Pkilalethes Having recrossed the sea after finishing my business in England I thought at once of paying you a visit sir in order to cultivate our former friendship and to converse upon matters which lie close to our hearts and upon which I believe I have acquired some new light during my long stay in London When we were living formerly quite near each other at Amsterdam we both took much pleasure in making researches into the principles and means of penetrating into the heart of things Although our opinions often differed this diversity increased our satisfaction when in our conference together notwithstanding the contrariety which sometimes existed there mingled nothing disagreeable You were for Descartes and for the opinions of the celebrated author of The Search after Truth and I found the opinions of Gassendi cleared up by Bernier easier and more natural Now I feel myself greatly strengthened by the excellent work which an illustrious Englishman with whom I have the honour of a particular acquaintance has since published and which has several times been reprinted in England under the modest title of An Essay concerning Human Understanding And I am delighted that it has appeared lately in Latin and in French in order that it may be more generally useful I have greatly profited by the reading of this work and indeed from the conversation of the author with whom I have talked often in London and sometimes at Gates at the house of my Lady Mashain worthy daughter of the celebrated Cudworth a great English philosopher and theologian author of the Intellectual System from whom she has inherited the spirit of meditation and the love for good learning which appeared particularly in the friendship which she kept up with the author of the Essay And as he had been attacked by some clever Doctors I took pleasure in reading also the defence which a very wise and very intelligent young lady made for him besides those which he made for himself This author writes in the spirit of the system of Gassendi which is at bottom that of Democritus he is for the vacuum and for atoms he believes that matter might think that there are no innate ideas that our mind is a tabula rasa and that we do not always think and he appears disposed to approve the most of the objections which Gassendi has made to Descartes He has enriched and strengthened this system by a thousand beautiful reflections and I do not at all doubt that now our party will triumph boldly over its adversaries the Peripatetics and the Cartesians This is why if you have not yet read this book I invite you to do so and if you have read it I ask you to give me your opinion of it
Theophilus I rejoice to see you on your return after a long absence happy in the conclusion of your important business full of health steadfast in your friendship for me and always transported with an ardour equal to the search for the most important truths I no less have continued my meditations in the same spirit and I believe I have profited as much as and not to flatter myself perhaps more than yourself Indeed my need therein was greater than yours for you were more advanced than I You were more conversant with speculative philosophers and I was more inclined towards ethics But I have learned more and more how ethics receives strength from the solid principles of true philosophy therefore I have lately studied these principles more diligently and have begun meditations quite new So that we shall have the means of giving ourselves a reciprocal pleasure of long duration in communicating the one to the other our solutions But it is necessary for me to tell you as a piece of news that I am no longer a Cartesian and that nevertheless I am farther removed than ever from your Gassendi whose knowledge and merit I for the rest recognize I have been impressed with a new system of which I have read something in the Journaux des Savans of Paris Leipzig and Holland and in the marvellous Dictionary of Bayle article Rorarius and since then I believe I see a new aspect of the interior of things This system appears to unite Plato and Democritus Aristotle and Descartes the scholastics with the moderns theology and ethics with the reason It seems to take the best from all sides and then it goes much farther than any has yet gone I find in it an intelligible explanation of the union of soul and body of which I had before this despaired I find the true principles of things in the Unities of Substance which this system introduces and in their harmony preestablished by the primitive Substance I find therein a wonderful simplicity and uniformity so that it may be said that this substance is everywhere and always the same thing differing only in degrees of perfection I see now what Plato meant when he assumed matter to be an existence imperfect and transitory what Aristotle meant by his Eliteleehy what that promise of another life is which Democritus himself made according to Pliny how far the Sceptics were right in declaiming against the senses how animals are in fact automata according to Descartes and how they have nevertheless souls and feeling according to the opinion of mankind how it is necessary to explain rationally those who have lodged life and perception in all things as Cardan Campanella and better than they the late Countess of Connaway a Platonist and our friend the late M Franqois Mercure van Helmont although elsewhere bristling with unintelligible paradoxes with his friend the late Mr Henry More How the laws of nature a good part of which were unknown before this system have their origin in principles superior to matter and how nevertheless everything takes place mechanically in matter in which respect the spiritualizing authors I just named have failed with their Archaei and even the Cartesians in believing that immaterial substances altered if not the force at least the direction or determination, of the motions of bodies whereas the soul and the body retain perfectly each its own •laws according to the new system and yet one obeys the other as much as is necessary In fine it is since I have meditated upon this system that I have found out how the souls of beasts and their sensations are in no sense prejudicial to the immortality of human souls or rather how nothing is more suited to establish our natural immortality than to conceive that all souls are imperishable morte carent animoe without however the fear of metempsychoses since not only the souls but further the animals endure and will endure living feeling acting it is everywhere as here and always and everywhere as with us according to what I have already said to you except that the conditions of animals are more or less perfect and developed without there ever being a need of souls wholly separate while we nevertheless have always spirits as pure as possible notwithstanding our physical organs which cannot disturb by any influence the laws of our spiritual spontaneity I find the vacuum and atoms excluded in quite another way than by the sophism of the Cartesians grounded in the pretended coincidence of the idea of body and extension I see all things determined and adorned beyond anything hitherto conceived matter everywhere organic no sterile neglected vacuum nothing too uniform everything varied but with order and what passes imagination the entire universe in epitome but with a different aspect in each of its parts and likewise in each of its unities of substance Besides this new analysis of things I have a better comprehension of that of notions or ideas and of truths I understand what a true clear distinct adequate idea is if I dare adopt this word I understand what are primitive truths and true axioms the distinction between necessary truths and truths of fact between the reasoning of men and the consecutions of animals which are a shadow of the reasoning of men In short you will be surprised to hear all that I have to say to you and above all to understand how much the knowledge of the grandeur and of the perfection of God is therein exalted For I cannot conceal from you from whom I have had nothing concealed how I have been thrilled now with admiration and if we may dare to make use of the term with love for this sovereign source of things and of beauty having found that what this system discovers surpasses everything one has hitherto conceived You know that I had gone a little too far formerly and that I began to lean toward the side of the Spinozists who allow God only infinite power without recognizing either perfection or wisdom in his case and regarding with contempt the search for final causes derive everything from brute necessity But these new lights have cured me of this and since then I sometimes take the name of Theophilus I have read the book of this celebrated Englishman of whom you have just spoken I value it highly and I have found in it some good things But it seems to me necessary to go much farther and necessary even to turn aside from his views since he has adopted some which limit us more than is necessary and lower a little not only the condition of man but besides that of the universe
Ph You astonish me in fact with all the marvels which you have recited to me in a manner a little too favourable for an easy credence of them on my part However I will hope that there will be something solid among so many novelties with which you desire to regale me In this case you will find me very docile You know that it was always my disposition to surrender myself to reason and that I sometimes took the name of Pkilalethes This is why if you please we will now make use of these two names which are so congruous with our mental constitution and methods There are means of proceeding to the trial for — since you have read the book of the celebrated Englishman which gives me so much satisfaction and which treats a good part of the subjects of which you were just speaking and above all the analysis of our ideas and knowledge — it will be the shortest way to follow the thread of this work and to see what you will have to say
Th I approve your proposition Here is the book
Ph I have read this book so thoroughly that I have retained even its expressions which I shall be careful to follow Thus I shall not need to recur to the book except at certain junctures where we shall judge it necessary We shall speak first of the origin of ideas or notions Book I then of the different kinds of ideas Book II and of the words that serve to express them Book Ill lastly of the knowledge and truths which therefrom result Book IV and it is this last part which will occupy us the most As for the origin of ideas I believe with this author and a multitude of clever persons that there are no innate ideas nor innate principles And in order to refute the error of those who admit them it is sufficient to show as it appears eventually that there is no need of them and that men can acquire all their knowledge without the aid of any innate impression
Th You know Philalethes that I have been for a long time of another opinion that I have always held as I still hold to the innate idea of God which Descartes maintained and as a consequence to the other innate ideas which cannot come to us from the senses Now I go still farther in conformity to the new system and I believe even that all the thoughts and acts of our soul come from its own depths with no possibility of their being given to it by the senses as you shall see in the sequel But at present I will put this investigation aside and accommodating myself to the received expressions since in fact they are good and tenable and one can say in a certain sense that the external senses are in part causes of our thoughts I shall consider how in my opinion one must say even in the common system speaking of the action of bodies upon the soul as the Copernicans speak with other men of the movement of the sun and with cause that there are some ideas and some principles which do not come to us from the senses and which we find in ourselves without forming them although the senses give us occasion to perceive them I imagine that your clever author has remarked that under the name of innate principles one often maintains his prejudices and wishes to free himself from the trouble of discussion and that this abuse doubtless has stirred up his zeal against this supposition He desired no doubt to combat the indolence and the superficial manner of thinking of those who under the specious pretext of innate ideas and of truths naturally engraved upon the mind to which we readily give our consent care nothing about investigating or considering the sources the relations and the certainty of this knowledge In that I am entirely agreed with him and I go even farther I would that our analysis should not be limited that definitions should be given of all the terms which are capable of definition and that one should demonstrate or give the means of demonstrating all the axioms which are not primitive without distinguishing the opinions which men have of them and without caring whether they give their consent or not There would be more profit in this than one thinks But it seems that the author has been carried too far on the other side by his zeal otherwise very praiseworthy He has not sufficiently distinguished in my opinion the origin of the necessary truths whose source is in the understanding, from that of the truths of fact drawn from the experience of the senses and even from those confused perceptions which are in us You see then that I do not agree with what you lay down as fact — that we can acquire all our knowledge without the need of innate impressions And the sequel will show which of us is right
Ph We shall see it indeed I grant you my dear Theophilus that there is no opinion more commonly received than that which establishes the existence of certain principles of truth in which men generally agree this is why they are called general notions Koiva whence it is inferred that these principles must be so many impressions which our minds receive with their existence But though it were certain that there are some principles in which the entire human race is agreed this universal consent would not prove that they are innate if one can show as I believe he can another way through which men have been able to reach this uniformity of opinion But what is much worse this universal consent is nowhere found not even with regard to these two celebrated speculative principles for we shall speak about the practical ones later that whatever is is and that it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time For there is a large part of the human race to which these two propositions which will pass doubtless for necessary truths and for axioms with you are not even known
Th I do not ground the certainty of innate principles upon universal consent for I have already told you Philalethes that my opinion is that we ought to labour to be able to demonstrate all the axioms which are not primitive I grant you also that a consent very general but which is not universal may come from a tradition diffused throughout the human race as the practice of smoking tobacco has been received by nearly all nations in less than a century although some islanders have been found who not being acquainted with fire even were unable to smoke Thus some clever people even among theologians but of the party of Arminius have believed that the knowledge of the Deity came from a very ancient and very general tradition and I believe indeed that instruction has confirmed and rectified this knowledge It appears however that nature has contributed to its attainment without learning the marvels of the universe have made us think of a superior power A child born deaf and dumb has been seen to show veneration for the full moon and nations have been found who seemed not to have learned anything of other peoples fearing invisible powers I grant you my dear Philalethes that this is not yet the idea of God that we have and ask for but this idea itself does not cease to be in the depths of our souls without being put there as we shall see and the eternal laws of God are in part engraved thereon in a manner still more legible and by a species of instinct But they are practical principles of which we shall also have occasion to speak It must be admitted however that the inclination we have to recognize the idea of God is in human nature And even if the first instruction therein should be attributed to revelation the readiness which men have always shown to receive this doctrine comes from the nature of their souls But we will suppose that these ideas which are innate comprehend incompatible notions
Ph Although you maintain that these particular and selfevident propositions whose truth is recognized as soon as one hears them stated as that green is not red are received as consequences of these other more general propositions which are regarded as so many innate principles it seems that you do not at all consider that these particular propositions are received as indubitable truths by those who have no knowledge of these more general maxims
Hi I have already replied to that above We build on these general maxims as we build upon the majors which are suppressed when we reason by enthymemes for although very often we do not think distinctly of what we do in reasoning any more than of what we do in walking and leaping it is always true that the force of the conclusion consists in part in that which is suppressed and could not elsewhere arise as you will find should you wish to prove it
Ph But it seems that general and abstract ideas are more foreign to our mind than notions and particular truths consequently particular truths will be more natural to the mind than the principle of contradiction of which you admit they are only the application
Th It is true that we commence sooner to perceive particular truths when we commence with ideas more complex and gross but that does not prevent the order of nature from commencing with the most simple and the proof of the more particular truths from depending upon the more general of which they are only examples And when we wish to consider what is in us virtually and before all apperception we are right in commencing with the most simple For the general principles enter into our thoughts of which they form the soul and the connection They are as necessary thereto as the muscles and sinews are for walking although we do not at all think of them The mind leans upon these principles every moment but it does not come so easily to distinguish them and to represent them distinctly and separately because that demands great attention to its acts and the majority of people little accustomed to think has little of it Have not the Chinese like ourselves articulate sounds and yet being attached to another manner of writing they have not yet thought of making an alphabet of these sounds Thus it is that one possesses many things without knowing it
Ph If the mind acquiesces so promptly in certain truths cannot that acquiescence come from the consideration itself of the nature of things which does not allow it to judge of them otherwise rather than from the consideration that these propositions are engraved by nature in the mind?
Th Both are true The nature of things and the nature of mind agree And since you oppose the consideration of the thing to the apperception of that which is engraven in the mind, this objection itself shows sir that those whose side you take understand by innate truths only those which would be approved naturally as by instinct and even without knowing it unless confusedly There are some of this nature and we shall have occasion to speak of them But what is called natural light supposes a distinct knowledge and very often the consideration of the nature of things is nothing else than the knowledge of the nature of our mind and of these innate ideas which we have no need to seek outside Thus I call innate the truths which need only this consideration for their verification I have already replied to the objection which claimed that when it is said that innate notions are implicitly in the mind, the statement must mean simply that it has the faculty of knowing them for I have pointed out that besides this it has the faculty of finding them in itself and the disposition to approve them when it thinks of them as it should
Ph It seems then that you claim that those to whom these general maxims are proposed for the first time learn nothing which is entirely new to them But it is clear that they learn first the names then the truths and even the ideas upon which these truths rest
Th The question here is not of names which are in some sense arbitrary while ideas and truths are natural But with respect to these ideas and truths you attribute to us sir a doctrine which we have strongly repudiated for I agree that we learn ideas and innate truths either in considering their source or in verifying them through experience Thus I do not make the supposition which you aver as if in the case of which you speak we learned nothing new And I cannot admit this proposition all that one learns is not innate The truths of numbers are in us and we are not left to learn them either by drawing them from their source when we learn them through demonstrative proof which shows that they are innate or by testing them in examples as do ordinary arithmeticians who in default of a knowledge of the proofs learn their rules only by tradition and at most before teaching them justify them by experience which they continue as far as they think expedient And sometimes even a very skilful mathematician not knowing the source of anothers discovery is obliged to content himself with this method of induction in examining it as did a celebrated writer at Paris when I was there who continued a tolerably long time the examination of my arithmetical tetragonism comparing it with the numbers of Ludolphe believing he had found therein some error and he had reason to doubt until someone communicated to him the demonstration which for us dispenses with these tests which could always continue without ever being perfectly certain And it is this very thing namely the imperfection of inductions which may yet be verified by instances of experience For there are progressions in which one can go very far before noticing the changes and the laws that are found there
Ph But is it not possible that not only the terms or words which we use but even the ideas come to us from without
Th It would then be necessary that we should be ourselves outside of ourselves for the intellectual or reflective ideas are derived from our mind and I should much like to know how we could have the idea of being if we were not beings ourselves and did not thus find being in ourselves
Ph But what do you say sir to this challenge of one of my friends If anyone says he can find a proposition whose ideas are innate that he can name to me he would do me a very great favour
Th I would name the propositions of arithmetic and geometry which are all of this nature and as regards necessary truths no others could be found
o Ph That will appear strange to most people Can it be said that the most difficult and the most profound sciences are innate
Th Their actual knowledge is not but much that may be called virtual knowledge is innate as the figure traced by the veins of the marble is in the marble before one discovers them in working
Ph But is it possible that children while receiving notions that come to them from without and giving them their consent may have no knowledge of those which you suppose to be inborn with them and to make as it were a part of their mind in which they are you say imprinted in ineffaceable characters in order to serve as a foundation If that were so nature would have taken trouble for nothing or at least she would have badly engraved their characters since they cannot be perceived by the eyes which see very well other things
Th The apperception of that which is in us depends upon attention and order Now not only is it possible but it is also proper that children give more attention to the ideas of the senses because the attention is regulated by the heed The outcome however shows in the sequel that nature has not uselessly given herself the trouble of impressing upon us innate knowledge since without it there would be no means of attaining actual knowledge of the truths necessary in the demonstrative sciences and the reasons of facts and we should possess nothing above the beasts
Ph If there are innate truths does it not necessarily follow that the external doctrine only stirs up here what is in us I conclude that a consent sufficiently general among men is an indication and not a demonstration of an innate principle but that the exact and decisive proof of these principles consists in showing that their certitude comes only from what is in us To reply further to what you say against the general approbation which is given to the two great speculative principles which are nevertheless the best established I may say to you that even if they were not known they would not cease to be innate because they are recognized as soon as heard but I will add further that at bottom everybody knows them and makes use at every moment of the principle of contradiction for example without considering it distinctly and there is no barbarian who in an affair of any moment is not offended by the conduct of a liar who contradicts himself Thus these maxims are employed without an express consideration of them And in nearly the same way we have virtually in the mind the propositions suppressed in enthymemes which are set aside not only externally but further in our thought
Ph What you say of this virtual knowledge and of these internal suppressions surprises me for to say that there are truths imprinted upon the soul which it does not perceive is it seems to me a veritable contradiction
Th If you are thus prejudiced I am not astonished that you reject innate knowledge But I am astonished that the thought has not occurred to you that we have an infinite amount of knowledge of which we are not always conscious not even when we need it It is for the memory to preserve this and for the reminiscence to represent it to us as it often but not always does at need That is very well called remembrance sitbvenire for reminiscence needs some aid And it must certainly be that in this multiplicity of our knowledge we are determined by something to renew one part rather than another since it is impossible to think distinctly and at once of everything we know
Ph In that I believe you are right and this too general affirmation that we always perceive all the truths which are in our soul escaped me without my having given it sufficient attention But you will have a little more trouble in replying to what I am going to show you That is that if you can say of some particular proposition that it is innate you could maintain by the same reasoning that all propositions which are reasonable and which the mind could always regard as such are already impressed upon the soul
Th I agree with you in regard to pure ideas which I oppose to the phantoms of the senses and in regard to necessary truths or those of the reason which I oppose to truths of fact In this sense it must be said that all arithmetic and all geometry are innate and are in us virtually so that we can find them there if we consider attentively and set in order what we already have in the mind, without making use of any truth learned through experience or through the tradition of another as Plato has shown in a dialogue in which he introduces Socrates leading a child to abstract truths by questions alone without giving him any information We can then make for ourselves these sciences in our study and even with closed eyes without learning through sight or even through touch the truths which we need although it is true that we would not consider the ideas in question if we had never seen or touched anything For through an admirable economy of nature we cannot have abstract thoughts which have no need whatever of anything sensible when that would only be of such a character as are the forms of the letters and the sounds although there is no necessary connection between such arbitrary characters and such thoughts And if the sensible outlines were not requisite the preestablished harmony between soul and body of which I shall have occasion to speak more fully would have no place But that does not prevent the mind from taking necessary ideas from itself You see also sometimes how it can go far without any aid by a logic and arithmetic purely natural as that Swedish youth who in cultivating his own mind went so far as to make great calculations immediately in his head without having learned the common method of computation or even to read and write if I remember correctly what has been told me of him It is true that he cannot work out intricate problems such as those which demand the extraction of roots But that does not at all prevent him from being able still to draw them from its depths by some new turn of mind Thus that proves only that there are degrees in the difficulty of perceiving what is in us There are innate principles which are common and very easy to all there are theorems which are discovered likewise at once and which compose the natural sciences which are more understood in one case than in another Finally in a larger sense which it is well to employ in order to have notions more comprehensive and more determinate all truths which can be drawn from primitive innate knowledge can still be called innate because the mind can draw them from its own depths although often it would not be an easy thing so to do But if any one gives another meaning to the terms I do not wish to dispute about words
Ph I have agreed with you that we can have in the soul what we do not perceive there for we do not always remember at once all that we know but it must be always what we have learned or have known in former times expressly Thus if we can say that a thing is in the soul although the soul has not yet known it this can only be because it has the capacity or faculty of knowing it
Hi Why could not this have still another cause such as the souls being able to have this thing within it without its being perceived for since an acquired knowledge can be concealed therein by the memory as you admit why could not nature have also concealed therein some original knowledge Must everything that is natural to a substance which knows itself be known by it actually at once Cannot and must not this substance such as our soul have many properties and affections which it is impossible to consider all at once and all together It was the opinion of the Platonists that all our knowledge was reminiscence and that thus the truths which the soul has brought with the birth of the man and which are called innate must be the remains of an express anterior knowledge But this opinion has no foundation and it is easy to believe that the soul must already have innate knowledge in the precedent state if there were any preexistence however remote it might be entirely as here it would then have to come also from another precedent state or it would be finally innate or at least concreate or else it would be needful to go to infinity and to make souls eternal in which case this knowledge would be innate in fact because it would never have commenced in the soul and if anyone claimed that each anterior state has had something from another more anterior which it has not left to the succeeding the reply will be made that it is manifest that certain evident truths must have been in all these states and in whatever manner it may be taken it is always clear in all states of the soul that necessary truths are innate and are proved by what is within it not being possible to establish them through experience as we establish truths of fact Why should it be necessary also that we could have no possession in the soul of which we had never made use And is it the same thing to have a thing without using it as to have only the faculty of acquiring it If that were so we should never possess anything but the things which we enjoy instead of which, we know that besides the faculty and the object some disposition in the faculty or in the object or in both is often necessary that the faculty may exercise itself upon the object
Th Taking it in that way we could say that there are truths written in the soul which the soul has however never known and which indeed it will never know This appears to me strange
Th I see there no absurdity although in that case you could not be assured that there are such truths For things more exalted than those which we can know in this present course of life may be developed some time in our souls when they are in another state
Ph But suppose there are truths which could be imprinted upon the understanding without its perceiving them I do not see how in relation to their origin they could differ from the truths which it is only capable of knowing
Th The mind is not only capable of knowing them but further of finding them in itself and if it had only the simple capacity of receiving knowledge or the passive power therefor as indeterminate as that which the wax has for receiving figures and the blank tablet for receiving letters it would not be the source of necessary truths as I have just shown that it is for it is incontestable that the senses do not suffice to show their necessity and that thus the mind has a disposition active as well as passive to draw them itself from its own depths although the senses are necessary to give it the occasion and attention for this and to carry it to some rather than to others You see then sir that these elsewhere very clever person who are of another opinion appear not to have thought enough upon the consequences of the difference which there is between necessary or eternal truths and the truths of experience as I have already observed and as all our discussion shows The original proof of the necessary truths comes from the understanding alone and the other truths come from experience or from the observation of the senses Our mind is capable of knowing both but it is the source of the former and whatever number of particular experiences we may have of a universal truth we could not be assured of it forever by induction without knowing its necessity through the reason
Ph But is it not true that if the words to be in the understanding, involve something positive they signify to be perceived and comprehended by the understanding
Th They signify to us wholly another thing It is enough that what is in the understanding can be found there and that the sources or original proofs of the truths which are in question are only in the understanding; the senses can hint at justify and confirm these truths but cannot demonstrate their infallible and perpetual certainty
Ph Nevertheless all those who will take the trouble to reflect with a little attention upon the operations of the understanding will find that this consent which the mind gives without difficulty to certain truths depends upon the faculty of the human mind
Th Very well But it is this particular relation of the human mind to these truths which renders the exercise of the faculty easy and natural in respect to them and which causes them to be called innate It is not then a naked faculty which consists in the mere possibility of understanding them it is a disposition an aptitude a preformation which determines our soul and which makes it possible for them to be derived from it Just as there is the difference between the figures G which are given to the stone or the marble indifferently and between those which its veins already indicate or are disposed to indicate if the workman profits by them
Ph But is it not true that the truths are subsequent to the ideas of which they are born Now the ideas come from the senses
Th The intellectual ideas which are the source of necessary truths do not come from the senses and you admit that there are some ideas which are due to the reflection of the mind upon itself For the rest it is true that the express knowledge of truths is subsequent tempore vel natura to the express knowledge of ideas as the nature of truths depends upon the nature of ideas before we expressly form one or the other and the truths into which enter ideas which come from the senses depend upon the senses at least in part But the ideas which come from the senses are confused and the truths which depend upon them are likewise confused at least in part while the intellectual ideas and the truths dependent upon them are distinct and neither the one nor the other have their origin in the senses although it may be true that we would never think of them without the senses
Ph But in your view numbers are intellectual ideas and yet it is found that the difficulty therein depends upon the express formation of the ideas; for example a man knows that and equal with the same evidence that he knows that and equal but a child does not know the first proposition so soon as the second a condition arising from the fact that he has not formed the ideas as soon as the words
Th I can agree with you that often the difficulty in the express formation of truths depends upon that in the express formation of ideas Yet I believe that in your example the question concerns the use of ideas already formed For those who have learned to count as far as and the method of passing farther on by a certain repetition of tens understand without difficulty what are viz or times with or or but in order to draw from it that plus make more attention is necessary than to know that plus are which at bottom is only the definition of
Ph Furnishing propositions in which you infallibly acquiesce as soon as you hear them is not a privilege attached to the numbers or to the ideas which you call intellectual You meet these in physics and in all the other sciences and the senses even furnish them For example this proposition two bodies cannot be in the same place at the same time is a truth of which you are not otherwise convinced than of the following maxims It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be in the same time white is not red the square is not a circle yellowness is not sweetness
Th There is a difference between these propositions The first which declares the impenetrability of bodies needs proof All those who believe in true and strictly formed condensation and rarefaction as the Peripatetics and the late Chevalier Digby reject it in fact without speaking of the Christians who believe for the most part that the contrary view — namely the penetration of space — is possible to God But the other propositions are identical or very nearly so and identical or immediate propositions do not admit of proof Those who look upon the senses as furnishing them as that one who says that yellowness is not sweetness have not applied the general identical maxim to particular cases
Ph Every proposition composed of two different ideas of which one is the denial of the other — for example that the square is not a circle that to be yellow is not to be sweet — will be as certainly received as indubitable as soon as its terms are understood as this general maxim It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be in the same time
Th That is the one namely the general maxim is the principle and the other that is to say the negation of one idea by another opposed to it is its application
Ph It seems to me rather that the maxim depends upon this negation which is its ground and that it is besides much easier to understand that what is the same thing is not different than the maxim which rejects the contradictions Now according to this statement it will be necessary for you to admit as innate truths an infinite number of propositions of this kind which deny one idea by another without speaking of other truths Add to this that a proposition cannot be innate unless the- ideas of which it is composed are iniyito it will be necessary to suppose that all the ideas which we have of colours sounds tastes figures etc are innate
Th I do not well see how this what is the same thing is not different is the origin of the principle of contradiction and easier for it appears to me that you give yourself more freedom in advancing that A is not B than in saying that A is not nonA And the reason that prevents A from being B is that B includes nonA For the rest this proposition the sweet is not the bitter is not innate according to the sense which we have given to the term innate truth For the sensations of sweet and bitter come from the external senses Thus it is a mixed conclusion Jubrida conclusio where the axiom is applied to a sensible truth But as regards this proposition the square is not a circle you can affirm that it is innate for in considering it you make a subsumption or application of the principle of contradiction to what the understanding itself furnishes as soon as you are conscious of innate thoughts
Th Not at all for the thoughts are acts and the knowledge or the truths in so far as they are within us even when we do not think of them are habitudes or dispositions and we are well acquainted with things of which we think but little
Ph It is very difficult to conceive that a truth may be in the mind if the mind has never thought of that truth
Th It is as if someone said it is difficult to conceive that there are veins in the marble before we have discovered them This objection seems also to approach a little too much the begging of the question All those who admit innate truths without grounding them in the Platonic reminiscence admit some of which they have not yet thought Besides this reasoning proves too much for if truths are thoughts we shall be deprived not only of the truths of which we have never thought but also of those of which we have thought and of which we no longer actually think and if truths are not thoughts but habits and aptitudes natural or acquired nothing prevents there being in us some of which we have never thought nor will ever think
Ph If general maxims were innate they would appear more vividly in the mind of certain persons where however we see no trace of them I may mention children idiots and savages for of all men these are they who have the mind less altered and corrupted by custom and by the impress of extraneous opinions
Th I believe we must reason here very differently Innate maxims appear only through the attention which is given to them but these persons have little of it or have it for entirely different things Their thoughts are mostly confined to the needs of the body and it is reasonable that pure and detached thoughts be the reward of cares more noble It is true that children and savages have the mind less altered by customs but they also have it exalted by the teaching which gives attention It would not be very just that the brightest lights should shine better in minds which less deserve them and which are enveloped in thicker clouds I would not then have one give too much honour to ignorance and barbarism when one is as learned and as clever as you are Philalethes as well as your excellent author that would be lowering the gifts of God Someone will say that the more ignorant we are the more we approach the advantage of a block of marble or of a piece of wood which are infallible and sinless But unfortunately it is not by ignorance that we approach this advantage and as far as we are capable of knowledge we sin in neglecting to acquire it and we shall fail so much the more easily as we are less instructed
Ph Ethics is a demonstrative science and yet it has no innate principles And indeed it would be very difficult to produce a rule of ethics of a nature to be settled by an assent as general and as prompt as this maxim Whatever is is
Th It is absolutely impossible that there be truths of reason as evident as those which are identical or immediate And although you can truly say that ethics has principles which are not demonstrable and that one of the first and most practical is that we ought to pursue joy and avoid sorrow it is needful to add that this is not a truth which is known purely by reason since it is based upon internal experience or upon confused knowledge for we do not feel what joy or sadness is
Ph It is only through processes of reasoning through language and through some mental application that you can be assured of practical truths
Th Though that were so they would not be less innate However the maxim I just adduced appears of another nature it is not known by the reason but so to speak by an instinct It is an innate principle but it does not form a part of the natural light for it is not known luminously But this principle admitted you can draw from it scientific consequences and I commend most heartily what you just said of ethics as a demonstrative science Let us note also that it teaches truths so evident that thieves pirates and bandits are forced to observe them among themselves
Ph But bandits keep the rules of justice among themselves without considering them as innate principles
Th What matters it Does the world concern itself about questions of theory
Ph They observe the maxims of justice only as convenient rules the practice of which is absolutely necessary to the conservation of their society
Th Very well You could say nothing better in general in respect to all men And thus it is that these laws are written in the soul namely as the consequences of our preservation and of our true welfare Do you imagine that we suppose that truths are in the understanding as independent the one of the other as the edicts of the • praetor were on his placard or album I put aside here the instinct which prompts man to love man of which I shall presently speak for now I wish to speak only of truths in so far as they are known by the reason I admit also that certain rules of justice cannot be demonstrated in all their extent and perfection without supposing the existence of God and the immortality of the soul and these where the instinct of humanity does not impel us are written in the soul only as other derivative truths Those however who base justice only upon the necessities of this life and upon the need they have of it rather than upon the pleasure they ought to take in it which is the greatest when God is its ground are liable to resemble a little the society of bandits
Ph I agree with you that nature has put in all men the desire for happiness and a strong aversion to misery These are the truly innate practical principles and principles which according to the purpose of every practical principle have a continual influence upon all our actions But they are inclinations of the soul toward the good and not impressions of some truth which is written in our understanding
Th I am delighted sir to see that you admit in effect innate truths as I shall presently say This principle agrees sufficiently with that which I just indicated which prompts us to seek joy and shun sorrow For felicity is only a lasting joy Our inclination however does not tend to felicity proper but to joy — that is to say to the present it is the reason which prompts to future and enduring welfare Now the inclination expressed by the understanding passes into a precept or practical truth and if the inclination is innate the truth is innate also there being nothing in the soul which may not be expressed in the understanding, but not always by a consideration actually distinct as I have sufficiently shown The instincts also are not always practical there are some which contain theoretical truths and such are the internal principles of the sciences and of reasoning when without recognizing the reason in them we employ them by a natural instinct And in this sense you cannot dispense with the recognition of innate principles even though you might be willing to deny that derivative truths are innate But this would be a question of name merely after the explanation I have given of what I call innate And if anyone desires to give this appellation only to the truths which are received at first by instinct I shall not contest the point with him
Ph That is well But if there were in our soul certain characters imprinted there by nature like so many principles of knowledge we could only perceive them acting in us as we feel the influence of the two principles which are constantly active in us — namely the desire of happiness and the fear of misery s
Th There are principles of knowledge which influence us as constantly in our reasoning processes as these practical principles influence us in our volitions for example everybody employs the rules of deduction by a natural logic without being aware of it
Ph The rules of Morality need to be proved they are then not innate like that rule which is the source of the virtues which concern society Do to another only what you would have him do to yourself
Th You always make me the objection which I have already refuted I agree with you that there are moral rules which are not innate principles but that does not prevent them from being innate truths for a derivative truth will be innate supposing that we can draw it from our mind But there are innate truths which we find in us in two ways — by insight and by instinct Those which I have just indicated show by our ideas what natural insight accomplishes But there are conclusions of natural light which are principles in relation to instinct It is thus that we are prompted to acts of humanity by instinct because it pleases us and by reason because it is just There are then in us truths of instinct which are innate principles which we feel and approve although we have not the proof of them which we obtain however when we give a reason for this instinct It is thus that we make use of the laws of deduction conformably to a confused knowledge and as by instinct but logicians show the reason of them as mathematicians also give a reason for what they do without thinking in walking and leaping As for the rule which states that we ought to do to others only what we would have them do to us it needs not only proof but also to be proclaimed We should wish too much for ourselves if we could have our own way shall we say then that we also owe too much to others You will tell me that the rule means only a just will But thus this rule very far from being adequate to serve as a measure would itself need one The true sense of the rule is that the place of another is the true point of view for equitable judgment when we attempt it
Ph Bad acts are often committed without any remorse of conscience for example when cities are carried by storm the soldiers commit without scruple the worst acts some civilized nations have exposed their children some Caribbees castrate theirs in order to fatten and eat them Garcilasso de la Vega reports that certain peoples of Peru took prisoners in order to make concubines of them and supported the children up to the age of thirteen after which they ate them and treated in the same manner the mothers so soon as they no longer bore children In the travels of Baumgarten s it is related that there was a San ton in Egypt who passed for a holy man eo quod non fozminarum unquam esset ac puerorum sed tantum asellarum concubitor atque mularum
Th Moral science over and above the instincts like that which makes us seek joy and shun sadness is not otherwise innate than is arithmetic for it depends likewise upon demonstrations which internal light furnishes And as the demonstrations do not at once leap into sight it is no great wonder if men do not perceive always and at once all that they possess in themselves and do not read quite readily the characters of the natural law which God according to St Paul has written in their minds As morality however is more important than arithmetic God has given to man instincts which prompt at once and without reasoning to some portion of that which reason ordains just as we walk in obedience to the laws of mechanics without thinking of these laws and as we eat not only because eating is necessary for us but further and much more because it gives us pleasure But these instincts do not prompt to action in an invincible way the passions may resist them prejudices may obscure them and contrary customs alter them Nevertheless we agree most frequently with these instincts of conscience and we follow them also when stronger impressions do not overcome them The greatest and most healthy part of the human race bears them witness The Orientals the Greeks and Romans the Bible and the Koran agree in respect to them the Mahometan police are wont to punish the thing Baumgarten tells of and it would be needful to be as brutalized as the American savage in order to approve their customs full of a cruelty which surpasses even that of the beasts Yet these same savages perceive clearly what justice is on other occasions and although there is no bad practice perhaps which may not be authorized in some respects and upon some occasions there are few of them however which are not condemned very frequently and by the larger part of mankind That which has not been attained without reason and was not attained by reasoning alone should be referred in part to the natural instincts Custom tradition discipline are mingled therein but it is due to instinct le naturel that custom is turned more generally to the good side of these duties In the same way the tradition of Gods existence is due to instinct le naturel Now nature gives to man and also to most of the animals affectionate and tender feeling for those of their species The tiger even parcit cognatis masculis whence comes this bon mot of a Roman jurisconsult Quia inter omnes homines natura cognationem conMituit unde homiimm homini insidiari nefas esse Spiders form almost the only exception and these eat one another to this extent that the female devours the male after having enjoyed him Besides this general instinct of society which may be called philanthropy in man there are some more particular forms of it as the affection between the male and the female the love which father and mother bear toward the children which the Greeks call aropyrj and other similar inclinations which make this natural law or this image of law rather which according to Roman jurisconsults nature has taught the animals But in man in particular there is found a certain regard for dignity for propriety which leads him to conceal the things which lower us to be sparing of shame to have repugnance for incests to bury dead bodies not to eat men at all nor living animals One is led further to be careful of his reputation even beyond need and of life to be subject to remorse of conscience and to feel these laniatus et ictus these tortures and torments of which Tacitus following Plato speaks besides the fear of a future and of a supreme power which arises moreover naturally enough There is reality in all that but at bottom these natural impressions whatever they may be are only aids to the reason and indices of the plan of nature Custom education tradition reason contribute much but human nature ceases not to participate therein It is true that without the reason these aids would not suffice to give a complete certitude to morals Finally will you deny that man is naturally led for example to withdraw from vile things under a pretext that races are found who like to speak only of filth that there are some indeed whose mode of life »obliges them to handle excrements and that there are people of Boutan where those of the king pass as an aromatic I think that you are of my opinion at bottom in regard to these natural instincts which tend toward what is right and decent although you will say perhaps as you have said with regard to the instinct which prompts to joy and felicity that these impressions are not innate truths But I have already replied that every feeling is the perception of a truth and that the natural feeling is the perception of an innate truth but very often confused as are the experiences of the external senses thus you can distinguish the innate truths from the natural light which contains only the distinctly knowable as the genus must be distinguished from its species since the innate truths comprehend both the instincts and the natural light
Ph A person who knew the natural limits of justice and injustice and who would not cease confusing them with each other could only be regarded as the declared enemy of the repose and the welfare of the society of which he is a member But men confuse them every moment consequently they do not know them
Th That is taking things a little too theoretically It happens every day that men act contrary to their knowledge in concealing these limits from themselves when they turn the mind elsewhere in order to follow their passions otherwise we should not see people eating and drinking what they know must cause them sickness and even death They would not neglect their business they would not do what entire nations have done in certain respects The future and reason rarely make so strong an impression as the present and the senses That Italian knew this well who before being put to torture proposed to have the gallows continually in sight during the torments in order to resist them and they heard him say sometimes Io ti vedo which he explained afterward when he had escaped Unless you firmly resolve to look upon the true good and the true evil with the purpose of following or shunning them you find yourself carried away and it happens with regard to the most important needs of this life as it happens with regard to paradise and hell in the case of those indeed who believe in them the most —
Cantantur hiec laudantur has
Dicimtur audiuntur
Scribuntur luec leguntur hate
Et lecta negliguntur
Ph Every principle which you suppose innate can only be known by each one as just and advantageous
Th You always return to this supposition which I have refuted so many times that every innate truth is known always and by all
Ph But a public permission to violate the law proves that this law is not innate for example, the law requiring the love and preservation of children was violated among the ancients when they permitted their exposure
Th This violation supposed it follows only that you have not well read these characters of nature written in our soul but sometimes obscure enough by reason of our excesses not to mention that in order to have a perfectly clear perception of the necessity of duties men must see the demonstration of them—a condition that is rarely fulfilled If geometry were as much opposed to our passions and present interests as is ethics we should contest it and violate it but little less notwithstanding all the demonstrations of Euclid and of Archimedes which you would call dreams and believe full of paralogisms and Joseph Scaliger Hobbes and others who have written against Euclid and Archimedes would not find themselves in such a small company as at present It was only the passion for glory which these authors believed they found in the quadrature of the circle and other difficult problems which could blind to such a point persons of so great merit And if others had the same interest they would make use of it in much the same manner Ill Every duty carries the idea of law and a law cannot be known or supposed without a legislator who has prescribed it or without reward and without punishment
Th There can be natural rewards and penalties without a legislator intemperance for example is punished by disease As this however does not injure all at first I admit that there are few precepts to which you would necessarily be bound if there were not a God who leaves no crime without chastisement no good act without reward
Ph The ideas of a God and of a life to come must then also be innate
Th I am agreed in the sense in which I have explained myself
Ph But these ideas are so far from being written by nature in the minds of all men that they even do not appear very clear and very distinct in the minds of many students who also profess to examine things with some accuracy so far are they from being known by every human being
Th You return again to the same proposition which maintains that what is hot known is not innate which I have however refuted so many times What is innate is not at first known clearly and distinctly as such often much attention and method is necessary in order to its perception the student class do not always adduce it still less every human being
Ph But if men can be ignorant of or call in question that which is innate it is in vain for you to speak to us of innate principles and to claim to show us their necessity very far from their being able to serve as our instructors in the truth and certitude of things as is maintained we shall find ourselves with these principles in the same state of uncertainty as if they were not in us
Th You cannot call in question all the innate principles You were agreed in regard to identical propositions or the principle of contradiction admitting that there are incontestable principles although you would not then recognize them as innate but it does not at all follow that everything which is innate and necessarily connected with these innate principles is also at first indubitably evident
Ph No one that I know of has yet undertaken to give us an exact catalogue of these principles
Th But has any one hitherto given us a full and exact catalogue of the axioms of geometry
Ph My Lord Herbert has been pleased to point out some of these principles which are There is a supreme God He ought to be served Virtue united with piety is the best worship Repentance for sin is necessary There are penalties and rewards after this life I agree that these are evident truths and of such a nature that when well explained a reasonable person can scarcely avoid giving them his consent But our friends say that they are very far from being so many innate impressions and if these five propositions are common notions written in our souls by the finger of God there are many others which we ought also to put into this class
Th I agree with you sir for I take all the necessary truths as innate and I connect with them also the instincts But I agree with you that these five propositions are not innate principles for I hold that they can and ought to be proved
Ph In the third proposition that virtue is the worship most agreeable to God it is not clear what is meant by virtue If you understand it in the sense most commonly given to the term I mean that which passes as praiseworthy according to the different opinions which prevail in different countries this proposition is so far from being evident that it is not even true If you call virtue the acts which are conformed to the will of God this will be almost idem per idem and the proposition will teach us nothing of importance for it would mean only that God is pleased with that which is conformed to his will It is the same with the notion of sin in the fourth proposition
Th I do not remember to have remarked that virtue is commonly taken as something which depends upon opinion at least the philosophers do not make it that It is true that the name of virtue depends upon the opinion of those who give it to different habits or actions according as they deem them good or bad and use their reason but all are sufficiently agreed as to the notion of virtue in general although they differ in its application According to Aristotle and several others virtue is a habit of restraining the passions by the reason and still more simply a habit of acting according to reason And that cannot fail to be agreeable to him who is the supreme and final reason of things to whom nothing is indifferent and the acts of rational creatures less than all others
Ph You are wont to say that the custom the education and the general opinions of those with whom you converse may obscure these principles of morality which you suppose innate But if this reply is a good one it annihilates the proof which you pretend to draw from universal consent The reasoning of many men reduces to this The principles which men of right reason admit are innate we and those of our mind are men of right reason consequently our principles are innate A pleasant method of reasoning which goes straight on to infallibility
Th For myself I make use of universal consent not as a principal proof but as a confirmatory one for innate truths taken as the natural light of reason bear their marks with them as does geometry for they are wrapped up in the immediate principles which you yourselves admit as incontestable But I grant that it is more difficult to distinguish the instincts and some other natural habits from custom although it may very often be possible so to do For the rest it appears to me that people who have cultivated their minds have some ground for attributing the use of right reason to themselves rather than to the barbarians since in subduing them almost as easily as they do animals they show sufficiently their superiority But if they cannot always succeed in this it is because just like the animals they conceal themselves in the thick forests where it is difficult to hunt them down and the game is not worth the candle It is doubtless an advantage to have cultivated the mind and if we may speak for barbarism as against culture we shall also have the right to attack reason in favour of the animals and to take seriously the witty sallies of M Despreaux in one of his satires where in order to contest with man his prerogative over the animals he asks whether
The bear is afraid of the passerby or the passerby of the bear
And if by decree of the shepherds of Libya
The lions would vacate the parks of Nuniidia etc
We must however admit that there are some points in which the barbarians surpass us especially as regards vigour of body and as regards the soul even we may say that in certain respects their practical morality is better than ours because they have not the avarice of hoarding nor the ambition of ruling And we may even add that association with Christians has made them worse in many respects They have taught them drunkenness when carrying them the water of life swearing blasphemy and other vices which were little known to them There is with us more of good and of evil than with them a bad European is worse than a savage—he refines upon evil Still nothing should prevent men from uniting the advantages which nature gives to these peoples with those which reason gives us
Ph But what reply do you make sir to this dilemma of one of my friends I would be pleased he says to have the advocates of innate ideas tell me whether these principles can or cannot be effaced by education and custom If they cannot be effaced we ought to find them in all men and they should clearly appear in the mind of each particular man If they can be altered by extraneous ideas they ought to appear more distinctly and with more lustre the nearer they are to their source I mean in children or illiterate people upon whom extraneous opinions have made less impression Let them take which side they please they will clearly see he says that it is contradicted by indubitable facts and by continual experience
Th I am astonished that your clever friend has confounded obscurity with effacement as some in your party confound nonbeing with nonappearance Innate ideas and truths cannot be effaced but they are obscured in all men as they are now by their inclination toward the needs of the body and oftener still by the occurrence of bad customs These characteristics of the internal light would always be shining in the understanding and would give fervour to the will if the confused perceptions of sense did not engross our attention It is the struggle of which Holy Scripture no less than ancient and modern philosophy speaks
Ph Thus then we find ourselves in darkness as thick and in uncertainty as great as if there were no such light
Th God forbid we should have neither science nor law nay not even reason
etc Ph I hope that you will at least admit the force of prejudice which often causes that to pass as natural which has come from the bad instruction to which children have been exposed and the bad customs which education and association have given them
Th I admit that the excellent author whom you follow says some very fine things upon that subject and which have their value if they are taken as they should be but I do not believe that they are opposed to the doctrine properly understood of nature or of innate truths And I am confident that he will not extend his remarks too far for I am equally persuaded that a great many opinions pass for truths which are only the effects of custom and of credulity and that there are many such opinions too which certain philosophers would fain account for as matters of prejudice which are however grounded in right reason and in nature There is as much or more ground for defending ourselves from those who through ambition oftenest make pretensions to innovation than for challenging ancient impressions And after having meditated sufficiently upon ancient and modern thought I have found that the majority of the received doctrines may bear a good sense So that I wish that sensible men would seek to satisfy their ambition by occupying themselves rather in building and advancing than in retrograding and destroying And I desire them to resemble the Romans who constructed beautiful public works rather than that Vandal king whom his mother charged to seek the destruction of these grand structures since he could not hope for the glory of equalling them
Ph The aim of the clever class who have contended against innate truths has been to prevent men from handing round their prejudices and seeking to cover their idleness beneath this fair name
Th We are agreed upon this point for very far from approving that doubtful principles be received I would for myself seek even the demonstration of the axioms of Euclid as some ancients also have done And when you ask the means of knowing and examining innate principles reply following what I said above that with the exception of the instincts whose reason is unknown you must try to reduce them to first principles that is to say to axioms identical or immediate by means of definitions which are nothing else than a distinct exposition of ideas I do not doubt even but that your friends who have hitherto been opposed to innate truths would approve this method which appears consonant with their principal aim
Ph You wish to reduce truths to first principles and I grant you that if there is any such principle it is without gainsaying this it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time It appears however difficult to maintain its innate character since you must be convinced at the same time that the ideas of impossibility and identity are innate
Th It is quite necessary that those who favour innate truths maintain and be convinced that these ideas are also innate and I admit that I am of their opinion The ideas of being of possibility of identity are so completely innate that they enter into all our thoughts and reasonings and I regard them as essential to our mind but I have already said that we do not always pay them particular attention and that we discern them only with time I have said hitherto that we are so to speak innate unto ourselves and since we are beings the being we is innate and the knowledge of being is wrapped up in that knowledge which we have of ourselves There is something similar in the case of other general notions
Ph If the idea of identity is natural and consequently so evident and so present to the mind that we ought to recognize it from the cradle I would be pleased to have a child of seven years and even a man of seventy tell me whether a man who is a creature consisting of body and soul is the same man when his body is changed and whether metempsychosis supposed Euphorbus would be the same as Pythagoras
Th I have stated sufficiently that what is natural to us is not known to us as such from the cradle and even an idea may be known to us without our being able to decide at once all questions which can be formed thereupon It is as if someone maintained that a child cannot have a knowledge of the square and its diagonal because he will have difficulty in recognizing that the diagonal is incommensurable with the side of the square As for the question itself it appears to me demonstratively solved by the doctrine of Monads which I have elsewhere shown in its true light and we shall speak more fully of this matter in the sequel
Ph I see very well that to you I should object in vain that the axiom which declares that the whole is greater than its part is not innate under pretext that the ideas of whole and part are relative dependent upon those of number and extension since you would apparently maintain that there are ideas conditionally innate and that those of number and extension are to such a degree innate
Th You are right and indeed I rather believe that the idea of extension is posterior to that of whole and part
Ph What say you of the truth that God should be worshipped is it innate
Tit I believe that the duty of worshipping God declares that on occasion you ought to show that you honour him beyond every other object and that this is a necessary consequence of the idea of him and of his existence which signifies with me that this truth is innate
Ph But the atheists seem to prove by their example that the idea of God is not innate And without speaking of those whom the ancients have mentioned have not entire nations been discovered who have no idea of God nor of the terms which denote God and the soul as at the bay of Soldania in Brazil in the Caribbee Islands in Paraguay
Th The late Mr Fabrieius a celebrated theologian of Heidelberg has made an apology for the human race in order to clear it of the imputation of atheism He was an author of great accuracy and decidedly above much prejudice I do not however pretend to enter into this discussion of facts I grant that entire peoples have never thought of the supreme substance nor of the nature of the soul And I remember that when you wished at my request countenanced by the illustrious Mr Witsen to obtain form in Holland a translation of the Lords Prayer into the language of Barantola you were stopped at this point hallowed be thy name because you could not make the Barantoli understand what hallowed meant I remember also that in the creed made for the Hottentots you were obliged to express Holy Spirit by words of the country which signify a pleasant and agreeable wind This was not unreasonable for our Greek and Latin words rwvia anima spiritu mean ordinarily only the air or wind we breathe as one of the most subtile things which we know through the senses and we begin through the senses to lead men little by little to what is beyond the senses All this difficulty however which you find in attaining abstract knowledge effects nothing against innate knowledge There are peoples who have no word corresponding to the word being does anyone doubt their knowledge of what being is although they seldom think of it in the abstract Besides I find what I have read in our excellent author on the idea of God Essay on Understanding Book I chap i so beautiful and so to my liking that I cannot refrain from quoting it Here it is Men can scarcely avoid having some kind of idea of things of which those with whom they converse often have occasion to speak under certain names and if the thing is one which carries with it the idea of excellence of grandeur or of some extraordinary quality which interests in some point and which impresses itself upon the mind under the idea of an absolute and irresistible power which none can help fearing I add and under the idea of a superlatively great goodness which none can help loving such an idea ought according to all appearances to make the strongest impression and to spread farther than any other especially if it is an idea which accords with the simplest insight of reason and which flows naturally from every part of knowledge Now such is the idea of God for the brilliant marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation that every rational creature who will reflect thereupon cannot fail to discover the author of all these marvels and the impression that the discovery of such a Being must naturally make upon the souls of all those who have once heard him spoken of is so great and carries with it thoughts of so great weight and so adapted to spread themselves in the world that it appears to me wholly strange that an entire nation of men can be found upon the earth so stupid as to have no idea of God This I say seems to me as surprising as to think of men who should have no idea of numbers or of fire
I would I might always be allowed to copy word for word a number of other excellent passages of our author which we are obliged to pass by I will only say here that this author in speaking of the simplest lights of reason which agree with the idea of God and of that which naturally proceeds from it appears to differ but little from my view of innate truths and concerning this that it appears to him as strange that there may be men without any idea of God as it would be surprising to find men who had no idea of numbers or of fire I will remark that the inhabitants of the Marian Islands to which has been given the name of the Queen of Spain who has protected missions there had no knowledge of fire when they were discovered as appears from the narrative which Rev Father Gobien a French Jesuit charged with the care of distant missions has given to the public and sent to me
Ph If you are right in concluding that the idea of God is innate from the fact that all enlightened races have had this idea virtue ought also to be innate because enlightened races have always had a true idea of it
Th Not virtue but the idea of virtue is innate and perhaps you intend only that
Ph It is as certain that there is a God as it is certain that the opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal And there has never been a rational creature who applied himself sincerely to the examination of the truth of these two propositions who has failed to give them his consent Nevertheless it is beyond doubt that there are many men who having never turned their thoughts in this direction are ignorant equally of these two truths
Th I admit it but that does not prevent them from being innate — that is to say does not prevent you from being able to find them in yourself
Ph It would be more advantageous to have an innate idea of substance but it turns out that we do not have it either innate or acquired since we have it neither through sensation nor reflection
Th I am of opinion that reflection suffices to discover the idea of substance within ourselves who are substances And this notion is one of the most important But we shall speak of it perhaps more fully in the sequel of our conference
Ph If there are innate ideas in the mind without the mind's being actually aware of their presence they must at least be in the memory whence they must be drawn by means of reminiscence — that is to say be known when memory recalls them as so many perceptions which have been in the mind before unless reminiscence can subsist without reminiscence For this conviction where it is an inwardly certain one that a given idea has previously been in our mind is properly what distinguishes reminiscence from every other kind of thinking
Th I order that knowledge ideas or truths be in our mind it is not necessary that we have ever actually thought of them they are only natural habitudes ie dispositions and aptitudes active and passive and more than a tabula rasa It is true however that the Platonists believed that we have already actually thought of that which we recognize in ourselves and to refute them it is insufficient to say that we do not at all remember it for it is certain that an infinite number of thoughts recur to us which we have forgotten that we had It has happened that a man believed he had composed a new verse which it turned out he read word for word a long time previous in some ancient poet And often we have an extraordinary facility of conceiving certain things because we formerly conceived them without remembering them It is possible that a child having become blind forgets ever having seen light and colours as happened at the age of two and a half years from smallpox in the case of the celebrated Ulric Schoeuberg a native of Weide in the Upper Palatinate who died at Koiiigsberg in Prussia in where he taught philosophy and mathematics to the admiration of everyone It may be that such a man has remaining effects of former impressions without remembering them I believe that dreams often thus revive in us former thoughts Julius Scaliger having celebrated in verse the illustrious men of Verona a certain selfstyled Brugnolus a Bavarian by birth but afterward established at Verona appeared to him in a dream and complained that he had been forgotten Julius Scaliger not remembering to have heard him spoken of before did not allow himself to make elegiac verses in his honour in consequence of this dream At length the son Joseph Scaliger travelling in Italy learned more particularly that there had been formerly at Verona a celebrated grammarian or learned critic of this name who had contributed to the reestablishment of polite literature in Italy This story is found in the poems of Scaliger the father together with the elegy and in the letters of the son It is related also in the Scaligerana which are culled from the conversations of Joseph Scaliger It is very likely that Julius Scaliger had known something of Brugnol which he no longer remembered and that the dream was partly the revival of a former idea although he may not have had that reminiscence properly so called which makes us know that we have already had this same idea at least I see no necessity which obliges us to assert that there remains no trace of a perception when there is not enough of it to remind us that we have had it
Ph I must admit that your reply is natural enough to the difficulties which we have framed against innate truths Perhaps also our authors do not contest them in the sense in which you maintain them Thus I return only to say to you sir that we have had some reason to fear that the view of innate truths serves as a pretext for laziness for exempting ourselves from the trouble of research and gives opportunity to masters and teachers to lay down as a principle of principles that principles must not be questioned
Th I have already said that if it is the aim of your friends to advise the search for the proofs of the truths which they can receive without distinguishing whether or not they are innate we are entirely agreed and the view of innate truths of the manner in which I take them should deter no one from such search for besides being well to seek the reason of the instincts it is one of my great maxims that it is good to seek demonstrations of the axioms also and I remember that at Paris when the late Mr Roberval already an old man was laughed at because he wished to demonstrate those of Euclid after the example of Apollonius and Proclus I illustrated the utility of this investigation As for the principle of those who say that it is wholly unnecessary to argue against the one who denies principles it has no authority whatever in regard to these principles which can admit neither doubt nor proof It is true that in order to avoid scandal and disturbance regulations may be made regarding public disputations and some other lectures in virtue of which the discussion of certain established truths may be prohibited But this is rather a question of police than of philosophy
Ph Having examined the question of innate ideas let us consider their nature and their differences Is it not true that the idea is the object of thought
Th I admit it provided you add that it is an immediate internal object and that this object is an expression of the nature or the qualities of things If the idea were the form of thought it would spring up and cease with the actual thought to which it corresponds but being the object it may exist previous to and after the thoughts External sensible objects are only mediate because they cannot act immediately upon the soul God alone is the external immediate object We might say that the soul itself is its own immediate internal object but it is this in so far as it contains ideas or what corresponds to things For the soul is a little world in which distinct ideas are a representation of God and in which confused ideas are a representation of the universe
Ph We who suppose that at the beginning the soul is a tabula rasa void of all characters and without an idea ask how it comes to receive ideas and by what means it acquires this prodigious quantity of them To that question the reply in a word is From experience
Th This tabula rasa of which so much is said is in my opinion only a fiction which nature does not admit and which is based only upon the imperfect notions of philosophers like the vacuum atoms and rest absolute or relative of two parts of a whole or like the primary matter which is conceived as without form Uniform things and those which contain no variety are never anything but abstractions like time space and the other entities of pure mathematics There is no body whatever whose parts are at rest and there is no substance whatever that has nothing by which to distinguish it from every other Human souls differ not only from other souls but also among themselves although the difference is not at all of the kind called specific And according to the proofs which I believe we have every substantial thing be it soul or body has its own characteristic relation to every other and the one must always differ from the other by intrinsic con notations Not to mention the fact that those who speak so frequently of this tabula rasa after having taken away the ideas cannot say what remains like the scholastic philosophers who leave nothing in their primary matter You may perhaps reply that this tabula rasa of the philosophers means that the soul has by nature and originally only bare faculties But faculties without some act in a word the pure powers of the school are also only fictions which nature knows not and which are obtained only by the process of abstraction For where in the world will you ever find a faculty which shuts itself up in the power alone without performing any act There is always a particular disposition to action and to one action rather than to another And besides the disposition there is a tendency to action of which tendencies there is always an infinity in each subject at once and these tendencies are never without some effect Experience is necessary I admit in order that the soul be determined to such or such thoughts and in order that it take notice of the ideas which are in us but by what means can experience and the senses give ideas Has the soul windows does it resemble tablets is it like wax It is plain that all who so regard the soul represent it as at bottom corporeal You oppose to me the axiom received by the philosophers that there is nothing in the soul which does not come from the senses But you must except the soul itself and its affections Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu excipe nisi ipse intellectus Now the soul comprises being substance unity identity cause perception reason and many other notions which the senses cannot give This view sufficiently agrees with your author of the Essay who seeks the source of a good part of ideas in the spirits reflection upon its own nature.
Ph I hope then that you will agree with this skilful author that all ideas come through sensation or through reflection that is to say from observations which we make either upon objects exterior and sensible or upon the inner workings of our soul
Th In order to avoid a discussion upon what has delayed us too long I declare to you in advance sir that when you say that ideas come to us from one or the other of these causes I understand the statement to mean their actual perception for I think I have shown that they are in us before they are perceived so far as they have any distinct character
Ph In the next place let us inquire when we must say that the soul begins to perceive and actually to think of ideas I well know that there is an opinion which states that the soul always thinks and that actual thought is as inseparable from the soul as actual extension is from the body But I cannot conceive that it is any more necessary for the soul always to think than for the body always to be in motion perception of ideas being to the soul what movement is to the body That appears to me very reasonable at least and I would gladly know your view sir thereupon
Th You have stated it sir Action is no more connected with the soul than with the body a state without thought in the soul and an absolute repose in the body appearing tome equally contrary to nature and without example in the world A substance once in action will be so always for all the impressions remain and are merely mingled with other new ones Striking a body we arouse therein or determine rather an infinite number of vortices as in a liquid for at bottom every solid has a degree of liquidity and every liquid a degree of solidity and there are no means of ever stopping entirely these internal vortices Now we may believe that if the body is never at rest the soul which corresponds to it will never be without perception either
Ph But it is perhaps a privilege of the author and conserver of all things that being infinite in his perfections he never slumbers nor sleeps This is not granted to any finite being or at least not to such a being as is the soul of man
Th It is certain that we slumber and sleep and that God is exempt from both But it does not follow that we have no perception while asleep Rather just the contrary is found to be the case if we consider it carefully
Ph There is something in us which has the power to think but it does not thereby follow that it is always in action
Th Real powers are never simple possibilities They have always tendency and action
Ph But this proposition — the soul always thinks — is not selfevident
Th I do not say it is A little attention and reasoning is necessary to discover it the common people perceive it as little as they do the pressure of the air or the roundness of the earth
Ph I doubt if I thought last night this is a question of fact it must be decided by sensible experiences
Th I is decided as it is proved that there are imperceptible bodies and invisible movements although certain persons treat them as absurd There are also numberless perceptions little noticed which are not sufficiently distinguished to be perceived or remembered but they become known through certain consequences
Ph There was a certain author who raised the objection that we maintain that the soul ceases to exist because we are not sensible of its existence during our sleep But this objection can arise only from a strange prepossession for we do not say that there is no soul in man because we are not sensible of its existence during our sleep but only that man cannot think without being aware of it
Th I have not read the book which contains this objection but it would not have been wrong merely to object to you that it does not follow because the thought is not perceived that it ceases for that reason for otherwise it could be said for the same reason that there is no soul during the time in which it is not perceived And to refute this objection it is necessary to point out in particular the thought that it is essential to it that it be perceived
Ph It is not easy to conceive that a thing can think and not be conscious that it thinks
Th There is doubtless the knot of the affair and the difficulty which has embarrassed able men But here are the means of extricating ourselves therefrom We must consider that we think of many things at a time but we attend only to the thoughts which are most distinct and the process cannot go on otherwise for if we should attend to all we would have to think attentively of an infinite number of things at the same time all of which we feel and which make an impression upon our senses I say even more there remains something of all our past thoughts and none can ever be wholly effaced Now when we sleep without dreaming and when we are stunned by some blow fall symptom or other accident an infinite number of minute confused sensations take form within us and death itself can produce no other effect upon the souls of animals who ought doubtless sooner or later to acquire distinct perceptions for all goes on in an orderly way in nature I admit however that in this state of confusion the soul would be without pleasure and without pain for these are noticeable perceptions
Ph Is it not true that those with whom we have at present to do ie the Cartesians who believe that the soul always thinks grant life to all animals differing from man without giving them a soul which knows and thinks and that these same Cartesians find no difficulty in saying that the soul can think independently of a body
Th For myself I am of another opinion for although I agree with the Cartesians in their affirmation that the soul thinks always I am not agreed with them in the two other points I believe that the beasts have imperishable souls and that human and all other souls are never without some body I hold also that God alone as being an actus purus is wholly exempt therefrom
Ph If you had been of the opinion of the Cartesians I should have inferred therefrom that the bodies of Castor or Pollux could be sometimes with sometimes without a soul though being always alive and the soul having the ability also to be sometimes in one body and sometimes elsewhere we might suppose that Castor and Pollux had only a single soul which was active alternately in the body of these two men sleeping and awake by turns thus it would be two persons as distinct as Castor and Pollux could be
Th I in my turn will make you another supposition which appears more real Is it not true that we must always admit that after some interval or some great change one may fall into a state of general forgetfulness Sleidan they say before his death forgot all he knew j and there are many other examples of this sad event Suppose that such a man became young again and learned all anew will he be another man on that account It is not then memory which properly speaking makes the same man Nevertheless the fiction of a soul which animates different bodies in turn without concerning itself in one of these bodies with that which happens to it in the other is one of those fictions contrary to the nature of things which arise from the imperfect notions of philosophers as space without body and body without motion and which disappear when one penetrates a little deeper for you must know that each soul preserves all its preceding impressions and cannot divide itself equally in the manner just mentioned the future in each substance is perfectly united to the past this is what constitutes the identity of the individual. Memory furthermore is not necessary nor even always possible because of the multitude of present and past impressions which cooperate in our present thoughts for I do not believe that there are in man thoughts of which there is not some effect at least confused or some remnant mixed with subsequent thoughts We can forget many things but we could also remember them long after if we would recall them as we ought
Ph Those who chance to sleep without dreaming can never be convinced that their thoughts are active
Th Cone is feebly conscious in sleep even when it is dreamless The process of waking up itself shows this and the easier you are awakened the more you are conscious of what goes on without although this consciousness is not always strong enough to cause you to awake
Ph It appears very difficult to conceive that the soul is thinking at this moment in a sleeping man and the next in one awake without remembering its thoughts
Th Not only is that easy to conceive but also something like it is observed every day that we are awake for we always have objects which strike our eyes and ears and as a result the soul is touched also without our taking notice of it because our attention is bent upon other objects until this object becomes strong enough to draw it to itself by redoubling its action or by some other means it is like a particular sleep with reference to that object and this sleep becomes general when our attention ceases to regard all objects together Division of attention in order to weaken it is also a means of putting yourself to sleep
Ph I learned from a man who in his youth had applied himself to study and had a tolerably felicitous memory that he never had a dream until he had had the fever from which he had just recovered at the time he spoke with me at the age of twentyfive or twentysix years
Th I have also been told of a student more advanced in years who never had a dream But it is not upon dreams alone that you must base the perpetuity of the souls perception since I have shown how even while asleep it has some perception of what goes on without
Ph To think frequently and not to preserve a single moment the memory of your thought is to think in a useless manner
Th All impressions have their effect but all the effects are not always perceptible when I turn to one side rather than to the other it is very often through a series of minute impressions of which I am not conscious and which render one movement a little more uncomfortable than the other All our unpremeditated actions are the results of a concurrence of minute perceptions and even our customs and passions which influence so much our deliberations come therefrom for these habits grow little by little and consequently without the minute perceptions we should not arrive at these noticeable dispositions I have already remarked that he who would deny these effects in the sphere of morals would imitate the poorly taught class who deny insensible corpuscles in physics and yet I see that among those who speak of liberty are some who taking no notice of these unperceived impressions capable of inclining the balance imagine an entire indifference in moral actions like that of the ass of Buridan equally divided between two meadows Concerning this we shall speak more fully later I admit however that these impressions incline without necessitating
Ph Perhaps we might say that in the case of a man awake who thinks his body counts for something and that memory is preserved by means of marks in the brain but when he is asleep the soul thinks apart by itself
Th I am very far from saying that since I believe there is always an exact correspondence between the body and the soul and since I employ the impressions of the body of which we are not conscious whether awake or asleep in order to prove that the soul has in itself similar ones I maintain even that something goes on in the soul which corresponds to the circulation of the blood and to all the internal movements of the viscera of which we are never conscious however just as those who live near a watermill do not perceive the noise it makes In fact if there were impressions in the body during sleep or waking hours by which the soul was not touched or in any wise affected limits would be given to the union of the soul and of the body as if corporeal impressions required a certain form and size in order for the soul to perceive them which is not at all tenable if the soul is incorporeal for there is no relation between an incorporeal substance and this or that modification of matter In a word it is a great source of error to believe that there is no perception in the soul besides those of which it is conscious
G Ph The greater part of the dreams which we remember are extravagant and incoherent We should then say that the soul owes the power of rational thought to the body or that it retains none of its rational soliloquies
Th The body responds to all the souls thoughts rational or not and dreams have also their marks in the brain as well as the thoughts of those who are awake
h Since you are so sure that the soul is always actually thinking I wish you would tell me what the ideas are which are in the childs soul before it is united to the body or just at the time of its union before it has received any idea by means of sensation
Th It is easy to satisfy you by our principles The souls perceptions correspond always naturally to the constitution of the body and when there are a multitude of movements confused and little distinguished in the brain as happens in the case of those who have little experience the souls thoughts following the order of the things cannot be more distinct Yet the soul is never deprived of the help of sensation because it always expresses its body and this body is always impressed by its surroundings in an infinite number of ways but which often give only a confused impression
Ph But here is still another question which the author of this Essay asks I very much wish says he that those who maintain so confidently that the soul of man or what is the same thing man thinks always would tell me how they know it
Th I do not know but that more confidence is necessary to deny that anything goes on in the soul of which we are not conscious for that which is perceivable must be composed of parts which are not so nothing can spring into being at once through no more than motion In short it is as if someone asked today how we know the insensible corpuscles
Ph I do not remember that those who tell us that the soul always thinks ever say that man always thinks
Th I think that is because they understand their statement of the separated soul and yet they voluntarily admit that man always thinks during the union For myself who have reasons for holding that the soul is never separated from the entire body I believe that we can state absolutely that man always does and will think
Ph To say that the body is extended without having parts and that a thing thinks without being conscious that it thinks are two assertions which appear equally unintelligible
Th Pardon me sir I am obliged to tell you that when you advance the statement that there is nothing in the soul of which it is not conscious you beg the question which has already prevailed in all our former discussion or you have been desirous to use it to destroy innate ideas and truths If we agree to this principle in addition to the fact that we believe it contrary to experience and reason we should surrender without reason to our feeling which I believe I have rendered sufficiently intelligible But besides the fact that our opponents skilful as they are have brought no proof of that which they urge so often and so positively it is easy to show them the contrary ie that it is impossible for us always to think expressly upon all our thoughts otherwise the spirit would reflect upon each reflection to infinity without ever being able to pass to a new thought For example in my consciousness of some present feeling I should always think that I think and still think that I think of my thought and thus to infinity But it is very necessary that I cease reflecting upon all these reflections and that there be at length some thought which is allowed to pass without thinking of it otherwise we should dwell always upon the same thing
Ph But would there not be as good ground for maintaining that a man is always hungry by saying that he can be hungry without feeling it
Th There is just the difference hunger has particular reasons which do not always exist Nevertheless it is true also that even when you are hungry you do not think of it every moment but when you do think of it you feel it for it is a very marked disposition there is always irritation in the stomach but it is necessary for it to become very strong to pause hunger The same distinction ought always to be made between thoughts in general and remarkable thoughts Thus what appears to put a ridiculous construction upon our opinion serves to confirm it
Ph One can now ask when man begins to have ideas in his thought And it seems to me that the reply must be when he has some sensation
Th I am of the same opinion but it is by a principle a little peculiar for I believe that we are never without thoughts and also never without sensation I distinguish only between ideas and thoughts for we always have all pure or distinct ideas independently of the senses but thoughts always correspond to some sensation
But the mind is passive only in the perception of simple ideas which are the rudiments or materials of knowledge while it is active when it forms complex ideas
Th How can it be that the mind is passive merely with regard to the perception of all simple ideas since according to your own admission there are simple ideas whose perception comes from reflection and since the mind gives itself thoughts from reflection for it is itself which reflects Whether it can refuse them is another question and doubtless it cannot refuse them without some reason which turns it aside from them when there is some occasion for it
Ph It seems that hitherto we have discussed ex professo Now that we are going to come to the detail of ideas I hope that we shall be more agreed and that we shall differ only in some particulars
Th I shall be delighted to see able men adopting the views which I hold to be true for they are adapted to improve them and to show them in a good light
Ph I hope then that you will admit that there are simple and complex ideas thus heat and softness in wax and cold in ice furnish simple ideas for the soul has a uniform conception of them which is not distinguishable into different ideas
Th I believe that we can affirm that these senseideas are simple in appearance because being confused they do not give the mind the means of distinguishing their contents In like manner distant things appear round because their angles cannot be discerned although some confused impression of them is received It is manifest for example that green arises from a mixture of blue and yellow thus it is possible to believe that the idea of green is also composed of these two ideas And yet the idea of green appears to us as simple as that of blue or that of warmth So we are to believe that the ideas of blue and warmth are not as simple as they appear I readily consent however to treat these ideas as simple ideas because at least our perception does not divide them but it is necessary to proceed to their analysis by means of other experiences and by reason in proportion as they can be rendered more intelligible And it is also seen thereby that there are perceptions of which we are not conscious For the perceptions of ideas simple in appearance are composed of perceptions of the parts of which these ideas are composed without the mind's being conscious of them for these confused ideas appear simple to it
Ph Now we can arrange simple ideas according to the means by which we perceive them for that is done by means of one sense only by means of more than one sense by reflection or by all the ways of sensation as well as by reflection Thus of those which enter by a single sense which is particularly adapted to receive them light and colours enter only by the eyes all kinds of noises sounds and tones enter by the ears the different tastes by the palate and odours by the nose These organs or nerves carry them to the brain and if any one of these organs chance to be disordered these sensations cannot be admitted by any artificial gate The most considerable qualities belonging to the touch are cold heat and solidity The others consist either in the configuration of the sensible parts as smooth and rough or in their union as compact hard soft brittle
Tit I quite agree sir with what you say although I may remark that according to the experiment of the late M ilariotte upon the defect of vision with regard to the optic nerve it seems to me that the membranes receive the sensation rather than the nerves and there is an irregular entrance for the hearing and the taste since the teeth and the vertex assist in causing any sound to be heard and that tastes make themselves known to some extent through the nose by reason of the connection of these organs But all that makes no change in the foundation of things as regards the explication of ideas As for the qualities belonging to touch you can say that smoothness or roughness hardness or softness are only modifications of resistance or solidity
Ph You will doubtless agree that the idea of solidity is caused by the resistance we find in a body to the entrance of another body into the place it occupies until it has left it That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moved one toward another I call solidity If any one finds it more to the purpose to call it impenetrability I give my consent But I believe that the term solidity bears a more positive character This idea seems most intimately connected with and essential to body and can be found only in matter
Th It is true that we find resistance in touch when another body reluctantly gives place to our own and it is also true that bodies dislike to occupy the same place Many however doubt whether this repugnance is invincible and it is well also to consider that the resistance which is found in matter is derived in more than one way and by means of reasons quite different A body resists another either when it must leave the place which it has already occupied or when it fails to enter the place into which it was ready to enter because the other tries to enter also in which case it may happen that the one not yielding to the other they stop or mutually repel each other The resistance is seen in the change of that body to which resistance is offered whether it loses its force changes its direction or both happen at once Now you can say in general that this resistance arises from the repugnance which two bodies have to occupy the same place which may be called impenetrability Thus when one body makes an effort to enter it at the same time forces the other to attempt to leave or to prevent its entrance But that kind of incompatibility which makes one or the other or both together yield being once assumed there are several reasons besides the one named which make one body resist another which endeavours to compel its departure They are either in it or in the neighbouring bodies There are two which are in itself one is passive and constant the other active and variable The first is what I call inertia after Kepler and Descartes which impels matter to resist motion and which it is necessary to destroy by force in order to move a body supposing that there were neither gravity nor adhesion Thus a body which undertakes to drive forward another experiences for that reason this resistance The other cause which is active and variable consists in the impetuosity of the body itself which does not yield without resistance at the moment its own impetuosity carries it into a place The same reasons reappear in the neighbouring bodies when the body which resists is unable to yield without causing the others to yield also But then a new consideration comes in — viz compactness fermeli or the adhesion of one body to another This adhesion makes it impossible to move one body without at the same time moving the other to which it adheres and this causes a kind of traction in reference to this other This adhesion so acts that even should we put aside inertia and manifest impetuosity there would be resistance for if space is conceived as filled with matter perfectly fluid and if a single hard body were placed within it this hard body supposing there were in the fluid neither inertia nor impetuosity will be moved therein without finding any resistance but if space were full of little
cubes the resistance which the hard body would find should it be moved among the cubes would come from the fact that the little hard cubes on account of their hardness or because of the adhesion of their parts one to another would with difficulty be separated as much as would be necessary to make a circle of movement and to fill up the place of the body moved at the moment it departs But if two bodies should enter at the same time by the two ends into a tube open on both sides and should fill it to its capacity the matter in this tube however fluid it be would resist by its impenetrability alone Thus in the resistance of which we are here treating we have to consider the impenetrability of bodies inertia impetuosity and adhesion It is true that in my opinion this adhesion of bodies arises from a more subtile motion of one body toward another but as this is a point which may be disputed it must not be assumed at first And for the same reason we must only assume at first an original essential solidity which makes the place always equal to the body that is to say that the incompatibility or to speak more accurately the nonconsistence of bodies in the same place is a perfect impenetrability which receives neither more nor less since many maintain that sensible solidity can arise from a repugnance on the part of bodies to be found in the same place but which will not prove to be an invincible repugnance For all the ordinary Peripatetics and many others believe that the same matter can fill more or less space which phenomenon they call rarefaction or condensation not in appearance only as when water is squeezed from a sponge but rigorously like the scholastic conception of the air I am not of this opinion but I do not think that I ought at first to assume the opposite opinion the senses apart from the reasoning faculty not sufficing to establish this perfect impenetrability which I hold to be true in the order of nature but which is not learned by sensation alone And some one may claim that the resistance of bodies to compression arises from an effort of the parts to spread themselves when they have not their entire liberty For the rest the eyes aid greatly in proving these qualities coming to the assistance of touch And at bottom solidity so long as it presents a distinct idea is conceived by pure reason although the senses furnish the reasoning faculty with the proof that it is in nature
Ph We are at least agreed that the solidity of a body carries with it the filling of the space it occupies in such a way as absolutely to exclude every other body if a space can be found in which there was none before while hardness or the consistence rather which some call compactness firmete is a strong union of certain parts of matter which make up masses of a sensible size so that the whole mass does not easily change its form
Th This consistence as I have already remarked is precisely what makes it difficult to move one part of a body without the other so that when one part is pushed the other which is not pushed and which does not fall within the line of tendency is nevertheless induced to go from that side by a kind of traction and further if this last part finds any obstacle which holds or pushes it back it draws it along or holds back also the first part and this action is always reciprocal The same thing sometimes happens in the case of two bodies which do not touch and which do not form a continuous body whose parts are contiguous and yet the one pushed compels the other to go without pushing it so far as the senses can give us knowledge Of this the animant electrical attraction and that which was formerly ascribed to the fear of a vacuum furnish examples
Ph It seems that in general hard and soft are names which we give to things solely as related to the particular constitution of our bodies
Th But then many philosophers would not ascribe hardness to their atoms The notion of hardness does not depend upon the senses and its possibility can be conceived by the reason although we are further convinced by the senses that it is actually found in nature I should however prefer the word compactness—fermeti if I were allowed to use the word in this sense) — to that of hardness for there is some compactness even in soft bodies I seek even a more suitable and general term like consistence or cohesion Thus I would oppose hard to soft solid to fluid for wax is soft but unless melted by heat it is not fluid and preserves its bounds and in fluids even there is ordinarily cohesion as is shown in drops of water and of mercury I am also of opinion that all bodies have some degree of cohesion as I also believe that there are none which do not have some fluidity and whose cohesion is not capable of being overcome so that in my opinion the atoms of Epicurus whose hardness is supposed to be invincible cannot occur any more than the subtile perfectly fluid matter of the Cartesians But this is not the place to justify this opinion or to explain the rationale of cohesion
Ph The perfect solidity of bodies seems to be justified by experiment For example water incapable of yielding passed through the pores of a hollow globe of gold in which it was confined when this globe was put under pressure in Florence
Th There is something to be said as to the inference which you draw from this experiment and from what happened in the case of the water The air as well as the water is a body which is compressible at least ad sensiim and those who would maintain a complete rarefaction and condensation will say that water is already too compressed to yield to our machines as air very much compressed would resist also a further compression I admit however on the other hand that if any slight change should be noticed in the volume of the water it might be ascribed to the air which is enclosed in it Without entering now into the discussion whether pure water is not itself compressible as it is found that it is dilatable when it evaporates I am nevertheless decidedly of the opinion of those who believe that bodies are perfectly impenetrable and that there is save in appearance neither condensation nor rarefaction But this kind of experiment is as little capable of proving this as the tube of Torrieelli or the machine of Guerike are sufficient to prove a perfect vacuum
Ph If the body were strictly capable of rarefaction and compression it might change in volume or extension but that not being so it will be always equal to the same space and moreover its extension will be always distinct from that of space
Th The body might have its own extension but it does not thereby follow that it would be always determinate or equal to the same space Nevertheless although it may be true that in the conception of body something besides space is conceived of it does not thereby follow that there are two extensions — that of space and that of body for it is as when in conceiving several things at once one conceives something besides the number viz res numeratce and moreover there are not two multitudes the one abstract — ie that of number the other concrete — ie that of the things enumerated Likewise one can say that it is not necessary to think of two extensions — the one abstract of space the other concrete of body the concrete existing as such only through the abstract And as bodies pass from one part of space to another — ie change order among themselves — things also pass from one part of the order or of a number to the other when for example, the first becomes the second and the second the third etc In fact time and space are only kinds of order and in these orders the vacant place which in relation to space is called vacuum if there were any would show the possibility only of that which is lacking together with its relation to the actual
Ph I am nevertheless very glad that you agree with me that matter does not change in volume But you seem to go too far sir in not recognizing two extensions and you resemble the Cartesians who do not distinguish space from matter Now it seems to me that if a class is found who not having these distinct ideas of space and of solidity which fills it blends them and makes of the two one only we cannot see how these persons can converse with others They are like a blind man who when another man speaks to him of scarlet thinks it resembles the sound of a trumpet
Th But I hold at the same time that the ideas of extension and solidity like that of scarletcolour do not consist in an I know not what I distinguish extension and matter contrary to the view of the Cartesians Still I do not believe that there are two extensions and since those who dispute over the difference between extension and solidity are agreed on several truths upon this subject and have some distinct notions they can find therein the means of extricating themselves from their disagreement thus the assumed difference upon ideas ought not to serve as a pretext for eternal disputes although I know that certain Cartesians otherwise very able are accustomed U intrench themselves in the ideas which they pretend to have But if they would avail themselves of the means which I have before given for recognizing ideas true and false and of which we shall speak also in the sequel they would retire from a position which is not tenable
Ph The ideas the perception of which comes to us from more than one sense are those of space or extension or figure of motion and rest
Tk The ideas which are said to come from more than one sense like those of space figure motion rest are rather from commonsense that is to say from the mind itself for they are ideas of the pure understanding but related to externality and which the senses make us perceive they are also capable of definition and demonstration
Ph The simple ideas which come by reflection are the ideas of the understanding and of tie will for we ourselves perceive them in reflecting upon ourselves
Th It is doubtful if all these ideas are simple for it is clear for example that the idea of the will includes that of the understanding, and that the idea of motion contains that of figure
Ph There are some simple ideas which make themselves perceived in the mind by all the avenues of sensation and by reflection also — viz pleasure pain power existence unity
Th It seems that the senses cannot convince us of the existence of sensible things without the aid of the reason Thus I should think that the idea of existence comes from reflection That of power also and of unity come from the same source and are of a wholly different nature from the perceptions of pleasure and pain
Ph What shall we say of ideas of privative qualities It seems to me that the ideas of rest darkness and cold are as positive as those of motion light and heat Nevertheless in proposing these privations as the causes of privative ideas I follow the common view but in the main it will be difficult to determine whether there is really any idea which arises from a privative cause until it has been determined whether rest any more than motion is a privation
Th I had not believed that we could have reason to doubt the privative nature of rest It suffices it that motion in the body be denied but it does not suffice for motion to deny rest and it is necessary to add something more to determine the degree of motion since it receives materially more or less while all rest is equal It is another thing when we speak of the cause of rest which must be positive in the secondary matter or mass I should furthermore regard the very idea of rest as privative — ie that it consists only in negation It is true that the act of denial is positive
Ph The qualities of things being the faculties they have of producing in us perception of ideas it is well to distinguish these qualities They are primary and secondary Extension solidity figure number mobility are the original qualities inseparable from body which I call primary But I call secondary qualities the faculties or powers of bodies to produce certain sensations in us or certain effects in other bodies as the fire for example produces a certain effect in the wax when melting it
Th I think we can say that when the power is intelligible and can be distinctly explained it should be reckoned among the primary qualities but when it is only sensible and gives only a confused idea it should be put among the secondary qualities
Ph These primary qualities show how bodies act upon one another Now bodies act only by impulse at least so far as we can conceive the process for it is impossible to understand how bodies can act upon what they do not touch which is equivalent to imagining that they can act where they are not
Th I am also of the opinion that bodies act only by impulse Yet there is some difficulty in the proof of what I have just heard for attraction sometimes occurs without contact and we can touch and draw without any visible impulse as I have shown above in speaking of hardness In the case of the atoms of Epicurus the one part pushed would draw the other with it and would touch it in putting it in motion without impulse And in the case of attraction between contiguous things we cannot say that the one which draws with itself acts where it is not This reason would militate only against attractions from a distance as would be the case in reference to what are called vires centripetce advanced by some scholars
Ph Now certain particles striking our organs in a certain way cause in us certain sensations of colours or tastes or other secondary qualities which have the power of producing these sensations And it is no more difficult to conceive that God can attach such ideas as that of heat to motions with which they have no resemblance than it is difficult to conceive that he has attached the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of iron which divides our flesh which motion the pain in no manner resembles
Th It is not necessary to suppose that ideas like those of colour or of pain are arbitrary and without relation or natural connection with their causes it is not the custom of God to act with so little order and reason I should rather say that there is a kind of resemblance not complete and so to speak in terminis but expressive or a kind of orderly relation as an ellipse and even a parabola or hyperbola resemble in some sense the circle of which they are a projection upon a plane since there is a certain exact and natural relation between what is projected and the projection which is made each point of the one corresponding by a certain relation to each point of the other This the Cartesians do not sufficiently consider and for once you have deferred to them more than has been customary with you and without reason for so doing
Ph I tell you what appears to me and the appearances are that the ideas of the primary qualities of bodies resemble these qualities but the ideas produced in us by the secondary qualities resemble them in no way
Hi have just shown how there is resemblance or exact relation in respect to the secondary as well as the primary qualities It is certainly reasonable that the effect correspond to its cause and how assert the contrary since you know distinctly neither the sensation of blue for example nor the motions which produce it It is true that pain does not resemble the motion of a pin but it may very well resemble the motions which this pin causes in our body and represent these motions in the soul as I have no doubt it does It is also for this reason that we say that the pain is in our body and not that it is in the pin but we say that the light is in the fire because there are in the fire motions which are not distinctly sensible apart from it but whose confusion or conjunction becomes sensible and is represented to us by the idea of light
Ph But if the relation between the object and the sensation be natural how can it be as we notice in fact that the same water may appear warm to one hand and cold to the other which shows that the heat is no more in the water than the pain is in the pin
Tit This proves all the more that heat is not a sensible quality or power of making itself felt absolutely all at once but that it is relative to the suitable organs for a particular motion in the hand may be mixed with it and change its appearance Light furthermore does not make itself evident to badly constituted eyes and when they are themselves filled with a great light they are insensible to a less Even the primary qualities according to our classification—for example unity and number — may not appear as they should for as Descartes has already stated a globe touched by the fingers in a certain way appears double and mirrors or glasses cut in facets multiply the object It does not then follow that what does not always appear the same is not a quality of the object, and that its image does not resemble it And as for the heat when our hand is very warm the medium heat of the water does not make itself felt and modifies rather that of the hand and consequently the water appears to us cold as the salt water of the Baltic Sea mixed with the water of the Sea of Portugal would lessen its specific saline quality although the former be itself salt Thus in any case we can say that the heat belongs to the water of a bath although it may appear cold to anyone as honey is called absolutely sweet and silver white although the one appears bitter the other yellow to some diseased persons for the classification is made upon the basis of the most common conditions and yet it remains true that when the organ and the medium are constituted as they should be the internal motions and the ideas which represent them to the soul resemble the motions of the object which cause colour heat pain etc or what is here the same thing express it by means of a relation sufficiently exact although this relation does not distinctly appear to us because we cannot disentangle this multitude of small impressions either in our soul or our body or in what is without
Ph We consider the qualities which the sun has of blanching or melting wax or hardening mud only as simple powers without thinking of anything in the sun corresponding to this blanching softness or hardness but heat and light are commonly regarded as real qualities of the sun Properly considered however these qualities of light and heat which in me are perceptions are not in the sun in any other manner than the changes produced in the wax when it is blanched or melted
Th Some have pushed this doctrine so far that they have desired to persuade us that if anyone could touch the sun he would find there no heat The counterfeit sun which makes itself felt in the focus of a mirror or a burningglass may disabuse people of this notion But as to the comparison between the power of heating and that of melting I dare affirm that if the melted or blanched wax had feeling it would feel something similar to what we feel when the sun warms us and would say if it could that the sun is warm not because its whiteness resembles the sun — for when faces are tanned in the sun their brown colour should likewise resemble it — but because there are in the wax motions which are related to those in the sun which cause them its whiteness may come from another cause but not the motions which it has had in receiving it whiteness from the sun
