Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

158. Where was there ever a body that was indifferent to rest or motion? In all terrestrial bodies we find a tendency to motion, if no other, at least that of gravitation towards the centre of the earth. Celestial bodies, so far as our observation extends, are all in motion; calculation agrees with experience in showing them to be subject to universal attraction: where, then, is the indifference to rest or motion, revealed by experience? We should rather say that experience reveals a general inclination of bodies to be in motion.

159. It would be objected that this inclination does not flow from any activity in the bodies, but that it is a simple effect of a law imposed by the Creator. Let it be so: but at least do not tell us that experience presents bodies as indifferent to motion or rest; explain motion, if you will, without activity, maintain that there is no activity, despite the appearances of experience; but do not tell us that these appearances show the absence of activity.

160. If I place a body on my table, it remains at rest, I find it there the next day, and if I return after many years I still find it there. But this body is not indifferent to motion or rest; here it is at rest, but it is continually exercising its activity, as is evident from its pressure on the table which supports it. This exercise is incessant, it is experienced at every moment; try to raise it and it offers resistance, take away the table and it falls, place your hand under it and it will press upon your hand, and it changes the form of soft bodies on which it rests.

161. To say that the attraction of the centre of the earth acts upon the body, proves nothing against corporeal activity but rather confirms it; for this centre is another body, and thus you take activity from one body to give it to another. Moreover, all observations show that attraction is mutual, and therefore attractive activity is a property of all bodies.

162. The corporeal world, far from appearing to us as an inert mass, presents the appearance of an activity developing its colossal forces. The mass of bodies which move in space is colossal; the orbit which they describe is colossal; their velocity is colossal; the influence, at least apparent, which they exercise upon each other, is colossal; the distance at which they communicate is colossal. Where is the want of activity revealed by experience? Rays of light inundate space, producing in sensitive beings the wonderful phenomena of sight: rays of heat extend in all directions, and motion and life spring up on all sides; where is the want of activity revealed by experience? Do not the vegetation which covers our globe, the phenomena of life which we experience within us, and in the animals around us, require a continual motion of matter, an ebb and flow, so to speak, of action and reaction of bodies on each other, in reality or in appearance? Do not the phenomena of electricity, of magnetism, of galvanism, appear to be principles of great activity, the origin of motion wherever they exist, rather than objects indifferent to motion or rest? The ideas of activity, of force, of impulse, are not alone suggested to us by our internal activity, but also by the experience of the corporeal world, which displays before our eyes, and in obedience to constant laws, a continual variety of magnificent scenes, whose origin seems to indicate a fund of activity surpassing all calculations.

163. With how little reason then do you appeal to experience to combat the existence of causality in bodies, and how much more in accordance with experience are those philosophers who give a true activity to bodies, is apparent from what I have said. In assigning the limits of our intuition in relation to causality and activity in themselves,94 I said enough to show that I do not judge it possible to demonstrate metaphysically the existence of activity in the corporeal world; yet I cannot but insist that if the constant relation of phenomena in space and time, and the invariable succession of some things after others, prove any thing in favor of causality, we must admit the opinion which holds that there is true activity in bodies; that in a secondary order the reason of the changes of some is contained in others; and that consequently there is in the corporeal world a chain of second causes which reaches back to the first cause, the origin and the reason of all that is.

CHAPTER XVI.

INTERNAL CAUSALITY

164. Consciousness reveals the existence of a faculty within us which produces certain internal phenomena. If we concentrate our attention by means of a free act of our will, we experience the production of images and ideas. The works of the imagination are an irrefutable proof of our internal activity. Sensations furnish the materials; but the fancy builds edifices with them. Who, if not ourselves, gave them their new form? We must confess that if we are absolutely without activity, nature completely deludes us, making us believe that we are active.

Our recollections offer another proof of true activity. We propose to think of a country which we have visited, and wish to recollect its details; at the command of the will the imagination is aroused and displays to our intuition the scenes which we once saw. But these images already existed, it will be said, and it was only necessary to awaken them; but it cannot be said that they existed in act, for we had no actual consciousness of them; and the command of our will was necessary and sufficient in order to force them to reappear. This new presence adds something to our habitual state, and is produced within us by the mere act of the will.

It is true that we do not know the manner of this production; but it is certain that consciousness assures us that it immediately follows an act of our will; and we have, to say the least, a strong proof that there is in us a force which produces the transition of these images from their habitual to an actual state. The same may be said of all recollections; and if we often find that we cannot recollect all that we wish to, this only proves that our active faculties are limited by certain conditions from which they cannot free themselves.

