Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

82. Here, then, is another check to the originality of the German philosopher; he has, to combat sensism, said in substance just what, ages before, all the schools repeated; and now when he undertakes to follow a new road to the explanation of the purely intellectual order, he falls into Condillac's system. His empty conceptions, without meaning, without application, beyond the sensible order, amount to no more than what Condillac taught when analyzing the generation of ideas, and showing how they flowed from sensations by means of successive transformations. Could there be any difficulty, it would be concerning words, not things: no sensist ought to hesitate accepting whole and entire the Critic of Pure Reason, when once he has seen what applications the German spiritualist makes of his doctrines. It would be very desirable for those who insist that the spiritualism of Kant is decidedly destructive of Condillac's sensism, to weigh well these observations.

CHAPTER XIII.

EXISTENCE OF PURE INTELLECTUAL INTUITION

83. It is not true that the human mind even in this life has no intuition other than the sensible. There are within us many non-sensible phenomena, of which we are clearly conscious. Reflection, comparison, abstraction, election, and all the acts of the understanding and will, include nothing of the sensible. We should like to know, to what species of sensibility, abstract ideas, and the acts by which we perceive them, belong; these among others: I desire, I do not desire, I choose this, I prefer this to that. Not one of these acts can be presented by sensible intuition; they are facts of an order superior to the sphere of sensibility, and yet we have in our mind a clear and lively consciousness of them; we reflect upon them, make them the object of our studies, distinguish them one from another, and classify them in a thousand different ways. These facts are presented to us immediately; we know them, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore it is false that the intuition of the soul refers to none but sensible phenomena, for it encounters within itself an expanded series of non-sensible phenomena, which are given to it in intuition.

84. It is of no use to say that these internal phenomena are empty forms, and mean nothing, unless referred to a sensible intuition. Whatever they may be, they are something distinct from this same sensible intuition; and we perceive this something, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore, besides sensible intuition, there is another of the purely intellectual order.

The question is not whether these pure conceptions have, or have not, a certain power to enable us to know objects in themselves; but it is simply to ascertain if they do exist, and if they are sensible. That they exist, is certain; consciousness attests this fact, and all ideologists admit it. That they are sensible, cannot be maintained without destroying their nature; and least of all can Kant maintain this, since he has so carefully distinguished between sensible intuition and these conceptions.

85. This sea of non-sensible phenomena, which we experience within us, is like a mirror wherein the depths of the intellectual world are reflected. Minds, it is true, are not presented immediately to our perception, and to know them we need a discursive process; but we shall, upon careful examination, find in this intuition of our inward phenomena the representation, imperfect though it be, of what is verified in intelligences of a superior order. Thus we have in a certain mode idea-images, since there can be no better image of one thought than another thought, nor of one act of the will than another act of the will. Thus we know minds distinct from our own, by a kind of mediate, not immediate, intuition, in so far as they are presented to our consciousness as the image in a mirror.

86. The communication of minds by means of speech and other natural or conventional signs, is a fact of experience intimately connected with all intellectual, moral, and physical necessities. When a mind is put into communication with another, the cognition it has of what passes in the other is not by mere general conceptions, but by a kind of intuition, which although mediate, does not therefore fail to be true. The thought, or affection of another communicated to our mind by means of speech, excites in us a thought, or affection, similar to that of the mind communicating them. We do, then, not only know, but see, in our own consciousness, the consciousness of another; and so perfect is at times the likeness, that we anticipate all that he is about to tell us, and unroll within ourselves the same series of phenomena that are verified in the mind of him with whom we are in communication. It happens thus when we say: "I understand perfectly what N. thinks, what he wants, what he is trying to express."

87. This observation seems to us of great service to place beyond all doubt that there are in our mind, independently of the sensible order, conceptions, not empty, but referable to a determinate object. The cognition of the phenomena of the purely intellectual order, transmitted to us by means of speech, or other signs, does not destroy the character of the intuition, since we here find all the necessary conditions assembled; internal representation, and its relation to a determinate object affecting us.

88. This analysis of ideological facts, whose existence cannot be doubted, demonstrates the falseness of Kant's doctrine, that there are in our mind none but sensible intuitions; as well as the non-existence of the German philosopher's problem: whether it is possible, or not, for objects to be given to other minds in an intuition other than the sensible. This very problem is found solved within us, since the attentive observation of the internal phenomena, and the reciprocal communication of minds, has given us to know not only the possibility, but also the existence of intuitions different from the sensible.

CHAPTER XIV.