Ph Come we now to the ideas of reflection in particular Perception is the first faculty of the soul which is occupied with our ideas It is also the first and simplest idea which we receive by reflection Thought signifies often the minds working upon its own ideas when it acts and considers a thing with a certain degree of voluntary attention but in what we call perception the mind is ordinarily purely passive not being able to avoid perceiving what it actually perceives
Th We might perhaps add that the animals have perception and that it is not necessary that they have thought that is to say that they have reflection or what may be its object We ourselves also have minute perceptions of which we are not conscious in our present state It is true that we might very well perceive them ourselves and reflect upon them if we were not turned aside by their multitude which distracts our mind or if they were not effaced or rather obscured by greater ones
Ph I admit that when the mind is strongly occupied in contemplating certain objects it does not perceive in anyway the impression which certain bodies make upon the organ of hearing although the impression may be quite strong but no perception arises therefrom if the soul takes no cognizance thereof
Th I should prefer to distinguish between perception and consciousness sappercevoir The perception of light and colour for example of which we are conscious is composed of many minute perceptions of which we are not conscious and a noise which we perceive but of which we take no notice becomes apperceptible by a little addition or increase for if what precedes make no impression upon the soul this little addition would also make none and the whole would make no more I have already touched upon this point
Pit It is proper to remark here that the ideas which arise from sensation are often altered by the mental judgment of grown persons without their perceiving the fact A flat circle with various light and shade represents the idea of a globe of uniform colour But as we are accustomed to distinguish the images of bodies and the changes of the reflections of light according to the figures of their surfaces we put in the place of what appears to us the cause the image itself and confuse the judgment with the appearance
Th Nothing is truer and this it is which gives to painting the means of deceiving us by the artifice of a very extended perspective When bodies have flat surfaces they can be represented without employing shadows by giving only their contours and by simply making pictures after the fashion of the Chinese but better proportioned than theirs The same custom is observed in designing medals in order that the draughtsman may be less likely to depart from the precise form of the antique But we cannot distinguish exactly by means of the design the interior of a circle from the interior of a spherical surface bounded by this circle without the aid of shadows the interior of each having neither points distinguished nor distinguishing features although there is however a great difference which ought to be indicated Desargues has accordingly given precepts upon the force of tints and shades When then a painting deceives us there is a double error in our judgments for first we put the cause for the effect and think we see immediately the cause of the image in which we resemble a little a dog who barks at a mirror for properly speaking we see only the image and we are affected only by the rays of light And since the rays of light require time however little it be it is possible for the object to be destroyed in this interval and for it no longer to exist when the ray reaches the eye and that which no longer exists cannot be the object present to the sight In the second place we further deceive ourselves when we put one cause for another and think that what comes only from a flat picture is derived from a body so that in this case there is in our judgments all at once a metonymy and a metaphor for even the figures of rhetoric pass into sojihismn when they impose on us This confusion of the effect with the cause whether true or false often enters into our judgments moreover upon other things Thus we feel our bodies or what touches them and we move our arms by means of an immediate physical influence which we think constitutes the connection of the soul with the body while in truth we feel and change in that way only what is in us
Ph I will at this time propose to you a problem which the learned Mr Molyneux who employs so profitably his excellent genius in the promotion of the sciences communicated to the illustrious Mr Locke Here it is nearly in his own terms Suppose a man blind from birth now grown up who has learned to distinguish by touch a cube from a globe of the same metal and almost of the same size so that when he touches the one or the other he can tell which is the cube and which the globe Suppose that the cube and the globe being placed upon the table this blind man comes to enjoy his sight The question is if in seeing them without touching them he could distinguish them and tell which is the cube and which the globe I pray you sir tell me what is your opinion upon the matter
Th I ought to give some time to thought upon this question which appears to me quite curious but since you press me for an immediate reply I would venture to say between ourselves that I think that supposing the blind man knows that these two figures which he sees are those of the cube and the globe he could distinguish them and say without touching This is the globe this the cube
Ph I fear lest it may be necessary to put you in the crowd of those who have failed to answer Mr Molyneux for he sent word in the letter which contained this question that having proposed it upon the occasion of Mr Lockes Essay on Understanding to different persons of very penetrating minds he had found scarcely one among them who at once gave such a reply upon that point as he thinks should be made although they were convinced of their error after having heard his reasons The reply of this penetrating and judicious author is negative for he adds while this blind man has learned by experience of some kind the globe and the cube as they affect his touch he does not however yet know that what affects the touch in such or such manner must strike the eyes in such or such manner nor that the projecting angle of the cube which presses his hand in an unequal manner must appear to his eyes as it appears in the cube The author of the Essay declares himself at once of the same opinion
Th Perhaps Mr Molyneux and the author of the Essay are not so far from my opinion as at first appears and the reasons for their view contained apparently in the letter of the former who has employed them with success in order to convince men of their error have been purposely suppressed by the latter in order to give more exercise to the minds of his readers If you will weigh my reply you will find sir that I have placed therein a condition which can be considered as comprised in the question — viz that the question is that of distinguishing alone and that the blind man knows that the two figured bodies which he should distinguish are there and that thus each of the appearances which he sees is that of the cube or that of the globe In this case it appears to me beyond doubt that the blind man who ceases to be such can distinguish them by the principles of reason united with that senseknowledge with which touch has before furnished him For I do not speak of that which he will do perhaps in fact and immediately dazzled and confused by the novelty or from some other cause little accustomed to draw inferences The basis of my view is that in the globe there are no points distinguished by the side of the globe itself all there being level and without angles while in the cube there are eight points distinguished from all the others If there were not this means of discerning the figures a blind man could not learn the rudiments of geometry by touch But we see that those born blind are capable of learning geometry and have indeed always certain rudiments of a natural geometry and that most often geometry is learned by sight alone without the use of touch as indeed a paralytic or other person to whom touch has been almost denied might and even must do And these two geometries — that of the blind man and that of the paralytic — must meet and agree and indeed return to the same ideas although there are no common images This again shows how necessary it is to distinguish images from exact ideas which consist in definitions It would really be very interesting and instructive to make a complete examination of the ideas of a man born blind to understand the descriptions he makes of figures For he may come to this and he may even understand the doctrine of optics so far as it is dependent upon distinct and mathematical ideas although he could not attain to a conception of clairconfus that is to say the image of light and of colours This is why a certain one born blind after having attended lessons in optics which he appeared fully to understand replied to someone who asked him what he thought light was that he thought it must be something pleasant like sugar It would likewise be very important to examine the ideas which a man born deaf and dumb may have of things not figured whose description we usually have in words and which he must have in a manner wholly different from though it may be equivalent to ours as Chinese writing is in fact equivalent to our alphabet although it is infinitely different and might appear to have been invented by a deaf man I learn through the favour of a great prince of one born deaf and dumb in Paris whose ears have at last attained to the performance of their function that he has now learned the French language for it is from the court of France that he was summoned not long since and that he could say very curious things about the conceptions he had in his former condition and about the change of his ideas when he commenced to exercise the sense of hearing These persons born deaf and dumb can go farther than we think There was one in Oldenburg in the time of the last Count who became a good painter and showed himself very rational in other respects A very learned man a Breton by nation told me that at Blainville about ten leagues from Nantes belonging to the Duke of Rohan there was about a poor man who lived in a hut near the castle outside of the town who was born deaf and dumb and who carried letters and other things to the town and found the houses following some signs which the persons accustomed to employ him made him Finally the poor man became blind also but did not give up rendering some service and carrying letters into the town to whatever place they indicated to him by touch He had a board in his hut which extending from the door to the place where his feet were informed him by its motion when any one entered his house Men are very negligent in not obtaining an exact knowledge of the modes of thought of such persons If he no longer lives there is probably someone in the vicinity who could still give some information respecting him and make us understand how they showed him the things he was to do But to return to what the man born blind who begins to see would think of the globe and the cube seeing them without touching them I reply that he will distinguish them as I have just said if any one informs him that the one or the other of the appearances or perceptions which he has of them belongs to the cube or to the globe but without this previous instruction I admit that he will not at first venture to think that the kinds of pictures which they make of themselves in the depths of his eyes and which might come from a flat picture upon the table represent the bodies until touch convinces him of the fact or until by force of reasoning upon the rays of light according to optics he understands by the lights and shades that there is a something which arrests these rays of light and that it must be exactly what remains for him in touch which result he will finally reach when he sees this globe and this cube revolve and change the shadows and the appearances in accordance with the motion or even when these two bodies remaining at rest the light which illumines them changes its place or his eyes change their position For these are about the means we have of distinguishing from afar a picture or a perspective which represents a body from the body itself
Ph Let us return to perception in general It distinguishes animals from inferior beings
Th I am inclined to the belief that there is some perception and appetition also in the plants because of the great analogy which exists between plants and animals and if as is commonly supposed there is a vegetable soul it of necessity has perception Yet I do not cease to attribute to mechanism all that takes places in the bodies of plants and animals except their first formation Thus I agree that the movement of the plant called sensitive arises from mechanism and I do not approve of having recourse to the soul when the question is that of explaining the detail of the phenomena of plants and animals
Ph It is true that for myself indeed I cannot help believing that even in those kinds of animals which are like the oysters and mussels there is some feeble perception for quick sensations would serve only to discommode an animal which is constrained to live always in the place where chance has put it where it is watered with water cold or warm pure or salt according as it comes to it
Th Very well I also believe that we can say almost as much of plants but in mans case his perceptions are accompanied with the power of reflection which passes to the act when there is any occasion But when he is reduced to a state in which he is as it were in a lethargy and almost without feeling reflection and consciousness cease and universal truths are not thought of But the innate and acquired faculties and dispositions and even the impressions which are received in this state of confusion do not cease on that account and are not effaced though they are forgotten They will even have their turn one day in contributing to some notable result for nothing is useless in nature all confusion must develop itself the animals even having attained to a condition of stupidity ought someday to return to perceptions more elevated and since simple substances always endure we must not judge of eternity by a few years
Ph The other faculty of the mind, by which it advances farther toward the knowledge of things than by simple perception is that which I call retention which conserves the knowledge received by the senses or by reflection Retention works in two ways in actually conserving the present idea which I call contemplation and in preserving the power to bring them again before the mind and this is what is called memory
Th One retains also and contemplates innate knowledge and very often one cannot distinguish the innate from the acquired There is also a perception of images —either those which have already existed for some time or those which are formed anew in us
Ph But you believe with us that these images or ideas cease to be anything as soon as they are not actually matters of consciousness and that to say that there are ideas reserved in the memory means at bottom only that the soul has in some instances the power of reviving the perceptions it has already had with a feeling which at the same time convinces it that it has previously had these kinds of perceptions
Th If ideas were only forms or modes of thoughts they would cease with them but you yourself have admitted sir that they are internal objects and in this way can subsist And I am astonished that you can always be satisfied with these naked powers or faculties which you would apparently reject in the scholastic philosophers It would be necessary to explain a little more distinctly in what this faculty consists and how it is exercised and that would make known that there are dispositions which are the remains of past impressions in the soul as well as in the body but of which we are conscious only when the memory finds some occasion for them And if nothing restored past thoughts as soon as we no longer think of them it would be impossible to explain how the memory can preserve them and to recur for this purpose to this naked faculty is to speak nowise intelligibly
Ph Upon the faculty of distinguishing ideas depends the evidence and certainty of several propositions which pass for innate truths
Th I admit that to think of these innate truths and to unravel them discernment is necessary but they do not on that account cease to be innate
Ph Now vivacity of mind consists in recalling promptly ideas but judgment in representing them clearly and distinguishing them exactly
Th Perhaps each is vivacity of imagination and judgment consists in the examination of propositions according to reason
Ph I am not averse to this distinction of mind and judgment And sometimes there is judgment in not employing it too much For example to examine certain witty thoughts by the severe rules of truth and good reasoning is in a certain sense an insult
Th This remark is a good one witty thoughts must have at least some apparent foundation in reason but it is not necessary to examine them minutely with too much scrupulousness as it is not necessary to look at a picture from a position too near it It is in this it seems to me that Father Bouhours fails more than once in his Art de penser dans les ouvrages desprit as when he despises this sally of Lucan
Victrix causa diis placuit Bed victa Catoni
Ph Another operation of the mind in respect to its ideas is the comparison it makes of one idea with another as regards extension degrees time place or some other circumstance it is upon this that the great number of ideas comprised under the term relation depends
Th According to my view relation is more general than comparison for relations are either of comparison or of concurrence The first concern the congruity or incongruity I take these terms in a less extended sense which comprises resemblance equality inequality etc The second comprise some connection as that of cause and effect, of whole and parts of position and order etc
Ph The composition of simple ideas for the purpose of making complex ideas is also an operation of our mind We may refer to this the faculty of extending ideas by uniting those of the same kind as in forming a dozen from several units
Th The one is doubtless as much composition as the other but composition of similar ideas is simpler than that of different ideas
Ph A dog will nurse young foxes will play with them and will have for them the same fondness as for her own puppies if they can be made to suck her so long as is needful for the milk to spread through their entire body Moreover it does not appear that animals who have a large number of young at once have any knowledge of their number
Th The love of animals arises from a pleasure which is increased by habit But as for the precise number men even can know the numbers of things only by some skill as in using numerical names in order to count or figural arrangements which make them know at once without counting if anything is wanting
Ph Animals do not form abstract thoughts
Th I agree They apparently recognize whiteness and notice it in the chalk or the snow but this is not yet abstraction for that demands a consideration of what is common separated from what is particular and consequently there enters into it the knowledge of universal truths which is not given to the animals It is well said also that the animals which speak do not use words to express general ideas and that men deprived of the use of speech and of words do not cease to invent other general signs I am pleased also to see that you here and elsewhere so well observe the advantages of human nature
Ph If animals have some ideas and are not pure machines as some maintain we cannot deny that they have reason in a certain degree and for myself it appears as evident that they reason as that they feel But it is only upon particular ideas that they reason according as their senses represent these ideas to them
Th Animals pass from one imagination to another by the connection which they have felt here before for example when his master takes a stick the dog fears a whipping And in many instances children with the rest of mankind proceed nowise differently in their passages from thought to thought This might be called consecution and reasoning in a very broad sense But I prefer to conform to the received usage in consecrating these terms to man and in limiting them to the knowledge of some reason of the connection of perceptions which sensations alone cannot give their effect being only to cause us naturally to expect at another time this same connection which we have noticed before although perhaps the reasons are no longer the same a fact which often deceives those who are governed only by the senses
Ph Idiots lack vivacity activity and movement in the intellectual faculties whereby they are deprived of the use of reason. Madmen seem to be at the opposite extreme for it does not appear to me that these latter have lost the power to reason but having wrongly united certain ideas they take them for truths and deceive themselves in the same way as those who reason justly upon false principles Thus you will see a madman who thinks he is king maintaining by a just consequence that he should be served honoured and obeyed according to his rank
Th Idiots do not exercise reason and they differ from some stupid persons who have good judgment but not having prompt conception they are despised and disturbed as he would be who wished to play ombre with persons of distinction and thought too long and too often of the part he must take I remember a learned man who having lost his memory by the use of certain drugs was reduced to this condition but his judgment always appeared A man wholly mad lacks judgment on nearly every occasion but the vivacity of his imagination may make him agreeable But there are particular madmen who make a false supposition at an important point in their lives and reason justly thereupon as you have well said There is such a man well known at a certain court who believes himself destined to redress the affairs of the Protestants and to bring France to reason for which purpose God caused the greatest personages to pass through his body in order to ennoble it he desires to marry all the princesses he sees to be marriageable but after having made them holy in order to have a holy progeny who are to rule the land he attributes all the misfortunes of war to the little attention paid to his advice In speaking with a certain sovereign he takes every necessary measure not to lower his dignity When they enter into conversation with him he maintains
himself so well that I have doubted more than once whether his madness is not feigned for he is not inconvenienced by it However those who know him more intimately assure me that his madness is wholly genuine
Ph The understanding bears not a little resemblance to a room wholly dark which has only certain small openings to let in from outside exterior and visible images so that if these images coming to be painted in this dark room could remain there and be placed in order so that they could be found upon occasion there would be a great resemblance between this room and the human understanding
Th To make the resemblance greater you should suppose that in this room there was a canvas to receive the images not even but diversified by folds representing the kinds of innate knowledge further that this canvas or membrane being stretched would have a kind of elasticity or power of action and also an action and reaction accommodated as much to the past folds as to the newly arrived kinds of impressions And this action would consist in certain vibrations or oscillations such as are seen in a stretched string so touched that it gives forth a kind of musical sound For not only do we receive images or outlines in the brain but we form besides new ones when we look at complex ideas Thus the canvas that represents our brain is necessarily active and elastic This comparison would explain tolerably well what passes in the brain but as for the soul which is a simple substance or monad it represents without extension these same varieties of extended masses and perceives them
Ph Now complex ideas are either modes or substances or relations
Th This division of the objects of our thought into substances modes and relations is sufficiently to my taste I believe that qualities are only modifications of substances and that the understanding adds thereto the relations From this follows more than you think
Ph Modes are either simple as a dozen a score which are composed of simple ideas of the same kind ie of units or mixed as beauty into which enter simple ideas of different kinds
Th Perhaps dozen or score are only relations and are constituted only in connection with the understanding Units are separate and the understanding gathers them together however dispersed they be Yet although relations are from the understanding they are not groundless or unreal For in the first place understanding is the origin of things and indeed the reality even of all things simple substances excepted ultimately consists only of perceptions of the phenomena of simple substances It is often the same with regard to the mixed modes ie it is necessary to refer them rather to the relations
Ph The ideas of substances are certain combinations of simple ideas which are supposed to represent particular and distinct things subsisting by themselves among which ideas the obscure notion of substance which is assumed without knowing what it is in itself, is always considered as the first and chief
Th The idea of substance is not so obscure as you think You can know what it ought to be and what it knows of itself in other things and indeed the knowledge of the concrete always precedes that of the abstract the hot thing rather than the heat
Ph In regard to substances there are also two kinds of ideas the one of single substances like that of a man or a sheep the other of several substances joined together as of an army of men or a flock of sheep These collections form also a single idea
Th This unity of the idea of aggregates is very true but ultimately you must admit that this collective unity is only a congruity or relation whose ground is in that which is found in each of the single substances separately Thus these beings by aggregation have no other completed unity than the mental consequently their entity also is in some mental shape or phenomenon as that of the rainbow
Ph Space considered with respect to the length which separates two bodies is called distance with respect to length breadth and depth it may be called capacity
Th To speak more distinctly the distance between two fixed things be they points or extensions is the length of the shortest possible line that can be drawn from one to the other This distance may be considered absolutely or in a certain figure which comprises the two distant things For example, the straight line is absolutely the distance between two points But these two points being in the same spherical surface the distance of these two points in this surface is the length of the shortest great arc of a circle which may be drawn from one point to the other It is well also to notice that distance is not only between bodies but also between surfaces lines points It may be said that the capacity or rather the interval between two bodies or two other extensions or between an extension and a point is the space constituted by all the shortest lines which may be drawn between the points of each This interval is filled except when the two fixed things are in the same surface when the shortest lines between the points of the fixed things must also fall in this surface or must there be expressly formed
Ph Besides that which is in nature men have established in their minds the ideas of certain determinate lengths as an inch or a foot
Tit They cannot do it For it is impossible to have the idea of a precisely determined length You can neither say nor understand by the mind what an inch or a foot is And you can preserve the meaning of these terms only by real measures which you suppose unchanging by means of which you can always recover them Thus Mr Greaves an English mathematician desired to make use of the pyramids of Egypt which have endured a long time and will endure apparently some time longer to conserve our measures by showing posterity the propositions which have been sketched in definite lengths in one of these pyramids It is true that a little after it was discovered that pendulums serve to perpetuate measures mensuris rerum ad posteros transmittendis as Huygens Mouton and Buratini formerly maistre de monnoye ill Poland have demonstrated by showing the proportion of our measures of length to that of the pendulum which beats precisely a second for example ie the part of a revolution of the fixed stars or of an astronomical day and Buratini has composed a treatise expressly thereupon which I have seen in manuscript But there is however this imperfection in this measure of pendulums which must be limited to certain countries for pendulums to beat in the same time need to be shorter at the equator And it is furthermore necessary to assume the constancy of the really fundamental measure viz the length of a day or of a revolution of the globe of the earth around its axis and also of the cause of gravitation not to speak of other circumstances
Ph Observing how extremities are terminated either by straight lines which form distinct angles or by curved lines in which no angle can be perceived we form the idea of figure
Th A superficial figure is terminated by a line or by lines but the figure of a body can be limited without determined lines as for example that of a sphere A single straight line or plane surface cannot enclose any space or make any figure But a single line can enclose a superficial figure for example the circle the oval as also a single curved surface can enclose a solid figure like the sphere and the spheroid Yet not only several straight lines or plane surfaces but also several curved lines or several curved surfaces can concur together and form even angles between themselves when the one is not the tangent of the other It is not easy to give the definition of figure in general according to the usage of geometers To say that it is a limited extension would be too general for a straight line for example although terminated by the two ends is not a figure and even two straight lines cannot make one To say that it is an extension limited by an extension is not general enough for the entire spherical surface is a figure and yet it is not limited by any extension It may be said however that figure is a limited extension in which there are an infinite number of paths from one point to another This definition comprises limited surfaces without terminating lines which the preceding definition did not comprise and excludes the lines because from one point to another in a line there is only one path or a determined number of paths But it will be still better to say that figure is limited extension which may admit an extended section or better which has breadth a term which hitherto had not been further defined
Ph At the least all figures are only simple modes of space
Th According to your view the simple modes repeat the same idea but in figures there is not always the repetition of the same mode Carves differ much from straight lines and between themselves So I do not know how the definition of the simple mode will be in place here
Ph We need not take our definitions too strictly But let us pass from figure to place When we find all the pieces upon the same squares of the chessboard where we left them we say that they are all in the same place although perhaps the chessboard has been moved We say also that the chessboard is in the same place if it remains in the same part of the cabin of the vessel although the vessel has sailed The vessel is also said to be in the same place supposing it keeps the same distance with reference to the parts of the neighbouring countries although the earth has perhaps turned round
Th Place is either particular when considered with regard to certain bodies or universal when it relates to all and with reference to which all the changes possible in relation to anybody are taken into account And if there were nothing fixed in the universe the place of each thing could still be determined by reasoning if there were means of making a record of all the changes or if the memory of a creature could suffice for them as they say the Arabs play chess by memory and on horseback What we cannot understand however is nevertheless determined in the truth of things
Ph If any man asks me what space is I am ready to tell him when he tells me what extension is
Th I wish I could speak of the nature of fever or any other malady with the same certainty with which I believe the nature of space is expounded Extension is the abstract of the extended Now the extended is a continuum whose parts are coexistent or exist at the same time
Ph If anyone asks whether space without body is substance or accident I should reply without hesitation that I know nothing about it
Th I fear you may think me vain in wishing to determine what you sir admit you do not know But if it is expedient to judge I fear that you know more about the matter than you state or think you do Some have believed that God is the place of things Lessius and Guericke if I am not mistaken were of this opinion but then place contains something more than what we attribute to the space which we deprive of all activity and in this way it is no more a substance than time and if it has parts it cannot be God It is a relation an order not only between existences but also between possibilities as they may exist But its truth and reality like all eternal truths is grounded in God
Ph I am not far from your view and you know the passage of St Paul who says that we live and move and have our being in God’s Thus according to different ways of considering the matter it may be said that space is God and also that it is only an order or a relation
Th The better statement then will be that space is an order but that God is its source
Ph Yet to know whether space is a substance it would be needful to know in what the nature of substance in general consists But in this there is a difficulty If God finite spirits and bodies participate in common in an identical substantial nature would it not follow that they differ only as different modifications of this substance
Th I this result follows it would follow also that God finite spirits and bodies participating in common in an identical nature of being would differ only as different modifications of this being
Ph Those who first thought of regarding accidents as a kind of real beings which need something in which to inhere were constrained to invent the word substance to serve as a support to the accidents
Th Do you then think sir that the accidents can subsist apart from the substance or do you mean that they are not real beings You seem to multiply difficulties without reason and I have remarked above that substances or concretes are conceived rather than accidents or abstracts
Ph The words substance and accident are in my view of little use in philosophy
Th I admit that I am of another opinion and I believe that the consideration of substance is one of the most important and fruitful points of philosophy
Ph We have now spoken of substance only by the way while asking if space is a substance But it is sufficient for us that it is not a body No one will dare to make body infinite like space
Th Descartes and his followers have said nevertheless that matter has no limits in making the world indefinite so that it is not possible for us to conceive of its extremities And they have changed the term infinite into indefinite with some reason for there never is an infinite whole in the world although there are always some wholes greater than others to infinity and the universe even cannot pass for a whole as I have elsewhere shown
Ph Those who take matter and extension as one and the same thing maintain that the inner sides of a hollow vacuous body would touch But the space which is between two bodies suffices to prevent their mutual contact
Th I am of your opinion for although I do not admit a vacuum I distinguish matter from extension and I admit that if there were a vacuum in a sphere the opposite poles in the hollow space would not on that account touch But I believe that this is a case which the divine perfection does not allow
Ph It seems however that motion proves a vacuum When the least part of the divided body is as large as a grain of mustardseed a void space equal to the size of a grain of mustard is requisite in order to make room for the parts of this body to move freely the same condition will hold good when the parts of the matter are one hundred million times smaller
Th It is true that if the world were full of hard corpuscles which could neither yield nor divide as the atoms are depicted motion would be impossible But in truth there is no original hardness on the contrary fluidity is the original condition and bodies are divided as needful since there is nothing to prevent it This takes away all the force in the argument for a vacuum drawn from motion
Ph To extension corresponds duration And a part of duration in which we remark no successions of ideas we call an instant
Th This definition of an instant ought I believe to mean the popular notion like that which the common people have
of a point For strictly the point and the instant are not parts of time or space neither have they parts They are extremities only
Ph It is not motion but a constant succession of ideas which gives us the idea of duration
Th A succession of perceptions awakes in us the idea of duration but it does not make it Our perceptions never have a succession sufficiently constant and regular to correspond to that of time which is a continuum uniform and simple like a straight line Changing perceptions furnish us the occasion for thinking of time and we measure it by uniform changes But were there nothing uniform in nature time could not be determined as space likewise could not be determined if there were no fixed or immovable body So that knowing the rules of different motions we can always refer them to the uniform intelligible motions and see beforehand by this means what will happen through the different motions taken together And in this sense time is the measure of motion ie uniform motion is the measure of nonuniform motion
Ph No two parts of duration can certainly be known to be equal and you must admit that observations can attain only approximate equality After exact research the discovery has been made that there is really an inequality in the diurnal revolutions of the sun and we do not know but that the annual revolutions are unequal also
Th The pendulum has made us realize and see the inequality of the days from one noon to another Solem dicere falsum andet It is true that men knew this already and that this inequality has its rules As for the annual revolution which makes good the inequalities of solar days it may change in the course of time The revolution of the earth about its axis which is commonly attributed to the primum mobile is our best measure up to the present time and clocks and watches serve to divide it for us Furthermore this same daily revolution of the earth may also change in the course of time and if any pyramid could endure long enough or if we should build new ones we could perceive it by observing there the length of pendulums a known number of whose beats occurs now during this revolution we could also know in some way the change by comparing this revolution with others as with those of Jupiters satellites for it is not apparent that if there is any change in one or the other it will always be proportional
Ph Our measure of time would be more exact if we could preserve a past day in order to compare it with the days to come as we preserve the measures of space
Th But instead of that we are reduced to preserving and watching bodies which move in nearly equal times Also we cannot say that a measure of space as for example an ell which is preserved in wood or metal remains perfectly the same
Ph Now since all men manifestly measure time by the motion of the heavenly bodies it is very strange that one is not permitted to define time as the measure of motion
Th I just stated how that should be understood It is true that Aristotle says that time is the number and not the measure of motion And in fact it may be said that duration is known by the number of periodic equal motions of which one begins when another ends for example by so many revolutions of the earth or the stars
Ph Nevertheless to anticipate these revolutions and say that Abraham was born in the year of the Julian era is to speak as unintelligibly as if you counted from the beginning of the world although you suppose that the Julian era commenced several hundred years before there were any days nights or years marked by any revolution of the sun
Th This vacuum which may be conceived in time indicates like that of space that time and space extend to the possible as well as to the actual Besides of all the chronological methods that of reckoning the years since the beginning of the world is the least convenient although this would be without touching upon other reasons only because of the great difference existing between the Septuagint and the Hebrew text
Ph One may conceive the beginning of motion although he may not comprehend that of duration taken in all its extension One may give limits to the body but cannot do it with regard to space
Th It is as I just said that time and space indicate the possibilities beyond the supposition of existences Time and space are of the nature of eternal truths which consider equally the possible and the actual
Ph In fact the ideas of time and eternity come from the same source for we can in our thought add certain lengths of duration to one another as often as we please
Th But in order to draw from them the notion of eternity it is necessary to think besides that the same reason always exists for going farther It is this rational consideration which achieves the notion of the infinite or the indefinite in possible progress Thus the senses alone cannot suffice to cause the formation of these notions And ultimately it may be said that the idea of the absolute is anterior in the nature of things to that of the limits which are added but we notice the former only as we commence with what is limited and strikes our senses
Ph One admits more easily an infinite duration of time than an infinite expansion of space because we conceive infinite duration in God and attribute extension only to matter which is finite and call the space beyond the universe imaginary But Solomon seems to have other thoughts when speaking of God he says the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee and for myself I believe that he magnifies too highly the capacity of his own understanding who imagines he can extend his thoughts farther than the place where God exists
Th If God were extended he would have parts But duration grants these only to his works However in relation to space immensity must be attributed to him which gives also parts and order to the immediate works of God He is the source of possibilities as of actualities of the one by his essence of the other by his will Thus space like time has its reality only from him and he can fill the void when it seems to him good Thus it is that in this respect he is everywhere
Ph We do not know what relations spirits have with space nor how they participate therein But we know that they participate in duration
Th All finite spirits are always united to some organic body and they represent to themselves other bodies by means of relations to their own Thus their relation to space is as evident as that of bodies For the rest before leaving this subject I would add a comparison between time and space to those which you have given viz —if there were a vacuum in space as for instance if a sphere were hollow within you could determine its size but if there were a vacuum in time ie a duration without changes it would be impossible to determine its length Whence it comes that you may refute the one who would maintain that two bodies between which there is a vacuum touch for geometry defends the proposition that two opposite poles of a hollow sphere would not touch but you cannot refute the one who would maintain that two worlds the one of which succeeds the other touch as to duration so that the one necessarily begins when the other ends without the possibility of an interval You could not refute it I say because this interval is indeterminable If space were only a line and if body were immovable it would no longer be possible to determine the length of the vacuum between two bodies
Ph In numbers ideas are both more precise and more accurately to be distinguished the one from the other than in extension where you cannot observe or measure each equality and each excess of size as easily as in numbers because in space we cannot by thought attain a certain definite smallness beyond which we cannot go like the unit in number
Th That should be understood of the integer For otherwise number in its extent comprising the fraction the surd the transcendent and all that may be assumed between two integers is proportional to the line and there is there as little of a minimum as in the continuum Thus the definition of number as a multitude of units is in place only among the integers The precise distinction of ideas in extension does not consist in size for to distinguish size clearly one must have recourse to integers or to other measures known by means of integers thus from continuous quantity it is necessary to recur to discrete quantity in order to have a distinct knowledge of size Thus the modifications of extension when not joined to numbers cannot be distinguished by figure taking this term so generally that it means everything which makes two extensions dissimilar the one to the other
Ph By repeating the idea of a unit and joining it to another unit we make a collective idea which we call two And whoever can do that and advance always by adding one more to the last collective idea to which he gives a particular name can count so long as he has a set of names and sufficient memory to retain them
Th By this means alone one cannot advance very far For memory would be too heavily loaded if it must retain an entirely new name for each addition of a new unit That is why a certain order and a certain repetition of these names is necessary by recommencing in accordance with a certain progression
Ph The different modes of numbers are capable of no other difference than that of more or less this is why there are simple modes like those of extension
Th That may be said of time and of the straight line but not of figures and still less of numbers which are not only different in size but further unlike An even number may be divided into two equal numbers but not an uneven Three and six are triangular numbers four and nine are squares eight is a cube etc And this principle has place in numbers still more than in figures for two unequal figures may be perfectly similar to each other but never two numbers But I am not astonished that you are often deceived thereupon because one does not commonly have a distinct idea of what is similar or dissimilar You see then sir that your idea or your application of simple or mixed modes is greatly in need of correction
Ph You were right in remarking that it is well to give numbers their own names to be retained Thus I believe that it would be convenient in computation to say a billion for brevitys sake instead of a million of millions and instead of a million of millions of millions or a million of billions to say a trillion and thus in order to nonillions for there is little need of going farther in the use of numbers
Tit These denominations are good enough Let That posited a million will be a a billion a a trillion a etc and a nonillion a
Ph One of the most important notions is that of the finite and the infinite which are regarded as modes of quantity
Th Properly speaking it is true that there is an infinite number of things ie that there are always more of them than can be assigned But there is no infinite number neither line nor other infinite quantity if these are understood as veritable wholes as it is easy to prove The schools have meant or have been obliged to say that in admitting a syncategorematic infinite as they call it and not a categorematic infinite The true infinite exists strictly speaking only in the absolute which is anterior to all composition and is not formed by the additions of parts
Ph When we apply our idea of the infinite to the first Being we do it primarily in respect to his duration and ubiquity and more figuratively to his power his wisdom his goodness and his other attributes
Th Not more figuratively but less immediately because the other attributes make their importance known through relation to those into which enters the consideration of parts
Ph I thought it was established that the mind regards the finite and the infinite as modifications of extension and duration
Th I do not find that it has been established that the consideration of the finite and the infinite takes place wherever there is bulk and magnitude And the true infinite is not a modification it is the absolute on the contrary when it is modified it is limited and forms a finite
Ph We have believed that since the power of the mind to expand without limit its idea of space by new additions is always the same it is thence that the idea of an infinite space is derived
Th It is well to add that this is because the same ratio is seen always to hold good Let us take a straight line and prolong it until it is double the length of the first Now it is clear that the second line being perfectly similar to the first may be itself doubled in order to have a third which is still similar to the preceding and the same ratio holding good always it is never possible to stop the process thus the line may be prolonged to infinity so that the consideration of the infinite arises from that of similarity or from the same ratio and its origin is the same with that of universal and necessary truths This shows us how what gives completion to the conception of this idea is found in ourselves and cannot come from the experience of our senses just as necessary truths cannot be proved by induction nor by the senses The idea of the absolute is in us internally like that of being these absolutes are nothing else than the attributes of God and it may be said that they are not less the source of ideas because God is himself the principle of beings The idea of the absolute in relation to space is only that of the immensity of God and so of the others But you deceive yourself in wishing to imagine an absolute space which is an infinite whole composed of parts there is none such it is a notion which implies a contradiction and these infinite wholes and their opposed infinitesimals are used only in the calculations of geometers just like the imaginary roots of algebra
Ph We conceive furthermore a magnitude without understanding thereby parts outside of parts If to the most perfect idea I have of the whitest whiteness I add another of an equal or less brilliant whiteness for I cannot add the idea of a whiter than I have which I suppose the whitest that I actually conceive it neither increases nor extends my idea in any way therefore the different ideas of whiteness are called degrees
Hi I do not fully understand the force of this reasoning for nothing prevents me from receiving the perception of a whiter whiteness than what is actually conceived The true reason why we are inclined to believe that whiteness cannot be infinitely increased is because it is not an original quality the senses give us only a confused knowledge of it and when we have a distinct knowledge of it we shall see that it arises from the structure and is limited by that of the organ of vision But as regards original or distinctly knowable qualities we see that there are sometimes means of going to infinity not only in the case of extension or if you prefer diffusion or what the scholastic philosophy calls partes extra partes as in time and place but also in the case of intention or degrees for example as regards velocity
Ph We have no idea of infinite space and nothing is plainer than the absurdity of an actual idea of an infinite number.
Th I am of the same opinion But this is not because we cannot have the idea of the infinite but because the infinite cannot be a true whole
Ph For the same reason we have then no positive idea of an infinite duration or of eternity any more than of immensity
Th I believe we have a positive idea of both and this idea is a true one provided it is not conceived as an infinite whole but as an absolute or attribute without limits which exists in reference to eternity in the necessity of the existence of God without depending upon parts and without the notions being formed by an addition of time We see furthermore in that way as I have said already that the origin of the notion of the infinite comes from the same source as that of necessary truths
Ph There are besides many simple modes formed from simple ideas Such are modes of motion as sliding rolling those of sound which are modified by notes and airs as colours by degrees not to speak of tastes and smells These always have neither measures nor distinct names any more than in the case of the complex modes because use regulates them and we will speak of them more fully when we come to words
Th The majority of modes are not sufficiently simple and can be reckoned with the complex for example to explain what sliding and rolling is besides motion you must consider surfaceresistance
Ph Let us pass from the modes which come from the senses to those given us by reflection Sensation is so to speak the actual entrance of ideas into the understanding by means of the senses When the same idea comes again into the mind without the action upon our senses of the external object which at first caused it to spring up the act of the mind is called remembrance if the mind tries to recall it and only after considerable effort finds and brings it to view it is recollection recueillement If the mind looks upon it attentively for a long time it is contemplation when the idea floats about in the mind without any attention on the part of the understanding, it is called reverie When the mind reflects upon ideas which present themselves and when it so to speak registers them in its memory it is attention and when the mind fixes itself upon an idea with much application considers it on all sides and will not be turned aside notwithstanding other ideas which come in the way we call it study or intenseness of thought Sleep accompanied by no dream is a cessation of all these things and dreaming is having these ideas in the mind while the outer senses are closed so that they do not receive the impressions of external objects with their usual quickness It is I say having ideas without an suggestion from any external objects or known occasion and apart from any choice or determination in any way of the understanding. As for that which we call ecstasy I leave others to judge whether it is not dreaming with the eyes open Th It is well to clear up these notions and I will try to aid in the work I will say then that it is sensation when an external object is perceived that remembrance consists in the repetition without the reappearance of the object; but when we know we have had it it is memory Recollection recueillement is commonly understood in a sense different from yours viz as a state in which we disengage ourselves from things in order to apply ourselves to some meditation But since there is no word known to me corresponding to your notion sir one may apply to it that which you employ We give attention to objects which we distinguish and prefer to others Attention continuing in the mind, whether the external object continues or not and even whether it is found there or not is consideration which tending to knowledge without reference to action will be contemplation Attention whose aim is to learn ie the attainment of knowledge for the sake of keeping it is study To consider in order to form a plan is to meditate but reverie appears to be nothing else than following certain thoughts for the pleasure one takes therein with no other end this is why reverie may lead to madness we forget ourselves we forget the die cur hie we approach dreams and chimeras we build castles in Spain We can distinguish dreams from sensations only because they are not united with them they are like a world apart Sleep is a cessation of sensations and in this way ecstasy is a very deep sleep from which one finds difficulty in being awakened a condition which arises from some internal passing cause which is added in order to exclude this profound sleep arising from some narcotic or from some continuous injury to the functions as in lethargy Ecstasy is sometimes accompanied with visions but there is vision without ecstasy and vision seems to be nothing but a dream which passes for a sensation just as if it acquainted us with the truth of objects And when visions are divine there is actually truth in them which may be known for instance when they contain particular prophecies which the outcome justifies
Ph From the different degrees of intensity or relaxation of the mind, it follows that thought is the act and not the essence of the soul
Th Doubtless thought is an act and cannot be the essence but it is an essential act and all substances are of this character I have shown above that we always have an infinite number of little perceptions without being conscious of them We are never without perceptions but we are necessarily often without apperceptions viz when there are no distinct perceptions It is from not having considered this important point that a relaxed philosophy as little noble as solid has prevailed with so many excellent minds and that we have hitherto almost ignored that which is most beautiful in the soul This is also the reason why so much probability has been found in that error which teaches that souls are by nature perishable
Ph As the sensations of the body like the thoughts of the mind, are either indifferent or followed by pleasure or pain the ideas of them cannot be described any more than all other simple ideas nor can the words which serve to designate them be defined
Th I believe that there are no perceptions which are wholly indifferent to us but it is enough that their effect be not notable in order that they may be thus spoken of for pleasure and pain appear to consist in a notable aid or impediment I admit that this definition is not at all nominal and that one may give none at all
Ph The good is that which is fitted to produce and increase pleasure in us or to diminish and cut short some pain Evil is fitted to produce or increase pain in us or to diminish some pleasure
Th I am also of this opinion The good is divided into the virtuous the agreeable and the useful but ultimately I believe that it must be either agreeable itself or serving something else which may give us an agreeable feeling that is to say the good is agreeable or useful and virtue itself consists in a pleasure of mind
Ph From pleasure and pain come the passions We have love for that which can produce pleasure and the thought of sadness or of pain that a present or absent cause can produce is hatred But hatred or love which relates to beings capable of happiness or misery is often an uneasiness or delight which we feel to be produced in us by the consideration of their existence or of the happiness which they enjoy
Th I also gave nearly this definition of love when I explained the principles of justice in the preface to my Codex juris gentium diplomaticus viz that to love is to be inclined to take pleasure in the complete perfection or happiness of the object loved And for that reason one neither considers nor asks for any other pleasure proper than that indeed which is found in the good or pleasure of the one who is loved but in this sense we do not, properly speaking love what is incapable of pleasure or happiness and we enjoy things of this nature without loving them for that reason unless by a prosopopoeia and as if we imagined that they themselves enjoy their perfection It is not then properly love when one says that he loves a beautiful picture for the pleasure which he takes in feeling its perfections But it is allowable to extend the sense of terms and their usage varies Philosophers and theologians even distinguish two kinds of love viz the love which they call the love of complacency which is nothing but the desire or feeling which we have for the one who gives us pleasure without concerning ourselves whether he receives it and the love of benevolence which is the feeling that one has for the one who by his pleasure or happiness gives us some The first makes us have in view our pleasure and the second that of another but as making or rather constituting ours for if it did not reflect upon us in some way we could not concern ourselves with it since it is impossible although they affirm it to be separated from the good proper And see how it is needful to understand disinterested or nonmercenary love in order to reach a favourable conception of nobility and not to fall meanwhile into the chimerical one
Ph The uneasiness French inquietude which a man feels in himself at the absence of anything which if present would give him pleasure is called desire Uneasiness is the principal not to say the only stimulus which excites human industry and action for whatever good is proposed to man if the absence of this good is followed by no displeasure or pain and he who is deprived of it can be content and at his ease without its possession he does not think of desiring and less still of making any efforts to enjoy it He feels for this kind of good only a bare velleity which approaches nearest to that state in which the soul finds itself with regard to anything which is wholly indifferent to it when the displeasure which the absence of anything causes is so inconsiderable that it is carried only to feeble longings without being compelled to avail itself of the means of obtaining it Desire is moreover extinguished or abated by the opinion that the wished for good cannot be obtained in proportion as the souls uneasiness is cured or allayed by that consideration For the rest I have found what I stated to you about uneasiness in this celebrated English author whose views I often relate to you I was a little in difficulty as to the definition of the English word uneasiness But the French translator whose skill in the fulfilment of this task cannot be called in question remarks at the foot of the page chap that by this word the English author understands the state of a man not at his ease the lack of ease and of tranquillity of soul which in this regard is purely passive and that it must be translated by the French word inquietude which does not express exactly the same idea but approaches it very nearly This caution he adds is above all needful with regard to the following chapter Of Power in which the author reasons much upon this kind of uneasiness for if you should not attach to this word the idea which has just been indicated it would be impossible exactly to understand the matters treated of in this chapter and which are the most important and delicate in the entire work
Th The translator is right and the reading of his excellent author shows me that this consideration of uneasiness is a capital point in which this author has particularly shown his penetrating and profound mind For this reason I gave it some attention and after having well considered the matter it almost appears to me that the French word inquietude restlessness if it does not express quite the meaning of the author nevertheless sufficiently agrees with the nature of the thing and that the English word uneasiness if it indicated a displeasure fretfulness chagrin inconvenience in a word some effective pain would not suit his meaning For I should prefer to say that in the desire in itself there is rather a disposition and preparation for pain than pain itself. It is true that this perception sometimes differs from that which is in pain only more or less but it is the degree which is the essence of pain for it is a notable perception The same is also seen in the difference between appetite and hunger for when the stomachs irritation becomes too strong it is uncomfortable so that we must also apply here our doctrine of perceptions too small to be perceived for if that which goes on in us when we have appetite and desire were great enough it would cause us pain Hence the infinitely wise author of our being arranged it for our good when he so arranged it that we should often be in ignorance and among confused perceptions in order to act more promptly by instinct and in order not to be disturbed by too distinct sensations of a multitude of objects which do not recur immediately and the nature of which could not go on to obtain their ends How many insects we swallow without noticing them how many persons we see who having a too penetrating odour are annoying and how many disgusting objects we should see if our vision were penetrating enough It is also for the sake of this skill that nature has given us the stimuli of desire like the rudiments or elements of pain or so to speak of semipains or if you wish to speak extravagantly in order to express yourself more forcibly the little imperceptible pains in order that we might enjoy the advantage of evil without its inconvenience for otherwise if this perception were too distinct we would always be miserable while awaiting the good while this continual victory over these semipains which are felt in pursuing our desire and satisfying in some way this appetite or this longing gives us a quantity of semipleasures whose continuity and mass as in the continuity of the impulse of a heavy body which falls and acquires impetuosity becomes at last a complete and genuine pleasure And finally without these semipains there would be no pleasure at all nor any means of perceiving that something aids and relieves us while there are some obstacles which prevent us from putting ourselves at ease It is furthermore in this that we recognize the affinity of pleasure and pain which Socrates in Platos Phsedo noticed when his feet itched This consideration of little aids or little releases and imperceptible deliverances from the fixed tendency whose result at last is a notable pleasure serves also to give a more distinct knowledge of the confused idea which we have, and ought to have of pleasure and of pain just as the sensation of heat and of light results from a quantity of little motions which express those of objects as I said above chap and differ from them only in appearance and because we ourselves are not conscious of this analysis while many today believe that our ideas of sensequalities differ toto genere from notions and from all that goes on in objects and are something primitive and inexplicable and indeed arbitrary as if God made the soul sensible of whatever seems good to him instead of what goes on in the body a view which is far removed from the true analysis of our ideas But to return to uneasiness that is to say to the little imperceptible solicitations which keep us always in suspense these are confused determinations so that often we do not know what we lack while in the case of the inclinations and passions we at least know what we ask for although confused perceptions enter also into their methods of acting and the passions themselves also cause this uneasiness or longing These impulses are like so many little springs which try to release themselves and which make our machine go And I have already remarked above that it is in this way that we are never indifferent when we most appear to be so for example in turning to the right rather than to the left at the end of a path For the side we take arises from these insensible determinations mixed with the actions of objects and the interior of the body which makes us find ourselves more at ease in the one or the other manner of bestirring ourselves The pendulum of a clock is called Unruhe in German ie uneasiness We may say that the same condition exists in our body which can never be perfectly at ease because if it might be so a new impression of objects a slight change in the organs in the vessels and in the viscera would at once alter the balance and cause them to make some slight effort to put themselves again in the best state possible this produces a perpetual strife which causes so to speak the uneasiness of our clock so that this appellation is quite to my taste
Ph Joy is a pleasure felt by the soul when it considers the possession of a present or future good as assured and we are in possession of a good when it is so in our power that we can enjoy it when we wish
Th Languages lack words sufficiently suitable to distinguish kindred notions Perhaps the Latin gaudium draws nearer this definition of joy than Icetitia which is also translated by the word Joy but then it appears to me to signify a state in which pleasure predominates in us for during the profoundest sorrow and in the midst of the most poignant grief one may take some pleasure as in drinking or hearing music but the unpleasant feeling predominates and so in the midst of the most acute pain the mind can be joyful as in the case of the martyrs
Ph Sorrow is an uneasiness of the soul when it thinks of a lost good which it might have enjoyed a longer time or when it is tormented by an actually present evil
Th Not only the actual presence but also the fear of coming evil may make one sad so that I believe the definitions of joy and sorrow which I have just given agree the better with usage As to uneasiness there is in pain and consequently in sorrow something more and there is uneasiness even in joy for it makes a man awake active full of hope to go farther Joy has been capable of causing death by excess of emotion and then there was in it still more than uneasiness
Ph Hope is the contentment of the soul which thinks of • the enjoyment which it is destined probably to have in a thing suited to give it pleasure And fear is an uneasiness of the soul at the thought of a future evil that may happen
Th I uneasiness signifies trouble I admit that it always accompanies fear but taking it as this insensible spur which pushes us on it may be applied also to hope The Stoics regarded the passions as thoughts thus hope was to them the thought of a future good and fear the thought of a future evil But I prefer to say that the passions are neither satisfaction nor displeasures nor thoughts but tendencies or rather modifications of the tendency which come from thought or feeling and which are accompanied by pleasure or displeasure
Ph Despair is the thought one has that a good cannot be obtained causing sometimes pain and sometimes rest
Th Despair taken as passion is a kind of strong tendency which finds itself suddenly arrested a condition which causes a violent struggle and much displeasure But when despair is accompanied with rest and indolence it is rather a thought than a passion
Ph Anger is the uneasiness or discomposure we feel after having received some injury and which is accompanied with a present desire to avenge ourselves
Th Anger seems to be something simpler and more general since animals are susceptible to it to whom no injury is done There is in anger a violent effort tending to annul the evil The desire for vengeance may remain when one is in cold blood and has hatred rather than anger
Ph Envy is the uneasiness displeasure of the soul which arises from the consideration of a good we desire but which another possesses who in our opinion should not have had it in preference to ourselves
Th According to this notion envy would be always a praiseworthy passion and always based upon justice at least in our opinion But I know not whether men do not often bear envy towards recognized merit which they would not hesitate to treat ill if they had the power They even bear envy towards persons regarding a good which they themselves would not care to have They would be content to see them deprived of it without thinking of profiting from their despoilments and indeed without being able to hope for it For some good things are like pictures painted in fresco which can be destroyed but which cannot be taken away
Ph Most of the passions make in many persons impressions on the body and cause therein various changes but these changes are not always sensible for example shame which is a felt uneasiness of the soul when it comes to consider that it has done something indecent or which may lessen the estimate others have of us is not always accompanied by blushing
Th If men would study to observe more closely the external movements which accompany the passions it would be difficult to conceal them As for shame it is worthy of consideration that modest persons sometimes feel movements similar to those of shame when they are witnesses only of an indecent action
Ph The mind observing how one thing ceases to be and how another which was not before comes to exist and concluding that there will be in the future parallel cases produced by parallel agents comes to consider in one thing the possibility that one of its simple ideas may be changed and in another the possibility of producing that change and in that way the mind forms the idea of power
Th is power corresponds to the Latin potentia it is opposed to act and the passage from power to act is change This is what Aristotle understands by the word motion when he says that it is the act or perhaps the actuation of that which is in power It may be said then that power in general is the possibility of change Now change or the act of this possibility being action in one subject and passion in another there will be two powers one passive the other active The active may be called faculty and perhaps the passive might be called capacity or receptivity It is true the active power is sometimes taken in a more complete sense when besides the simple faculty there is a tendency and it is thus that I take it in my dynamical considerations The word force might be appropriated to it in particular and force would be either entelecliy or effort for entelecliy although Aristotle takes it so generally that it comprises also all action and all effort appears to me more appropriate to primitive acting forces and that of effort to the derivative There is even also a kind of passive power more particular and more endowed with reality namely that which is in matter in which there is not only mobility which is the capacity or receptivity for motion but also resistance which includes impenetrability and inertia Entelechies ie primitive or substantial tendencies when accompanied by perception are souls
Ph The idea of power expresses some kind of relation But what one of our ideas of whatever kind does not include some relation Our ideas of extension of duration of number do they not all contain in themselves a secret relation of parts The same thing is noticed in a still more visible manner in figure and motion Sensible qualities what are they but the powers of different bodies in relation to our perception and do they not depend in themselves upon bulk figure the contexture and motion of the parts? which puts a kind of relation between them Thus our idea of power may very well be placed in my opinion among the other simple ideas
Th At bottom the ideas which we have just enumerated are composite those of sensible qualities hold their place among the simple ideas only because of our ignorance and the others which we know distinctly keep their place only by an indulgence which it were better they should not have It is almost the same with regard to the common axioms which might be and which deservedly should be proved among the theorems and which are allowed to pass nevertheless as axioms as if they were primitive truths This indulgence does more harm than we think It is true we are not always in a position to do without it
Ph If we consider the matter carefully bodies do not furnish us by means of the senses with so clear and so distinct an idea of active power as that which we have from reflection upon the workings of our mind There are I believe but two kinds of actions of which we have an idea viz thinking and motion Of thought body gives us no idea and it is only through reflection that we have it Neither have we from the body any idea of the beginning of motion
Th These considerations are most excellent and although here I take thought in a manner so general that it includes all perception I do not wish to dispute the use of terms
Ph When the body is itself in motion this motion in the body is an action rather than a passion but when a billiard ball yields at the stroke of the cue it is not an action of the ball but a simple passion
Th There is something to be said upon that point for the bodies did not receive motion in the impact according to the laws observed therein if they already had not motion in themselves But pass we now this point
Ph The same is true when it pushes another ball which it finds in its way and puts in motion it only communicates to it the motion it had received and itself loses just as much
Th I see that this erroneous view which the Cartesians have brought into fashion as if bodies lost as much motion as they give to others which is today overthrown by experiments and by reason and abandoned moreover by the illustrious author of The Search after Truth who has published a brief treatise for the express purpose of retracting it still gives scholars occasion to be mistaken in constructing trains of reasoning upon so ruinous a foundation
Ph The transfer of motion gives us only a very obscure idea of an active power of motion in the body so long as we see nothing else than that the body transfers motion but does not in any way produce it
Th CI do not know whether they here maintain that motion passes from subject to subject and that the same motion idem numero is transferred I know that some contrary to the view of the entire scholastic philosophy have gone that far among others the Jesuit Father Casati But I doubt whether this is your view or that of your scholarly friends ordinarily far removed from such fancies If however the same motion is not transferred we must admit that a new motion is produced in the body which receives it thus the one which gives would really act although it would be passive at the same time while losing its force For although it is not true that the body loses as much motion as it gives it is always true that it loses some motion and that it loses as much force as it gives as I have elsewhere explained so that it is always necessary to admit in it force or active power I understand power in the more noble sense which I have explained a little before in which tendency is united with faculty Nevertheless I am always agreed with you that the clearest idea of active power comes to us from the mind It is also only in things which are analogous to the mind that is to say in entelechies for matter properly speaking shows only passive power
Ph We find in ourselves the power to begin or not to begin to continue or to end many actions of our soul and many motions of our body and this simply by a thought or choice of our mind which determines and commands so to speak that such a particular action be done or not done This power we call Will The actual use of this power is called Volition the cessation or production of the action which follows such a command of the soul is called voluntary and all action done without such direction of the soul is called involuntary
Th Cl find all that very good and just However to speak more fairly and to go perhaps a little farther I will say that volition is the effort or tendency conatus towards what is considered good and against that considered bad so that this tendency results immediately from the consciousness one has of them And the corollary of this definition is this celebrated axiom that will and power united action follows since from all tendency action follows when it is not hindered Thus not only the internal voluntary actions of our minds follow from this conatus but also the external that is to say the voluntary movements of our bodies in virtue of the union of the soul and the body the reason of which I have elsewhere given There are besides the efforts resulting from the insensible perceptions of which we are not conscious which I prefer to call appetitions rather than volitions although there are also apperceptible appetitions for those actions alone are called voluntary of which we may be conscious and upon which our reflection may fall when they follow the consideration of good and evil
Ph The power of perceiving we call understanding it includes the perception of ideas the perception of the signification of signs and finally the perception of the agreement or disagreement existing between any of our ideas
Th We perceive many things within and without us which we do not understand and we understand them when we have distinct ideas of them together with the power of reflection and of drawing from them necessary truths Animals therefore have no understanding at least in this sense, although they have the faculty of perceiving impressions more remarkable and more distinct as the boar perceives a person who shouts at him and goes straight for this person of whom he had had before only a cloudy perception but con fused as of all other objects which fell under his eyes and whose rays struck his crystalline humour Thus in my view the understanding corresponds to what among the Latins is called intellect us and the exercise of this faculty is called intellection which is a distinct perception united with the faculty of reflection which is not in animals Every perception united with this faculty is a thought which I do not accord to the animals any more than understanding so that we may say there is intellection when thought is distinct For the rest the perception of the signification of signs does not deserve to be distinguished here from the perception of the ideas signified
Ph It is commonly said that the understanding and the will are two faculties of the soul a term suitable enough if used as we ought to use all words taking care that they cause no confusion to spring up in the thoughts of men as I suspect has happened here in the case of the soul And when we are told that the will is that superior faculty of the soul which rules and orders all things that it is or is not free that it determines the lower faculties that it follows the dictamen of the understanding; although these expressions may be understood in a sense clear and distinct I fear however that they have caused to arise in many persons the confused idea of so many distinct agents acting distinctly in us
Th The question has exercised the scholastics a long time whether there is a real distinction between the soul and its faculties and whether one faculty is really distinct from another The Realists have said yes and the Nominalists no and the same question has been agitated as to the reality of many other abstract entities which should meet the same fate But I do not think we need here decide this question and plunge into these difficulties although I remember that Episcopius found it of such importance that he thought he could not maintain the freedom of man if the faculties of the soul were real entities However if they were real and distinct entities they can pass for real agents only in extravagant speech It is not the faculties or qualities which act but substances by means of the faculties
Ph So long as man has the power to think or to refrain from thinking to move or not to move according to the preference or choice of his own mind so long he is free
Th The term freedom is very ambiguous There is freedom of right and of fact As regards that of right a slave is not at all free a subject is not wholly free but a poor man is as free as a rich man Freedom of fact consists either in the power to will as one ought or in the power to do what one wills It is of the freedom to do of which you speak and it has its degrees and varieties Generally he who has the most means is the freest to do what he wills but in particular freedom is understood of the use of things which are ordinarily in our power and above all of the free use of our body Thus the prison and the diseases which prevent us from giving to our body and our limbs the motion we wish and which we can ordinarily give them detract from our freedom thus a prisoner is not at all free and a paralytic has no free use of his limbs Freedom of will is furthermore understood in two different senses The first is when it is opposed to the imperfection or the slavery of the spirit which is a coaction or constraint but internal like that arising from the passions The other sense has place when freedom is opposed to necessity In the first sense the Stoics said that the wise man alone is free and in fact the spirit is not at all free when it is filled with a great passion for one cannot then will as he should that is to say with the deliberation which is requisite Thus God alone is perfectly free and created spirits are so only to the extent that they are superior to their passions And this freedom concerns properly our understanding But the freedom of spirit opposed to necessity concerns the naked will and in so far as it is distinguished from the understanding This is what is called freewill franc arbitre and it consists in this that we will that the strongest reasons or impressions which the understanding presents to the will do not prevent the act of the will from being contingent and do not give it an absolute and so to speak metaphysical necessity And it is in this sense that I am accustomed to say that the understanding can determine the will according to the prevalence of perceptions and reasons in a manner which even where it is certain and infallible inclines without compelling
Ph It is well also to consider that no one has yet thought of taking as a free agent a ball whether in motion by the stroke of a racket or at rest This is because we do not conceive of a ball as thinking or as having any volition which makes it prefer motion to rest
Th If that were free which acts without hindrance a ball once in motion in a level horizon would be a free agent But Aristotle has already well remarked that to call acts free we demand not only that they be spontaneous but further that they be deliberate
Ph This is why we consider the motion or rest of balls under the idea of a necessary thing
Th The appellation necessary requires as much circumspection as that of free This conditional truth viz supposing the ball to be in motion in a level horizon without hindrance it will continue the same motion may pass as in some sort necessary although at bottom this consequence is not entirely geometrical being only presumptive so to speak and based upon the wisdom of God who changes not his influence without a reason which it is presumed is not at present to be found But this absolute proposition the bull here is now in motion in this plane is only a contingent truth and in this sense the ball is a contingent not a free agent
Ph Suppose that a man while in a profound sleep is carried into a room where is a person whom he much longs to see and to meet and that the door is locked upon him this man wakes up and is delighted to find himself with this person and lives thus in the room with pleasure I think no one presumes to doubt that he remains voluntarily in that place Yet he is not at liberty to go out if he wishes Thus freedom is not an idea belonging to volition
Th I find this example very well chosen to show that in a sense an act or a state may be voluntary without being free Still when philosophers and theologians dispute upouree idill they have altogether another sense in view
Ph Freedom is wanting when paralysis prevents the limbs from obeying the determination of the mind, although in the case of the paralytic even to remain sitting still might be voluntary so long as he prefers sitting still to changing his place Voluntary is not then opposed to necessary but to involuntary
Th This precision of expression would be agreeable enough to me but usage is far from it and those who oppose freedom to necessity mean to speak not of external acts but of the act itself of willing
Ph A man awake is no more at liberty to think or not to think than he is at liberty to prevent or not to prevent his body from touching any other body But to transfer his thoughts from one idea to another is often within his determination And in that case he is as much at liberty as regards his ideas as he is as regards the bodies upon which he rests being able to transfer himself from one to the other as the fancy arises There are however ideas which like certain bodily movements are so fixed in the mind, that in certain circumstances you cannot avoid them whatever effort you make A man upon the rack is not at liberty to put aside the idea of pain and sometimes a violent passion acts upon our mind as the most violent wind acts upon our body
Th There is order and connection in ideas as there is in bodily movements for the one corresponds perfectly to the other although the determination in the movements be unconscious and free or with choice in the thinking being whom good and evil only cause to incline without forcing him For the soul while representing bodies preserves its own perfections and although dependent upon the body in seizing the good in the voluntary acts it is independent and makes the body depend upon itself in others But this dependence is only metaphysical and consists in the considerations which God has for the one while ruling the other or rather for both according to the original perfections of each whilst physical dependence would consist in an immediate influence which the one would receive from the other on which it depends For the rest there come to us involuntary thoughts partly from outside by means of objects which strike our senses and partly from within by reason of the impressions often insensible which remain from preceding perceptions whose action continues and which mingle with those which appear for the first time As regards these we are passive and even when we wake up images under which designation I include not only the representations of figures but also those of sounds and other sensible qualities come to us as in dreams without being called The German language calls them Jliegende Gedanken that is flying thoughts pensies volantes which are not within our control and among which there are sometimes many absurdities which raise scruples in good people and furnish exercise to casuists and directors of consciences It is as in the magic lantern which makes figures appear upon the wall according as something within is turned But our mind perceiving some image which recurs to it may say stop there and so to speak arrest it Moreover the mind enters as seems good to itself into certain trains of thought which lead it on to others But this is true only when internal or external impressions do not at all prevail It is true that in this thing men differ very much both according to their temperament and according as they have exercised their control so that one can master impressions where another lets them go
Ph Necessity takes place wherever thought is wholly wanting And this necessity when found is an agent capable of volition and when the commencement or continuation of any action is contrary to the preference of his mind I call it compulsion when the hindering or stopping of an action is contrary to his volition I may call it restraint Agents which have absolutely neither thought nor volition are in all respects necessary agents
Th It seems to me that properly speaking although volitions are contingent necessity should not be opposed to volition but to contingency as I have already remarked in and that necessity should not be confounded with determination for there is no less connection or determination in thoughts than in movements to be determined being a wholly different thing from being pushed or forced by compulsion And if we do not always notice the reason which determines us or by which we determine ourselves it is because we are as little capable ourselves of perceiving the entire play of our mind and its thoughts very often imperceptible and confused as we are of recognizing all the machinery which nature causes to play in the body Thus if by necessity you mean the certain determination of man which a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances within and without could make a perfect mind foresee it is certain that thoughts being as determined as the motions they represent every free act would be a necessary act But necessity must be distinguished from contingency although determined and not only are contingent truths not at all necessary but further their connections are not always of an absolutely necessary character for it must be admitted that there is some difference in the manner of determining between consequences which take place in necessary matter and those which take place in contingent matter Geometrical and metaphysical consequences necessitate but physical and moral incline without necessitating the physical even having something of the moral and voluntary as related to God since the laws of movement have no other necessity than that of the principle or choice of— Tr the best Now God chooses freely although he is determined to choose the best and as bodies themselves do not choose God having chosen for them usage has decided that they be called necessary agents to which I am not opposed provided we do not confound the necessary and the determined and do not suppose that free beings act in an indeterminate manner an error which has prevailed in certain minds and which destroys the most important truths even this fundamental axiom that nothing happens without reason without which neither the existence of God nor other great truths could be satisfactorily demonstrated As for compulsion it is well to distinguish two kinds the one physical as when a man is carried in spite of himself into prison or thrown down a precipice the other moral as for example, the constraint of a greater evil and this act although in a sense forced does not cease to be voluntary One may be compelled also by the consideration of a greater good as when a man is tempted by proposing to him a too great advantage although it is not customary to call this constraint
Ph Let us see now if we cannot put an end to that long agitated and in my opinion very unreasonable because unintelligible question Whether mans will is free or no
Th There is much reason for the exclamation with respect to the strange manner of men who torment themselves by agitating badly conceived questions They seek for what they know and know not for what they seek
Ph Freedom which is only a power belongs only to agents and cannot be an attribute or modification of the will which is itself nothing else than a power
Th You are right sir according to the proper use of words One can however in some measure excuse received usage Thus it is customary to attribute power to heat or to other qualities ie to the body in so far as possessed of that quality and in like manner the intent here is to ask if man is free in willing
Ph Freedom is the power a man has of doing or not doing any act conformably to his will
Th If men understood only that by freedom when they ask whether the will or the arbiter is free their question would be truly absurd But you will see presently what they ask and indeed I have already touched upon it It is true but by another principle that they at least many do not cease to ask for the absurd and the impossible in desiring a freedom of equilibrium absolutely imaginary and impracticable and which indeed would not serve them were it possible for them to have it ie to have the freedom of willing against all the impressions which can come from the understanding which would destroy true freedom together with the reason and lower us below the beasts
Ph He who should say that the power of speaking directs the power of singing and that the power of singing obeys or disobeys the power of speaking would express himself in as proper and intelligent a manner as he who says as has been usual that the will directs the understanding, and that the understanding obeys or disobeys the will Nevertheless this manner of speaking has prevailed and has caused if I am not mistaken much confusion although the power of thinking operates no more upon the power of choosing and the contrary than the power of singing upon that of dancing I grant that this or that thought may furnish man the occasion of exercising his power of choosing and that the minds choice may be the cause of its actually thinking on this or that thing just as actually singing a certain tune may be the occasion of dancing such a dance
Hi There is a little more than the furnishing of occasions since there is some dependence for you can will only what you find to be good and according as the faculty of understanding is improved the choice of the will is better as on the other hand according as man has vigour of will he determines his thoughts according to his choice instead of being determined and carried away by involuntary perceptions
Ph Powers are relations not agents
Th If the essential faculties are only relations and add nothing whatever to the essence the qualities and the faculties that are accidental or subject to change are something else and we may say of these last that the one often depends upon the other in the exercise of their functions
Ph In my opinion the question should not be whether the will is free — that is to speak in a very improper manner — but whether the man is free That granted I say that so long as anyone can by the direction or choice of his mind prefer the existence of an action to its nonexistence and the contrary ie can make it exist or not exist according as he wills so long he is free And we can scarcely say how we could possibly conceive a being freer than so far as he is able to do what he wills So that man seems to be as free in reference to those actions which depend upon this power he finds in himself as it is possible for freedom to make him if I may so express myself
Th When we reason about the freedom of the will or upon freewill franc arbitre we do not ask if man can do what he wills but if there is enough independence in his will itself We do not ask if he has free limbs or elbowroom but if he has a free spirit and in what it consists In this respect one intelligence might be freer than another and the supreme intelligence will exist in perfect freedom of which creatures are not at all capable
Ph Men naturally inquisitive and who love to remove as much as they can from their minds the thought of guilt although it be by reducing themselves to a state worse than that of a fatal necessity are not however satisfied with this Unless freedom extends still farther it is not to their taste and in their opinion it is a very good proof that man is not at all wholly free unless he has as well the freedom to will as that of doing what he wills Concerning which I believe that man cannot be free in reference to this particular act of willing an action which is in his power when this action has been once proposed to his mind The reason therein is wholly manifest for the action depending upon his will must unavoidably exist or not exist and its existence or nonexistence following without fail exactly the determination and choice of his will he cannot avoid willing the existence or nonexistence of this action
Th I should think he could suspend his choice and that this happens very often above all when other thoughts interrupt deliberation thus although the action deliberated upon necessarily exists or not it does not at all follow that you must necessarily determine upon its existence or nonexistence for nonexistence may happen again for want of resolution Thus the Areopagites actually released the man whose case they had found too difficult to decide deferring it to a term far distant and taking a hundred years to consider it
Ph In making man free in this fashion I mean in making the act of willing depend upon his will another will or anterior faculty of volition is necessary in order to determine the acts of this will and another to determine that and thus to infinity for wherever you stop the actions of the last will could not be free
Th It is true you speak incorrectly when you speak as if we willed to will We do not will to will but we will to do and if we willed to will we should will to will to will and this would go on to infinity meanwhile it is not necessary to conceal that by some voluntary acts we contribute often indirectly to other voluntary acts and although one cannot will what he will as he cannot even judge what he will he can however so act in advance that he judges or wills at the time what he would wish to be able to will or judge today Men attach themselves to persons lectures and considerations favourable to a certain party they give no attention to that which comes from the opposite party and by these addresses and a thousand others which they employ most frequently without definite design and without thought they succeed in deceiving themselves or at least in changing and converting or perverting themselves according to what they meet
Ph Since then it is evident that man is not at liberty to will to will or not the next thing demanded is whether man is at liberty to will which of the two he pleases for example motion or rest But this question is in itself so visibly absurd that it may suffice to convince anyone who will reflect that freedom in no case concerns the will For to ask whether a man is free to will what he pleases motion or rest speech or silence is to ask whether a man can will what he wills or be pleased with that with which he is pleased a question which in my opinion needs no answer
Th It is true nevertheless that men find here a difficulty which deserves to be removed They say that after having known and considered all it is still within their power to will not only what pleases them the most but furthermore wholly the contrary merely to show their freedom But you must consider that this caprice or obstinacy or at least this reason which hinders them from following other reasons also enters into the balance and makes that please them which would otherwise not do so so that choice is always determined by perception They do not then will what they would but what pleases although the will can contribute indirectly and as it were from afar to make anything pleasurable or otherwise as I have already remarked And as men scarcely recognize all these separate considerations it is not astonishing that the mind is so perplexed in regard to this matter which has so many concealed windings
Ph When men ask what it is that determines the will the true reply is the mind If this answer is not satisfactory it is plain that the meaning of the question reduces to this What moves the mind on each particular occasion to determine to such particular motion or rest its general power of directing its faculties towards motion or rest To this I reply that what leads us to remain in the same state or continue the same action is solely the present satisfaction we find therein On the other hand the motive which incites to change is always some uneasiness
Th This uneasiness as I have shown in the preceding chapter is not always a displeasure as ease when found is not always a satisfaction or pleasure It is often an insensible perception which cannot be distinguished or recognized which makes us lean to one side rather than the other without our being able to give a reason for so doing
Ph Will and desire should not be confounded a man desires to be freed from the gout but understanding that the removal of this pain may cause the transfer of a dangerous humour into some more vital part his will cannot be determined to any action which may serve to remove this pain
Th This desire is a kind of an inclination of will velleite as compared with a complete volition We should will for example if there were no greater evil to be feared if we obtained what we wish or if perhaps there were a greater good to be hoped for if we went forward But we can say that man wills to be delivered from the gout with a certain degree of volition but which does not always go on to the last effort This volition is called Velleity when it includes some imperfection or impotency
Ph It is well to consider however that what determines the will to act is not the greater good as is ordinarily supposed but rather some actual uneasiness and ordinarily l Cf Xea Efsayit Book II chap Ph and note ante p — Tr that which is most pressing We may give it the name of desire which is really an uneasiness of mind caused by the want of some absent good over and above the desire of being freed from pain All absent good does not produce a pain proportionate to the degree of excellence which it has or which we acknowledge it to have whilst all pain causes a desire equal to itself because the absence of good is not always an evil as is the presence of pain Therefore we can look upon and consider an absent good without pain But in proportion as there is anywhere desire so is there uneasiness Who is there who has not felt in desire what the wise man says of hope that being deferred it makes the heart sick Prov Rachel cries Give me children or I die Gen When man is perfectly content with the state he is in or when he is absolutely free from all uneasiness what will can remain to him but to continue in that state Thus the wise Author of our being has put in men the inconvenience of hunger and thirst and other natural desires in order to arouse and determine their wills to the proper conservation and continuation of their species It is better to marry than to burn says St Paul Cor So true it is that the present sensation of a little burning has more power over us than the attractions of greater pleasures looked at in the distance It is true that this maxim it is the good and the greatest good which determines the will is so firmly established that I am not at all surprised at having formerly regarded it as beyond doubt But after strict inquiry I am forced to conclude that the good and the greatest good although judged and acknowledged such does not determine the will unless coming to desire it in a manner proportional to its excellence this desire makes us uneasy at our deprivation of it Suppose a man convinced of the utility of virtue so far as to see that it is necessary to the man who proposes anything great in this world or hopes to be happy in the other but until this man hungers and thirsts after righteousness his will will never be determined to any action in search for this excellent good and any other uneasiness coming in the way will drag his will to other things On the other hand suppose a man given to wine considers that by leading the life he leads he is ruining his health and wasting his property that he is coming to be dishonoured in the world to bring upon himself disease and to fall at last into poverty until he no longer has wherewith to satisfy this passion for drink which so strongly possesses him nevertheless the returns of uneasiness which he feels in being absent from his companions in debauch drag him to the tavern at the hours he has been wont to go there though at the time he has before his eyes the loss of his health and estate and perhaps even that of the happiness of the other life happiness which he cannot regard as a good inconsiderable in itself since he admits that it is much more excellent than the pleasure of drinking or the vain chatter of a company of debauchees It is not then for want of casting the eyes upon the sovereign good that he persists in this intemperance for he sees it and acknowledges its excellence to the extent that during the time that intervenes between his drinking hours he resolves to apply himself to the search for this sovereign good but when the uneasiness of being deprived of his accustomed pleasure comes to torment him this good which he acknowledges more excellent than that of drinking has no longer power over his mind and it is this actual uneasiness which determines his will to the action to which it is accustomed and which thereby making very strong impressions prevails again at the first occasion although at the same time he binds himself so to speak by secret promises no longer to do the same thing and imagines that this will be the last time that he will act against his highest interest Thus he finds himself from time to time reduced to saying I see the better way I approve it and I take the worse This sentence which we acknowledge as true and which is only too well confirmed by a constant experience is easy to understand in this way and there is perhaps no other sense in which it can be taken
Th There is something beautiful and solid in these considerations But I would not have you believe on that account that we must abandon those ancient axioms that the will follows the greatest good or that it flies from the greatest evil that it perceives The source of the little application to true goods arises mainly from the fact that in matters and on the occasions where the senses act but little the greater part of our thoughts are so to speak surd I call them cogitationes ccecce in Latin ie void of perception and feeling and consisting in the wholly empty employment of characters as happens in the case of those who make algebraic calculations without considering from time to time that the geometrical figures in question and the words ordinarily produce the same effect in this regard as the characters of arithmetic or algebra One often reasons in words without having quite the same object in mind Now this knowledge cannot move something living is necessary in order to arouse us But thus it is that men most frequently think of God of virtue of happiness they speak and reason without definite ideas Not that they cannot have them since they are in their mind But they do not trouble themselves to press their analysis Sometimes they have ideas of an absent good or evil but very feeble It is then no wonder that they are scarcely affected Thus if we prefer the bad it is because we perceive the good which it includes without perceiving either the bad therein or the good in the contrary consideration We assume and believe or rather we make the statement merely upon anothers belief or at most upon belief in the memory of our past reasonings that the greatest good is on the better side or the greatest evil on the other But when we do not look at these at all our thoughts and reasonings contrary to the feeling are a kind of psittacism which furnishes nothing at present to the mind and if we take no measures to remedy it it is idle talk as I have already remarked above Bk I chap and the most beautiful precepts of morality together with the best rules of prudence take effect only in a soul which is sensible either directly or because that cannot always be at least indirectly as I shall show presently and which is no longer sensible to that which is contrary thereto Cicero well says somewhere that if our eyes could see the beauty of virtue we should love it warmly but that not being at all the case nor anything equivalent we must not be astonished if in the struggle between the flesh and the spirit the spirit so many times yields since it does not clearly perceive its advantages The struggle is nothing else than the opposition of different tendencies which spring from confused and distinct thoughts Confused thoughts often make themselves clearly felt but our distinct thoughts are ordinarily clear only potentially they might be clear if we would apply ourselves to the penetration of the sense of the words or characters but not doing so either through negligence or because of the shortness of time we oppose mere words or at least too feeble images to living feelings I knew a man influential in church and state whose infirmities made him resolve to diet but he admitted that he had not been able to resist the odour of the viands which passing before his apartment were carried to others It is doubtless a disgraceful weakness but it is just what men have done But if the mind made good use of its advantages it would triumph grandly It would be necessary to begin with education which should be so regulated as to render true good and true evil as sensible as possible by investing the notions which are formed of them with circumstances more suited to this design and a fullgrown man who lacks this excellent education should commence rather late than never to seek pleasures enlightened and reasonable in order to oppose them to those of the senses which are confused but impressive And in fact divine grace itself is a pleasure which gives light Thus when a man is in the midst of good impulses he ought to make laws and regulations for the future and execute them rigorously tearing himself away from those causes able to corrupt him either brusquely or gradually according to the nature of the circumstances A journey expressly undertaken will cure a lover a retreat will draw us from the companions who support us in some bad inclination Francis of Borgia General of the Jesuits who has at last been canonized being wont to drink largely when he was a man in high life reduced himself little by little upon a small scale when he thought of retiring from the world by causing a drop of wax to fall daily into the bottle which he was wont to empty To dangerous sensibilities we shall oppose some other innocent sensibility as agriculture gardening we shall shun idleness we shall collect curiosities of nature and art we shall make experiments and researches we shall engage in some indispensable occupation if we have none or in conversation or useful and agreeable reading In a word we must profit from good impulses as from the voice of God which summons us to make effective resolutions And as we cannot always analyse the notions of true goods and true evils until we perceive the pleasure and pain they include we must once for all make this law in order to be moved by them to attend to and follow henceforth the conclusions of reason once for all understood although perceived afterward and ordinarily only by thoughts surd merely and destitute of sense attractions and this in order to put yourselves finally in possession of control over the passions as well as of the insensible inclinations or uneasinesses by acquiring this habit of acting according to reason which makes virtue pleasant and as it were natural But it is not our business here to give and teach the precepts of morality or the spiritual directions and address for the exercise of true piety it is enough that in considering the procedure of our soul we see the source of our weaknesses the knowledge of which gives at the same time that of their remedies
Ph The present uneasiness which presses us works only upon the will and naturally determines it in view of that happiness to which we all aim in all our actions because everyone regards pain and uneasiness ie the restlessness or rather inconvenience which prevents us from being at our ease as incompatible with happiness A little pain suffices to corrupt all the pleasures we enjoy Consequently that which determines incessantly the choice of our will to the succeeding action will always be the removing of pain as long as we feel any touch of it this removal being the first step towards happiness
Th If you take your uneasiness or inquietude as a veritable displeasure in this sense I do not admit that it is the sole incentive Most frequently these are the little insensible perceptions which might be called imperceptible pains if the notion of pain did not include apperception These little impulsions consist in delivering themselves continually from little obstacles towards which our nature works without thinking of them This uneasiness consists in truth in this that we feel without knowing it which fact makes us act in passion as well as when we appear most tranquil for we are never without some action and motion which arises only from the fact that nature always labours to put herself more at her ease And this it is which determines also before all consultation in the cases which appear to us the most indifferent because we are never perfectly in suspense and we cannot be exactly equally divided between two cases Now if these elements of pain which degenerate into veritable pain or displeasure sometimes when they overgrow were true pains we should always be miserable in pursuing the good that we seek with uneasiness and spirit But it is wholly the contrary and as I have already said above of the preceding chapter the mass of these continual little successes of nature which puts it more and more at ease in reaching for the good and enjoying its image or lessening the feeling of pain is already a considerable pleasure and often worth more than the enjoyment even of the good and very far from being obliged to regard this uneasiness as incompatible with happiness I find that uneasiness is essential to the happiness of created beings which never consists in complete possession — this makes them insensible and as it were stupid—but in a progress continuous and uninterrupted towards the greatest good which cannot fail to be accompanied by a desire or at least a continual uneasiness but which as I have just explained does not go so far as to inconvenience but limits itself to those elements or rudiments of pain partly unconscious which do not cease to be sufficient to serve as an incentive and to arouse the will as does appetite in a man who is well when it does not go to that inconvenience which makes us impatient and torments us by a too great attachment to the idea of what we lack These appetitions small or great are what are called in the schools motus primo primi and are truly the first steps which nature makes us take not so much towards happiness as towards joy for they relate only to the present but experience and reason teach us to rule these appetitions and to control them so that they may conduce to happiness I have already spoken to this effect Book I chap The appetitions are like the natural tendency of the stone which goes the most direct but not always the best path towards the centre of the earth not being able to see beforehand that it will meet rocks upon which it will break in pieces whilst it would approach its end more directly if it had mind and the means of turning aside from them Thus it is that going straight towards present pleasure we sometimes fall over the precipice of misery Hence reason opposes thereto images of the greatest good or evil to come and a firm resolution and habit of thinking before acting and then of following what shall have been recognized as the best even when the sensible reasons of our conclusions are no longer present in the mind, and consist of scarcely more than feeble impressions or even of surd thoughts which give words or signs destitute of an actual explanation so that all consists in the: Consider it well and in the Be mindful the first in order to the making of laws the second for their following even when you do not think of the reason which has called them into existence It is however well to think of them as much as possible in order that the soul may be filled with a rational joy and a pleasure accompanied with light
Ph These precautions are doubtless so much the more necessary as the idea of an absent good can counterbalance the feeling of some uneasiness or displeasure by which we are at present tormented only so far as this good arouses any desire in us How many men there are to whose minds the unspeakable joys of paradise are represented by lively pictures which they recognize as possible and probable who nevertheless would willingly content themselves with the happiness which they enjoy in this world It is the uneasiness of their present desire getting the better of them and bearing them rapidly towards the pleasures of this life which determines their wills to seek them and during all this time they are wholly insensible to the goods of the other life
Th This arises in part from the fact that men very often are but little persuaded and although they say they are a hidden unbelief reigns in the depths of their souls for they have never understood the excellent reasons which verify this immortality of souls worthy of the justice of God which is the foundation of true religion or rather they no longer remember that they understood them one or the other of which conditions however is necessary in order to conviction Few men indeed think that the future life as true religion and indeed true reason teaches it is possible and they are still farther from thinking it probable not to say certain All that they do think about it is but a psittacism or gross and vain images after the Mahometan fashion in which they themselves see little likelihood For they are very far from being moved by them as according to report were the soldiers of the Prince of the Assassins the Old Man of the Mountain who were carried away when fast asleep into a place full of delights where believing themselves in the paradise of Mahomet they were imbued by the angels or counterfeit saints with such opinions as this prince desired and whence after having been stupefied anew they were carried to the place whence they had been taken this emboldened them afterwards to undertake everything even attempts upon the lives of princes enemies of their chief I do not know whether this Lord or Old Man of the Mountain was injured for not a few great princes may be named whom he had caused to be assassinated although you may see in the English historians the letter attributed to him exonerating King Richard I of the assassination of a Count or Prince of Palestine whom this Old Man of the Mountain admitted he had had killed because he had been insulted by him Although that may be so it was perhaps because of his great zeal for his religion that this Prince of the Assassins wished to give his people a favourable idea of paradise which should always accompany their thoughts of it and prevent them from being surd without claiming on that account that they should believe that they had been in paradise itself But supposing he had made this claim it would not necessarily be astonishing if these pious frauds had been more efficacious than the truth badly managed Yet nothing would be stronger than truth if we devoted ourselves to its complete knowledge and cultivation and we should have in it without doubt the means of strongly influencing men When I consider how much ambition or avarice can accomplish in all those who once place themselves in this course of life almost destitute of sensible and present attractions I despair of nothing and I hold that virtue would be infinitely more effective accompanied as it is by so many solid goods if some happy revolution of the human race brought it for a day into demand and made it as it were fashionable It is very certain that we could accustom the youth to find their greatest pleasure in the practice of virtue And even grown up men could make themselves laws and a habit of conforming to them which would influence them as strongly and with as much uneasiness if they were turned aside from them as a drunken man would feel when he is prevented from going to the alehouse I am very happy to add these considerations upon the possibility and even upon the ease of the remedies for our evils in order not to assist in discouraging men from the pursuit of true goods by the mere exposition of our weaknesses
Ph Nearly everything consists in making constant the desire for true good And it rarely happens that any voluntary action is produced in us unless some desire accompanies it this is why will and desire are so often confounded But we must not regard the uneasiness which makes a part of or which at least accompanies most of the other passions as entirely excluded in this case For hatred fear anger envy shame have each their uneasiness and thereby influence the will I doubt if any one of these passions exists entirely alone I believe indeed that it would be difficult to find any passion unaccompanied by desire I am sure however that wherever there is uneasiness there is desire And as our eternity does not depend on the present moment we look beyond the present whatever be the pleasures which we actually enjoy and desire accompanying these glances anticipative of the future always impels the will to follow so that even in the midst of joy that which maintains the action upon which the present pleasure depends is the desire to continue it and the fear of being deprived of it and whenever a greater uneasiness than that takes possession of the mind it immediately determines the mind to a new action and the present pleasure is neglected
Th Many perceptions and inclinations concur in perfect volition which is the result of their conflict There are some imperceptible by themselves whose mass makes an uneasiness which impels us without our seeing the cause there are many joined together which tend to some object or which remove it and then it is desire or fear accompanied also by an uneasiness but which does not always go so far as pleasure or displeasure Finally there are impulses really accompanied by pleasure and by pain and all these perceptions are either new sensations or ideas resting upon some past sensation accompanied or not by memory which renewing the attractions these same images had in the preceding sensations renew also the former impulses in proportion to the vividness of the idea From all these impulses results at last the prevailing effort which makes the will complete But the desires and tendencies which are perceived are often also called volitions though less complete whether they prevail and influence or not It is thus easy to believe that volition can have but little force without desire and without aversion fuite for such I believe we may call the opposite of desire Uneasiness exists not only in the troublesome passions as hatred fear anger envy shame but further in their opposites as love hope favour and glory We may say that whenever there is desire there will be uneasiness but the contrary is not always true because often one is in a state of uneasiness without knowing what he wants and then there is no full grown desire
Ph Ordinarily the most pressing of the uneasinesses which are judged capable of being removed at that time determines the will to action
Th As the result of the balance makes the final determination I should think it may happen that the most pressing uneasiness does not prevail for though it might prevail over each of the opposed tendencies taken by themselves the others united may overcome it The mind can indeed use skilfully the dichotomies in order to cause sometimes the one sometimes the others to prevail as in an assembly we can cause one party to prevail by plurality of votes according as we shape the order of the question It is true the mind ought to look far into the future for in the moment of struggle there is no time to use these artifices All that then makes an impression bears hard upon the balance and helps to form a compound direction almost like that in mechanics and which without some prompt diversion we cannot stop Fertur equis auriga nee audit currus habenas
Ph If you ask further what it is that arouses desire I reply happiness and nothing else Happiness and misery are the names of two extremes of whose utmost bounds we are ignorant It is what eye hath not seen ear hath not heard and the heart of man hath never conceived But both make in us lively impressions by means of different kinds of satisfaction and joy of torment and sorrow which for brevitys sake I comprehend under the names of pleasure and pain both of which happen to the mind as well as to the body or to speak more accurately pertain only to the mind although sometimes they originate in the mind upon the occasion of certain thoughts and sometimes in the body from certain modifications of motion Thus happiness taken in its full extent is the utmost pleasure of which we are capable as misery taken in the same way is the greatest pain we can feel And the lowest degree of what can be called happiness is that state in which delivered from all pain we enjoy such measure of present pleasure that we cannot be content with less We call that a good which is adapted to produce in us pleasure and we call that an evil which is adapted to produce in us pain But it often happens that we do not so name it when one or another of these goods or of these evils is found in competition with a greater good or a greater evil
Th I do not know whether the greatest pleasure is possible I should think rather that it can grow infinitely for we know not how far our knowledge and our organs may be carried in all that eternity which awaits us I should think then that happiness is a lasting pleasure which cannot exist without a continual progression to new pleasures Thus of two one of whom will advance incomparably more rapidly and by greater pleasures than the other each will be happy in himself although their happiness will be unequal Happiness is then so to speak a road through pleasures and pleasure is only a step and an advance towards happiness the shortest that can be made according to present impressions but not always the best as I said towards the end of One may miss the true road in desiring to follow the shortest as the stone going straight may meet too soon obstacles which prevent it from advancing directly towards the centre of the earth Thus we know that it is the reason and the will which lead us towards happiness but that feeling and appetite carry us only towards pleasure Now although pleasure cannot receive a nominal definition any more than light or colour it can nevertheless receive like them a causal and I believe that at bottom pleasure is a feeling of perfection and pain a feeling of imperfection provided it be marked enough to make us capable of perceiving it for the little insensible perceptions of a perfection or imperfection which are like the elements of pleasure and pain and of which I have spoken so many times form the inclinations and propensities but not yet the passions themselves Thus there are insensible inclinations and these we do not perceive there are sensible ones whose existence and object we know but whose formation we do not feel and there are confused inclinations which we attribute to the body although there is always something corresponding in the mind; finally there are distinct inclinations which reason gives us whose force and formation we feel and the pleasures of this kind which are found in the knowledge and production of order and harmony are the most estimable You are right in saying that in general all these inclinations passions pleasures and pains belong only to the mind or soul I will add indeed that their origin is in the soul itself taking things in a certain metaphysical strictness but that nevertheless you are right in saying that confused thoughts come from the body because thereupon the consideration of the body — and not that of the soul — furnishes something distinct and explicable The good is that which conduces or contributes to pleasure as the evil is that which contributes to pain But in collision with a greater good the good of which we should be deprived would become in truth an evil in so far as it should contribute to the pain which would spring from it
