Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. I (of 2)

181. In the corporeal universe considered in its essence, there is no necessity of supposing any thing resembling the sensible representation, but we must suppose the object to correspond to the idea; for otherwise we should have to admit that geometrical truths may be contradicted by experience.

182. Although extension is an order of beings of which we cannot form a perfect conception, because we cannot purify our ideas from all sensible form, still this order must correspond to our ideas, and even to our sensible representations, so far as is necessary to prove the truth of the ideas.

It is evident that although the phenomenal order is distinct from the real, it depends on it, and is connected with it by constant laws. If we suppose that there is no parallel between the reality and the phenomenon, and that the reality has not all the conditions necessary to satisfy the demands of the phenomenon, there can be no reason why the phenomena should be subject to constant laws, and why experience should not suffer continual confusion. Without a fixed and constant correspondence between the reality and the appearance, the world becomes a chaos to us, and all regular and constant experience becomes impossible.

183. Let us examine this at greater length. One of the elementary propositions of geometry says: "When two straight lines intersect each other, the opposite or vertical angles, which they form, are equal." In order to demonstrate this, I must have the internal intuition of two lines intersecting each other. But the geometrical proposition is not confined to any particular intuition, but embraces all that can be imagined, without any limit to their number, or any determination as to the measure of the angles, the length of the lines, or their position in space.

Here the pure idea extends to an infinity of cases, whereas the sensible intuition represents them only one at a time, and isolated if represented successively. The understanding is not limited to the affirmation of this relation between the ideas, but applies it to the reality, and says: Whenever the conditions of this ideal order are realized, that which I see in my ideas is true in reality, and the relation expressed will be more or less exact in proportion to the exactness of the realization of the conditions; the more delicate the real lines are, that is, the more they approach the condition of right lines, the nearer will the relation of the two angles approach to perfect equality. This conviction is founded on the principle of contradiction, which would be false if the proposition were not true; and it is confirmed by experience, so far as it touches the conditions of the ideal order.

184. What is there in reality which corresponds to this proposition? An existing or real line is an order of beings; two lines which intersect each other are two orders of beings with a determinate relation; the angle is the result of this relation, or, rather, it is the relation itself; the equality of the opposite angle is the correspondence of these relations in the ratio of equality by the continuation of the same order in another sense. These relations between the orders and the beings, and the correspondence of these orders to each other, is what corresponds in reality to the pure geometrical idea, or to the idea separated from all sensible representation. Since the relations of the idea have their corresponding objects in the relations of the reality, geometry exists not only in the ideal order, but also in the real. Since the phenomenon or sensible representation is subject to the same conditions as the idea, because the order of phenomena presents certain relations of the same nature as the relations of the idea and the fact; the idea, the phenomenon, and the reality agree, and it is explained why the intellectual order is confirmed by experience, and experience receives with confidence the direction it gives.

185. This harmony must have a cause; we must look for a principle which is the sufficient reason of this wonderful agreement between things so distinct. Here new problems arise which overwhelm the understanding, but at the same time expand and invigorate it by the grandeur of the spectacle presented to its view, and the immensity of the field opened to its investigations.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHARACTER OF THE RELATIONS OF THE REAL ORDER TO THE PHENOMENAL

186. Is the agreement of the idea, the phenomenon, and the reality necessary, is it founded on the essence of things, or has it been freely established by the will of the Creator?

If the world had no other reality than that expressed by the sensible representation, if the appearances were an exact copy of the essence of things, we should have to say that this agreement is unalterable, that things are what they appear, and that if we suppose them to exist, it is absolutely necessary that they should be just what they appear; for nothing can be in contradiction with its constitutive notion. That which now is extended, would be necessarily extended, and could not but be extended in the same manner in which it appears to us, and under the same conditions; the relation of bodies to each other would be necessarily subject to the same phenomenal laws, and all which does not come under this order would be a contradiction, and beyond the limit of omnipotence.

187. Bodies are presented to us in the sensible intuition with a determinate magnitude, and in a certain fixed relation which we calculate by comparison with an immovable extension, such as we imagine space. By magnitude, bodies occupy a certain space, determinate, though changeable by motion; by the relation of magnitudes they occupy a greater or smaller place, and mutually exclude each other; this exclusion is called impenetrability. The question to be examined here is, whether the determination of magnitudes, and their relation in respect to the occupation of place, are things absolutely necessary, so that their alteration involves a contradiction, or not. I answer that they are not.

