CHAPTER III

PSYCHIC LIFE

(_a_) SENSE AND SENSATION

Although we speak of the Soul as sensitive, there are many facts which seem to prove that the seat of sensation can be more distinctly defined. The Soul may be diverted and not notice an affection of the senses, or it may carry on functions like those of nutrition in which no sense-elements are consciously realised. The conclusion is that the sensitive ‘textura’ is a part and not the whole of the sentient Anima. This is the first step toward regarding the mind as multiplex, and is in agreement with the views of Epicurus. But a difficulty arises due to the difficulty of keeping the unity of the soul while rejecting its ‘simplicity.’ Lucretius had said that the soul possessed a particular vis animäi, which implied that it could maintain its existence independent of the body.[75] Epicurus, on the other hand, declared that it had no such cause of sentience (sentiendi causam) nisi quatenus corpus illam fovet. It follows that so far as sentience is concerned, we must take as our unity not Anima but Animal, not the soul alone but the totum compositum. In either case the sense-organs need not be regarded as mere channels; but while Lucretius might be so interpreted, Epicurus is quite definite. It is true to say the mind sees or hears, but no less true to say the eye sees or ear hears, just as we say the hand writes. It may seem irrelevant to discuss at this point the question of the vis animae; but the justification for so doing is the fact that at this point we are deeply concerned with the question of the unity of the soul and its meaning. The rejection of a specific and separate vis animae is one step toward the destruction of the view that the soul is simple, in the technical sense. Now, not only has it parts of which the sensitive part is one, but it may be doubted whether this part is a unity without difference. Clearly we have many sense-organs, yet some say ‘sense is one’; and of course it is true that the senses are all sense and in that way one, but that is not a useful contention. To say the one Sense uses the organs as a carpenter uses his various tools for various purposes is to make a fallacious comparison. It is the mind that is a unity relatively to the senses; and the opposition of the unitary sense to the many kinds of sensation is a mere confusion added to an assumption. Gassendi here seems to realise the difficulty which attends the reduction of all sense-affection to movement: whether we speak of afferent or efferent activities, we are faced with the fact that motions of different kinds of tissue will not necessarily be different kinds of motion. If differences of motion make differences in sensation, since motions differ only in degree, we are liable to drift on to the conclusion that sight is an acute form of hearing, and thus be wrecked. Now we cannot give up the point that senses are qualitatively different: we must therefore take that as a proof that sense-organs differ in texture and that the recipient soul is just as manifold as the currents conveyed to it or from it. This is a decision but not a solution of the problem; and we are left with a working hypothesis, not a demonstrated conclusion; but Gassendi seems to realise that sensation as a physical fact belongs to a totally different point of view from that which regards sensation as a psychic fact; and the quantitative analysis of the one cannot be wholly identified with the qualitative distinctions of the other.

The actual number of senses is five: they cannot be reduced to Touch, but they might conceivably be increased in number, and we might even have a sense for the inner nature of things. This is a characteristically mediaeval notion. As it is, our senses only give us knowledge of qualities; but it should be noted that our ignorance of the naturas rerum intimas is not an inherent fault of our way of attaining knowledge, but a question of mere limitation in the number of senses.

Perception is not in the organ, but in the brain, whose media are the nerves. What then is the nature of the nerve? The sensitive part of the organ must be animata, the other parts need only be ‘vegetative’: it must also be in some way susceptible of touch: these qualities are found in nerves. These nerves must be regarded (after Galen) as a sort of diffused brain, and the brain as a kind of highly developed nerve: every membrane consists of a sheath covering an inner membrane: the inner part is a chain of soft particles with a hollow centre. The mechanism is not sensitive in itself, for the sensation only arises when some shock to the nerve is transmitted to the brain: this transmission requires a state of tension, and is therefore only possible when the animal spirits inflate these nerve channels sufficiently. This explains the possibility of a physical affection of the nerves having no psychic effect. Gassendi does not appear to consider the question of subconscious states. The ‘innervation’ caused by the animal spirits is the essential condition of actual sensibility: consequently, physical shocks at the nerve extremities are cut off from the brain altogether unless the innervation occurs. This becomes more familiar as psychology if we describe this tension of the nerve system as ‘attention’ and say that affections to which we do not attend are not part of our experience. It is necessary here to distinguish appulse as cause and tension as condition of sensation.

Gassendi regards the nerves as not sufficiently straight or tense to be the bearers of sensation (oblique divertuntur et remissiore tensione sunt). He therefore says ‘id probabilius videtur peragi rem per spiritum ob continuitatem mobilitatemque’: at the same time he anticipates the possible misinterpretation of the phrase ‘bearers of sensation,’ and points out that nothing is really carried into the brain:[76] it is the motion itself when actually arrived in the brain that is the sensation.

The nature of the process called Sense-apprehension is thus described. All objects are known through their ‘species’: not only in the case of sight, but in the case of all the other sense-organs, the species are the media of knowledge: these species are composed of small corpuscula which enter the channels to which they are suitable. It follows from the teaching above, where all sense-organs were asserted to have different textures, that there will be a certain degree of selection, in so far as unsuitableness may prevent some corpuscles from entering some channels. These texturae of the various organs thus serve as selective sieves: the species however have various degrees of difference: over and above the differences which make them unfitted to enter some organs at all, they have further differences which make them pleasurable or painful to an organ which can admit them.

