ART. I. -- PRINCIPAL SYSTEMS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.
9. The principal systems concerning the origin of ideas are the following: 1. Sensism; 2. Criticism or Critique; 3. The System of Innate Ideas; 4. Ontologism; 5. The System of Impersonal Reason; 6. The Scholastic System. -- All other systems may easily be reduced to one or other of these six; because the formation of ideas is explained either by the senses or by the intellect. If explained by the intellect, only one of the following hypotheses can be made; either the soul produces ideas from itself; or God, in creating it, has engraven them on it; or God communicates them to it directly; or a substance intermediate between it and God communicates them to it; or, finally, God gives it the power to form them itself in giving it the faculty of abstracting the essence of sensible objects from the conditions which individualize it.
ART. II. -- SENSISM.
10. Sensism is a system which affirms sensation to be the only origin of ideas. -- According to this system, all knowledge is merely a modification or transformation of sensation.
11. The principal sensists among ancient philosophers are Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus; among modern philosophers, Locke, Condillac, and Laromiguière, are most prominent. -- The ancient sensists taught that all bodies throw off subtle particles analogous to the exhalations of odoriferous bodies; these particles. scattered through space, faithfully represent the objects from which they have been detached; by means of the senses they find an entrance to the soul, and by their impressions produce sensation, memory, and thought. This system was taught by Leucippus (about B.C. 450.), Democritus (B.C. 470-361?), and Epicurus (B.C. 342-270). Modern Sensism holds sensation to be the only primitive act of the soul, an act which by successive transformation produces all the other acts of the soul and all its faculties, nay, the sensitive faculty itself. This system, taught in ancient times by Protagoras (B.C. 480-411?), was renewed in the seventeenth century by Locke (1632-1704), and received its last complement from Condillac.
Besides sensation, Locke admits reflection in the soul; but, according to him, reflection is simply observant of sensitive facts, and acts only on the internal operations which had for their object external material things.
Condillac (1715-1780) denies that reflection or attention is distinct from sensation, and regards it simply as a more lively sensation than the others. He considers memory as a twofold attention, -- on the one hand, to a past sensation, on the other, to a present sensation. Finally, he asserts that judgment is nothing more than a comparison between two sensations.
Laromiguière (1756-1837) maintains the sense origin of ideas; but he considers as necessary for their formation an activity distinct from sensation.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is the founder of that form of Sensism which is styled Positivism. He teaches that the object of science is the positive and real, that only that is positive and real, which is experimental. Hence his system is the foundation of the varied forms of unbelief that to-day infect men's minds.{1}
12. Sensism, under whatever form it is considered, is false, both because it destroys intellectual facts, and because it renders even the fact of sensation inexplicable. -- The operation and object of the intellect cannot be reduced to the operation and object of the senses; for the intellect reflects on its acts, judges, and reasons, which the senses cannot do. The object of the intellect is the immaterial, the universal; the object of the senses is the material, the particular. Now, Sensism, by identifying intellection with sensation. destroys the true notion of the intellect and of intellectual acts. It is to no purpose that Locke admits reflection in addition to sensation; for he limits reflection to the perceiving of sensations, and hence it does not essentially differ from sensation itself.
Sensism, moreover, renders the fact of sensation inexplicable, as is evident in the theory professed by the ancients. It is also manifest in the modern theory, which by asserting that sensation is the principle of the sensitive faculty, becomes essentially contradictory. Sensism is also sufficiently refuted by its consequences: experience shows that it leads directly to the negation of all science and all morality. As to Positivism, if no a priori principle is certain, no experiment is possible or scientific, since it must rest upon the certainty of some axioms, or a priori principles.
ART. III. -- CRITIQUE, OR TRANSCENDENTALISM.
13. Transcendentalism asserts that ideas are the product of the activity of the thinking subject alone. -- In this system, which is the opposite of Sensism, thought does not require for its exercise an object outside the mind itself.
