CHAPTER III

FIRST PRINCIPLES

(_a_) THE MATERIAL PRINCIPLE

Leaving time and space we now descend the scale of Being, and come to pure corporeal reality, the subject to which the term ‘physical science’ is usually restricted. A speculative element still remains in so far as the nature of ultimate matter is reached by inference, and not given in direct experience.

The science of ultimate matter carries us beyond the limits of our sensible world; it takes us therefore deeper than the elements, which are mutable compounds, to some thing which even the imagination cannot further analyse. It is essential to the nature of ‘principia’ that they should not be produced either from one another or from any foreign bodies. Not only must our first matter be itself irreducible to any lower terms, it must also be capable of explaining the solidity of compounded bodies. Its limits are thus theoretically fixable: unity and indivisibility form the maximum; the mathematical point and the numerical zero form the minimum. These limits must be fixed else our hypothetical material will be incapable of serving the ends for which it was designed. As to the maximum, if it be divisible it is not ultimate. As regards the minimum, if it be nothing its multiples remain nothing, and the actual world cannot be generated from it. The danger in this direction is exemplified by two current theories: some reduced the unit of matter to a point which if taken mathematically amounts to nothing; others arrived at the same practical result by going beyond the simplest form of matter to pure form, which is equally destructive of all return to the world of common things. With characteristic ingenuity, some acknowledging the force of argument, compromised by giving matter the ‘forma corporeitatis’!

Our ultimate then preserves its physical reality and its ‘corpus.’ The criterion of this is activity, which we further define as tangibility, for the incorporeal beings act, but only matter is an object of touch. By ‘touch’ Gassendi really means solidity or impenetrability, for this may be a relation between two inanimate bodies; he thinks with his contemporaries that matter may be taken as real apart from our thought, and as maintaining in that absolute objectivity some of the qualities by which we know it.

We may infer, from the multitude of forms, that matter in itself must be indifferent to form. Its quantity must be regarded as constant, change being change of form. The dogma ‘ex nihilo nihil’ is a category valid for science, but it does not limit God. This assertion is interesting as an example of the way in which Gassendi is capable of keeping to one point at a time. He has no intention of regarding the doctrine ‘ex nihilo nihil’ as anything but absolute; at the same time it is only a law of thought for the sphere of material production: if we go beyond that sphere to the nature of God or the human soul, its jurisdiction will cease.[44]

So far we have dealt with a priori necessary determinations of matter: we have now to define its nature somewhat more accurately. The history of the subject presents several theories from which to choose. There are (_a_) those who think matter has qualities and (_b_) those who regard it as in itself unqualified. Under (_a_) we have (1) those who speak only of primary qualities and (2) those who add secondary qualities. To begin with (_a_) (1): this class includes the physiologists who took earth, air, fire, water, these being the typical embodiments of the primary qualities heat, cold, etc. Gassendi considers that the choice of one element was really the choice of matter with one primary quality as the unit and the ultimate unit. Under (_a_) (2) come those who take actual complex substances as the ultimates. Among the ancients Anaxagoras is the example: while the contemporary chymici revived his principles. The class (_b_) also divides into (1) rationalist and (2) materialist thinkers. Possibly ‘spiritualist and materialist’ would have been better terms. Here the atomists are classed as materialist for want of a better term, but the limits to the significance of the word must be remembered. For Gassendi Plato and the Atomists are simply two species of one genus, namely of those who make the matter (ὕλη) ἄποιον. Gassendi’s history of the emergence of atomism is arranged so that the first solutions of the problem of an ultimate seem most complex: refinement brings us to an ultimate that is as simple as possible, and we have our choice between making it ‘spiritual’ (Plato, Pythagoras, and the Stoics) or non-spiritual (atomism). In _both_ cases the ultimate is supersensuous, and therefore ‘metaphysical.’

It is unnecessary to recall all the details which Gassendi laboriously records; but as it was certainly part of the scheme of his work to furnish a history of human thought before his time, it would be an omission not to allow some praise to the excellent way in which these chapters are arranged, or the clever and, I believe, original classification which enables the author to refine the doctrine down in such a way that the mere history of the case seems an unanswerable proof that the atomistic theory is simplest and best.

The principal characteristics of the atom as a material ultimate are too well known to need mention here. The doctrine of the Atom does not occupy so much space as might perhaps be expected: it is not the atom but atomism that interests Gassendi. He notes that Democritus gave the atom only Magnitude and Figure, while Epicurus added weight (I. 266, _v._ p. 3). Gassendi keeps the three. Resistance, he says, is not so much a property as ‘ipsammet corporis tribus reliquis [proprietatibus] subjectam naturam (τὸ ὑποκείμενον).’ It is, in fact, solidity. The atom has parts (as with Epicurus), but is indivisible: it is not conjunct in the sense that it might ever be disjunct; in other words, there is no Void in the body of the Atom. The Atom is said to have parts, inasmuch as these are required to account for differences of Figure: there is no mention of motion within the atom, though there is nothing in the world of compound bodies that is not full of motion. ‘Considera metallum v.c. plumbum in carino fusum: cum ad speciem nihil quietius, immotiusque videri possit, putasne intra ipsum motus, sive itus atque reditus brevissimis spatiis, celeritate incomprehensibili non fiunt.’

In following Epicurus and Lucretius on this point, Gassendi does not seem to have noticed that a perfectly hard body is not elastic, and therefore would finally come to rest: which means the destruction of matter.