Ph The soul has the power of suspending the accomplishment of some of these desires and is consequently at liberty to consider one after another and to compare them In this consists the freedom of man and what we call though in my view improperly freewill and it is from the bad use we make of it that all this variety of mistakes errors and faults proceeds into which we rush when we determine our will too promptly or too late
Th The execution of our desire is suspended or stopped when this desire is not strong enough to move us and to overcome the trouble or inconvenience there is in satisfying it and this trouble consists sometimes only in an inactivity or insensible lassitude which discourages without our taking notice of it and which is greatest in persons reared in indolence or whose temperament is phlegmatic and in those who are discouraged by age or by poor success But when desire is strong enough in itself to move if nothing prevents it it can be stopped by contrary inclinations whether they consist in a simple propensity which is as it were the element or beginning of desire or go as far as desire itself But as these inclinations these propensities and these contrary desires are to be found already in the soul it does not have them in its power and consequently it could not resist them in a free and voluntary way in which the reason can share if it had no other means of diverting the mind elsewhere But how does it presume to do it in case of need For there is the point especially when one is occupied with a very strong passion It is then necessary for the mind to be prepared in advance and to find itself already in process of going from thought to thought in order not to hesitate too much at a slippery and dangerous step It is well for that reason to accustom ourselves in general not only to think as it were in passing of certain things in order the better to preserve the freedom of the mind; but it is better to accustom ourselves to proceed methodically and to fasten ourselves to a train of thoughts whose connection reason and not chance ie insensible and casual impressions makes And for this purpose it is well from time to time to accustom ourselves to collect our thoughts and to raise ourselves above the present tumult of impressions to go forth so to speak from the place where we are to say to ourselves Die cur hicf reapice Jinem where are we then or let us come to the purpose let us come to the point Men would very often need someone officially appointed as Philip the father of Alexander the Great had to interrupt and call them to their duty But in default of such an officer it is well for us to be accustomed to render ourselves this service Now being once in a condition to stop the effect of our desires and passions ie to suspend their action we can find means to combat them whether by contrary desires or inclinations or by diversion ie by occupations of another nature It is by these methods and artifices that we become as it were masters of ourselves and can make ourselves think and do at the time what we should wish to will and what reason commands But it is always through determined paths and never without a reason or by means of the imaginary principle of perfect indifference or equilibrium in which some would make the essence of freedom to consist as if one could determine himself without a subject and even against every subject and go directly against the entire prevalence of impressions and propensities Without a reason I say ie without the opposition of other inclinations or without being in advance disposed to turn aside the mind or without any other means equally explicable to act otherwise is to recur to the chimerical as in the empty faculties or occult qualities of the scholastics in which there is neither rhyme nor reason
Ph I am also for this intelligent determination of the will by what is in the perception and the understanding To will and do conformably to the final result of a sincere examination is rather a perfection than a defect of our nature And this so far from being a suppression or an abridgement of freedom is its greatest perfection and advantage And the more we are prevented from determining ourselves in this way the nearer we are to misery and slavery In fact if you suppose in the mind a perfect and absolute indifference which cannot be determined by the final judgment which it makes of good or evil you put it in a very imperfect state
Th All this is very much to my taste and shows that the mind has not entire and direct power always to stop its desires else it would never be determined whatever examination it might make and whatever good reasons or efficacious sentiments it might have and it would always remain irresolute and fluctuate eternally between fear and hope It must then after all be determined and thus it could itself oppose only indirectly its desires by itself preparing in advance the arms which fight them in time of need as I have just explained
Ph But a man is at liberty to lift his hand to his head or to let it lie quiet He is perfectly indifferent regarding either of these acts and it would be an imperfection in him if he lacked that power
Th To speak accurately one is never indifferent regarding two alternatives whatever they may propose for example turning to the right or the left putting the right foot forward as was necessary in the case of Trimalchio or the left for we do the one or the other without thinking of it and this is an indication that a concurrence of internal dispositions and external impressions although insensible determines us to the side that we take But the prevalence is very small and in case of need it is as if we were indifferent in this respect since the least sensible subject which presents itself to us is capable of determining us without difficulty to one rather than to the other and although there is a little trouble in lifting the arm to raise the hand to the head it is so small that we overcome it without difficulty otherwise I admit it would be a great imperfection if man were less indifferent and if he were wanting in power to determine easily to raise or not to raise his arm
Ph But it would be as great an imperfection if he had the same indifference on all occasions as when he would defend his head or his eyes from a blow by which he saw he was about to be struck That is to say it were as easy for him to stop this movement as others of which we have just spoken and in which he is almost indifferent for that would make its influence insufficiently strong and prompt in time of need Thus determination is useful to us and indeed very often necessary for if we were less determined on every sort of occasion and as it were insensible to reasons drawn from the perception of good or evil we would be without effective choice And if we were determined by something else than the final result which we have formed in our own mind according as we have judged a certain action good or evil we should not be free
Th Nothing is truer and those who seek another freedom know not what they ask
Ph The superior beings who enjoy perfect happiness are determined in the choice of the good more strongly than we and yet we have no reason to think them less free than ourselves
Th For this reason theologians say that these blessed substances are confirmed in the good and exempt from all danger of falling
Ph I believe indeed that if it were proper for poor finite creatures like ourselves to judge of what an infinite wisdom and goodness could do we could say that God himself cannot choose what is not good and that the freedom of this all powerful being does not hinder him from being determined by what is best
Th I am so persuaded of this truth that I believe we can boldly assure ourselves of it wholly poor and finite creatures that we are and that we should be very wrong in doubting it for by so doing we should derogate from his wisdom goodness and other infinite perfections But choice however determined the will be should not be called necessarily and rigorously absolute the prevalence of perceived good inclines without necessitating although considered as a whole this inclination is determinate and never fails to produce its effect
Ph To be determined by the reason to the best is to be the freest Who would wish to be foolish for the reason that a fool is less determined by wise reflections than a man of good sense If freedom consists in throwing off the yoke of reason fools and madmen will be the only freemen but I do not believe that for love of such freedom anyone would wish to be a fool save he who is one already
Th There are people today who consider it clever to declaim against reason and to treat it as an inconvenient pedant I see little books discourses about nothing which make great pretensions and I sometimes see verses even too beautiful to be employed in such false thoughts In fact if those who mock at reason spoke in earnest it would be a new kind of extravagance unknown to past centuries To speak against reason is to speak against truth for reason is a concatenation of truths It is to speak against ones self against ones good since the principal point of reason consists in knowing the truth and following the good
Ph As then the highest perfection of an intelligent being consists in applying himself carefully and constantly to the search for true happiness so the care we should employ not to take as real happiness that which is only imaginary is the foundation of our freedom The more we are bound to the invariable search for happiness in general which never ceases to be the object of our desires the more our will finds itself freed from the necessity of being determined by the desire which bears us towards some particular good until we have examined whether it agrees with or is opposed to our true happiness
Th The true good should always be the object of our desires but there is room for doubt whether it is so for often one thinks but little of it and I have remarked here more than once that unless appetite is guided by reason it tends to present pleasure and not to happiness ie to enduring pleasure although it tends to protract it see and
Ph If some extreme disturbance takes entire possession of our mind as the pain of a cruel torture we are not enough masters of our mind But in order to control our passions as much as possible we should make our mind relish good and evil really and effectively and not permit an excellent and considerable good to escape our mind without leaving there some relish until we have excited in ourselves desires proportioned to its excellence so that its absence renders us uneasy as well as the fear of losing it when we enjoy it
Th That sufficiently agrees with the remarks I have just made in and and with what I have said more than once of luminous pleasures where we understand how they improve us without putting us in danger of some greater imperfection as do the confused pleasures of sense against which we must guard ourselves especially when we have not learned by experience that we shall be able surely to avail ourselves of them
Ph And let no one say here that he cannot master his passions nor hinder them from breaking loose and forcing him to act for what he can do before a prince or great man he can do if he will when alone or in the presence of God
Th That remark is very good and worthy of frequent reflection
Ph But the different choices men make in the world prove that the same thing is not equally good for each of them And if the interests of men did not extend beyond this life the reason of this diversity which causes for example these to plunge into luxury and debauchery and those to prefer temperance to pleasure would arise only from the fact that they placed their happiness in these different things
Th It arises thence even now although they all have or should have before their eyes this common object of the future life It is true that the consideration of true happiness even in this life should suffice to make those who discard it prefer virtue to pleasure although the obligation would not then be so strong or so decisive It is also true that mens tastes are different and it is said that we should not dispute about tastes But as these are only confused perceptions we should hold fast to them only in the case of objects found to be indifferent and incapable of harm otherwise if one had a relish for poisons which would kill him or render him miserable it would be ridiculous to say that his taste should not be called in question
Ph If there is nothing to hope for beyond the grave the inference is certainly very just let us eat and drink let us enjoy all that gives us pleasure for tomorrow tee die
Th There is something to be said in my opinion regarding this inference Aristotle and the Stoics and many other ancient philosophers held another view and I believe indeed that they were right If there were nothing beyond this life the peace of the soul and health of the body would not cease to be preferable to the pleasures which would be contrary thereto And it is no reason whatever for neglecting a good because it will not endure forever But I admit that there are cases where there would be no means of demonstrating that the most virtuous course would be the most useful It is then the thought of God and of immortality only which renders the obligations of virtue and justice absolutely indispensable
Ph It seems to me that the present judgment we make of good and evil is always right And as for present happiness or misery when reflection goes no farther and all consequences are wholly put aside man never chooses amiss
Th That is to say if everything were limited to the present moment it would not be right to refuse the pleasure which presents itself In fact I remarked above that all pleasure is a feeling of perfection But there are certain perfections which bring with them greater imperfections If someone devoted himself during his entire life to throwing peas against pins in order to learn not to fail to make them pierce them after the example of him to whom Alexander the Great caused to be given as a recompense a bushel of peas this man would attain a certain perfection but very slight and unworthy of being compared with so many other very necessary perfections which he would have neglected Thus the perfection which is found in certain present pleasures should yield especially to the regard for the perfections which are necessary in order that we be not plunged into misery which is the state in which we go from imperfection to imperfection from pain to pain But if there be only the present it would be necessary to be contented with the perfection which is present ie with present pleasure
Ph No one would voluntarily render his condition unhappy unless he were led by false judgments I do not speak of mistakes which are the result of invincible error and which scarcely deserve the name of false judgment but of that false judgment which every man must confess in himself to be such In the first place then the soul is mistaken when we compare present pleasure or pain with one to come which we measure by the different distance at which they are found with respect to us like a spendthrift heir who for the present possession of a little something would renounce a large heritage which could not fail him Everyone should recognize this false judgment for the future will become present and will then have the same advantage of nearness If at the moment the man takes the glass in his hand the pleasure of drinking were accompanied with the headache and pains in the stomach which will follow in a few hours he would not in the least wish to taste the wine If a little difference in time causes so much illusion with much stronger reason a greater distance will produce the same effect
Th There is some congruity here between the distance of places and that of times But there is also this difference that visible objects diminish their action upon the sight very nearly in proportion to their distance and it is not at all the same as regards the future objects which act upon the imagination and the mind Visible rays are straight lines proportionally distant but there are curved lines which after some distance appear to fall into the straight line and are no longer sensibly divergent thus are made the asymptotes whose apparent interval diverges from the straight lines although in the truth of things they abide eternally separate We find indeed that at last the appearance of objects does not diminish in proportion to the increase of the distance for the appearance soon disappears entirely although the distance be not infinite Thus a short distance of time robs us entirely of the future as if the object had entirely disappeared There often remains only the name in the mind and that kind of thoughts of which I have already spoken which are surd and incapable of making an impression unless you have attended to them methodically and habitually
Ph I do not speak here of that kind of false judgment by which what is absent is not only diminished but suddenly annihilated in mens minds when they enjoy all they can obtain for the present and then conclude that no evil will happen to them
Th It is another kind of false judgment when the expectation of good or evil to come is annihilated because the result drawn from the present is denied or made doubtful but beyond that the error which annihilates the thought of the future is the same thing as this false judgment of which I have already spoken which arises from a too feeble representation of the future which is considered only a little or not at all For the rest we might perhaps distinguish here between bad taste and false judgment for often we do not even question whether the future good should be preferred and act only upon impression without presuming to come to the examination But when we think one of two things happens either we do not continue sufficiently our thought and we pass on without pressing the question which has been touched or we pursue the examination and form a conclusion And sometimes in each case there remains greater or less selfcondemnation sometimes also there is no formido opjositi or scrupulousness at all whether the mind turns aside at once or is deceived by its prejudices
Ph The limited capacity of our mind is the cause of the false judgments we make in comparing good and evil We cannot well enjoy two pleasures at once and still less can we enjoy any pleasure in the time that we are beset by pain A little bitterness mixed in the cup prevents us from tasting its sweetness The evil we feel is always the worst we cry Ah any other pain rather than this
Th There is much variety in all this according to mens temperaments the force of their feelings and the habits they have contracted A man who has the gout might be joyful because a large fortune fell to him and a man who swims in delights and who might live at his ease upon the earth is plunged into sadness because of a disgrace at court The fact is joy and sadness arise from the result or from the prevalence of pleasures or pains when there is a mixture of them Leander scorned the inconvenience and danger of swimming over the sea at night urged on by the attractions of the beautiful Hero There are people who can neither drink nor eat nor satisfy other appetites without much pain on account of some weakness or inconvenience and yet they satisfy these appetites even beyond necessity and just limits Others are so effeminate or so delicate that they refuse pleasures with which any pain disgust or any inconvenience is mingled There are some persons who bravely place themselves beyond pains and pleasures present and ordinary and act almost alone through fear and hope Others are so effeminate that they complain of the least inconvenience or run after the least sensible and present pleasure nearly like children These are the people to whom the present pain or pleasure always appears the greatest they are like preachers or panegyrists of little judgment with whom according to the proverb The idol of the day is always the greatest saint of paradise But whatever variety is found among men it is always true that they act only according to present perceptions and when the future impresses them it is always by means of an image they have of it or by resolution and habit which they have contracted in following even a simple name or other arbitrary character without having any picture or natural sign because it would not be without uneasiness and sometimes without a feeling of chagrin that they would oppose themselves to a strong resolution already made and above all to a habit
Ph Men are apt enough to diminish future pleasure and to conclude in themselves that when it comes to trial it may perhaps not correspond to the hope it gives nor to the opinion they generally have of it having often found by their own experience that not only the pleasures which others have magnified have appeared to them very insipid but that what has caused themselves much pleasure at one time has offended and displeased them at another
Th These are mainly the reasonings of voluptuaries but we ordinarily find that the ambitious and avaricious judge wholly otherwise honours and wealth although they enjoy only moderately and often indeed very little these same goods when they possess them being always occupied in going farther I find it a beautiful invention of natures architect to have rendered men so sensible to what appeals so little to their senses and if they could not become ambitious or avaricious it would be difficult in the present state of human nature for them to be able to become virtuous and reasonable enough to labour for their perfection in the face of the present pleasures which turn them aside from it
GO Ph As to things good or bad in their consequences and by their aptness to procure us good or evil we judge them in different ways either when we judge them incapable of really doing us as much evil as in fact they do or when we judge that while the consequence is important it is not so certain that it may not happen otherwise or at least that it may not be avoided by some means as by industry address change of conduct repentance
Th It seems to me that if by the importance of the consequence we understand that of the consequent ie the greatness of the good or evil that may follow we must fall into the preceding kind of false judgment in which future good or evil is poorly represented Thus there remains only the second kind of false judgment of which we shall presently treat namely that in which the consequence is doubtful
Ph It would be easy to show in detail that the subterfuges which I have just alluded to are so many unreasonable judgments but I shall content myself with remarking in general that it is acting directly contrary to reason to hazard a greater good for a less or to expose ourselves to misery in order to acquire a little good or to avoid a little evil and that too upon uncertain conjectures and before we have entered upon a due examination
Tit As these are two heterogeneous considerations ie considerations which cannot be compared with each other that of the greatness of the consequence and that of the greatness of the consequent moralists in desiring to compare them are much perplexed as appears in the case of those who have treated of probability The truth is that here as in other estimates disparate and heterogeneous and so to speak of more than one dimension the greatness of that which is discussed is in reason composed of both estimates and is like a rectangle in which there are two considerations viz that of length and that of breadth and as for the greatness of the consequence and the degrees of probability we still lack that part of Logic which is to estimate them and the most of the casuists who have written on probability have not even understood its nature founding it with Aristotle upon authority instead of founding it as they ought upon likelihood vraisemMance authority being only one of the reasons which produce likelihood
Ph Here are some of the ordinary causes of this false judgment First ignorance second inattention when a man does not reflect upon that of which he is aware This is an affected and present ignorance which misleads the judgment as well as the will
Th It is always present but not always affected for we do not always take it into our heads to think when it is necessary of what we know and the memory of which we should recall if we were master of it Affected ignorance is always mixed with some attention at the time it is affected in the future it is true it may ordinarily include somewhat of inattention The art of thinking in time of need of what we know would be one of the most important if it were found but I do not see that men up to the present time have even thought of forming the elements of it for the art of memory of which so many authors have written is wholly another thing
Ph If then they bring together in confusion and hastily the reasons from one side and allow through neglect several sums which ought to enter into the reckoning to escape this haste produces no less false judgments than if it were perfect ignorance
Th In reality many things must be taken into account as should be the case when the balance of reasons is discussed and the process is almost like that in the accountbooks of merchants For no sum must be neglected each must be properly estimated by itself they must be properly arranged and finally an exact collection must be made of them But we neglect many weighty points either by its not occurring to us to think of them or by passing lightly over them and we do not give each its proper value like the bookkeeper who was careful properly to calculate the columns of each page but who calculated very badly the particular sums of each line or posting before putting them in the columns this causes the examiners to be deceived who look principally at what is in the columns Finally after having carefully noted all they may be deceived in the collection of the sums of the columns and even of the final collection in which is the sum of the sums Thus we should still need the art of thinking and that of estimating probabilities and besides the knowledge of the value of goods and evils in order properly to employ the art of consequences and furthermore attention and patience would be necessary after all that in order to push to the conclusion Finally a firm and constant resolution to execute the conclusion arrived at is necessary and address method particular laws and habits entirely formed in order to maintain the course in the future when the considerations which have caused it to be taken are no longer present to the mind it is true thank God that in what is of the greatest importance and which concerns the summam rerum happiness and misery there is no need of so much knowledge aid and address as it would be necessary to have in order properly to judge in a council of state or of war in a tribunal of justice in a medical consultation in some theological or historical controversy or in some point of mathematics or mechanics but as a recompense more firmness and habit is necessary in what concerns this great point of felicity and virtue in order always to adopt good resolutions and to follow them In a word for true happiness less knowledge suffices with more good will so that the greatest idiot may attain it as easily as the most learned and most skilful
Ph You see then that without liberty the understanding would be of no use and that liberty without understanding would signify nothing If a man could see what may do him good or evil without being able to move a step in advance towards the one or in removal from the other would he be the better for the sight He would be indeed more miserable for this reason for he would uselessly nine after the good and would fear the evil that he sees is inevitable and he who is at liberty to run here and there in the midst of perfect darkness in what respect is he better than if he were tossed about at the pleasure of the wind
Th His caprice would be a little better satisfied but he would be in no better condition to meet good or to shun evil
G Ph Another source of false judgment Content with the first pleasure which comes to hand or which custom has rendered agreeable we do not look farther This then is also an occasion for men to judge wrongly when they do not regard as essential to their happiness that which really is so
Th It seems to me that this false judgment is comprised under the preceding kind where one is mistaken as to the consequences
Ph The inquiry remains whether a man has the power to change the pleasure or displeasure which accompanies any particular action In many cases he can Men may and ought to correct their palates and make them acquire a taste They can change also the taste of the soul A due consideration practice application custom will bring about this result Thus it is that men accustom themselves to tobacco which usage or custom at last makes them find agreeable It is the same as regards virtue Habits have powerful charms and we cannot depart from them without uneasiness You will perhaps regard it as a paradox that men can make things or actions more or less agreeable to themselves so much do they neglect this duty
Th I have already made this statement above towards the end and also towards the end We can make ourselves will anything and form our taste
Ph Morality established upon true foundations can only determine to virtue it suffices that infinite happiness and misery after this life are possible We must admit that a good life joined with the expectation of possible eternal felicity is preferable to a bad life accompanied by the fear of terrible misery or at least of the terrible and uncertain hope of annihilation All this is in the highest degree selfevident although virtuous men should have only evil to endure in this world and the wicked should taste therein perpetual pleasure which is ordinarily quite otherwise For rightly considering all things I believe they have the worst part even in this life
Th Thus were there no life beyond the grave an epicurean life would not be the most reasonable And I rejoice sir that you rectify what you said to the contrary above
Ph Who could be so foolish as to resolve if he had his senses to expose himself to a possible danger of being infinitely unhappy so that he has nothing to gain therefrom for himself but pure annihilation instead of putting himself in the condition of the good man who has nothing to fear but annihilation and who has eternal felicity to hope for I have forborne to speak of the certainty or probability of the future state because I have no other design in this place than to show the false judgment of which each should acknowledge himself guilty on his own principles
Th The wicked are very prone to believe that the other life is impossible But they have no reason for their belief other than that which compels them to limit themselves to what they learn by their senses and that no one to their knowledge has come back from the other world There was a time when upon the same principle we could reject the antipodes when we were unwilling to unite mathematics and the popular notions and we could do so with as much reason as we can now have in rejecting the other life when we are unwilling to unite true metaphysics and the notions of the imagination For there are three degrees of notions or ideas viz popular mathematical metaphysical The first do not suffice to make us believe in the antipodes the first and the second do not yet suffice to make us believe in the other world It is true they furnish already favourable conjectures but if the second established certainly the antipodes before the experience we now have of it I speak not of the inhabitants but of the place at least which the knowledge of the roundness of the earth gave them among geographers and astronomers the last give no less certitude of another life from this time and before you have gone to see
Ph Let us now return to power which is properly the subject of this chapter liberty being only one form of it but the most important In order to have more distinct ideas of power it will be neither beside the purpose nor useless to obtain a more exact knowledge of what is called action I said at the beginning of our discourse on power that there are two kinds of actions of which we have some idea viz motion and thought
Th I thought you could avail yourself of a more general term than that of thought viz that of perception attributing thought only to minds while perception belongs to all the entelechies But I do not wish however to contest with anyone the liberty to take the term thought in the same general way And for myself indeed I shall perhaps do so some time without being aware of it
Ph Now although we give to those two things the name of action we shall find however that it does not always suit them perfectly and that there are some examples which we shall recognize rather as passions For in these examples substance in which we find movement or thought receives purely from without the impression through which action is communicated to it and acts only by the sole capacity it has of receiving this impression which is only a passive point Sometimes substance or the agent puts itself in action by its own power and it is there properly an active power
Th I have already said that taking action in metaphysical strictness as that which takes place in substance sjwutaneoimlji and from its own depths that alone is properly speaking substance which is active for all arises for it from itself after God it being impossible for one created substance to have influence upon another But taking action as an exercise of perception and passion as its contrary there is action in true substance only when their perception for I grant it to all is developed and becomes more distinct as there is passion only when it becomes more confused so that in substances capable of pleasure and of pain all action is a step towards pleasure and all passion a step towards pain As for motion it is only a real phenomenon because matter and mass to which motion belongs is not properly speaking a substance But there is an image of action in motion as there is an image of substance in mass and in this respect we can say that the body acts agit when there is spontaneity in its change and that it is passive jmtil when it is urged on or hindered by another as in the veritable action or passion of a veritable substance we may take as its action and attribute to itself the change by which it tends to its perfection And in the same manner we can take as passion and attribute to a foreign cause the change by which the contrary happens to it although this cause is not immediate because in the first case the substance itself and in the second the foreign things serve to explain this change in an intelligible way I allow bodies only an image of substance and action because that which is composed of parts cannot pass to speak accurately as one substance any more than a flock but we can say that there is therein something substantial of which the unity that which makes it as it were one being comes from thought
Ph I have thought that the power to receive ideas or thoughts by the operation of some foreign substance was called power of thought although at bottom it is only a pay sive potver or a simple capacity making abstraction from the reflections and internal changes which always accompany the received image for the expression which is in the soul is as it should be that of a living mirror but the power which we have of recalling absent ideas at our choice and of comparing together those that we think to the purpose is truly an active power
Th This also agrees with the notions I have just presented for there is in this a passage to a more perfect state But I should suppose that there is also action in sensations so far as they give us more distinct perceptions and consequently the opportunity of making remarks and so to speak of developing ourselves
Ph Now I think it appears that we can reduce the primitive and original ideas to this small number extension solidity mobility ie passive power or rather capacity of being moved which come to us in the mind by way of reflection and finally existence duration and number which come to us by the two ways of sensation and reflection for by these ideas we could explain if I am not mistaken the nature of colours sounds tastes odours and all the other ideas we have if our faculties were subtile enough to perceive the different motions of the minute bodies which produce these sensations
Th To speak the truth I believe that these ideas which you here call original and primitive are for the most part not wholly so being susceptible in my view of further resolution but I do not blame you at all sir for having limited yourself and for not having pushed the analysis farther Moreover I believe that if their number can be diminished by this means it can be increased by adding other ideas more original or as much so As to the question concerning their arrangement I should consider following the order of the analysis existence anterior to the others number to extension duration to motivity or mobility although this analytic order is not ordinarily that of the occasions which make us think of them The senses furnish us the material for reflection and we should not even think of thought if we did not think of something else ie of the particular things which the senses furnish And I am persuaded that created souls and minds are never without organs and never without sensations as they cannot reason without characters Those who have desired to maintain a complete separation and mode of thinking in the separated soul inexplicable by all that we know and separated not only from our present experiences but what is much more from the general order of things have given too much influence to socalled strong minds and have made the finest and the grandest truths objects of suspicion to many people having indeed deprived themselves thereby of some excellent means of proving them which this order furnishes us
Ph Pass we on to the mixed modes I distinguish them from the more simple modes which are composed only of simple ideas of the same kind Moreover the mixed modes are certain combinations of simple ideas which are not regarded as characteristic marks of any real being which has a fixed existence but as scattered and independent ideas which the mind joins together and they are thereby distinguished from the complex ideas of substances
Th Properly to understand these we must recall our former divisions According to you ideas are simple or complex The complex are either substances modes or relations Modes are either simple composed of simple ideas of the same kind or mixed Thus in your view there are simple ideas ideas of modes both simple and mixed ideas of substances and ideas of relations We could perhaps divide the terms or the objects of ideas into abstract and concrete the abstract into absolute and into those which express relations the absolute into attributes and into modifications both into simple and composite the concrete into substances and into substantial things made up of or the resultants of true and simple substances
Ph The mind is purely passive respecting its simple ideas which it receives as sensation and reflection present them to it But it often acts by itself indeed in reference to the mixed modes for it can combine the simple ideas in making complex ideas without considering whether they so exist united in nature This is why we give to these kinds of ideas the name of notion
Th But reflection which makes us think of simple ideas is often voluntary also and moreover the combinations which nature has not made can produce themselves in us as it were in dreams and reveries by means of memory alone without the mind's acting more than in the simple ideas As for the term notion many apply it to all sorts of ideas or conceptions to the original as well as to the derived
Ph The mark of several ideas combined in one alone is the name
Th That means if they can be combined in which respect they are often lacking
Ph The crime of killing an old man not having a name like parricide is not at first regarded as a complex idea
Th The reason why the murder of an old man has no name is that the laws not having attached thereto a particular punishment this name would be useless but ideas do not depend on names An ethical author who should invent one for the crime and treat in a special chapter of Gerontophony showing what is due to old men and how it is a barbarous act not to spare them would not on that account present us with a new idea
Ph It is always true that the manners and usages of a nation making combinations familiar to it cause each language to have particular terms which cannot always be translated word for word Thus ostracism among the Greeks and proscriptio among the Romans were words which other languages cannot express by equivalent words Therefore change of customs makes also new words
Th Chance also plays its part for the French do not use horses as much as other neighbouring peoples but having abandoned their old word which corresponded to the cavalry of the Italians they are forced to say by paraphrase aller A cheval — to go on horseback
it Ph We acquire ideas of mixed modes by observation as when we see two men wrestling we acquire them also by invention or a voluntary union of simple ideas thus he who invented printing had the idea of it before this art existed We acquire them finally by explaining terms affecting actions which we have never seen
Th We can further acquire them while dreaming or in a state of reverie without the combinations being voluntary for example when we see in a dream a golden palace without having thought of it before
Ph The simple ideas which have been most modified are those of thought motion and power whence actions are conceived to flow for the great business of mankind consists in action all actions are thoughts or motions The power or aptitude to do anything which is found in man constitutes the idea which we call habit when this power has been acquired by often doing the same thing and when we can force it to action upon each occasion that presents itself we call it disposition Thus tenderness is a disposition to friendship or love
Th By tenderness you understand here I presume the tender heart but elsewhere you seem to me to regard tenderness as a quality which one has as a lover which renders him very sensible to the good and evil of the object loved This it is to which it seems to me the chart of affection is moving in the excellent romance Clclie And as charitable persons love their neighbour with some degree of tenderness they are sensible to the good and evil of another and generally those who have the tender heart have some disposition to love with tenderness
Ph Boldness is the power to do or say before others what you wish without being put out of countenance a selfconfidence which in relation to this last part which concerns discourse had a particular name among the Greeks
Th I would be well to seek a word for this notion which is here attributed to that of boldness but which is often employed wholly otherwise as when we say Charles the Bold it to be put out of countenance is a strength of mind but lie which bad men abuse when they have become impudent as shame is a weakness but excusable and even praiseworthy in certain circumstances As for parrhesia which you perhaps understand by the Greek word it is still attributed to writers who speak the truth without fear although then not speaking in the presence of people they are not liable to be discountenanced
Ph As power is the source whence proceed all actions the name of cause is given to the substances in which these powers reside when they reduce their power to act and they call effects the substances produced by this means or rather the simple ideas ie the objects of simple ideas which by the exercise of power are introduced into a subject Thus the efficacy by which a new substance or idea quality is produced is called action in the subject exercising this power and passion in the subject in which some simple idea quality is altered or produced
Th I power is taken as the source of action it means something more than an aptitude or facility by which power was explained in the preceding chapter for it includes besides tendency as I have already more than once remarked This is why in this sense I have been wont to appropriate to it the term entelechy which is either primitive and answers to the soul taken as an abstract thing or derivative as it is conceived in conation le conatus and in vigour and impetuosity The term cause is here understood only as efficient cause but it is also understood as final or the motive not to speak here of matter and form which are also called causes in the schools I do not know whether we can say that the same being is called action in the agent and passion in the patient and is thus found in two subjects at once like relation and whether it is not better to say that there are two beings one in the agent the other in the patient
Ph Many words which seem to express some action signify only the cause and the effect as creation and annihilation contain no idea of action or of the manner but simply of the cause and the thing which is produced
Th CI admit that in thinking of creation we do not conceive a mode of acting capable of any detail which cannot indeed there be expedient but since we express something besides God and the world for we think that God is the cause and the world the effect or else that God has produced the world it is manifest that we think still of action
Ph The mind notices that a certain number of simple ideas constantly go together which presumed to belong to one thing only are called by one name when thus united in one subject Whence it comes that although this is in truth a mass of many ideas joined together we are afterwards led by inadvertence to speak of them as a single simple idea
Th I see nothing in the accepted expressions which deserves to be taxed with inadvertence and although we recognize only one subject and one idea we do not recognize only one simple idea
Ph Not being able to imagine how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves we are accustomed to assume something which sustains them substratum in which they subsist or whence they result to which for this effect we give the name of substance
Th I believe that there is reason in thus thinking and we have only to accustom ourselves to it or to assume it since at first we conceive several predicates in one and the same subject and these metaphorical words support soutien or substratum mean only this so that I do not see why it should cause any difficulty On the contrary it is rather the concretum as wise warm shining which arises in our mind than the abstractions or qualities for these and not the ideas are in the substantial object as knowledge heat light etc which are much more difficult to comprehend We may even doubt whether these accidents are veritable existences as in fact they are very often only relations We know also that it is these abstractions which cause the greatest difficulties to spring up when we wish to examine them minutely as those know who are familiar with the subtilties of the scholastics the most intricate of which falls at once if we will banish abstract existence and resolve to speak ordinarily only by concretes and admit no other terms in scientific demonstrations but those which represent substantial subjects Thus it is nodum quaerere in saypo if I may so speak and reversing things to take the qualities or other abstract terms as the easier and the concrete as something very difficult
Ph We have no other notion at all of pure substance in general than of an indescribable subject which is to us altogether unknown and which is supposed to be the support of qualities We speak like children to one who has no sooner asked them what a certain thing unknown to them is than they make this reply very satisfactory to their taste that it is something but which employed in this way means that they do not know what it is
Th In distinguishing two things in substance the attributes or predicates and the common subject of these predicates it is no wonder that we can conceive nothing particular in this subject It must be so indeed since we have already separated from it all the attributes in which we could conceive any detail Thus to demand something more in this pure subject in general than what is necessary in order to conceive that it is the same thing for example which understands and wills which imagines and reasons is to demand the impossible and to act contrary to our own supposition which has been made in making abstraction and conceiving separately the subject and its qualities or accidents We could apply the same pretended difficulty to the notion of being and to all that is clearer and more primitive for we could demand of the philosophers what they conceive when conceiving pure being in general for all detail being excluded by that means there will also be little to say when we are asked what is pure substance in general Thus I believe that the philosophers do not deserve to be laughed at as is here done in comparing them with an Indian philosopher who being asked upon what the earth rested replied upon a great elephant and then when asked what sustained the elephant replied a great tortoise and at last when pressed to say upon what the tortoise rested was compelled to say something I know not what But this consideration of substance entirely slender as it appears is not so empty and sterile as you think It gives rise to many consequences of greatest importance in philosophy and which are capable of giving it a new aspect
Ph We have no clear idea of substance in general and we have as clear an idea of mind as of body for the idea of corporeal substance in matter is as far from our conceptions as that of spiritual substance It is almost as the promoter said to this young doctor of law who cried to him in the solemnity to say utriusque You are right sir for you know as much in the one case as the other
Th As for myself I believe that this opinion of our ignorance arises from that which demands a kind of knowledge of which the object does not admit The true mark of a clear and distinct notion of an object is the means we have of knowing therein many truths by a priori i proofs as I have shown in a discourse on truths and ideas published in the Actes de Leipzig of the year
Ph If our senses were sufficiently penetrating the sensible qualities for example, the yellow colour of gold would disappear and instead of that we should see a certain admirable contexture of parts This appears evident by means of microscopes This present knowledge is suitable to the state in which we find ourselves A perfect knowledge of things which surround us is perhaps beyond the capacity of every finite being Our faculties suffice to make us know the Creator and to instruct us as to our duties Should our senses become more acute such change would be incompatible with our nature
Th All that is true and I have said something to the same effect above But the colour yellow does not cease to be a reality like the rainbow and we are apparently destined to a state far beyond the present and can even go on to the infinite for there are no elements in the corporeal nature If there were atoms as the author appeared to believe in another place perfect knowledge of the body could not be beyond every finite being For the rest if some colours or qualities should disappear from our eyes better armed or become more penetrating others would apparently spring into being and it would require a new growth of our perspicacity to make these also disappear and this could go on to infinity as the actual division of matter effectively proceeds
Ph I do not know but that one of the great advantages which some spirits have over us consists in the fact that they can assume to themselves organs of sensation which are precisely suited to their present design
Th We do this indeed in making for ourselves microscopes but other creatures can go much farther And if we could transform our eyes themselves which we do effectively to some extent according as we wish to see near at hand or at a distance we should be obliged to have something belonging more exclusively to us than they in order to shape them by its means for it is necessary at least that all be done mechanically because the mind cannot operate immediately upon the body For the rest I am also of the opinion that genii perceive things in a manner which is somewhat related to ours even if they should have the agreeable advantage which the imaginative Cyrano attributes to some animated natures in the sun composed of an infinite number of little winged creatures which by transporting themselves according to the command of the ruling soul form all kinds of bodies There is nothing so marvellous that the mechanism of nature cannot produce it and I believe that the learned fathers of the Church were right in attributing bodies to the angels
PA The ideas of thinking and of moving a body which we find in that of the mind, can be conceived as clearly and distinctly as those of extension solidity and mobility which we find in matter
Th As regards the idea of thought I agree But I am not of this opinion as regards the idea of moving bodies for according to my system of Preestablished Harmony bodies are so made that being once put in motion they continue therein according as the actions of the mind require This hypothesis is intelligible the other is not
Ph Each act of sensation gives us an equal view of things corporeal and spiritual for while sight and hearing give me the knowledge that there is some corporeal being without me I know in a way still more certain that there is within me a spiritual being which sees and hears
Th It is very well said and very true that the existence of the spirit is more certain than that of sensible objects
Ph Spirits as well as bodies can operate only where they are and in different times and places thus I can only attribute change of place to all finite spirits
Th I believe that is reasonable place being only an order of coexistences
Ph It is only necessary to reflect upon the separation of the soul and the body by death to be convinced of the movement of the soul
Th The soul might cease to operate in this visible body and if it could cease thinking all at once as the author has maintained above it might be separated from the body without being united to another thus its separation would be without movement But for myself I believe that it thinks and feels always that it is always united to some body and indeed that it never leaves entirely and all at once the body to which it is united
Ph If anyone says that spirits are not in loco sed in aliquo ubi I do not suppose that now we would rely much upon this method of speaking But if anyone thinks that it can receive a reasonable sense I pray him to express it in language generally intelligible and to draw therefrom afterwards a reason showing that spirits are not capable of motion
Th The schools have three kinds of Ubeity or modes of existing somewhere The first is called circumscriptive which they attribute to bodies in space which are there punctatim in such wise that they are measures according to which we can assign the points of the thing placed corresponding to the points of space The second is the definitive when we can define ie determine that the situated thing is in such a space without being able to assign the precise points or the peculiar places exclusive of what is there Thus it has been considered that the soul is in the body not supposing it possible to assign a precise point at which the soul or some portion of the soul is without its being also at some other point Moreover many learned men have thus viewed the matter It is true that Descartes desired to place narrower limits to the soul by locating it properly in the pineal gland Nevertheless he did not dare to say that it is exclusively at a certain point in this gland and this not being so he gains nothing and it is in this respect precisely as if he gave it the entire body as its prison or place I believe that nearly the same statement as that made regarding souls must be made in respect to the angels whom the great doctor a native of Aquino believed to be in a place only by operation which in my view is not immediate and reduces itself to preestablished harmony The third ubeity is the repletive which is attributed to God who fills all the universe in a still more eminent degree than the disembodied spirits for he works immediately upon all creatures by continually producing them while finite spirits cannot exercise any immediate influence or operation I do not know whether this doctrine of the schools deserves to be ridiculed as it seems some try to do But we can always attribute a kind of movement to souls at least in relation to the bodies with which they are united or in relation to their mode of perception
Ph If anyone says he knows not how he thinks I reply that he knows no more how the solid particles of the body are united to make an extended whole
Th It is difficult enough to explain cohesion but this cohesion of parts does not appear necessary to make an extended whole since we can say that matter perfectly subtile and fluid constitutes an extension without the particles being united the one to the other But to speak the truth I believe that perfect fluidity belongs only to the primary mutter ie matter in the abstract and as an original quality just as repose but not to secondary matter such as is actually found invested with its derivative qualities for I believe that there is no mass which is of the utmost subtility and that there is more or less connection everywhere which arises from movements so far as they are conspirant and would be disturbed by separation which cannot take place without some violence and resistance For the rest the nature of perception and thus of thought furnishes a notion of the most original conditions I believe further that the doctrine of substantial unities or monads will throw much light upon it
Ph As for cohesion many explain it by means of the surfaces by which two bodies touch which an ambient fluid for example, the air presses one against another It is very true that the pressure of an ambient fluid can hinder the avulsion of two polished surfaces from one another in a line perpendicular to them but it cannot hinder them from separating by a movement parallel to these surfaces This is why if there were no other cause of the cohesion of bodies it would be easy to separate all their parts by making them thus slide laterally taking therefor any plane you wish which intersects any mass of matter
Th Yes no doubt if all the smooth particles applied to each other were in one and the same plane or in parallel planes but that not being so nor capable of so being it is manifest that in trying to make the one slide you will act altogether differently upon an infinite number of others whose plane will make an angle with the first for you must know that it is difficult to separate two congruent surfaces not only when the direction of the movement of separation is perpendicular but further when it is oblique to the surfaces Times it may be conceived that there are leaves applied to one another in every direction in the polyhedral bodies that nature forms in ores and elsewhere But I admit that the pressure of the ambient fluid upon smooth surfaces applied to each other does not suffice to explain the basis of all cohesion for it is tacitly assumed that the tables applied the one against the other already have cohesion
Ph I have always supposed that the extension of a body was something else than the cohesion of solid particles
Th That does not appear to me to agree with your own preceding explanations It seems to me that a body in which there are internal movements or whose particles are in the act of detaching themselves one from another as I believe happens always cannot be extended Thus the notion of extension appears to me wholly different from that of cohesion
Ph Another idea we have of body is the power of communicating motion by impulse and another we have of the soul is the pincer of producing motion by thought Experience clearly furnishes us each day these two ideas but if we wish to investigate further how this is done we find ourselves equally in the dark For as regards the communication of motion wherein one body loses as much motion as another receives which is the most ordinary case we conceive there nothing else than a motion which passes from one body into another which is I think as obscure and as inconceivable as the manner in which our mind moves or stops our bodies by thought It is still more difficult to explain the increase of motion by means of impulse which is observed or believed to happen in certain cases
Th I am not astonished that you find insurmountable difficulties where you seem to assume a thing so inconceivable as the passage of an accident from one subject to another but I see nothing which compels us to an assumption which is no less strange than that of the scholastics of accidents without a subject which they have taken care however to attribute only to the miraculous action of the divine omnipotence while here this passage would be merely an ordinary one I have already said something about it above chap where I also remarked that it is not true that a body loses as much motion as it gives to another which they seem to conceive as if motion were a substantial thing and resembled salt dissolved in water which comparison is actually the one M Rohaut if I mistake not has used I add here that this is not even the most usual case for I have elsewhere demonstrated that the same quantity of motion is maintained only when the two bodies which come into collision proceed in one and the same direction before the collision and still proceed in one and the same direction after the collision It is true that the veritable laws of motion are derived from a cause superior to matter As for the power of producing motion by thought I do not think we have any idea of it as we have no experience of it The Cartesians themselves admit that souls cannot give a new force to matter but they pretend that they give it a new determination or direction of the force it has already For myself I maintain that souls change nothing in the force nor in the direction of bodies that the one would be as inconceivable and unreasonable as the other and that you must avail yourself of the preestablished harmony in order to explain the union of the soul and the body
Ph It is worth our consideration whether active power is not the proper attribute of spirits and passive power of bodies Whence we might conjecture that created spirits being active and passive are not totally separate from simply passive matter and that these other beings which are active and passive at the same time partake of both
Th These thoughts greatly please me and entirely express my conviction provided you explain the word spirit so generally that it comprises all souls or rather to speak still more generally all the entelechies or substantial unities which are analogous to spirits
Ph I much wish that you would show me in the notion we have of spirit anything more confused or nearer a contradiction than what the very notion of body includes I mean infinite divisibility
Th What you here say further in order to make evident that we understand the nature of the spirit as well or better than that of the body is very true and Fromondus who has published a book De compositione continui was right in entitling it Labyrinth But the question arises from a false idea you have of the nature of body as well as of space
Ph The idea of God indeed comes to us as others do the complex idea of God we have being composed of the simple ideas which we receive from reflection and which we extend by the idea we have of the infinite
Th Upon that question I refer to what I have already said in several places in order to make evident that all these ideas and particularly that of God are in us originally and that we only make ourselves take notice of them and that above all the idea of the infinite is not formed by an extension of finite ideas
Ph The majority of the simple ideas which compose our complex ideas of substances are properly considered only powers whatever our inclination to take them as positive qualities
Th I think that the poicers which are not essential to substance and which include not only an aptitude but also a certain tendency are properly what is or ought to be understood by real qualities
Ph After simple substances we come to the aggregates Is it not true that the idea of this mass of men composing an army is as much a single idea as that of one man
Th You are right in saying that this aggregate ens per aggregaJionem to use the language of the school makes one single idea although properly speaking this mass of substances does not form in truth one substance This is a result to which the soul by its perception and its thought gives its last achievement of unity You may however say in a sense that it is something substantial ie comprising substances
Ph It remains to consider the ideas of relations which are the poorest in reality When the mind regards one thing in comparison with another this is a relation or respect and the denominations or relative terms which are produced are like so many marks which serve to lead our thoughts beyond the subject to something distinct from it and these two are called subjects of the relation relata
Th Relations and orders have something of the essence of reason although they have their foundation in things for we can say that their reality like that of eternal truths and possibilities comes from the supreme reason
Ph There may however be a change of relation without any change happening in the subject Titius whom to day I consider as a father ceases to be such tomorrow without any change being made in himself by the sole fact of his sons death
Th That statement may very well be made in view of things which are perceived although in metaphysical strictness it is true that there is no entirely exterior denomination denominatio pure extrinseca because of the real connection of all things
Ph I think that relation is only between two things
Th There are however examples of relation between several things at once as that of order or that of a genealogical tree which expresses the rank and connection of all the terms or members and even a figure like that of a polygon includes the relation of all the sides
Ph It is well to consider also that the ideas of relations are often clearer than those of the things which are the subjects of the relation Thus the relation of father is clearer than that of man
Th That is because this relation is so general that it may also suit other substances Moreover as a subject may have clearness and obscurity the relation might be grounded in the clear But if the form itself of the relation involved the knowledge of that which is obscure in the subject it would participate in this obscurity
Ph The terms which necessarily lead the mind to other ideas than those which are supposed really to exist in the thing to which the term or word is applied are relative the others are absolute
Th You have well added this necessarily and you might add expressly or at first for you can think of black for example without thinking of its cause but it is by remaining within the limits of a knowledge which presents itself at first and which is confused or very distinct but incomplete the one when there is no resolution of the idea the other when you limit it Otherwise there is no term so absolute or so loose as not to include relations and the perfect analysis of which does not lead to other things and even to all others so that you can say that relative terms indicate expressly the relation they contain There oppose the absolute to the relative and it is in another sense that I have opposed it above to the limited
Ph Cause is that which produces a simple or incomplex idea effect is that which is produced
Th I see sir that you often understand by idea the objective reality of the idea or the quality which it represents You define only efficient cause as I have already remarked above You must admit that in saying that efficient cause is that which produces and effect that which is produced you make use only of synonyms It is true that I have heard you say a little more distinctly that cause is that which makes another thing commence to exist though this word makes passes over also the principal difficulty entirely But that will be explained better elsewhere
Ph In order further to touch some other relations I remark that there are terms employed to designate time which are ordinarily regarded as signifying only positive ideas which are nevertheless relative as young old etc for they involve a relation to the ordinary duration of the substance to which you attribute them Thus a man is called young at the age of twenty years and very young at the age of seven years But we call a horse old at twenty years and a dog at seven But we do not say that the sun and the stars a ruby or a diamond is young or old because we do not know the ordinary periods of their duration The same is true regarding place or extension as when a thing is said to be high or low great or small Thus a horse which will be large according to the idea of a Welshman appears very small to a Fleming each thinks of the horses which are raised in his country
Th These remarks are very good It is true we sometimes swerve a little from this sense as when we say that a thing is old when comparing it not with those of its kind but with other kinds For example we say that the world or the sun is very old Someone asked Galileo if he believed that the sun was eternal He replied etemo nd ma ben antico — eternal no but very ancient
Ph A relative idea of the greatest importance is that of identity or diversity We never find and we cannot conceive it possible that two things of the same kind exist in the same time in the same place Therefore when we ask whether a thing is the same or not the question always relates to a thing which at such a time exists in such a place whence it follows that a thing cannot have two beginnings of existence nor two things one beginning only in relation to the time and the place
Th It is always necessary that besides the difference of time and place there be an internal principle of distinction and though there are many things of the same kind it is nevertheless true that none of them are ever perfectly alike thus although time and place ie external relation serve us in distinguishing things which we do not easily distinguish by themselves the things do not cease to be distinguishable in themselves The essence le precis of identity and diversity consists then not in time and place although it is true that the diversity of things is accompanied by that of time or of place because they bring with them different impressions of the thing not to say that it is rather by the things that one place or one time must be distinguished from another for in themselves they are perfectly alike but they are not therefore substances or complete realities The mode of distinguishing which you seem to propose here as unique in things of the same kind is based upon the supposition that penetration is not conformable to nature This supposition is reasonable but experience indeed makes it evident that it is not closely applied here when the question concerns distinction We see for example two shadows or rays of light which interpenetrate and we might invent for ourselves an imaginary world wherein bodies would act in the same way But we do not cease to distinguish one ray from another by the very rate of their passage even when they cross each other
Ph What is called the principle of individuation principittm individuationis in the schools where they torment themselves so much to know what it is consists in existence itself which determines each being to a particular time and place incommunicable to two beings of the same kind
Th The principle of individuation l reappears in individuals in the principle of distinction of which I just spoke If two individuals were perfectly alike and equal and in a word indistinguishable in themselves there would be no principle of individuation and I even venture to assert that there would be no individual distinction or different individuals under this condition This is why the notion of atoms is chimerical and arises only from the incomplete conceptions of men For if there were atoms ie bodies perfectly hard and perfectly unalterable or incapable of internal change and capable of differing among themselves only in size and shape it is plain that in the possibility of their being of the same shape and size they would then be indistinguishable in themselves and could be distinguished only by means of external denominations without an internal basis which is contrary to the highest principles of reason But the truth is that everybody is alterable and indeed actually changes so that it differs in itself from every other I remember that a distinguished princess who is of a preeminently excellent mind said one day while walking in her garden that she did not believe there were two leaves perfectly alike A gentleman of distinction who was walking with her thought he would easily find some But although he searched long he was convinced by his eyes that he could always note the difference We see by these considerations hitherto neglected how far we have wandered in philosophy from the most natural notions and how far we have departed from the great principles of true metaphysic
Ph That which constitutes the unity identity of one and the same plant is the possession of such an organization of parts in a single body as participates in a common life which endures while the plant subsists although the parts change
Th The organization or configuration without an existing principle of life which I call a monad would not suffice to cause the continuance of idem numero or the same individual for the configuration can abide specifically without abiding individually When a horseshoe is changed into copper in a mineral spring of Hungary the same figure in kind remains but not the same as an individual for the iron is dissolved and the copper with which the water is impregnated is precipitated and insensibly takes its place Now figure is an accident which does not pass from one subject to another de subjecto in subjectum So we must say that bodies as well organized as others do not remain the same in appearance and speaking strictly not at all It is almost like a river which always changes its water or like the ship of Theseus which the Athenians were always repairing But as regards substances which are in themselves a true and real substantial unity to which may belong actions properly called vital and as regards substantial beings quae uno spiritu continentur in the words of an ancient jurisconsult ie which a certain indivisible spirit animates you are right in saying that they remain perfectly the same individual through this soul or this spirit which constitutes the ego in thinking beings
Ph The case is not very different in animals and in plants
Th If vegetables and animals have no soul their identity is only apparent but if they have individual identity is in truth strictly speaking there although their organized bodies do not preserve it
Ph This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists viz in the fact alone that he enjoys the same life continued by particles of matter which are in a perpetual flux but which in this succession are vitally united with the same organized body
Th That may be understood in my sense In fact the organized body is not the same from one moment to another it is only equivalent And if it were not related to the soul there would no longer be the same life or vital union Thus this identity would be only apparent
Ph Whoever shall connect the identity of man with anything else than a wellorganized body in a certain instant and which thence continues in this vital organization by a succession of different particles of matter which are united to it will have difficulty in making an embryo a man of years a fool and a wise man the same man unless it follows from this supposition that it is possible for Seth Ismael Socrates Pilate St Augustine to be one and the same man and this would agree still worse with the notions of those philosophers who recognize transmigration and believe that mens souls can be sent for punishment of their irregularities into the bodies of animals for I do not believe that anyone who was assured that the soul of Heliogabalus existed in a hog would mean that this hog was a man and the same man as Heliogabalus
Th There is here a question of name and of thing As for the thing the identity of one and the same individual substance can be maintained only by the conservation of the same soul for the body is in a continual flux and the soul does not dwell in certain atoms appropriated to itself nor in a little incorruptible indomptable bone such as the Luz of the Rabbis Moreover there is no transmigration by which the soul wholly leaves its body and passes into another It keeps always even in death an organized body a part of the preceding although what it keeps is always subject to insensible dissipation and to reparation and indeed to undergoing in a certain time a great change Thus instead of a transmigration of the soul there is a transformation envelopment or development and finally a fluxion of the body of this soul Van Helmont the son thought that souls pass from body to body but always within their kind so that there will always be the same number of souls of one and the same kind and consequently the same number of men and of wolves and that the wolves if diminished or extirpated in England would be proportionally increased elsewhere Certain meditations published in France would also seem to tend in that direction If transmigration is not taken strictly ie if anyone thought that souls dwelling in the same subtile body change only from a coarser body it would be possible even to the passage of the same soul into a body of a different kind after the fashion of the Brahmins and Pythagoreans But all that is possible is not for that reason conformed to the order of things But the question whether in case such a transmigration were true Cain Ham and Ismael supposing according to the Rabbis they were the same soul would deserve to be called the same man is only one of name and I have observed that the celebrated author whose opinions you have maintained recognizes and explains it very well in the last paragraph of this chapter The identity of substance would occur therein but in case there were no connection of memory between the different persons as the same soul would make there would not be sufficient moral identity to say that it would be one and the same person And if God willed that the human soul should go into the body of a hog forgetting the man and performing no rational acts it would not constitute a man But if in the body of the animal it had the thoughts of a man and even of the man whom it animated before the change like the Golden Ass of Apuleius one would perhaps have no difficulty in saying that the same Lucius who had come into Thessaly to see his friends lived under the asss hide where Photis had put him in spite of herself and wandered from master to master until the roses he ate restored him to his natural form
Ph I think we can boldly advance the idea that whoever of us saw a creature made and formed like himself although it had never exhibited more reason than a cat or a parrot would not cease to call it a man or if he heard a parrot discoursing rationally and in a philosophical manner would call or think it only a parrot and would say of the former of these animals that it is an uncultivated man dull and destitute of reason and of the latter that it is a parrot full of intelligence and good sense
Th I should be more of the same opinion upon the second point than upon the first although there is still something to be said thereupon Few theologians would be venturesome enough to agree at once and absolutely to the baptism of an animal in human form but without appearance of reason if he were taken while young in the woods and some priest of the Roman church should perhaps say conditionally if you are a man I baptize you for they would not know whether he is of the human race and whether a rational soul dwells therein and this might be an orangutan an ape externally very like a man such as that one whom Tulpius speaks of as having seen and that one an account of whose anatomy a learned physician has published It is certain I admit that man can become as stupid as an orangutan but the interior of a rational soul would abide there in spite of the suspension of the exercise of reason as I have explained above thus it is a point of which we cannot judge by appearances As for the second case nothing prevents there being rational animals of a different kind from ourselves as those inhabitants of the poetic kingdom of the birds in the sun where a parrot having come from this world after its death saved the life of a traveller who had treated him well here below But if it happened as it happens in the country of the fairies or of Mother Goose that a parrot was a transformed daughter of a king and became known as such while speaking doubtless her father and mother would caress her as their daughter whom they thought they possessed though concealed under this strange form I should not oppose myself however to him who should say that in the Golden Ass as the self or the individual remained for the sake of the same immaterial spirit so Lucius or the person remained for the sake of the apperception of this ego but that this is no longer a man as in fact it seems necessary to add something of the figure and constitution of the body to the definition of man when we say that he is a rational animal otherwise in my view the genii would also be men
Ph The word person carries with it a thinking and intelligent being capable of reason and reflection that can consider itself indeed as the same as one and the same thing which thinks at different times and in different places which it does only by that consciousness which it has of its own acts And this knowledge always accompanies our sensations and our present perceptions when they are sufficiently distinguished as I have more than once before remarked and it is by this that each one is to himself what he calls himself It is not considered in this case whether the same self is continued in the same or in different substances For since consciousness always accompanies thought and is that which makes each one to be what he calls himself and by which he is distinguished from every other thinking being it is also in this alone that personal identity consists or that which makes a rational being always to be the same and as far as this consciousness can be extended over actions or thoughts already past so far the identity of this person extends and the self is at present the same as it was then
Th I am also of this opinion that consciousness or the perception of the ego proves a moral or personal identity And it is by this that I distinguish the invessability of the soul of an animal from the immortality of the soul of man both preserve physical and real identity but as for man he is conformed to the rules of divine providence so that the soul preserves also identity moral and apparent to ourselves in order to constitute the same person capable consequently of feeling chastisements and rewards It seems that you sir hold that this apparent identity could be preserved if there were no real identity I should think that that might perhaps be by the absolute power of God but according to the order of things identity apparent to the person himself who perceives the i same supposes real identity to every proximate transition accompanied by reflection or perception of the ego a perception intimate and immediate naturally incapable of deception I f man could be merely a machine and with that have consciousness it would be necessary to be of your opinion sir but I hold that this case is not possible at least naturally Neither would I say that personal identity and even the self do not dwell in us and that I am not this ego which has been in the cradle under pretext that I no more remember anything of all that I then did It is sufficient in order to find moral identity by itself that there be a middle bond of consciousness between a state bordering upon or even a little removed from another although a leap or forgotten interval might be mingled therein Thus if a disease had caused an interruption of the continuity of the bond of consciousness so that I did not know how I came into the present state although I remember things more remote the testimony of others could fill the void in my memory I could even be punished upon this testimony if I had just done something bad of deliberate purpose in an interval that I had forgotten a little after on account of this disease And if I had just forgotten all past things and I would be obliged to let myself be taught anew even to my name and even to reading and writing I could always learn from others my past life in my previous state as I have kept my rights without its being necessary for me to share them with two persons and to make me the heir of myself All this suffices to maintain moral identity which makes the same person It is true that if others should conspire to deceive me as I might indeed be deceived by myself by some vision dream or illness believing that what I had dreamed had happened to me the appearance would be false But there are cases in which we can be morally certain of the truth upon the relation of another and with God whose social connection with us constitutes the principal point of morality the error cannot have place As for the self it will be well to distinguish it from the phenomenon of self and from consciousness The self constitutes identity real and physical and the phenomenon of self accompanied by truth joins thereto personal identity Thus not wishing to say that personal identity extends no farther than memory I would say still less that the self or physical identity depends upon it Real and personal identity is proved with the utmost possible certainty by present and immediate reflection it is proved sufficiently for ordinary purposes by our memory of the interval or by the conspiring testimony of others But if God should change in an extraordinary manner real identity personal identity would remain provided man preserved the appearances of identity as well the internal that is to say consciousness as the external like those which consist in that which appears to others Thus consciousness is not the sole means for constituting personal identity and the testimony of another or even other proofs can supply it But there is some difficulty if contradiction occurs between those diverse appearances Consciousness may be silent as in forgetfulness but if it should alter very clearly things which were contrary to the other appearances we should be embarrassed in the decision and as it were suspended sometimes between two possibilities that of the error of our memory and that of some deception in external appearances
Ph You will say that the members of the body of every man are a part of himself and that thus the body being in a perpetual flux the man cannot remain the same
Th I should rather prefer to say that the land the He are without parts because it is said and with reason that the same substance or the same physical ego is really preserved But we cannot say speaking according to the exact truth of things that the same whole is preserved when a part is lost Now whatever has corporeal parts cannot fail to lose some of them at every moment
Ph The consciousness which one has of his past actions cannot be transferred from one thinking substance to another and it would be certain that the same substance abides because we feel ourselves the same if this consciousness were a single and indeed an individual act ie if the act of reflecting were the same as the act upon which you reflect in perceiving it But as it is only an actual representation of a past act it remains to be shown how it is impossible for what has never really been to be represented to the mind as truly having been
Th Memory after an interval may deceive we have experienced it often and there are means of conceiving a natural cause of this error But present or immediate memory or the memory of what passed immediately before ie the consciousness or reflection which accompanies internal action cannot naturally deceive otherwise we should not be certain indeed that we think of this or that thing for this statement is made internally only of the action already past and not in connection with the action itself Now if these internal immediate experiences are not certain there will be no truth of fact of which we can be assured And I have already said that there may be intelligible reasons for the error which exposes itself in perceptions mediate and external but in those immediately internal we cannot find any unless by recurring to the omnipotence of God
Ph As for the question whether the same immaterial substance remaining there may be two distinct persons see upon what it is based It is this If the same immaterial being can be deprived of all consciousness sentiment of its past existence and lose it wholly without the power of ever recovering it so that beginning so to speak a new account from a new period it has a consciousness conscience which cannot extend beyond this new state All those who believe in the preexistence of souls are evidently of this mind I have seen
The doctrine has been used chiefly to explain the origin of a man who was persuaded that his soul had been the soul of Socrates and I can assure you that in the post he filled and which was not one of little importance he passed for a very rational man and he appeared by his works which have seen the light to lack neither intelligence nor learning Now souls being indifferent to any portion of matter whatever this may be as far as we can know it by their nature this supposition of the same soul passing into different bodies involves no apparent absurdity But he who now has no consciousness of that which Nestor or Socrates ever did or thought does he or can he conceive himself the same person as Nestor or Socrates Can he take part in the actions of these two ancient Greeks Can he attribute them to himself or think them his own actions rather than those of some other man who has already existed He is no more the same person with one of them than if the soul now present in him had been created when it began to animate the body which it now possesses This would no more contribute to make him the same person as Nestor than if some of the particles of matter which once formed part of Nestor were now a part of this man For the same immaterial substance without the same consciousness no more makes the same person to be united to such or such a body than the same particles of matter united to a body without a common consciousness can make the same person
Th An immaterial being or a spirit cannot be stripped of all perception of its past existence There remain for it some impressions of all that has formerly happened to it and it even has some presentiments of all that will happen to it but these feelings are most often too small to be capable of being distinguished and perceived although they may perhaps sometime be developed This continuation and bond of perceptions constitutes in reality the same individual but the apperceptions ie when past feelings are perceived prove besides a moral identity and make real identity appear The preexistence of souls does not appear to us through our perceptions but if it were true it might sometime make itself known Thus it is not reasonable that the restitution of memory becomes forever impossible the insensible perceptions whose use I have set forth on so many important occasions serving here moreover to preserve the seeds The late Henry More a theologian of the English church was convinced of the truth of preexistence and has written in its defence The late M Van Helmont the son went much farther as I just said and believed in the transmigration of souls but always into bodies of one and the same species so that according to him the human soul always animated a man He believed with some Rabbis in the passage of the soul of Adam into the Messiah as into the new Adam And I do not know but that he thought he had himself been some ancient altogether clever man that he was elsewhere Now if this passage of souls was true at least in the possible way that I have explained above but which does not appear probable ie that souls keeping their subtile bodies pass at once into other coarse bodies the same individual would always subsist in Nestor in Socrates and in any modern and he could even make his identity known to anyone who would penetrate sufficiently into his nature on account of the impressions or marks which would there remain of all that Nestor or Socrates have done and which any genius sufficiently penetrating could there read But if the modern man had no means internal or external of knowing what he had been it would be as far as the moral is concerned as if he had not been But it appears that nothing is neglected in the world in relation even to the moral because God is the monarch thereof whose government is perfect Souls according to my hypothesis are not indifferent regarding any portion of matter whatever as it seems to you on the contrary they originally express those portions to which they are and ought to be united by nature
Thus if they pass into a new body coarse or sensible they would always preserve the expression of all that they had perceived in the old and it would even be necessary for the new body to manifest it so that the individual continuity will always have its real marks But whatever our past state may have been the effect it leaves cannot always be for us apperceivable The clever author of the Essay on Understanding whose views you had espoused had remarked Bk II chap On Identity that a part of these suppositions or fictions of the passage of souls assumed as possible is founded upon the common view of the mind as not only independent of matter but also as indifferent to every sort of matter But I hope that what you have said sir on this subject here and there will serve to clear up this doubt and to make better known what is naturally possible We see thereby how the acts of an ancient might belong to a modern who had the same soul although he did not perceive them But if he should come to recognize it still more would personal identity follow For the rest a portion of matter passing from one body into another does not constitute the same human individual nor what is called the ego but it is the soul which constitutes it
Ph It is however true that I am as much concerned and as justly responsible for an action done a thousand years since which is now adjudged as mine by this present consciousness selfconsciousness thereof as having been done by myself as I am for what I have just done in the preceding moment
Th This view of having done something may deceive in distant actions Men have taken as true by force of repetition what they dreamed or what they invented this false view may embarrass but it cannot make them punishable unless others agree therewith On the other hand you can be responsible for what you have done when you have forgotten it provided the action be verified elsewhere
finger is comprehended under this consciousness it constitutes as much a part of himself of him as that which is most so
Th I have said why I would not advance the view that my finger is a part of me but it is true that it belongs to me and that it constitutes a part of my body
Ph Those who hold another view will say that in the event of this little finger being separated from the rest of the body if this consciousness accompanies the little finger and leaves the rest of the body it is evident that the little finger would be the person the same person and that then the self would have nothing to do with the rest of the body
Th Nature does not admit these fictions which are destroyed by the System of Harmony or the perfect correspondence of the soul and the body
Ph It seems however that if the body should continue to live and to have its particular consciousness in which the little finger had no share and that meanwhile the soul was in the finger the finger could not own any of the actions of the rest of the body and we could no longer impute them to it
Th The soul also which would be in the finger would not belong to this body I admit that if God caused consciousnesses to be transferred to other souls it would be necessary to treat them in accordance with moral notions as if they were the same but this would disturb the order of things without reason and make a divorce between the apperceptible and the truth which is conserved by the insensible perceptions which would not be reasonable because the perceptions insensible at present may someday be developed for there is nothing useless and eternity gives a large field for changes
Ph Human laws do not punish the madman for the acts which the sober man does nor the sober man for what the madman does thereby making them two persons Thus they say he is beside himself
Th The laws threaten to chastise and promise to recompense in order to prevent bad and further good acts Now a madman may be such that the threats and promises do not operate sufficiently upon him reason no longer being master thus in proportion to his weakness the severity of the pain should cease On the other hand we wish the criminal to feel the effect of the evil he has done in order that he may fear further to commit crimes but the madman not being sensitive enough we are well content to wait a good while in order to execute the sentence which punishes him for what he did when sober Thus what the laws or the judges do in these instances comes not from the conception of two persons
Ph In fact in the party whose opinions I represent to you this objection is made that if a man who is drunk and who is afterwards no longer drunk is not the same person he should not be punished for what he did while drunk since he is no longer conscious of his act But they reply that he is altogether as much the same person as a man who during his sleep walks and does many other things and who is responsible for all the evil he has happened to do in that state
Th There is much difference between the acts of a drunken man and those of a true and recognized somnambulist We punish drunkards because they can avoid drunkenness and can even have some memory of pain while drunk But it is not so much within the power of somnambulists to abstain from their nocturnal walk and from what they do But if it were true that by giving them a good flogging we could make them stay in bed we should be right in doing it and we should not fail either although this would be rather a remedy than a punishment In fact it is said that this remedy has restored them
Ph Human laws punish both in accord with a justice conformed to the mode in which men understand things because in these sorts of cases they cannot certainly distinguish what is real from what is counterfeit thus ignorance is not received as an excuse for what they have done while drunk or asleep The deed is proved against the one who has done it and you cannot prove in his case lack of consciousness
Th The question is not so much about this as about what must be done when it has been verified as it may be that the drunkard or somnambulist were beside themselves In this case the somnambulist would be considered only as a maniac but as drunkenness is voluntary and the disease is not the one is punished but not the other
Ph But in the great and terrible day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be uncovered it is right to think that no one will have to answer for what is wholly unknown to him and that each one will receive what is due him his own conscience accusing or excusing him
Th I do not know whether it will be necessary for the memory of man to be exalted at the day of judgment in order for him to remember all he had forgotten or whether the knowledge of others and above all of the just judge who cannot be deceived will not suffice We might devise a fiction little agreeing with the truth but nevertheless conceivable to the effect that a man at the day of judgment believed he had been bad and that the same appeared true to all other created spirits who would be able to judge of it without its having been true could we say that the supreme and just judge who alone knows the contrary could condemn this person and judge contrary to his knowledge Yet it seems that that would follow from the notion you gave of moral personality You will perhaps say that if God judges contrary to appearances he will not be sufficiently glorified and will bring pain upon others but the reply could be made that he is for himself his unique and supreme law and that in this case others should consider themselves mistaken
Ph Could we suppose either two distinct and incommunicable consciousnesses acting by turns in the same body the one constantly during the day the other by night or that the same consciousness acts at intervals in two different bodies I ask if in the first case the day and night man if I may so express myself would not be two as distinct persons as Socrates and Plato and in the second case would he not be a single person in two distinct bodies It matters not that this same consciousness which affects two different bodies and these consciousnesses which affect the same body at different times belong the one to the same immaterial substance and the two others to two distinct immaterial substances which introduce these different consciousnesses into these bodies since personal identity would equally be determined by the consciousness whether that consciousness were attached to some individual immaterial substance or not Further an immaterial thinking thing may sometimes lose sight of its past consciousness and recall it anew Now suppose these intervals of memory and forgetfulness return with every day and night then you have two persons with the same immaterial spirit Whence it follows that the self is not determined by the identity or diversity of substance which it cannot be sure of but only by the identity of consciousness
Th I admit that if all the appearances were changed and transferred from our spirit to another or if God made an exchange between two spirits giving the visible body and the appearances and consciousnesses of the one to the other personal identity instead of being attached to that of substance would follow the constant appearances which human morality must have in view but these appearances would not consist in the consciousnesses alone and it will be necessary for God to make the exchange not only of the apperceptions or consciousnesses of the individuals in question but also of the appearances which present themselves to others regarding these persons otherwise there would be a contradiction between the consciousnesses of the one and the testimony of the others which would disturb the moral order of things But you must also agree with me that the divorce between the insensible and sensible world ie between the insensible perceptions which would remain in the same substances and the apperceptions which would be changed would be a miracle as when you suppose that God makes the vacuum for I have stated above why that is not in agreement with the natural order Here is another supposition much more suitable it may be that in another place in the universe or at another time a globe may be found which does not differ sensibly from this earthly globe in which we live and that each of the men who inhabit it does not differ sensibly from each of us who corresponds to him Thus there are at once more than a hundred million pairs of similar persons ie of two persons with the same appearances and consciousnesses and God might transfer spirits alone or with their bodies from one globe to the other without their perceiving it but be they transferred or let alone what will you say of their person or self according to your authors Are they two persons or the same since the consciousness and the internal and external appearance of the men of these globes cannot make the distinction It is true that God and the spirits capable of seeing the intervals and external relations of times and places and even internal constitutions insensible to the men of the two globes could distinguish them but according to your hypotheses consciousness alone discerning the persons without being obliged to trouble itself with the real identity or diversity of the substance, or even of that which would appear to others how is it prevented from saying that these two persons who are at the same time in these two similar globes but separated from each other by an inexpressible distance are only one and the same person which is however a manifest absurdity For the rest speaking of what may be in the course of nature the two similar globes and the two similar souls of the two globes would remain so only for a time For since there is an individual diversity this difference must consist at least in the insensible constitutions which must be developed in the course of time
Ph Suppose a man punished now for what he has done in another life and of which he could cause himself to have absolutely no consciousness what difference is there between such treatment and that which would be done him in creating him miserable
Th The Platonists disciples of Origen some Hebrews and other defenders of the preexistence of souls believed that the souls of this world were placed in imperfect bodies in order to suffer for the crimes committed in a preceding world But it is true if they neither know nor have ever learned the truth neither by recall of memory nor by any traces nor by the knowledge of another you cannot call it punishment according to ordinary notions There is however some room for doubt while speaking of punishments in general whether it is absolutely necessary that those who suffer should one day learn the reason for their suffering and whether it would not very often suffice that better informed minds should find therein a motive for glorifying the divine justice However it is more likely at least in general that the sufferers will know the reason of their suffering
Ph Perhaps in the main you can agree with my author who concludes his chapter on identity by saying that the question whether the same man abides is a question of name according as you understand by man either the rational spirit alone or the body alone of this form which is called human or finally the spirit united to such a body In the first case the spirit separated at least from the coarse body will be still the man in the second an orangutan perfectly similar to us reason excepted would be a man and if man were deprived of his rational soul and received a soul of an animal he would continue the same man In the third case both must remain together with the union itself the same spirit and the same body in part or at least equivalent as far as the sensible corporeal form is concerned Thus you could continue the same being physically or morally ie the same person without remaining man in case you consider this figure an essential to man according to this last sense
Th I admit that in this respect it is a question of name and in the third sense the same animal is as it were now caterpillar or silkworm and now butterfly and some as it were have imagined that the angels of this world were men in a past world But we have devoted ourselves in this conference to discussions more important than those about the meaning of words I have shown you the source of true physical identity I have made it appear that morality contradicts it no more than memory that they cannot always assign physical identity to the person indeed whose identity is at stake nor to those who are in connection with him but that nevertheless they never contradict physical identity and never are completely divorced from it that there are always some created spirits who know or may know what it is but that there is room to consider that what is indifferent regarding the persons themselves can be so only for a time
Ph Besides the relations founded upon time space and causality of which we have just been speaking there are an infinite number of others some of which I am going to propose for discussion Every simple idea capable of parts and of degrees furnishes an occasion for comparing the subjects in which it is found for example, the idea of more or less or equally white This relation may be called proportional
Th There may be however excess without proportion and this is in reference to a magnitude which I call imperfect as when we say that the angle which the ray makes with the arc of its circle is less than a right angle for it is impossible that there be a proportion between these two angles or between one of them and their difference which is the angle of contingence
Ph Another occasion of comparing is furnished by the circumstances of origin which found the relations of father and child brothers cousins countrymen With us people seldom think of saying this bull is grandfather of such a calf or these two pigeons are cousinsgerman for languages are proportioned to use But there are countries in which men less curious about their own pedigree than about that of their horses have not only names for each particular horse but also for their different degrees of relation
Th We can furthermore join the family idea and names to those of relationship It is true we do not observe under the empire of Charlemagne and for a sufficiently long time before and after family names in Germany France and Lombardy It is moreover not long that there have been families even noble in the North who had no name and in which a man would be recognized in his natal place only by calling his name and that of his father and besides in case he transplanted himself by joining to his own the name of the plane whence he came The Arabs and the Turcomans have also the same custom I believe having but few particular family names and content themselves with naming the father and grandfather etc of any one and they pay the same honour to their valuable horses which they call by a proper name and the name of the father and even beyond Thus they spoke of the horses which the Monarch of the Turks sent to the emperor after the peace of Carlovvitz and the late count of Oldenburg the last of his branch whose studs were famous and who lived a very long time had genealogical trees of his horses so that he could prove their nobility and went so far as to have portraits of their ancestors imagines majorum which were so much in demand among the Romans But to return to men there are among the Arabs and the Tartars names of tribes which are like great families which are much enlarged in the course of time And these names are taken either from the progenitor as in the time of Moses or from the place of abode or from some other circumstance Mr Worsley an observing traveller who is informed of the present state of Arabia Deserta where he has been for some time affirms that in all the countries between Egypt and Palestine and where Moses passed there are today only three tribes who can bring together five thousand men and that one of these tribes is called Stili from the progenitor as I believe whose tomb posterity honours as that of a saint casting upon it dust which the Arabs put upon the heads of themselves and their camels For the rest consanguinity exists when there is a common origin of those whose relation is considered but we could say there is alliance or affinity between two persons when they may have consanguinity with one and the same person without there being any for that reason between themselves which happens through the intervention of marriages But as it is not customary to say that there is affinity between husband and wife although their marriage may cause affinity in relation to other persons it would perhaps be better to say that there is affinity between those who would have consanguinity between themselves if husband and wife were taken as one and the same person
Ph The foundation of a relation is sometimes a moral right as the relation of a general of an army or of a citizen These relations depending upon the agreements men have made between themselves are voluntary or by institution and may be distinguished from the natural Sometimes the two correlatives have each its name as patron and client general and soldier But it is not so always as for example it is not so in the case of those who are related to the chancellor
Th There are sometimes natural relations which men have invested and enriched with certain moral relations as for example children have the right to claim the legitimate portion of the estate of their fathers or mothers young persons are under certain restraints and the aged have certain immunities But it also happens that some relations are taken as natural which are not so as when the laws say that the father is he who married the mother within the time which makes it possible for the child to be attributed to him and this substitution of the instituted in the place of the natural is sometimes only presumption that is to say a judgment which causes that to pass as true which perhaps is not so whilst its falsity is not at all proved Thus it is that the maxim pater est quern nuptiee demonstrant is understood in Roman law and among the most of the peoples where it is received But they tell me that in England it avails nothing in proving his alibi provided he has been in one of the three kingdoms so that the presumption in that case changes into fiction or into what some doctors call prmsumtio juris et de jure
Ph A moral relation is the conformity or disagreement which is found between the voluntary acts of men and a rule which makes us judge whether they are morally good or bad And moral good or moral evil is the conformity or the opposition which is found between voluntary acts and a certain law which brings upon us good or evil physical by the will and power of the lawgiver or of him who wills to maintain the law and it is this we call reward and punishment
Th Authors as clever as he whose views you sir represent are allowed to adapt their terms as they think proper But it is also true that according to this notion one and the same act would be morally good and morally bad at the same time under different legislators entirely as our clever author understood virtue above as that which is praised and consequently the same act would be virtuous or not according to the opinions of men Now that not being the ordinary sense that is given to morally good and virtuous acts I prefer for myself to take as the measure of moral good and of virtue the invariable rule of reason which God is charged with maintaining We can also be assured that by his mediation all moral good becomes physical or as the ancients say everything virtuous is useful while in order to express the notion of the author it would be necessary to say that moral good or evil is an imposed or instituted good or evil which he who has the power tries to make us follow or shun by punishments and rewards The good is that which by the general institution of God is conformed to nature or to reason
Ph There are three sorts of lairs the divine law the civil law and the law of opinion or reputation The first is the rule of sins or duties the second of actions criminal or innocent the third of virtues or vices
Th According to the ordinary sense of terms virtues and vices differ from duties and sins only as habits differ from actions and virtue and vice are not understood as something dependent upon opinion A great sin is called a crime and the innocent is not opposed to the criminal but to the blameworthy The divine law is of two sorts natural and positive Civil law is positive The law of reputation deserves the name of law only improperly or is comprised under the natural law as though I said the law of health the law of the family when actions naturally attract some good or evil as the approbation of another health gain
Ph The claim is in fact everywhere made that the terms virtue and vice signify actions good and bad in their nature and so far as they are really applied in this sense, virtue agrees perfectly with the divine natural law But whatever the claims of men it is evident that these names considered in their particular applications are constantly and solely attributed to such or such actions as in each country or in each society are reputed honourable or shameful otherwise men would condemn themselves Thus the measure of what is called virtue and vice is this approbation or this contempt this esteem or this blame which is formed by a secret or tacit consent For although men united in political societies have resigned into the hands of the public the disposition of all their forces so that they cannot employ them against their fellowcitizens beyond what the law permits they nevertheless always retain the power of thinking well or ill of approval or disapproval
Th I the clever author who thus explains himself should declare with you sir that it has pleased him to assign this present arbitrary nominal definition to the terms virtue and vice we could only say that it is allowed him in theory for the convenience of expression for want perhaps of other terms but we shall be obliged to add that this meaning is not conformed to usage nor indeed useful for edification and that it would sound ill in the ears of many people if anyone should introduce it into practical life and conversation as this author seems himself to admit in his preface But it is for us to go on farther here and although you admit that men claim to speak of that which is naturally virtuous or vicious according to immutable laws you maintain that in fact they mean to speak only of that which depends on opinion But it seems to me that by the same reasoning you could further maintain that truth and reason and all that could be named as most real depends upon opinion because men are mistaken when they judge of it Is it not better then on all accounts to say that men understand by virtue as by truth that which is conformed to nature but that they are mistaken often in its application besides they are mistaken less than they think for what they praise ordinarily deserves it in certain respects The virtue of drinking ie of well carrying wine is an advantage which served Bonosus in conciliating the Barbarians and in drawing from them their secrets The nocturnal powers of Hercules in which the same Bonosus claimed to resemble him were no less a perfection The craft of thieves was praised among the Spartans and it is not the skill but the unseasonable use which has been made of it which is blameable and those whom we harass in time of complete peace may serve sometimes as excellent partisans in time of war Thus all depends upon the application and the good or bad use of the advantages you possess It is also very often true and should not be taken as a very strange thing that men condemn themselves as when they do what they blame in others and there is often a contradiction between actions and words which scandalizes the public when what a magistrate or preacher does and defends leaps to the eyes of the whole world
ll Ph Everywhere that which passes as virtue is that which is thought worthy of praise Virtue and praise are often designated by the same name Sunt hie etiam sua pratmia iaudi says Vergil Men I and Cicero Nihil habet natura praestantins quam honestatem quam laudem quam dignitatem quam riecws Quaest Tuscul k chap and he adds a little after His ego pluribus noniinibus unam rem dedarari volo
Th It is true that the ancients have designated virtue by the name honesty Vhonneste as when they have praised incactum generoso pectus honesto It is true also that honesty Vhonneste has its name of honour or of praise But this means not that virtue is that which is praised but that it is that which is worthy of praise and which depends upon truth and not upon opinion
Ph Many do not think at all seriously of the late of God or hope that they will one day be reconciled with its author and as regards the law of the state they flatter themselves with impunity But they do not think that he who does anything contrary to the opinions of those with whom he associates and to whom he wishes to commend himself can avoid the pain of their censure and of their disdain No one who retains any consciousness of his own nature can live in society constantly despised this is the force of the law of reputation
Th I have already said that it is not so much the pain of a law as a natural pain which the act draws upon itself. It is, however true that many people are but little concerned about it because ordinarily if they are despised by some on account of some blameworthy act they find accomplices or at least partisans who do not despise them if they are ever so little commendable in some other respect They forget even acts the most infamous and it often suffices to be bold and impudent like that Phormio of Terence in order that all may be overlooked If excommunication produced a truly constant and general contempt it would have the force of this law of which our author speaks and it had in fact this force with the first Christians and for them took the place of the right which they lacked to punish the guilty nearly as artisans maintain certain customs among themselves in spite of the laws through the contempt which they show for those who do not observe them And it is this which has also maintained duels contrary to the ordinances It would be desirable for the public to agree with itself and with reason in its praise and blame and that the great above all do not encourage the bad by laughing at their bad actions in which it oftenest seems that not he who has done them but he who has suffered them is punished by contempt and ridiculed We shall see also generally that men despise not so much vice as weakness and misfortune Thus the law of reputation would need to be greatly reformed and also to be better observed
Ph Before leaving the consideration of relations I would remark that we usually have a notion as clear or clearer of the relation than of its ground If I believed that Sempronia took Titus from beneath a cabbage as they used to tell little children and that afterwards she had had Caius in the same manner I should have as clear a notion of the relation of brother between Titus and Caius as if I had all the knowledge of the midwives
Th But when they once said to a child that his little brother who had just been born had been drawn from a well a reply which they make use of in Germany to satisfy the curiosity of children upon this subject the child replied that he wondered that they did not throw him back again into the same well when he cried so much and disturbed his mother The fact is this explanation did not make him know any reason for the love his mother showed for the child We can say then that those who do not know the ground of relations have only concerning them what I call thoughts surd in part and insufficient although these thoughts may suffice in certain respects and upon certain occasions
Ph We come now to some differences of ideas Our simple ideas are clear when they are such as the objects themselves from whence they are received represent or may represent them with all the circumstances requisite to a well ordered sensation or perception While the memory retains them in this way they are in this case clear ideas and so far as they lack this original exactness or have lost anything so to speak of their first freshness and are as it were tarnished or faded by time so far are they obscure Complex ideas are clear when the simple ideas which compose them are clear and the number and order of these simple ideas are fixed
Th In a brief discourse on ideas true or false clear or obscure distinct or confused inserted in the Leipsio Acts of the year I have given a definition of clear ideas common to the simple and complex and which gives the reason of what you say here I said then that an idea is clear when it suffices to recognize and distinguish the thing as when I have a very clear idea of a colour I shall not take another instead of that which I ask for and if I have a clear idea of a plant I shall distinguish it among other neighbouring ones without this the idea is obscure I believe that we have but few perfectly clear ideas of sensible things There are colours which approach each other in such a way that we cannot distinguish them by memory and yet we will sometimes distinguish them by placing one near the other And when we think we have fully described a plant we can bring one from the Indies which will have all we have put into our description and which will not cease making itself known as a different species thus we can never perfectly determine species infamce or the lowest species
Ph As a clear idea is that whereof the mind has such a full and evident perception as it receives from an external object operating duly upon a welldisposed organ so a distinct idea is that wherein the mind perceives a difference which distinguishes it from every other idea and a confused idea is that which cannot be sufficiently distinguished from another from which it should be different
Th According to this notion which you give of the distinct idea I do not see how you distinguish it from the clear idea This is why I have been wont to follow here the language of Descartes with whom an idea may be clear and confused at the same time and such are the ideas of sensible qualities appropriate to the organs such as colour or heat They are clear for they are easily recognized and distinguished the one from the other but they are not distinct because they are not distinguished by what they include Thus we cannot give a definition of them We make them known only by examples and for the rest we must say it is an indefinite somewhat until we can decipher its contexture Thus although in our view distinct ideas distinguish one object from another nevertheless as the ideas clear but confused in themselves do so also we call distinct not all those which are very discriminating or which distinguish objects but those which are well distinguished ie which are distinct in themselves and distinguish in the object the marks which make it known which an analysis or definition of it gives otherwise we call them confused And in this sense the confusion which reigns in ideas can be exempt from blame being an imperfection of our nature for we cannot discern the causes for example of odours and tastes nor the content of these qualities This confusion can however be blameworthy when it is important and within my power to have distinct ideas as for example if I took adulterated gold as the true for want of making the necessary assays which contain the marks of good gold
Ph But you will say that there is no idea confused or rather according to your view obscure in itself for it can be only such as it is perceived by the mind, and that distinguishes it sufficiently from all others G And in order to remove this difficulty it is needful to know that the defect of ideas is related to names and what renders it faulty is the fact that it can as well be designated by another name as the one which we use to express it
Th It seems to me that we ought not to make this depend upon names Alexander the Great had seen they say in a dream a plant able to cure Lysimachus which has since been called Lysimachia because it effectually cured this friend of the king When Alexander had a quantity of plants brought among which he recognized that which he had seen in his dream if unfortunately he had not had a sufficient idea of it to recognize it and had needed as Nebuchadnezzar a
Daniel to enable him to recall his dream it is plain that the idea he would have had of it would have been obscure and imperfect for it is thus I should prefer to call it rather than confused not for want of appositeness in a certain name for there was none but for want of application to the thing ie to the plant which was to heal In this case Alexander would be reminded of certain circumstances but he would have been in doubt about others and the name serving us to designate anything makes us when we fail in the application to names fail ordinarily in regard to the thing which is promised by this name
Ph As complex ideas are the most subject to this imperfection it may arise from the fact that the idea is composed of too small a number of simple ideas as is for example, the idea of an animal which has the skin spotted a term which is too general and which does not suffice to distinguish the lynx the leopard or the panther which are besides distinguished by particular names
