Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

221. There must be something absolute in morality. It is not possible to conceive any thing all relative, without something absolute on which it is founded. Moreover, every rela...

129. I am going to fulfil a promise made in the beginning of this work,[51] to explain and refute the system of Fichte. We have seen the cabalistic forms employed by the German...

278. With regard to objects, we have found in our mind two primitive facts; the intuition of extension, and the idea of being. All objective sensibility is founded on the intuit...

79. Kant calls the argument, by which we have just proved the simplicity of the soul, the second paralogism of psychology. He gives it in these terms: "Every thing, the action o...

51. The psychological arguments in favor of the substantiality of the soul are mere paralogisms, in Kant's opinion; although they prove an ideal substance, they can never lead t...

62. Kant attacks the argument founded on the testimony of consciousness in a particular manner in the examination of what he calls _the Paralogism of Personality_. He gives the...

63. Let us imagine absolute nothingness. The first term, not-A, stands alone. All existence is denied: nothing can be affirmed without contradicting the supposition. Then there...

55. Now that we have shown the points of similarity between Kant's system and that of the scholastics, we propose to note their differences chiefly in what concerns the applicat...

51. Lest I be accused of levity in comparing Kant's philosophy with that of the schools, in what relates to the distinction between the sensitive and intellectual faculties, I s...

164. Consciousness reveals the existence of a faculty within us which produces certain internal phenomena. If we concentrate our attention by means of a free act of our will, we...

91. Is an infinite number possible? Does the union of the idea of number with the idea of the absolute negation of limit, involve any contradiction which prevents the realizatio...

85. Causality implies relation: if in exercise, it implies actual relation; considered not in exercise, but _in potentia_, it implies a possible relation. Nothing causes itself;...

205. There have been many disputes concerning the origin and character of the morality of actions; the same happening here as elsewhere, that the understanding becomes perplexed...

129. To understand more clearly the idea of causality, it will be useful to reflect on the ideas of activity and action, as also on those of inertness, or inactivity, and inaction.

117. Let us explain the true meaning of the principle of contradiction. "It is impossible for any thing to be and not be at the same time." The connection of the ideas contained...

192. Among the adversaries of innate ideas there exist profound differences. The materialists maintain that man has received every thing through the senses, in such a way as to...

193. Those beings which act by intelligence must have, besides their efficient activity, a moral principle of their determinations. In order to will, the faculty of willing is n...

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...

84. The discussions on the possibility of an infinite extension are of a very ancient date. How could it be otherwise? Must not the glorious spectacle of the universe, and the s...

74. If it be impossible to think without the idea of being, it exists prior to any reflex act, and it cannot have sprung from reflection. The idea of being must therefore be inn...

29. The idea is a very different thing from the sensible representation, but it has certain necessary relations with it which it will be well to examine. When we say _necessary_...

21. Having shown that geometrical ideas are not sensible representations, we can safely conclude that no kind of ideas are. Could there be a difficulty concerning any, it would...

1. In the works on transcendental philosophy which have been published of late years, we find the words infinite, absolute, indeterminate, unconditioned, frequently repeated, an...

11. For the more thorough understanding of this matter, it will be well to distinguish between the absolute and relative ideas of being; that is between what is expressed by the...

150. I do not know how any philosopher who has meditated on the human mind can incline to pantheism. The deeper we go into the _me_ from which it is pretended to deduce such an...

72. I have confined myself in the preceding chapters to proving the substantiality of the soul; to do which it was only necessary to demonstrate by the testimony of consciousnes...

176. There is nothing easier than to write a few brilliant pages on the phenomenon of spontaneity; some philosophers of our day discourse of the genius of the poets, of the arti...

22. One very important point concerning the idea of being remains to be illustrated, and that is, whether this idea has possible or real being for its object. The scholastics ta...

59. After explaining the idea of co-existence, we came to the definition of the various relations which time presents. They are principally three: present, past, and future. All...

144. I have already shown[64] how Kant's system leads to Fichte's. When a dangerous principle is established, there is never wanting an author bold enough to deduce its conseque...

15. Time seems to us to be something fixed. An hour is neither more nor less than an hour, no matter how our time-pieces go, or the world itself; just as a cubic foot of space i...

The paper on which I am writing is susceptible of various modifications: I may write on it a thousand different things, in various characters, and in different colors; I may fol...

109. The idea of substance and all its applications, as well to the external as to the internal world, are far from leading us to infer the existence of a _single_ substance; on...

