The Divine Lamp

Article 9. Defect Common To Reid And His Adversaries.

121. The adversaries of Reid have certainly the best of the argument so long as there is only question of the demonstrating that to make a first judgment without some idea pre-existing in the mind is an impossibility; but they are not equally fortunate when they have to defend the proposition that “The simple apprehension or pure idea of a thing precedes the judgment which affirms its real existence.”

On the one hand, this proposition seems quite true; for how can I judge that a being exists of which I have no idea? Looking, therefore, at the matter under this aspect, it would appear that the idea or simple apprehension of that being must precede the judgment on its subsistence.

But, on the other hand, this is altogether contradicted by experience. To anyone who looks at this matter in the light of experience, it must be obvious that, as regards external things, we in the first place, for a concrete idea of them-i.e. an idea couples with the actual perception and persuasion of their real existence, and that only latter do we draw from it (by abstracting from this perception and persuasion) that pure idea which is called simple apprehension. For instance, who thinks of a purely ideal or possible horse without ever having seen some particular horse in actual existence?

122. This knot of the question was not clearly seen either by Reid or by his opponents. hence it came to pass that each side could successfully attack the position of the other, while it was unable to defend its own.

Reid confounded together two questions which are very different. For it is one thing to ask “whether a judgment on the real existence of external things can be made y us without some universal idea pre-existing in our mind;” and another thing to ask “whether, before we can make that judgment, we must have the simple apprehension or abstract idea of the things themselves.

The adversaries of Reid answered the latter question in the affirmative, and in this they were wrong.

Now, Reid did not restrict himself to opposing them on this particular ground, which would have been enough to overthrow their system. He further undertook to prove that we affirm the existence of external things by an original judgment, not only without possessing the simple apprehension of the things themselves, but also without possessing any universal ideas at all; that is, by a judgment wholly involved in darkness and mystery.

By thus unnecessarily widening the controversy, Reid damaged his cause in such a manner that his adversaries, although silenced by his argument as against themselves, could nevertheless turn around upon him, and convict him of grievous error.

In fact, it does not require much effort to see that no one can make a judgment who does not possess some universal idea; and, therefore, the thesis which Reid, in his zeal for the truth, undertook to maintain, was exaggerated and altogether untenable.

Moreover, the task of showing to his adversaries, by an appeal to experience, that our first judgments on the real existence of external things must precede the simple ideas of them, was an easy one; but it was far from easy to find a satisfactory answer to the formidable question:-”How can I judge that a thing exists of which I have no idea?”

The answer to this question would have led the Scottish philosopher very far in his investigations; but whether it was that he despaired of finding it, or that he considered it of no importance, he did not even seek for it. He contented himself with enveloping his “original judgment” in a cloud of mystery, thus, possibly, to screen it from all further questionings on the part of inquisitive minds.

123. There could be only one way of finally settling the point. This was by devising a system where the object judged to exist, was the effect of the judgment itself, or, which comes to the same, “where the specific ideas of things were produced by the self-same act which affirmed the real existence of those things.” The whole difficulty, therefore, lay in finding a judgment of this description.

124. Now, by passing in review the various species of judgments which we make on things, we find that, so long as the judgment is merely about some quality belonging to a thing, the idea of that thing necessarily exists in our mind before the judgment, as well as before the idea of the quality which the judgment attributes to it. On the contrary, when the judgment is such as to fall on the existence of itself of the thing, then the idea of the thing judged of is not in our mind prior to, but in virtue of, this judgment. For until a thing is thought of by us as existent, either really or potentially, it is nothing so far as we are concerned; it is not an object of our thought, an idea. Therefore the judgment by which we affirm the existence of things different in this from all other judgments, is itself the producer of its object, This fact shows that such a judgment is possessed of a peculiar and almost creative energy which eminently deserves the attention of the philosopher. For us, then, the object begins to exist, at the very most, simultaneously with the judgment of which I am speaking.

125. About this power three questions may be asked:-

1. How is it moved to think of a thing as existent?
2. hence does it draw the universal idea of existence which is indispensable for forming that thought?
3. How does it come to limit that universal idea to a determinate thing, in such a way that this thing, and not any other, is the object it thinks of as existent?

126. The first and third of these questions are easily answered by the aid of experience.

For our understanding is moved both to think of an object as existent, and to determine it as such or such, y the sensations. These produce in us a certain modification, and in response to that modification we say to ourselves, “That which causes in me these sensations exists.”

The only difficulty, then, is as to how we come by the idea of existence, without which it would be impossible for us to make that judgment whereby we know for the first time that a certain external thing exists, Here is the great problem of ideology.

127.  To recapitulate in other words.   To the question, “How can I judge that a thing exists of which I have as yet no idea?”  the answer is as follows: This judgement includes two parts; first, the thought of existence (or being) in general, and secondly, the thought of the particular thing which I have now before me, with all its determining properties.