14. Transcendentalism originated with Kant, whose principal disciples were Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.{2} Kant (1724-1804) teaches that we have within us a priori necessary forms or concepts both of the supersensible and of the sensible order; all our cognitions result from the application of these forms to the objects of experience. But as, according to the German philosopher, the a priori forms are purely subjective, it follows that the object of knowledge, as it is in itself, remains unknown to us.
Fichte (1762-4814) allows only one principle of knowledge, the pure Ego, from which he evolves all things, -- God, the world, and the human mind, -all which he considers as only conceptions of the Ego.
Schelling (1775-1854) maintains very nearly the same system ; instead of the pure Ego, however, he substitutes an abstraction, the absolute, from which everything, both mind and matter, emanates ideally.
Finally, Hegel (1770-1831) regards as the principle of all things the pure idea, in which the subject thinking and the object thought, the ideal and the real, entity and non-entity, are identified, and from which all proceeds, -- God, the world, and the human mind.
15. Transcendentalism is absurd; because, if ideas are purely subjective, it follows either that the objects known do not exist, or that we can affirm nothing concerning their reality. -- In fact, if ideas are pure modifications of the Ego, produced by the mind itself, we must hold either that nothing exists outside the Ego, which is Nihilism, or at least that we know nothing of what is without us, which is Scepticism. These consequences were vainly repudiated by Kant; his disciples glory in them, and with Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, regard all existing things, even God himself, as a pure creation of the human mind, or of the idea.
ART. IV. -- THE SYSTEM OF INNATE IDEAS.
16. The system of Innate Ideas considers ideas as infused by God into the soul from the moment of its creation. -- This system, regarding thought as constituting the essence of the soul, supposes that the soul must always have been engaged in thought, even from the first instant of its creation; and as the soul cannot think without ideas, it also holds that ideas are innate in the soul.
17. The upholders of this system are Plato among the ancients; Descartes, Leibnitz, and Rosmini, among modern philosophers. -- In Plato's system ideas are the eternal types according to which God has ordained all things; they exist not only in the divine mind, but also in the human mind, in which they are innate. Some think that Plato held these prototype ideas to be eternally existing apart from the divine mind and independent of it. The human intellect, Plato (B.c. 429 -- 348) teaches, existed before the body, and recalls these ideas according as it perceives copies made in their likeness, that is, sensible things.
Descartes (1596-1650) holds that innate ideas are perfect in the soul; but besides these ideas he admits factitious ideas, or those formed by an effort of the imagination, as the idea of a "gold mountain;" and adventitious ideas, or those which come from without, as the idea of the "sun."
Leibnitz (1646-1716) teaches that all these ideas are innate, but are in our intellect in their germs; and as, according to Descartes, innate ideas become present to the mind only through sensations, so, according to Leibnitz, these germs become perfect ideas only by occasion of sensation. Rosmini (1797-1855), laying it down as a principle that we ought to suppose as innate in the soul only that which is requisite to explain the fact of cognition, believed that he had found this sufficient element in the idea of being; he admits, therefore, no other innate idea than that of possible being. In his system, all ideas represent nothing but being differently determined. Hence it follows that all our ideas are formed from the idea of being by the same means by which we are enabled to perceive the different determinations of which being is susceptible, that is, by sensation.
18. The system of Innate Ideas, besides not accounting for the fact of cognition, is absurd in its principles, and leads to the same conclusions as the system of Transcendentalism. -- In this system the close dependence on the senses which is shown by experience to exist on the part of the intellect becomes inexplicable, and man appears no longer to act, in the order of cognition, according to the laws of his nature, which is both spiritual and corporeal, but rather in accordance with the laws of angelic nature. Hence all those who advocate the doctrine of Innate Ideas err regarding the human soul and its relations with the body. Moreover, the principle of their theory is that the essence of the human soul consists in thought. But if thought constitutes the essence of the soul, the act of intellection is confounded with the essence of the human soul; but in God alone is essence identical with intellection. Hence there would be no need of adding to the essence of the soul the ideas infused by God. Finally, the system of Innate Ideas, in admitting fundamentally the same principle as Transcendentalism, viz., a priori subjective forms, leads to the same consequence; that is, it renders all knowledge purely subjective, and thus ends naturally in Ideal ism.
