Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2). Balmes Jaime Luciano
and the acts by which we perceive them, belong; these among others: I desire, I do not desire, I choose this, I prefer this to that. Not one of these acts can be presented by sensible intuition; they are facts of an order superior to the sphere of sensibility, and yet we have in our mind a clear and lively consciousness of them; we reflect upon them, make them the object of our studies, distinguish them one from another, and classify them in a thousand different ways. These facts are presented to us immediately; we know them, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore it is false that the intuition of the soul refers to none but sensible phenomena, for it encounters within itself an expanded series of non-sensible phenomena, which are given to it in intuition.
84. It is of no use to say that these internal phenomena are empty forms, and mean nothing, unless referred to a sensible intuition. Whatever they may be, they are something distinct from this same sensible intuition; and we perceive this something, not by discursion, but by intuition; therefore, besides sensible intuition, there is another of the purely intellectual order.
The question is not whether these pure conceptions have, or have not, a certain power to enable us to know objects in themselves; but it is simply to ascertain if they do exist, and if they are sensible. That they exist, is certain; consciousness attests this fact, and all ideologists admit it. That they are sensible, cannot be maintained without destroying their nature; and least of all can Kant maintain this, since he has so carefully distinguished between sensible intuition and these conceptions.
85. This sea of non-sensible phenomena, which we experience within us, is like a mirror wherein the depths of the intellectual world are reflected. Minds, it is true, are not presented immediately to our perception, and to know them we need a discursive process; but we shall, upon careful examination, find in this intuition of our inward phenomena the representation, imperfect though it be, of what is verified in intelligences of a superior order. Thus we have in a certain mode idea-images, since there can be no better image of one thought than another thought, nor of one act of the will than another act of the will. Thus we know minds distinct from our own, by a kind of mediate, not immediate, intuition, in so far as they are presented to our consciousness as the image in a mirror.
86. The communication of minds by means of speech and other natural or conventional signs, is a fact of experience intimately connected with all intellectual, moral, and physical necessities. When a mind is put into communication with another, the cognition it has of what passes in the other is not by mere general conceptions, but by a kind of intuition, which although mediate, does not therefore fail to be true. The thought, or affection of another communicated to our mind by means of speech, excites in us a thought, or affection, similar to that of the mind communicating them. We do, then, not only know, but see, in our own consciousness, the consciousness of another; and so perfect is at times the likeness, that we anticipate all that he is about to tell us, and unroll within ourselves the same series of phenomena that are verified in the mind of him with whom we are in communication. It happens thus when we say: "I understand perfectly what N. thinks, what he wants, what he is trying to express."
87. This observation seems to us of great service to place beyond all doubt that there are in our mind, independently of the sensible order, conceptions, not empty, but referable to a determinate object. The cognition of the phenomena of the purely intellectual order, transmitted to us by means of speech, or other signs, does not destroy the character of the intuition, since we here find all the necessary conditions assembled; internal representation, and its relation to a determinate object affecting us.
88. This analysis of ideological facts, whose existence cannot be doubted, demonstrates the falseness of Kant's doctrine, that there are in our mind none but sensible intuitions; as well as the non-existence of the German philosopher's problem: whether it is possible, or not, for objects to be given to other minds in an intuition other than the sensible. This very problem is found solved within us, since the attentive observation of the internal phenomena, and the reciprocal communication of minds, has given us to know not only the possibility, but also the existence of intuitions different from the sensible.
CHAPTER XIV.
VALUE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTIONS. – ABSTRACTION MADE FROM INTELLECTUAL INTUITION
89. Although we should admit that our mind can have no intuition but the sensible, it could not thence be inferred that conceptions of the purely intellectual order are empty forms, and in nowise conducive to the knowledge of objects in themselves. It has always been understood that general ideas are not intuitive, since by the very fact that they are general they cannot be referred immediately to a determinate object; and yet no one ever doubted that they could serve to give us true cognitions.
90. It is certain that general ideas, of themselves alone, do not lead to any positive result; or, in other words, they do not make us know existing beings; but if they be joined to other particular ones, a reciprocal influence is established between them, from which cognition results. When we make the general affirmation: "Every contingent being requires a cause;" this proposition, although very true, means nothing in the order of facts, if we abstract the existence of contingent beings and causes of every kind. In such a case, the proposition will express a relation of ideas, not of facts: the cognition which results therefrom will be merely ideal, not positive.
91. This relation of ideas tacitly involves a condition, which gives them, so far as facts are concerned, a hypothetical value; for, when we affirm that every contingent being must have a cause, we are not to be understood to affirm a relation of ideas destitute of all possible application; but rather, on the contrary, to intend that if any contingent being exists, it must have a cause.
92. In order that this hypothetical value of ideas may be converted into a positive value, nothing is necessary but that the condition involved in the general proposition: "Every contingent being must have a cause," be verified. Of itself alone this teaches us nothing concerning the real world; but from the moment that experience shows us a single contingent being, the general proposition, before sterile, becomes exceedingly fruitful. So soon as experience shows us a contingent being, we know the necessity of its cause; we also infer the necessity of the proportions, which the activity producing must preserve with the thing produced; knowing the qualities of the latter, we infer those which ought to be found in the former. In this manner, resting upon two bases, one of which is ideal truth and the other real truth, or data supplied by experience, we construct a true positive science referred to determinate facts.
93. Since the being that thinks necessarily has consciousness of itself, no thinking being can be limited to the cognition of purely ideal truths. Even if we were to suppose it perfectly isolated from all other beings, in absolute non-communication with every thing not itself, so as neither to exert any influence upon them, nor to be influenced by them, it could not be reduced to the cognition of a purely ideal order; for, by the very fact that it is thinking, it is conscious of itself, and consciousness is essentially a particular fact, a cognition of a determinate being, since without it there could be no consciousness.
94. This observation overturns to its very foundation the system which pretends to bar all communication between the real and ideal orders. It shows also that experience is not only possible, but absolutely necessary to every thinking being, since consciousness is by its very nature an experience, and the clearest and surest experience. The truths of the ideal order are then necessarily interlinked with those of the real order: to suppose all intercommunication between them impossible, is to disown a fundamental fact of ideological and psychological science, consciousness.
95. To render the truth and exactness of the preceding doctrine more evident, let us suppose a man, or rather a human mind, absolutely ignorant of the existence of an external world, of every body, and even of every spirit; one that knows nothing concerning its own origin or destiny, but one that would nevertheless at the same time exercise its intellectual activity, without which it would be a lifeless thing, and could offer no field to observation. Let us suppose him to have general ideas, such as of being and of not-being, of substance and accidents, of the absolute and the conditioned, of the necessary and contingent. Manifestly he may combine them in various ways, and arrive at the same purely ideal results to which we ourselves arrive. There is no supposition more favorable to a series of abstract cognitions independent of experience,