165. Without considering recollections, every one knows how ideas are elaborated in meditation. Our ideas are not the same when we begin to reflect on any subject, as after we have meditated for a long time on it. Sometimes without the assistance obtained by reading any new work or hearing any new observation, by the mere force of our own reflection we have made clear and distinct what was before only a confused idea. To say that the new ideas are the result of others which already existed in our mind only proves that our understanding has a true activity; for this result, whatever its origin, is something new, it produces a new state in the soul, since it now knows perfectly what before it either knew not at all, or only in a confused manner. The relations of the sub-secant to the secant, and of the sub-tangent to the tangent, are geometrical ideas within the reach of the most ordinary intellects: so also are the similarity of the triangles which are imagined for the purpose of comparing lines with each other, and the successive approximation of the sub-secant to the sub-tangent, and of the secant to the tangent; but to reduce those elements to the point where the wonderful theory of infinitesimal calculus shines forth with the strongest light, an immense distance has to be passed over. Shall we say that those geniuses who first crossed over this distance thought nothing new, because they already had the elements from the combination of which this theory results?

166. If this productive activity is clearly seen in any phenomena, it is certainly in the acts of freewill. What becomes of freedom, if the soul does not produce its volitions? Freedom means nothing, if they are only phenomena produced by another being, in which the soul has no other part than that it is the subject in which they are produced. It is a contradiction to say that the soul is free, and at the same time deny that it is the principle of its determinations.

167. Mere intelligence, even mere sensibility, and in general, every phenomenon implying consciousness, seems to be the exercise of an activity; and in this sense I have shown95 that we have intuition of an internal activity. If to know, to will, to have consciousness of a sensation, are not actions, I know not where the type of a true action can be found. To perceive a thing, to will it, the imperative act of the will which makes me seek the means of obtaining it, are undoubtedly actions; and action is the exercise of activity. The idea of life represents activity in its most perfect degree; and among the phenomena of life, the most perfect are those which imply consciousness; if we do not call these actions, we must say that we have no idea of action or of activity.

Although we do not know the manner of the production, we are conscious of it, we have intuition of the action in itself. When we see a bodily motion we behold a passive modification; but when we experience within ourselves the phenomena of consciousness, we behold an action, and consequently have an intuition of our activity.

168. Here an objection arises. If internal phenomena are truly actions, why are they so often independent of our will? We suffer despite ourselves; ideas come upon us which we would fain cast off; thoughts arise so quickly and spontaneously as to seem rather inspirations than the fruit of labor. Where in such cases is the activity? Are we not forced to say that these phenomena are wholly passive?

169. This objection, apparently so conclusive, proves nothing against internal activity. In the first place, we might answer that the soul being passive in some cases, does not prove that it is so in all; and that in order to affirm the existence of internal activity, we require only certain phenomena to be produced by it. But it is not even necessary to admit that activity is not found in the cases proposed by the objection; for, if we carefully examine them, we shall find that even there the soul exercises a true activity.

The force of the objection rests on the appearance within us of certain phenomena without the concurrence of our will, and at times in spite of it; but this only leads us to infer that there are other functions in the soul independent of freewill without obliging us to believe that these functions are not active. With this observation the difficulty at once disappears. There are within us certain phenomena which we neither willed before nor after they appeared; so far I concede. Therefore there are within us phenomena in which the soul is purely passive; this I deny. The consequence is illegitimate; all that could logically be deduced is, that certain phenomena appear and are continued in the soul without the concurrence of our will.

The same thing happens with the body: there are functions which it exercises independently of our freewill, such as the circulation of the blood, respiration, digestion, assimilation of food, transpiration, and others; but there are others which are only performed at the command of the will, as eating, walking, and in general whatever relates to the motion and position of the members. Why may not a similar thing happen in the soul? Why may not the soul have active faculties which are developed, and produce various phenomena, without the concurrence of the will?

I do not believe any reply to this solution possible. Still I propose to strengthen it by some remarks on the character of the phenomena in which it is pretended that the soul is purely passive.

170. The objection speaks of painful sensations, in which apparently the soul has no activity. Who will say that a man to whom I apply a burning iron, and who suffers horrid pain, exercises in this the activity of his soul? Is it not more reasonable to say that the soul is here purely passive, and in a state very like that of the body when pressed down by the weight of another body? If any activity is exercised in such a case it is rather that of reaction against a painful sensation. Reflect well upon these observations, and you will find that they contain no difficulty whose solution cannot be found in the preceding paragraph. I admit that the painful sensation does not depend on the freewill of the sufferer, and that his free action is opposed to this sensation; but despite all this, the soul may have a true activity in the mere fact of perceiving: it only shows that the exercise of this activity is subject to necessary conditions which when they exist are more powerful for its development than is our will to prevent it. Nothing is more certain than the development of certain active faculties independently of our freewill. What more active than violent passions? And yet it is often impossible for us not to feel them; and it requires all the command of our freewill to restrain them within the bounds of reason.