ART V. -- ONTOLOGISM.
19. Ontologism regards ideas as seen in God by direct and immediate intuition. -- This system loses sight of the subjective character of ideas; it considers them as the object of knowledge and as direct manifestations of God himself to our intellect.
20. The chief defenders of Ontologism are Malebranche and Gioberti.{3} According to Malebranche (1638-1715), man perceives all things by his ideas, which are only the divine idea viewed under different aspects. And this idea we know only in so far as God directly manifests Himself to our mind. By our ideas we apprehend the contingent, the imperfect, the finite, which are conceived only as the privation of the necessary, the perfect, the infinite. Hence our soul sees all in God, even the material world. Gioberti (1801-1851) starts with the principle of Malebranche, that ideas, being universal and absolute, must be a direct, though partial, intuition of absolute being, that is, of God Himself; he regards ideas, not as the means, but as the very object of knowledge. He teaches that what we see are the divine ideas themselves, that we have a constant intuition of God, but that we are conscious of this intuition only by reflection, which he calls ontological reflection.
21. Ontologism is false in its principles, contradicted by experience, and fatal in its consequences. -- 1. Ontologists teach that the intellect has a direct intuition of God; but to see the being of God is to see His essence. We must then affirm that in perceiving ideas our intellect is in a state similar to that of the blessed, who see the divine essence directly, a conclusion which is absurd and contrary to faith. 2. Ontologism renders the operation of the intellect independent of that of the senses. Such a supposition is opposed to the nature of man, and is contradicted by experience, which sufficiently proves that the idea is formed in us and by us and is not derived from an intuition of God. 3. If we must admit that ideas are not the medium, but the objects of knowledge, it follows that the ideal order is not distinct from the real, and as the real order alone exists, we must conclude that knowledge is impossible. Again, if the intellect does not form ideas, but sees them in God, it is, by the very fact, deprived of all activity of its own. Hence Ontologism leads directly to Fatalism and Pantheism.{4}
ART. VI. -- INTERMEDIARISM.
22. Intermediarism, or the system of impersonal Reason, supposes between God and man an intermediate impersonal reason, by which our intellect acquires universal ideas. -- According to this system, ideas are not innate in the intellect, they are not acquired by the mind, they are not seen in God; but they are seen in an impersonal reason intermediate between God and man.
23. The principal defender of Intermediarism is Cousin, who has done nothing more than renew an error of Averroës. -- The reason of man, says Cousin, is individual and variable, and therefore cannot acquire of itself universal and immutable ideas. Hence man can form his ideas only in so far as they are revealed to him by a reason which, not being personal to him, is called impersonal. This reason is revealed to him from the very beginning, and the knowledge which the mind then has is said to be spontaneous. In this state man knows, but does not know that he knows; when he begins to reflect on his spontaneous knowledge, he acquires reflex knowledge. The former knowledge is always true; not so the latter, for in it man may fix his attention exclusively on one part of the truth, and thus confound the part with the whole; thence arises error, which, however, Cousin asserts to be only incomplete truth. Au almost analogous system was taught by Averroës (1120-1198) in the middle ages.
24. Intermediarism is false in its principle, in its nature, and in its consequences. -- This system starts with the principle that our intellect, as being individual, cannot form a universal idea; but this is to lose sight of the twofold aspect, subjective and objective, under which we may consider the idea, viz., the idea itself and that which it represents. Again, if Impersonal reason is anything, it must be individual, and hence it is incapable, according to Cousin himself, of forming a universal idea. Finally, this system easily generates Pantheism, since it destroys all activity proper to the intellect of man.
ART. VII. -- TRADITIONALISM.
25. Traditionalism teaches that our ideas are formed by means of speech. -- This system, devised to combat those philosophers who hold that human reason is sufficient for itself, exaggerates the impotency of reason and asserts its dependence on speech and tradition.
26. The principal representatives of Traditionalism are De Bonald, Bonnetty, and Ventura. -- De Bonald (1754 -1840) teaches the absolute necessity of speech for the existence of thought, so that without speech man can have no idea, no general notion, but only sensible perceptions.
