CHAPTER XXX.
PASSIVE SENSIBILITY
210. Active sensibility, or the faculty of perceiving by the senses, has been a subject of great dispute among philosophers. Passive sensibility, or the capacity of an object to be perceived, is a question of not less interest.
Can every thing which exists be perceived by the senses?
Before answering this question, let us remember that to be perceived by the senses may be understood in two ways: First, it may mean, to cause an impression in a sensitive being; and secondly, to be the immediate object of sensible intuition. The first is true of every being capable of producing the impression; the second is true only of those beings which unite the conditions which the intuition supposes.
211. To produce an impression is simply to cause; and causality is not repugnant to simple beings. There is, therefore, no absurdity in supposing that pure spirits can produce sensible impressions: were it otherwise God could not act upon our soul, causing an impression in it, without the mediation of bodies. This causality cannot be called passive sensibility; the being which has it is not perceived by the senses. The relation of the sensation to the being which produces it would be only that of an effect to its cause.
212. To be the immediate object of sensible intuition, is to be presented to this intuition as an original to the copy. Under this view, only the extended can be perceived by the senses; that is to say, multiplicity combined with continuity is an absolutely necessary condition of our sensitive faculties in relation to external objects.
213. In this manner, it is a manifest contradiction to say that the simple can be sensible. Instinct and reason force us to suppose a real object of sensible intuition. This intuition is referred to the object as to something essentially composite, belonging to the order which we call continuity. If we make this object simple, it ceases to be sensible; and we both affirm and deny its sensible objectiveness. It is a contradiction to suppose a faculty in act, and at the same time to deprive it of the conditions to which its action is necessarily subject.
214. It may be said, that there is no necessity of transferring to the object the conditions of the subject, and therefore a simple object may be presented to the senses. But this is to elude the question at issue. For, either the sensible intuition is referred to the object, or it is not; if it is, the object cannot be simple; if it is not, we fall into idealism, which we have so often combated in the course of this work.
215. If you answer, that our soul, which is simple, has the representation of the composite, I reply, that the objective representation is not the same thing as the subjective perception of the composite; nor the presentation of the object as multiple the same thing as the perception of the multiple. Our soul perceives the multiple, and for this reason must itself be one, or it could not perceive that which is multiple. So much for the subjective; as to the objective, we must remark, that our sensible representations do not always proceed from real objects; but they always refer to objects which are at least possible; that is to say, the intuition is never entirely void; and when it has no object in reality, it finds one in possibility.
216. The external world, as involving multiplicity, or a collection of many beings, and as susceptible of this order which we call continuity, may be the object of sensible intuition, as we experience in reality. But this passive sensibility is not intrinsically necessary to it: I mean that God could so have disposed the collection of beings constituting the universe as not to be sensible. This is based on the variability of the relations of bodies; for, it is evident that if these relations did not exist, or were not subject to the conditions required by sensible representation, this representation would be impossible, and the world not sensible.
217. Experience confirms this conclusion which is obtained from transcendental philosophy. We find a slight alteration continually changing sensible bodies into insensible, and making sensible those that were insensible. The condensation of the air makes it visible; and its rarefaction invisible. A liquid body is tangible, but it ceases to be so when converted into vapor. The same variety which is caused by the alteration of the object may also proceed from a modification of the organ. A proof of this is found in what happens to the sight when aided by certain instruments. If, then, these transitions from sensible to insensible are now possible, without infringement of the fundamental laws of the relations of bodies, why could there not be a radical change in these relations which should make bodies wholly insensible?
218. By the variation of the relations of the beings which compose the corporeal universe, the sensible might become insensible; and, on the other hand, there are many insensible beings which by a different arrangement might be made sensible. To a certain extent we have something besides idle conjectures on this matter: facts speak; in proportion as the field of experience is expanded, new phenomena are discovered; thus magnetic attraction, electricity, and galvanism, have been added to experimental science.