188. Relation to place considered as a portion of pure space, means nothing; for I have already shown that this space is only an abstraction of our understanding, and that in itself it has no reality, – it is nothing. Therefore the relation to it must be nothing also, because the relation is destroyed if one of the terms is nothing. Therefore, the relations of bodies to place can only be the relations of bodies to one another.

189. This is the principal thing to be noticed in this question. The understanding gets confused when it begins by supposing space an absolute nature with necessary relation to all bodies. We must remember the doctrine of the chapters,53 where we explained how the idea of space is generated in us, what object corresponds to this idea in reality, and how; and we shall easily perceive that the absolute and essential relations which we think we discover between bodies and a vacant and real capacity, are illusions of our imagination, in consequence of our not sufficiently purifying the ideal order by separating from it all sensible impressions. We cannot understand so much as the meaning of these questions, if we do not make an attempt at this separation as far as is possible to our nature. If this is done, then the questions proposed in the following chapters will appear very philosophical, and their solution will seem probable, if not true; but they must seem absurd, if we confound the pure intellectual order with the sensible. We cannot admit the idealism which destroys the real world; but the empiricism which annihilates the ideal order, is equally objectionable. If we cannot rise above the sensible representations, let us renounce philosophy, give up thinking, and confine ourselves to sensation.

CHAPTER XXVII.

WHETHER EVERY THING MUST BE IN SOME PLACE

190. Is it necessary that whatever exists should be in some place? This question may seem strange, but it is profoundly philosophical. To be is not the same as to be in a place. To be, whether taken substantively as signifying to exist, or copulatively, as expressing the relation of the predicate to the subject, does not involve the idea of being in a place. The relation of an object to place is not necessary to it; for it is not contained in the notion of object. It is something added to the object, whether it is given to the object with more or less foundation by ourselves, or the object has it in reality by communication from some other.

The imagination can represent nothing which does not occupy a place, but the understanding may conceive things that are not situated in any place. When we reflect on the essence of objects, what position does our mind give them? The intellectual act is always accompanied by sensible representations, which sometimes assist it, and sometimes embarrass and confuse it; but in either case the act of the understanding is always distinct from these representations.

191. There is no reason for saying that every thing must occupy a place. The imagination cannot see how any thing can exist otherwise, but the understanding finds no absurdity in it, and it is in accordance with the principles of philosophy. If place considered in itself is only a part of space terminated by a surface, and space abstracted from bodies is nothing, the relation to place or to points in space must be nothing. We must have bodies in order to have a term of the relation; therefore, if we suppose a being which has no relation to bodies, it is not necessary that it should be in any place.

192. The relation of a being to bodies may be of three kinds: that of commensuration, as is the relation of lines, surfaces, and solids to each other; that of generation, as we conceive the line generated by the point; and that of action in general, as we conceive the relation of pure spirits to matter. The first cannot exist if the object has no dimensions; for then it cannot be measured; the second can exist only in unextended or infinitesimal points, from which extension is generated; therefore these two relations can only exist between bodies, or their generative elements. Therefore, nothing which is not a body or an element of body, can occupy place under either of these aspects. As to the third relation, that of action of a cause upon a body, it may be found in all agents capable of acting upon matter; but it is evident that the position which results from this, is something very different from that which we conceive in bodies or their elements; it is something of a wholly distinct order, and belongs rather to the pure idea of causality than to the intuition of space.

193. We can conceive a being which is not a body, nor an element of body, and which does not exercise any action on bodies; in this case, this being has none of the three relations of which we have spoken, consequently it is not in any place, and to say that it is here, or that it is there, that it is near or distant, would be using words without meaning.

194. Viewed from the point of this doctrine, the following questions are easy to answer:

Where must a pure spirit be which has no relation of causality nor influence of any kind upon the corporeal world? Nowhere. The answer will not seem strange to one who understands that the question is absurd. In the case supposed, there is no where, for this involves a relation and there are no relations here.

Where would the pure spirits be if the world did not exist? Nowhere, unless we have a mind to say they would be in themselves. But, the word to be does not mean the position of which we are speaking here, but only the existence of the spirit, or its identity with itself.

Where was God before the world was created? He was, but he was not in any place; for he has no parts.