The chief point of dispute has always been how far the atom can be conceived purely in terms of reason. The mediaeval thinker was familiar with a ‘punctum physicum,’ a ‘punctum metaphysicum,’ and a ‘punctum mathematicum.’ These are not infrequently confused, and Gassendi shapes his arguments against writers who were already moving toward the view of an atom as an immaterial point, a centre of force or some cognate form of the doctrine. He resists this tendency because it appears to him to be an excess of analysis, going so far as to preclude all possibility of return.[45] He attributes to his atoms magnitude, figure, and weight. They are ultimate so far as we are concerned with the world of things and the category of quantity. In opposition to the average atomist, Gassendi does not consider that our knowledge stops where the quantitative analysis ends. He denies that the atom is eternal or unproduced or infinite. God as creator is above and beyond the physical world. With dependence in the way of creation there is combined independence of action: atoms have not ‘a seipsis vim motricem,’ but they are self-moving ‘Dei gratia’: a distinction which leaves the man of science unhampered and does not despoil the theologian. The theory of creation can be sketched briefly. At first God created as many atoms as were necessary to form this world: the atoms were not necessarily created separately, but the created mass of matter was such as could be resolved into ‘corpuscula’: each of these minute bodies has its own affinities, and the command that the earth and water should produce plants and animals, was the act of uniting in one place those atoms suited to become one seed: this process can be repeated wherever and whenever such atoms co-exist as are fitted to cohere; from this we can elaborate the whole scheme of generation and corruption, coherence and dissolution, which makes up the history of the natural world.

This view clearly involves a possibility of free movement, and therefore raises the question whether the Void is not a principle as much as atoms. Gassendi acknowledges that both are primary parts of the universe; but he considers that they differ inasmuch as the Void is of the nature of a condition rather than a cause,[46] and only atoms are capable of constituting ‘res generabiles.’ As matter is itself not a primary but a secondary cause, the validity of this distinction might be disputed: as Gassendi’s intentions are clear the point need not be raised.

(_b_) PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSES

A doctrine of causes naturally begins in some way or other with Aristotle. In this case it begins with criticism and selection. The word causa is not quite identical with Aristotle’s αἰτία, the former implying activity, the latter having a somewhat wider denotation and meaning origin rather than producing force. Thus of the four causes Gassendi says that Form is properly an effect, matter is not a cause at all, end a wholly different subject, and only the efficient cause a cause in the proper sense. Gassendi is certainly right in pointing out that ‘cause’ was a term generally used to denote ‘power,’ and therefore not identical with the Greek idea expressed in αἰτία.

Confining the word cause to efficient causes, we find that these can be divided into external and internal. An external cause is an object capable of acting on another object, as the sun on wax. This is the field of common observation, and requires no further comment. The question of internal causality carries us beyond this threshold into the secret heart of nature. We have to discover not merely the fact that an object can produce an effect, but also the inner constitution which enables it to act thus. This constitution is the temperament and the source of motion: it might be called the form, since it is the essential part that is the cause of motion. We can say, for example, ‘the man moves the stick’; and the man is the external cause, but if we wish to speak accurately we must assign the activity to the soul, which is the moving principle of the body. There is also a sense in which the end is a cause, in so far as the cause may act for an end, not only blindly, as in instinct, but also consciously, with a knowledge imparted by God, making the agent more than a mere instrument. Gassendi does well to distinguish this from Aristotle’s meaning.

The classification of causes as external and internal is a superficial separation of the popular from the philosophical aspect of causality. The further distinction into primary and secondary is of a different nature and affects the causes themselves.

We may dispose of the primary causes with the statement that God, as creator and ruler, is the one first cause. The secondary causes constitute the world of nature: their causality is derived from God, but we have much to learn about them, and the acknowledgment of God’s power in the world is not to be made an excuse for avoiding the labours of research.

We must first enquire into the nature of the active principle in things. Some have thought it incorporeal: the Stoics supported the claim of spirits and Epicurus that of atoms. If we make it incorporeal or spiritual, cause becomes separated from matter, and our difficulties increase rather than diminish. It is better therefore to take atoms as the principle and make our cause concrete, that is, call materia actuosa the cause. If the cause be regarded as something immaterial, it becomes unintelligible: it requires to be united to matter in order to be actual, and has in short all the failings of an unjustifiable abstraction. If matter is declared causal its activity must be its nature: it cannot be said to be active by virtue of containing particles of the anima mundi, for that again is the separation of the activity from the active body. As the cause is matter, matter is active: the particles of heat appear to be most active, so we may fix on corporeal heat (_i.e._ heat as a substance) as the principle of motion, activity, and causation in things.

The causality at which we arrive is substantive in every sense of the term. Specific causality may be a relation, but all the relations in which one object can stand to another presuppose a state or condition of the things related, and this state gives the relation its significance. As Gassendi says, this treatment of causality is really an enquiry into temperaments. Given an object _A_ which acts on another object _B_ (external causality), we may call _A_ the cause of _B_ becoming _b_. But this manifestation is as it were a form of the causality of _A_, just as _A_ itself is a form of primary matter; and as from the multiplicity of material forms we argue one indifferent matter, so from the multiplicity of forms of causality we infer one general, indifferent causality. The universality of this causal state is shown in its formula. The composition of any one body is never purely homogeneous: there is consequently ceaseless internal unrest, some atoms freeing themselves, others struggling vainly in the toils, some striving upward, and others sinking in dull inertia:[47] take any apparently inanimate object, and see how it lives in every part of its complex substance: you will then realise that causality is more than a relation, it is a reality in (and perhaps for) every organic and inorganic body.