Bonnetty (1798- ) and Ventura (1792-1861) concede the power of forming ideas of sensible things without the help of speech, but maintain that, independently of social teaching, man cannot acquire notions of the spiritual and moral order, as those of God, the soul, duty, etc. Other philosophers admit that man can think without speech, but they deny that without it he can form clear and distinct ideas and that he can reflect on his thoughts.
27. It is false to assert that speech is absolutely nece.ssary for the formation of ideas either of sensible or of spiritual things, or for reftecting on ideas already formed. -- Speech, being simply a sign, can make known an object to the intellect only through the idea which the intellect already has of the object; therefore, before the intellect is fixed on the essence of a thing by the word, it has already the idea of it. The idea of sensible things being formed, we cann'ot, without contradiction, deny to reason the power to attain to ideas of spiritual things; for, granting that reason can form ideas of sensible things in virtue of the abstractive power natural to it, we cannot deny it the power to ascend from these ideas to those of spiritual things, since the power of deduction is not less natural to reason than that of abstraction. Yet it is true that, owing to the feebleness of man's reason and the difficulties that beset his actual condition, but few men could, without the aid of speech, attain to those truths which regard God and His attributes, and even then only after much time and labor, with an admixture of many errors and great uncertainty. Besides, it is certain that, without speech, man would never arrive at complete intellectual and moral development.
But, if the intellect has the power of forming its ideas without the aid of speech, evidently it may reflect on its ideas without speech, for the intellect is essentially a reflective faculty, and requires for the exercise of its power of reflection only the idea, the object of reflection. It will not do to cite in proof of the necessity of speech for the formation of ideas instances of deaf-mutes and savages abandoned in forests. A more attentive examination has shown that these facts have been imperfectly observed or have never existed.
ART. VIII. -- THE SCHOLASTIC SYSTEM.
28. The Scholastic system explains the origin of ideas by the power which the intellect has of abstracting from sensible images or phantasmata. -- The Schoolmen teach that sensible objects first impress the external senses. The impression, passing from the external senses to the imagination, gives rise to an image of the object, which, though more perfect, is individual and material, and represents the object with the sensible and concrete conditions which make it that oh. ject and no other. As soon as this image is formed, the intellect adverts to it, and calling into exercise its abstractive power, which constitutes what is called the active intellect, it illumines this sensible image, strips it of its sensible and individual conditions, and manifests the essence of the thing without its material determinations. Thus the object becomes actually intelligible, or the intelligible species is formed. The active intellect, or abstractive power, having thus separated the intelligible, that is, the proper object of the intellect, the intellect proper, called the possible intellect, receives the intelligible species into itself and elicits the word of the mind (verbum mentis), or forms the idea. These operations, though distinct, are accomplished at the same time in virtue of the unity of the soul, and one cannot take place without the other. As we shall see later, this system of the origin of ideas is very closely connected with the Scholastic system concerning the nature of the human soul, and follows from it as a consequence.
29. The Scholastic system has recourse to fewer a priori principles than any other system. -- It is an axiom among philosophers that nature is as fruitful in effects as she is sparing in causes; hence the simplicity of a system is a strong argument in its favor. But while the other systems concerning ideas assume gratuitously one or many a priori elements which may easily be dispensed with, the Scholastic system requires for the formation of the idea only that which is absolutely indispensable, viz., the abstractive power, or the active intellect. This abstractive power cannot be dispensed with, and it alone suffices for the solution of the problem.
30. The Scholastic system is true, because it is in perfect harmory with the essential laws of human nature. -Since the formation of ideas is an effect whose cause is the nature of our soul, a system concerning the formation of ideas is true, if it is in perfect harmony with the nature of the soul, if it refers the effect to its proper and adequate cause. But while the other systems do not take into account the nature of the human soul, which is both sensitive and intellectual, the Scholastic system explains the concurrence of sensible images in the formation of ideas.
