UNITY AND SIMPLICITY.
16. Real unity and simplicity are identical. What is really one has no distinction in itself; nor is it composed of parts, of which it can be said, thisis notthat. Evidently simplicity requires nothing more; the simple is opposed to the composite, to what is formed of many beings whereof oneis notthe other.
17. We meet this simplicity in none of the objects of our intuitions, excepting the acts of our own mind; so that even when we know, by discursion, that there are substances really one or simple, we do not see them in themselves.
Extension consists essentially of parts; whence it happens that we never encounter real unity or simplicity in the corporeal world as object of our sensibility. But as the composite must be resolved into the simple, as it is hard to proceedad infinitum, we infer that the corporeal universe itself is a union of substances which, whether called points without extension, or any thing else, cannot be decomposed into others; for which reason they are really one, or simple.
18. Hence we conclude that substances may be said to be in a certain manner simple; and that things called composite are unions of substances, which in their turn form a third substance by virtue of a law presiding over them and giving them that unity which we call factitious.
19. We cannot, then, do less than to remark that the transcendental analysis refutes those who deny simplicity to thinking beings, since we have seen that simplicity is prior to composition, which can neither be nor be conceived if itbe not presupposed. Simplicity is a necessary law of every being: a composite being ought to be called a union of beings, rather than a being.
20. We have said that simple substances are not objects of our intuition, which has none worthy to be called simple excepting the acts of our mind. The reason of this is, that the principal medium of our intuition is sensibility, which is founded upon representations, themselves based upon extension. There can be no doubt that the acts of our mind, given us by intuition, in the inward sense are perfectly simple; for who can decompose a perception, a judgment, an act of the reason or of the will?
21. The perception of a certain object requires preparatory acts; and the same may be said of judgments and ratiocinations; yet these operations are in themselves exceedingly simple, and cannot be divided into various parts. Simplicity is met with alike in the acts of the will, whether of the pure, intellectual, or sensible will. How shall we divide such acts as these into parts:I desire,I do not desire,I love,I abhor,I suffer,I rejoice?
22. We must take care not to confound the multiplicity of the acts with the acts themselves; there may be many acts, but in themselves they are simple. Thoughts, impressions and affections continually succeed one another in our mind; these phenomena are all distinct from each other, as is proved by their existing at different times, some at one time without the others, and by some being incompatible with others, because contradictory; but each individual phenomenon is by itself incapable of decomposition, and admits in itself no distinction into various parts; wherefore, it is simple.
23. True unity, therefore, is only found in simplicity; where there is no true simplicity, there may be factitious, but not real, unity; since even when there is no separation,there may be distinction between the various parts of which the composite is formed.
24. It may be inferred from this thatindistinctumought, perhaps, to take the place ofindivisumin the definition of a one being; because distinction is opposed to unity of identity, and division to union. Absence of division is all that factitious unity requires; but real unity demands that there be no distinction. However closely united two things may be, if one is not the other they are distinct, and cannot, in strict metaphysical language, be called one.
25. The object of these observations is only to fix our ideas, not to modify our language. In common parlance, the idea of unity is used in a less rigorous sense, and, far from opposing this use, we readily accord it a reasonable foundation. There results from the union of two really distinct things, a conjunction, rightly called one so far as it also is subjected to a certain unity; and, were it not permitted to use this word in a sense less rigorous than that exacted by metaphysical analysis, we should be under the necessity of excluding unity from the great mass of objects. Simple substances, we have said, are not offered to us in immediate intuition, and we see compositions rather than their component elements. Could we apply unity only to simple elements, science would be greatly reduced, language would be impoverished, and literature and the fine arts would be despoiled of unity, one of their characteristic perfections.