seems beyond a doubt, we must beware of solving too quickly the present
question. With respect to indeterminate conceptions, we see no possible
limit; but would this still be so, if we had an intuitive knowledge of
the species? Are we sure that in the particular qualities of beings,
combined with limitation and dependence, which are essential to them,
we should not discover a term beyond which they cannot go, by reason of
the constitution of their nature? How impotent philosophy is to solve
such questions!
102. Whatever may be concluded as to this infinity of species and their
respective perfection, I do not believe that an actually infinite
number can exist. Among these species must be counted intelligences
which exercise their acts in succession. This is evidently so; for
in this number are included human minds which think and wish in a
_successive_ manner. The acts of these intelligences may be numbered:
this we know from consciousness. Therefore there would never be an
infinite number, because these acts, being successive, can never be all
at the same time.
103. It may be answered that in this case we might suppose that
spirits, including our own, have only one act of intelligence and will.
To this I reply, that besides contradicting the nature of created
beings, which, because they are finite, must be subject to change, it
is also open to another objection, inasmuch as it eliminates at once
many species of beings, and thus, instead of preserving the infinity,
renders it impossible. Who can deny the possibility of that which
exists? If, as our experience informs us, there now exist beings of
successive activity, why would not these beings be possible on the
supposition that the divine omnipotence had exerted all its infinite
creative power?
104. This difficulty, which is founded on the nature of finite
intelligences, seems to render the existence of an infinite number
impossible, and it becomes still stronger if we examine the question
under a more general aspect.
The existence of an absolutely infinite number excludes the existence
of any other number. That which is numbered is not substance alone,
but its modifications also. This has already been demonstrated with
regard to intelligences, and is true in general of all finite beings.
Every finite being is changeable, and its changes may be counted. The
modifications produced by the changes cannot all exist at once, for
some of them exclude others. Therefore, an actual infinite number is
never possible.
105. Let us apply these considerations to the sensible world. Motion
is a modification to which bodies are subject. This modification
is essentially successive. A motion, the parts of which co-exist,
is absurd. The co-existence of different states, which result from
different motions, is also absurd: things that are contradictory cannot
exist at the same time, and many of these situations are contradictory,
because one of them necessarily involves the negation of others.
If a line falling on another line revolve around a point, it will
successively describe different angles. When it forms an angle of 45
degrees, it will not form an angle of 30 degrees, nor of 40, nor 70,
nor 80; these angles mutually exclude one another. A portion of matter
will form different figures, according to the arrangement which is
given to the parts of which it is composed. When these parts form a
globe, they will not form a cube; these two solids cannot exist at the
same time, formed of the same portion of matter.
106. This variety of motion and form can be numbered. At every step we
measure motion, applying to it the idea of number; at every instant we
count the forms of a portion of matter, as for example, a piece of wax,
to which different forms have been given successively: whatever be the
number of the beings which we suppose to exist, every one of them will
be susceptible of transformations which may be counted. Therefore, in
the very nature of things, there is an intrinsic impossibility of the
existence of an actual infinite number.
107. I believe that these arguments fully demonstrate the impossibility
of an actual infinite number; and if I do not dare to say that I am
sure of having given a complete demonstration, it is because the
nature of the question presents so many and so great difficulties, it
so bewilders and confounds the weak understanding of man, that there
is always reason to fear that even those arguments, which seem the
clearest and most conclusive, may conceal some fault which vitiates
their force, and makes an illusion appear an incontestible truth. Still
I cannot but observe that to combat this demonstration, it seems, to me
that it would be necessary to deny our primary ideas, the exclusion of
being and not-being, and the necessity of succession, of time, to the
realization of contradictory things.
108. Perhaps it may be objected to me that contradictory modifications
are not a part of the infinite number, which only relates to the
possible: but this does not destroy my demonstration; it rather
confirms it. For as the absolute infinite number implies the absolute
negation of all limit, when, in treating of the realization of this
conception, I meet with things that are contradictory, I say that the
realization of the conception is contradictory, because the general and
indeterminate conception is more extended than all possible number.
109. The origin of their greater conception is, that the indeterminate
conception abstracts all conditions, that of time included; but the
reality does not and cannot abstract these conditions. Hence arises the
conflict between the conception and its realization, and this explains
why the conception is not contradictory, although its realization is
impossible.
Let us suppose a number realized containing all the species and
individuals possible, we may reflect on the conception of the infinite
number, and say that the true infinity of the number requires the
absolute negation of all limit; but thinking of the collection of
things which exists, we can find it a limit, for concerning this
collection of units in general, we may add to it another number
expressing the new modifications which may be produced. At the instant
A, the number of units may be expressed by M. At the instant B, there
will be a new collection of units which may be expressed by N. The sum
of M + N will be greater than either M or N alone. Therefore, neither
M nor N will be absolutely infinite. The indeterminate conception
abstracts instants and relates to the sum above; hence it includes
things which cannot co-exist.
CHAPTER XV.
IDEA OF ABSOLUTELY INFINITE BEING.
110. We are entering on a difficult question. Serious difficulties are
found in the idea of the infinite in general; the idea of absolutely
infinite being is not less difficult. We have seen that there are
different orders of infinities, each one of which is a conception
formed by the association of the two ideas of a particular being
and the negation of limit. But it is easy to see that none of the
infinities hitherto examined can be called infinite in the strict
sense of the term: they are all limited under many aspects,--none of
them is an infinitely perfect being. The idea of this being is not
fully possessed by us while in this life; still it may be analyzed and
explained with more clearness than it is by most authors. The great
difficulties, which we meet with in this attempt, show the necessity of
deep meditation, and the transcendency of the errors which originate in
a wrong understanding of the word infinite when applied to God.
111. What is an absolutely infinite being? It might seem that we had
said all that is necessary in defining the absolutely infinite being
to be that which has no negation of being: but this is a common notion
which leaves much to be desired. It is an indisputable truth that the
infinite being has no negation of being; but it is a truth so far
beyond our reach that it presents to our weak understanding only a
gloomy confusion, as soon as we attempt to determine exactly its true
sense.
112. If the absolutely infinite being has no negation of being, it
seems that nothing can be denied, but that everything may be affirmed
of it, for it must be all; in this case pantheism results from the
idea of infinity. If a true negative proposition can be established in
relation to the infinite being, there is in it a negation of being, or
of the predicate which is denied in the proposition.
It cannot be said that when negative propositions are applied to God,
only a negation is denied, for in reality positive things are denied of
God. When I say that God is not extended, I deny of him a reality which
is extension. When I say God is not the universe, I deny of him the
reality of the universe. Therefore negative propositions, as applied to
God, deny not only negations, but also realities.
It does not seem to solve the difficulty to say that the realities
denied involve imperfection, and are, consequently, repugnant to God.
This is very true, but we are treating at present of the explanation
of the idea of the absolutely infinite, and the difficulty militates
against the supposition that the idea of the absolutely infinite is to
be explained by the absolute absence of negation of being. If these
realities are any thing, when denied of God some being is denied;
and since the proposition cannot be true if there is not in God the
negation of the being denied, it follows that it is incorrect to say
that the absolutely infinite being is that which has no negation of
being.
113. It also seems that a being of this nature could have no
properties; for some positive properties exclude others: thus,
intelligence and extension, freedom of will and necessity with respect
to the same thing are positive properties which mutually exclude one
another. Therefore the infinite being cannot have all properties,
unless we make it a collection of absurdities, after the fashion of
pantheists.
114. The infinite being must have all being which involves no
imperfection. This is very true, but there still remain serious
difficulties to be solved. What is perfection? What is imperfection?
These are questions which it is not easy to answer, and yet we cannot
advance a step until we have determined their meaning.
115. The idea of perfection implies being: nothing cannot be perfect, a
perfect not-being is a manifest contradiction.
116. Not all being is absolute perfection; for there are modes of
being which involve imperfection: what is perfection for one being is
imperfection for another.
117. In finite beings perfection is relative; a very perfect barn would
be a very imperfect church; a painting may be an ornament in a gallery
which would be a profanation if placed in the sanctuary. Perfection
seems to consist in a property being conducive to its end. This idea is
not applicable to the infinite being which can have no other end than
itself. Therefore, perfection in the absolutely infinite being cannot
be relative, but must be absolute.
118. If perfection is being, it seems that the perfection of the
infinite being must consist in certain properties which are found
formally in it, and therefore exclude all imperfection. An absolutely
indeterminate being, that is, a being without any property, is
impossible. What conception can we form of _a thing_ without
intelligence, without will, and without liberty? The propositions in
which these properties are affirmed of God, are true; therefore these
properties really exist in the subject of which they are affirmed.
119. An infinitely perfect being must have all perfection; but in
what sense are we to understand _all_? Does it mean all possible
perfections? But what perfections are possible? Those which are not
repugnant. To what is the repugnance to be referred? It must be either
a mutual repugnance, or a repugnance to a third: if the first, it is
necessary to presuppose one of the two extremes, in order that the
other may be repugnant to it; in that case, which is to be preferred?
If the second, what is the third to which they are repugnant? On what
is it founded?
If by all perfection is meant all that we can conceive, the same
difficulty remains. For if we speak of the conception of a finite
being, the conception is not infinite; if of the conception of an
infinite being, it is a begging of the question, because in explaining
the perfections of the infinite being we appeal to its conception.
These difficulties can only be solved by determining more precisely the
meaning of these ideas.
120. A thing may be denied of another in two manners: by referring
the negation to a property, or to an individual. When I say a surface
is not a triangle, I may refer the predicate either to the species
of triangle in general, or to an individual triangle. In the first
instance, I deny that the figure is triangular; in the second, I deny
that the figure is another given triangle. When I say God is not
extended, I deny a property; when I say God is not the world, I deny an
individual.
It is evident that in order to attribute absolute infinity to any
being, it is necessary that no being should be denied of it, either
with respect to properties or to individuals, and that the predicate
should be affirmed without destroying the principle of contradiction.
This exception is absolutely indispensable, unless we wish to make
the infinite being the greatest of all absurdities, a jumble of
contradictions.
I believe that this will explain to a great extent the idea of absolute
infinity, not considered in the abstract, but applied to a really
existent being.
CHAPTER XVI.
ALL THE REALITY CONTAINED IN INDETERMINATE CONCEPTIONS IS AFFIRMED OF
GOD.
121. We have seen that our cognitions are of two classes: some are
general and indeterminate, others intuitive. All the objects which we
know, whether indeterminately or intuitively, may be affirmed of God,
provided they involve no contradiction.