This seems written in a highly materialistic vein; but Gassendi’s position is more physical than materialistic, which is to say he works out these problems on mechanical lines without admitting that the result is identical in kind with its original factors. He diverges here from the common line by denying that the species either are or need to be conveyed to the sensorium or central faculty. He says, ‘verisimilius tamen est non penetrare corpuscula sensoriis externis allapsa in interiorem facultatem residentem in cerebro sed fieri motionem nervorum spirituumque’: which at least refines the material species down to a brain-movement before it is finally transmuted into thought. This modification is important in one respect. If the species were the actual thing, sense-affection would be wholly and objectively true: if, on the other hand, the thing is not itself transmitted but is represented by a movement, the quality of the movement will be the ground of judgment and error will be possible, as _e.g._ when a man’s leg has been cut off he still feels pain in it, though this is clearly not an affection of the parts, but an affection of the central faculty interpreted as coming from those extremities. Gassendi considers that the ἄνευ ὕλης of Aristotle is to be thus explained.[77]

The sensibles then are perceived intercedente motione: as to the nature of these Sensibles but little is said, and most of it is Aristotle; but it is noted that Aristotle’s distinction of essential and accidental sensibles is a confusion as the ‘accidents’ are perceived by the aid of Imagination and Memory. This account of sensation has two points of particular interest. Firstly, the object of the senses is not itself conveyed to the brain, but is symbolically represented by the motion it creates: hence not only is it possible to misjudge the given, but also that which is given may itself be incurably false: Aristotle’s saying, ‘non falli sensum circa ipsum,’ is right in so far as it means sense is what it is, but that will not help us to decide whether it is what it claims to be or whether being what it is as effect it guarantees what we think it ought to guarantee as cause. But of this more later. A more pressing question arises from the general position. As we have already remarked, Gassendi is quite aware that his scale of the Universe is in imminent danger of resolving itself into a series of disconnected stages: he is continually making ‘synthetic assumptions,’ taking a stage _A_, for example, and advancing to _A_ + _B_ with no explanation of the right to speak of _A_ + _B_ as the next stage above _A_, when all we know is that the addition of _B_ makes _A_ all that it was not before. Sense is a case in point: for however much the common mind may feel certain that plant, animal, and man form an indisputable scale of ascending dignity, it is not philosophic to accept the dogma uncritically: on the other hand, if the problem is squarely faced, it seems to present an absolute dilemma. We might say Life is possible because all is animated and so all is ‘sensible’; but this is chaos, a night of colourless reality. Rather than this, Gassendi clings to the reality of distinctions and strives to defend his position. Plants have ‘quasi adumbratio sensus’ inasmuch as in them too the vital fire burns and processes of absorption and nutrition are carried on: the fact that they require their food makes it ‘gratum.’ Thus the sophistry of Gassendi! for who authorises that ‘gratum’? Is it more than poetry to say the thirsty plant rejoices in the rain? Can I argue that because my boot wants soling therefore it likes it? But Gassendi knows that these scales of existence are artificial constructions, and his own is built on that abstraction called Motion. His second argument is an appeal to Analogy: in all natural development there is an inexplicable element: the whole attains a nature such as was found in none of the parts: when the tree ripens it passes from sour to sweet (a passage from Non-Being to Being almost Hegelian!), and when flint and steel can produce a spark, shall we doubt that object and nerve may produce a sensation? In short, quantitatively we can keep our scale, if we look to quality our world falls apart at every difference.

Gassendi appears well aware that the results will not seem very satisfactory to those who desire greater continuity. He says: ‘Verumtamen, inquies, ex verbis tam multis neque explicatur neque intelligitur qua ratione fiat ut cum neque ipsa caloris, flammulaeve corpuscula seorsim sumpta, et dum in auras excedunt, sentiant: neque sentiant item particulae corporis, quibus flammula inest, ac miscetur: et ne ea quidem communi crassaque affectu, qua quippiam tactu percipitur: quanam ratione, inquam, fiat, ut ex iis commistis exoriatur sensio perceptiove explicita, quam non possumus lucidiore dicere voce, quam cognitionis, ac res proinde sentiens creetur ex rebus insensilibus?’ We have to confess our ignorance, but this is only a special case of an ignorance which is manifest in many other directions, in fact, whenever we deal with qualities. ‘Neque vero est quare putes posse rem planius et agnosci et edisseri in qualitatibus ceteris: siquidem ubi dixeris fructum ex acerbo, _e.g._ dulcem fieri, etc. ... ex quo fit ut cum idem dici proportione possit de qualitatibus caeteris, mirum non sit, si cum ipsa quoque Qualitas sentiendi difficilem adeo explicatum habeat ... explicare non liceat, etc.’ This is a very clear statement of the position, and shows beyond dispute that Gassendi admits a complete break, not only here but everywhere between the analytic and synthetic aspects, our analysis and nature’s synthesis. His defence of Epicurus is that he did not make the atoms _incapable_ of being anything, and other theorists have not succeeded any better than he did. As a matter of fact we can only go back, in the case of sentient things, to the semen, not the atom, so that ‘non posse dici absolute res sensileis fieri ex insensilibus,’ that is to say we can uphold that the sensile only comes from the sensile, but only by refusing to go down to our ultimate, by stopping at a complex state (secunda materies) which has attained sensation and declining to ask where _that_ degree of sensation comes from[78] (II. 347).

(_b_) IMAGINATION

There is no subject more interesting or more critical for writers of the class to which Gassendi belongs than that of Imagination. The peculiar combination which the activity of this faculty presents in its union of inner significance with outer form, places it in the perilous transition from objective existence to subjective being, and makes it too often the root of those wild extravagances, whose ultimate object is always to confound with material figures of speech the problem of Reason. It is necessary therefore to follow this discussion with care, and try to define accurately the position of Gassendi. With the subject of Phantasia we penetrate into the inner sanctuary of thought: ‘sequitur facultas cognoscens interna,’ says Gassendi, ‘cuius nimirum tota functio sic interius peragitur ut organum nullum exterius appareat.’ We now deal with the Animus: for ‘ab anima quidem vegetatio et sensus, ab animo vero cogitatio et ratiocinatio pendent.’

In the first place we must decide whether this faculty is one or many: for although the dogma of the Fides Sacra is really all we can know, a little additional enquiry will not be heterodox or useless! The division of the Animus called Cogitatio has often been subdivided into Imaginatio, Cogitatio, Opinio, Prudentia, Consilium, and so on. These faculties are however all reducible to Phantasy, which thus comes to mean any activity of thought carried on in terms of sense and its ‘imagines.’ This raises the question as to whether Imagination is not really the culminating point of sensation, _i.e._ whether it could not be identified with the sensus communis. It has been said, ‘What is sense but the understanding of the sensible, or the understanding but a sense of the intelligible?’ (cp. Aristotle’s phrase,[79] θιγγάνων καὶ νοῶν), but this was error, and we can never admit that sense and thought are one.[80] The identification of Imagination and the sensus communis may be rejected then, for the following specific reasons: no sense can be made to judge, therefore it is useless placing any faculty of the nature of sense at the meeting-place of nerves to function thus: if there is any central point it must be ascribed to Imagination: knowledge of the functions of sense belongs to something beyond them—a phrase which recalls the phrase of a later writer that sensations cannot sum themselves.

