302 



brews, as among the Greeks and Romans. The connexion there is be- 

 tween the genius of a language and the character of the people that 

 speak it, the influence of climate, of government, and of manners on lan- 

 guage, the reasons, why the great writers, in every department, appear 

 together, at the very time in which a language reaches its perfection and 

 maturity, Sec. these are problems that suggest themselves, and would 

 well merit our endeavours to obtain solution, did not the investigation 

 manifestly lead beyond the limits of our inquiry. 



Though Cond iliac has said, repeatedly, in his works, that all the ope-, 

 rations of the soul are merely sensation variously transformed, that all 

 its faculties are included in the single one of sense; his analysis of thought 

 leaves still much doubt and uncertainty on the real character and relative 

 importance of each of her faculties. 



The merit of dispersing the mist which covered this part of metaphy- 

 sics remained for De Tracy. His Elements of Ideology*, leave, nothing 

 to be wished for on this subject: I shall extract some of its main results, 

 referring the reader for the rest to the work. 



To think is only to feel; and to (eel, is, for us, the same as to exist; 

 for it is by sensation we know of our existence. Ideas, or perceptions, 

 are either sensations, properly so called, or recollections, or relations 

 which we perceive, or, lastly, the desire that is occasioned in us by these 

 relations. The faculty of thought, therefore, falls in the natural subdi- 

 vision of sensibility, properly termed memory, judgment, and will. To 

 feel, properly speaking, is to be conscious of an impression; to remem- 

 ber, is to be sensible of the remembrance of a past impression; to judge 

 is to feel relations among our perceptions: lastly, to will is to desire 

 something. Of these four elements, sensations, recollections, judgments, and 

 desires, are formed all compound ideas. Attention is but an act of the 

 will : comparison cannot be separated from judgment, since we cannot 

 compare two objects without judging them: reasoning is only a repetition 

 of the act of judging: to reflect, to imagine, is to compose ideas, analy- 

 zable into sensations, recollections, judgments and desires. This sort of 

 imagination, which is only certain and faithful memory, ought not to be 

 distinguished from it. 



Finally, want, uneasiness, inquietude, desire, passions, &c. are either 

 sensations or desires. There is room, therefore, to reproach Condillac 

 with having divided the human mind into understanding and will only: 

 because the first term includes actions too unlike, such as sensation, me- 

 mory, judgment; and with having run into the opposite extreme, in the 

 too great multiplication of secondary divisions. 



CLVII. Disorders of thought. Philosophers would undoubtedly attain 

 to a much profounder knowledge of the intellectual faculties of man, if 

 they joined to the study of their regular and tranquil action, that of the 

 many disordered actions to which they are liable. It is not enough, if 

 we would understand them aright, to watch their operation when the soul 

 is undisturbed and at ease: we must follow it in its perturbations and 

 wanderings : we must see its powers, now separating themselves from 

 those with which they ought to act; now combining with them under 

 false perceptions : sometimes, altogether drooping, and sometimes start- 

 ing into an extreme violence of action, of which we can neither mistake 



Elemens dldeologie, par M. Destutt^Tracy, senateur, Membre de 1'Institut. 



