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CLASSICAL ESSAY |
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by Etienne Bonnet de Condillac
Notions of a Man Possessing the Sense of Smell Only The notions of our statue being limited to the sense of smell, can include odors only. It cannot have any conception of extent, of form, of anything external to itself, or to its sensations, any more than it can have of color, sound or taste. If we offer the statue a rose, it will be, in its relation to us, a statue which smells a rose; but in relation to itself, it will be merely the scent itself of the flower. Therefore, according to the objects which act upon its organ, it will be scent of rose, of carnation, of jasmine, of violet. In a word, odors are, in this respect merely modifications of the statue itself or modes of being; and it is not capable of believing itself aught else, since these are the only sensations it can feel. Let those philosophers to whom it is so evident that everything is material, put themselves for a moment in the place of the statue, and let them reflect how they could suspect that there exists anything resembling what we call matter. We may then already be convinced that it is sufficient to increase or to diminish the number of the senses to cause us to come to conclusions wholly different from those which are at present so natural to us, and our statue, limited to the sense of smell, may thus enable us to comprehend somewhat the class of beings whose notions are the most restricted. The Sleep and Dreams of a Man Limited to the Sense of Smell Our statue may be reduced to the condition of being merely the remembrance of an odor; then the sense of its existence appears to be lost to it. It feels less that it is existing than that it has existed, and in proportion as memory recalls ideas to it with less intensity, this remnant of feeling becomes weaker yet. Like a light which goes out gradually, the feeling ceases wholly when the faculty of memory becomes entirely inactive. Now, our own experience compels us to believe that exercise must in the end fatigue the memory and the imagination of the statue. Let us therefore consider these faculties at rest, and refrain from exciting them by any sensation: the resultant condition will be that of sleep. If the repose of these faculties be such that they are completely inactive, there is nothing to note, save that the sleep is the soundest possible. If, on the contrary, these faculties continue to act, they will act upon a part only of the notions acquired. A number of links in the chain will be cut out, and the succession of ideas, during sleep, will necessarily differ from the order in a waking state. Pleasure will no longer be the sole cause determining the action of the imagination. This faculty will awaken those ideas only over which it still exercises a measure of power, and it will tend just as frequently to make the statue unhappy as to make it happy. This is the dreaming state: it differs from the waking state only in that the ideas do not preserve the same order and that pleasure is not always the law which governs the imagination. Every dream, therefore, involves the interception of a number of ideas, on which the faculties of the soul are unable to act. Since the statue is unacquainted with any difference between imagining intensely and having sensations, it cannot distinguish any difference between dreaming and waking. Whatever, therefore, it experiences while asleep is as real, so far as it is concerned, as what it has experienced before falling asleep. Of the Ego, or Personality of a Man -- Limited to the Sense of Smell Our statue being capable of remembering, it is no sooner one odor than it remembers that it has been another. That is its personality, for if it could say I, it would say it at every instant of its own duration, and each time its I would comprise all the moments it remembered. True, it would not say it at the first odor. What is meant by that term seems to me to suit only a being which notes in the present moment, that it is no longer what it has been. So long as it does not change, it exists without thought of itself; but as soon as it changes, it concludes that it is the selfsame which was formerly in such another state, and it says I. This observation confirms the fact that in the first instant of its existence the statue cannot form desires, for before being able to say I wish, one must have said I. The odors which the statue does not remember do not therefore enter into the notion it has of its own person. Being as foreign to its Ego as are colors and sounds, of which it has no knowledge, they are, in respect of the statue, as if the statue had never smelted them. Its Ego is but the sum of the sensations it experiences and of those which memory recalls to it. In a word, it is at once the consciousness of what it is and the remembrance of what it has been. Conclusions Having proved that the statue is capable of being attentive, of remembering, of comparing, of judging, of discerning, of imagining; that it possesses abstract notions, notions of number and duration; that it is acquainted with general and particular truths; that desires are formed by it, that it has the power of passions, loves, hates, wills; and finally that it contracts habits, we must conclude that the mind is endowed with as many faculties when it has but a single organ as when it has five. We shall see that the faculties which appear to be peculiar to us are nothing else than the same faculties which, applied to a greater number of objects, develop more fully. If we consider that to remember, compare, judge, discern, imagine, be astonished, have abstract notions, have notions of duration and number, know general and particular truths, are but different modes of attention; that to have passions, to love, to hate, to hope, to fear and to will are but different modes of desire, and that, finally, attention and desire are in their essence but sensation, we shall conclude that sensation calls out all the faculties of the soul. If we consider that there are no absolutely indifferent sensations, we shall further conclude that the different degrees of pleasure and of pain constitute the law according to which the germ of all that we are has developed in order to produce all our faculties. This principle may be called want, astonishment, or otherwise, but it remains ever the same, for we are always moved by pleasure or by pain in whatever we are led to do by need or astonishment. The fact is that our earliest notions are pain or pleasure only. Many others soon follow these, and give rise to comparisons, whence spring our earliest needs and our earliest desires. Our researches, undertaken for the purpose of satisfying these needs and desires, cause us to acquire additional notions which in their turn produce new desires. The surprise which makes us feel intensely any extraordinary thing happening to us, increases from time to time the activity of our faculties, and there is formed a chain the links of which are alternately notions and desires, and it is sufficient to follow up this chain to discover the progress of the enlightening of man. Nearly all that I have said about the faculties of the soul, while treating of the sense of smell, I might have said if I had taken any other sense; it is easy to apply all to each of the senses.
Excerpted from Treatise on Sensations, by Etienne Bonnet de Condillac |
Philosophical Writings of Etienne Bonnot, Abbe De Condillac Condillac: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
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