It is also in accord with experience, which shows that we do not possess innate ideas, that we do not intue ideas in God, but that we form the idea of a thing from its sensible perception. Thus the Scholastic system follows as a simple consequence from the true theory of the nature of man. According to that theory, man is neither a mere animal nor an angel, but stands, so to say, midway between them; for if, on the one hand, his intellect, like that of the angel, does not intrinsically depend on an organ, on the other hand, being the faculty of a soul substantially united to a body, it can form the idea only after the senses have presented the matter for its operations. Hence the Scholastic system preserves the unity of man s being, and yet maintains a distinction between the soul and body; the other systems, on the contrary, either make the soul and body two distinct beings, or destroy one of these two elements of man.
31. The Scholastic system rests on the authority of the greatest philosophers. -- This system, first taught, though with a mixture of error, by Aristotle (B.C. 384-322), was held by all the great philosophers of the middle ages, and especially by St. Thomas, who brought it to its full perfection. Up to the seventeenth century, it alone was admitted by all the great Oatholic universities, and after having been for two centuries almost universally rejected, to the great detriment of philosophy, it is now accepted by the most distinguished philosophers of the present day without restriction or modification.
32. The Scholastic system gives a satisfactory solution to all the difficulties connected with the problem of the origin of ideas, and in no way contradicts the facts of common sense. -- The principal difficulty connected with the problem of the origin of ideas is the necessity of reconciling elements apparently contradictory and yet evidently attested by experience, in the formation of ideas. On the one hand, there is the sensible, particular, contingent element; on the other hand, the intelligible, universal, necessary element. These contradictory elements cannot be united. But, while other systems avoid the difficulty by denying one of the two elements, and thus disregard both the nature of man and facts of experience, the Scholastic system shows how the two elements co-exist without being confounded; how the sensible image furnishes the intellect with matter for its operation; and how the idea, while excluding the sensible image, cannot be formed without its concurrence. This system, explaining what is immutable and necessary in the idea by the nature of the essence perceived and not by the nature of the perception itself, accounts for the divine prototype of the object of the idea without deifying the idea itself; finally, by attributing to man the power of forming his own ideas, it makes them dependent on him both for their causality and their very existence. At the same time, it enables us to comprehend the grandeur of the intellect, by showing that its intelligible light, its abstractive power, is a sort of participation in the light of God Himself. Thus, everything finds its proper place in this system, and far from excluding a single fact of experience or of common sense, it admits them all, and explains their mutual relations.
33. The Scholastic system entails none of the consequences with which its adversaries reproach it; the objections raised against it rest on false explanations. -- By recognizing the reality of the essence perceived, the Scholastic system avoids Subjectivism and Idealism, and it avoids Pantheism by making the idea a contingent production of our intellect. Those who object that it borders on Sensism in admitting a sensible element in the formation of the idea, forget that this element does not make part of the idea, but is simply the matter on which the intellect operates in forming the idea. The reproach that this system is contradictory in making the universal proceed from the particular, can be uttered by those only who do not observe that particular beings have each a proper essence, which, abstracted by the active intellect, is capable of being considered, by another operation of the intellect, under the relation of universality.
{1} Cf. Liberatore, vol. ii., p. 881.
{2} In America, Transcendentalism, according to its founders and leaders, Dr. Channing, Alcott, and Emerson, is rather an emancipation and reaction from the teachings of Calvinism, that man's nature is totally depraved, and that he has no liberty. It received very little, if any influence from the German system, and is rather the outgrowth of the principle of the American Constitution, that man is capable of self-government.
{3} Some of the writings of the illustrious O. A. Brownson (1808-1876) are unmistakably ontologistic. He accepted the primary principle of Gioherti, Being creates existences, and thence deduced his argument for the existence of God.
{4} Nor does the fact that God is eminently intelligible, and that we are intimately connected with Him, give support to Ontologists. For God is eminently intelligible in Himself, and the bond by which we are united to Him arises not from our knowledge of Him, but from our dependence on Him. Even though we see all things through God, forasmuch as the light by which we know is from Him, it is still not necessary to behold His essence, just as for perceiving any sensible object, it is unnecessary to see the substance of the sun.