We conclude then that in men we have only two divisions of Animus, viz. Reasoning and Imagination, though some would add Judgment. This addition was due to a false analysis of Illusion. A certain Theophilus, Medicus, though a man of good judgment in other respects, was afflicted with the Imagination that he could hear flute players performing in some corner of his house. It was argued from this case that his judgment was sound, but his imagination unsound; and therefore these were distinct. Here Gassendi shrewdly points out that the Doctor judged as he imagined, and the imagination was not itself wrong, but was made wrong by the error of the judgment of causation by which the internal state was attributed to a wrong cause. Thus the case does not refute our position that imagination and judgment are one: for an illusion is real as a subjective state, and the state of imagination is not an object of judgment, but is itself an affection combined with an activity of judgment, so that the cause of imagination is normally also the object of judgment. This point is by no means easy to comprehend: it involves the following analysis of perception. An object _A_ is cause of an inner state _B_ of the nature of an image; but as this is a conscious image it is itself, as an inner state, a judgment and _not_ a judgment on itself but on _A_, its external cause. If _B_ could be judged as an inner state and compared with _A_, judgment and imagination could be distinguished: which we deny, since it involves a double access to the object _A_, namely once by way of the image and once immediately.

We are now fairly launched on the question of Perception, and must follow Gassendi closely. To return to the question of reducing all faculties to Phantasy—what becomes of Memory? This is really a defect of ‘species’; loss of memory means loss of the ‘species servatas,’ leaving one with an inner world depleted of objects: hence, as failure of memory is failure of relation among species, it seems to follow that memory is only imagination regarded from the point of view of a system of species. Now, what are the imagines or species which thus constitute a faculty co-extensive with empirical knowledge? Perception, we have been told, depends on excitement of the outer organ by a species or ‘qualitas sensibilis’: the nerves filled with animal spirits are ‘spiritual radii,’ along which the vibrations travel to the brain. From this results (1) that the faculty of feeling in the appropriate quarter at once knows the object; (2) a vestigium is left behind. Once this function is ended, the sense-faculty cannot know the object again without a second shock. Phantasy however is a higher faculty, and can know the absent thing: this is its final distinction from sense: also its capacity of acting without the presence of the thing proves that its object or ground of activity is in the brain: we must therefore be clear as to these ‘vestigia.’

Gassendi asserts emphatically that the cerebral residuum (species, φάντασμα, visum) is in no sense a thing: we cannot construct any inter-cranial thing which will give the qualities of the object of thought. Colours, sounds, etc., have no typus in cerebro (as a thing might have a typus in cera), but the process is such ‘ut per nervos contractos resilitio quaedam spirituum in cerebrum fiat qua tam cerebrum quam facultas in eo residens percellatur; ideo posse sufficere si id quod remanet cuiusmodi sit ut talis perculsio eius interventu velut iteretur.’[81] The impress must therefore be taken as some effect on brain substance of the nature of a fold (quasi plicam quandam in cerebro factam). This definite result becomes the cause of reflective thought, as it gives its character to those spirits which for any reason move in its tracks: the imago impressa determines what the thought shall be of, but we actually envisage not the brain-fold, but the cause, _i.e._ the original object now become a Phantasma: as we think of an object without thinking of the sense-apparatus or the brain, so in reflection we pass beyond the immediate conditions to what lies beyond. The impress belongs to the brain and the phantasy regarded as a compound: that is to say—when we say it is a brain-state, we do _not_ mean it is a state of the brain purely as matter, but as a conscious agent. The materialistic difficulty which might have arisen is thus anticipated by refusing to consider the brain in abstraction from its conscious functions, as though a dead brain were still a brain in the fullest sense. Gassendi cannot emphasise too much or repeat too often his belief that the direct material of thought is purely symbolic of the external reality: only the disposition of the brain itself remains to testify to the action of an object on the senses, and all the substantial nature of things is reduced to a mode of motion of the brain-substance, out of which we may build again an insubstantial pageant of reflection.

Memory is discussed in connection with Imagination, since it is really only an aspect of the function which preserves ideas. By thus connecting it with his theory of Imagination and folds, Gassendi breaks with those who viewed Memory as a ‘storehouse’: he says, ‘non tamquam vas quoddam concipienda,’ and rejects the simile of wax with equal clearness: he admits however other metaphors: videtur ergo potius concipi non male quasi charta munda seu papyri purissimae solium, but the paper is to be considered as receiving folds, not marks. This is a remarkable anticipation both of Locke and Leibnitz, while it savours of much later psychological work. The analysis of the whole process is even more remarkable. The folds, which are innumerable, can be repeated in their order: the new co-exists with the old, and an excitement beginning from any point in the series runs through them all (una plica arrepta caeterae quae in eadem serie sunt, quasi sponte sequuntur). The act of recollecting consists in voluntarily making many folds until by chance we hit on the right one or one in the right series: thus the apparently forgotten may be revived. Folds tend to become obliterated by the number of later folds or by humidity of the brain in old age: memories are good and bad according to the temperament, which here means the degree to which the humid element preponderates. Total oblivion results from material cerebral changes, by which the original folds become entirely obliterated.

We may now survey the functions of Phantasy generally. They are three in number, namely simple apprehension, composition or division, and Ratiocinatio, a list which proves that the term Phantasy is not to be taken in any narrow sense.

The proper function is simple apprehension without affirmation or denial, the most elementary function of Imagination being naturally conceived as the mere reception of imagines. This mere reception is however not a pure passivity: it follows from the nature of the ‘plica’ that there is some activity of the organ or faculty: also there is here a principle of unity if not exactly a unifying activity, for Gassendi asks why we imagine one object only when the spirits are agitated in many ‘folds,’ and bases his answer on the unity of the faculty. This resolution of many movements into a unity is not strictly intelligible so long as the relation between the physical multiplicity and the psychical unity is left without proper explanation. Gassendi also recognises a selective activity, and points out that it is not possible to attend to more than one thing at a time unless the things are in some sense capable of reduction to a unity: as a rule attention, which is physically a movement of the spirits in one particular direction, follows the greatest or dominant movement, though a new movement may engage attention in face of an older and stronger affection.

