The best foundation we can give to this enquiry is That all faculties have a natural inclination to produce those actions which are in their power that they tend thither as to their end and to their perfection and that they never forbear to act when all conditions necessary to action occur From this principle which is as clear as the light and which draws its proof from all things which are in the Universe it follows that all the faculties of the soul have the same inclination that they seek but to act and that those which have no other action but knowledge cannot hinder themselves from knowing when their objects are present and when they are not otherwise diverted If there are then the principal actions which form knowledge to wit the first Conception the Judgment and the Discourse It must needs be that the faculties which are capable to produce them produce them in effect when the object of every of these actions are present unto them and that they are neither diverted nor hindered Now the object of the first are those which present themselves under one onely Image That of the second are those which present themselves under two images which may unite or separate themselves That of the third are the rest which are of a greater number and which may be linked together by a middle which is common unto them So that in the same manner as at the presence of a simple object that faculty which is not diverted is necessitated and cannot hinder it self from producing in it self that image in which the first and simple conceptions consists And that it 's constrained to unite or divide two different images wherein the judgment consists as also when it finds more which linck themselves together it must of necessity bind them and make this return and circular motion in which the nature of Ratiocination consists as we have shewed From hence we must necessarily conclude that it 's indifferent for this third operation for the things to be evident or doubtful forasmuch as supposing that there are three terms or three images which altenatively may joyn themselves together and suffer this circular revolution we have spoken of The faculty must necessarily assemble them since it is not hindred and that the object of its action is present But yet it follows That Evidence and Certainty far from serving as an obstacle to Ratiocination advance and favour it and on the contray Doubt and Obscurity retard and hinder it For it 's certain that if the connexion of terms is evident and certain the concatenation which discourse requires will the sooner be made and more perfectly then if it be found obscure and doubtful Forasmuch as time and pains is required to take away obscurity and doubt and consequently to encounter this common concatenation which ought to unite all the parts of Ratiocination But this truth cannot be contested if it be true That there are Ratiocinations made in an instant as we have shewed For all the propositions which compose them being then at the same time known there can be not one more doubtful and obscure then the other and the conclusion which makes it self assoon known as the antecedents ought to be as clear and evident as they can be To conclude Experience and the Schools teach us That Science and opinion may be found together for one and the same thing as well as Faith and Science and therefore since we cannot prove the conclusions of Science by topical Arguments and Propositions of faith by demonstrations we may reason on things which are not doubtful The conclusions of Science and the propositions of faith leaving no doubt and being most certain and most assured Yet we may object two things p. 113. The first That the Soul ought then to go all at once to the conclusion without making all this progress unprofitable to its self But to this we answer That this progress is natural to the Soul that she cannot march otherwise and that to make her move in another manner were to violence her nature and to destroy that action which is most proper and most convenient for us as a circle which cannot otherwise be moved but by the turns and circumvolutions it makes about it self The Soul which in some manner may be said to be of that gender cannot also move but by discourse which is a circular motion It gives it self some agitation in its first Knowledges but if she is not hindered she never stops there and ever makes its revolutions entire Indeed without doubt whoever would observe the manner whereby the Understanding knows things will find that it makes but few motions or simple propositions which are not accompanied with a compleat discourse and although speech makes but one part appear it forbears not to make it in its self intire and to joyn in secret to the notions it expresseth the antecedents or the consequences it 's composed of This also is performed with that swiftness that it 's impossible the Voyce and Tongue should follow it nor that speech should mark all the thoughts it forms in these encounters As much is to be said of the Imagination and even with more right because it 's a Faculty which is not free as is the Understanding but which is absolutely determined by the objects and which operates not but for the preservation of the Animal So that we may be assured that she knows nothing but she makes a practical judgment of it whether it be to follow or to forsake it whether it be to do it or not to do it now if this be so it forms no Action nor Proposition without reasoning as hath been shewed in the precedent discourse However it be the progress which the soul makes by reasoning thus is not useless to it as hath been said for although the conclusion were as evident unto it as the propositions it makes use of to attain it yet she fortifies herself in the certainty she hath of it by the knowledg which these propositions afford her she takes them as witnesses which do not discover to her the truth which she knew from elsewhere but which confirm her in it Neither is it a thing particular unto her on this occasion she doth the same in all her other knowledges for although she is assured by a sense of the object which it represents yet she enquires the judgment of others she will have those truths confirm'd by experience which reason holds indubitable and that reason shal hold up these experiences which she beleeves most certain She will even reason on misteries of Religion and joyn Science with Faith as she often joyns Opinion with Science and herein she follows the intention of Nature which to assure Animals in the knowledge of things useful unto them will that all the faculties and all the means given to that end shall concur thereunto together This doctrine is not unknown in the Schools who hold that the first principles
Before we enter into the Examen of our opinions we must both of us agree in one Truth which cannot be contradicted to wit That when a beast eats any thing which he knows is sweet its certain he will eat it and that he would not eat it did he not finde it good to eat forasmuch as nothing moves the appetite but what is good and therefore he knows the connexion which sweetness hath with goodness since he findes not the thing good but because its sweet and that if it were not sweet he would not judge it good The question then is to know whether it be necessary for him to know the universal annexion of sweetness with goodness or whether it be sufficient for him onely to know that which is to be found betwixt these two particular qualities And of necessity M. C. must take the one side or the other unless he hath a design to commence a suit against Nature as well as against me if he therefore beleeves that a beast knows the universal connexion of sweetness with goodness there is nothing hinders but that a beast my deduce the proposed consequence and conclude after having known That a thing is sweet That the thing is good to eat because he knows that all what is sweet is good to eat After this manner would M. C. fall into the opinion which we maintain that Beasts reason although by another way For we beleeve it sufficient for them to know the particular connexion of sweetness with goodness to conclude that such a thing is good to eat In effect if it be true that they know the connexion which those two qualities have with one another as we have shewed and that they can conceive nothing that 's universal that being above the material faculty it 's necessary they should know the particular connexion which these two things have together So that since they judge a thing good to eat because they find it sweet it follows that the knowledge of that particular connexion is sufficient to make them conclude that such a thing is good to eat since that in effect they do so neither are they deceived in their judgment I must confess indeed that there is an universal connexion of sweetness with goodness which serves for the foundation of that truth which beasts know but it s in Nature and not in the Imagination which is not obliged to know it that it may certainly infer that such a thing in particular is good to eat it s like those who do things by rote For what they do is conformable to the rules of Art although they know it not neither doth their ignorance hinder them from doing it as perfect as it could be done So the Imagination knows not that all what is sweet is good to eat but onely that the sweet is good to eat and with this particular knowledge it as certainly knows it ought to eat it as if it had a general knowledge thereof Last of all since what it thus knows is found true what need it seek it any other way And since Syllogisms may be made of particular propositions which make a good conclusion Why then may not that which it makes be good M.C. hereupon says That from that any sweet thing is good to eat it follows not that that is it It s true and I confess that beasts sometimes deceive themselves neither did I say their Syllogisms were demonstrative It is sufficient if they be probable and that commonly they make them to know the particular connexion which Nature hath placed betwixt those two qualities for by her they know that such a thing is good to eat with as much certainty as all other sensible things may be known It is certain they do not know that they know it for to know a thing and to know that one knows it are two different things although M. C. it seems hath confounded them To know that we know we must consider the general Reasons and the form of reasoning which we use in a word we must make a reflection on that knowledge which Beasts are not capable of But to know and to know a thing simply this is not necessary and its sufficient that the notion we have of it be like the nature of the thing which presents it self without examining the principles or the means whereby we know it That sweetness cannot move the Appetite untill the Imagination hath judged it good After this M. C. makes me three great questions and askes me Who could have told me That Beasts did not eat before they made all these fair Discourses That sweetness was not sufficient to move the Appetite if the Imagination knew not that it were good to eat and that it makes three different judgements from the two first of which it infers a third But I shall answer in a word It is reason told me so And I wonder that having made him see it so clear and evident it hath not preswaded him the same thing I have much more reason to ask who told him That sweetness is sufficient to move the Appetite without its being necessary for the imagination to judge that the sweet thing is good to eat For no Philosopher could have taught him this Maxim nor could any Reason have engaged him in a Proposition which destroys the first elements of Philosophy All the world is agreed that the Appetite cannot be moved but by what is good and that therefore sweetness as sweetness cannot move it it must be known as good but also as good to eat if the Appetite will eat it Now the sence knows not this goodness as M. C. confesseth presently after and therefore it must be the Imagination since the Appetite affords no kind of Knowledge Certanly it will endanger those which will perceive how M. C. hath abused himself with such gross errors to be scandalized with the reproach he makes me That I onely brought fair words to maintain my opinion without having troubled my self to uphold them with solid Reasons And perhaps some will say that he hath used neither to destroy them and as there is more trouble to build then to ruine he hath done wisely to have established nothing since he hath succeeded so ill in that which was most easie For my part all that I can say in this encounter is That he ought not to have contented himself to have learnt from all the men he had converst with That Beasts did not reason He ought also to have informed himself of the reasons which they had to beleeve in and boldly to have produced them for the defence of the Truth for the reputation of those with whom he had spoken and perhaps for the instruction of those to whom he hath not spoken But what Could he have brought a better reason to prove that Beasts reason not then the experience which he hath made thereof in himself he hath as he saith examined the actions of his sensitive Appetite and after
them when they come to her and that they cackle together and that afterwards she onely takes the grains in her Bill and so leaves them without eating I would fain I say ask them whether they will acknowledge no discourse in all these proceedings and whether they do not beleeve that she calls her chickens with a a design to cause them to come to shew them their food and to nourish them and that they themselves understand the voyce which summons them that they comprehend the thing which she signifies unto them and that they hope to find the good she tells them of Can all this be done without Discourse and a man who would do such like things would he not be thought reasonable they will without doubt say that this may be true in the most perfect Animals in whom it's likely Nature hath given a voice for the communication of their thoughts but that if it have deprived others it 's a sign they had no need of that communication and consequently they have no Reason since they cannot entertain themselves nor discourse together We readily confess that there are many which are dumb and which by the voice cannot make themselves understood but if Nature could not give it them because they ought not to respire she hath recompenced them in other things which may supply that defect The most part of insects and even some Fish have they not a particular sound which they form by moving some parts of their bodies whereby they make those passions appear wherewith they are agitated When the Grashoppers sing in fair weather do they not witness the pleasure they receive thereby When Bees hum extraordinarily in their Hives is it not a sign of the division which is amongst them and that humming noise which they make being stopt is it not an evident sign of their anger On the contrary whoever hath told them that these Animals do not make themselves understood by their gesture and by their motions Certainly after the examples which we have of other Animals which make use of the same means to discover their intentions it were to be very bold to say that these did not make use of it for the same design But what We are ignorant of the most part of those which are ordinary not onely in Beasts which live with us but even in Men amongst whom there are but few who hath not some particular sign to make himself understood and that it 's impossible to divine it but after a long habit And should we dare assure That Animals whose nature and life is so far from estranged from ours should have none at all No no most part living together and even some keeping some form of Policy and of a Republick as the Ants they must communicate their designs since it 's the onely bond which binds and preserves all societies After all were it true that Beasts performed all their actions by the onely conduct of Instinct without communicating their thoughts together what necessity would there be that for that cause they should not reason May they not reason in themselves and a man who were all alone or deprived of the use of all the Organs whereby he might make himself understood would he be for that deprived of Reason I know very well that there is no body who would censure without passion what I have here said of the Language of Beasts but will approve it and will not onely wonder at the design M. C. hath made to confute it but much more at those Reasons which he hath made use of to that purpose page 160. For it 's strange that a witty Man as he is should not have known that all those which he useth are useless to the matter in hand and shake not any of my proofs nor of my conclusions In effect all what he says is grounded on the definition of human speech and on those designs which the Understanding forms which are not here in question So that all the consequences he draws from these two principles must needs be vain and impertinent according to the terms of the Schools And in defence it were sufficient for me to say That he supposeth what he should prove and toucheth not on the difficulty But because he is not of so easie a composition as I perswaded my self as in this Chapter he assures us and perhaps so short an Answer could not make him comprehend the defects of his censure I shall explain my self along with him and examine all his Propositions one after another But I will not stop at these at the beginning of his Chapter where he hath more laboured the gentility then the solidity of thoughts and where he rather endeavored to shew the beauty of his mind rather then the truth of the things in dispute For when he says that to perswade him That a Beast Reasons the Beast it self must tell him so I find that to be as pleasantly and gallantly imagined as he is weak to prove what he pretends Neither is there any likelihood that he would beleeve a Beast upon its bare word he particularly who is so hard to be perswaded and would not suffer himself to be touched with so many important Truths as have been proposed to him For my part were I of his opinion should all Beasts together tell me That they discoursed I would not beleeve them neither should they any more perswade it me then all the Fools I know should did they assure me they were wise But if it were possible that M. C. in earnest thought to have thereby proved That Beasts did not reason those also of China or Malabare to perswade him that they were reasonable must tell it him themselves and he must needs fall into that inconvenience that untill he could understand their Language he must still be obliged to doubt of it For it were to no purpose to say that the figure of man would sufficiently clear it since there have been Beasts discovered which are so like men that there is scarce any difference as to the outward form After all there would be but one onely answer to make hereupon That Animals have often told him that they had Reason and if he understood them not it was his fault and none of theirs But says he they ought then to tell it him in the Language of Men and learn to speak as we do This is neither just nor necessary why should they be more obliged to learn the Language of Men then Men are to learn theirs And ought not M. C. to have imagined that they might say the same thing of him as he doth of them and that they have reason to doubt whither he Reasons until they have learnt his Language and that he hath assured them of it in the same terms as they use amongst themselves He adds That if they cannot learn to speak it comes from no indisposition which they have in their organs as might be imagined for their organs differ
