The Divine Lamp

Having summarized these systems as they relate to the question of the origin of ideas, Rosmini not offers a brief critique.

The observations of Reid on the subject of the Sensism of Locke and Condillac, Berkeley and Hume, were perfectly just, being founded on a more complete study of the phenomena of the human spirit.

He said, if man had no other faculty but that of sensation, he would feel only, but he would never think.  Thought is something beyond sensation, for we think of what we don not feel; we arrive at substance, for example, at cause and spirit by thought, yet they do not fall under our senses.  Therefore the objects of  human thought are not merely simple sensations.  However evident the fact may be it is difficult to understand how it is.  It is still more difficult to understand, though equally evident, that we think of the sensations in a way different from that in which we feel the sensation itself.  Our mind, in fact, affirms the sensation in itself, and this indifferently whether it is actually present, or past, or future.  For example, I think of the pleasant odor of the rose I experienced yesterday; the sensation itself is no longer present, but the thought of it remains.  Therefore “the sensation” itself is not the same thing as “the thought of the sensation.”

We may say the same as to the future sensations.  I think over the pleasant sensations I expect tomorrow in the chase or at a banquet.  The sensations do not yet exist, yet the thought of them is present.  Thought therefore differs essentially from sensation.  This being the case, I am bound to conclude that even when the sensation and the thought of the sensation are both present at the same time, they not only differ essentially, but are independent of one another.
Moreover, who has not observed how many times we experience sensations without thinking of them, Especially if they are not very vivid or are habitual and manifold, such as we experience in every moment of our existence.  They pass unobserved, our mind, particularly if distracted or otherwise occupied, has not the time to reflect upon them.  We can therefore easily understand that there are beings which are purely sensitive, and others in whom thought is united with sensation; the first are those that have brute animal life, the second are human beings.  This distinction once admitted demolishes the fundamental principle of Locke and his followers.  Locke confounded sensation with thought, and attempted to apply to thought what actually applied to sensation only.

The True Nature of Thought.

Sofar Reid was right in dealing with the Sensists, but in attempting to confute the Sceptics he found himself stranded.  For, seeing the necessity of basing philosophy on thought, and of giving a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of thought, and seeing that these could in no way be accounted for y the senses only, he boldly took the line of declaring that they were to be attributed to a particular and essential instinct of human nature.  In this he took notice of the subjective part of thought only, entirely losing sight of the objective element, and so failed to grasp the true nature of thought itself.   For it is of the nature of thought that there is always present to the subject, an object which can never be confounded with the subject, but on the contrary is constantly distinguished from it; and in this continual and necessary distinction the thought itself consists, so that if ever the object were confounded with the subject, thought would thereby cease to exist.

This error or omission of Reid was taken advantage of by Kant, thence to raise doubts, not merely as to the existence of bodies, but as to all the objects of human cognition, all of which he maintains are only products, as we have already seen, of an irresistible instinct of human nature, and, therefore, mere subjective creations of the human spirit.  The transcendental Idealism of Fichte is nothing but a logical complement of the system of Kant.

We may expose the error of Kant, which was at the root of many other errors and of German Pantheism, by the following reasoning: "I know that I am not the object of my thought, and that the object of my thought is not myself.  Thus I know that I am not the bread that I eat, the sun which I behold, the person with whom I converse.  This is self-evident, because I am so known to myself that if I were not so known I should no longer be.  Therefore nothing can be me without my knowing it.  But I do not know that the bread, the sun, the person I converse with are myself.  Therefore I know that they are not myself.”

Kant could only reply to this that we are deceived, and that things might easily be ourselves without our knowing it.  But this could not e, for if I did ot know it I should not be myself.  Without this consciousness of self the Ego would not be Ego but something else.  Therefore the objects which stand before my thought are essentially distinct from myself.  For the same reason they cannot be modifications of myself, because if so they would exist in my consciousness as modifications of myself, since the nature of the Ego consists in this consciousness of myself.

The Bridge of Communication between ourselves and the external objects.

But the Idealists object: What then is “the bridge of communication between the Ego, myself, and the objects of the Ego?  Can the Ego go out of itself so as to reach a thing outside of itself?”

To this we reply, that however difficult the question may be, even though it were found inexplicable, this would in no way weaken our assertion of a fact already fully verified.  Sound logic demands that when we have a verified fact before us it is not to be given up because we do not know how to explain it.  The only conclusion is that we have to admit our ignorance.  This, however, is not our present position.  Reflection on this matter will show that this objection arises from what we may call a certain materialistic ontology, which leads our Idealists to apply to all being, whether spiritual or corporeal, the laws which belong to matter only.  For example, a law of corporeal beings is the impenetrability of bodies, so that one body cannot stand in the place occupied by another.  But how do we know that this law holds good for incorporeal beings or spirits?  There is no reason why spirits should not be subject to wholly different laws, and this, in fact, is what we might expect from the difference between the nature of body and that of spirit.

How then can we judge of this latter nature?

Certainly not by arguing from the analogy of bodies, but by observing and well considering what spirits are in themselves.  Now if we observe and consider well this intelligent spirit of ours, and its actual and passive qualities, we come clearly to see that it obeys a totally opposite law from that which governs bodies, and that far from  our being able to say that it is impenetrable in its nature, we find that the objects of thought may exist in it, not merely without being confounded with it, but whilst remaining perfectly distinct and different from it.  The very word “object”  used in common parlance expresses this fact by its very etymology, meaning something set opposite-objectum.  Such is the result of observation, and since it involves no absurdity it ought to be accepted.  There is no need then of any bridge of communication between our spirit and external things, since this may be found immediately in the spirit according to that immaterial mode which we call cognition or knowledge.

A consideration of the order of things sensible will lead us to a similar reflection if we regard the soul as the sensitive principle.  Now no true principle can exist as such without having a sensible term, or something which it feels.  We do not call this an object, but a term, reserving the former word for the intellectual order only.  Every sensitive principle, therefore, has a term which it feels.

Now it is a fact of experience that the term which is felt remains always in the sentient principle, and cannot go out of or beyond it.  It is also a fact of experience that the thing felt is not the principle that feels.  Now under the denomination of the thing felt or sensible term are included all sensible things without exception.

From these undeniable facts there flow two consequences: the first, that the sensible things or things felt can never be confounded with the sensitive principle which feels them, and this is enough to refute completely the Idealism of Berkeley; the second is that which Galluppi has well remarked-namely, the sense affirms and perceives the external things immediately without needing any bridge of communications whatever.

These considerations prove conclusively that the systems of Kant and Fichte are based on an incomplete observation of nature, which led these philosophers to confound together two diametrically opposite things-namely, the “subject” or knower and the “object” or thing known; the “principle” that feels and the “term” felt.