CHAPTER II

THE ANIMATE WORLD

(_a_) INTRODUCTORY

The third section of the second part of the _Syntagma_ has two ‘membra’ dealing with natural objects (rebus terrenis) in general. We have discussed the former part, and can now proceed to the second. The distinguishing characteristic of the subject-matter is Life, in the sense which is implied by the title Animate as opposed to all the previous existents which have been classed as Inanimate. The highest class of Inanimata comprised Plants: the specific difference which brings us to the next highest stage is the appearance of Sensibility. The name Animal is given διὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν πρώτως (II. 193), hence we shall not object to including under this title those forms of organic life which have only the rudimentary sensibility shown in reaction to touch, namely Zoophytes (Plantanimalia), to which we can ascribe only Tactus, and (perhaps) its localized form, Taste. With this general determination of what constitutes an Animal, we may proceed to classification. The stars and the gods we may neglect, in spite of Plato and Aristotle: we have then terrestrial creatures left: of these there are many traditional classifications.

(1) The division into Rational and Irrational is bad: for it introduces a negative class, and does not exclude immortal beings who might certainly be rational.

(2) An obvious division would be according to mode of motion, _e.g._ the classes Volatile, Natatile, Gressile, Reptile, Tractile, Immotum; but this is unsatisfactory, since the classes overlap, and there seems to be no principle of division. The question indeed arises whether a classification which serves all purposes can be found. Generally we classify to suit some particular purpose (pro occasione petimus): we choose as our basis, mode of generation, distribution of parts, habits (mores), nature of food (ratione victus), or even the locality in which the creatures are found. In such cases the end must justify the means, but no one of these can claim to be a final and universally valid classification. Gassendi finally adopts the division into Sanguinea and Exsanguia, acknowledging its many faults, but finding it more adapted than any other to comprehend such a large and various range of objects. In spite of scholastic objections we do finally adopt a _negative_ classification: Gassendi realises that such a dichotomy may fail in face of species which are neither, and weakens his position in so far as he seems to intend, not so much to classify all animals as to make a classification under which the animals are to be subsumed, whether they will or no. It is essentially a scholastic trait to make the law first and then adapt nature to it. The scheme of classification which guides the author through the remainder of this book is so hopelessly out of touch with our conceptions that it may be consigned to oblivion: his treatment of the subject is an excellent example of his discursive style. He ranges from the elephant to the fly, quotes authors innumerable, discusses the probability of Centaurs and Sirens, and grants respectful consideration to derivations of names too ludicrous to be any longer amusing.

The Second Book opens with a formidable collection in two chapters of all the names of the parts of the human frame and of those parts which are found in animals, but not in man. This too is a mine of curious information, but hardly such as would justify reproduction. The construction of the sense organs we shall consider later, and pass over the rest in silence.

(_b_) ON DESIGN IN NATURE

Under the heading ‘Use of the parts in Animals’ Gassendi elaborates his views on the teleological question. Epicurus, in accordance with his theory of atoms and their fortuitous concourse, had denied that the parts of the body were differentiated for definite purposes. Eyes were not made for seeing, nor ears for hearing: if the contrary is asserted, it will follow that hearing existed before the ear, seeing before the eye, which is nonsense: and Epicurus finally leaves the differentiation of organs unexplained, but accounts for difference of function by supposing that the application of the Soul to the organ results in an activity determined by the nature of the organ (_e.g._ seeing, when the application is to the eye, and so on). This conclusion may be briefly stated by saying that the function is the effect and not the (final) cause of the organ. Against this Gassendi argues at great length; but in spite of the clearness of his statement he seems to have overlooked a rather obvious confusion, for, if we speak of the eye, the ear, or the nose, we naturally think of them as differing, because we think of their correlatives in perception (sight, hearing, smelling). If we resolutely exclude all ideas of the sensations, and consider only the organ as a mere compilation of atoms, the position of Epicurus reduces itself to the unprovable proposition that movements of different kinds of atomic groups are different kinds of movement. This is not quite such a quibble as it appears: for we have to remember that Epicurus was not thinking of an organism differentiated by the action of an environment which is the ground of variety in experience, but of an organism which is in itself so differentiated as to be able to produce variety in the experience of a Soul which is a unitary thing going out to its world.

