The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Religion
The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Materialism; Philosophy and religion; Psychology
From this it is sufficiently proved that thought has a commencement, a
duration, an end; or rather a generation, a succession, a dissolution,
like all the other modifications of matter; like them, thought is
excited, is determined, is increased, is divided, is compounded, is
simplified, &c. If, therefore, the soul, or the principle that thinks,
be indivisible; how does it happen, that this soul has the faculty of
memory, or of forgetfulness; is capacitated to think successively, to
divide, to abstract, to combine, to extend its ideas, to retain them,
or to lose them? How can it cease to think? If forms appear divisible in
matter, it is only in considering them by abstraction, after the method,
of geometricians; but this divisibility of form exists not in Nature, in
which there is neither a point, an atom, nor form perfectly regular;
it must therefore be concluded, that the forms of matter are not less
indivisible than thought.
What has been said is sufficient to show the generation of sensations,
of perceptions, of ideas, with their association, or connection in the
brain: it will be seen that these various modifications are nothing more
than the consequence of successive impulses, which the exterior organs
transmit to the interior organ, which enjoys the faculty of thought,
that is to say, to feel in itself the different modifications it has
received, or to perceive the various ideas which it has generated; to
combine them, to separate them, to extend them, to abridge them, to
compare them, to renew them, &c. From whence it will be seen, that
thought is nothing more than the perception of certain modifications,
which the brain either gives to itself, or has received from exterior
objects.
Indeed, not only the interior organ perceives the modifications it
receives from without, but again it has the faculty of modifying itself;
of considering the changes which take place in it, the motion by which
it is agitated in its peculiar operations, from which it imbibes new
perceptions and new ideas. It is the exercise of this power to fall back
upon itself, that is called _reflection_.
From this it will appear, that for man to think and to reflect, is to
feel, or perceive within himself the impressions, the sensations, the
ideas, which have been furnished to his brain by those objects which
give impulse to his senses, with the various changes which his brain
produced on itself in consequence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account