|
CHAPTER
VI
OF SENSIBLE
QUALITIES
1. THERE
is no part of philosophy which has made less progress among the
vulgar, than that which treating of sensible qualities, dismisses
them entirely from body, to make them reside in the mind. The
most eminent philosophers of antiquity have acknowledged this
truth; it sprung naturally from their principles, and they deduce
the same consequences from it. Democritus, Socrates, Aristippus,
Plato, Epicurus, and Lucretius, have clearly affirmed, that cold
and heat, odours and colours, were no other than sensations, excited
in our minds, by the different operations of the bodies surrounding
us, and acting on our senses. And it is easy to show, that Aristotle
himself was of this opinion, “that sensible qualities exist
in the mind ;“ though by the obscure manner in which he opens
himself, he hath given occasion to believe that he thought otherwise.
There are only the schoolmen, who have positively affirmed, that
sensible qualities exist in bodies as in minds; that there is
in luminous bodies, for example, the very same thing that is
in us when we view light. And as the philosophy of the schools
had for some ages taken possession of men’s minds, when Descartes,
and after him, Mallebranche, arose in opposition to the common
prejudices, taking pains to draw the herd of philosophers out
of the gross errors wherein they found them involved; it was not
perceived, that in this they did nothing but renew the very same
truths, which had been taught by Democritus, Plato, Aristippus,
and Sextus Empiricus, supporting them likewise by the very same
arguments, though sometimes farther extended. Hence all the honour
has been ascribed to these moderns, as if the error they attacked
had been that of all ages; nobody designing to search any deeper,
whether in reality, it was so or not. For had they given any attention
to what the ancients had advanced, or consulted their writings,
they would soon have found that some of them, not only stripped
body of every power of exciting opinions in us, but even sometimes
called in question its very existence. Yet this indolence in ascertaining
the origin of our improvements, was not entirely universal. Gassendi
had published a tract upon sensible qualities, and given also
an abridgement of the Pyrrhonic philosophy respecting this subject,
before ever Descartes attempted it; so that even among the moderns
themselves, Descartes is not the first who clearly distinguished
between the properties of spirit and body. And as to the ancients,
a brief narrative of what Descartes and Mallebranche have said,
compared with what those ancients taught, will quickly put the
reader in a condition of deciding to whom that discovery ought
to be attributed.
2. Descartes
begins with remarking, that every one is accustomed from his infancy,
to look upon whatever he perceives by his senses as existing out
of his mind ; and having an entire resemblance to the perceptions
which he finds there. Observing the colour of any object, for
instance, we think we see something without ourselves, and residing
in the objects, exactly resembling our idea of it; and, we acquire
such a habit of judging in this manner, that we never entertain
any doubt. This is the case of all our sensations; we seldom imagine
that they exist only in the mind, but rather in our hand or foot,
or some other part of our body. There is nothing however more
certain, than that the pain which we feel in our foot, is nothing
but what the mind perceives as there ; in the same manner as
the light we see as it were in the sun, is an idea raised by it
in our minds. In the same manner we say, we perceive colours,
or discern odours in objects; when these sensations arise in us
from something or other in those objects. Such are the misconceptions
of our infant state, from which we can hardly rescue ourselves
even in advanced life.
3. Mallebranche
seized this idea of Descartes, and more fully opened it. In his
celebrated work, the research into truth, he begins with discovering
that the source of our error is in the abuse of our liberty, and
the precipitation with which we form judgment; insomuch, that
our senses could not impose on us, were it not for our rashness,
For example, when we see light, it is certain we do so; when we
feel heat, there is no mistake in imagining we do; but we deceive
ourselves when we fancy, that the heat and odours we perceive
are external to the mind that feels them. He then combats the
errors arising from our way of judging; and having stripped the
body of its sensible qualities, instructs us how mind and body
co-operate to produce our sensations, and how we accompany them
with false judgments. He blames those who always judge of objects
by the sensations they excite and by an appeal to their own feelings;
for the feelings of all men being different, though things themselves
continue the same, they must judge variously as they are affected,
but ought not to ascribe the diversity of affections to the objects
themselves.
