Article 2
Locke censured by Condillac.
68. D’Alembert proposed the two difficulties above mentioned, but did not solve them. Condillac followed and made the attempt.
The mere proposing of a question in any way is already a right step made in philosophy, and to have done this is the merit of D’Alembert. He had, however, no thought of abandoning Locke’s principle, that ‘all ideas come from the senses.’ This principle was then held as a foregone conclusion, and a surrender of it was therefore not to be dreamed of.
To ask how we can, from the sensations which exist only in us, transport ourselves into the outer world, and form ideas of bodies, was tantamount to asking ‘How we can form a judgment before possessing ideas.’ In fact, to have the idea of anything external to me I must make the three following judgments: (1) something exists; (2) this something is outside of me; and (3) this something is the subject of the qualities perceived by my senses. But how can I make all these judgments without having some universal already in my mind? The formation, therefore, of our ideas of bodies (the first ideas we acquire) is inexplicable unless on the supposition that there is some universal idea originally given us by nature.
69. Such is the real question when stated in its full extent. But Condillac saw only the first part of it. He perceived that the judgments were necessary for forming the ideas of bodies, but he did not perceive that these judgments presupposed universal ideas. It was a short and easy step to make, but he did not make it. Tardy indeed and sluggish is the progress of the human mind.
Having, therefore, risen with his reflection to a more elevated point than had been reached by Locke, Condillac could censure the latter for not having taken into consideration the judgments which are mixed up with our sensations. Speaking of Locke in the beginning of his “Treatise on Sensations,’ he says:’Most of the judgments mixed with all our sensations eluded him.’ And a short space latter: ‘He was so far from understanding the full scope of the human system that, had it not been for Molineux, hew would not perhaps have seen that judgments are involved in visual sensations. He expressly denies that this is the case with sensations from the other senses. He held that we use them through a kind of instinct, and that reflection plays no part in enabling our use of them.’
Article 3
The system of Condillac.
70. From the above passage would it not seem that Condillac had clearly caught sight of the difference (unperceived by Locke) between our external sensations and the judgments that are found intermixed with them? And that he would therefore have admitted two faculties essentially distinct- the faculties by which we feel the sensations, and the faculty by which we make judgments thereon?
It would certainly seem so; but the love of a preconceived system led him to do the very opposite-that is, to reduce everything to one only faculty, that of sensation. Thus, instead of adding anything by way of improvement to the two principles of Locke, sensation and reflection, he strove to make Locke’s system more meager and inadequate than ever.
His error is similar to that which I have mentioned above-namely, of a person who should pretend to account for different species of sensations by means of a single sense. The proposition, that the faculty by which we see colors is the same as that by which we hear sounds or taste the flavor of viands, is not less difficult to prove, nor less absurd, than the proposition which contains the whole pith and substance of Condillac’s theory-i.e. ‘The identical sense which has the sensation of touch judges of that sensation.’ (see note 1)
71. But the better to see the errors of this philosopher, let us follow him step by step, and observe the whole course of his reasoning.
He states the subject matter of the second part of his ‘Treatise on Sensations,’ thus: ‘The second part deals with touch, the only sense which of itself judges external objects.’
One sole faculty, then, one sole sense, performs two operations, acknowledged by Condillac himself as so different from each other that he calls them by two different names: (1) to have the feeling of external things; (2) to judge of them. (see note 2)
These two kinds of operation he attributes also to the other senses; but with this difference, that whjile the touch judges by a virtue inherent in itself, the judicative power of the other senses is communicated to them by the touch: and to explain how this truly mysterious communication takes place, is the object which he proposes to himself in the third part of the same treatise. The third part (he says) undertakes to show ‘comment le toucher apprend aux autres senses a juger des objects exterieurs.’ (see note 3)
Notes:
1. St Augustine in many parts of his works notes very accurately the difference between feeling and judging, and finds an immense distance between these two operations of the soul. He says also that, to speak properly, the mind (mens) consists in the faculty of judging: “Servat [mens] aliquid quo libere de specie talium imaginum judicet, et hoc est magis mens, id est rationalis intelligentia, quae servatur ut judicet” (De Trinitate, ix, c. 5). “The mind has in it something in virtue of which it can freely judge of these images [corporeal things]; and it has the name of mind, viz. of rational intelligence, for this reason, that its characteristic office is to produce judgments.”
2. That the sense judges has also been said by Aristotle and the schoolmen. It seems, however, that they took the word judgment in a translated sense, owing to a certain resemblance which may be noticed between the effects of sense and those of judgment. I am induced to think so by some passages where Aristotle explains the judgments attributed by him to the sense, in a manner very different from that in which he understands the judgments made by the understanding. In any case, it seems to me difficult to absolve this philosopher from the error which I find in Condillac without charging him with inaccuracy and impropriety of expression.
3. When I am told that one man communicates knowledge to another by teaching, I understand very well what the term communication means; but when I hear it said that one sense communicates to another the faculty of judging which it has not by nature, I own that this is simply beyond my powers of comprehension. I can make nothing of it.
The Divine Lamp 