_The Soul does not derive its ideas from itself--It has no innate
Ideas._
What has preceded suffices to prove, that the interior organ of man,
which is called his _soul_, is purely material. He will be enabled to
convince himself of this truth, by the manner in which he acquires his
ideas,--from those impressions which material objects successively make
on his organs, which are themselves acknowledged to be material. It has
been seen, that the faculties which are called intellectual, are to be
ascribed to that of feeling; the different qualities of those faculties
which are called moral, have been explained after the necessary laws
of a very simple mechanism: it now remains, to reply to those who still
obstinately persist in making the soul a substance distinguished from
the body, or who insist on giving it an essence totally distinct. They
seem to found their distinction upon this, that this interior organ has
the faculty of drawing its ideas from within itself; they will have it,
that man, at his birth, brings with him ideas into the world, which,
according to this wonderful notion, they have called _innate_. The Jews
have a similar doctrine which they borrowed from the Chaldeans: their
rabbins taught, that each soul, before it was united to the seed that
must form an infant in the womb of a woman, is confided to the care of
an angel, which causes him to behold heaven, earth, and hell: this, they
pretend, is done by the assistance of a lamp, which extinguishes itself
as soon as the infant comes into the world. Some ancient philosophers
have held, that the soul originally contains the principles of several
notions or doctrines: the Stoics designated this by the term PROLEPSIS,
_anticipated opinions_; the Greek mathematicians, KOINAS ENNOIAS,
_universal ideas_. They have believed that the soul, by a special
privilege, in a nature where every thing is connected, enjoyed the
faculty of moving itself without receiving any impulse; of creating to
itself ideas, of thinking on a subject, without being determined to
such action, by any exterior object; which by moving its organs should
furnish it with an image of the subject of its thoughts. In consequence
of these gratuitous suppositions, of these extraordinary pretensions,
which it is only requisite to expose, in order to confute some very able
speculators, who were prepossessed by their superstitious prejudices;
have ventured the length to assert, that without model, without
prototype to act on the senses, the soul is competent to delineate to
itself, the whole universe with all the beings it contains. DESCARTES
and his disciples have assured us, that the body went absolutely for
nothing, in the sensations, in the perceptions, in the ideas of the
soul; that it can feel, that it can perceive, that it can understand,
that it can taste, that it can touch, even when there should exist
nothing that is corporeal or material exterior to ourselves. But what
shall be said of a BERKELEY, who has endeavoured, who has laboured to
prove to man, that every thing in this world is nothing more than a
chimerical illusion; that the universe exists nowhere but in himself;
that it has no identity but in his imagination; who has rendered the
existence of all things problematical by the aid of sophisms, insolvable
even to those who maintain the doctrine of the spirituality of the soul.
Extravagant as this doctrine of the BISHOP OF CLOYNE may appear, it
cannot well be more so than that of MALEBRANCHE, the champion of innate
ideas; who makes the divinity the common bond between the soul and the
body: or than that of those metaphysicians, who maintain that the soul
is a substance heterogeneous to the body; who by ascribing to this soul
the thoughts of man, have in fact rendered the body superfluous. They
have not perceived they were liable to one solid objection, which is,
that if the ideas of man are innate, if he derives them from a superior
being, independent of exterior causes, if he sees every thing in God;
how comes it that so many false ideas are afloat, that so many errors
prevail, with which the human mind is saturated? From whence comes these
opinions, which according to the theologians are so displeasing to God?
Might it not be a question to the Malebranchists, was it in the Divinity
that SPINOZA beheld his system?
Nevertheless, to justify such monstrous opinions, they assert that ideas
are only the objects of thought. But according to the last analysis,
these ideas can only reach man from exterior objects, which in giving
impulse to his senses modify his brain; or from the material beings
contained within the interior of his machine, who make some parts of his
body experience those sensations which he perceives, which furnish him
with ideas, which he relates, faithfully or otherwise, to the cause that
moves him. Each idea is an effect, but however difficult it may be to
recur to the cause, can we possibly suppose it is not ascribable to
a cause? If we can only form ideas of material substances, how can we
suppose the cause of our ideas can possibly be immaterial? To pretend
that man without the aid of exterior objects, without the intervention
of his senses, is competent to form ideas of the universe, is to assert,
that a blind man is in a capacity to form a true idea of a picture, that
represents some fact of which he has never heard any one speak.
It is very easy to perceive the source of those errors, into which men,
otherwise extremely profound and very enlightened have fallen, when they
have been desirous to speak of the soul: to describe its operations.
Obliged either by their own prejudices, or by the fear of combatting the
opinions of some imperious theologian, they have become the advocates of
the principle, that the soul was a pure spirit: an immaterial substance;
of an essence directly different from that of the body; from every thing
we behold: this granted, they have been incompetent to conceive how
material objects could operate, in what manner gross and corporeal
organs were enabled to act on a substance, that had no kind of analogy
with them; how they were in a capacity to modify it by conveying its
ideas; in the impossibility of explaining this phenomenon, at the same
time perceiving that the soul had ideas, they concluded that it must
draw them from itself, and not from those beings, which according to
their own hypothesis, were incapable of acting on it, or rather, of
which they could not conceive the manner of action; they therefore
imagined that all the modifications, all the actions of this soul,
sprung from its own peculiar energy, were imprinted on it from its first
formation, by the Author of Nature: that these did not in any manner
depend upon the beings of which we have a knowledge, or which act upon
it, by the gross means of our senses.
