Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

Our recollections offer another proof of true activity. We propose to think of a country which we have visited, and wish to recollect its details; at the command of the will the imagination is aroused and displays to our intuition the scenes which we once saw. But these images already existed, it will be said, and it was only necessary to awaken them; but it cannot be said that they existed in act, for we had no actual consciousness of them; and the command of our will was necessary and sufficient in order to force them to reappear. This new presence adds something to our habitual state, and is produced within us by the mere act of the will.

It is true that we do not know the manner of this production; but it is certain that consciousness assures us that it immediately follows an act of our will; and we have, to say the least, a strong proof that there is in us a force which produces the transition of these images from their habitual to an actual state. The same may be said of all recollections; and if we often find that we cannot recollect all that we wish to, this only proves that our active faculties are limited by certain conditions from which they cannot free themselves.

165. Without considering recollections, every one knows how ideas are elaborated in meditation. Our ideas are not the same when we begin to reflect on any subject, as after we have meditated for a long time on it. Sometimes without the assistance obtained by reading any new work or hearing any new observation, by the mere force of our own reflection we have made clear and distinct what was before only a confused idea. To say that the new ideas are the result of others which already existed in our mind only proves that our understanding has a true activity; for this result, whatever its origin, is something new, it produces a new state in the soul, since it now knows perfectly what before it either knew not at all, or only in a confused manner. The relations of the sub-secant to the secant, and of the sub-tangent to the tangent, are geometrical ideas within the reach of the most ordinary intellects: so also are the similarity of the triangles which are imagined for the purpose of comparing lines with each other, and the successive approximation of the sub-secant to the sub-tangent, and of the secant to the tangent; but to reduce those elements to the point where the wonderful theory of infinitesimal calculus shines forth with the strongest light, an immense distance has to be passed over. Shall we say that those geniuses who first crossed over this distance thought nothing new, because they already had the elements from the combination of which this theory results?

166. If this productive activity is clearly seen in any phenomena, it is certainly in the acts of freewill. What becomes of freedom, if the soul does not produce its volitions? Freedom means nothing, if they are only phenomena produced by another being, in which the soul has no other part than that it is the subject in which they are produced. It is a contradiction to say that the soul is free, and at the same time deny that it is the principle of its determinations.

167. Mere intelligence, even mere sensibility, and in general, every phenomenon implying consciousness, seems to be the exercise of an activity; and in this sense I have shown[95] that we have intuition of an internal activity. If to know, to will, to have consciousness of a sensation, are not actions, I know not where the type of a true action can be found. To perceive a thing, to will it, the imperative act of the will which makes me seek the means of obtaining it, are undoubtedly actions; and action is the exercise of activity. The idea of life represents activity in its most perfect degree; and among the phenomena of life, the most perfect are those which imply consciousness; if we do not call these actions, we must say that we have no idea of action or of activity.

Although we do not know the manner of the production, we are conscious of it, we have intuition of the action in itself. When we see a bodily motion we behold a passive modification; but when we experience within ourselves the phenomena of consciousness, we behold an action, and consequently have an intuition of our activity.

168. Here an objection arises. If internal phenomena are truly actions, why are they so often independent of our will? We suffer despite ourselves; ideas come upon us which we would fain cast off; thoughts arise so quickly and spontaneously as to seem rather inspirations than the fruit of labor. Where in such cases is the activity? Are we not forced to say that these phenomena are wholly passive?

169. This objection, apparently so conclusive, proves nothing against internal activity. In the first place, we might answer that the soul being passive in some cases, does not prove that it is so in all; and that in order to affirm the existence of internal activity, we require only certain phenomena to be produced by it. But it is not even necessary to admit that activity is not found in the cases proposed by the objection; for, if we carefully examine them, we shall find that even there the soul exercises a true activity.

The force of the objection rests on the appearance within us of certain phenomena without the concurrence of our will, and at times in spite of it; but this only leads us to infer that there are other functions in the soul independent of freewill without obliging us to believe that these functions are not active. With this observation the difficulty at once disappears. There are within us certain phenomena which we neither willed before nor after they appeared; so far I concede. Therefore there are within us phenomena in which the soul is purely passive; this I deny. The consequence is illegitimate; all that could logically be deduced is, that certain phenomena appear and are continued in the soul without the concurrence of our will.