Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

125. The causality which relates to purely possible effects can only be understood by placing it in an intelligence. The cause which does not produce an effect, but which may produce it, involves a relation of the existent to the non-existent; the cause exists, the effect does not exist; the cause does not produce it, but may produce it; what is the relation of that which exists to that which does not exist? is not a relation without a term to which it relates, a contradiction? It is certainly, if abstracted from the intelligence: the intelligence alone can relate to that which does not exist; for it can think the non-existent. A body can have no relation to a body which does not exist; but an intelligence may have a relation to that which does not exist, even knowing that it does not exist; we may ourselves wander at pleasure through the regions of pure possibility.

126. The will also participates of this character of the intellect. Desire relates to an enjoyment which is not, but which may be; we will and will not, we love and hate things that are often purely ideal, and whose identity we know perfectly well, still this does not prevent our willing them. Thus we desire things to happen which are not, and we may even desire things which we know to be impossible. We may wish to recover that which we know is lost forever; we may wish for the presence of a friend whom we know to be at so great a distance as to render his coming impossible; we may wish that time would stop or hurry on in conformity to our wants or our caprices.

127. Thus we find both the intellect and the will in relation to that which does not exist; – a relation which is not even conceivable in a being destitute of intellect. This leads to an important result. The absolute beginning of any thing is not possible unless we conceive causality as having its root in the intellect. That which begins passes from not-being to being, and how is it possible that a being has produced in another a transition from not-being to being, if the relation to the other before it existed was intrinsically impossible? An intelligent being may think another although the other does not exist; but for an unintelligent being if the other does not exist in reality it does not exist at all; consequently no relation to it is possible, any such relation that may be imagined is contradictory, and therefore it is absurd to suppose that which is not to begin to be.

128. This reasoning proves that in the origin of things there is an intelligent being, the cause of every thing, and that without this intelligence nothing could have begun. If something has begun, something must have existed from all eternity; and that which began was known by that which existed. Not admitting intelligence, beginning is absurd. Imagine in the origin of things a being without intelligence, its relations can only be to that which exists; it can have no relation to the non-existent; how then is it possible for the non-existent to begin to exist, through the action of the existent? In order that the non-existent may begin to be, some reason is necessary; for otherwise the beginning of one thing or of another, and even its beginning or not-beginning would be indifferent. Unless we suppose a being which knows that which does not exist, and may establish, so to speak, a communication with nothing, the being which does not exist can never exist.

CHAPTER XIII.

ACTIVITY

129. To understand more clearly the idea of causality, it will be useful to reflect on the ideas of activity and action, as also on those of inertness, or inactivity, and inaction.

130. An absolutely inactive being is a being without intelligence, without will, without sensibility, without any kind of consciousness, containing in itself nothing which can change its own state or that of any thing else.

Thus absolute inactivity or inertness requires the following conditions: I. The absolute denial of all principle, of intelligence, of will, of sensibility, and in general of every thing which is accompanied by consciousness. II. The absolute denial of all principle of change in itself. III. The absolute denial of all principle of change in others. The union of these three conditions forms the idea of absolute inactivity or inertness: the state of such a being is that of absolute inaction.

131. A being of this nature, regarded in general, presents only the idea of an existing thing: we may also consider it as a substance, supposing it not to inhere as a modification in another, or rather, supposing it as a substratum capable of receiving modifications by the action of other beings upon it.

The only means by which we can characterize to a certain extent this general idea, so that it may be presented to our intuition, is to add to it the idea of extension, by which we make in some manner the idea of inert matter.

132. After the ideas of inertness and inaction are explained, their opposites, the ideas of activity and action, are clearly understood.

When we conceive a being which has the reason of its changes within itself, we conceive an active being.

When we conceive a being which has within itself the reason of the changes of other beings, we conceive an active being.

When we conceive a being which knows, wills, perceives, or has consciousness in any way, we conceive an active being.

Hence activity may represent three things to us: the origin of its own changes; the origin of the changes of others; and consciousness.

133. The first kind of activity can belong only to changeable beings; the second also to immutable beings, which are causes; the third is an activity which belongs to mutable or immutable beings, abstracting absolutely the idea of causality.

134. The general relation of principle of its own or another's changes, is an indeterminate idea; consequently the only activity of which we can have an intuitive idea is that of intelligence, of will, and in general of whatever relates to the phenomena which require the perception called consciousness.