122. General and indeterminate conceptions are the ideas of being and
not-being, substance and accidents, simple and composite, cause and
effect. All that is real in these conceptions is affirmed of God.
123. Being or that which really exists, is affirmed of God. That which
is not has no property.
124. Substance, or being subsistent in itself, is also affirmed of God.
I do not enter into the discussion of the question greatly disputed in
the schools, whether the ideas of being and substance are applied in
the same sense, or, as logicians say, _univoce_, to God and creatures.
It is sufficient for my purpose that the idea of being is applied to
the infinite being, as opposed to the idea of not-being, and the idea
of substance as opposed to accidents, or rather, as implying a thing
which contains all that is necessary in order to subsist by itself
without inhering in any other.
125. The idea of accident cannot be applied to the infinite being;
but this is not to deny it any thing positive, but rather to affirm
a perfection; for we say that it has no need of being inherent in
another. This is a perfection; it is being: to deny the quality of
accident is to remove a negation. To say that a being is a substance is
to deny that it is an accident: these two ideas are contradictory and
cannot be attributed to the same subject at the same time.
126. Simplicity is affirmed of God. This attribute denies nothing; to
be convinced of this we need only recollect what simplicity is. The
simple is one; the composite is a union of beings. If the parts are
real, as they must be if there is a true composition, the resultant
is a collection of beings subordinated to a certain law of unity.
When, therefore, we say that God is simple, we say that God is not a
collection of beings, but one being. This involves no negation: but on
the contrary it is the affirmation of an existence not divided into
various beings.
127. The idea of cause, that is, of activity which produces in another
the transition from not-being to being, or from one mode of being to
another, is also affirmed of God. This involves no negation, but is an
affirmation of being; for a cause is not only being, but a being which
so abounds in perfection as to communicate it to others.
128. The idea of effect cannot be applied to God; but this is an
affirmation, not a negation. Every effect is a thing produced, which
has, consequently, passed from not-being to being: to deny the quality
of effect is to remove the negation of being, and affirm the fulness of
being.
129. What has been said of the ideas of cause and effect, may be
extended to the ideas of necessary and contingent. The negative
proposition, God is not contingent, is an affirmation; for contingency
is the possibility of not-being. To deny this possibility is to affirm
the necessity of being, which is the fulness of perfection.
CHAPTER XVII.
ALL THAT IS NOT CONTRADICTORY IN INTUITIVE IDEAS IS AFFIRMED OF GOD.
130. We have seen that all that is positive in general and
indeterminate conceptions is affirmed of God. Let us see if the same
is true of intuitive ideas. These ideas, in all that touches our
understanding, may be reduced to these four; passive sensibility,
active sensibility, intelligence, and will.
131. Passive sensibility, or the form under which the objects of the
external world are presented to our senses, cannot be attributed to the
infinite being. This negative proposition, the infinite being is not
passively sensible, is strictly true.
Does this proposition deny any thing positive of God? Let us examine it.
The form of passive sensibility is extension, which necessarily implies
multiplicity. The extended is necessarily a collection of parts: to
deny extension of God is to affirm his simplicity; to deny that he is a
collection of beings, and to affirm the indivisible unity of his nature.
132. Besides extension, there is in the passive sensibility of objects
only the relation of causes which produce in us the effects called
sensations. This causality can and must be affirmed of God: for it
is certain that the infinite cause is capable of producing in us all
sensations without the intervention of any medium.
133. The negative proposition: the infinite being is not material,
means nothing more than the other; the infinite being is not passively
sensible. We do not know the intrinsic nature of matter: all we know
is, that it is presented in intuition to our sensibility under the form
of extension, as an essentially multiplex object. When we deny that God
is material or corporeal, we deny that he is passively sensible, or
that he is multiple under the form of extension.
134. The other properties of matter, such as mobility, impenetrability,
and divisibility, relate to extension, or to a particular impression
caused on our senses. The difficulties that may be raised on these
points are solved by the preceding paragraphs.
Inertness, or indifference to rest or motion, is a purely negative
property. It is the incapacity of all action, the absence of an
internal principle productive of change, the purely passive disposition
to receive all that is communicated to it.
135. It therefore remains demonstrated that to deny to God passive
sensibility, or corporeal nature, is to affirm his undivided nature,
his productive activity, and the impossibility of his suffering any
kind of change.
136. Active sensibility, or the faculty of perceiving, presents two
characteristics which must be defined. There are in sensation two
things: the affection caused in the sensitive being by the sensible
object, and the internal representation of the sensible being. The
first is purely passive, and supposes the possibility of being affected
by an object, and, consequently, of being subject to change. This
cannot be attributed to the infinite being: to deny it is to affirm
immutability, or the necessity of remaining always in the same state.
The second is a sort of inferior order of cognition, by which the
sensitive being perceives the sensible object. The representation
of all objects must necessarily be found in the infinite being,
consequently all that is intuitively perceptive in the sensitive
faculty must be contained in the perception of the infinite being; that
is to say, all that sensibility presents to us of external objects,
all that it transfers to our intuition of external existence, must be
contained in the representation which the infinite intelligence has
within itself. Man cannot know under what form objects are presented
to the intuition of the infinite being; but it is certain that all the
_truth_ contained in sensitive representation is presented to this
intuition.
137. Intelligence, or the perception of objects without the forms of
sensibility, implies the perception of beings and of their relations,
which is something positive. In us it is often accompanied by the
negative circumstance, of the absence of determinate objects to which
the general conception may be referred. The infinite being sees in a
single intuition all that exists and all that can exist, and contains
all that is positive in intelligence, without what is negative, which
is an imperfection.
138. It is evident that will must be affirmed of God; for we cannot
deny the infinite being that internal, spontaneous activity which is
called _to will_, and the nature of which involves no imperfection.
139. The will of God, although one and most simple, is distinguished
into free and necessary, according to the objects to which it is
referred. This gives rise to various negative propositions, which it is
well to examine.
We say: God cannot will moral evil; this proposition, apparently
negative, is, logically considered, affirmative. God cannot will moral
evil, because his will is invariably fixed on good, on that sublime
type of all holiness which he contemplates in his infinite essence.
The impotence of moral evil is in God an infinite perfection of his
infinite holiness.
140. The divine will may be referred to external objects, which, being
finite, can be combined in different manners, and the existence or
non-existence of these combinations depends on the end proposed by
the agent which produces or modifies them. The will of God exerted on
these objects is free; and to say that he has no necessity of doing
this or that is to deny nothing, but to affirm a perfection, namely,
the faculty of willing or not willing, or willing in different manners,
objects which, on account of their finite nature, cannot bind the
infinite will.
141. Hence all the reality contained in general ideas, whether
indeterminate or intuitive, that is not contradictory, is affirmed
of the absolutely infinite being. As to individual realities, it is
evident that those which are finite cannot be affirmed of the infinite
being without contradiction. The proposition: the infinite being is
the corporeal universe, is equivalent to this: the infinite being is
an essentially finite being. The same contradiction will be met with
in every proposition where the subject is the infinite being, and the
predicate an individual reality distinct from the infinite being.
This remark will suffice for the present: they will be more clearly
understood when we come to treat of the multitude of substances, in
refuting the error of pantheists.
CHAPTER XVIII.
INTELLIGENCE AND THE ABSOLUTELY INFINITE BEING.
142. The infinite being is not a vague object presented in the general
idea of being, but is possessed of true properties which, without
ceasing to be real, are identified with its infinite essence. A being
which is not something, of which some property cannot be affirmed, is
a dead being, which we conceive only under the general idea of thing,
and is presented to us as something which cannot be realized. Such is
not the conception which mankind form of the infinite being; the idea
of activity has always been associated with the idea of God: this is
not a general, but a fixed and determinate activity; internally, it is
the activity of intelligence; externally, the activity which produces
beings.
143. The idea of activity in general does not exclude all imperfection:
activity to do evil is an imperfect activity: the activity by which
some sensible beings act on others, is subject to the conditions
of motion and extension, and is, consequently, not exempt from
imperfection. Pure, internal activity, considered in itself, involves
no imperfection; this is intellectual activity. It is an inoffensive
activity, and of itself does no harm; it is an immaculate faculty, and
of itself is never stained.
144. To know good, is good; to know evil, is also good; to wish
good is good; to wish evil is evil; here is a difference between the
understanding and the will; the will may be defiled by its object, the
understanding never. The moralist considers, examines, and analyzes
the greatest iniquities, and studies the details of the most degrading
corruption; the politician knows the passions, the miseries, and
the crimes of society; the lawyer witnesses injustice under all its
aspects; the naturalist and the physician contemplate the most filthy
and loathsome objects; and in all this no stain attaches to the
intelligence. God himself knows all the evil there is or can be in
the physical or in the moral order, and yet his intelligence remains
immaculate.
145. Created beings abuse liberty as such; for it is essentially a
principle of action, and may be directed to evil; but the intelligence,
as regards itself alone, cannot be abused. It is essentially an
immanent or intransitive act in which are represented real or possible
objects; the abuse does not commence until the free will combines the
acts of the intelligence and directs them to a bad action; there is
no evil knowledge until the act of the will is introduced into the
combinations of the understanding. A collection of stratagems to commit
the most horrible crimes, may be the innocent object of intellectual
contemplation.
146. A wonderful thing is intelligence. With it there is relation,
order, rule, science, art; without intelligence there is nothing.
Conceive, if you can, the world without the pre-existence of
intelligence; all is chaos; imagine the order which now exists, destroy
intelligence, and the universe is a beautiful picture placed before the
extinguished sight of a corpse.
147. We conceive beings as more perfect accordingly as they are higher
in the order of intelligence. Leaving the sphere of the insensible
and entering the order of sensitive representation, a new world
commences. The first degree is the animal in which sensations are
limited to a small number of objects, and the summit is intelligence.
Morality flows from intelligence, or, rather, is one of its laws,
it is the prescription of conformity to an infinitely perfect type.
Morality is explained with intelligence; without intelligence it is an
absurdity. The intelligence has its laws, its duties, but they proceed
from itself, as the sun enlightens itself by its own light. Liberty
is explained with intelligence; without it, liberty is an absurdity.
Without intelligence causality is presented to us as a farce operating
without an object or a direction, without a sufficient reason, and is
consequently the greatest of absurdities. When some theologians said
that the constitutive attribute of the essence of God is intelligence,
they expressed an idea which contains a wonderfully profound
philosophical meaning.