18. In the idea of corporeal substance the idea of permanence is perfectly included, the idea of unity only imperfectly. The unity which we conceive in every corporeal substance...

114. I now come to examine the primitive elements of our mental combinations. I shall begin with their sensible elements. Extension enters into every act of representative sensi...

47. We have said that the idea of being is not the sole form perceived, but that it is a form necessary to all perception. We do not mean by this to say that we cannot perceive...

175. The relation between thought and language is one of the most important ideological phenomena. When we speak we think; and when we think we speak with an internal language....

144. In all ideas, even in those that relate to contingent facts, there is something of the necessary, something from which science may spring, but something which cannot emanat...

38. _Two_ is a number. What is our idea of the number _two_? Evidently it is not confounded with its sign, for signs are many and very different, but it is one and always the same.

137. Could we assign limits to the field of experience, and determine exactly how much they inclose, we could also determine the characteristics by which a being may be presente...

26. Since we encounter multiplicity in all sensible objects, which are those chiefly demanding our attention, how does our mind acquire the idea of unity? In science, in literat...

59. We have explained the idea of infinity in general, by the indeterminate conceptions of being and the negation of limit. In order to assure ourselves that the explanation is...

110. We are entering on a difficult question. Serious difficulties are found in the idea of the infinite in general; the idea of absolutely infinite being is not less difficult....

38. In the preceding chapters we have distinguished between pure ideas and sensible representations, and we seem to have sufficiently demonstrated the difference between them, a...

155. Experience, far from authorizing us to infer the absolute inertness of bodies, on the contrary inclines us to believe that they are endowed with activity. Although the sens...

88. It has been much disputed in the schools whether existence is distinct from essence. At first sight, this seems an indifferent question; but such it is not, if we attend to...

51. If the succession of time involves exclusion, there must be co-existence where there is no exclusion: therefore, supposing that God has created other worlds, they must neces...

45. I shall now briefly explain the scholastic theory of the manner in which the understanding knows material things. This explanation will show how much reason we had to assert...

38. The reasons that destroy the absolute nature of time, inasmuch as it is subject to measure, do not seem fully to obviate another difficulty, arising from the consideration o...

When we measure movement we refer to something fixed. Thus we measure the rapidity with which we have traversed a certain space by noticing the time denoted by a watch. But how...

41. The difficulties in the application of the idea of infinity, seem on the one hand, to prove that either this idea does not exist in us, or is very confused; and on the other...

32. Here arises a serious difficulty: if time be nothing absolute, greater or less velocity is inexplicable. This seems to result even from what we have said, that if the relati...

102. This idea is simple, and cannot be resolved into other elements: it expresses a general reason of things, and its nature is in a certain manner destroyed if it be mingled w...

95. Kant numbers among his categories reality and negation, or existence and non-existence, and, conformably to his principles, defines them thus: "Reality is a pure conception...

128. We must, under pain of falling into sensism, by limiting the understanding to the perception and combination of objects presented by sensibility, admit other than intellect...

We have the ideas of being and of its opposite, not-being; these ideas considered in themselves are general, indeterminate, and may be applied to every thing which is subjected...

69. Can we conceive an infinite number? On one side, it seems not; because we doubt its possibility, and if we possessed this idea we should have no doubt of its existence. On t...

22. The absolutely necessary and unconditioned is immutable. For its existence _is_, or, to speak in modern language, is _supposed_ absolutely, by intrinsic necessity, without a...

101. The principle of contradiction, indispensable condition of all certainty, of all truth, and without which the external world, and intelligence itself, would become a chaos,...

130. We have seen that all that is positive in general and indeterminate conceptions is affirmed of God. Let us see if the same is true of intuitive ideas. These ideas, in all t...

58. In order clearly to conceive the idea of number, and the way it is engendered in our mind, let us study its formation in a deaf and dumb person.

69. Intuition, properly so called, consists in the act of the soul by which it perceives an object that effects it: this the signification of the Latin word derived from the ver...

1. Beings are divided into two classes: necessary and contingent; necessary being is that which cannot but be; contingent is that which may be and cease to be. In these definiti...

148. Having marked the limits of our intuitive knowledge with respect to causality and activity, it is easy to answer the objections against secondary causality, which arise fro...

31. One of the characteristic properties of the idea of the infinite is application to different orders. This gives occasion to some important considerations which greatly assis...

43. Are there in the world any cause and effect? This is equivalent to asking whether there is any change in the world. All change involves a transition from not-being to being....