their intention All this I say is only to be understood or the superior and intellectual Reason and doth not enclude that which the imagination may and ought to form in these encounters Wherefore all the consequences he draws from thence which he applies to the actions of Beasts are vain and concern not the difficulty in hand I leave what he saith pag. 173. That there is no likelihood that Beasts should not move themselves unless by the force of Syllogisms and before they should be drawn by a voice they must make at least twenty five Ratiocinations For besides that his calculation is not very just we have answered to these kind of objections in several places of this work and principally in the third Chapter of the third Part. And as for what he maintains That there follows no inconvenience to say That this mutual intelligence which is to be found in Animals of the same Species proceeds altogether from the Instinct We consent thereunto so as he will but be better instructed concerning the nature of the Instinct then he is and remember himself of what we lately said That Instinct hinders not but that actions might be done with knowledge and that the Animal is not the principal and immediate cause thereof Let 's conclude with that fair Observation M.C. hath made p. 173. upon what I have said That he that should well mind the language of Birds would make no difficulty to beleeve that Tyresias Melampus and Apollonius hath formerly understood it For he hath unlinked this observation out of its place that he might take the liberty to make on it the longer a censure and hath placed it at the end of his Chapter as a Morrer-peece of his munition and of his address And truly I confess that he is not ignorant in Fables and that he very well knows the adventures of Tyresias and the genealogy of Melampus And I also profess he makes as ill use of the Artifice of an Orator who seeks to render odious or ridiculous what is proposed by his Adversary For who is there who knowing that I speak of Tyresias and Melampus which are names onely to be found in the Fable as M. C. assures us would not with him say That a cause hath very great need of help when it makes use of such base authorities But to defend my self from his Artifice and to disabuse those he might have perswaded I have nothing else to say but that although I have spoken of Tyresias of Melampus and Apollonius I have not made use of their authority neither did I assure that what was spoken of them was false or true It was also a thing which to me ought to be indifferent and what-ever it were I might reasonably say that who would well observe the language of Birds would make no difficulty to beleeve that they had formerly understood it There are but few things in Fables whence as much may not be said when a truth is discovered which hath relation to it Why may we not say after the experiences we have seen in our time some Girls that have changed Sex that there were no difficulty to believe what the Poets have related of Iphis Yet it s a name to be found only in the Fable no more then that of Tyresias And no man will say that in this encounter we use the authority of Poets and the example of Iphis to prove that this change may be done naturally since on the contrary it 's the experience we bring which gives a likelihood to what they have said So far from it is from it that my cause should need so idle an authority and the example of Tyresias and Melampus which are onely to be found in Poets that its that which authoriseth them and which of fabulous which they were renders them credible and any equitable person may judge that its a consequence which I draw from the truths which I have established and not as M. C. says that its a proof and an authority with which I would maintain them This is all I had to say on the third Objection which was made against the reason of Animals There remains yet one of the Instinct which should terminate this discourse But indeed it deserves an intire Volume and there are so many things to be examined and there are so many things which rob me of the time I need that being not able so readily to put my last hand to it I thought that M C. might no longer languish in the expectation he had I ought to divide my answer and give him that which concerns the Raciotinacion of Beasts till I could end that of the Instinct And indeed had it been ready it would have troubled my conscience to have afflicted M C. with the sight of so great a Volume Nay even I should have had the same apprehension to have kept off our Judges by the length of our indifference and with so great a number of pieces which were to be examined After all the retrenchment I make of that part of our contest will not wrong this which I now present For were it true that Beasts did not reason in those actions which they do by Instinct there are several others enough in which Instinct hath no share which evidently make it appear that they reason as those acts which they do out of custom by instruction and generally all those which they do with knowledge So the proof of their Ratiocination remains all intire although we speak not of the Instinct and what ever might be said of it FINIS
the worse I should indeed have been justly chastised for my imprudence had I afterwards met with in his Book so many picquant and malicious words which he vented against me and which he hath mixt with some praises as those who infuse poison with sugar When I saw those shameful reproaches he made me sometimes That my mind was distorted and that I had not thought of what I had written p. 124 That there is not the least appearance of truth and that it is a shame to stick at them p. 148. And then That I am ignorant of the Rules and terms of Philosophy p. 240. That I every minute fall into contradictions and That he can hardly believe I am Author of the Work p. 242. with a hundred such like which he utters with scorn and reproach No no this proceeding makes it evidently appear that he had no intelligence with me that he hath defended his cause the best he was able and that if he have brought ill reasons to maintain it it is because he believed them good and was ignorant of their defects Neither would I absolutely condemn him for the incivility he hath treated me withall and I should rather attribute it to heat of dispute or the natural sharpness of a Critick then to any ill will he could have against me I know that in combats of pleasure and divertisement it is almost impossible but some angry touches must be given and that blows cannot be handled so dexterously but some will be ruder then they were intended But what was to have been desired in those of M.C. 't is that he should have behaved himself pleasantly and like a gallant Fellow and not have accompanied them with a pedantick severity which appears through all his Discourse and which will oblige many men to believe that Passion rather then Truth hath armed his pen against me There are even some already who have made this judgment having observ'd how he introduced my Name to the Title of his Book and that he affected to repeat it in all the passages he was able For since it not at all concerned the question and that he might have examined my reasons without nameing me even as I had done those of other men They did believe that it must needs have been some secret malignity which moved him to place my Name for a Trophy in the front of his Work and to lead it as it were in triumph through all the Pages of his Book For my part I durst not judge so sinisterly of his intentions So far was I from complaining of him in that encounter that I find I have reason to thank him for putting me in the rank of the Great men he hath assaulted and I shall never be asham'd to have my Name appear with the Names of Mr. de Charron and Mr. de Montagne should he even reckon them amongst those he had conquered It 's true if he had been well advised for his own glory he should never have made mention of me nor have discovered that I was the man with whom he was to combat Some might have thought after having seen him enter the lifts against such great persons that I were of the same rank and that he chose me as an Enemy worthy both of his strength and courage But when it shall be known that it is against me he hath made this stir to lift up his buckler and that it will afterwards appear that weak and fresh as I am in these kind of trials I shall have so easily defeated a man who would pass for the Bravo of our Age and who in his Writings presents all Comers with a Challenge it is to be feared it may much diminish the credit he may have and lest he be accused for a weak and quarrelsom person who seeks to gain reputation at the expence of another man's Had he therefore followed the councels which Prudence would have given him in this encounter he had saved himself from these reproaches and had saved me the pains to have answered him without having interested my self in a Question wherein all Opinions are free I should not have disturbed the pleasure wherewith he flattered himself with an imaginary victory and without envy I could have suffered him to have triumphed over an enemy which he had not overcome But it had been a barrenness in me to have continued with mine arms across after the publick Defie he hath given me and Honor obligeth me to the defence of the Truth which I heard groaned under his censure and which I perceived ready to fall into the ambushes he had laid for it Behold I am ready to defend it I am here ready to maintain the Propositions which M. C hath contested The Reader shall afterwards judg which of us two hath the better right But that he may be instructed of all what may lawfully be necessary in my defence he must be informed of the order which I have observed and of the motives which have obliged me to another course then that which hitherto hath been followed Having considered that the proof which hath been used to shew That Beasts reason did not not convince those who hold the contrary opinion and that they shifted off all the strength of it by the word Instinct which how vain soever it be forbears not to intangle the question and render the decision the more doubtful I imagined the Truth was to be sought in the source and leaving Experiments which were contested it might be found in Ratiocination it self I therefore would examine the nature thereof and see whether there were any thing which Beasts could not do and which surpast the force of the Imagination and of the other faculties which all are agreed they are endowed withal But as Reasoning is a Knowledge and that there are three sorts of Knowledge to wit The first Conceptions the Judgment and the Discourse I thought it was fit to be known wherein all three of them consisted and what action the soul performed in every of them Having therefore found That in the first she forms the images of objects in the second she unites or divides two of those images and in the third she collects together three of which she composeth several Propositions which form Discourse methought that all the difficulty was reduced to this point to wit To know whether the Imagination can unite or divide images For if it have that power it must of necessity be able to make Propositions and in pursuance Reasonings This is the principal Subject of the Treatise which I have brought to light The first Part whereof is wholly employed to shew that the Imagination can form and unite several images and by consequence that it may conceive judge and discourse The other Part contains the Answer which is to be made to the strongest Objections which may be proposed against these Truths and principally to those which are drawn from Custom and from Instinct where I have explicated the Nature of
known This is practised also when in the destinction of the parts of the Soul the Imagination is oppos'd to the Appetite even as we oppose the Understanding to the Will For its certaine that in this case the Imagination the Understanding comprehend all the knowing faculties as the Appetite and the Will expresse all the motive faculties of the Soul Howsoever it be by the word Imagination I here understand the Sensitive faculty which knows the things without specifying any of its differences the examen whereof conduceth nothing to my designe I am also to add to this advertisment that the division of the Chapters and Articles was made after the work was ended for it interrupts not the sequel of my discourse and requires not those great pawses which in other matters were requisite The Critick also who is oblig'd in a continuall combate cannot regulare his quarters as an Army would do which hath no enemy before them Without stopping it pursues its adversary and gives him no release till it hath vanquished him It s thus that I have behav'd my self in the heat of my disputation not minding the division of my work into so many Sections but because a long Discourse without any disturbs the mind and eyes of a Reader I afterwards advis'd with my self to make some and to place those things in the Title which I esteemed most remarkable that at first sight the Reader may chuse those Subjects which might be most pleasing to him without ingageing himself in others which were not according to his gust But as this manner of reading will be more advantagious to him then to me and may leave him some doubts which may make him have a ill opinion of my reasons I shall begg thus far from him that he will not condemne them untill he hath read the whole work and without having examined the principâ—es foundations which I have therin established And then if he cannot approve them I shall condemn them my self and employ their excuses which the weakness of humane minds and the difficulty there is to penetrate into secrets of nature furnish them withall who have recourse thereunto For the rest what is printed in a great Italian Letter at the head of every Part is the Abridgment of my first Discourse of the Knowledge of Beasts The figures in the Margent designe the pages of M. C's book out of which I have drawn those propositions which I examine That the Imagination forms the Images of things And that its there wherein the first Knowledge consists THE FIRST PART IN considering the order which God hath established through the whole Universe where the lesse noble thing serve for the degrees whereby we rise to the most excellent and all of them have some beginings of that perfection which is more full and perfect in these A man might easily perswade himself that since the Sensitive Soul is subordinate to the Reasonable such a progresse ought to be made in their knowledge that the first may be addresses to the latter and that the actions of the understanding may have their beginning to be as it were roughcast in those of the Imagination And to speak it in one word since the understanding knows thing that it judgeth of them and draweth consequences from them there must needs be somthing done in the Sensitive Soul which serves for the first draught of those actions and in which some image and some vestiges may be observed In effect it conceives things it judgeth whether they are good or ill and concludes either to follow or to fly them And to perform these actions it useth the same way as the Understanding doth For as it judgeth and reasoneth by uniting things which are divided and by dividing those which are united it doth nothing but unite and separate the images of objects to judge of what is good or ill for the Animal It is true that she doth it very imperfectly both because her power is of no great extent and because her knowledges are as the first sights wherewith the Soul views things and the first Essays she makes to discern them But to understand this it 's necessary to see how the Imagination knows That Knowledge is an Action and how far its knowledge may arrive Having therefore presupposed that Knowledge is the onely function of the Reasonable and Sensitive Soul forasmuch as to be sensible to conceive to judge and to reason is nothing else but to know I have from thence inferred That since all things which are below them have the vertue of operating they also must needs have it and consequently that Knowledge which is their onely function is an Action So that those who say that the Senses know not their objects but by receiving their images and that sensation is a pure passion place the sensitive Soul below all corporal things and destroy ever the Nature of Knowledge which was even placed in the rank of vital actions This action is a production of the Image Now because Knowledg cannot be otherwise conceived but as a representation of the objects which are made in the mind If the Sensitive Soul knows and if to know is to operate it of necessity must present it self with the objects And because it cannot otherwise represent a thing but by forming its picture it follows that in knowing things it forms pictures and images of them and that there is no other action which may be attributed unto it proportionable to the perfection and excellency of its Nature To confirm this truth we have in pursuit shewed Their images are different from the action that these images ought to be different from those which come from without 1. Reason Because these are not capable to make the representation wherein the Knowledge consists since they subsist onely in the presence of the objects and that the Soul forbears not to represent them although they be absent 2 Reas Because those which the Understanding useth are different from those which the Imagination and the Senses may furnish and since it forms them to its self the Imagination ought to do in the same manner 3 Reas Forasmuch as sensible images represent onely the accidents and that the Imagination must not onely know the sensible Accidents but the sensible Body and so the Images it forms represent both the Accidents and Subject once together Their Images represent the Accidents and their Subject This latter proposition which ought to serve as a principle to shew the impotency which the Imagination hath to make abstracts and universal Notions was maintained by four Reasons The First That the Imagination being a power buried in the matter ought to have an object of the same Gender and an action which terminates in a thing which in some manner may be as that is composed The Second That being destined to represent sensible things and having no other vertue but to make pictures and images thereof it ought to represent them all
For the Proposition which he would ruine was placed at the entry of my Discourse but as a pleasant Avenue or as a piece of Architecture which makes no part of the Edifice which I would build In a word it is the Preface of my work which ought not to decide the question I was to discourse but onely to prepare the Readers minde and to give him some suspition and some conjecture of that Truth which I would shew him Neither is it to be found in the rank of those proofs which I have imployed to establish it although I ought not to have forgotten it had I made a fundamental reason of it as M. C imagineth For although it be most certain yet is not fit to perswade all kindes of mindes and I very evidently foresaw that the Application I must have made thereof might have been contested After all if I should have used it as a necessary principle to my design I would not have proposed it naked and simple as I did I would have maintained it with Reasons and with an Induction which might have convinced those who would have doubted of it This had been nothing difficult for me to have done since Philosophy teacheth us that in all the order of things there is ever one first which possesseth in perfection that Nature whereon the order is established and that all those which are inferiour to it have onely portions of it which are greater or lesser as they draw neerer or are estranged farther from it So fire is the first amongst hot bodies Heaven amongst the Diaphanous the Sun amongst the Luminous and so of all the rest And every of them hath in the sovereign degree that quality which serves for the foundation of that order wherein they are All that are under have it more or less weakned It is not in the qualities onely wherein this disposition is to be found it 's remarkable even in the essence and in the very substance of things For there is a first being which possesseth all the extent and all the perfection of the essence of which the rest are but little portions which are still diminishing to the very matter which is almost a nothing and a Non ens The Platonick Philosophy is full of these considerations it acknowledgeth a first One a first Good and a first Fair of which all the rest are but participations Aristotle even wills that in the order of Substances there are some more substances then the rest that Form is more then Matter That the first is more then that which is called the second And to draw nearer to our Subject There is no faculty in living and animated things which enter into order wherein the same participation is not observable There are plants which nourish which encrease and multiply some more then others and those who know their Nature well may see that the most perfect in every kind hath that vertue which is fit for it in a soveraign degree What inequality will not be found in the distribution of the Senses if we would measure the difference which there is amongst Animals for the sight from the Mole to the Eagle for smel from Insects to the Dogs for touch from Spunges or if you will from the sensitive Plant to Man and so of all other Animal Vertues In fine he who would consider all the genders of things he will finde some species which are as bonds which unite them together and as steps which insensibly lead from the one to the other for amongst Stones and Plants there are Stone-plants found amongst Plants and Animals there are the Zoophytes amongst fish and Terrestrial Creatures we finde the Amphibious so far that even to preserve this order there must often have been species in some sort monstrous to place amongst those things which are most opposite such is the Bat amongst Birds and four-footed Beasts for it 's a monstrous Bird which hath neither feathers nor bill which hath teeth and breasts and which goes on four feet although it have but two Such is the Triton amongst Aquatick Creatures and Man such also betwixt him and terrestrial Animals is the Guinny Monkey called Banis and a thousand such like which may be observed running over all the species which are in the Universe All which evidently make it appear that it 's a Law which Nature hath imposed to make an essay of her works in the meanest things that she might compleat them in the highest and that in those she might put the beginning of that vertue which she intended perfect in these Which being so had not I reason to leave this suspition in the Readers mind That the same might be in that of Reasoning And since the Sensitive Soul was subordinate to the Reasonable and even therein there must be some vestiges and some rough-casts of reason which were perfect in this At all adventures it was a proposition which was to be made good by the proof I was to make of the reasoning of Beasts And I should have been guilty to have supprest it since it may serve for a new example to confirm that fair disposition which the wisdom and providence of God hath established in the World So that M. C. hath not onely grosly abused himself when he did beleeve that I made it the foundation of my proof but even also when he would accuse it of falseness since he knew not the use I had destined it unto and that he produceth no reason which might convince it of error He says well p 41. That there are a thousand most excellent Faculties in Minerals the least tract of which appears not in the Elements That nourishment and the other parts of Vegetation are compleat in Plants and are not began in those things which are inferior to them That Sight Memory and Imagination are onely to be found in Animals But all this makes nothing against the truth of this Proposition when it assures that the lowest things have the beginnings of that perfection which is to be found in the highest this ought to be understood of those which are in one and the same order and which consequently have a Vertue or a Nature common amongst themselves For all things are not in one and the same order and as many different Vertues as there are and several Natures which may be common so many several orders of things there are such as that is of Bodies Diaphanous Luminous c There are without doubt in the Minerals qualities which are common with the Elements and which consequently make an order amongst themselves as is hardness weight and such like But there are those also which are particular unto them and the order which is found in them is shut up in the gender of Minerals but it 's always according to the proportion we have observed For Gold for example possesseth the Metallick Nature in perfection and all other Metals have but their portions greater or lesser as they are nearer or farther