In these phenomena there are agents at work which are not perceptible to the senses; why may they not be disposed in such way as to be perceived like other bodies? Where is the limit of these agents? We know not; but reasoning from analogy we may believe that there are many others whose existence is not known to us.
The perfection of a sensitive organ by means of instruments, is an arrangement by which we vary the ordinary system of the relations of our body to those around us. This perfectibility is indefinite, and the farther we advance, the greater do we find its extension. It is therefore probable, that in the universe there are many beings which are imperceptible to our senses, but which a modification of our organs, or a change of some of the laws of nature would render sensible. What a vast field of bold conjectures and sublime meditations!
CHAPTER XXXI.
POSSIBILITY OF A GREATER SPHERE IN ACTIVE SENSIBILITY
219. Having treated of passive sensibility in the order of possibles, a similar question naturally arises with respect to the active sensibility of beings subject to different conditions from those of our soul while united to the body.
I speak only of possibility, for, limited to what experience teaches us, we know not what may be in the sphere of beings with which we have no communication. Whatever we know of them is by divine revelation; and the object of revelation is not to teach us philosophy, but virtue.
220. To examine how far active sensibility is possible in an order different from that of our experience, not only raises curious and interesting questions, but it also gives an opportunity to explain by new reflections, the nature of this phenomenon in its relations to bodily organization. There is a special reason why we should seek to investigate this question. It consists in the interest inspired by every thing which relates to a state of existence into which we must soon enter. Short are the moments allotted to man to dwell in this world. We all hasten with astonishing rapidity to the final instant when the fragile organization which envelops our mortal spirit shall dissolve, and crumble into dust, – when the being which feels, thinks, and wills within us, shall pass to a new state, and be separated from the bodily organization. What will then be its faculties? This is a question which we cannot be indifferent to; for it concerns us, and the state of our future existence.
221. If we are asked whether a pure spirit is capable of sensible perception, we must answer negatively; because we are treating of active sensibility, which is not possible without the mediation of a body. I believe that some explanation of the question may be given. But we must first of all determine the meaning of the words. Sometimes we understand by a pure spirit, one which is not united to a body; but, more strictly speaking, the term is confined to a spirit which neither is united to a body, nor destined to this union. Thus the human soul is a spirit, but not a pure spirit; for it is either actually united to a body or is destined to this union.
It might appear at first sight that as we are limiting ourselves to the sphere of possibility, there is no difference between the two acceptations of the term; for, if it is not essentially repugnant to the soul when separated from the body, to have sensible intuition, it will not be so to other spirits. The parity is not certain; still, for the present, when speaking of pure spirits in general, I shall include souls separated from bodies.
222. What do we understand by sensing? This word may mean two things. It may mean the receiving of an impression by means of bodily organs; or it may mean simply the experiencing of the impression, independently of the bodily organ. For example: I see an object. Here is the affection called seeing, and the mechanism by which the object transmits light to the retina, and a certain impression to the brain. These are two very different things; the first is a fact of my mind; the second a modification of my body.
223. If by sensing is meant the receiving of the impression of a bodily organ, it is clear that a spirit which has no body cannot sense; but if by it is meant only the subjective affection abstracted from the medium by which it is produced or communicated, then the question is different, and the existence or non-existence of bodies cannot affect its answer either affirmatively or negatively.
224. The question then becomes this: Can a pure spirit have the various affections and representations which we call sensible?
Simplicity is not opposed to the sensitive faculty. Our soul senses, and still it is simple. The body aids it in the exercise of the sensitive faculties; but this aid is instrumental, not, however, in such a manner that the soul senses by the body, as an action is performed by means of the instrument. That which senses is the soul itself, and the instrumental action of the body consists in providing certain conditions from which sensation follows, by a physical or occasional influx. Therefore, the simplicity of a pure spirit is no argument against the sensitive faculties. Such an argument would prove too much; consequently, it proves nothing.
225. Hence there would be no intrinsical repugnance in God communicating to a pure spirit sensitive faculties; whether representative like those which place us in relation with the corporeal world, or purely subjective, like those of pleasure or pain.