There are, however, some phenomena, which, considered superficially,
appear to support the opinion of these philosophers; to announce a
faculty in the human soul of producing ideas within itself, without any
exterior aid; these are _dreams_, in which the interior organ of man,
deprived of objects that move it visibly, does not, however, cease to
have ideas--to be set in activity--to be modified in a manner that is
sufficiently sensible--to have an influence upon his body. But if a
little reflection be called in, the solution to this difficulty will
be found: it will be perceived that, even during sleep, his brain is
supplied with a multitude of ideas, with which the eye or time before
has stocked it; these ideas were communicated to it by exterior or
corporeal objects, by which they have been modified: it will be found
that these modifications renew themselves, not by any spontaneous,
not by any voluntary motion on its part, but by a chain of involuntary
movements which take place in his machine, which determine, which excite
those that give play to the brain; these modifications renew themselves
with more or less fidelity, with a greater or lesser degree of
conformity to those which it has anteriorly experienced. Sometimes in
dreaming, he has memory, then he retraces to himself the objects which
have struck him faithfully;--at other times, these modifications renew
themselves without order, and without connection, very differently from
those, which real objects have before excited in his interior organ. If
in a dream he believes he sees a friend, his brain renews in itself the
modifications or the ideas which this friend had formerly excited--in
the same order that they arranged themselves when his eyes really beheld
him--this is nothing more than an effect of memory. If in his dream he
fancies he sees a monster which has no model in nature, his brain is
then modified in the same manner that it was by the particular, by the
detached ideas, with which it then does nothing more than compose an
ideal whole; by assembling, and associating, in a ridiculous manner, the
scattered ideas that were consigned to its keeping; it is then, that in
dreaming he has imagination.
Those dreams that are troublesome, extravagant, whimsical, or
unconnected, are commonly the effect of some confusion in his machine;
such as painful indigestion--an overheated blood--a prejudicial
fermentation, &c.--these material causes excite in his body a disorderly
motion, which precludes the brain from being modified in the same manner
it was on the day before; in consequence of this irregular motion the
brain is disturbed, it only represents to itself confused ideas that
want connection. When in a dream, he believes he sees a Sphinx, a being
supposed by the poets to have a head and face like a woman, a body like
a dog, wings like a bird, and claws like a lion, who put forth riddles
and killed those who could not expound them; either, he has seen the
representation of one when he was awake, or else the disorderly motion
of the brain is such that it causes it to combine ideas, to connect
parts, from which there results a whole without model, of which the
parts were not formed to be united. It is thus, that his brain combines
the head of a woman, of which it already has the idea, with the body of
a lioness, of which it also has the image. In this his head acts in the
same manner, as when by any defect in the interior organ, his disordered
imagination paints to him some objects, notwithstanding he is awake. He
frequently dreams, without being asleep: his dreams never produce any
thing so strange but that they have some resemblance, with the
objects which have anteriorly acted on his senses; which have already
communicated ideas to his brain. The watchful theologians have composed,
at their leisure, in their waking hours, those phantoms, of which they
avail themselves, to terrify or frighten man; they have done nothing
more than assemble the scattered traits which they have found in the
most terrible beings of their own species; by exaggerating the powers,
by enlarging the rights claimed by tyrants, they have formed ideal
beings, before whom man trembles, and is afraid.
Thus, it is seen, that dreams, far from proving that the soul acts by
its own peculiar energy, that it draws its ideas from its own recesses;
prove, on the contrary, that in sleep it is intirely passive, that it
does not even renew its modifications, but according to the involuntary
confusion, which physical causes produce in the body, of which every
thing tends to shew the identity, the consubstantiality with the soul.
What appears to have led those into a mistake, who maintained that the
soul drew its ideas from itself, is this, they have contemplated these
ideas, as if they were real beings, when, in point of fact, they are
nothing more than the modifications produced in the brain of man, by
objects to which this brain is a stranger; they are these objects,
who are the true models, who are the real archetypes to which it is
necessary to recur: here is the source of all their errors.
In the individual who dreams, the soul does not act more from itself,
than it does in the man who is drunk, that is to say, who is modified
by some spirituous liquor: or than it does in the sick man, when he is
delirious, that is to say, when he is modified by those physical causes
which disturb his machine, which obstruct it in the performance of its
functions; or than it, does in him, whose brain is disordered: dreams,
like these various states, announce nothing more than a physical
confusion in the human machine, under the influence of which the brain
ceases to act, after a precise and regular manner: this disorder may
be traced to physical causes, such as the aliments--the humours--the
combinations--the fermentations, which are but little analogous to the
salutary state of man; from hence it will appear, that his brain is
necessarily confused, whenever his body is agitated in an extraordinary
manner.
Do not let him, therefore, believe that his soul acts by itself, or
without a cause, in any one moment of his existence; it is, conjointly
with the body, submitted to the impulse of beings, who act on him
necessarily, according to their various properties. Wine taken in too
great a quantity, necessarily disturbs his ideas, causes confusion in
his corporeal functions, occasions disorder in his mental faculties.