This treatment of attention looks better than it really is: it might be good either physiologically or psychically, but as stated it is a hopeless confusion. In the first place, many movements might be the physical counterpart of one thought; but if the unity of thought is described as a unity of movement the many movements must be one in themselves and as movements; which is meaningless. Secondly, Gassendi seems to think a unity comprehending the multiplicity is not distinct from the unity gained by omission. For him attention must always be attention to one thing because, being a movement, it can only be in one place at one time. This is at least intelligible as an exposition in terms of place and movement, but it makes the whole theory of attention hopelessly crude, and by itself excludes the mental characteristics which Gassendi is anxious to include in this stage of the psycho-physical life.

Although rooted in experience Phantasy can combine its elements in new ways, _e.g._ the imagination of the Hippogriff. This brings us to the second degree of Phantasy, which is called Compositio et divisio or assensio et dissensio, or affirmatio et negatio. The combination of ideas such as gives the centaur or the golden mountain is a combination of separate ideas: the ‘compositio’ to which we now pass differs from this in being an assimilation of one idea to a pre-existent group of ideas. It follows that this function is secondary, in the sense that it presupposes groups of ideas (aggeries) and that the process is of the nature of subsumption under a universal. As Gassendi draws upon animal life for his examples we might compare this with the ‘Logic of Recepts.’ The process is assumed to be purely psychological, and consists in the assimilation of a present idea with a group of ideas accompanied by definite consciousness of the act, and therefore in some degree constituting a ‘judicium.’ The progress of experience results in various aggregates of ‘vestigia’ in the brain: no one of these can be called universal, but the common elements in them all may be taken to give a sort of type of the kind. Hence a new perception may be identified as man rather than lion, because, though not identical with any existing man-image, it is more like a man’s image than a lion’s image. The difficulty of defining this stage of psychic life is felt by all who study the subject: it would be rash to assert that Gassendi made it fully clear to himself. He is however clear upon the point that if the activity is psychological it must be positive. The emergence of the negative marks the fully conscious proposition which is not found at this stage. Thus Comparison, as found here, is mere assimilation: it may be said ‘this is sweet’ or ‘this is bitter,’ but not ‘this is not sweet.’ If we are to refine to this degree, probably the terms sweet and bitter would have to be ruled out, and the psychic affirmative put in the form ‘this is such.’ Gassendi would say that at this stage there is no proposition at all, and thus save himself from the accusation of such mental atomism as is implied in the divorce of a positive notion (sweet) from its correlative (not sweet). If the second operation constitutes a perilous border region, how much more the third, which is Ratiocinatio, argumentatio, or discursus? But, ne voce ipsa statim offendamur, we distinguish Reason as either Sensitiva or Intellectiva. This is a distinction of kind which once for all settles the difficulty which the Church had found in putting beasts and men on one graduated scale. The differentia of this stage of Phantasy is found in the ability of animals to go beyond the given: they anticipate results, as when the dog runs from the uplifted stick; or choose between a present and a future pain, as when the ass endures the beating rather than go forward over the precipice. If we admit that the hare can reason that a leap breaks the scent and say with Gassendi ‘esse speciem quandam rationis in Brutis’; if we further discover that an animal perceives agreement and disagreement, which is the basis of propositions, where shall we limit Phantasy? The specious answer is to say that we limit it by the capacities of animals, and after all animals are not men. This might have been Gassendi’s reply; but he seems satisfied with proving that animals have some kind of Reason without troubling to define it too accurately. The chapter ends with a description of human reasoning which may have been intended to suggest a superiority, but seems more like a closure put on a discussion that threatened to bring Faith into collision with Reason. The discussion on Instinct begins with the definite statement that the Brutes have common notions or general propositions, which are rather innate to (ingenitae) than produced by the Senses. The fundamental faculty is Touch, and the dominant passions are Pleasure and Pain: these are related respectively to the good and the bad, and have as their active aspects attraction and repulsion. The result is a sort of innate proposition (notio sive habitus), such as Faciendum quod juvat, non faciendum quod nocet. The bull moves before the goad _immediately_; but where action is undertaken to avoid a _future_ pain, we must admit argumentatio. The chapter adds nothing to the theory of phantasy, but contains some interesting remarks on the ethics of animal life. Care for the young is derived from the parent’s care for itself, the embryo being a part of the parent: this is a provision which has a teleological aspect, being intended to secure preservation of the species (ad generis conservationem). The series of instinctive actions are expressions of subjective conditions: the period of gestation is a state upon which follows the presentiment to find a place for deposit and care of the young: memory, imitation, and a natural sense of the useful are the psychic elements of this state. Gassendi sums up his own doctrine thus: Phantasy is a faculty whose first function is to know; then, secondly, to arouse appetite and, thirdly, motive faculty, whose effects differ according to the means used. These effects include:

(1) Excitation of desires and passions—love, hate, and the like.

(2) Motion of spirits through the body.

(3) Tension of the nerves and muscles.

(4) Agitation of humours as in palpitation and blushing.

(5) Impressio illa macularum similitudinisque et deformitatis in foetu.

(6) External effects of any kind. These are in fact usually myths: external action (as _e.g._ that of the evil eye) is impossible, for the activity of Imaginatio is essentially immanent.

(_c_) INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS

I.