4. Were
we to bring into review all the ancients have taught on this subject,
we should be surprised at the clearness with which they have explained
themselves, and at a loss to account how opinions came to be taken
for new, which had been already illustrated in their writings,
with such force and precision. It cannot so much as be said, that
the moderns have given a new turn to these opinions; for they
not only reason upon the same principles, but employ the very
same comparisons in proof of them.
5.
Democritus was the first who disarrayed body of its sensible qualities.
That great man, who admitted only of atoms and space as the principles
of things. differed from all who had preceded him in that opinion,
in that he affirmed, atoms were void of qualities ; and in this
he was followed by Epicurus. He derived qualities from the different
order and disposition of the atoms among themselves, as well from
their diversity of figure; which, according to him, was the cause
of all the various changes and modifications in nature; some of
them being round, others angular, some straight, some pointed,
some crooked, &c. “ Thus the first elements of things
having in them neither whiteness nor blackness, sweetness, nor
bitterness, heat nor cold, nor any other quality ; it follows,
that colour, for example, exists Only in our perception of it;
as also, that bitterness, and sweetness, which exist only in being
perceived, are the consequences of the different manners in which
we ourselves are affected by the bodies surrounding us, there
being nothing in its own nature yellow, or white, or red, sweet
or bitter."
6.
Sextus Empiricus, explaining the doctrine of Democritus, says,
“that sensible qualities,” according to that philosopher,
“have nothing of reality but in the opinion of those who
are differently affected by them, according to the different dispositions
of their organs ; and that from this difference of disposition
arise the perceptions of sweet and bitter, heat and cold ; and
also, that we do not deceive ourselves in affirming that we feel
such impressions ; but in concluding that exterior objects, must
have in them something analagous to our feelings.”
7.
Protagoras, the disciple of Democritus, says, that in man is contained
the rule or measure of every thing ; that the whole existence
of external things consists in the impression we perceive in ourselves;
insomuch that what is imperceptible, has not the consequences
of his system; for admitting, with his master, the perpetual mutability
of matter, which occasioned a constant change in things; he then
added, that whatsoever we see, apprehend, or touch, are just as
they appear; and that the only true rule or criterion of things,
was in the perception men had of them. I leave the reader to
judge, whether Protagora’s manner of thinking might not
have transmitted to Berkely the idea of a system, which he with
so much subtilty hath maintained “that there is nothing in
external objects, but what the sensible qualities existing in
our minds induce us to imagine, and of course that they have no
other manner of existence; there being no other substratum for
them, than the minds by which they are perceived: not as modes
or qualities belonging to themselves, but as objects of perception
to whatever is percipient.”
8. We
should think we were listening to the two modern philosophers,
when we hear Aristippus exhorting men “to be upon their guard
with respect to the reports of sense, because it does not always
yield just information; for we do not perceive exterior objects
as they are in themselves but only as they affect us. We know
not of what colour or smell they may be, these being only affections
in ourselves. It is not the objects themselves that we are enabled
to comprehend, but are confined to judge of them only by the impressions
they make upon us; and the wrong judgments we form of them in
this respect, is the cause of all our errors. Hence, when we perceive
a tower which appears round, or an oar which seems crooked in
the water; we may say that our senses intimate so and so, but
ought not to affirm, that the distant tower is really round, or
the oar in the water crooked: it is enough, in such a case, to
say, that we receive the impression of ,roundness from the tower,
and of crookedness from the oar; but it is neither necessary nor
proper to affirm, that the tower is really round, or the oar broken;
for a square tower may appear round at a distance, and a straight
stick always seems crooked in the water.”
9. Aristippus
says farther, “there is not in man any faculty that can judge
of the truth of things, any farther than that men have given common
names to their own apprehensions. Thus every body talks of whiteness
and sweetness, but they have no common faculty to which they can
with certainty refer impressions of this kind. Every one judges
by his own apprehensions, and nobody can affirm that the sensation
which he feels when he sees a white object, is the same with what
his neighbour experiences in regard to the same object; and because
the powers of apprehension are not entirely the same in all, it
is temerity in us to assert, that what appears in such or such
a manner to one, must needs do so to every body else: for one
may be so constituted, that the objects which offer themselves
to his eye may appear white, while to those of a man differently
constituted they seem yellow; as is manifest in those who have
the jaundice, or any other natural diversity of discernment, and
who by reason of the different contexture of their organs, are
incapable of receiving from the same things, the same impressions
that others do. Thus he who has large eyes, will see objects in
a different magnitude from him whose eyes are little; and he who
bath blue eyes, discerns them under different colours from him
who hath gray.”
