Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy
Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy, Spanish
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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