The mind or the Intellect of man is no mere faculty: it is a ‘pars essentialis substantialisve Hominis,’ and therefore is the same as the Rational Soul looked at as rational without regard to vegetative or sensitive parts. This view is the only one possible if we remember that we must argue so as to prove the Soul’s immortality (‘viam sternere ad astruendum eius Immortalitatem,’ II. 425): it would be simpler to take mens and Phantasia as identical in kind and different only in degree; but that is a priori impossible, as it leads to the admission that brutes might win immortality. The theory that the human anima is a part of the Anima Mundi must be rejected: it does not follow from the existence of stones that there must be a ‘forma lapidis’ diffused through the universe, nor that the universe has an anima because individual animae are found on it: apart from this, if we admit the universal mind, there is no sense in speaking of it as ‘divided’ or ‘distributed,’ since it is not corporeal. The doctrine of Reminiscence, as taught by Plato, is the stronghold of this position, but not impregnable. Why must we have innate ideas? Is it not enough if we have the facultas intelligendi comparandique ideas: we can then form ‘notiones anticipatas,’ and so have all that is required for the more intellectual functions. Another time-honoured fallacy is the duality of mind taught by those who recognise a passive and a universal (active) part. If the universal part is really other than our intellect, it is outside of our intellect, and therefore an unknown: if it is justified as the condition of our intelligence, it is not thereby proved an intelligence itself, any more than light is proved to be sight by being posited as the condition of sight. This is in fact regarded by Gassendi as a false attempt to go beyond the intellectual sphere in order to explain its functions: it ends in a hypostasis of mind to explain minds: he himself looks rather to the unity of mind as the source of illumination: we have already found, he says, that a sort of general phantasy arises in animals, which is actually nothing but the co-existence and self-reflection of many particular acts of phantasy: why then may not the light of reason be an immanent light and a self-illumination? (quorsum intelligibiles species non sua quaeque speciali luce perfundantur?).

II.

Gassendi, having rejected both Plato and Aristotle, proceeds to develope his own view. A hint has already been given us in the argument that the existence of a stone is not a proof of any universal form of stone pervading the universe. This argument is somewhat obscure, but it seems to mean that from the point of view of Being, a specific form implies not a general form, but a general substance of which it is the form. Thus a stone presupposes only matter-in-general, not stone-in-general, and the matter is general not in esse suo, but in reference to a special form. By analogy a specific mind will not imply a universal mind, but might imply some entity capable of standing in such a relation to the particular mind as matter does to the particular stone. This line of thought might seem to be leading us onward and upward to a mind above, but the face of Gassendi is toward the origins; and as matter is a name for all existing atoms viewed as unity, so if we penetrate beyond the specious unity of mind we come upon the ideas in their multiplicity. We must not suppose that by calling the Anima Rationalis a substance Gassendi makes it a thing; he means merely to exclude the views which make it a dependent existence, such as an ‘inseparabilis perfectio’ or a ‘harmonia’ must necessarily be.[82] He defines it as substantia incorporea, formam tanquam informantem, and this combination of terms defines our problem: we must first see from Gassendi’s statements how he conceives this entity called mind.

Our philosophy has given us an exposition of Phantasy. The first requisite is a distinction of mind from Phantasy. The points of difference are these:

(1) Phantasy is not capable of reflection: the knowledge that we know denotes an incorporeal agent, for it is a movement toward self, while the movement of the corporeal is always toward another.

(2) Many objects of the mind are not imaginable: they are intelligible, and the idea has significance, but no sense representation is possible, _i.e._ we cannot actually picture the sun as having the size which we know it to have.[83]

(3) Our knowledge of universality proves that we have a faculty higher than phantasy: the object here is incorporeal, and therefore requires an incorporeal Agent to know it. Gassendi distinguishes between having universals and knowing universality: as in the case of animals, Phantasy may attain to universals which Gassendi regards as purely psychological; but man is distinguished by having this ‘knowledge of universality,’ which seems to be simply the existence of the universal at a reflective stage of mind.

In these points the difference of mind and imagination are most marked; but the existence and nature of a higher faculty is made certain by other proofs. Knowledge of God, though not intuitive, demands a faculty that grasps the incorporeal. Will aims at the good, and thereby indicates a faculty capable of rising above the sense level, for which pleasure and pain would be the only ends.

Having thus demonstrated the existence of Intellect as a non-sensuous faculty, Gassendi proceeds to further define the nature of the human mind. As incorporeal and a form, the mind is in a sense ex nihilo, and the passage from nothing to something being an infinite process requires God. This is a declaration of war against the physical dogmas: the categories of science may be adequate if we are only concerned with things whose origin is really only a fresh disposition of matter; but what if our regress brings us to the whole? Can it be treated as we treat the parts? Does not our physical system demand for its own explanation something higher and greater? was not Daedalus greater than the machines he made? Ex nihilo nihil is, then, a category which means that every combination of elements postulates the existence of the elements thus combined: it will not reach to substances themselves, for we cannot show what elements or what combinations are required to produce a soul: it is for us a limit, and as such has beyond it only chaos, the Not-Being which is its only antecedent.

This production, though ex nihilo, is not unnatural: the propagation of man is ordained in uno ordine, and the production of the soul is in eodem ordine: so long as the phenomenal regularity is observed this remains a natural event. Thus Gassendi’s treatment of the soul as an original underived entity does not carry him into idle speculations: it is a treatment which (as he well knows) does not change the nature of the Anima, but serves to define the inadequacy of categories which were in danger of encroaching: it is a treatment also which never admits that quality can be generated out of mere quantity. This last point is most important, and Gassendi never swerves from his position: at this crisis, when we require to unite soul with body, and all the delicate gradations of ‘very subtle movements’ offer themselves as intermediary links, he sweeps them all away at a blow, declaring ‘seu crassum seu tenue sit corpus,’ the difficulty remains untouched. The position is acute: mind and matter having nothing in common, the sensitive soul will not serve as a link, hybrid though it be: to ascribe the unity to God is to say less than nothing: we stand before a unity for whose bond we find no ‘gluten,’ no grappling irons (ansis carentem), and no supreme force. We may well pause to ask what it is we propose to unite, and what manner of union we have to expound?

As to the nature of the soul confusion has arisen through trying to unite entities which had previously been so defined as to admit of no union: this difficulty can therefore be removed. It consists in supposing that the pure Intelligences, _i.e._ the angels, represent the real nature of our souls taken in abstraction from the body; but why should a human soul cease to be human merely because it is free from the human body? No change of kind is proved, only a change of condition. We have therefore no right to suppose that our souls, like the angelic beings, have any actus purus: on the contrary, the actus of souls is either mixtus or nothing at all.