If there really existed a being in Nature, with the capability of moving
itself by its own peculiar energies, that is to say, able to produce
motion, independent of all other causes, such a being would have the
power of arresting itself, or of suspending the motion of the universe;
which is nothing more than an immense chain of causes linked one to
another, acting and re-acting by necessary immutable laws, and which
cannot be changed, which are incapable of being suspended, unless the
essences of every thing in it were changed, without the properties
of every thing were annihilated. In the general system of the world,
nothing more can be perceived than a long series of motion, received
and communicated in succession, by beings capacitated to give impulse to
each other: it is thus, that each body is moved by the collision of some
other body. The invisible motion of some soul is to be attributed to
causes concealed within himself; he believes that it is moved by itself,
because he does not see the springs which put it in motion, or because
he conceives those powers are incapable of producing the effects he
so much admires: but, does he more clearly conceive, how a spark in
exploding gunpowder, is capable of producing the terrible effects he
witnesses? The source of his errors arise from this, that he regards his
body as gross and inert, whilst this body is a sensible machine, which
has necessarily an instantaneous conscience the moment it receives an
impression; which is conscious of its own existence by the recollection
of impressions successively experienced; memory by resuscitating an
impression anteriorly received, by detaining it, or by causing an
impression which it receives to remain, whilst it associates it with
another, then with a third, gives all the mechanism of _reasoning_.
An idea, which is only an imperceptible modification of the brain, gives
play to the organ of speech, which displays itself by the motion it
excites in the tongue: this, in its turn, breeds ideas, thoughts, and
passions, in those beings who are provided with organs susceptible of
receiving analagous motion; in consequence of which, the wills of
a great number of men are influenced, who, combining their efforts,
produce a revolution in a state, or even have an influence over the
entire globe. It is thus, that an ALEXANDER decided the fate of Asia, it
is thus, that a MAHOMET changed the face of the earth; it is thus,
that imperceptible causes produce the most terrible, the most extended
effects, by a series of necessary motion imprinted on the brain of man.
The difficulty of comprehending the effects produced on the soul of man,
has made him attribute to it those incomprehensible qualities which have
been examined. By the aid of imagination, by the power of thought, this
soul appears to quit his body, to carry itself with the greatest ease,
to transport itself with the utmost facility towards the most distant
objects; to run over, to approximate in the twinkling of an eye, all the
points of the universe: he has therefore believed, that a being who is
susceptible of such rapid motion, must be of a nature very distinguished
from all others; he has persuaded himself that this soul in reality does
travel, that it actually springs over the immense space necessary to
meet these various objects; he did not perceive, that to do it in
an instant, it had only to run over itself to approximate the ideas
consigned to its keeping, by means of the senses.
Indeed, it is never by any other means than by his senses, that
beings become known to man, or furnish him with ideas; it is only
in consequence of the impulse given to his body, that his brain is
modified, or that his soul thinks, wills, and acts. If, as ARISTOTLE
asserted more than two thousand years ago,--"_nothing enters the mind
of man but through the medium of his senses_,"--it follows as a
consequence, that every thing that issues from it must find some
sensible object to which it can attach its ideas, whether immediately,
as a man, a tree, a bird, &c. or in the last analysis or decomposition,
such as pleasure, happiness, vice, virtue, &c. This principle, so true,
so luminous, so important in its consequence, has been set forth in all
its lustre, by a great number of philosophers; among the rest, by the
great LOCKE. Whenever, therefore, a word or its idea does not connect
itself with some sensible object to which it can be related, this word
or this idea is unmeaning, and void of sense; it were better for man
that the idea was banished from his mind, struck out of his language:
this principle is only the converse of the axiom of ARISTOTLE,--"_if
the direct be evident, the inverse must be so likewise_." How has it
happened, that the profound LOCKE, who, to the great mortification
of the metaphysicians, has placed this principle of ARISTOTLE in the
clearest point of view? how is it, that all those who, like him, have
recognized the absurdity of the system of innate ideas, have not drawn
the immediate, the necessary consequences? How has it come to pass, that
they have not had sufficient courage to apply so clear a principle to
all those fanciful chimeras with which the human mind has for such a
length of time been so vainly occupied? did they not perceive that
their principle sapped the very foundations of those metaphysical
speculations, which never occupy man but with those objects of which, as
they are inaccessible to his senses, he consequently can never form
to himself any accurate idea? But prejudice, when it is generally held
sacred, prevents him from seeing the most simple application of the most
self-evident principles. In metaphysical researches, the greatest men
are frequently nothing more than children, who are incapable of either
foreseeing or deducing the consequence of their own data.
LOCKE, as well as all those who have adopted his system, which is so
demonstrable,--or to the axiom of ARISTOTLE, which is so clear, ought
to have concluded from it that all those wonderful things with
which metaphysicians have amused themselves, are mere chimeras; mere
wanderings of the imagination; that an immaterial spirit or substance,
without extent, without parts, is, in fact, nothing more than an
absence of ideas; in short, they ought to have felt that the ineffable
intelligence which they have supposed to preside at the helm of the
world, is after all nothing more than a being of their own imagination,
on which man has never been in accord, whom he has pictured under all
the variety of forms, to which he has at different periods, in different
climes, ascribed every kind of attribute, good or bad; but of which
it is impossible his senses can ever prove either the existence or the
qualities.
For the same reason, moral philosophers ought to have concluded, that
what is called moral sentiment, _moral instinct_, that is, innate
ideas of virtue, anterior to all experience of the good or bad effects
resulting from its practice, are mere chimerical notions, which, like a
great many others, have for their guarantee and base only metaphysical
speculation. Before man can judge, he must feel; before he can
distinguish good from evil, he must compare. _Morals_, is a science of
facts: to found them, therefore, on an hypothesis inaccessible to his
senses, of which he has no means of proving the reality, is to render
them uncertain; it is to cast the log of discord into his lap, to cause
him unceasingly to dispute upon that which he can never understand.
To assert that the ideas of morals are _innate_, or the effect of
_instinct_, is to pretend that man knows how to read before he has
learned the letters of the alphabet; that he is acquainted with the laws
of society before they are either made or promulgated.