226. Although in the present order these functions depend on certain conditions to which bodies are subject, considered in themselves, inasmuch as they are a modification of the soul, they have no essential relation to the corporeal world. It would therefore seem contrary to the principles of sound philosophy to say, that the soul separated from the body could not experience affections similar to those it has in this life. If this is not repugnant to the soul in its separate existence, why should it be so to other spirits?
The sensitive faculties are a sort of inferior order of perception. We see them in beings united to bodies, but they are not exercised immediately by a bodily organ. So far from contradicting simplicity, they require it; and therefore we have seen58 that matter is incapable of sensation. Many grave philosophers are of opinion that the causality of bodies with respect to sensations, is only occasional. This opinion is founded on the difficulty of explaining how a composite being can produce affections of any kind in a simple being. Instead of a repugnance between simplicity and the sensitive faculties, there is, on the contrary, a necessary connection. No composite being can be sensitive.
227. Perhaps it may now be thought that there is no longer any doubt of the possibility of sensation independently of the bodily organs; and that to hold the contrary, it would be necessary to maintain that God can not produce immediately that which he produces by means of second causes. The observations which we have made may seem to have exhausted the matter, but if we reflect on it, we shall find that we have scarce entered on it.
It must not be forgotten that we are examining the possibility of sensitive faculties, in relation to one attribute only, that of simplicity. This greatly limits the question, as it leaves it to be solved under one aspect only. Simplicity is a negative property. When we say that any thing is simple, we deny that it has parts, but we affirm none of its properties; we say what it is not, not what it is. Therefore, in maintaining that sensitive faculties are not repugnant to a pure spirit, we ought to restrict the proposition; we should express our meaning more exactly, if instead of saying "sensitive faculties are not repugnant to a pure spirit," we should say, "sensitive faculties are not repugnant to the simplicity of a pure spirit."
228. This last observation seems to me to present the question in its true point of view. Any other expression of it seems only to confuse ideas and raise problems which we have not sufficient data to solve. In fact, how do we know but what the repugnance which does not exist between sensibility and simplicity, may exist between sensibility and some attribute which we know nothing about? This argument is not valid for the human soul, because we already know that the soul is capable of sensing; but it is valid for other spirits, whose essence is unknown to us, and the character of whose perceptive faculties experience has not discovered to us.
229. One of the distinctive marks of sensitive perception is the reference to individual objects, not in what concerns their essence, but inasmuch as they are arranged in a certain order, the variations of which do not affect their internal nature. Extension itself, which both instinct and reflection teach us to regard as objective, is rather a result of the relations of the beings which form the composite extended object, than those beings themselves. The sensitive faculties are the lowest grade in the order of perception. Their sole function is to make known to their possessor a certain arrangement of external objects, but they teach him nothing concerning the nature of those objects. Pure spirits are a grade higher in the scale of perceptive beings, and one of the characteristics of intelligence is, that it penetrates to the inward nature of things. Therefore it might easily happen that the sensible faculties are repugnant to intelligences of a higher order than ours, not by reason of their simplicity, but on account of the different manner of their perception.
230. Reasoning by analogy from what takes place within ourselves, we are confirmed in this opinion. Sensible representations are often powerful auxiliaries to purely intellectual perception; but they just as often embarrass and confuse it. In meditating on very abstract matters sensible representations are a hinderance to the understanding, from which we should be glad to free ourselves. Every one has experienced this to be so. They are like shadows which come between the eye of the intellect and the object: the necessity of continually removing them delays and weakens our perception. Thus, we propose, for example, to think of causality. No sensible representation should find place in this idea in the abstract, yet in spite of all our efforts the representation haunts us. At one time it is the word causality, written or spoken; at another, the image of a man doing something, or of any other agent. The sensible representation is always in our way, and we cannot free ourselves from its presence. The understanding is forced to repeat continually to itself, "This is not the idea of causality; it is only an image, a comparison, an expression;" in order to defend itself against illusions, which would make it confound the particular with the universal, the contingent with the necessary, the phenomenal with the real.