89. Although we should admit that our mind can have no intuition but the sensible, it could not thence be inferred that conceptions of the purely intellectual order are empty fo...

183. Many ideas seem to be like sensations and sentiments; simple facts, incapable of decomposition, for which reason we cannot explain them with words. Words illustrate ideas;...

76. Now that I have explained sensible, I pass to intellectual intuition. There are two modes of knowing; the one is intuitive, the other discursive. Intuitive cognition is that...

88. If time is nothing distinct from things, how does it happen that we conceive it in the abstract, independently of things themselves? How does it happen that it presents itse...

142. The infinite being is not a vague object presented in the general idea of being, but is possessed of true properties which, without ceasing to be real, are identified with...

116. If pantheism is unsustainable in the region of ideas, it is not less so in the field of experience. The latter, far from leading us to the exclusive unity of substance, sho...

116. It may be asked, of what nature is this connection of the terms of the series; _how_ one communicates with another; _what_ it is which is communicated; by virtue _of what q...

109. In determining in the last chapter the conditions of true causality, I spoke only of _absolute_ causality; the reason of this, which I shall now explain, turns on the diffe...

124. In what does creation consist? How can God produce things from nothing? Such a thing is incomprehensible. This is the language of many who do not reflect that the same inco...

6. The scholastics were right in teaching that every being is one, and that whatever is one is being. Unity is a general attribute of every being, but is not distinct from it. H...

157. We may now mark out and determine with perfect exactness the necessary elements which form the object of the natural and exact sciences. This is not only curious, but highl...

17. Whatever may be the nature and perfection of our idea of the infinite, it is certain that it involves something fixed, and common to all intelligences. We apply the idea to...

172. Starting from the phenomena observable in individual reason, we have arrived at universal reason. Let us, so to speak, make the counterproof; taking this universal subsisti...

125. The question now occurs, whether the understanding, in order to perceive the geometrical relations offered in sensible intuition, does or does not need some intermediate re...

152. General truths have some relation to particular truths; for since they are not a vain illusion, they must of necessity be connected with some object either existing or poss...

162. Since the argument proving the necessity of a being in which is laid the foundation of all the relations in the possible order, is one of the most transcendental in all met...

133. It is impossible to find a primitive measure of motion; we must, at last, take some measure or another, and although arbitrarily chosen, we must refer motion to it. It shou...

60. It is said that the understanding does not conceive nothing: this is true in the sense that we do not conceive nothing as something, which would be a contradiction; but it d...

I. How long a time had passed before the creation? None. As there was no succession, there was only the present, the eternity of God. All else that we imagine is a mere illusion...

43. The permanent reality of the _me_, considered in itself and abstracted from the things which pass within it, is a fact which we perceive in our intuition, and which we expre...

26. The idea of substance, such as we have thus far explained it, implies a relation to accidents in general. The idea we are now examining is not that of an indeterminate subst...

96. However vague the ideas an isolated being would form of objects distinct from itself, they will never be so vague as not to refer to a real thing. The mind may not know the...

53. We have said that the foundation of the pure possibility of things, and of their properties and relations, is founded in the essence of God, wherein is the reason of every t...

83. It is not true that the human mind even in this life has no intuition other than the sensible. There are within us many non-sensible phenomena, of which we are clearly consc...

51. The connection of ideas and impressions, in a sign, is a most wonderful intellectual phenomenon, and at the same time of the greatest help to our mind. Were it not for this...

16. Real unity and simplicity are identical. What is really one has no distinction in itself; nor is it composed of parts, of which it can be said, this _is not_ that. Evidently...

153. The difference between the infinite and the finite is founded on the principle of contradiction: the finite affirms limits; the infinite denies them: there is no medium bet...

95. In the idea of substance as formed from the beings around us and from the testimony of our consciousness we find the relation to changes which occur in it as their subject o...

103. If we conceive an object, B, which begins, and suppose that the object A was _necessary_ to its existence, and that _of itself alone_ it was sufficient for the existence of...

55. The principle of causality, or the proposition: all that commences must have a cause; has been somewhat disputed latterly; hence it is necessary for us to place it beyond th...

1. Having spoken of sensations, we come now to ideas. We must, however, before making this transition, inquire if there be in our mind ought else than sensation, if all the inwa...

124. The multiplicity of substances is no less attested by the consciousness of ourselves, or of the internal world. Our first reflex act reveals within us something which is on...