195. I wish here to expose an error of Kant. This philosopher believed that space was conceived by us as a condition of all existence in general, and on this he founded one of his arguments that space was a purely subjective form. In the second edition of his Critic of pure Reason, explaining the subjectiveness of space, he seems to hold, that we do not even conceive things in the pure intellectual order, without referring them to space. He observes that in natural theology, when treating of things which cannot be the object of intuition either for us or for themselves, we are very careful not to attribute to this intuition or manner of perception time and space, which are the conditions of human intuition. "But," he adds, "by what right do we proceed thus, when time and space have already been established as the forms of things in themselves, and conditions of their existence a prior, subsisting still after all else has been annihilated by thought? As conditions of all existence in general, they must be the conditions of the existence of God. If we do not make space and time the objective forms of all things, it only remains for us to make them the subjective forms of our mode of intuition, as well internal as external." Kant is right in saying that space and time ought not to be considered as real forms, not susceptible of annihilation, and therefore necessary and eternal; but I do not see the necessity of the disjunctive by which he asserts that if we do not make space and time the objective forms of all things, we must make them the subjective forms, and that, otherwise, we should make space and time conditions of the existence of God.

196. We regard space as an actual condition of things, which occupy place, but not of all things. We conceive existence in pure spirits without the necessity of any relation to place, and, consequently, independent of all position in space.

On this point, as on all relating to the pure intellectual order, we find in the theologians doctrines which are highly important, and deserve to be consulted by all who wish to go deeply into philosophical questions. The author of the Critic of Pure Reason would have found there some observations which would have cleared up the difficulties which embarrassed him. He would have found how incorrect it is to say that space is a condition of the existence of all things, in the beautiful as well as profound theory by which many of the scholastics explain the presence of God in the corporeal world, and the presence of the angels in different places, their motion from one point to another without passing through the intermediate points, and the manner in which the soul is wholly in the whole body and in every part of the body. In these works, unfortunately so little consulted, the German philosopher would have learned that the presence of a spirit in a place is something different from the presence of a body, and has no relation to the intuition of space, whether regarded as the basis of sensible representations or as a geometrical idea.

197. St. Thomas54 asks if God is in all things, and answers that he is. In proving this assertion he does not consider the necessity of every thing being in some place, but on the contrary seems rather to forget the idea of space, and regards only causality.

"As God," he says, "is being itself by his essence, created being must be his effect, as to burn is the effect of fire. But God causes this effect in things not only when they begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being; thus the light is caused in the air by the sun as long as air remains illuminated. As long therefore as things retain their being, God is necessarily present to them, according to the manner in which they have their being. But being is that which is most internal, and most closely inherent in every thing because it is the form of all that is in it, God therefore is in all things internally."

To be situated in space is to be contained in it; so, at least, we conceive whatever we consider situated in space. St. Thomas rejects this meaning as applied to spiritual beings, and says, that although corporeal beings are contained in things, spiritual beings on the contrary contain the things in which they are.

In the second article he asks whether God is in all places (ubique); and, he says, that as God is in all things, giving them being and the power of acting, so he is in all places giving them being and capacity (virtutem locativam). He states as an objection that incorporeal things are not in any place, and answers in the following philosophical words: "Incorporeal things are not in place by the contact of measurable quantity, like bodies; but by the contact of activity (virtutis)." Then explaining how the indivisible can be in different places, he says: "The indivisible is of two kinds; first, it is the limit of the continued, as a point in permanent things, and a moment in successive things. The indivisible in permanent things, cannot be in different parts of place or in different places, because it has a determinate position; and in the same manner the indivisible in action or in motion cannot be in different parts of time, because it has a determinate order in action or motion. But there is another indivisible which is beyond all kind of continuation, and in this sense incorporeal substances, as God, the angels, and the soul, are called indivisible. The indivisible in this manner, is not applied to the continued as any thing which belongs to it, but only as reaching it by its activity; therefore as its activity may extend to one or many, to the small or to the great, it may be in one place or in many places, in a small place or in a great place."

What can be clearer, relatively to the intuition of space, than that when any thing is in a place it cannot be out of that place? But the holy Doctor, rising above sensible representations, boldly maintains that God may be whole in the whole, and in every part of the whole, as the soul is whole in every part of the body. And why? Because what is called totality in corporeal things relates to quantity, but the totality of incorporeal things relates to essence, and cannot be measured by quantity, and is not confined to any place.