Gassendi is often clearer in his thought than in his language. His terms are usually defined with scholastic accuracy; but the terms themselves are not as yet properly differentiated: they had still to grow and add to slight differences an accretion of argument and reference. It will have become apparent long ago that causality in Gassendi means simply activity. We cannot now speak of one thing being causal, having now recognised that causality is a relation; but we do still speak as though activity was the property of an isolated object, though usually with an apology to nature and a confession of ignorance. The tendency of Gassendi’s period is to take the object as a self-subsisting entity and call it causal. If the analysis is pushed further a curious reaction ensues. Deserting the standpoint of the object, we penetrate to that of the atom: causality is left behind, for in the realm of the immutable it can have no place: atom cannot change atom, and so no atom can be causal: the universe viewed as a complex of atoms must equally be void of causality, though replete with activity. In this way even a thorough-going physical realism finds its universal and particular points of view at least superficially contradictory. Gassendi is only dimly aware of this possibility: he never dreams of opposing one part of knowledge to another and dividing himself into the factions of appearance and reality; but none the less he finds that secondary causes ultimately slip through his fingers: the world of change becomes a seething cauldron of endless changes coincident rather than correlated; and causality driven to the boundaries of the universe is safe only among the attributes of God.

(_c_) MOTION AND MUTATION

The subject of Causality led us finally to the question of internal movement or activity in bodies.[48] It is now necessary to discuss the possibility and nature of movement in general. Seeing that the action of secondary causes is as Gassendi here admits, identical with this motion, this book does not deal so much with another subject as with another aspect of the same subject.

The motion to be discussed is neither the activity referred to before, nor that called mutation: it is merely local motion, which is best defined as ‘migratio de loco in locum,’ in spite of many objections, such as his who said the axle of a wheel revolved without changing its place. Gassendi finds it necessary to repel many such objections. These can be passed over in favour of the really important question whether motion is possible at all.

(1) A single body is always a priori capable of motion, because it is never an abstract (mathematical) point. As motion is only attributed to physical bodies, it is irrelevant to reduce a body to merely imaginary unity and still discuss the possibility of motion. As every physical body has parts, a change in the relations of these parts implies transference from one place to another, and the whole body may be said to move, though the place of the whole is not changed. The revolving globe is the example intended.

(2) The more comprehensive question concerning motion in general carries us back to the dialectic of Zeno. Zeno however was really concerned to prove that motion was impossible if motion, time, and space were all continua (ex insectilibus constarent):[49] as the atomist does not support that position Zeno’s dilemmas may be dismissed. A problem arises as to degree of motion. Suppose a body _A_ moves through a space _x_ in half the time that _B_ takes, can we say the movement of _A_ differs from that of _B_? Gassendi thinks not: movement as such he clearly takes in an absolute sense; the minima of space and time are indivisible and cannot be reduced: as the body, if it moves at all, must traverse a minimum of space in a minimum of time, a given space as a multiple of such minima must always be traversed in the same time. For example, a body _A_ which passes through _y_, a minimum of space, in the minimum of time _x_, will pass through any space _ny_ in any time _nx_.

It follows from this that there are really no degrees of motion: we must therefore explain differences in rates of motion (tarditas et velocitas) by supposing that the slower body has intervals of rest. This is in harmony with the mixture of opposites observable in other directions: for ‘hac ratione ex nivis lactisve candore ad corvi, carbonis pervenitur nigritudinem.’

A final problem arises from the ancient declaration, ‘si quid movetur aut ubi est movetur aut ubi non est.’ This is dismissed by pointing out that ‘est’ is here used absolutely: the object ‘movetur ubi est transeunter, movetur ubi non est permanenter’; and with this argument the last obstacle to the recognition of local motion is removed. The proof, in fact, consists in defending against time-worn problems the doctrine of self-moving atoms and a void: the position as such depends on these fundamental views which are to be taken as already proved.

The next four chapters are a fairly elementary treatise on motion, including the subjects of acceleration, projection, and reflex motion.

Gassendi upholds the distinction of natural and violent motion which Bacon condemns so scornfully. The natural motion is that which atoms have by their own nature: the violent is secondary and due to some application of force. If we take nature universally, nothing can be other than natural: we have the right however to distinguish natura specialis from universalis; and it is a correct scientific procedure to distinguish motions according as they are inherent or impressed.

There are two main principles of motion—impulse and attraction. Gravitation is a form of attraction, but not as some have thought attraction to a place: place as such has no fitness to attract: it is the earth that attracts. This attraction is not to be understood in any vague or spiritual sense: there must be some real, which means material, communication between the earth and the attracted object. How is a stone, wandering in the void, to know where the earth is that it may return to her? There can only be one answer: ‘Praeter id quod in lapide est, transmissio sit quaedam ex terra in illum, unde ad ipsum pelliciatur.’[50] The earth may best be likened to a huge magnet. This position, it should be remembered, is evolved in opposition to the view that a thing had a tendency to move to its ‘own place,’ or else a tendency to ‘seek the earth.’ Gassendi rejects the idea of a _place_ having any attraction, and proposes to mend the second theory by making both the terms participate in the attraction. Previously the attraction was a ‘vis insita,’ a tendency inherent in the thing and wholly independent of that to which the tendency related. By demanding that the earth should attract the stone Gassendi converts the attraction from a ‘vis ab intrinseco pellens’ to a ‘vis ab extrinseco trahens,’ which is a change for the better, even though it falls short of the best.