VALUE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTIONS. – ABSTRACTION MADE FROM INTELLECTUAL INTUITION

89. Although we should admit that our mind can have no intuition but the sensible, it could not thence be inferred that conceptions of the purely intellectual order are empty forms, and in nowise conducive to the knowledge of objects in themselves. It has always been understood that general ideas are not intuitive, since by the very fact that they are general they cannot be referred immediately to a determinate object; and yet no one ever doubted that they could serve to give us true cognitions.

90. It is certain that general ideas, of themselves alone, do not lead to any positive result; or, in other words, they do not make us know existing beings; but if they be joined to other particular ones, a reciprocal influence is established between them, from which cognition results. When we make the general affirmation: "Every contingent being requires a cause;" this proposition, although very true, means nothing in the order of facts, if we abstract the existence of contingent beings and causes of every kind. In such a case, the proposition will express a relation of ideas, not of facts: the cognition which results therefrom will be merely ideal, not positive.

91. This relation of ideas tacitly involves a condition, which gives them, so far as facts are concerned, a hypothetical value; for, when we affirm that every contingent being must have a cause, we are not to be understood to affirm a relation of ideas destitute of all possible application; but rather, on the contrary, to intend that if any contingent being exists, it must have a cause.

92. In order that this hypothetical value of ideas may be converted into a positive value, nothing is necessary but that the condition involved in the general proposition: "Every contingent being must have a cause," be verified. Of itself alone this teaches us nothing concerning the real world; but from the moment that experience shows us a single contingent being, the general proposition, before sterile, becomes exceedingly fruitful. So soon as experience shows us a contingent being, we know the necessity of its cause; we also infer the necessity of the proportions, which the activity producing must preserve with the thing produced; knowing the qualities of the latter, we infer those which ought to be found in the former. In this manner, resting upon two bases, one of which is ideal truth and the other real truth, or data supplied by experience, we construct a true positive science referred to determinate facts.

93. Since the being that thinks necessarily has consciousness of itself, no thinking being can be limited to the cognition of purely ideal truths. Even if we were to suppose it perfectly isolated from all other beings, in absolute non-communication with every thing not itself, so as neither to exert any influence upon them, nor to be influenced by them, it could not be reduced to the cognition of a purely ideal order; for, by the very fact that it is thinking, it is conscious of itself, and consciousness is essentially a particular fact, a cognition of a determinate being, since without it there could be no consciousness.

94. This observation overturns to its very foundation the system which pretends to bar all communication between the real and ideal orders. It shows also that experience is not only possible, but absolutely necessary to every thinking being, since consciousness is by its very nature an experience, and the clearest and surest experience. The truths of the ideal order are then necessarily interlinked with those of the real order: to suppose all intercommunication between them impossible, is to disown a fundamental fact of ideological and psychological science, consciousness.

95. To render the truth and exactness of the preceding doctrine more evident, let us suppose a man, or rather a human mind, absolutely ignorant of the existence of an external world, of every body, and even of every spirit; one that knows nothing concerning its own origin or destiny, but one that would nevertheless at the same time exercise its intellectual activity, without which it would be a lifeless thing, and could offer no field to observation. Let us suppose him to have general ideas, such as of being and of not-being, of substance and accidents, of the absolute and the conditioned, of the necessary and contingent. Manifestly he may combine them in various ways, and arrive at the same purely ideal results to which we ourselves arrive. There is no supposition more favorable to a series of abstract cognitions independent of experience, and yet not even in this case would the truths known be limited to the purely ideal order; it would even here be impossible for them not to descend to the real order, if the thinking being were not dispossessed of all consciousness of itself.

Indeed, by the very fact that a being is supposed capable of thinking, it is supposed able to say to itself, I think. This act is eminently experimental, and it needs only to be united with general truths in a common consciousness, to enable the isolated being to rise above itself, and create for itself a positive science, by which to pass from the world of ideas to that of facts. The instability of its thoughts, and the permanence of the being that experiences them, offer to it a practical case in which the general ideas of substance and accident are particularized. The successive appearance and disappearance of its own conceptions will show to it the ideas of being and of not-being realized; the recollection of the time when its own operations commenced, beyond which the memory of its existence does not extend, will enable it to know the contingency of his own being; and this fact, combined with the general principles which express the relations between contingent and necessary beings, will suggest to the thought that there must be another that communicated to it its existence.

CHAPTER XV.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE VALUE OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS

96. However vague the ideas an isolated being would form of objects distinct from itself, they will never be so vague as not to refer to a real thing. The mind may not know the nature of this reality, but it knows for certain that it exists. A man blind from his birth can form no clear idea of colors, nor of the sensation of seeing; but is he therefore ignorant that sensation exists, and that the words, color, seeing, and others which refer to sight, have a positive and determinate object? Certainly not. The blind man does not know in what these things, of which he hears, consist, but he knows that they are something; those of his conceptions that refer to them may be called imperfect, but they are not vain; the words by which he expresses them, have for him a positive, although incomplete meaning.