While accepting the general theory of Epicurus, Gassendi declines to commit himself to a reign of chance. His remarks are an instructive comment on a stage of thought which so nearly arrived at truths only recently appreciated. He recognises that natural selection (natura electionis capax. ii. 228) has determined what forms shall survive: from the innumerable host of the created only some survive, ‘illas puta quas contigit habere parteis sic constitutas ut nactae fuerint accommodatum ad sui ipsarum conservationem generationemque consimilium, usum.’ Galen is quoted as the authority for an opinion held by Epicureans that the tendons of the hand are strong, not _for_ use but _from_ use. Thirdly, the question is raised, if rain falls on the crops by design, why does it also fall on the sea and the rocks? We have here three distinct questions—first, as to creation; secondly, as to development; lastly, as to God.

(1) The question of creation is taken as wholly distinct from that of development: as the point cannot be settled, Gassendi thinks it best to ascribe creation to God, rather than chance.

(2) The remarks on development must be considered carefully, else it is easy to attribute to the writer a position far beyond his actual attainment. Instances are quoted of adaptation to circumstances, as the hardening of the soles of the feet in people who go barefoot: cases of useless parts in creatures are noted, as, _e.g._, cur mares quoque expertes lactis mammas haberent. But in neither case is the real significance apprehended: for Gassendi never seems to regard development in a way that would admit of new species arising; nor does it occur to him that a structure that has no function indicates a radical process of change. He was open-minded enough to admit that a useless appendage was no credit to Providence, but the idea that development from one form to another might be indicated by stages in which rudimentary organs survived, belongs to a scheme of the universe not revealed to Gassendi. For Gassendi, as for Epicurus, all process and becoming virtually ceased when the world as it now is began to be. The primeval matter—the atoms—might of course produce new forms; but practically it is assumed that the number of successful possibilities is now exhausted. In this way an evolutionary is combined with a static view of nature.

(3) In dealing with the question of a Creator, Gassendi is not so hampered by the claims of orthodoxy as on some other occasions. His middle course is not only suitable to his orthodoxy, but philosophically possible. We must not admire the temple and ignore the architect,[67] and as some creative power, both wise and intelligent, has to be acknowledged, it matters little whether we call it nature or God. Mingled with the rhapsody which proclaims the Creator we find some shrewd remarks: the order of the Universe compels us to see behind it a mind; but the compulsion is aesthetic, and the assertion of God rests on faith rather than argument: the crude teleology which has raised such bitter discussions is annihilated by the remark that function and organ cannot be separated: one does not come before the other either logically or in the time order, and the creature cannot be considered in abstraction from the world in which he lives. Thus Gassendi avoids the dogmatic tone of Lactantius, and preserves his faith without sacrificing his reason, while his assertion that current teleology is based on a false abstraction marks an enduring distinction between those who acknowledge the fitness of things and those who would advance beyond the given data to prove special design.

To make Gassendi’s position clearer, I may add the following quotation from Wallace, _Epicureanism_ (p. 115):

‘Throughout the whole of his explanation of the origin of the earth ... Epicurus is careful to exclude any reference to divine action. There was no design, no plan determining beforehand the process of evolution, and adapting one part of the cosmic structure to co-operate with another.... In all its phases teleology is extruded. The very animals which are found upon the earth have been made what they are by slow processes of selection and adaptation.... Plants and animals have the same source as rocks and sands. It is from the seeds or elements contained in the earth that the animals have in some strange maternal throes (as Lucretius somewhat figuratively puts it) been evolved in their season: they have not fallen from heaven. The same naturalistic explanation is given of the special endowments of human beings. The organs of sense were not given us ready-made in order that we might use them: that which is born in our body, on the contrary, generates for itself a use. The structure, for example, which we call the eye was not given us as an organ of vision: it arose, we need not enquire too curiously how, and it was found to be useful for the perception of objects in the light. Whether this use by degrees created an organ more and more appropriate for its purpose—function, as it were, perfecting the organ—is a point apparently not discussed by Epicurus.’