Tt If we were in the condition Adam was in before he had given names to the animals this defect would not cease to have place For supposing we knew that among the spotted animals there is one which has extraordinarily penetrating sight but that we did not know whether it is a tiger or a lynx or some other species it is an imperfection not to be able to distinguish it Thus the question is not so much about the name as about that which may give occasion for it and which renders the animal worthy of a particular name It thereby appears also that the idea of a spotted animal is good in itself and without confusion and obscurity when it is to serve only the genus but when joined with some other idea which is not sufficiently remembered it is to designate the species the complex idea is obscure and imperfect
Ph There is an opposite defect when the simple ideas which make up the complex idea are sufficient in number but too confused and involved like some pictures which appear so confused that they must be only the representation of the sky covered with clouds in which case also we could not say that there is confusion any more than if it were another picture made to imitate that one but when we say that this picture should make us see a portrait we shall have reason to say that it is confused because we cannot say whether it is that of a man or of a monkey or of a fish but it may be that when we look at it in a cylindrical mirror the confusion will disappear and that we shall see that it is a Julius Caesar Thus some mental paintings if I may so express myself cannot be called confused from any way in which the parts are joined together for whatever these paintings are they can obviously be distinguished from every other until they are ranked under some ordinary name to which we cannot see that they belong any more than to some other name of a different signification
Th This picture whose parts we see distinctly without noticing the result to which they in a certain way point resembles the idea of a heap of stones which is truly confused not only in your sense but also in mine so far as we have distinctly conceived their number and other properties If there were thirtysix of them for example we would not know looking at them heaped together without arrangement that they may produce a triangle or indeed a square as in fact they can because thirtysix is a square as well as a triangular number Thus it is that in looking at a figure of a thousand sides we shall have only a confused idea of it until we know the number of the sides which is the cube of ten The question then is not of names but of the distinct properties which are to be found in the idea when we have cleared up its confusion And it is sometimes difficult to find the key or the manner of looking at it from a certain point either by the intervention of a certain mirror or glass in order to see the purpose of him who has caused the thing
Ph It cannot be denied that there is yet a third defect in ideas which depends in truth upon the bad use of names it is when our ideas are uncertain or undetermined Thus we may see every day men who making no difficulty of availing themselves of the ordinary words of their mother tongue before they have learned their precise meaning change the idea which they attach to them almost as often as they use them in their discourse Thus we see how much names contribute to this denomination of ideas distinct and confused and without the consideration of distinct names understood as signs of distinct things it will be very difficult to say what a confused idea is
Th I have however just explained it without considering the names whether in the case where the confusion is understood with you as what I call obscurity or in that where it is understood in my sense as the defect in the analysis of the notion we have And I have also shown that every obscure idea is in fact indeterminate or uncertain as in the example of the spotted animal we have seen where we know that something further must be added to this general notion without clearly remembering it so that the first and third defect which you have specified come to the same thing It is however very true that the abuse of words is a great source of errors for a kind of error in calculating occurs therefrom as if in calculating we did not notice carefully the place of the counter or if we wrote the figures so badly that we could not distinguish a from a or if we omitted or changed them through inadvertence This abuse of words consists either in not connecting ideas with the whole or in connecting them with an imperfect one of which a part is empty and abides so to speak in blank and in these two cases there is a certain void and surd in the thought which is filled only by the name Or finally the defect is in attaching to the word different ideas whether we are uncertain which should be chosen which makes the idea obscure as well as when a part of it is surd or whether we select them by turns and avail ourselves sometimes of one sometimes of the other as the sense of the same word in one and the same course of reasoning in a way capable of causing error without considering that the ideas do not agree Thus the uncertain thought is either void and without idea or fluctuates between several ideas This does harm whether we wish to designate some definite thing or whether we wish to give a word a certain sense corresponding either to that of which we have already availed ourselves or to that which others have used above all in ordinary language common to all or to the artisans And from this arise an infinite number of vague and vain disputes in conversation in lecturerooms and in books which we may sometimes avoid by distinctions but which most frequently serve only to confuse the more by putting in the place of a vague and obscure term other terms still more vague and obscure as those often are which the philosophers employ in their distinctions without having good definitions of them
Ph If there is any other confusion in ideas than this which has a secret relation to names this at least casts more disorder than any other into the thoughts and discourse of men
Th I agree but most frequently some notion of the thing and the purpose which we have in availing ourselves of the name is mixed with it as for example when we speak of the church many have in view a government while others think of the truth of the doctrine
Ph The way to prevent this confusion is constantly to apply the same name to a certain mass of simple ideas united in a fixed number and into a determined order But as that suits neither the laziness nor the vanity of men and as it can be used only in the discovery and the defence of the truth which is not always the end they propose to themselves such precision is one of the things that is rather to be wished than hoped for The vague application of names to ideas indeterminate variable and almost wholly empty in the surd thoughts is on one side a covering of our ignorance and on the other a confusing and embarrassing of others which passes as true learning and as a mark of superiority in point of knowledge
Th The affectation of elegance and wit has further contributed much to this intricacy of language for in order to express thoughts beautifully and agreeably we make no difficulty of giving words in a tropical manner a sense different from the ordinary sometimes more general or more limited which is called synecdoche sometimes transferred according to the relations of things whose names we change either by concurrence in metonymy or by comparison in metaphor not to speak of irony which makes use of a term in a sense directly opposite to its real meaning Thus these changes are named when recognized but they are recognized only rarely And in this indeterminateness of language in which there is lacking a kind of law which regulates the meaning of words as there is something in the title of the digests of the Roman Law De Verborum Significationibus persons the most judicious when they write for ordinary readers would be deprived of that which gives charm and force to their expression if they should confine themselves rigorously to the fixed meanings of terms They need only take care that their variation does not cause any error or false reasoning to spring up The distinction of the ancients between the exoteric ie popular and the acroamatic mode of writing which belongs to those who are occupied in the discovery of truth has place here And if anyone wished to write in mathematical fashion in metaphysics or ethics nothing would prevent him from so doing with rigor Some have professed to do this and we have a promise of mathematical demonstrations outside of mathematics but it is very rare that they have been successful This is I believe because they are disgusted with the trouble it is necessary to take for a small number of readers where they could ask as in Persius Quis leget haec and reply Vel duo vel nemo I believe however that if they would undertake it in the proper way they would not be likely to repent it And I have been tempted to try it
Ph You will agree with me however that complex ideas may be very clear and distinct in one aspect and very obscure and confused in another
Th There is no reason to doubt it for example we have very distinct ideas of a good part of the solid visible parts of the human body but we have but few of the liquids which enter therein
Ph If a man speaks of a figure of a thousand sides the idea of this figure may be very obscure in his mind although that of the number may be very distinct therein
Th This example is not in point here a regular polygon of a thousand sides is known as distinctly as the millenary number because we may discover and demonstrate all kinds of truth
Ph But we do not have a precise idea of a figure of a thousand sides so that we can distinguish it from another which has only nine hundred ninetynine
Th This example shows that you here confound the idea with the image If anyone places before me a regular polygon sight and imagination cannot make me comprehend the millenary therein I have only a confused idea both of the figure and of its number until I distinguish the number by counting But having found it I know very well the nature and the properties of the proposed polygon as far as they are those of the chiliagon and consequently I have this idea of it but I cannot have the image of a chiliagon and it would be necessary to have senses and imagination more exquisite and better exercised in order to distinguish it thereby from a polygon which had one side less But the knowledge of figures no more than that of numbers depends upon the imagination although it is of service therein and a mathematician can know exactly the nature of a nonagon and a decagon because he has the means of making and examining them though he could not discern them at sight It is true that a workman or an engineer who does not perhaps know their nature sufficiently can have this advantage beyond a great geometer that he can discern them by sight only without measuring them as there are some streetporters faquins or peddlers who will state the weight of what they are to carry within a pound in which respect they will surpass the most skilful statistician in the world It is true that this empirical knowledge acquired by a long practice may be very useful for prompt action such as an engineer very often needs to perform because of the danger to which he is exposed in delaying But this clear image or this feeling which we may have of a regular decagon or of a weight of ninetynine pounds consists only in a confused idea since it is of no avail in discovering the nature and properties of this weight or of this regular decagon which demands a distinct idea And this example conduces to the better understanding of the difference of ideas or rather that of the idea and the image
Ph Another example We are led to believe that we have a positive and complete idea of eternity which is as much as to say that there is no part of that duration which is not clearly known in our idea but however great may be the duration that is represented as it is a question of an extension without limits there always remains a part of the idea beyond what is represented which continues obscure and undetermined and thence it comes that in discussions and reasonings concerning eternity or any other infinite we are apt to involve ourselves in manifest absurdities
Th This example does not appear to me to square with your design either but it is very appropriate to mine which is to disabuse you of your notions on this point For the same confusion of the image with the idea reigns here We have a complete or just idea of eternity since we have a definition of it although we have no image of it But the idea of the infinite is not formed by the composition of parts and the errors which we meet in reasoning upon the infinite do not arise from the defect of the image
G Ph But is it not true that when we speak of the infinite divisibility of matter although we have clear ideas of the division we have only very obscure and very confused ideas of the parts? For I ask whether a man taking the smallest atom of dust he ever saw has any distinct idea of the difference between the one hundred thousandth and the millionth part of this atom
Th It is the same quid pro quo of the image for the idea which I am astonished to see so confused The possession of an image of so great a smallness is not at all the question It is impossible according to the present constitution of our body and if we could have it it would be much the same as that of those things which now appear to us apperceptible but in compensation what is now the object of our imagination would escape us and become too great to be imagined Size has no images in itself and those which it has depend only upon comparison with the organs and other objects and it is useless here to employ imagination Thus it appears by all that you sir have said to me here that you are ingenious in devising difficulties without reason in demanding more than is necessary
Ph Ideas in relation to things are real or fantastical adequate or inadequate true or false By real ideas I understand those which have a foundation in nature and which are conformed to a real being to the existence of things or to their archetypes otherwise they are fantastic or chimerical
Th There is a little obscurity in this explication The idea may have a foundation in nature without being conformed to this foundation as when we maintain that the perceptions we have of colour and heat do not resemble any original or archetype An idea is also real when it is possible although no existing being corresponds thereto Otherwise if all the individuals of a species were lost the idea of the species would become chimerical
Ph Simple ideas are all real for although according to many whiteness and coldness are no more in snow than is pain yet their ideas are in us as effects of powers connected with external things and these constant effects serve us in distinguishing things as much as if they were exact images of that which exists in the things themselves
Th I have examined this point above but it appears thereby that you do not always demand a conformity to an archetype and according to the opinion which however I do not approve of those who think that God has arbitrarily assigned us ideas destined to mark the qualities of objects without any resemblance or even natural relation there would be also in that case less conformity between our ideas and the archetypes than there is between the words which we use by institution in language and the ideas or the things themselves
Ph The mind is passive as regards its simple ideas but the combinations it makes of them to form complex ideas where many simple ideas are comprised under one and the same name have somewhat of the volitional element for one man admits into the complex ideas he has of gold or of justice simple ideas which another does not admit
Th The mind is, however active in reference to simple ideas when it detaches them one from another to consider them separately — an act which is voluntary as well as the combination of many ideas whether it is done to call attention to a complex idea resulting therein or whether it is the purpose to comprehend them under the name given to the combination And the mind cannot be deceived therein provided it does not unite incompatible ideas and provided this name is still virginal so to speak that is to say a name to which some notion has not already been attached which might cause confusion with that which is newly attached thereto and make arise either impossible notions by joining together what cannot take place or notions superfluous and containing some obreption by joining ideas one of which may and ought to be derived from the other by demonstration
Ph Mixed modes and relations having no other reality than that which they have in mens minds all that is requisite to make these sorts of ideas real is the possibility of existence or of compatibility together
Th Relations have a reality dependent upon the mind like truths but not the mind of men since there is a supreme intelligence which determines them all for all time Mixed modes which are distinct from relations may be real accidents But be they dependent or not dependent upon the mind it suffices for the reality of their ideas that these modes be possible or what is the same thing distinctly intelligible And for this result it is necessary that their ingredients be com possible ie capable of existing together
Ph But the complex ideas of substances as they are all formed in relation to things existing outside of us and as representative of substances such as really exist are real only so far as they are combinations of simple ideas really both united and coexisting in things coexisting without us On the contrary those are chimerical which are composed of such collections of simple ideas as have never been really united and found together in any substance like those which form a centaur a body resembling gold save in weight and lighter than water a body similar in relation to the senses but endowed with perception voluntary movement etc
Tit If I take in this manner the terms real and chimerical otherwise in relation to the ideas of the modes than in relation to those which form a substance I do not see what common notion in each case you give to real or chimerical ideas for the modes are real to you when they are possible and substances have real ideas with you only when they are existent But in desiring to tally with existence we can determine but little whether an idea is chimerical or not because what is possible although not found in our place or time may have existed formerly or will perhaps someday exist or may indeed be found already present in another world or even in ours without our knowing it like the idea which Democritus had of the Milky Way which the telescopes have verified so that it seems better to say that possible ideas only become chimerical when we attach to them without foundation the idea of effective existence as those do who promise themselves the philosophers stone or as those would do who should believe that there had been a nation of centaurs Otherwise in not regulating ourselves by existence we shall deviate unnecessarily from the received language which does not allow us to say that he who speaks in winter of roses or pinks speaks of a chimera unless he imagines he is able to find them in his garden as the story is told of Albert the Great or of some other pretended Magician
Ph Real ideas are complete when they represent perfectly the originals whence the mind supposes them to be taken which they represent and to which it refers them Incomplete ideas represent only a part of these originals All our simple ideas are complete The idea of whiteness or of sweetness which is noticed in sugar is complete because it suffices for this — that it corresponds entirely to the powers that God has put into this body to produce these sensations
Tit I see sir that you call complete or incomplete ideas those which your favourite author calls idem adcequatce ant inadmquatw you might call them perfect or imperfect I have sometimes defined idea adaequata a perfect idea as that which is so distinct that all its ingredients are distinct and such is nearly the idea of a number But when an idea is distinct and contains the definition or the reciprocal marks of the object, it may be inadequate or imperfect viz when these marks or these ingredients are not also all distinctly known for example gold is a metal which resists the cupel and aqua fortis it is a distinct idea for it gives the marks or the detinition of gold but it is not perfect for the nature of cupellation and the working of aqua fortis is not sufficiently known to us Whence it comes that when there is only an imperfect idea the same subject is susceptible of many definitions independent the one of the other so that we cannot always derive one from the other nor see beforehand that they must belong to one and the same subject and then experience alone teaches us that they all belong to it at once Thus gold may still be defined as the heaviest of our bodies or the most malleable without speaking of other definitions which might be invented But we shall be able to see why it belongs to the heaviest of metals to resist these two tests of the assayers only when men shall have penetrated farther into the nature of things whilst in geometry where we have perfect ideas the case is different for we can prove that the sections of the cone and of the cylinder made by a plane are the same viz ellipses and this cannot be unknown to us if we take notice of it because the notions we have of them are perfect With me the division of ideas into perfect and imperfect is only a subdivision of distinct ideas and it appears to me that only the confused ideas like that we have of sweetness of which you sir speak deserve this name for although they express the power which produces the sensation they do not express it wholly or at least we cannot know this for if we comprehended what is in this idea of sweetness we have we could judge whether it is sufficient as a rational expression of all that experience causes us to notice therein
Ph From simple ideas let us come to the complex they are either of modes or of substances Those of modes are the voluntary collections of simple ideas which the mind puts together without regard to certain archetypes or real and actually existing models they are complete and cannot be otherwise because not being copies but archetypes which the mind forms in order to avail itself of them in ranking things under certain denominations they can lack nothing because each includes such a combination of ideas as the mind has desired to form and consequently such perfection as it had planned to give thereto and we cannot conceive that the understanding of anyone can have a more complete or more perfect idea of a triangle than that of a figure of three sides and three angles He who put together the ideas of danger of execution of the trouble that fear produces of a calm consideration of what it would be reasonable to do and of an actual application to its execution without being frightened by the danger formed the idea of courage and had what he desired viz a complete idea conformed to his good pleasure It is otherwise in our ideas of substances in which we maintain that which really exists
Th The idea of triangle or of courage has its archetype in the possibility of things as well as the idea of gold And it is a matter of indifference so far as the nature of the idea is concerned whether it was invented in advance of experience or whether it was retained after the perception of a combination which nature had made Combination also which produces the modes is not wholly voluntary or arbitrary for we can put together what is incompatible as those do who invent machines for perpetual motion while others can invent those which are good and practicable which have no other archetypes with us than the idea of the inventor which has as its archetype the possibility of things or the divine idea Now these machines are substances We can also invent impossible modes as when we maintain the parallelism of parabolas by imagining that we can find two parabolas parallel to each other like two straight lines or two circles An idea then whether it be that of a mode or that of a substance may be complete or incomplete according as we understand well or ill the partial ideas which form the total idea and it is a mark of a perfect idea when it makes known perfectly the possibility of the object]
PA As truth or falsehood belongs only to propositions it follows that when ideas are termed true or false there is some tacit proposition or affirmation or a tacit assumption of their conformity to something above all with what others designate by this name as when they speak of justice item to what really exists as man exists but not the centaur item to the essence upon which depend the properties of the thing and in this sense our ordinary ideas of substances are false when we think of certain substantial forms Besides ideas deserve rather to be called accurate or faulty than true or false
Th I believe that true or false ideas might be so understood but as these different senses do not agree between themselves and cannot be conveniently ranked under a common notion I prefer to call the ideas true or false in relation to another tacit affirmation which they all include which is that of possibility Thus possible ideas are true impossible false
Ph We often notice something odd in the reasonings of people and everybody is subject to this It is not alone obstinacy or selflove for often people who are well disposed are guilty of this fault It does not indeed suffice to attribute it to education and to prejudice It is rather a kind of madness and we should be foolish if we should always act thus This fault arises from a nonnatural connection of ideas which has its origin in chance or custom Inclination and interest enter into it Certain tracts of the repeated course of animal spirits become beaten roads when we know a certain air we find it as soon as we begin it Thence arise the sympathies or antipathies which are not born with us A child has eaten too much honey and has been surfeited by it and then having become a fullgrown man he cannot hear the name honey without a rising of the stomach Children are very susceptible to these impressions and it is well to be careful of them This irregular association of ideas has a great influence in all our actions and passions natural and moral Darkness revives the idea of ghosts in children because of the stories told them about them You do not think of a man whom you hate without thinking of the evil he has done or may do You shun the room in which you have seen a friend die A mother who has lost a very dear child sometimes loses with it all her joy until time effaces the impression of this idea which sometimes never happens A man perfectly cured of madness by an extremely painful operation acknowledged all his life his obligation to the one who performed this operation but it was impossible for him to endure the sight of the operator Some hate books all their life because of the bad treatment they received in school Some one having once gotten the upper hand of another upon some occasion keeps it always A man was found who had learned to dance finely but could not execute the dance unless there was in the room a trunk like the one which had been in the room where he had learned The same nonnatural bond is found in the intellectual habits you bind matter to being as if there were nothing immaterial IS The sectarian party in philosophy religion and the state is attached to its opinions
Th This remark is important and wholly to my taste and can be fortified by an infinite number of examples Descartes having had in his youth some affection for a squinteyed person could not prevent himself from having all his life an inclination towards those who had this defect Hobbes another great philosopher could not they say remain alone in a dark place without having his mind frightened by images of ghosts although he did not believe in them this impression having remained from the stories told to children Many persons well informed and sensible and who are decidedly superior to superstition cannot bring themselves to be thirteen at a repast without being extremely disconcerted having sometime been impressed by the fancy that one of them must die during the year There was a gentleman who having been injured perhaps in his infancy by a badly fastened pin could not see one in this condition without being ready to fall into a swoon A prime minister who bore in the court of his master the name of President was offended by the title of the book of Ottavio Pisani called Lycurgus and wrote against this book because the author in speaking of the officers of justice whom he thought superfluous had named also the Presidents and although this term in the person of this minister meant a totally different thing he had so attached the word to his person that he was wounded in this word And this is a case of the most usual of the nonnatural associations capable of misleading as those of words to things when indeed there is any ambiguity In order the better to understand the source of the nonnatural bond of ideas you must consider what I have already said above Chap in speaking of the reasonings of animals that man as well as the animal is inclined to put together in his memory and imagination what he has observed united in his perceptions and experience It is in this that all the reasoning if so it may be called of animals consists and often that of men so far as they are empirical and govern themselves only by the senses and examples without examining whether the same reason still has force And as often the reasons are unknown to us we must have regard to the examples in proportion to their frequency for then the expectation or the reminiscence of one perception on the occasion of another perception which is ordinarily connected therewith is reasonable particularly when the question is about taking precautions But as the vehemence of a very strong impression often produces as much effect at once as the frequency and repetition of many moderate impressions would be able to make in a long time it happens that this vehemence engraves upon the fancy an image as profound and as vivid as long experience Whence it comes that a chance but violent impression unites in our imagination and memory two ideas at that time together there altogether as strongly and durably and gives us the same inclination to connect them and to attend to them one after the other as if a long usage had verified the connection thus the same result of association is found although the same reason does not exist Authority party custom produce also the same effect as experience and reason and it is not easy to deliver ones self from these inclinations But it would not be very difficult to keep ones self from being deceived in these judgments if men would attach themselves seriously enough to the search for truth or proceed methodically when they recognize that it is important to them to find it
Ph God having made man to be a social being has not only inspired him with the desire and placed him under the necessity of living with those of his species but has given him also the faculty of speech which is to be the great instrument and common bond of this society Hence it is that words arise which serve to represent and also to explain ideas
Th I rejoice to see that you are averse to the view of Hobbes who did not admit that man was made for society conceiving that he has been forced into it by necessity and by the wickedness of those of his species But he did not consider that the best men free from all wickedness united themselves the better to obtain their purposes as the birds flock together the better to travel in company and the beavers unite in large numbers to make great dams in which work a small number of these animals could not succeed and these dams are necessary to them to provide reservoirs of water or little lakes in which they build their huts and catch the fish upon which they feed This then is the foundation of the society of the animals which are adapted to it and nowise the fear of their kind which is rarely found among animals
PA Very true and it is the better to cultivate this society that man by nature has his organs so fashioned that they are adapted to the formation of the articulate sounds which we call words
Th As for organs monkeys have them apparently as suitable as ours for the formation of words but they do not take the least step in this direction Thus it must be that they lack an invisible something We must also consider that we could speak ie make ourselves understood by the sounds of the mouth without forming articulate sounds if we availed ourselves of musical tones for this effect but more art would be necessary to invent a language of tones whilst that of words may have been formed and perfected gradually by persons who found themselves in a state of natural simplicity There are however people like the Chinese who by means of tones and accents vary their words of which they have only a small number Thus it was the opinion of Golius a celebrated mathematician and great linguist that their language is artificial ie had been invented all at once by some clever man in order to establish verbal intercourse between the large number of different nations inhabiting this great country which we call China although this language may now be found altered by long use
Ph As orangutans and other monkeys have organs without forming words we can say that parrots and some other birds have words without language for we can train these birds and many others to form sounds quite distinct but they are nowise capable of language Man only is in a condition to avail himself of these sounds as signs of internal conceptions in order that thereby they may be manifested to others
Tit I believe in fact that apart from the desire of making ourselves understood we should never have formed language but being formed it further serves man in reasoning within himself both by the means words give him of remembering his abstract thoughts and the benefit he finds in availing himself in reasoning of characters and surd thoughts for he would require too much time if he were obliged to explain everything and always to substitute definitions in the place of terms
Ph But as the multiplication of words would produce confusion in their use if a distinct term were necessary to designate each particular thing language has been further perfected by the use of general terms when they signify general ideas
Th General terms serve not only for the perfection of languages but they are necessary even to their essential constitution For “if by particular things we mean individual things it would be impossible to speak if there were only proper names and not appellatives ie if there were words only for the individuals since at every moment something now presents itself to the mind when individuals accidents and particularly acts which are most frequently designated are in question But if by particular things we understand the lowest species species inftmoz besides the fact that it is difficult very often to determine them it is manifest that they are already universals formed upon similitude Then as the question is only of a similitude more or less extended according as we speak of genera or species it is natural to indicate every sort of similitude or agreement and consequently to employ general terms of all degrees and indeed the most general being less burdened with relation to the ideas or essences they include although they are more comprehensive in relation to the individuals to which they apply were very often the easiest to form and are the most useful Thus you see that children and those who know only little of the language which they wish to speak or of the matter of which they speak avail themselves of general terms as thing plant animal instead of employing the proper terms which they lack And it is certain that all proper or individual names were originally appellative or general
Ph There are also words which men employ not to signify an idea but the lack or absence of a certain idea as nothing ignorance sterility
Th I do not see why we could not say that there are privative ideas as there are negative truths for the act of denial is positive I had already touched upon this
Ph Without disputing about this point it will be more useful to approach a little nearer the origin of all our notions and knowledge to observe how the words employed to form actions and notions wholly removed from the senses derive their origin from sensible ideas whence they are transferred to significations more abstruse
Th The fact is our needs have compelled us to leave the natural order of ideas for this order would be the same for angels men and all intelligences in general and would have to be followed by us if we had no regard for our interests It has been necessary to attach thereto what the occasions and accidents to which our species is subject have furnished us and this order gives not the origin of the notions but so to speak the history of our discoveries
Ph Very true and it is the analysis of words which may teach us by means of the names themselves this concatenation which that of the notions cannot give by means of the reason which you have brought forward Thus the following words imagine comprehend to attach conceive instil disgust trouble tranquillity etc are all derived from the operations of sensible things and applied to certain modes of thought The word spirit in its primary signification is breath and angel signifies a messenger Whence we can conjecture what kind of notions they had who spoke these first languages and how nature will suggest unexpectedly to men the origin and the principle of all their knowledge by the terms themselves
Th I have already remarked to you that in the credo of the Hottentots they called the Holy Spirit by a term which signifies among them a breath of air benign and sweet The same is true as regards the majority of other words and indeed the fact is not always recognized because most frequently the true etymologies are lost A certain Dutchman with little regard for religion abused this truth that the terms theology ethics and metaphysics are taken originally from gross things in order to ridicule theology and the Christian faith in a little Flemish dictionary in which he gave to the terms definitions or explications not such as usage demands but such as the original force of the words seemed to bear and put upon them a malicious interpretation and as he elsewhere had given indications of impiety he is said to have been punished in the Ruspelhnys It will however be well to consider this analogy of sensible and nonsensible things which has served as the basis of tropes a matter that you will understand the better by considering a very extended example such as is furnished by the use of prepositions like to with from before in without by for upon towards A avec de devant en hors par pour sur vers which are all derived from place from distance and from motion and afterwards transferred to every sort of change order sequence difference agreement To d signifies approach as in the expression I go to A Rome But as in order to attach anything we bring it near that to which we wish to unite it we say that one thing is attached to a another And further as there is so to speak an immaterial attachment when one thing follows the other from moral reasons we say that what follows the movements and volitions of any one belongs to it that person or adheres to him as if it gave signs to this person to go near it or with it A body is with avec another when they are in the same place but they say also that a thing is with avec that which is found in the same time in the same order or part of an order or which concurs in one and the same act When we come from de any place the place has been our object through the sensible things it has furnished us and it is still in our memory which is entirely filled with it and thence it comes that the object is signified by the preposition of de as in the expression the question is of de that they speak of de that ie as if it arose from it And as what is included in any place or in any whole is supported by and carried away with it the accidents are in the same way considered as in dans the subject sunt in subjecto incoherent subjecto The particle upon sur is also applied to the object they say he is upon sur this matter very much as a workman is upon sur the wood or upon sur the stone that he cuts or forms and as these analogies are extremely variable and do not depend on any determinate notions it thence comes that languages vary much in the use of these particles and cases which the prepositions govern or rather in which they are found as things understood and virtually included
Ph Now as words are employed by men as signs of their ideas we may ask in the first place how their words have been determined and we find that it is not by any natural connection existing between certain articulate sounds and certain ideas for in this case there would be only one language among men but by an arbitrary institution in virtue of which a given word has been purposely made a sign of a given idea
Th I know it has been customary to say in the schools and almost everywhere else that the meanings of words are arbitrary ex institute and it is true that they are not determined by a natural necessity but they are nevertheless determined by reasons sometimes natural in which chance has some share sometimes moral where choice enters There are perhaps some artificial languages which are wholly of choice and entirely arbitrary as that of China is believed to have been or as those of George Dalgarno and the late Mr Wilkins bishop of Chester But those which are known to have been coined from languages already known are from choice mixed with what there is of nature and chance in the languages they suppose Thus it is in the case of those languages which thieves have coined in order to be understood only by those of their gang which the Germans call Rothicelsch the Italians Lingua Zerga the French Narquois but which they usually form upon the basis of the languages commonly known to them either by changing the received significations of the words by means of metaphors or by making new words by means of a composition or derivation in their own fashion Languages are also formed through the intercourse of different peoples either by mingling indifferently neighbouring languages or as most frequently happens by taking the one as a base which is mutilated and altered mixed and corrupted by neglecting and changing that which it observes and even by grafting thereupon new words The Lingua Franca which is used in the commerce of the Mediterranean is made from the Italian and no regard is paid to the rules of grammar An Armenian Dominican with whom I conversed at Paris had himself made or perhaps learned from his fellows a kind of Lingua Franca made from Latin which I found intelligible enough although it had neither case nor tense nor other inflections and he spoke it with ease being accustomed to it Father Labbd a French Jesuit very learned known by many other works has made a language of which Latin is the base which is easier and has less constraint than our Latin but which is more regular than the Lingua Franca He has made a book expressly of it As for the languages which are found made a long time ago there are but few which are not greatly altered today This is evident by comparing them with their ancient books and monuments which remain The old French approached nearer the Provencal and the Italian and we see the Theotisque with the French or Romance rather sometimes called Lingua Romana rustka as they were in the ninth century after Jesus Christ in the forms of the oaths of the sons of the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire which Nithard their kinsman has preserved for us We find little elsewhere of so old French Italian or Spanish But for the Theotisque or ancient German there is the gospel of Otfried a monk of Weissenburg of this same time which Elacius has published and which Schilter wished to edit anew The Saxons who passed into Great Britain have left us books still more ancient They have a version or paraphrase of the beginning of Genesis and of some other parts of the Sacred History made by a Csedinon whom Bede already mentions But the most ancient book not only of the Germanic languages but of all the languages of Europe except Greek and Latin is that of the gospel of the Goths of the Pontus Euxinus known by the name of Codex Argenteus written in characters entirely peculiar which was found in the ancient monastery of the Benedictines of Werden in Westphalia and has been carried into Sweden where it is preserved as with reason it should be with as much care as the original of the Pandects in Florence although this version was made by the Eastern Goths and in a dialect far removed from the Scandinavian German but it is because they believe with some probability that the Goths of the Pontus Euxinus came originally from Scandinavia or at least from the Baltic Sea Now the language or the dialect of these ancient Goths is very different from the modern German although it has the same linguistic basis The ancient Gallic was still more different to judge by the language most nearly approaching the true Gallic which is that of the country of Wales Cornwall and BasseBretagne but the Irish differs therefrom still more and shows us traces of a Britannic Gallic and Germanic language still more ancient But all these languages come from one source and may be taken as modifications of one and the same language which may be called the Keltic Thus the ancients called both the Germans and the Gauls Kelts and in going back farther in order to understand the origin both of the Keltic and the Latin and the Greek which have many roots in common with the Germanic or Keltic tongues we may conjecture that this fact arises from the common origin of all these peoples descended from the Scythians who having come from the Black Sea passed the Danube and the Vistula and of whom one part may have gone into Greece the other have filled Germany and the Gauls a consequence of the hypothesis which makes the Europeans come from Asia The Sarmatian supposing it to be the Sclavonic has at least half its origin either Germanic or common with the Germanic The case appears to be somewhat similar indeed in the Finnish language which is that of the most ancient Scandinavians before the Germanic peoples ie the Danes Swedes and Norwegians had taken possession of the land which is the best and nearest the sea and the language of the Finns or of the northeast of our continent which is also that of the Lapps extends from the German or Norwegian Ocean even to the Caspian Sea although interrupted by the Sclavic peoples which have been thrust in between the two and has some relation to the Hungarian having come from the countries which are now in part under the Muscovites But the Tartar language which has filled the northeast of Asia with its variations appears to have been that of the Huns and Cumans as it is of the Uzbeks or Turkomans of the Kalmuks and of the Mongols Now all these languages of Scythia have many roots common among themselves and with ours and it is found that even the Arabic under which the Hebrew the ancient Punic the Chaldee the Syriac the Ethiopic of the Abyssinians are to be comprised has so great a number of them and an agreement so manifest with ours that it cannot be attributed to chance alone nor even to commerce alone but rather to the migrations of the peoples So that there is nothing in this to combat and not rather to favour the view of the common origin of all nations and of a primitive root language If the Hebrew or the Arabic approaches the first of the European and then of tlia remaining Jannearest to it it must be at least much changed and the German seems to have preserved more completely the natural and to use the language of Jacob Boehme the Adamic for if we had the primitive language in its purity or sufficiently preserved to be recognizable the reasons of the connections whether natural or of an arbitrary institution would necessarily appear wise and worthy of the primitive author But supposing that our languages are derivative as regards their foundation they nevertheless have something primitive in themselves which has arisen from them in relation to new root words since formed among them by chance but upon natural grounds Those which signify the sounds of animals or have come from them furnish examples Such for example is the Latin coaxare attributed to the frogs which has some relation to couaquen or quake in German Now it seems that the noise of these animals is the primordial root of other words of the German language For as these animals make much noise the term is attributed today to idle talk and to babblers who are called quakeler in the diminutive form but apparently this same word quaken was formerly understood in a good sense and signified all sorts of sounds made with the mouth not even excepting speech And as these sounds or noises of animals are an evidence of life and as we know thereby before we see it that there is life there quek in old German has come to signify life or living as may be observed in the most ancient books and there are also traces of the same in the modern language for Quecksilber is quicksilver yifaryent and erqnicken is to strengthen and as it were to vivify or recreate after exhaustion or some great labour Certain weeds are called also in Low German Quakers alive so to speak and running as they say in German which spread and propagate themselves easily in the fields to the detriment of the grain and in English quickly means promptly and in a wideawake manner Thus we may consider that as regards these words the German language may pass as the primitive the ancients having no need to borrow elsewhere a sound which is the imitation of that of the frogs And there are many others in which the same thing appears For it seems that the ancient Germans Kelts and other peoples allied to them have employed by a natural instinct the letter R to signify a violent movement and a noise like that of this letter It appears in plu fluo rinnen riiren fluere rutir fluxion the Rhine Rhone Roev Rhenns Rhodanwt EridaMu Rura rauben rapere ravir Radt rota radere raser rauschen a word difficult to translate into French it signifies a noise like that which the wind or a passing animal stirs up in the leaves or the trees or is made by a trailing dress rerkken to stretch with violence whence it comes that reichen is to reach that der Rick signifies a long stick or perch useful for suspending anything in this kind of Plattutseh or Low Saxon which is spoken near Brunswick that Rige Reihe regula regere refer to length or a straight course and that Reck has signified a thing or person very extended and long and in particular a giant and then a powerful and rich man as it appears in the reich of the Germans and in the riche or ricco of the SemiLatins In Spanish ricos hombres means the nobles or chief men and this makes it plain at the same time how metaphor synecdoche and metonymy have caused words to pass from one signification to another without our being able always to trace them This noise and violent movement is noticed also in Riss rupture with which the Latin rumpo the Greek prjywu the French arracher the Italian straccio are connected Now as the letter R signifies naturally a violent movement the letter L designates a gentler one Thus we see that children and others who find the R too harsh or too difficult to pronounce substitute for it the letter L saying for example mon Uvelend pele This gentle movement appears in leben vivre — live laben conforter — comfort faire vivre — make live lind lenis lentus lent — slow lieben aimer — love lauffen glisser promptement comme Ieau qui coule—to glide quickly like flowing water labi glisser — to touch lightly labilur uncta vadis abies legen mettre doucement— to place gently whence comes liegen coucher — to lie down lage or laye vn lit comme un lit de pierres — a bed as a bed of rocks Laystein pierre couches ardoise — slate lego ich lese Je remasse ce quon a mis — I collect what has been invested it is the opposite of mettre — to place and then je lis — I read and finally among the Greeks je parle — I speak Laub feuille — leaf a thing easy to stir to which are related also lap lid lenken luo la solvo leien in LowSaxon to dissolve to melt like the snow whence the Leine has its name a river of Hanover which rising in the mountainous countries is greatly enlarged by the melted snows not to speak of an infinite number of other similar appellations which prove that there is something natural in the origin of words which indicates a relation between things and the sounds and move ments of the vocal organs and it is furthermore for that reason that the letter L joined to other nouns makes their diminutives with the Latins the SemiLatins and the High Germans But it must not be pretended that this reason can be noticed everywhere for the lion the lynx the wolf are anything but gentle But it may be attached to another accident the speed tau which makes them feared or compels flight as if the one who sees such an animal coming should cry to the others lauf fuyez — fly besides by many accidents and changes the majority of words are very much altered and diverted from their pronunciation and original signification
Ph Yet an example would make it better understood
Th Here is one plain enough and which comprehends man others The word all eye and its parentage may serve us To show it I will begin a little further back A the first letter followed by a little aspiration makes Ah and as this is an emission of the air which produces a sound clear enough at its beginning and then vanishing this sound naturally signifies a light breath npiritus lenis when A and B are not very strong Thence it is that J« aer aura haugh halare haleine fun Athem Odem in German have had their origin But as water is also a fluid and makes a noise it has come it seems that ah made rougher by doubling ie aha or ahha has been taken as water The Teutons and other Kelts the better to indicate the motion have placed their W before both Thence wehen Wind vent indicate the motion of the air and waten vadum water motion of or in the water But to return to aha it appears to be as I have said a kind of root which means water The Icelanders who preserve somewhat of the Scandinavian Teutonic have lessened the aspiration of some by saying aa others who say Aken meaning Aix Aquae grani have increased it as do also the Latins in their aqua and the Germans in certain places who say ach in compositions to indicate water as when Schwarzach means black water Biberach water of the beavers And instead of Wiser or Weser they said Wiseraha in the old titles and Wisurach among the ancient inhabitants of which the Latins ve made Visurgis as from Her llerach they have made Jlargus From aqua aigues awe the French have finally made eau which they pronounce oo in which there no longer remains anything of its origin Auwe Avge with the Germans is today a place which water often overflows suitable for pasturage locus irrigmts pascuus but more particularly it signifies an island as in the name of the monastery of Reichenau Avgia dives and many others And this process must have gone on among many of the Teutonic and Keltic peoples for thence it has come that everything which is as it were isolated in a kind of plain has been called Avge or there oculus Thus it is they name spots of oil upon water among the Germans and among the Spaniards ojo is a hole But Avge there oculus occhio etc have been applied more particularly to the cell as it were preeminently which makes this isolated brilliant foramen in the countenance and doubtless the French ceil comes from it also but its origin is not at all recognizable unless by the concatenation I have just given and the onxa and oii of the Greeks appear to come from the same source Oe or Oeland is an island among the inhabitants of the North and there is some trace of it in the Hebrew where Art At is an island Bochart believed that the Phoenicians derived the name which he thinks they gave to the Egean Sea full of islands from the same source Augere augmentation comes also from Auue or Auge ie from the effusion of waters as ooken auken in old Saxon was to augment and Augustus when speaking as Emperor was translated by Ooker The river of Brunswick which comes from the Hartz Mountains and consequently is much subject to sudden accretions is called Ocker formerly Ouacra And I mention in passing that the names of rivers having ordinarily come from the farthest known antiquity show best the old language and the ancient inhabitants hence they deserve particular investigation And languages in general being the most ancient monuments of peoples before writing and the arts show best the origin of cognations and migrations Hence etymologies much extended would be curious and significant but it is necessary to unite the languages of many peoples and not to make too many leaps from one nation to another far distant without having good verifications in which process it is especially useful to have intervening peoples as guarantees And in general credence must be given to etymologies only when there is a quantity of concurrent evidence to do differently is to goropise
Ph To goropise What does that mean
Th It means that the strange and often ridiculous etymologies of Goropius Becanus a learned physician of the sixteenth century have passed into a proverb although otherwise he may not have been excessively wrong in claiming that the German language which he calls Cimbrie has as many yes more marks of a primitive character than the Hebrew itself I remember that the late Mr Clauberg an excellent philosopher has published a brief essay upon the sources of the German language which makes one regret the loss of that which he had promised upon this subject I have myself published some thoughts upon the subject besides inducing the late Gerard Meier a theologian of Bremen to work upon it which he did till death interrupted him I hope however that the public will yet one day profit from his labours as well as from the similar labours of Mr Schiller a celebrated jurisconsult at Strasburg but who also has just died It is certain at least that the Teutonic language and antiquities enter into the majority of the researches into European origins customs and antiquities And I wish that learned men would make as much of them in the languages of the Wallachians Biscayans Slavonians Finns Turks Persians Armenians Georgians and others the better to discover the harmony which would particularly be of service as I have just said in clearing up the origin of nations
Ph This design is important but at present it is time to leave the matter of words and to return to their form ie to the meaning which is common to the different languages Now you will agree with me in the first place sir that when one man speaks to another it is of his own ideas that he wishes to give signs the words cannot be applied by him to things which he does not know And until a man has ideas of his own he cannot suppose them to correspond to the qualities of things or to the conceptions of another
Th It is true however that he intends very often to indicate what others think rather than what he himself thinks as happens only too much in the case of the laity whose faith is implicit But I admit that he always means something general however hollow and destitute of intelligence the thought may be and he takes pains at least to arrange his words according to the custom of others contenting himself with the belief that their sense can be apprehended at need Thus he is sometimes only the interpreter tmcheman of thoughts or the bearer of the word of another just as a letter would be and indeed this is the case oftener than you think
Ph You are right in adding that he always means something general however idiotic it may be A child having noticed in what he hears called gold only a brilliant yellow colour gives the name of gold to this same colour which he sees in a peacocks tail others will add great weight fusibility malleability
Th I admit it but often the idea you have of the object of which you speak is still more general than that of this child and I doubt not that a blind person can speak pertinently of colours and make a speech in praise of the light which he does not know because he has learned its effects and circumstances
Ph Your remark is quite true Men often apply their thoughts more to words than to things and because they have learned most of these words before becoming acquainted with the ideas which they signify not only children but also grownup men often speak like parrots But men ordinarily mean to indicate their own thoughts and further they attribute to words a secret relation to the ideas of another and to things themselves For if the sounds were attached to another idea by the one with whom we are conversing it would be necessary x to speak two languages It is true that one does not stop too much to examine what the ideas of others are and our idea is supposed to be that which the common people and the scholars of the country attach to the same word This is particularly the case as regards simple ideas and modes but as regards substances the belief is more particularly that the words signify also the reality of things
Th Substances and modes are equally represented by ideas and things as well as ideas in both cases are indicated by words thus I see but little difference save that ideas of substances and of sensible qualities are more fixed For the rest it sometimes happens that our ideas and thoughts are the matter of our discourse and constitute the thing itself which we desire to signify and that reflective notions enter more than we think into those of things We speak indeed sometimes of words in a material way without in this case being able to substitute with precision in the place of the word its signification or its relation to the ideas or things This occurs not only in speaking as a grammarian but also in speaking as a lexicographer in giving the explication of the term
Ph Although particular things alone exist the largest number of words are general terms because it is impossible for each particular thing to have a particular and distinct name besides the fact that in such case a prodigious memory would be necessary in comparison with which that of certain generals who could call by name all their soldiers would be nothing The matter indeed becomes infinite if every animal every plant and even every leaf of a plant every grain in short every grain of sand which might need a name must have its name And how name the parts of things sensibly uniform as water fire Besides these particular names would be useless the principal end of language being to excite in the mind of him who listens to me an idea similar to mine Thus the similitude suffices which is indicated by general terms And particular words alone would not serve to extend our knowledge nor to make us judge of the future by the past or of one individual by another But as it is often necessary to mention certain individuals particularly of our species use is made of proper names which are given also to countries towns mountains and other distinctions of place And horsejockeys give proper names even to their horses as well as Alexander to his Bucephalus in order to be able to distinguish this or that particular horse when he is out of their sight
Tit These remarks are good and some of them agree with those I was about to make But I would add in accordance with the observation I have already made that proper names have been ordinarily appellatives that is to say general in their origin as Brutus Caesar Augustus Capito Lentulus Piso Cicero Elbe Rhine Ruhr Leine Ocker Bucephalus Alps Brenner or Pyrenees for you know that the first Brutus had this name from his apparent stupidity that Caesar was the name of a child drawn by incision from the womb of his mother that Augustus was a name of veneration that Capito is a large head as also Bucephalus that Lentulus Piso and Cicero were names given in the beginning to those who cultivated in particular certain kinds of vegetables I have already said what the names of these rivers signify Rhine Ruhr Leine Ocker And you know that all rivers are still called Elbe in Scandinavia Finally Alps are mountains covered with snow with which agrees album white and Brenner or Pyrenees signifies a lofty pride for bren was high or chief as Brennus in Keltic as also brinck with Low Saxons is pride and there is a Brenner between Germany and Italy as the Pyrenees are between Gaul and Spain Thus I would venture to say that nearly all words are originally general terms because it will only rarely happen that an express name will be invented without reason to indicate one such individual We can say then that the names of individuals were names of a species which was given par excellence or otherwise to some individual as the name large head to that one of the whole city who had the largest or who was the most important of the large heads which were known Thus it is indeed that we give names of genera to the species ie that we shall content ourselves with a term more general or more vague to designate more particular species when we have no concern for their differences For example we are contented with the general name wormwood although there are so many species of it that one of the Bauhins has filled a book expressly with them
Ph Your reflections upon the origin of proper names are very just but to come to that of appellative names or general terms you will doubtless agree sir that words become general when they are signs of general ideas and ideas become general when separated by abstraction from time place or such other circumstances as may determine them to this or that particular existence
Th I do not deny this use of abstraction but it is rather in ascending from species to genera than from individuals to species For paradoxical as it may appear it is impossible for us to have the knowledge of individuals and to obtain the means of determining exactly the individuality of anything at least of keeping it by itself for all the circumstances may reappear the smallest differences are to us insensible place or time far from determining themselves need themselves to be determined by the things they contain The most important factor in the problem is the fact that individuality includes infinity and only he who is capable of comprehending it can have the knowledge of the principle of individuation of this or that thing This arises from the influence understanding it healthfully of all things in the universe upon each other It is true that this would be the case if the atoms of Democritus existed but in that case also there would be no difference between two different individuals of the same form and size
Ph It is however wholly evident that the ideas which children frame of persons with whom they converse to confine ourselves to this example are similar to the persons themselves and particular only The ideas they have of their nurse and their mother are very well traced in their minds and the names nurse and mamma which children use relate only to these persons Afterwards when time has shown them that there are many other beings resembling their father or mother they form an idea in which they find that all these particular beings equally share and they as others give it the name of man They acquire in the same way names and notions more general for example, the new idea of animal is not produced by any addition but only by removing the figure or the particular properties of man and retaining a body accompanied by life feeling and spontaneous movement
Tit Very well but that shows only what I just said for as the child advances by abstraction from the observation of the idea of man to that of the idea of animal he has come from the more specific idea observed in his mother or father and in other persons to that of human nature For in order to discern that he had not the precise idea of the individual, it is sufficient to consider that an ordinary resemblance would deceive him easily and make him take as his mother another woman You know the story of the false Martin Guerre who deceived even the wife of the true and the near relatives by resemblance united with skill and embarrassed for a long time the judges even when the true Martin had arrived
Ph Thus this whole mystery of genus and species which makes so much noise in the schools but which outside of them is with reason so little regarded this whole mystery I say reduces itself solely to the formation of abstract ideas more or less extended to which certain names are given
Th The art of classifying things into genera and species is of no little importance and of much use both to the judgment and the memory You know how important this is in botany not to speak of animals and other substances and without mentioning also beings moral and notional as some call them Order largely depends upon it and many good authors so write that their entire discourse can be reduced to divisions and subdivisions according to a method which has some relation to genera and species and is of use not only in retaining things but also in finding them And they who have arranged all sorts of notions under certain titles or predicaments subdivided have done a very useful thing
Ph In defining words we avail ourselves of the genus or the next general term and this is for the purpose of sparing ourselves the trouble of counting the different simple ideas which this genus signifies or sometimes perhaps for the purpose of sparing ourselves the disgrace of being unable to make this enumeration But although the shortest way of defining is by means of genus and difference as the logicians say it may be doubted in my opinion whether it is the best at least it is not the only way In the definition which states that man is a rational animal a definition which is perhaps not the most exact but which serves well enough the present purpose instead of the word animal you might put its definition And this shows the little necessity of the rule which requires that a definition must be composed of genus and difference and the little advantage there is in its strict observance Thus languages are not always made according to the rules of logic so that the meaning of each term may be exactly and clearly expressed by two others And those who made this rule have done ill in giving us so few definitions conformable to it
Th I agree with your remarks it would be advantageous however for many reasons if definitions might consist of two terms it would without doubt greatly shorten them and all divisions could be reduced to dichotomies which are the best species of divisions and are particularly useful for invention judgment and memory I do not however think logicians always demand that the genus or the difference be expressed in a single word for example, the term regular polygon may pass as the genus of the square and in the figure of the circle the genus might be a plane curvilinear figure and the difference might consist in the fact that all points of the circumference are equally distant from a certain point as centre
For the rest it is also well to remark that very often the genus may be changed into a difference and the difference into a genus For example, the square is a regular quadrilateral or rather a foursided figure that is regular so that the genus or the difference seems to differ only as the substantive and adjective as if instead of saying that man is a rational living being animal raisonnable language allowed the statement that man is a living rational being rational animable ie a rational substance endowed with an animal nature while genii are rational substances whose nature is not animal or common with the animals And this interchange of genera and differentia depends upon the variation of the order of the subdivisions
Ph It follows from what I have just said that what is called general and universal belongs not to the being existence of things but that it is a work of the understanding, and the essences of each species are only abstract ideas
Th I do not quite see this consequence For generality consists in the resemblance of separate things among themselves and this resemblance is a reality
Ph I was going myself to say to you that these species are founded upon resemblances
Th Why then not seek therein also the essence of genera and species
Ph You will be less surprised to hear me say that these essences are the work of the understanding, if you consider that there are at least complex ideas which in the minds of different persons are often different collections of simple ideas and thus what is avarice in the mind of one man is not so in the mind of another
Th I admit sir that there are few cases in which I have less understood the force of your inferences than here and this troubles me If men differ in the name does it change the things or their resemblances If one applies the name avarice to one resemblance and another to another there will be two different species designated by the same name
Ph In that species of substance which is most familiar to us and with which we are most intimately acquainted it has many times been doubted whether the offspring brought into the world by a woman was a man even to discussing whether he should be fed and baptized This could not be if the abstract idea or the essence to which the name man belongs were the work of nature and not a diverse uncertain collection of simple ideas which the understanding put together and to which it attached a name after having made it general by way of abstraction So that at bottom each distinct idea formed by abstraction is a distinct essence
Th Pardon me for telling you sir that your language perplexes me for I do not see its connection If we cannot always discern by the outside the internal resemblances are there less of them in nature When we doubt whether a monster is a man we doubt whether it has reason When we know it has the theologians will order it to be baptized and the jurisconsults to be fed It is true that we may dispute about the lowest species logically considered which vary by accidents in one and the same physical species or species by direct descent tribu de generation but we do not need to determine these we may indeed vary them infinitely as is seen in the great variety of oranges lemons and citrons which experts know how to name and distinguish The same thing was seen in tulips and pinks when these flowers were in fashion For the rest the fact that men unite these or those ideas or even that nature actually unites them or not makes no difference as regards essences genera or species since the question only concerns possibilities which are independent of our thought
Ph The species of each thing is ordinarily supposed to have a real constitution and it is beyond doubt that some real constitution must exist upon which every collection of simple ideas or qualities coexisting in this thing must depend But as it is evident that things are ranked in sorts or species under certain names only as they agree with certain abstract ideas to which we have attached these names the essence of each genus or species comes thus to be nothing else than the abstract idea signified by the general or specific name and we shall find this to be the import of the word essence according to its most ordinary use It would not be a bad thing in my opinion to designate these two kinds of essences by two different names and to call the one real and the other nominal essence
Th I seems to me that our language makes extreme innovations in the method of expression We have indeed spoken hitherto of nominal and causal or real definitions but not within my knowledge of essences other than real at least by nominal essences have not been understood false and impossible essences which appear to be essences but are not as for example would be that of a regular decahedron ie of a regular body comprised within ten planes Essence is at bottom nothing less than the possibility of that which we think What we assume as possible is expressed by the definition but this definition is only nominal when it does not express at the same time possibility for then we may doubt whether this definition expresses anything real ie possible until experience comes to our aid to make us know this reality a posteriori when the thing is actually found in the world and this suffices for the defect of the reason which made us know the reality a priori by exposing the cause or the possible generation of the definite thing It does not then depend on us to unite ideas as seems good to us at least this combination is not justified either by reason which shows it as possible or by experience which shows it as actual and consequently also possible In order the better to distinguish also essence and definition you must consider that there is only one essence of the thing but that there are many definitions which express one and the same essence as the same structure or the same city may be represented by different scenographies according to the different sides from which it is regarded
Ph You will I think agree with me that the real and the nominal are always the same in simple ideas and in the ideas of the modes but in the ideas of substances they are always entirely different A figure which bounds a space by three lines is the real as well as the nominal essence of the triangle for it is not only the abstract idea to which the general name is annexed but the essence or proper being of the thing or the foundation whence proceed its properties and to which they are annexed But it is wholly otherwise as regards gold The real constitution of its parts upon which its colour weight fusibility firmness etc depend is unknown to us and having no idea of it we have no name that is its sign Yet these are the qualities which cause the matter to be called gold and are its nominal essence ie which give it a right to the name
Th I should prefer to say in accord with received usage that the essence of gold is that which constitutes it and which gives it these sensible qualities which make it known and which make its nominal definition while we should have the real and causal definition if we could explain this contexture or internal constitution But the nominal definition is here found real also not by itself for it does not make known a priori the possibility or the genesis of bodies but by experience because we have experience of a body in which these qualities are found together but without this we might doubt whether so much weight would be compatible with so much malleability as it may be doubted even at present whether a glass malleable by cold is possible in nature I am not for the rest of your opinion sir that there is here the difference between the ideas of substances and the ideas of predicates as if the definitions of predicates ie of the modes and the objects of simple ideas were always real and nominal at the same time and that those of substances were only nominal I quite agree that it is more difficult to have real definitions of bodies which are substantial existences because their contexture is less sensible But it is not the same with all substances for we have a knowledge of true substances or unities as God and the soul as intimate as we have of the most of the modes Besides there are some predicates as little known as the contexture of bodies yellow or bitter for example are objects of simple ideas or notions hantasiesl and yet we have only a confused knowledge of them The case is the same in mathematics where one and the same mode may have a nominal as well as a real definition Few people have clearly explained in what consists the difference between these two definitions which must distinguish also essence and property In my opinion this difference is that the real shows the possibility of the thing defined and the nominal does not
The definition of two parallel straight lines which states that they are in one and the same plane and will not meet although continued to infinity is only nominal for we could at once doubt whether that is possible But when we have understood that we can draw a straight line in a plane parallel to a given straight line provided we take care that the point of the style describing the parallel remains always equally distant from the given line we see at once that the thing is possible and why they have this property of never meeting which constitutes their nominal definition but which is the sign of the parallelism only when the two lines are straight while if one at least were curved they might be by nature unable ever to meet and yet not on that account be parallel
Ph If essence was something else than the abstract idea it would not be ingenerable and incorruptible A unicorn a mermaid a perfect circle perhaps do not exist in the world
Th I have already told you sir that essences are perpetual because here the question concerns only the possible
Ph I confess I have always believed that the formation of the modes was arbitrary but as regards simple ideas and those of substances I have been persuaded that besides possibility these ideas should signify a real existence
Th I see no necessity for it God has ideas before creating the objects of these ideas and nothing prevents Him from being able also to communicate such ideas to intelligent creatures there is also no exact demonstration proving that the objects of our senses and of the simple ideas which the senses present to us are outside us This fact has especial weight in the case of those who believe with the Cartesians and with our distinguished author that our simple ideas of sensible qualities have no resemblance to that which is outside us in the objects there would then be nothing requiring these ideas to be grounded in any real existence
Ph You will grant me at least this other difference between simple and complex ideas that the names of simple ideas cannot be defined while those of complex ideas can be For definitions should contain more than one term each of which signifies one idea Thus you see what can or cannot be defined and why definitions cannot go on to infinity a remark which no one so far as I know has up to this time made
Th I have also made the statement in the brief Essay upon Ideas inserted in the Actes de Leipzig about twenty years since that simple terms cannot have nominal definitions but I have there added at the same time the statement that terms when they are simple only as regards us because we have no means of analysing them so as to reach the elementary perceptions of which they are composed as heat cold yellow green can receive a real definition which would explain their cause Thus the real definition of green is that of an entity composed of blue and yellow thoroughly mixed although green is no more susceptible of a nominal definition by which we may recognize it than blue or yellow Terms on the other hand which are simple in themselves ie whose conception is clear and distinct cannot receive any definition whether nominal or real You will find in this little Essay placed in the Actes de Leipzig the foundations of a large part of the doctrine concerning the understanding briefly explained
Ph It were well to explain this point and to indicate what can be defined what not And I am tempted to believe that often great disputes are raised and much nonsense introduced into mens discourse from a failure to consider this matter These celebrated trifles about which so much stir is made in the schools have arisen from the fact that no attention has been paid to this difference which is found in ideas The greatest masters in the art have been constrained to leave the majority of simple ideas without defining them and when they have undertaken to define them they have not succeeded What more superfine nonsense for example could the mind of man invent than that which is contained in this definition of Aristotle Motion is the realization of that which is possible so far as it is possible And the moderns who define motion as passage from one place into another merely put one synonymous word in the place of another
Th I have already remarked in one of our past conferences that you consider many ideas as simple which are not so Motion is of this number which I believe to be definable and the definition which states that it is a change of place is not to be despised Aristotles definition is not so absurd as you think this supposed absurdity arising from the failure to understand that the Greek Kivqcris with him did not signify what we call motion but what we would express by the word change whence it comes that he gives it a definition so abstract and metaphysical while what we call motion is called by him jopa latio and is found among the species of change ttjs KivijaiaK
Ph But you will not apologize at least for the same authors definition of light as the action of the transparent
Th I find it as you do very useless and he makes too frequent use of his action which does not tell us much Diuphmious is for him a medium across which we can see and light is according to him that which consists in the actual passage Well and good
Ph We agree then that our simple ideas cannot have nominal definitions as we cannot know the taste of pineapples by the accounts of travellers unless able to taste things by the ears as Sancho Panza had the power to see Dulcinea by hearsay or as that blind man who having been heard to speak boldly of the brilliancy of scarlet thought it must resemble the sound of the trumpet
Th You are right and all the travellers in the world could not give by their words what we owe to a gentleman of this country who cultivates successfully pineapples three leagues from Hannover almost upon the bank of the Weser and who has found means of multiplying them to such an extent that someday we can perhaps have them of our own growing in as great abundance as the oranges of Portugal though there would apparently be some loss in the flavour
Ph It is wholly otherwise with complex ideas A blind man can understand what a statue is and a man who had never seen the rainbow could understand what it is provided he had seen the colours which compose it But though simple ideas are inexplicable they are the least doubtful For experience accomplishes more than definition
Th There is however some difficulty as to the ideas which are only simple as regards us For example it would be difficult to indicate precisely the limits of blue and of green and in general to discriminate colours closely approaching one another while we can have precise notions of the terms used in arithmetic and geometry
Ph Simple ideas have further this peculiarity that they have very little subordination in what the logicians call the line of predication ligne pridkamentale from the lowest species to the highest genus The reason is that the lowest species being only a simple idea nothing can be taken from it for example nothing can be taken from the ideas of white and red in order to retain the common appearance in which they agree For this reason they are included with yellow and others under the genus or the name colour And when men wish to frame a still more general term comprising also sounds tastes and tangible qualities they avail themselves of the general term quality in the sense ordinarily given it to distinguish these qualities of extension number motion pleasure and pain which act upon the mind and introduce into it their ideas by more than one sense
Th I have something more to say upon this remark I hope that here and elsewhere you will do me the justice sir to believe that this is not from a spirit of contradiction and that the subject seems to demand it It is not an advantage that the ideas of sensible qualities have so little subordination and are capable of so few subdivisions for it arises only from the fact that we know little of them But the fact itself that all colours have the common property of being seen by the eyes of all passing into bodies from which one or more of them reappear and of being reflected from the polished surfaces of bodies which do not allow them to pass shows us that something can be taken from the ideas we have of them Colours may indeed be divided with good reason into extremes one of which is positive viz white and the other privative viz black and into means which are called colours however in a particular sense and which spring from light by refraction which furthermore may be subdivided into those of the convex side and those of the concave side of the broken ray And these divisions and subdivisions are of not a little consequence
Ph But how can you find genera in simple ideas
Th As they are simple only in appearance they are accompanied by circumstances which are bound up with them although this bond is not understood by us and these circumstances furnish somewhat that is explicable and susceptible of analysis which gives also some hope that hereafter the reasons of these phenomena may be discovered Thus it happens that there is a kind of pleonasm in our perceptions of sensible qualities as well as sensible masses and this pleonasm is that we have more than one notion of the same subject Gold may be denned nominally in several ways you may say that it is the heaviest of our bodies that it is the most malleable that it is a fusible body which resists the cupel and aqua fortis etc Each of these marks is good and is sufficient for the recognition of gold at least provisionally and in the present state of our bodies until a heavier body is found as some chemists maintain is the case in their philosophers stone or until that Luna Jixa is shown which is a metal said to have the colour of silver and almost all the other qualities of gold and which Chevalier Boyle seems to say he has produced Thus you may say that in matters which we know only empirically all our definitions are merely provisional as I believe I have already remarked above It is then true that we do not know demonstratively whether a colour may not possibly be produced by reflection alone without refraction and whether the colours we have hitherto noticed in the concavity of the angle of ordinary refraction are not found in the convexity of a kind of refraction hitherto unknown and vice versa Thus the simple idea of blue would be stripped of the genus which we have assigned it in our experiences But it is well to stop at the blue we have and at the circumstances attending it And it is something that they furnish us the means of making genera and species
Ph But what say you of the remark that has been made that simple ideas since they are taken from the existence of things are nowise arbitrary while those of the mixed modes are wholly so and those of substances to some extent
Th I believe that the arbitrary quality is found only in the words and not at all in the ideas For they express only possibilities Thus if there had never been a parricide and if all the legislators had been as cautious as Solon in speaking of it parricide would be a possible crime and its idea would be real For ideas are in God from all eternity and indeed they are in us before we actually think of them as I have shown in our previous conversations If any one wishes to take them as the actual thoughts of men it is permitted him to do so but he will oppose himself without reason to the accepted language
seq Ph But does not the mind form mixed ideas by bringing together simple ideas as suits its purpose without the need of a real model while simple ideas arise for it without choice through the real existence of things Is not the mixed idea often seen before the existing thing
Th If you take the ideas as actual thoughts you are right But I do not see that it is necessary to apply your distinction to that which concerns the form itself or the possibility of these thoughts and yet this is the question in the ideal world which is distinguished from the existing world The real existence of beings which are not at all necessary is a matter of fact or of history but the knowledge of possibilities and necessities for necessary is that the opposite of which is not at all possible constitutes the demonstrative sciences
Ph But is there more connection between the ideas of killing and of man than between the ideas of killing and of a sheep Is parricide composed of more connected notions than infanticide And is it more natural that what the English call stabbing ie murder by a thrust or by striking with the point which is a greater wrong with them than killing by striking with the edge of the sword should have deserved a name and an idea which is not accorded for example to the act of killing a sheep or of killing a man by cutting
Th If the question concerns only possibilities all these ideas are equally natural Those who have seen sheep killed have had an idea of this act in thought although they have not deigned to give it their attention Why then limit ourselves to names when the question concerns ideas themselves and why occupy ourselves with the worth of the ideas of the mixed modes when the question concerns these ideas in general
Ph Men form arbitrarily different kinds of mixed modes so that words are found in one language for which there are no corresponding words in another There are no words in other languages corresponding to the word Yersura used among the Romans nor to Corban used by the Jews We boldly translate the Latin words hum pes and libra by hour foot and pound but the ideas of the Romans were very different from ours
Tit I see that many things which we discussed when the question was that of ideas themselves and their kinds come back now under cover of the names of these ideas The statement is true as regards the names and the customs of men but it changes nothing in the sciences and in the nature of things It is true that he who would write a universal grammar would do well to pass from the essence of languages to their existence and compare the grammars of many languages In like manner an author who should write a universal jurisprudence drawn from reason would do well to unite with it the parallel laws and customs of peoples which would be of service not only in practical life but also in his reflections and would give him occasion to consider many points which would otherwise escape him But in science itself apart from its history or existence it is of no consequence whether people are or are not conformed to the dictates of reason
Ph The doubtful signification of the word species makes the statement that the species of mixed modes are made by the understanding offensive to some people But I leave it to others to consider who fixes the limits of each sort or species for these two words are for me wholly synonymous
Th The nature of things ordinarily fixes the limits of species for example of man and beast of cut and thrust I admit however that there are some notions in which the limit is truly arbitrary for example, the question of determining a foot for the straight line being uniform and indefinite nature indicates therein no limits There are also essences vague and imperfect into which opinion enters as when you ask how little hair must be allowed a man in order that he be not bald This was one of the sophisms of the ancients when one pressed upon his adversary
Dum cadat elusus ratione mentis acervi
But the true answer is that nature has not determined this notion and that the opinion has its share therein that there are some persons regarding whom it may be questioned whether they are bald or not and that there are some doubtful persons who will pass as bald with some and not with others as you remarked that a horse which will be considered small in Holland will pass as a large one in the country of the Gauls There is indeed something of this nature in simple ideas for I just observed that the final limits of colours are doubtful There are also essences truly halfnominal in which the name enters into the definition of the thing for example, the degree or quality of doctor chevalier ambassador king is recognized when a person has acquired the recognized right to avail himself of this name And a foreign minister however complete his power and however extended his train will not pass as an ambassador unless his letter of credence gives him the name But these esseices and ideas are vague doubtful arbitrary nominal in a sense a little different from those which you have mentioned
Ph But it seems that the name often conserves the essences of the mixed modes which you think are not arbitrary for example without the name triumph we should have but little idea of what took place among the Romans upon that occasion
Th I agree that the name serves to call attention to things and to conserve the memory and the actual knowledge of them but that accomplishes nothing as regards the point in question nor does it render the essences nominal and I do not understand why you gentlemen absolutely require that the essences themselves should depend upon the choice of names It would have been desirable that your distinguished author instead of insisting upon that had preferred to enter into a much more detailed account of ideas and of modes and to have set them in order and developed the varieties I would have followed him on this road with pleasure and with profit For he would doubtless have given us much light
Ph When we speak of a horse or of iron we regard them as the things which furnish us the original patterns of our ideas but when we speak of mixed modes or at least of the most important of these modes which are moral entities — for example justice gratitude — we consider their original modes as existing in the mind. Therefore we say the notion of justice of temperance but we do not say the notion of a horse of a stone
Th The patterns of the ideas of the one are as real as those of the ideas of the other The qualities of the mind are not less real than those of the body It is true you do not see justice as you see a horse but you understand it no less or rather you understand it better it is no less in acts than directness or obliqueness is in motions whether you consider it or not And to show you that men are of my opinion and men indeed the most capable and most experienced in human affairs I have only to avail myself of the authority of the Roman jurisconsults followed by all others who call these mixed modes or these moral entities things and in particular incorporeal things For servitudes for example like that of the passage through the ground of ones neighbour are with them res incorporates in which there is a property which may be acquired by long use and may be possessed and reclaimed As for the word notion many clever people have considered it as large as that of idea Latin usage is not opposed thereto nor do I know whether that of the English or the French is contrary to it
Ph It is further to be remarked that men learn the names before the ideas of the mixed modes the name showing them that this idea deserves to be observed
Th This remark is a good one although it is true that nowadays children with the aid of nomenclatures ordinarily learn the names not only of the modes but also of substances before the things and indeed rather the names of substances than of the modes for it is a defect in these same nomenclatures that they employ nouns only and not verbs not considering that verbs although signifying the modes are more essential in conversation than the majority of nouns which indicate particular substances
Ph The genera and species of substances as of other beings are only sorts For example suns are a sort of stars ie they are fixed stars for it is not without reason that we think each fixed star would make itself known as a sun to a person placed at a proper distance How that which limits each sort is its essence It is known either by its interior structure or by external indications which make us recognize it and call it by a certain name and thus it is that we may recognize the clock of Strasburg either as the clockmaker who made it or as a spectator who sees its effects
Th If this is your statement I have nothing to oppose to it
Ph I express myself in a way suited not at all to renew our discussions But I add that the essence is related only to sorts and that nothing is essential to individuals An accident or a disease may change my colour or shape a fever or a fall may take away my reason or memory apoplexy may leave me neither feeling understanding nor life If you ask me if it is essential to me to have reason I reply no
Th I think that there is something essential to individuals and more than you suppose It is essential to substances to act to created substances to suffer to minds to think to bodies to have extension and motion That is there are some sorts or species to which an individual cannot naturally at least cease to belong when it has once been of their number whatever revolutions may happen in nature But there are some sorts or species which are accidental I admit to the individuals which may cease to belong to them Thus you may cease to be healthy beautiful wise and indeed to be visible and palpable but you cannot cease to have life and organs and perception I have stated sufficiently above why it appears to men that life and thought sometimes cease although they cease not to endure and to have their effects
Ph Many individuals ranked under a common name considered as belonging to one species only have nevertheless very different qualities depending upon their real particular constitutions This is easily observed by all those who examine natural bodies and chemists often are convinced of it by sad experience when they vainly seek in one portion of antimony sulphur and vitriol for the qualities which they have found in other portions of these minerals
Th No statement has more truth and I could myself even furnish intelligence concerning it Books have also been written expressly de inftdo experimentorum chymicorum successu But the error consists in taking these bodies as similar or uniform while they are more mixed than we suppose for in dissimilar bodies we are not surprised to remark differences between individuals and physicians do not know how much the temperaments and natural dispositions of human bodies differ In a word we shall never find the final logical species as I have already remarked above and two real or complete individuals of one and the same species are never perfectly alike
Ph We do not notice all these differences because we do not know the little parts nor consequently the interior structure of things Thus we do not avail ourselves of them in order to determine the sorts or species of things and if we wished to do so by means of these essences or by what the schools call substantial forms we should be like a blind man who desired to arrange bodies according to colours We do not indeed know the essences of spirits we know not how to form distinct specific ideas of angels although we well know that there must be many kinds of spirits Thus it seems that in our ideas we put no difference between God and the spirits by any number of simple ideas save that we attribute infinity to God
Th There is however another difference in my system between God and created spirits viz that in my view all created spirits must have bodies just as our soul has one
Ph I think at least that there is tins analogy between bodies and spirits that as there is no gap in the varieties of the corporeal world so there will be no less variety in intelligent creatures Commencing from ourselves and proceeding even to the lowest things a descent is made by very small degrees and by a continued series of things which in each remove differ very little one from the other There are fishes that have wings and to whom the air is not strange and there are birds inhabiting the water whose blood is cold like that of the fishes and whose flesh so strongly resembles theirs in taste that the scrupulous are allowed to eat them on fishdays There are animals so closely approaching the species of birds and of beasts that they hold the middle ground between them The amphibia contain both terrestrial and aquatic animals Seals live upon the land and in the sea and porpoises whose name signifies seahog have the warm blood and the entrails of a hog Not to speak of that which is reported of seamen there are some animals who seem to have as much knowledge and reason as some that are called men and there is so close a relation between animals and vegetables that if you take the most imperfect of the one and the most perfect of the other you will scarcely perceive any considerable difference between them Thus until we reach the lowest and least organized parts of matter we shall find everywhere species bound together and differing only by degrees almost imperceptible And when we consider the wisdom and infinite power of the Author of all things we have reason to think that it is conformed to the magnificent harmony of the universe and to the great design as well as to the infinite goodness of this sovereign architect that the different species of creatures ascend also little by little from us towards his infinite perfection Thus we have reason to be persuaded that there are many more species of creatures above us than below us because we are much more distant in degrees of perfection from the infinite being of God than from that which approaches nearest to nothing Yet we have no clear and distinct idea of all these different species
Th I had intended in another place to say something not unlike what you sir have just set forth but I am glad to have been anticipated when I see that you state things better than I could hope to have done Clever philosophers have discussed this question utrum detur vacuum formarum ie whether there are possible species which however do not exist and which nature may seem to have forgotten I have reason to believe that all possible species are not compossible in the universe great as it is and that too not only in relation to things which exist contemporaneously but also in relation to the whole series of things That is to say I believe that there are of necessity species which have never existed and never will exist not being compatible with this series of creatures which God has chosen But I believe that all things which the perfect harmony of the universe can receive exist therein That there may be intermediate creatures between those which are far apart is in conformity with this same harmony although this is not always in one and the same globe or system and that which is between two species is sometimes so in relation to certain circumstances and not in relation to others Birds so different from man in other things approach him in speech but if monkeys could speak like parrots they would go farther The law of continuity declares that nature leaves no gap in the order she follows but every form or species is not the whole order As for spirits or genii as I hold that all created intelligences have organized bodies whose perfection corresponds to that of the intelligence or the mind which is in this body in virtue of the preestablished harmony I hold that in order to gain any conception of the perfections of spirits above us it will be of great service to imagine these perfections also in bodily organs which surpass our own It is a case in which the liveliest and richest imagination and to avail myself of an Italian term which I cannot well express otherwise the invenzione la pih vaga will be most timely in raising us above ourselves And what I have said in justification of my system of harmony which exalts the divine perfections beyond what we had dared to think will assist us also in having ideas of creatures incomparably grander than we have had hitherto
Ph To return for a little to the reality of species even in substances I ask you if water and ice are different species
Th I in my turn ask you if gold melted in the crucible and gold cooled in bullion are of one and the same species
Ph He does not reply to the question who proposes another
Qui litem lite resolvit
But you thereby admit that the reduction of things to species relates solely to the ideas we have of them which suffice to distinguish them by names but if we suppose that this distinction is founded upon their real and internal constitution and that nature distinguishes existing things into so many species by their real essences in the same manner as we ourselves distinguish them into species by these or those names we shall be liable to great mistakes
Th There is some ambiguity in the term species or a being of a different species which causes all this confusion and when we have removed it there will no longer be discussion save perhaps as regards the name We may take species mathematically and physically In mathematical strictness the least difference making two things in any respect dissimilar makes them different in species Thus in geometry all circles are of one and the same species for they are all perfectly alike and for the same reason all parabolas are also of the same species but it is not the same with ellipses and hyperbolas for of these there is an infinite number of sorts or species as well as an infinite number of each species All the numberless ellipses in which the distance of the foci has the same ratio to the distance of the apices are of one and the same species but as the ratios of these distances vary only in size it follows that all these infinite species of ellipses make only one genus and that there are no subdivisions On the other hand an oval of three foci would have indeed an infinite number of such genera and would have an infinitely infinite number of species each genus having a number of them simply infinite In this sense two physical individuals will never be perfectly similar and what is more the same individual will pass from species to species for it is never wholly similar to itself even for more than a moment But the men who establish physical species do not adhere to this strictness and it depends upon them to say that a mass which they can make return to themselves under its first form continues to be one and the same species in their view Thus we say that water gold quicksilver common salt continue the same and are only disguised in ordinary changes but in organized bodies or in species of plants and of animals we define species by generation so that this similarity which comes or may have come from one and the same origin or seed would be of one and the same species In man besides human generation we fasten upon the attribute rational animal and although there are men who live like beasts all their lives we presume that it is not for want of faculty or principle but that it is through impediments which stand in the way of this faculty But it is not yet determined as regards all the external conditions which we wish to regard as sufficient to give this presumption But whatever regulations men make for their denominations and for the rights attached to names provided that their regulation is followed or made fast and intelligible it will be founded in reality and they will not be able to imagine species which nature which includes even possibilities has not produced or distinguished before them As for the interior although there is no external appearance which is not based upon the internal constitution it is nevertheless true that one and the same appearance may sometimes result from two different constitutions But in
that case there will be something in common and this is what we philosophers call the proximate formal cause But although this should not be as if according to Mariotte the blue of the rainbow had an entirely different origin from the blue of the turquoise unless there were a common formal cause in which opinion I do not at all agree with him and although we should agree that certain apparent natures which make us give names have nothing internal in common our definitions would not cease to be grounded in real species for the phenomena themselves are realities We can say then that all which we truthfully distinguish or compare nature distinguishes or makes agree also although she has distinctions and comparisons which we do not know and which may perhaps be better than ours Thus much care and experience is yet necessary in order to assign genera and species in a manner sufficiently like nature Modern botanists think that the distinctions taken from the forms of flowers most resemble the natural order But they find therein however still much difficulty and it would be advantageous to make comparisons and arrangements not only upon a single character like that of which I have just spoken which is taken from flowers and is perhaps the most suitable up to this time for a possible system and convenient for learners but also upon characters taken from other parts and relationships of plants each basis of comparison deserving tables of its own; without which we shall allow many subaltern genera and many comparisons distinctions and useful observations to escape But the more thoroughly we examine the generation of species and the more we follow in the classifications the conditions which are there requisite the closer we shall approach the natural order Therefore if the conjecture of some intelligent persons were found true that there is in the plant besides the seed la graine or the recognized seed la sentence corresponding to the egg of the animal another seed which would deserve the name masculine ie a powder pollen visible very often though sometimes perhaps invisible as the seed la graine itself is in certain plants which the wind or other ordinary accidents scatter in order to unite it with the seed which comes sometimes from one and the same plant and sometimes also as in the hemp from another neighbouring plant of the same species which plant consequently will be analogous to the male though perhaps the female is never wholly destitute of this same pollen if this conjecture I say were found true and if the mode of generation of plants became better known I do not doubt that the varieties which would be noticed would furnish a basis for very natural divisions And if we had the penetration of some superior geniuses and knew enough about things perhaps we should find therein fixed attributes for each species common to all the individuals and always subsisting in the same living organism whatever alterations or transformations may happen to it as in the best known of the physical species the human reason is such a fixed attribute granted to each individual and never to be lost although it cannot always be perceived But in default of this knowledge we avail ourselves of the attributes which appear to us most convenient for distinguishing and comparing things and in a word for recognizing in them species or sorts and these attributes have always their real grounds
Ph In order to distinguish substantial beings according to the usual supposition that there are certain essences or precise forms of things whereby all existing individuals are naturally distinguished into species it would be necessary to be assured first that nature always proposes in the production of things to make them participate in certain regular and established essences as models and C secondly that nature always attains this end But monsters give us reason to doubt both It would be necessary to determine in the third place whether these monsters are really a distinct and new species for we find that some of these monsters have few or none of those qualities which are supposed to result from the essence of that species whence they derive their origin and to which they seem to belong in virtue of their birth
Th When it is a question of determining whether monsters belong to a certain species we are often reduced to conjecture This shows us that we are not then limited to external considerations since we should divine whether the internal nature as for example reason in man common to the individuals of such a species still suits as birth makes us conjecture these individuals in whom a portion of the external characteristics ordinarily found in this species is lacking But our incertitude nowise affects the nature of things and if there is such a common internal nature it will or will not be found in the monster whether we know it or not And if the internal nature of any species is not found therein the monster will be of its own species But if there were no such internal nature in the species under discussion and if the question was not decided by birth either then the external marks alone would determine the species and monsters would not belong to that species from which they deviate unless taken in a manner a little vague and with some latitude and in this case also our trouble in desiring to divine the species would be in vain This is perhaps what you mean by all the objections you make to species taken as real internal essences You ought then to prove sir that no common internal specific mark exists since the external is wholly missing But the contrary is found in the human species in which sometimes children who have some monstrosity reach an age in which they exhibit reason Why then could there not be something similar in other species It is true that for want of knowledge of them we cannot avail ourselves of it to define them but the exterior takes its place although we recognize the fact that it is insufficient for an exact definition and that the nominal definitions themselves in these instances are only conjectural and I have already stated above how sometimes they are only provisional For example we might find a way to counterfeit gold so that it might satisfy all the tests which we have up to the present time but we might also then discover a new method of testing which would give the means of distinguishing natural gold from this which is artificially made The old journals attribute both discoveries to Augustus Elector of Saxony but I am not the man to guarantee this fact But if it were true we could have a more perfect definition of gold than we have at present and if artificial gold could be made in quantity and cheap as the alchemists claim this new proof would be important for by its means we could preserve for the human race the advantage which natural gold gives us in commerce by its rarity while furnishing ourselves with a substance which is durable uniform easy to divide and to recognize and precious in small volume I wish to avail myself of this occasion to remove a difficulty see of the chapter On the Names of Substances in the author of the Essay on Understanding The objection is made that in saying All gold is fixed if we understand by the idea of gold the mass of certain qualities in which fixedness is comprised we make only an identical and useless proposition as if we said Fixedness is fixedness but if we understand thereby a substance given a certain internal essence of which fixedness is a result we shall not speak intelligibly for this real essence is wholly unknown I reply that the body given this internal constitution is designated by other external marks in which fixedness is not comprised as if anyone said the heaviest of all bodies is also one of the most fixed But all that is only provisional for we might someday find a volatile body as a new mercury which would be heavier than gold and upon which gold would float as lead floats upon our mercury
Ph It is true that in this way we can never know precisely the number of properties depending on the real essence of gold unless we know the essence of gold itself But if we limit ourselves precisely to certain properties that will be sufficient to enable us to have exact nominal definitions which will serve us for the present reserving to ourselves the privilege of changing the signification of names if any new useful distinction is discovered But it is necessary at least that this definition correspond to the use of the name and be capable of being put in its place This serves to refute those who maintain that extension constitutes the essence of body for when it is said that one body gives an impulse to another the absurdity would be manifest if substituting extension for body we should say that one extension puts in motion another extension by means of an impulse for in addition solidity is necessary In like manner no one will say that reason or that which makes man rational makes conversation for reason does not constitute the entire essence of man there are rational animals who converse with each other
Th I think you are right for the objects of abstract and incomplete ideas are not sufficient to give the subjects of all the actions of things But I think that conversation agrees with all minds who can interchange their thoughts The scholastics are greatly troubled regarding the angelic method of communication but if they would accord the angels subtle bodies as I do following the ancients they would experience no further difficulty in that regard
Ph There are some creatures in the world which have forms similar to ours but are hairy and use neither language nor reason There are imbeciles among us who have exactly the same form as ourselves but who are destitute of reason and some of them make no use of language There are some creatures as it is said which with the use of language and of reason and a form similar in every other respect to ours have hairy tails at least it is not impossible that there are such creatures There are others where the males have no beard and others where the females have If you ask whether all these creatures are men or not whether they
belong to the human species it is plain that the question refers only to the nominal definition or to the complex idea we have made for ourselves in order to indicate it by this name for the internal essence is absolutely unknown to us although we have reason to think that where the faculties or rather the external figure are so different the internal constitution is not the same
Th I think we have in the case of man a definition at once real and nominal For nothing can be more internal to man than reason and ordinarily it makes itself well known Therefore the beard and the tail will not be considered in comparison with it A man of the forest though hairy will make himself recognized and it is not the hair of a maggot which excludes him Imbeciles lack the use of reason; but as we know by experience that reason is often bound and cannot appear and as this happens in the case of men who have exhibited and will exhibit reason we make probably the same judgment regarding these imbeciles upon other indications ie upon their bodily figure It is only by these signs united with their birth that we presume that infants are men and will manifest reason and we are seldom deceived But if there were rational animals with an external form a little different from ours we should be embarrassed This shows that our definitions when dependent upon the exterior of bodies are imperfect and provisional If anyone called himself an angel and knew or knew how to do things much above us he might be believed If someone else like Gonzales Came from the moon by means of some extraordinary machine and told us credible things about his native country he would pass as a lunar being and yet we might accord him indigeneity and the rights of citizenship with the title of man entire stranger as he would be to our globe but if he asked for baptism and wished to be received as a proselyte of our law I think that we should see great discussions arise among the theologians And if communication were opened with these planetary men sufficiently approaching ourselves according to Huygens the question would require a universal council in order to know whether we ought to extend the care of the propagation of the faith even beyond our globe Many would doubtless maintain that the rational animals of these countries not being of the race of Adam have no part in the redemption of Jesus Christ but others would perhaps say that we have not sufficient knowledge either of the place where Adam has always been or of what has been done with all his posterity since there have been theologians indeed who believed that the moon was the place of paradise and perhaps that with the plurality we should conclude for the surest thing viz to baptize these men upon condition that they be susceptible of baptism but I doubt whether we should ever wish to make them priests in the Roman Church because their consecration would always be doubtful and we should expose the people to the danger of a material idolatry according to the hypothesis of this church Happily the nature of things exempts us from all these embarrassments but these bizarre fictions are useful in speculation in order rightly to know the nature of our ideas
Ph Not only in theological questions but also on other occasions some would perhaps wish to regulate themselves by the race and to say that in animals propagation by the copulation of the male and the female and in plants by means of the seeds keeps the supposed real species distinct and entire But this would serve only to fix the species of animals and vegetables What must be done about the rest And even as regards these it is not sufficient for if history is to be believed women have been gotten with children by maggots And here is a new question Of what species must such a production be You often see mules and jumarts see Dictionnaire Etymologique de M Menage the first begotten by an ass and a mare the last by a bull and a mare I have seen an animal begotten of a cat and a rat which had visible marks of these two animals Whoever will add thereto the monstrous productions will find that it is very hard to determine species by generation and if it can only be done by that means must I go to the Indies to see the father and mother of a tiger and the seed of the teaplant and could I not otherwise decide whether the individuals which come to us are of these species Th Generation or race gives at least a strong presumption i e a provisional proof and I have already said that very often our signs are only conjectural The race has sometimes been contradicted by the figure as when the child is unlike the father and mother and the mixture of figures is not always the sign of the mixture of races for it may happen that a female gives birth to an animal which seems to belong to another species and that the mothers imagination alone has caused this irregularity to say nothing of what is called viola But as meanwhile we judge provisionally the species by the race we also judge the race by the species For when a forest child taken from among the bears who had many of their ways but who made himself known at last as a rational animal was presented to John Casimir king of Poland he did not scruple to believe him of the race of Adam and to baptize him under the name of Joseph although perhaps upon the condition si baptizatus non es according to the usage of the Roman church because he might have been carried off by a bear after baptism We have not as yet sufficient knowledge of the effects of the intermixture of animals and often monsters are destroyed instead of being brought up whilst they are seldom long lived The belief is that mixed animals do not multiply but Strabo attributes propagation to the mules of Cappadocia and letters from China tell me that in neighbouring Tartary there are racemules We see also that the mixtures of plants are capable of preserving their new species We do not always indeed know in the case of animals whether it is the male or the female or both or neither which determines the species The doctrine concerning the eggs of females which the late Mr Kerkring made famous seemed to reduce the males to the condition of moist air as related to plants which furnishes seeds with the means of pushing and raising themselves from the earth following the verses of Vergil which the Friscillianists were wont to repeat
Cum pater omnipotens foecundis imbribus aether
Conjugis in lietaa gremium descendit et oinnes
Magnus alit magno commistus corpore foetus
In a word according to this hypothesis the male would no longer be more than the rain But Leeuwenhoek has rehabilitated the masculine genus and the other sex is in its turn degraded as if it performed only the earths function as regards seeds by furnishing them place and nourishment a view which might obtain even if we still maintained the theory of the eggs But this does not prevent the imagination of the female from having a great influence upon the form of the foetus even if we supposed that the animal has already come from the male For this is a condition destined ordinarily to a great change and much more susceptible also to extraordinary changes It is asserted that the imagination of a woman in this condition who was shocked by the sight of a cripple caused the separation of the hand of the foetus very near its term and that this hand was subsequently found in the afterbirth a statement however which requires confirmation Perhaps someone will arise who will maintain that although the soul can come only from one sex both sexes furnish something of the organism and that from the two bodies one is made just as we see that the silkworm is as it were a double animal and encloses a flying insect under the form of the caterpillar in such darkness are we still upon so important a point Someday perhaps the ‘analogy of plants will give us some light but at present we have but little information regarding the generation of plants themselves the surmise concerning the pollen which has been remarked as that which might correspond to the masculine semen not yet being very clear Besides a slip of a plant is very often capable of giving a new and complete plant to which no analogy is as yet seen in animals also we cannot say that the foot of an animal is an animal as each branch of the tree seems to be a plant capable of fruitbearing by itself Furthermore the intermixture of species and even the changes in one and the same species often go on with much success in plants Perhaps at some time or place in the universe the species of animals are or were or will be more subject to change than they are at present with us and many animals who have somewhat of the cat as the lion the tiger and the lynx might have been of one and the same race and may now be as it were new subdivisions of the ancient species of cats Thus I always return to what I have more than once said that our determinations of physical species are provisional and proportional to our knowledge
Ph Men at least in making their divisions of species have never thought of substantial forms save those who in this single corner of the world where we are have learned the language of our schools
