Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

[CHAPTER II].

CONDILLAC'S STATUE.

5. Condillac supposes a statue, which he animates successively with each of the senses: then beginning with the sense of smell, he says; "So long as our statue is limited to the sense of smell, its knowledge cannot go beyond odors; it can neither have any idea of extension, of space, or of any thing beyond itself, nor of other sensations, such as color, sound, taste."[2] If, according to the conditions of the supposition, all activity and every faculty be denied to this statue, it certainly can have no other idea or sensation, and it may be added that even its sensation of smell will be for it no idea.

"If we present it a rose," continues Condillac, "to us it will be a statue which smells a rose; but for itself it will be only the smell of a rose. It will then be the smell of the rose, the pink, the jasmine, or the violet, according to the objects which operate upon its organ; in a word, with respect to it, these odors are only its own modifications and manners of being, and it cannot believe itself any thing else, since these are the only sensations of which it is susceptible."

6. It is very obvious that at the first step, the statue must take a great leap. Close upon the apparent simplicity of the sensible phenomenon, reflection, one of those acts which suppose the intellect already well developed, is introduced. First the statue believes itself something; it believes itself the odor; next consciousness of itself in relation to the impression it has just received, is attributed to it; then it is made to form a kind of judgment, whereby it affirms the identity of itself with the sensation. This, however, is impossible, unless we have something besides bare sensation; but we neither have nor can have at this stage any thing beyond this purely passive impression, an isolated phenomenon, upon which there can be no reflection of any kind whatever; and the statue can have no other reflection of itself than this sensation, which in the reflective order has no title to be so called. Condillac's hypothesis rigorously applied, presents only a phenomenon leading to nothing; and the moment he leaves sensation to develop it, he admits an activity in the mind distinct and very different from sensation, which destroys his whole system.

The statue confined to the sensation of smell will never believe itself smell; such a belief is a judgment, and supposes comparison, no trace of which can be discovered in the sensible phenomenon, considered in all its purity, as Condillac requires in his hypothesis. He begins his analytical investigations by introducing conditions which he at the same time supposes to be eliminated. He undertakes to explain every thing by sensation alone, and his first step is to amalgamate sensation with operations of a very different order.

7. Condillac calls the capacity of feeling, when applied to the impression received, attention. So if there be but one sensation, there can be but one attention. If various sensations succeeding each other leave some trace in the memory of the statue, the attention will, when a new sensation is presented, be divided between the present and the past. The attention directed at one and the same time to two sensations becomes comparison. Similarities and differences are perceived by comparison, and this perception is a judgment. All this is done with sensations alone; therefore attention, memory, comparison, and judgment are nothing but sensations transformed. In appearance nothing clearer, more simple, or more ingenuous; in reality nothing more confused or false.

8. First of all, this definition of attention is not exact. The capacity of feeling, by the very fact of being in exercise, is applied to the impression. It does not feel when the sensitive faculty is not in exercise, and this is not in exercise except when applied to the impression. Consequently, attention would be nothing but the act of feeling; all sensation would be attention, and all attention sensation; a meaning which no one ever yet gave to these words.

9. Attention is the application of the mind to something; and this application supposes the exercise of an activity concentrated upon its object. Properly speaking, when the mind holds itself entirely passive, it is not attentive; and with respect to sensations it is attentive when by a reflex act we know that we feel. Without this cognition there can be no attention, but only sensation more or less active, according to the degree in which it affects our sensibility. If Condillac means to call the more vivid sensation attention, the word is improperly used; for it ordinarily happens that they who feel with the greatest vividness are precisely those who are distinguished for their want of attention. Sensation is the affection of a passive faculty; attention is the exercise of an activity; and hence it is that brutes do not participate of it except inasmuch as they possess a principle of activity to direct their sensitive faculties to a determinate object.