Thus much about Epicurus. As regards Gassendi, we may say that he does consider the last point mentioned as omitted by Epicurus, and this has led him to see that there is a relation between the organ and its function which is not expressed in a doctrine of chance. In order to understand Gassendi, we must keep in mind that there are three distinct points of view. (1) We may rely on chance: this excludes creation and design. (2) We may say that the organ was designed for its function. This sounds reasonable enough if taken with the significance that the terms would have in modern parlance. In the language of _this_ period it implies that the function existed before the organ, that there was a _seeing_ which was literally antecedent to the being of the eye. This was easily shown to be absurd. In modern evolution we have a totally different scheme, the two factors given us in, _e.g._, Spencer’s account, are the sensitive material and _light_: in this scheme it is light which exists before the eye; in the other scheme we have _sight_ in place of light, which makes all the difference. (3) We may refuse to accept chance and decline to say that each organ was specially created, but declare that the result proves that there is design enough in the universe to make possible those combinations of matter which are required for these functions. If it were a case of all chance, we might have only organs we did not want, _e.g._ eyes in a world without light. Selection can remove those organs we do not use, but it could not create others. On the other hand, if Providence controls every detail, the design would be better than it is!

(_c_) THE THEORY OF THE SOUL

Gassendi discusses the nature of the Soul, not, as might have been expected, in direct connection with his psychological theory, but between the discussions on the parts and the generation of animals respectively. This will however be justified when we understand the sense he attaches to the term Anima.

Primarily, it is the specific difference which distinguishes the Animal from the inanimate and from plants: for little as we may know about it, the soul of the animal is assuredly something very distinct from that soul which we may concede to plants. Gassendi holds a modest opinion of his own ability and the value of the discussion. We cannot expect, he says, to learn the nature of the soul: it will be enough to know what has been said about it; the Church alone gives us certainty on the subject. With this tribute to orthodoxy, the philosopher proceeds with the perilous theme in a manner which his contemporaries must have regarded as dangerous free thinking.

We are accustomed to confine psychology to the study of phenomena in some degree intellectual.[68] The mediaeval thinker avoided this path to error by keeping two terms for all that we include under the name ‘Soul.’ For the intellectual agent the term Animus is used: Anima is a more comprehensive term, and may be translated ‘principle of life.’[69] The historical discussion is, as usual, a splendid display of erudition: one chapter deals with those who consider the soul incorporeal, another with those who regard it as corporeal. If it be regarded as incorporeal, it may be either substance or attribute, _i.e._ either an ‘existens quidpiam in se,’ or a form, quality, accident, or inseparable adjunct. Pythagoras, Plato, and the Platonists are mentioned as authorities for the view that it is a substance, while to those who regard it as an attribute belong Aristotle and all who define soul as a harmony (Dicaearchus, Asclepiades), a theory best known by the argument of Simmias in the _Phaedo_, though others seem to have given it a different phase by speaking of it as a harmony of the senses or a temperament. The variations of the theory that the soul is corporeal are scarcely worth recapitulating. Gassendi notes that no one ever thought it of the nature of earth—air and fire were the more usual analogues—and quotes the well-known theories of early Greek philosophy. More important than these is the view that the soul was a ‘spiritum ex sanguine factum’: so Virgil says, ‘purpuream vomit ille animam,’ and in the Bible we read, ‘Vox sanguinis fratris tui clamat ad me de Terra!’ St. Augustine thought the authority of the Scriptures indecisive, for blood might be taken not as identical with, but symbolic of, the soul: as the ‘sedes immediata’ of that all-pervasive principle of life. The ancients too seem not to have meant sanguis, but rather ‘sanguinis flos,’ which is a possible interpretation of ‘spiritus ex sanguine factus.’ Galen and Hippocrates supported this view, which ranked as the ‘scientific solution’ of the problem; and here we have the origin of those ‘vital airs’ which played so large a part in mediaeval psychology.

