The Divine Lamp

Article 10
In every representative apprehension we contemplate a universal: hence the difficulty is seen still more clearly in the theory of Condillac, and remains unsolved.

90. The above is precisely the difficulty which I stated at the beginning, and of which we are seeking the solution: here it shows itself in all its generality.

It no longer applies to one particular class of ideas only-i.e. the universal ideas-but to all ideas without any distinction. It does not say, “To make a judgment we must be in possession of some universal, and to form a universal we must make a judgment: query, then, which of the two is first-the universal or the judgment?” But it says, “To make a judgment we require some ideas to compare together, and to form ideas we require to make a judgment: query, then, which of the two is first-the judgment or the idea?”

This interrogation, put in the form of a philosophical problem, may be expressed thus: “To assign to ideas and to judgments such an origin that they will not reciprocally presuppose each other, and that we may thus avoid the absurdity of having to consider the effects as the cause of its cause.” Such, in fact, would be the case if all ideas were the result of judgments, and all judgments the result of ideas compared together.

91. Before proceeding to examine whether any other philosopher has succeeded in solving this problem, it will not be amiss to dwell a little longer on the theory of Condillac.

In this theory an idea is a perception representing something different from itself; and it seems evident that, in order to recognize that a perception is related to something different from itself in such a way as to be fit to represent it, a judgment is necessary.

Certainly a simple modification of our soul, such as a pain or a pleasure, is felt by us without any need of a judgment; but to be able to say that a modification represents something different from itself, we must make a judgment on it. Condillac implies as much by saying that the reason why ideas are representative of external objects is because they are produced by the touch-i.e. the sense which (as he asserts) has in it the power of judging and of teaching the other powers to do the same.

I need not repeat that I entirely disagree with his view of the nature of the sense of touch. To me this sense is one thing, and the faculty of judging is essentially another (see 88). The touch does not make judgments; it only furnishes the occasion and the matter for them.

92. Nevertheless, this divergence between Condillac and myself does not in any way affect the nature of my objection against his system. Whether the faculty of judgment identifies itself with the sense of touch, as he will have it, or, as I contend, is a separate power of the soul, we are both agreed in this, that to form ideas a judgment is necessary.

Now, here will be seen in a clearer light the truth which I hinted when first stating the difficulty (see 43): namely, that there is not a single idea, how particular soever it may be, which does not contain a universal. For we can always, even in ideas applied to particular things, fine the “common,” and separate it in our mind from the “proper;” which we could not do if the “common” was not contained in those ideas. Let us see this truth from Condillac’s own theory.

For Condillac, to have an idea or a representative conception, is the same thing as to have an exemplar to which to refer the objects represented and expressed by it.

A portrait is representative of the person who has sat for it; but this does not cause the person to be of the same nature or substance as the portrait, because his relation with it is not so exclusive, so all-absorbing, that other individuals may not share in it through their personal appearance being more or less like his own. So with a perception. Once become representative of something different from itself, in is universal in this sense, that it can also represent other things besides the one from which it was taken. The applicability of the relation of similarity to things of the same kind, whether existing actually, or only potentially, is inexhaustible. By being similar to each other, two things are not inter-penetrated, made one in nature, wedded together, so to speak, in an indissoluble bond. Each of them remains perfectly free to resemble any number of other things. The one resemblance does not prevent or disturb the other: on the contrary, it implies and supposes it.

Therefore from the moment that Condillac affirms that all ideas are representative perceptions, he is bound to admit that there is a universal and a common element in every one of them: universal, because this quality alone can make them representative; common, because the only reason why many things resemble one another is that they have something in common: and this common essence, taken by itself, is what may be considered as the exemplar or type of all those things, inasmuch as all are referable to it. An exemplar, therefore, a type, is always a universal; and if one chooses to particularize it by applying it to one thing only-for example, to that whence it was drawn-the particularization is purely arbitrary and positive, and not natural and necessary.

Had Condillac observed this, he would not have spoken of ideas in one place, and then, in another place much further down, of universal ideas. He would at once have recognized universality as the characteristic of all ideas generally; and having done this, he could have proceeded to treat of the different ways of universality.

But that there may not remain any doubt as to this universality, intrinsic to all representative perceptions (I lay stress on the fact because it is of great importance), let us once more hear how Condillac explains the manner in which a particular idea becomes universal.

We have no general idea which has not been particular. Any first object which we have had occasion to observe is a MODEL to which we refer anything which resembles it. This idea, which initially was merely singular, is as general as our discernment is untutored.

