Chapter 28

The cosmological law of harmony governing the activity of the rational principle. —
How this law is mingled with and distinguished from the psychological laws

1537. By cosmological law governing the activity of the rational principle, I understand the law imposed upon this principle by the action of created things, by the world or, as Fichte would say, by the NON-EGO (Fichte's concept of the world excludes the rational principle and places it in contrast with the world although EGO forms part of the world. This is another error of Fichte's system).(302) Nevertheless, because the intellective soul has in the idea a mirror both of the real world and of itself, it is not absurd to look at this soul from two points of view: as known and as knowing, as part of the world and as opposed to the world. Thus, the nature of the world, including the soul, the term of knowing, is the source of the cosmological laws according to which the rational principle (soul) operates. And the nature of the soul (rational principle) is the source of the corresponding psychological laws.

1538. At this point, we ask if animality pertains to the knowing soul to which it administers direct matter. This question must be solved before we begin to speak about the law of harmony. We need to know if this law, in so far as it is a cosmic law, has to be derived not only from the order proper to exterior things but also from the order intrinsic to animality. In other words, does it form part of the world considered in contraposition to the rational principle?
My answer is this. Animality as such does not pertain to the knowing soul. Soul signifies principle. Animality, relative to the soul, is simply term in so far as it forms part of the fundamental perception. The harmony, therefore, which the rational principle finds in its term, and in which it shares, comes to it not only from the harmony present in external things different from animal feelings, but also from the harmony present in animality itself.

1539. Ancient thinkers of the Italic school knew about the existence of the law of harmony in the operations of the rational principle, but took it more as a uniquely psychological law than as a law which, in part at least, is cosmological. They did this because they were unable to conceive of a purely intellective soul. Moreover, they did not understand the nature of the rational soul, but began their philosophical investigation from what is most obvious to us, that is, from matter and sense. They fixed their attention on the sensitive soul and reduced every activity, even intellectual activity, to this soul as a principle. Relative to the sensitive soul, they did not succeed in distinguishing principle, which alone merits the name 'soul', from term, which is the extended, materiated element. Consequently, they considered as proper to the soul that which also comes to it from its term. Moreover, because order is felt vividly at the sensible level of harmonious sounds, they called all order and harmony music. They generalised the meaning of this word, which initially had been used to indicate the pleasure found in suitable sounds by the ear,(303) according to laws for the invention of words, laws which we have explained.

1540. Thus music was first located in the soul of the world, then in other souls, which by taking something from the soul of the world, were constituted and individuated. We can see this from a place in Macrobius who brought together the ancient teachings. He says that we ought not to wonder that music had such power over human beings as it did over beasts (note how he refers to the sensitive soul):

1541. This ancient mistake is overcome once we know that the harmony secretly directing both rational and sentient principle comes to the sentient principle from its term; it does not reside in the principle itself. The ancients, in attributing the origin of harmony to the soul alone, which is principle, were even led, or at least many were, to affirm that the nature of the soul consists in harmony itself.(305)

1542. Animality, therefore, is not the rational principle, relative to which it stands as term; it pertains to the world and is in contraposition to the rational soul which then shares in its harmony.
If, however, we speak of the sensitive soul which is the direct principle of feeling, we can ask whether the harmony found in animality springs from the soul, that is, from the sensitive principle, or from the extended element which is the soul's term. If the ancients had put the question in this way, they would not have made such a serious error in attributing the origin of harmony to the soul alone because harmony does indeed come from the nature of the sensitive soul, at least in part. But they confused the sensitive with the rational soul, and spoke about the former as if it were the latter. I intend, however, to explain the origin of the law of harmony relative to the rational soul and to show how, in this respect, the law is cosmological precisely because the sensitive soul, which is principle relative to the extended element, that is, to its own term, is term relative to the rational principle which perceives the sentient element in what is felt. The sensitive soul therefore, itself pertains to the world in contraposition to the rational principle.

1543. Let us see how this soul is in part the source of the harmony found in animality, although we shall have to speak more at length about this same subject very soon.
First, the continuous extended element acquires unity from the simplicity of the sensitive principle and, together with unity, its nature as something continuous.(306)
Second, we have seen how the unity of time lies in the simplicity of the sensitive principle.
Now the harmony of animality is shown in the felt extension and in time; the multiplicity necessary for harmony arises in the felt extension; number arises in time.