231. We must conclude from this that a repugnance of sensitive faculties to the nature of a pure spirit, might proceed from the character of its intelligence, which by reason of its perfection rejects the duality of perception which exists in us. The object of the understanding is the essence of the thing understood, quidditas, as the scholastics called it. Sensible representations tell us nothing of this essence. They offer only one aspect of things, and even this is limited to the perception of extension; for as regards the other sensations, they are a subjective fact which instinct and reason teach us to attribute to external causes, rather than a perception of the real disposition of things.
232. This suggests another observation which supports the conjecture that the elevation of intelligence above a certain degree makes it incompatible with sensitive faculties. Sensations would tell us nothing even of this aspect and disposition of things if they did not have extension for their basis. To what should we reduce the corporeal world if we supposed it unextended? Since extension, as we have shown,59 although the basis of some sensations, is not the direct and immediate object of sensation; that which in the sensitive faculties makes us perceive something of the reality of objects, is not strictly sensible. Therefore, if it is the character of intellectual perception to know the reality of the object, the more elevated an intelligence is the farther it will be from sensation, and there may be a subject in which intellectual faculties are incompatible with sensitive faculties.
233. We shall better understand the force of this observation by casting a glance at the scale of beings, and noting the difference in them in proportion to their perfection. The isolation of a being is a mark of its imperfection. The lowest idea of an object is that which we form when we conceive it absolutely limited to existence, completely inert, without either internal or external activity. A stone has existence and a determinate form; it is what it was made, and nothing more; it preserves the form which was given to it, but it has no activity to communicate with other beings, no consciousness of what it is; in all its relations it is passive; it receives but cannot give.
234. In proportion as beings rise in the scale of perfection, this isolation ceases; active properties are combined with the passive; such we conceive to be the corporeal agents, which, although they do not reach the category of living beings, take an active part in the production of phenomena in the laboratory of nature. In these beings we find besides what they are, what they can do; their relations with other beings are many and varied; their existence is not confined to the circle of their own existence; but it expands and is communicated in some way to others.
235. In organized beings we find a more expansive nature. Their life is a continual expansion. The living being extends in a measure beyond the limits of its own existence; for it bears within it the germs of its reproduction. Its existence is not for itself alone, but for others also. It is only an imperceptible link in the great chain of nature; but the vibrations of this link are felt in the remotest confines of the universe.
236. Life is still more extended when it becomes sensation. The sensitive being contains in himself, as it were, the universe. By the consciousness of its affections, it places itself in new relations with all that acts upon it. Perception is immanent, that is to say, it remains in the subject, but with the subjective is combined the objective, by which the universe is reflected on a point. Being does not then exist in itself alone, it becomes in some manner other things. There is a profound truth in the expression of the scholastics: "That which knows is the thing known." There is a certain order in sensations; they are more perfect in proportion as they are less subjective; the most noble are those which place us in communication with objects considered in themselves, – those which are not limited to the experience of what the objects cause in us, but include the knowledge of what the objects are.
237. Extension is the basis of the objectiveness of sensations, but it is not the direct and immediate object of sensation. Although extension teaches us something of the reality of beings as regards a certain arrangement of them among themselves, it is not so much the object of a sensitive faculty as of intelligence. Here sensation ceases and science commences. Science is not satisfied with what the objects appear. It penetrates to the reality; the understanding does not stop with the subjective, but passes to the objective, and when it cannot reach the reality, it wanders in the regions of possibility.
238. Thus we see that the perfection of beings is in proportion to their expansion. Accordingly as they are more perfect, they go farther out of their own sphere, and exercise a more extended activity. Hence the highest degree of perception is the least subjective; the lowest is sensation, which is limited to the experience of the sentient subject. Intelligence which is the highest degree, abstracts experience, and gives its whole attention to reality, its proper object.