To undeceive him, with respect to innate ideas or modifications,
imprinted on his soul, at the moment of his birth, it is simply
requisite to recur to their source; he will then see that those with
which he is familiar, which have, as it were, identified themselves with
his existence, have all come to him through the medium of some of
his senses; that they are sometimes engraven on his brain with great
difficulty,--that they have never been permanent,--that they have
perpetually varied in him: he will see that these pretended inherent
ideas of his soul, are the effect of education, of example, above all,
of habit, which by reiterated motion has taught his brain to associate
his ideas either in a confused or a perspicuous manner; to familiarize
itself with systems either rational or absurd. In short, he takes those
for innate ideas of which he has forgotten the origin; he no longer
recals to himself, either the precise epoch, or the successive
circumstances when these ideas were first consigned to his brain:
arrived at a certain age he believes he has always had the same notions;
his memory, crowded with experience, loaded with a multitude of facts,
is no longer able to distinguish the particular circumstances which
have contributed to give his brain its present modifications; its
instantaneous mode of thinking; its actual opinions. For example, not
one of his race, perhaps, recollects the first time the word God struck
his ears--the first ideas that it formed in him--the first thoughts that
it produced in him; nevertheless, it is certain that from thence he
has searched for some being with whom to connect the idea which he has
either formed to himself, or which has been suggested to him: accustomed
to hear God continually spoken of, he has, when in other respects, the
most enlightened, regarded this idea as if it were infused into him by
Nature; whilst it is visibly to be attributed to those delineations of
it, which his parents or his instructors have made to him; which he has,
in consequence, modified according to his own particular organization,
and the circumstances in which he has been placed; it is thus, that each
individual forms to himself a God, of which he is himself the model, or
which he modifies after his own fashion.
His ideas of morals, although more real than those of metaphysics, are
not however innate: the moral sentiments he forms on the will, or the
judgment he passes on the actions of man, are founded on experience;
which alone can enable him to discriminate those which are either useful
or prejudicial, virtuous or vicious, honest or dishonest, worthy his
esteem, or deserving his censure. His moral sentiments are the fruit
of a multitude of experience that is frequently very long and very
complicated. He gathers it with time; it is more or less faithful, by
reason of his particular organization and the causes by which he is
modified; he ultimately applies this experience with greater or less
facility; to this is to be attributed his habit of judging. The celerity
with which he applies his experience when he judges of the moral actions
of his fellow man, is what has been termed _moral instinct_.
That which in natural philosophy is called _instinct_, is only the
effect of some want of the body, the consequence of some attraction or
some repulsion in man or animals. The child that is newly born, sucks
for the first time; the nipple of the breast is put into his mouth:
by the natural analogy, that is found between the conglomerate glands,
filled with nerves; which line his mouth, and the milk which flows from
the bosom of the nurse, through the medium of the nipple, causes
the child to press it with his mouth, in order to express the fluid
appropriate to nourish his tender age; from all this the infant gathers
experience; by degrees the idea of a nipple, of milk, of pleasure,
associate themselves in his brain: every time he sees the nipple, he
seizes it, promptly conveys it to his mouth, and applies it to the use
for which it is designed.
What has been said, will enable us to judge of those prompt and sudden
sentiments, which have been designated _the force of blood_.
Those sentiments of love, which fathers and mothers have for their
children--those feelings of affection, which children, with good
inclinations, bear towards their parents, are by no means _innate
sentiments_; they are nothing more, than the effect of experience, of
reflection, of habit, in souls of sensibility. These sentiments do not
even exist in a great number of human beings. We but too often witness
tyrannical parents, occupied with making enemies of their children, who
appear to have been formed, only to be the victims of their irrational
caprices or their unreasonable desires.
From the instant in which man commences, until that in which he ceases
to exist, he feels--he is moved either agreeably or unpleasantly--he
collects facts--he gathers experience; these produce ideas in his brain,
that are either cheerful or gloomy. Not one individual has all this
experience present to his memory at the same time, it does not ever
represent to him the whole clew at once: it is, however, this experience
that mechanically directs him, without his knowledge, in all his
actions; it was to designate the rapidity with, which he applied this
experience, of which he so frequently loses the connection--of which he
is so often at a loss to render himself an account, that he imagined the
word _instinct_: it appears to be the effect of magic, the operation of
a supernatural power, to the greater number of individuals: it is a word
devoid of sense to many others; but to the philosopher it is the effect
of a very lively feeling to him it consists in the faculty of combining,
promptly, a multitude of experience--of arranging with facility--of
comparing with quickness, a long and numerous train of extremely
complicated ideas. It is want that causes the inexplicable instinct we
behold in animals which have been denied souls without reason,
whilst they are susceptible of an infinity of actions that prove they
think--judge--have memory--are capable of experience--can combine
ideas--can apply them with more or less facility to satisfy the wants
engendered by their particular organization; in short, that prove they
have passions that are capable of being modified. Nothing but the
height of folly can refuse intellectual faculties to animals; they feel,
choose, deliberate, express love, show hatred; in many instances their
senses are much keener than those of man. Fish will return periodically
to the spot where it is the custom to throw them bread.
It is well known the embarrassments which animals have thrown in the
way of the partizans of the doctrine of spirituality; they have been
fearful, if they allowed them to have a spiritual soul, of elevating
them to the condition of human creatures; on the other hand, in not
allowing them to have a soul, they have furnished their adversaries
with authority to deny it in like manner to man, who thus finds himself
debased to the condition of the animal. Metaphysicians have never known
how to extricate themselves from this difficulty. DESCARTES fancied he
solved it by saying that beasts have no souls, but are mere machines.