148. By the intellectual act being does not go out of itself:
intelligence is an immanent act which may be extended to infinity,
and exercised with infinite intensity without the intelligent leaving
itself. The more profound its understanding is, the more profound is
its concentration on the abyss of its consciousness. Intelligence is
essentially active: it is activity. See what happens in man: he thinks,
and his will awakes and acts: he thinks, and his body moves: he thinks,
and his strength is multiplied, all his faculties are subject to his
thought. Let us imagine an intelligence infinite in extension and in
intensity, an intelligence in which there is no alternation of action
and rest, of energy and abatement, an infinite intelligence which knows
itself infinitely, and knows infinite, real, or possible objects with
an infinitely perfect knowledge; an intelligence, the source of all
light without any darkness, the origin of all truth without any mixture
of error; we may then form some idea of the absolutely infinite being.
By this infinite intelligence I conceive an infinitely perfect will;
I conceive creation, a pure act of will calling into existence, from
nothing, the types which pre-existed in the infinite intelligence; I
conceive infinite holiness, and all the perfections identified in that
ocean of light. Without intelligence I conceive nothing: the absolute
being, which is in the origin of all things, seems the old chaos, and
I try in vain to induce some order into it. The ideas of being, of
substance, and of necessity are knocked about in the greatest confusion
in my understanding; the infinite is not a focus of light for me, but
an abyss of darkness: I know not whether I am immerged in an infinite
reality, or lost in the imaginary space of a vague and empty conception.
CHAPTER XIX.
SUMMING UP.
149. The examination of the idea of the infinite is of the greatest
importance, because it is inseparably united with the idea of God.
150. We have the idea of the infinite; but the disputes concerning its
nature, and even its existence, denote its obscurity.
151. The finite is that which has limits.
152. The infinite is not the same as the indefinite. The infinite is
that which has no limits--the _not-finite_; the indefinite is that to
which no limits are assigned--the _not-defined_.
153. The difference between the infinite and the finite is founded
on the principle of contradiction: the finite affirms limits; the
infinite denies them: there is no medium between yes and no.
154. Limit is the negation of a being, or of something real, applied
to a being: the limit of a line is the point which terminates it; the
limit of a force is the point beyond which it does not extend.
155. The idea of the infinite, denying limit, denies a negation;
therefore it is an affirmative idea: the idea of the finite is
negative, because it affirms a negation.
156. The idea of the infinite is applied to many orders of beings, and
presents strange anomalies, which seem contradictions. A line produced
to infinity in only one direction appears infinite, since it is greater
than all finite lines; and it is not infinite, because it has a limit
in the point where it starts. The same thing is verified in surfaces
and solids. To explain these anomalies we must attend to the following
observations.
157. The idea of the infinite is not intuitive. We have no intuition of
an object either absolutely or relatively infinite.
158. The idea of the infinite is an indeterminate conception formed by
the union of the two indeterminate ideas of being in general, and the
negation of limit in general.
159. The indeterminate conception of the infinite gives us no knowledge
of any thing infinite.
160. The anomalies and apparent contradictions, which we find in the
application of the idea of the infinite, vanish when we reflect that
the difference of the results depends on the different conditions
under which we apply the idea of the infinite. Things which would be
infinite under one condition cease to be so when considered under other
conditions: the apparent contradiction is caused by one not remarking
the change of conditions.
161. We have the conception of infinite number, for we can unite in
our mind the two indeterminate conceptions of number and the negation
of limit.
162. We have the conception of infinite extension, for we can unite the
two indeterminate ideas of extension and the negation of limit.
163. The possibility or non-contradiction of conceptions in the purely
ideal order does not prove their possibility in the real order. When
the conceptions are realized, their reality is not in an abstract
extension or an abstract number, but in individual extended beings,
or individual numbers: the determinateness implied by the reality may
involve contradiction to the true infinity, although it be impossible
for us to discover any contradiction in the indeterminate conception,
which abstracts the conditions of their realization.
164. Although we have the conception of infinite extension, it is
impossible for us to imagine it.
165. No extrinsic or intrinsic repugnance can be discovered in the
existence of infinite extension.
166. We cannot know by purely philosophical means whether the extension
of the universe is infinite or finite.
167. Although an absolutely infinite number may be indeterminately
conceived, it is not susceptible of any arithmetical or geometrical
expression: no series of what mathematicians call infinite expresses an
absolutely infinite number.
168. The intrinsic impossibility of an _actual_ infinite number may be
demonstrated from the intrinsic repugnance of the _co-existence_ of
certain things which may be _numbered_.
169. The idea of the absolutely infinite real being cannot be
indeterminate: it necessarily involves positive and formal perfections.
170. All that does not imply a contradiction must be affirmed of the
infinite being. That which is absurd is not a perfection.
171. Analyzing indeterminate and intuitive ideas, we find that all the
reality contained in them is affirmed of God.
172. The absolutely infinite being must be intelligent.
173. Intelligence is a perfection which does not imply contradiction.
174. Will and liberty must also be found in the absolutely infinite
being.
175. The indeterminate idea of the infinite is favored by the
combination of the ideas of being and not-being.
176. The idea of an absolutely infinite being consists in the idea of a
union of all being that involves no contradiction.
177. The indeterminate idea of a real infinite being, or of God, is
formed from the idea of an absolutely infinite being, combined with
the intuitive ideas of intelligence, will, liberty, causality, and all
others that can be conceived without imperfection, in any infinite
degree.
BOOK NINTH.
ON SUBSTANCE.
CHAPTER I.
NAME AND GENERAL IDEA OF SUBSTANCE.
1. What is substance? Have we a clear and distinct idea of it? The
disputes of philosophers concerning the idea of substance and the
continual applications which we make of it, prove two things: first,
that the idea of substance exists; and secondly, that its clearness and
distinctness are not all that could be desired. A mere name, containing
no idea, could not so strongly draw the attention of all philosophers,
nor be used so generally, even in ordinary language; a clear and
distinct idea could not give occasion to so much dispute.
2. The importance of this idea may be seen in the results to which
philosophers are led, according to the way in which they explain
it. The entire system of Spinosa is founded on wrong definition of
substance.
3. In the present question as in many others, it does not seem to be
the shortest way to begin with a definition, unless the thing defined
is only a name: to define a thing is to explain it, and we cannot
explain it if we are ignorant of what it is, and we are ignorant, or
are supposed to be ignorant of this, when we enter on investigations
in order to ascertain what it is. If philosophers, at the beginning
of their treatises, would not say, substance is this, but only, this
is what I understand by substance, they would escape a number of
difficulties.
4. After defining the name of substance, and making a clear and
distinct idea correspond to it, it is still necessary to show how far
the idea represents objects really existing, or, whether it belongs to
the class of ideas expressing only the relation of different ideas,
without our having any means of ascertaining whether this relation is
found in the positive world or not; that is to say, whether the idea of
substance is only the work of our understanding, a mere result of the
combination of certain ideas, or is furnished us by experience itself.
I shall try not to fall into any of these faults; I know not, however,
whether I can escape them. For this purpose, I shall first analyze the
word, with respect to its etymological sense, and then examine the
various meanings which have been given to it. The analysis of words is
very useful for the analysis of ideas: words often contain a great deal
of truth, which we lose by not attending to their common meaning.
5. The word substance, _substantia_, implies something which is under,
_substat_, which is the subject on which other things are placed; just
as its correlative, accident or modification, expresses something which
happens to the subject, _accidit_; something which modifies it, which
is in it, as a mode of being, _modus_.
6. By substance we seem to understand something constant in the
midst of variation, something which, although it is in various ways
successively, according to the variety of modifications which affect
it, remains constant and identical under different transformations.
When we say that the substance has received any new modification,
although we understand by this that the substance is, in a new mode,
we do not mean that it is different in itself, that it has lost its
internal primitive being, and taken a new being; but we only consider
this change as external, and as leaving untouched a certain base, which
is what we call substance.
If it were not so, if we did not conceive something constant and
identical under modifications, we could not distinguish substance from
its modifications. The modification passes from not-being to being,
and from being to not-being; now it is, and now it resigns its post
to another and very different modification. But the substance is the
same under different modifications; it does not pass from not-being
to being with the succession of its modifications. From the moment
that we attribute to substance the instability which belongs to its
modifications, it ceases to be distinguishable from them.
Ordinary language confirms this truth. When there is a variation of
modifications we say that the substance changes, that is, we conceive
something which existed before the change, and exists after it. We say
that a modification has entirely disappeared; we do not say this of the
substance, but only that it is, or is presented to us, in a different
manner. We therefore conceive something which remains constant and
identical under different modifications: the subject in which these
changes occur, this something which does not disappear with the
disappearance of the modifications, which is not changed internally
with these changes, we call substance, _substantia_, _substratum_.
CHAPTER II.
APPLICATION OF THE IDEA OF SUBSTANCE TO CORPOREAL OBJECTS.
7. Let us apply the ideas contained in that of substance to a corporeal
object: this will help explain these ideas, and perhaps suggest others.
The paper on which I am writing is susceptible of various
modifications: I may write on it a thousand different things, in
various characters, and in different colors; I may fold it in various
ways, and give it an infinite variety of positions in relation to the
objects around it, and I may move it in all imaginable directions.
Under this infinity of changes there is something constant, something
which does not change. There are many new things, but there is one
which is not new, which is always the same. There is one which suffers
these changes, but retains something which does not change. If I make
the paper blue and then red, that which is now red is the same that was
blue, and before that white, and to this which is constant all those
changes are referred. If a white paper is shown me, and then another
paper that is blue, and then one that is red, it is clear that it is
not the same as though I gave all these transformations to the same
paper. The impression which the color produces in me remains the same;
in what, then, does the difference consist? The difference is, that in
the one case there is something permanent, which has passed through
successive changes; in the other case this _something_ is not the same,
but is another and different thing. In the one case there are different
modifications; in the other there are different substances.
8. Let us go deeper into the matter. If we only received the successive
impressions without any means of referring them to the same object,
to connect them in a common point, we should find no difference
between the two cases of which we have been speaking. If a piece of
white paper be placed before us, and, after turning our eyes aside
for a moment, we find a blue paper in the same place, with the same
dimensions, and after again turning our eyes aside we find a red paper:
it is clear that it would be impossible for us to distinguish, by the
mere succession of the visual impressions, whether the same paper has
been differently colored in succession, or different papers have been
substituted for the first. But if we keep our eyes on the place where
the paper is, we see whether the paper is colored or changed. In the
first case, the appearance of the new color will continue with the same
sensation of the paper, unmoved, the transformation is made without our
losing sight of it, and the paper receives the continued succession
of its motions and positions under the hand of the one who colors it.
