Appendix 25. - (298)

Leibniz himself says: 'Sensation occurs when we apperceive an external object.' Remember, however, what I have already noted. If we are aware of perceiving an external object, we are forming an internal judgment. We judge that there exists, external to us, an object distinct from us. We utter an interior word as, for example, 'It is this thing'. Forming an internal judgment that an object is external to us exists is the same as placing that perceived object in the class of entia and attributing to it existence. But in attributing existence to something perceived by the senses, we merely compare the sensible term with a universal because existence is an idea, the most universal of all ideas. Until I judge that the perceived term exists externally to me; until I know that anything particular perceived with the senses belongs to the universal class of beings; until, in short, I consider myself and the said term as two distinct entia or things, but as sharing existence, I cannot be aware that I perceive an external object. Being aware of perceiving it presupposes my knowledge that it is something, and knowing that it is something is the same as considering it as one amongst possible entia (of a given nature). Without this, I would have only sensible perception without being aware of having it. I would not know what I am, what perception is, what its term is. It is certainly difficult to imagine a state of spirit with only sensible perception and nothing more, without any thought to make us aware of the perception, or to make us know it. As human beings endowed with reason, we frequently carry out a cognitive act upon our sensations and their term simultaneously. Separating the two is the narrow pass to be traversed by anyone aspiring to make some progress in this philosophy of the human spirit.