Nothing can be nearer the surface, than the absurdity of this principle.
Whoever contemplates Nature without prejudice, will readily acknowledge
that there is no other difference between the man and the beast, than
that which is to be attributed to the diversity of his organization.
In some beings of the human species, who appear to be endowed with a
greater sensibility of organs than others, may be seen an instinct,
by the assistance of which they very promptly judge of the concealed
dispositions of their fellows, simply by inspecting the lineaments of
their face. Those who are denominated _physiognomists_, are only men of
very acute feelings; who have gathered an experience of which others,
whether from the coarseness of their organs, from the little attention
they have paid, or from some defect in their senses, are totally
incapable: these last do not believe in the science of physiognomy,
which appears to them perfectly ideal. Nevertheless, it is certain,
that the action of this soul, which has been made spiritual, makes
impressions that are extremely marked upon the exterior of the body;
these impressions, continually reiterated, their image remains: thus the
habitual passions of man paint themselves on his countenance; by which
the attentive observer, who is endowed with acute feeling, is enabled to
judge with great rapidity of his mode of existence, and even to foresee
his actions, his inclinations, his desires, his predominant passions,
&c. Although the science of physiognomy appears chimerical to a great
number of persons, yet there are few who have not a clear idea of
a tender regard--of a cruel eye--of an austere aspect--of a false,
dissimulating look--of an open countenance, &c. Keen practised optics
acquire without doubt the faculty of penetrating the concealed motion
of the soul, by the visible traces it leaves upon features that it has
continually modified. Above all, the eyes of man very quickly undergo
changes according to the motion which is excited in him: these delicate
organs are visibly altered by the smallest shock communicated to his
brain. Serene eyes announce a tranquil soul; wild eyes indicate a
restless mind; fiery eyes pourtray a choleric, sanguine temperament;
fickle or inconstant eyes give room to suspect a soul either alarmed or
dissimulating. It is the study of this variety of shades that renders
man practised and acute: upon the spot he combines a multitude of
acquired experience, in order to form his judgment of the person he
beholds. His judgment, thus rapidly formed, partakes in nothing of
the supernatural, in nothing of the wonderful: such a man is only
distinguished by the fineness of his organs, and by the celerity with
which his brain performs its functions.
It is the same with some beings of the human species, in whom may be
discovered an extraordinary sagacity, which, to the uninformed, appears
miraculous. The most skilful practitioners in medicine, are, no
doubt, men endowed with very acute feelings, similar to that of the
physiognomists, by the assistance of which they judge with great
facility of diseases, and very promptly draw their prognostics. Indeed,
we see men who are capable of appreciating in the twinkling of an eye a
multitude of circumstances, who have sometimes the faculty of foreseeing
the most distant events; yet, this species of prophetic talent has
nothing in it of the supernatural; it indicates nothing more than great
experience, with an extremely delicate organization, from which they
derive the faculty of judging with extreme faculty of causes, of
foreseeing their very remote effects. This faculty, however, is also
found in animals, who foresee much better than man, the variations of
the atmosphere with the various changes of the weather. Birds have long
been the prophets, and even the guides of several nations who pretend to
be extremely enlightened.
It is, then, to their organization, exercised after a particular manner,
that must be attributed those wonderous faculties which distinguish
some beings, that astonish others. To have _instinct_, only signifies
to judge quickly, without requiring to make a long, reasoning on the
subject. Man's ideas upon vice and upon virtue, are by no means innate;
they are, like all others, acquired: the judgment he forms, is
founded upon experience, whether true or false,--this depends upon his
conformation, and upon the habits that have modified him. The infant
has no ideas either of the Divinity or of virtue; it is from those who
instruct him that he receives these ideas; he makes more or less use of
them, according to his natural organization, or as his dispositions have
been more or less exercised. Nature gives man legs, the nurse teaches
him their use, his agility depends upon their natural conformation, and
the manner in which he exercises them.
What is called _taste_, in the fine arts, is to be attributed, in the
same manner, only to the acuteness of man's organs, practised by the
habit of seeing, of comparing, of judging certain objects; from whence
results, to some of his species, the faculty of judging with great
rapidity, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole with its various
relations. It is by the force of seeing, of feeling, of experiencing
objects, that he attains to a knowledge of them; it is in consequence of
reiterating this experience, that he acquires the power, that he gains
the habit of judging with celerity. But this experience is by no means
innate, he did not possess it before he was born; he is neither able to
think, to judge, nor to have ideas, before he has feeling; he is neither
in a capacity to love, nor to hate; to approve, nor to blame, before he
has been moved, either agreeably or disagreeably. Nevertheless, this is
precisely what must be supposed by those who are desirous to make
man admit of innate ideas, of opinions; infused by Nature, whether in
morals, metaphysics, or any other science. That his mind should have the
faculty of thought, that it should occupy itself with an object, it is
requisite it should be acquainted with its qualities; that it may have a
knowledge of these qualities, it is necessary some of his senses should
have been struck by them: those objects, therefore, of which he does not
know any of the qualities, are nullities; or at least they do not exist
for him.
It will be asserted, perhaps, that the universal consent of man, upon
certain propositions, such as _the whole is greater than its part_, upon
all geometrical demonstrations, appear to warrant the supposition
of certain primary notions that are innate, not acquired. It may be
replied, that these notions are always acquired; that they are the
fruit of an experience more or less prompt; that it is requisite to have
compared the whole with its part, before conviction can ensue, that the
whole is the greater of the two. Man when he is born, does not bring
with him the idea that two and two make four; but he is, nevertheless,
speedily convinced of its truth. Before forming any judgment whatever,
it is absolutely necessary to have compared facts.