Gassendi introduces this point of view by simply asserting that there are three natures of things, the purely spiritual, the purely corporeal, and the mixed. This gives us what might be called a concrete as opposed to the ordinary abstract view: for it is no longer possible to assert that the condition of the soul is an imprisonment by which its functions are impaired: its action is what it is, not because of its union with the body, but because of its own nature: it is not forced into an unequal yoke, but joined in a divine wedlock for which it was predestined (ipsaque ad eas nuptias propendeat). The original difficulty was made acute by the emphasis laid on the difference between soul and body: this is dissolved by Gassendi’s view, which does not demand that the two should be of one kind, but that they should be, like male and female, complementary. This is a recognition of identity in difference which promises much; but there is one point which qualifies our hopes. It is after all to the sensitive soul that the Anima Rationalis is united; and so ‘interventu sentientis corpori uniatur’: we might conjecture that Gassendi foresaw a possible difficulty in the fact that there are many forms of matter to which Intellect does not ally itself: it therefore became necessary to resolve both terms and say, ‘it is the nature of Intellect to unite itself to such matter as is of a nature to receive it.’ We may not perhaps be able to get much further on the main issue, but it is well to see clearly how much Gassendi really achieves. He is clearly right in taking the unity as his standing point, and not the absolute differences. He cannot be far wrong in asserting that if the unity is (as it is) a fact, the elements must be by nature adapted for the unity. The root of his difficulty is the fact that his terms do not represent these distinctions, but are names for distinct beings, and, much as he strives to get away from this, his factors, Soul and Body, insist on starting into independent realities. Here again the problem is confused by the terms, for corpus is a term which implies more than mere matter, and the union of the Anima Rationalis is ultimately only a union with a corpus in so far as that is previously Animatum (beseelt), though it has a specious appearance of explaining the union of opposites. To me this difficulty is made more serious by the metaphor of the marriage: for that clearly implies a tendency to introduce conceptions of mutual attraction which are confusing. Gassendi’s statement that the sensitive soul is qualified to be the recipient of the Anima Rationalis, not because of its tenuity, but because of its function in phantasy, shows that he rejects the attempt to make ‘a very subtle motion’ identical with a psychic activity, but equally clearly shows that he pushes back his real problem of passing over from physical to psychical into the more obscure regions of animal psychology.

We may now sum up Gassendi’s position. The Anima rationalis is so far distinct from all other entities as to be underivable from them: it is therefore a new creation: on the other hand, its creation is conditional, for it is so united to the Body as to be not merely co-existent (adsistans) but also coherent (informans): this union proves the factors not wholly antagonistic, but it requires definite conditions, and as the unity is also the birth of the Soul (for it is created by God in ordine naturae) it will follow that these conditions enter into its very being.

At the risk of some repetition, which is not alien to the spirit of Gassendi, we must further elucidate the nature of the Intellect by stating what our author calls its functions. The spirit of Occam inspires Gassendi to limit the machinery of thought: he identifies Anima Rationalis and mens in opposition to those who regarded the Intellect as a distinct faculty or an instrument: he rejects the distinction of active and passive unless agens be used to mean direct thought and patiens, indirect or reflective thought, where since the mind acts on itself, there must be some right to speak of it as receiving action (nata est recipere actum a se productum).

Ultimately Gassendi recognises only two faculties as required for the function of understanding. The phantasmata are the only objects: these are sensible species, but they can be understood, and there is therefore no need to interpose the so-called ‘intelligible’ species. Whatever the difficulties may be in the way of asserting that sensible species are capable of being understood, it is clearly better to take up that position than to assert that the understanding can have no objects except such as have already been understood. This introduces a point of considerable importance. The so-called ‘intelligible’ species were a distinct class of species which, as opposed to the sensible, were qualified to be the content of the mind; but how qualified? Apparently by being in some way the world of mind; but if we take a functional view of the mind, this reduces itself to absurdity, for the content of the mind will be its own functions, its only inducement to action will be the actions themselves, and knowledge will be impossible. This view of intelligible species, therefore, must be rejected if we once give up the idea of a mind which stores in itself pictures that are ‘intelligible’ before the mind understands them: we can only say species are intelligible in the sense in which _all_ species must be intelligible, _i.e._ capable of being understood.

The rejection of this bridge over the gulf necessitates further explanations. If the notion of the mind as envisaging pictures of the intellectual order is objectionable, the situation is made even worse by substituting pictures of the sensuous order. Gassendi sees this and proceeds consistently: he takes a functional view, inasmuch as he regards ideas as actions rather than things; but his idea of function can only be interpreted in terms of motion, and to these terms the ‘picturing’ of phantasy must be reduced. The image and the idea are now no longer opposed entities; they are both motions, and seem ultimately the same motion. In the case of sight we have a sense process ending in a perception: by analogy we may have a process of phantasia ending in an intellectual activity. Phantasy is subject to appulse, but intellect is not: the phantasy is the end of the motion of spirits, but in addition to the perception there arises a conception: in eodem momento intellectus contuetur, says Gassendi,[84] and if we take this with what has been said above of the self-illumination of ideas, it will be seen that contuetur means perception from the point of view of a system: this action of mind is a reaction, and by its nature cannot be explained as identical with a motion ab extra: the passage from corporeal to incorporeal must come somewhere, and in spite of long delay, it remains at the last an unique process. The terms in which Gassendi states the relation of Intellect to Imagination are so far from conveying any very definite idea that it may be best to elaborate his position. He seems to mean that the agent, whatever it be, of intellectual processes is so indivisibly one with the nature of man as thinking being that any disturbance of any part must imply its activity: a thrill runs through the whole mass if the appulse once disturbs the equilibrium of the sense machinery (dum phantasia percellitur, ipsi coagat intellectus). To this we may make a most important addition, viz. the converse: for if the intellect acts, the Imagination responds as best it may. The idea of God is not derived from the senses, and yet cannot be presented in thought without a sensuous form. Hence, from the point of view of physical analysis, Intellect and Imagination are not distinguishable: Gassendi therefore adds the proofs that they are not identical, the most important of which is the direct consciousness that understanding goes beyond sensuous forms, that we mean more than we can put into the sense forms: if we present God in anthropomorphic fashion it is not the human form that is of prime importance, but the concepts which we thus embody.

(_d_) THE HABITS OF INTELLECT

If any doubt remained as to the extent to which Gassendi regards man as an organic unity, it would be dispelled at once by the tone of this chapter. The so-called Habits of the understanding are really habits of the brain: habit presupposes a substance with some rigidity; and we must fall back on Phantasia and the doctrine of vestigia to supply this want. It follows that in memory we may have what are really products of Intellect, for the Intellect creates a symbolic phantasy to enable it to recall non-sensuous facts through a sensuous train of ideas. All failure of the understanding to receive its ideas are failures of this cerebral machinery: if we suppose that there is a memory belonging to pure Intellect, it would not be possible to explain defects of memory, which are experienced quite as much in the non-sensuous as in the sensuous sphere.