since the Vnderstanding makes them But I shall desire him to tell me whether he of a truth believes this Consequence which he draws from thence to be good The Vnderstanding forms images Therefore the Imagination forms spiritual images For I did not say The Understanding forms spiritual images but I shewed That it forms its images because they are spiritual This is called in the Schools To argue from things call'd simply to those which are conditional or from those which are divided to those which are conjoined But let us to another Subject which perhaps may be more for his advantage CHAP. III. The Imagination represents not only the Accident but also their Subject HAving a design to shew That the Imagination forms not the Accidents only but she makes somewhat of their Subject also enter and that its phantasm is not a Representation by the example of Colour but of what is coloured nor of Heat but of what is hot in a word That all sensible Accidents are therein represented per modum concreti as they speak in the Schools The first Reason which I brought is That the Imagination is a power buried in the Matter which ought to have an object of the same gender and an action which terminates it self in something which in some manner is composed as that is M. C. finds this reason very strange and answers That the Imagination is no more buried in the Matter then the Accidents which we give for its object and that they are as composed as she is But if he speaks this in earnest we are both agreed and he must with me confess That the Imagination being a Faculty in the Matter the Colour which is represented is also a Quality in the Matter And I will have nothing else but that what is hot which is a heat in the Matter is represented by the Imagination and not the Heat by it self Yet it doth not seem it is at that point he means to stick For he opposeth against us That a man cannot give the Imagination an object which is of the same gender nor which is composed as she is unless it be a pure Accident since the Imagination is a Faculty and that the Faculty is a pure Accident as we have said in the Discourse of Instinct pag. 9. This objection is captious and I make an Appeal here to M.C. his sincerity to know whether it be allowed in good Logick to change the sense of the Terms of which we were agreed The question here is concerning Physical Accidents which cannot be separated from the Matter and he gives us the change in Metaphysical Accidents which subsist only in the Understanding It 's true that when we examined what the essential difference of Man was we said That the Faculty of Reasoning could not be it because it is a pure Accident and that the difference of Man ought to be a Substance Now he cannot disavow but that the search of essential differences is from the securing of the Metaphysicks and that the Faculty ought to be no otherwise considered but in Physick So that he unprofitably labours to ruine what we have now established for what we said in that place We consider here the Imagination as a Faculty which operates Now it cannot operate without Matter which serves for its organ It cannot therefore be conceived but in the Matter and by consequence it must have an Object which must be material and an Action which terminates at something which must be as that is composed But what says he The Imagination is no more material then the external Senses which nevertheless know the Accidents only I could hereupon answer him That he supposeth what is in question For in no part of his Work hath he proved that the external Senses know Accidents only But as it is not his mind to establish any thing I shall content my self to demand of him whether by the external senses he means the organs of the senses or the faculty which is in those organs For if they are only the organs the external senses do not know If it be the sensitive faculty it must operate and consequently form its image Now this Image represents somewhat besides the Accidents as we pretend to have shewed The Imagination represents things all entire The second Reason I brought in confirmation of this truth is grounded on that fair observation which some have made on the same subject I now treat to wit that there are two orders of things in the Universe the one of which in the first intention of Nature were made to be absolute the others were destined to represent them In this latter order are the knowing Faculties for they have no other vertue but to know and cannot know but by representing the things it 's what Aristotle said speaking of the Understanding That it had no other Nature but that of being potentially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to be able to make and to be made all things wherein the representation consists Hence we concluded That if these Faculties are destined to represent things they must represent them all entire and such as they are otherwise it were not to represent them Even as a man would never say that a Painter had made the picture of a man had he painted onely the Eyes or the Mouth In effect as the Members of this division relate the one to the other since the first compeehends all what is absolutely the other must have the same extent so that the knowing Faculties represent all things which are absolute now thus to represent them is to represent them all entire So the Imagination which is destined to know sensible and corporeal things ought to represent them such as they are that is to say as sensible and corporeal and because they are not corporeal without matter it necessarily ought to represent them to its self with its matter And consequently the Images it makes represent not onely the accidents but even the subject which sustains them It s true that its representation is not exact that it distinguisheth not the subject from the accidents and that it represents them but confusedly but it is sufficient to say It knows it And the order which Nature holds in all things would that the knowledge of the Imagination should not be the most perfect and that it should be but the beginning and as it were the first Essay to attain the perfection of that which the Understanding was to form M. C. imploys several Answers to invalidate the force of Raciocination and although at first he seem only to sport and divert himself yet that he might not be reproached not to have been serious enough in so important a matter I shall treat with him as if he had beleeved of a truth That if the Imagination being the representative of things ought to represent them all entire it follows that the picture which is also the representative of things ought to represent them all entire and
If this be thus as no man need doubt M. C. can draw no advantage from what he hath opposed For were it true that the Understanding knew Universal and Spiritual things without the help of the Imagination it will not from thence follow That he did know the Substance of which we have spoken in the same manner since there is anoâ—her kind of Knowledge whereby it may know it In effect the Imagination conceiveth what is hot what is animated And there is no likelihood when a Beast sees another Animal that it conceives only the colour the figure and the motion which it perceiveth therein but it conceiveth somewhat which hath all those Accidents And this cannot but be the Substance which in Man serves for the Object to the direct knowledge of the Understanding For in separating all the Accidents which the Imagination confounded he at last discovers that thing which is void of those Accidents So that a man cannot say he doth it afresh no more then he who finds a Treasure makes the Treasure by digging the earth and putting by what hid it In pursuit of this discovery the Understanding imploys its oblique knowledges and by several relations and divers inductions which it makes he adds to this Substance other Notions which were not truly represented in the phantasme as Universality Spirituality and the like But this is not the place where we are to examine this Subject And without troubling our selves to establish our Reasons it will be sufficient to shew that those which M. C. hath made use of to destroy them hath been nothing to their prejudice For as for what he adds That he knows not why I will not have the Vnderstanding know those things which are not represented in the Phantasm since I will have the Imagination should know the Substance without the help of external Senses and sensible Species He makes me speak there as he pleaseth him self Had he taken notice of my words he would have found them quite contrary to what he said And that I will have That the Understanding knows the things which are not represented in the Phantasm And that I will not have the Imagination know the Substance without the help of the Senses and of the Sensible species For although I assured That the Imagination forms it self its Phantasm yet I have always said that it form'd it on the Model of those sensible Species which are receiv'd through the organs of the Senses And therefore it is not without their aid as he would have that I had said Yet I know that this is not the meaning which he gives to my words neither will I stick at it And I would only observe this Equivoque to make it be remembred That those who undertake the Censure of other mens Works ought to keep themselves on their guard and not to expose themselves to the danger to be reprehended by those they would correct I see then well enough the Reason which he would imploy against me is That if the Imagination may represent the Substance the picture of which the sensible Species are not to make the Vnderstanding which is incomparably more knowing and more perfect may also represent it without the Phantasms giving it any image thereof But this objection is easily resolved because we do not consider here the Understanding in it self and in its pure nature which may have such a power and perhaps Souls separated may thus know corporal things But we respect it in the state it is in us and in its ordinary manner of acting which requires the help of the inferior Faculties Otherwise we might prove That we had no need of eyes to see things since a man might see them without as Spirits do 'T is the Law which Nature imposeth to this sublime faculty That at often as it is link'd to the Body it ought to serve the Senses and the Imagination and not anticipate that knowledge which they are to give it And since they are destined to representation in corporal things it ought to expect the report they are to make and take in for the ground of their first knowledges Now it is certain they give in an accompt of the very substance of things for that they cannot do otherwise for those reasons which we have before recited And certainly Nature should have been deceitful to have reduced all the Knowledge of Animals to exterior Accidents and to have denied them that which was the most important for their preservation These are the greatest endeavours M. C. hath made against our First Part. For what he afterwards adds is so weak that there is nothing which can excuse it but that he was at an end of his work and that in all likelihood his mind was tired with the long labor he had undertaken In effect On what we have said That the Imagination confounded the Accidents with their Subject The only Reason he objects is That it is not true For if he pretends to have sufficiently proved it Because the Imagination knows not the Subject and that the Qualities serve not for marks to know them It 's what is in question and consequently cannot pass for a proof Reas 4. Drawn from Experience As for the Experience I proposed which at the first sight we have of visible Accidents We do not only believe we see the Accidents but the Bodies themselves wherein they are He answers That this experience is false because says he the first sights or single conceptions can precede the affirmations and the reasonings without which one cannot conclude nor know a Substance by means of an Accident But to what purpose doth he speak here of Affirmations and Reasonings in this encounter we will not have the Imagination reason or affirm any thing neither is it by means of the Accident that it knows the Substance at one sight it sees both as it sees the colour and the figure And when I say That it beleeves it sees the subject of accidents it is not by the reflection it makes on its first knowledge but it is in its common way of speaking of such things as they think they certainly know For when any object presents it self to sight it is true we beleeve we see it and we think we are not deceived in that knowledge which our eye affords us and yet for all that we cannot say we make any Affirmation Conclusion or Reasoning How ever it be it imports me or the truth but very little that M. C. denys the experience which shall be confessed by all other men so as they be not blind And if we would consult with the most ignorant who commonly are the most certain and most sincere Judges we can chuse for what concern the senses they will all say that when they see a stone they do not onely see the colour and the figure but the thing it self which hath those qualities it is not that at this first sight they destinguish it from its accidents because
the Imagination confounds them and conceives the one with the other and if they come afterwards to distinguish them it is the effect of their Reason which separates what the Imagination had confounded But M. C. cannot comprehend That Reason separates what the Imagination hath confounded For says he if the Imagination forms an Idea of a different substance from that of the accident it must distinguish them And I cannot also apprehend why he brings a proposition for a proof which is contrary both to his sense and to mine For he beleeves not that the Imagination can form an Idea of substance different from that of the Accidents unless he would destroy all what he hath proposed And for my part I am so far from having had this thought that I ever said That the Imagination represented the accident and the substance confusedly and therefore without any distinction I confess that this representation is made on the model of the sensible species which represent but the accidents onely But the sensitive Faculty makes none of this distinction because it cannot make it without knowing and that it cannot know without forming its fantasm Now the fantasm ought necessarily to represent the accidents in concrete that is to say with the substance as we have already proved and that therefore it cannot distinguish the Substance from the Accident For the rest the more easily to conceive this manner of operating from which the Imagination cannot dispence it self we must consider the art of casting of Statues for although the Mould in which they are made be hollow and that it can onely give that figure which is imprinted on it nevertheless the Statue forbears not to come out massy and on an empty patern which hath but the superficies the Founder makes a solid and flat work the Imagination doth the same since the sensible Species which bear the image of the Accidents only it so forms its phantasm that with those accidents it comprehends the main and body it sustains To return to M C. the Hypothesis whereupon he grounds his conclusion is imaginary and he cannot save himself from the reproach which may be laid to him to have imposed on me things I never said or to have formed to himself Chimera's to fight withal In pursuit he demands How according to my principles the Vnderstanding can make this distinction since the phantasm represents not the ground thereof and that after having separated what was confounded nothing remains to make him know the destinction It were easie for me to Answer him that the phantasm represented to the Understanding the ground of this distinction since it represents two confused things which might be separate and that after it hath separated what was confused the separated things which remain make it know the distinction for the separation doth not really differ from the things which are separated no more then the motion from the things which are moved But to cut off these vain subtilties which are destroyed by themselves if we would have the terms they are conceived by we in one word say that this distinction is rank of those things which we have shewed in the may be known by the Understanding without being represented in the phantasms for whether it be proved for the action it self it doth or for a general notion it forms on that action it is certain it can have no direct knowledge of it and that it must reflect and reply on it self to know it These are the chief observations which M. C. hath made against the first part of my work Observations on the censure of the first Part. and which he hath placed at the end of his Book to crown his Labour and onely that he may have cause to tell me That he hath examined all my Reasonings but although there be nothing in all his work directly opposite to mine having even sought to finish where he began the whole is to know whether he hath succeeded well or no and whether he had reason to beleeve that his sixteenth Chapter should dispense him from stoping at those things which I have here treated For ny own part after having seen the Title of his Book which promiseth to speak of the Knowledge of Animals I think in some place he ought to have explicated what Knowledge was and how it was to be made And since he will not have them made Propositions nor Discourses that at least he would satisfie these premises which obliged him to shew how they knew things that is to say how how that simple conception is made which he and all the world allows them nevertheless there is no one word of all that in his whole work and that sixteenth Chapter which should have dispensed him from examining what I had said thereupon speaks of nothing less then of that first Knowledge and treats onely of Ratiocination we must needs afterwards say that passion hath altogether blinded him and taken from him the sight of those things which he ought most carefully to have examined For this was the ground of all what both of us had to say since both of us had a design to speak of the Knowledge of Beasts And if I have well proved that they know things by forming of their images I have a great prejudge to conclude that they may both judge and reason Since Judgment and Discourse are made by the union of images which is not so difficult to make as their production And if on the other side he had made it appear that the first Knowledge was not formed after that manner he without doubt had much shaken all the body of his proofs and he would have vaunted to have overthrown one of the strongest Arch batteries of my work However it be if he had had the true spirit of Philosophy instead of seeking that little vanity which he had of saying That there were none of my Reasons which he had not examined and to speak in his sence which he had not justled and combated be should have helped me exactly to have acknowledged those Truths of which I had made the first discoveries He should in earnest have approved those things which were conformable to reason and have added afterwards his own light which might have made me see what I did not perceive Finally he should with some restraint have come to the censure of my Propositions which are so glorious to the sovereign matter of the Universe and which are more capable of putting into spirits the admiration of his bounty and of his magnificence then any other thing which is in nature for if the soul can produce the images of things and that it hath no other means to know them but that who would not admire the wonderful fecundity which God hath given it since as many times as it knows as many times at it remembers the things it hath known it must as many times produce those images and consequently make an infinite number of them without being
