Jaime Balmes - Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

1. Having spoken of sensations, we come now to ideas. We must, however, before making this transition, inquire if there be in our mind ought else than sensation, if all the inward phenomena which we experience be ought else than sensations transformed.

Man, when he rises from the sphere of sensations, from those phenomena which place him in relation with the external world, meets a new order of phenomena, of whose presence he is equally conscious. He cannot reflect upon sensations without being conscious of something more than sensation; nor on the recollection or the inward representation of sensations, without discovering something distinct both from the recollection and from the representation.

2. According to Aristotle, there is nothing in the understanding which has not first been in the senses; and the schools have for long ages re-echoed this thought of the philosopher: nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu . The order, therefore, of human knowledge, is from the external to the internal. Descartes pretended that we ought to invert this order, and proceed from the internal to the external. Malebranche, his disciple, went farther, and was of opinion that the understanding, enfolded in itself, should hold only the least possible intercourse with the external world. According to him, no atmosphere is so fatal to intellectual health as that of the world of the senses; sensations are an inexhaustible fountain of error, and the imagination is an enchantress only the more dangerous because she has fixed her dwelling at the very portal of the intellect, which, with her seductive beauty and gorgeous ornaments, she hopes to rule at her pleasure.

3. Locke strove to rehabilitate the old Aristotelian maxim, joined, however, to the criterion of observation: besides sensation he admitted only reflection, but he taught that the mind was endowed with innate faculties. His disciple, Condillac, not satisfied with this, taught that all the actions of our mind were simply sensations transformed: instead of distinguishing with Locke two sources of our ideas, the senses and reflection, he thought it more exact to admit only one, as well because reflection is in its root only sensation, as because it is rather the channel by which ideas originating in the senses pass, than their source.

Judgment, reflection, desires, and passions are in Condillac's estimation nothing else than sensation transformed in various modes. It seemed to him, therefore, very idle to suppose the mind to have received immediately from nature the faculties with which it is endowed. Nature has given us organs which show us by pleasure or pain what we ought to seek or to avoid; but here she stops, and leaves to experience the task of leading us to contract habits and finish the work she has commenced. 1 1 Traité des Sensations. Préface.

4. In view of this system, in which not even natural faculties are conceded to the soul, and those which it does possess are considered as only simple effects of sensation, it is worthy of remark how soon its author contradicts himself; for, almost in the same breath, he professes to be an occasionalist, and pretends that the impressions of our organization are nothing more than the occasion of our sensations. Can there be a natural faculty more inexplicable than that of placing one's self in relation with objects which do not produce sensations, but are only the occasion of their production. If such a faculty as this be conceded to the mind, why may we not admit others? Is not that a very singular natural faculty which perceives by means of causes operating only occasionally? In this case, is there not attributed to the mind a natural faculty of producing sensations on occasion of organic impressions, or is it not supposed to be an immediate relation with another and superior being which produces them? Why may not this internal activity, this receptivity, apply itself to ideas? Why must not other innate faculties be conceded to the mind? And why does he pretend not to suppose them, when his whole argument is based upon the supposition of their existence?

Hostile as he professes to be to hypotheses and systems, Condillac is eminently addicted both to systems and hypotheses. He imagines an origin and a nature of ideas of his own, and to them he insists that every thing must conform. To give a better idea of Condillac's opinions, and to combat them at once successfully and loyally, we will briefly analyze the groundwork of his Treatise on Sensations , the book on which he most prides himself, and in which he flatters himself to have given to his doctrine its highest degree of clearness and certainty.

5. Condillac supposes a statue, which he animates successively with each of the senses: then beginning with the sense of smell, he says; "So long as our statue is limited to the sense of smell, its knowledge cannot go beyond odors; it can neither have any idea of extension, of space, or of any thing beyond itself, nor of other sensations, such as color, sound, taste." 2 2 See Chap. I. If, according to the conditions of the supposition, all activity and every faculty be denied to this statue, it certainly can have no other idea or sensation, and it may be added that even its sensation of smell will be for it no idea.

"If we present it a rose," continues Condillac, "to us it will be a statue which smells a rose; but for itself it will be only the smell of a rose. It will then be the smell of the rose, the pink, the jasmine, or the violet, according to the objects which operate upon its organ; in a word, with respect to it, these odors are only its own modifications and manners of being, and it cannot believe itself any thing else, since these are the only sensations of which it is susceptible."

6. It is very obvious that at the first step, the statue must take a great leap. Close upon the apparent simplicity of the sensible phenomenon, reflection , one of those acts which suppose the intellect already well developed, is introduced. First the statue believes itself something; it believes itself the odor; next consciousness of itself in relation to the impression it has just received, is attributed to it; then it is made to form a kind of judgment, whereby it affirms the identity of itself with the sensation. This, however, is impossible, unless we have something besides bare sensation; but we neither have nor can have at this stage any thing beyond this purely passive impression, an isolated phenomenon, upon which there can be no reflection of any kind whatever; and the statue can have no other reflection of itself than this sensation, which in the reflective order has no title to be so called. Condillac's hypothesis rigorously applied, presents only a phenomenon leading to nothing; and the moment he leaves sensation to develop it, he admits an activity in the mind distinct and very different from sensation, which destroys his whole system.

The statue confined to the sensation of smell will never believe itself smell; such a belief is a judgment, and supposes comparison, no trace of which can be discovered in the sensible phenomenon, considered in all its purity, as Condillac requires in his hypothesis. He begins his analytical investigations by introducing conditions which he at the same time supposes to be eliminated. He undertakes to explain every thing by sensation alone, and his first step is to amalgamate sensation with operations of a very different order.

7. Condillac calls the capacity of feeling, when applied to the impression received, attention. So if there be but one sensation, there can be but one attention. If various sensations succeeding each other leave some trace in the memory of the statue, the attention will, when a new sensation is presented, be divided between the present and the past. The attention directed at one and the same time to two sensations becomes comparison. Similarities and differences are perceived by comparison, and this perception is a judgment. All this is done with sensations alone; therefore attention, memory, comparison, and judgment are nothing but sensations transformed. In appearance nothing clearer, more simple, or more ingenuous; in reality nothing more confused or false.