Kitabı oku: «Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)», sayfa 36

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.

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.