THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
The principle thatall the ideas, operations, and faculties of the mind may be traced to, and ultimately accounted for, from simple sensation, is all that remains of Mr. Locke’s celebrated Essay, and that to which it owes its present rank among philosophical productions. His various attempts to modify this principle, or reconcile it to common notions have been gradually exploded, and have given place, one by one, to the more severe and logical deductions of Hobbes from the same general principle. Mr. Locke took the faculties of the mind as he found them in himself and others, and instead of levelling the structure, was contented to place it on a new foundation. By this compromise with prudence and candour, he prepared the way for the introduction of the principle, which being once established, very soon overturned all the trite opinions, and vulgar prejudices, which had been improperly associated with it. There was in fact, no place for them in the new system. I confess it strikes some degree of awe into the mind, and makes it feel, that fame, even the best, is not a substantial thing, but the uncertain shadow of real excellence, when we reflect that the immortal renown, which attends the name of Locke as the great luminary of the age in which he lived, is but a dim and borrowed lustre from the writings of one, whom he himself calls, and who has been universally considered as ‘a justly decried author.’ The sentence of the poet is as applicable here as it ever was—
‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,Nor in the glistering foilSet off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’
‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,Nor in the glistering foilSet off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’
‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,Nor in the glistering foilSet off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’
‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’
The great defect with which the Essay on Human Understanding is chargeable, is that there really is not a word about the understanding in it, nor any attempt to shew what it is, or whether it is, or is not any thing, distinct from the faculty of simple perception. The operations of thinking, comparing, discerning, reasoning, willing, and the like, which Mr. Locke generally ascribes to it, are the operations of nothing, or of we know not what. All the force of his mind seems to have been so bent on exploding innate ideas, and tracing our thoughts to their external source, that he either forgot, or had not leisure to examine what the internal principle of all thought is. He took for his basis a bad simile, namely, that the mind is like a blanksheet of paper, originally void of all characters, and merely passive to the impressions made upon it: for this, though true as far as relates to innate ideas, that is, to any impressions previously existing in the mind, is not true of the mind itself, or of the manner in which it forms its ideas of the objects actually impressed upon it. The obvious tendency of this simile was to convert the understanding into the mere passive receiver and retainer of physical impressions, a convenient repository for the straggling images of things, or a sort of empty room into which ideas are conveyed from without through the doors of the senses, as you would carry goods into an unfurnished lodging. And hence, again, it has been found necessary, by subsequent writers, to get rid of those different faculties and operations, which Mr. Locke elsewhere supposes to belong to the mind, but which are in truth only compatible with the active powers, and independent nature of the mind itself. It was to remedy this deficiency that Leibnitz proposed to add to the maxim of Locke,that there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses—‘that sublime restriction,’ so much applauded by Madame de Staël—‘EXCEPT THE UNDERSTANDING ITSELF:’ and it is to the establishment and development of this distinction, that the whole of the Kantean philosophy appears to be directed. In what manner, and in what success (judging from the representations we have received of it) remains to be shewn.
The account which Madame de Staël has given of this system is full of the graces of imagination and the charm of sentiment: it passes slightly over many of the difficulties, and softens the abruptness of the reasoning by the harmony of the style. It is therefore the most popular and pleasing account which has been given of the system of the German Philosopher: but after all, it will be better to take his own statement, though somewhat ‘harsh and crabbed’ as the most tangible, authentic, and satisfactory.
‘The following,’ says his translator Willich, ‘are the elements of hisCritique of Pure Reason, the first of Kant’s systematical works, and the most remarkable for profound reasoning and the striking illustrations, with which it throughout abounds.
‘We are in possession of certain notionsà priori[8]which are absolutely independent of all experience, although the objects ofexperience correspond with them, and which are distinguished by necessity, and strict universality. To these are opposed empirical notions, or such as are only possibleà posteriori, that is, through experience. Besides these, we have certain notions, with which no objects of experience ever correspond, which rise above the world of sense, and which we consider as the most sublime, such as God, liberty, immortality. There is always supposed in every empirical notion, or impression of external objects, a pure perceptionà priori, a form of the sensitive faculty,viz.space and time. This form first renders every actual appearance of objects possible. By the sensitive faculty we are able to form perceptions; by the understanding we form general ideas. By the sensitive faculty we experience impressions, and objects are given to us; by the understanding we bring representations of these objects before us: we think of them. Perceptions and general ideas are the elements of all our knowledge. Without the sensitive faculty, no object could be given (proposed to) us; without the understanding none would be thought of by us. These two powers are really distinct from one another; but neither of the two without the other can produce anotion. In order to obtain a distinct notion of any one thing, we must present to our general ideas objects in perception, and reduce our perceptions to, or connect them with, these general ideas. As the sensitive faculty has its determined forms, so has our understanding likewise formsà priori. These may be properly termedcategories; they are pure ideas of the understanding, which relate,à priori, to the objects of perception in general. The objects of experience, therefore, are in no other way possible; they can in no other way be thought of by us, and their multiplied diversity can only be reduced to one act of judgment, or to one act of consciousness, by means of these categories of sense. Hence, the categories have objective reality. They are either categories of
1.Quantity, as unity, number, totality; or,
2. OfQuality, as reality, negation, limitation; or,
3. OfRelation, as substance and accident, cause and effect; or,
4. OfModality, as possibility and impossibility, existence and non-existence, necessity and contingency.
‘The judgment is the capacity of applying the general ideas of theunderstanding to the information of experience. The objects of experience are regulated according to these ideas; and not,vice versâ, our ideas according to the objects.’