in Dreams and Sicknesses the Imagination assembles phantasms which are not of the same order To assemble them she first of all must separate those with which there was a natural tye Yet will not M.C. consent to this truth as cleer and evident as it is And he says That to perswade him I must imploy Reasons like those I use to prove That the Imagination knows the substance of objects I am very glad that M.C. who is so serious would sport himself here He must also give me leave to say That he might do it more modestly then he hath done For in stead of playing upon me he offends me and instead of using raillery he wrongs me Were I to revenge my self I should only answer That since he did not apprehend the Reasons he speaks of it had been useless for me to have produced the like But as there is a great appearance that he will be now better instructed than he was then and that the confusion he will be in to have used me so unworthily is revenge enough for me I shall content my self to assure him that I have not only taken the leisure but also care to examine the Reasons he condemns and that others as judicious as himself have approved them And that for his reputation it had been to have been wished that he himself had not had the leisure to have examined them For had he been contented with what he had said here He could have made those believe which had net the commodity of reading them that they were as strange as he imagined them But the passion he hath to leave nothing uncontradicted by which he had finish'd his work hath in the Addition made it appear that he understood them not And I am confident that this happened through his fault and none of mine After all this could I not have shewn that the Imagination makes Negative propositions it were indifferent for the design I had to prove That Animals reason It 's sufficient that she makes Affirmatives to infer what I pretend as we shall see in the pursuit I had made it appear in my first Discourse That I built no foundation on the proof which I might draw from Negative propositions speaking thereof but by the way and with that briefness which the Examen of those things required which are quite contrary to those of which hath been amply treated So that without forsaking the opinion I have of these Propositions I shall grant M.C. that I have not well established them so as he will confess that he hath not sufficiently destroyed them And should he have succeeded that it would nothing prejudice the Right which I defend How Beasts judge of Things But let us conclude this troublesom Discourse by the address which he useth to shew That Beasts judge not whether things are good or ill unto them For he will have it pass for an authentique proof p. 143. The sense of most part of Philosophers who believe they judge of nothing and that they know the things which are good for them by simple conceptions without affirming that they are good And indeed if he could oblige me to admit for the Judges of a Dispute those who are my Adversaries he would have found a good Expedient to have gain'd his Cause I know that it is the common opinion and that the School teacheth That the Imagination is not said to compose but in that it considers two images at once as he says But these are Judges or interessed Witnesses which I refuse in this cause Were it to be decided by Authority M. C's would alone of it self have as much power over me as that of all the Philosophers which he quotes And where it is not necessary to produce Reasons I shall as willingly follow his opinion as that of all the Schools But here we must of necessity And 't is not sufficient to say That Beasts judge of nothing It must be proved by some Reasons which at least must be probable and must not subject us to the tyranny of these Philosophers who have no other motive to believe things but that their Master said it But M. C. would have us believe from his bare word That Beasts judge not of the objects of their Appetite but as the External senses judge That an Odor is good or ill that Fire burns that Honey is sweet and Wormwood bitter without its being necessary to know those things for the tongue to say This is sweet and this is bitter First he confounds those Knowledges which are altogether different For the Senses know after another manner that Honey is sweet and Wormwood bitter then they do that Fire burns and that a Smell doth good or ill And I shall always grant that Beasts judge not of the objects of their Appetite but as the Senses know that Fire burns or that an Odor is ill But at the same time I shall deny that they judge of the objects of their Appetite in the same manner as the Taste judgeth of the sweetness of Honey and bitterness of Wormwood For the Sense may by a simple conception judge of the sweetness of Honey for as much as it is the proper and immediate object of the Taste and that it is not always necessary that the Imagination should make a progress from one thing to another But when it judgeth that the Fire burns it passeth not only from the cause to the effect but it adds also one Image which is not sensible to one which is by judging that Burning is evil which is an Image which the Senses furnish it not withall since to be good or ill useful or useless are such things which know per species non sensatas as the School saith and which require besides the judgment of the Senses that of the Estimative faculty But I say yet more To make this Judgment Reason is often imployed therein For when an Animal sees the Fire and that he will not come neer it for fear of being burnt by it he must have prov'd that 't is the effect of Fire to burn and remember the evil which formerly it had done unto him and consequently he must unite the image of the burning and the ill which he received thereby with that of the present object and that of the ill which he apprehends therefrom Which could not be done without discourse as we shall shew hereafter Besides what need had he to adde That to know things it was not necessary for the tongue to say This is sweet and this is bitter Doth he believe Propositions may not be made without speaking and that the judgments which the soul makes in it self without expressing it by language are not true judgments If that were so Dumb persons would be more unhappy then we think them to be since they should not only have lost their speech but even their judgment and their reason However it be it is not the Tongue which makes propositions it 's the Faculty of the
of Discourse consists in this Motion But also as by this return the soul retakes the terms of the first propositions we may say that the form of the Syllogism is shed abroad through them and that in that sence it must be considered as a whole every Proposition whereof makes an integral part without which it cannot be entire and perfect The return of the Imagination is not a reflection Yet must we not abuse our selves on the word Return as I perceive most men have done who take it for a Reflection for this to speak properly is made when the Faculty reflects on it self and on its proper action considering them separated from their subject and it 's certain the Understanding onely can make this kind of reflection because it cannot be without abstraction of which the Imagination is not capable but when the soul retakes an image which it hath already formed for to joyn it with another it plights not on it self nor on on its knowledge but onely on the effect of its action thus there is no abstraction nor consequently no true reflection And the Imagination may as well make this return as the Eye which having seen several objects one after the other may return to that which it first perceived Whence we may draw this consequence That there is nothing in Ratiocination which surpasseth the soâ—ce of the Imagination which is above the Soul of Beasts It is time to return to M. C. who says That the Dog judgeth not of the possibility of what he undertakes Because if it were so he would not make so many leaps and so many unprofitable endeavors and would not strive to take what the most stupid reason would shew him were too much elevated And thence he concludes that it is not reason which carries him to it but it s the object which draws him and which moves his spirits As we shall hereafter have occasion to speak of this possibility I shall onely here say that Beasts as well as Men often deceive themselves in the judgement which they make and that both the one and the other do figure to themselves things to be possible which are not so at all But this hinders not but that before they are undertaken they make a judgment of it how false or deceitful soever it may be as we shall shew So that this ought not to oblige M C. in so extravagant an opinion contrary to all the Maxims of Philosophy as that is which he seems to endeavour to defend when he says That the Object draws the Appetite and moves the spirits For although this may be applyed to a moral attraction as we speak in the Schools and such a one as the Good and the End are accustomed to make Yet in other encounters he well observes that he understands a Physical attraction since he assures that the objects have an adamantine quality which supposeth an action of that kind I would not therefore insist thereupon seeing he would not clearly make it appear what he thought thereupon Let 's therefore follow him another way and see what endeavors he will make against the crafts which Beasts use in hunting which we are assured were the effects of Ratiocination CHAP. III. The Examen of what M. C. hath said against the second Experience which we proposed Touching the wiles of Beasts Of the slights of Beasts CErtainly we may say of a truth that here he opposeth slights to slights and that he imitates those Fishes which cast abroad their ink to hide themselves from the eyes and snares of the Fishermen for to lessen the splendor and evidence of a Reason with which he ought to be convinced he casts obscurity on my words and says That all the difficulty to be found therein depends on the ambiguity of the terms of slights and of figuring For my part who use according to the common sence they bear amongst us I beleeve unless a man were Dutch or Welch he can finde no equivoke in them after all if there were any M. C. should have put them by and afterwards have discovered the weakness of the reason which I have hid as he feigns under the ambiguity of those two terms It also belonged to him to propose some of those slights even he ought to have chosen amongst them all that which to him seemed most advantagious to me that demonstrating that discourse hath no share in it he might render my reason useless In the mean time he thinks himself sufficiently sheltred in saying That if I had designed any one of these slights in particular he would have endeavoured to have explicated them But what since I designed them all was it necessary for me to mark any in particular and since I excepted none ought he not to have judged that I did not beleeve there was any which did not serve for my cause and that the first of them which he should have defeated would have rendred my objection vain and deficient Truly this makes me remember those Fanfawors to whom the choyce of the combate was offered and which afterwards excuse themselves on this that that of the sword they were not designed to wherein they vaunt they would have wrought wonders For my part I know not what there would have been which M. C. would have made in a particular examen but I can say that in general he hath wrought no great ones and that when he contents himself to assure us in gross That of all those slights some were the effects of instinct and others of Memory and Custom There is nothing therein wonderfull unless he forget some which are neither made by Instinct Memory nor Custom And that notwithstanding his Induction is not compleat yet he forbears not to draw an universal Conclusion for setting aside that Instinct Memory and Custom do not exclude Reason as we shall shew hereafter It 's certain that old Hares and Foxes are more wily then the young ones and consequently they have particular wiles which they have learned from themselves and which cannot come from Instinct since Instinct is a thing which is natural and common to all the species This being supposed when they first of all use these wiles it 's neither by Custom nor Memory seeing as yet they never have made use of them and that we cannot accustom our selves to actions which we never did Neither can we remember those things which are quite new We must then say that they come from elsewhere and that they have no other form but reason since its onely she to whom it alone can be related CHAP. IV. The Examen of what M. C. hath said against our third Experience drawn from the Custom and the Instruction of Beasts Of the knowledge of time AS the last of our Experiences which is drawn from the Instruction and from the Custom furnisheth us with a most powerful proof of the Reason of Beasts It hath obliged M. C. to form as it were a new body of
an Army to combate it and to afford it a whole Chapter for the pitched field let 's therefore a while observe these new enemies And first of all I see M.C. sends forth his Forlorn-hope I call all that part so which he hath said concerning Custom in the pages 145 and 146. which nothing concerns the question in debate and after several faines which he makes to baffle what we have demonstrated concerning the production and union of Images at last he comes to the assault and pretends to shew that the Imagination hath no knowledge at all of things past present and to come whereupon is grounded all the strength of his Reason In effect he well foresaw that if he granted that the presence of some objects made some Beasts remember past things and made them expect the like from thence to come he would be obliged to confess that they reason as we may judge by what he hath said of Fear p. 155. for which cause he boldly denies it to be true and made all his endeavors to prove that the Imagination knows no difference of time But to what purpose serve all these Reasons if the Experience we have produced convince them of error All the world knows and all the world sees that Beasts Hope that they Fear that they Desire and consequently it must needs be that they must know future things since all these passions are moved onely by the good or ill which is to come Now if this be so it 's to no purpose to labour to shew that they can know no difference of time Wherefore before we examine what he hath produced to prove this Proposition we must see what he opposeth to this experience and what address he useth to withdraw himself from so ill a pass Beasts hope for things to come First he accuseth me Not to speak wholsomly when I say that Beasts Hope because I have elsewhere written that to speak wholsomly there was none but Man did Hope and that all other Animals had but a shadow of Hope as well as of Reason Whence he concludes That since that time the actions of Beasts have not changed their Nature And that it doth not become a Philosopher to make that pass for a Truth which is so onely in shadow and appearance Certainly it 's easie to judge by this Answer that M. C. was very much puzzled here and having no reason to destroy the Hope of Beasts he would charge his fables upon the Reader and withdraw himself from the danger by making use of my words But without reproaching him as he hath done me that this kind of proceeding is not becoming a Man who seeks the truth and that it smells more of the Sophister then of the Philosopher He will give me leave to say that what I have elsewhere written on the same subject is not here to be brought in question in which happily I may have been deceived but to know whether it be true That Beasts Hope for if it be so they must hope for the good to come and know future things .. Were I he alone who held this opinion perhaps the contradiction which M. C. observes in my words might render it suspitious But Aristotle St Thomas in a word all the Schools are of that opinion and there is no Philosopher of esteem who acknowledgeth not Hope to be in Beasts the knowledge of the future in Hope Even M C. cannot but be of that opinion 9. Hist 1. 1. 2. q. 40. since he beleeves Beasts are capable of Desire for Hope is only different from desire by the difficulty we figure of obtaining the good which we have not Now Beasts may desire a good which they may judge difficult to obtain and consequently may hope for it M. C. must therefore confess the truth of this Experience or prepare another Answer then what he hath produced since it satisfies not the common opinion which hath no interest in the contradiction which he hath found in my writings But should M. C. possibly have beleeved that true which I said in another place in the Elogy of Hope were contrary to what I here affirm Did he not observe that it was a Rhetorical Discourse wherein we give more liberty to words and wherein terms keep not to that severity which Dogmatical Discourses require But what if he had said that to speak soberly true Philosophers only Reason and the rest of men have but a shadow of Ratiocination had he not made a Proposition which in some sence is most true and would he not justly have derided those who from thence would have induced That other men did not reason Doth he beleeve that when Plato asserts that all what is here below is but the shadow of things which are in their Ideas did he then belâ—eve there was nothing real or true They are ways of speaking which all languages have used to observe how some things are estranged from the perfection of others and it were to deprive them of their fairest ornaments and of their most splendent lights to take away from them their shadows and their figures When I therefore affirmed that Man onely did Hope and that Beasts had but a shadow of Hope I meant nothing else but that Human Hope was more noble and more elevated then that of Beasts and that in comparison of that the other was so base and imperfect that it did not seem to deserve the name of Hope and had only the appearance and figure of it But from thence to conclude that I was fallen into a contradiction when I elsewhere said that they did hope he must either be a very ill French-man or a very ill Logitian Beasts fear the evill to come For what concerns fear there is no great difficulty as M C. says there being two sorts of it the one in effect is a Ratiocination and a consideration of what is not present to our Senses but which we infer ought to happen unto us This is not to be found in Beasts But there is another which we call properly Fear or Fright of which all Beasts are capable and must not therefore know what is to come for we are frighted with present objects and even with those which are past so as the Images be present I shall with M.C. acknowledge then two sorts of Fear and I hope elsewhere to speak more fully of them then I can do here but I did not mean to distinguish them as he doth and to exclude the knowledge of the future from none of them because it were to destroy them and confound several passions in one In effect were the evil present there would be no Fear it would be Grief Consternation or such like And M. C. of necessity must take frightfulness for a kinde or species of Fear which it participates to all the nature of the Gender Now Fear in general supposeth the knowledge of the evill to come as all our Masters and all our Books teach us and consequently