1544. Indeed, multiplicity and number would not exist unless there were a simple ens to which and in which several unities were present. If each unity as such is present to itself, it cannot be present to other unities because each unity as such finishes in itself and cannot exceed the confines of its own being. The sensitive principle, on the other hand, can receive multiple, contemporaneous and successive feelings. As a result, multiplicity, number and succession of multiple things is found in it alone (and in the rational principle, but at a higher level and in a different way).

1545. Harmony, therefore, results from unity and plurality. Unity, posited by the soul, is a psychological element; plurality, provided for the sensitive soul by its term, is the cosmological element. Hence harmony in the sphere of animal feeling is a kind of union with nature, and as it were a generative embrace between soul and world.

1546. Unity, however, is properly speaking the form of what is beautiful, as St. Augustine says.(307) We can conclude, therefore, that the formal part of sensible harmony is psychological by nature, the material part is cosmological by nature.

1547. But how can plurality in the felt element be reduced to unity? Where does this unity come from, and what is the role of the principle and term in forming it?
The term of corporeal feeling is a single, continuous, extended element. If this element were to divide into several continua, the sentient principles would be multiplied. We already have a unity of continuum.

1548. A continuum however has limits, and these constitute a kind of plurality. If we ask: 'What is the origin of the limits(308) which determine the size and form of a single continuum?', the answer is that the limits do not come from the sentient principle (which per se is indifferent to every extension and shape of its felt element); they come from external cosmic power. I have said that there is not only an extension (whose conditions or limits are size and form) but also an extrasubjective, sensiferous power,(309) whose principle must be unextended (the corporeal principle).

1549. In addition to the multiplicity of size, form and limits revealed later by acquired sensations, multiplicity of sensations is in animality itself. Another question therefore arises: 'What accounts for the variety of sensation in a single, continuous, extended element?'

1550. As I have explained, even the extended fundamental feeling itself is not totally uniform in quality, but contains differences and is, as it were, variegated. This seems to be necessary because of the different degrees of stimulated sensitivity in the different members of the body and sensory organs. However, in my opinion, the spirit does not advert to these differences because the fundamental feeling, as constituted, is virtually, if not totally, incapable of attracting and holding our intellective attention.(310) If one part is more sensitive than another or responds differently to stimulation, a different fundamental feeling must evidently exist in which every part is felt in its own way and in varying degree. The optic nerve, for example, has, it seems to me, a different fundamental feeling; I mean a feeling with a sensitivity totally different from the other feeling parts of the body, a feeling which is precisely that of black. To define black as purely the absence of colour is to confuse the cause of sight-sensations with the sensations themselves. Certainly, when all external stimuli are removed from the retina, black remains, the result of a total lack of light. But the stimulating body called 'light' is not the sensation it produces. Sensations of colour produced by the stimulus of light are partial sensations, that is, particular modifications of an already existing fundamental feeling which can be only the feeling of black.

We can convince ourselves of this if we go into some perfectly dark place, fix our attention on the feeling in our eyes and compare this feeling with another part of our body, for example with the neck. Careful attention to both sensations will convince us that the feeling of black is present in our eyes, as if they were covered by a black sheet. This is not the feeling in our neck. We cannot attribute this 'vision experience' to our remembrance of colour-sensations previously experienced but now absent, because our attention tells us that we are dealing strictly with a feeling actually present in our eyes, totally independent of every remembrance and mental reflection.

We can say something similar, it seems to me, about the acoustic nerve. The fundamental feeling proper to this nerve is the feeling of silence, so that silence (considered as feeling and prescinding from its external occasion, which is certainly negative) is something not entirely negative but positive, the foundation of all acoustic sensations.
Hence the variety present in the extended feeling must arise from the different tissue of the felt continuum: the continuum could have greater or smaller intervals, could result from molecules of different form; one molecule could press on another with greater force; particular molecules could vary in complexity; different kinds of composition could give rise to different organs.