We are then sure that the paper is the same, because there has been
a continuity of sensation, or rather a connection of the different
colors with a third, resulting from the situation of the paper and
its motions, and from all that by which we know what is common to the
first and the second. But if there is no new coloring of the paper, but
a substitution of a differently colored paper, we see that the first
paper is taken away; the whole order of the sensation is interrupted,
and new sensations are presented. These last have no connection with
the first; there is, consequently, for us a different _thing_.
9. This shows how the idea of substance with respect to bodies is
generated in us, or, to speak more properly, how we apply the idea of
substance to bodies. When we discover a link which unites the different
sensations in one point, we call that in which they are united,
substance. And as we meet in nature with many of these points which are
independent of one another, we naturally say there are many corporeal
substances.
10. When we perceive an impression we never call it a substance, if
we refer it to an object, or consider it as objective: for the object
is not, of itself alone, capable of connecting various sensations.
We receive the sensations of red, and not only ordinary people, but
even philosophers, when not philosophizing, make the color objective,
and consider the red, not as a simple sensation, but as an external
quality. No one would call this quality by itself a substance; for
it is not capable, of itself alone, of connecting other impressions
or qualities. If there is a change of color the red disappears,
and the new impression is connected in the order of time with the
sensation of the red, but does not reside in it. If there is a change
of form, although the red continues, we do not conceive this color as
the necessary link between the two forms, because we know that the
continuance of the red is indifferent to the variety of form, which may
be changed with or without the continuance of this color.
As in general we have experienced that no sensation is necessarily
connected with another, and that among sensations connected at a common
point, some disappear without the rest disappearing, we infer that
none of them is a necessary link; and therefore, although we make them
objective, we do not give them the character of a substance, of any
thing remaining identical through changes, of which it is, as it were,
the recipient.
11. There is a property in bodies which is necessary to all sensations,
or at least, to the two principal sensations of sight and touch. This
property is extension, which, whether considered subjectively or
objectively, we regard as a recipient of all sensations. We neither see
nor imagine the white or black; we neither touch nor imagine the hard
or the soft, the warm or the cold, without the extension in which the
whiteness or blackness, the hardness or softness, the warmth or the
cold reside. Thus extension might perhaps merit the honor of substance,
if it were not subject to another condition, which deprives it of this
title.
Although when we conceive extension in general, in the abstract,
considering it as a mere continuity, we absolutely abstract it from
all form; when we have need of an applied extension as the recipient
of sensations, it is impossible to find it without a determinate
form and figure. We do not see a color simply, but we see it in a
circular, triangular, or other extension. These forms are confounded
with extension itself as its applications; and do not serve as a link
for other sensations. Sometimes, it is true, the same figure receives
different colors, different positions, different degrees of heat or
cold, etc., but the contrary also sometimes occurs, and with the same
color, and the same degree of heat or cold, with the same continuance
of the other sensations, the object changes its form; just as a red
circle may become a green circle, a red object may become circular, and
afterwards triangular. In the first case, the circular figure is the
link connecting the sensations of the colors; in the second, the color
is the link connecting the figures.
12. Having deprived extension of the honor of substance, as well as
all other sensations, in so far as objective; we may observe that all
these variations in the objects are successive, and the sensations are
connected with each other. Thus the same circle may take different
colors; and the same color different figures; the colors may be again
changed, and the first reproduced, the figure remaining the same; or
the first figure may be reproduced, the colors remaining the same. We
conclude that under this variety there is something constant, that
under this multiplicity there is something which is one; that under
this succession of being and not-being there is something permanent;
and this which is constant, one, and permanent, the recipient of these
changes, the point outside of us which connects them, and enables us to
conceive them connected,--this is what we call substance.
CHAPTER III.
DEFINITION OF CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE.
13. What is the permanent subject of transformations in the sensible
order? Is it a pure illusion? Is it a reality? What reality can it be?
Does it not seem rather an abstraction? A thing which is no color,
but lends itself all colors; which is none of the qualities which we
experience, but the subject and cause of them all; which is no form,
but accommodates itself to all forms; which is not pure extension,
because this is an abstraction, and it is something which serves as the
ground of other things; a corporeal object which, in itself, can affect
none of the senses; what is it? Is it what the Aristotelians call an
occult quality, a mysterious, and fantastic being, a mere illusion? Let
us examine it by the light of experience.
14. Let us take a piece of wax and without letting it go out of
our hands paint it different colors successively, subject it to
different degrees of temperature, softening it by warming, and then
cooling it; let us give it different forms, of a globe, a cylinder, a
parallelopipedon, a table, a vase, or a statue; do all these changes
take place in the same thing? Yes. Is this thing not a color, or a
figure, or a degree of temperature? No; because all these qualities
were and ceased to be whilst the thing remained the same. How do I
know that the thing remained the same? Because there was a continuity
of sensation in the eye fixed upon the object; in the touch which,
although it felt the modifications of warm and cold, hard and
soft, experienced also an uninterrupted sensation of an object,
which remained constantly in the hand, and the weight of which was
continuously felt. Therefore there is something there which is not the
modifications, but is that which is modified, something common to them
all, which receives and connects them, outside of me and within me.
15. Examining one conception of this permanent something, we find that,
after abstracting its qualities, we have:
I. The idea of being. We say the thing, the something, the subject,
etc., we therefore speak of a being, of a quality. Without the reality
there is nothing; and nothing cannot be the subject of modifications,
or the link connecting impressions.
II. The idea of being, which we here find, is not pure, it is not being
alone. The qualities exist, are beings, and still we do not confound
them with the subject.
III. That which accompanies the idea of being is the idea of permanence
amidst succession, and the relation of this permanence as the point of
connection, the immovable centre in the midst of succession.
16. If, therefore, we wished to define substance, we could only say
that it is _a permanent being in which occur the changes which are
presented to us in the sensible phenomena_. Our knowledge is all
reduced to this; all that we can add beside, is only hypothesis or
conjecture. In vain you ask me, what is this being? Give me the
intuition of the essence of corporeal things, and I will tell you;
but while I know them only by their effects, that is, the impressions
which they produce in me, I cannot answer you. I know that it is
something; I know its relation to its forms; I know that the forms are
in the subject, and are not the subject; but here is the limit of my
knowledge. The object corresponding to the idea composed of a permanent
being and its relation to various forms is what I call corporeal
substance.
17. Since the substance changes its accidents, remaining the same
itself, it follows that its existence is independent of the accidents.
Abstracting, for the present, whether it can or cannot exist without
any, I only affirm that none in particular is necessary to it. Here
we must take note of the difference between substance in itself, and
in the medium by which it is manifested to us, and placed in active
or passive communication with us. The accidents are this medium; they
are the transitory forms it puts on. How can we know the existence of
bodies, except by sensations? The object of sensation is not substance
in its inner nature, but only its qualities as affecting us.
CHAPTER IV.
RELATION OF CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE TO ITS ACCIDENTS.
18. In the idea of corporeal substance the idea of permanence is
perfectly included, the idea of unity only imperfectly. The unity which
we conceive in every corporeal substance is a factitious unity; since
that which is constant is not one but an aggregate of many, as is
proved by the divisibility of matter; out of every corporeal substance
we may make many which will have the same right as the first to be
called substances. A piece of wood is a substance; but we may slit it
into several pieces which will be equally substances. These pieces,
joined together, formed what are called _one_ substance; but it is
clear that this unity was very imperfect, and was rather a union than a
unity, and that if we consider it as _one_, it was in relation to the
unity of effect which it produced in us, by the connection which it
gave to our sensations and to the phenomena which resulted from it.
19. Hence, every corporeal substance involves multiplicity, or
combination of the elements which compose it. Experience informs us
that this combination is not permanent; there is, consequently, no
corporeal substance which does not imply at least one modification,
namely, the arrangement of its parts. Abstracting the changes which
this modification may undergo, it can never be confounded with the
substance: although the bodies might be presented constantly to our
senses with the same arrangement of the parts, the permanent _being_
would be in the parts, not in their arrangement. The latter is
something external which is added to the thing existing; there can be
no union and combination without parts which are united and combined.
20. A difference which we observe between the substance and
its modifications is, that the substance is independent of the
modifications, but the modifications are not independent of the
substance. The substance, while remaining the same, changes its
accidents, but an accident cannot change its substance and remain the
same. The same block may receive different figures successively; but a
figure, numerically the same, cannot pass from one block to another.
Two blocks may have a similar or a different figure, whether cubic,
spherical, or pyramidal, and one may take the figure of the other; but
in that case, the figures are not identical, but similar, they are
specifically but not numerically the same.
21. If I am asked how I know that there is only similarity and not
numerical identity in the figures which bodies take successively, that
there is no _permanence_ in the figures which change their subject,
and consequently that the same figure cannot pass from one substance
to another, in the same manner that the same substance passes from
one figure to another; I shall not find it difficult to prove what I
assert.
There is no one who does not see what an extravagant thing it would
be for a cubic figure to leave a body and pass to another. What is
this figure separated from the body? How is it preserved during the
transition? Why is it not exactly the same in both, but presented
with slight modifications? Has it undergone a modification in its
passage from one body to another? Then there would be a modification
of a modification, and the figure in itself abstracted from all body,
would be a kind of substance of a secondary order, permanent under
modifications. These are but absurd dreams in which that is applied
to the concrete which belongs to the idea only in the abstract. This
transition of the forms would suppose their separate existence, and
thus we might have all kinds of abstract figures, cubes, spheres,
circles, triangles, etc., subsisting in themselves without application
to any thing figured.
22. A still stricter demonstration of this truth is possible. If we
suppose a figure, numerically the same, to pass from one body to
another; the block A, which loses the cubic form, transmits it to the
body B. Now, this individual form cannot be in both at the same time.
Suppose that after the cubic form has left the block A, we turn it back
before it has touched the body B, evidently it will not be the same
in both: therefore the body B has not acquired the same, but only a
similar form. It is also evident that in order to give the cubic form,
we need not take it from another; therefore, the form of one is not
_individually_ that of the other; otherwise we should have to say that
it is and is not, that it is preserved and ceases to exist at the same
time.
23. The term _transmission_ or _communication_ of motion, which is so
much used in physical science, expresses something real so long as
limited to the phenomenon which is under calculation; but it would be
an absurdity, if it meant that the _same_ motion which was in one
body has _passed_ to another. The sum of the quantities of motion is
the same in elastic bodies after impact as before it; the velocity
being divided between them, and the one gaining what the other loses.
