Chapter I: Front Matter

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FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

by

REV. JAMES BALMES.

Translated from the Spanish by

Henry F. Brownson, M.A.

In Two Volumes.

VOL. I.

New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 164 William Street, Boston:--128 Federal Street. Montreal:--Cor. of Notre Dame and St. Francis Xavier Sts. 1856.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, By D. & J. Sadlier & Co.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

New York: Billin & Brother, Printers, XX North William St.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

BOOK FIRST.

ON CERTAINTY.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Importance and Utility of the Question of Certainty 3

II. True State of the Question 7

III. Certainty of the Human Race and Philosophical Certainty 14

IV. Existence of Transcendental Science in the Absolute
Intellectual Order 24

V. Transcendental Science in the Human Intellectual Order
cannot emanate from the Senses 32

VI. Transcendental Science.--Insufficiency of Real Truths 37

VII. The Philosophy of the Me cannot produce Transcendental
Science 41

VIII. Universal Identity 56

IX. Universal Identity,--Continued 64

X. Problem of Representation: Monads of Leibnitz 67

XI. Problem of Representation examined 71

XII. Immediate Intelligibility 76

XIII. Representation of Causality and Ideality 83

XIV. Impossibility of Finding the first Principle in the
Ideal Order 89

XV. The Indispensable Condition of all Human
Knowledge.--Means of perceiving Truth 92

XVI. Confusion of Ideas in Disputes on the Fundamental
Principle 102

XVII. Thought and Existence.--Descartes' Principle 105

XVIII. The Principle of Descartes, continued.--His Method 111

XIX. Value of the Principle, I Think:--Its Analysis 118

XX. True Sense of the Principle of Contradiction.--Kant's
Opinion 126

XXI. Does the Principle of Contradiction merit the Title of
Fundamental; and if so, in what Sense? 140

XXII. The Principle of Evidence 146

XXIII. The Criterion of Consciousness 151

XXIV. The Criterion of Evidence 157

XXV. The Objective Value of Ideas 163

XXVI. Can all Cognitions be reduced to the Perception of
Identity? 171

XXVII. Continuation of the same subject 176

XXVIII. Continuation of the same subject 183

XXIX. Are there true Synthetic Judgments _a priori_ in the
Sense of Kant? 188

XXX. Vico's Criterion 200

XXXI. Continuation of the same subject 212

XXXII. The Criterion on Common Sense 219

XXXIII. Error of Lamennais on Common Consent 230

XXXIV. Summary and Conclusion 253

BOOK SECOND.

ON SENSATION.

I. Sensation in Itself 249

II. Matter is incapable of Sensation 255

III. Sleep and Waking 263

IV. Relation of Sensations to an External World 267

V. An Idealist Hypothesis 273

VI. Is the External and Immediate Cause of Sensations a Free
Cause? 276

VII. Analysis of the Objectiveness of Sensations 279

VIII. Sensation of Extension 283

IX. Objectiveness of the Sensation of Extension 287

X. Force of Touch to make Sensations Objective 293

XI. Inferiority of Touch compared with other Senses 296

XII. Can Sight alone give us the Idea of a Surface? 302

XIII. Cheselden's Blind Man 310

XIV. Can Sight give us the Idea of a Solid? 315

XV. Sight and Motion 319

XVI. Possibility of other Senses 324

XVII. Existence of New Senses 328

XVIII. Solution of Lamennais' Objection 333

BOOK THIRD.

EXTENSION AND SPACE.

I. Extension Inseparable from the Idea of Body 339

II. Extension not Perceptible as the Direct and Immediate
Object of Sensations 345

III. Scientific Fruitfulness of the Idea of Extension 348

IV. Reality of Extension 357

V. Geometrical Exactness Realized in Nature 360

VI. Remarks on Extension 365

VII. Space.--Nothing 369

VIII. Descartes and Leibnitz on Space 375

IX. Opinion of those who attribute to Space a Nature
distinct from Bodies 380

X. Opinion of those who hold Space to be the Immensity of
God 382

XI. Fenelon's Opinion 386

XII. What Space consists in 391

XIII. New Difficulties 396

XIV. Another Important Consequence 400

XV. Illusion of Fixed Points in Space 403

XVI. Observations on Kant's Opinion 407

XVII. Inability of Kant's Doctrine to solve the Problem of
the Possibility of Experience 415

XVIII. The Problem of Sensible Experience 418

XIX. Extension abstracted from Phenomena 421

XX. Are there Absolute Magnitudes? 427

XXI. Pure Intelligibility of the Extended World 432

XXII. Infinite Divisibility 436

XXIII. Unextended Points 439

XXIV. A Conjecture on the Transcendental Notion of Extension 442

XXV. Harmony of the Real, Phenomenal, and Ideal Orders 446

XXVI. Character of the Relations of the Real Order to the
Phenomenal 450

XXVII. Whether every Thing must be in some Place 452

XXVIII. Contingency of Corporeal Relations 459

XXIX. Solution of two Difficulties 462

XXX. Passive Sensibility 466

XXXI. Possibility of a greater Sphere in active Sensibility 469

XXXII. Possibility of the Penetration of Bodies 480

XXXIII. A Triumph of Religion in the Field of Philosophy 483

XXXIV. Conclusion and Summing up 489

NOTES TO BOOK FIRST 495

NOTE TO BOOK SECOND 514

NOTES TO BOOK THIRD 517