Gassendi is satisfied that the Anima is corporeal: the inheritance of certain characteristics (non lineamenta corporis solum sed etiam nota animae), the fact that soul and body may be similarly affected, that what nourishes the outer nourishes also the inner man—these facts and the authority of the fathers settle the question. It is characteristic of Gassendi to settle one point at a time: so far we conclude the soul to be corporeal, _i.e._ substantial, not mere quality or disposition or symmetry of material parts, but itself a ‘principium agendi.’ The ‘materialist’ to-day inclines to make the soul a non-entity, an epiphenomenon. Gassendi argues that it does act, and because it acts it must be itself a reality, a thing not a shadow, substance not mere relation (as in a ‘harmony’). This decision that Anima is under the Category of corpus, does not decide what kind of corpus it is: so long as it is not mere quantity or quality or relation it _must_ be corpus. Modern arguments turn mainly on the question whether a soul is body or spirit: Gassendi’s primary task is to decide whether it is something or nothing: whether the something is bodily matter or non-bodily matter is a question of secondary importance. An examination of the views of Epicurus leaves him with no satisfactory position:[70] he feels moreover the danger of dealing with the Anima in any way that might bring him into collision with ecclesiastical authority: he chooses therefore to express himself de anima brutorum, though it is not the anima but the animus which makes the crucial distinction and superiority of man.[71] The following data seem certain: the anima is collateral with life; vita est quasi praesentia animae in corpore: and therefore neither cor nor sanguis can be identified with it, since these may remain unimpaired after death. Secondly, it is aliquid pertenue, and in fact not an object of the senses at all: it can be perceived only by reason which deduces its actuality from the necessity of finding a principle of motion and nutrition. The deduction is not criticised by Gassendi, but is obviously faulty: the proof says, ‘when the soul is in the body the functions are possible: when it departs, they are impossible,’ a use of the deductive canon which assumes that existence of the soul is previously established. Thirdly, soul cannot be either a Form or a harmony of elements, for it must be an active principle, and if we call it Form or Harmony it becomes a mere relation. Thus we arrive at the definition that Anima is very slender substance as it were the flower of matter, with a specific habit or disposition or symmetry of its parts: as substance its extreme mobility qualifies it to be the principle of all action, and its particular symmetry determines the quality or mode of activity. It is in fact, ‘corpus, id tamen tenuissimum’; the physical body is massa corporis crassioris, and it is only relatively to the crass body that we call the Anima ‘incorporeal.’ Again, as substance it is a contextura of very subtle atoms, which maintains its unity though extended throughout the body, the heat of the body depends on it, and therefore it must be of the nature of fire, which is also proved by the necessity of heat for digestion and nutrition. This is the reason for the circulation of the blood, namely to prevent it from coagulating and cooling; this process causes a distribution of heat from the heart, while the action of the lungs cools the heat and provides an escape for smoky vapours. The expansive power of heat explains the efficiency of the soul: we shall not marvel that the elephant can be moved by its soul if we remember the force which heat can impart to a cannon-ball! The cold-blooded animals offer a problem which is solved by the concept of ‘insensible heat,’ and we need not be troubled about the fish, for they seem to lack the right ventricle which is the place of heat (in quo calescere incipiat) and the lung which carries off the adverse humours: hence the fire is somewhat dulled in them (calorem obtundat). Gassendi will not endorse the opinion ascribed to Empedocles that fish from excess of heat took to the water refrigerationis gratia!

(_d_) THE ANIMA HUMANA

The human soul might well be regarded as differing from that of animals in degree only. The objection to this is that it would place the brute creation on the same scale as man, and make their equality with man possible. The ecclesiastic mind therefore prefers to assume that only the human soul is qualified to receive ‘supernatural gifts,’ and deduce from that potentiality a distinction of kind. At the same time it had to be admitted that the human soul has a sentient and a vegetative capacity, and is in part dependent on natural generation, so that any explanation which is to be satisfactory must allow for both aspects. Two theories hold the field: the first declares the soul to be a simple substance with dual functions, viz. the inorganic, or those which require no organs (_e.g._ Intellection and Volition); and the organic, which requires bodily organs (_e.g._ Nutrition). This soul, they say, is put in the body by God ready equipped with its faculties: authorities have differed in the explanation of the process which results in the presence of the soul, some ascribing it to a direct act of God, others to an evolution in which the vital seed acts as a medium. The second theory declares that the soul is not simple but twofold, having a rational and an irrational part. This is more in conformity with theology; and the unity is not more incomprehensible than the unity of soul and body, which we are accustomed to accept without demur.

Gassendi adopts this position; but it is impossible to avoid feeling that he regarded the question as one of small philosophical importance, or at least a point at which right reasoning must conform to orthodoxy. On the other hand, apart from opinions on its origin and destiny, the human soul must be a separate subject of enquiry in so far as it furnishes rational phenomena which are not available from other sources. Gassendi tells us nothing of the nature of the ‘Anima humana’ in the sense in which he determines the nature of the ‘Anima brutorum’: he seems to have thought that the distinctive features of man belonged to the Animus; and while he is incapable of generating from the corporeal soul of animals the incorporeal soul of man he suggests that the combination of corporeal and incorporeal soul in man is no more or less difficult than the union of corporeal soul and crass matter in the brute. It would seem therefore that man only differed in the degree to which he is divine; and as Gassendi asserts that all life is divine in its degree, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he views the whole scale of being as having differences of degree only.