171. Sensation in itself cannot be all passive; and those who maintain that it is, show that they have meditated but little on the facts of consciousness. These facts are essentially individual, and inasmuch as they are facts of consciousness, absolutely incommunicable. Another may feel a pain very like, and even equal to, that which I suffer; but he cannot experience the same numerically considered; for my pain is so essentially mine, that if it is not mine it does not exist. Therefore pain cannot be communicated as an individual entity to me, and all that can be done to produce it in me, is to excite my sensitive power so as to experience it.

This observation shows that sensations cannot be merely passive facts. A passive modification is all received; the subject suffering does nothing. From the moment that the subject has in itself some principle of its modification, it is not purely passive. Sensation cannot be all received; it must be born in the subject under some influence or other, on this or that occasion; but the being which experiences it must contain a principle of its own experience; otherwise it would be a lifeless being, and could not perceive.

172. The objection speaks of painful sensations as though their necessity were an exception from the general rule; whereas all sensations, pleasant or unpleasant, are equally necessary, provided the sensitive faculties are placed in the conditions necessary for their exercise. There is the same necessity in the pain which I feel if a burning coal is placed in my hand, as in the sight of a beautiful painting placed before my eyes.

173. The spontaneousness of internal phenomena, in the pure intellectual order, or in that of imagination or sentiment, confirms the existence of an activity independent of our freewill, and by no means indicates that these phenomena are purely passive.

There is an important circumstance to be observed here. The exercise of the functions of the soul is connected with the phenomena of the organization. Experience teaches that the soul perceives with more or less activity, according to the disposition of the body; and it is a fact known from all antiquity that certain liquors have an inspiring power. The state of the digestion causes heavy dreams and torments the fancy with horrible forms; fever raises or depresses the imagination; sometimes it increases the strength of the understanding, and sometimes it produces a stupor in which intelligence is extinguished. These phenomena offer a greater field to observation when they reach a very high degree, as happens when the organic functions are greatly disturbed; but this shows that there is an immense scale passed over before arriving at the extremity; so that some phenomena, whose spontaneous appearance seems inexplicable, perhaps depend on certain unknown conditions to which our organization is subject. Whatever opinion be adopted as to the equality or inequality of human souls, no one has any doubt but that the differences of organization may have an influence on the talent or character, and that certain minds of extraordinary faculties owe a part of their endowments to a privileged organization.

Hence it may be inferred that what is called the spontaneity of the soul, and which has attracted so much attention from some modern philosophers, is a phenomenon very generally known, and one which neither destroys internal activity nor tells us any thing new as to its character.

It is certain that there are certain phenomena in our soul which are independent of our freewill; but there is no doubt that their presence is sometimes sudden and unexpected, because the conditions of our organization with which they are connected are unknown. But this is only extending to a greater number of cases what we have frequently remarked in psychological facts, the effects of disease, and what we constantly experience in sensations. What is a sensation but a sudden appearance of a phenomenon in our soul, produced by a change in the state of the organs?

174. I do not mean by this to say that all spontaneous thoughts, and in general all phenomena which suddenly appear within us without any known preparation, arise from affections of the organization; I only wished to recall a physiological and psychological fact, the neglect of which might produce useless and even dangerous speculations. In reading the works of some modern philosophers who treat this point, it seems as though their object were to prepare the way for maintaining that the individual reason is only a phenomenon of the universal and absolute reason; and that inspirations, and in general all spontaneous phenomena independent of freewill, are only indications of the absolute reason appearing to itself in the human reason; that what we call our me is a modification of the absolute being; and the personality of our being is only a phasis of the absolute and impersonal reason.

175. What is called spontaneity, the intuition of former times, to the eyes of reason and of criticism can only be the primitive teaching which the human race received from God: whatever some modern philosophers say to the contrary is only a partly disguised repetition of the sophisms of the incredulous of every epoch, presented in a deceitful dress by men who abuse the talents which they possess. Read with reflection the writings to which we allude, strip them of some high-sounding and enigmatical terms, and you will find in them nothing more than what Lucretius and Voltaire had already said after their own fashion.

CHAPTER XVII.

