OF THE UNDERSTANDING 377 



complex ideas of the first order by the same organic means with which 

 we compared simple ideas, we shall obtain a resultant judgment of 

 which we form a new idea ; this will be a complex idea of the second 

 order, since it arises from several previously acquired complex ideas 

 of the first order. In this way complex ideas of various orders 

 may be multiplied almost to infinity, as indeed we see in most of 

 our reasonings. 



Thus there are carried out in the organ of inteUigence various physical 

 acts which give rise to the phenomena of comparison, judgment, 

 analysis of ideas, and reasoning, and these different acts are only opera- 

 tions on ideas already traced, due to the resultant movement acquired 

 by the nervous fluid when it impinges on their tracings or images : 

 and since these operations on pre-existing ideas and even on series of 

 ideas, taken in turn or all together, are only relations sought out by 

 thought through the inner feeling between the various kinds of ideas, 

 these same operations culminate in results which we call judgments, 

 inferences, conclusions, etc. 



In the same way, intellectual phenomena are physically produced in 

 the most perfect animals. They are no doubt of a very inferior order, 

 but they are altogether analogous to those described above ; for these 

 animals do receive ideas and have the faculty of comparing them and 

 drawing judgments from them. Their ideas are therefore actually 

 traced or impressed on the organ on which they are formed, since they 

 evidently have a memory, and when asleep may often be seen dreaming, 

 that is, experiencing involuntary recurrences of their ideas. 



As regards the signs, so necessary for the communication of ideas, 

 and so useful for increasing their number, I am compelled to confine 

 myself to a simple explanation, with reference to the double service 

 that they render us. 



" Condillac," said M. Richerand, " has acquired an immortal glory, 

 in being the first to discover and to prove irrefutably that signs are 

 as necessary to the formation as to the expression of ideas." 



I am sorry that the limits of the present work do not permit me to 

 enter into the detail necessary for showing that there is an obvioiis 

 error in a use of terms which suggests that signs are necessary to the 

 direct formation of ideas ; for this cannot have the slightest foundation. 



I do not yield to M. Richerand in admiration of the genius and the 

 profound thoughts and discoveries of Condillac, but I am quite con- 

 vinced that the signs which have to be used for the communication of 

 ideas are generally only necessary to their formation, because they 

 furnish an indispensable means for increasing their number and not 

 because they actually contribute to their formation. 



No doubt a language is as useful for thinking as for talking; we have to 