135. We must consider consciousness as an activity, and include in this order the idea of intelligence and will abstracted from all relation to their own or another's changes, unless we mean to say that God was from all eternity an inactive being, because he had no other action than the immanent acts of knowing and willing.

136. Therefore not all activity is transient, but there is a true immanent activity, of which we have an intuitive knowledge in the phenomena of our consciousness.

137. The activity which we can conceive in bodies is reduced to a principle of their own changes or those of some other being; it is therefore something of which we can have no intuitive knowledge. In fact, we are in relation with bodies only by means of the senses, which present but two orders of facts with respect to corporeal nature; subjective facts, or the impressions which we experience and call sensations, and which we believe to emanate from the action of bodies upon our organs; and objective facts, that is, extension motion, and the different modifications which the senses discover in extended things which move. Neither the first class of facts nor the second give us an intuitive idea of the activity of corporeal beings.

Subjective facts or sensations are immanent, that is, are in us, not in the things; and inasmuch as subjective tell us nothing of what is outside of us, but only what is within us. Even supposing sensations to be a true effect of the activity of bodies, this activity is not presented in the effect. When our hand is warmed by the fire we have the intuitive perception of the sensation of heat, inasmuch as it is in us; if we suppose that this sensation is really an effect of the activity of the fire, we know the relation of our sensation to this activity considered in general, and indeterminately as the origin of our sensation; but we do not know the activity intuitively in itself, because as such it is not represented in our sensation.

Neither do objective facts, that is, extension, motion, and whatever we conceive which is not in our sensation, but in the object itself, give us any intuitive idea of the activity of corporeal things. The modifications of extension, or figures, motion with all its accidents, and in general all that presents the corporeal world to our senses, are the changes themselves and their relations, but not the principle of these relations or of these changes. The body A, which is in motion, strikes upon the body B at rest; B after the impact begins to move: without considering whether the impact of A is the cause of the motion of B, that which we are certain of is, that we have no intuition of the activity producing the motion. What do the senses tell us of the body A? They only tell us that it has moved with a certain velocity towards the point M where the body B was situated. What do they tell us of the body B? Only that it began to move the instant the body A reached the point M: so far we have only the relations of space and time between the two extended objects A and B. Where is the intuition of the activity of A, and of its action on B? We see absolutely nothing of it. By reasoning, by analogy, by considerations of order, of agreement, and such like, we may prove with more or less evidence that in the body A there is an activity which causes the motion of the body B; but this gives us only an indeterminate idea, not an intuition of activity.

138. These considerations are conclusive as applied to all the phenomena of corporeal nature. Take any one you please, select that one which leads us most strongly to imagine a true activity; analyze it well, and you will find our intuition limited to relations of extension in space and in time.

That all bodies are heavy is a fact of experience; do we know intuitively the principle from which the phenomena of weight proceed? By no means. Let us examine it in the subjective order and in the objective. What does weight as perceived by us present to us? Only that affection which we call heaviness, that is, the pressure on the members of the body. What does it present objectively? Only the direction of bodies towards a centre with a certain velocity depending on circumstances. We find in all this only a purely internal fact, which is the unpleasant sensation of weight or heaviness, or the pure relations of extended objects in space and time.

139. The fire burns objects and reduces them to ashes; nothing could be better suited to give us the idea of activity. Still we cannot say that we know it intuitively. In the subjective order we have the painful sensation of burning, which thus far is a purely internal fact; in the objective order we have the disorganization of the bodies burnt, which presents to the senses only a change in the size, figure, color, and other qualities relative to our senses – all this may be the effect of the activity, but it is not the activity itself.

140. The light reflected from an object strikes our eyes, painting on the retina the object which reflects it. Have we in this case an intuition of the activity of light. Not at all. In the subjective order we find the sensation called seeing; in the objective order, we find the size, figure, and other qualities of the object in space. If we consider the light itself, we find a fluid whose rays have this or that direction in subjection to determinate laws, but we have no intuitive knowledge of its activity; and in order to persuade ourselves that the activity exists, we reason from principles which are not within the sphere of our intuition.

141. The four intuitions of passive sensibility, active sensibility, intelligence, and will, may be reduced to two:89 extension and consciousness; including in extension all its modifications, and in consciousness all the internal phenomena of a sensitive or intellectual being; in so far as they have the common ground of consciousness. We therefore know intuitively two modes of being: consciousness and extension; consciousness is within us, it is a subjective fact; extension is external, its existence is revealed by sensations, particularly those of sight and touch.