1551. The multiplicity seen in the feeling of stimulation prompts a third question: 'What is the origin of the variety of the different parts of the stimulated feeling, a variety clearly visible and giving rise to the variety of shaped sensations that differ in character and intensity? Is the origin dependent on the soul or the world?'
We have seen that these variations stimulated in the felt element correspond to the movement of the molecules composing the felt element. This movement is determined partly by external stimuli and partly by the activity of the sensitive principle. Consequently its cause must be partly cosmological and partly psychological: cosmological in so far as it overcomes the inertia of the spirit; psychological in so far as it obeys the law of spontaneity with which the spirit is endowed.(311)

1552. But this movement is not itself sensation. In sensation we must distinguish 1. the mode of the sensation, that is, extension and the conditions (the limits of size and form) proper to the extended element; 2. the extrasubjective stimulatory (cosmological) cause of the sensation, that is, the sensiferous power, and the intestine movements in the felt extended element; and finally 3. pure sensation, which is either quiescent and primal or stimulated. Relative to the extended mode of sensation and of feelings, cosmological action certainly contributes to its constitution because the mode is the term both of such action and of the soul. Cosmological action is also present relative to the extrasubjective cause, that is, to the corporeal principle or sensiferous power. Pure sensation however is not cosmological action. It is proper to the sentient principle in such a way that it is the act proper to the principle and pertaining entirely to the principle's essential power; it is totally subjective and psychological.(312)

Cosmological action is the cause which posits the act in being, and with it the sentient principle itself, the soul, and determines the act relative to its mode of extension. In the final analysis however the act of feeling is the act of the sentient principle, the sole subject of all sensations.
Consequently, pure sensation, although dependent on the external world for its term, is an act of the soul, not of the world.

1553. Pure sensation, which I call the 'feel' of a sensation (to give it a suitable name that separates it from extension), changes, but the extended element retains its size and form, as we see in the sensations of different sensory organs, and even in the same organ. Smell is not only of a totally different 'feel' from colour, but the 'feel' itself varies in each in quality and degree. Although the 'feel' of a sensation can vary in kind and degree according to the difference in the extended term and in the intestine movements in the term, we can easily see that the 'feel' (a positive quality of sensation) is neither extension nor movement, but always the varied act of the sentient principle alone. In the case of extension, for example, a sensation may vary in 'feel' but not in extension. Thus while the sensation both of the eye and of the touch can terminate in one and the same extension, the sensations differ greatly and have a very different 'feel'. In the case of movement, I have already shown that the 'feel' of the sensation, when stimulated by movements of the sensory organ, does not at all resemble these movements, which are multiple, while the 'feel' of the stimulated sensation is one. The movements are instantaneous (because every change is instantaneous), but the 'feel' of the sensation endures. If the case were otherwise, nothing would be felt. Hence the 'feel' of a sensation is due entirely to the sensitive soul (in the way that an act is due to its subject) and is therefore totally of a psychological nature.
We still need to know however how the 'feel' can vary with the variation of organs, their movements and the number of movements.

1554. Our investigation is rendered more difficult by the intermingling of feelings with attention and rational activity which in their own way divide what in feeling itself is united. But we must not omit any difficulty.
The rational principle converts the sensiferous element into an ens and detaches it from feeling. If the principle did not do this, the sensiferous element would be nothing more than an agent dwelling in the sentient element; it would not be an ens but the action of an ens. In fact the rational principle changes the sensiferous terms of sensitive perceptions into entia with the result that every sensory organ moves in its own world. Except for extension, each of these worlds is totally divided from the world proper to any other sensory and, in the case of the particular 'feel' of a sensation, is totally unlike the others.

If the rational principle compares these different worlds and brings them all together, it does so by analogy, and not by any real similarity between them. The comparison cannot be made through any similarity in the quality of their sensible 'feel', but because they are the same in quantity, space, etc., that is, in things which do not pertain to pure sensation. The sensitive principle, by making use of the identity present in these conditions which do not constitute sensation, joins and harmonises them through its simplicity. For example, when the eye guides the hand to touch an object, the visual sensation (the extended thing felt by the eye) is entirely different from the extended thing touched by the hand. The visual sensation does for the hand what a good map does for a traveller, who is using the map to guide his way. We are not easily aware of this because of the very notable difference between the map and the visual sensation. The map is perceived as a very small space compared to the space the traveller will cover. The visual sensation seems to present the object as an area equal to that felt by the hand. In reality however this is not the case because the sensation of the optic universe actually extends no further than the extension of the retina which contains the optic universe (when the retina is perceived by touch).