97. There is a great difference between incomplete and indeterminate conceptions; the former may refer to a positive thing, although imperfectly known; the latter include nothing but a relation of ideas, meaning nothing in the order of facts. We will render this difference more apparent by explaining the example of the preceding paragraph.

A man blind from his birth has no intuition of colors, nor of any thing that refers to the sense of sight; but he is sure that there exist external facts which correspond to an internal affection called seeing. This idea is incomplete, but it has a determinate object. The words of those who possess the sense of sight reveal to him its existence; he knows not, what it is, but, that it is; in other words, he does not know its essence, but its existence. Let us now suppose the possibility of an order of sensations different from ours, and in nowise resembling those which we experience, to be called in question. The conception referred to the new sensations would not only be incomplete, but would have no relation to any real object. The general idea, then, of affection of a sensitive being, will be all that our mind will have; but it will know nothing of its existence, and can form only mere conjectures as to the conditions of its possibility. This example illustrates our idea. We find in the man blind from his birth, who hears of what pertains to the sense of sight, an incomplete conception, but one to which the existence of a series of facts, known to his mind, corresponds. But in ourselves, if we reflect upon a kind of sensations different from our own, we find conceptions, having, indeed, a general object, but of whose realization we know nothing.

98. Thus is it explained how our mind, without having intuition of a thing, can, nevertheless, know it, and be perfectly certain of its existence. We have here demonstrated that conceptions may, although they do not refer to a sensible intuition, have a value, not only in the order of ideas, but also in that of facts.

99. In order to prove the sterility of all conception beyond sensible intuition, Kant adduces one reason, which is, that we cannot define the categories and the principles which flow from them without referring to the objects of sensibility. This is no proof at all; for, in the first place, the impossibility of a definition does not always arise from the fact that the conception to be defined is empty; but it very frequently results from the conception being simple, and consequently not susceptible of a division into parts that may be expressed by words. How will he define the idea of being? No matter how he attempts to define it, the thing to be defined will enter into the definition: the words, thing, reality, existence, all signify being.

It is very natural, since sensible intuition is the basis of our relations with the external world, and consequently with our fellow-men, that when we purpose to express any relation whatever, we should call to our aid sensible applications; but we are not thence to infer that there is not in our mind, independently of them, a real truth contained in the conception which we wish to explain.

100. This capacity of knowing objects under general ideas, is a characteristic property of our mind, and we cannot, in our inability to penetrate to the essence of things, think without this indispensable auxiliary. In the ordinary course of human affairs, it often happens that we need to know the existence of a thing and of some of its attributes, but do not require a perfect knowledge of it. In such cases, general ideas, aided by some data of experience, put us in mediate communication with the object not presented to our intuition. But why cannot the same thing be verified with respect to non-sensible beings, which alone are the object of intellectual intuitions? I know not what exception can be taken to these observations, founded as they are upon observation of internal phenomena, and confirmed by common sense.

CHAPTER XVI

VALUE OF PRINCIPLES, INDEPENDENTLY OF SENSIBLE INTUITION

101. The principle of contradiction, indispensable condition of all certainty, of all truth, and without which the external world, and intelligence itself, would become a chaos, offers us a good example of the intrinsic value of purely intellectual conceptions independent of sensible intuition.

No determinate idea is united to the conception of being when we affirm the impossibility of a thing being and not-being at the same time, or the exclusion of not-being by being; and so far we absolutely abstract all sensible intuition. Whatever be its object, whatever its nature and the relations of its existence; be it corporeal or incorporeal, composite or simple, accident or substance, contingent or necessary, finite or infinite, always will it be found true that being excludes not-being; the absolute incompatibility of these two extremes will always be verified, so that the affirmation of the one is always, in all cases, and under all imaginable suppositions, the negation of the other.

This being so, to limit the value of these conceptions to sensible intuition, would be to destroy the principle of contradiction. The limitation of the principle is equivalent to its nullification. Its absolute universality is closely allied to its absolute necessity; if it be curtailed, it is made contingent; for, if the principle of contradiction may fail us in one instance, it fails us in all. To admit the possibility of what is absurd, is to deny its absurdity. If the contradiction of being and not-being does not exist in every supposition, it exists in no supposition.

102. The difficulty is to know how the transition from the principle of contradiction to real truths, is made; because not affirming any thing determinate in it, but solely the repugnance of yes to no, and of no to yes, we assert that it would be impossible to affirm either one of these extremes without denying the other; and as on the other hand, it is impossible, if we confine ourselves to the principle of contradiction, for it to include any thing more than the most general relation between two general ideas, we conclude that it is of itself alone, perfectly sterile and unable to conduct us to any positive result. This is all true; but it contradicts in no point what we have said concerning the intrinsic value of general conceptions.