Th It seems that lately the term substantial forms has come into disrepute with certain classes and that they are ashamed to speak of them Meanwhile there is perhaps in that circumstance more of fashion than of reason The scholastics employed inaptly a general notion when they used it to explain particular phenomena but this abuse does not destroy the thing The soul of man is a little disconcerting to the dogmatism of some of our moderns There are some who admit that it is the form of man but they also affirm that it is the only substantial form of known nature Descartes thus speaks of it and he censures Regius because he contested this quality of a substantial form of the soul and denied that man was a unttm per se a being endowed with a veritable unity Some think that this excellent man did this as a matter of policy I doubt this a little because I think he had reason for so doing But this privilege is not given to man only as if nature were made of broken sticks There is room for the judgment that there is an infinite number of souls or to speak more generally of primitive entelechies which have something analogous to perception and appetite and which are all and remain always substantial forms of bodies It is true that species apparently exist which are not truly a unum per se ie bodies endowed with a veritable unity or with an invisible essence which makes their entire active principle any more than a mill or watch might be The salts the minerals and the metals may be of this nature ie simple contextures or masses in which there is a certain regularity But the bodies of both ie animate bodies as well as the contextures without life will be specified by their internal structure since in those indeed which are animate the soul and the machine each by itself suffice for the determination for they agree perfectly and although having no immediate influence the one upon the other they are mutually expressive the one having concentrated into a perfect unity all that the other has dispersed in the manifold Thus when the arrangement of species is the question it is useless to dispute about the substantial forms although it may be well for other reasons to know if there are any and what their nature is for without this one would be a stranger in the intellectual world For the rest the Greeks and the Arabians have spoken of these forms as well as the Europeans and if the common people do not speak of them no more do they speak of algebra or of surds
Ph Languages were formed before the sciences and ignorant and unlettered people reduced things to certain species
Th True but persons who study these matters rectify the popular notions Assayers have found exact means of discerning and separating the metals botanists have enriched wonderfully the doctrine of plants and the experiments made upon insects have opened for us a new path in the knowledge of animals but we are still very far distant from the half of our course
Ph If species were a work of nature they could not be conceived so differently by different persons Man appears to one person an animal without feathers with two feet and with large nails and another after a more profound examination adds to these reason Many people however determine the species of animals by their external form rather than by their birth since the question has been put more than once whether certain human foetuses should be admitted to baptism or not for the sole reason that their external configuration differed from the ordinary form of infants without knowing whether they were not as capable of reason as infants cast in another mould some of whom are found who although of an approved form are never able to exhibit during their entire life as much reason as appears in an ape or elephant and who never give any indication of being governed by a rational soul Whence it appears evident that the external form which alone has found mention and not the faculty of reasoning which no one could know would be wanting in its time has been regarded essential to the human species And in these circumstances theologians and jurisconsults the most learned have been compelled to renounce their sacred definition of rational animal and to put in its place some other essence of the human species Mr Menage Menagiana Tom I p of the Dutch edition of furnishes us the example of a certain abbot of St Martin which deserves to be related When this abbot of St Martin he says came into the world he had so little the figure of a man that he resembled rather a monster For some time they deliberated whether he should be baptized He was baptized however and declared a man provisionally ie till time should show what he was He was so disfigured by nature that they called him all his life the Abbot Malotru He was of Caen There was a child who came very near being excluded from the human species simply because of his shape He narrowly escaped as it was and it is certain that a figure a little more deformed would have deprived him of it for ever and have caused him to perish as a being who ought not to pass for a man Yet no reason can be given why a rational soul could not have been lodged in him if the lineaments of his face had been a little more altered why a visage a little longer or a flatter nose or a wider mouth could not have subsisted as well as the rest of the irregular figure with a soul and with qualities which made him capable wholly disfigured as he was of being clothed with dignity in the church
Th Up to the present time no rational animal has been found with an external figure very different from ours therefore when the question arose of baptizing a child face and figure have always been considered only as marks by which to judge whether it was a rational animal or not Thus theologians and jurisconsults have never needed to renounce for that reason their sacred definition
Ph But if that monster of which Licetus Bk I chap speaks with a mans head and a hogs body or other monsters with the heads of dogs and of horses etc upon the bodies of men had lived and could have spoken the difficulty would be much greater
Th I admit it and if that occurred and if anyone had done as a certain writer a monk of the olden time named Hans Kalb Jean le veau — John the calf who painted himself with a calfs head the pen in his hand in a book he had written which procedure caused some foolishly to think that this writer had in reality a calfs head — if I say that happened we should be more cautious hereafter in getting rid of monsters For there is some probability that reason would maintain it with theologians and with jurisconsults in spite of the figure and even in spite of the differences which the anatomy would furnish to the physicians which would as little injure the quality of man as the reversal of the viscera in that man whose anatomy some persons of my acquaintance have seen at Paris which has made some stir in which nature
Pcu sage et sans doute en debauche
Placa le foye an coste gauche
Et de meme vice versa
Le coeur a la droite place
ie unwise and doubtless in debauch placed the liver upon the left side and likewise vice versa the heart upon the right if I rightly remember some of the verses which the late Mr Alliot the father a famous physician because he passed as skilful in the treatment of cancers showed me of his own making upon this prodigy It is a matter of course provided the variety of conformation does not go too far in the case of rational animals and that no return is made to the times when animals spoke for then we should lose our especially peculiar advantage of reason and should henceforth be more attentive to birth and the external in order to be able to distinguish
those of Adams race from those who may descend from a king or patriarch of some canton of apes in Africa and our learned author was right in his remark that if Balaams ass had all her life discoursed as rationally as she did once with her master supposing it was a prophetic vision she would always have had difficulty in obtaining rank and a seat among women
Ph You laugh I see and perhaps the author laughed also but to speak seriously you see that you cannot always assign fixed limits to species
Th I have already agreed to this for when the question concerns fictions and the possibility of things the passage from species to species may be insensible and to discern them would sometimes be about as impossible as to decide how much hair a man must be allowed that he may not be bald This indeterminateness would be true even when we knew perfectly the internal nature of the creatures under discussion But I do not see that it can prevent things from having real essences independent of the understanding, and us from knowing them It is true that the names and limits of species would sometimes be like the names of measures and weights where choice is necessary in order to have fixed limits But ordinarily there is nothing of the kind to fear species too much alike seldom occurring together
Ph It seems we agree here at bottom although we differ somewhat in terms I also admit that there is less arbitrariness in the denomination of substances than in the names of the mixed modes For few venture to unite the bleating of a sheep with the figure of a horse or the colour of lead with the weight and fixedness of gold and we prefer to draw copies after nature
Th This is not so much because in substances regard is had only to that which exists effectively as because there is no certainty in the case of physical ideas which are not very thoroughly understood that their union is possible and useful if there is no actual existence to guarantee it But this also takes place in the modes not only when their obscurity is impenetrable by us as sometimes happens in physics but also when it is difficult of penetration enough examples of which occur in geometry For in both of these sciences it is not within our power to make combinations according to our fancy otherwise we should be right in speaking of regular decahedrons and should seek in the semicircle a centre of magnitude as there is in it a centre of gravity For it is in fact surprising that the first is there and that the second cannot be Now while in the modes the combinations are not always arbitrary we find on the other hand that in substances they sometimes are so and it often depends on ourselves to make combinations of qualities in order further to define substantial beings in advance of experience when we understand enough of these qualities to judge of the possibility of the combination Thus it is that expert gardeners in the orangery can rationally and successfully propose to produce some new species and give it a name in advance
Ph You will always agree with me that when the question arises of defining species the number of ideas combined depends upon the different application industry or fancy of the one forming this combination as it is the figure which regulates most frequently the determination of the species of vegetables or animals and likewise as regards the majority of natural bodies which are not produced by seeds it is the colour which is most strongly adhered to In truth these are often only confused conceptions gross and inexact and it is very essential that men agree as to the precise number of simple ideas or qualities which belong to a given species or a given name for pains skill and time are needed to find simple ideas which are constantly united However a few of the qualities composing these inexact definitions are ordinarily sufficient in conversation but in spite of the stir about genera and species the forms of which so much has been said in the schools are only chimeras which avail us nothing in furnishing an entrance into the knowledge of specific natures
Th Whoever makes a possible combination is not at all mistaken therein nor in giving it a name but he is mistaken if he thinks that his conception is altogether that which others more expert have conceived under the same name or in the same body He perhaps conceives a genus too common instead of another more specific There is nothing in all this contrary to the schools and I do not see why you return here to the charge against genera species and forms since it is necessary for you to recognize indeed the genera species and even the internal essences or forms which we do not pretend to employ in order to know the specific nature of the thing although we admit we are still ignorant of them
Ph It is at least evident that the limits we assign to species are not exactly conformed to those established by nature For in our need of general names for present use we do not put ourselves to the trouble of discovering the qualities which would give us superior knowledge of their most essential differences and agreements but we ourselves distinguish them into species in virtue of certain appearances which are manifest to everybody that we may more easily communicate with others
Th If we combine compatible ideas the limits we assign to species are always exactly conformed to nature and if we are careful to combine ideas actually found together our notions are also conformed to experience and if we consider them as provisional only for actual bodies without excluding experiment made or to be made for further discovery therein and if we have recourse to experts when a definite question arises with reference to what is openly understood by the name we shall not err in the matter Thus nature may furnish ideas the most perfect and most convenient but she will not give the lie to those we have which are good and natural although not perhaps the best and most natural
Ph Our generic ideas of substances as that of metal for example do not follow exactly the models set them by nature since you cannot find anybody including simply malleability and fusibility without other qualities
Th No one asks for such models and it would not be reasonable to ask for them furthermore they do not occur in the most distinct notions We never find a number in which there is nothing to notice but multitude in general an extension in which there is only extension a body in which there is only solidity and no other qualities and when the specific differences are positive and contrary it is very essential that the genus share in them
Ph If then anyone thinks that a man a horse an animal a plant etc are distinguished by real essences made by nature he must think that nature is very liberal with these real essences if she produces one of them for the body another for the animal and still another for the horse and that she bestows freely all these essences upon Bucephalus whilst genera and species are only signs more or less comprehensive
Th If you take real essences as these substantial models which exist as a body and nothing more an animal and nothing more specific a horse without individual qualities you are right in treating them as chimeras And no one has maintained I think not even the greatest Realists of former times that there are as many substances confining themselves to the generic as there are genera But it does not follow that if general essences are not this they are merely signs for I have many times remarked to you that there are possibilities in the resemblances In like manner from the fact that colours are not always substances or extracted dyes it does not follow that they are imaginary For the rest you cannot think nature too liberal she is so beyond all that we can invent and all advantageous compatible possibilities are found realized upon the grand theatre of her representations There were formerly two axioms among philosophers that of the Realists seemed to make nature prodigal and that of the Nominalists seemed to declare her stingy The one says that nature suffers no vacuum and the other that she does nothing in vain These two axioms are good provided you understand them for nature is like a good economist who saves where it is necessary in order to be grand at times and places She is grand in effects and sparing in the causes she employs
Ph Without amusing ourselves longer with this discussion upon real essences it is enough that we obtain the purpose of language and the usage of words which is to indicate our thoughts in an abridged form If I wish to speak to any one of a species of birds three or four feet in height whose skin is covered with something between feathers and hair of a dark brown colour without wings but in their place two or three small branches like those of the broom which descend to the lower part of the body with long and large legs the feet armed only with three claws and without a tail I am compelled to make this description whereby I can make myself understood by others But when I am told that the name of this animal is Cassowary I can then use this name to designate in discourse this entire complex idea
Th Perhaps a very exact idea of the covering of the skin or of some other part would suffice by itself alone to distinguish this animal from every other known as Hercules was known by his gait and as the lion was recognized by his claw according to the Latin proverb But the more circumstances you heap up the less provisional is your definition
PU We may curtail the idea in this case without prejudice to the thing but when nature curtails it it is a question whether the species remains For example if a body existed having all the qualities of gold except malleability would it be gold it depends upon men to decide They are then the ones who determine the species of things
Th Not at all they would determine only the name But this experience would teach us that malleability has no necessary connection with the other qualities of gold taken together It would teach us then a new possibility and consequently a new species As for gold which is eager or brittle this comes only from additions and is not consistent with the other tests of gold for the cupel and antimony remove this eagerness from it
Ph A portion of our doctrine follows that will appear very strange Each abstract idea having a certain name forms a distinct species But what of that if nature so wills it I should be glad to know why a lapdog and a greyhound are not as distinct species as a spaniel and an elephant
Th I have distinguished above the different senses of the word species Taking it logically or mathematically rather the least dissimilitude may suffice Thus each different idea will give another species and it makes no difference whether it has a name or not But physically speaking we do not attend to all the varieties and we speak either distinctly when the question concerns only appearances or conjecturally when the question concerns the inner truth of things presuming therein some essential and immutable nature like reason in man We presume then that whatever differs only by accidental changes like water and ice quicksilver in the liquid form and as sublimate is of the same species and in organic bodies the provisional mark of the same species is usually placed in the generation or race as in those most alike it is placed in reproduction It is true we cannot judge with precision for lack of knowledge of the inner nature of things but as I have said more than once we judge provisionally and often conjecturally But when we wish to speak only from the external for fear of saying nothing certain there is some latitude and to dispute then whether a difference is specific or not is to dispute about the name and in this sense there is so great a difference between dogs that we may very well say that the housedogs of England and the dogs of Boulogne belong to different species It is not impossible however that they belong to a remote identical or similar race which we should find if we could go back very far and that their ancestors were alike or identical but that after great changes some of the posterity have become very large and others very small We may indeed believe also without offending reason that they have in common an inner nature constant specific which is no longer subdivided thus or which is not found here in several other such natures and consequently is no longer varied save by accidents although there is also nothing to make us judge that this must necessarily be so in all that which we call the lowest species species infima But there is no likelihood that a spaniel and an elephant are of the same race and that they have such a specific common nature Thus in the different sorts of dogs speaking of appearances we may distinguish species and speaking of the inner essence we may be in suspense but comparing the dog and the elephant there is no reason for attributing to them externally or internally that which would make us think them of one and the same species So there is in this case no occasion for suspense in the face of the presumption In man we can also distinguish species logically speaking and if we stopped with the external we should find also speaking physically differences which could pass as specific Thus a traveller was found who thought that the Negroes Chinese and finally the Americans were not of one and the same race among themselves nor with the peoples resembling us But as we know the essential inner nature of man ie the reason which dwells in the man himself and is found in all men and as we notice nothing fixed and internal among us which forms a subdivision we have no reason to judge that there is in men according to the truth of the inner nature an essential specific difference while such difference is found between man and beast supposing that the beasts are only empirical according as I have explained above as in fact experience gives us no reason for forming any other judgment
Ph Let us take the example of an artificial thing whose internal structure is known to us A timepiece that only indicates the hours and one that strikes are of one species only for those who have only one name by which to designate them but for him who designates the first by the name watch and second clock they are in relation to him different species It is the name and not the inner disposition which makes a new species otherwise there would be too many species There are watches with four wheels and others with five some have strings and fuses and some not some have a free balance and others are regulated by a spiral spring and others by hogs bristles Does anyone of these things suffice to make a specific difference I say no so long as these timepieces agree in name
Th And I for my part say yes for without stopping at names I should consider the varieties of contrivance and especially the differences of the balance for since a spring has been applied which governs the vibrations according to its own and consequently renders them more equal pocket watches have changed their character and have become incomparably more accurate I have indeed mentioned before another principle of equality which might be applied to watches
Ph If any one wishes to make divisions based upon the differences which he knows in the internal configuration he may do so but they would not be distinct species with relation to the people who are ignorant of this construction
Th I do not know why those with you always wish to make virtues truths and species depend upon our opinion or knowledge They exist in nature whether we know it and approve or not To speak otherwise is to change the names of things and received language without any reason Men up to the present time have believed that there are many kinds of clocks or watches without informing themselves in what they consist or how they may name them
Ph You have however recognized not long since that when men wish to distinguish physical species by appearances they limit them in an arbitrary way where they find it to the purpose ie according as they find the difference more or less considerable and according to the end they have And you yourself have made use of the comparison of weights and measures which are regulated and given their names according to the good pleasure of man
Th It is since then that I have begun to understand you Between specific differences purely logical for which the least variation of assignable definition suffices however accidental it be and between specific differences purely physical based upon the essential or immutable we may place a mean which cannot be precisely determined it is regulated by the most important appearances which are not altogether immutable but which do not change easily the one approaching the essential more than the other And as a connoisseur too may go farther than another the thing appears arbitrary and has some relation to men and it appears convenient to regulate names also according to these principal differences We can then speak thus that there are specific civil differences and nominal species which must not be confounded with what I have called above nominal definitions and which have place in differences specifically logical as well as physical For the rest besides common usage the laws themselves may give authority to the significations of words and then the specific would become legal as in the contracts which are called nominati ie designated by a particular name For example as the Roman Law made the age of puberty commence at the end of the fourteenth year This entire consideration is not to be despised but I do not see that it is of very much use here for besides the fact that you have appeared to me to apply it sometimes where it did not apply we shall accomplish nearly the same result if we consider that it rests with men to proceed in subdivisions as far as they find them to the purpose and to abstract ulterior differences without the necessity of denying them and that it also rests with them to choose the certain notwithstanding the uncertain in order to fix some notions and measures by giving them names
Ph I am much pleased that we are here no longer so far apart as we appeared You agree then sir I see that artificial as well as natural things are species contrary to the view of some philosophers But before leaving the names of substances I would add that of all the diverse ideas we have they alone are ideas of substances which have proper or individual names for it rarely happens that men need to make frequent mention of any individual quality or other individual accident Besides individual acts perish at once and the combination of circumstances which thereby comes about only subsists as in the substances There are however cases where it has been necessary to remember an individual accident and to give it a name thus your rule is ordinarily good but there are exceptions to it Religion furnishes us with them for example we celebrate each year the memory of the birth of Jesus Christ The Greeks call this event Theogeny and that of the adoration of the Magi Epiphany And the Hebrews call the Passah par excellence the passage of the angel who caused the death of the eldest sons of the Egyptians without touching those of the Hebrews and this is why they were to celebrate its memory every year As for the species of artificial things the scholastic philosophers found difficulty in admitting them into their predicaments but there was little necessity for their hesitation since these predicamental tables were destined for use in making a general review of our ideas It is well however to recognize the difference existing between perfect substances and between the assemblages of substances aggregate which are substantial entities composed either by nature or by the art of man For nature has also such aggregates as the bodies whose mixture is imperfect imperfecte mixta to use the language of our philosophers which constitute no unum per se and do not possess in themselves a perfect unity I believe however that the four bodies which they call elements and think simple and the salts metals and other bodies which they think are perfectly mixed and to which they attribute their temperaments are not unum per se either so much the more as we must judge that they are uniform and homogeneous only in appearance and even a homogeneous body would not cease to be a mass In a word the perfect unity must be reserved to bodies animated or endowed with primitive entelechies for these entelechies are analogous to souls and are as individual and imperishable as they and I have elsewhere affirmed that their organic bodies are practically machines but which surpass the artificial machines of our invention as much as the inventor of the natural machines surpasses us For these natural machines are as imperishable as the souls themselves and the animal with the soul subsists always it is the better to explain myself by something pleasing wholly laughable as it is as if a harlequin wished to strip himself in the theatre but could not succeed because he had an indefinite number of garments one upon another although these infinite replications of organic bodies which exist in an animal are not so similar nor so applied the one to the other as the garments natures art being of a wholly different subtility All this shows that the philosophers have not been wholly in the wrong in putting so great distance between artificial things and between natural bodies endowed with a real unity But it belonged only to our time to develop this mystery and make understood its importance and consequences in order thoroughly to establish natural theology and what is called Pneumatics in a manner truly natural and in agreement with our experiments and understanding and requiring the loss of none of the important considerations they are destined to furnish or rather enhancing their value as does the system of preestablished harmony And I believe that we can best conclude this long discussion of the names of substances only by that means
Ph Besides the words which are used to name ideas we need those which signify the connection of ideas or propositions This is this is not are general signs of affirmation or negation But besides the parts of propositions the mind also binds together sentences and entire propositions availing itself of words expressing this union of different affirmations and negations and which are called particles in whose proper use the art of speaking well principally consists It is in order that reasoning be consecutive and methodical that terms showing the connection restriction distinction opposition emphasis etc are needed And when they are despised the hearer is embarrassed
Th I admit that particles are very useful but I am not aware that the art of speaking well consists principally in their proper use If anyone presents only aphorisms or detached theses as they often do in the universities or as in the case of that which they call among the jurisconsults an articulate libel or as in the articles which are offered to the witnesses then provided we arrange these propositions well we shall accomplish very nearly the same result in making them understood as if we had put in the connective and the particles for the reader supplies them But I admit there would be trouble if you put in the particles badly and much more than if you omitted them Particles seem to me also to unite not only the parts of discourse composed of propositions and the parts of the proposition composed of ideas but also the parts of the idea composed in many ways by the combination of other ideas And it is this last connection which is indicated by the prepositions while the adverbs modify the affirmation or negation in the verb and the conjunctions modify the connection of different affirmations or negations But I doubt not that you have noticed all this yourself although your words seem to state otherwise
Ph The part of grammar which treats of particles has been cultivated less than that which represents in order the cases genders modes tenses gerundives and supines It is true that in some languages they have also arranged the particles under some titles by distinct subdivisions with great appearance of exactness But it is not sufficient to run through these catalogues One must reflect upon his own thoughts in order to observe the forms which the mind takes in discoursing for the particles are so many indications of the action of the mind.
Th It is very true that the doctrine of the particles is important and I wish we might enter into much greater detail thereupon For nothing would be more suited to make known the different forms of the understanding. Genders are of no account in philosophical grammar but the cases correspond to the prepositions and often the preposition is enveloped in the noun and as it were absorbed and other particles are concealed in the inflections of the verbs
Ph In order properly to explain particles it is not sufficient to render them as is usual in a dictionary by the words of another language which approach most nearly their meaning because it is as difficult to comprehend their precise meaning in one language as in another besides the significations of related words in two languages are not always exactly the same and indeed they vary in one and the same language I remember that in the Hebrew language there is one particle of a single letter of which there are reckoned up more than fifty significations
Th Scholars have attempted to make special treatises upon the particles of the Latin Greek and Hebrew and JStrauchius a celebrated jurisconsult has published a book upon the use of particles in jurisprudence where their signification is of no small consequence We ordinarily find however that it is rather by means of examples and synonyms that they attempt to explain them than by distinct notions Further we cannot always find a general or formal signification for them as the late Bohlius called it which can satisfy all the examples but notwithstanding this we can always reduce all the uses of a word to a definite number of significations And this is what should be done
Ph In fact the number of significations greatly exceeds that of the particles In English the particle but has very different significations when I say but to say no more mais pour ne rien dire de plus as if this particle indicated that the mind stops in its course before it has reached the end But saying I saw but two planets je vis seulement deux planetes the mind restricts the sense of what it means to that which has been expressed by the exclusion of everything else And when I say you pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true religion but that he would confirm you in your own vous priez Dieu mais ce uest pas quil veuille vous ainener a la connaissance de la vraye Religion mais quil vous continue dans la vostre the first but or mais designates a supposition in the mind which is otherwise than it should be and the second shows that the mind puts a direct opposition between what precedes and what follows All animals have sense but a dog is an animal tous les animaux ont du sentiment mais le chien est un animal Here the particle signifies the connection of the second proposition with the first
Th The French mais Out may be substituted in all these instances except the second but the German allein taken as a particle which signifies a kind of mixture of mais but and seulement only may doubtless be substituted instead of but in all these examples except the last where its use may be a little doubtful Mais but is also rendered in German sometimes by aber sometimes by sondern which indicates a separation or segregation and approaches the particle allein For a proper explanation of the particles it is not sufficient to make an abstract explication as we have just made here but we must proceed to a paraphrase which may be substituted in its place as the definition may be put in the place of the thing defined When we have striven to seek and to determine these suitable paraphrases in all the particles so far as they are susceptible of them we shall have regulated their significations Let us try to attain this result in our four examples In the first we mean Thus far only speak we of this and no farther non pit in the second I see only two planets and no more in the third You pray God and for this only viz to be confirmed in your religion and no more etc in the fourth it is as if we said all animals have sense it is sufficient to consider that only and no more is needed The dog is an animal he then has sense Thus all these examples indicate limits and a non plus ultra whether in things or in discourse Thus but is an end a limit of the course as if we said stop we are there we have reached our But But Bute is an old Teutonic word signifying something fixed an abode Beuten an obsolete word found still in some church songs is to abide Mais originates from maris as if any one wished to say as for the surplus ice must leave it which is the same as saying No more is needed it is enough let us come to something else or this is something else But as the use of languages varies in a strange manner it would be necessary to enter much farther into the detail of examples in order sufficiently to regulate the significations of particles In French we avoid the double mais by a cependant however and we should say Vous priez cependant ce nest pas pour obtenir la verity mais pour estre confirm dans vostre opinion You pray not however cependant to obtain the truth but mais to be confirmed in your opinion The seed of the Latins was often expressed formerly by ains which is the end of the Italians and the French in modifying it have deprived their language of an advantageous expression For example There was no certainty about it yet cependant we were persuaded of what I have informed you because we like to believe what we wish but it has been found that it was not so but ains rather etc II ny avoit rien de seur cependant on estoit persuadd de ce que je vous ay mand parce quon aime a croire ce quon souhaite mais il sest trouv que ce nestoit pas cela ains plustost etc
Ph My purpose has been to touch this matter only very slightly I would add that particles often include either constantly or in certain constructions the sense of an entire proposition
Th But when it is a complete sentiment I think that it is only by means of a kind of ellipsis otherwise it is the interjections alone which in my opinion can subsist by themselves and say all in a word as ah hoi me For when we say mais adding nothing more it is an ellipsis for but let us wait for the confirmation of intelligence and not flatter ourselves unduly There is something approximating to this in the nisi of the Latins si nisi non esset if there were not but mais For the rest I should not be displeased sir had you entered a little farther into the detail of the turns of the mind which appear marvellous in the use of the particles But since we have reason for hastening to conclude this investigation of words and to return to things I do not wish to delay you longer although I truly think that languages are the best mirrors of the human mind and that an exact analysis of the signification of words would show us better than anything else the workings of the understanding.
Ph It is further to be remarked that terms are abstract or concrete Each abstract idea is distinct so that of two the one can never be the other The mind must perceive by its intuitive knowledge the difference between them and consequently two of these ideas can never be affirmed one of another Everyone sees at once the falsehood of these propositions humanity is animality or rationality this is as evident as any of the generally received maxims
Th There is still something to be said thereupon We admit that justice is a virtue a habit habitus a quality an accident etc Thus two abstract terms may be stated one of another I am furthermore wont to distinguish two kinds of abstracts There are abstract logical terms and there are also abstract real terms The abstract real terms or conceived at least as real are either essences or parts of the essence or accidents ie beings added to substance The abstract logical terms are the predications reduced to terms as if I said to be a man to be an animal and in this sense the one can be stated of the other by saying to be a man is to be an animal But in the realities this has no place For we cannot say that humanity or manness Vhommeitf — if you please which is the essence of the whole man is animality which is only a part of this essence yet these abstract and incomplete beings signified by the abstract real terms have also their genera and species which are not less expressed by the abstract real terms thus there is predication between them as I have shown by the example of justice and virtue
Ph One may always say that substances have only few abstract names they have scarcely spoken in the schools of humanity animality corporality and they have never been authorized in the world
Th The reason is that but few of those terms were necessary to serve as examples and to throw light upon the general notion which was the reason why they were not wholly neglected If the ancients did not use the word humanity in the sense of the schools they said human nature which is the same thing It is certain also that they said divinity or rather divine nature and theologians having found it needful to speak of these two natures and of real accidents they were attached to these abstract entities in the schools of philosophy and theology and perhaps to a greater extent than was proper
Ph We have already spoken of the double use of words The one is to register our own thoughts in order to aid our memory which makes us talk to ourselves the other is to communicate our thoughts to others by means of speech
These two uses show the perfection or imperfection of words When we speak only to ourselves it is a matter of indifference what words we employ provided we remember their meaning and do not change it But the use of communication is also of two kinds civil and philosophic The civil consists in the conversation and use of the civil life The philosophic use is that made of words for the purpose of giving precise notions and to express in general propositions certain truths
Th Very good words are not less marks notat for us as the characters of arithmetic or algebra may be than signs for others and the use of words as of signs is as much in place when the question concerns the application of general precepts to the usage of life as when it concerns the discovery or verification of these precepts The first use of signs is civil and the second philosophic
Ph Now it is difficult chiefly in the following cases to learn and retain the idea which each word signifies when these ideas are very complex when the ideas composing a new one have no natural bond between them so that there is in nature no fixed measure nor any model to rectify and regulate them when the model is not easy to be known when the meaning of the word and the real essence are not exactly the same The names of the modes are most liable to be doubtful and imperfect for the two first reasons and those of substances for the two second When the idea of the modes is very complex as that of the majority of the terms of ethics they rarely have precisely the same signification in the minds of two different persons The defect also of the models renders these words equivocal He who first invented the word brusquer to be abrupt with understood thereby what he found to the purpose without informing those who have used it as he of his precise meaning and without having shown them any constant model Common use regulates sufficiently the sense of words for ordinary conversation but it has no precision and the signification most conformed to the peculiar nature of the language is every day disputed Many speak of glory but few have the same understanding of it They are only simple sounds in the mouths of many or at least their meanings are very indefinite And in a discourse or conversation in which mention is made of honour faith grace religion the church and above all in discussion you will notice at once that men have different notions which they apply to the same terms And if it is difficult to understand the meaning of the terms of the people of our time it is much more difficult to understand ancient books Fortunate is it that we may pass them by save when they contain what we should believe and do
Th These remarks are good but ill regard to ancient books as we need to understand Holy Scripture above all and as Roman laws are still of great use in a good part of Europe we are indeed compelled to consult a great many other ancient books the Rabbis the Church Fathers even the profane historians Besides the ancient physicians also deserve to be understood The practice of medicine by the Greeks came through the Arabs to us the water from the fountain has been made turbid in the streams of the Arabs and purified in many respects since we have begun to have recourse to the original Greeks But these Arabs do not cease to be of use and we are assured that Ebenbitar for example who in his books on Simples has copied Dioscorides often serves to throw light upon him I find also that next to religion and history it is chiefly in medicine as far as it is empirical ‘that the tradition of the ancients preserved in writing and in general the observations of another may be of service I have therefore always held in high esteem physicians much versed in the knowledge of antiquity and I was very sorry that Eeinesius excellent in both departments of knowledge had turned aside to explain the rites and history of the ancients rather than to recover a part of the knowledge they had of nature in which it has been shown that he would have been able furthermore marvellously to succeed When the Latins Greeks Hebrews and Arabs shall someday be exhausted the Chinese supplied also with ancient books will enter the lists and furnish matter for the curiosity of our critics Not to speak of some old books of the Persians Armenians Copts and Brahmins which will be unearthed in time so as not to neglect any light antiquity may give on doctrines by tradition and on facts by history And if there were no longer an ancient book to examine languages would take the place of books and they are the most ancient monuments of mankind In time all the languages of the world will be recorded and placed in the dictionaries and grammars and compared together this will be of very great use both for the knowledge of things since names often correspond to their properties as is seen by the names of plants among different peoples and for the knowledge of our mind and the wonderful variety of its operations Not to speak of the origin of nations which is known by means of solid etymologies which the comparison of languages will best furnish But of this I have already spoken And all this shows the use and extent of criticism little considered by some otherwise very clever philosophers who take the liberty to speak with contempt of Rabbirwge and in general of philology We see also that critics will find for a long time yet matter for fruitful exercise and they will do well not to amuse themselves too much with minutiae since they have so many objects more pleasing for treatment though I well know that minutiae also are often very necessary with the critics for the discovery of more important knowledge And as criticism turns in large measure upon the meaning of words and the interpretation of authors especially the ancients this discussion about words joined with the mention you made of the ancients makes me touch upon this important point But to return to your four defects of nomination I tell you sir that we can remedy them all especially since writing has been invented and they subsist only through our negligence For it depends upon us to fix their meanings at least in any scholarly language and to agree to destroy this tower of Babel But there are two defects where the remedy is more difficult consisting the one in the doubt which exists whether the ideas are compatible when experience does not furnish them all combined in one and the same subject the other in the necessity for making provisional definitions of sensible things when our experience with them is insufficient for more complete definitions but I have spoken more than once of both these defects
Ph I am going to tell you some things which will serve further to clear up to some extent the defects you have just remarked and the third of those which I have indicated makes it seem that these definitions are provisional viz — when we have no sufficient knowledge of our sensible models ie the substantial beings of corporeal nature This defect also makes us ignorant as to whether we may combine the sensible qualities which nature has not combined because at bottom we do not understand them Now if the signification of the words which serve for the mixed modes is uncertain for lack of models which show the same composition that of the names of the substantial beings is uncertain for a wholly contrary reason because they must signify what is supposed to be conformed to the reality of things and to be related to the models formed by nature
Th I have already more than once remarked in our previous conversations that this is not essential to the ideas of substances but I admit that ideas made after nature are the surest and most useful
Ph When then we follow the models wholly made by nature unless the imagination finds it necessary to retain their representations the names of substances have in ordinary use a double relation as I have already shown The first is that they signify the internal and real constitution of things but this model cannot be known and consequently cannot serve to regulate the significations
Th That is not the question here since we are speaking of ideas of which we have models the internal essence is in the thing but we agree that it cannot serve as a pattern
Ph The second relation is then that which the names of substances immediately have to the simple ideas which exist at the same time in the substance But as the number of these ideas united in one and the same subject is great men speak of this same subject forming very different ideas of it both by the different combination of the simple ideas they make and because the greater part of the qualities of bodies are the powers which they have of producing changes in other bodies and receiving them witness the changes one of the basest metals is capable of undergoing through the operation of fire and it receives many more yet at the hands of a chemist through the application of other bodies Further one is contented with weight and colour as criteria for a knowledge of gold another includes ductility fixedness and the third desires to make us take into consideration its solubility in aqua regia As things likewise often resemble each other it is sometimes difficult to designate their precise differences
Th As bodies are really liable to be altered disguised falsified counterfeited it is a great point to be able to distinguish and recognize them Gold is disguised in solution but it may be drawn off either by precipitating it or distilling the water and counterfeit or adulterated gold is recognized or purified by the art of the assayers which not being known to everybody itis not strange that men do not all have the same idea of gold And ordinarily it is only the experts who have sufficiently just ideas of these matters
Ph This variety does not however cause so much confusion in civil intercourse as in philosophic researches
Hi It would be more tolerable if it had no influence in practical life where it is often important not to receive a Quid pro quo and consequently to know the characteristics of things or to have at hand the class who know them And it is especially important as regards drugs and materials which are costly and of which you may have need on important occasions The philosophical confusion will manifest itself rather in the use of more general terms
Ph The names of simple ideas are less liable to equivocation and we are rarely mistaken as regards the terms white bitter etc
Th It is however true that these terms are not wholly exempt from uncertainty and I have already noticed the example of neighbouring colours which are within the confines of two species and whose species is doubtful
Ph After the names of simple ideas those of the simple modes are least doubtful as for example those of figures and numbers But the mixed modes and substances cause all the trouble Men will say that instead of imputing these imperfections to the words we should rather put them to the account of our understanding but I reply that words interpose themselves to such an extent between our mind and the truth of things that we may compare them with the medium across which pass the rays from visible objects and which often spreads a mist before our eyes and I have tried to think that if the imperfections of language were more thoroughly examined the majority of the disputes would cease of themselves and the way to knowledge and perhaps to peace would be more open to men
Th I think we could succeed from this time in written discussions if men would agree upon certain rules and execute them with care But in order to proceed exactly viva voce and at once some change in the language would be necessary I have elsewhere entered upon this enquiry
Ph While waiting for this reform which will not be ready very soon this uncertainty regarding words should teach us to be moderate especially when it is a question of imposing upon others the sense attributed by us to the ancient authors since in the Greek authors it is found that nearly everyone speaks a different language
Th I have been rather surprised to see that Greek authors so distant from one another in time and place as Homer Herodotus Strabo Plutarch Lucian Eusebius Procopius Photius approach so closely while the Latins have changed so much and the Germans English and French much more But the fact is the Greeks since Homers time and still more when Athens was in a flourishing condition had good authors which posterity has taken as models at least in writing For no doubt the common language of the Greeks must have been much changed already under the rule of the Romans And this same reason accounts for the fact that the Italian has not suffered so great a change as the French because the Italians having had earlier writers of durable reputation imitated and moreover esteemed Dante Petrarch Boccaccio and other authors at a time when those of the French were no longer appreciated
Ph Besides the natural imperfections of language there are some that are voluntary and arise from negligence and it is an ubitte of words to use them so badly The first and most palpable abuse is that we attach no clear idea to them Of these words there are two classes the first have never had any definite idea either in their origin or ordinary use For the most part philosophical and religious sects have introduced them in order to support some strange opinion or to conceal some weak place in their system They are however distinguishing characters in the mouth of members of the party There are other words which in their first and common use have some clear idea but which have since been appropriated to very important matters without attaching to them any certain idea In this way the words wisdom glory grace are often in the mouths of men
Th I believe that insignificant words are less in number than you think and that with a little care and good will you can fill up their void or fix their indefiniteness Wisdom appears to be nothing else than the science of happiness Grace is a favour done to those who do not deserve it and who find themselves in a state where they need it And glory is the fame of the excellence of some one
Ph I do not wish now to examine whether there is anything to be said in regard to these definitions but rather to notice the causes of the abuse of words In the first place we learn the words before we learn the ideas belonging to them and children accustomed thereto from the cradle use them in like manner during their whole life the more as they do not cease to make themselves understood in conversation without ever having fixed their idea by using different expressions in order to make others understand their meaning This however often fills their discourses with a quantity of vain sounds especially in matters concerning morals Men take the words they find in use among their neighbours and in order not to appear ignorant of their meaning employ them confidently without giving them a certain sense and as in this kind of discourse they are rarely in the right they are also rarely convinced that they are wrong and to wish to draw them from their error is to wish to dispossess a vagabond
Th Men in fact take so rarely the necessary trouble to understand terms or words that I have more than once been astonished that children can learn languages so soon and that men furthermore speak them so accurately a view to which we attach so little in instructing children in their mother tongue and which others think of so little in acquiring clear definitions the more so as those we learn in the schools do not ordinarily concern the words in public use For the rest I admit that men frequently happen to be wrong when indeed they discuss seriously and speak in accord with their feeling but I have also remarked often enough that in their speculative discussions upon matters within the province of their mind they have every reason for two sides except in the oppositions they make to each other where they misconstrue anothers view This arises from the bad use of terms and sometimes also from a spirit of contradiction and affectation of superiority
Ph In the second place the use of words is sometimes inconstant a practice only too general among scholars It is nevertheless a plain cheat and if voluntary is folly or malice If anyone so conducted himself in his accounts as to take an X for a V who I pray would have anything to do with him
Th This abuse being so common not only among scholars but also in the world at large I believe that it is due rather to bad custom and inadvertence than to malice Usually the different significations of the same word have some affinity this makes one pass for another and does not give time to consider what is said with all the precision that is desirable We are accustomed to tropes and figures and some elegance or brilliant falsehood easily imposes upon us For we oftener seek pleasure amusement and appearance than truth besides vanity mixes itself therein
Ph The third abuse is an affected obscurity either by giving terms in use unusual meanings or by introducing new terms without explaining them The ancient Sophists whom Lucian ridicules so properly pretending to speak of everything covered their ignorance under the veil of the obscurity of words Among the sects of philosophers the Peripatetic has shown itself remarkable by this defect but the other sects even among the moderns are not wholly exempt from it For example, the people who abuse the term extension and find it necessary to confuse it with that of body Logic or the art of discussion which is held in such high esteem has helped to maintain this obscurity Those who have given themselves up to it have been useless or rather detrimental to the state while mechanics though despised by the learned have been serviceable to human life But these obscure doctors have been admired by the ignorant and they have been thought invincible because provided with briers and thorns into which it was no pleasure to thrust ones self their obscurity alone serving as a defence of their absurdity The evil is that this art of obscuring words has confused the great rules of mens action religion and justice
Th Your complaint is largely just it is nevertheless true that there are though rarely pardonable and even praiseworthy obscurities as when we profess to be enigmatical and the enigma is timely Pythagoras so used it and it is frequently the manner of the Orientals The alchemists who are called adepts declare that they wish to be understood only by the sons of the art And that would be well if these pretended sons of the art had the key to the cipher A certain obscurity may be allowed but something must be concealed which is worth divining and the enigma must be decipherable But religion and justice demand clear ideas It seems that the little order brought into their teaching has made the confusion in their doctrine and the indeterminateness of the terms is perhaps more harmful than their obscurity Now as logic is the art which teaches the order and connection of thoughts I do not see any reason for blaming it On the contrary it is for want of logic that men deceive themselves
Ph The fourth abuse is when we take words for things ie believe that the terms correspond to the real essence of the substances Who is there brought up in the Peripatetic philosophy who does not think that the ten names which represent the predicaments are exactly conformed to the nature of things that the substantial forms vegetative souls abhorrence of a vacuum intentional species etc are something real The Platonists have their soul of the world and the Epicureans the tendency of their atoms towards movement at the time when they are at rest If the aerial or ethereal vehicles of Dr More had prevailed in any corner of the world they would have been thought no less real
Th Properly speaking this is not to take words for things but to believe that true which is not so an error too common with all men depending not alone upon the abuse of words but consisting in something entirely different The design of the predicaments is a very useful one and we ought to think of rectifying rather than of rejecting them Substances quantities qualities actions or passions and relations ie five general names of things may together with those formed by their composition suffice and have not you yourself in marshalling ideas been willing to grant them as the predicaments I have spoken above of substantial forms And I know not whether we have sufficient reason for rejecting the vegetative souls since persons of much experience and judgment recognize a great analogy between plants and animals and you sir have appeared to admit animal souls Abhorrence of a vacuum may be soundly understood ie supposing nature has once filled space and that bodies are impenetrable and noncondensable she could not admit any vacuum and I consider these three suppositions well grounded But the intentional species which are to make the connection between the soul and the body are not so though we may excuse the sensible species which proceed from the object to the distant organ meaning thereby the propagation of motion I admit that there is no Platonic soul of the world for God is beyond the world extra mundana intelligentia or rather supramundana I know not whether by the tendency to movement of the Epicurean atoms you understand the weight attributed to them no doubt with reason since they maintain that bodies all move of themselves in one and the same direction The late Henry More a theologian of the English Church wholly clever as he was showed himself a little too ready to invent hypotheses which were neither intelligible nor apparent witness his Hylarchic principle of matter a cause of weight elasticity and other wonders which are met with I have nothing to say of these ethereal vehicles having never examined their nature
Ph An example touching the word matter will assist you the better to enter into my thought Matter is taken as an entity really existing in nature distinct from the body which indeed is thoroughly selfevident otherwise these two ideas might be put indifferently the one in the place of the other For we may say that one single matter composes all bodies but not that a single body composes all matter Neither will we say I think that one matter is greater than another Matter expresses the substance and solidity of body thus we no more conceive different matters than different solidities But since matter has been taken as a name of something existing under this determination this thought has produced unintelligible discourse and confused discussion upon materia prima
Th This example appears to me to serve rather to excuse than to blame the Peripatetic philosophy If all silver were figured or rather because all silver is figured by nature or art is it less allowable to say that silver is an entity really existing in nature distinct taking it in its precision from the plate or the money You will not on that account say that silver is nothing else than certain qualities of money Thus it is not so useless as you suppose to reason in general physics about materia prima and to determine its nature in order to know whether it is always uniform whether it has some other property besides impenetrability as I in fact have shown after Kepler that it also has what may be called inertia etc although it is never found wholly pure as it would be allowable to reason about pure silver although we had none with us nor the means of purifying it I do not at all disapprove what Aristotle has said about materia prima but one cannot help blaming those who have stopped too soon and have conjured up chimeras out of the illunderstood words of this philosopher who perhaps also has given too much occasion sometimes for this misconception and nonsense But we should not exaggerate so much the defects of this celebrated author because we know that many of his works were not completed or published by himself
Ph The fifth abuse is the putting of words in the place of things which they do not and cannot in any way signify It occurs when by the names of substances we mean to say something more than this what I call gold is malleable although at bottom then gold signifies nothing else than what is malleable intending to have it understood that malleability depends upon the real essence of gold Thus we say that it is right to define man with Aristotle as a reasonable animal and that it is not right to define him with Plato as a twolegged animal without feathers and with broad nails There is scarcely any one who does not suppose that these words signify a tiling having a real essence upon which these properties depend but it is a plain abuse when the complex idea signified by this word does not include this thing
Hi For myself I should rather think that we are plainly wrong in censuring this common usage since it is very true that in the complex idea of gold is included the thought that it is a thing having a real essence whose constitution is unknown to us in detail otherwise than that upon it depend such qualities as malleability But in order to express its malleability without identity and without the defect of coccyxm or repetition see chap we must recognize this thing by other qualities as colour and weight And it is as if we said that a certain fusible body yellow and very heavy called gold has a nature which gives it besides the quality of being very soft to the hammer and capable of being made very thin As for the definition of man attributed to Plato which he appears to have made only for practice and which you would not I think compare seriously with that which is received it is manifestly a little too external and provisional for if this Cassowary of which you recently spoke chap Jit had been found to have wide nails it would be man for it would not have been necessary to strip it of its feathers as in the case of the cock which Diogenes as they say wished to make a Platonic man
Ph In the mixed modes as soon as an idea entering therein is changed you at once recognize it as another thing as plainly appears in the words murder which signifies in English as Mordt in German homicide premeditated with design manslaughter a word corresponding in origin to homicide a voluntary but not premeditated homicide chancemedley a chance melee according to the force of the word homicide committed without design for what is expressed by the names and what I think to be in the thing which I called before nominal essence and real essence is the same But it is not so in the names of substances for if one puts into the idea of gold what another leaves out for example fixedness and solubility in aqua regia men do not think for that reason that its species has been changed but only that the one has a more perfect idea than the other of what constitutes the real concealed essence to which the name of gold is given although this secret relation is useless and serves only to involve us in difficulties
Th I think I have already made this statement but I am going also to show you clearly here that what you sir have just said is found in the modes as in the substances and that we have no ground for censuring the internal essence for this relation Here is an example we may define a parabola in the sense of the geometers as a figure in which all the lines parallel to a certain straight line are united by thought in a certain point or focus But it is rather the exterior and the effect which is expressed by this idea or definition than the internal essence of this figure or what can at once make known its origin We may at the beginning even doubt if such a figure as we wish and which ought to produce this effect is a possible thing and it is this which with me shows whether a definition is only nominal and taken from the properties or whether it is also real But he who mentions the parabola and knows it only by the definition I have just spoken of ceases not when speaking of it to understand a figure which has a certain construction and constitution unknown to him but which he wishes to learn in order to be able to draw it Another who has examined it more thoroughly will add some other property and will discover for example that in the figure asked for the portion of the axis intercepted between the ordinate and the perpendicular drawn to the same point of the curve is always constant and equal to the distance from the vertex to the focus He will thus have a more perfect idea than the former and will come more easily to the drawing of the figure although he is not yet there And moreover we shall agree that it is the same figure the constitution of which is still concealed You see then sir that all that you have found and partly censured in the use of words signifying substances is also found and found plainly justified in the words signifying the mixed modes But what has made you think that there was some difference between the substances and the modes is merely the fact that you have not consulted here the intellectual modes difficult of discussion which are found to resemble in all this bodies which are still more difficult to know
Ph Thus I fear I must suppress what I wished to say to you sir of the cause of what I have thought an abuse as if it were because we falsely think that nature always acts with regularity and fixes limits to each species by this specific essence or internal constitution which we there understand and which always follows the same specific name
Th You see clearly then sir by the example of the geometrical modes that we are not wrong in referring them to internal and specific essences although there is great difference between sensible things whether substances or modes of which we have only nominal provisional definitions and of which we do not readily hope for real ones and between the intellectual modes difficult of discussion since we can at last reach the internal constitution of the geometrical figures
Ph I see at last that I should have been wrong in laying the blame of this relation upon the essences and internal constitutions under the pretext that this would render our words signs of nothing or of an unknown something For what is unknown in certain respects may make itself known in another way and the inner nature may partly reveal itself by the phenomena which spring from it And as for the question whether a monstrous foetus is a man or not I see that if it cannot be decided at once this fact does not prevent the species from being well fixed in itself our ignorance nowise changing anything in the nature of things
Th In fact some very clever geometers have chanced to possess insufficient knowledge as to what the figures were many qualities of which seemingly exhaustive of the subject they knew For example there were some lines called pearls of which there were given indeed the quadratures and the measure of their surfaces and of the solids made by their revolution before it was known that they were only a composition of certain cubic paraboloids Thus in considering beforehand these pearls as a particular species they had only provisional knowledge of them If this may happen in geometry do you wonder that it is difficult to determine the species of corporeal nature which are incomparably more complex
Ph Let us pass to the sixth abuse in order to continue the enumeration begun although I see clearly that some of the points must be struck from the list This general but little noticed abuse is this men having by long use attached certain ideas to certain words imagine that this connection is manifest and that everybody agrees to it Whence it comes that they feel very strange when asked the meaning of the words they employ when indeed the question is an absolutely necessary one There are few people who do not take it as an affront if asked what they mean when speaking of life But the vague idea they may have of it is insufficient when the question arises as to the knowledge whether a plant already formed in the seed or a pullet in the egg not yet in process of incubation or a man in a swoon without sense or motion has life And although men do not wish to appear so little intelligent or so obtrusive as to find it necessary to ask for an explanation of the terms used nor critics so disagreeable as to censure others unceasingly for the use they make of words nevertheless when it is a question of exact research such explication is necessary Often scholars of different parties in the reasonings they display the one against the other merely speak different languages and think the same thing although perhaps their interests are different
Th I think I have explained sufficiently my views upon the notion of life which must always be accompanied by perception in the soul otherwise it would be only an appearance as the life which the American savages attributed to watches or clocks or which those magistrates attributed to the marionettes who believed them animated by demons when they desired to punish as a sorcerer the one who had first presented this spectacle in their city
Ph In conclusion words serve 1 to make our thoughts understood 2 to do this easily and 3 to furnish entrance into the knowledge of things Words fail at the first point when they have no definite and constant idea either received or understood by others They fail in facility when they have very complex ideas without distinct names this is often the fault of the languages themselves which have no names often also of the man who is ignorant of them in that case extensive paraphrases are necessary But when the ideas signified by the words do not agree with what is real they fail in the third point 1 He who has terms without ideas is like a man who has only a catalogue of books 2 He who has very complex ideas is like a man who has a quantity of books in loose sheets without titles and who could not give the book save by giving the sheets in succession 3 He who is not constant in the use of signs is like a merchant who sells different goods under the same name 4 He who attaches particular ideas to received words cannot enlighten others by the light he may have 5 He who has in his head ideas of substances which never had existence cannot advance in real knowledge The first will speak in vain of the tarantula or of charity The second will see new animals without being able easily to show them to others The third will take body sometimes as a solid sometimes as a mere extension and by frugality he will designate sometimes the virtue sometimes the kindred vice The fourth will call a mule by the name horse and what everybody calls prodigal will be to him generous and the fifth will seek in Tartary on the authority of Herodotus a nation composed of men having only one eye I remark that the first four defects are common to the names of substances and modes but that the last is peculiar to substances
Th Your remarks are very instructive I will only add that you seem to have something chimerical still in your ideas of the accidents or forms of being and so the fifth defect is also common to substances and to accidents The extravagant shepherd was not so only because he believed there were nymphs concealed in the trees but also because he always expected romantic adventures
Ph I had thought to conclude but I remember the seventh and last abuse which is that of figurative terms or allusions But there will be difficulty in thinking it an abuse because what is called wit and imagination is better received than truth wholly dry It goes well in discourse where you only seek to please but at bottom order and clearness excepted all the art of rhetoric all these artificial and figurative applications of words serve only to insinuate false ideas to excite the passions and seduce the judgment so that they are nothing but pure frauds Nevertheless this fallacious art is given the first rank and rewards It is evident that men care but little for truth and much prefer to deceive and to be deceived This is so true that I doubt not that what I have just said against this art is regarded as the result of an extreme audacity For eloquence like the fair sex has charms too powerful to allow itself to be opposed
Th Very far from censuring your zeal for the truth I find it just And would that it might be effective I do not wholly despair of it because you seem to me sir to combat eloquence with its own weapons and to have an eloquence of another species superior to this deceptive kind as there was a Venus Urania mother of divine love before whom this other bastard Venus mother of a blind love dared not appear with her child with eyes blinded But that indeed proves that your thesis needs some moderation and that certain adornments of eloquence are like the Egyptian vases which you could use in the worship of the true God It is as in painting and music which are abused one of which often represents grotesque and even hurtful imaginations and the other softens the heart and the two amuse in vain but they can be usefully employed the one to render the truth clear the other to make it effective and this last result must be also that of poetry which contains rhetoric and music
Ph This is not the place to plunge into this discussion upon the use of a true eloquence and still less to reply to your obliging compliment since we ought to think of bringing this matter of words to an end by seeking the remedies for the imperfections we have noticed therein It would be ridiculous to attempt to reform the languages and to desire to compel men to speak only according to the measure of their knowledge But it is not too much to desire that philosophers speak exactly when the question concerns a serious search for the truth without this all will be full of error opiniativeness and vain disputes The first remedy is to use no word without attaching thereto an idea instead of frequently employing words like instinct sympathy antipathy without attaching any sense to them
Th The rule is good but I know not whether the examples are pertinent Everybody seems to understand by instinct an inclination of an animal to what is proper for it without on that account apprehending its reason and men indeed ought less to neglect these instincts which they discover moreover in themselves although their artificial method of living has for the most part nearly effaced them the physician of his own accord indeed has carefully observed it Sympathy or antipathy signifies that which in bodies destitute of feeling corresponds to the instinct for union or separation found in animals And although we have no such knowledge of the cause of these inclinations or tendencies as is to be desired we nevertheless have a notion of them sufficient to discourse of them intelligibly
Ph The second remedy is that the ideas of the names of the modes at least be determined and that the ideas of the names of substances be more conformed to what exists If anyone says that justice is conduct conformed to the law relating to the good of another this idea is not sufficiently determined so long as we have no distinct idea of that which is called law
Th We might say here that the law is a precept of wisdom or of the science of happiness
Ph The third remedy is to employ terms so far as possible in conformity with received usage The fourth is to declare in what sense we take the words whether we coin new ones or employ the old in a new sense or whether we find that use has not sufficiently fixed their meaning But there is some difference The words for simple ideas which cannot be defined are explained by synonymous words when they are better known or by showing the thing It is by these means that we can make a peasant understand what the colour feuille morte is by telling him that it is that of dry leaves which fall in the autumn The names of the mixed modes should be explained by definition for that is possible It is upon this ground that ethics is susceptible of demonstration We shall take man as a corporeal rational being without troubling ourselves about his external figure for it is by means of definitions that the matters of morality may be clearly treated We shall rather define justice according to the idea we have in our mind than seek a model therefor outside of us as Aristides and form it thereupon lS And as the majority of the mixed modes nowhere exist together we can fix them in defining them only by the enumeration of that which is scattered In substances there are ordinarily some directing or characteristic qualities which we consider as the most distinctive idea of the species to which we suppose the other ideas forming the complex idea of the species are attached It is form in vegetables and animals and colour in animate bodies and in some colour and form together This is why the definition of man given by Plato is more characteristic than that of Aristotle or why we should not cause the death of monstrous productions and often sight avails as much as any other test for persons accustomed to test gold often distinguish by sight the true from the false the pure from that which has been adulterated
Th Everything doubtless returns to the definitions which may extend even to primitive ideas One and the same subject may have several definitions but the knowledge that they agree with themselves must be learned by reason by demonstrating one definition by another or by experience by proving that they constantly go together As for morality one part is wholly grounded in reason but there is another depending upon experience and related to the disposition For a knowledge of substances form and colour ie the visible gives us the first ideas because it is by these that we know things at a distance but they are ordinarily too provisional and in things of importance to us we try to know substance more closely I am astonished moreover that you return again to the definition of man attributed to Plato since you have just yourself stated that in morals man must be taken as a corporeal rational being without troubling ourselves about the external form For the rest it is true that a large practice does much for discerning at sight what another may scarcely know through arduous experiments And physicians of large experience with very good sight and memory often know at the first appearance the disease which another will draw out for himself with difficulty by force of questioning and trying the pulse But it is well to unite all the indications we may have
Ph I admit that he to whom a good assayer makes known all the qualities of gold will have a better knowledge of them than sight could give But if we could learn its internal constitution the meaning of the word gold would be as easily determined as that of the triangle
Th It would be wholly as determined and it would have in it no provisional element but it would not be so easily determined For I think a distinction a little prolix would be necessary in order to explain the contexture of gold as is the case indeed in geometry with figures whose definition is long
Ph Spirits separated from bodies have doubtless knowledge more perfect than ours although we have no notion of the manner in which they may acquire it But they may have as clear ideas of the radical constitution of bodies as we have of a triangle.
Th I have already remarked sir that I have reasons for thinking that no created spirits exist entirely separate from bodies but there are no doubt some whose organs and understanding are incomparably more perfect than ours and which surpass us in every kind of conception as much and more than Mr Frenicle or that Swedish boy of whom I have spoken to you surpassed the common run of men in the calculation of numbers made by imagination
Ph We have already noticed that the definitions of substances which may serve in explaining names are imperfect in relation to the knowledge of things For usually we put the name in the place of the thing then the name says more than the definitions thus to give a good definition of substances we must study natural history
Th You see then sir that the name gold for example signifies not only that which he who pronounces it knows of it — for example something yellow very heavy — but also what he does not know and which another may know ie a body endowed with an internal constitution from which proceed colour and weight and from which spring still other properties admitted to be better known by experts
Ph It were now to be wished that those practised in physical researches would set down the simple ideas in which they observe that the individuals of each species constantly agree But the composition of a dictionary of this kind which would contain so to speak a natural history would require too many persons too much time trouble and sagacity for such a work ever to be hoped for It would be well however to accompany words with small copperplate engravings of things known by their external form Such a dictionary would be of much service to posterity and would spare future critics much trouble Small figures as of the celeryplant upturn of a Bouquetin ibex a kind of wild goat would be more valuable than long descriptions of this plant or of this animal And in order to know what the Latins called strigiles and sistrum tunica and pallium figures in the margin would be incomparably more valuable than the pretended synonymes currycomb cymbal dress cloak mantle which show but little of them For the rest I shall not stop upon the seventh remedy of the abuse of words which is to employ constantly the same term in the same sense or to give notice when you change it For we have spoken sufficiently of this subject
Th Rev Father Grimaldi President of the Mathematical Society at Pekin tells me that the Chinese have illustrated dictionaries There is a small nomenclature printed at Nuremberg in which there are such figures for each word which are good enough Such an illustrated universal dictionary were to be desired and would not be very difficult to make As for the description of species it is properly natural history and we are working at it by degrees Were it not for the wars which have troubled Europe since the first foundation of the Societies or Royal Academies it would be farther advanced and already in a condition to profit from our labours but the great for the most part do not recognize its importance nor what good they deprive themselves of by neglecting the advancement of solid knowledge and besides they are ordinarily too much indisposed by the pleasures of peace or by the cares of war to weigh things which do not strike them at once
Ph Hitherto we have spoken of ideas and of words which represent them let us come now to the knowledge which the ideas furnish for it rests only upon our ideas Knowledge is simply the perception of the connection and agreement or of the opposition and disagreement which we find between two of our ideas Whether we imagine conjecture or believe it is always that We perceive for example by this means that white is not black and that the angles of a triangle and their equality to two right angles have a necessary connection
Th Knowledge has a still more general signification so that we find it also in ideas or terms before we reach propositions or truths And it may be said that he who has attentively looked at more pictures of plants and animals more diagrams of machines more descriptions or representations of houses or fortresses who has read more ingenious romances heard more curious narratives this one I say will have more knowledge than another even though there should not be a word of truth in all that which was portrayed or related to him for the custom he has of representing in his mind many express and actual conceptions or ideas renders him more fit to conceive what is placed before him and it is certain that he will be better instructed and more capable than another who has neither seen nor read nor heard anything provided that in these stories and representations he takes nothing as true which is not so and that these impressions do not prevent him elsewhere from distinguishing the real from the imaginary or the existent from the possible This is why certain logicians of the period of the Reformation who were in some measure of the party of the Ramists were not wrong in saying that the topics or orders of invention argumenta as they call them serve as much for the explication or very detailed description of an incomplex theme ie of a thing or idea as for the proof of a complex theme ie of a thesis proposition or truth And indeed a thesis may be explained in order that its sense and force may be well known without raising the question of its truth or proof as is seen in sermons and homilies explaining certain passages of Holy Scripture or in instruction or lectures upon certain texts of civil or canon law whose truth is presupposed We can even say that there are some themes which are means between an idea and a proposition These are the questions some of which demand only yes or no and they are the nearest to propositions But there are some also which demand the how the circumstances etc where there is more to be supplied in order to make propositions It is true it may be said that in descriptions even of things purely ideal there is a tacit affirmation of possibility But it is also true that as we may undertake the explanation and proof of a falsehood a method which sometimes serves as its best refutation the art of description may fall upon the impossible also Something like this is found in the novella of the Count of Scandiano followed by Ariosto and in the Amadis of Gaul or other old romances in the fairystories which were again in fashion some years since in the True History of Lucian and in the Voyages of Cyrano de Bergerac to say nothing of the grotesque figures of the painters So we know stories with the rhetoricians belong in the number of progymnasmata or preliminary exercises But taking knowledge in a narrower sense ie as knowledge of truth as you sir do here I say it is quite true that truth is always grounded in the agreement or disagreement of ideas but it is not true in general that our knowledge of truth is a perception of this agreement or disagreement For when we know truth only empirically from having experienced it without knowing the connection of things and the reason there is in what we have experienced we have no perception of this agreement or disagreement unless we mean that we feel it in a confused way without being conscious of it But your examples it seems show that you always demand a knowledge in which one is conscious of connection or opposition and this is what cannot be granted you Further we can treat a complex theme not alone by seeking the proofs of its truth but also in explicating and otherwise illustrating it according to the topical order as I have already observed Finally I have a further remark to make upon our definition viz that it appears only suited to categorical truths in which there are two ideas the subject and the predicate but there is besides a knowledge of hypothetical truths or what may be reduced thereto as disjunctives and others in which there is connection between the antecedent and the consequent proposition thus more than two ideas may enter therein
Ph Let us limit ourselves here to the knowledge of truth and then apply what will be said of the connection of ideas to the connection of propositions in order to include in one whole the categorical and hypothetical truths Now I believe that this agreement or disagreement may be reduced to four kinds Identity or diversity Relation Coexistence or necessary connection Real existence For the mind perceives immediately that one idea is not another that white is not black then it perceives their relation by comparing them with each other for example that two triangles whose bases are equal and which are found between two parallels are equal Next there is coexistence or rather connection as fixedness always accompanies the other ideas of gold Finally there is real existence beyond the mind as when it is said God is
Th I believe it may be said that the connection is nothing else than the agreement or the relation taken generally And I have remarked above that every relation is either of comparison or concurrence That of comparison gives diversity and identity either complete or partial whereby are constituted the concepts of the same or the diverse the like or unlike Concurrence contains what you call coexistence ie connection of existence But when we say that a thing exists or that it has real existence this existence itself is the predicate ie it has a notion joined with the idea in question and there is connection between these two notions The existence of the object of an idea may also be conceived as the concurrence of this object with the Ego Thus I believe it may be said that there is only comparison or concurrence but that the comparison which marks identity or diversity and the concurrence of the thing with the Ego are the relations which deserve to be distinguished among others More exact and more profound researches might perhaps be made but I content myself here with making remarks
Ph There is actual knowledge which is the present perception of the relation of ideas and there is habitual knowledge when the mind has so evidently perceived the agreement or disagreement of ideas and so placed it in its memory that every time it comes to reflect upon the proposition it is at once certain of the truth it contains without the least doubt For being capable of thinking clearly and distinctly of but one thing at once men would all be very ignorant if they knew only the actual object of their thoughts and he who knew most would know but one truth
Th It is true that our science the most demonstrative indeed being very often obliged to acquire its existence by a long chain of inferences must involve the memory of a past demonstration which is no longer distinctly in view when the conclusion is made otherwise it would always be repeating this demonstration And even while it lasts it cannot be understood as a complete whole at once for all its parts cannot be present in the mind at the same time thus always recalling the preceding part to mind we should never advance to the last which achieves the conclusion This is the reason also that without writing it would be difficult properly to establish the sciences the memory not being sufficiently reliable But having put in writing a long demonstration like for example those of Apollonius and having gone over again all its parts as if they were examining a chain link by link men can assure themselves regarding their reasonings for which purpose proofs are also of use and the result at last justifies the whole But we see by this that as all belief consists in the memory of past life of proofs or reasons it is not within our power or choice to believe or disbelieve since memory is not a thing depending on our will
Ph It is true that our habitual knowledge is of two sorts or degrees Sometimes truths laid up as it were in the memory no sooner present themselves to the mind than it sees the relation between the ideas entering therein but sometimes the mind contents itself with the memory of the conviction without retaining the proofs and often indeed without the power to recall them if it wished It may be thought that this is rather to believe ones memory than really to know the truth in question and this formerly appeared to me to be a mean between opinion and knowledge a kind of assurance superior to simple belief based upon the testimony of another But upon due reflection I find that this knowledge contains perfect certainty I remember ie I know memory being only the reviving of something past that I was once certain of the truth of this proposition that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles Now the immutability of the same relations between the same immutable things is at present the mediate idea which shows me that if they were once equal they will be so still It is upon this ground that in mathematics particular demonstrations furnish general knowledge otherwise a geometers knowledge would not extend beyond this particular figure which he had drawn while demonstrating it
Th The mediate idea of which you sir speak presupposes the fidelity of our memory but it sometimes happens that our memory deceives us and that we have not made every necessary effort although we now believe we have This is clearly seen in the examination of accounts Sometimes there are examiners officially appointed as at our mines in the Harz and to make the receivers of the particular mines more attentive they have imposed a money penalty upon every error in calculation nevertheless they find them in spite of this penalty But the more care we employ the more reliance we can place upon past reasonings I have devised a method of keeping accounts by which he who collects the sums of the columns leaves upon the paper traces of the progress of his reasoning so that he does not reason in vain He can always revise and correct the last errors without affecting the first the examination also which another desires to make costs in this way almost no trouble because he can examine the very same traces at a glance There are besides means of verifying the accounts of each article by a very convenient kind of proof without increasing to any considerable extent the labour of the computation And all this easily shows that men may have rigorous demonstrations on paper and have an infinite number of them But unless we remember that we have been absolutely accurate we cannot have this certainty in the mind. And this accuracy consists in an orderly procedure the observance of which in each part is an assurance as regards the whole as in the examination of a chain by links in which inspecting each to see if it is strong and measuring with the hand so as not to skip any assurance is obtained of the good quality of the chain And by this means we have all the certitude of which human things are capable But I do not agree that in mathematics particular demonstrations upon the figure which is drawn furnish this general certitude as you seem to take it For you must know that it is not the figures which furnish the proof with geometers although the style of the exposition may make you think so The force of the demonstration is independent of the figure drawn which is drawn only to facilitate the knowledge of our meaning and to fix the attention it is the universal propositions ie the definitions axioms and theorems already demonstrated which make the reasoning and which would sustain it though the figure were not there Hence it is that a learned geometer like Scheubelius has given Euclids figures without the letters which might bind them to the demonstration he has put with them and another like Herlinus has reduced the same
Ph Knowledge is then intuitive when the mind perceives the agreement of two ideas immediately by themselves without the intervention of any other In this case the mind takes no pains to prove or examine the truth As the eve sees the light the mind sees that white is not black that a circle is not a triangle that three is two and one This knowledge is the clearest and most certain of which human weakness is capable it acts in an irresistible manner without allowing the mind to hesitate It is knowledge that the idea is in the mind as perceived Whoever asks for greater certitude knows not what he asks
Th Primitive truths which are known by intuition are of two kinds like the derivative They are truths of reason or truths of fact Truths of reason are necessary and those of fact are contingent The primitive truths of reason are those which I call by the general name of identical because they seem only to repeat the same thing without giving us any information They are affirmative or negative The affirmative are such as the following Each thing in what it is and in as many examples as you please A is A B is B I shall be what I shall be I have written what I have written And nothing in verse as in prose is to be nothing or a trifle The equilateral rectangle is a rectangle The rational animal is always an animal And in the hypothetical If the regular figure of four sides is an equilateral rectangle this figure is a rectangle Copulatives disjunctives and other propositions are also susceptible of this identicism and I reckon indeed among the affirmatives nonA is nonA And this hypothetical if A is non it follows that A is nonB Again if nonA is BC it follows that nonA is BC If a figure having no obtuse angle may be a regular triangle a figure having no obtuse angle may be regular I come now to the identical negatives which belong either to the principle of contradiction or to the disparates The principle of contradiction is in general a proposition is either true or false this contains two true statements one that the true and the false are not compatible in one and the same proposition or that a proposition cannot be true and false at once the other that the opposition or the negation of the true and the false are not compatible or that there is no mean between the true and the false or rather it is impossible for a proposition to be neither true nor false Now all this is also true in all imaginable propositions in particular as what is A cannot be nonA Again AB cannot be nonA An equilateral rectangle cannot be nonrectangle Again it is true that every man is an animal then it is false that any man is found who is not an animal We may vary these statements in many ways and apply them to copulatives disjunctives and others As for the disparates they are the propositions which state that the object of one idea is not the object of another idea as that heat is not the same thing as colour again man and animal are not the same although every man is an animal All this may be asserted independently of all proof or of reduction to opposition or to the principle of contradiction when these ideas are sufficiently understood not to require here analysis otherwise they are liable to be misunderstood for in saying the triangle and the trilateral are not the same we should be mistaken since upon proper consideration we find that three sides and three angles always go together In saying the quadrilateral rectangle and the rectangle are not the same we should also be mistaken For it is found that the four sided figure alone can have all the angles right angles we may also say in the abstract that the triangle is not the trilateral or that the formal causes of the triangle and of the trilateral are not the same as the philosophers express it They are different relations of one and the same thing
Some one after having heard with patience what we have just said up to this point will lose it after all and will say that we are amusing ourselves with frivolous statements and that all identical truths are useless But he will make this judgment for want of having thought sufficiently upon these matters The deductions of logic for example are demonstrated by identical principles and geometers require the principle of contradiction in their demonstrations which reduce to the impossible Let us be content here to show the use of identicals in the demonstrations of rational deduction I say then that the principle of contradiction alone suffices to demonstrate the second and the third figures of the syllogism by means of the first For example we may conclude in the first figure in Barbara
All B is C
All A is B
Then All A is C
Suppose that the conclusion is false or that it is true that some A is not C then one or the other of the premises will be false also Suppose that the second is true the first must then be false which maintains that all B is C Then its contradictory will be true ie some will not be C And this will be the conclusion of a new argument drawn from the falsity of the conclusion and the truth of one of the premises of the preceding argument Here is this new argument
Some A is not C
This is opposed to the preceding conclusion supposed false
All A is B
This is the preceding premise supposed true
Then some B is not C
This is the present true conclusion opposed to the preceding false premise
This argument is in the mode Disamis of the third figure which is thus plainly demonstrated and at once from the mode Barbara of the first figure by employing simply the principle of contradiction And I noticed in my youth when I examined minutely these things that all the modes of the second and third figure may be drawn from the first by this method alone by supposing that the mode of the first is valid and consequently that the conclusion being false or its contradictory being taken as true and one of the premises being taken as true also the contradictory of the other premise is true It is true that in the schools of logic they prefer to make use of conversions to draw the less principal figures from the first which is the principal because this method appears better suited to the scholars But for those who seek demonstrative reasons in which the least possible suppositions must be employed we shall not demonstrate by the supposition of conversion what may be demonstrated by the primitive principle alone which is that of contradiction and which assumes nothing I have also made this apparently remarkable observation that only the less principal figures which are called direct viz the second and the third can be demonstrated by the principle of contradiction by itself but the less original indirect figure the fourth whose invention the Arabs attribute to Galen although we found nothing concerning it in the works of his remaining to us nor in the other Greek authors the fourth I say has this disadvantage that it cannot be derived from the first or principal figure by this method alone and it is necessary besides to employ another supposition viz conversions so that it is farther removed by one degree than the second and the third which are on a level and equally removed from the first while the fourth needs also the second and the third for its demonstration For it is found very opportunely that the conversions required are demonstrated by the second or third figure demonstrable independently of the conversions as I have just shown It is Peter Ramus who already made this remark concerning the demonstrability of conversion by these figures and if I am not mistaken he reproached the logicians who make use of conversion to demonstrate these figures with arguing in a circle although it was not so much the circle that he found it necessary to reproach them with for they did not use these figures in their turn to justify the conversions as the hysteron proteron or the reversal le rebours because conversions need rather to be demonstrated by these figures than these figures by the conversions But as this demonstration of conversions shows also the use of the identical affirmatives which many take as altogether frivolous it will be so much more to the purpose to introduce them here I wish to speak only of conversions without contraposition which suffice me here and which are simple or per accidens as they are called Simple conversions are of two kinds that of the universal negative as no square is obtuseangled then no obtuseangled figure is a square and that of the particular affirmative as some triangles are obtuseangled then some obtuseangled figures are triangles But conversion per accidens as it is called concerns the universal affirmative as every square is a rectangle then some rectangles are squares A rectangle is here always understood to be a figure all of whose angles are right angles and by the square is understood a regular quadrilateral Now the question is to demonstrate these three kinds of conversion which are
No A is B then no B is A
Some A is B then some B is A
All A is B then some B is A
Demonstration of the first conversion in Cesare which belongs to the second figure
No A is B
All B is B
Then no B is A
Demonstration of the second conversion in Datisi which belongs to the third figure
All A is A
Some A is B
Then some B is A
Demonstration of the third conversion in Darapti which belongs to the third figure
All A is A
All A is B
Then some B is A
This shows that the purest and apparently most useless identical propositions are of considerable use in the abstract and general and that may teach us that we should not despise any truth As for this proposition that three is as much as two and one which you sir still adduce as an example of intuitive knowledge I have to say that it is only the definition of the term three for the simplest definitions of numbers are formed in this way two is one plus one three is two plus one four is three plus one etc It is true that there is therein a concealed statement which I have already spoken of viz that these ideas are possible and this is here known intuitively so that it may be said that an intuitive knowledge is comprised in definitions when their possibility appears at once And in this way all adequate definitions contain primitive truths of reason and consequently intuitive knowledge In short you can say in general that all primitive truths of reason are immediate with respect to an immediateness of ideas
As for the primitive truths of fact they are the immediate internal experiences of an immediateness of feeling And here it is that the first truth of the Cartesians or of St Augustine I think therefore I am ie I am a thing which thinks holds good But we must know that as the identicals are general or particular and as one is as clear as the other since the statement that A is A is as clear as the statement that a thing is what it is so is it also with the first truths of fact For not only is it immediately clear to me that I think but it is wholly as clear to me that I have different thoughts that sometimes I think of A and sometimes of B etc Thus the Cartesian principle is valid but it is not the only one of its kind You see by this that all primitive truths of reason or of fact have this in common that they cannot be proved by anything more certain
Ph I am very glad sir that you have carried forward farther than I had done that which relates to intuitive knowledge Now demonstrative knowledge is only a concatenation of intuitive knowledge in all the connections of mediate ideas For often the mind cannot unite compare or apply immediately the ideas one to the other and this compels it to make use of other ideas one or more as means to the discovery of the agreement or disagreement it seeks and this is what we call reasoning As in demonstrating the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles it finds some other angles which are seen to be equal both to the three angles of the triangle and to two right angles These intervening ideas are called proofs and the disposition of the mind to discover them is called sagacity And even when found this knowledge cannot be acquired without pains and attention and by more than a single passing view for the mind must enter upon a progression of ideas made gradually and by degrees and there is doubt before the demonstration It is not so clear as the intuitive knowledge as the image reflected by several mirrors from one to another grows more and more faint with each reflection and is no longer at once so recognizable especially by weak eyes It is the same with knowledge produced by a long train of proof And although each step taken by reason in the demonstration is intuitive knowledge or simple sight nevertheless as in this long train of proofs the memory does not so exactly preserve this connection of ideas men often take fallacies for demonstrations
Th Besides natural sagacity or that acquired by exercise there is an art of finding mediate ideas the medium and this art is analysis Now it is well to consider here that the question is sometimes to find the truth or falsehood of a given proposition which is nothing else than an answer to the question Aril ie whether it is or is not Sometimes it concerns an answer to a more difficult cateris paribus question where it is asked for example by whom and how and where there is more to be supplied And it is these questions alone which leave a part of the proposition blank which the mathematicians call problems As when we are asked to find a mirror which collects all the rays of the sun in one point we are asked for its form or how it is made As for the first questions in which the point at stake is only truth and falsehood and where there is nothing to be supplied in the subject or predicate there is less invention yet there is some and the judgment alone is not sufficient It is true that a man of judgment ie one who is capable of attention and reserve and who has the leisure the patience and the necessary freedom of mind may understand the most difficult demonstration if properly set before him But the most judicious man in the world without other aid will not always be capable of discovering this demonstration Thus there is still some invention therein and with geometers there was more of it formerly than now For when analysis was less cultivated more sagacity was necessary to attain it and it is on this account that some geometers still of the old school or others who have not yet sufficient aptness in the new methods think they have done something wonderful when they discover the demonstration of some theorem that others have invented But those who are versed in the art of invention know when this is estimable or not for example if someone sets forth the quadrature of a space comprised within a curved and a straight line which is successful in all its segments and which I call general it is always within our power according to our methods to discover its demonstration provided we are willing to take the trouble But there are some particular quadratures of certain portions where the thing may be so involved that it will not always be possible in potestate thus far to develop it It happens also that induction presents us with truths in numbers and in figures whose general reason is not yet discovered For much is needed in order to attain perfection of analysis in geometry and in numbers as many are becoming conceited upon the basis of the boasts of some men otherwise excellent but a little too hasty or too ambitious
But it is much more difficult to discover important truths and still more to discover means of producing what is sought when it is justly sought than to discover the demonstration of truths which another has discovered Beautiful truths are often attained by synthesis by passing from the simple to the complex but when it is a question of discovering exactly the means of producing what is proposed synthesis is ordinarily not sufficient and often to be willing to make all the requisite combinations would be an endless task although one might often be aided therein by the method of exclusion which cuts off a good portion of useless combinations and often nature does not admit any other method But the means are not always at hand for the proper pursuit of this method Analysis then must give us a thread in this labyrinth when it is possible for there are cases where the nature itself of the question demands that we grope about short cuts not being always possible
Ph Now as in demonstration intuitive knowledge is always supposed it has I think given occasion fortius maxim that all reasoning springs from things already known and agreed to ex pruecognitis et praconcessis But we shall have occasion to speak of the falsity of this axiom when we speak of the maxims which are improperly taken as the foundation of our reasoning
Th I am curious to learn what falsehood you can find in an axiom apparently so reasonable If it were always necessary to reduce everything to intuitive knowledge demonstration would often be insufferably prolix This is why mathematicians have had the cleverness to divide the difficulties and to demonstrate separately the intervening propositions And there is art also in this for as the mediate truths which are called lemmas since they appear to be a digression may be assigned in many ways it is well in order to aid the understanding and the memory to choose those of them which greatly shorten the process and appear memorable and worthy in themselves of being demonstrated But there is another obstacle viz that it is not easy to demonstrate all the axioms and to reduce demonstration wholly to intuitive knowledge And if we had chosen to wait for that perhaps we should not yet have the science of geometry But we have already spoken of this in our former conversations and we shall have occasion to speak of it again
Ph We shall come to that presently now I shall remark again what I have already touched upon more than once that it is a common opinion that only the mathematical sciences are capable of a demonstrative certainty but as the agreement and disagreement which may be known intuitively is not a privilege belonging only to the ideas of numbers and figures it is perhaps for want of application on our part that mathematics alone have attained to demonstrations Many reasons conspired to this end The mathematical sciences are very generally useful the least difference therein is very easily recognized ll These other simple ideas which are appearances or situations produced in us have no exact measure of their different degrees But when the difference of these visible qualities for example is sufficiently great to excite in the mind clearly distinct ideas as those of blue or red they are as capable of demonstration as those of number and extension
Th There are notable examples enough of demonstration outside of mathematics and it may be said that Aristotle has already given some in his Prior Analytics In fact logic is as susceptible of demonstrations as geometry and it may be said that the logic of the geometers or the methods of argumentation explained and established by Euclid in reasoning upon propositions are a particular extension or promotion of general logic Archimedes is the first whose works we have who has practised the art of demonstration upon an occasion where he is treating of physics as he has done in his book on Equilibrium Furthermore jurists may be said to have many good demonstrations especially the ancient Roman jurists whose fragments have been preserved to us in the Pandects I am wholly of the opinion of Laurentius Valla who cannot enough admire these authors among others because they all speak in a manner so just and so clear and in fact reason in a way closely approaching the demonstrative and often it is wholly demonstrative Indeed I do not know any science outside that of law and that of arms in which the Romans have made any considerable addition to what they received from the Greeks
Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento
Has tibi erunt artes pacique imponere morem
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos
This precise manner of expressing themselves is the reason that all the jurists of the Pandects though sometimes quite distant from one another in time seem to be a single author and there would be much difficulty in distinguishing them if the names of the writers were not at the beginning of the extracts as it would be difficult to distinguish Euclid Archimedes and Apollonius in reading their demonstrations upon matters which the one as well as the other has touched upon •It must be admitted that the Greeks have reasoned with all possible accuracy in mathematics and that they have left the human race models in the art of demonstration for if the Babylonians and the Egyptians had anything more than an empirical geometry nothing of it at least remains but it is astonishing that these same Greeks lost it to such an extent at once as soon as they turned aside ever so little from numbers and figures in order to proceed to philosophy For it is strange that we do not see a shadow of demonstration in Plato and in Aristotle his Prior Analytics excepted and in all the other ancient philosophers Proclus was an excellent geometer but he seems another man when he speaks on philosophy What has made it easier to reason demonstrably in mathematics is largely the fact that experience can there guarantee the reasoning at every moment as is also the case in the syllogistic figures But in metaphysics and ethics this parallelism of reason and experience is no longer found and in physics experiments demand labour and expense Now men at once relaxed their attention and as a consequence were led astray when they were destitute of this faithful guide experience who aided and sustained them in their walk as that little revolving machine does which prevents children from falling when walking There was a succedaneum but it is something that has not been and is not yet sufficiently considered And I shall speak of it in its place For the rest blue and red are scarcely capable of furnishing matter for demonstration by means of the ideas we have of them because these ideas are confused And these colours do not supply matter for reasoning so long as in experience they are found accompanied by some distinct ideas but in which the connection with their own ideas does not appear
Ph Besides intuition and demonstration which are the two degrees of our knowledge, all the rest is faith or opinion and not knowledge at least as regards all general truths But the mind has also another perception regarding the particular existence of finite beings outside of us and this is sensitive knowledge
Th Opinion based on probability deserves perhaps the name knowledge also otherwise nearly all historic knowledge and many other kinds will fall But without disputing about terms I hold that the investigation of the degrees of probability is very important that we are still lacking in it and that this lack is a great defect of our logics For if the question cannot always be decided absolutely the degree of resemblance ex datis can always be determined and consequently one can reasonably judge what view is the most likely And when our moralists I mean the wisest of them such as the present moderne General of the Jesuits unite the safest and the most probable and prefer even the safe to the probable they are not far in fact from the most probable for the question of safety is here that of the little probability of an evil to be feared The fault of the moralists lax upon this article has largely been that they have had a too limited and too inadequate notion of the probable which they have confounded with the Endoxon or the probable opinable of Aristotle for Aristotle in his Topics did not mean to accommodate himself to the opinion of others as did the orators and sophists Endoxon is with him what has been received from the greatest number or the most authoritative he is wrong in having restricted his Topics to this and this view caused him to adhere only to received maxims for the most part vague as if he wished to reason only by means of quodlibets or proverbs But the probable or the likely is more extended it must be drawn from the nature of things and the opinion of persons whose authority has weight is one of the things which may contribute to render an opinion probable but not what completes the entire verisimilitude At the time when Copernicus was almost alone in his opinion it was still incomparably more probable than that of all the rest of the human race Now I do not know but that the establishment of the art of estimating probabilities would be more useful than a majority of our demonstrative sciences and I have thought of this more than once
Ph Sensitive knowledge or that which establishes the existence of particular beings without us goes beyond bare probability but it has not all the certainty of the two degrees of knowledge of which we have just spoken Nothing is more certain than that the idea we receive of an external object is in our mind and this is intuitive knowledge but the knowledge whether from this we can certainly infer the existence of anything without us corresponding to this idea this it is which certain persons think may be questioned because men may have such ideas in their minds when no such thing actually exists For myself I believe however that there is a degree of evidence which elevates us beyond doubt One is unalterably convinced that there is a great difference between the perceptions which he has when by day he looks at the sun and when by night he thinks about it and the idea which is renewed by recourse to the memory is very different from that which actually comes to us by means of the senses Someone will say that a dream may produce the same effect I reply in the first place that it matters little that I remove this doubt because if all is but a dream reasoning is useless truth and knowledge nothing at all In the second place he will acknowledge in my opinion the difference between dreaming of being in a fire and being actually in it And if he persists in appearing sceptical I shall tell him that it is enough that we certainly find pleasure or pain following the application to ourselves of certain objects true or dreamt of and that this certitude is as great as our happiness or misery two things beyond which we have no interest Thus I think we may count three sorts of knowledge intuitive demonstrative and sensitive Th I think you are right sir and I also think that to these species of certitude or certain knowledge you can add the knowledge of the probable thus there will be two sorts of knowledge as there are two sorts of proofs the first of which produce certitude and the second end only in probability But let us come to this dispute of the Sceptics and the Dogmatists upon the existence of things without us We have already touched upon it but we must return to it here I formerly discussed the subject a great deal viva voce and in writing with the late Abbe Foucher Canon of Dijon a learned and subtile man but a little too prepossessed in favour of his Academicians which sect he was very desirous of reviving as Gassendi had brought upon the stage that of Epicurus His critique upon • The Search after Truth and the other minor treatises which he afterwards published have made their author quite well known He published also in the Journal des Savans some objections to my System of Preestablished Harmony when I gave it to the public after having digested it for many years but death prevented him from replying to my answer He always preached the necessity of guarding against prejudice and of using great accuracy but besides the fact that he himself did not make it his duty to carry out his counsel to others in which he was perhaps excusable it seems to me that he was not careful whether another did it anticipating doubtless that no one would ever do it Now I showed him that the truth of sensible things consisted only in the connection of phenomena which must have its reason and is that which distinguishes them from dreams but that the truth of our existence and the cause of phenomena is of a different nature because it establishes substances and that the Sceptics spoiled what they rightly say by carrying it too far and by wishing indeed to extend their doubts even to immediate experience and to the geometrical truths a thing which Foucher did not do however and to the other truths of reason which he did a little too much But to return to you sir you are right in saying that there is ordinarily some difference between feelings and imaginations but the Sceptics will say that the more or less does not alter the species Besides although feelings are wont to be more vivid than imaginations it is nevertheless a fact that there are cases where imaginative persons are impressed as much or perhaps more by their imaginations than another is by the truth of things so that I think the true criterion concerning the objects of the senses is the connection of the phenomena, ie the connection of that which takes place in different places and times and in the experience of different men who are themselves each to the others very important phenomena in this respect And the connection of the phenomena which guarantees the truths of fact in respect to sensible things outside of us is verified by means of the truths of reason as the phenomena of optics are explained by geometry It must however be admitted that none of this certitude is of the highest degree as you have well recognized For it is not impossible metaphysically speaking that there may be a dream continuous and lasting like the life of a man but it is a thing as contrary to reason as would be the fiction of a book which should be formed by chance by throwing together the type pellmell For the rest it is also true that provided the phenomena are connected it does not matter whether they are called dreams or not since experience shows that we are not deceived in the measures we take concerning phenomena when they are understood according to the truths of reason
Ph For the rest knowledge is not always clear though ideas may be A man who has as clear ideas as any mathematician in the world of the angles of a triangle and of equality to two right angles may yet have a very obscure perception of their agreement
Th Ordinarily when ideas are thoroughly understood their agreements and disagreements appear I admit however that at times some of them are so complex that much care is needed to develop what they conceal and in this respect certain agreements or disagreements may still remain obscure As to your example I remark that if we have in the imagination the angles of a triangle we do not on that account have clear ideas of them The imagination cannot furnish us an image common to acuteangled and obtuseangled triangles and yet the idea of triangle is common to them thus this idea does not consist in images and it is not as easy as you may think thoroughly to understand the angles of a triangle.]