The difference is this: when I see the map, I simultaneously see everything outside it, all the space beyond its edges, the immense space of the plains, the mountains and the sky, and I can imagine even more space beyond what I see. The map, compared with all these spaces, appears very small indeed, and in this very small area the plains, mountains, seas and sky, seen by my eye, are all indicated and distinct. Then as I journey on my way, my eye sees the same things twice: what I see as very small on the map I see as very large in nature. One organ (my eye) sees the little and the large representations in such a way that I can use the same sensory to compare different parts of my sensation.

The case however is totally different when our spirit, instead of comparing the size of the different parts of a sensation of the same sensory, compares the sensation of one sensory, the eye, for example, with the sensation of another sensory, the touch, let us say. Here two universes are compared, not parts of the same universe; the seen universe is compared with the touched universe. The total sensation of the eye, which I call the 'visual mirror', contains the whole optic universe, that is, everything seen by the eye in one glance (and in several glances by the retentive faculty and imagination). In this optic universe there is a hand that touches and an object touched. Both are present with their dimensions so that if the touched object is smaller than the hand, it appears smaller in the visual mirror; if larger, it appears larger.

Furthermore, the hand and the touched extension retain their own dimensions relative to all the surrounding objects visible in the visual mirror. All these dimensions can be transferred by the eye to the rational principle which is now able to say how much bigger than the hand is the column which the hand is touching, how much larger is the temple than the column, and how much bigger than the temple is the nearby hill, etc. Hence, whenever a body touches the whole of my hand, my rational principle, guided by my eye, can say 'The extension of the body is that of the sensation of the whole of my hand'. All these proportions are indicated in the colours felt on my retina, just like a map. But my eye cannot see anything outside all this, outside this map, that is, outside its visual mirror. Because the map is its universe, it cannot compare the map with anything greater, nor find anything greater because it cannot see anything else. The visual mirror therefore is as large as the visual universe because there are no universes other than that of the mirror.

Hence, when my hand and foot are directed by my soul aided by my eye, then my hand and the extended thing it wants to grasp, my foot and the path it wants to follow, and the surrounding spaces, are all drawings in the visual universe (the optic mirror). These drawings are the principle of the regulated movements made by my hand or foot at the command of the soul; they are signs which occupy a very small part of the retina and correspond in a very precise way to the dimensions of my hand, foot, etc. Because these signs contain the principle of the movements of the hand and foot, the soul can, by their means alone, move the hand to the object it wants and turn its steps in the desired direction.

Note however that the path, object, hand and foot are not in the eye. The hand and foot cannot be moved unless they communicate with the brain by means of the sensory or motor nerves. The optic sensory representing the hand and foot must also terminate in the brain. Furthermore the animal principle must unify in itself the active feeling of the motor nerves together with the hand and foot seen by the optic sensory (a passive feeling). The movements themselves of the hand and foot must begin from tiny movements of the brain by the soul's command. These tiny movements are then propagated to the nerves and muscles by the law of spontaneity. Consequently, if we say that the visual sensation occupies a very tiny space in the brain, we can also say that the soul, directed or even stimulated by this sensation, can stimulate a tiny movement in the brain. This results in the movement of the hand and foot, which are both intimately united with the soul in subjective feeling. We now see how a sensation, which occupies a very tiny space (in the optic sensory) as a passive feeling, initiates its corresponding active feeling in another tiny space (in the roots of the motor nerves). The movements begin in this very tiny space, and then 'through the law that the animal tends to preserve and increase pleasant movements' increase to the point where they move the hand and foot in the direction determined by the visual sensation. All of which simply demonstrates the wonderful harmony posited by the Creator in the composition of animals.

1555. How then do we become aware that the visual universe within the limits of the extension of the retina is so tiny relative to the real universe?
The awareness cannot result from the comparison between sizes given by touch and the eye. Sizes given by touch always conform to those given by the eye, and vice versa; one is the measure of the other. A comparison between them can quickly reveal how much they correspond with each other, but never tell us if one sensation is absolutely more extensive than the other. For example, although my eye sees a statuette at the same time as I draw my hand over it, we cannot induce anything from the simultaneity of these two sensations except that the extension of the object seen by my eye produces a sensation of a corresponding extension in my hand. Because the sensation of one is the measure of the sensation of the other, the measurements must always agree and coincide with each other; they are proportionate, not absolute.

