34. No follower of Descartes has more unambiguously than this author distinguished between imagination and intellection, though he gives the name of idea to both. Many suppose, he says, that they cannot conceive a thing when they cannot imagine it. But we cannot imagine a figure of 1,000 sides, though we can conceive it and reason upon it. We may indeed get a confused image of a figure with many sides, but these are no more 1,000 than they are 999. Thus, also, we have ideas of thinking, affirming, denying, and the like, though we have no imagination of these operations. By ideas therefore we mean not images painted in the fancy, but all that is in our minds when we say that we conceive anything, in whatever manner we may conceive it. Hence, it is easy to judge of the falsehood of some opinions held in this age. One philosopher has advanced that we have no idea of God; another that all reasoning is but an assemblage of words connected by an affirmation. He glances here at Gassendi and Hobbes.[789] Far from all our ideas coming from the senses, as the Aristotelians have said, and as Gassendi asserts in his Logic, we may say on the contrary that no idea in our minds is derived from the senses except occasionally (par occasion); that is, the movements of the brain, which is all the organs of sense can effect, give occasion to the soul to form different ideas which it would not otherwise form, though these ideas have scarce ever any resemblance to what occurs in the organs of sense and in the brain, and though there are also very many ideas, which, deriving nothing from any bodily image, cannot without absurdity be referred to the senses.[790] This is perhaps a clearer statement of an important truth than will be found in Malebranche or in Descartes himself.
[789] The reflection on Gassendi is a mere cavil, as will appear by remarking what he has really said, and which we have quoted a few pages above. The Cartesians were resolute in using one sense of the word idea, while Gassendi used another. He had himself been to blame in his controversy with the father of the new philosophy, and the disciples (calling the author of L’Art de Penser such in a general sense) retaliated by equal captiousness.
[790] C. 1.
35. In the second part, Arnauld treats of words and propositions. Much of it may be reckoned more within the province of grammar than of logic. But as it is inconvenient to refer the student to works of a different class, especially if it should be the case that no good grammars, written with a regard to logical principles, were then to be found, this cannot justly be made an objection. In the latter chapters of this second part, he comes to much that is strictly logical, and taken from ordinary books on that science. The third part relates to syllogisms, and notwithstanding the author’s low estimation of that method, in comparison with the general regard for it in the schools, he has not omitted the common explanations of mood and figure, ending with a concise but good account of the chief sophisms.
36. The fourth and last part is entitled, On Method, and contains the principles of connected reasoning, which he justly observes to be more important than the rules of single syllogisms, wherein few make any mistake. The laws of demonstration given by Pascal, are here laid down with some enlargement. Many observations not wholly bearing on merely logical proof, are found in this part of the treatise.
37. The Port-Royal Logic, though not, perhaps, very much read in England, has always been reckoned among the best works in that science, and certainly had a great influence in rendering it more metaphysical, more ethical (for much is said by Arnauld on the moral discipline of the mind in order to fit it for the investigation of truth), more exempt from technical barbarisms and trifling definitions and divisions. It became more and more acknowledged that the rules of syllogism go a very little way in rendering the mind able to follow a course of enquiry without error, much less in assisting it to discover truth; and that even their vaunted prerogative of securing us from fallacy is nearly ineffectual in exercise. The substitution of the French language, in its highest polish, for the uncouth Latinity of the Aristotelians, was another advantage of which the Cartesian school legitimately availed themselves.
Malebranche. 38. Malebranche, whose Recherche de la Vérité was published in 1674, was a warm and almost enthusiastic admirer of Descartes, but his mind was independent, searching, and fond of its own inventions; he acknowledged no master, and in some points dissents from the Cartesian school. His natural temperament was sincere and rigid; he judges the moral and intellectual failings of mankind with a severe scrutiny, and a contemptuousness not generally unjust in itself, but displaying too great confidence in his own superiority. This was enhanced by a religious mysticism, which enters, as an essential element, into his philosophy of the mind. The fame of Malebranche, and still more the popularity in modern times of his Search for Truth, has been affected by that peculiar hypothesis, so mystically expressed, the seeing all things in God, which has been more remembered than any other part of that treatise. “The union,” he says, “of the soul to God is the only means by which we acquire a knowledge of truth. This union has indeed been rendered so obscure by original sin, that few can understand what it means; to those who follow blindly the dictates of sense and passion it appears imaginary. The same cause has so fortified the connection between the soul and body that we look on them as one substance, of which the latter is the principal part. And hence, we may all fear that we do not well discern the confused sounds with which the senses fill the imagination from that pure voice of truth which speaks to the soul. The body speaks louder than God himself; and our pride makes us presumptuous enough to judge without waiting for those words of truth, without which we cannot truly judge at all. And the present work,” he adds, “may give evidence of this; for it is not published as being infallible. But let my readers judge of my opinions according to the clear and distinct answers they shall receive from the only Lord of all men after they shall have interrogated him by paying a serious attention to the subject.” This is a strong evidence of the enthusiastic confidence in supernatural illumination which belongs to Malebranche, and which we are almost surprised to find united with so much cool and acute reasoning as his writings contain.
His style. 39. The Recherche de la Vérité is in six books; the first five on the errors springing from the senses, from the imagination, from the understanding, from the natural inclinations, and from the passions. The sixth contains the method of avoiding these, which, however, has been anticipated in great measure throughout the preceding. Malebranche has many repetitions, but little, I think, that can be called digressive, though he takes a large range of illustration, and dwells rather diffusely on topics of subordinate importance. His style is admirable; clear, precise, elegant, sparing in metaphors, yet not wanting them in due place, warm, and sometimes eloquent, a little redundant, but never passionate or declamatory.
Sketch of his theory. 40. Error, according to Malebranche, is the source of all human misery; man is miserable because he is a sinner, and he would not sin if he did not consent to err. For the will alone judges and reasons, the understanding only perceives things and their relations; a deviation from common language, to say the least, that seems quite unnecessary.[791] The will is active and free; not that we can avoid willing our own happiness; but it possesses a power of turning the understanding towards such objects as please us, and commanding it to examine everything thoroughly, else we should be perpetually deceived, and without remedy, by the appearances of truth. And this liberty we should use on every occasion: it is to become slaves, against the will of God, when we acquiesce in false appearances; but it is in obedience to the voice of eternal truth which speaks within us, that we submit to those secret reproaches of reason, which accompany our refusal to yield to evidence. There are, therefore, two fundamental rules, one for science, the other for morals; never to give an entire consent to any propositions, except those which are so evidently true, that we cannot refuse to admit them without an internal uneasiness and reproach of our reason; and, never fully to love anything, which we can abstain from loving without remorse. We may feel a great inclination to consent absolutely to a probable opinion; yet, on reflection, we shall find that we are not compelled to do so by any tacit self-reproach if we do not. And we ought to consent to such probable opinions for the time until we have more fully examined the question.
[791] L. i., c. 2.