that they are serviceable to knowledge they have reason to doubt of all the surplusage which concerns them I would fain ask M. C. how he conceives that Motion is represented by the image which is preserved thereof in the Memory and how a thing which is fixed and permanent can express another which hath nothing that 's stable and is in a continual flux For my part I finde it as difficult to comprehend how Time may be represented by any image And if M. C. grants that there is one of Motion although he knows not how it may be represented he knows not why he says that there is none of time because according to his opinion none can represent it for there is an equal reason either to receive them for the one and for the other on what we experiment that the Imagination knows them both or to refuse them on this that we know not how to represent them But we are more nearly to examine M. C. reasons otherwise he would beleeve we meant to baffle him with these subtilties and according to his custom he might brag we had not answered them what cause soever we had not to stop there for the reason we have already given The Imagination may know the Time past M C's first Reason is That the Imagination knows the absent ill without discerning that it is absent because absence hath no images no more then other privations and so the Memory being unable to represent them the Imagination which is a material Faculty cannot know it There are several ways to answer this Objection First M. C confouds here the past ill with the absent ill although they be two different things seeing there are absent ills which are not past and if we apply these words to Time as M.C. doth it is still certain That to be absent makes not the difference essential of the Time past Because the absence is a privation which cannot enter into the essence of a reall thing such as Time is And therefore the time past is not past in that it is absent but its absent for that its past Whence you may judge that the absence is but an accident which happens to Time and that consequently the Imagination may know the time past without knowing it to be absent since the time past is to be known by its true difference which ought to be real and not privative But it may be demanded what the difference is which may come to the knowledge of the Imagination Certainly if Time is the successive durance of motion or to observe the terms of the Schools if it be the number and destinction of the parts of motion as that some flow before and others afterwards its certain that the number of the parts of motion which flow first makes the difference of the time past Now there is nothing herein which the Imagination may not know for the distinction and the effective number of things which are sensible may be known by the Senses So the Senses may know three Men three Horses because Man and Horse are sensible things If it be therefore true that motion is sensible as M. C. avows the number of motion ought to be so too and if the Senses cannot know the motion without knowing the precedent parts because Motion speaks Succession and who speaks Succession supposeth something which preceded of Necessity the Senses must know the parts which have flown and must therfore know the number of the parts of motion which did flow before the rest Now this is to know the Time past Without doubt M.C. did not consider the wrong he did his own cause when the truth forced him to confess that Sense knew Motion neither did he foresee the reason and the consequence which we have now drawn from thence But to give him satisfaction in some other thing I shall grant him that absence is a privation and a negation of a being so as he will remember the distinction we produced pag. 72. where we said there were direct and oblique negations For by this means we may both be satisfied he to find the proposition which he hath produced to be true for direct negations which cannot be known by the Imagination and I to have shewed that oblique Negations may at least by accident be thereby known Thus we may together judge that the Imagination knows not the absence and the privation which happens to Time past But it knows the Time past deprived of the absent thing to wit of the Time present And that by separating the image of the present with that of the time which is run away it by accident knows that is to say by this separation that the time past is distinct and separate from the present and that consequently it is not present That in fine it forms an image of that oblique absence for as much as the separation is a modification of the images and that this modification passeth for an image since it represents the thing separate as we have more amply shewen in the 73 and 74 pages M. C's second is That the differences of time as abstracted or joyned with the things have no material image which can represent them to the Imagination and that as a Man can never say that the eyes see a soul although joyned with the body because the soul hath no image to joyn with that of the body it s the same with the differences of time All this Discourse is but a Paralogism which supposeth what is in question and compares things which are of several genders and have nothing common amongst them The differences of time are sensible since motion is sensible and that the number of things which are sensible is also sensible Now the number of motion makes the differences of time and therefore the differences of time are sensible and consequently they have material images since they cannot be sensible without having some kind of images so that the Soul which is not sensible ought not nor cannot be compared with the differences of Time which are sensible And M. C. could thereupon conclude nothing The Imagination may know the Time to come The thrid is particular for the time to come for it imports That if the Imagination knows not the differences of time but when then are conjunctive with the things its impossible it should know the time to come since it cannot know with what thing it is to be conjoyned for as much as it ought to be present and if it were present the time to be conjoyned to it must also be present Being not therefore present it can furnish no image neither to the Memory nor to the Imagination Observe this for another Paralogism which is grounded on the word Thing which M. C. understands of the material exterior object instead that it ought to be understood of the formal object that is to say of the image or of the thing represented for when we say we know the differences of time conjoyned
we may say that there is no body which hath not placed Time amongst sensible objects although no body have placed it for a gender amongst sensible objects As for the second Aristotle needed not to convince those by sence who denied the existence of the time present since he beleeved it no more then they did and it 's from him that we have learned that in time there was nothing present but an indivisible Moment which is not truly Time For as for the past Time and the Time to come there never were any Philosophers which have not acknowledged them and there was therefore no need to convince them by the sense of a Truth on which they were all agreed And although Aristotle proposed at the beginning of the Discourse he makes Reasons to prove that Time is nothing yet are they not so to be taken for proofs whereon some have grounded their beleif but for doubts which are usually made before the Truth of things be established as his own proper terms witness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After all had there been men extravagant enough to have had that thought and that this great man had not by sense convinced them it would not follow that Time were not sensible and M. C. who is not ignorant of the Laws of Logick knows well that these kinde of consequences are not receiveable That the Imagination hath Images of which the Senses give it no Knowledge We must here forget a fourth Reason produced by M.C. against the time past although he hath unloosed it from the pursuit of the precedents He then says Page 154. That the Sensitive Memory hath no Images but those which it hath received by the Senses when the Object was present So that never having had any of the Time when it was present it cannot get those of the future It is pitty this Reason should not be good having so fair an appearance but by mischance it happens that all it's propositions are false For for the first Animals may remember Dreams and Chimera's which they formed in their sleep in the absence of objects And as they are different from the things which the Senses have represented unto them it follows that the Memory wherein they preserved themselves hath other Images then those which it did receive by the Senses when the object was present On the other side the modification of Images which depends from the Actions of the Imagination such as are Union Separation and the like are not furnished for the exterior Senses in the mean while they form themselves in the absence of exterior objects and afterwards preserve themselves in the Memory In fine Beasts remember whether things are good or evill friends or foes although the Senses have not furnished them with the knowledge hereof nor by consequence with the Images by means of which they should know them and remember themselves To rectifie therefore M. C's Proposition we must say That the Memory hath no Images but those it hath received from the Senses or from the Imagination which may form them in the absence of objects the Sense contributing nothing thereunto But in this case his second Proposition is absolutely false and quite useless to our design for the Memory may receive the Image of the present time which the Imagination may have formed although even it were not true that sense knows this difference of time thus the Memory may have an image of the time past since the Imagination furnisheth it with that of the present Without doubt he will tell me That Memory is onely for past things and therefore that the present hath no place in it otherwise it must at once be present and past But there is no inconvenience therein since it 's past as to the exterior object and that it 's present as to the Representation Forasmuch as the images of the things which the Imagination hath known present enter into the Memory with that circumstance of time and this now represents them as present although in effect they are past And the soul must afterwards add the circumstance of the time past to remember it self that they are past Bur we have sufficiently cleared these difficulties in our precedent Discourses How the knowledge of Time is reserved to the Vnderstanding There remains therefore nothing but the takeing away of one scruple which he hath on what is said That the knowledge of Time is one of the most subtile and most difficult that our soul is capable of and which for that cause it was always reserved to the Vnderstanding This ought not to stop him quite since he well knows that the Understanding subtiliseth on all the most sensible things and that it considers them otherwise then the Imagination can The entire and perfect knowledge of time comprehends many difficulties which cannot be decided but by it and after having learnt of the Senses that time is somewhat it 's the onely one that can explicate what it is and how far it can know it For you are not to imagine when we say that the Imagination knows the time to come that it knows the future through all its extent nor all kind of things which are to come This ought not to be understood but of those which the present object bring back to the Memory and which she figures to herself ought quickly to arrive as we may judge by the passions in which Animals have need of this knowledge So when we assure that time is sensible we undertake not once the Office or Function of the Understanding and to give to the Senses this small knowledge we diminish neither the greatness nor the elevation it affords its own which we confess with M. C. to be one of the most subtile and most difficult of which it is capable After this M.C. concludes p. 154. That Sense sufficiently knows the motion which is made in the present Time but it knows not the Time wherein it s made otherwise there would be a sensible knowledge which could not be made by the entermixion of Images 2. That the Images of what is past are truly preserved in the Memory but that that represents not that it is no more because they cannot represent a negation of being That in fine its a certain mark that the Imagination takes no consideration of the time for that the images of a past ill produce the same effect upon it as if it were present Although all this Discourse be but a repetition of the Reasons which M. C. hath here before proposed and that we have already fully answered them Yet because he hath often taken my silence for a conviction and that he hath beleeved in several places wherein I would not amuse my self for that they did not deserve an answer he had reduced me to an inability of answering him I must not stay here without a Reply and I ought at least to make him remember cases already judged For we have shewed 1. That the Imagination might form Images
which the exterior Senses could not furnish it withal that the knowledge which followed those images was sensible since it proceeded from a sensitive faculty and therefore that there was no inconvenience that there might be a sensible knowledge which need not be from the intermission of species from without 2. That the Imagination might represent to it self oblique Negations and that that was sufficient to know that the objects were no more 3. That all the differences of Time were sensible and that even the present was so at least by accident whether this knowledge were proper to the internal Senses or whether it were made by the exterior Senses In fine that the Images of several differences of time might be preserved together in the Memory and that the Imagination might consider them the one after the other that thus the past ill might be considered as present or as future and that where it caused the same effects it had caused being present or to come it was no longer as past but as present or as to come Having taken away all these difficulties which stopt M.C. touching the knowledge which the Imagination hath of things present and to come Its seems there is nothing more which can be opposed to the reason we have deduced from the Custom and instruction which we give to Beasts For since present threats make them remember the blows they received with their first lessons and that the remembrance of those blows which are past makes them fear those to come the Imagination must needs unite the Image of the threat with that of the blows which they have received and in pursuit that they joyn the image of those blows with those others which they apprehend And truly I expect from M. C. ingenuity that after having maturely considered all these things he will finde some confusion in his Mind for haveing so lightly condemned me of error and artifice in the most part of my Reasons for he saith at the entrance of the Examen which he makes of the precedent That there is not in it the least appearance of Truth and that whereas I do in some other reasonings insinuating errors by the means of some Truths herein I have not used that artifice but fight onely with Arguments in which there is not one true Proposition to be found What! Is it not true then that Beasts remember the good and evil that 's past Is it not true that they desire and that they fear those which are to come Is it not true that the presence of certain objects having replaced in their Memories those which they have formerly received makes them afterwards fear the like What will it be thought to conclude ill that since they do all these things their imagination must go from the one to the other that it must unite images and that it must form as many propositions as it makes unions For my part I must clearly confess to M. C. that if those who shall be Judges of our differences can be of his opinion I will set my self to write as false against Philosophy against Reason and against Sense and I will abandon them all as deceivers which have abused us and that instead of serving us as instruments for the knowledg of the Truth they corrupt it and hide it from us But without running to these extremities into which there is no likelihood I should ever fall M.C. is to be excused of the ill opinion which he conceived against my first Work I will indeed deal more civilly with him then he hath done with me and that I may not altogether condemn him I must confess that he may have found in my discourse such defects as may have ingaged him to that sense I having obliged my self to render them the shortest I could possibly there are many places wherein I suppose certain knowledges which must be had from elsewhere or my Ratiocinations would be must streightned and in which I do but cast the seeds of a great many inductions which may be drawn from them And without doubt that briefness did hide from M. C's eyes the greatest part of the evidence and force of my reasons and hath made Truths appear unto him as errors and order as the subtilties of a Sophist But I ought also to beleeve that after having corrected my self for those defects and having taken away all those obscurities which he met withal by long explications he will no longer accompt as they say Truth for Injustice but will ingeniously confess that he hath maintained an ill cause at least that I have not ill defended mine and that my propositions are not so erroneous nor extravagant as he fancied them To wit whether without Ratiocination the Images of the Memory move the Imagination as if the objects were present To continue therefore the design I have begun I shall advertise him That he should not abuse himself with the experiences he here produceth since they are neither for him nor against him In effect when he says that by them he will prove That without reasoning the Images of the Memory move the Imagination in the same manner as if the objects were present What can he thence conclude to my prejudice Should I grant all those experiences they are but particular facts which hinder not but that there may be others wherein the Imagination confers the present with the past and from thence draws consequences for the future Besides that its easie to make it appear that in most part of those he produceth the Imagination makes the same progress For when a Child cryes seeing an object like to that which formerly had hurt it it is fear doubtless which makes him cry Now this passion supposeth an evil to come and therefore the present object makes that Childe remember the evill it suffered and afterwards causeth it to fear the like And when it rejoyceth at the sight of the Nurses Breast if it be from the desire and hope of sucking his Imagination doth the self same thing If there be onely the remembrance of the past pleasure which rejoyceth it it 's a fact no more like ours since it respects but the present and the past and that in instruction the Mind considers not onely present and past objects but even those which are to come It s even so when the remembrance of a good tale makes us laugh or when the encounter of a person who hath done us ill gives us a sence of aversion because therein there is no express consideration of the future Yet let not M.C. for this imagine that I beleeve the Imagination reasons not in these passions although it confers not the past with the future it hath other means then that to reason and if he will well consider the last of my Reasons which after this I shall explicate he will see That the Appetite is never moved but in pursuit of some Ratiocination As for the example of Cassander Who without shaking could not look upon the