How then do we become aware that the visual sensation of an extension occupies less space than the touch sensation of the same extension? To solve the question, we need to find the ratio between the space occupied by the sensation of one sensory and the space occupied by the corresponding sensation of the other sensory. But no proportion is possible between the two sensories because neither of them furnishes a common measure suitable for measuring the two specifically different sense-experiences. The optic sensory encompasses nothing of the touch sensory, and vice versa. Every sensory is limited to its own world, and when the animal or rational principle compares them, it finds only equality. This comparison is made solely by analogy; proportion is not compared with proportion, nor proportion with proportion. We have to say therefore that the measure of the size of the optic sensation is the sensation itself, and the measure of the size of the touch sensation is the touch sensation itself, as I will now explain.

The retina has two relationships with us, as a sensory and as an external, felt term. As an act of the sensory the retina is the visual mirror itself, the visual universe, and outside this visual universe, that is, outside the retina, there is no visual feeling. Consequently the soul, which sees by means of this organ, cannot compare the mirror supplied by the organ with anything else, because it does not see anything outside the organ. Moreover, even though it feels only the organ, we cannot say that it sees the organ, because the word 'see' refers to terms separate and distinct from the organ. The soul's attention is directed to these terms without stopping at what is directly felt, that is, at the retina which indicates and presents them. Thus while the retina is felt subjectively, the soul does not restrict its attention to this alone. Instead, its attention proceeds to the different colours on the retina and, in virtue of the rational principle, takes these colours as external objects, that is, entia. As long as the soul feels the retina subjectively in this way, that is, as a sensory in act, it cannot compare the space of the retina with any other space because the total possible space given to the soul to contemplate, all the space of the visual universe, is the retina itself, which alone exists for the soul. The onlooker's head, where the eye and retina are, does not exist, nor does his body, where the head, etc., are. If all these things do exist, they exist in the retina, not outside it.

But let us consider the retina in its other relationship with us, not as a sensory but as an external felt term. The opposition between the two relationships becomes apparent when we look at someone else's retina. In this situation, our eye acts as a sensory; our soul feels internally, subjectively, the other's retina. On the other hand, the other's retina relative to us does not act as a sensory but as an external term felt by us, seen by us. In this relationship, the other's retina does not present anything; it is presented in our retina where it occupies a tiny space. It becomes a small part of our visual mirror and universe, an extension much smaller than the eye which I see. The other's retina becomes even smaller than his head or body, and much, much smaller than the whole internal visual universe I feel in my retina which, felt subjectively, is as large as the space of my visual universe. The other's retina, which I feel extrasubjectively, is only a very small part of that universe. The same is true for the person whose retina I am looking at. His retina, a sensory in act, is the whole visual space, of which my retina is a tiny part.

I can also look at my retina in a mirror. In this case the same retina acquires the two relationships relative to me: my retina is subjectively felt and as such is the visual universe; it is also seen, that is, felt extrasubjectively, in which case it is a very tiny bit of the space of the same universe. But I also know that my retina which I feel subjectively as a sensory act and the retina which I see, that is, feel extrasubjectively as an external term, are identical. I note that if I cover my retina which I see as an external object, vision ceases, that is, the retina ceases to be a sensory in act; if I want to measure the size of objects by touch, I find that my retina is one of them. In this case a comparison between the sensations of touch tells me that my retina occupies a very small part of space in the touch-universe. I experience the touched retina acting as a sensory, because when I cover it with my hand, I notice that it ceases to see.

1556. These facts confirm what I said earlier, namely, that continuous space is in the sentient principle, and that we measure the size of external objects only by applying to them the space we have in ourselves, that is, the space in which our own feeling terminates. Hence bodies receive different measurements according to the different ways in which they shape themselves in subjective, fundamental space.