It will be apparent from this that action from a distance is not accepted by Gassendi. In dealing with mutation he expressly denies it. Mutatio he treats purely as a kind of motion, and the subject would be of no interest were it not for its connection with the question, ‘qua ratione per mutationem seu alterationem creari rerum concretarum qualitates possint.’ After a long and arid tract of discussion on the simplest problems of dynamics, we return to a question that revives our flagging interest. Put briefly, it amounts to this: how can a collection of atoms, having only magnitude, figure, and weight, combine so as to produce other qualities, such as taste, heat, and colour? This is clearly a crucial point for a thinker who is undertaking to build up a highly complex system from simple substances and their movements.

There is a technical distinction between ‘conjuncta,’ or properties, and ‘eventa.’ Magnitude, figure, and weight are conjuncta; the rest are eventa.[51] The primary eventa are concretio, which subserves generation; and secretio, which subserves corruption, with ordo and situs, which are the foundation of alteratio. Generatio and corruptio can however be viewed as alteratio, and we are left with five necessary assumptions—magnitude, weight, figure, order, and position. The first three belong to the atom as such; the last two are relations between atoms. We are to conceive the variations of composite bodies of atoms as analogous to the various possible combinations of letters (_e.g._ et, te, roma, armo, etc.). As letters may be worked up into words, sentences, and books; so endless atoms, in endless combinations, form the great book of nature.

The starting point is given in the natural differences of atoms which make some fit to enter one organ of sense, as the eye, and adapt others to other organs, as the ear or the nose. The relation of sensible qualities to the atoms is exemplified in the whiteness of sea-foam or the yellowness of the decaying leaf: in both cases a colour results from a colourless substratum by mere alteration in the disposition of the atoms. The mere fact of change is taken to be a proof that the elements must be neutral. If the atoms had any colour of their own, a complex of atoms would always have the same colour; but natural changes, such as decay, produce changes of quality; so the quality must be referred not to the atoms but to their relations.

This position must be taken in conjunction with Gassendi’s views on the senses. At present he leaves the vital question of the relation between mind and object untouched. It cannot be said that he wholly ignores the mind: his reference to words is meaningless unless the mind to which they are presented is assumed as a factor. The letters _A_ and _B_, he says, differ not only in shape but in sound; but in themselves they have no sound, and only ‘sensui diversum sonum exhibent.’ He quotes as his own opinion a passage from Galen containing the words ‘omnes qualitates sensibiles ex atomorum concursu gigni, quatenus se habens ad nos qui ipsarum sensum habemus.’ Here is the first transition from a quantitative to a qualitative treatment of the world in which we live: the task of producing complexity from simplicity is solved by introducing a new factor and correlating a composition of simple elements with qualitative experiences which are not, in that sense, composite at all. The remark already referred to, that _A_ and _O_ differ in _sound_ as well as _shape_, is itself a comment on this point not to be outdone in significance!

(_d_) ON QUALITIES

To an empirical philosopher the doctrine of qualities is one of supreme importance. As Gassendi puts it, all reason depends on the senses and on sense-perception: only qualities are perceived, and they are therefore the foundation of our objective world. Substance we only know through induction: all direct knowledge is knowledge of qualities.

The impression which such a statement leaves on one’s mind is that knowledge fails to penetrate into the inner reality of things and remains conversant only with the outer, and possibly deceptive, surface. Gassendi however does something to mitigate this superficiality of knowledge. The quality, as he points out, is properly that which answers to the question ‘qualis est?’ Practically qualities are accidents, or rather a given state or condition attributed to a substance is an accident, but taken by itself is a quality. It follows that quality in this sense goes deeper than quality in the sense in which we oppose it to quantity: for quantity will be a species of quality in some cases (_e.g._ tall man); and quality will sometimes include relation (_e.g._ slave). In these cases the determinations pass from the usual category of quantity or relation into that of quality by virtue of being essential. The question then arises whether the absolutely essential qualities of a thing are really qualities or are the thing itself. From the point of view of physics taken in the sense of natural science, the primary qualities must clearly be the inner nucleus beyond which nothing is required: primary qualities will then be only the plural aspect of what we call substance when regarded as a unity. The same point can be looked at in another way. The form of a thing must be a quality in every case in which it is not identical with the spiritus: if the being of a Being is a quality, it would seem that quality ultimately merges into essence and absorbs all that is denoted by substance; but it must be remembered that we are here speaking of things which are always composite and plural, and so may have an existential form realised in the disposition of parts. Prior to such ‘things’ is the single unitary substance which they presuppose and which may be regarded as lying deeper than the outward natures at present under discussion.

The liberality of Gassendi’s interpretation of the term quality can be seen from his inclusion of ‘animal esse, sentire, vegetari, vivere’ in the list of qualities. A quality must have an objective reality, it must be a reality apart from mind. Hence a relation as such cannot be a quality, and quantity will only be a quality when it is essential. If we say ‘John is five feet in height’ the quantity indicated is a quality: if we say ‘John is taller than James’ the quantity is relative and no quality is indicated.[52] Gassendi very truly remarks that relations are dialectical and not physical categories. Motion is denied a place among qualities on the ground that it is properly a process to a quality.

