Note 10 — Chapter XVII

Such passages as the following abound in anti-sensationalist literature: "Sense is a kind of dull, confused, and stupid perception obtruded upon the soul from without, whereby it perceives the alterations and motions within its own body, and takes cognizance of individual bodies existing round about it, but does not clearly comprehend what they are nor penetrate into the nature of them, it being intended by nature, as Plotinus speaks, not so properly for knowledge as for the use of the body. For the soul suffering under that which it perceives by way of passion cannot master or Conquer it, that is to say, know or understand it. For so Anaxagoras in Aristotle very fitly expresses the nature of knowledge and intellection under the notion of Conquering. Wherefore it is necessary, since the mind understands all things, that it should be free from mixture and passion, for this end, as Anaxagoras speaks, that it may be able to master and conquer its objects, that is to say, to know and understand them. In like manner Plotinus, in his book of Sense and Memory, makes to suffer and to be conquered all one, as also to know and to conquer; for which reason he concludes that that which suffers doth not know.... Sense that suffers from external objects lies as it were prostrate under them, and is overcome by them.... Sense therefore is a certain kind of drowsy and somnolent perception of that passive part of the soul which is as it were asleep in the body, and acts concretely with it.... It is an energy arising from the body and a certain kind of drowsy or sleeping life of the soul blended together with it. The perceptions of which compound, or of the soul as it were half asleep and half awake, are confused, indistinct, turbid, and encumbered cogitations very different from the energies of the noetical part,... which are free, clear, serene, satisfactory, and awakened cogitations. That is to say, knowledges." Etc., etc., etc. (R. Cudworth: Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, bk. iii. chap. ii.) Similarly Malebranche: "Théodore.—Oh, oh, Ariste! God knows pain, pleasure, warmth, and the rest. But he does not feel these things. He knows pain, since he knows what that modification of the soul is in which pain consists. He knows it because he alone causes it in us (as I shall presently prove), and he knows what he does. In a word, he knows it because his knowledge has no bounds. But he does not feel it, for if so he would be unhappy. To know pain, then, is not to feel it. Ariste.—That is true. But to feel it is to know it, is it not? Théodore.—No indeed, since God does not feel it in the least, and yet he knows it perfectly. But in order not to quibble about terms, if you will have it that to feel pain is to know it, agree at least that it is not to know it clearly, that it is not to know it by light and by evidence—in a word, that it is not to know its nature; in other words and to speak exactly, it is not to know it at all. To feel pain, for example, is to feel ourselves unhappy without well knowing either what we are or what is this modality of our being which makes us unhappy.... Impose silence on your senses, your imagination, and your passions, and you will hear the pure voice of inner truth, the clear and evident replies of our common master. Never confound the evidence which results from the comparison of ideas with the liveliness of the sensations which touch and thrill you. The livelier our sensations and feelings (sentiments) are, the more darkness do they shed. The more terrible or agreeable are our phantoms, and the more body and reality they appear to have, the more dangerous are they and fit to lead us astray." (Entretiens sur la Métaphysique, 3me Entretien, ad init.) Malebranche's Théodore prudently does not try to explain how God's 'infinite felicity' is compatible with his not feeling joy.