163. The principal arguments on which pantheism rests are founded on the unity of science, the universality of the idea of being, the absoluteness and exclusiveness of the idea...

1. What is substance? Have we a clear and distinct idea of it? The disputes of philosophers concerning the idea of substance and the continual applications which we make of it,...

34. We have the idea of cause; the continual use which we are always making of it shows this. Philosophers do not alone possess it; it is the inheritance of mankind. But what do...

1. There is in our understanding the idea of being. Independent of sensations, and in an order far superior to them, there exist ideas in our understanding, which extend to, and...

97. Kant uses the same theory to explain time that he used to explain space. Time, according to him, is nothing in itself, neither is it any thing in things; it is a subjective...

13. What is the permanent subject of transformations in the sensible order? Is it a pure illusion? Is it a reality? What reality can it be? Does it not seem rather an abstractio...

17. Sensible representations always accompany our intellectual ideas. This is why in reflecting upon the latter we are apt to confound them with the former. We say, in reflectin...

106. The perfection of intelligence involves extension and clearness of its intuitions; the more perfect it is, the more intuitive it will be. The infinite intelligence does not...

22. Time is duration; but duration without something which endures, is an absurdity. There can then be no time without something existing. The duration which we conceive, after...

156. What is universal reason? If we consider it as a simple idea, as an abstraction from individual reason, as something separate from them, but not real, we strike upon the ve...

73. Having explained the idea of time, and applied it to the most difficult questions, we may explain this doctrine still farther, by examining what we have already intimated co...

12. The words, conditioned and unconditioned, are greatly used in modern philosophy; as the ideas which these terms express have a great analogy to those explained in the last c...

111. A close observation of internal phenomena shows that the human soul aspires to something far beyond all that it actually possesses. Not satisfied with the objects given to...

25. The word _infinite_ is equivalent to _not finite_, and seems to express a negation. But negations are not always truly such, although the terms imply it; for if that which i...

36. What means the idea of purely possible being? If we maintain that the object of the idea of being is reality, these two ideas, being, and purely possible, would seem to be c...

31. We have not found perfect unity in corporeal substances: all that are subject to our senses may be resolved into a number of others equally substances in their turn; a body...

35. The proposition, _I think_, can have no sense unless we admit that the soul is a substance. Philosophy loses its resting-point, and all that experience within us is a series...

76. Is infinite extension conceivable? This conception includes two ideas: the idea of extension, and the idea of the negation of limit. The idea of extension is a general conce...

121. We have seen that our cognitions are of two classes: some are general and indeterminate, others intuitive. All the objects which we know, whether indeterminately or intuiti...

40. When it is asserted that the object of the understanding is being, there is room to doubt whether it is meant that the idea of being is the general form of all conceptions,...

29. Is time something absolute? The definition given in the last chapter shows clearly enough that it is not. Time in things is not being only, nor not-being only, but the _rela...

105. When we say, that a substance is a being subsisting by itself, we do not mean that it is a being which has absolutely no need of another for its existence. To confound thes...

Let us conceive a being, and fix our attention solely on it, and compare it with nothing which is not it, nor permit any idea of not-being to come in; we shall then, with respec...

112. Time is not only conceived as a general order of change, or as a relation of being and not-being; but also as something fixed, which can be measured with exactness. Thus, b...

88. The question of the possibility of an infinite extension is very different from that of its existence. The first we answer in the affirmative, the second in the negative.

103. Things in themselves, abstracted from our intuition, are susceptible of change. Where there is change, there is succession, and where there is succession, there is a certai...

80. Kant maintained that while in the present life, we have only sensible intuition; and he considers the possibility of a purely intellectual intuition, whether for our own or...

1. Before analyzing the idea of number, let us examine its simplest element, unity. Number is a connection of unities. We cannot know what number is, if we do not know what unit...

107. Is the idea of time derived from experience? This question is answered by what we said of the idea of being. It is not a type existing previous to all sensation and to all...

1. The explanation of the idea of time is not a matter of mere curiosity, but of the highest importance. To convince ourselves of this we have only to consider that the explanat...

12. The examination of the idea of the infinite is of the highest importance, not only because we meet it in various sciences, the exact sciences among others, but because it is...

7. Nothing can be conceived more simple than the idea of being. It cannot be composed of elements. It allows of nothing determinate, since it is in itself absolutely indetermina...

Is an infinite extension possible? There is no incompatibility between the idea of extension and the negation of limit, at least, according to our way of conceiving them. It is...