Ph Our knowledge does not extend beyond our ideas nor beyond the perception of their agreement or disagreement It cannot always be intuitive because we cannot always compare things immediately for example, the size of two triangles upon one and the same base equal but very different Our knowledge also cannot always be demonstrative for we cannot always find mediate ideas Finally our sensitive knowledge regards only the existence of things which actually strike our senses Thus not only our ideas are limited but also our knowledge is more limited than our ideas I do not doubt however that human knowledge can be carried much farther if men will devote themselves sincerely to discovering the means of perfecting truth with entire freedom of mind and with all the application and industry they employ in colouring or maintaining falsehood in defending a system in favour of which they have declared themselves or else a certain party and certain interests with which they find themselves united But after all our knowledge can never embrace all we may wish to know concerning the ideas we have For example we shall never perhaps be able to find a circle equal to a square and know certainly that it is so Th There are confused ideas in which we cannot promise ourselves a complete knowledge like those of certain sensible qualities But when they are distinct there is room to hope for all As for the square equal to the circle Archimedes has already shown that there is one For it is the one whose side is the mean proportional between the semidiameter and the semicircumference He has also determined a straight line equal to the circumference of the circle by means of a straight line tangent to the spiral as others by the tangent to the quadratrix a method of quadrature with which Clavius was wholly content not to speak of a thread applied to the circumference and then stretched out or of the circumference which revolves to describe the cycloid and is changed to a straight line Some demand that the construction be made by employing only the ruler and the compasses but the majority of geometrical problems cannot be constructed by this means The question then is rather that of finding the proportion between the square and the circle But this proportion not being capable of expression in finite rational numbers it has been necessary in order to employ only rational numbers to express this same proportion in an infinite series of these numbers which I have assigned in a manner quite simple Now we should like to know whether there is not some finite quantity although it be irrational only or more than irrational which can express this infinite series that is to say whether we can find exactly an abbreviated expression for this series But finite especially irrational expressions if we proceed to the most irrational of all may vary in too many ways for us to be able to make an enumeration of them or to determine easily all that they are capable of There might be perhaps a means of doing it if this irrationality should be explained by an ordinary or even more an extraordinary equation which would introduce the irrational or even the unknown quantity into the exponent for which however an extended calculation would be required and in which the difficulty will not easily be solved unless we someday find a short method for its solution But to exclude all the finite expressions is impossible as I myself know and to determine exactly the best is an immense task And all this shows us that the human mind proposes questions so strange especially when the infinite enters therein that we must not be astonished if there is some difficulty in making them out so much the more as all depends often on a short method in these geometrical matters which cannot always be determined on just as fractions cannot always be reduced to the lowest terms or the divisors of a number be found It is true that we may always have these divisors if they are possible because their number is finite but when what we have to examine is infinitely variable and ascends by degrees we are not its master though we wish to be and it is too laborious to do all that is necessary in order to attempt methodically to reach the short method or the rule of progression exempting us from going farther And as its usefulness does not correspond to the labour its success is left to posterity which will be able to enjoy it when this labour or prolixity is diminished by the new preparations and means which time may furnish Unless the persons who devote themselves from time to time to these studies determine to do properly what is necessary in order to further progress we cannot hope to advance much in a short time And we must not think that all is done since indeed in ordinary geometry we still have no method for determining the best constructions when the problems are a little complex A certain progression of synthesis should be mixed with our analysis in order the better to succeed And I remember to have heard it said that the Pensionary De Witts had some thoughts on this subject
Ph There is indeed another difficulty to know whether a purely material being thinks or not and perhaps we shall never be capable of knowing this although we have ideas of matter and of thought for the reason that it is impossible for us to discover by contemplation of our own ideas without revelation whether God has not given to some masses of matter fitly disposed the power to perceive and to think or whether he has not united and joined to matter so disposed an immaterial substance that thinks For as regards our notions it is no more difficult for us to conceive that God if he pleases can add to our idea of matter the faculty of thinking than to understand that he joins to it another substance with the faculty of thinking since we know not wherein thinking consists nor to what kind of substance this all powerful Being has been pleased to give that power which cannot exist in any created being save by virtue of the good pleasure and the bounty of the Creator
Th This question is without doubt incomparably more important than the preceding but I venture to say to you sir that I wish it were as easy to touch souls in order to influence them for their good and to heal bodies of their diseases as I think it is in our power to determine this question • I hope you will admit at least that I can advance without offending against modesty and without speaking as a master in default of good reasons for besides speaking only according to received and common opinion I think I have brought thereto an attention not common In the first place I grant you sir that when we have only confused ideas of thought and of matter as is ordinarily the case we must not be astonished if we do not see the means of solving such questions As I remarked a little before one who has only the ideas of the angles of a triangle commonly held will never think of finding them always equal to two right angles We must consider that matter taken as a complete being ie secondary matter in distinction from the primary which is something purely passive and consequently incomplete is only a mass or that which results therefrom and that every real mass supposes simple substances or real unities and when we further consider what belongs to the nature of these real unities ie perception and its consequences we are transferred so to speak into another world that is to say into the intelligible world of substances while before we have been only among the phenomena of the senses And this knowledge of the interior of matter shows us sufficiently its natural capability and that whenever God shall give it organs suitable for rational expression the immaterial substance which reasons will not fail to be given it also in virtue of that harmony which is also a natural consequence of substances Matter cannot subsist without immaterial substances ie without the unities after which the question should no longer be asked whether God is free to give them to it or not and if these substances had not in themselves this correspondence or harmony of which I have just spoken God would not act in accordance with the natural order To speak in an entirely simple manner of giving or according powers is to return to the naked faculties of the schoolmen and to imagine minute selfsubsisting entities which may go in and out like pigeons from a pigeonhouse It is making substances of them without being aware of it The primitive powers constitute substances themselves and the derivative powers or if you prefer the faculties are only modes of being which must be derived from substances and are not derived from matter so long as it is only a machine ie so long as it is abstractly considered only as the incomplete essence of primary matter or passivity pure and simple As to which I think you will agree sir that it is not within the power of mere mechanism to produce perception sensation reason They must then spring from some other substantial thing To desire God to act otherwise and to give to tilings accidents which are not modes of being or modifications derived from substances is to have recourse to miracles and to what the schoolmen called the obediential power by a kind of supernatural exaltation as when certain theologians claim that the fire of hell burns up separated souls In which case it may indeed be doubted whether it was the fire that acted or whether God did not himself produce the effect acting in place of the fire
Ph You surprise me somewhat by your elucidations and you anticipate me in many of the things I was going to say to you upon the limits of our knowledge. I should have said to you that we are not in a state of vision as the theologians call it that faith and probability must suffice us as regards many things and particularly as regards the immateriality of the soul that all the great ends of morality and religion are established upon sufficiently good foundations without the aid of the proofs of this immateriality drawn from philosophy and that it is evident that he who has begun to make us subsist here as sensible and intelligent beings and who has preserved us many years in this state can and will make us enjoy also a similar state of sensibility in the other life and make us capable of receiving there the retribution he has designed for men according as they shall have conducted themselves in this life in fine that we may judge by this that the necessity to determine for or against the immateriality of the soul is not so great as some people too zealous for their own views have wished to persuade us I was going to say all this to you and more besides to the same effect but I see now how different is the statement that we are sensible thinking immortal beings by nature and the statement that we are so only by miracle It is a miracle in fact which I know I must admit if the soul is not immaterial but this view of miracle besides being without foundation will not produce a sufficiently good effect in the minds of most people I see clearly also from the way you understand the matter that we can decide rationally as regards the present question without finding it needful to depart to the enjoyment of the state of vision and to find ourselves in the company of those superior spirits who penetrate very deeply into the internal constitution of things and whose living and penetrating sight and vast field of knowledge may make us imagine by conjecture what happiness they must enjoy I had supposed it entirely beyond our knowledge to combine sensation with extended matter and existence with a thing which has absolutely no extension I had therefore become convinced that those who took sides here followed the unreasonable method of certain persons who seeing that things considered from a certain side are incomprehensible throw themselves headlong upon the opposite side although it is no less unintelligible a procedure which arose in my opinion from the fact that some having their mind too deeply buried so to speak in matter could not accord any existence to that which is not material and others not finding that thought is included in the natural faculties of matter concluded that God himself could not give life and perception to a solid substance without putting therein an immaterial substance while I now see that if He had done so it would be by a miracle and that this incomprehensibility of the union of the soul and the body or of the union of sensation with matter seems to cease through your hypothesis of preestablished harmony between different substances
Th In fact there is nothing unintelligible in this new hypothesis since it attributes to the soul and to bodies only the modifications which we experience in ourselves and in them and only makes them appear more regular and more connected than has been thought hitherto The difficulty which remains exists only as regards those who wish to imagine what is only intelligible as if they wished to see sounds or hear colours and these are they who refuse existence to everything which is net extended a view which will compel them to refuse it to God himself ie to renounce the causes and reasons of changes and of such changes these reasons being incapable of arising from extension and from natures purely passive and not indeed wholly from particular and inferior active natures without the pure and universal act of the supreme substance
Ph One objection remains for me with reference to things whose matter is naturally susceptible of feeling The body so far as we can conceive it is capable only of striking and effecting a body and motion can produce nothing but motion so that when we agree that the body produces pleasure or pain or the idea of a colour or sound we seem compelled to abandon our reason to go beyond our own ideas and to attribute this production solely to the good pleasure of our Creator What reason have we then to conclude that it is not the same with perception in matter I almost see what reply you can make and although you have already said something regarding it more than once I understand you better now sir than I have done But I shall be very glad to hear further what reply you will make regarding it upon this important occasion
Hi You rightly judge sir that I shall say that matter cannot produce pleasure pain or thought in us It is the soul itself which produces them in conformity to what takes place in matter And some clever people among the moderns begin to declare that they understand occasional causes only as I Now this being posited there occurs nothing unintelligible except that we cannot distinguish all that enters into our confused perceptions which contain even the infinite and which are the detailed expression of what occurs in bodies As for the good pleasure of the Creator it must be said that he is ruled by the natures of things so that he produces and conserves therein only what suits them and can be explained at least in general by their natures for the detail often surpasses us as much as the care and power of arranging the grains of a mountain of sand according to the order of the figures although there is here nothing difficult to understand but the multitude Otherwise if this knowledge were in itself beyond us and if we could not indeed conceive the reason of the relations of the soul and body in general in fine if God gave to things accidental powers detached from their natures and consequently removed from reason in general there would be a back door for calling back the too occult qualities which no mind can understand and these little goblins of faculties incapable of reason helpful goblins who proceed to appear like the gods of the theatre or like the fairies of the Amadis and who will do at need all that a philosopher wishes without ceremony and without tools But to attribute the origin of these powers to the good pleasure of God appears to me a thing not quite congruous with him who is the supreme reason with whom everything is regular everything consistent This good pleasure would not indeed be good nor pleasure if there were not a perpetual parallelism between the power and the wisdom of God
Ph Our knowledge of identity and diversity goes as far as our ideas but that of the connection of our ideas as regards their coexistence in one and the same subject is very imperfect and almost nothing especially as regards secondary qualities as colours sounds and tastes because we do not know their connection with the primary qualities ie how they depend upon size figure or motion We know a little more of the incompatibility of the secondary qualities for a subject cannot have for example two colours at the same time and when they seem to be seen in an opal or in an infusion of lignum nephriticum it is in different parts of the object. It is the same with the active and passive powers of bodies Our researches in this direction must depend on experience
Th The ideas of sensible qualities are confused and the powers which should produce them furnish in consequence only ideas into which some confusion enters thus the connections of these ideas can be known otherwise than by experience only as they are reduced to the distinct ideas which accompany them as has been done for example in regard to the colours of the rainbow and of prisms And this method presents a beginning in analysis which is of great use in physics and by following it I doubt not that medicine in time will find itself considerably more advanced especially if the public is a little better interested than hitherto
Ph As for the knowledge of relations it is the largest field of our knowledge and it is difficult to determine how far it may extend Progress depends on our sagacity in finding intermediate ideas Those who are ignorant of algebra cannot imagine the wonderful things that may be done in this field by means of this science And I do not see that it is easy to determine what new means of perfecting other parts of our knowledge may yet be found out by a penetrating mind At least the ideas regarding quantity are not the only ones capable of demonstration there are others perhaps the most important part of our contemplation from which we might deduce certain knowledge if vices passions and domineering did not directly oppose the execution of such enterprise
Th Nothing is truer than what you sir here say What is there more important supposing it is true than what I believe we have determined upon the nature of substance upon unity and multiplicity upon identity and diversity upon the constitution of individuals upon the impossibilities of void and atoms upon the origin of cohesion upon the law of continuity and the other laws of nature; but chiefly upon the harmony of things the immateriality of souls the union of the soul and the body the conservation of souls and even of the animal after death And there is nothing in all this which I do not think demonstrated or demonstrable
Ph It is true that your hypothesis appears extremely consistent and of great simplicity a clever man in France who desired to refute it admits publicly that he was impressed by it And it is a simplicity very different from that which I see It will be well to show this doctrine more and more in its true light But in speaking of things which are of most importance to us I thought of morality to which I admit your metaphysic gives wonderful foundations but without digging so deep it has sufficiently firm foundations although perhaps they do not extend as far as I remember that you remarked when a natural theology like yours is not their base Yet the consideration of the goods of this life alone already serves to establish important consequences for regulating human society We can estimate justice and injustice as incontestably as in mathematics for example this proposition There cannot be justice where there is no property is as certain as any demonstration which is in Euclid property being the right to a certain thing and injustice the violation of a right It is the same with this proposition No government allows absolute liberty For government is the establishment of certain laws whose execution it demands and absolute liberty is the power each one has of doing whatever he pleases
You use the word property a little differently from its ordinary use for you mean by it the right of one person to a thing to the exclusion of the right of another Thus if there were no property as if all were common there nevertheless might be injustice By thing in the definition of property you must also further understand action for otherwise if there were therein no right to things it would be always an injustice to prevent men from acting where they find it needful But according to this explanation it is impossible that there be no property As for the proposition concerning the incompatibility of government with absolute liberty it belongs to the number of the corollaries ie the propositions which it is sufficient to point out There are some in jurisprudence which are more complex as for example those concerning what is called jus accrescendi concerning the conditions and many other matters and I indicated them when I published in my youth some theses upon the conditions in which I demonstrated some of them And if I had leisure I would retouch them
Ph That would afford pleasure to the curious and serve to anticipate any one who might reprint them without revision
Th That is what happened to my Ars Combinatorial as I have already complained It was a fruit of my early youth and yet it was reprinted a long time after without consulting me and without indicating even that it was a second edition and this made some think to my prejudice that I was capable of publishing such a piece in my mature years for although it contains thoughts of some consequence which I still approve it also contains some which could become only a young student
Ph I find that diagrams are a great remedy for the uncertainty of words but they cannot have place in moral ideas Most moral ideas are more complex than the diagrams ordinarily considered in mathematics thus the mind finds it difficult to retain the precise combinations of what enters into moral ideas in a manner as perfect as is necessary in long deductions And if in arithmetic the different stages are not designated by marks whose precise meaning is known and which last and remain in sight it is wellnigh impossible to make extended computations Definitions furnish some remedy provided they are constantly employed in ethics And for the rest it is not easy to foresee what methods may be suggested by algebra or by some other means of this nature to remove other difficulties
Th The late Erhard Weigel a mathematician of Jena in Thuringia ingeniously invented diagrams to represent moral things and when the late Samuel Puffendorfhis disciple published his Elements of universal Jurisprudence sufficiently conformed to the thoughts of Weigel there was added thereto in the Jena edition the Moral Sphere” of this mathematician But these diagrams are a kind of allegory nearly like the table of Cebes but less popular and serving the memory in the retention and arrangement of its ideas rather than the judgment in the acquisition of demonstrative knowledge They do not cease to have their use in arousing the mind Geometrical diagrams appear simpler than moral things but they are not so because continuity includes the infinite from which it must be chosen For example to cut a triangle into four equal parts by two straight lines perpendicular to each other is a question apparently simple but really quite difficult It is not the same in questions of morality since they are determinable by reason alone For the rest it is not the place here to speak de proferendis scientiae demoustrandi pomoeriis and to propose true means of extending the art of demonstration beyond its ancient boundaries which have been nearly the same up to the present time as those of mathematics If God gives me the time necessary for it I hope someday to publish an essay upon this subject putting these means into effective use without limiting myself to precepts
Ph If you carry out this plan sir and as it should be you will infinitely oblige the Phihtlethex like myself ie the class who sincerely desire to know the truth For truth is naturally agreeable to the mind and there is nothing so deformed and so incompatible with the understanding as a lie But men must not be expected to apply themselves much to these discoveries so long as the desire and the esteem of riches or of power shall lead them to espouse opinions authorized by fashion and to seek in consequence arguments either to make them pass as good or to varnish over and cover their deformity And while the different parties make all men whom they can get into their power receive their opinions without examining whether they are true or false what new light can be hoped for in the sciences belonging to morals This part of the human race which is under the yoke ought to expect in most places in the world instead of that light darkness as thick as that of Egypt were not the candle of the Lord itself found present in the mind of men a sacred light which all human power cannot wholly extinguish
Th I do not despair that at some time and in a more tranquil country men will betake’ themselves more to reason than they have done For in fact we must despair of nothing and I believe that great changes for evil and for good are reserved for the human race but in the end more for good than for evil Suppose we see some day a great prince who like the ancient kings of Assyria or of Egypt or like another Solomon reigns a long time in a profound peace and that this prince loving virtue and truth and endowed with a great and solid mind takes it into his head to make men happier and more accommodating among themselves and more powerful over nature what wonders will he not do in a few years For it is certain that in this case more would be done in ten years than in a hundred or perhaps a thousand while letting things follow their ordinary course Moreover if the path were opened once for all many people would enter therein as the geometers do though this would be only for their pleasure and to acquire fame The public better civilized will someday turn more than it has hitherto done to the advancement of medicine natural histories of all countries will be published like almanacs or like the Mercures galans no valuable observation will be left without being registered those who will apply themselves thereto will be aided the art of making such observations will be perfected and further that of employing them to establish aphorisms The time will come when the number of good physicians having become greater and the number of people of certain professions of which there will then be less need having become proportionally less the public will be in a condition to give more encouragement to natural research and above all to the advance of medicine and then this important science will be carried far beyond its present condition and will grow apace I believe indeed that this business of the police should be the object of the greatest care of those who govern after that of virtue and that one of the greatest fruits of good morals or politics will be to produce better science of medicine when men shall begin to be wiser than they are and the nobility shall learn the better to employ their wealth and their power for their own welfare
Ph As for the knowledge of real existence which is the fourth kind of knowledge it must be said that we have an intuitive knowledge of our existence a demonstrative knowledge of that of God and a sensitive knowledge of other things We shall speak of these fully in what follows
Th You could say nothing more justly
Ph Having now spoken of knowledge it appears appropriate the better to discover the present condition of our mind that we should consider a little the dark side and take knowledge of our ignorance for it is infinitely greater than our knowledge The causes of this ignorance are as follows Want of ideas Inability to discover the connection between the ideas we have Neglect to trace and examine them with exactness As for the want of ideas we have as simple ideas only those coming to us from the senses internal or external Thus as regards an infinite number of the creatures of the universe and their qualities we are like the blind as regards colours not indeed possessing the faculties necessary in order to their knowledge and according to all appearances man holds the lowest rank among intellectual beings
Tit I do not know but that there are also some below us Why should we degrade ourselves unnecessarily Perhaps we hold a sufficiently honourable rank among rational animals for superior genii may have bodies of another kind so that the name animal cannot agree with them We cannot say whether our sun among the great number of other suns has more above than below it and we are well placed in his system for the earth occupies the middle course between the planets and its distance appears well chosen for a contemplative animal who should inhabit it Besides we have incomparably more reason to praise than to complain of our lot the majority of our evils rightly being imputed to our fault Above all we should be very wrong to complain of the defects of our knowledge, since we avail ourselves so little of that which charitable nature presents to us
Ph It is however true that the extreme distance of nearly all parts of the world which are exposed to our sight conceals them from our knowledge and apparently the visible world is only a small part of this immense universe We are confined in a small corner of space ie in the system of our sun and yet we do not know even what takes place in the other planets which as well as our ball revolve about it This knowledge escapes us by reason of size and distance but other bodies are concealed from us because of their minuteness and these are the ones which it would most concern us to know for from their contexture we could infer the use and operation of those which are visible and know why rhubarb purges hemlock kills and opium produces sleep Thus whatever distance human industry may advance experimental philosophy upon physical things I am compelled to believe that we can attain upon these matters a scientific knowledge
Th fully believe that we shall never advance so far as will be desirable but it seems to me that some considerable progress will be made in time in the explication of certain phenomena because the large number of experiments which we are led to make may furnish us data more than sufficient so that only the art of employing them will be lacking an art the small beginnings of which I do not despair of seeing pushed forward since the infinitesimal analysis has given us the means of uniting geometry with physics and dynamics has furnished us with the general laws of nature.]
Ph Spirits are still further removed from our knowledge we cannot form any idea of their different orders and yet the intellectual world is certainly grander and more beautiful than the material world
Tit These worlds are always perfectly parallel as regards efficient causes but not as regards final For in proportion as spirits rule in matter they produce therein wonderful arrangements This appears in the changes men have made in order to embellish the earth as little gods imitating the great architect of the universe though only by employing bodies and their laws What may not be conjectured concerning this immense multitude of spirits which surpass us And as spirits form all together a kind of state under God whose government is perfect we are far removed from comprehending the system of this intelligible world and from conceiving the punishments and rewards prepared for those who deserve them according to the most exact standard and from imagining what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has ever entered into the heart of man But all this shows that we have all the distinct ideas necessary for knowing bodies and spirits but not sufficient detail of facts nor senses penetrating enough to distinguish confused ideas or sufficiently extended to perceive them all
Ph As for the connection the knowledge of which is wanting to us in the ideas which we have, I was going to say to you that the mechanical affections of bodies have no connection with the ideas of colours sounds smells tastes pleasure and pain and that their connection depends only upon the good pleasure and the arbitrary will of God But I remember that you think there is a perfect correspondence although this is not always an entire resemblance But you recognize that the too great detail of small things entering therein hinders us from discerning that which is concealed though you hope still that we shall make much advance therein and that thus you do not wish to say with my illustrious author that it is labour lost to engage in such a search from fear that this belief would injure the growth of science I should have spoken also of the difficulty which has hitherto been found in explaining the connection between the soul and the body since a thought cannot be conceived as producing a motion in the body nor a motion as producing a thought in the mind. But since I comprehend your hypothesis of preestablished harmony this difficulty of which they despaired appears to me removed at once and as it were by magic There remains then the third cause of our ignorance viz that we do not follow the ideas we have or may have and do not apply ourselves to finding intermediate ideas Thus it is that we are ignorant of mathematical truths although there is no imperfection in our faculties nor any incertitude in the things themselves The bad use of words has contributed the most to prevent us from finding the agreement or disagreement of ideas and the mathematicians who form their thoughts independently of names and accustom themselves to present to their minds the ideas themselves instead of their sounds have thereby escaped a great deal of embarrassment If men had acted in their discoveries in the material world as they have been wont to do in regard to those having reference to the intellectual world and if they had been wholly lost in a chaos of terms of an uncertain meaning they would have disputed endlessly about the zones the tides the building of vessels and the routes they would never have gone beyond the line and the antipodes would still be as unknown as they were when to maintain them was declared a heresy
Th This third cause of our ignorance is the only blameable one and you see sir that the despair of further advance is therein contained This discouragement does much injury and persons of ability and importance have hindered the progress of medicine by the false persuasion that it is labour lost to work therein When you see the Aristotelian philosophers of past time speak of meteors as the rainbow for example you will find that they believed they should not think alone of explaining distinctly this phenomenon and the attempts of Maurolycus and afterwards of Marc Antony de Dominis appeared to them like the flight of Icarus But the sequel has disabused the world of this It is true that the bad use of terms has caused a good part of the confusion found in our knowledge not only in ethics and metaphysics or in what is called the intellectual world but also in medicine where this abuse of terms increases more and more We cannot always aid ourselves with figures as in geometry but algebra shows us that great discoveries may be made without recurring always to the ideas themselves of things In reference to the pretended heresy about the antipodes I will say in passing that it is true that Boniface Archbishop of Mayence accused Virgil of Salzburg in a letter which he wrote to the Pope against him on this subject and that the Pope replied thereto in a way which showed that he employed the term quite in the sense of Boniface hat it does not appear that this accusation has had any results Virgil has always held his own The two antagonists pass for saints and the savants of Bavaria who regard Virgil as an apostle of Carinthia and the neighbouring countries have justified their memory of him
Ph Someone who has not understood the importance of having good ideas and of understanding their agreement or disagreement will think that in reasoning upon them so carefully we have been building castles in the air and that there will be in our entire system only the ideal and imaginary An extravagant man whose imagination is heated will have the advantage of possessing ideas more vivid and in greater number thus he would also have more knowledge There will be as much certitude in the visions of an enthusiast as in the reasonings of a sober man provided this enthusiast speaks consistently and it will be at true to say that a harpy is not a centaur as to say a square is not a circle I reply that our ideas agree with things But the criterion will be demanded I reply further in the first place that this agreement is manifest as regards the simple ideas of our mind for being unable to form them itself it must be that they are produced by things acting upon the mind and in the second place all our complex ideas those of substances excepted being archetypes which the mind itself has made not intended to be copies of anything nor referred to the existence of anything as to their originals they cannot fail to be completely conformed to the things necessary to real knowledge
Tk Our certitude would be small or rather nothing if it had no other basis of simple ideas than that which comes from the senses Have you forgotten sir how I have shown that ideas are originally in our mind and that indeed our thoughts come to us from the depths of our own nature other creatures being unable to have an immediate influence upon the soul Besides the ground of our certitude in regard to universal and eternal truths is in the ideas themselves independently of the senses just as ideas pure and intelligible do not depend on the senses for example that of being unity identity etc But the ideas of sensible qualities as colour savour etc which in reality are only phantoms come to us from the senses ie from our confused perceptions And the basis of the truth of contingent and singular things is in the succession which causes these phenomena of the senses to be rightly united as the intelligible truths demand That is the difference which should be made while that which you here make between simple and complex ideas and ideas complex belonging to substances and to accidents does not appear to me well founded since all intelligible ideas have their archetypes in the eternal possibility of things
Ph It is true that our complex ideas need archetypes outside the mind only when the question concerns an existing substance which must effectively unite outside us these complex ideas and the simple ideas of which they are composed The knowledge of mathematical truths is real although it revolves only upon our ideas and finds nowhere exact circles But we are assured that existing things will agree with our archetypes according as what we suppose therein is found existing This serves to justify the reality of moral things Nor are Ciceros Offices less conformed to truth because no one in the world rules his life exactly according to the pattern of a virtuous man such as Cicero has painted for us But it will be said if moral ideas be of our invention what a strange notion shall we have of justice and temperance
I reply that the uncertainty will be only in the language because what is said is not always understood or always understood in the same way
Th You might reply also sir and much better in my opinion that the ideas of justice and temperance are not of our invention any more than those of the circle or the square think have sufficiently shown this
Ph As for the ideas of substances existing outside us our knowledge is real so long as it is conformed to these archetypes and in this respect the mind must not combine ideas arbitrarily so much the more as there are very few simple ideas of which we can be certain that they can or cannot exist together in nature beyond what appears by sensible observations
Th It is as I have more than once said because these ideas when reason cannot judge of their compatibility or connection are confused like those of the particular qualities of the senses
Ph It is well also as regards existing substances not to limit ourselves to names or to species supposed to be established by names This makes me return to discussions we have often enough had regarding the definition of man For speaking of an innocent who has lived forty years without giving the least sign of reason could we not say that he holds the middle place between man and beast It would possibly be thought a very bold paradox or even a falsehood with very dangerous consequences But it seemed to me formerly and it seems still to some of my friends whom I cannot disabuse as yet of the idea that it is only in virtue of a prejudice based upon this false supposition that these two names man and beast signify distinct species so wellmarked by real essences in nature that no other species can intervene between them as if all things were thrown into the mould according to the precise number of these essences When these friends are asked what species of animals these innocents are if they are neither men nor beasts they reply they are innocents and that is sufficient If asked further what they will become in the next world our friends reply they are not concerned to know or inquire Let them fall or stand to their own master Rom who is good and faithful and disposes of his creatures not according to the narrow limits of our particular thoughts or opinions nor does he distinguish them conformably to the names and species it has pleased its to invent let it suffice us that those who are capable of instruction will be called to render an account of their conduct and will receive their reward according to the deeds done in their bodies Cor l I shall exhibit to you the rest of their reasonings The question say they whether imbeciles must be deprived of a future state rests upon two equally false suppositions first that every being having the form and external appearance of man is destined to an immortal state after this life and second that everything having a human birth must enjoy this privilege Remove these imaginative ideas and you will see that such questions are ridiculous and groundless In fact I think we shall disallow the first supposition and shall not have the mind so buried in matter as to believe that eternal life is due to any form of material mass so that the mass must have feeling eternally because moulded upon such a figure But the second supposition comes to the rescue We shall say that this innocent comes from rational parents and that consequently it must have a rational soul I know not by what rule of logic we can establish such a consequence nor how after that we should dare to destroy these illformed and disfigured productions Oh they are minsters it will be said Very well so be it But what will this always intractable innocent be Shall a defect in the body make a monster and not a defect in the mind? This is to return to the first supposition already refuted that the external suffices A wellformed innocent is a man as we believe he has a rational soul although it does not appear but make the ears a little longer and more pointed and the nose a little flatter than usual then you begin to hesitate Make the face narrower flatter and longer there you are all at once decided And if the head is perfectly that of any animal it is no doubt a monster and this is for you a demonstration that it has no rational soul and that it should be destroyed I ask you now where to find the just measure and the final limits bearing with them a rational soul There are human foetuses half beast half man others three parts of which belong to the one and one part to the other How determine precisely the lineaments which indicate reason Further will not this monster be a species midway between man and beast And such is the innocent in question Th I am astonished that you return to this question sufficiently examined by us and that more than once and that you have not better catechized your friends If we distinguish the man from the beast by the faculty of reason there is no middle ground the animal in question must have it or not have it but as this faculty sometimes does not appear we judge of it by indices which are not demonstrative of the truth till this reason manifests itself for we know by the experience of those who have lost it and who at last have recovered its exercise that its function may be suspended Birth and form furnish presumptions of that which is concealed But the presumption of birth is effaced eliditur by a figure very different from the human such as that of the animal was born of a woman of Zealand according to Levinus Lemnius Book I Chap which had a hooked beak a long and round neck flashing eyes a pointed tail and great agility at first in running about the room But you will say that there are some monsters or brothers of the Lombards as the physicians formerly called them because it was said that the women of Lombardy were subject to this kind of childbirth who approach more and more the human figure Very well so be it How then say you can the proper limits of the figure which is to pass as human be determined I reply that in a conjectural matter there is no precision And there the affair ends You object that the innocent does not exhibit reason and yet passes as a man but if it had a monstrous figure it would not be man and thus you have more regard for figure than for reason But does this monster exhibit reason Certainly not You see then that it lacks more than the innocent The defect of the exercise of reason is often temporal but it does not cease in those in whom it is accompanied by a dogs head For the rest if this animal with a human figure is not a man there is no great harm in guarding it during the uncertainty as to its fate And whether it has a rational soul or not God will not have made it for nothing and we may say of the souls of men who live in a state always similar to that of early infancy that their fate may be the same as that of the souls of those infants who die in the cradle
Ph For many centuries the question has been asked What is truth Our friends think it is the joining or separating of signs according as the things themselves agree or disagree among themselves By the joining or separating of signs must be understood what is otherwise called a proposition
Th But an epithet does not make a proposition for example, the wise man But there is a union of two terms Negation also is different from separation for saying man and after an interval saying wise is not a denial Agreement also or disagreement is not properly speaking what is expressed by the proposition Two eggs have agreement and two enemies have disagreement The question here concerns an entirely particular mode of agreement or disagreement Thus I think this definition fails wholly to explain the point in question But what I find least to my taste in your definition of truth is that you seek truth in words Thus the same sense expressed in Latin German English French will not be the same truth and it will be necessary to say with Hobbes that truth depends on the good pleasure of men which is to speak in a very strange manner You attribute indeed truth to God who you will agree with me I think has no need of signs Finally I have been astonished already more than once at the disposition of your friends who are pleased to make essences species and truths nominal
Ph Do not advance too fast Under signs they include ideas Thus truths will be either mental or nominal according to the species of signs
Th We shall then have also literal truths which may be distinguished as truths upon paper or parchment of ordinary black ink or of printers ink if truths must be distinguished by signs It were then better to place truths in the relation between the objects of ideas which causes the one to be or not to be included in the other That does not depend upon languages and is common to us with God and the angels and when God manifests a truth to us we shall acquire that which is in his understanding for although there is an infinite difference between his ideas and ours as regards perfection and extent it is always true that they agree in the same relation It is then in this relation that truth must be placed and we can distinguish between the truths which are independent of our good pleasure and between the exjnessions which we invent as seems good to us
Pit It is only too true that men even in their minds put words in the place of things especially when the ideas are complex and indeterminate But it is also true as you have observed that then the mind contents itself with the indication only of the truth without for the present understanding it in the persuasion that it depends upon itself to understand it when it will For the rest the act which takes place in affirming or denying is more easily conceived by reflecting upon what goes on in us than explained in words Therefore you do not take it ill that in default of something better we have spoken of joining together or of separating You will also agree that propositions at least may be called verbal and that when they are true they are both verbal and also real for falsehood consists in joining names otherwise than as their ideas agree or disagree Words are at least great vehicles of truth There is also a moral truth which consists in speaking of things according to the persuasion of our mind there is finally metaphysical truth which is the real existence of things in conformity to the ideas we have of them
Th Moral truth is by some called veracity and metaphysical truth is commonly taken by the metaphysicians as an attribute of being but it is an attribute very useless and almost void of meaning Let us content ourselves with seeking truth in the correspondence of the propositions in the mind with the things in question It is true that I have also attributed truth to ideas in saying that ideas are true or false but then I mean in reality the truth of propositions affirming the possibility of the object of the idea In the same sense we can say also that a being is true that is to say the proposition affirming its actual or at least possible existence
Ph All our knowledge is of general or particular truths We can never make the former which are the most important well understood and can ourselves indeed very rarely comprehend them save as they are conceived and expressed by words
Th I think that other marks also can produce this effect we see it in the characters of the Chinese A universal characteristic very popular and better than theirs might be introduced if small figures were employed in the place of words which would represent visible things by their lines and the invisible by the visible which accompany them adding thereto certain additional marks suitable to make understood the flexions and the particles This would be of service at first for easy communication with distant nations but if introduced also among us without however renouncing ordinary writing the employment of this mode of writing would be very useful in enriching the imagination and in giving thoughts less surd and verbal than we now have It is true that the art of drawing not being known by all it follows that, excepting the books printed in this way which everybody would soon learn to read everybody could not avail themselves of it otherwise than by a method of printing ie having the figures all engraved ready for printing upon paper and adding thereto afterwards with the pen the marks of the flexions or particles But in time everybody would learn the plan in youth so as not to be deprived of the convenience of this figured character which would speak in truth to the eyes and would be very agreeable to the people just as in fact the peasants already have certain almanacs telling them without words much that they ask and I remember to have seen some satirical impressions in copperplate which possessed a somewhat enigmatical character in which there were figures significant of themselves mingled with words while our letters and the Chinese characters are significant only by the will of men ex institute ■ Ph I think your thoughts will someday be carried out so agreeable and natural appears to me this writing and it seems to be of no little consequence for increasing the perfection of our mind and rendering our conceptions more real But to return to general knowledge and its certainty it will be proper to remark that there is a certainty of truth and also a certainty of knowledge When words are so joined in propositions that they express exactly the agreement or disagreement as it really is it is a certainty of truth and the certainty of knowledge consists in perceiving the agreement or disagreement of ideas so far as it is expressed in propositions This is what we ordinarily call being certain of a proposition.
Th In fact this last kind of certainty will also suffice without the use of words and is nothing else than a perfect knowledge of the truth while the first kind of certainty appears to be nothing else than the truth itself
Ph Now as we cannot be assured of the truth of any general proposition unless we know the precise limits of the signification of the terms of which it is composed it will be necessary for us to know the essence of each species which is not difficult as regards the simple ideas and the modes But in substances wherein a real essence distinct from the nominal is supposed to determine the species the extent of the general term is very uncertain because we do not know this real essence and consequently in this sense we cannot be assured of any general proposition made upon the basis of these substances But when we suppose the species of substances to be nothing else than the reduction of substantial individuals into certain sorts arranged under different general names according as they agree with the different abstract ideas which we designate by these names we cannot doubt whether a proposition well known as it should be is true or not
Th I do not know why you sir return again to a point sufficiently discussed by us and which I believe an empty one But after all I am very glad of it because you give me an opportunity very suitable it seems to me to disabuse you anew I say then to you that we can be assured for example of a thousand truths regarding gold or that body whose internal essence makes itself known by the greatest weight known here below or by the greatest ductility or by other marks For we say that the body of the greatest known ductility is also the heaviest of all known bodies It is true that it is not impossible that all which has hitherto been noticed in gold will someday be found in two bodies distinguishable by other new qualities and that thus gold would no longer be the lowest species as it has hitherto been regarded provisionally We might also if the one kind remained rare and the other became common think it proper to reserve the name of true gold to the single rare species in order to retain it in use as money by means of new assays which would be suited to it After which we shall not doubt also that the internal essence of these two species is different and if indeed the definition of an actually existing substance should not be fully determined in all respects as in fact that of men is not as regards the external figure we should not cease to have an infinite number of general propositions upon its subject which would follow from reason and the other qualities which we recognize in it All that we can say regarding these general propositions is that in case man is taken as the lowest species and restricted to the race of Adam we shall have no properties of man such as are named in quarto modo or may be enounced concerning him by a reciprocal or simply convertible proposition unless provisionally as in saying man is the only rational animal Taking man as those of our race the provisional consists in the assumption that he is the only national animal of those known to us for we might someday find other animals who would have in common with the posterity of men of the present time all that which we have hitherto observed in them but who would have another origin It is as if the socalled Australians should overrun our countries in all likelihood we should then discover some means of distinguishing them from ourselves But in case this should not happen and supposing that God had forbidden this mixture of these races and that Jesus Christ had redeemed ours only it would be necessary to try to make some artificial marks in order to distinguish between them There would doubtless be an internal difference but as it would not make itself recognizable we should be reduced to the extrinsic denomination of birth alone which we should try to accompany with a durable artificial mark that would give an intrinsic denomination and a constant means of distinguishing our race from the others These are all fictions for we have no need to recur to these distinctions being the only rational animals of this globe Yet these fictions are useful in knowing the natures of ideas substances and truths general in their character But if man were not taken as the lowest species nor as that of the rational animals of the race of Adam and if instead of that he signified a genus common to several species which belonged now to a single known race but which might belong also to others distinguishable either by birth or even by their natural marks as for example in the case of the supposed Australians then I say this genus would have reciprocal propositions and the present definition of man would not be provisional It is the same with gold for suppose that someday there were two kinds of it distinguishable the one rare and hitherto unknown the other common and perhaps artificial discovered in the course of time then suppose that the name gold should continue for the present species ie for the natural and rare gold in order to preserve by its means the commodity of gold money based upon the rarity of this substance its definition known hitherto by intrinsic denominations would have been provisional only and should be augmented by new marks which will be discovered to distinguish the rare gold or the ancient species from the new artificial gold But if the name gold should then remain common to the two species ie if by gold you mean a genus of which up to the present time we know no subdivision and which we now take as the lowest species but only provisionally until the subdivision is known and if someday a new species were found ie an artificial gold easy to make and which might become common I say that in this sense the definition of this genus should not be judged provisional but perpetual And indeed without troubling ourselves with the names man or gold whatever name is given to the genus or to the lowest known species and even if none should be given them what has just been said would be always true of ideas genera or species and species will be defined provisionally only by the definitions of genera But it will always be allowable and reasonable to assume by means of a reciprocal proposition that there is a real internal essence belonging either to the genus or the species which makes itself known ordinarily by external marks I have assumed hitherto that the race does not degenerate or change but if the same race passed into another species we should be so much the more obliged to recur to other marks and denominations intrinsic or extrinsic without confining ourselves to the race
£ Ph Complex ideas which the names we give to the species of substances justify are collections of ideas of certain qualities which we have observed coexisting in an unknown substratum which we call substance But we cannot know certainly what other qualities coexist necessarily with such combinations unless we can discover their dependence as regards their primary qualities
Th I have already remarked before that the same difficulty is found in the ideas of accidents whose nature is a little abstruse as for example are the figures in geometry for when the question concerns for example, the figure of a mirror which collects all the parallel rays into one point as a focus many properties of this mirror may be found before its construction is known but we shall be uncertain about many other relations it may have until we find in it that which corresponds to the internal constitution of substances ie the construction of this figure of the mirror which will constitute as it were the key to ulterior knowledge
Ph But if we had known the internal constitution of this body we should have found therein only the dependence which the primary or what you call manifest qualities may have ie you would know what size figure and moving force depend thereupon but we should never know the connection which they may have with the secondary or confused qualities ie with the sensible qualities as colours tastes etc
Th The fact is you still assume that these sensible qualities or rather the ideas we have of them do not depend upon figure and movement in a natural way but only upon the good pleasure of God who gives us these ideas You appear to have forgotten sir the remonstrance I have more than once made to you against this opinion in order to make you think rather that these sensitive ideas depend in detail upon the figures and movements and express them exactly although we cannot distinguish therein this detail in the confusion of too great a multitude and minuteness of mechanical actions which strike our senses But if we had reached the internal constitution of some bodies we should see also how they must have these qualities which would themselves be reduced to their intelligible reasons although it would never be in our power to recognize them sensibly in these sensitive ideas which are a confused resultant of the actions of bodies upon us as now that we have the perfect analysis of green into blue and yellow and have scarcely anything more to ask in regard to it save as related to these ingredients we are however incapable of analysing the ideas of blue and yellow in our sensitive idea of green for the very reason that it is a confused idea It is much the same as we cannot analyse the idea of the teeth of the wheel ie of the cause in the perception of an artificial transparency which I have noticed among the clockmakers made by the rapid rotation of a cogwheel which makes the teeth disappear and an imaginary continuous transparency appear in their place composed of the successive appearances of the teeth and their intervals but in which the succession is so rapid that our phantasy cannot distinguish it We find then indeed these teeth in the distinct notion of this transparency but not in this confused sensitive perception whose nature is to be and to remain confused otherwise if the confusion ceased as if the motion were so slow that we could observe its parts and their succession this notion ie this phantasm of a transparency would no longer exist And as there is no need of imagining that God for his good pleasure gives us this phantasm and that it is independent of the movement of the teeth of the wheel and their intervals and as on the contrary we conceive it to be only a confused expression of what takes place in this movement an expression I say that consists in the fact that these successive things are confounded in an apparent simultaneity it is thus easy to think that it will be the same as regards other sensitive phantasms of which we have not as yet so perfect an analysis as of colours tastes etc For to speak the truth they deserve this name phantasms rather than that of qualities or even of ideas And it would suffice us in all respects to understand them as well as this artificial transparency without its being reasonable or possible to claim a further knowledge of them for to desire these confused phantasms to abide and yet to distinguish therein their ingredients by the phantasy itself is a contradiction is a desire to have the pleasure of being deceived by an agreeable perspective and to desire that at the same time the eye see the deception which would destroy it It is a case in short where —
nihilo plus aras Quam si des nperam ut cum ratione insanias
But it often happens that men seek nodum in xcirpo and make difficulties where there are none by demanding the impossible and afterwards complaining of their impotence and of the limits of their light
Ph All gold is fixed is a proposition the truth of which we cannot certainly know For if gold signifies a species of things distinguished by a real essence which nature has given it we are ignorant what particular substances are of this species Thus although this may be gold we cannot affirm it with certainty If we take gold as a body endowed with a certain yellow colour malleable fusible heavier than any known body it is not difficult to know what is or is not gold but with all that no other quality can be affirmed or denied with certainty of gold than that which has a connection with this idea according to a connection or incompatibility which may be discovered Now fixity having no known connection with colour weight and the other simple ideas which I have supposed to constitute the complex idea we have of gold it is impossible that we can know with certainty the truth of this proposition that all gold is fixed
Th We know almost as certainly that the heaviest of all bodies known here below is fixed as we know certainly that it will be light tomorrow This is because we have tried it a hundred thousand times it is an experimental certainty and of fact although we do not know the bond which unites the fixity with the other qualities of this body Moreover it is unnecessary to oppose two things which agree and amount to the same thing When I think of a body which is at the same time yellow fusible and which resists the cupel I think of a body whose specific essence although unknown in its interior makes these qualities emanate from its depths and makes itself known confusedly at least by means of them I see nothing wrong in that nor anything which requires you to return so often to the charge in order to attack it
Ph It is enough for me now that this knowledge of the fixity of the heaviest of bodies is not known to us by the agreement or disagreement of ideas And I for myself think that among the secondary qualities of bodies and the powers relating to them there cannot any two be named whose necessary coexistence or incompatibility can be known with certainty except the qualities which belong to the same sense and necessarily exclude one another as when you can say that what is white is not black
Th I believe however that you might perhaps find them for example every palpable body or that which may be felt by touch is visible Every hard body makes a noise when struck in the air The tones of strings or wires are semiproportional to the weights which cause their tension It is true that what you ask succeeds only as far as you conceive distinct ideas united with confused sensitive ideas
Ph It is not always necessary to think that bodies have their qualities by themselves independently of anything else A piece of gold separated from the impression and influence of every other body would immediately lose its yellow colour and weight perhaps also it would become friable and lose its malleability You know how vegetables and animals depend upon the earth air and sun how do you know whether the very distant fixed stars have not also an influence upon us
Th This is a very excellent remark and if the contexture of certain bodies were known to us we could not judge wholly of their effects without knowing the interior of those which touch and traverse them
Ph Our judgment however may go further than our knowledge For people sedulous in making observations can penetrate farther and by means of certain probabilities resulting from an exact observation and by certain hints purposely put together often make just conjectures regarding that which experience has not yet discovered to them but it is always only conjecture
Th But if experience justifies these consequences in a constant manner do you not find that you can acquire certain propositions by this means Certain I say at least as those which assert for example that the heaviest of our bodies is fixed and that the one which is after it the heaviest is volatile for it seems to me that the certainty understanding it as moral or physical but not the necessity or metaphysical certainty of these propositions which are learned by experience alone and not by analysis and the bond of ideas is established among us and with reason
Ph There is one species of propositions which under the name of maxims or axioms pass as principles of science and because they are selfevident we have been contented to call them innate although no one that I know of has ever tried to show the reason and ground of their extreme clearness which forces us «o to speak to give them our consent It is not however useless to enter into this investigation and to see whether this great evidence is peculiar to these propositions alone as also to examine how far they contribute to our knowledge
Th This investigation is very useful and very important But you must not suppose sir that it has been entirely neglected You will find in a hundred places that the Scholastics have said that these propositions are evident ex terminis as soon as the terms are understood so that they were persuaded that the force of conviction was grounded in the knowledge of the terms ie in the connection of their ideas But geometers have done very much more that is they have undertaken very often to demonstrate them Proclus already attributes to Thales of Miletus one of the oldest known geometers the wish to demonstrate the propositions which Euclid has since assumed as evident It is said that Apollonius has demonstrated other axioms and Proclus has also done so The late Mr Roberval already eighty years old or thereabouts intended to publish the new elements of geometry of which I think I have already spoken to you Perhaps the New Elements of Arnauld which at that time made some stir had contributed thereto He exhibited specimens of them in the Royal Academy of Sciences and some found fault that assuming this axiom if equal magnitudes are added to equals equals arise therefrom he demonstrated this other which is considered equally evident if equals are taken from equal magnitudes equals remain It was said he should have assumed both or demonstrated both But I was not of that opinion and I believed that it was always so much gained to have diminished the number of the axioms Addition is no doubt anterior to subtraction and more simple because the two terms are employed in addition in the same way which is not the case in subtraction Arnauld did the opposite of Roberval He assumed still more than Euclid As for the maxims they are sometimes taken as established propositions whether evident or not That may be well for beginners whom scrupulousness holds back but when the establishment of science is the question it is a different matter Thus it is that they are often taken in ethics and even among the logicians in their topics in some of which there is a good supply but a part of which contain enough of them vague and obscure For the rest I said a long time since publicly and privately that it is important to demonstrate all our secondary axioms which we ordinarily use by reducing them to the primitive or immediate and indemonstrable axioms which I recently and elsewhere called the identicals
Ph Knowledge is selfevident when the agreement or disagreement of ideas is immediately perceived But there are truths not recognized as axioms which are none the less selfevident Let us see if the four species of agreement of which we spoke not long since chap and chap viz identity connection relation and real existence furnish us with them As for identity or diversity we have as many evident propositions as we have distinct ideas for we can deny both as in saying man is not a horse red is not blue Further the statement what is is is as evident as the statement a man is a man
Th It is true and I have already remarked that it is as evident to say aesthetically in particular A is A as to say in general it is what it is But to deny the subjects of different ideas one of another is not always certain as I have already remarked as if anyone wished to say the trilateral or that which has three sides is not a triangle because in fact trilaterality is not triangularity again if anyone had said the pearls of Slusiusl of which I spoke to you not long since are not the lines of the cubic parabola he would have been mistaken and yet that would have appeared evident to many people The late Mr Hardy Conseiller au Chatelet de Paris an excellent geometer and orientalist and well versed in the ancient geometers who has published the commentary of Marinas on the Data of Euclid was so prepossessed with the fact that the oblique section of the cone called an ellipse is different from the oblique section of the cylinder that the demonstration of Serenus appeared to him paralogistic and I could gain nothing against him by my remonstrances as he was nearly as old as Roberval when I saw him and I was a very young man a difference which could give me very little persuasive power as regards him although in other respects I was on very good terms with him This example may show in passing what prepossession may do even in the case of clever people for he was truly prepossessed and Hardy is spoken of with esteem in the letters of Descartes But I brought him forward only to show how we may be mistaken in denying one idea of another if we have not thoroughly enough examined them where it is necessary
Ph As regards connection or coexistence we have very few selfevident propositions there are however some and it appears to me that this is a selfevident proposition two bodies cannot be in the same place
Th Many Christians contest the point with you as I have already remarked and even Aristotle and those who after him admit real and exact condensations reducing one and the same entire body into a smaller place than it before filled and those who as the late Mr Comenius has done in a little book written expressly for the purpose claim to overthrow modern natural philosophy by the experiment of the airgun cannot be expected to agree therewith If you take the body as the impenetrable mass your statement will be true because it will be identical or nearly so but that the real body is such will be denied you At least it will be said that God could make it otherwise so that this impenetrability will be admitted only as conformed to the natural order of things which God has established and of which experiment assures us although elsewhere it would be necessary to admit that it is also very conformable to reason
Ph As for the relations of the modes mathematicians have formed many axioms upon the one relation of equality like that of which you have just spoken that if equals be taken from equals the remainders are equal But it is not less evident I think that one and one are equal to two and that if from the five fingers of one hand you take away two and then two others from the five fingers of the other hand the number of the fingers remaining will be equal
Th That one and one make two is not properly a truth but it is the definition of two although it is true and evident that it is the definition of a possible thing As for the axiom of Euclid applied to the fingers of the hand I willingly admit that it is as easy to conceive what you say of the fingers as to see it in the case of A and B but in order not to do often the same thing you observe it generally and afterwards it is sufficient to make subsumptions Otherwise it is as if you preferred calculation by particular numbers to universal rules which would be obtaining less than is possible For it is of more account to solve the general problem to find two numbers whose sum makes a given number and whose difference also makes a given number than merely to seek two numbers whose sum makes ten and whose difference makes six For if I proceed in this second problem according to the method of numerical algebra mixed with the literal specieuse the calculation will be as follows a b 10 and a — b 6 of which by adding together the right side to the right and the left side to the left I produce the result a b a — b 10 6 ie since b and —b cancel each other 2a 16 or a 8 Subtracting the right side from the right and the left from the left since to take away a — b is to add — a b I produce the result a b — a b 10 — 6 ie 2b 4 or b 2 Thus I shall in truth have the a and b I ask for which are 8 and 2 which satisfy the problem ie whose sum is 1 0 and whose difference is 0 but I have not thereby the general method for any other numbers which we might wish or b e able to put in the place of 10 or 6 a method which I could however find with the same facility as these two numbers 8 and 2 by putting x and v in the place of the numbers 10 and 6 For proceeding the same as before we shall have a b a — b x v ie 2 a x v or a 12 x v and we shall also have a b — a b x — v ie 2b x — v o r b 12 x—v This calculation gives this theorem or general canon that when two numbers are required whose sum and difference are given you have only to take as the greater of the required numbers half of the sum made from the given sum and difference and for the less of the required numbers half of the difference between the given sum and difference You see also that I might have dispensed with the letters if I had treated the numbers as letters ie if instead of putting 2a 16 and 2b 4I had written 2a 10 6 and 2b 10 6 which would have given me a k 10 6 and b i 10 — 6 Thus in the particular calculation itself I should have had the general calculation taking these symbols 10 and 6 as general numbers as if they were the letters x and v in order to have a truth or method more genera l and taking these same characters 10 and 6 also for the numbers they ordinarily signify I shall have a sensible example which may serve indeed as a proof And as Vieta has substituted letters for numbers for the sake of greater generality I have desired to reintroduce the numerical characters since they are more serviceable in algebra xperieuse even than the letters I have found this of much use in large calculations for avoiding errors and even in the application of proofs such as the casting away of the nines in the midst of the computation without waiting for the result when there are only numbers instead of letters which may often be when you employ skill in the positions so that the suppositions are found true in the particular case besides the use there is of seeing the connections and orders which the letters alone cannot always make the mind discern so well as I have elsewhere shown after I found that the good characteristic is one of the greatest aids of the human mind
Ph As for real existence which I had counted as the fourth species of existence which may be noticed in ideas it can furnish us no axiom for we have not indeed a demonstrative knowledge of beings outside us God alone excepted
Th We can always say that this proposition I exist is of the highest evidence being a proposition which cannot be proved by any other or rather an immediate truth And to say I think therefore I am is not properly to prove existence by thought since to think and to be thinking is the same thing and to say I am thinking is already to say lam You can however exclude this proposition from the number of the axioms with some reason for it is a proposition of fact based upon an immediate experience and it is not a necessary proposition whose necessity is seen in the immediate agreement of ideas On the contrary it is only God who sees how these two terms and existence are united ie why I exist But if the axiom is taken more generally as an immediate or nonprovable truth we may say that this proposition I am is an axiom and in every case we may be assured that it is a primitive truth or rather unum ex primis cognitis inter terminos complexos ie that it is one of the first known statements which is understood in the natural order of our knowledge, for it may be that a man has never thought expressly of forming this proposition which however is innate to him
Ph I have always believed that the axioms have little influence upon the other parts of our knowledge. But you have disabused me since you have indeed shown an important use of identical propositions Suffer me however sir to set before you still what I have in mind upon this article for your explanations may also serve to make others return from their error It is a celebrated rule in the schools that all reasoning comes from things already known and admitted ex praecognitis et praeconcessis This rule seems to cause these maxims to be regarded as truths known to the mind before the others and the other parts of our knowledge as truths dependent upon the axioms I think I have shown Book I chap that these axioms are not the first known the child knowing much sooner that the rod which I show him is not the sugar he has tasted than all the axioms you please But you have distinguished between particular knowledge or experiences of facts and the principles of a universal and necessary knowledge and herein I admit that it is necessary to recur to axioms as also between the natural and accidental order
Th I have also added that in the natural order the statement that a thing is what it is is prior to the statement that it is not another for the question here does not concern the history of our discoveries which is different in different men but the connection and natural order of truths which is always the same But your remark viz that what the child sees is only a fact deserves still more reflection for the experiences of the senses do not give truths absolutely certain as you have often yourself sir observed not long since nor are they exempt from all danger of illusion For if it is allowable to make fictions metaphysically possible sugar might imperceptibly be changed into a rod in order to punish the child who has been naughty as water is changed into wine with us on Christmas eve if it has been well prepared moriyene But in all cases the pain you will say that the rod inflicts will never be the pleasure the sugar gives I reply that the child will take it into his head as late to make an express proposition about this as to notice this axiom that you cannot truly say that what is is not at the same time although he can very well perceive the difference of the pleasure and the pain as well as the difference between perceiving and not perceiving
Ph There are however a number of other truths as selfevident as these maxims For example that one and two are equal to three is as evident a proposition as that axiom which states that the whole is equal to the sum of all its parts
Th You appear to have forgotten sir that I have shown you more than once that the statement one and two is three is only the definition of the term three so that to say that one and two is equal to three is to say that a thing is equal to itself As for this axiom that the whole is equal to the sum of all its parts Euclid makes no express use of it This axiom also needs limitation for it must be added that these parts must not themselves have a common part for seven and eight are parts of twelve but they make more than twelve The bust and the trunk taken together are more than the man in that the thorax is common to them both But Euclid says that the whole is greater than its part a statement which is wholly trustworthy And the statement that the body is greater than the trunk differs from the axiom of Euclid only in this that this axiom is limited to what is exactly necessary but in exemplifying it and clothing the body you make the intelligible become also sensible for the statement that a given whole is larger than a given part is in fact the proposition that a whole is larger than its part but the features of which are embellished with some colouring or addition it is as if he who says A B says A Thus it is not necessary here to oppose the axiom and the example as different truths in this regard but to consider the axiom as embodied in the example and rendering it true It is a different matter if the evidence is not observed in the example itself and when the affirmation of the example is a consequence and not merely a subsumption of the universal proposition as may occur indeed in the phase of the axioms
Ph Our clever author says here I should like to ask these gentlemen who maintain that all other knowledge not of fact depends upon general principles innate and selfevident what principle they need to prove that two and two are four for we know according to him the truth of this kind of propositions without recourse to any proof What do you say about it sir
Th I say that I was awaiting you there well prepared That two and two are four is not a truth at once immediate supposing that four signifies three and one We can then demonstrate it and in this way —
Definitions— Two is one and one
Three is two and one
Four is three and one
Axiom —Putting equal things in their place the equality remains Demonstration — 2 and 2 is 2 and 1 and 1 by def 1 2 2 2 and 1 and 1 is 3 and 1 by def 2 2 1 1 3 and 1 is 4 by def 3 3 1 4 Then by the axiom 2 and 2 is 4 Which was to be demonstrated 2431 2432 I might instead of saying that 2 and 2 is 2 and 1 and 1 say that 2 and 2 is equal to 2 and 1 and 1 and thus with the others But it may be understood throughout in order to shorten the process and that in virtue of another axiom which states that a thing is equal to itself or that what is the same is equal
Ph This demonstration as little necessary as it is in relation to its too well known conclusion serves to show how truths depend on definitions and axioms Thus I foresee what reply you will make to many objections that are made against the use of axioms You object that there will be an innumerable multitude of principles but this is when you reckon among the principles the corollaries which follow from the definitions by the aid of some axiom And since the definitions or ideas are innumerable so also will the principles be in this sense, supposing also with you that the undemonstrable principles are the identical axioms They become innumerable also by exemplification but at bottom you can reckon A is A and B is B as one and the same principle differently clothed
Th Further this difference of degrees in the evidence makes me disagree with your distinguished author that all these truths called principles and which pass as selfevident because they are so near the indemonstrable primitive axioms are entirely independent and incapable of receiving the one from the other any light or proof For they may always be reduced either to axioms themselves or to other truths nearer the axioms as this truth that two and two make four has shown you And I just told you how Roberval diminished the number of Euclids axioms by sometimes reducing one to another
Ph This judicious writer who has furnished an occasion for our conferences agrees that maxims have their use but he believes that it is rather that of closing the mouth of the obstinate than of establishing the sciences I should be very glad said he if you would show me some one of these sciences built upon these general axioms which cannot be shown to be sustained as well without axioms
Th Geometry is without doubt one of these sciences Euclid expressly employs axioms in demonstration and this axiom that two homogeneous magnitudes are equal when one is neither larger nor smaller than the other is the basis of the demonstrations of Euclid and Archimedes respecting the size of curvilinears Archimedes employed axioms of which Euclid had no need for example of two lines each of which is concave always on the same side that which encloses the other is the greater We cannot also dispense with the identical axioms in geometry as for example, the principle of contradiction or the demonstrations which lead to the impossible And as for the other axioms which are demonstrable we may dispense with them absolutely speaking and draw conclusions immediately from the identicals and from the definitions but the prolixity of the demonstrations and the endless repetitions into which you would then fall would cause a horrible confusion if it were always necessary to begin above while by assuming the mean propositions already proved we easily pass much farther This assumption of truths already known is useful especially as regards the axioms for they recur so often that geometers are compelled to make use of them constantly without citing them so that we should be mistaken in thinking that they are not there because we do not perhaps always see them quoted in the margin
Ph But he objects to the example from theology For the knowledge of this holy religion came to us from revelation says our author and without this aid the maxims would never have been able to make us know it The light comes to us then from the things themselves or immediately from the infallible veracity of God
Th It is as if I said medicine is based upon experience reason then is of no use therein Christian theology which is the true medicine for souls is based upon revelation which corresponds to experience but to make of it a perfect body we must unite therewith natural theology which is drawn from the axioms of eternal reason Is not this principle indeed that veracity is an attribute of God upon which you acknowledge that the certainty of revelation is based a maxim taken from natural theology
Ph Our author wishes to distinguish between the means of acquiring knowledge and of teaching it or rather between teaching and communicating After schools had been erected and professors established to teach the sciences that others had found out these professors availed themselves of these maxims in order to impress the sciences upon the minds of their scholars and to convince them by means of the axioms of certain particular truths while the particular truths have served the first discoverers in finding the truth without the general maxims
Th I wish that this pretended procedure had been justified for us by examples of some particular truths But rightly considering things we shall not find it practised in the establishment of the sciences And if the discoverer finds only a particular truth he is only half a discoverer observed that the triangle whose sides are 3 4 5 has the property of the equality of the square on the hypotenuse with those on the sides ie that 9 16 25 would he on that account have been the discoverer of this great truth which includes all rightangled triangles and which has passed into a maxim with the geometers It is true that often an example seen by chance serves as the occasion which suggests to a clever man the search for general truth but it is still very often no easy matter to find it besides this path of discovery is not the best nor the most employed by those who proceed in an orderly and methodical way and they make use of it only upon the occasions when better methods fall short In the same way some have thought that Archimedes found the quadrature of the parabola by weighing a piece of wood cut parabolically and that this particular experiment caused him to discover the general truth but those who know the penetration of this great man see clearly that he had no need of such an aid Moreover if this empirical way of particular truths had been the occasion of all the discoveries it would not have been sufficient to give them and the discoverers themselves have been delighted with observing the maxims and the general truths if they have been able to attain them otherwise their discoveries would have been very imperfect All that may then be attributed to the schools and to the professors is that they have collected and arranged the maxims and other general truths and would God they had done so still more and with more care and choice the sciences would not be found so scattered and so confused For the rest I admit that there is often some difference between the method we use in teaching the sciences and that which has produced their discovery but this is not the point in question Sometimes as I have already observed chance has given occasion for discovery If we had noticed these occasions and had preserved the memory of them for posterity which would have been very useful this detail would have been a very considerable part of the history of the arts but it would not have been proper to make systems of them Sometimes also discoverers have proceeded rationally to the truth but by extended circuits I find that in matters of importance authors would have rendered service to the public if they had been willing sincerely to indicate in their writings the traces of their experiments but if the system of science should be built upon that foundation it would be as if in a finished house you wished to preserve all ‘the apparatus which the architect required in building it Good methods of teaching are all such that by their means science could certainly have been discovered and then if they are not empirical ie if the truths are taught by reasons or by proofs drawn from ideas it will always be by axioms theorems canons and such other general propositions The case is different when the truths are aphorisms like those of Hippocrates ie truths of fact either general or at least true most frequently learned by observation or based on experience and for which there are no reasons immediately convincing But the question here is not about this for these truths are not known by the connection of ideas
Ph Here is the manner in which our ingenious author conceives that the need of maxims has been introduced The schools having established disputation as the touchstone of the ability of people they adjudged the victory to the one who holds the field of battle and speaks the last word But in order to furnish means of convincing the obstinate it was necessary to establish maxims
Tit The schools of philosophy had done better no doubt to unite practice with theory as do the schools of medicine chemistry and mathematics and to give the prize to the one who had done the best especially in ethics rather than to the one who had spoken the best Yet as there are matters in which discourse itself is an effect and sometimes the sole effect and masterpiece which can make known the ability of a man as in metaphysical matters we have had reason on some occasions to judge of the ability of people by their success in the conferences We know indeed that at the beginning of the Reformation the Protestants challenged their adversaries to come to colloquies and discussions and sometimes upon the success of these discussions the public concluded for the reform We know also how much the art of speaking and of giving birth and force to reasons and if it may be so called the art of discussion can accomplish in a council of state and of war a court of justice a medical consultation and even in a conversation And we are obliged to recur to this means and to content ourselves with words instead of acts on those occasions for this very reason that the question then concerns an event or future fact where it would be too late to learn the truth by the effect Thus the art of discussion or of contending by reasons whereby I here understand the quotation of authorities and examples is very great and very important but unfortunately it is very badly managed and for this reason also often reaches no conclusion or a bad one It is for this reason that I have more than once intended to remark upon the colloquies of theologians accounts of whom we have in order to show the defects which may be noticed in them and the remedies that might be employed therefor In consultations upon business if those who have the most power have not a very solid mind authority or eloquence prevail ordinarily although they are banded against the truth In a word the art of conferring and discussing would need to be entirely remodelled As for the advantage of the one who has the last word it is almost wholly in free conversations for in councils suffrages or votes go by order whether they begin or finish with the last in rank It is true that it ordinarily belongs to the president to begin and end ie to propose and decide but he decides according to the plurality of the votes In academic discussions it is the respondent or maintainant of the thesis who speaks last and the field of battle abides with him almost always by an established custom It is a question of testing him not of confounding him otherwise it would be treating him as an enemy In reality there is almost no question of truth on these occasions indeed opposite theses are maintained at different times in the same chair The hall of the Sorbonne was shown to Casaubon and they said to him this is the place where they have disputed for so many centuries he replied to what conclusion have they come
Ph The wish was however to prevent the dispute from going on to infinity and to furnish means of deciding between two equally expert combatants in order that the dispute enter not upon an infinite series of syllogisms This means was the introduction of certain general propositions the larger part selfevident and which being of such a nature as to be received by all men with entire consent were to be regarded as general measures of truth and to hold the place of principles when the disputants had posited no others beyond which none could go and to which both sides were obliged to hold Thus these maxims having received the name of principles which could be denied in the dispute and which ended the question they were taken erroneously according to my author as the sources of knowledge and the foundations of the sciences
Th Would to God we had made use of them in this way in the discussions there would be nothing to say in reply for we should decide something And what better thing could we do than to reduce controversy ie contested truths to truths evident and incontestable would not that be to establish them in a demonstrative fashion And who can doubt that these principles which would end disputes by establishing truth would not be at the same time sources of knowledge For provided the reasoning is good it matters not whether it is carried on silently in ones study or exposed for sale publicly in a professors chair And even if these principles were assumptions rather than axioms taking the assumptions not as Euclid but as Aristotle ie as suppositions which must be admitted while waiting opportunity to prove them these principles would always have this use that by means of them all the other questions would be reduced to a small number of propositions Thus I am the most surprised of anybody to see a praiseworthy thing blamed by I know not what prepossession to which we clearly see by the example of your author the most clever men are susceptible through want of attention Unfortunately they do an entirely different thing in academic disputes Instead of establishing general axioms they do all they can to weaken them by vain and little understood distinctions and it pleases them to employ certain philosophical rules of which there are large books completely full but which are little certain and little determined and which they have the pleasure of eluding while distinguishing them This is not the way to end the disputes but to render them infinite and finally to wear out the adversary It is as if we put him in a dark place where we strike at random and no one can judge the blows This invention is admirable for the maintainants Respondent who are engaged in maintaining certain theses It is a buckler of Vulcan which renders them invulnerable it is Orcijalea Plutos helmet which renders them invisible They must be very unskilful or very unfortunate if they can be caught with that It is true there are some rules which have exceptions especially in questions into which many circumstances enter as in jurisprudence But to render their use sure these exceptions must be determined in number and sense so far as possible and then it may be that the exception itself has its subexceptions ie its replications and that the replication has its duplications etc but at the end of the reckoning all these exceptions and subexceptions clearly determined and joined with the rule must achieve universality Of this jurisprudence furnishes very remarkable examples But if these kinds of rules loaded with exceptions and subexceptions should enter into academic disputes it would always be necessary to dispute pen in hand holding as a protocol what is said by both sides And this would be more necessary elsewhere in disputing constantly pro forma by means of many syllogisms mixed from time to time with distinctions which the best memory in the world must confound But we are not kept from giving ourselves this trouble from pushing sufficiently the formal syllogisms and from registering them in order to discover the truth when it is without recompense and we should not indeed succeed therein if we wished unless the distinctions are excluded or better regulated
Ph It is however true as our author observes that the scholastic method having been introduced also into conversations outside the schools in order to shut the mouths of cavillers has produced a bad effect For provided we have mediate ideas we may have the connection without the aid of the maxims and before they have been produced and that would be sufficient for sincere and tractable people But the method of the schools having authorized and encouraged men in opposing and resisting evident truths until they are reduced to contradict themselves or to fight established principles it is no wonder that in ordinary conversation they are not ashamed to do what in the schools is a subject of glory and counted a virtue The author adds that reasonable people among the rest of the world who are not yet corrupted by education will find it very difficult to believe that such a method has ever been followed by persons who make a profession of loving truth and who pass their lives in studying religion or nature I shall not inquire here says he how this method of instructing is fitted to turn away the minds of young people from the love of and sincere search for the truth or rather to make them doubt if there really is any truth in the world or at least any which deserves their adherence But what I strongly think he adds is this that excepting those places which have admitted the Peripatetic philosophy into their schools where it has reigned many centuries without teaching the world anything but the art of disputation these maxims are nowhere regarded as the foundations of the sciences nor as important aids to advancement in the knowledge of things
Th Your clever author will have it that the schools alone have been led to form maxims but it is the general and very rational instinct of the human race You can infer this from the proverbs which are in use among all nations and which are usually only maxims which the public acknowledge But when persons of judgment make a statement which appears to us contrary to the truth we must do them the justice to suspect that there is a greater defect in their expressions than in their sentiments a procedure confirmed here in our author of whose motive animating him against the maxims I begin to catch a glimpse Cavilling as well as the desire to be convinced in order to yield exists as really in ordinary discourse where there is no question of exercise as in the schools elsewhere most frequently they have the better grace to suppress the majors which are understood and to be contented with enthymemes and indeed without forming premises it is sufficient often to use the simple medius terminus or mediate idea the mind understanding sufficiently its connection without expressing it And this is satisfactory when this bond is incontestable but you sir will also agree with me that often we go too fast in assumption and that paralogisms arise so that it would very often be better to have regard for certainty in expressing ourselves than to prefer thereto brevity and elegance But the prejudice of your author against maxims made him reject altogether their utility for the establishment of the truth and goes as far as to make them accomplices with disorders in conversation It is true that young people accustomed to academic exercises in which they are occupied a little too much with exercise and not enough in drawing from the exercise the greatest fruit it should have viz knowledge have some difficulty in emancipating themselves therefrom in the world And one of their cavillings is not to wish to yield themselves to the truth save when it has been rendered entirely palpable to them though sincerity and indeed civility should compel them not to wait for these extremes which make them disagreeable and give a bad opinion of them It must also be admitted that it is a vice with which men of letters are often found infected But the fault is not in wishing to reduce truths to maxims but in wishing to do it unseasonably and needlessly for the human mind sees much at a glance and it is to restrain it that we wish to compel it to stop at every step it takes and to express all that it thinks It is precisely as if when making his account with a merchant or host one should compel him to reckon the whole with the ringers inorder to be more certain of it And to make that demand he must be either stupid or capricious In fact sometimes we find that Petronius had reason for saying adolescents in scholia sttiltissimos fieri that young people sometimes become stupid and even harebrained in places which ought to be schools of wisdom corruptio optimi peasima But still oftener they become vain blundering and confused whimsical troublesome and that often depends on the disposition of their masters For the rest I find that there are far greater faults in conversation than that of demanding too much clearness For usually we fall into the opposite vice and neither give nor ask for enough of it If the one is troublesome the other is hurtful and dangerous
Ph The use of maxims is sometimes also when attached to false notions vague and uncertain for then the maxims serve to confirm us in our errors and even to prove contradictions For example he who with Descartes forms an idea of what he calls body as of a thing which is nothing but extension may demonstrate easily by this maxim what is is that there is no vacuum ie space without body For he knows his own idea he knows that it is what it is and not another idea thus extension body and space being with him three words signifying one and the same thing it is also as true for him to say that space is body as to say that body is body But another for whom body signifies a solid extension will conclude in the same way that to say that space is not a body is as certain as any proposition we can prove by this maxim it in impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time
Th The bad use of maxims should not cause their general use to be censured all truths are liable to this disadvantage that by uniting them with falsehoods false or even contradictory conclusions may be drawn And in this example there is but little need of these identical axioms to which is imputed the cause of the error and contradiction This would be seen if the argument of those who concluded from their definitions that space is body or that space is not body were reduced to form There is indeed something excessive in this inference body is extended and solid then extension ie the extended is not body and extension is not a corporeal thing for I have already remarked that there are superfluous expressions of ideas or those which do not multiply things as if someone said by triquetrum I mean a trilateral triangle and concluded therefrom that every trilateral is not a triangle Thus a Cartesian might say that the idea of a solid extension is of this same nature ie that it is superfluous as in reality taking extension as something substantial every extension will be solid or rather every extension will be corporeal As for the vacuum a Cartesian will be right in concluding from his idea or form of idea that there is none supporting his idea to ‘be valid but another will not be right in concluding at once from his form that there may be a vacuum as in reality although I am not for the Cartesian view I nevertheless think there is no vacuum and I find that in this example a worse use is made of ideas than of maxims
Ph It seems at least that from such use as you would make of maxims in verbal propositions they cannot give us the least knowledge of substances existing outside us
Th I am altogether of another opinion For example this maxim that nature proceeds by the shortest paths or at least by the most definite suffices alone to give a reason for nearly the whole of optics catoptric and dioptric ie of what takes place outside us in the action of light as I have formerly shown and Molyneux has strongly approved in his Dioptric which is a very excellent book
Ph It is maintained however that when use is made of identical principles to prove propositions in which there are words signifying complex ideas as man or virtue their use is extremely dangerous and invites men to regard or receive falsehood as manifest truth And this is because men think that when the same terms are retained the propositions revolve about the same things although the ideas which these terms signify are different so that men taking the words for the things as they usually do these maxims commonly serve to prove contradictory propositions
Th How unjust to blame the poor maxims for that which should be imputed to the bad use of terms and to their equivocations By the same reasoning you will blame the syllogisms because they conclude badly when the terms are equivocal But the syllogism is innocent because in reality there are then four terms contrary to the rules of the syllogism By the same reasoning you would also blame the calculations of arithmeticians or of algebraists because by putting X for V or by taking a for b by inadvertence they draw therefrom false and contradictory conclusions
Ph I should think at least that maxims are of little use when we have clear and distinct ideas and others will have it indeed that then they are absolutely of no use and maintain that anyone who in these instances cannot discern truth and falsehood without these kinds of maxims will not be able to do so by their agency and our author shows indeed that they are of no use in deciding whether such a one is a man or not
Th If the truths are very simple and evident and closely approaching the identicals and the definitions there is but little need of expressly employing maxims to draw from them these truths for the mind virtually employs them and makes its conclusion all at once without intermediate ideas But without axioms and theorems already known mathematicians would have much trouble in advancing for in long processes of reasoning consequences it is well to stop from time to time and to set up as it were military columns in the midst of the road which will serve furthermore to indicate it to others Otherwise these long roads will be too inconvenient and will appear even confused and obscure while we are unable to discern anything or to point out what place we are in It is like going to sea without a compass in a dark night seeing neither bottom shore nor stars it is like travelling in vast moors in which there are neither trees nor hills nor streams it is like a linked chain destined for the measurement of lengths in which there are some hundreds of links perfectly alike without a distinction of a bead or of coarser grains or of larger links or other divisions which might indicate the feet fathoms perches etc The mind which loves unity in multiplicity then joins together some of the consequences to form from them mediate conclusions and this is the use of maxims and theorems By this means there is more pleasure more light more memory more application and less repetition If some analyst in calculating should choose not to assume these two geometrical maxims that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the two squares of the sides about the right angle and that the corresponding sides of similar triangles are proportional thinking that because we have the demonstration of these two theorems by the connection of the ideas they contain he can pass them by easily by putting the ideas themselves in their place he will find himself far removed from his reckoning But that you may not think sir that the proper use of these maxims is confined to the limits of the mathematical sciences alone you will find that its use is not less in jurisprudence and one of the principal means of rendering it easier and of looking at its vast ocean as upon a geographical map is to reduce a multitude of particular decisions to more general principles For example you will find that a multitude of laws of Digests of actions or exceptions of those which are called in factum depend on this maxim ne qui» alterius damno fiat locupletior let no one profit by the injury which might happen to another a principle which should however be expressed with a little more precision It is true that there is a great distinction to be made between the rules of law I speak of good ones and not of certain brocards brocardico introduced by the doctors which are vague and obscure although these rules also might often become good and useful if reformed while with their infinite distinctions cum mi» fallentiis they serve only to confuse Now good rules are either aphorisms or maxims and under maxims I include both axioms and theorems If these are aphorism» which are formed by induction and observation and not by reason a priori and which clever people have made after a review of established law this text of the jurisconsult Paulus in the title of the Digests which speaks of the rules of law has place no» ex reyttla jit» »umi ned ex jure quod est regulam fieri ie we draw rules from a
law already known in order the better to remember them but
we do not establish the law upon these rules But there are
fundamental maxims constituting the law itself and forming
actions exceptions replications etc which when they are
taught by pure reason and do not arise from the arbitrary
power of the state constitute natural law and such is the
rule of which I have just spoken which forbids tortious
profit There are also rules whose exceptions are rare and
which consequently pass as universal Such is the rule of the
Institutes of the Emperor Justinian in of the title Actions
which declares that when the question concerns corporeal
things the actor does not possess except in a single case
which the emperor states is indicated in the Digests but
he leaves us to search for it It is true that some read
instead of sane uno casu sane non uno and from one case
you can sometimes make many Among the physicians the
late Mr Barner who in giving us his Prodromus made us
hope for a new Sennertus or system of medicine accommodated to the new discoveries or views advances the opinion that the method which physicians ordinarily observe in their systems of practice is to explain the art of healing by treating of one disease after another following the order of the parts of the body human or other without having given universal precepts of practice common to many diseases and symptoms and that this involves them in an infinite number of repetitions so that we might suppress in his view threequarters of Sennertus and abridge the science infinitely by universal propositions and especially by those with which agrees the KaOokov wpwrov of Aristotle ie which are reciprocal or approach thereto I think there is reason in advising this method especially as regards the precepts wherein medicine is ratiocinative but in proportion as it is empirical it is not so easy nor so certain to form universal propositions Further there are usually complications in particular diseases which form as it were an imitation of substances so that a disease is like a plant or an animal which demands a history by itself ie they are modes or forms of being with which agrees what we have said of bodies or substantial things a quartan fever being as difficult to examine thoroughly as gold or quicksilver Thus it is well without detriment to the universal precepts to seek in the different kinds of diseases methods of healing and remedies which satisfy many symptoms and complications of causes and especially to gather together those which experience has approved This Sennertus has not sufficiently done for competent judges have remarked that the compositions of the receipts he proposes are often made more ex ingenio by estimate than authorized by experience as would be necessary if one would be more certain of his case I think then that the better course would be to unite these two ways and not to complain of repetitions in a matter so delicate and so important as is medicine wherein I find that we lack what we have in too large measure in my view in jurisprudence ie books of particular cases and repertories of observations already made For I think that a thousandth part of the books of the jurisconsults would suffice us but that we would have none too many in the matter of medicine if we had thousands more of welldetailed observations The fact is jurisprudence is wholly based upon reasons in regard to which nothing is expressly indicated by laws or by customs For we can always derive it either from law or in default of this from natural right by means of the reason The laws of each country are finished and determined or may become so while in medicine the principles of experience ie the observations cannot be too greatly multiplied in order to give more opportunity to the reason to decipher what nature only half allows us to know For the rest I do not know anyone who employs the axioms in the way that the clever author of whom you speak does as if anyone in order to demonstrate to a child that a negro is a man availed himself of the principle what is is by saying a negro has a rational soul now the rational soul and man is the same thing and consequently if having a rational soul he were not a man it would be false that what is is or rather one and the same thing would be or would not be at the same time For without employing these maxims which are not in season here and do not enter directly into the reasoning as they also do not advance it in any respect everybody will be content to reason thus a negro has a rational soul whoever has a rational soul is a man therefore the negro is a man And if anyone assuming that there is no rational soul if it does not
