Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2). Balmes Jaime Luciano
were we to admit the supposition that there is in our mind no intuition but the sensible, it could not therefore be concluded that general principles, and more particularly that of contradiction, can have no positive value; because, if we suppose these principles combined with sensible intuition to produce a cognition of other beings out of the order of sensibility, it would follow that we really know them, although they were not given to us in immediate intuition. And this is verified in the human mind, when it rises by discursion to the cognition of the non-sensible. On the one hand, the data furnished by experience, and on the other, general and necessary truths, form a connection constituting a positive science, which guides us with perfect security to the cognition of objects not subject to immediate experience.
This theory is so clear, so evident, so rooted in the consciousness of our own acts, so perfectly in accordance with all that we observe in the proceedings of the human mind, that it causes us a strange surprise to meet philosophers, whose erroneous doctrines oblige us to explain and defend it.
104. The transition from the known to the unknown is a proceeding characteristic of our understanding; and this transition is impossible if the reality of every cognition, not referred to an intuition, be denied. Whatever is presented to us in this latter way, is given to us, is present to our sight, and we have no necessity of seeking it. If, therefore, no object be really known, unless offered in intuition, all intellectual progress becomes impossible: all the advances of our mind are reduced to combinations of the forms presented to the sensibility, and even these lead to nothing whenever they cease to be intuitive; that is, when they no longer relate to determinate objects immediately perceived. The Critic of Pure Reason is the destruction of all reason: for it examines itself with suicidal intent, or in order to prove that it contains nothing positive.
Science cannot survive the reduction of general principles to one only value relative to sensible intuitions. What we have demonstrated concerning the principle of contradiction, is a fortiori applicable to all other principles. If this be not saved, all must perish in the wreck. Moreover, the very basis of the necessity involved in these principles is threatened. We know nothing, save that there is within us a series of phenomena which seem necessary. But what use can we make of them beyond the subjective order? None at all. Behold us then in the most perfect skepticism, condemned to simple appearances, with no means of knowing any reality.
105. No! the human mind is not condemned to so despairing a sterility: reason is not an empty word; ratiocination is not a puerile play, only fit to serve as an amusement. In the midst of the prepossessions, errors, and extravagance of human misery, towers on high that force, that admirable activity, by which the mind springs beyond itself, knows what it does not see, and foresees what it will one day feel. Nature is veiled to our eyes; impenetrable secrets surround us; whichever way we turn deep shadows hide the reality of objects: but through this darkness we discern from afar some scintillation of light. Notwithstanding the profound silence which reigns over the sea of beings, whose surges toss us about like imperceptible atoms in the immensity of the ocean, we hear at times mysterious voices tell us the course we must keep to reach unknown shores.
CHAPTER XVII.
RELATIONS OF INTUITION WITH THE RANK OF THE PERCEPTIVE BEING
106. The perfection of intelligence involves extension and clearness of its intuitions; the more perfect it is, the more intuitive it will be. The infinite intelligence does not know by discursion, but by intuition: it does not need to seek objects: it sees them all before itself. It sees with intuition of identity what belongs to its own essence, and with intuition of causality every thing that does or can exist outside of itself. Other minds have an intuition so much the more perfect as they are more elevated in the order to which they belong; so that cognition by conceptions indicates an imperfection of intelligence.
107. The relations of one being with other beings will therefore depend upon the rank it holds in the scale of the universe. God, infinite being, and the cause of all that does or can exist, has intimate and immediate relations with the whole universe, considered not only in its entireness but even in its smallest particles. There is consequently in God a most perfect representation of all beings taken not only in their generality, but also in their minutest differences. The Being, cause of all, does not know objects by vague conceptions, by means of representations which only show what all beings have in common, but as he has made their slightest differences, they must be presented to him with perfect clearness. His cognition is founded upon a reality which is himself; his understanding does not fluctuate through an ideal and hypothetical world; but, fixed with clearest intuition upon infinite reality, he sees all that the infinite being is, and all that it can produce with its infinite activity. For God there is no experience proceeding from without, for nothing can exert any influence upon him; all his experience consists in the knowledge and love of himself.
108. Created beings, occupying a determinate place in the scale of the universe, relate to it only under certain aspects. Their relations with their fellow beings are brought to a point of view, to which their perceptive faculties are subordinated. The representativeness, which they contain in themselves, must be proportionate to the cognition that has to produce it. Hence it follows that every intelligent being will have its representativeness adapted to the functions it has to exercise in the universe. If the being do not pertain to the order of intelligences, its perceptive faculties will be limited to sensible intuitions, in a measure corresponding to the place it is destined to occupy.
109. We have seen that general ideas and the intuition of determinate objects fecundate the intellectual faculties. From this we infer that every intelligence stands in need of intuitions, if its cognitions are not to be limited to a purely hypothetical order.
The human mind, destined to a union with the body, and to a continual communication with the corporeal universe, has received the gift of sensible intuition as the basis of its relations with bodies. The same is the case with brutes. Sensible intuition has been given to them because they must have continual relations with the external world: but, being confined to the functions of animal life, they have no intuitions superior to the sphere of sensibility, nor do they possess the force necessary to convert sensible representations into objects of intellectual combinations.
110. There is an immense difference between brutes and man, in the scale of beings. Since every intelligence is conscious of itself, and can fix its attention upon its acts, the human mind knows its own intuitively, and therefore discovers in itself an intuition superior to the sensible. Besides these intuitions, we have the power of discursion by which we form representations, and by them attain to the cognition of objects not offered immediately to our perception.
Thus, starting with the data furnished by external and internal experience, and aided by those general principles which involve the primary conditions of every intelligence and of every being, we are enabled to penetrate to the world of reality, and to know, although imperfectly, the assemblage of beings which constitute the universe, and the infinite cause which made them all.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ASPIRATIONS OF THE HUMAN SOUL
111. A close observation of internal phenomena shows that the human soul aspires to something far beyond all that it actually possesses. Not satisfied with the objects given to it in immediate intuition, it darts forward in pursuit of others of a superior order; and even in those that are offered to it immediately, it is not contented with the aspect under which they appear, but seeks to know what they are. The purely individual does not satisfy the soul. Nailed to one point in the immense scale of beings, it is unwilling to limit itself to the perception of those that are in its environs, and form, as it were, the atmosphere wherein it must live; it aspires to the cognition of those that precede and follow it, and seeks to know the connection, to discover the law from which results the ineffable harmony that presides over the creation. It finds its purest pleasures in rising from the sphere where the limitation of its faculties holds it confined. Its activity is greater than its strength; its desires superior to its being.
112. We discover the same phenomenon in the sentiment and the will as in the understanding. Man has, to satisfy his necessities, and provide for the preservation of the individual and of the race, sensations and sentiments which