10.
Plato, following Protagoras, clearly distinguishes between sensible
qualities, and the objects which cause-them. He observes, that
the same wind appears cold to one, and hot to another; to one
soft, and to another rough: but “that we ought not thence
to conclude, that the wind is in itself hot and cold at the same
time ; but to say with Protagoras, that he who is hot, feels it
hot,” &c.
11.
I come now to Epicurus, whose doctrine is explained with the greatest
exactness by Plutarch, but above all by Diogenes Laertius. This
philosopher, admitting the principles of Democritus, hath thence
deduced the most natural consequences : “that atoms are all
of the same nature, and differ only in figure, magnitude, and
weight, and that in the constitution of every thing, they bear
some affinity to its principal properties, such as roundness,
bulk, &c. For colour, says he, cold and heat, and the other
sensible qualities, are not inherent in the atoms, but the result
of their assemblage : and the difference between them flows from
the diversity of their size, figure, and arrangement: insomuch,
that any number of atoms in one disposition, creates one Sort
of sensation ; and in another, another: but their own primary
nature remains always the same, because being solid and uncompounded,
no parts transpire, otherwise nature would not be in the main
fixed and stable ; and it is from the permanency of the properties
essential to atoms of matter, that the different sensations arise,
which the same. objects produce in animals of different species,
and in men of different constitutions ; for each have in the organs
of sight, hearing, and. the ether senses, an innumerable multitude
of pores differently sized and situated; these are variously adapted
and proportioned for the reception of the small corpuscles, which
easily insinuate themselves into some, and with difficulty into
others, (according to the analogy between them and the pores,
and the variety of contexture in the parts) and of course must
produce different impressions.”
12. So that the senses do not deceive us,
for they are not judges of the nature of things; but serve only
to inform us of the connexion and relation between the bodies
surrounding us and our own, in subserviency to our happiness
in this life: “whence it is obvious, that our sensations
are always true, though the judgments we many times form respecting
their objects are sometimes false :“ as must always be the
case, whenever we alter those objects themselves which are the
exterior causes of our sensations, by either adding something
foreign to them or retrenching from them, what is properly their
own. "If any think they are imposed upon by the different
appearances which result from one and the same object; as, for
example, when a body seen at a distance appears of one colour,
and when nigh of another; it is themselves who are guilty of the
deception, in imagining that the one appearance is true, and the
other illusory; for in that, they form a false judgment, not rightly
considering the nature of things ; whereas, they ought, on the
contrary, to have concluded that both colours were true, though
different, occasioned by the change of situations in which they
were viewed, which produced two sensations not the same, but equally
true. Whence it also happens, that it is not the sound in the
brass that is beaten, nor the voice itself of a person who sings,
that are the objects of our perception, but only that which acts
upon our ear; for one and the same thing cannot be in two different
places at once. And as no man says, that his judgment is imposed
upon, because a sound strikes him more feebly at a distance, than
when he hath approached the place whence it comes: neither can
we say, that our sight illudes us, when at a distance, a tower
appears small and round, which upon our approach to it, would
be found large and square: for the representative size of the
object is in exact proportion to that of the angle formed by it
in the eye, which varies according to the difference of the distance.
In a word, the use of the senses is to represent objects to us
under certain appearances; but not at all to judge what they are
in themselves: and hence our sensations are always true; error
being only the result of our judgment.”
13. 1 have been the more large on this subject,
because it is one of the most proper to prove the truth of my
proposition, “that the moderns have often enriched themselves
with the spoils of the ancients, without having done them the
honour of any acknowledgement.” With reason have we praised
Descartes and Mallebranche, for having treated this matter with
so much penetration. But they have scarcely advanced any thing
but what had been said before by those ancient philosophers, whom
I have been quoting.
Chapter 7
|