1557. Strictly speaking, bodies as seen do not touch the eye but are sketched upon it by the light they vibrate. Hence the perception of the eyes is a perception of signs corresponding to bodies, but not of bodies themselves. Nevertheless the size of these signs, despite their smallness, seems to equal the size of bodies perceived by touch, because, as I said, both kinds of feeling do not have a measure common to their respective sizes. What they have in common is the equal proportion of their parts, a proportion which is compared only by the rational principle.

1558. Our investigation must now turn to the space occupied by optical sensations and see how it appears separate from the total space of the fundamental feeling (if it did not appear separate, we would have a common measure). Furthermore, the little space of the retina (the site of the felt element) would indicate only a small part of the total space of the fundamental feeling, not a separate world.

There are several reasons for this separation:

1. Space (term of the fundamental feeling) is not measured in the feeling itself, but only later, by external, shaped, surface sensations pertaining to particular organs. Limits are not part of the fundamental feeling; no lines or shapes of any kind exist in the continuity of the fundamental feeling. Limits are the surface sensations themselves and pertain to the feeling stimulated in particular organs. Hence, if a surface sensation establishes a limit confined to a surface feeling, the extension of this sensation is precisely what is felt. It cannot be compared with the total extension of the fundamental feeling, because the total extension is not felt in that way. In fact no such extension exists for us as a result of our use of organs which impose limits and consequently fixed measures. The little space of the retina which we feel when light has stimulated feeling is felt in total isolation from the remaining surface-space of the human body. The stimulation is present only in the little space, not in the remaining space.

1559. 2. Furthermore, even if the surrounding parts, when stimulated by their own stimuli at the time the retina were stimulated by colour, also gave a surface sensation, it would not follow that we felt those sensations in a single, continuous surface. There is an interval and separation between the optic nerve and the surrounding nerves which, when stimulated, make us feel. The surface sensation would therefore have some lacunae which would break it up into several sensations each of which would measure itself without measuring the other sensations because 1. none would be part of a greater surface sensation and 2. no measurement is possible unless the parts to be measured have a relationship with the whole.

1560. 3. Again, granted that the 'feel' of sensations varies greatly, and that the 'feel' of light is extremely vivid and distinct, the retina would attract attention to itself and present a surface different from an adjacent surface.

1561. 4. Finally, as a result principally of the interference of the rational principle, our attention does not stop at the subjective sensation of the retina nor at the extrasubjective sensation. It goes directly to the external objects presented in the visual mirror, believing that it perceives them directly. Thus, the possibility of comparing the retina's surface sensation with the total surface of the human body ceases: we ignore the former and give our attention to the objects whose signs are presented by it.

1562. The second and third reasons deserve further consideration. We must remember that the different organisation of the sensitive parts of the human body makes different parts susceptible to very different kinds of stimulation. There are, therefore, sensations whose 'feel' is very different. This is the case with each kind of sensation pertaining to the five organs. Their 'feel' is in no way similar. No one could find any similarity between colour, smell, taste, etc. This explains why the organs are different sensories. But nature has gone further and separated them in such a way that the sensations of one sensory are not continuous with the sensations of the others, that is, the sensations of one sensory occupy a small space discontinuous with the sensations of another.

Such lack of continuity means that there is no single space in which these sensations appear, and through which we can see the part of space occupied by each. Thus, the extremity of the acoustic nerve, which receives the impression of the oscillating air, occupies a place totally different from that occupied by the extremity of the optic nerve, which receives the impression of light. The same applies to the other special sensories. Moreover we cannot claim that these nerves or sensories are continuous with parts pertaining to the sense of touch, because each nerve or sensory is protected and enveloped by parts lacking feeling. Even if they had feeling, either they would not all be stimulated at the same time or the stimulation would produce such a weak sensation that it would not be noticed against the very vivid sensation of the adjacent sensory; the space occupied by the sensation of this sensory would still be isolated and not a part of the total surface space of the human body.