Coming now to the nature of qualities in our world of things, it is obvious that they must all be more or less simple ways of grouping the primary non-qualitative elements of things: in short, the qualities are deducible from the possible modes of combining atoms. For example, density and rarity depend on the proportions of void and matter, or the number of ‘vacua spatiola intercepta.’ Figure we may pass over in silence, but weight calls for some comment. Upon weight depends all vis motrix, for the atoms in one body struggle together, and motion follows the striving of the majority, modified by mutual implications. The atoms of spiritual natures are the freest and most mobile: hence they are thought to be the seat of voluntary motion.

By nature all motion is straight. Divergence from the straight must therefore be explained by percussion and repercussion. In order to acquire as it were a fulcrum, one of the moving bodies must be regarded as an immobile. The law is laid down that an immovable part in a whole is essential to mobility. The objection at once arises that, when an animal runs, no part of it is immovable. In reply to this Gassendi apparently practises a double evasion. He first qualifies the law by admitting that the immovable part only requires to be comparatively such, and then makes it impossible to say what is a ‘whole’ in respect of motion. In the case of the animal, for example, the modification of ‘immovable’ to ‘comparatively’ immovable makes it possible to regard the body as giving the required ‘immovable’ for the motion of the legs. If this did not satisfy the opponent, Gassendi would doubtless include the earth in the ‘whole’ for purposes of motion. At present, however, Gassendi’s purpose is purely analytical. He desires to say that motion is innate[53] to atoms. This innate motion is the original element of all motions: it is circular, the atoms whirling among themselves aimlessly. By collision new directions are imparted to these atoms, but however much appearances may seem to be against it the circular motion remains at the root of everything. For the present, then, our interest in animal motions may be summed up and left with one conclusion: they have no ‘motus rectus qui non sit ex circularibus compositis.’

This view of motion as fundamentally one has the advantage of reducing to one the various kinds of motion. Impulsive motion is now clearly only an aspect of self-motion: it is self-motion in relation to some other body: similarly ‘vis attractrix’ is self-motion in relation to some other body. In opposition to many of his contemporaries, Gassendi requires actual contact in attraction; whether immediate or mediate does not matter, but it must be a literal laying hold of the object.

Faculty is vis motrix, for a faculty is just as much as it can do: it is nothing if not active. To this the faculty of Resistance seems ipso facto a contradiction. But, says Gassendi, resistance is not passivity; immobility is self-centred force: in the case of the earth we have an example of complete rest produced by complete tension of all the parts. (This perfect equilibrium was called motus tonicus.) Having removed this difficulty we may define faculty as ‘in unaquaque re ipsummet movendi seu agendi principium, nisi primarium quod formam vocant, saltem Secundarium, seu ex forma profluens eiusque velut instrumentum.’

The Faculties are not ‘a tota substantia’: they are dependent on the spiritus, for it is the decay or destruction of these principles that involves the loss of the faculties. Gassendi goes further, and says that the faculties and the spiritus are one: for though the spirits might appear to be a primary organ of the faculties running through the body from the central faculty, yet this is a distinction that involves no difference, just as the waters that run in the streams are distinct but not different from the waters that run at the fountain. This simile does not throw much light on the subject, but is apparently intended to convey the idea that the faculty is only nominally centralised; in function it is all-pervading. It also follows that all faculties are species of faculty, since they are all reducible to motions of the spirits. As faculty is the same as spirit, all faculties are innate. A faculty may be acquired, but only in the sense of actually absorbing the matter to which the power is innate. Iron, for example, only attains the faculty of heat by acquiring the matter of fire, in which the faculty of heat is inborn. We now see that a faculty is in some sense the nature of a thing. It is, in fact, the nature of a thing looked at from the point of view of active relations. It follows that there are as many faculties as there are possible combinations of atoms and possible relations of these combinations. Speaking of the great varieties of faculties, Gassendi says: ‘id facit varietas tum multiformium corpusculorum, ex quibus una tota res constat: tum specialium contexturarum quae varias partes attinent: tum externarum facultatum quibus misceri ipsas contingit.’ In the apple, for example, different combinations produce smell and taste. If we take into consideration the organ of the sentient being we find still more variations, _e.g._ pleasant smell, sweet taste, etc. This gives us a division of absolute and relative: for smell is in the object one (absolute), but to the sentient beings manifold (respective).

The classification of faculties is carried out thus: first, according as the subjects are living or not living. In the case of living things they are

(_a_) general (nutrition, procreation); (_b_) special.

This method of classification applies to each class. If we take from among animals, Quadrupeds, we may have general and special faculties within these limits.

The second method of classification is quite different. Here we divide into principal and subservient, the division being decided by the mutual subordination of motions.

Though a faculty cannot be acquired it can be improved both ‘ut fortius operetur et ut expeditius.’ For the attainment of greater strength nutrition is required, which means in this connexion the attainment of more spirits. The quantitative growth may be accompanied by increase of efficiency attained by use. Habit is the name given to facility of action: this facility may pertain to the spirits or to the organ which they employ, and it is, if anything, more important that it should be realised in the organ. The organ is a crass and rigid thing, against whose unyielding disposition the volatile spirits exert themselves in vain.

Matter is thus a hindrance to mind, and habit gives freedom in the sense that when the organ is properly trained the spirits are no longer baulked of their purposes. If, on the other hand, there is no use for the organ it relapses into its original crude condition: for nutrition, continually renewing the substance of the organ, removes by degrees all the parts that had learned the law, and puts in their place an untrained rabble.[54] This is a rather novel and poetical interpretation of what is generally supposed to result in ‘atrophy.’ The principles of habit, Gassendi adds, are applicable to all except inanimata, whose changes are purely ab extra.