In the Treatise on the Angels,55 he says that the expression to be in place is used equivocally (œquivoce),56 when applied to angels and bodies. Bodies are in place by the contact of measurable quantity, but angels by virtual quantity, that is to say, by the action which they may exercise upon a body. We cannot, therefore, say that an angel has a position in the continued (quod habeat situm in continuo). In the Treatise on the Soul57 he maintains that the soul is whole in every part of the body. He distinguishes the totality of essence from the totality of quantity, and makes use of an argument similar to that which he used with respect to the angels. The more we reflect on this doctrine the more profound it appears; those who have made light of it, have shown that they never penetrated beyond the surface in all that concerns the relations of spiritual to corporeal things. It is generally dangerous to laugh at opinions held by great men; for if they are not certain, they have, at least, powerful arguments in their favor. Nothing is more contrary to sensible representations than the possibility of any thing being in different places at the same time, but we shall find nothing more in conformity with the principles of sound philosophy than this possibility, after we have profoundly analyzed the relations of extension with unextended things, and discovered the difference between the position of quantity and the position of causality.

198. From these doctrines it may be concluded, that to be in space is not a general condition of all existences, even according to the manner of existences; for we can conceive existences without relation to any place. Many have confounded imagination with understanding on this point, and believed that what is impossible for the former is equally so for the latter. It is certain that we can imagine nothing without referring it to points of space, and even in purely intellectual objects there is always a sensible representation, but the understanding regards these representations as false and does not conform to them. As imagination is a sort of continuation of sensibility, or an internal sense, and the basis of sensations is extension; it is impossible for us to exercise this internal sense, without the presence of space, which, as we have shown, is only the idea of extension in general. Position in space is consequently a general condition of all things, as perceived by the senses, but not as perceived by the intellect.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CONTINGENCY OF CORPOREAL RELATIONS

199. Position in place is the relation of a body to other bodies. Is this relation necessary? I distinguish: conditionally, yes; essentially, no. God has established this relation, and therefore it is necessary; but God might have ordered it otherwise, and can even now change it, without varying the essence of things.

If we admit, as we must, a correspondence between the subjective and the objective, or between the appearance and the reality, we cannot deny that the relations of bodies are constant, and this constancy must proceed from some necessity. But that the existing order is subject to fixed laws, does not prove that these laws have their root in the essence of things, in such a manner that, supposing the existence of objects, their relations could not have been very different from what they actually are.

200. In order to assert that the existing order of the universe is intrinsically necessary, we must know the essence of things; but this is not possible for us, because objects are not immediately present to our understanding, and we see them only under one aspect, that which places them in relation with our sensitive faculties. The best proof of our ignorance of the essence of bodies is the great division of opinion on this subject. Some maintain that the essence of bodies is extension or dimensions; and others that extension is merely an accident, not only distinct, but even separable from corporeal substance.

The great obscurity in which the investigation of the constitutive elements of bodies is involved, proves that their essence is unknown to us, and that we know nothing of them except their relation to our sensibility.

201. It is not necessary that the aspect under which being is presented to us should contain its whole nature. To say that bodies contain nothing besides what we perceive in them, is to make our faculties the type of things in themselves, a ridiculous pretension in a being which finds its activity limited at every step and is almost always passive in its relations to bodies, and which, in order to exercise its faculties externally, is forced to submit to the laws of the external world, or else to encounter obstacles which are absolutely insurmountable.

If we are ignorant of the essence of bodies we can have no certain knowledge of what is intrinsically necessary in them; with the exception of composition, which even the sensible order presents to us, and which we cannot take from bodies without seeming to run into a contradiction. Simplicity and composition in the same object are incompatible and contradictory.

202. Hence, in all that pertains to the relations of bodies we must abstain from judging absolutely, and speak only conditionally. We may say: "This happens now; this must happen according to the order now established;" but we cannot say: "This happens, and it is absolutely necessary that it should happen." The transition from the first proposition to the second, implies the knowledge of what no man can know, that the aspect under which the external world is presented to us is the image of its essence.

203. One of the greatest errors of Descartes was, that he did not make sufficient account of this difference: he placed the essence of bodies in dimensions, which is to confound the real world with the phenomenal, and to take one aspect of things for their nature. It is true that whatever affects us has extension, and that extension is the basis of the relations of our sensibility with the external world; but it does not follow that the essence of this world is nothing more than what is presented to us in its dimensions. We might as well say that the essence of man is the lines which mark his form.

204. The different aspects under which the external world is presented to our senses, ought to prevent us from confounding what is absolute in it with what is relative. A man deprived of one sense would not reason well if he should conclude that the world has no other aspects than those which he perceives. What do we know of the manner in which objects are presented to pure spirits, or of the many other phases which they might offer to our sensibility?