or a custom he had need of Memory but only that it was necessary for him to acquire it and for that cause that Animals cannot acustom themselves to whatsoever it be without the help of Reason and of Memory although it may be that they may afterwards without it do those things which they accustomed themselves unto Yet for all this I do not cease to believe but that all true habits have need of Memory and that who ever should lose it would also lose the use of all other habits he hath acquired how perfect soever they were But since I did not explicate my self thereupon why will M. C. divine my thought and find inconveniences in things which I never yet said Yet do I not insist hereupon since he at last remits himself to Reason and confesseth pag 159 That this faculty is necessary for several actions which Beasts perform and the good and ill which happens to them remains in their Memory and afterwards obligeth them to reject the same actions for although he denies that it is on the hope or fear that the same good or the same ill might happen unto them It is very likely that after he hath seen the Reasons which we have used to maintain this truth he will presently yeeld up the Cudgels For my part I find the proceedings therein held very equitable and I very much approve the prudence he had to expect till I had evidently made him see that Beasts fear and hope and that they confer the time past with the future before he oblige himself to beleeve it I even maintain that in the quality which he here takes of a Defender he might in conscience say That there was no Ratiocination therein without being obliged to produce Reasons to the contrary And that if he did so it was as he says Superabundance of right and out of pure zeal which he had for the Truth But also this same prudence and this same zeal engage him to change his opinion now he hath wherewithal to satisfie his doubts and those things which were obscure unto him now present themselves clear and evident It 's an advice which I give him for his own sake for he may well think that it concerns not me and that what part soever he takes my cause will neither be better nor worse To wit Whether one may accustom ones self to some things without Reasoning Let us examine the other point where by new examples he would shew That we accustom our selves to several things whereto reason is nothing serviceable For it is here that he triumphs and flatters himself with the advantage he thinks he hath over me for that I had not answered to those he had formerly proposed on the same subject I confess I did not answer to them because I ought not to have done it And M. C. wrongs himself to make use of it since 't is a mark wherein he beleeves the decisive point of the question we have in hand is without perceiving that it s therein altogether useless Nay I shall repeat it again I pretend to speak onely of custom and habits in which he himself says that Memory is necessary and it 's sufficient for me if Animals have some one of that Nature to conclude that they could not have acquired them without reasoning since they must have conferred the present objects with those which were past and those which were to come as we have said So that if there were others in which this progress is not made in good time be it as I hinder him not so it also hinders not my consequence from being good and true But what all these few Observations he hath made must they lye on his hands without his drawing any advantage from them no indeed how slight soever they be we must disburthen him of them and at the same time shew him for what they may be good Which I will not do as he doth out of superabundance of right since it matters nothing to our question but out of the onely desire which I have to make him know the truth But we must first bring them to light that the Reader may know what we are upon and that he may give judgment from the knowledge of the cause The first is Of Children who accustom themselves to several things before they have the use of Reason The second is From the stomack which accustoms it self to certain means and which regulates its hunger at certain hours The third is Of the Liver which accustoms it self to make the more blood the oftener we are let blood The fourth is Of the fluxious which accustom themselves to fall on certain parts The fifth is Of the external Senses which acquire habits some persons having been found who have accustomed themselves to the taste of Woormwood and to the smell of stinking things c. The sixth is From the common Sense which takes a custom of sleeping and waking at regulated hours The seventh the eighth and the ninth is From the Memory from the Appetite and from the motive vertue which acquires habits from all this he concludes that it not necessary to accustom ones self to any thing to make use of reason Since there is not one of these things which he hath proposed which is reasonable nor any of their effects wherein reason appears First when he says That reason herein is not necessary he intends intellectual Reason since he acknowledgeth none other and in that sense I grant him all what he says but our difference is not therein it consists to know whether the Imagination reasons not in these encounters In the second place he imploys the word Custom without observing the several significations it hath and indifferently applies it to several things without telling us that it properly belongs to the one and improperly to others which yet were necessary to induce what he pretends for I have reason to retort all his examples in which this word hath not its true and proper signification M C. should have remembred that Custom and Habit are active dispositions and cannot be properly applyed to passives wherefore when they say That a Man accustoms himself to heat and cold that the stomack accustoms it self to certain meats that some have accustomed themselves to finde the taste of Woormwood pleasant c. This word hath not therein its natural signification because that in all these kinds of speaking we mean nothing else but that we accustom our selves to suffer those objects and that the facility we finde therein is a pure material and passive disposition which the use of these things hath left in the organs In effect we accustom our selves to heat because the impression of heat remains in the parts and makes that what comes afterwards operates not so powerfully on the body which is already imbued with that quality It 's the same with odors favors and other sensible objects which by means of striking the Senses leave a certain character in
them which renders the organs most like the objects and the objects more familiar to the organs There is not therefore therein a true custom No more then when we say that a fluxion is accustomed to fall on some place for 't is but a passive disposition which comes from the weakness of the parts which cannot resist the over-flowings of the humors which cast themselves on them Add That it is not the flux which accustoms it self for that which is fallen never falls again But it is nature which commonly dischargeth it self on the weakest parts or rather its those same parts which out of weakness are more capable to receive those superfluities wiich they receive from elsewhere However it be these are manners of speaking which are good for the people and not for Philosophers And besides its in that rank you must place The custom which the Liver takes to make the more blood in those who are often let blood For the Liver hath no more facility in making of it then then when a man is seldom let blood But 't is by this evacuation that the parts empty themselves and that Nature labors to make the more blood to fill them In fine as we never say that there is a true Custom or any Habit in the seasons and in other inanimate things although we say that the Winter is accustomed to be rainy that the earth is accustomed to be fertile in such places c. We must beleeve that when we use these kind of speeches for the natural actions of the body it s figuratively or by an abuse and that a man who cannot distinguish these things deserves not to enter into the secrets of Nature nor to take place amongst Philosophers After all this if M.C. would opiniaster himself to maintain that there is a true custom in all those observations which he produceth Could we not tell him that as they are all taken from Animals they leave the suspition that the Imagination concurs thereunto and that therefore they are not performed without the Ratiocination of that Faculty Certainly to have taken away all cause of doubt he should have made use of examples drawn from insensible things as Stones Plants c. Then there had been no more difficulty we should have been constrained to confess that Custom needs not the help of the Memory and of Reason But since all these parts which he says accustomed themselves to certain things are indewed with sense and that everywhere where there is sense the Imagination must agitate Are we not to beleeve that they have accustomed themselves thereunto by Knowledge and that the images which form this Knowledge preserve themselves in the Memory and make the soul remember the first actions that it may afterwards perform the like whence at last comes facility and habit No let not M.C. deceive himself the Imagination and the Memory agitate not alone in the Head Although they recide there as in their Throne and there perform their most considerable actions they spread themselves through all the sensible parts and perform often operations of which they give no knowledge to this principal organ and therein imitate Princes who act many things in the several parts of the State without communicating ought to their counsel It 's thus that so many sentiments are made in the Members without our preception It 's thus that the Memories remains in the fingers of a Luthenest after he hath forgot all his peeces It 's thus that the vertue formatrix forms the images it hath received from the Imagination when it imprints those wonderful marks on the bodies of children during the womens being with child they neither knowing nor remembring themselves thereof But we reserve to the third Volume of our Characters which we are about to publish the full discovery of this truth In the mean time let 's conclude this unprofitable Examen of M C's examples since we agree to what he intends to prove to wit That Custom may be acquired without the help of Intellectual Reason And that its very likely that having well considered the proofs we have produced to shew that the Imagination reasons he will also agree with us That the custom he speaks of can never be acquired but by the Discourse of the Imagination CHAP. V. Examen of M. C. Objections against our last proof of the Reasoning of Beasts THe last proof which we gave of the Reason of Beasts was That the motion of their Appetite which ought to preceed all the actions which they perform is never made without being devanced by three Propositions The 1. That the thing is good The Second That it 's feasible The Third That it must be done And that these Propositions are linked together with common terms and the one drawing its evidence from the other they must form a perfect Ratiocination This Reason which we imployed to shew that the actions of the Instinct are all made with Ratiocination pleaseth not M.C. First in that I suppose that those actions are motions of the Appetite and he says That he is too knowing in these matters and too hard to be perswaded to beleeve it without its having been proved to him Yet for compliance sake he will grant it that he may make it appear that the Appetite needs none of these Propositions For my part I would not have him lose the merit of such an extraordinary civility I here accept of the favor he doth me at least until we come to the Examen of the Instinct for I then hope to make it evidently appear not that these Actions are motions of the Appetite having never proposed that Proposition but that they were preceded by the motion of the Appetite And how difficult soever it may be to perswade I am sure to convince him by the first notions of Philosophy or to reduce him to that point as to deny them and to fight against common sense This Article remaining then in suspence till that time Let 's now observe what he opposeth to the rest It s sufficient says he if the object he known by the first operation of the spirit to move the Appetite for when one that is hunger-starved sees bread his Appetite without discourse is carried thereunto and when we put our hands to the dish our Imagination discourseth not whether it be good I cannot take it I must therefore take it It seems saving the respect which I owe M. C. he quits himself not well of his promise for I therein see no proof which makes me know that the Appetite needs none of these propositions and doth he think it enough to destroy a thing simply to contradict it without grounding it on any Reason I said the Appetite hath need of propositions and he answers That it s enough if the object be known by the first operation of the spirit He should therefore have proved it For what he adds That when one hungerstarved sees bread he carries his Appetite thereto without discourse
the Reason which M. C. examines here would still remain in full force and it would still be true that Dogs and Hawks do not pursue their Game how good soever it appear unto them if they judge it to be out of reach It remains now for us to observe whether he hath weakened it by any other Objection more considerable then that He for a second Reason adds That Dogs often cease to pursue the Game although it be not out of reach their Imagination being diverted That on the contrary they do not forbear to pursue what is too far off to be taken and if they do stop it s either out of weariness or out of distraction but also most commonly because that an object a far off draws not at all I shall grant him all what he here says excepting that adamantine vertue wherewith he beleeves objects draw the powers of the Mind for 't is an extravagant opinion which cannot be maintained by any reason and which destroys the nature of Knowledg and the principles of Philosophy Without lying I wonder that so clear a spirit as is M. C's should not have perceived that all what he hath said makes nothing against what I have proposed When I said that Dogs often do not pursue their prey because they judge it too far off and that for his part he also assures That often they do not pursue it because their Imagination is diverted We are nothing contrary the one to the other and both may have been in the right Had I said that they never pursued their prey when it was too far off and that the distance was the onely cause they ceased to pursue it he would have reason to object against me That distraction often is the cause that they do not pursue it and even that they sometimes pursue it when it s out of reach For all this may be true although I do not beleeve they judge it to be out of reach when they pursue it for an Animal cannot undertake a thing without judging it possible yet this hinders not that often also the onely knowledge of the distance is cause of their forbearance And M.C. having produced no proofs to the contrary I see nothing that diminisheth the strength of mine nor which obligeth me to change my opinion in effect why should not the distance hinder a Dog from pursuing his prey since he well knows the height of a precipice and that that onely knowledge is able to retain and hinder him from throwing himself down it I see no difference betwixt the one and the other And if M. C. will grant the latter I must also yeeld to the former and at last confess That my Reason is good and that he hath produced nothing to destroy it The End of the Third Part. Answers to those Objections made against the Reason of Beasts THE FOURTH PART CHAP. I. The First OBIECTION Of the difference there is betwixt the Understanding and the Imagination HAving shewed you in my first Work That the Imagination reasons I would readily have taken away the suspition which might have been bred in the Readers mind least I had rendred the Imagination equal with the Vnderstanding for I have made it appear that there was a great difference between them two First for as much as the knowledge of the Imagination is bounded to corporal things necessary unto life and commonly restrained to those which are proper to the nature of every Species and that that of the Vnderstanding extends it self to all things whatsoever Secondly In that the Imagination forms no universal Notion and consequently can make no Ratiocinations but particular ones Instead that the Vnderstanding hath the liberty to form general Notions of all things and to draw from thence universal or particular consequences at its pleasure Whence we concluded That the Imagination is not onely inferior to the Vnderstanding in the manner of operating but also in the order of Nature and Essence For the power which judgeth of all things and which maketh vniversal Notions cannot be tyed to the matter and ought to be spiritual forasmuch as the matter determines and cannot admit of universality That so the Vnderstanding reasoning universally ought to be in the order of spiritual things whereto the Imagination cannot pretend being reduced to particular discourses Whence it follows that speaking generally Reason is not the specifick difference of Man but such a species of Reason to wit universal Reason and because its the most noble and the most perfect of all it retains the name of the whole gender according to the example of several other Species and hath part with this priviledge in the definition of Man yet it is not therefore that this word Reason although it should signifie the faculty or action of reasoning precisely makes the essential difference of Man because both the one and the other are pure Accidents and that the difference of Man ought to be a substance But as in the ignorance wherein we are of the last differences of things we make use of proprieties and powers which are nearest their essence to design their Nature Philosophy which herein is no less enlightned then elsewhere hath imployed the faculty of reasoning to mark the essential difference of Man But to follow his design and to draw the nearer to the truth we must conceive this universal faculty that it may mark the order of Nature which distinguisheth him from all other creatures to wit Spirituality And therefore when we define a Man by Reason it ought to be understood of the Faculty of Reasoning universally and not of the Faculty of Reasoning simply which is common to him with Beasts The first difference which there is betwixt the Vnderstanding and the Imagination I imagined in my self That there was no reasonable man who ought not to content himself with the share I had allotted him in the distribution of Knowledge and Reason Yet it seems M C. is not satisfied therewith and that he will also have that which I have allowed Beasts and would take from them that small portion of Ratiocination which God and Nature hath given them First He approves not that the Imagination is different from the Understanding in that its knowledge is restrained to corporal things which are necessary to life and proper to the Nature of every species instead that that of the Understanding extends to all things whatsoever For although at first he says That he would not contest thereupon if I would not make these knowledges pass by Ratiocinations Yet without remembring this protestation he presently after says p. 129. That it is not true that the knowledges of the Imagination are restrained to things necessary for life and proper to the nature of every species If this is not true why would he not contest it Is it that he will contest onely things which are true Is it that he hath a right to maintain right and wrong and to change his opinion from one line to
how evident soever they are of themselves which need no other knowledge but that of terms and which natural light make us presently comprehend yet ought to be known and proved by the Induction Now it is not that the Induction gives in the evidence but it is that it fortifies and confirms it as hath been said The second Objection is That the Conclusion draws its evidence and its proof from the antecedent propositions and consequently it ought of it self to be obscure and doubtful But we should say that the proof of the conclusion is ever in power in the antecedents and not always in effect that is to say that were it necessary to prove the conclusion it might be done by the Antecedents But when the conclusion is certain or evident of it self it needs none of this proof unless for the reason before mentioned to wit to confirm the truth which she makes known So that in this case the conclusion doth not effectively draw its evidence from the propositions which precede it and this maxim is not true as to the effect but for the conclusions which are obscure and doubtful Whereto may be added what we have said in the Chapter of the Third Part that things are known or unknown by the Senses or by Nature and that a conclusion may be known by one and unknown by another And then the Antecedent will serve as a proof not for sensible evidence but for natural evidence So this Proposition Peter is risible is evident of it self by sense and experience and were it to be proved by a universal proposition it is but to give in the natural evidence which it hath not After all this being evident by the senses the proof added thereunto whatever it were serves but to confirm the truth which is already known from elsewhere We may therefore reason on things which are not obscure nor doubtful and consequently the evidence of means were it as great as that of the end cannot hinder the soul from reasoning not onely to apply them to that end but also to the operation which ought to follow this knowledge as we have before said That we cannot apply the Means to the End without Ratiocination M. C. hath then much deceived himself when he assures page 114. That all the error of his adversaries comes but from that they imagine that its impossible to use means to attain an end without reasoning For all what I have said makes it appear that there was no error therein and all what he says afterwards to shew that there is proves nothing what he pretends First The example he brings of insensible things which use means to attain to their end without having any knowledge of it is altogether impertinent For the question here is not to know whether the imployment of means in general to attain an end require Ratiocination the question is restrained to things which operate with knowledge Now it 's certain that Animals know the end to which they tend as we shall shew hereafter and consequently they also know the means to attain it And by the reason before alledged they ought to reason to apply the meanes to the end and to the practical judgment which they make before they make use of it It 's true if there were a knowledge to be found by which we could imploy those means without making this judgment which devanceth all the motions of the appetite and which is the principle of all animal operation perhaps I might confess that Ratiocination would be nothing necessary But where were this knowledge to be found since of all the things which are in nature the Animals onely are knowing and that to operate they must judge that the things are good and possible and that from the goodness and possibility they find in them they conclude that they must do them which cannot be without reasoning as we have demonstrated In the second place the example he adds pag. 114 115. of Children of Fools as those benummed of timerous persons c. who without reasoning as he says employ means to do a thing All these examples I say are useless to our question for they do exclude but the Ratiocination of the superior part which is not here in question and presuppose the Ratiocination of the Imagination which is as much as to say that they do not employ means without reasoning Yes I grant That a Child which reasons not yet brings its hands to its face to take away what troubles it that falling he opposeth them to save himself that he casts himself on his Nurses breasts that he useth more strength in sucking her as he hath more need and hides it self from one who hath frighted it and useth a hundred several means for several ends But although it be true that this Childe reasons not yet it cannot yet be understood but of Intellectual Ratiocination and not of that of the Imagination which goes before all these actions as we have shewed in several places of this Work It 's the same with those benummed who how little sense soever they have remaining shrink back those parts where they are grieved for so long as they still feel their Imagination must work and move the appetite to these motions and consequently make that Ratiocination which we have so often spoken of We may say as much of a Man whose appetite prevents all the conclusions which his reason can make at the unexpected encounter of some spark of fire which burns him Of timerous persons who without reasoning flie from those things which appear frightful and of those to whom the sight of a Serpent of a Mouse or of such like makes them out of countenance by the antipathy they have together For all this may well be without the intervention of the Superior Reason but not without the reasoning of the Imagination In the mean time M. C. confounds these two things as well as the design and intention which are to be found in these two faculties since he says That all the actions of the Appetite are performed without design that we often laugh without any intention and that the apprehension of tickling causeth us often to make involuntary shrugs Now it 's certain that by this kind of speaking we can say nothing but that these actions are done without the Design and Intention of the Superior part And it cannot fall into the thought of any reasonable person that from thence one might infer that they were done without the design and intention of the sensitive soul presupposing that it is capable of design and intention as we have shewed So that I pitty M.C. for having taken so much pains to accumulate reasons upon reasons and heaping examples on examples to prove a thing which is besides the question and to have forgotten the decisive point of our dispute Truly had he fallen into the defect he reproacheth me to have done in some place to have made principles according to my fancy to draw from