1563. Discontinuity is also present in the small spaces stimulated in the same sensory. When we consider how the ear clearly hears different sounds coming from different points, for example the sounds of the various instruments of an orchestra, we have to presume that the sound waves strike and stimulate different parts of our acoustic nerve. Under this aspect we should perhaps investigate the different, little-known mechanisms making up the ear to see if one of their purposes is to keep sounds apart so that the sound waves stimulate the nerve in different parts.(313) Physicists rightly explain that what they call 'the principle of superimposition of little movements' prevents sound-waves from being confused with each other. But this does not explain the phenomenon of distinct sensations taking place not in the air-waves but in the sensory. Let us suppose that sound-waves bunch together and come to a point in the way that light refracts and bends in a lens, and that by doing so they stimulate different points of the acoustic membrane. Clearly, only those points struck by the sound-waves are stimulated, not the whole membrane. Only one wave is produced from a single point of the oscillating, sonorous body. A few rays of this wave land on the ear and end at a single point. Light is different. Every point of a luminous body is a centre from which light is emitted. Hence although the entire retina is stimulated, stimulation varies as the points of bodies which reflect light onto the retina vary. This renders the visual sensation capable of presenting in itself bodies whose proportions, planes and perspectives are drawn with extreme accuracy. In the case of the ear, however, the process is totally different. The ear receives isolated sounds because only that part of the membrane is struck on which the soniferous ray falls. The various small spaces in the membrane which remain unstimulated are therefore devoid of sound sensation.(314)

1564. My explanation of the variation in the 'feel' of stimulated sensations would not be perfect, unless I said something about the relationship between that 'feel' and the extrasubjective, oscillatory movements of molecules which make up the nervous fibres.

First, we must bear in mind that the efficient cause of sensations is the activity of the sensitive principle, not the movements of the molecules of the fibres, which are only the excitatory cause. In an animate body these movements are accompanied by sensation, but not in an inanimate body; the stimulus would be present but not the stimulated and actuated cause.

Second, the term of both stimulated feeling and feeling at rest is always an extended element. Movements stimulated in the felt extended term do not sever the extension and make it discontinuous. There is simply a displacement of molecules which, without ceasing to be continuous with each other, move about and, so to speak, rub against each other's surfaces with varying pressure.

Granted this, the following is clear:

1. The stimulatory movement effects no change in the continuum-extended element. Any change in this element is solely in its limits, which are insensible. However, the movement changes the mode of feeling, which it renders more vivid and different. The continuous extended element is felt by the soul, but the more vivid, different mode gives the sensation another 'feel'. As I said, the direct term of feeling is not motion but the extended element moved intestinely. Hence the movement of the molecules cannot be felt in each particular sensation; only the extended element is felt. The movement does not enter into the sentient principle, which is the constant cause of the unity of the felt element, that is, of its continuity. In other words, the law of sensitive (animal) activity is such that the activity produces a continuous feeling. No sensible movement takes place in the continuum, however, because movement cannot be felt unless the continuum is divided. In other words, while the limits of the moved parts must be known and distinguished, the distinction of the parts together with their limits is abolished in the continuum.

1565. 2. Consequently, several movements which are close in time, in the same sensory organ, produce only one sensation, not several. In fact, all they can do is change the 'feel' of sensation by the quantity of oscillations communicated to the sensory organ during the short time the sensation is formed. We see this in musical notes. They are sensations of a specifically different 'feel', and differ according to the number of oscillations of the sonorous body.(315) This number produces a correspondingly equal number of vibrations, that is, oscillations in the elastic molecules of the sensory organ struck by the vibrations.

1566. If we suppose that 24 oscillations of a sonorous body produce the note doh, then 27 oscillations will produce the note re. The reason is the special nature of the constitution of the acoustic sensory, and more particularly, the nature of the sensitive principle producing the sensation. It is therefore a partly psychological, partly cosmological reason.

This reason must also explain the difference of three oscillations between the first three notes (always on the basis that doh is produced by 24 oscillations). But between mi and fa there is only a difference of two oscillations, in which case the ear itself discerns that the interval between these two notes is smaller than that between the others. In the same way we can explain the last three notes, where there is a difference of four oscillations: the ear discerns only the tonic interval between so, la and ti as equal to that which it discerns between doh, re and mi.(316)

1567. We can therefore summarise the psychological element in animal feelings, that is, the elements which the soul with its own activity contributes to the harmony in feeling, by saying that these elements are: 1. unity of space, 2. unity of succession, 3. unity of multiplicity and therefore the form of harmony seen in animality, and 4. the 'feel' of feeling.