This is proved by calculation, and confirmed by experience. But it is
evident that one body does not impart the _same_ individual velocity
which it contained to the other body; for not only can the velocity
not be separated from the body and pass from one subject to another;
but it cannot even be conceived except as a relation, the idea of
which includes the ideas of a body moved, of space, and of time. It
is true that Q representing the quantity of the motion before impact,
the value of Q remains the same after impact; but this only expresses
the phenomenon in relation to its effects, as subject to calculation;
not that the velocity in the second member of the equation is composed
of the parts of the first. Let A and B represent two bodies, the
individual masses of which are expressed by these two letters; and V,
_v_ their respective velocities before impact. The quantity of motion
will be Q = A × V + B × _v_. After impact there will be a new velocity
which we may call _w_, and the quantity of motion will be Q = A × _w_
+ B × _u_. Mathematically speaking, the value of Q will be the same;
but this only means that if the results of the motion be expressed in
lines or numbers, we shall have the same after impact as before it; it
does not and cannot mean that in the velocity _u_, considered as united
to the subject, there is a portion of velocity which has been detached
from V to be joined to _v_.
24. Hence, we do not conceive the accidents of bodies as possible
without a subject in which they are inherent; and that substances are
not inherent in another being, but are conceived and really exist
without this inherence. A figure cannot exist without a thing figured,
but the thing figured may still exist, through all other things are
destroyed. The analysis of the nature of substance shows that its
existence supposes the existence of another being which produced
it; but relation between them is that of cause and effect, not of
inherence, or that of the subject and its modification.
25. These last observations explain another mark of corporeal
substances. In the third chapter of this book we found the three
characteristics of being, the relation of the permanent to the
variable, and the subject of the variations; we now find a fourth,
which is a negation, non-inherence in another. This negative
characteristic is included in the positive one, _permanent subject of
variations_; for it is clear that in conceiving a subject _permanent
amid variations_ we do not include inherence, but rather deny it, at
least implicitly. Non-inherence supposes something positive, something
on which is founded the denial of the necessity of being inherent.
What is this something? We know not. We know that it exists, but its
explanation is beyond our reach. It is probably inexplicable without
the intuition of the essence of things;--an intuition which we have not.
CHAPTER V.
CONSIDERATIONS ON CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE IN ITSELF.
26. The idea of substance, such as we have thus far explained it,
implies a relation to accidents in general. The idea we are now
examining is not that of an indeterminate substance, but of corporeal
substance; and it must be confessed that it is difficult to conceive a
particular corporeal substance without any accident. If I take from
the paper, on which I am writing, its figure, extension, and all that
relates to my senses, what is there left for me to conceive something
particular and determinate, something which is not the idea of being
in general, but of this being in particular? It is clear that, in
order that the object may not disappear altogether, and losing its
individuality be confounded in the universal idea, I must reserve
something by which I can say _this_: that is to say, that which is
here, or which has affected me in this or that manner, or has been
the subject of such or such modifications. I consider at least its
position with respect to other bodies, or its causality in relation to
the effects which it has produced in me, or its nature as the subject
of determinate accidents. Just as the idea of finite substance in
general involves relation to certain accidents in general, the idea of
a particular substance involves relation to particular accidents.
27. We find this relation in our mode of conceiving corporeal
substance; we cannot assert that it is involved in the nature of the
substance. This nature is unknown to us, and when we attempt to examine
it, we pass to another question, that of the essence of bodies.
28. Neither can we say how far the identity of the corporeal substance
continues under its different transformations. The partisans of
corpuscular philosophy consider all transformations as mere local
motions, and all the variations which we see in bodies as mere results
of the different position of the corpuscles among themselves. Leibnitz
resolved matter into an infinity of monads, differing from the atoms
of Epicurus, but conducing to the substantial invariability of bodies,
which are only a collection of indivisible substances, which he calls
monads. The Aristotelians believed that, of the changes of bodies, some
were accidental, as figure, motion, density, warmth, cold, etc.; others
substantial, as the change of wood to ashes. But in all the variety of
systems, all admit something permanent, the subject of the changes. The
Atomists and Leibnitz evidently admitted the identity of the subject.
As to the Aristotelians, although the change which introduced a
substantial form different from the first substantially transformed the
being, so that after the change of the substantial form it could not
be said that one was substantially the other, they still thought there
was a common subject in these substantial transformations, and this
was what they called the first matter, _materia prima_. All systems of
philosophy admit this clear and evident truth, that in the midst of the
transformations of the corporeal world, there is something permanent.
29. This corporeal substance being a reality, must not only exist, but
it must be something determinate. This substantial determination of
the body, which makes it this particular thing, and distinguishes it
in its internal nature, in its essence, from all other bodies of other
species, the Aristotelians called the substantial form. The subject of
this form, or actuality, which was common to all bodies, they called
the _materia prima_, which was a pure potentiality, a sort of medium
between pure nothing and actual being.
30. Ever since there have been schools of philosophy, these points
have been disputed; and it is probable they always will be; but it is
to very little purpose. We know the existence of the corporeal world,
we know its relations to ourselves, we know its properties and its
laws, so far as they are subject to our observation; but its intrinsic
nature is beyond the reach of our senses, or our instruments. Increased
acuteness of observation and improvement in the power and delicacy of
instruments, discovers new mysteries, and man finds the barriers which
he believed the _ne plus ultra_, removed from him as he advances. Will
he ever be able to pass them? Will he ever make the entire circuit
of this scientific world? Is the knowledge of the intrinsic nature of
the subject of this infinity of phenomena which astonish us, reserved
to the future? It is hard to believe it. The telescope, becoming more
perfect, extends the limits of the universe, and seems to behold the
infinitely great; the perfection of the microscope, advancing in the
opposite direction, regards the infinitely little. Where are the
limits? It is probable that man is not permitted to reach them while
in this world. The mind of man in its fruitful activity, struggles
alternately after the two extremes, but just as he flatters himself
he is reaching the last limit, he feels that something stronger than
himself withholds him from attaining the object of his noble desires;
it is the chain that binds him to the mortal body, and obstructs the
flight of his pure spirit.
CHAPTER VI.
SUBSTANTIALITY OF THE HUMAN ME.
31. We have not found perfect unity in corporeal substances: all that
are subject to our senses may be resolved into a number of others
equally substances in their turn; a body is rather an aggregate of
substances, than one substance. We do not find the unity in the bodies;
we attribute it to them either inasmuch as they form a common link of
our sensations, or inasmuch as we consider the different substances
subordinated to one being and governing substance. Thus the parts of
an animated body constitute a sort of unity, inasmuch as they are
subordinate to the principle which animates them.
32. We do not conclude from this that true unity does not exist in
bodies; if we could know their essence, we should doubtless discover
it, whether in the monads, as maintained by Leibnitz, or in something
else more or less resembling them. Although this knowledge of their
essence is denied us, reason leads us to this unity. The composite
is formed of parts; if these parts are in turn formed of others, we
must at last come to something which has no parts; here we find the
indivisible, or rather, the true unity. This reasoning is equally
valid, even though we suppose matter to be infinitely divisible.
Infinite divisibility would suppose an infinity of parts into which
any body may be divided: these parts would therefore exist; these
infinitesimal elements would be real: the unity would be in them.
33. Independently of the external world, we find the idea of substance
in ourselves; consciousness reveals its real application and perfect
unity. Consciousness makes known to us that we think, desire, feel, and
experience an infinity of affections, some of which are subject to our
will and are the product of the internal activity of our soul; others
are independent of us, they come without our will, and often against
it, and it is not always in our power to reproduce them even if we wish
it.
This ebb and flow of ideas, volitions, and sentiments, have a point
in which they are connected, a subject which receives them, remembers
them, combines them, and seeks or avoids them; this being, of which we
are internally conscious, philosophers have called the _me_. It is one
and identical under all transformations; this unity, this identity, is
an indisputable fact which consciousness reveals to us. Who could make
us doubt that the _me_ which thinks at the present moment is not the
same which thought yesterday, which thought years ago? Notwithstanding
the variety of thoughts and desires, the changes of opinion and will,
who could deprive us of the firm and deep conviction which we have
that we are the same who experience them all, that there is something
here within us which is the subject of them all?
34. If there were not something in us permanent in the midst of this
variety, the consciousness of the _me_ would be impossible. Memory and
combination would also be impossible; for there would be within us only
a succession of unconnected phenomena. Thinking is impossible without
something which thinks and remains identical under the variety of the
forms of thought. There is, therefore, within us a simple subject which
connects all the changes which occur in it: there is a substance. In it
there is unity: the unity which we only find in corporeal substances
after an infinite series of decompositions, is presented to us in
the spiritual substance, at the first instant, as a simple internal
fact, without which, all the phenomena which we perceive within us are
absurd, and all experience of the external world impossible.
Without the unity of the _me_ there can be no sensation, and without
sensation no experience of the beings around us.
CHAPTER VII.
RELATION OF THE PROPOSITION, I THINK, TO THE SUBSTANTIALITY OF THE ME.
35. The proposition, _I think_, can have no sense unless we admit
that the soul is a substance. Philosophy loses its resting-point, and
all that experience within us is a series of unconnected phenomena,
incapable of being observed, or subjected to any rule.
36. My present thought is not individually my thought of yesterday,
as my thought of to-morrow will not be my thought of to-day. These
thoughts, considered in themselves and abstracted from a subject in
which they are found, have no connection with one another: perhaps
their objects are without any relation to each other, or even
contradictory; perhaps the thought of to-day is the denial of the
thought of yesterday.
37. The same is true of all thoughts, all acts of the will, of all
sentiments, imaginary representations, and sensations, and, in general,
of all that I experience within myself. Turning my attention to all
internal affections, whatever they may be, I see in them only a
series of phenomena, a sort of current of existences passing away and
disappearing, some never to return, others to reappear at a different
time, _expressly_ presenting this difference. The reappearance is not
individual, but similar: the affection which is repeated is not the
same, but another resembling it. When the affection returns, I am
conscious of its presence at the time, and conscious of its presence at
a previous time; this double consciousness constitutes recollection,
makes me distinguish between the two affections, and necessarily
implies the judgment that one is not the other. There would be no
recollection, if the affection _recalling_ were identified with the
affection _recalled_. A thing _presents_ itself, but does not _recall_
itself.
38. Therefore every thing passes away within us never to return, the
disappearance is real, the reappearance but apparent; that which ceases
to be can never return to be again; there may be a similar thing, but
not the same; that which was, is passed, and time does not retrace its
steps.
39. Therefore, the series of internal phenomena, considered in
themselves and abstracted from the subject in which they reside, are
necessarily unconnected, and there is no way of subordinating the terms
of the series to any law, or connecting link.