appear to us concluded that infants just born and imbeciles do not belong to the human species as in fact the author states that he has conversed with very reasonable persons who made this denial I do not think that the bad use of the maxim that it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be would delude them nor that they think of it even in drawing this conclusion The source of their error would be an extension of the principle of our author which denies that there is anything in the soul of which it is not conscious while these gentlemen would proceed as far as to deny the soul itself when others did not perceive it
Ph I believe indeed that reasonable persons have not been disinclined to employ identical axioms in the way of which we have just spoken It also seems that those purely identical maxims are only trifling propositions or migatorite as the schools indeed call them I should not be content to say that they seem thus did not your surprising example of the demonstration of conversion by the agency of the identicals make me proceed bridle in hand thenceforth when contempt for anything is the question But I shall tell you that what you allege in their favour proclaims them wholly trifling viz you recognize at first sight that they contain no instruction unless to show a man sometimes the absurdity in which he is involved
t Do you count that as nothing sir and do you not recognize that to reduce a proposition to absurdity is to demonstrate its contradictory I indeed believe that you will instruct Ito man by telling him that he must not deny and affirm the same thing at the same time but you instruct him by showing him by the force of the consequence that he does this without thinking of it It is difficult in my opinion always to pass from these apayogieal deiaotititrationa ie demonstrations which reduce to absurdity and to prove everything by the ostensicen as they are called and geometers who are very curious on this point have tried it sufficiently Proclus speaks of it from time to time when he sees that certain ancient geometers coming after Euclid have found a demonstration more direct as they think than his But the silence of this ancient commentator sufficiently shows that they did not always accomplish it
Ph You will at least admit sir that a million propositions may be formed at little expense but also of very little use for is it not trifling to remark for example that the oyster is the oyster and that it is false to deny it or to say that the oyster is not the oyster As to which our author agreeably says that a man who would make this oyster sometimes the subject sometimes the attribute or the predication would justly be like a monkey who should amuse himself by throwing one oyster from one hand to the other which proceeding could altogether as well satisfy the hunger of the monkey as these propositions are capable of satisfying the understanding of man
Th I find that this author as full of intelligence as gifted with judgment has every reason in the world for speaking against those who would so use them But you certainly see how the identicals must be employed to render them useful viz by showing by force of consequences and definitions that other truths which you wish to establish reduce to them
Ph I know it and I see clearly that they may be applied with much stronger reason to propositions which appear trifling and on many occasions are so wherein a part of the complex idea is affirmed of the object of this idea as in the statement lead in a metal In the mind of a man who is acquainted with the meaning of these terms and who knows at lead signifies a very heavy fusible and malleable body ere is this use alone that in saying metal you indicate to turn at once many simple ideas instead of enumerating them ne y one G The same is true when part of the definition is affirmed of the thing defined as in the statement all gold is fusible supposing you have defined gold as a yellow heavy fusible and malleable body Again to say that the triangle has three sides that man is an animal that a palfrey jmlefroy an old French word is an animal which neighs serves to define the words but not to teach anything besides the definition But we learn something from the statement that man has a notion of God and that opium plunges him into sleep
Th Besides what I have said of the identicals which are wholly so we shall find that these semiidenticals have also a particular use For example a wise man is always a man that gives us the knowledge that he is not infallible that he is mortal etc Someone in danger needs a pistolball and lacks the lead to found it in the form he has a friend says to him remember that the silver you have in your purse is fusible this friend will not teach him a quality of the silver but will make him think of a use he may make of it in order to have pistolballs in this pressing need A large part of moral truths and of the most beautiful sentences of authors is of this nature they very often teach us nothing but they make us think at the right time of what we know That iambic senarius of the Latin tragedy— which might be expressed thus although less prettily that which may happen to one may happen to everybody only makes us remember the human condition quod nihil humani a nobis alienum putare debemus This rule of the jurisconsults qui jure suo utitur nemini facit injuriam he who uses his own right injures no one appears trifling But it is very useful on certain occasions and makes one justly think of what is necessary If for instance any one raised his house as far as he is allowed by the statutes and usages and by so doing deprived his neighbour of some view he would pay this neighbour at once according to this rule of law if he ventured to complain For the rest propositions of fact or experiences like that which states that opium is a narcotic carry us farther than the truths of pure reason, which can never make us go beyond that which is in our distinct ideas As for this proposition that every man has a notion of God it is from the reason since notion signifies idea For the idea of God according to my view is innate in all men but if this notion signifies an idea in which you actually think it it is a proposition of fact which depends on the history of the human race Finally to say that a triangle has three sides is not so identical as it seems for a little attention is required to see that a polygon must have as many angles as sides it would also have an additional side if the polygon were not supposed to be closed
Ph It seems that the general propositions concerning substances are for the most part trifling if they are certain He who knows the meanings of the words substance man animal form soul vegetative sensitive rational will form from them many indubitable but useless propositions particularly about the soul of which we often speak without knowing what it really is Everyone may see an infinite number of propositions reasonings and conclusions of this nature in the books of metaphysics scholastic theology and a certain kind of physics the reading of which will teach him nothing more of God spirits and bodies than he knew before having run through these books
Tk It is true that abstracts of metaphysics and such other books of this character as are commonly seen teach only words To say for example that metaphysics is the science of being in general which explains the principles and affections emanating from it that the principles of being are essence and existence that the affections are either primitive viz unity truth the good or derivative viz identity diversity simplicity complexity etc and in speaking of each of these terms to give only vague notions and verbal distinctions is indeed to abuse the name of science But we must render this justice to the more profound Scholastics like Suarez whom Grotius valued so highly and admit that there is sometimes in them discussions of value as upon the continuum the infinite the contingent the reality of abstracts the principles of individuation the origo el vacuum formaturn the soul and its faculties the concurrence of God with his creatures etc and even in ethics upon the nature of the will and the principles of justice in a word we must admit that there is still some gold in these scoriae but it is only enlightened persons who can profit from it and to load the youth with the rubbish of inutilities because there is something of value here and there would be badly to dispose of the most precious of all things time For the rest we are not wholly destitute of general propositions regarding substances which are certain and deserve to be known there are grand and beautiful truths concerning God and the soul which our clever author has taught either in his own right or in part after others We have perhaps added something also thereto And as for general knowledge concerning bodies considerable additions are being made to what Aristotle left and it should be said that physics even general physics has become much more real than it was heretofore As for real metaphysics we are beginning as it were to establish it and we find important truths grounded in reason and confirmed by experience which belong to substances in general I hope also that I have advanced a little the general knowledge of the soul and of spirits Such a metaphysic was the demand of Aristotle it is the science which he called ZqTovfiivn the desired la desirie or that which he sought which must be as regards the other theoretical sciences what the science of happiness is to the arts which it needs and what the architect is to the workmen This is why Aristotle said that the other sciences depend upon metaphysics as the most general science and must derive from it their principles demonstrated by it You must know also that true ethics is to metaphysics what practice is to theory because upon the doctrine of substances in common depends the knowledge of spirits and particularly of God and the soul which gives a proper meaning to justice and virtue For as I have elsewhere remarked if there were neither providence nor a future life the wise man would be more limited in the practice of virtue for he would refer everything merely to his present satisfaction and even this satisfaction which appears already in Socrates in the emperor Marcus Aurelius in Epictetus and other ancients would not be so well grounded always without these beautiful and grand views which the order and harmony of the universe open for us even in a future without limits otherwise the tranquillity of the soul would be only what is called a forced patience so that we may say that natural theology comprising two parts theoretical and practical contains altogether real metaphysics and the most perfect ethics
Ph There is doubtless knowledge which is far removed from being trifling or purely verbal But this last seems to be that in which two abstracts are affirmed the one of the other for example that parsimony is frugality that gratitude is justice and however specious these and other propositions sometimes appear at first sight yet when we press their force we find that it all amounts to nothing else than the signification of the terms
Th But the significations of terms ie definitions united with identical axioms express the principles of all demonstrations and as these definitions can make known at the same time the ideas and their possibility it is plain that what depends on them is not always purely verbal As for the example that gratitude is justice or rather a part of justice it is not to be despised for it shows that what is called actio itigrati or the complaint which can be made against the ungrateful should be less neglected in the tribunals The Romans received this action against the Liberti or freedmen and still today it should have place as regards the revocation of gifts For the rest I have already said elsewhere that abstract ideas also may be attributed to one another the genus to the species as in the statements duration is a continuity virtue is a habit but universal justice is not only a virtue but it is indeed the complete ethical virtue
Ph We have hitherto considered only the essences of things and as our mind knows them only by abstraction by detaching them from every particular existence other than that which is in our understanding they give us absolutely no knowledge of any real existence And the universal propositions of which we may have a certain knowledge do not relate to existence Further every time we attribute anything to an individual of a genus or a species by a proposition which would not be certain if the same were attributed to the genus or species in general the proposition belongs only to the existence and makes known only an accidental union in the things existing in particular as when we say, such a man is learned
Th Very well and it is in this sense that the philosophers also distinguishing so often between what is essence and what existence refer to existence everything which is accidental or contingent Very often we do not even know whether the universal propositions which we know only by experience are not perhaps accidental also because our experience is limited as in the countries where water is not frozen this proposition which will be formed about it that water is always in a fluid state is not essential and we know it by coming into colder countries But we may take the accidental in a more limited sense so that there will be as it were a mean between it and the essential and this mean is the natural le naturel ie that which does not belong to the thing necessarily but which nevertheless agrees with it of itself if nothing prevents Thus someone might maintain that it is not indeed essential but that it is at least natural for water to remain fluid We might maintain this I say but it is not however a demonstrated fact and perhaps the inhabitants of the moon if there are any would have reason to believe the statement no less grounded that it is natural for water to be frozen There are other cases however where the natural is less doubtful for example a ray of light always continues straight in the same medium unless it accidentally meets some surface which reflects it For the rest Aristotle was accustomed to refer to matter the source of accidental things but then we must understand thereby secondary matter ie the heap or mass of bodies
Ph I have already a remarked following the excellent English author who wrote the Essay concerning Understanding that we know our existence by intuition that of God by demonstration and that of other things by sensation Now this intuition which makes known our existence to ourselves makes it known to us with an evidence complete incapable of being proved and having no need of proof so that even when I attempt to doubt all things this doubt itself does not allow me to doubt my own existence In fine we have on this point the highest degree of certainty that can be imagined
Th I am entirely agreed as to all this And I add that the immediate apperception of our existence and of our thoughts furnishes us the first truths a posteriori or of fact ie the first experiences as the identical propositions contain the first truths a priori or of reason ie the first lights les premieres lumieres Both are incapable of proof and may be called immediate the former because they are immediate between the understanding and its object the latter because they are intermediate between the subject and the predicate
Ph God having given to our soul the faculties with which it is adorned has not left himself without a witness for the senses perception and the reason furnish us manifest proofs of his existence
Th God has not only given the soul faculties suitable for knowing him but he has also impressed upon it characters which indicate him although the soul needs faculties to perceive these characters But I do not wish to repeat the discussions we have already had upon ideas and innate truths among which I reckon the idea of God and the truth of his existence Let us come rather to the fact
Ph Now although the existence of God is the truth most easily proved by the reason and its evidence equals if I am not mistaken that of mathematical demonstrations it yet demands attention It needs at once only reflection upon
ourselves and our own indubitable existence Thus I suppose that everyone knows that something actually exists and that thus there is a real being If there is anyone who can doubt his own existence I declare that I do not speak to him We know also by an intuitive knowledge that bare nothing cannot produce a real being Whence it follows with mathematical evidence that something has existed from all eternity since everything which has a beginning must have been produced by something else Now every being which draws its existence from another draws also from it all it has and all its faculties The eternal source of all beings is then also the principle of all their powers so that this eternal being must be also allpowerful o Further man finds in himself knowledge There is then an intelligent being Now it is impossible for a thing absolutely destitute of knowledge and perception to produce an intelligent being and it is contrary to the idea of matter deprived of thought to produce it of itself The source of things is then intelligent and there has been an intelligent being from all eternity An eternal very powerful and very intelligent being is what we call God If however any one were found so unreasonable as to suppose that man is the only being having knowledge and wisdom but that nevertheless he has been formed by pure chance and that it is this same principle blind and without knowledge which carries on all the rest of the universe I shall advise him to examine at his leisure the wholly solid and emphatic censure of Cicero De Legibus lib Certainly he says no one could be so foolishly arrogant as to think that he has within himself an understanding and reason and yet that there is no intelligence governing the heavens and all this vast universe From what I have just said it clearly follows that we have a more certain knowledge of God than of anything else outside us Th I assure you sir with perfect sincerity that I am extremely sorry to be obliged to say something against this demonstration but I do it solely in order to give you an opportunity to fill up the void It is principally in the part
where you conclude that something has existed from all eternity I find therein some ambiguity if that means that there never has been any time in which nothing existed I admit it and it follows truly from the preceding propositions by an inference wholly mathematical For if there had always been nothing there would always have been nothing nothing being unable to produce a being then we ourselves should not be which is contrary to the first truth of experience But the consequence appears at once that by the statement that something has existed from all eternity you mean an eternal thing But it does not at all follow in virtue of what you have hitherto advanced that if there has always been something there has always been a certain thing ie an eternal being For certain opponents will say that I have been produced by other things and these things by others Further if some admit eternal beings as the Epicureans their atoms they will not think themselves compelled for that reason to admit an eternal being who is the only source of all the others For if they should admit that this which gives existence gives also the other qualities and powers of the thing they will deny that a single thing gives existence to the others and they will say also that in each thing many others must concur Thus we shall not reach by this alone a source of all the powers Yet it is very reasonable to judge that there is one and also that the universe is governed with wisdom But when we believe matter susceptible of thought we may be disposed to believe that it is not impossible that it may produce something At least it will be difficult to bring forward a proof which does not show at the same time that it is wholly incapable of it and assuming that our thought comes from a thinking being may we take it as admitted without prejudice to the demonstration that this must be God
Ph I do not doubt that the excellent man from whom I have borrowed this demonstration is capable of perfecting it and I shall try to influence him to do so since he could scarcely render a greater service to the public You also desire it This makes me think that you do not consider it necessary in order to shut the mouths of atheists to make everything revolve upon the existence of the idea of God in us as some do who attach themselves too strongly to this favourite discovery even to rejecting all other demonstrations of the existence of God or at least attempting to weaken them and forbidding to employ them as if they were weak or false although at bottom they are proofs which show us so clearly and in a manner so convincing the existence of this sovereign being by the consideration of our own existence and of the sensible parts of the universe that I think no wise man ought to resist them
Th Although I am for innate ideas and in particular for that of God I do not think that the demonstrations of the Cartesians drawn from the idea of God are perfect I have shown fully elsewhere in the Actes de Leipsic and in the Memoires de Trevoux that what Descartes has borrowed from Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury is very beautiful and really very ingenious but that there is still a gap therein to be filled This celebrated archbishop who was without doubt one of the most able men of his time congratulates himself not without reason for having discovered a means of proving the existence of God a priori by means of its own notion without recurring to its effects And this is very nearly the force of his argument God is the greatest or as Descartes says the most perfect of beings or rather a being of supreme grandeur and perfection including all degrees thereof That is the notion of God See now how existence follows from this notion To exist is something more than not to exist or rather existence adds a degree to grandeur and perfection and as Descartes states it existence is itself a perfection Therefore this degree of grandeur and perfection or rather this perfection which consists in existence is in this supreme allgreat allperfect being for otherwise some degree would be wanting to it contrary to its definition Consequently this supreme being exists The Scholastics not excepting even their Doctor Angelicus have misunderstood this argument and have taken it as a paralogism in which respect they were altogether wrong and Descartes who studied quite a long time the scholastic philosophy at the Jesuit College of La Fleche had great reason for reestablishing it It is not a paralogism but it is an imperfect demonstration which assumes something that must still be proved in order to render it mathematically evident that is it is tacitly assumed that this idea of the allgreat or allperfect being is possible and implies no contradiction And it is already something that by this remark it is proved that assuming that God is possible he exists which is the privilege of divinity alone We have the right to presume the possibility of every being and especially that of God until someone proves the contrary So that this metaphysical argument already gives a morally demonstrative conclusion which declares that according to the present state of our knowledge we must judge that God exists and act in conformity thereto But it is to be desired nevertheless that clever men achieve the demonstration with the strictness of a mathematical proof and I think I have elsewhere said something that may serve this end The other argument of Descartes which undertakes to prove the existence of God because the idea of him is in our soul and must have come from the original is still less conclusive For in the first place this argument has this defect in common with the preceding that it assumes that there is in us such an idea ie that God is possible For what Descartes alleges that in speaking of God we know what we are saying and that consequently we have an idea is a deceptive indication since in speaking of perpetual mechanical movement for example we know what we are saying and yet this movement is an impossible thing of which consequently we can have only an apparent idea Secondly this same argument does not sufficiently prove that the idea of God if we have it must come from the original But I do not wish to delay here at present You will say sir to me that recognizing in us the innate idea of God I ought not to say that we may question whether there is one But I permit this doubt only in relation to a strict demonstration based upon the idea alone For we are otherwise sufficiently assured of the idea and of the existence of God And you will remember that I have shown how ideas are in us not always in such wise that we are conscious of them but always in such wise that we may draw them from our own depths and make them perceivable And this is also my belief concerning the idea of God the possibility and existence of which I hold to be demonstrated in more than one way And the preestablished harmony itself furnishes a new and incontestable means of so doing I believe also that nearly all the means which have been employed to prove the existence of God are good and might be of service if we would perfect them and I am not at all of the opinion that we should neglect that drawn from the order of things
Ph It will perhaps be proper to insist a little upon this question whether a thinking being can come from a nonthinking being deprived of all sensation and knowledge such as matter may be It is indeed quite evident that a part of matter is incapable of producing anything of itself and of giving itself motion its motion must then either be eternal or be impressed upon it by a more powerful being If this motion were eternal it would always be incapable of producing knowledge Divide matter into as many little parts as you please in order as it were to spiritualize it give it all figures and motions you wish make it a globe a cube a prism a cylinder etc whose diameters are only the onemillionth part of a gry which is onetenth of a line which is onetenth of an inch which is onetenth of a philosophical foot which is onethird of a pendulum each vibration of which in the latitude of fortyfive degrees is equal to one second of time This particle of matter small as it is will act upon other bodies of a size proportional to itself no differently than bodies of an inch or a foot in diameter act among themselves And we may hope as rationally to produce feeling thought and knowledge by putting together gross parts of matter in a certain figure and motion as by means of the smallest parts of matter in the world These last knock push and resist each other just as the great ones do and this is all they can do But if matter could draw from its bosom feeling perception and knowledge immediately and without machinery or without the aid of figures and motions then their possession must be an inseparable property of matter and of all its parts To which one could add that though the general and specific idea we have of matter leads us to speak of it as if it were a thing single in number yet all matter is not properly one individual thing which exists in a material being or a single body that we know or can conceive So that if matter were the first eternal thinking being there would not be one eternal infinite and thinking being but an infinite number of eternal infinite thinking beings independent of one another whose forces would be limited and thoughts distinct and who consequently could never produce this order harmony and beauty which is seen in nature Whence it necessarily follows that the eternal first being cannot be matter I hope that you sir will be more content with this reasoning taken from the celebrated author of the preceding demonstration than you have appeared to be with his demonstration
Th I find the present reasoning the most solid in the world and not only exact but further profound and worthy of its author I am perfectly of his opinion that no combination and modification of the parts of matter however small they may be can produce perception forasmuch as the gross particles could not give it as is manifestly admitted and as all is proportional in the small parts to what may take place in the great It is furthermore an important remark regarding matter which the author makes here that it must not be taken as a thing single in number or as I have been wont to state it as a true and perfect monad or unity since it is only a mass of an infinite number of beings Here this excellent author needed but a step to arrive at my system For in fact I give perception to all these infinite beings each one of which is like an animal endowed with a soul or some active analogous principle which makes its true unity together with what is necessary to this being in order to be passive and endowed with an organic body Now these beings have received their nature active as well as passive ie what they have of immaterial and material from a general and supreme cause because otherwise as the author very well says being independent of one another they could never produce this order harmony and beauty which is seen in nature But this argument which appears to possess only a moral certainty is pushed to a necessity wholly metaphysical by the new kind of harmony I have introduced which is the preestablished harmony For each one of these souls expressing in its way what takes place outside it and being unable to have any influence on other particular beings or rather being obliged to draw this expression from the depths of its own nature, each one must necessarily have received this nature or this internal reason of the expression of that which is outside from a universal cause upon which all these beings depend and which makes one perfectly in accord and correspondent with another a thing impossible without an infinite knowledge and power and with an artifice great as regards especially the spontaneous agreement of the mechanism with the acts of the rational soul The illustrious author who made objections against it in his wonderful Dictionary doubted as it were whether this condition of things did not surpass all possible wisdom saying that the wisdom of God did not appear to him too great for such an effect and recognized at least that never had the feeble conceptions we may have of the divine perfection been so set in relief
Ph How delighted I am at this agreement of your thoughts with those of my author I hope you will not be displeased sir if I give you an account also of the rest of his reasoning upon this article First he examines whether the thinking being upon whom all the other intelligent beings depend and with much stronger reason all other beings is material or not It is objected that a thinking being might be material But he replies that if that were so it is enough that this be an eternal being which has an infinite knowledge and power Further if thought and matter can be separated the eternal existence of matter will not follow from the eternal existence of a thinking being It will further be asked of those who make God material whether they imagine that every part of matter thinks In that case it will follow that there would be as many Gods as particles of matter But if each part of matter does not think then there is a thinking being composed of nonthinking parts which has already been disproved To say that any single atom of matter thinks and that the other parts though equally eternal do not think is to make the gratuitous statement that one part of matter is infinitely above another and produces thinking beings not eternal If we will have it that the thinking eternal and material being is a certain particular mass of matter whose parts are nonthinking we fall back upon the view which has been disproved for the parts of matter are united in vain they can acquire only a new local relation which cannot give them knowledge It matters not whether this mass is at rest or in motion If at rest it is only an inactive mass which has no privilege above one atom if in motion since this motion which distinguishes it from other parts is destined to produce thought all these thoughts will be accidental and limited each part by itself being without thought and having nothing which regulates its movements Thus there will be neither freedom nor choice nor wisdom any more than in simple brute matter Some believe that matter is at least coeternal with God But they do not say why the production of a thinking being which they admit is much more difficult than that of matter which is less perfect And perhaps says the author if we would withdraw ourselves a little from common ideas give wings to our mind and engage in the profoundest examination we could make of the nature of things we might be able to attain a conception though in an imperfect manner how matter may at first have been made and how it commenced to exist by the power of this eternal first being But we should see at the same time that to give being to a spirit is an effect of this eternal and infinite power much more difficult to comprehend But because this would perhaps lead me too far he adds from the notions upon which the philosophy now in the world is based it would not be excusable in me to deviate so far from them or to inquire so far as grammar would permit whether at bottom the commonly established opinion is contrary to this particular view it would be wrong I say for me to engage in this discussion especially in this corner of the world where the received doctrine is good enough for my purpose since it posits as an indubitable thing that if the creation or beginning of any substance whatever from nothing be once admitted the creation of every other substance except the Creator himself may with the same facility be assumed
Th You have given me genuine pleasure sir by giving me some account of a profound thought of your clever author which his too scrupulous prudence has prevented him from producing in its entirety It would be a great wrong if he should suppress it and leave us there after having made our mouths water I assure you sir that I believe there is something beautiful and important concealed behind this enigmatical manner The substance in large letters might make one suspicious that he conceives the production of matter in the same way as that of the accidents which we find no difficulty in drawing from nothing and in distinguishing his particular thought from the philosophy now prevalent in the world or in that corner of the earth I do not know but that he had in mind the Platonists who take matter as something fleeting and transitory after the manner of the accidents and had an altogether different idea of spirits and souls
Ph Finally if some deny creation by which things are made from nothing because they cannot conceive it our author writing before he knew your discovery on the reason of the union of the soul and the body holds against them that they do not understand how voluntary movements are produced in bodies by the will of the soul and they cease not to believe the fact being convinced by experience and he replies with reason to those who answer that the soul being unable to produce a new motion produces only a new determination of the animal spirits he replies to them I say that the one is as inconceivable as the other And nothing can be better said than what he adds on this occasion that to wish to limit what God can do to what we can comprehend is to give an infinite extent to our comprehension or to make God himself finite
Th Although now the difficulty regarding the union of the soul and the body has in my view been removed there remain difficulties elsewhere I have shown a posteriori by the preestablished harmony that all the monads have received their origin from God and depend upon him But we cannot comprehend the how in detail and at bottom their conservation is nothing else than a continual creation as the Scholastics have very clearly recognized
Ph As then the existence of God only has a necessary connection with ours the ideas we may have of anything no more prove the existence of this thing than the portrait of a man proves his existence in the world The certainty however I have of black and white upon this paper by means of sensation is as great as that of the motion of my hand which is second only to the knowledge of our own existence and of that of God This certainly deserves the name of knowledge For I do not believe that anyone can seriously be so sceptical as to be uncertain of the existence of things which he sees and feels At least he who can carry his doubts so far will never have any controversy with me since he can never be certain that I say anything contrary to his opinion The perceptions of sensible things are produced by external causes which affect our senses for we do not acquire these perceptions without the organs and if the organs sufficed they would always produce them o Further I sometimes experience the fact that I cannot prevent these ideas from being formed in my mind as for example, the light when I have my eyes open in a place into which the light may enter while I can lay aside the ideas which are in my memory There must be then some external cause of this living impression whose efficacy I cannot overcome Some of these impressions are produced in us with pain although afterwards we remember it without feeling the least inconvenience And although mathematical demonstrations do not depend on the senses yet the examination made of them by means of diagrams is of much use in proving the evidence of our sight and seems to give to it a certainty approaching that of demonstration itself Our senses also in many cases bear witness to each other He who sees the fire may feel it if in doubt of it And in writing this I see that I can change the appearance of the paper and say beforehand what new idea it is going to present to the mind but when these characters are traced I can no longer avoid seeing them as they are in addition to the fact that the sight of these characters will make another man utter the same sounds If anyone thinks that all this is but a long dream he may dream if he pleases that I make this response to him that our certainty based upon the testimony of our senses is as perfect as our nature allows and our condition demands He who sees a candle burning and tries the heat of the flame which hurts him if he does not withdraw his finger will not ask for a greater certainty in order to govern his actions and if this dreamer did not so do ie withdraw his finger he would find himself awakened Such an assurance then suffices us which is also as certain as pleasure or pain two things beyond which we have no interest in knowledge or the existence of things But beyond our actual sensation there is no knowledge and it is only probability as when I believe that there are men in the world of which fact there is a high degree of probability although at present alone in my chamber I see none of them It is also folly to expect a demonstration of everything and to act not in accord with clear and evident truths though they are not demonstrable A man who should so use them could be assured of nothing but of dying in a very short time
Th I have already remarked in our preceding conferences that the truth of sensible things is justified by their connection which depends upon the intellectual truths grounded in reason and upon constant observations in the sensible things
themselves even when the reasons do not appear And as these reasons and observations give us the means of judging the future as related to our interest and as success corresponds with our rational judgment we could not demand nor have indeed a greater certainty regarding these objects We can also give a reason for dreams themselves and for their slight connection with other phenomena Nevertheless I believe that we might extend the appellation of knowledge and of certainty beyond actual sensations since clearness and manifestness go beyond which I consider as a species of certainty and it would undoubtedly be folly seriously to doubt whether there are men in the world when we do not see any To doubt seriously is to doubt in relation to the practical and we might take certainty as a knowledge of truth which we cannot doubt in relation to the practical without madness and sometimes we take it still more generally and apply it to cases where we could not doubt without deserving to be severely blamed But evidence would be a luminous certainty ie where we do not doubt because of the connection we see between ideas According to this definition of certainty we are certain that Constantinople is in the world that Constantine Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar lived It is true that some peasant of Ardennes might justly doubt about these for lack of information but a man of letters and of the world could not do so without great derangement of mind
Ph We are assured in truth by our memory of many things which are past but we shall not be able to judge easily whether they exist still I saw yesterday water and a certain number of beautiful colours upon bubbles formed upon this water Now I am certain that those bubbles as well as that water existed but I do not know with any more certainty the present existence of the water than that of the bubbles although the former is infinitely more probable because the water has been observed to be lasting and the bubbles to disappear Finally outside of ourselves and God we know other spirits only by revelation and we have concerning them only the certainty of faith
Th It has already been remarked that our memory sometimes deceives us And we put confidence in it or not according as it is more or less vivid and more or less connected with the things we know And even when we are assured of the principal fact we may often question the circumstances I remember to have known a certain man for I feel that his image as well as his voice is not new to me and this double indication is a better guarantee to me than one of the two but I cannot remember where I have seen him It happens however though rarely that a person is seen in a dream before he is seen in flesh and blood And I am assured that a lady of a wellknown court saw in a dream and described to her friends the person she afterwards married and the hall in which the betrothal was celebrated and she did this before she had seen or known either the man or the place They attributed the circumstance to some indefinite secret presentiment but chance may produce this effect since it is quite rare that it happens besides dreamimages being somewhat obscure there is more liberty in connecting them afterwards with certain others
Ph Let us conclude that there are two kinds of propositions the one particular and concerning existence as for example that an elephant exists the other general concerning the dependence of ideas as for example that men should obey God The majority of these general and certain propositions bear the name of eternal truths and in fact they all are such This is not because these are propositions actually formed somewhere from all eternity or because they are graven upon the mind after some model which always existed but because we are assured that when a creature enriched with faculties and means therefor applies his thoughts to the consideration of his ideas he will discover the truth of these propositions
Th Your division appears to return to mine of propositions of fact and propositions of reason Propositions of fact also may become general in a way but it is by induction or observation so that it is only a multitude of similar facts as when it is observed that all quicksilver is evaporated by the force of fire and this is not a perfect generality because we do not see its necessity General propositions of reason are necessary although the reason also furnishes some which are not absolutely general and are only probable as for example when we presume an idea to be possible until its contrary is discovered by a more exact research There are finally mixed propositions drawn from premises some of which come from facts and observations and others are necessary propositions and such are a number of geographical and astronomical conclusions regarding the globe of the earth and the course of the stars which spring from the combination of the observations of travellers and astronomers with the theorems of geometry and arithmetic But as according to the usage of logicians the conclusion follows the weakest of the premises and cannot have more certainty than they these mixed propositions have only the certainty and generality which belong to the observations As for the eternal truths it must be observed that at bottom they are all conditional and say in effect such a thing posited such another thing is For example in saying every figure which has three sides will also have three angles I say nothing else than that supposing there is a figure with three sides this same figure will have three angles I say this game and it is in this respect that the categorical propositions which may be stated unconditionally although at bottom conditional differ from those called hypothetical as this proposition would be if a figure has three sides its angles are equal to two right angles in which we see that the antecedent proposition viz the figure of three sides and the consequent viz the angles of the figure of three sides are equal to two right angles have not the same subject as they have in the preceding case in which the antecedent was this figure has three sides and the consequent the said figure has three angles Although again the hypothetical may often be transformed into the categorical merely by changing a little the terms as if instead of the preceding hypothetical I said the angles of every figure with three sides are equal to two right angles The Scholastics have hotly disputed de constantia subjecti as they called it ie how the proposition made upon a subject can have a real truth if this subject does not exist The fact is that the truth is only conditional and says that in case the subject ever exists it will be found such But it will be further demanded in what is this connection founded since there is in it some reality which does not deceive The reply will be that it is in the connection of ideas But it will be asked in reply where would these ideas be if no mind existed and what then would become of the real ground of this certainty of the eternal truths This leads us finally to the ultimate ground of truths viz to that Supreme and Universal Mind which cannot fail to exist whose understanding to speak truly is the region of eternal truths as St Augustine has recognized and expresses in a sufficiently vivid way And in order not to think that it is unnecessary to recur to this we must consider that these necessary truths contain the determining reason and the regulating principle of existences themselves and in a word the laws of the universe Thus these necessary truths being anterior to the existence of contingent beings must be grounded in the existence of a necessary substance Here it is that I find the original of the ideas and truths which are graven in our souls not in the form of propositions but as the sources out of which application and occasion will cause actual judgments to arise
Ph We have spoken of the kinds of knowledge we have Now let us come to the means of improving the knowledge or of finding the truth It is the received opinion among scholars that the maxims are the bases of all knowledge and that each particular science is based upon certain things already known proecognita I admit that mathematics seem to favour this method by their good success and you have given considerable support to this view But it is still doubtful whether it is not rather the ideas which were of service therein through their connection than two or three general maxims which were posited at the beginning A young lad knows that his body is greater than his little finger but not by virtue of this axiom that the whole is greater than its part Knowledge commenced by particular propositions but afterwards it was desired to relieve the memory by means of general notions from a cumbersome load of particular ideas If language were so imperfect that there were no relative terms whole and part could he not know that his body is larger than his little finger I at least give you the reasons of my author although I think I foresee what you will say thereto in conformity with what you have already said
Th I know not why you bear the maxims such ill will as to attack them yet again if they serve to relieve the memory of a multitude of particular ideas as you admit they must be very useful although they had no other use But I add that they do not spring from particular ideas for they are not found by induction from examples He who knows that ten is more than nine that the body is larger than the finger and that the house is too large to be able to run away with the door knows each one of these particular propositions by one and the same general reason which is as it were incorporated therein and illuminated just as we see designs adorned with colours in which the proportion and configuration consists properly in the outlines whatever the colour may be Now this common reason is the axiom itself which is known so to speak implicitly although it does not exist at first in an abstract and separate manner The examples derive their truth from the incorporated axiom and the axiom has not its ground in the examples And as this common reason of these particular truths exists in the minds of all men you see clearly that it is not necessary that the words whole and part be found in the language of him who is imbued therewith
Pit But is it not dangerous to authorize assumptions under the pretext of axioms One will assume with some of the ancients that all is matter another with Polemo that the world is God a third will assert that the sun is the principal divinity Judge what a religion we should have if that were allowed So true is it that it is dangerous to receive principles without questioning them especially if they concern morality For someone will expect another life like that of Aristippus who placed happiness in the pleasures of the body rather than like that of Antisthenes who maintained that virtue suffices to produce happiness And Archelaus who will lay it down as a principle that justice and injustice honesty and dishonesty are defined only by the laws and not by nature will no doubt have other measures of moral good and evil than those who admit obligations anterior to human constitutions It must be then that principles are certain But this certainty comes only from the comparison of ideas thus we have no need of other principles and according to this rule alone we shall advance much farther than by putting our minds at the disposal of another
Th I am astonished sir that you turn against maxims ie against evident principles that which can and must be said against principles assumed gratis When one demands proecognita in the sciences or anterior knowledge which serves to ground science he demands known principles and not arbitrary positions whose truth is not known and even Aristotle understands that the inferior and subaltern borrow their principles from other superior sciences in which they have been demonstrated except the first of the sciences which we call metaphysics which according to him asks nothing from the others and furnishes them the principles they need and when he says d irior€vuv Tov juivdavovTa the apprentice must believe his master his thought is that he must do it only while waiting while he is not yet instructed in the higher sciences so that it is only provisionally Thus we are very far from receiving gratuitous principles To this it must be added that even principles whose certainty is not complete may have their use if we build upon them only by demonstration for although all the conclusions in this case are conditional only and are valid only upon the supposition that this principle is true nevertheless this connection itself and these conditional enunciations would at least be demonstrated so that it were much to be desired that we had many books written in this way where there would be no danger of error the reader or disciple being warned of the condition And practice will be regulated by these conclusions only as the supposition shall be found verified elsewhere This method also serves very often itself to verify suppositions or hypotheses when many conclusions arise from them the truth of which is otherwise known and sometimes this gives a perfect proof retour sufficient to demonstrate the truth of the hypothesis Mr Conring a physician by profession but a clever man in every kind of learning except perhaps mathematics wrote a letter to a friend engaged in reprinting at Helmstadt the book of Viottus an esteemed Peripatetic philosopher who tried to explain the demonstration and Posterior Analytics of Aristotle This letter was appended to the book and in it Conring criticised Pappus when he said that analysis proposes to discover the unknown by assuming it and by reaching therefrom by inference known truths a method which is contrary to logic he said which teaches that from falsehood we cannot infer truths But I made known to him afterwards that analysis makes use of definitions and other reciprocal propositions which furnish means of making the proof retour and of discovering synthetic demonstrations And even when this proof is not demonstrative as in physics it is nevertheless sometimes highly probable when the hypothesis explains easily many phenomena difficult without it and very independent of one another I hold to the truth sir that the principle of principles is in a way the good use of ideas and of experience but by examining it thoroughly we shall find that as regards ideas it is nothing else than the union of definitions by means of identical axioms Nevertheless it is not always an easy thing to come to this ultimate analysis and whatever desire the geometers at least the ancient geometers have shown to succeed therein they have not yet been able to do so The celebrated author of The Essay on Human Understanding would give them much pleasure if he would complete this investigation a little more difficult than we think Euclid for example has put among the axioms one which amounts to saying that two straight lines can meet only once The image derived from the experience of the senses does not permit us to picture to ourselves more than one meeting of the two lines but it is not upon this that science must be founded And if any one believes that this image gives the connection of distinct ideas he is not sufficiently instructed concerning the source of truths and a multitude of propositions demonstrable by others anterior would pass with him as immediate Many of those who have criticised Euclid have not sufficiently considered this these kinds of images are only confused ideas and he who knows the straight lines only by this means will not be capable of demonstrating anything Euclid therefore for want of a distinctly expressed idea ie a definition of a straight line for that which he gives meanwhile is obscure and of no use to him in his demonstrations was obliged to return to two axioms which for him took the place of definitions and which he employed in his demonstrations the one that two straight lines have no common part the other that they enclose no space Archimedes has given a kind of definition of the straight line in saying that it is the shortest line between two points But he tacitly assumes by employing in his demonstrations elements like those of Euclid based upon the two axioms I have just mentioned that the properties affections of which these axioms speak accord with the line which he defines Thus if you believe with your friends under the pretext of the agreement or disagreement of ideas that what these images tell us was allowed and is still to be received in geometry without seeking that strictness of demonstration by means of definitions and axioms which the ancients demanded in this science as I believe many people will believe for lack of information I will admit sir that you may be contented as regards those who trouble themselves only about practical geometry such as it is but not as regards those who desire to have the science which serves indeed to perfect the practical And if the ancients had been of this opinion and had relaxed their efforts on this point I think they would have made but little advance and would have left us only an empirical geometry such as that of the Egyptians apparently was and such as that of the Chinese seems still to be this would have deprived us of the most worthful physical and mechanical knowledge which geometry has caused us to discover and which is unknown wherever our geometry is unknown It is also apparent that in following the senses and their images we should fall into errors much the same as we see that all those who are not instructed in exact geometry receive as an indubitable truth upon trust in their imagination that two lines continually approaching each other must finally meet while geometers give contrary instances in the case of certain lines called asymptotes But besides this we should be deprived of what I value most highly in geometry as related to reflection viz permitting us to catch a glimpse of the true source of eternal truths and of the means of making us comprehend their necessity a matter which the confused ideas of the senseimages could not show us distinctly You will say to me that Euclid was obliged however to confine himself to certain axioms whose evidence is seen only confusedly by means of the images I agree with you that he has limited himself to these axioms but it was better for him to limit himself to a small number of truths of this nature which appeared to him the simplest and to deduce from them the others which another less exact would also have taken as certain without demonstration than to leave many of them undemonstrated and what is worse to allow people the liberty of extending their laxity according to their fancy You see then sir that what you and your friends have said regarding the connection of ideas as the true source of truths needs explication If you are willing to content yourself with the confused sight of this connection you weaken the exactness of demonstrations and Euclid has done incomparably better in reducing all to definitions and to a small number of axioms Yet if you wish this connection of ideas to be distinctly seen and expressed you will be obliged to recur to definitions and identical axioms as I claim and sometimes you will be obliged to content yourself with some axioms less primitive as Euclid and Archimedes have done when you find difficulty in attaining a perfect analysis and you will do better in that way than to neglect or defer some fortunate discoveries which you can already make by their means as in fact I have already said to you at another time sir that I believe we should not have a geometry I mean a demonstrative science if the ancients had not been willing to advance until they had demonstrated the axioms they were obliged to employ
Ph I begin to understand what a distinctly known connection of ideas is and I see clearly that in this sense axioms are necessary I see clearly also how necessary it is that the method we follow in our researches when the question is that of the examination of ideas be regulated by the example of the mathematicians who from certain very clear and easy beginnings which are nothing else than the axioms and definitions proceed by small degrees and a continual chain of reasoning to the discovery and demonstration of truths that appear at first beyond human capacity The art of finding proofs and these admirable methods they have invented for separating and putting in order mediate ideas is what has produced such wonderful and unexpected discoveries But whether with time a similar method may not be found out useful in respect to other ideas as well as those belonging to magnitude is a question I will not determine At least if other ideas were examined according to the ordinary method of the mathematicians they would lead our thoughts farther than we are perhaps led to imagine And this might be done particularly in the case of morality as I have more than once said
Th I believe you are right sir and I have been disposed for a long time to make it my business to accomplish your predictions
Ph In regard to the knowledge of bodies we are compelled to take a directly contrary path for having no ideas of their real essences we are obliged to recur to experience But I do not deny that a man accustomed to making rational and regular experiments is capable of forming juster conjectures regarding their still unknown properties than another not so accustomed but it is judgment and opinion not knowledge and certainty This makes me think that physics is incapable of becoming a science in our hands But experiments and historical observations may be of use to us as regards the health of our bodies and the conveniences of life Th I admit that physics as a whole will never be a perfect science among us but we shall not cease to be able to have some physical science and indeed we have already some specimens of it For example magnetology may pass for such a science for making a few suppositions based upon experience we can demonstrate from them by a certain inference a number of phenomena which really occur as we see that reason declares We ought not to hope to give a reason for all experiments as indeed the geometers have not yet proved all their axioms but just as they are satisfied to deduce a large number of theorems from a small number of principles of the reason so is it sufficient that the physicists by means of certain principles of experience give a reason for a multitude of phenomena and can indeed prove them in practice
Ph Since then our faculties are not fitted to make us discern the internal fabric of bodies we must consider that it is enough that they discover to us the existence of God and a sufficiently extended knowledge of ourselves to instruct us in our duties and in our greatest interests particularly as related to eternity And I think I am right in inferring therefrom that morality is the proper science and the important business of mankind in general as on the other hand the different arts which are conversant about different parts of nature are the lot of particular men It may be said for example that ignorance of the use of iron is a reason in the countries of America where nature has spread abroad abundantly all kinds of goods for the lack of the greatest part of the conveniences of life Thus very far from despising the science of nature I hold that if this study is directed as it ought to be it may be of greater use to the human race than all that has been done up o this time and he who invented printing who discovered he use of the compass and who made known the virtue of quinquina has contributed more to the propagation of knowledge and to the advancement of the useful conveniences of if and has saved more people from the grave than the Founders of colleges and hospitals and other monuments of the most exemplary charity which have been built at great expense
Th You could say nothing sir more to my liking True morality or piety very far from favouring the inactivity of certain idle quietists must impel us to cultivate the arts And as I said not long since a better police would be able to bring us someday a much better medical science than that we have at present We cannot preach this doctrine enough next to the care for virtue
Ph Although I recommend experiments I do not despise probable hypotheses They may lead us to new discoveries and are at least a great aid to the memory But our mind has a great tendency to go too fast and to be satisfied with certain superficial appearances for lack of taking the necessary time and trouble to apply them to a multitude of phenomena
Th The art of discovering the causes of phenomena or true hypotheses is like the art of deciphering in which an ingenious conjecture often greatly shortens the road Lord Bacon began to put the art of experimenting into precepts and Chevalier Boyle had a great talent for practising it But if the art of employing experiments and of drawing consequences therefrom is not joined with it we shall never with the utmost cost attain to what a man of great penetration might discover at first sight Descartes assuredly such a man has made a similar remark in one of his letters regarding the method of the Chancellor of England and Spinoza whom I do not hesitate to quote when he says a good thing in one of his letters to the late Mr Oldenburg Secretary of the Royal Society of England printed among the posthumous works of this subtle Jew makes a similar reflection upon a work of Boyle who to speak the truth stops a little too much to draw from a great number of fine experiments no other conclusion than this which he might take as a principle viz that everything in nature takes place mechanically a principle which can be rendered certain by reason alone and never by experiments whatever their number
Ph After having established clear and distinct ideas with fixed names the great means of extending our knowledge is the art of finding mediate ideas which can show us the connection or incompatibility of the extreme ideas The maxims at least are of no avail in furnishing them Suppose a man has not an exact idea of a right angle he will vainly torment himself in demonstrating something about the right angled triangle and whatever maxims he employs he will have difficulty in attaining by their aid the proof that the first squares of the sides enclosing the right angle are equal to the square on the hypotenuse A man might ruminate upon these axioms a long time without ever seeing more clearly into mathematics
Th It is of no avail to ruminate upon the axioms without having something to which to apply them Axioms often serve to connect ideas as for example this maxim that similar extensions of the second and third dimensions are in reason double and triple the corresponding extensions of the first dimension is of very great use and the quadrature for example of the lune of Hippocrates springs from it at once in the case of the circles by uniting therewith the application of these two figures the one to the other when their given position furnishes the opportunity for so doing as their known comparison promises light thereupon
Ph It will be perhaps further appropriate to add that our knowledge has a close relation to our sight in this as well as in other things that it is neither wholly necessary nor wholly voluntary We cannot fail to see when our eyes are open to the light but we can turn them towards certain objects and consider them with more or less application Thus when the faculty is once applied it does not depend upon the will to determine the knowledge no more than a man can prevent himself from seeing what he sees But he must employ his faculties as it is necessary in order to inform himself
Th We have spoken before of this point and established the fact that it does not depend upon man to have this or that opinion in the present state but it depends upon him to prepare himself to have it or not to have it eventually and that thus opinions are voluntary only in an indirect manner
Ph Man would be found without direction in the greater part of the arts of his life if he had nothing to conduct him from the point where certain knowledge fails him He must often be contented with a simple twilight of probability The faculty of using this is judgment One is contented with it often of necessity but often through want of diligence patience and skill It is called assent or dissent and is employed when anything is presumed ie when it is taken as true before it is proved When this is done conformably to the reality of things it is a right judgment
Th Others call judgment the act which is performed every time a statement is made after some knowledge of a cause; and there will be some also who will distinguish judgment from opinion as not of necessity being so uncertain But I do not wish to criticise any one regarding the use of words and it is allowed you sir to take judgment as a probable opinion As for presumption which is a term of the jurisconsults good use with them distinguishes it from conjecture It is something more something which must pass for truth provisionally until there is proof of the contrary while a sign a conjecture must often be weighed against another conjecture Thus it is that he who admits having borrowed money from another is presumed to pay the debt unless he shows that he had done so already or that the debt ceases by some other principle Presumption is not then in this sense taking before proof which is not allowed but taking in advance but with foundation while awaiting a contrary proof
Ph If demonstration shows the connection of ideas probability is nothing else than the appearance of this connection based upon proofs in which immutable connection is not seen There are several degrees of assent from assurance down to conjecture doubt distrust When there is certainty there is intuition in all parts of the reasoning which show its connection but what makes me believe is something extraneous Now probability is grounded in its conformity with what we know or in the testimony of those who know
Th I prefer to maintain that it is always grounded in likelihood vraisemblance or in conformity with the truth and the testimony of another is also a thing which the truth has been wont to have for itself as regards the facts that are within reach It may be said then that the similarity of the probable and the truth is taken either from the thing itself or from some extraneous thing The rhetoricians employ two kinds of arguments the artificial drawn from things by reasoning and the nonartificial based only upon the express testimony either of man or perhaps also of the thing itself But there are mixed arguments also for testimony may itself furnish a fact which serves to form an artificial argument
Ph It is for lack of similarity to truth that we do not readily believe that which has nothing like that which we know Thus when an ambassador told the king of Siam that with us the water was so hardened in winter that an elephant might walk thereon without breaking through the king said to him Hitherto I have believed you as a man of good faith now I see that you lie C But if the testimony of others can render a fact probable the opinion of others should not pass of itself as a true ground of probability For there is more error than knowledge among men and if the belief of those whom we know and esteem is a legitimate ground of assent men have reason to be Heathen in Japan Mahometans in Turkey Papists in Spain Calvinists in Holland and Lutherans in Sweden
Th The testimony of men is no doubt of more weight than their opinion and in reason it is also the result of more reflection But you know that the judge sometimes makes them take the oath de credulitate as it is called that in the examinations we often ask witnesses not only what they have seen but also what they think demanding of them at the same time the reasons of their judgment and whether they have reflected thereupon to such an extent as behoves them Judges also defer much to the views and opinions of experts in each profession private individuals in proportion as it is inconvenient for them to present themselves at the appropriate examination are not less compelled to do this Thus a child or other human being whose condition is but little better in this respect is obliged whenever he finds himself in a certain situation to follow the religion of the country so long as he sees nothing bad therein and so long as he is not in a condition to find out whether there is a better A tutor of pages whatever his sect will compel them each to go to the church where those who profess the same belief as this young man go The discussions between Nicole and others on the argument from the great number in a matter of faith may be consulted in which sometimes one defers to it too much and another does not consider it enough There are other similar prejudgments by which men would very easily exempt themselves from discussion These are what Tertullian in a special treatise calls Prescriptiones availing himself of a term which the ancient jurisconsults whose language was not unknown to him intended for many kinds of exceptions or foreign and predisposing allegations but which now means merely the temporal prescription when it is intended to repel the demand of another because not made within the time fixed by law Thus there was reason for making known the legitimate prejudgments both on the side of the Roman Church and on that of the Protestants It has been found that there are means of opposing novelty for example on the part of both in certain respects as for example when the Protestants for the most part abandoned the ancient form of ordination of clergymen and the Romanists changed the ancient canon of the Old Testament books of Holy Scripture as I have clearly enough shown in a discussion I had in writing and from time to time with the bishop of Meaux whom we have just lost according to the news which came some days since Thus these censures being mutual the novelty although it presents a suspicion of error in these matters is not a certain proof thereof
Ph As for the degrees of assent we must take care that the grounds of probability we have do not operate beyond the degree of likelihood found therein or which has been found therein when they are examined For we must admit that assent cannot always be based upon an actual view of the reasons which have prevailed with the mind and it would be very difficult even for those who have an admirable memory always to retain all the proofs which have compelled them to a certain assent and which sometimes might fill a volume on a single question It suffices that they have once examined the matter minutely with sincerity and with care and that they have so to speak cast up the account Without this men must be very sceptical or change their view at every moment in order to yield themselves to every man who having examined the question of late offers them arguments which they cannot at once wholly answer for lack of memory or of application at leisure It must be admitted that this often makes men obstinate in error but the fault is not that they rely upon their memory but that they have badly judged before For often the remark that they have never thought otherwise takes the place of an examination and of reason with men But ordinarily those who have least examined their opinions hold them most tenaciously Holding to what one has seen is praiseworthy but not always to what one has believed because some consideration may have been left behind capable of overturning all There is perhaps no one in the world who has the leisure patience and means of assembling all the proofs on both sides of the question upon which he has his opinions in order to compare these proofs and safely to conclude that nothing more remains for him to know for his more ample instruction But the care of our life and of our more important interests cannot bear the delay and it is absolutely necessary that our judgment be determined upon the points when we are incapable of attaining to a certain knowledge
Th There is nothing but what is good and solid in what you sir have just said It would be desirable however for men to have at certain junctures written abstracts in form of memoranda of the reasons which have led them to an important opinion which they are obliged often to justify afterwards to themselves or others Besides although in a matter of justice it is not usually allowable to retract the judgments which have been passed and to revise the verdict agreed upon otherwise there would necessarily be perpetual unrest which would be so much the more intolerable as the accounts of things past cannot always be preserved yet one is sometimes allowed upon new light to sue for justice and also to obtain what is called restitutio in integrum contrary to the decision that has been given And likewise in our own affairs especially in matters very important where it is still allowable to embark or to put back and where it is not prejudicial to suspend their execution and to proceed bridle in hand the decisions of our minds based upon probabilities should never so pass in rem judicatama as the jurisconsults call it ie to a settlement that we may not be disposed to the revision of the reasoning when new counter reasons of weight present themselves But when there is no more time for deliberation we must follow the judgment we made with as much firmness as if it were infallible but not always with so much strictness
Ph Since then men cannot avoid exposing themselves to error in judgment and having different opinions since they cannot look at things from the same points of view they must maintain peace between themselves and the duties of humanity amid this diversity of opinions without claiming that another should promptly change a rooted opinion upon our objections especially if there is room for supposing that his adversary acts from interest or ambition or from some other private motive Most frequently those who would impose upon others the necessity of yielding to their opinions have examined things with but little thoroughness For those who have entered beforehand sufficiently into the discussion to extricate themselves from doubt are so few in number and find so little reason to condemn others that nothing violent is to be expected on their part
Th Really that which one has the most right to censure in men is not their opinion but their rash judgment in censuring that of others as if it were necessary to be stupid or wicked to judge differently from themselves a condition of things which in the authors of these passions and hatreds who spread them among the public is the effect of a mind haughty and unfair which loves to rule and cannot suffer contradiction Not that there is not in truth reason very often for censuring the opinions of others but it must be done in a spirit of fairness and sympathy with human weakness It is true that we are right in taking precautions against bad doctrines which are influential upon manners and upon practical piety but we must not attribute them to people to their prejudice without having good proofs of the same If fairness wishes to spare persons piety demands the representation where it is fitting of the bad effects of their dogmas when they are injurious as those are which are contrary to the providence of a perfectly wise good and just God and contrary to that immortality of souls which renders them susceptible of the effects of his justice not to speak of other opinions dangerous as regards morality and the police I know that excellent and wellmeaning men maintain that these theoretic opinions have less influence upon practice than is thought and I also know that there are persons of an excellent disposition whom these opinions will never make do anything unworthy of themselves as also those who have reached these errors by speculation are by nature wont to be farther removed from the vices to which men in general are susceptible besides the fact that they are careful of the dignity of the sect in which they are as it were chiefs and it may be said that Epicurus and Spinoza for example have led a life wholly exemplary But these reasons cease most frequently in their disciples or imitators who believing themselves released from the troublesome fear of an overseeing Providence and of a menacing future give loose reins to their brutish passions and turn their mind to the seduction and corruption of others and if they are ambitious and of a disposition somewhat harsh they will be capable for their pleasure or advancement of setting on fire the four corners of the earth as I have known from the character of some whom death has swept away I find also that similar opinions insinuating themselves little by little into the minds of men of high life who rule others and upon whom affairs depend and slipping into the books in fashion dispose all things to the general revolution with which Europe is threatened and accomplish the destruction of what still remains in the world of the generous sentiments of the ancient Greeks and Romans who preferred love of country and of the public good and regard for posterity to fortune and even to life These public spirits as the English call them are fast diminishing and are no longer in fashion and they will diminish still faster when they are no longer sustained by the good morality and true religion which even natural reason teaches us The best of the opposite character who are beginning to rule have no other principle than that they call honour But the mark of the honest man and of the man of honour with them is only to do no baseness as they understand it And if for the sake of power or through caprice anyone poured forth a deluge of blood if he turned every sense upside down that would be counted as nothing and a Herostratus l of the ancients or a Don Juan in the Festin de Pierre a would pass for a hero Boldly they scoff at the love of country they ridicule those who care for the public and when any wellmeaning man speaks of what will become of posterity they reply we shall see when the time comes But these persons will possibly experience themselves the evils they think reserved for others If however this disease of an epidemic mind whose bad effects begin to be visible is corrected these evils will perhaps be prevented but if it goes on increasing Providence will correct men by the revolution itself which must spring therefrom for whatever may happen everything will always turn out for the better in general at the end of the account although that ought not and cannot happen without the punishment of those who have contributed even to the good by their bad acts But I return from a digression into which the consideration of truthful opinions and of the right of censuring them has led me
Now as in theology censures go very much farther than elsewhere and as those who lay great stress upon their orthodoxy often condemn their adversaries to whom those in the same party who are called syncretists by their adversaries are opposed this opinion has caused civil wars to spring up between the rigid and condescending in one and the same party But as to refuse eternal salvation to those who are of another opinion is to encroach upon the rights of God the wisest of those who condemn only indicate the peril in which they think they see erring souls and leave to the peculiar mercy of God those whose wickedness does not render them incapable of profiting therefrom and on their part believe themselves obliged to make all imaginable efforts to withdraw them from a condition so dangerous If these persons who thus judge of the perils of others have come to this opinion after a suitable examination and there are no means of disabusing them of it their conduct cannot be censured so long as they use only fair means But as soon as they go farther they violate the laws of equity For they should consider that others persuaded like themselves have an equal right to maintain their views and even to spread them if they think them important Opinions must be excepted which teach crimes that should not be allowed and which it is right to suppress by stringent means if it should be true indeed that he who maintains them cannot be rid of them as it is right to destroy even a poisonous animal wholly innocent as it is But I speak of suppressing the sect and not men since we can prevent them from doing harm and dogmatising
Ph To return to the ground and degrees of assent it is proper to remark that propositions are of two kinds Some are of fact and depending upon observation may be based upon human testimony others are speculative and regarding things which our senses could not discover are incapable of similar testimony G When a particular fact is in conformity with our constant observations and with the uniform report of others we rest upon it as firmly as if it were certain knowledge and where it is in conformity with the testimony of all men in all ages so far as can be known it is the first and highest degree of probability for example that fire warms that iron sinks to the bottom of the water Our belief built upon such foundations rises to assurance In the second place all historians relate that such an one has preferred his individual interest to that of the public and as it has always been observed that this is the custom of the majority of men the assent I give to these histories is confidence Thirdly when there is nothing either for or against it in the nature of things a fact vouched for by the testimony of unsuspected people for example that Julius Caesar lived is received with a firm belief But when the testimony is found contrary to the ordinary course of nature or the witnesses vary among themselves the degrees of probability may vary infinitely whence arise these degrees which we call belief conjecture doubt uncertainty distrust and there it is that exactness is necessary to form a right judgment and to proportion our assent to the degrees of probability
Th Jurisconsults in treating of proofs presumptions conjectures and indices have said a number of good things on this subject and have gone into some considerable detail They begin with notoriety in which there is no need of proof Afterwards they come to complete proofs or those which pass as such upon which they pronounce sentence at least in a civil process but upon which in some places they are more reserved in a criminal process and they are not wrong in demanding in such case proofs more than complete and especially as regards what is called corpus delicti according to the nature of the act There are then proofs more than complete and there are also ordinary complete proofs Then there are presumptions which pass provisionally as complete proofs ie so long as the contrary is not proved There are proofs more than half complete to speak precisely in which the one who relies upon them is allowed to swear to make them good the juramentum suppletorium there are others less than half complete where wholly to the contrary the oath is administered to him who denies the act to purge himself the juramentum purgationis Beyond this there are many degrees of conjectures and indices Particularly in a criminal process there are indices ad torturam to proceed to the torture which itself has its degrees indicated by the formulas of arrest there are indices ad terrendum sufficient to show the instruments of torture and to prepare things as if they intended to come to it There are some ad capturam to make sure of a suspected man and ad inquirendum to make inquiries secretly and without noise And these differences may be of use also on other similar occasions The entire form of judicial procedure is nothing else in fact than a species of logic applied to questions of law Physicians also have a number of degrees and differences in their signs and indications which may be seen among them The mathematicians of our times have begun to calculate chances upon the occasion of games Chevalier de Mere whose Agremens and other works have been printed a man of penetrating mind who was both a player and a philosopher gave them an opportunity by forming questions regarding the profits in order to know how much the game would be worth if interrupted at such or such a stage In this way he induced Pascal his friend to examine these things a little The question made a stir and gave Huygens the opportunity to produce his treatise de Alea
Other learned men entered into the subject Some principles were established of which the Pensioner De Witt also availed himself in a brief discourse printed in Dutch on annuities1 The foundation on which they have built goes back to the proathaphatresix ie the taking of an arithmetical mean between several equally receivable suppositions Our peasants also have made use of it for a long time according to their natural mathematics For example when some inheritance or land is to be sold they form three bodies of appraisers these bodies are called Svhurzen in Low Saxon and each body makes an estimate of the property in question Suppose then that the first estimates its value to be 100 0 crowns the second 1400 the third 1500 the sum of these three estimates is taken viz 3000 and because there were three bodies the third ie 1300 is taken as the mean value asked for or rather they take the sum of the third part of each estimate which is the same thing This is the axiom aqualibus atqualia equal suppositions must have equal consideration But when the suppositions are unequal they compare them with each other Suppose for example that with two dice the one ought to win if it makes 7 points the other if it makes 9 the question is asked what proportion obtains between their probabilities of winning I reply that the probability of the last is worth only twothirds of the probability of the first for the first can make 7 in three ways with two dice viz by 1 and 6 or 2 and 5 or 3 and 4 and the other can make 9 in two ways only by throwing 3 and 6 or 4 and 5 and all these methods are equally possible Then the probabilities which are as the numbers of equal possibilities will be as 3 to 2 or as 1 to 1 I have more than once said that a new kind of logic would be required which would treat of the degrees of probability since Aristotle in his Topics has done nothing less than this and has contented himself with putting in a certain order certain popular rules distributed according to the common topics which may be of use on some occasion where the question concerns the amplification of the discourse and the giving to it probability without putting it to the trouble of furnishing vis a necessary balance for weighing probabilities and forming thereupon a solid judgment It would be well for him who should treat of this matter to pursue the examination of games of chance and in general I wish that some skilful mathematician would produce an ample work with full details and thoroughly reasoned upon all sorts of games which would be very useful in perfecting the art of invention the human mind appearing to better advantage in games than in the most serious matters
Ph The law of England observes this rule that the copy of an act received as authentic by witnesses is a good proof but the copy of a copy however attested and by witnesses the most credible is never admitted as a proof in a trial I have never yet heard any one censure this wise precaution This observation at least may be drawn from it that testimony has less force in proportion as it is farther removed from the original truth which is in the thing itself while among certain peoples use is made of it in a directly contrary manner opinions acquiring force as they grow older and what would not at all have appeared probable a thousand years ago to a reasonable man a contemporary of the one who first certified it passes at present as certain because many have related it upon his testimony
Th Historical critics have great regard for contemporary witnesses of things but a contemporary even merits belief chiefly as regards public events only but when he speaks of motives secrets hidden forces and things which may be disputed as for example poisonings assassinations we acquaint ourselves with what many have believed Procopius is very credible when he speaks of the war of Belisarius against the Vandals and the Goths but when he retails horrible scandals against the Empress Theodora in his Anecdotes he may believe them who will Generally we should be very reserved in believing satires we see some published in our times which although wholly improbable have nevertheless been greedily swallowed by the ignorant And some day perhaps it will be said Is it possible that one would have dared to publish these things at that time if there had been any apparent foundation for them But if this statement is someday made the judgment will be a very erroneous one The world however is inclined to indulge in satire and to quote but one example the late Mr Maurier the son having published from some caprice in his memoirs printed some years since certain things wholly without foundation against the incomparable Hugo Grotius ambassador from Sweden to France stirred apparently by some unknown circumstance against the memory of this illustrious friend of his father I have noticed that many authors have repeated them from envy although the negotiations and letters of this great man sufficiently make known the contrary We have emancipated ourselves indeed from writing romances in history and he who produced the last life of Cromwell thought that in order to enliven the subject he was allowed in speaking of the life still private of this clever usurper to make him travel in France where he follows him into the public houses of Paris as if he had
been his master But it appears by the history of Cromwell written by Carrington a wellinformed man and dedicated to his son Richard when he acted the part of the Protector that Cromwell never went out of the British Isles Detail especially is uncertain There are almost no good accounts of battles the majority of those of Titus Livius appear to be imaginary as well as those of Quintus Curtius It would be necessary to have on both sides the accounts of exact and capable men who indeed would draw up plans of them like those which the Count of Dahlberg who had already served with distinction under the King of Sweden Charles Gustavus and who being GovernorGeneral of Livonia recently defended Riga has had engraved touching the actions and battles of this prince We must not however at once decry a good historian at a word from some prince or minister who has exclaimed against him on some occasion or in regard to some subject not to his taste or wherein there really is perhaps some fault The story is told that Charles the Fifth wishing to have something of Sleidan read said Bring me my storyteller menteur and that Carlowitz a Saxon gentleman of good repute at that time said that the history of Ski dan destroyed in his mind all the good opinion he had had of the ancient histories That statement I say will have no force in the minds of wellinformed persons in overthrowing the authority of the history of Sleidan the best part of which is a series of the public acts of the Diets and Assemblies and of the writings authorized by the princes And if there remained the least scruple regarding it it has just been removed by the excellent history of my distinguished friend the late Mr Von Seckendorf in which I cannot however refrain from disapproving the term Lutheranism on the titlepage which a bad custom has authorized in Saxony wherein the majority of the statements are justified by extracts from an immense number of pieces drawn from the Saxon archives which he had at his disposal although the Bishop of Meaux who contested their validity and to whom I sent it merely replied to me that this book is horribly prolix but I could wish that it were twice as large on the same scale The more ample it is the more hold it must give since one has only to choose his passages besides there are some esteemed historical works which are much greater For the rest we do not always despise authors posterior to times of which they speak when what they relate is apparently otherwise Sometimes also it happens that they preserve some most ancient pieces For example there has been doubt as to what family Suibert Bishop of Bamberg since Pope under the name of Clement II belonged An anonymous author of the history of Brunswick who lived in the fourteenth century named his family and some persons learned in our history desired to pay no regard whatever to it but I have had a chronicle much more ancient not yet printed in which the same statement is made with more details from which it appears that he belonged to the family of the ancient allodial seigniors of Hornbourg not far from Wolfenbuttel the territory of which was given by the last owner to the cathedral church of Halberstadt
Ph I do not wish you to think that I desired to lessen the authority and use of history by my remark It is from this source that we receive with a convincing evidence a large part of our useful truths I see nothing more valuable than the records of antiquity remaining to us and I wish we had more of them and less corrupted But it is always true that no copy raises itself higher than the certainty of its first original
Th It is certain that when we have a single ancient author as the authority for a fact all those who have copied him add no weight thereto or rather should be reckoned as nothing It should be wholly as if what they said belonged to the number Thv m Xtyofievtov of things which have been said only once a collection of which Menage wished to make Moreover today if a hundred thousand petty writers should repeat the slanders of Bolsec for example a man of judgment would value it no more than the noise of goslings Jurisconsults hive written de fide historica but the subject merits a more exact research and some of them gentlemen have been too indulgent As for that which is of great antiquity some of the most noted facts are doubtful Clever people have doubted with reason whether Romulus was the first founder of the city of Rome There is dispute about the death of Cyrus and besides the discrepancy between Herodotus and Ctesias has spread doubt upon the history of the Assyrians Babylonians and Persians That of Nebuchadnezzar of Judith and even of the Ahasuerus of Esther suffer from great difficulties The Romans when speaking of the gold of Toulouse contradict the story of the defeat of the Gauls by Camillus Above all the particular and private history of peoples is without credit unless it is taken from very ancient originals and is sufficiently in conformity with public history This is why the stories told us of the ancient German Gallic British Scotch Polish and other kings pass with reason as fabulous and made up Trebeta son of Ninus founder of Treves Brutus ancestor of the Britons or Britains are as real as the Amadis The tales taken from certain storytellers which Trithemius Aventin and even Albinus and Sifrid Petri have taken the liberty to tell of the ancient princes of the Franks Boii Saxons Frisians and what Saxo Gramaticus and the Edda tell us of the remote antiquities of the north cannot have more authority than what Kadlubko the first Polish historian says of one of their kings a soninlaw of Julius Caesar But when the histories of different peoples agree in instances where there is no appearance that one has copied another it is a great sign of their truth Such is the accord of Herodotus with the history of the Old Testament in many things for example when he speaks of the battle of Megiddo between the king of Egypt and the Syrians of Palestine ie the Jews in which according to the testimony of the sacred history we have of the Hebrews King Josias was mortally wounded The consent of the Arabic Persian and Turkish historians with the Greeks Romans and other occidentals gives pleasure to those who seek for facts as also the testimony which the medals and superscriptions remaining from antiquity render to the books which have come down from the ancients to us and which are in reality copies of copies We must wait for what we shall yet learn of the history of China until we are in a better condition to judge of it and until it shall bear its credibility with itself The use of history consists principally in the pleasure there is in knowing origins in the justice rendered to the men who have deserved well of other men in the establishment of historical criticism and especially of sacred history which supports the foundations of revelation and putting also aside the genealogies and laws of princes and powers in the useful teachings which the examples furnish us I do not despise the thorough examination of antiquities even to the smallest trifles for sometimes the knowledge which the critics draw from them may be of use in more important matters I consent for example to the writing even of the entire history of clothing and of the tailors art from the garments of the Hebrew priests or if you please from the peltries which God gave to the first bride and bridegroom at their departure from Paradise to the topknots and furbelows of our time and to the union therewith of all that can be drawn from ancient sculptures and from paintings also made some centuries after I will furnish indeed if any one desires it the memoirs of a man of Augsburg of the past century who is described with all the clothes which he wore from his infancy up to the age of years I do not know who told me that the late Duke of Aumont a great connoisseur of fine antiquities had a similar curiosity This may perhaps be of use in distinguishing the legitimate monuments from those which are not so not to speak of other uses And since men are allowed to play they will still further be allowed to divert themselves with these kinds of work if their essential duties do not suffer thereby But I wish there might be some persons who would devote themselves preferably to drawing from history that which is more useful as the extraordinary examples of virtue remarks upon the conveniences of life stratagems of politics and of war And I wish that a kind of universal history were written which should indicate only such things and some few others of more consequence for sometimes one reads an extensive historical work learned wellwritten suited also to the end of the author and excellent of its kind but which contains little useful instruction by which I do not mean here simple morality with which the Theatrum vitae humanae and other such florileges are filled but skill and knowledge of which everybody would not think in case of need I wish also that an infinite number of things of this nature by which we might profit might be drawn from books of travel and be arranged according to the order of the subjects But it is astonishing that while so many useful things remain to be done men amuse themselves almost always with what is already done or with purely useless things or at least with what is the least important and I see little remedy therefor until the public is more concerned about them in more tranquil times
Ph Your digressions give pleasure and profit But from the probabilities of facts let us come to those of opinions concerning things which do not fall under the senses Such things are incapable of any testimony for example, the existence and nature of spirits angels demons etc the material substances which are in the planets and other mansions of this vast universe finally upon the mode of operation of the majority of the works of nature and of all these things we can have merely conjectures wherein analogy is the great rule of probability For being incapable of attestation they can appear probable only so far as they agree more or less with established truths As violent friction of two bodies produces heat and even tire as the refractions of transparent bodies produce the appearance of colours we think that fire consists in a violent agitation of the imperceptible parts and that colours also whose origin we do not see come from a similar refraction and finding that there is a gradual connection in all the parts of the creation that may be subject to human observation without any considerable gap between any two we have every reason to think that things rise also towards perfection gradually and by insensible degrees It is difficult to say where the sensible and the rational begin and what is the lowest degree of living things it is like the increase or diminution of quantity in a regular cone The difference is exceeding great between certain men and certain animals but if we wish to compare the understanding and capacity of certain men and certain brutes we shall find so little difference that it will be very difficult to assert that the understanding of these men is clearer or more extended than that of these brutes When therefore we observe such an insensible gradation between the parts of creation from man to the lowest parts beneath him the rule of analogy makes us regard it as probable that there is a parallel gradation in the things above us and beyond the sphere of our observation and this kind of probability is the broad foundation of rational hypotheses
Th It is upon the ground of this analogy that Huygens in his Cosmotheoros judges that the condition of the other principal planets is quite similar to ours excepting the difference which their different distance from the sun must cause and Fontenelle who had already before published his conversations full of wit and knowledge on the plurality of worlds has said some pretty things thereupon and has discovered the art of enlivening a difficult subject He would say as it were that a harlequin in the empire of the moon is altogether what it is here It is true that we judge in a wholly different way of moons which are satellites merely than of the principal planets Kepler has left a little book which contains an ingenious story upon the condition of the moon and an Englishman an homme dCeaprit has published the humorous description of a Spaniard of his own invention whom some birds of passage transported to the moon not to mention Cyrano who since went to find this Spaniard Some clever men wishing to present a beautiful picture of the other life conduct very happy souls from world to world and our imagination finds therein a part of the agreeable occupations which may be ascribed to genii But however it may strive I doubt if it can attain its object because of the great interval between us and these genii and the great variety found therein And until we find telescopes like those Descartes made us hope for in order to discern parts of the moons sphere no larger than our houses we cannot determine what there is in a globe different from ours Our conjectures will be more useful and more true upon the internal parts of our bodies I hope that we shall go beyond conjecture on many occasions and I already now believe that at least the violent agitation of the parts of the fire of which you just spoke should not be reckoned among the things which are only probable It is a pity that the hypothesis of Descartes regarding the constitution contexture of the parts of the visible universe has been so little confirmed by the researches and discoveries since made or that Descartes did not live fifty years later to give us an hypothesis upon the basis of present knowledge as ingenious as the one he gave upon the basis of the knowledge of his time As for the gradual connection of species we have said something concerning it in a preceding conference in which I remarked that philosophers had already reasoned upon the vacuum in the forms or species Everything goes by degrees in nature and nothing by leaps and this rule regarding changes is a part of my law of continuity But the beauty of nature which desires distinct perceptions demands the appearance of leaps and so to speak musical cadences in phenomena and takes pleasure in mixing the species Thus although there may be in some other world mediate species between man and beast according as we understand these words and although there may be somewhere rational animals surpassing us nature has found it good to keep them away from us in order to give us without contradiction the superiority we have in our globe I speak of mediate species and I should not wish to regulate myself here by human individuals who approach the brutes because apparently this is not a defect of faculty but a hindrance to its exercise so that I think that the most stupid of men who is not in a condition contrary to nature by reason of some disease or some other permanent defect taking the place of the disease is incomparably more rational and more docile than the most spiritual of all the beasts although the contrary is sometimes said by way of a witticism For the rest I strongly approve the search for analogies plants insects and the comparative anatomy of animals will furnish them more and more especially if we continue to avail ourselves of the microscope still more than we have done And in matters more general you will find that my views concerning the Monads diffused everywhere their unending duration the conservation of the animal with the soul the perceptions undistinguished in a certain condition such as the death of simple animals the bodies which it is rational to attribute to genii the harmony of souls and bodies which causes each to follow perfectly its own laws without being disturbed by the other and without the necessity of distinguishing therein the voluntary or the involuntary you will find I say that all these views are entirely conformed to the analogy of the things which we observe and which I merely extend beyond our observations without limiting them to certain portions of matter or to certain kinds of actions and that the only difference therein is from the great to the small from the sensible to the insensible
Ph Yet there is one case where we defer less to the analogy of natural things which experience has made known to us than to the contrary testimony of a strange fact which is far from it For when supernatural events are conformed to the ends of him who has the power to change the course of nature we have no reason for refusing to believe them when well attested and this is the case of miracles which find not only belief for themselves but give it also to other truths which need such confirmation Finally there is a testimony which outweighs all other assent viz revelation ie the testimony of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived and the assent we give to it is called faith which excludes all doubt as perfectly as the most certain knowledge But the point is to be assured that the revelation is divine and to know that we understand its real sense otherwise we are exposed to fanaticism and the errors of a false interpretation And when the existence and the sense of revelation is only probable the assent cannot have a greater probability than that found in the proofs But we shall speak of this still farther
Th Theologians distinguish between the motives of credibility as they call them together with the natural assent which must spring from them and which cannot have more probability than these motives and the supernatural assent which is an effect of the divine grace Books have been written expressly on the Analysis of Faith which do not altogether agree among themselves but since we shall speak of this in the sequel I do not wish to anticipate here what we shall have to say in its place
Ph Before speaking distinctly of faith we shall treat of reason It signifies sometimes clear and true principles sometimes conclusions deduced from these principles and sometimes the cause and particularly the final cause Here we consider it as a faculty by which man is supposed to be distinguished from the beasts and in which it is evident that he much surpasses them We need it both to extend our knowledge and to regulate our opinion and it constitutes properly understood two faculties sagacity for the discovery of mediate ideas and the faculty of drawing conclusions or inference We may consider in reason these four degrees the discovery of proofs their orderly arrangement showing their connection the perception of the connection in each part of the deduction the drawing of the conclusion We may observe these degrees in mathematical demonstrations
Th The reason is the known truth whose connection with another less known makes us give our assent to the latter But in particular and preeminently we call it reason if it is the cause not only of our judgment but also of the truth itself
which we also call reason a priori and the cause in things corresponds to the reason in truths This is why cause indeed is often called reason and particularly final cause Finally the faculty which perceives this connection of truths or the faculty of reasoning is also called reason and this is the sense you employ here Now this faculty is really affected by man alone here below and does not appear in other animals here below for I have already shown above that the shadow of reason seen in the beasts is only the expectation of a similar event in a case apparently similar to the past without knowing whether the same reason holds good Men themselves act no differently in the cases where they are only empirical But they raise themselves above the beasts in so far as they see the connections of truths the connections I say which themselves indeed constitute the necessary and universal truths These connections are indeed necessary although they produce only an opinion when after an exact research the prevalence of probability so far as may be judged may be demonstrated so that then there is demonstration not of the truth of the thing but of the side prudence requires us to take In dividing this faculty of reason I think we do no wrong in recognizing two parts according to a sufficiently received opinion which distinguishes invention and judgment As for the four degrees which you remark in mathematical demonstrations I find that usually the first viz the discovery of proofs does not appear therein as is to be desired There are syntheses found sometimes without analysis and sometimes the analysis has been suppressed Geometers in their demonstrations put first the proposition which is to be proved and in order to come to the demonstration they set forth by some figure what is given This is called ecthesis After this they come to the preparation and draw new lines which they need in the reasoning and often the greatest art consists in finding this preparation This done they construct the reasoning itself by drawing inferences from what was given in the ecthesis and from what has been added thereto by the preparation and employing for this purpose truths already known or demonstrated they reach the conclusion But there are cases where they dispense with the ecthesis and the preparation
Ph It is generally believed that the syllogism is the great instrument of reason and the best means of making use of this faculty For myself I doubt it for it serves only to show the connection of proofs in one single example and no more but the mind sees the connection as easily and perhaps better without it Those who know how to use the figures and the moods most frequently take their use for granted by an implicit faith in their masters without understanding their reason If the syllogism is necessary no one knew anything whatever by reason before its invention and it will be necessary to say that God having made man a twolegged creature left it to Aristotle to make him a rational animal I mean from that small number of men that he could induce to examine the grounds of syllogisms where among more than sixty ways of forming the three propositions there are only about fourteen of them valid But God has been much kinder to men he has given them a mind capable of reasoning I do not say this to lower Aristotle whom I regard as one of the greatest men of antiquity whom few have equalled in extent subtility penetration of mind and strength of judgment and who by the very fact that he has invented this brief system of the forms of argumentation has rendered a great service to savants against those who are not ashamed to deny everything But yet these forms are not the only nor the best means of reasoning and Aristotle did not find them by means of the forms themselves but by the original way of the manifest agreement of ideas and the knowledge acquired of them in the natural order in mathematical demonstrations appears better without the aid of any syllogism To infer is to draw a proposition as true from another already advanced as true by supposing a certain connection of mediate ideas for example from the proposition that men will be punished in another world we infer that they can determine themselves here Here is the connection Men will be punished and God is the one who punishes therefore punishment is just therefore the punished is guilty therefore lie could have done otherwise therefore he is free therefore finally he has the power of selfdetermination The connection is seen better here than if there were five or six involved syllogisms in which the ideas would be transposed repeated and enshrined in artificial forms The question is to know what connection a mediate idea has with the extremes in a syllogism but this is what no syllogism can show It is the mind which can perceive these ideas so placed by a kind of juxtaposition and that too by its own view Of what use then is the syllogism It is of use in the schools where men are not ashamed to deny the agreement of ideas which plainly agree Whence it comes that men never make syllogisms in their own inquiries after truth or in their teaching of those who sincerely desire to know it It is quite plain also that this order is the more natural —
man — animal — alive
ie man is an animal an animal is alive therefore man is alive than that of the syllogism —
animal — alive man — animal man — alive