Notes

(302) When Fichte put the ego in contraposition to nature, to the world, he took the first step towards the philosophical divinisation of man. His successors went even further. From the opposition between the world and self they wrongly deduced that the ego is different from the world; it is outside nature. Here we have an example of that overweening pride which makes us speak about things as their judge, and forget that we are one of them.

(303) Cf. Predicazione , Milan, 1843, p. 362

(304) In Somn . Scip ., bk. 2, c. 4.

(305) Cf. the book Delle sentenze dei Filosofi intorno alla natura dell'anima .

(306) The sensiferous element also possesses continuous extension (NE, vol. 2, 858-860). But where does it get it? In my opinion, it comes from the corporeal principle which by that very fact is shown as necessarily simple because it has a continuous extended element as the term of its action. Just as we argue to the simplicity of the sentient principle from the extended term of its passion , so we must argue legitimately to the simplicity of the corporeal principle from the extended term of its action .

(307) But since we say that everything is IN SO FAR AS IT ENDURES (note in passing that the holy Doctor recognises duration as a condition of an ens) unity is the form of all beauty, etc.' (Ep , 18: 2). St. Augustine says that what is beautiful is present in the rational principle alone. In other words, he maintains that objectivity is essential to beauty. Consequently, he proceeds to seek the eternal law of beauty (De Vera Relig ., c. 30-33; De Musica , bk. 6, c. 13 -Ep . 18: 2). I am in complete agreement about this with the great master. I distinguish harmony , the harmonic convergence of several things, from what is beautiful . Such harmonic convergence, found in animality, is grounded in the simplicity of the sensitive soul which embraces what is multiple. This sensible harmony is itself matter for the rational principle which contemplates it in the object. In this way, harmony acquires all that is necessary for beauty.

(308) Note, these limits do not occur in the fundamental felt element , that is, they are not felt in it but felt later through acquired surface sensations. Cf. AMS , 135-229.

(309) NE, vol. 2, 882-885.

(310) Another difficulty of proving this by experience is that the extended feeling may perhaps never totally lack stimulated feeling in us, because in human beings everything is in motion.

(311) Cf. AMS , 439-483 for the two laws of inertia and spontaneity which govern the soul.

(312) NE, vol. 2, 878-905.

(313) To explain how several sounds are simultaneously perceived without being confused, some physicists have supposed that the different parts of the acoustic nerve are attuned to unison with different tones. According to this law, only that part oscillates which corresponds to its tone. I think this is an inadequate explanation of the phenomenon in question because:1. Contemporary sounds that have the same tone remain as distinct as those that have a different tone.2. Not only are tones distinct but also their intensity, their different timbre, the direction from which they come, etc. All these things are not explained by the law of attunement to unison.

(314) Not even smell and taste can present the forms of external bodies, because they are not emitted from all the points of the odiferous and soniferous bodies in conformity with the same law and in right proportion to the sizes and forms of the bodies. However it is not absurd to imagine an animal in which, by disposition of the Creator, a sensation of touch is equal to the sensation of sound, smell and taste, and used to distinguish bodies as accurately and precisely as sight in human beings and animals. Such an animal (which certainly belongs to another world, to another order of things) would be so different from present animals that our imagination would have difficulty in picturing the difference. The sound, smell and taste of this animal would present bodies as accurately and precisely as sight, as if they were seen clearly by the nose or ear.

(315) The proportion between the number of oscillations of the seven notes, beginning from doh , is or, expressed in whole numbers, 24 27 30 32 40 45.

(316) It is said that a perfect, experienced ear can distinguish up to 43 notes in an octave. If these were distributed equally between the 48 oscillations supposed in the octave of doh , the distance between them would be 5/43 oscillation. This shows that the difference of one oscillation could not be distinguished. But if the 24 oscillations we have allotted to doh are increased by one, we have doh diesis , which is very easily distinguished. This further proves that in the last notes of the gamma, the difference of one oscillation is imperceptible, that is, the difference in the number of their oscillations cannot be noted unless the difference is greater than 1 5/43 , precisely because only 43 notes are distinguished in the whole octave. At the beginning of the scale, a difference of a single oscillation is sensible, and the three last diesis have a difference of oscillations of 1 1/2 , 1 2/3, 1 7/8. If we allot doh another quantity of oscillations, the result is the same: the difference between the distance of the first three tones and the distance of the three last is per se insensible.