40. Still this law exists in all our intellectual acts; reason, without
laws which govern it, would be the greatest of absurdities; this link
is found in all our affections. That they pass from us with their
distinction and difference and resemblance is a fact of our mind, to
which we are subjected, as to a primitive and inevitable condition of
our existence.
41. The proposition, _I think_, in the sense in which the word _think_
includes all internal affections, does not relate to isolated phenomena
alone, but it necessarily implies a point, which we call the _me_, in
which these phenomena are connected. If this point does not exist,
if it is not one and identical, the thought of to-day can have no
connection with the thought of yesterday: they are two distinct things,
at different times, and perhaps contradictory: when I say to-day, _I
think_, and mean that the _I_ is the same as in the proposition, _I
thought yesterday_, my language would be absurd; if they are mere
phenomena, two thoughts without any connecting link, the _me_ is
nothing, I cannot say, _I thought, I think_; but I must say _there
was_ thought, _there is_ thought. If, then, you ask me, _where? in
whom?_ I must reply, that there is no _where_, no _who_; I must deny
the supposition, and confine myself to repeating, _there was_ thought,
_there is_ thought.
42. To say _me_, it is necessary to suppose a permanent reality; a
reality, because that which is not real is nothing; permanent, because
that which passes away disappears, ceases to be, and cannot serve as
the point to unite other things.
CHAPTER VIII.
REMARKS ON THE SOUL'S INTUITION OF ITSELF.
43. The permanent reality of the _me_, considered in itself and
abstracted from the things which pass within it, is a fact which we
perceive in our intuition, and which we express in all our words.
If this presence, this internal experience, be what is called the
intuition of the soul, then we have intuition of our soul. This
intuition is reproduced in every particular intuition, and in all
internal affections in general; for, although they are isolated
phenomena, they imply the intuition of the _me_, because they imply the
consciousness of themselves.
44. The variety of isolated phenomena instead of proving any thing
against the unity of the intuition of the _me_, on the contrary,
evidently confirms it. If we conceived only one fixed and identical
thought, there would be less necessity of uniting with it the idea of a
subject in which it resides; but when there is a multitude of different
phenomena, which cannot co-exist without contradiction, we must refer
them to something constant, or else the internal world is converted
into an absolute chaos.
45. The soul has, therefore, an intuition of itself; that is to say,
it is conscious of its unity in multiplicity, of its identity in
diversity, of its permanence in succession, of its constant duration
in the appearance and disappearance of phenomena. Either we must
admit this, or we must renounce the legitimacy of all testimony of
consciousness, and embrace the most complete skepticism that ever
existed, extending it both to the internal and to the external world.
46. We find within us the realization of the indeterminate conceptions
of _being_, _unity_, _permanence_, and _subject of modifications_;
this realization is revealed by consciousness, and is confirmed by the
logical analysis of the series of phenomena in their relation to a
point of connection.
47. All that is included in the idea of finite substance is contained
in these four terms: _being_, _one_, _permanent_, and the _subject of
modifications_. All this is in our soul, and we perceive by experience
that we are internally affected by it. If this perception is called
intuition, we have intuition of the substantiality of our soul.
48. The thinking being not only perceives itself but it knows itself
as a real object, to which, by means of reflection, it applies the
ideas of being, unity, permanence, and the subject of modifications.
Therefore the soul may be the true predicate of propositions resting on
logic and consciousness.
49. Have we any other intuition of the soul, besides that which has
just been explained? To this I answer, that we have not while in
this life, and at the same time I ask whether any other than that of
consciousness is possible. Accustomed as we are to sensible intuitions
which imply extension in space, we ask what the soul is in itself, and
we do not seem to be satisfied without seeing its image. Leaving the
order of sensibility and rising to the purely intellectual sphere, who
knows whether we can say that there is no other intuition of the soul
than that which we now have; whether the soul in itself, in the unity
and simplicity of its entity, is the force which we perceive; whether
this force is the subject of the modifications, the substance, without
its being necessary to imagine another support in which this force
might reside? Why may not this force be subsistent? Why must we imagine
another _substratum_ to support it? If it were so, if we must apply to
the substance of the soul what the great Leibnitz thought applicable to
all substances, making the idea of substance to consist in the idea of
force; why may we not say that the pressure of the internal sense, the
consciousness of itself, is all the intuition of itself which the soul
can have?
50. You may ask me, what is the soul separated from the body? What will
it perceive and know of itself, when it exists _alone_? As though it
did not now perceive and know _alone_, or as though the organs, which
it uses, could perceive or think. Does it, perchance, know how it uses
them, or even know otherwise than by experience that it uses them at
all? Is it not alone in the depths of its activity with its thoughts
and the acts of its will, its sentiments, its joy and its sadness,
its pleasures and its pains? Say, then, that perhaps we do not form
sufficiently clear ideas of the _mode_ of consciousness which we shall
have of ourselves after this life; say that perhaps other intuitions
of our self are possible; but do not imagine the soul as inconceivable
alone. Leave me thought, will, sentiment, all that is internally
present to my consciousness, to find myself; I ask no more. Give me
communication with other beings, which affect me or are affected by
me, which transmit to me thoughts and wills, which cause me pleasure
or pain; I need nothing more in order to have a world which I can very
well conceive. I am ignorant of the quality of the things, not of their
possibility: the soul changes its state, not its nature.
CHAPTER IX.
KANT'S OPINION OF THE ARGUMENTS PROVING THE SUBSTANTIALITY OF THE SOUL.
51. The psychological arguments in favor of the substantiality of the
soul are mere paralogisms, in Kant's opinion; although they prove an
ideal substance, they can never lead to a real substance. Besides the
arguments with which this philosopher attacks the psychological proof
of the substantiality of the soul, he had also a personal argument,
which, considering the weakness of the human heart, was very powerful.
He had either to place the substantiality of the soul in doubt, or
else consent to the ruin of his whole system. "It would be," he says,
"a great and even the only stumbling-block in our whole _critique_, if
there were a possibility of demonstrating _a priori_ that all thinking
beings are in themselves simple substances, and (which is a consequence
of the principle of this demonstration) are inseparably accompanied
by personality and the consciousness of their existence distinct from
all matter. For, in this case, if we had taken a single step out of
the world of the senses, we should have entered into the field of the
_noumena_, and no one would dispute our right to extend farther into
it, to build in it, and, according to each one's good luck, to take
possession of it."[43]
[43] Von den Paralogismen der reinen Vernunft, p. 297.
52. In Kant's conception, the first paralogism of pure psychology in
favor of the substantiality of the soul is the following:--"Every
thing, the representation of which is the _absolute substance_ of our
judgments, and which cannot serve as a determination of any thing else,
is a substance. The _me_, as thinking being, is the absolute substance
of all possible judgments, and this representation of itself cannot be
the predicate of any thing else; therefore the _me_, as thinking being,
is a substance."
These are the terms in which he presents the psychological reasoning
which he proposes to attack, in the first edition of his _Critic
of Pure Reason_; in the second edition, wishing to be more clear,
or, perhaps, more obscure, he expresses the same argument in these
words:--"That which cannot be thought otherwise than as subject, does
not exist otherwise than as subject, and is therefore substance. Now a
thinking being, regarded merely as such, cannot be thought otherwise
than as subject. Therefore it exists only as such, that is, as
substance." We must confess that if psychology could find no clearer
expounders than Kant, and should have to use in its demonstrations the
forms which this philosopher employs in these passages, it would have
but a small number of proselytes, for the simple reason that very few
could understand its language. I am sure that but few readers would be
convinced by the syllogisms proving the substantiality of the soul,
such as Kant presents them; in this way there is a great advantage in
the position of the philosopher; for he has to prove that an argument,
the force of which has not been felt, has no force. But let us suppose
the philosopher to descend from the Olympus of incomprehensible
abstractions, and deign to use the humble language of mortals,
presenting the psychological argument under a more simple form, who
knows but what the conviction which it would produce would be somewhat
more difficult to destroy? Let us see.
53. A substance is a being remaining identical with itself, a permanent
reality in which different modifications occur. But there is within me
this reality which, remaining identical, has a variety of thoughts,
acts of the will, sentiments, and sensations, as is revealed by
consciousness. Therefore that which is within me is a substance.
I defy all the philosophers in the world to point out a false, or even
a doubtful proposition in this syllogism, or to show a fault in the
consequence, without placing themselves in open contradiction with the
testimony of consciousness on the one hand, and with all the laws of
human reason on the other.
54. Kant pretends that the argument in favor of the substantiality
of the soul is not conclusive, because the pure categories, and
consequently that of substance also, have absolutely no objective
value, except in so far as applied to the diversity of an intuition
subject to them: that is to say, the conception of substance is a
purely logical function, without any objective value or meaning except
as referred to sensible things, and as soon as we leave the sphere
of sensibility, it can lead to no result. It is evident that the
substantiality of the soul cannot be the object of sensible intuition;
consequently, to apply to the soul the idea of substance is to extend
the conception beyond what its nature allows. It must be confessed
that Kant's reasoning is conclusive, if we admit his principles; and
here we have a proof of the necessity of combating certain theories,
which, because they are in the realm of abstractions, seem innocent,
but in reality are most dangerous, on account of the results to which
they lead. Such is the system of Kant as denying the objective value
of the pure categories, and this is why I have combated it,[44]
demonstrating: I. That indeterminate conceptions, and the general
principles founded on them, have an objective value beyond the field of
sensible experience, in respect to beings which are in nowise subject
to our intuition; II. That it is not true that we have only sensible
intuition, for we have intuitive knowledge of a pure intellectual
order, above the sphere of sensibility. This doctrine overthrows the
whole of Kant's argument, for it destroys its foundation.
[44] See Bk. IV., Chs. XIII., XIV., XV., XVI., XXI., XXII.
55. The German philosopher seems to have perceived the weak point
in his reasoning, and therefore he tries to give the psychological
argument in such terms as to show a transition from the ideal order
to the real, keeping out of sight the point which unites things
so distant. His language is purely ideological: "Every thing, the
_representation_ of which is the absolute substance of our judgments,
and which cannot serve as a _determination_ of any thing else, is a
substance." Observe that he defines substance by the _representation_
and the incapacity of serving as a _determination_ of any thing else;
that is, by purely ideological or dialectic attributes. The form which
he employs in the second edition suffers from the same defect. "That
which cannot be _thought_ otherwise than as _subject_, does not exist
otherwise than as subject, and is, therefore, substance." Why does he
not tell us that the substance here spoken of is a permanent being,
in which the modifications are realized, but which remains identical
with itself? Why does he speak only of _representation_, of _thought_,
of the _determination_ or predicate? Because it helped his purpose to
present the argument as a sophism in which there is a transition from
one order to another entirely different order; because it was for his
interest to give an obscure form, so that he could make the following
observations:--"In the major, a being is spoken of which can be thought
under any view in general, and consequently, also, as it is given in
the intuition. But, in the minor, the same being is spoken of in so
far as it is regarded as subject, in relation only to thought and the
unity of consciousness, but not at the same time in relation to the
intuition by which the unity is given to the thought as its object.