One more form of the vis motrix remains to be noticed—that which is called Gravity or Levity. Levity is to be taken as in se nihil, so that we are left with degrees of Gravity. As might be expected, the gradation is due to admixture of vacua: the inane is a principle not as acting, but as reducing the ratio of bulk to weight. It is important to notice that Gassendi regards all the action of gravity as extrinsic, thus shaking off once for all, any influences that his predecessors may have exerted toward the acceptance of Love or Hate or any other mystic principles.

The next qualities may be passed over summarily. They are Heat, Cold, Fluiditas, Mollities, Taste, Smell, Sound. A few points are of interest. Heat may be used as a special term to denote felt heat, or generally (objectively) to denote a condition of body. Calor is a word which denotes, not a quality, but atoms of a certain kind. The atomi caloris are not ex se calidi, but are called so ex effectu. That body is called hot which sends out these atoms: the atoms themselves are not called hot: their power of producing heat is ‘objective,’ dependent on special forms and activities. We must distinguish then between that Heat which is a real kind and that which is hot either (_a_) potestate or (_b_) actu. A thing is hot ‘potestate’[55] when the atoms of heat are retained in it, and hot ‘actu’ when the atoms are sent out. Retention of atomi caloris explains the heat of pepper and similar bodies. If a substance contains atoms of heat, motion increases that heat: motion however is not the cause of heat, because substances such as water, which do not contain atoms of heat, are not heated by motion. Gassendi distinguishes between calescere, an internal increase of heat, which applies only to fats the atoms of which are ‘hamatiores,’ and calefieri or the attainment of heat from without.

Cold is the opposite or complementary of heat: it is not privation of heat. This conclusion is based on the differences of the effects: the effect of heat is ‘discutere et disgregare,’ that of cold ‘congregare et compingere.’ Further, the atoms of cold differ from atoms of heat in figure: what figure is to be assigned to atoms of cold is a point that the ancients discussed elaborately. Gassendi accepts Lucretius’ view that they are ‘dentata’: our senses can judge how _biting_ is the cold. It should be noted that though Fire is an element, Cold is not: Earth, Air, and Water are not bodies cold by nature, and therefore cannot be summed up as the Primum Frigidum in opposition to Fire, the Primum Calidum.

In the case of Fluiditas and Mollities, with its two species Ductilitas (as in gold) and Tractilitas (as in our muscles, contraction), we have qualities whose opposites are privations. This will be evident if we consider that mollities, _e.g._ depends on the degree of ‘inane’ contained in a body: the inane is not soft, but the real, which is hard, can only give the appearance of softness by including void spaces.

The next set of qualities are ‘ad organum,’ or relative to the senses. They all depend ultimately on Touch. In Taste we have particles that act on the palate. Sound has been held incorporeal,[56] but its corporeality is proved by the reflex motion required for echoes and the necessity of different configurations to produce different sounds.

In Light we have a subject which, for many reasons, has been a time-honoured field of strife. Gassendi begins with definitions: the object of sight is colour; the organ of sight the retina; light is the essence of colour, but is not itself visible. Lux is defined as ‘corpuscula tenuissima in corpore lucido’; a body is lucidum when it is a fount and source of light; bodies that depend on others for light are not lucida, but illustrata. To produce the required effect on the organ of vision, Light must be a substantial effluence. Aristotle indeed thought otherwise, but if we give up the substantiality of Light it will be necessary to employ one of the acknowledged substances as vehicle of light: this vehicle will however be unknown to the organ, for that is only concerned with the visible, so that Light is either itself a substance or involves the inference of a substance. The diaphanous or ‘perspicuum’ is the name given to the substance which is the substratum to light. Aristotle conceived its activity as the vibration of a chord and considered the activity was the light (ἐνέργειαν τοῦ διαφανοῦς). Descartes adopted a very similar idea, but defined his ‘perspicuum’ as a texture of the spherical corpuscles which fill up the interstices of air, water, glass, etc.—a sort of atmosphere of the second degree of refinement.

Whatever the origin of light may be, it is itself a corporeal substance somewhat like a bundle of corpuscles or rays formed of corpuscles. This physical reality is merely ‘existens’ without relation to the eye: it is ‘completa’ when in relation with the eye it produces light as an experience.

It is necessary to prove definitely that Light is a substance, because this view is rarely accepted. The proof consists in pointing out that Light has certain powers which only a substance can have. These are, first, local motion by which the rays travel from the ‘lucidum’ to the ‘illustratum.’ Action at a distance is a fallacy, so that if the luminous body acts on a distant object, there must be a transmission of the agent or agents through the intervening space. The second and clearest proof is that of Reflexion:[57] for if light were incorporeal it would not rebound from but pass through the opposing body. A similar argument applies to refraction, where the body does not entirely oppose the passage of light but is in some degree ‘transpicuum.’ The similes which Gassendi uses in this connexion are worth noting: speaking of reflexion he compares the light to arrows or javelins striking on a shield and rebounding: with reference to action at a distance he says, if a fountain wets your hand from afar it is because it projects a stream of water on you: similarly a fire warms by sending out a ray of heat, or as one might say a spray of heat atoms, and light illuminates by showering on the object ‘streams of light.’