It is evident, that those who have gratuitously supposed innate ideas,
or notions inherent in man, have confounded his organization, or his
natural dispositions, with the habit by which he is modified; with the
greater or less aptitude he has of making experience, and of applying
it in his judgment. A man who has taste in painting, has, without doubt,
brought with him into the world eyes more acute, more penetrating than
another; but these eyes would by no means enable him to judge with
promptitude, if he had never had occasion to exercise them; much less,
in some respects, can those dispositions which are called _natural_, be
regarded as innate. Man is not, at twenty years of age, the same as
he was when he came into the world; the physical causes that are
continually acting upon him, necessarily have an influence upon his
organization, and so modify it, that his natural dispositions themselves
are not at one period what they are at another. La Motte Le Vayer says,
"We think quite otherwise of things at one time than at another; when
young than when old--when hungry than when our appetite is satisfied--in
the night than in the day--when peevish than when cheerful. Thus,
varying every hour, by a thousand other circumstances, which keep us in
a state of perpetual inconstancy and instability." Every day may be seen
children, who, to a certain age--display a great deal of ingenuity, a
strong aptitude for the sciences, who finish by falling into stupidity.
Others may be observed, who, during their infancy, have shown
dispositions but little favourable to improvement, yet develope
themselves in the end, and astonish us by an exhibition of those
qualities of which we hardly thought them susceptible: there arrives
a moment in which the mind takes a spring, makes use of a multitude of
experience which it has amassed, without its having been perceived; and,
if I may be allowed the expression, without their own knowledge.
Thus, it cannot be too often repeated, all the ideas, all the notions,
all the modes of existence, and all the thoughts of man, are acquired.
His mind cannot act, cannot exercise itself, but upon that of which it
has knowledge; it can understand either well or ill, only those things
which it has previously felt. Such of his ideas that do not suppose some
exterior material object for their model, or one to which he is able to
relate them, which are therefore called _abstract ideas_, are only modes
in which his interior organ considers its own peculiar modifications, of
which it chooses some without respect to others. The words which he uses
to designate these ideas, such as _bounty, beauty, order, intelligence,
virtue_, &c. do not offer any one sense, if he does not relate them to,
or if he does not explain them by, those objects which his senses have
shewn him to be susceptible of those qualities, or of those modes of
existence, of that manner of acting, which is known to him. What is it
that points out to him the vague idea of _beauty_, if he does not attach
it to some object that has struck his senses in a peculiar manner,
to which, in consequence, he attributes this quality? What is it that
represents the word _intelligence_, if he does not connect it with a
certain mode of being and of acting? Does the word _order_ signify any
thing, if he does not relate it to a series of actions, to a chain of
motion, by which he is affected in a certain manner? Is not the word
_virtue_ void of sense, if he does not apply it to those dispositions
of his fellows which produce known effects, different from those
which result from contrary inclinations? What do the words _pain_ and
_pleasure_ offer to his mind in the moment when his organs neither
suffer nor enjoy, if it be not the modes in which he has been affected,
of which his brain conserves the remembrance, of those impressions,
which experience has shewn him to be either useful or prejudicial? But
when he bears the words spirituality, immateriality, incorporeality, &c.
pronounced, neither his senses nor his memory afford him any assistance;
they do not furnish him with any means by which he can form an idea of
their qualities, or of the objects to which he ought to apply them; in
that which is not matter he can only see vacuum and emptiness, which as
long as he remains what he is, cannot, to his mind, be susceptible of
any one quality.
All the errors, all the disputes of men, have their foundation in this,
that they have renounced experience, have surrendered the evidence of
their senses, to give themselves up to the guidance of notions which
they have believed infused or innate; although in reality they are no
more than the effect of a distempered imagination, of prejudices, in
which they have been instructed from their infancy, with which habit
has familiarized them, which authority has obliged them to conserve.
Languages are filled with abstract words, to which are attached confused
and vague ideas; of which, when they come to be examined, no model can
be found in Nature; no object to which they can be related. When man
gives himself the trouble to analyze things, he is quite surprised to
find, that those words which are continually in the mouths of men,
never present any fixed or determinate idea: he hears them unceasingly
speaking of spirits--of the soul and its faculties--of duration--of
space--of immensity--of infinity--of perfection--of virtue--of
reason--of sentiment--of instinct--of taste, &c. without his being
able to tell precisely, what they themselves understand by these words.
Nevertheless, they do not appear to have been invented, but for the
purpose of representing the images of things; or to paint, by the
assistance of the senses, those known objects on which the mind is able
to meditate, which it is competent to appreciate, to compare, and to
judge.
For man to think of that which has not acted on any of his senses, is to
think on words; it is for his senses to dream; it is to seek in his own
imagination for objects to which he can attach his wandering ideas: to
assign qualities to these objects is, unquestionably, to redouble his
extravagance, to set no limits to his folly. If a word be destined to
represent to him an object that has not the capacity to act on any one
of his organs; of which, it is impossible for him to prove either the
existence or the qualities; his imagination, by dint of racking itself,
will nevertheless, in some measure, supply him with the ideas he wants;
he composes some kind of a picture, with the images or colours he is
always obliged to borrow, from the objects of which he has a knowledge:
thus the Divinity has been represented by some under the character of
a venerable old man; by others, under that of a puissant monarch; by
others, as an exasperated, irritated being, &c. It is evident, however,
that man, with some of his qualities, has served for the model of these
pictures: but if he be informed of objects that are represented as pure
spirits--that have neither body nor extent--that are not contained in
space--that are beyond nature,--here then he is plunged into emptiness;
his mind no longer has any ideas--it no longer knows upon what it
meditates. This, as will be seen in the sequel, no doubt, is the source
of those unformed notions which some men have formed of the Divinity;
they themselves frequently annihilate him, by assembling incompatible
and contradictory attributes. In giving him morals--in composing him of
known qualities,--they make him a man;--in assigning him the negative
attributes of every thing they know, they render him inaccessible to
their senses--they destroy all antecedent ideas--they make him a mere
nothing. From this it will appear, that those sublime sciences which are
called _Theology, Psychology, Metaphysics_, have been mere sciences of
words: morals and politics, with which they very frequently mix, have,
in consequence, become inexplicable enigmas, which there is nothing
short of the study of Nature can enable us to expound.
