elements furnished by sensibility in their
respective cases, are subject, conceive the sensible indeterminately,
without the intellectual act being referred to any determinate
intuition.
124. If we analyze the object of these general conceptions, referred
to sensible intuition, also considered in general, the understanding,
while occupied in them, seems to be taken up with things not distinctly
offered to it, but retained only by certain signs; confident, however,
that it can develop whatever they involve, and contemplate it with
perfect clearness.