Such is the outline of this author’s account of the intellect, which, after all, appears to be rather dogmatical than demonstrative. He is much more intent on raising an extensive and magnificent fabric, than on laying the foundations. Each part does not rest upon its own separate basis, but, like the workmanship of some lofty arch, is supported and rivetted to its place by the weight and regular balance of the whole. Kant does not appear to trouble himself about the evidence of any particular proposition, but to rely on the conformity and mutual correspondence of the different parts of his general system, and its sufficiency, if admitted, to explain all the phenomena of the human intellect with consistency and accuracy;—in the same manner as the decypherer infers that he has found the true key of the hieroglyphic hand-writing, when he is able to solve every difficulty by it. However profound and comprehensive we may allow the views of human nature unfolded by this philosopher to be, his method is necessarily defective in simplicity, clearness, and force. His reasoning is seldom any thing more than a detailed, paraphrased explanation of his original statement, instead of being (what it ought to be) an appeal to known facts, or a deduction from acknowledged principles, or a detection of the inconsistencies of other writers. The extreme involution and technicality of his style proceed from the same source; that is, from the necessity of adapting a conventional language to the artificial and arbitrary arrangement of his ideas. The whole of Kant’s system is evidently an elaborate antithesis or contradiction to the modern philosophy, and yet it is by no means a real approximation to popular opinion. Its chief object is to oppose certain fundamental principles to theempiricalor mechanical philosophy, and it either rejects or explains away the more common and established notions, except so far as they coincide with the rigid theory of the author. He sets out with a preconceived hypothesis; and all other facts and opinions are made to bend to a predominant purpose.
The founder of thetranscendentalphilosophy very properly insists on the distinction between the sensitive and the intellectual faculties, and makes this division the ground-work of his entire system. He considers the joint operation of these different powers as necessary to all our knowledge, and enumerates with scrupulous formality the different ideas which originate in this complex progress, and points out the share which each has in each. The author conceives of certain general ideas, assubstanceandaccident,causeandeffect,totality,number,quantity,relation,possibility,necessity, etc. as pureideas of the understanding; and he classesspaceandtimeas primary forms of the sensitive faculty.[9]All this may be very true; but the proof may also be required, and it is not given. Yet modern metaphysicians are not likely, either as sceptical inquirers after truth, or as lovers of abstruse paradoxes, to be satisfied with the bare assumption of a common prejudice. They will say, either that all these ideas have no real existence in the mind, that they are mere abstract terms which owe their force and validity to the mechanism of language; or admitting their existence in the mind, they will contend with Locke, that they are only general, reflex, and compound ideas, originally derived from sensation. ‘Whence do all the ideas and operations of the mind proceed?’From experience, is the answer given by the modern philosophy—From experience and from the understanding, is the answer given by Kant. The former solution has the advantage of simplicity; and the logical proof is wanting to the latter. To compare grave things with gay, the display which this celebrated philosopher makes of his categories, his forms of the sensitive faculty, his pure ideas, andà prioriprinciples, somewhat resembles the method taken by Sir Epicure Mammon inThe Alchymistto persuade his sceptical friend that he is about to discover the philosopher’s stone by overpowering his imagination with the description of the fine things he will do when he has it:—‘And all this I will do with the stone.’ ‘But will all this give you the stone?’ says Pertinax Surly, who ‘will not believe antiquity’ any more than our modern sceptics.
I think that the truth may be got at much more simply, and without all this parade of words. The business of the mind is twofold—to receive impressions and to perceive their relations; without which there can be no ideas. Now the first of these is the office of the senses, and is the only original function of the mind, according to the prevailing system. The second is properly the office of the understanding, and is that, the nature or existence of which is the great point in debate between the contending parties.The more complex and refined operations of this faculty, such as judging, reasoning, abstraction, willing, etc. are either totally denied, or at best resolved into simple ideas of sensation by modern metaphysical writers. I know of no better way, therefore, to establish the contrary hypothesis than to take these simple ideas of the moderns, and shew that they contain the same necessary principles of the understanding, the same operations of judging, comparing, distinguishing, abstracting, which they discard with so much profound contempt, or treat as accidental and artificial results of some higher faculty. If it can be proved that the understanding, in the strict and exclusive sense, is necessary to our having anyideaswhatever,—that the very terms are synonymous and inseparable—that in the first original conception of the simplest object of nature there is implied the same principle, a power of perceiving the relations of different things, which is only exerted in a more perfect and comprehensive manner in the most complex and difficult processes of the human intellect, one would think that there must be an end of the question.
An English Metaphysician.
An English Metaphysician.
An English Metaphysician.
An English Metaphysician.