The objection which naturally arose against this substantive view was that the motion of light was too rapid to admit of any such corporeality. Gassendi replies that if light is mere form it is everywhere at once and has no motion: if it moves some vehicle is required, and it follows that the vehicle does as a matter of fact move just as fast as light, in spite of a priori objections. Gassendi here seems to be applying a doctrine that was greatly needed—namely that notions of substance must conform to experience, and our experience must not be distorted or even rejected to preserve traditional views.

Colour is either light itself or something in things to which light is the perfecting form. Light itself is white or that which appears white (nihil esse aliud quam candor candicansve color videatur). This is the fundamental colour, if it be a colour, of which all others are varieties, according to degrees of mixture of darkness.

The last of the sensible qualities is the imago, or visible species. This subject naturally follows the discussion of Light and Colour, and is properly a question of the perception of forms. As a question of perception it comes under Vision; but objectively considered the species are qualities, and must therefore be considered in this place. The simplest course is to say that the vision[58] of an object is the light radiated from it and determined by its form and colour. Gassendi declines to leave the matter there, but as the question of the nature of these ‘visions’ has attracted so much attention he reviews the whole history of the subject.

As nothing is absolutely smooth, but has on closer inspection numerous ‘faces,’ the species can be projected in a straight line in any and every direction. It follows that a thing can be viewed from any side, and no two views will be exactly alike, though generically alike. The objects in the field of vision can be accommodated in the eye, in spite of their great number, because the area surveyed is hemispherical in shape, and the species are propelled along lines which converge into a point.

The nature of the species has been differently conceived by different schools of writers. The ‘nominaleis’ say they are accidents: if so, they must be dependent for transmission on the air; but an accident is not a reality unless it can be separated from the vehicle which it uses: in this case no separation is possible, and therefore species are not truly accidents. Again, from the analogy of sounds the idea arose that the object as a whole produced movements in the surrounding atmosphere, and so, as it were, sent forth pictures of itself. Against this Gassendi argues that the theory involves a movement of the object which sends forth the picture, whereas seen objects are frequently motionless.

These two phases of the doctrine that species are insubstantial are rejected, as might be expected from what has been already said about Light. Epicurus thought the species were corporeal and of two kinds, namely (_a_) ‘coagmentationes’ or spontaneous groupings of atoms, such as occurs in a mirage, and (_b_) ‘effluxiones.’ It is with the second of these that we are really concerned. Any given body as an object of sight is supposed to be continually giving off atoms. These form a picture of the thing by purely natural means. As all atoms move in straight lines unless deflected, and all have the same rate of speed, these ‘exhalations,’ as they may be called, retain the original disposition of their parts and so produce an effect symbolic of their origin and of nothing else. It is necessary to notice the difference between this and the other view, that the object as a whole produces a picture of itself. Upon that view Gassendi pours scorn: the rock we see would, he says, be in that case a consummate painter, obviously meaning that the theory has a mystical element. The second theory is mechanical: the motion required is not of the whole as such: there is only the innate motion of the atoms: the retention of the original form is due to the _mechanical_ properties of atoms moving in a medium too subtle to disturb them normally: and, finally, the effect is not a picture in the sense of being itself a representation of the thing: it is an effect upon the organ of sight which by these means attains a picture of the object. In the former case apparently a ‘picture’ was supposed to float in the air: in this case the atoms are not the picture but the cause of the picture: just as light was a reality but not a complete reality apart from the eye, so the picture is only realised for a beholder, and apart from any eye is only an agglomeration of atoms.

Gassendi defends the view that ‘effluxiones’ are substantial, not because it is right but because it is less wrong than the other view. The real difficulty is to explain how things can go on giving off matter and yet never be exhausted. The usual plan of explaining that the ‘effluxiones’ are subtle beyond all comprehension (omnem modum excedentes) is, to say the least of it, feeble. But Gassendi attempts no other, and appears to satisfy himself that it is possible to have a substantial loss, which being infinitely small only becomes perceptible in infinite time. The real difference between an infinitely subtle ‘imago’ and an imago that is an accident, is a question of terms and technicality rather than common-sense. Gassendi apparently means us to understand that what we see is the light from a thing as that light is affected by the thing: beyond this there is nothing but tradition.

There remain now the so-called occult qualities. These constitute a special class; for certain qualities are popularly regarded as peculiarly ‘occult’: in reality all qualities are occult in some degree, and the difference between ‘occult’ and ‘manifest’ is one of degree only. What we look for is some explanation of an effect: an occult cause is merely an imperceptible quality which we attribute to an object in order to explain the effects we believe to be derived from it. The most typical of all these qualities are the two known as Sympathy and Antipathy. Now all the effects produced exhibit the common forms of activity: we are therefore led to assume that the cause can be interpreted in terms of motion, though that motion may be too subtle for our senses to perceive.

The assumption that all relations of cause and effect are reducible to motion and communicated motion, prepares us for a rationalistic explanation of these miraculous qualities. When the chameleon puts forth its tongue to catch the fly, we see the agent of attraction: when the electrical body attracts other bodies, how can it draw them to itself if not by ‘innumerable rays darted out like tongues’? Beyond the world of our senses lies another, identical in kind but too minute for ordinary perception: if our senses were magnified these invisible agents would start into life: we should see the tiny thorns wherewith the nettle stings us, and perceive the corpuscles whose unsuitable shape makes the object painful to our sight. All sympathy and antipathy then is a question of physical causation, of ‘corporea organula’: love and hate are ultimately physical, and friend is literally like friend, for the essence of affection is congruence of atoms! The ancient philosophy of Hate and Love is now completely inverted: physical relations take the first place and repulsion or attraction explains all: repulsion need not be hate, but hate is always repulsion.