We have remarked that truths of the purely ideal order have none but a hypothetical value, and that in order to produce a positive science, they require facts to which they may apply. We have also remarked, that experience furnishes these facts, and that every thinking being possesses one at least, consciousness of itself. Every thinking being will therefore, provided it discover in its own consciousness facts to which it may apply it, make a positive use of the principle of contradiction.

103. Even were we to admit the supposition that there is in our mind no intuition but the sensible, it could not therefore be concluded that general principles, and more particularly that of contradiction, can have no positive value; because, if we suppose these principles combined with sensible intuition to produce a cognition of other beings out of the order of sensibility, it would follow that we really know them, although they were not given to us in immediate intuition. And this is verified in the human mind, when it rises by discursion to the cognition of the non-sensible. On the one hand, the data furnished by experience, and on the other, general and necessary truths, form a connection constituting a positive science, which guides us with perfect security to the cognition of objects not subject to immediate experience.

This theory is so clear, so evident, so rooted in the consciousness of our own acts, so perfectly in accordance with all that we observe in the proceedings of the human mind, that it causes us a strange surprise to meet philosophers, whose erroneous doctrines oblige us to explain and defend it.

104. The transition from the known to the unknown is a proceeding characteristic of our understanding; and this transition is impossible if the reality of every cognition, not referred to an intuition, be denied. Whatever is presented to us in this latter way, is given to us, is present to our sight, and we have no necessity of seeking it. If, therefore, no object be really known, unless offered in intuition, all intellectual progress becomes impossible: all the advances of our mind are reduced to combinations of the forms presented to the sensibility, and even these lead to nothing whenever they cease to be intuitive; that is, when they no longer relate to determinate objects immediately perceived. The Critic of Pure Reason is the destruction of all reason: for it examines itself with suicidal intent, or in order to prove that it contains nothing positive.

Science cannot survive the reduction of general principles to one only value relative to sensible intuitions. What we have demonstrated concerning the principle of contradiction, is a fortiori applicable to all other principles. If this be not saved, all must perish in the wreck. Moreover, the very basis of the necessity involved in these principles is threatened. We know nothing, save that there is within us a series of phenomena which seem necessary. But what use can we make of them beyond the subjective order? None at all. Behold us then in the most perfect skepticism, condemned to simple appearances, with no means of knowing any reality.

105. No! the human mind is not condemned to so despairing a sterility: reason is not an empty word; ratiocination is not a puerile play, only fit to serve as an amusement. In the midst of the prepossessions, errors, and extravagance of human misery, towers on high that force, that admirable activity, by which the mind springs beyond itself, knows what it does not see, and foresees what it will one day feel. Nature is veiled to our eyes; impenetrable secrets surround us; whichever way we turn deep shadows hide the reality of objects: but through this darkness we discern from afar some scintillation of light. Notwithstanding the profound silence which reigns over the sea of beings, whose surges toss us about like imperceptible atoms in the immensity of the ocean, we hear at times mysterious voices tell us the course we must keep to reach unknown shores.

CHAPTER XVII.

RELATIONS OF INTUITION WITH THE RANK OF THE PERCEPTIVE BEING

106. The perfection of intelligence involves extension and clearness of its intuitions; the more perfect it is, the more intuitive it will be. The infinite intelligence does not know by discursion, but by intuition: it does not need to seek objects: it sees them all before itself. It sees with intuition of identity what belongs to its own essence, and with intuition of causality every thing that does or can exist outside of itself. Other minds have an intuition so much the more perfect as they are more elevated in the order to which they belong; so that cognition by conceptions indicates an imperfection of intelligence.

107. The relations of one being with other beings will therefore depend upon the rank it holds in the scale of the universe. God, infinite being, and the cause of all that does or can exist, has intimate and immediate relations with the whole universe, considered not only in its entireness but even in its smallest particles. There is consequently in God a most perfect representation of all beings taken not only in their generality, but also in their minutest differences. The Being, cause of all, does not know objects by vague conceptions, by means of representations which only show what all beings have in common, but as he has made their slightest differences, they must be presented to him with perfect clearness. His cognition is founded upon a reality which is himself; his understanding does not fluctuate through an ideal and hypothetical world; but, fixed with clearest intuition upon infinite reality, he sees all that the infinite being is, and all that it can produce with its infinite activity. For God there is no experience proceeding from without, for nothing can exert any influence upon him; all his experience consists in the knowledge and love of himself.