"Make an end of it, then," said Pécuchet.
Then, coming to Condillac:
"'Our thoughts are not metamorphoses of sensation. It causes them, puts them in play. In order to put them in play a motive power is necessary, for matter of itself cannot produce movement.' And I found that in your Voltaire," Pécuchet added, making a low bow to him.
Thus they repeated again and again the same arguments, each treating the other's opinion with contempt, without persuading his companion that his own was right.
But philosophy elevated them in their own estimation. They recalled with disdain their agricultural and political preoccupations.
At present they were disgusted with the museum. They would have asked nothing better than to sell the articles of virtù contained in it. So they passed on to the second chapter: "Faculties of the Soul."
"'They are three in number, no more: that of feeling, that of knowing, and that of willing.
"'In the faculty of feeling we should distinguish physical sensibility from moral sensibility. Physical sensations are naturally classified into five species, being transmitted through the medium of the senses. The facts of moral sensibility, on the contrary, owe nothing to the body. What is there in common between the pleasure of Archimedes in discovering the laws of weight and the filthy gratification of Apicius in devouring a wild-boar's head?
"'This moral sensibility has five genera, and its second genus, moral desires, is divided into five species, and the phenomena of the fourth genus, affection, are subdivided into two other species, amongst which is the love of oneself—a legitimate propensity, no doubt, but one which, when it becomes exaggerated, takes the name of egoism.
"'In the faculty of knowing we find rational perception, in which there are two principal movements and four degrees.