239. If we could know the intimate nature of pure spirits, perhaps we should find that the sensitive faculties are altogether incompatible with the elevation of their intelligence, and that the analogy founded on the nature of our perceptions has no value when applied to a more perfect order of intelligence. However this may be, we must admit that the question would have been solved in a very incomplete way, if we had limited it to the single aspect of simplicity. These observations on the nature of intelligence ought to make us very cautious in affirming to be possible, what we should perhaps see to be impossible, if our knowledge of the nature of things were greater.
240. So far we have spoken only of the intrinsical possibility; what shall we say of the reality? This is a question of fact which can only be solved on data which our experience is unable to furnish, as we are not in immediate communication either with souls separated from bodies, or with pure spirits.
241. If we wish to look for an argument to prove that pure spirits and souls after they are separated from bodies, have no sensitive faculties, we shall find it in the consideration of the end to which these faculties are destined, better than by attempting to discover the essence of things. The body, to which the soul is united in this life, is an organization subject to the general laws of the corporeal universe. In order that the soul may rightly exercise its functions, it must be in constant communication with its own body and the bodies around it; it must have sensible intuition of the relations of bodies; it must be notified by pain of any disorder which occurs in its body, and guided by the sentiment of pleasure as by an instinct which, directed and moderated by reason, may point out to it what is profitable or necessary. When the soul is no longer united to the body, there is no reason why it should have these affections, as it does not require to be directed in its acts. As this applies equally to pure spirits, we may form a conjecture as to the cause of the difference which there must be between the state of our soul in this life, and that of spiritual beings which are not united to bodies.
This argument, deduced from the final cause, is not to be considered as a proof; at best it is only a conjecture: for we do not know how far the soul in its separate existence, or pure spirits, may be in relation with bodies; and consequently, we do not know whether these sensible affections would be useful or necessary for ends of which we have no conception. And even supposing that neither the soul nor pure spirits have any relations with bodies, we are far from sure that sensible affections would be useless to them. On the contrary, so far as we can form an opinion on the subject, it seems that to take from the soul its imagination and sensation, would be to deprive it of two of its most beautiful faculties; for they not only assist the understanding, but are often a strong motive of its acts.
242. It is difficult for us to form an idea of pleasure or pain, without sensible affections. In the purely intellectual will, we conceive only willing and not willing, acts of a most simple relation, which do not have for us the same meaning as a pleasant or unpleasant affection. We often wish a thing in which we experience pain; and as often find pleasure in what we do not wish. Therefore to wish and not to wish do not imply pleasure and displeasure, but are independent of these affections and may exist in opposition to them.
243. It might be said that the cause of this discord is in the disagreement of the sensitive with the intellectual faculties. This is true, but it proves nothing against what I have been saying. The purely intellectual will, in opposition with the sensible affections, does not involve pleasure or exclude pain. The will triumphs, it is true, but it does so by virtue of its freedom. Its triumph is like that of a master obliged to exact obedience by severe punishment, who experiences pain at the very time when he is obtaining the execution of his commands. Who can tell, then, whether the will, after this life, will be accompanied by affections similar to those which it now has, but purified from the grossness of the body which weighs down the soul? I see no intrinsical impossibility in it. If questions of philosophy could be solved by sentiment, I should not hesitate to express my opinion that this fair and noble union of faculties which we call the heart, does not go down to the grave, but flies with the soul to the regions of immortality.
244. As to the imagination, – that mysterious faculty which not only gives life to the real world, but possesses an inexhaustible activity in creating new worlds of its own, displaying before the eyes of the soul rich and splendid panoramas; why should it desert the soul on its separation from the body? Why may not the harmony of nature be perceived in a similar manner hereafter? Let us not advance opinions on secrets of which we are ignorant, but, at the same time, let us beware of setting bounds to the omnipotence of God. Sound philosophy should not multiply opinions beyond measure; but neither should it circumscribe within the limits of human reason the sphere of possibility.