The Divine Lamp

Article 5

The difficulty found in explaining the origin of the idea of substance is the same as that which I have stated in another form.

The impossibility of deriving the idea of substance from the sense arises, as we have seen, from the fact that such derivation is possible only through a judgment, for making which we must necessarily be in possession of a universal, which the senses cannot give: I mean the idea of existence.

Now anyone who reflects on this matter will perceive that this is the same difficulty which I have propounded in connection with the origin of ideas generally; for the whole of that difficulty was reduced by me to this one question, ‘How is our first judgment possible, supposing that we have not the knowledge of some universal, have not some idea, innate in us?’

Indeed, how could that judgment be possible when it is in the very nature of a judgment to make use of a universal, and therefore to presuppose it in our mind?

Antecedently to our knowledge of the universal, therefore, the making of any judgment about our sensations, or the causes which produce them, is utterly out of the question.

But if this is so, our understanding will never be able to advance ever so little beyond the sensations; for to deprive this faculty of the power of making judgments, is to take away from it all its activity, and to doom it to a state of absolute inertness; and therefore to disqualify it entirely from forming to itself any universal, because every such formation is only the effect of a judgment.

To illustrate this by example, we will suppose that m senses are acted upon by some sensible agent-a tree, a stone, and animal, &c.  I shall forthwith  experience the sensations which that agent produces in me- the sensation of color, of size, of form, of motion, &c.  Now, so long as I am only a passive recipient of these sensations, so long as they remain pure modifications of my sensitivity, unaccompanied by any action of my understanding, I have not conceived of any being in an intellectual way.  To conceive it intellectually, I must make a judgment by which I say to myself, ‘Here is something endowed with such and such qualities’ (the qualities perceived by my senses).  Now by pronouncing this judgment I simply attribute existence to a real thing of which my senses have perceived only the being itself.  The universal applied here to the sensations is that of existence; but if I had not the knowledge of the universal previously, I could not apply it, and therefore could not perceive anything intellectually; since to perceive a thing intellectually is nothing but to judge that thing exists.

But this universal idea of existence, or being, cannot be supplied by sensations; and why? because they do not contain it; for the existence of the sensible qualities which produce the sensations is not in them, but in the being (the substance) of which they are accidents, and which is entirely different from them.  Hence they cannot be intellectually perceived by themselves alone, but must be perceived in that being (that substance).  Here is the whole of the difficulty to which Locke himself bore witness by his inability to derive the idea of substance from sensations.

But the difficulty, in the form in which I have proposed it, extends a great deal further than this.

It is a fact, certified by observation, that we have no intellectual perception of any sensible thing except through an interior judgment by which we say to ourselves, ‘This thing exists;’ and it is equally a fact that, in order to pronounce this judgment, we must be possessed of the idea of existence, which we add to the qualities perceived by the senses.

This alone, in the first place, is an insoluble knot for those who imagine that all ideas can be drawn from the senses; and the same knot is found in the formation of every idea-the idea of tree, of stone, of an animal, howsoever determinate it may be,&c.  For in the formation of these ideas, as also of intellectual perceptions, a judgment in which we make use of the universal idea of existence is always necessary, because by them we affirm something as existent.  But, for the reason already given, this idea cannot be had from sensible qualities, and consequently cannot be had through sensation.

Therefore the formation of particular ideas, or, to speak more accurately, of intellectual perceptions, is inexplicable unless on the admission that we have, antecedently to them, the universal idea of existence.

We are therefore well justified in saying that the philosophers of the school of Locke have not carried their analysis of ideas far enough for them to see the truth which I have pointed out-namely, that there is not a single idea, even though relating to a particular, which has not in it a universal, at least the idea of existence.  For to have, say, the idea of tree, referring it to a particular tree; and intellectually to perceive a tree is the same thing as to judge a tree existent; and to judge this is the same thing as to assign the tree to the class of things that have existence.  Wherefore a sense-perception is not an idea until that which the sense perceives is classed, so to speak, among the thing existing, either actually or potentially; which cannot be done without the idea of existence-that is, of the class in which that thing is placed.  But the philosophers of whom I speak were entirely unconscious of this truth.  They supposed that there really were particular ideas without any universal or common element in them.

In arguing, therefore, with these philosophers, I would tell them that, on this their supposition, the forming of universals by means of abstraction is a sheer impossibility.

In fact, how shall I extract universals from particular ideas which, by the hypothesis, do not contain any universal at all?  Is not this a manifest self-contradiction?

However, in the opinion of our philosophers, nothing is easier than the making of this abstraction.  All you have to do (say they) is this: When you have an idea of a tree, of a stone, of an animal, or of any other particular thing, observe what each of these things has in it of ‘common’ and what of ‘proper.’  Fix your attention on the common, totally apart from the proper, and that is the universal you were seeking for,  Do you wish to form the idea of existence?  Forget all the other qualities; think only of that quality which, in the objects known to you, is the most common of all, and the thing is done.

I shall not stop to number the many inaccuracies contained in these sentences, but shall confine myself to what is sufficient for bringing out in full view the difficulty of which we are speaking.

I answer, then: You want me, in reflecting upon the particular ideas which I have of a tree, of a stone, &c., to fix my attention upon such of their qualities as are common, and to separate them from those that are proper.  You assume, then, that each of these ideas is composed of two elements-the ‘common’ and the ‘proper;’ for otherwise you could not expect me to find these elements on them, nor, consequently, to fix my attention on one in preference to the other.  You are, then, in contradiction with yourselves; for your supposition was, that the particular ideas contained nothing universal, and that I, having as yet no universal, could obtain it by means of those ideas.