This polemic is really directed against some contemporary Platonism: it is therefore introductory to the description of knowledge, and seems to clear away all prejudices in favour of Reminiscence or innate ideas. Three types of knowledge may be distinguished: God knows intuitively by pure reason and ‘ideas innatas’: angels know by virtue of ‘ideas concreatas,’ a limited form of intuition: man requires the discursive reason which deals with ideas furnished in Phantasy, and ultimately derived from sense.[85] Without Intellect Phantasy is blind (Phantasia ab initio sit quasi caeca seu specierum omnino expers): it has ‘percepts’ in a sense, but its species represent only the ‘externos cortices’ of things; the Intellect surveying these species and detecting the nature of some (perspectis aliquibus possit vi sua suspicari et conjecturam ducere de interna aliqua proprietate) proceeds to collect instances, and so by induction arrives beyond the outer husk to the inner core. The result of the Inductive process is a direct intuition: the ideal is to make our Intellect absolutiorem, _i.e._ capable of seeing the whole in the part: so that Plato may be said to have given us the right ideal and Aristotle the right method. Gassendi here follows Descartes in making the understanding move in intuitions; the form of the syllogism is therefore only of use for teaching others: the conclusion is to the reasoner consistent with the premisses, and forms with them a whole. As this process ends in self-evident knowledge, Gassendi considers that all the ‘self-evident first principles’ depend on processes: these truths are products of experience, and all such products would be as self-evident as the ‘axioms’ if we knew as much about them. The child from its birth sees objects with magnitude, and therefore with parts: hence if the general proposition ‘The whole is greater than its part’ is propounded and the terms understood, the confused experiences of a life-time leap into being and proclaim it true; it will be equally self-evident that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, when the mind is as familiar with the nature of triangles. Gassendi objects to the common use of the phrase ‘natura notiora’: as applied to universals it must mean better known by those who know them, which is to say by us: it is then false, for we know the particulars better: if it means known to nature, it is wrong; and if it means in se nota it is nonsense, for knowledge is a relation. In this last argument Gassendi strikes at a position rooted in a substantive theory of ideas: the tendency to regard thoughts as entities made it possible to speak of ideas as possessing knowledge much as substance possessed its primary qualities, and by the same kind of ‘inherence’: Gassendi’s functional view enables him to see that the reality of the known is to be known, its use is intelligi, and the universals can have no quality of knowableness, except such as our intellectual experience verifies;[86] and by this criterion we may judge the universal to be ‘better known’ in proportion as the particulars are better known, or, in other words, in proportion as its content is developed.

The reason why universals appear better known is that we tend to isolate intellect, and it then appears to know its own work best. But the ideas must come from the particulars: if not, they are created by the mind; but why should the mind create universals rather than particulars? It is only by allowing a knowledge of particulars that we can justify the existence of universals, since the universality is essentially relative to the plurality of particulars. In this way the universal idea obtains its merits at the hand of Gassendi. It loses its character as an entity, with universal being, and survives as an idea with more than a particular significance: further than this we need not at present go.

(_e_) THE PASSIONS

In distinction from the Intellectual part of the Soul called Cognoscens, the term Appetens denotes that faculty by which the Soul apprehends and moves toward the good and bad. The pars appetens, or substantively the Appetitus, denotes both faculty and function, being in fact the νοῦς ὀρεκτικός of Aristotle, and comprising both ὄρεξις and ὁρμή. It might well be called the pars affectiva of the Soul, for it is more than mere cupiditas, and comprises all affections: it is also more than will, for voluntas is the name of an action only, and not of a faculty. We are now entering on the psychology of the practical life. As we shall see (p. 162) the question of activity does not trouble Gassendi in this connexion, for he believes that thought is always activity; consequently, the real distinction comes in the nature of the objects toward which the Soul’s activity is directed. In the case of the pars cognoscens this object is truth, for the pars appetens it is the good or the bad which the understanding comprehends, and the appetite seeks or avoids. In a sense this faculty is secondary, for it implies knowledge, a cognoscente excitatur et dirigitur. In accordance with the line of thought indicated above, where it was shown that Phantasy was subject to action both from without and from within, we may distinguish the affections which come to the mind from without, and those which originate from within. Understanding and Phantasy can act without Appetite (or appetency). It follows therefore that the bodily affections due to appulse are not identical with those called appetite. The point is this: an affection ab extra ends in an idea: it is a motion that produces an image: an appetency is a motion too, and at first sight seems to have no difference except that it goes in the opposite direction (emotion). But there is more than this, for all ideas do not continue into emotions, and the phantasy, we are told, though closely bound up with sense, can act without disturbing appetite. We can therefore think without emotional feeling: when the intellectual ‘feeling’ does arouse appetite we have the overflow of motion into the body (appetitus functio in corpus redundet). For example, if I see an apple and do not want it, the motion terminates in perception: if on the contrary I do want it, this want may exhibit itself in the overflow of the spirits into the body: my mouth may water or some other effect be produced.

The meaning of this is quite clear, but it is difficult to understand why a sensuous faculty, such as phantasia, should have any functions that were not in some degree emotional, why we should have imaginations wholly free from any form of desire; and Gassendi seems here to have relied on the distinction of motion inward and motion outward with the accompanying idea that the reversal of the motion would require a definite act of the central organism.

If we can have perceptions without emotions in the sphere of the phantasy, it might be thought that the intellect would be self-contained, and either have no emotions or only intellectual emotions. Gassendi is however clear that an emotion is always a bodily reaction, and he therefore expressly says that even our most intellectual objects, if made objects of desire, must arouse bodily reactions: he is thus opposed to such an idea as the amor intellectualis of Spinoza: quia Deus Rationalem Animam corpori connectens ea conditione esse illam voluit ut non modo res caeteras sed ipsum quoque gloriosum Deum corporeo modo seu corporea aliqua specie quasi obvelatum intelligat, nihil mirum est si voluntas affectu quodam corporeo non modo in alia sed in Deum quoque ipsum feratur: ac Deus idcirco amari se ab homine ut ex tota mente totaque anima, sic ex toto corde omnibusque viribus jubeat; quippe quasi mens animave amare quidem debeat, sed amorem tamen suum nisi corde viribusque etiam corporeis exprimere non possit.