ie the animal is alive man is an animal therefore man is alive It is true that syllogisms may be of use in discovering a fallacy concealed under the brilliant splendour of an ornament borrowed from rhetoric and I had sometimes thought that the syllogism was necessary at least to guard against sophisms disguised under florid discourse but after a more severe examination I have found that we have only to distinguish the ideas upon which the conclusion depends from those which are superfluous and to arrange them in a natural order to show their incoherence I knew a man to whom the rules of the syllogism were wholly unknown who perceived at once the weakness and false reasoning of a long artificial and plausible discourse with which others better skilled in all the finesse of logic suffered themselves to be entrapped and I believe that there will be few of my readers who do not know such persons If that were not so princes in matters relating to their crown and dignity would not fail to introduce syllogisms into the most important discussions where however everybody believes it would be a ridiculous thing to make use of them In Asia Africa and America among peoples independent of the Europeans scarcely any one has ever been heard to speak of them Finally it is found after all that these scholastic forms are not less liable to error people also are rarely reduced to silence by this scholastic method and still more rarely convinced and won They will recognize at most that their adversary is more adroit but they do not cease to be persuaded of the justice of their cause And if fallacies may be involved in the syllogism the fallacy must be discovered by some other means than that of the syllogism Yet I am not of the “opinion that syllogisms are to be rejected or that we are to deprive ourselves of any means capable of aiding the understanding There are eyes which need spectacles but those who use them should not say that no one can see well without spectacles This would be lowering nature in favour of an art to which they are perhaps debtors Unless it may have happened to them wholly contrary to the experience of persons who have availed themselves too much or Too soon of spectacles so that they have so thoroughly obscured their sight by means of them that they are no longer able to see without their aid
Th Your reasoning on the little use of syllogisms is full of a number of solid and fine remarks and it must be admitted that the scholastic form of syllogisms is little employed in the world and that it would be too long and perplexing if one desired to employ ‘it seriously And yet would you believe it I consider the invention of the form of syllogisms one of the most beautiful and also one of the most important made by the human mind It is a species of universal mathematics whose importance is not sufficiently known and it may be said that an infallible art is therein contained provided we know and can use it which is not always allowed Now you must know that by arguments in form I mean not merely this scholastic mode of argument used in colleges but all reasoning which concludes by the force of the form and in which there is no need of supplying anything so that a sorites another syllogistic series which avoids repetition even an account well drawn up and algebraic calculation an infinitesimal analysis will be for me almost arguments in form because their form of reasoning has been predemonstrated so that we are certain not to be deceived thereby The demonstrations of Euclid most frequently come near being arguments in form for when he apparently produces enthymemes the proposition suppressed and seemingly lacking is supplied by the citation on the margin where is given the means of finding it already demonstrated this gives a great abstract without taking anything from its force These inversions compositions and divisions of reasons which he makes use of are only the species of forms of argumentation peculiar and characteristic of the mathematicians and to the matter they treat and they demonstrate these forms with the aid of the universal forms of logic Further you must know that there are good asyllogistic conclusions which also cannot be rigorously demonstrated by any syllogism without changing somewhat its terms and this change itself of terms makes the conclusion asyllogistic Thereare several of these as among others a recto ad obliquum for example Jesus Christ is God therefore the mother of Jesus Christ is the mother of God Again that which clever logicians have called inversion of relation as for example this conclusion if David is the father of Solomon without doubt Solomon is the son of David These conclusions do not cease to be demonstrable by the truths on which the common syllogisms themselves depend Syllogisms also are not merely categorical but also hypothetical in which are comprised the disjunctives And we may say that the categorical are simple or complex The simple categoricals are those which are usually reckoned ie according to the moods of the figures and I have found that the four figures have each six moods so that there are twentyfour moods in all The four common moods of the first figure are only the result of the meaning of the signs All No Some And the two which I add to them in order to omit nothing are only the subalterns of the universal propositions For of these two ordinary moods All B is C and all A is B therefore all A is C again No B is C All A is B then no A is C we make these two additional moods All B is C All A is B then some A is C again No B is C All A is B then some A is not C For it is not necessary to demonstrate the subaltern and to prove its conclusions All A is C then some A is C again No A is C then some A is not C although we may however demonstrate it by the identicals joined with the moods already received of the first figure in this way All A is C Some A is A then some A is C again No A is C Some A is A then some A is not C So that the two additional moods of the first figure are demonstrated by the first two ordinary moods of the said figure with the intervention of the subaltern itself demonstrable by the other two moods of the same figure In the same way the second figure receives also two new ones Thus the first and the second have six the third has had six always the fourth was given five but it is found to have six also by the same principle of addition But we must know that logical form does not bind us to this order of propositions which we commonly use and I am of your opinion sir that this other arrangement is superior in value All A is B All B is C therefore all A is C which would be particularly by the sorites which are a chain of such syllogisms For if there were one more of them All A is C All C is D therefore all A is D we may make a chain of these two syllogisms which avoids the repetition by saying All A is B All B is C All C is D therefore all A is D wherein we see that the useless proposition All A is C is neglected and the useless repetition of this same proposition which the two syllogisms would demand is avoided for this proposition is henceforth useless and the chain is an argument perfect and in good form without this same proposition when the force of the chain of reasoning has once for all been demonstrated by means of these two syllogisms There is an infinite number of other chains of reasoning more complex not only because a greater number of simple syllogisms enter therein but also because the ingredient syllogisms exhibit greater differences among themselves for there may be made to enter into them not only simple categoricals but also copulatives and not only categoricals but also hypothetical and not only complete syllogisms but also enthymemes wherein the propositions believed evident are suppressed And all this joined with the asyllogistic conclusions and with the transpositions of the propositions and with a multitude of turns and thoughts which conceal these propositions through the natural inclination of the mind.to abridge and by the properties of language appearing in part in the employment of the particles will make a chain of reasoning which will represent the entire argumentation indeed of an orator but emaciated and stripped of its ornaments and reduced to logical form not scholastically but always sufficiently to recognize its force according to the laws of logic which are none else than those of good sense placed in order and in writing and which differ no more than the custom of a province differs from what it had been when from unwritten as it was it has become written except that being put in writing and being capable of being better seen at once it furnishes more light to enable it to be pushed and applied for natural good sense without the aid of art making the analysis of certain reasoning will sometimes be a little in trouble regarding the force of conclusions finding some for example which include some mood valid for truth but less ordinarily used But a logician who wished us not to make use of such series or wished not to make use of them himself claiming that we must always reduce all the complex arguments to the simple syllogisms on which in fact they depend would be according to what I have already said to you like a man who wished to compel the merchants of whom he buys something to count for him the numbers one by one as we count on the fingers or as we count the hours of the townclock a procedure which would indicate his stupidity if he could not count otherwise or if he could discover only at his fingers ends that five and three make eight or rather it would indicate a caprice if he knew these short methods and did not wish to use them or to allow us to use them He would be also like a man who wished us not to employ axioms and theorems already demonstrated claiming that we must always reduce all reasoning to first principles in which is seen the immediate connection of the ideas upon which in reality these mediate theorems depend
After having explained the use of the forms of logic in the way in which I think it should be understood I come to your considerations and I do not see as you wish sir that the syllogism serves merely to exhibit the connection of proofs in a single example To say that the mind always sees easily the conclusions is a statement which will not be found true for we sometimes see some at least in the reasonings of another where there is room for doubt at first so long as their demonstration is not seen Ordinarily we use examples to justify conclusions but this method is not always sufficiently sure although there is an art of choosing examples which would not be found true if the conclusions were not valid I do not believe it would be permitted in wellgoverned schools to deny without any shame the manifest agreement of ideas and it does not appear to me that we employ the syllogism to show them At least this is not its unique and principal use You will find oftener than you think in examining the paralogisms of authors that they have sinned against the rules of logic and I have myself found by experience sometimes in discussion even by writing with persons of good faith that we began to be understood only when we argued in form in order to disentangle a chaos of reasonings It would without doubt be ridiculous to wish to argue after the scholastic fashion in important deliberations because of the importunate and embarrassing prolixities of this form of reasoning and because it is like counting on the fingers But yet it is only too true that in the most important deliberations regarding life the state salvation men allow themselves to be dazzled often by the weight of authority by the gleam of eloquence by examples badly applied by enthymemes falsely supposing the evidence of that which they suppress and even by faulty conclusions so that a severe logic but of another turn than that of the School would be only too necessary for them among other things to determine upon which side is the greatest probability For the rest the fact that the common herd of men ignore artificial logic and that they do not cease thereby to reason well and sometimes better than the class practised in logic this fact proves not its inutility any more than it would prove the inutility of artificial arithmetic because we see that some persons count well on ordinary occasions without having learned to read or write and without knowing how to handle the pen or the tokens as far as to rectify the errors of another who has learned to calculate but who may be neglectful or confused in the characters and signs It is true that syllogisms also may become sophistical but their own laws serve to recognize them and syllogisms do not convert or indeed conquer always but this is because the abuse of distinctions and of badly understood terms renders their use prolix until it becomes insupportable if it must be driven to extremities
It remains for me here only to consider and to supplement your argument employed as an example of clear reasoning without the form of the logicians God punishes man an assumed fact God punishes justly the one he punishes a truth of reason which may be regarded as demonstrated therefore God punishes man justly a syllogistic conclusion extended asyllogistically a recto ad obliquum therefore man is justly punished an inversion of relation but which is set aside because of its evidence therefore man is guilty an enthymeme in which is suppressed this proposition which in reality is only a definition he who is punished justly is guilty therefore man could have done differently a suppression of this proposition he who is guilty could have done differently therefore man was free a further suppression he who could have done differently was free therefore by the definition of freedom he had the power of selfdetermination which was to be proved Regarding which I remark further that this therefore itself includes in reality both the unexpressed proposition that he who is free has the power of selfdetermination and is useful in avoiding the repetition of terms And in this sense nothing would be omitted and the argument in this view might pass as complete You see that this reasoning is a series of syllogisms entirely in accord with logic for I do not now wish to consider the matter of this reasoning wherein there might perhaps be some remarks to make or some explanations to demand For example when a man cannot do differently there are some cases in which he might be guilty before God as if he were very glad to be unable to aid his neighbour in order to have an excuse To conclude I admit that the scholastic form of arguing is ordinarily inconvenient insufficient badly managed but I say at the same time that nothing would be more important than the art of arguing in form according to true logic ie fully as to matter and clearly as to the order and force of the conclusions whether selfevident or predemonstrated
Ph I thought that the syllogism would be still less useful or rather of absolutely no use in probabilities because it pushes only a single topical argument But I see now that it must always furnish solid proof of what is certain in the topical argument itself ie the probability therein found and that the force of the conclusion consists in the form. But if syllogisms serve only in judging I doubt whether they are capable of use in invention ie in finding proofs and making new discoveries For example I do not think that the discovery of the proposition of the first book of Euclid is due to the rules of ordinary logic for we first know it and then are able to prove it in syllogistic form
Th Comprising under syllogisms also the series of syllogisms and everything which I call formal argumentation we may say that knowledge not selfevident is acquired by inferences which are valid only when they have their due form In the demonstration of the said proposition which makes the square of the hypotenuse equal to the squares of the two sides we divide the large square into parts and likewise the two small ones and we find that the parts of the two small squares may all be found in the large one and neither more nor less This is the proof of equality in form and the equality of the parts is also proved by arguments in valid form The analysis of the ancients was according to Pappus to take what is asked and to draw therefrom conclusions until they come to something given or known I have remarked that for this result the proposition must be reciprocal in order that the synthetic demonstration may return in the contrary direction by the paths of analysis but it is always a drawing of conclusions It is well however to remark here that in astronomical or physical hypotheses the return does not take place but in like manner success does not demonstrate the truth of the hypothesis It is true it renders it probable but as this probability appears to violate the rule of logic which teaches that the true may be drawn from the false it will be said that logical rules will not have entire sway in probable questions I reply that it is possible for the true to be concluded from the false but it is not always probable especially when a simple hypothesis gives a reason for many truths a thing which is rare and difficult to find We might say with Cardan that the logic of the probable has other consequences than the logic of the necessary truths But the probability itself of these conclusions must be demonstrated by the conclusions of the logic of the necessary truths
Ph You appear to apologize for common logic but I see clearly that what you bring forward belongs to a more sublime logic to which the common is only what the alphabet is to scholarship a fact which makes me remember a passage of the judicious Hooker who in his book entitled Ecclesiastical Polity Book I G thinks that if we could furnish the true helps of knowledge and of the art of reasoning which in this age passing as enlightened are not much known and for which people put themselves to very little trouble there would be as much difference as regards maturity of judgment between men who would make use of them and what men now are as between the men of the present and imbeciles I wish that our conference may give occasion to some to make a discovery of these true helps of the art of which this great man who had so penetrating a mind speaks They will not be the imitators who like the cattle follow the beaten track imitatorum servum pectis
Yet I dare say there are in this age some persons of such strength of judgment and of such large extent of mind that they could discover new paths for the advance of knowledge if they would take the trouble to turn their thoughts in that direction
Th You have well remarked sir with the late Mr Hooker that the world troubles itself but little about this otherwise I think there are and have been persons capable of succeeding therein We must admit however that now we have great helps both on the side of mathematics and of philosophy in which the Essay concerning Human Understanding of your excellent friend is not the least We shall see if we may not be able to profit therefrom
Ph I must further tell you sir that I have believed that there was a visible mistake in the rules of the syllogism but since we have conferred together you have made me hesitate I will however set before you my difficulty It is stated that no syllogistic reasoning can be conclusive unless it contains at least one universal proposition But it seems that there are in the syllogism only particular things which are the immediate object of our reasonings and knowledge they revolve only about the agreement or disagreement of ideas each of which has only a particular existence and represents only an individual thing
Tit As far as you conceive the similarity of things you conceive something more and the universality consists only in that Yet you will never propose to me any one of our arguments without therein employing the universal truths It is however well to remark that as far as form is concerned the particular propositions are comprised within the universals For although it is true that there is only a single St Peter the apostle we may nevertheless say that whoever was St Peter the apostle denied his master Thus this syllogism St Peter denied his master St Peter was a disciple therefore some disciple denied his master although it has only particular propositions is considered to have them as universal affirmatives and the mood will be Darapti of the third figure
Ph I wished also to say to you that it appeared to me better to transpose the premises of the syllogisms and to say All A is B All B is C therefore All A is C than to say All B is C All A is B therefore All A is C But it seems from what you have said that they do not differ and that both are counted as one and the same mood It is always true as you have remarked that the disposition different from the common is better adapted to making a chain of several syllogisms
Th I am wholly of your opinion It seems however that the belief has been that it was more didactic to begin with universal propositions like the majors in the first and second figures and there are indeed orators who have this custom But the connection appears better as you propose I have before remarked that Aristotle may have had a particular reason for the common disposition For instead of saying A is B he was wont to say B is in A And with this method of statement the connection itself which you demand will arise for him in the received disposition For instead of saying B is C A is B therefore A is C he will state it thus C is in B B is in A therefore C is in A For example instead of saying The rectangle is isogon or has equal angles the square is a rectangle therefore the square is isogon Aristotle without transposing the propositions will preserve the middle place to the middle term by this method of stating the propositions which reverses the terms and will say The isogon is in the rectangle the rectangle is in the square therefore the isogon is in the square And this mode of statement is not to be despised for in reality the predicate is in the subject or rather the idea of the predicate is included in the idea of the subject For example, the isogon is in the rectangle for the rectangle is the figure all of whose right angles are equal to each other therefore in the idea of the rectangle is the idea of a figure all of whose angles are equals which is the idea of the isogon The common mode of statement regards rather individuals but that of Aristotle ideas or universals For in saying every man is an animal I mean to say that all men are included in all animals but I mean at the same time that the idea of animal is included in the idea of man Animal includes more individuals than man but man includes more ideas or more formalities the one has more examples the other more degrees of reality the one more extension the other more intension It may also be truly said that the entire syllogistic doctrine may be demonstrated by that de continente et contento the containing and the contained which is different from that of the whole and the part for the whole always exceeds the part but the containing and the contained are sometimes equal as is the case in reciprocal propositions
Ph I begin to form for myself a wholly different idea of logic from that I formerly had I regarded it as a scholars diversion but I now see that in the way you understand it it is like a universal mathematics Would to God that it might push on to something more than it yet is in order that we might be able to find thereby these true helps of reason of which Hooker spoke which would raise men far above their present condition Reason is a faculty which so much the more needs it as its extent is quite limited and as it fails us in many instances Because often ideas themselves fail us Then they are often obscure and imperfect whilst where they are clear and distinct as in numbers we find no insurmountable difficulties and fall into no contradiction Often also the difficulty comes from the fact that mediate ideas are wanting You know that before algebra that great instrument and noteworthy proof of human sagacity was discovered men regarded with amazement many demonstrations of the ancient mathematicians It also happens that the mind builds upon false principles which may entangle it in difficulties where the reason is more involved and very far from clearing them up Finally terms whose meaning is uncertain embarrass the reason
Th I do not know whether we so much lack ideas as you think that is to say distinct ideas As for confused ideas or rather images or if you prefer impressions as colours tastes etc which are a resultant of many little ideas distinct in themselves but of which we are not distinctly conscious we lack an infinite number of them suitable to other creatures rather than to ourselves But these impressions also serve rather to give rise to the instincts and to establish the observations of experience than to furnish matter to the reason except so far as they are accompanied by distinct perceptions It is then principally the defect of the knowledge we have of these distinct ideas concealed within the confused that stops us and even when all is distinctly exposed to our senses or to our mind the multitude of things that must be considered sometimes perplexes us For example when there is a pile of one thousand cannonballs before our eyes it is plain that in order properly to conceive the number and properties of this multitude it is very useful to arrange them in figures as is done in the magazines in order to have distinct ideas of them and to fix them indeed so that we may be spared the trouble of counting them more than once It is the multitude of considerations also which causes some very great difficulties in the science of numbers themselves for short methods are sought and sometimes we do not know whether nature has them within its folds for the case in question For example what is apparently simpler than the notion of the prime number ie a whole number indivisible by every other except unity and itself Yet we seek also a positive and easy sign in order to recognize them certainly without trying all the prime divisors less than the square root of the given prime There are a number of signs which make known without much calculation that a given number is not prime but we ask for one which is easy and which makes known certainly that it is prime when it is so This it is which also makes algebra as yet so imperfect although nothing is better known than the ideas of which it makes use since they signify only numbers in general for the public has not yet the means of extracting the irrational roots of any equation beyond the fourth degree excepting in a very limited case and the methods which Diophant Scipio Ferreus and Lewis Ferrari used respectively for the second third and fourth degrees in order to reduce them to the first or in order to reduce an affected equation to a pure are wholly different from each other ie that which is used for one degree differs a degree from that used for another For the second degree or the quadratic equation is reduced to the first by merely eliminating the second term The third degree or the cubic equation has been solved because in separating the unknown quantity into parts there happily arises from these an equation of the second degree And in the fourth degree or the biquadratics something is added to the two sides of the equation to render it capable of extraction on both sides and then it is happily found that to obtain this result an equation of the third degree only is needed But all this is only a mixture of good luck or chance with art or method And in trying it on these last two degrees we knew not whether it would be successful Further still another artifice is necessary to success in the fifth or sixth degree which are the sursolids or bicubes And although Descartes believed that the method he used in the fourth conceiving the equation as produced by two other quadratic equations but which cannot at bottom give more than that of Lewis Ferrari would succeed also in the sixth it is not found to be so This difficulty shows that even the clearest and most distinct ideas do not always give us all we ask for and all that may be drawn from them And this makes us also judge that algebra is very far from being the art of invention since it needs a more general art and we may say indeed that the art of signs Sjiecieuse in general ie the art of characters is a marvellous means of assistance since it aids the imagination It will not be doubted in view of the arithmetic of Diophant and the geometrical books of Apollonius and Pappus that the ancients possessed it to a certain extent Vieta has given it more extension by expressing not only what is asked for but also the given numbers by general characters doing in calculating what Euclid already did in reasoning and Descartes has extended the application of this calculus to geometry indicating lines by equations Nevertheless even after the discovery of our modern algebra Bouillaud Ismael Bullialdus no doubt an excellent geometer whom moreover I knew in Paris regarded only with wonder the demonstrations of Archimedes upon the spiral and could not understand how this great man had thought of employing the tangent of this line as the dimension of the circle Father Gregory of St Vincents appears to have divined it thinking that it was attained by the parallelism of the spiral and the parabola But this method is only a particular one whilst the new calculus of infinitesimals which proceeds by the method of the differences which I have thought of and successfully shared with the public gives a general one wherein this discovery concerning the spiral is mere play and a sample of the easiest like nearly all we have before discovered in the matter of the dimensions of curves The reason of the advantage of this new calculus is moreover that it relieves the imagination in the problems which Descartes excluded from his geometry under the pretext that they most frequently lead to mechanics but at bottom because they did not agree with his calculus As for errors arising from ambiguous terms it is our business to avoid them
Ph There is also a case in which reasoning cannot be applied but in which also there is no need of it and in which sight is worth more than reasoning It is in intuitive knowledge where the connection of ideas and truths is immediately seen Such is the knowledge of indubitable maxims and I am tempted to believe that this is the degree of evidence which the angels have at present and which the spirits of just men made perfect will have in a future state regarding a thousand things which now escape our knowledge But demonstration based upon mediate ideas gives a reasoned knowledge This is because the connection of the mediate idea with the extremes is necessary and is seen by a juxtaposition of evidence similar to that of a yardstick applied now to one cloth and now to another to show that they are equal But if the connection is only probable the judgment gives only an opinion
Tit God alone has the advantage of having only intuitive knowledge But very happy souls however detached they are from these material bodies and the genii themselves however exalted they are although they have a knowledge without comparison more intuitive than ours and often see at a glance what we discover only by the force of consequences after having employed time and labour must likewise find difficulties in their path without which they would not have the pleasure of making discoveries which pleasure is one of the greatest And we must always admit that there will be an infinite number of truths concealed from them either wholly or for a time whereto they must attain by force of consequences and by demonstration or even frequently by conjecture
Ph These genii then are only animals more perfect than we it is just as if you said with the emperor of the moon it is all as here
Th I will say so not entirely but in regard to the ground of things for the modes and degrees of perfection vary infinitely Meanwhile the ground is everywhere the same a maxim which is fundamental with me and reigns in all my philosophy I conceive things unknown or confusedly knowingly after the manner of those which are distinctly known to us a procedure which makes philosophy very easy and I believe indeed that it must do so But if this philosophy is simplest in its ground it is also the richest in its modes because nature may vary them infinitely as indeed she has done with as much abundance order and ornateness as it is possible to imagine This is the reason why I believe there is no genius however sublime who has not an infinite number of them above him Yet although we are very inferior to so many intelligent beings we have the advantage of not being visibly controlled upon this globe where we hold indisputably the first rank and with all the ignorance in which we are immersed we have always the pleasure of seeing nothing which surpasses us And if we were vain we might judge as Caesar who preferred to be first in a country town rather than second in Rome For the rest I speak here only of the natural knowledge of these spirits and not of the beatific vision or of the supernatural light that God is pleased to give them
Ph As each one makes use of reasoning either with regard to himself or with reference to another it will not be useless to make some reflections upon four sorts of arguments which men are wont to use in order to draw others to their opinions or at least so to keep them in awe as to prevent them from contradicting The first argument may be called argumentum ad vercundiam when we cite the opinion of those who have acquired authority by their knowledge rank power or otherwise for when another does not yield to it promptly he is liable to be censured as full of vanity and even to be charged with insolence There is also argumentum ad ignorantiam ie to demand that the opponent aim it the proof or assign a better There is argumentum ad hominem when we press a man by what he has himself said Finally there is argumentum ad judicium which consists in employing proofs drawn from some one of the sources of knowledge or probability This is the only one of all which advances and instructs us for if from respect I dare not contradict or if I have nothing better to say or if I contradict myself it does not follow that you are right I may be modest ignorant deceived and you prove yourself to be mistaken also
Th It is doubtless necessary to make a difference between what is proper to be said and what is truly to be believed Yet as the majority of truths may be boldly maintained there is some prejudice against an opinion that it is necessary to conceal The argument ad igtiorantuim is valid in cases of presumption where it is reasonable to hold to an opinion till the contrary is proved The argument ad hominem has this effect that it shows that one or the other assertion is false and that the opponent is deceived whatever way he takes it We might bring yet other arguments which are used for example the one we might call ad vertiginem when we reason thus if this proof is not received we have no means of attaining certainty upon the point in question which we take as an absurdity This argument is valid in certain cases as if anyone wished to deny primitive and immediate truths for example that anything can be and not be at the same time or that we ourselves exist for if he were right there would be no means of knowing anything whatever But when certain principles are produced and we wish to maintain them because otherwise the entire system of some received doctrine would fall the argument is not decisive for we must distinguish between what is necessary to maintain our knowledge and between what serves as a foundation for our received doctrines or practices Use was sometimes made among jurisconsults of probable reasoning in order to justify the condemnation of torture of pretended sorcerers upon the deposition of others accused of the same crime for it was said if this argument falls how shall we convict them And sometimes in a criminal case certain authors maintain that in the facts where conviction is more difficult more slender proofs may pass as sufficient But this is not a reason It proves only that we must employ more care and not that we must believe more thoughtlessly except in the case of extremely dangerous crimes as for example in the matter of high treason where this consideration has weight not to condemn a man but to prevent him from doing harm so that there may be a mean not between guilty and not guilty but between condemnation and banishment in the judgments where law and custom admit it Use has been made of a similar argument in Germany for some time in order to give colour to the coining of bad money for they say if we must keep to the prescribed rules we cannot coin it without loss We must be allowed then to debase its alloy But besides the fact that we must diminish the weight only and not the alloy or superscription the better to obviate frauds we suppose a practice necessary which is not so for no command of heaven nor any human law exists obliging those who have no mine nor occasion to have silver in bars to coin money and to make money out of money is a bad practice which naturally carries deterioration with it But how they say shall we exercise our regale in coining it The reply is easy Content yourselves with coining a little from good silver even at a small loss if you think its coinage a matter of importance to yourselves since you have no need nor right to flood the world with debased small coin
Ph After having said a word concerning the relation of our reason to other men let us add something about its relation to God which makes us distinguish between what is contrary to reason and what is above reason Of the first class is everything which is incompatible with our clear and distinct ideas of the second is every thought whose truth or probability evidently cannot be deduced from sensation or reflection by the aid of reason Thus the existence of more than one God is contrary to reason and the resurrection of the dead is above reason
Th I find something to say regarding your definition of that which is above reason at least if you connect it with the received use of this phrase for it seems to me that from the manner in which this definition is couched it goes too far in one direction and not far enough in the other and if we follow it all that of which we are ignorant and which in our present condition we are unable to know would be above reason for example that a given fixed star is greater or less than the sun again that Vesuvius will send out fire in such a year these are facts the knowledge of which is beyond us not because they are above reason but because they are beyond our senses for we could very well judge of them if we had more perfect organs or more information about the circumstances There are also difficulties which are beyond our present faculty but not beyond reason as a whole for example there is no astronomer here below who can calculate the detail of an eclipse in the space of a pater and without taking the pen in hand yet there are perhaps genii to whom that would be mere play Thus all things might be made known or practicable by the aid of reason by supposing more information concerning the facts more perfect organs and a more elevated mind
Ph This objection ceases if I understand my definition not only of our sensation or reflection but also of that of every other possible created spirit
Th If you take it so you are right But the other difficulty remains viz that there will be nothing above reason according to our definition because God will always be able to give the means of apprehending by sensation and reflection any truth whatever as in reality the greatest mysteries become known to us by the testimony of God which we recognize by the motives of credibility upon which our religion is based And these motives undoubtedly depend upon sensation and reflection The question then seems to be not whether the existence of a fact or the truth of a proposition can be deduced from the principles which reason uses ie from sensation and reflection or rather the external and internal sense but whether a created spirit is capable of knowing the how of this fact or the a priori reason of this truth so that we may say that what is beyond reason may indeed be apprehended but it cannot be comprehended by the means and forces of created reason however great and exalted it be It is reserved to God alone to understand it as it belongs to him alone to assert it
Ph This consideration appears to me a good one and it is thus that I wish my definition to be understood This same consideration confirms me also in my present opinion that the manner of speaking which opposes reason to faith although it has weighty authority is improper for it is by reason that we verify what we must believe Faith is a firm assent and assent regulated as it should be can only be given upon good reasons Thus he who believes without any reason for believing may be in love with his fancies but it is not true that he seeks the truth nor that he renders lawful obedience to his divine Master who would have him make use of the faculties with which he has enriched him in order to preserve him from error Otherwise if he is in the good way it is by chance and if in the bad it is by his fault for which he is accountable to God
Th I commend you strongly sir when you wish faith to be grounded in reason without this why should we prefer the Bible to the Koran or to the ancient books of the Brahmins Our theologians also and other learned men have clearly recognized it and it is this which has caused us to have such fine works concerning the truth of the Christian religion and so many excellent proofs as have been put forward against the heathen and other unbelievers ancient and modern Wise persons also have always regarded as suspicious those who have maintained that it was not necessary to trouble themselves about reasons and proofs when it was a question of belief an impossibility in fact unless to believe signifies to recite or repeat or to let pass without troubling themselves as many people do and as indeed is the character of some nations more than others This is the reason why when some Aristotelian philosophers of the fifteenth or sixteenth century whose remains were still extant a long time after as we may judge by the letters of the late Mr Xaude and the Naudeana desired to maintain two opposite truths one philosophical the other theological the last Lateran Council under Leo X was right in opposing them as I think I have already remarked And a dispute wholly similar was raised at Helmstadt in former times between Daniel Hofmann a theologian and Corneille Martin a philosopher but with this difference that the philosopher reconciled philosophy to revelation and the theologian wished to decline its use But the Duke Julius founder of the university decided for the philosopher It is true that in our time a person of the most exalted position said that in a matter of faith he must put out his eyes in order to see clearly and Tertullian says somewhere this is true because it is impossible it must be believed for it is an absurdity But if the intention of those who explain themselves in this way is good these expressions are always exaggerated and may do harm St Paul speaks more justly when he says that the wisdom of God is foolishness with men because men judge of things only according to their experience which is extremely limited and everything not agreeing therewith appears to them an absurdity But this judgment is very rash for there is indeed an infinite number of natural things which would pass with us as absurd if they were told us as the ice which was said to cover our rivers appeared to the king of Siam But the order of nature itself not being of any metaphysical necessity is grounded only in the good pleasure of God so that he may deviate therefrom by the superior reasons of grace although he must proceed therein only upon good proofs which can come only from the testimony of God himself to which we must defer absolutely when it is duly verified
Ph Let us accommodate ourselves meanwhile to the received mode of speech and suffer faith to be distinguished in a certain sense from reason It is proper that this sense be very accurately explained and the limits existing between these two things be established for uncertainty regarding these limits has certainly produced in the world great disputes and perhaps caused even great disorders It is at least manifest that until these have been determined it is in vain for us to discuss since we must employ reason in discussing faith I find that each sect uses reason with pleasure so long as it believes it can derive therefrom any aid but as soon as reason fails they cry out it is an article of faith which is above reason But the opponent could make use of the same evasion if anyone took it upon himself to argue against him unless we indicate why that would not be permitted him in a case seemingly parallel I suppose that reason is here the discovery of the certitude or probability of propositions drawn from knowledge which we have acquired by the use of our natural faculties that is to say by sensation and by reflection and that faith is the assent given to a proposition based upon revelation that is to say upon an extraordinary communication from God which has made it known to man But a man inspired of God cannot communicate to others any new simple idea because he uses only words or other signs which awake in us the simple ideas that custom has attached to them or their combination and whatever new ideas St Paul received when he was carried up to the third heaven all that he could say was they are things eye hath not seen ear hath not heard and which have never entered into the heart of man Suppose there were creatures in the planet Jupiter provided with six senses and that God in a supernatural way gave to a man among us the ideas of this sixth sense he could not by means of words make them spring up in the minds of other men We must then distinguish between original and traditional revelation The first is an impression which God makes immediately upon the mind and to this we can fix no limits the other comes only by the ordinary means of communication and cannot give new simple ideas It is true however that the truths which may be discovered by reason can be communicated to us by a traditional revelation as if God had desired to communicate to men geometrical theorems but this would never amount to so great a certainty as if we had their demonstration drawn from the connection of ideas It is also as if Noah had a more certain knowledge of the deluge than that which we have acquired from the book of Moses and as if the assurance of one who has seen that Moses actually wrote it and that he did the miracles which justify his inspiration was greater than ours This it is which makes it impossible for revelation to go against the clear evidence of reason because whenever the revelation is immediate and original we must know with certainty that we are not deceived in attributing it to God and that we comprehend its meaning and this evidence can never be greater than that of our intuitive knowledge and consequently no proposition can be received as divine revelation when it is contradictorily opposed to this immediate knowledge Otherwise there would no longer remain any difference in the world between truth and falsehood any measure of the credible and incredible And it is inconceivable that a thing comes from God this beneficent author of our being which received as true must overturn the foundations of our knowledge and render all our faculties useless Those who have revelation only mediately or by tradition from mouth to mouth or by writing have again more need of reason to assure themselves of it Meanwhile it is always true that the things which are beyond what our faculties can discover are the proper matters of faith
as the fall of the rebellious angels the resurrection of the dead Here we must listen solely to revelation And even as regards probable propositions an evident revelation will determine us against the probability
Th If you take faith as that which is grounded in the motives of credibility as they are called and detach it from the internal grace which immediately determines the mind all that you say sir is beyond dispute It must be admitted that there are many judgments more evident than those depending upon these motives Some are urged on by them farther than others and there are indeed many persons who have never known them and still less considered them and who consequently have not even that which might pass as a motive of probability But the internal grace of the Holy Spirit immediately supplies it in a supernatural way and this it is which produces what the theologians properly call a divine faith It is true that God never gives it except when the belief it produces is founded in reason otherwise he would destroy the means of knowing the truth and open the door to enthusiasm but it is not necessary for all who have this divine faith to know these reasons and still less to have them always before their eyes Otherwise simpleminded people and idiots today at least would never have the true faith and the most enlightened would not have it when they were most in need of it for they cannot always remember the reasons for their belief The question of the use of reason in theology has been one of the questions most discussed both between the Socinians and those who may be called Catholics in a general sense and between the Reformers and the Evangelicals as those are named by way of preference in Germany whom many inaptly call Lutherans I remember to have read once a Metaphysics of one Stegmann a Socinian a different man from Joshua Stegmann who himself wrote against them which so far as I know has not yet been printed on the other hand one Kessler a theologian of Saxony has written a Logic and some other philosophical treatises expressly opposed to the Socinians We may say in general that the Socinians are too quick to reject everything which is not conformed to the order of nature even when they cannot prove absolutely its impossibility But their opponents also sometimes go too far and push mystery to the verge of contradiction in which they injure the truth they try to defend I was surprised to see once in the Summa Theologise of Father Honore Fabry who otherwise was one of the most clever of his order which he denied in divine things as do also some other theologians this great principle which states that things which are identical with a third thing are identical with each other This is to give a gained case to the opponent without thinking and to deprive all reasoning of certainty We must say rather that this principle is badly applied The same author rejects in his philosophy the virtual distinctions which the Scotists put into created things because they reversed he says the principle of contradiction and when the objection is made to him that these distinctions must be admitted in God he replies that faith orders it But how can faith order that whatever it be which reverses a principle without which all belief affirmation or negation would be vain Two propositions true at the same time must therefore necessarily not be wholly contradictory and if A and C are not the same thing it is clearly necessary that B which is identical with A be taken otherwise than B which is identical with C Nicolaus Vedelius a professor at Geneva and afterward at Deventer once published a book entitled Rationale Theologicum to which Jean Musteus a professor at Jena which is an Evangelical university in Thuringia wrote another book in opposition upon the same subject ie upon The Use of Reason in Theology I remember to have considered these formerly and to have remarked that the principal controversy was obscured by incidental questions as when it is asked what a theological conclusion is and whether it is necessary to judge of it by the terms which compose it or by the means which prove it and consequently whether Occaml was right or not in saying that the knowledge of one and the same conclusion is the same whatever the means employed to prove it and he delays upon a multitude of other minutiae of still less importance which concern only terms Meanwhile Musoeus agreed with him that the principles of reason necessary by a logical necessity ie the opposite of which implies a contradiction must and may be employed safely in theology but he had reason to deny that what is only necessary by a physical necessity ie founded upon induction from that which is customary in nature or upon natural laws which so to speak are of divine institution is sufficient to refute their relief in a mystery or miracle since it depends upon God to change the ordinary course of things Thus it is according to the order of nature that we may be certain that one and the same person cannot be at the same time a mother and a virgin or that a human body cannot fail to be obvious to the senses although the contrary of both may be possible to God Vedelius also appears to agree to this distinction But we sometimes dispute about certain principles whether they are logically necessary or only physically so Such is the dispute with the Socinians whether substance can be multiplied when the individual essence does not exist and the dispute with the Zwinglians whether a body can be only in one place Now we must admit that every time that logical necessity is not demonstrated we can presume in a proposition only physical necessity But it seems to me that a question remains which the authors of whom I have just spoken have not sufficiently examined namely this Suppose that on one side we find the literal sense of a text of Holy Scripture and on the other a great appearance of logical impossibility or at least an admitted physical impossibility is it more reasonable to deny the literal sense or the philosophical principle It is certain that there are passages where to abandon the letter occasions no difficulty as when Scripture gives hands to God and attributes to him anger penitence and other human affections otherwise it would be necessary to array ourselves on the side of the anthropomorphists or of certain English fanatics who believe that Herod was really changed into a fox when Jesus Christ called him by that name It is here that the rules of interpretation are in place and if they furnish nothing which combats the literal sense in order to favour the philosophic maxim and if in addition the literal sense has nothing which attributes to God any imperfection or entails any danger in the practice of piety it is safer and indeed more reasonable to follow it These two authors whom I have just named dispute further upon the undertaking of Keckermann who wished to demonstrate the Trinity by reason as Raymond Lully had also tried to do formerly But Musaeus acknowledged with sufficient fairness that if the demonstration of the Reformed author had been valid and just he would have had nothing to say on the subject that he would have been right in maintaining as regards this article that the light of the Holy Spirit might be illumined by philosophy They have also discussed the famous question whether those who without any knowledge of the revelation of the Old or New Testament died in the opinions of a natural piety could have been saved by this means and obtained the remission of their sins We
know that Clement of Alexandria Justin Martyr and St Chrysostom to a certain extent were inclined thereto and indeed I once showed Pelisson a that a number of excellent doctors of the Koman church far from condemning nonopinionative Protestants even desired to save the heathen and to maintain that the persons of whom I have just spoken could have been saved by an act of contrition ie penitence grounded in the love of benevolence in virtue of which we love God above everything because his perfections render him supremely lovable This brings it about that afterwards we are led with all our hearts to conform to His will and to imitate His perfection in order the better to unite ourselves with Him since it appears right for God not to refuse his grace to those who hold such views Not to speak of Erasmus and of Ludovicus Vives I bring forward the view of Jaques Payva Andradius a Portuguese doctor very celebrated in his time who was one of the theologians of the Council of Trent and who said indeed that those who did not agree with this view made God supremely cruel iieque enim inquit immanitas deterior ulla esse potest Pelisson found difficulty in finding this book in Paris an indication that authors esteemed in their time are often neglected afterwards This is what made Bayle think that many cite Andradius only upon the testimony of Chemnitius his antagonist This may indeed be so but for myself I had read him before quoting him and his disputes with Chemnitius made him celebrated in Germany for he had written in behalf of the Jesuits against this author and we find in his book some particulars touching the origin of this famous society I have remarked that some Protestants called those Andradians who ■were of his opinion upon the subject of which I have just spoken There have been authors who have written expressly upon the salvation of Aristotle upon the basis of these same principles ■with the approbation of the Censors The books also of Collius in Latin and La Mothe le Vayer in French on the salvation of the heathen are well known But a certain Franciscus Puccius went too far St Augustine wholly clever and penetrating as he was threw himself into another extreme view even condemning infants dying without baptism and the Scholastics appear to have been right in abandoning it although persons otherwise clever and some of great merit but of a disposition a little misanthropic in this respect desired to revive this doctrine of this Father and have perhaps exaggerated it This spirit also may have had some influence in the dispute between several excessively vehement doctors and the Jesuit missionaries in China who had insinuated that the ancient Chinese had had the true religion of their time and the true saints and that the doctrine of Confucius was in no respect idolatrous or atheistic It seems that there was more reason in Rome in being unwilling to condemn one of the greatest nations without understanding it It is well for us that God is more philanthropic than men I know some persons who thinking to show their zeal by severe opinions fancy that we cannot believe in original sin without being of their opinion but in this they are mistaken And it does not follow that those who justify the heathen or others who lack ordinary aid must attribute it to the forces of nature only although perhaps some Fathers were of this opinion since we may maintain that God in giving them the grace exciting an act of contrition gives them also either explicitly or virtually but always in a supernatural way before they die even if only at the last moment all the light of faith and all the warmth of love necessary to their salvation Thus it is that the Reformers explain with Vedelius the view of Zwingli who had also expressed the same view upon this point of the salvation of the virtuous men of Paganism as the doctors of the Roman church have done This doctrine also has nothing in common for that reason with the particular doctrine of the Pelagians or SemiPelagians from which we know that Zwingli was far removed And since we teach against the Pelagians a supernatural grace in all those who possess faith in which the three received religions agree excepting perhaps the disciples of Pajons and as they allow also either faith or at least similar movements to infants who receive baptism it is not very extraordinary to allow as much at least in the article of death to persons of good will who have not had the good fortune to be instructed as usual in Christianity But the part of the wisest is to determine nothing upon points so little known and to content himself with the general judgment that God can do nothing which is not full of goodness and justice melius est dubitare de occultis quam litigare de incertis Augustine lib Genes ad lit c
Ph Would to God that all theologians and St Augustine himself had always practised the maxim expressed in this passage But men think that the dogmatic spirit is an indication of their zeal for the truth while it is wholly the contrary We love the truth in reality only in proportion as we love to examine the proofs which make it what it is And when we judge hastily we are always pressed by less sincere motives The spirit of authority is not one of the less common motives and a certain satisfaction it has in its own reveries is another motive which causes enthusiasm to spring up This is the name which is given to the failing of those who believe an immediate revelation when it is not grounded in reason And as we may say that reason is a natural revelation of which God is the author just as he is the author of nature we may also say that revelation is a Buyer natural reason ie a reason extended upon the basis of new discoveries emanating directly from God But these discoveries suppose that we have the means of discerning them which is reason itself and to desire to proscribe reason in order to make way for revelation would be to pluck out the eyes the better to see the satellites of Jupiter through a telescope The source of enthusiasm is that an immediate revelation is more convenient and shorter than the long and difficult process of reasoning which is not always followed by a happy result Men have been seen in all ages whose melancholy mingled with devotion united with the good opinion they have had of themselves has made them believe that they had an altogether different intercourse with God from other men They suppose he has promised it to them and believe themselves his people preferably to others Their fancy becomes an illumination and a divine authority and their plans are an infallible direction from heaven which they are obliged to follow This view has produced great results and caused great evils for a man acts more vigorously when he follows his own impulses and when the opinion of a divine authority is sustained by his inclinations It is difficult to draw him therefrom because this pretended certainty without proof flatters his vanity and love for that which is extraordinary Fanatics compare their opinions to sight and feeling They see the divine light as we see that of the sun at noon without needing the twilight of their reason to show it to them They are certain because they are certain and their persuasion is right because it is strong for this is the result to which their figurative language reduces itself But as there are two perceptions that of the proposition and that of the revelation we may ask them where is clearness If it is in the sight of the proposition what good is revelation It must then be in the feeling of revelation But how can they see that it is God who reveals and not a willofthewisp which leads them around this circle this is a revelation because I believe it strongly and I believe it because it is a revelation Is there anything more suited to throw one into error than to take the imagination for a guide St Paul had great zeal when he persecuted the Christians and did not allow himself to be mistaken We know that the devil has had martyrs and if it is sufficient to be well persuaded we shall not be able to distinguish the delusions of Satan from the inspirations of the Holy Spirit It is then the reason which makes known the truth of revelation And if our belief proved it it would be the circle of which I just spoke The holy men who received the revelations of God had external signs which persuaded them of the truth of the inner light Moses saw a bush which burned without being consumed and heard a voice from the midst of the bush and God in order to give him more assurance concerning his mission when he sent him to Egypt to deliver his brethren made use of the miracle of the rod changed into a serpent Gideon was sent by an angel to deliver the people of Israel from the yoke of the Midianites yet he demanded a sign in order to be convinced that this commission was given him on the part of God I do not however deny that God sometimes illumines the minds of men in order to make them understand certain important truths or to lead them to good acts by the immediate influence and assistance of the Holy Spirit without any extraordinary sign accompanying this influence But in these cases also we have reason and Scripture two infallible rules for judging of these illuminations for if they agree with these rules we run at least no risk in regarding them as inspired of God although it is not perhaps an immediate revelation
Th Enthusiasm was at the beginning a good term And as the sophism properly indicates an exercise of wisdom enthusiasm signifies that there is a divinity in us Est Dens in nobis Socrates maintained that a god or daemon gave him internal warnings so that enthusiasm would be a divine instinct But men having consecrated their passions fancies dreams and even their anger as something divine enthusiasm began to signify a mental disturbance attributed to the influence of some divinity which is supposed to be in those who are smitten therewith for the soothsayers male and female showed a mental derangement when their god seized them as the Cuiiutau Sibyl in Vergil Since then we attribute it to those who believe without foundation that their movements come from God Nisus in the same poet thinking himself pressed by I know not what impulse to a dangerous enterprise in which he perished with his friend proposed it to him in these terms full of a reasonable doubt —
Di ne hunc ardorem inentibus addunt
Euryale an sua cuique Deus fit dira cupido
He ceased not to follow this instinct although he knew not whether it came from God or from an unfortunate desire to distinguish himself But if he had been successful he would not have failed to acquire authority in another case and to think himself impelled by some divine power The enthusiasts of the present think that they receive also from God the dogmas which they observe The Quakers belong to this persuasion and Barclay their first systematic author maintains that they find in themselves a certain light which is made known by itself But why call that light which reveals nothing I know that there are some persons of this disposition of mind who see sparks and even something more luminous but this image of material light excited when their minds are aroused gives no light to the mind Some idiots with a restless imagination form conceptions which they had not before they are in a condition to say fine or at least very animated things in their opinion they admire themselves and make others admire this fertility which passes for inspiration This advantage comes to them largely from a vivid imagination which passion rouses and from an excellent memory which has well retained the methods of speech of the prophetic books which the reading or discourse of others has rendered familiar to them Antoinette de Bourignon made use of the facility she had in speaking and writing as a proof of her divine mission I know a visionary who based his divine mission upon the talents he had in speaking and praying aloud almost an entire day without ceasing and without becoming exhausted There are some persons who after having practised austerities or after a state of sadness taste a peace and consolation in the soul which enraptures them and they find therein so much delight that they believe it to be an effect of the Holy Spirit It is true that the contentment they find in considering the greatness and goodness of God in the accomplishment of his will in the practice of the virtues is a grace of God and one of the greatest but it is not always a grace which needs a new supernatural aid as many of these good people maintain Not long since there was a young lady very wise in everything else who believed from her youth that she spoke with Jesus Christ and was his wife in a wholly peculiar manner Her mother to whom this was related was a little given to enthusiasm but the daughter having commenced early had gone very much farther Her satisfaction and joy was unspeakable her wisdom appeared in her conduct and her intelligence in her discourse The thing went however so far that she received letters addressed to our Lord and she sent them back sealed as she received them with a reply which sometimes appeared appropriate and always reasonable But finally she ceased to receive them from fear of making too much disturbance In Spain she would have been another St Theresa But all persons who have similar visions do not conduct themselves in the same way There are some who seek to form a sect and even to make trouble and England furnishes a strange proof of this When these persons act in good faith it is difficult to
World London The Light risen in Darknes London Leibnitz refers to liver in a fragment Stir Iesprit Sectaire c Dutens For further account rf J C Adelung Gesch d menech Narrheit Leipzig vols mo Vol pp oi Gottfried Arnold Kirchen u KelzerhUtori FrankfortontheMain Theil III Cap XVI Vol pp Th IV Beet m Nam XVII Vol pp Wetzer u Welte Kirchenlexicon Vol pp ed X — Tr
Leibnitz here refers to the Independents who arising in obscurity in England in the reign of Elizabeth and gradually gaining in numbers and influence as a result of the persecution to which they were subject at the hands of the established Church and the State and of their success in founding the New England States came to the front in the time of the Revolution and changed at length the political as well as the religious life of England and became a powerful and controlling force in the life and institutions of the American people In their fundamental principle that religion is a matter of the indireform them sometimes the overthrow of all their plans corrects them but often it is too late There was a visionary who lately died who believed himself immortal because he was very old and very well and without having read the book of an Englishman lately published who wished to make us believe that Jesus Christ came to exempt true believers from bodily death was almost of the same opinion for some years past but when he perceived that he was dying he went so far as to doubt all religion because it did not correspond to his chimera Quirin Kulman se a Silesian a man of knowledge and judgment but who had since indulged in two kinds of visions equally dangerous the one of the enthusiasts the other of the alchemists and who made some stir in England Holland and even in Constantinople being at last advised to go into Russia and there to mix himself up in certain intrigues against the minister at the time when the Princess Sophia governed it was condemned to be burned and did not die like a man persuaded of that which he had preached The dissensions of these people among themselves ought further to convince them that their pretended internal witness is not divine and that other signs are necessary to justify it The Labadists for example do not agree with Mademoiselle Antoinette and although William Penn appears to have had the design in his travels in Germany of which he has published an account of establishing a kind of understanding between those who rely upon this witness he does not appear to have succeeded It is desirable for the truths sake that good people be intelligent and act in concert nothing would be more capable of rendering the human race better and happier but it would be necessary for them to be truly of the number of the good people ie of the beneficent and further docile and reasonable instead of which only too many of those who are called devout today are accused of being severe imperious obstinate Their dissensions make it appear at least that their internal witness needs an external verification in order to be believed and miracles would be necessary in order for them to have the right to pass as prophets and inspired men There might however be a case where these inspirations would carry their proofs with them This would be if they really enlightened the mind by important discoveries of some extraordinary knowledge which without any external aid would be beyond the powers of the person who should have acquired them If Jacob Boehme a famous shoemaker of Lusace whose writings have been translated from German into other languages under the name of the Teutonic Philosopher and in reality possess something of grandeur and beauty for a man in this condition had known how to make gold as some are persuaded he did or as St John the evangelist did if we believe what is said in a hymn composed in his honour —
Inexhaustum fert thesaurum
Qui de virgis fecit aurura
Gemmas de lapidibus
there would have been some reason for giving more credence to this extraordinary shoemaker And if Mademoiselle Antoinette Bourignon had furnished to Bertrand la Coste a French engineer at Hamburg the light in the sciences which he believed he had received from her as he indicated in dedicating to her his book on the Quadrature of the Circle in which making allusion to Antoinette and Bertrand he called her the A in theology as he said he himself was the B in mathematics we should not have known what to say But we do not see examples of a considerable success of this nature nor welldetailed predictions which have succeeded in the case of such persons The prophecies of Poniatovia of Drabitius and others which the good man Coraenius published in his Lux in Tenebris and which contributed to the disturbances in the hereditary lands of the emperor were found false and those who believed them were unfortunate Ragozky Prince of Transylvania was impelled by Drabitius to the attack upon Poland in which he
lost his army a result which finally cost him the loss of his estates together with his life and the poor Drabitius a long time after at the age of eighty years at last had his head cut off by the order of the emperor Yet I do not doubt that there are people now who cause these predictions to be revived inaptly in the present conjuncture of disorders in Hungary not considering that these pretended prophets spoke of the events of their time in which respect they did almost as he who after the bombardment of Brussels published a loose sheet in which there was a passage taken from a book of Mademoiselle Antoinette who did not wish to come into this city because if I remember rightly she had dreamed that she saw it on fire but this bombardment happened a long time after her death I knew a man who went to France during the war which was terminated by the Peace of Nimwegen to importune M de Montausier and M de Pomponne upon the trustworthiness of the prophecies published by Comenius and he would himself have believed himself inspired I think if he had happened to make his propositions in a time parallel to ours This shows not only the little foundation but also the danger of these waywardnesses Histories are full of the bad effect of false or misunderstood prophecies as may be seen in a learned and judicious dissertation De officio viri boni circa futura eontingentia which the late Jacobus Thomasius a celebrated professor at Leipzig formerly gave the public It is true however that these persuasions sometimes produce a good effect and render great service for God can make use of error to establish or maintain truth But I do not believe that it is easily permitted us to make use of pious frauds for a good end and as for the dogmas of religion we have no need of new revelations it is enough that we propose to ourselves salutary rules in order that we may be obliged to fellow them although the one proposing them performs no miracle And although Jesus Christ was provided with miracles he did not cease to refuse sometimes to perform them in order to please that perverse race who demanded signs when he preached only virtue and what had already been taught by natural reason and the prophets
Ph After having spoken of all the means which make us know or divine the truth let us also say something about our errors and bad judgments Men must often be mistaken since there are so many dissensions among them The reasons of this may be reduced to these four the lack of proofs little skill in using them lack of will to make use of them false rules of probability When I speak of the lack of proofs I understand also those which we might find if we had the means and the opportunity but this it is which we most frequently lack Such is the condition of men whose life is passed in seeking their subsistence they are as little informed of what goes on in the world as a draught horse who always goes by the same road may become skilled in the map of the country They would require languages reading conversation observations of nature and the experiments of art Now all this not agreeing with their condition shall we say then that the bulk of men are led to happiness or misery only by blind chance Must they abandon themselves to the current opinions and authorized guides in the country even as regards eternal happiness or misery Or will they be eternally unhappy to have been born rather in one country than in another We must admit however that no one is so completely occupied with the care of providing for his subsistence as to have no time left to think of his soul and to be instructed in that which concerns religion if he were to apply himself thereto as he does to less important things
Suppose that men are not always in a condition to instruct themselves and that not being able to give up with prudence the care of the subsistence of their family in order to investigate difficult truths they are obliged to follow the opinions authorized among them it will always be necessary to judge that in the case of those who have the true religion without having its proofs internal grace will supply the lack of the motives of credibility and charity makes us also judge as I have already indicated to you that God does for persons of good will brought up among the thick darkness of the most dangerous errors all that his goodness and justice demand although perhaps in a way which is unknown to us We have histories commended in the Roman church of persons who have been expressly raised up in order that salutary aid be not wanting But God can assist souls by the internal operation of the Holy Spirit without the need of so great a miracle and because it is good and consoling for the human race to put itself in the condition of the grace of God only the good but sincere and serious will is needed I admit that we have not indeed this good will without the grace of God forasmuch as all natural or supernatural good comes from him but it is always enough that we must only have the will and that it is impossible that God can demand a condition easier and more reasonable
Ph There are those who are sufficiently at their ease to have all the opportunities suited to illumine their doubts but they are deterred from this by obstacles full of craftiness which it is easy enough to see while it is not necessary to display them in this place I prefer to speak of those who lack the skill to avail themselves of the proofs which they have so to speak under their hand and who cannot retain a long course of argument nor weigh all the circumstances There are some people of a single syllogism and there are some of two only This is not the place to determine whether this imperfection arises from a natural difference of the souls themselves or of the organs or whether it depends upon the lack of exercise which polishes the natural faculties It is sufficient for us here that it is visible and that we have only to go from the palace or from the exchange to the hospitals and small houses to perceive it
Th It is not the poor alone who are needy certain rich people lack more than they because these rich people demand too much and put themselves voluntarily in a kind of poverty which hinders them from applying themselves to important considerations Example does much here One tries to conform to that of his equals so that he is compelled to practise without showing a spirit of perverseness and that makes it easy for him to become like them It is very difficult to satisfy at the same time reason and custom As for those who lack capacity they are fewer perhaps in number than you think I think that good sense with application can suffice for everything which does not demand promptness I presuppose good sense because I do not think you would demand the search for truth from the dwellers in small houses It is true that there are not many who could not learn something of it if we knew the means of so doing and what original difference exists between our souls as I believe does in reality exist it is always certain that one soul might go as far as another but not perhaps so rapidly if it were led as it should be
Ph There is another sort of people who lack only will A strong attachment to pleasure a constant application to what concerns their fortune a general idleness or negligence a particular aversion to study and meditation prevents them from thinking seriously of the truth There are even some who fear that a research free from all partiality would not be favourable to the opinions which most suit their prejudices and plans We know persons who will not read a letter which they suppose brings bad news and many people avoid agreeing upon their accounts or informing themselves of the state of their property for fear of learning what they would desire always to be ignorant of There are some who have large revenues and employ them all in provisions for the body without dreaming of the means of perfecting the understanding They take great care always to appear in a suitable and brilliant equipage and they suffer without difficulty their soul to be covered with the wretched rags of prejudice and error and its nakedness ie its ignorance to appear as an eccentricity Not to speak of the interest they ought to take in a future state they do not in the least neglect what they are interested to know in the life they lead in this world And it is strange that very often those who regard power and authority as an appendage of their birth or their fortune carelessly abandon it to people of a condition inferior to theirs but who surpass them in knowledge For it is very necessary that the blind be led by those who see lest they fall into the ditch and there is no worse slavery than that of the understanding.
Th There is no more evident proof of the negligence of men as regards their true interests than the little care they take to know and practise what agrees with their health which is one of our greatest blessings and although the great feel as much and more than others the bad effects of this negligence they do not alter their course As far as faith is concerned many regard the thought which would lead to its discussion as a temptation of the devil which they think they can the better surmount only by turning their minds to an entirely different thing Men who only love pleasure or who are attached to some occupation are wont to neglect other matters A player a hunter a drinker a debauchee and even a man curious about trifles will lose his fortune and his property for lack of giving himself the trouble to institute a process or to speak to the men in a guardhouse There are some like the Emperor Honorius who when the news of the destruction of Rome was brought to him thought it was his hen who bore this name and this offended him more than the truth It is desirable that men who have power have knowledge in proportion but if the details of the sciences of the arts of history and languages should not be theirs a solid and practised judgment and a knowledge of things equally great and general in a word summa rerum might suffice And as the Emperor Augustus had an abstract of the forces and needs of the State which he called Breviarium Imperii he might have an abstract of human interests which would deserve to be called Enchiridion Sapientite if men would care for that which is of most importance to them
Ph Finally the majority of our errors arise from the false measures of probability which we take whether by step pending our judgment in spite of manifest reasons or in giving it notwithstanding contrary probabilities These false measures consist in doubtful propositions taken as principles in the accepted hypotheses in the dominant passions or inclinations in authority We ordinarily judge of truth by its conformity with what we regard as indisputable principles and this makes us despise the testimony of others and indeed of our own senses when they appear contrary thereto but before relying upon these with so much assurance we should examine them with the utmost exactness Children receive the propositions taught them by their father and mother nurses teachers and others who are about them and these propositions having taken root are regarded as sacred as a Urim and Thummim which God might himself have put in the soul We have some difficulty in admitting that which clashes with these internal oracles while we believe the greatest absurdities which agree with them This appears in the extreme obstinacy which we notice in different men who believe strongly opinions as directly opposed as the articles of faith although they are very often equally absurd Take a man of good sense but persuaded of this maxim that he must believe what they of his communion believe as they teach at Wittenberg or in Sweden what disposition has he not to receive without difficulty the doctrine of consubstantiation and to believe that one and the same thing is flesh and bread at the same time
Th It is very apparent sir that you have not been sufficiently instructed in the views of the Evangelicals who admit the real presence of the body of our Lord in the Eucharist They have explained a thousand times that they do not mean the consubstantiation of bread and wine with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and still less that one and the same thing is flesh and bread at the same time They teach only that in receiving the visible symbols we receive in an invisible and supernatural manner the body of our Saviour without its being enclosed in the bread and the presence which they mean is not local or spatial so to speak ie determined by the dimensions of the present body so that all that the senses can oppose to it does not concern them And in order to show that the inconveniences which may be derived from reason no longer affect them they declare that what they mean by the substance of the body does not consist in extension or dimension and they make no difficulty in admitting that the glorious body of Jesus Christ preserves a certain ordinary and local presence but congruous with his position in the exalted place where he is found altogether different from this sacramental presence herein questioned or from his miraculous presence by which he governs the church which causes him to be not everywhere like God but there where he prefers to be This is the view of the more moderate so that in order to show the absurdity of their doctrine it would be necessary to show that the entire essence of the body consists only in extension and in that which is solely measured thereby which no one so far as I know has yet done This whole difficulty also concerns not less the Reformers who follow the Gallican and Belgian confessions the declaration of the Council of Sendomir composed of people of the two confessions Augustan and Swiss conformed to the Saxon confession destined for the Council of Trent the profession of faith of the Reformers who came to the Conference of Thorn convoked under the authority of Vladislas King of Poland and the constant doctrine of Calvin and of Beza who have declared the most distinctly and the most strongly of everybody that the symbols really furnish what they represent and that we become participants in the body and blood of Jesus Christ Calvin after having refuted those who content themselves with a metaphorical participation of thought or of seal and with a union of faith adds that we can say nothing sufficiently strong to establish its reality that he is not ready to subscribe to provided we avoid everything which looks to the circumscription of place or the diffusion of dimension so that it appears that at bottom his doctrine was that of Melanchthon and even of Luther as Calvin himself conjectured in one of his letters except that in addition to the condition of the perception of the symbols with which Luther contents himself he demands also the condition of faith in order to exclude the participation of the unworthy I have found Calvin so positive upon this real communion in a hundred places in his works and even in his familiar letters where there was no need of being so that I do not see any reason to suspect artifice
S Ph I ask your pardon if I have spoken of these gentlemen according to the common opinion I remember now having remarked that some very clever theologians of the Anglican church have been for this real participation But from established principles let us pass to the accepted hypotheses Those who admit that they are only hypotheses often cease not to maintain them with warmth almost as if assured principles and to despise contrary probabilities It would be unendurable to a learned professor to see his authority overturned in an instant by a new comer who should reject his hypotheses his authority I say which has been in vogue for thirty or forty years acquired by much labour at night sustained by much Greek and Latin confirmed by a general tradition and by a venerable beard All the arguments which we can employ to convince him of the falsity of his hypothesis will be as little capable of prevailing upon his mind as the efforts Boreas made to compel the traveller to leave his cloak which he held so much the more firmly as the wind blew with more violence
Th In reality the Copernicans have experienced in the case of their adversaries that hypotheses recognized as such ceased not to be maintained with an ardent zeal and the Cartesians are not less positive regarding their grooved particles and little balls of the second element than if they were the theorems of Euclid and it seems that zeal for our hypotheses is merely a result of the passion we have of making ourselves respected It is true that those who condemned Galileo believed that the rest of the earth was more than an hypothesis for they judged it in conformity with Scripture and reason But since then it has been perceived that reason at least sustained it no longer and as for Scripture Father Fabry Penitentiary of St Peter an excellent theologian and philosopher publishing in Rome itself an Apology for the Observations of Eustachio Divini a famous optician hesitated not to declare that it was only provisionally that they understood in the sacred text a true movement of the sun and that if the view of Copernicus were found true there would be no difficulty in explaining it in like manner as this passage of Vergil
terraeque urbesque recedunt
However they did not cease to continue in Italy and in Spain and even in the hereditary states of the emperor to suppress the doctrine of Copernicus to the great detriment of these nations whose scholars might have raised themselves to more beautiful discoveries had they enjoyed a reasonable and philosophic liberty
Ph The dominant passions appear to be in reality as you say the source of the love we have for hypotheses but they also extend very much farther The greatest probability in the world will avail nothing in showing his injustice to an avaricious and ambitious man and a lover will have every facility in the world for allowing himself to be duped by his mistress so long as it is true that we easily believe whatever we wish and according to the remark of Vergil
qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt
This is what makes them make use of two means of escaping the most apparent probabilities when they attack our passions and our prejudices The first is to think that there may be some sophistry concealed in the argument which they oppose to us The second in supposing that we might put beforehand wholly as good or even better arguments in order to beat the adversary if we had the opportunity or skill or aid which we must have to discover them These means of shielding themselves from conviction are sometimes good but they are also sophisms when the matter is sufficiently explained and everything has been taken into account for after that there are means of knowing with regard to all upon what side the probability is found Thus there is no room for doubting that the animals have been formed by the movements of an intelligent agent rather than by a fortuitous concourse of atoms as there is no one who doubts in the least whether the characters of printing which form an intelligent discourse have been brought together by an attentive man or by a confused medley I should think then that it does not depend upon us to suspend our assent in these instances but we can give it when the probability is less evident and we can even content ourselves with more feeble proofs which better agree with our inclination It appears to me impracticable for the truth for a man to lean to the side upon which he sees the less probability perception knowledge and assent are not arbitrary as it does not depend upon me to see or not to see the agreement of two ideas when my spirit is turned toward them We can however voluntarily arrest the progress of our researches without this ignorance or error could not in any case be a sin It is in this that we exercise our liberty It is true that in the instances where we have no interests we embrace the common opinion or the view of the first comer but in the points where our happiness or misery is concerned the mind applies itself more seriously to weighing the probabilities and I think that in this case that is when we are attentive we have no choice in determining ourselves for the side we prefer if between the two sides there are differences at once visible and that it will be the greatest probability that will determine our assent
Th I am of your opinion at bottom and we have given sufficient explanation upon this matter in our preceding conferences when we spoke of liberty I showed then that we never believe what we wish but rather what we see is the most apparent and that nevertheless we can make ourselves believe indirectly what we wish by turning away the attention from a disagreeable object in order to apply ourselves to another which pleases us This makes us in regarding more the reasons of a favourite side believe at last the more probable As for the opinions in which we take little interest and which we receive upon slight reasons we do this because noticing scarcely anything which opposes them we find that the opinion which makes us regard them favourably surpasses as much or more the opposite opinion which has nothing in its behalf in our perception as if it had had many reasons on both sides for the difference between and or between and is as great as between and and we perceive this advantage without thinking of the examination which would still be necessary in order to judge but to which nothing impels us
Ph The last false measure of probability that I intended to notice is improperly understood authority which keeps more people in ignorance and error than all the others together How many people we see who have no other basis for their views than the opinions received among our friends or among the members of our profession or of our party or of our country Such a doctrine has been approved by venerable antiquity it comes to me under the passport of preceding centuries other men yield to it this is why I am shielded from error in receiving it We have as much authority for tossing up in order to take these opinions as to take them upon the basis of such rules And besides the fact that all men are liable to error I believe that if we could see the secret motives which actuate the scholars and chief men of a sect we should hide often something wholly different from the pure love of the truth It is certain at least that there is no opinion so absurd that it cannot be embraced upon this basis since there is scarcely an error which has not had its partisans
Th It must however be admitted that in many instances we cannot avoid yielding to authority St Augustine has produced quite a remarkable book De utilitate credendi which deserves to be read on this subject and as for the received opinions they have for themselves something approaching to that which gives what is called presumption with the jurisconsults and although we are not obliged to follow them always without proofs we are no more authorized to destroy them in the mind of another without having contrary proofs This it is which does not allow us to change anything without reason
The argument drawn from the great number of the approvers of an opinion has been much disputed since the late M Nicole published his book on the church but all that may be drawn from this argument when the question is of approving a reason and not of attesting a fact may be reduced merely to what I have just said And as one hundred horses do not run faster than one horse though they can draw more so it is with one hundred men as compared with one single man they cannot go more justly but they will work more effectively they cannot judge better but they will be capable of furnishing more matter upon which the judgment may be exercised This is the meaning of the proverb plus vident oculi quam oculus We notice it in the councils where really a multitude of considerations are put upon the carpet which would perhaps escape one or two but they run a risk often of not taking the better side in concluding upon all these considerations when there are no skilful persons charged with directing and weighing them Hence some judicious theologians of the Roman party seeing that the authority of the church ie that of the most exalted in dignity and the most supported by the multitude could not be certain in a matter of reasoning have reduced it to the mere attestation of the facts under the name of tradition This was the opinion of Henry Holden an Englishman doctor of the Sorbonne author of a book entitled Analysis of the Faith in which following the principles of the Jommonitorium of Vincent de Lerins he maintained that we cannot make new decisions in the church and that all the bishops assembled his council can do is to attest the fact of the doctrine received in their dioceses The principle is specious so long as we continue in generalities but when we come to the fact it is found that in different countries different opinions have been received for a long time and in the same countries also they have gone from one extreme to another notwithstanding the arguments of Arnauld against insensible changes besides often without confining themselves to attest them they have taken it upon themselves to judge It is also at bottom the opinion of Gretser a learned Jesuit of Bavaria author of another Analysis of Faith approved by the theologians of his order that the church may judge controversies by making new articles of faith since the assistance of the Holy Spirit is promised it although most frequently they try to disguise this view especially in France as if the church were only to explain doctrines already established But the explanation is a statement already received or a new one which they believe may be drawn from the received doctrine Practice is most frequently opposed to the first sense and in the second what can the new statement which is established be but a new article I am not however of the opinion that we despise antiquity in the matter of religion and I also believe that we may say that God has preserved the truly ecumenical councils hitherto from all error contrary to wholesome doctrine For the rest sectarian prejudice is a strange thing I have seen people embrace with ardour an opinion for the sole reason that it is received in their order or even solely because it is contrary to that of a man of a religion or of a nation which they do not like although the question had almost no connection with the religion or the interests of the people They did not know perhaps what was in reality the source of their zeal but I knew that upon the first news that such an one had written this or that thing they would ransack the libraries and puzzle their brains to find something to refute it This it is which is practised so often by those who maintain theses in the universities and who seek to distinguish themselves against their adversaries But what shall we say of the doctrines prescribed in the Symbolic books of the sect even among the Protestants which we are often obliged to embrace with an oath which some think signifies with us only the obligation to profess what these books or formularies contain of Holy Scripture in which they are contradicted by others And in the religious orders of the Roman party without contenting themselves with the doctrines established in their church they prescribe narrower limits to those who teach them witness the propositions the teaching of which in their schools the General of the Jesuits Claudio Aequaviva if I am not mistaken defends It would be well to mention it in passing to make a systematic collection of the propositions determined and censured by councils popes bishops superiors faculties which would be of use in ecclesiastical history We may distinguish between teaching and embracing an opinion There is no oath in the world nor prohibition which can force a man to abide in the same opinion for opinions are involuntary in themselves but he may and should abstain from teaching a doctrine which is regarded as dangerous unless he finds himself compelled thereto by his conscience In this case he must declare himself sincerely and leave his post when he has been charged with teaching supposing however that he can do so without exposing himself to an extreme danger which might force him to leave without fame We see but little other means of reconciling the rights of the public and of the individual: the one being under obligation to prevent what it judges bad and the other not being able to dispense with the duties demanded by his conscience
Ph This opposition between the public and the individual and even between the public opinions of different sects is an inevitable evil But often these very oppositions are only apparent and consist only in the formulas I am obliged also to say in order to be just to the human race that there are not so many people involved in error as is ordinarily supposed Not that I think that they embrace the truth but because in reality upon the doctrines upon which they make so much stir they have absolutely no positive opinion and because without having examined anything and without having in the mind the most superficial ideas upon the matter in question they are resolved to hold themselves fast to their party as soldiers who do not examine the cause they defend and if the life of a man shows that he has no sincere regard for religion it is sufficient for him to have the hand and tongue ready to maintain the common opinion in order to commend himself to those who can procure him support
Th This justice which you render to the human race does not redound to its praise and men would be more excusable in following their opinions than in disguising them for the sake of their interests Perhaps however there is more sincerity in their deeds than you seem to give anyone to understand For without any knowledge of a reason they can perhaps attain to an implicit faith by submitting themselves in general and sometimes blindly but often in good faith to the judgment of others whose authority they have once recognized It is true that the interest they find therein contributes to this submission but this does not prevent them at last from forming an opinion They are contented in the Roman church with this almost implicit faith not perhaps having any article thereupon due to the revelation which is judged absolutely fundamental thereto and which is considered as necessary necessitate medii ie the belief of which is a condition absolutely necessary to salvation And they are all necessitate prweepti by the necessity therein taught of obeying the church as they call it and of giving all attention to that which is proposed therein all under pain of mortal sin But this necessity demands only a reasonable docility and does not compel absolute assent according to the most learned doctors of this church Cardinal Bellarmine himself believed however that nothing was better than this faith of a child who submits himself to an established authority and he relates with approval the statement of a dying man who escaped the devil by this circle which they heard him often repeat
I believe all that the church believes
The church believes what I believe
Ph Here we are at the end of our course and all the operations of the understanding are explained Our purpose is not to enter into the detail indeed of our knowledge, yet it will perhaps be proper here before we conclude to make a general review by considering the division of the sciences All that can enter into the sphere of human understanding is either the nature of things in themselves, or in the second place man in the character of an agent tending towards his end and in particular towards his happiness or in the third place the means of acquiring and communicating knowledge Science then is divided into three kinds The first is Physics or Natural Philosophy which comprises not only bodies and their properties as number figure but also spirits God himself and the angels The second is Practical Philosophy or Ethics which teaches the means of obtaining good and useful things and proposes to itself not only the knowledge of the truth but also the practice of that which is right Finally the third is Logic or the knowledge of signs for \yos signifies word We need signs of our ideas to enable us to communicate our thoughts to one another as well as to register them for our own use Perhaps if we should consider distinctly and with all possible care that this last kind of science revolves about ideas and words we should have a logic and criticism different from that which has hitherto been seen And these three kinds Physics Ethics and Logic are like three great provinces in the intellectual world entirely separate and distinct the one from the other
Th This division has already been a celebrated one among the ancients for under Logic they comprised as you do all that relates to words and to the explication of our thoughts Artes dicendi Nevertheless there is some difficulty therein for the science of reasoning of judgment of invention appears very different from the knowledge of the etymologies of words and the use of languages which is something indefinite and arbitrary Farther in explaining words we are obliged to make an incursion into the sciences themselves as appears by the dictionaries and on the other hand we cannot treat of science without giving at the same time definitions of the terms But the principal difficulty found in this division of the sciences is that each part appears to absorb the whole in the first place Ethics and Logic will fall into Physics taken as generally as you have just stated for in speaking of spirits ie of substances having understanding and will and in explaining this understanding to the bottom you will make it include all logic and in explaining in the doctrine of spirits what belongs to the will it would be necessary to speak of good and evil of happiness and misery and it will only depend upon you to push this doctrine far enough to make it include all practical philosophy In return all might be included in practical philosophy as serving for our happiness You know that Theology is rightly considered as a practical science and Jurisprudence as well as Medicine are not less so so that the doctrine of human happiness or of our good and ill will absorb all these branches of knowledge should we desire to explain sufficiently all the means serving the end which reason proposes to itself Thus it is that Zwinger has included all in his Magnum theatriun vitahumani which Beyerling has disturbed by arranging in alphabetical order And in treating all matters in dictionaries following the order of the alphabet the doctrine of languages which you with the ancients put in Logic ie in discursive logic takes possession in its turn of the territory of the two others Here then your three great provinces of encyclopaedia are in continual war since one is always encroaching upon the rights of the others The Nominalists believed that there were as many particular sciences as truths which they composed after the wholes according as they arranged them and others compare the entire body of our knowledge to an ocean which is all of a piece and which is divided into Caledonian Atlantic Ethiopic Indian only by arbitrary lines It is usually found that one and the same truth may be put in different places according to the terms it contains and also according to the mediate terms or causes upon which it depends and according to the inferences and results it may have A simple categorical proposition has only two terms but a hypothetic proposition may have four not to speak of complex statements A remarkable history may perhaps be placed in the annals of universal history and in the history of the country where it happened and in the history of the life of a man who was interested therein And suppose the question therein concerns some fine precept of morals some stratagem of war some invention useful in the arts which serve the conveniences of life or the health of men this same history will be related to some purpose in the science or art it concerns and indeed it can be mentioned in two parts of this science viz — in the history of the discipline in order to recount its efficient growth and also in the precepts to confirm them or illuminate them by examples For example what is very properly told in the life of Cardinal Ximenes that i Moorish woman cured him by rubbings only of a hectic almost desperate deserves also place in a system of medicine as well in the chapter on hectic fever as when the question concerns a medicinal diet comprising these exercises and this observation will serve also the better to discover the causes of this disease But we might further speak of this in medicinal logic where the question is about the art of discovering remedies and in the history of medicine in order to show how remedies have come to the knowledge of men and that it is often by the aid of simple empirics and even charlatans Beverovicius in a remarkable book on ancient medicine drawn wholly from authors not physicians would have rendered his work still more useful if he had passed down to modern authors We see by this that one and the same truth may have many places according to the different relations it can have Those who arrange a library very often do not know where to place certain books being in suspense between two or three places equally suitable But let us now speak only of general doctrines and put aside particular facts history and languages I find two principal dispositions of all doctrinal truths each of which should have its deserts and which it would be well to unite The one would be synthetic and theoretic ranking truths according to the order of proofs as the mathematicians do so that each proposition would come after those on which it depends The other disposition would be analytic and practical commencing with the end of men ie with the goods whose consummation is happiness and seeking in order the means available for acquiring these goods or avoiding the contrary evils These two methods have place in general encyclopaedias while some have practised them in particular sciences for geometry itself treated synthetically by Euclid as a science has been treated by some others as an art and might nevertheless be treated demonstratively under this form which would show indeed some invention as if someone proposed to measure all kinds of plane figures and beginning with rectilinears reflected that they may be divided into triangles and that each triangle is half of a parallelogram and that parallelograms can be reduced to rectangles whose measure is easy But in writing the encyclopaedias following both these two dispositions together we might take measures for references in order to avoid repetitions To these two dispositions the third wording to the terms should be joined which in reality would be only a kind of index either systematic arranging the terms according to certain predicaments which would be common to all the notions or alphabetical according to the languages received among scholars Now this index would be necessary in order to find together all the propositions into which the term enters in a sufficiently remarkable manner for according to the two preceding ways where the truths are arranged according to their origin or use truths concerning one and the same term cannot be found together For example it was not permitted Euclid when he was teaching how to find the half of an angle to add the means of finding its third because he would have been obliged to speak of the conic sections knowledge of which he could not yet assume in this place But the index may and should indicate the places where are found the important propositions which concern one and the same subject And we still lack such an index in geometry which would be of great use in facilitating indeed invention and in pushing the science for it would relieve the memory and often spare us the trouble if seeking again that which has already been found And these indices would further be of use for a much stronger reason in he other sciences where the art of reasoning has less power and would be above all extremely necessary in Medicine But he art of making such indices would be no slight one Now considering these three dispositions I find it remarkable that liev correspond to the ancient division which you have renewed which divides science or philosophy into theoretical practical and discursive or rather into Physics Ethics and Logic For the synthetic disposition corresponds to the theoretic the analytical u the practical and that of the index according to the terms to Logic so that this ancient division does very well provided we understand these dispositions as I have just explained ie not s distinct sciences but as different arrangements of the same truths as far as we judge it advisable to repeat them There is also a civil division of the sciences according to the faculties and professions We make use of it in the universities and in the arrangements of libraries and Draudius with his continuer Lipenius who have left us the amplest but not the best catalogue of books instead of following the method of the Pandects of Gesner which is wholly systematic have contented themselves with the use of the great division of the materials much the same as the libraries following the four faculties as they are called of theology jurisprudence medicine and philosophy and have afterwards arranged the titles of each faculty according to the alphabetical order of the principal terms entering into the inscription of the books this lightened the task of these authors because they had no need to see the book or to understand the matter which the book treats but it does not sufficiently serve others at least it does not make references in the titles to others of parallel signification for not to speak of a number of mistakes they have made we see that often one and the same thing is called by different names as for example obserontiones juris miscellanea conjectanea electa semestria probabilia benedicta and a multitude of similar inscriptions such books of the jurisconsults signify only the miscellanies of the Roman Law This is why the systematic disposition of the materials is without doubt the best and we may join with it alphabetical indices very full according to the terms and the authors The civil and received division according to the four faculties is not to be despised Theology treats of eternal felicity and all that relates thereto so far as it depends on the soul and the conscience it is like a jurisprudence which regards what is said to exist deforo interna and employs invisible substances and intelligences Jurisprudence has for its object government and the laws whose end is the happiness of men so far as the external and sensible can contribute thereto but it regards principally only that which depends upon the nature of the spirit and does not enter much farther into the detail of material things whose nature it assumes in order to employ them as means Thus is it relieved at once of an important point which concerns the health strength and perfection of the human body the care of which is given to the faculty of Medicine Some have believed with some reason that we might add to the others the Economic Faculty which would contain the Mathematical and Mechanical Arts and all that concerns the detail of the subsistence of men and of the conveniences of life in which Agriculture and Architecture would be included But we abandon to the faculty of Philosophy all which is not included in the three faculties which we call superior We do this quite badly for we do it without giving means to those who are of this fourth faculty for perfecting themselves by practice as those can do who teach the other faculties Thus the mathematics perhaps excepted we consider the faculty of philosophy only as an introduction to the others This is why we wish the youth to learn history and the arts of speaking and some rudiments of theology and natural jurisprudence independent of divine and human laws under the title of metaphysics or psychology ethics and politics with a little of physics also in order to serve as young physicians This then is the civil division of the sciences following the bodies and professions of the scholars who teach them without speaking of the profession of those who work for the public otherwise than by their discourses and who ought to be directed by true scholars if the limits of knowledge were well understood And even in the more noble manual arts knowledge has been very much bound up with performance and might be more so As in fact they are joined together in medicine not only formerly among the ancients where physicians were also surgeons and apothecaries but also today especially among the chemists This alliance also of practice and theory finds itself at variance both among those who teach what are called exercises as also among the painters or sculptors and musicians and among some other kinds of virtuosi And if the principles of all these professions and arts and even of the trades were taught practically among the philosophers or in some other faculty of scholars as they might be these scholars would be truly the teachers of the human race But it would be necessary to change much of the present state of things in literature and the education of the youth and consequently of the government And when I consider how much men have advanced in knowledge in the last century or two and how easy it would be for them to go incomparably farther in order to render themselves happier I do not despair that a considerable improvement will come in a more tranquil period under some great prince whom God will be able to raise up for the good of the human race