When in _Physicae_, III. 4. 4, he discusses the generation of animals he makes the Anima a continuous existence, so that birth is not a stage giving Anima, but a stage in the history of Anima—a stage at which it becomes individualised, as the Anima of a plant individualises itself when an offshoot becomes an independent existence (II. 279). The rational part, being given by God, cannot of course share this continuity: none the less there is no period when a soul destined to be rational is without rationality, the organs of intellectual activity may not be developed, but these are necessary, ‘ut operari anima, non item ut inesse possit.’ Thus he renders the distinctive birth of the rational soul unprovable, and even asserts that its emergence at some definite time in the history of the foetus or the child would be a case of ex nihilo quid;[72] but surely the phrase, ‘corporis expers a Deo creetur infundaturque in ipsum corpus,’ either implies absolute creation or means nothing at all.

My view of the point is that Gassendi purposely states the received dogmas, with respect, and at the same time intentionally reduces them to futility. Whatever the value of this view may be, it is derived from a careful study of his writing, and I conclude that Gassendi’s real view of the soul makes it one in all entities, from the stones to man, but with such obvious distinctions of degree that it is no loss practically to admit differences of kind: the common denominator cannot be shown; and just as a scale of colours is only a scale if we look at it from the point of view of vibrations, but in itself has differences of quality, so life has differences of quality which cry aloud for reduction to unity, but cannot be reduced until some other term is found, such that degrees of life can be formulated as its powers. One such ‘other term’ we have always with us, viz. Motion: it is not the least interesting part of our work to watch the extent to which Gassendi employs it.[73]

(_e_) THE BASIS OF PSYCHIC LIFE

Faculties are natural, vital, and animal: of the animal faculties some are cognitive, and the most fundamental is the sensitive. The word sensus may mean the faculty or the function, the power of feeling or the state of feeling. We have four terms, sensus, cognitio, perceptio, apprehensio: perception, apprehension, and knowledge, if taken in the widest sense, mean the same. Sensus and cognitio denote a more explicit state, _i.e._ a relation of subject and object in which the two are distinguished: perceptio and apprehensio are used for a more implicit state, _i.e._ for what goes on in the subject, whether consciously recognised or not. This is made clearer by an example: suppose a magnet, a flint, and some iron to be together in one place: the iron has a perception of the magnet which the flint has not: again, suppose a goat and a fox to be standing under one tree: the goat perceives the tree (assuming it to have edible foliage) but the fox does not: these are parallel cases, and yet neither is an example of what we usually mean by sensation. Suppose we say ‘is vero est sensus qui finiri solet facultas percipiendi objecta sensibilia’: we then have a definition which defines both the faculty and the object: consequently relativity is introduced, and we must admit sensibility everywhere: if you say the magnet has not sensus, the answer will be it has sensus for its own particular sensibilia, as the oyster and the monkey in their degree. As there is then no justification for limiting sense to man we must accept this result; but we may distinguish general from special sensibility. The former may be defined as any motile response, and covers the case of all objects not animal—especially magnetic bodies and plants: the latter is sensibility as we know it. There is a distinction between these, and therefore it is confusing to speak of the relation of inorganic things as antipathy or sympathy. Sense taken universally is the capacity for affinities or simply natural affinity: Sense taken specially is not merely a faculty of receiving species, but a reaction in which we know what the species is a species of. This might be called a teleological distinction, for Gassendi recognises that as reactions all sensibility might be reduced to a capacity for reaction to an appropriate stimulus: it would thus be reduced to a mode of motion, and he says it must be taken ‘primum universe pro quacumque facultate rei cuilibet naturaliter insita ad percipiendum aliquid, cuius perceptione seu mavis apprehensione moveatur.’ In recognition of this he adds that the sensus in animals is one with the vis motrix corpusculorum movendi sive agendi facultas (_De Sensu Universe_, ch. I.). This activity is not transeunt but immanent, and is a disturbance[74] of the ‘sensitive’ organ.