The general theory of occult causes is now disposed of: the discussion of particular instances has only a secondary interest. The cases classed as ‘general’ are (_a_) conspiratio partium universi and (_b_) influxus coelestis. The former is identical with the dread of a vacuum attributed to nature: the latter is a subject about which we know little so far as astrology is concerned: the movement of the tides is not really a case of ‘influxus lunae.’

The special cases also need not detain the reader: why the sponge attracts (sic) the water is a question hardly more scientific in form and suggestion than the later query, Why does a cock frighten a lion? Both these cases seem explicable in ways not particularly ‘occult.’ In dealing with the occult qualities of plants Gassendi shows a very interesting phase of the development of thought: the love of the vine for the elm might be pure poetry, but there were relations between plants which were thought to be of real importance: the female palm, for example, was said to be fertile only when sown near the male: the truth which might underlie this observation was obscured by the notion of subtle ‘effluviae’ transmitted from one to the other.[59]

Gassendi discusses very gravely the occult quality of hate as existing between the sheep and the wolf: he says, ‘ovis quidem odit lupum, nec immerito: ab illo enim dilaniatur’: the wolf however does not hate the sheep, for he is good to eat: the apple may hate us, but we who eat it say we like it. There is a subtle vein of animism in all these popular fancies which the philosopher still finds himself compelled to treat seriously. The evil eye, the power of incantations, the virtue some plants possess of healing the wounded by being applied to the sword that struck the blow: these and many others mark the flights of undisciplined imagination. In the last case Gassendi makes an interesting remark: the power of the drug applied to the sword was supposed to reach the wounded man, however far away, because the soul of the world is one, and so what affects one part must affect the whole and all parts: thus Unity received an apotheosis almost before it was born!

(_e_) ON THE ORIGIN AND DECAY OF THINGS

Whatever our ultimate views may be on creation and annihilation, there remains untouched by these the whole sphere of becoming. Becoming can be regarded from two points of view, according as we consider that which becomes or that which ceases in order that something may become. The negative aspect of the becoming of any one thing is the ceasing of its antecedent, so long as we allow that the antecedent is really and truly such: if however we prefer to deny the antecedence and declare the whole movement of Becoming illusory, change may be refined away to nothing more than variation of qualities. In order to be clear as to the scope of this discussion, the terms employed must be carefully distinguished. The first is creation, which means the production of something out of nothing: the second is mutation, which denotes a change from one state to another. Now this change may affect only the quality of a thing or the thing itself: in the former case it is called Alteratio, in the latter Generatio.

These extreme points of view are represented on the one hand by Parmenides and all who deny motion, on the other by those who regard all new forms as creations. The standpoint exemplified in Parmenides is that of the monistic schools for which substance means the Whole rather than the Thing. From this interpretation it naturally follows that all change is change of the Whole, and since the Whole cannot become something other than itself, the change is ultimately an illusion. If, on the other hand, substance means Thing, change will mean that one thing becomes another thing, at least in the sense that one thing gives place to another thing. But even those who take substance in the pluralistic sense do not agree in their explanation of change: to many the idea of one thing becoming another thing is repugnant: the tendency then is to return to the position of Parmenides, but apply his doctrine not to Substance but to substances. To do this successfully we must establish our ultimate substances. Common experiences can be appealed to as a proof that we know what we mean by change. Every day there is some new thing under the sun about which we feel that to-day it is and yesterday it was not.[60] But if our ultimate substances are things each with a character of its own, the alterations it can undergo must be limited by the necessity of retaining the character. An acorn may become an oak, but the oak does not become an elm, says the opponent: when pressed further he will explain that the acorn is potentially an oak, and therefore its development is determined. But either the acorn is or is not an oak: if it is an oak the Becoming is pure illusion: if it is not, what is the principle of becoming? The answer is combination of parts. As these parts precede the whole, they are themselves neutral, _i.e._ fit to enter into any combination.[61] Generation is now definable as mixture of parts: the matter is given in plants and animals as much as in houses: the mixture makes the thing!

It is clear that our neutral elements are the atoms. Creation is the act that produces these primary elements: the atoms are created, not the world: the world is the product of atoms endowed with a motion of their own. One difficulty, however, remains. If the matter is always the same, and the thing is a combination of parts differing from other things not in the nature of the ultimate elements but in their combination, is it not really the Form, and the Form only, that is generated? Gassendi attacks this position with skilful dialectic. It is said that when a combination is effected a form is educed: this form was not present before actu but potentia: then how can it be educed any more than gold can be educed from an empty purse?[62] If the form does not arise out of the matter, we have not eductio but generatio: a form, that is, is realised which did not exist before, and that is just what we mean by generation. If the form is asserted to be something distinct from matter, and yet no matter is lost in producing Form, the Form must be especially created and we are committed to a constant miracle.

The result of our review of all previous doctrines is then the survival as fittest of the common-sense standpoint: and the achievement is perhaps greater than it appears at first sight. At one point Gassendi’s position seems very much exposed, but the opponent is silenced in anticipation. If mind is not matter, have we not here a case in which a combination of elements of one kind produces or conditions the generation of a reality of a different order? The point may be dealt with in two ways; the first is to stolidly assert that mind is a form of matter generated by the particular combinations of matter which it is found to accompany; the second is to attribute it to the act of God, and so leave it. Gassendi chooses the second course, perhaps wisely.

_SECTION B_