Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy
Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy, Spanish
60. This latter school is divided into two others; one of which regards
the sensible order as not only distinct, but also separate from the
intellectual order, and in some sense at war with it; and it therefore
maintains that the intellectual can receive nothing from the sensible
order, except malign exhortations which either mislead it, or enervate
its activity. Hence the system of innate ideas in all its purity; hence
the metaphysics of an intellectual order entirely exempt from sensible
impressions, metaphysics which, cultivated by eminent geniuses, has
in modern times been professed by the author of the _Investigation
of Truth_, with sublime exaggeration. The other ramification of the
school also admits the pure intellectual order, but does not hold it
to be contaminated by being brought into communication with sensible
phenomena; on the contrary, it is rather inclined to believe that the
problems of human intelligence, such as it exists in this life, cannot
be resolved without fixing the mind upon the aforesaid communication.
61. Experience teaches that this communication exists, conformably
to a law of the human mind, and that to contend against the law is
to struggle against a truth attested by consciousness: to attempt to
destroy it would be a rash undertaking, a kind of mental suicide.
For this reason, the school of which we have just spoken, accepts
the facts, such as internal experience presents them, and endeavors
to explain them by indicating the points where the sensible and
intellectual orders may come into communication without being destroyed
or confounded.
62. The school that admits the existence of the two orders, the
sensible and the intellectual, and at the same time admits the
possibility and the reality of their reciprocal communication and
influence, has, for its fundamental principle, that the origin of
all cognition is in the senses, these being the exciting causes of
intellectual activity, and a kind of laborers who supply it with
materials, which it then combines in the manner necessary to raise the
scientifical structure.
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