Continuation of the examination of the Second Book of the Essay on the Human Understanding. Of the idea of time.-Of the idea of the infinite.- ESSAY, SECOND BOOK. OF THE IDEA OF CAUSE. Continuation of the examination of the Second Book of the Essay on the Human Understanding. Of the idea of cause.--Refutation of the theory which puts the origin of the idea of cause in the sensation.-Origin of the idea of cause in reflection, in the sentiment of the will.-Distinction between the idea of cause and the principle of causality. That the principle of causality is inexplicable by the sentiment of the will alone. Of the true ESSAY, SECOND BOOK. OF GOOD AND EVIL. THIRD BOOK, OF Continuation of the examination of the Second Book of the Essay on the Hu- man Understanding. Of the idea of good and evil. Refutation.—Of the formation and mechanism of ideas in the understanding. Of simple and complex ideas. Of the activity and passivity of the mind in the acquisition of ideas. Of the most general characters of ideas.-Of the association of ideas.-Examination of the Third Book of the Essay on the Human Under- standing, in regard to words.-Praise due to the author.-Examination of the following propositions: 1st, Do words take their first origin from other words which signify sensible ideas?-2d, Is the signification of words purely arbitrary ?-3d, Are general ideas merely words? Of nominalism and realism.—4th, Are words the sole cause of error, and is all science only a well-constructed language? Conclusion of the examination of the ESSAY, FOURTH BOOK. THEORY OF REPRESENTATIVE IDEAS. Examination of the Fourth Book of the Essay, in regard to knowledge. That knowledge, according to Locke, depends, 1st, on ideas; 2d, on ideas con- formed to their object. That the conformity or nonconformity of ideas with their objects, as the foundation of the true or of the false in knowl- edge, is not a simple metaphor in Locke, but a veritable theory.-Exami- nation of the theory of representative ideas, 1st, in relation to the exterior world, to secondary qualities, to primary qualities, to the substratum of these qualities, to space, to time, etc.; 2d, in relation to the spiritual ESSAY, FOURTH BOOK, REPRESENTATIVE IDEAS CONTINUED. Summary and continuation of the preceding lecture.-Of the idea, no longer in relation to the object which it should represent, but in relation to the mind which perceives it and in which it is found.-The idea-image, taken materially, implies a material subject; whence materialism.-Taken spirit- ually, it can give neither bodies nor spirit.-That the representative idea laid down as the only primitive datum of spirit in the search after reality, condemns to a paralogism, it being impossible that any representative idea can be judged to represent well or ill, except by comparing it with its original, with reality itself, to which, in the hypothesis of the repre- sentative idea, we can arrive only by the idea. That knowledge is direct and without intermediation.-Of judgments, of propositions, of ideas.- Examination of the Fourth Book of the Essay on the Human Understanding continued. Of knowledge. Its different modes. Omission of inductive knowledge. Its degrees. False distinction of Locke between knowing and judging.-That Locke's theory of knowledge and of judgment is resolved into that of the perception of a relation of agreement or of disa- greement between ideas. Detailed examination of this theory.-That it is applied to abstract judgments and in nowise to primitive judgments, which imply existence.-Analysis of this judgment: I exist. Three ob- jections to the theory of Locke: 1st, impossibility of arriving at real existence, by the abstraction of existence; 2d, that to begin by abstraction is contrary to the true process of the human mind; 3d, that the theory of Locke contains a paralogism.-Analysis of the judgments: I think, This body exists, This body is colored, God exists, &c.-Analysis of the judg- Continuation of the last lecture. That the theory of judgment as the per- ception of a relation of agreement or disagreement between ideas supposes that every judgment is founded upon a comparison. Refutation of the theory of comparative judgment.—Of axioms.—Of identical propositions.--- Of reason and faith.--Of the syllogism.-Of enthusiasm.-Of the causes of error.-Division of sciences. End of the examination of the Fourth Book LECTURE XXV. ESSAY, LIBERTY. SOUL. GOD. CONCLUSION. Examination of three important theories which are found in the Essay on the 399 LECTURE IX. SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.* Scholastic Philosophy.-Its character and its origin.-Division of Scholas ticism into three epochs.-First epoch.-Second epoch.--Third epoch. Birth of philosophical independence; quarrel of nominalism and realism, which represent idealism and sensualism in Scholasticism.-John Occam. His partisans and his adversaries.--Decrial of the two systems and of Scholasticism.-Mysticism.-Chancellor Gerson. His Mystic Theology. Extracts from this work.-Conclusion. HITHERTO, both in India and in Greece, we have constantly seen philosophy spring from religion; and at the same time we have seen that it springs not from it at once, that a single day is not enough for it to raise itself from the humble submission by which it begins, to the absolute independence in which it terminates. Hitherto we have seen it passing through an epoch, somewhat preparatory, therein trying its forces in the service of a foreign principle, reduced to the modest employment of governing and regulating creeds which it did not establish, in expectation of the moment when it shall be able to search out truth itself at its own risk and peril. Modern philosophy presents the same phenomenon. It is also preceded by an epoch which serves it as an introduction, and, thus to speak, as a vestibule. This epoch is scholasticism. As the middle age is the cradle of modern society, so scholasticism is that of modern philosophy. What the middle age is to the new society, scholasticism is to * These outlines of the entire system of Scholastic philosophy need to be strengthened and in some points rectified by study more limited but more solid than may be found in the Introduction of a work entitled: Œuvres inédites d'Abélard, Paris 1836, in-4. This Introduction, with some additions, forms the 3d volume of the Fragments philosophiques. the philosophy of the new times. Now, the middle age is nothing else than the absolute reign of ecclesiastical authority, of which the political powers are only the more or less docile instruments. Scholasticism, or the philosophy of the middle age, could not then be any thing else than the labor of thought in the service of faith, and under the inspection of religious authority. Such is scholastic philosophy. Its employment is limited, its bounds narrow, its existence precarious, inferior, subordinate. Well! here again philosophy is philosophy; and scarcely has it fortified itself by time, scarcely is the hand which was over it removed, or become less weighty, when philosophy resumes its natural course, and produces again the four different systems which it has already produced both in India and in Greece. In the absence of chronology we cannot form a precise idea of the epoch corresponding to scholasticism in Indian philosophy. We distinguish the Mimansa school from the Sankhya school. But when did the Mimansa begin? When did the Sankhya begin? We are ignorant of this. Induction leads us to believe that the Mimansa must have preceded the Sankhya; nevertheless facts, in this India where every thing endures so long, where every thing exists in a state of confusion, facts show the Mimansa to be of a recent epoch. Thus Koumarila, the famous Mimansa doctor of whom I have spoken, was of the fourteenth century of our era. In Greece, we know at least when philosophy began; it began six centuries before our era with Thales and Pythagoras. But the epoch which precedes, that of the Mysteries, is covered with profound darkness. What took place between Orpheus and Pythagoras, between Musæus and Thales? How did the human mind go from the sanctuary of the temples to the schools of Ionia and of Greece at large? We know but ill, or rather we do not know at all. In regard to the middle age we are much more fortunate. We know when scholasticism began, we know when it ceased, and we know its development between these two periods; we know its starting point, its progress, and its end. |