Consequently the conclusion follows only by a fallacy, _per sophisma
figuræ dictionis_." And in a note he says: "Thought is taken in the two
premises in an entirely different sense; in the major, as belonging
to an object in general, and such, consequently, as it may be given
in the intuition; but in the minor only as it is in relation to the
consciousness of self, where it is not thought in any object, but is
merely represented in relation to itself, as subject, as the form of
the thought. In the first case, a thing is spoken of which can only
be thought as subject; but, in the second, thought is spoken of, not
things, since abstraction is made of all objects; and in the thought
the _me_ always serves as subject of the consciousness; hence the
conclusion which follows is not, that I cannot exist otherwise than
as subject, but only, that I cannot make use of myself in the thought
of my existence, otherwise than as subject of the judgment, which is
an identical proposition, revealing absolutely nothing concerning
the manner of my existence.[45] It makes one indignant to see a man
attempt, by such a confusion of ideas and of words, to rob the human
mind of its existence; for it amounts to the same thing, to deny
that it is a substance. It makes one indignant to see a philosopher
pretend, by such an absurd confusion, to attack one of the clearest,
most evident, and most irresistible arguments which can be presented to
human reason. I thought yesterday, I think to-day: in all the variety
of my situations, I find myself the same and not another; this reality,
which remains identical in the midst of diversity, I call my soul;
therefore my soul is a permanent reality, the subject of modifications;
therefore it is a substance. Can any thing be clearer?"
[45] Critik der reinen Vernunft, p. 298.
56. Psychology does, it is true, make use of the general idea of
substance in proving the substantiality of the soul: but it appeals
to a fact of experience, to the testimony of consciousness, in order
to apply this idea to the present case. What does Kant mean when he
pretends to have demonstrated that the conception of a thing which
can exist of itself as subject, but not as mere attribute, does not
involve any objective reality? When he speaks of _subject_, does he
mean a real subject, the subject of modifications? Then the soul is a
subject; but we do not say that it is a subject _only_; we conceive
its reality under this aspect without, therefore, denying that it has
other characters: on the contrary, we expressly acknowledge that it is
an active principle, which implies something more that the mere subject
of modifications, for this last is a passive, rather than an active,
quality. If by subject Kant understands the logical subject, we deny
that this is exclusively the character of the soul in such a way that
it cannot logically be the attribute or predicate of a proposition.
57. "The conception of a thing," says Kant, "which can exist as its
own subject, but not as a mere predicate, draws with it no objective
reality; that is, one cannot know whether any object corresponds to
it, since one cannot conceive the possibility of such a manner of
existing, consequently there is absolutely no cognition. In order that
it may indicate under the denomination of substance, an object which
may be given, in order that it may be a cognition, a constant intuition
must be placed at the foundation, as the indispensable condition of
the objective reality of a conception, namely, that by which alone
the object is given. But we have nothing constant in the internal
intuition, for the _me_ is only the consciousness of my thought; if,
therefore, we confine ourselves to the thought alone, the necessary
condition of the application of the conception of substance, that is,
of a subject subsisting in itself as thinking being."[46]
[46] Critik der reinen Vernunft, p. 299.
No argument could be more common-place and sophistical. Kant does
not admit the substantiality of the soul, because we cannot take the
substance itself and present it in sensible intuition; but then he
ought not to speak of _pure intellectual conceptions_ of _logical
functions_, or of _ideas_; for all these are things which are out of
the order of sensibility, and therefore cannot be given us in the
sensible intuition. Yet they really exist as internal phenomena, as
subjective facts, of which Kant is continually talking, and to which
he devotes the greater part of his _Critic of Pure Reason_. Will it,
perchance, be said that the pure idea of relation means nothing,
because we cannot present an abstract relation in sensible intuition?
Will it be said that the principles from which proceed the phenomena
of attraction, affinity, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, light, and
all that charms or astonishes us in nature,--will it be said that they
do not exist, that they are not permanent things, but empty words,
because we cannot represent them in sensible intuition? Such a manner
of arguing is unworthy of a philosopher. It might be excusable in an
uneducated person, accustomed only to the phenomena of sensibility,
who had never descended to the depths of the soul in the sphere of
pure intelligence,--such a person might be pardoned if, when we speak
of a _spirit_, a _cause_, or a _substance_, he should ask, _what is
it?_ and require us to show the insensible under a sensible form: but
one who pretends to excel all philosophers, ancient or modern, one
who from the inaccessible height of his wisdom looks down with such
sovereign contempt on all the arguments which were before regarded as
conclusive, ought to produce some other title of his superiority than
merely saying: one cannot conceive the possibility of such a manner of
existing: we have no internal intuition of this permanent thing which
you speak of; the _me_ is only the consciousness of my thought. What
then! is any thing more necessary in order to prove what we propose,
than this consciousness. Is not this consciousness _one_ amid the
variety of our thoughts? Is there not a point connecting yesterday's,
to-day's, and to-morrow's thought? Different and contradictory as they
are, do they not all belong to the same thing, to this _thing_ which we
call the _me_, and which authorizes us to say: _I_ who think to-day,
am the same who thought yesterday, and who will think to-morrow?
Can any reasoning be clearer or more convincing than affirming the
real permanence which we perceive in the internal testimony of our
consciousness? I do not see my substance, you may say, I have no
intuition of it; I only perceive my consciousness. What more do you
want? This consciousness which you experience, which is one amid
multiplicity, identical amid distinction, constant amid variety, and
permanent in the midst of the succession of the phenomena which appear
and disappear; this consciousness, which is no one of your individual
thoughts, which endures while they pass away, not to return; this
consciousness presents to you the substantiality of your soul, it
presents it in a certain manner in intuition, not in the intuition
of _sensations_, but in the intuition of the _internal sense_, as
a thing affecting you deeply, and the presence of which you cannot
doubt, as you do not doubt the pleasure or pain in the act by which you
experience it.
58. In attacking the psychological for the substantiality of the
soul, Kant supposes that those who make use of it, attempt to prove
the substantiality of the soul by starting from the pure and simple
category of substance. This mistake might have occasioned the form
in which Kant presents this argument; but we have seen that, whether
intentionally or not, this form is arranged in the best manner for
affording weak points for the attacks of the philosopher. Open any
treatise on psychology and you will find that although the general
idea of substance is employed, it is only made use of after it has
been legitimated by a fact of experience; it is not inferred from the
pure category of substance that the soul is a substance; but only
after we have established the idea of substance as a general type, we
scrutinize the depth of consciousness to see if there is any thing
there to which this type may apply. This is what has been done in the
preceding paragraphs, and if Kant had wished to be more exact in his
account of the opinions of his adversaries, he would not have said that
the first argument of rational psychology only gives a light, which is
pretended to be true, when it presents the constant logical subject of
the thought, as the cognition of the real subject of the inherence.
"Far from its being possible," he says, "to infer these properties
from the pure and simple category of a substance, on the contrary, the
permanence of a given object cannot be taken as a principle, except by
starting from experience, when we wish to apply to it the empirically
general conception of a substance." The philosopher is right: the
properties of the pure and simple category of a substance cannot take
us out of the ideal order, unless we rest on a fact of experience; but
he forgets a part of the psychological argument when he adds that in
the present case we have not placed at the foundation any experience,
and that we have only drawn our conclusions from the conception of
the relation of every thought to the _me_ as the common subject with
which this thought is connected. The experience exists in this very
consciousness of the relation of all thoughts to the _me_; in this
point with which they are all connected; the relation to the _me_ is
not possible if the _me_ is not something; thoughts cannot be connected
in the _me_ if the _me_ is a pure nothing. "Referring the thought to
the _me_," Kant goes on to say, "we cannot establish this permanence
by a certain observation; because, although the _me_ is found at
the bottom of every thought, besides that there is no intuition to
distinguish it from every other perceptible object, it is connected
with this representation." It is true that we do not perceive the
permanent _me_ in the same manner that we do the objects of the other
intuitions; but we perceive it by the internal sense, by that presence,
of which we cannot doubt, and which, as Kant himself confesses, makes
us refer all thoughts to the _me_ as to a common subject which connects
them.
59. "It may be observed," he says, "that this representation (that of
the _me_) is constantly reproduced in every thought; but not that it
is a fixed and permanent intuition in which variable thoughts succeed
each other." There is an evident contradiction in this passage. The
representation of the _me_ is constantly reproduced in every thought:
but the _me_ either means nothing, or it means something identical
with itself; for if the _me_ which thinks to-day is not the _me_ which
thought yesterday, the word _me_ means something very different from
what all the world understands by it; therefore, if the representation
of the _me_ returns in every thought, the _me_ is the same in every
thought; therefore the _me_ is fixed and permanent, and consequently
the _me_ is a substance in which all variable thoughts succeed.
60. I cannot see any answer to this argument, founded on Kant's own
words when establishing a phenomenon, the existence of which he was
unable to place in doubt, namely, the presence of the _me_ in every
thought. This is not the place to examine the philosophical questions
on the uninterruptedness of consciousness, or whether there is any
time in which the soul does not think, and is not conscious of itself.
Many philosophers believe there is such an interruption; and they rest
their opinion on our experience when asleep, and our not recollecting
what happens to us in that state; but Leibnitz thinks that thought is
never entirely extinguished, that there is never an absolute pause
of consciousness, that our thought is a light which sheds but little
lustre at times, but which never goes entirely out. Whichever of these
opinions be the true one, the permanence of the substance of the soul
is beyond a doubt; and it is worthy of remark that the interruption of
thought and of consciousness, far from favoring those who oppose the
permanence of the soul, confounds them in a most conclusive manner. For
if it is impossible to conceive, without supposing something permanent,
how different phenomena, continued in an uninterrupted series, are
connected in consciousness; it is still more inconceivable how they
can be connected, if we suppose this series to be interrupted, and
a certain space of time to intervene between the existence of the
connected phenomena.