Man has occasion for truth; it consists in a knowledge of the true
relations he has with those beings competent to have an influence on
his welfare; these relations are to be known only by experience: without
experience there can be no reason; without reason man is only a blind
creature, who conducts himself by chance. But, how is he to acquire
experience upon ideal objects, which his senses neither enable him to
know nor to examine? How is he to assure himself of the existence, how
ascertain the qualities of beings he is not able to feel? How can he
judge whether there objects be favorable or prejudicial to him? How is
he to know, without the evidence of his senses, what he ought to love,
what he should hate, what to seek after, what to shun, what to do, what
to leave undone? It is, however, upon this knowledge that his condition
in this world rests; it is upon this knowledge that morals is founded.
From whence it may be seen, that, by causing him to blend vague
metaphysical notions with morals, or the science of the certain and
invariable relations which subsist between mankind; or by weakly
establishing them upon chimerical ideas, which have no existence but in
his imagination; these morals, upon which the welfare of society so much
depends, are rendered uncertain, are made arbitrary, are abandoned to
the caprices of fancy, are not fixed upon any solid basis.
Beings essentially different by their natural organization, by the
modifications they experience, by the habits they contract, by the
opinions they acquire, must of necessity think differently. His
temperament, as we have seen, decides the mental qualities of man:
this temperament itself is diversely modified in him: from whence it
consecutively follows, his imagination cannot possibly be the same;
neither can it create to him the same images. Each individual is a
connected whole, of which all the parts have a necessary correspondence.
Different eyes must see differently, must give extremely varied ideas
of the objects they contemplate, even when these objects are real. What,
then, must be the diversity of these ideas, if the objects meditated
upon do not act upon the senses? Mankind have pretty nearly the same
ideas, in the gross, of those substances that act upon his organs with
vivacity; he is sufficiently in unison upon some qualities which he
contemplates very nearly in the same manner; I say, very nearly, because
the intelligence, the notion, the conviction of any one proposition,
however simple, however evident, however clear it may be supposed, is
not, nor cannot be, strictly the same, in any two men. Indeed, one man
not being another man, the first cannot, for example, have rigorously
and mathematically the same notion of unity as the second; seeing that
an identical effect cannot be the result of two different causes. Thus,
when men are in accord in their ideas, in their modes of thinking, in
their judgment, in their passions, in their desires, in, their tastes,
their consent does not arise from their seeing or feeling the same
objects precisely in the same manner, but pretty nearly; language is
not, nor cannot be, sufficiently copious to designate the vast variety
of shades, the multiplicity of imperceptible differences, which is to be
found in their modes of seeing and thinking. Each man, then, has, to say
thus, a language which is peculiar to himself alone, and this language
is incommunicable to others. What harmony, what unison, then, can
possibly exist between them, when they discourse with each other, upon
objects only known to their imagination? Can this imagination in
one individual ever be the same as in another? How can they possibly
understand each other, when they assign to those objects qualities that
can only be attributed to the particular manner in which their brain is
affected.
For one man to exact from another that he shall think like himself, is
to insist that he shall be organized precisely in the same manner--that
he shall have been modified exactly the same in every moment of his
existence: that he shall have received the same temperament, the same
nourishment, the same education: in a word, that he shall require that
other to be himself. Wherefore is it not exacted that all men shall have
the same features? Is man more the master of his opinions? Are not his
opinions the necessary consequence of his Nature, and of those peculiar
circumstances which, from his infancy, have necessarily had an influence
upon his mode of thinking, and his manner of acting? If man be a
connected whole, whenever a single feature differs from his own, ought
he not to conclude that it is not possible his brain can either think,
associate ideas, imagine, or dream precisely in the same manner with
that other.
The diversity in the temperament of man, is the natural, the necessary
source of the diversity of his passions, of his taste, of his ideas of
happiness, of his opinions of every kind. Thus, this same diversity will
be the fatal source of his disputes, of his hatreds, of his injustice,
every time he shall reason upon unknown objects, but to which he shall
attach the greatest importance. He will never understand either himself
or others, in speaking of a spiritual soul, or of immaterial substances
distinguished from Nature; he will, from that moment, cease to speak
the same language, and he will never attach the same ideas to the same
words. What, then, shall be, the common standard that shall decide which
is the man that thinks with the greatest justice? What the scale by
which to measure who has the best regulated imagination? What balance
shall be found sufficiently exact to determine whose knowledge is most
certain, when he agitates subjects, which experience cannot enable him
to examine, that escape all his senses, that have no model, that are
above reason? Each individual, each legislator, each speculator, each
nation, has ever formed to himself different ideas of these things; each
believes, that his own peculiar reveries ought to be preferred to those
of his neighbours; which always appear to him an absurd, ridiculous, and
false as his own can possibly have appeared to his fellow; each clings
to his own opinion, because each retains his own peculiar mode of
existence; each believes his happiness depends upon his attachment
to his prejudices, which he never adopts but because he believes them
beneficial to his welfare. Propose to a man to change his religion
for yours, he will believe you a madman; you will only excite his
indignation, elicit his contempt; he will propose to you, in his turn,
to adopt his own peculiar opinions; after much reasoning, you will treat
each other as absurd beings, ridiculously opiniated, pertinaciously
stubborn: and he will display the least folly, who shall first yield.