93. For an idea to be general or universal, then, is the same thing as for it to be the exemplar of many objects (properly of many real individuals). Now, to be the exemplar of many objects is the same thing as to be representative of those objects. But every idea is a perception endowed with a representative property. Therefore, every idea has in it a universal element.

The reason why Condillac did not perceive this truth seems to me to have been this, that he confounded the aptitude which an idea has of representing an infinity of real individuals, with the use which we make of that aptitude-i.e. with the act whereby we explicitly recognize such aptitude in the idea.

If we have in our house a portrait of a venerated ancestor, probably the members of the family, who in those well-delineated features have so vivid a reminder of his former presence in their midst, will never think of that likeness except in connection with him. In this case, therefore, the relation of similarity will be determined to one object alone.

But it remains to be seen whether this determination arises from the nature of the likeness and an intrinsic inaptitude to represent more than one individual, or whether it depends on the accidental disposition of those who look at it, not simply in its natural relations, but in that conventional relation which is suggested by their knowing and remembering for whom the likeness was intended. Now, it is evident that the second of these alternatives is the true one; and it is also evident that the accident of the likeness being viewed by the family in that particular light does not change its nature nor do away with the fitness it essentially has to represent all persons who may exist with features resembling those of our ancestor.

In like manner, form the instant that a perception is representative, it has a necessary relation with all that can fall under its representativeness; and this is independent of the use we make of it and of the attention we give to the several individuals which it expresses and represents.  We may, if we please, take it as representative of one individual only, or of two or three; but this does not in any way detract from its natural fitness to represent any number of other individuals of the same class, although we may not think of them all, which, indeed, we could not do, because that number would go on ad infinitum.  Hence a representative conception being once formed in our mind, the task of applying it to individual cases is left to ourselves; and this becomes as it were an art which we learn in proportion as we advance in the knowledge of the use to which that conception may be applied.  But, be our proficiency in this art great or small, the nature of the conception as representative of an infinity of individuals remains ever the same, even though we do not advert to the fact.  The case is parallel to that of the portrait we were just speaking of.

Therefore, when Condillac pretends that his statue, in order to transform the idea which it has already acquired of a of a particular orange into the exemplar of all oranges generally, must see, not one orange only, or many oranges in succession, but two or more oranges simultaneously, and refer them together to the particular idea; he does not, as he imagines, explain how the particular idea passes into being an exemplar (i.e. a universal), but he only shows how we begin to make use of it as an exemplar.   It is already an exemplar, and our beginning to make use of it clearly supposes it such.  by referring to it the several oranges simultaneously seen by us we do not alter its nature; we take it as we find it in our mind, and we make use of it for our purpose.

On the other hand, the universal representativeness of that idea is not at all increased by our applying it to many oranges;even as the universal representativeness of the portrait above alluded to would receive no additions from being applied to all persons resembling the ancestor who sat for it.  In both cases the representative property always continues to be precisely as it was from the first, whether one makes use of it or not, and whether one expressly adverts to to it or not.

 Therefore, given that such ideas as Condillac allows to be representative have been formed in our mind, there is no possibility of them being other than universal.  The hidden and secret way in which they are formed has entirely escaped his attention.   Instead of  watchfully observing  how they came into his statue, he found them there;  and having thus unconsciously jumped clear over the real hard point of the difficulty, having gratuitously assumed that the main point as explained, he found the further course of his investigations quite smooth and easy.

94.  It is, therefore, one thing to have an idea, and another to know the use to which it may be put.  Our mind, which always advances gradually, does not certainly come to know of all of the uses of which ideas are susceptible except through many successive reflections and a searching analysis of them.  It is thus only that ideas reveal themselves to us under new aspects, both in relation to one another and in relation to external things; and as a consequence of this we find out new uses for these ideas.  This, however, does not mean that the ideas on which our mind performs these diverse operations are not in it entire from the first.  If the mind were not fully in possession of them, how could it make use of the subject of these operations, or discover the relations and uses of which we speak?  But such is the constitution of the human mind, that the act by which we receive the ideas of things must precede the acts by which it acquires the knowledge of the uses to be made of them.  Now, the principle use which the human mind makes of ideas is, as Condillac truly says, that they serve as the exemplars of things.  Thus the idea of orange is the exemplar by which all oranges are to be judged oranges.  Hence when, seeing before us many oranges together, we judge of them by using the same idea as their common exemplar, we do not, as Condillac seems to think, gain a new kind of idea-i.e. a universal idea.  The idea was already universal by its nature, and the simultaneous sight of many oranges was only the occasion for our bringing that universality into requisition. (Excerpted from THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS by Blessed Antonio Rosmini.  A public domain book)