REMARKS ON SPONTANEITY

176. There is nothing easier than to write a few brilliant pages on the phenomenon of spontaneity; some philosophers of our day discourse of the genius of the poets, of the artists, and of the captains of all ages, the fabulous and the heroic times, mysticism and religion, in books which are neither philosophy, nor history, nor poetry, but which can only be regarded as a flood of agreeable and harmonious words with which writers of sparkling fancy and inexhaustible eloquence deluge the overpowered intellect of the ingenuous reader. And after all, what is this spontaneity, this inspiration of which they tell us so much? Let us fix our ideas by establishing and classifying facts.

177. Reason properly so called is not developed in the human mind when completely isolated from other minds; the sight of nature is not sufficient to arouse it. The stupidness of children found in the woods and the scanty intelligence of deaf-mutes are undeniable evidence of this truth.

178. The human mind, when placed in communication with other minds, experiences a development in part direct and spontaneous, in part reflex and elaborate. This is another fact which we all perceive within ourselves. Minds are developed with greater spontaneousness in proportion as their qualities are more advanced.

179. Of the thoughts which occur to us suddenly and which seem to us purely spontaneous, not a few are reminiscences, more or less faithful, of what we have before read, heard, or thought; and consequently they proceed from a preparatory fact, which we do not remember. This explains how labor perfects the inventive faculty.

180. As the organization of our body exercises a powerful influence in the development of the soul's faculties, we may say that the spontaneity of some internal phenomena is connected with certain changes of our organization.

181. There is no philosophical difficulty in admitting an immediate communication of our mind with another mind of a higher order; and consequently there is none in admitting that some internal spontaneous phenomena arise from the direct influence of this higher mind upon ours.

182. The human race did not originally have a spontaneous development independent of the action of the Creator; philosophy shows us the necessity of a primitive teaching, without which the human race would have remained in a state of brute-like stupidity. This last remark requires a further explanation.

183. Religion reveals a primitive instruction and education of the human race given by God himself to the person of the first man; this is in perfect conformity with what both reason and experience assert.

Our mind possesses innumerable germs, but their growth requires an external cause. What would a man be who had been alone from his infancy? Little more than a brute: the precious stone would be covered with coarse earth which would prevent its glistening.

Language does not and cannot produce ideas; this is certain: the reason of ideas is not in language, but the reason of language is in ideas. Words are signs; and that which is not conceived can have no sign. But this sign, this instrument is of a wonderful use; words are to the understanding what wheels are to the power of a machine; the power imparts motion, but the machine would not go without wheels. The understanding might have some motion without language, but very slow, very imperfect, very heavy.

184. The Bible represents man as speaking as soon as created; language was therefore taught him by God. This is another wonderful fact which reason fully confirms. Man could not invent language. This invention surpasses all that can be imagined, and would you attribute it to beings so stupid as men without language? Better to say that a Hottentot could suddenly invent infinitesimal calculus.

185. The most ignorant man who knows a language possesses an incredible treasure of ideas. In the simplest conversation we may find many physical, metaphysical, and moral ideas. Take the following sentence, which is within the comprehension of the lowest mind: "I did not wish to pursue the beast farther for fear that, becoming irritated, he might do harm." Here are the ideas of time, act of the will, action, continuity, space, causality, analogy, end, and morality.

Time past: – I did not;

Act of the will: —wish;

Action: – to pursue;

Continuity and space: —farther;

Analogy: —becoming irritated; since from irritation in other instances, it is inferred in the present; and it is also known from what happens to ourselves if molested.

Motive and end: —for fear, that irritated, etc.;

Causality: —he might do harm;

Morality: —not to harm others.

186. Science is discovering the affinity of languages, finding them united in great centres. The dialects of savages are not elements, but fragments; they are not the lisping speech of infancy, but the torpid and extravagant jargon of degradation and ebriety.

187. Language cannot produce in the mind the idea of a sensation which it has not: all the words in the world could not give one born blind the idea of color. Still less could pure ideas, distinct from all sensation, result from language; and this is a strong argument in favor of innate ideas.

188. The ideas of unity, number, time, and causality express things which are not sensible; therefore they cannot be produced in us by any sensible representation expressed in language. Yet these ideas exist in us as germs susceptible of a great development, first by sensible experience, and then by reflection. The child who burns his hand in the fire begins to perceive the relation of causality, which he afterwards generalizes and purifies. The great ideas of Leibnitz on causality were the ideas of Leibnitz the child. The difference was in the development. Thus the organization of the giant oak is contained within the shell of the acorn.