But if the adversaries become heated in the dispute, which always
happens, when they suppose the matter important, or when they would
defend the cause of their own self-love; from thence their passions
sharpen, they grow angry, quarrels are provoked, they hate each other,
and end by reciprocal injury. It is thus, that for opinions, which no
man can demonstrate, we see the Brahmin despised; the Mahommedan hated;
the Pagan held in contempt; that they oppress and disdain each with the
most rancorous animosity: the Christian burns the Jew at what is called
an _auto-de-fe_, because he clings to the faith of his fathers: the
Roman Catholic condemns the Protestant to the flames, and makes a
conscience of massacring him in cold blood: this re-acts in his turn;
sometimes the various sects of Christians league together against the
incredulous Turk, and for a moment suspend their own bloody disputes
that they may chastise the enemies to the true faith: then, having
glutted their revenge, return with redoubled fury, to wreak over again
their infuriated vengeance on each other.
If the imaginations of men were the same, the chimeras which they bring
forth would be every where the same; there would be no disputes among
them on this subject, if they all dreamt in the same manner; great
numbers of human beings would be spared, if man occupied his mind with
objects capable of being known, of which the existence was proved,
of which he was competent to discover the true qualities, by sure,
by reiterated experience. _Systems of Philosophy_ are not subject
to dispute but when their principles are not sufficiently proved;
by degrees experience, in pointing out the truth and detecting
their errors, terminates these quarrels. There is no variance among
_geometricians_ upon the principles of their science; it is only
raised, when their suppositions are false, or their objects too much
complicated. _Theologians_ find so much difficulty in agreeing among
themselves, simply, because, in their contests, they divide without
ceasing, not known and examined propositions, but prejudices with which
they have been imbued in their youth--in the schools--by each other's
books, &c. They are perpetually reasoning, not upon real objects, of
which the existence is demonstrated, but upon imaginary systems of which
they have never examined the reality; they found these disputes,
not upon averred experience, or constant facts, but upon gratuitious
suppositions, which each endeavours to convince the other are without
solidity. Finding these ideas of long standing, that few people, refuse
to admit them, they take them for incontestible truths, that ought to
be received merely upon being announced; whenever they attach great
importance to them, they irritate themselves against the temerity of
those who have the audacity to doubt, or even to examine them.
If prejudice had been laid aside, it would perhaps have been discovered
that many of those objects, which have given birth to the most shocking,
the most sanguinary disputes among men, were mere phantoms; which a
little examination would have shown to be unworthy their notice: _the
priests of Apollo_ would have been harmless, if man had examined for
himself, without prejudice, the tenets they held forth: he would have
found, that he was fighting, that he was cutting his neighbour's throat,
for words void of sense; or, at the least, he would have learned to
doubt his right to act in the manner he did; he would have renounced
that dogmatical, that imperious tone he assumed, by which he would
oblige his fellow to unite with him in opinion. The most trifling
reflection would have shewn him the necessity of this diversity in his
notions, of this contrariety in his imagination, which depends upon
his Natural conformation diversely modified: which necessarily has an
influence over his thoughts, over his will, and over his actions. In
short, if he had consulted morals, if he had fallen back upon reason,
every thing would have conspired to prove to him, that beings who call
themselves rational, were made to think variously; on that account were
designed to live peaceable with each other, to love each other, to lend
each other mutual succours whatever may be their opinions upon subjects,
either impossible to be known, or to be contemplated under the same
point of view: every thing would have joined in evidence to convince
him of the unreasonable tyranny, of the unjust violence, of the useless
cruelty of those men of blood, who persecute, who destroy mankind, in
order that they may mould him to their own peculiar opinions; every
thing would have conducted mortals to _mildness_, to _indulgence_, to
_toleration_; virtues, unquestionably of more real importance, much more
necessary to the welfare of society, than the marvellous speculations by
which it is divided, by which it is frequently hurried on to sacrifice
to a maniacal fury, the pretended enemies to these revered flights of
the imagination.
From this it must be evident, of what importance it is to _morals_ to
examine the ideas, to which it has been agreed to attach so much worth;
to which man is continually sacrificing his own peculiar happiness; to
which he is immolating the tranquillity of nations, at the irrational
command of fanatical cruel guides. Let him fall back on his experience;
let him return to Nature; let him occupy himself with reason; let him
consult those objects that are real, which are useful to his permanent
felicity; let him study Nature's laws; let him study himself; let him
consult the bonds which unite him to his fellow mortals; let him examine
the fictitious bonds that enchain him to the most baneful prejudices.
If his imagination must always feed itself with illusions, if he remains
steadfast in his own opinions, if his prejudices are dear to him, let
him at least permit others to ramble in their own manner, or seek after
truth as best suits their inclination; but let him always recollect,
that all the opinions--all the ideas--all the systems--all the
wills--all the actions of man, are the necessary consequence of his
nature, of his temperament, of his organization, and of those causes,
either transitory or constant, which modify hint: in short, that _man is
not more a free agent to think than to act:_ a truth that will be again
proved in the following chapter.