The truth is, that these philosophers are taking unwarrantable liberties with the rules of logic, now asserting one thing, and the next moment implying the contrary; first by maintaining that we begin with particular ideas received only from the sensations, and then assuring us that we shall find in these ideas the universals which they have just told us are not in them!

And if they had supposed (as they should have done) that in the particular ideas some universal is contained, it would have been their duty to assign to the universal an origin different from the sensations which contain nothing but what is particular.

But what could have been the origin of this illusion of the followers of Locke?  I believe it to have been this, that they never properly realized to themselves this simple truth, that the sensations as well as the ’sensibles,’ considered by themselves and independently of our understanding, are particular in such a manner that they contained positively nothing but particular qualities; and that a common and universal quality exists in our understanding only.  Of this truth I shall have occasion to say more in the future.  Having failed to notice it, our philosophers fell into the blunder of attributing to the thing perceived that which was only in the understanding; and from this first blunder the others came of themselves, because the error was carried from the beginning of the calculation down to the very end, of it, to the ultimate result.

Let us trace out the way in which the first error, unconsciously admitted, went on communicating itself, as if by a natural reproduction, from one proposition to another down to the last.

First error: ‘The things perceived by the bodily senses have really in them something common independently of the manner in which the are perceived by the understanding.’

Now, if the ‘common’ be really in the things themselves, and not in the understanding, it is clearly superfluous to seek in the understanding for the origin of the ‘common.’

Second error:  ‘The two elements of which the things are composed-i.e. the “common” and the “proper”-pass into the sensations so soon as the things are perceived by the senses.’

This is a necessary sequel of the above.  Assume that the sensible qualities, as perceived by the senses, contain the ‘common’ as well as the ‘proper,’ and you are bound to say that the sensation perceives both of them.

Third error: ‘If the sense receives into itself and perceives that which is “common” in the things, as well as that which is “proper,” the origin of particular ideas is easy to explain.’

Very easy, indeed, when the sense is supposed to supply us with both elements which compose those ideas (see note 1)

Fourth and last error: ‘From the particular ideas on can readily abstract universals.’

Just so.  We only require for that purpose to divide the two elements contained in these ideas, and to bestow our attention on the ‘common,’ exclusively of the ‘proper.’

All these consequences are unimpeachably correct if the first of the above propositions is true-namely, that the ‘common’ and the ‘proper’ really exist in the thing perceived by the bodily senses.  In fact: first, it is indubitable that universals can be drawn by analysis from particular ideas, if it be true that the universals are contained in them.  Second, it is indubitable that the particular ideas, composed of ‘common’ and ‘proper,’ can  be obtained from sensations alone, if it be true that the sensations themselves are the compound result of these two elements.  Third, and lastly, it is indubitable that the sens perceives the ‘common’ as well as the ‘proper,’ if it be true that these are real elements entering into the composition of external things and their sensible qualities.

The capital sin of all this reasoning is in the final proposition.

The common has no existence outside the understanding.  It is an element of our ideas, not a real element of external things.  The existence of things is purely individual and proper, and so are all their other qualities; for the word common implies a relation seen by the understanding between several objects, and a relation is not even a species of quality, so that it may exist in a real thing.  It belongs to the order, not of things, but of thought.

If, then, the universal (the common) is found only in ideas, and if in external things there is an existence purely particular and proper, the question is, ‘Whence do we get our knowledge of universals?’

Not certainly from external things, which have it not to give.  And yet none of us is without the knowledge of universals.  Therefore, the origin of that knowledge must be in the understanding itself independently of sensations.  This argument seems to me unanswerable.

Now, the difficulty proposed by me reduced itself to this very question, ‘How is it possible for the understanding to have the knowledge of universals?’

It is a fact, I said, that a person whose intellectual faculties are at all developed makes judgments.  Therefore, he must at some time or other have begun making them.

There is no middle term here, no gradation; to pretend that there is would be a mere dream of the imagination.  I must either say to myself, ‘This which acts upon my senses exists,’ or not say it.

Let us , then, go back in thought to the very first of our judgments.  For making it we already stood essentially in need of a universal.  But we could have only have drawn the universal through reflection (1) on our sensations, (2) on our particular ideas.  Not, however, on our sensations, because the universal was not in them; therefore on our particular ideas.  It will then have to be supposed that we began to judge after having acquired some particular ideas.  But either these ideas contained the universal, or they did not contain it: if they did, it remains to be explained whence it came into them.  If they did not contain it, the difficulty returns.  Take it, therefore, as you will; this difficulty cannot be got over except on the assumption that the common or universal is supplied by the understanding itself, and that this faculty carries with it something not received from the senses.

Thus would be solved the first part of the question which I have proposed in this work-namely, ‘Whether the human understanding has something innate in it?’  There would remain the second part-i.e.: ‘Assuming that the human mind has in it something innate, in what does that something consist?’

But the answer to this may already be surmised from the things which I have said, and which clearly point to the idea of being as that universal whence all universals originate.  Nevertheless, before treating professedly of this matter, I must fulfill the promise I made, of passing in review the principal philosophical systems concerning the first part of the present inquiries.

notes:

1.  The self contradiction with which I have charged the Lockists would always remain, even though all this reasoning which they raise on a shaky basis were strictly accurate.