It must be remembered in this connexion that if Gassendi asserts that the affections of the mind (Animus) differ from those of the body, he is not thereby proving that one is psychic and the other not: it may be a question of the higher and lower parts of the Soul (Anima). Cp. II. 480, ‘esse unumquemque speciali quadam temperie ac non modo corpus sed Animam quoque, hoc est inferiorem partem animae, quae corporea est, speciali esse contextura ... ut in quam rem propendeat corpus, propendeat ipsa anima.’ Our likes and dislikes are therefore always psychic: the obscure point is what relation of Animus to Anima could unite the Animus to the Anima without necessitating the reverse relation of the Anima to Animus and a free pathway for motions in either direction. Gassendi says the Soul moves the body: we ask why cannot the body move the Soul?

It is clear that in this point the doctrine of motion has not been allowed to work itself out free from prejudice. The inconsistency, such as it is, seems due to Gassendi’s tendency to give the non-corporeal part of man its due position: he even asserts in so many words that the affections of the mind must be wholly different from those of the body, and inclines to over-assert his opposition to a materialistic interpretation of emotions. The opinion ascribed to Epicurus was fundamentally materialistic. The external stimuli, it was said, penetrated to the senses and reached the Soul: if they were agreeable, the Soul expanded, if disagreeable it contracted, and the Soul being conscious of its own movements, these expansions and contractions constituted emotions. The weak point of the theory was its naïve assumption that the motions of the corpuscles could have any such character as agreeableness or disagreeableness _in themselves_ while still on the way to the Soul. It is in opposition to this that Gassendi asserts that the mind must _understand_ the impulse before there can be any affection in the proper sense of the term: if this be denied, only expansion and contraction will be left to us, and these do not involve any kind of feeling necessarily. Gassendi did well to steer away from such a shoal, but he can hardly be said to establish an unambiguous result. If we consider the theory further, it will be evident that the rationalistic element which is generated by opposition to materialism, is itself arrested by a distinctly biological vein of thought. Appetite is moved by contact, and is therefore in a sense co-extensive with the periphery of the body: all sense is touch and all touch is either pleasant or painful. Pain is a breach of continuity (dolorem ex ipsa continui solutione oriri): pleasure is the restitution of a normal condition. This normal condition is Indolentia, a mental state of complete equilibrium. Pleasure and pain are states: the active element by which the transition from one state to another is mediated, is called Cupiditas. This middle term causes movement out of the state of equilibrium: it is therefore not necessary that every pleasure be preceded by a pain, for it is possible to go from a state of pleasure into one of pain. The primary affections, Pleasure and Pain, in their lowest forms do not imply intellectual activity: hunger and sexual desires are made unpleasant in order that they may excite actions conducive to the maintenance of the species. In the natural condition the pleasant is the good; but the memory is liable to retain the idea of pleasure and seek the sensation when the conditions are wanting (_e.g._ eating when already satisfied).[87] It follows from this that the lowest stage of life to which we trace emotions, is capable of such intellectual activities as are implied in Phantasia, which is consistent with Gassendi’s denial that animals are automata. Those emotions which differ from the primary affections are marked by the presence of opinion: the mere universal is not enough: we must realise that the particular is a good for us: this causes a movement of the heart and so leads to action, whereas a speculative knowledge remains in the head. This seems the high-road to ‘popular philosophy,’ and scarcely calls for further attention.

We have already pointed out that the ‘pars affectiva’ can, like the Phantasy, be considered both from the point of view of the activities which it originates, and that of the activities originated in it. Similarly, we can regard the ‘pars affectiva’ either from the point of view of the feelings which it undergoes or that of the feelings it originates. Pain and pleasure are the fundamental affections, and these terms are consequently the most comprehensive. The primary ground of feelings is the actual physical effect which a thing is capable of producing in the organism; but if we are dealing, as we now are, with complex organisms, there will be more than the mere physical reactions which lower organisms exhibit. Hence we find when we come to classify the affections, that pleasure and pain do not cover all the varieties of our experience.

The classification runs thus. Appetitus divides into that which belongs to the ‘anima rationalis’ and that which belongs to the pars irrationalis. In the former case the appetitus is based on the understanding, in the latter, on the phantasy. As to the former, Gassendi declares that the soul (anima rationalis) has affection of its own such as the pure love of the good, but the abstract nature of this affection, though capable of distinction in theory, is not capable of very exact definition because it is rarely found in isolation. The seat of this affection is in the brain, and it is therefore so united with the general organism that it almost always functions with some bodily reactions. The only practicable distinction of these affections is that they imply a rational activity prior to their own manifestation.

The second class, on the contrary, do not imply the antecedence of any act of judgment: they depend on phantasy and are modified by the action of Will. The species of this genus are very varied, but can be to some extent classified if we take into consideration the elements of which they are composed. The specific forms of pleasure and pain are joy and sorrow, that is to say pleasure and pain are the states whose effects are joy and sorrow: for it must be remembered that pleasure and pain are terms which primarily denote states, whereas the affection is not a state viewed as a cause of feeling, but the feeling itself. Gassendi here takes into consideration the expression involved in an emotion, and so distinguishes the emotion as an effect from the state or condition which is its cause. If pleasure is directly connected with an object it developes into love: if to this be added the condition of absence or futurity we have the state of desire or hope, from which come confidence and audacity. On the other side, taking pain as our basis, we get corresponding to these, hate, aversion, fear, despair, and pusillanimity. These are the elements which unite to form character.

On the contents of this chapter, which have not greatly impressed me, I quote the judgment of another more in sympathy with the topic: ‘Nul avant lui n’avait étudié avec autant de méthode et de profondeur les passions de l’âme ... il est le premier qui ait ébauché la _science du charactère_, qui a pris une si grande importance de nos jours. Sur ce point, d’ailleurs, comme sur beaucoup d’autres, nul écrivain ne cite les recherches de Gassendi.’[88] Is this true outside of France, or only in it?