61. Let A, B, C, D be thoughts which are continued without any interval
of time between them, and Q the consciousness through which they pass;
if this Q is not something, it is impossible to conceive how the
terms of the series can be connected, and, how, notwithstanding their
difference and diversity, there is found at the bottom of them all
something constant and identical, which we call the _me_, and by virtue
of which we can say: I, who think D, am the same who thought C, and B,
and A.
But if the consciousness is interrupted, if some hours have passed
between C and D, during which there was no thought, no consciousness,
it is still more inconceivable how at the bottom of the thought _me_
there is found the same _me_ which was in the thought C; it is still
more inconceivable, because in thinking D we may say: I, who think
D, am the same who thought C, and who have been for a certain time
deprived of thought. Without something permanent, something which
lasts during the succession, how explain this connection? Are we,
perchance, speaking of unknown facts? Is not this our daily experience
on awaking? If this is not conclusive, let us deny consciousness, let
us deny reason; but let us not waste time in talking philosophy.
CHAPTER X.
KANT'S OPINION OF THE ARGUMENT WHICH HE CALLS PARALOGISM OF PERSONALITY.
62. Kant attacks the argument founded on the testimony of consciousness
in a particular manner in the examination of what he calls _the
Paralogism of Personality_. He gives the argument in this form;
"Whatever has the consciousness of its numerical identity at different
times is, by this fact alone, a person; this is verified of the soul;
therefore soul is a person." Kant uses the word _person_ in a very
incorrect sense: it not only means an intelligent substance, but one
that is the complete principle of its actions, independently of all
connection with any other substance, or a union with a _supposition_.
At any rate, the German philosopher understands here by person an
intelligent substance; and in this sense he proposes to combat the
argument proving the personality of the soul.
63. "If I wish," he says, "to know by experience the numerical
identity of any external object, I apply my attention to that which
is constant in the phenomenon, to which all the rest is referred, as
a determination to its subject; and I observe the identity of the
subject at the time in which the determination changes. I am an object
of the internal sense, and time is only the form of this sense; I
therefore refer all my successive determinations, and each one of
them in particular, to that which is numerically identical, in all
time, that is, in the form of the internal intuition of myself. Hence
the personality of the soul ought only to be deduced or concluded
as a proposition perfectly identical with consciousness in time;
consequently, this proposition is valid _a priori_, because it does not
really announce any thing else than that in all the time in which I am
conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as a thing, which is
a part of my unity. This is the same as to say: All this time is in me
as individual unity, or rather, I am in all this time with numerical
identity."
It would have been desirable if Kant had shown why the internal sense
of the numerical identity may be expressed by the proposition; all this
time is in me as an individual unity, or in this other; in all the
time in which I am conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as
a thing, which is a part of my unity. It is true that the numerical
unity is perceived in the diversity of time; but it is not true that we
are conscious of time as a thing which is a part of us. He is treating
of the consciousness of self, as it is found in the greatest part of
mankind, who, far from considering time as a thing which is a part of
themselves, regard it as a sort of vague extension or succession in
which they and all that is variable exist.
It is well known that philosophers themselves dispute on the true
nature of time; and that it is the form of the internal sense is an
opinion of Kant's, which is not accepted by many others, and which, as
I have shown,[47] he explains badly and proves still worse, although he
pretends to have raised his theory to the height of an incontestible
doctrine. Whether time is an internal or an external form, whether,
even, it is an illusion or a reality, we perceive our numerical
identity in its succession; therefore when the German philosopher bases
himself on his theory of time, in order to attack the solidity of the
argument of consciousness, he rests on a supposition which we are not
required to admit, and what is more, he explains this sentiment of
identity in terms which no one ever used before him. If he wishes to
make time enter into the sentiment of numerical identity, he might say:
I find myself in all this time in a numerical identity, or: all this
time has passed over me as over an individual unit; but not that we are
conscious of time as a thing which is a part of ourselves. If we look
to consciousness, we should rather be inclined to believe that time
is a sort of successive extension, in which we live, and by which our
existence is measured.
[47] See Book VIII., Chapters XII. and XIV.
64. "The identity of the person," continues Kant, "must inevitably be
found in my consciousness; but if I regard myself from the point of
view of another (as the object of his external intuition) this other
observer conceives me only in time; for, in the apperception, time
is not strictly represented except within me; therefore he will not
conclude my objective permanence from the _me_, which he admits, and
which accompanies all representations in all time in my consciousness,
and in a perfect identity. The time in which the observer places me
not being the same which is found in my own sensibility, but that
which accompanies his intuition, it follows that the identity which is
necessarily joined to my consciousness, is not joined to his, that is,
to the external intuition of my subject." It is difficult to understand
precisely what Kant means in this passage, and it seems very doubtful
whether he understood it himself; however, let us see what can be
deduced from it against the permanence of the soul.
The German philosopher admits that the identity of the person is
inevitably found in our consciousness; that is, the _me_ finds itself
numerically identical in the diversity of time. It is also true that a
strange observer conceives the _me_ only in time, that is, if one man
reflects on the soul of another man, he conceives it only in time. But
this does not show why Kant says that the observer would not infer from
this the objective permanence of the soul observed. What would happen
would be this. If the man who reflects on the soul of another man
believes that same passes in the soul of this man which he perceives
within himself, he will infer that the other soul is permanent, for the
same reason that he affirms the permanence of his own soul. It is true
that as he cannot enter into the consciousness of the other, he can
only know it by external marks; but if he is convinced that these marks
are sufficient to denote a series of phenomena of consciousness similar
to those which he experiences in himself, he will infer that the soul
which he observes is as permanent as his own. What does Kant mean then,
when he says that the identity which is necessarily connected with
_my_ consciousness, is not connected with that of the observer? Who
ever doubted this truth? Who ever supposed that the perception of the
identity in relation to one's own consciousness is not very different
from that which relates to another's? Our own identity is revealed to
us by immediate consciousness; the identity of another is shown to
us by a series of external phenomena which lead us by reasoning and
analogy to the conviction that outside of us there are beings similar
to ourselves.
65. "The identity of the consciousness of myself at different times,"
Kant goes on to say, "is only a formal condition of my thoughts and
their connection; but it does not prove the numerical identity of
my subject, in which, notwithstanding the logical identity of the
_me_, such a change may take place, as to render it impossible to
preserve the identity of this _me_, which does not prevent our always
attributing to it the identical _me_, which _me_ may still preserve
in another state, and even in the metamorphosis of the subject, the
thought of the previous subject, and transmit to it all that comes
afterwards." This is precisely what Kant ought to have explained;
because the phenomenon of the sentiment of identity in the midst of
continual variety, is what irresistibly inclines us to believe that
the _me_ is something permanent. It is not true that we have only the
topical identity of the _me_, for we are not speaking of the subject
of a proposition, but of a real subject, experienced, perceived in the
depth of our consciousness.
Kant imagines that he can explain this sentiment of identity with
great simplicity. I will try to express his strange opinion in an
intelligible manner. Let A, B, C, D, E, ... be instants of time, and
let _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, ... be thoughts or any other internal
phenomena, corresponding to them. At the instant A, the thought _a_
exists. At the instant B, the thought _b_ succeeds. At the instant B,
the soul which existed at the instant A, no longer exists. The soul at
the instant B, is something entirely new; it is not _a_ but _b_. The
same is true of all the rest. But how, you will say, is it possible for
the soul at all these instants to believe itself the same? It is very
simple: the subject _a_ transmits the thought to the subject _b_; _b_
transmits its own and _a_'s to _c_. Nothing remains identical; but the
consciousness of the identity always lasts. Does not such an hypothesis
seem truly wonderful and philosophical? What could be imagined clearer
and more satisfactory?
The reader may perhaps think that I am jesting, and that I present
Kant's opinion under a ridiculous aspect for the sake of combating it
more easily; but it is just the reverse; the exposition which I have
just made of Kant's philosophy is more serious than his own. These
are his words: "One elastic ball striking another in a right line,
communicates to the latter its whole motion, and consequently its
whole state (considering only their positions in space). Admit now, by
analogy with these bodies, certain substances, of which one transmits
representations to another, with the consciousness which accompanies
them; we may then conceive a whole series of such representations,
in which the first communicates its state, and the consciousness of
its state to the second; the second communicates its state, together
with that of the preceding substance, to the third; the third, in like
manner, communicates the states of both of the preceding substances
together with its own, and the consciousness which accompanies them to
the fourth. The last of the series will then have the consciousness
of all the states of the substances which preceded it, as of its own;
because these states, and the consciousness of these states have been
transmitted to it. Still it will not have been the same person in all
these states."
Kant, in trying to refute the psychological argument founded on
consciousness, overthrows and destroys the character of consciousness:
a transmitted consciousness is not a true consciousness; it is only the
cognition of a previous thought.
These substances, existing successively and transmitting their
consciousness from one to another, would be something distinct from the
act of consciousness, or they would not. If distinct, we must admit a
subject of the consciousness, which in itself, and as subject, does
not come under the sensible intuition; and consequently we may argue
_ad hominem_, and retort Kant's objection against himself. If these
transitory substances are only the act of the consciousness, when the
act ceases, nothing remains of the substances, and therefore, there is
nothing transmissible.
Transmission supposes something which may be transmitted; if, then, the
act of consciousness is transmitted, it must be something permanent in
itself, in the midst of the succession of the substances; and this is
a very strange conclusion to which the German philosopher is brought
by his theory of transmission. All psychologists had said that the
substance of the soul is permanent, and its phenomena transitory; now,
on the contrary, we find that the transitory is the substance, and that
which is permanent is the phenomenon, or the act of consciousness which
is transmitted.
66. Perhaps it may be answered that by transmission is not meant the
communication of any thing constant, but merely the succession of
phenomena united by any tie among themselves. Thus, supposing the
instants A, B, C, D, the acts of consciousness, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_,
corresponding to them, will not be strictly identical in number,
but successive, and connected. But this reply, which avoids the
necessity of admitting the permanence of the act of consciousness,
explains nothing, and makes it incomprehensible, how, at the instant
D, for example, there can be consciousness of the acts _c_, _b_, _a_,
which there is an irresistible inclination to believe have at bottom
something numerically identical. When _d_ exists there is no longer
any thing of _c_ left; there is no substance remaining, because, by
the supposition there either is no such substance, or it is something
transitory; there is no act of consciousness remaining, because _a_
is numerically distinct from _c_, and besides, we have seen that
the permanence of the phenomena cannot be admitted. Therefore it is
absolutely impossible to explain or to comprehend how there can be in
the act _a_ the representation of _c_.