So long as I think only of existence in general, or not determined in any way, I make no judgment.  I begin to judge when I apply the thought, or determine it to this or that particular thing.

Now, suppose that I were already in possession of the idea of existence (or being) in general; all that I should then require in order to make the judgment “Such or such a thing exists,” would be the sensations, for they would give me the determination of the existence (being) which by the hypothesis is present to my mind.  The whole difficulty therefore reduces itself to explaining the origin of the idea of being, the great sine qua non in all first judgments.

128.  But, whatever be the origin of this idea, let us for the present continue to speak on the supposition that we have it prior to all our judgments on the actual existence of this or that determinate and sensible thing.

In this case the judgments may be very easily explained and analyzed in the following manner:

We are by nature at once sentient and intelligent; that is to say, we are endowed with both sense and understanding.

The sense is the faculty of perceiving things in so far as sensible; the understanding is the faculty of perceiving things as existent in themselves.  

Now he reason why all that is perceived by our sense becomes the  object of our understanding is, because WE who experience the sensations are the identical human subjects who are also possessed of understanding.

Given, therefore, that our sense has perceived the sensible qualities, what will be the intellectual operation which we exercise on them?

The understanding, as I have said, is the faculty of perceiving things as existent in themselves.  It will therefore perceive the “sensibles”- not as the sense perceives them-i.e. not in the intimate relation they have with ourselves in so far as they sensations-but as existing in themselves independently of us.  Now, to perceive in this manner is nothing but to judge that there is a being outside of us wherein are the sensible qualities; although as to how those qualities are in it (and certainly there must be a way in which they  can be there), this first judgment does not make any pronouncement.

Let us, then, seize well on the difference between the two species of judgments which are made by us on external objects.

One species consists of those judgments by which we simply think of a quality as existent in a being of which we have already the idea.  Thus when I say, “This man is blind,” I attribute the quality of blindness to a person whom I already know, and to whom my judgment refers.

By the judgments of the other species, on the contrary, we think of a being as adhering to certain sensible qualities.  Such is the judgment we make when we say to ourselves, “Here is a being determined by these and these qualities which fall under my senses.”

In the first species, the object exists to us antecedently to the judgment we make on it; in the second, the object does not exist prior to the judgment, but only the elements  of it-that is, (1) the sensations, not yet become cognitions; (2) the idea of existence, which illumines the sensations by adding being to them, and causes them to be known in and through being.

To conclude: judgment does not always refer to an object previously thought of, but it sometimes refers to the “sensibles” which become objects of our thought in virtue of the act of judgment itself.

129.   First Question:  “is it necessary that the simple apprehension, or pure idea, of the external objects should e in our mind antecedently to the judgment by which we affirm their actual existence?”

Answer:  No; it is only necessary that we should have the sense-perception of the sensible qualities.

The mistake of the adversaries of Dr Reid in thinking  that we have first the idea of a thing, and then form the judgment on its existence, arose from their not having well mastered the distinction between a sensation and an idea.  By confounding these two things together, and at the same time seeing that it is only by the sensations that we are led to judge of the existence of a body, they concluded that before making this judgment we must have the idea of that body.  Had they reflected that the sensations give us the   particular sensible qualities only, whereas by an idea we think of a being endowed with those qualities, they would easily have seen, that our idea of a body presupposes a judgment-I mean, that judgment which to the particular sensible qualities supplied to us by the sensations joins the thought of existence and thus forms the idea of the body determined by the qualities which actually fall under our senses,  This idea is the object understood by us, and it is formed, as I have said, by the judgment itself.  Then reflection comes in and by considering the object apart from the persuasion of its actual existence-that is to say, leaving it before the mind in a state of pure possibility-forms that species of abstraction which the Schoolmen called simple apprehension.

    Second Question:   “is it necessary that before making that judgment by which we affirm for the first time the existence of a body, we should be in possession of some universal idea.”

Answer:  Undoubtedly it is; because a judgment not preceded by some universal idea is an impossibility; and to have overlooked this truth was the great blunder of Reid.  He admitted an original judgment, qualifying it as mysterious and incapable of any explanation.  Now, it is certainly in some cases lawful for a philosopher to admit a principle which he declares to be mysterious, and, if you will, utterly inexplicable; but it is none of the attributes of a philosopher to admit an absurdity: and a judgment made independently of all universal ideas is an absurdity.  Nor is it less unbecoming in a philosopher to lay down a principle and at the same time not to examine the conditions which are necessary to make it possible: for in that case, even if the principle were not shown to be manifestly absurd, the fact of its not having been examined would at least leave a doubt as to its truth.  Now, an antecedent universal idea is a condition absolutely necessary for that judgment by which we affirm for the first time the existence of a body.  Therefore, Dr Reid should not have abruptly suspended the process of analyzing the “original and natural judgment” on which he based his theory, but should have prosecuted it until he found whether or not it had all the essential requisite for its formation.