142. The classification of these two intuitions is important beyond measure for the distinction of the active from the inert. In consciousness we find a type of true activity; in extension, as such, we have a type of true inertness. In thinking of consciousness, we think of something active without adding any other idea; when we think of extension, it presents to us the image of a thing susceptible of various modifications, the principle of none of which is contained in extension; in order to think of a corporeal activity we have to go out of the pure idea of extension, and consider a principle of change in general, which is not the object of the intuition of the extended.

143. Thus the only activity which we know intuitively is that of consciousness; for we have only indeterminate ideas of corporeal activity. The words action, reaction, force, resistance, impulse, express only indeterminate relations, and represent something fixed and determinate, only in their effects. Mechanists express forces by lines or numbers, that is, by results subject to calculation. Even Newton, in establishing his system of universal attraction, declares his ignorance of the immediate cause of the phenomenon, and confines himself to assigning the laws to which the motions of bodies are subjected.

144. Activity in changeable beings represents a principle of their own and others' changes, a sort of superabundance of being which constantly develops itself, and, in proportion as it is developed, perfects itself. We find an example of this development in our own mind. The child at its birth receives in a confused manner the impressions of all that surrounds it. By the repetition of these impressions its activity is developed; that which was obscure becomes clear, the confusion is put into order, that which was feeble becomes strong, thought arises, comparison begins, reflection is unfolded, and the being which was torpid and almost inert becomes perhaps a genius which astonishes the world. Materials have come to it from without, but of what use would they have been without that living fire of activity which transformed them and deduced from them new and valuable products? The same phenomena of nature are presented to the eyes of brute animals as to Kepler or Newton; but what for the first is only a sensible impression is for the latter a starting-point of sublime and wonderful theories.

145. The active being possesses virtually the perfections which it is to acquire; it may be compared to the acorn which contains the mighty oak, whose development depends on circumstances of soil and climate. On the other hand, the inactive being can give itself nothing; it has a state, and it preserves it till some other changes it; and it remains in this new state until another action from without takes it away and communicates another.

146. Activity is a principle of its own or another's changes; this activity may operate in two ways: with intelligence and without it. When the being is intelligent its inclination to that which is known is called will. The will is inclined to the object necessarily or not necessarily: in the first case, it is a necessary spontaneity; in the second, it is a free spontaneity. Liberty, then, does not consist solely in the absence of coaction; it requires the absence of all, even spontaneous, necessity; the will must be able to will or not will the object; if this condition is wanting there is no freewill.

147. It is worthy of remark that our intuition of the external relates only to the inactive, to extension; and that internal intuition relates principally to activity, to consciousness. By the first we know a substratum of changes, since all change seems to take place in extension; by the second we know no subject intuitively, but only the changes themselves. We prove the unity of their subject by reasoning, but we do not see it intuitively.90 Extension, as such, is presented to us as simply passive: consciousness, as such, is always active; for, even in those cases in which it is most passive, as in sensations, in so far as there is consciousness, it implies activity; for by it the subject gives itself an account, explicitly or implicitly, of the affection experienced.

CHAPTER XIV.

POSSIBILITY OF THE ACTIVITY OF BODIES

148. Having marked the limits of our intuitive knowledge with respect to causality and activity, it is easy to answer the objections against secondary causality, which arise from confounding intuitive and indeterminate ideas; but we have still to examine whether there are true second causes, that is, whether there really is in finite beings a principle of their own and others' changes. Some philosophers, among others the illustrious Malebranche, have denied the efficacy of second causes, thus reducing them to mere occasions. The author of the Investigation de la Vérité goes so far as to maintain that secondary causality not only does not exist, but is impossible.

149. The universe contains two classes of beings, – immaterial beings, and corporeal beings: each presents difficulties which it will be well to examine separately. Let us begin with matter. It is said that matter is incapable of all activity, that its essence is indifferent to every thing, susceptible of any sort of modification. I cannot discover on what this general proposition is founded, nor do I see how it is possible to prove it either by reason or by experience.

150. In order to maintain that matter is completely inactive, or incapable of any activity, it would be necessary to know its essence; but this we do not know. By what right do we deny the possibility of an attribute when we are ignorant of the nature of the object to which it should belong, when we do not know even one of its properties to which this attribute is repugnant? It is true that we deny to matter the possibility of thought, and even of sensation; but we can do so only because we know enough of matter, to establish this impossibility. In matter, whatever may be its intrinsic essence, there are parts, consequently there is multiplicity; and the facts of consciousness necessarily require a being which is one and simple.91

It is not the same with respect to activity; for activity, when it does not present the intuitive idea of consciousness, gives us only the indeterminate conception of a principle of changes in itself or in other beings. This does not contradict the idea of multiplicity. Suppose bodies in motion to have a true activity which really produces motion in others, there is no contradiction in this activity being distributed among the different parts of the other body, which at the moment of impact produce their respective effects, causing motion in the parts of the other body with which they come in contact.