It is obvious from what is said above that Gassendi opposes those who translate lower functions into higher. He will not allow that all ‘motile response’ is sensation. This point is so vital to the understanding of Gassendi and has been so consistently misunderstood (from my point of view), especially in reference to the magnet, that I feel justified in adding still another note to what has been said elsewhere.

I will quote first a passage from _The Atomic Theory of Lucretius_, by John Masson (1884), p. 141, part of a note entitled ‘Note on Professor Clifford’s theory of mind-stuff as anticipated by Gassendi’: ‘again, because all living things, even the meanest, those spontaneously generated, come from seminal molecules, each after its kind, which have existed either from the beginning of the world or from a later time, ‘for this reason it cannot be said that conscious things come from non-conscious, but rather from particles, which, though they do not actually possess consciousness, nevertheless actually are or do contain the elements of consciousness (principia sensus).’ Are not these ‘elements of consciousness’ contained in Gassendi’s molecules much the same as Clifford’s simple elementary feelings or Mind-Stuff? Gassendi does not, it is true, say that every separate atom contains an element of sensation. In reality, by his distinction between prima materies or non-conscious atoms, and secunda materies or molecules which possess in a faint form the rudiments of sensation, he does not at all escape the difficulty of the origin of consciousness, which indeed he, like Epicurus, very slightly realises.’

My objection to this as an interpretation of Gassendi is as follows. The mind-stuff theory starts from the top and asserts that the mind is made up of parts, each of which is in its own nature mental: it is a theory of the evolution _of_ mind. Gassendi, on the contrary, only tries to work out the analogical relations of natural forms so as to show the evolution _to_ mind. In the mind-stuff the common denominator is mentality: in Gassendi it is motility. Clifford is far nearer Leibnitz than Gassendi, and Gassendi is a long way from Leibnitz. The difference finally lies in the view one takes of the concept of potentiality, and as we have pointed out this is a concept to which Gassendi takes objection. On Masson’s own showing the ‘particles do not actually possess consciousness’: he does not seem to have understood that Gassendi would not entertain the idea of potential presence, and therefore the statement that the particles do not possess consciousness ‘actually,’ means that they do not possess it at all. As I have tried to show, Gassendi, for better or for worse, prefers to take it that the peculiar properties of each degree of organic life cannot be found in the parts as they are before they are found in the synthesis of the organism, but supervene on the fact of that synthesis. The effects are data to be co-ordinated, not explained. Gassendi would have said of nature as a whole what James says of mental phenomena, that the square of _a_ plus that of _b_ is not the same as the square of (_a_ + _b_).

This point is, I am afraid, somewhat laboured. In excuse I plead that it is vital, and has not been understood by those who refer to Gassendi. As a rule we are told that ‘at any rate Gassendi says the magnet has feeling,’ so we may consider the evidence on this point and take the conclusion as proving the general position. In the chapter on Gravitation we have the problem of attraction on a large scale: Gassendi discusses it on the analogy of the magnet, and we read, ‘attractionem verbo fieri a Terra, corpusculis missis, quibus illiciat lapidem, eadem ratione qua et magnes emittit quibus pelliciat ferrum’ (I. 345). This, be it remembered, is stated in explicit opposition to the idea that the stone has any feeling after the earth, or any knowledge where the earth is. On page 337 we read, ‘videlicet praeter moralem metaphoricumque motorem (the reference is to Aristotle’s idea of that which moves as end only) quaeritur quod sit in unaquaque re quae per se agit ac movetur principium actionis seu motionis primum. Neque enim cum puer ostenso pomo ad ipsum currit, requiritur solum quae metaphorica sit motio, qua pomum puer alliciat, sed maxime etiam quae sit intra ipsum puerum physica seu naturalis vis qua dirigitur ferturque ad pomum.’ This vis physica cannot be aroused by any but a physical effluxus, and the movement of that which wants to that which is wanted is primarily due to an actual physical relation. Add to this what is said in the preceding paragraph and it will be clear, I think, that Gassendi is not trying to prove that the magnet has a kind of feeling as we know it in consciousness, but that the common denominator of the whole scale is motile response: whether it is felt or not depends on whether it occurs in a consciousness that can feel or in that which cannot. I may add in confirmation of this, that those who attribute sense to the magnet should also say the earth has sense: which is a phase of the doctrine of anima mundi expressly rejected by Gassendi.