but taken heed to prove that they have this knowledge I make use of the Reason with which they are indewed he might well have perceived that I intended not thereby to prove that they did reason otherwise I should have brought for a proof what now is in question But as it is a truth which I had demonstrated before I might make use of it to make it appear that they know the end and the means because it 's for Reason to know them to compare things one with another and to destine them to what use it pleaseth Let not M. C. be scandalized on the word he takes not away liberty as hath been said already in the first part of this Discourse For although beasts chuse not the means and that at first they are determined by what first presents it self or is most efficatious we may nevertheless say that they will that they desire and that they are pleased to make use of such a means Let 's add to these two Objections what he says 1. That men reason not to prove the first principles 2. That by reason they cannot perswade themselves to what the Senses manifestly shew them 3. Because it 's to overthrow the nature of Ratiocination to employ as a proof what is more obscure then the things which we would perswade 4. And that they would laugh at a man who would discourse to know whether the first-step of a Stair-case serves for a means to rise to the second 5. That in fine amongst all the things which are to be judged by sight onely and report which is evident to the Senses we onely make use of simple conceptions 6. And that if there be no doubt and obscurity we need none of this Examen nor of this Deliberation whereby he defines Ratiocination But how easily soever the answer which is to be made may be found to all these Reasons in the precedent Discourse Yet for M. C's satisfaction I shall answer to every one in particular First What he says of the first principles is not absolutely true for if they may be proved by induction as Aristotle teacheth us we must needs reason to prove them since the Induction is a Ratiocination On the other side were it true That we should not reason to prove them I am very well assured that we could not know without reasoning Because that besides that they are universal propositions and that the Understanding can form no universal notion without discourse as hath been shewn To conceive them it must needs compare the one with the other and consequently it must reason since without reasoning we cannot compare things In effect we cannot say nor comprehend that the whole is greater then its part not even conceive what the whole or the part is without comparing the one with the other forasmuch as there is a mutual relation betwixt them which enters into the essence of either and that we cannot define the one but the other must enter into the definition it 's the same with all the rest for when we say that a thing is or is not and that nothing is and is not at the same time we must compare the being with the not being and make a many reflections wherein necessarily Ratiocination must be involved It 's true this is done so swiftly that it seems as if there were onely simple notions at least the mind contents it self to express by one only proposition all the progress it hath made therin and will not any more explicate a thing which it well knows that others with it conceive it after the same manner Even as to witness that it consents or doth not consent to what is proposed there needs but I or no although in themselves they make an entire discourse knowing well that these monosyllables will make it sufficiently known As for the second proposition besides that it is not every way true and that there are a hundred encounters wherein reason perswades what experience and the senses manifestly make known as we have shewed It 's useless in the matter in question if it be not restrained to operation for I admit not that the Imagination should reason on the knowledge which the senses have of their objects but on the application of this knowledge to operation So when the Animal judgeth such a thing to be sweet or good to eat I understand not that it reasons thereon but onely when it from thence concludes that it must be eaten And when he says That it 's to overthrow the nature of Ratiocination to make use of for a proof what is more obscure then the thing we would perswade This is true when we imploy it for an absolute and necessary proof and not when 't is but to confirm the evidence and certainty we have thereof This again may be true when we use this proof by choice and by election and not when 't is by constraint and that of necessity we must pass by this middle to go to the conclusion as it happens in most of our reasonings and in all the reasonings of Beasts So that there is no way left to laugh at a man who would reason to know whether the first step of a stair served for the means to get up to the second p. 117. For besides that he cannot consider the first degree as a mean to arrive at the second unless he compare them together if he apply the knowledge he hath of it to the operation he must necessarily reason neither can he do otherwise It 's true that if he expressed by speech the reasoning he made thereon perhaps they might have occasion to mock him for speaking a useless thing c. which all the world knows In the same manner a man might render himself ridiculous if he would prove to a man that he is a man and such like things which he cannot be ignorant of after all this I shall send back M.C. to the fifth Chapter of my Third Part where he may find how the means enter into Ratiocination But must we still stay at the last of M. C's Propositions which we have so fully refuted All our second Part is imployed to shew that the Imagination may make propositions of things which are evident to the senses We every hour make the like and every moment we say That Snow is white That the Sun is luminous That Time is obscure c. In the mean time these are not simple conceptions since they are true Propositions and consequently it 's false That in all things which are judged by sight onely and whose report is evident to the senses we imploy onely simple conceptions To conclude we have made it appear in the Fourth Part that Deliberation is not of the essence of Ratiocination and that it ought not to be defined thereby as M. C. hath done And truly methinks for the love and respect which he owes the truth he will not oppose himself to what I here present him withal and that since he
doubt will maintain that all these Reasons cannot perswade him that Beasts speak forasmuch as to say that we speak we must have an intention and a design to express our thoughts by the voice and know that it is a sign and means to make us be understood So that Beasts having no design nor intention to express their Thoughts by the Voice and not knowing it to be a means to make them understood although it were even articulate and significative it would not be a speech and we could not properly say they speak This is the second Reason which I have already touched having answered to one part of it already for I hold with him that the Thesis of it is true and that to speak we must have a design to make known our thoughts by the voice and to know that it 's a sign and a means to make us understand But I also hold that the Hypothesis of it is false and that the proofs he brings to maintain it are pure Paralogisms and conclude nothing which may either hurt or serve me For to shew that Beasts have no intention or design to make known their thoughts by their cries and by their accents he produceth onely examples of voyces which passion makes some persons send forth without any design or intention of theirs Now it 's undoubted that in there encounters the words of design and of intention can onely be applied to the Understanding and to the Will and that this signifies no more but that passion sends forth those voices without the Understanding or Wils contributing thereunto And therefore he can from thence infer nothing but that Beasts have not a design and intention which proceed from the superior part Now I consent pag. 163. That a man that feels grief feels himself also forced to complain although even he should have no design to make himself understood That there are persons who by their sighs and unvoluntary groanings have discovered what they had a long time hid That there are some who being alone break out into open laughter and cannot even hinder themselves from it in company what intention soever they have to fain themselves sad That in fine divers will cast forth cries in a surprise who would not cry at all had they but time afforded them to form some design But I also hold that this also concerns not our question because these complaints and these sighings these cries and these laughters which in truth devance all the motions of the Intellectual Reason exclude no other resolutions nor other designs but those of the Understanding which is not the thing in question To give some force to these examples he should have proved that the imagination concuâ—s not to all these actions and that they are done without their having any design or invention of doing them but truly to have performed it he must have destroyed all the most assured Maxims of Philosophy and the most certain order which the soul keeps in the ordinary operations For it is undoubted that all those motions of Animals which we call voluntary come from the emotions of the Appetite which is the principle thereof and that the Appetite never moves it self without the Judgment of the Imagination which proposeth and ordaineth what it is to do Now it doth not only order it to make it more in members because it is but one means to attain its principal action But it self proposeth the action it self which is the end and aim the Animal tends to If this be so since the voice forms it self by means of the muscles the judgment of the Imagination must needs precede their motion and that this knows that the voyce ought to form it self by their means and that it orders the Animal to cry Now if she knows and if she ordains she hath a design and an intention to form a voice because the design is nothing but the judgment and the proposition which the faculty makes to execute what she finds good As the intention is nothing but the motion which forms it self in the appetite in pursuit of that judgment And consequently in all the examples proposed by M.C. the grief nonâ— he surprise excites no sighing cries or other voice which the mind had not a design and an intentention to form Let no man object That it 's true the Mind hath a design and intention to form the Voice but none to make it self be thereby understood For if she hath an intention to form the voice she must have it as of a thing good and profitable to it for as much as the intention always respects the end and the end is ever considered as good Now if from the voice we exclude communication and design of making it self thereby understood there will therein be neither goodness nor profit and consequently the mind would not have the same intention of forming it And why should not an Animal have a design to make it self understood by its crys and by its accents since it very well comprehends the thoughts of others by those which they form and if it sufficiently understands them when it calls for their help when it imparts to them the posture it hath found when they advertise them of the danger which threatens them why should they not make use of the same voice to give them the same knowledge Yes but says M.C. page 164. These are the immediate effects of passions and he could never have beleeved that any man would have made use of those effects to have inferred a Reason from them Let him not wonder at this there are infinite many other most true illations which he as yet knows not and which he beleeves may not be drawn from many propositions which he knows And without seeking them further he minded not the consequences which I have drawn from the objection he made me for I necessarily from thence conclude that he hath here forgot the Laws of Logick and the Maxims of Philosophy First we dispute not here about Reason neither will we infer from the diversity of the voices which Beasts have that they reason but onely that they communicate their thoughts together that they have a design and an intention to do it and that consequently they speak together So that it seems M.C. hath forgot the state of the question which himself stated and that according to his custom he falls into the sophism that he raiseth what he ought not to raise For although in pursuit of this we may conclude That if Animals speak they must needs have reason yet we are not yet there 't is a consequence which supposeth we proved that Animals speak and 't is to pervert the order of Ratiocination precipitate matters to descend to this conclusion without having cleared the preceding difficulty In the second place p. 164. when he wonders that from the immediate effects of passion I should infer the design and intention of the mind He knows not that those principally are the
according to the cries they make when they are agitated with some vehement passion M.C. is not ignorant that the trouble they cause precipitates all the designs of the soul and often perverts and corrupts them He knows that Speech which is destined for society escapes those who are alone when they suffer any great motion of joy or displeasure That a man in anger revengeth himself untimely and strikes without cause whom he first meets That violent desires cause the mouth to water when notwithstanding it is unnecessary and a hundred such like examples which all the passions furnish Without doubt there is a great difference betwixt the groanings of a Dog when he is sensible of a strong greif or when he would enter into a Chamber which is shut in the first he scarce knows why he complains but in the other he knows that it is to be let in and undoubtedly he thinks to call some one to let him in For we do not say as M.C. would have us beleeve p. 166. That his design was to address his voice to other dogs to open it to him because he hath no experience that dogs open doors but that it is men which open them To clear this truth I would counsel him to come to Paris to consult with famous Montdory's Cat which is so discreet that she never means to come into the Chamber when she finds it shut she only draws a little bell which hangs at the door and if at first sounding they come not and open it she redoubles it untill she be let in I doubt not but that after having known that no body troubled themselves to teach her to draw the bell and that of it self this wise Beast did learn to imitate those persons which she had seen do the same thing I say I doubt not but he will judge either that the Cat it self would answer him if he would interrogate her thereupon that she had no design to call other Cats to open her the door but those persons which were wont to do it After all should a Dog or a Cat address its voice to other creatures as in several incounters without doubt it may and that they would not come to its aid as M. C. says what consequence could he draw from thence but that it were deceived in its design as it happens to many who unprofitably demand succour from those who either cannot or will not give it them This is all what I had to say on what M.C. proposed concerning the language of Beasts and which will also serve for an answer to what he objects against the other actions which they perform to make their thoughts known For confessing that the gesture the mind and the look do it as well as the voice he says as before That it s without design and that there are the effects of their passions of which Reason and design do not participate But it 's easie thereby to see that he confounds the design of the Understanding with that of the Imagination as he hath done before Wherefore I shall send him back to what we have already answered Since Beasts Speak they must needs Reason After all these proofs which evidently make it appear that Beasts communicate their thoughts and speak together had we not reason from thence to infer that they did reason Not only because M. C. finds this consequence necessary but also because they cannot make their intentions known to demand help the one of another with out forming a perfect Ratiocination Seeing that there are so many several judgments to be made in these encounters so many progresses which the soul makes from causes to their effects from signs to things signified and from goods and evils present to those which are past and to come that it 's impossible but we must find it in the form and contexture of discourse All what M. C. opposeth hereunto is That he hath shewn how Beasts communicate their thoughts and how this communication may be made without Ratiocination But if my memory be good all his proof reduceth it self into two Reasons which we have destoyed the one that they have no speech and the other that they have no design or intention to make known their thoughts In a word we have proved the contrary and consequently according to M. C's Maxime had we no other marks of their Ratiocination it must follow that they reason since we have made it appear that they speak As for the example which we produced of a Hen which calls her Chikens to impart unto them the grain she hath found and that it must needs be that she had a design to make them come to shew them their food and to nourish them And that they also must understand the voice which summons them comprehend the thing which is signified by it and hope for the good which it announceth He answers only That all this is done by instinct But this is not to take away the difficulty the question is to know whether all these actions are done with knowledge For if it be so we must also confess that there is a Ratiocination since so many progresses of one knowledge to another cannot be without discourse And it matters not whether it be done by instinct for as fear which comes from instinct is a true fear and is of the same species as is that which comes from elsewhere the Ratiocination which precedes the Instinct must needs be a true Ratiocination and of the same nature with the other Now it is not to be contested but that there is a knowledge in all the actions which the Hen and Chickens do in the example we brought design and intention being therein as hath been demonstrated The Intention forasmuch as it is the motion of the Appetite which tends toward good that the Hen and Chicken will do the things they do and consequently form the design thereof which is a motion of the Appetite whith tends toward the good The design because it 's a proposition which the faculty makes to execute what it finds useful which ever goes before the intention and which consequently precedes the desire of the Hen and of the Chicken They agitate them with knowledge that 's to say they conceive the things which they judge good and that they from thence draw those consequences which we have observed all the difference which the Instinct brings thereunto is that the senses furnish them not with all the things which they know and the greatest part of the objects of their knowledge must come from elsewhere But whence soever they come they form images thereof and afterwards unite them together wherein all knowledge consists And were there any exterior thing intervening amongst these actions it would be as a help and not as a principle because they are vital actions whose faculties which are born with the Animal are the first and last causes But we shall more carefully examine this in the Discourse of the Instinct