151. Consequently, examining the question a priori, or considering the idea of body, we can find no reason for denying the possibility of its being active. It is true that the extension of bodies, inasmuch as extension, is presented to us as something without life, indifferent to all figures and to all motions, and that we do not discover in it any principle of activity;92 but this can prove nothing, unless we suppose that the essence of bodies consists in extension, and that extension contains nothing more than is presented to our senses, that it includes nothing on which its activity can be founded. The first is an opinion, but one without any foundation; the second can never be demonstrated, because it escapes all observation, and cannot be the object of investigations a priori.

152. How can it be proved that the essence of bodies consists in extension?93 What we may say is, that we experience it, and that all corporeal nature is presented to us under the form of extended. If we assert any thing more than this we do so without any foundation, we substitute for the reality a play of our fancy. The essence of any thing is that which constitutes it what it is, that which serves as the internal ground or root of the properties: who can say that we know this ground, this root, in corporeal objects? Our senses, it is true, perceive nothing not extended: we cannot conceive to what bodies would be reduced if deprived of extension; but from this we can only infer that extension is a form under which bodies are presented to our senses; that this form is a necessary condition of the affection of our sensibility; but not that the form is the essence of the thing, not that there is in the object nothing more intimate in which the form itself has its root.

153. If the essence of bodies consisted in extension, such as it appears to our senses, extension being equal there would be equality of essence; the essences of bodies might be measured like their dimensions; two globes of equal diameters, would be two essentially equal bodies. Experience, and even common sense are opposed to this. It may be said, that pure dimension, in so far as subject to measure, is not enough to form equality of essence; but that the equality of nature of the extension of both bodies is also requisite; but what, I ask, is the meaning of the nature of extension? If the word nature here means any thing, it must mean something distinct from extension, in so far as subject to our sensibility; in which case I infer that just as in order to diversify the essences of bodies something is imagined which is not contained in extension in so far as subject to sensible intuition, something may in the same manner be supposed which is capable of activity, and which offers to our understanding an accessory idea giving life, so to speak, to the dead matter which we find in extension, considered as the simple object of purely geometrical ideas.

154. Experience cannot demonstrate the impossibility of the activity of bodies. Absolute inactivity cannot affect us, and therefore cannot be known by experience. We can only experience action, or the exercise of activity; inaction, or the state of an absolutely inactive thing, cannot be the object of experience without a contradiction.

CHAPTER XV.

CONJECTURES AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF CORPOREAL ACTIVITY

155. Experience, far from authorizing us to infer the absolute inertness of bodies, on the contrary inclines us to believe that they are endowed with activity. Although the senses do not give us intuition of any corporeal activity, they present a continuous series of changes in a fixed order in the phenomena of the corporeal world; and if the true activity of some on others can be inferred from the coincidence of their relations in space and time, from the constant succession in which we see some follow others, and the invariable experience that the existence of some suffices for the existence of others; then we must admit true activity in bodies. Whatever this argument may be worth at the tribunal of metaphysics, it has always been sufficiently powerful to convince the majority of mankind, and hence it is that the denial of the activity of bodies is contrary to common sense.

156. If we consider our relations to the corporeal world, we are equally led to believe that there is true activity in bodies. Whatever may be our ignorance of the manner in which sensations are produced within us, it is certain that we experience them in the presence of bodies which are connected with us in space and time, and in a fixed and constant order, which authorizes us to prognosticate with safety what will follow in our senses if such or such bodies are placed in relation with our organs. The idea of activity presents to us the idea of a principle of changes in other beings; bodies are continually producing real or apparent changes in us. The exercise of the sensitive faculties implies a communication with corporeal beings; in this communication the sensitive being receives from bodies a multitude of impressions causing continual changes.

157. It is said that experience shows bodies to be indifferent to rest or motion, and some works on physics at the very beginning lay it down as a thing beyond all doubt, that a body placed at rest would remain in the same state for all eternity, and if put in motion it would move for all eternity in a right line, and always with the same velocity which it at first received. I do not know how they could have learned this from experience; and I maintain that not only they could not know it, but experience seems to prove directly the contrary.