those Causes and made it appear that they cannot act without the help of Reason This order was not pleasing to M.C. and in the Examen he made he hath not only begun his Book by a Discourse of Instinct but he would also have it believed that I had done ill in not following that Method seeing I held that the Instinct supposeth a natural knowledge and that natural knowledges ought to be treated before those which are acquir'd But he ought to have considered that all my design was to shew that Beasts reason and that what was to be said of Instinct ought to be but an incident to the question So that if I had begun from thence I should have placed the Accessory before the Principal and the Objection before the Conclusion On the other side had not this consideration obliged me to follow this Method could he not have remembred that there are two sorts of it the one which begins by those things which in themselves and naturally are most evident the other which begins by those which in respect of us and by the sense are most evident That both the one and the other is good but that the latter hath this advantage that it is more conformable to our ordinary way of knowing which begins always by sensible things So although without a fault I might have first spoken of Natural knowledges which are first in the order of Nature and consequently more evident in themselves then those which are acquired still methought it was better to begin by those which were acquired which are most sensible and therefore in our own respect the first and most evident In effect since I was to shew that Instinct supposeth a natural knowledge and that before that I was to seek wherein Knowledge in general consisted Could I have arriv'd by any surer way then by certain and indubitable Experiments which we have through acquired Knowledge especially having none through the Natural Let us trifle no longer therefore neither he nor I on the general Order we have observed in our Works I think that his was not ill in that particular and that mine was necessary for my design Neither will I change it here having observed the same disposition of Subjects the same number of Reasons and the same sequel of Consequences which are to be found in my Treatise of the Knowledge of Beasts If there be any difference it is that there I have observed as much as I could a Rhetorical discourse and here I treat of things in the ordinary way of the Schools who divide the matters by Chapters which relate the Reasons and which do not seeek that exact concatenation of words which the Laws of Oratory require For I thought it was fit to make an abridgment of all what I employed in my first Treatise and afterwards faithfully to produce the objections of M. C. without troubling the Reader to seek elswhere to clear himself concerning the subject of our contest I therefore divided my Discourse into four Parts In the first I shew That the Imagination to know things ought to form the images thereof In the second That the Imagination may unite those images it hath formed and consequently make Propositions In the third That it may unite several Propositions and bind them together with common terms wherein Ratiocination consists The fourth contains the Answer which is to be made to those Objections which are commonly proposed against the Reason of Beasts Now for as much as M.C. would not follow this order I have been constrained to recollect the reasons he hath scattered here and there and to reduce under every of these parts where I have examined them with all possible moderation For although in some places there are some touches of censure and raillery which he may resent I believe he will consider that besides that most commonly I do but defend my self with the same arms with which he hath assaulted me the Critical part is in it self so severe and so crabbed that if some divertisement were not insinuated it would become loathsom both to the Author and to the Reader And if it be lawful to say so it 's a food which easily disgusteth unless it hath some relish and some sharpness But I have not only sought for him this seasoning in the civility of my censure and in the innocency of my raillery I have endeavoured to slip in several Questions which by their novelty may divert the mind of the Reader and untire him from the troubles which our Contest may have given him for without doubt he will take pleasure to know 1. Whether external Images enter into the Memory 2. What the word Est Is signifies in Propositions 3. How the Imagination may make negative Propositions 4. Whether if a materiall power such as the Imagination is can forme Universall Notions 5. Whether Beasts doubt 6. Whether they hope and whether they fear 7. How they know the time to come 8. Whether they know the end and the means they use to attain it 9. What Action the Soul performs in Reasoning 10. Whether one may reason in an instant 11. Whether Reasoning was given onely to clear doubtfull things 12. What the Nature of speech is and of such like which I have insinuated into this Discourse Wherein M. C. may if he please exercise himself but whereof he is not to expect from me any reply For if he produceth better reasons then mine I from this very time consent unto them and if they are as weak as those which he hath already brought it may be lawfull for me to continue in my opinions and to apply my self to better things then to prolong a Processe where all the profit rather accrews to him who hath lost it since he gaines both the time and the truth Le ts quickly dispatch this therefore and begin with the first Part. But first of all it is fit That the Reader should be advertised that the word of Imagination which is so frequent in this work may not be here taken for a distinct faculty of the common sense of the phancy and of the estimative as they do commonly in the schools But for a generall Faculty which comprehends all the powers of the Sensitive Soul which serve for knowledge In the same manner as the word understanding comprehends all the faculties of the intellectuall Soul which make things to be known Such as is the Apprehensive the Cogitative the Discoursive the Agent and Patient Intellect c. In effect all these different faculties which are to be found in the Sensitive Soul have in common amongst them That they know and consequently there is a generall Faculty which knows which is afterwards divided into as many peices as there are severall sorts of Knowledges Now this generall faculty having no particular Name may by the example of divers other genders take the Name of one of those species and principally that of the Imagination which is the most considerable and most
hath so freely granted That besides Contemplation and Deliberation Beasts may do all what the mind of Man can do He will also then confess with the same ingenuity that they perfectly reason after we have shewed him that Man may perfectly reason without any contemplation or deliberation For although hitherto he hath had cause to rest in those vulgar opinions which have not precisely observed wherein the nature of discourse consists and which have not considered it but in the conditions and in the qualities which are nothing essential to it it 's to be presumed that having acknowledged the error in which they are he will now forsake them and joyn with me to make a more ample discovery of that truth which I have encountred and to give the last touches to perfect what perhaps I have onely dead-coloured Yes without doubt if he approve that all the action of Ratiocination consists in this circular revolution which the soul makes on these images and that the Syllogism is not formed but by the return she makes on these first notions to joyn them with the latter Perhaps he will also consent not onely that to reason she needs neither deliberate nor meditate and that in this knowledge she may be the Senses slave and suffer her self to be forced and necessitated to the first means which presents it self But likewise there is nothing in this action which surpasseth the force of the Imagination and that consequently Children and Animals may perfectly reason if he look on the perfection which is essential to Ratiocination and not to that which is strange and accidental for if there are perfect reasonings to be found in which the Soul makes no abstraction or reflexion no universal notion nor any deliberation as it appears in the most part of Expositive Syllogisms all these conditions of necessity must not be essential to discourse and that that which is made in things purely simple wherein not one of these circumstances meet must to speak properly and exactly be a perfect Ratiocination But we must give time to M. C. to resolve hereupon in the mean time let 's see what he objects against the Language of Beasts CHAP. III. The Third OBIECTION Of the Language of Beasts IF Beasts did Reason they would reason not onely together but even also with men They would speak with one another and if they were deprived of speech they would at least fancy to themselves as well as dumb persons some signs and significative gestures to make themselves understood so that it 's an evident token that they want Reason since they cannot perform any of these things which are the effects and natural sequels of Ratiocination but those who make this objection do not heed that they lend us arms to combate them and that if we come to shew that all these actions are common and ordinary to Beasts they must of necessity confess that they have reason since they are as they say the effects and natural consequences of Ratiocination Now all the world agrees That they communicate their thoughts and without consulting the Books of the learned every man of himself may make proof of this truth for a man must be extremely stupid not to observe that all Beasts which have the use of Voice use it to make their desires known and that they have cries and different accents according as the several designs which pleasure or grief hope or fear inspire in them Do they not intercal themselves when they are in love when they want help when they have found any food which they may impart to others For it 's certain that if a Sparrow comes to a place where there is much corn he will call the rest unto it and that a Wolf having found a Carrion will bring his companions to it Some even say that either of them diversifies its voyce according to the nature of the thing they encounter and that that marks by a particular accent whether it be Wheat Barley or Buck which they have found And this hath its different roar when 't is the Carrion of a Horse or when 't is that of an Ass But without examining the truth of so curious an observation can we observe a Dog shut up in any place presently begin to make long sighings and afterwards change them into redoubled barkings and last of all howle out till he is out of breath without fancying that he would make it appear by these different crys the several passions which his captivity causeth him And whoever perceives little Chickens flie and hide themselves at the instant when they hear the Hen cry and afterwards return again under her wings when she useth another follow and run to feed according as she diversifies her voyce will doubtless judge that there is a communication of thoughts amongst them and some kind of Language whereby they make themselves understand one another And certainly whoever observes that of all Birds would make no difficulty to beleeve that Tiresias Melampus and Apollonius have formerly understood it and if that any man would apply himself unto it he might yet learn it And that its even easie by imitating it to entertain ones self with them since in some manner we daily do it when we take them by the whistle and that we bring them whether we please by counterfeiting their voyce and accents But it is not onely by Voyce that Beasts make themselves understood the Look the Mind and the Gesture also serve them for the same purpose they know as well in one the others eyes the passions they have and a Dog will see in the forehead of a Mastiff whether he may with security approach him and whether he be in sportful humor Doth he not threaten when he shews his teeth when his hair stands an end and when he looks through him who assaults him In fine all his corvets and his carressing postures all the flattering motions of his Tail and Ears which he makes when he accosts his Master are but so many signs and very significative gestures of the desire he hath to please him Now if Beasts communicate their thoughts together of necessity they must entertain one the other and even they must reason together and that the Discourse must enter their thoughts as we have declared And had we brought no proofs of this truth we could not conceive that they made their intentions known to give or ask help to or from one another but we must beleeve that they form a perfect Ratiocination for there are so many judgments to be made in these encounters so many consequences to be deduced so many progresses which the soul makes from causes to the effects from signs to things signified and from goods and ills present to those which are past and to come that it 's impossible but we must finde the form and contexture of Discourse I would willingly ask our Adversaries if when a Hen having found some grains calls her Chickens to impart it to
into the essence of things So that the assembling together of divers vowels and consonants which signifie nothing forbears not to form articulate words as the Blictri of the Schools and the words which our Parrots learn have all the smoothness and all the variety of pronunciation which we give them although as to them they signifie nothing no more then those Latin discourses which are taught children and as we may not say that these latter are not articulate voices and true words we must needs also confess that the words which birds learn are of the same nature But I shall say more holding to this restriction the cries and accents of all Animals which have the use of voyce must of necessity be articulate voices although even it should not serve them to express the motions of their mind Because there is not one wherein is not onely some vowel which is continued and lengthened as in the bellowings of Bulls and howlings of Wolves or cut and repeated as in the barking of Dogs or mixt with several others as in the Nightingales singing as in the warbling of Birds But even also wherein some consonants may be observed which makes the articulation thereof which is particularly observed in the bleating of Sheep in the crowing of Cocks in the meawing of Cats and in the hissing of Serpents where the B and the C the M and the S which are of the order of the consonants are distinctly understood as we have shewed and we are not to wonder if there are consonants which Beasts do not pronounce for besides that they have not all the organs which are necessary thereunto there are even also whole Nations which cannot form some of them the Arabians use not the P nor the Greeks the J and V consonants nor the Italians the V vowel otherwise always imploy the T for the D the C for the G. and History observes that antiently the Alphabet was composed but of twelve Letters The Voice of Animals is then articulate but it 's far less so then that of men of which there are two principall reasons the first is drawn from the end for which it was given them and the other from the cause which affords the means to attain that end for as the voice is destined to make our thoughts known and that the diversity of articulation serves to express the diversity of thoughts it was necessary that Man who is more fruitful in thoughts then Beasts should also have a greater diversity of articulations in his voice Besides because it 's Nature alone which gives to the voice of Animals the faculty to represent the thoughts and that it 's the Will and not Nature which hath given it to that of men The means which are therein imployed must be proportionable to these two causes and that those which Nature furnisheth must be more simple and in less number then those which part from the Will because Nature ever determines herself to a few things and that the Will is a power without bounds and whose capacity is infinite In effect it were not possible that the language of Man should be purely natural as is that of Beasts not onely because he hath the liberty to form an infinity of thoughts whose original is not to be found in Nature and whose nature consequently cannot give him the marks and signs which are capable to represent them to him But also because his knowledge being to be acquired but by little and little and time ever adding something thereunto he ought to have a language which might suffer the same changes nor which needs either be fixed nor tied to its birth as that which comes from Nature is It remains then that he should form one himself which depended on his choice and which might be augmented diminished and altered according to his pleasure Such is that of all Nations who have tacitly agreed together that they would use certain words to signifie such and such things which without this connexion and consent would signifie nothing at all To terminate therefore this long enquiry since it s resolved that the voice of Beasts is articulate and that it 's significative of their thoughts as that of Mans is we must of necessity conclude that its a true speech which beasts speak together and that every species hath its particular language even as every Nation hath a proper one it matters not that the causes which render it significative be different because the diversity of causes and of means changeth not the essence nor the species of the effect which it produceth And as there are Animals which ingender by generation and by putrefaction and things which Art and Nature produce which forbear not to be of the same kind So the articulaâ—e voice which is significative by nature cannot be of a different species from that which is by the institution and by the consent of Men Or the interjections and some other words which enter into our discourse and which naturally signifie the motions of the mind of necessity must not be placed in the rank of the words But I shall say more whoever shall well consider the cries and several accents of Animals he will find that they are by institution as well as the speech of Men. For they do not signifie of themselves the passions they represent Otherwise it must needs be that Beasts who have all the same passions must also all have the same voices and that that cry which signifies such a passion must be a like in all the kinds of Animals at least as much as the diversity of organs could suffer it which is contrary to experience But the difference found therein comes from the institution of Nature or rather from God himself who hath imposed to such and such accents such a signification as it pleased him and which of themselves they could not have had So that we may say and it 's true That the Language of Beasts is in that point like to that which man received from God at the birth of the world For even that signified of it self nothing no more then theirs Neither did it come from the choice or institution which Man made of it no more then that of Animals but it was instituted by God who gave to those words which were to compose it the sense he pleased even as he did in the other So that as the first language of Man is not of a different species from that which Men have since invented although the one is from divine institution and the rest from humane It necessarily follows that the language of Beasts is not different from ours in that it comes from the institution of God and of Nature and that ours comes from the institution of Men. That the Voice of Beasts is made with design and intention to express their Thoughts But we must return to M.C. who being of the humour I know him to be will not consent to all these truths and who without