CONDITION
211
CONDITION
he thinks, did not go deeply enough into the problem
of the origin of human knowledge. According to
Locke our Knowledge hsis a two-fold source, sensation
and reflection ; according to Condillac, not only all our
ideas, but even all our mental operations and faculties
spring from sensation alone as their ultimate source;
all are merely different stages or forms in the develop-
ment of sensation (sensations transformies). He illus-
trates his theory by the hypothesis of a statue, which,
inert at the beginning, is supposed to acquire, one by
one, the senses, from the most elementary, smell, to
the most perfect, touch. With this last sense and its
impression of resistance, the statue which had been
previously mere odour, taste, colour, etc., now ac-
quires the distinction between self and non-self.
When it has all the senses, it has also the whole mental
life. From sensation considered as representative
spring all the faculties of the understanding. Atten-
tion is nothing but an exclusive sensation. When the
object is present the impression is called actual sensa-
tion; the impression which remains after the disap-
pearance of the object is called memory. Comparison
is nothing more than a double attention; we cannot'
compare two objects or perceive two sensations with-
out remarking that they are similar or dissimilar; to
perceive similarities or differences is to judge; to rea-
son is to draw a judgment from another judgment
wherein it was contained. Moreover, all sensation is
essentially affective, that is, painful or pleasant; under
this aspect it is the source of all our active faculties.
Need is the pain which results from the privation of an
object whose presence is demanded by nature or habit ;
need directs ail our energies towards this object; this
very direction is what we call desire; desire as a dom-
inant habit is passion; will is nothing but absolute
desire, a desire made more energetic and more perma-
nent through hope. What we call substance is simply
the collection of sensations. What we call the ego is
simply the collection of our sensations. Is there be-
hind these sensations a something which supports
them? We do not know. We express and summa-
rize our sensations by means of words; we give the
same name to all the individual objects which we
judge to be similar ; this name is what we call a general
idea. Tlirough general ideas or names we bring order
into our knowledge; and this is precisely the purpose
of reasoning and it is what constitutes science. Good
reasoning, therefore, consists essentially in speaking
well. Ultimately the work of human thought is to
pass from the confused and complex content of the
primitive sensations to clear and simple concepts ; the
essential and the unique method is analysis based on
the principle of identity, and the perfect analytical
method is the mathematical method. To reason is to
calculate ; what we call progress in ideas is only prog-
ress in expression. A science is only a well-con-
structed language, une langue bien faite, that is, simple,
with signs precisely determined according to the laws
of analogy. The primitive form of language is the
language of action which is innate in us, synthetical
and confused. Under pressure of the need of commu-
nication between men, these actions are interpreted as
signs, decomposed, analyzed, and the spoken language
takes the place of the language of action.
Condillac's theory of education is based on the idea that the child in its development must repeat the vari- ous states through which the race has passed — an idea which, with certain modifications, still survives. An- other of his principles, more widely received at present, is that the educative process must be shaped in accord- ance with natural development. He also insists on the necessity of establishing a connexion between the various items of knowledge, and of training the judg- ment rather than burdening the memory. The study of history holds a large place in his system, and religion is of paramount importance. He insists that the prince, for whom the "Cours d'^tudes" was written,
shall be more thoroughly instructed in matters of re-
ligion than the subjects whom he is later to govern.
On the other hand, Condillac has been justly criticized
for his attempt to make the child a logician and psychol-
ogist, even a metaphysician, before he has mastered
the elements of grammar — a mistake which is obvi-
ously due to his error concerning the origin of ideas.
The system of Condillac ends, therefore, in sensualistic
empiricism, nominalism, and agnosticism.
If Condillac's works evince a certain precision of thought and vigour of reasoning they clearly betray a lack of observation and of the sense of reality. Most of the time he is blinded by the tendency to reduce all processes of thought to a single method, all ideas and principles to a single source. This tendency is well exemplified in his hypothesis of the statue. He sup- poses it to be mere passivity; and by this very sup- position, instead of a man he makes it a machine or, as Cousin says, a sensible corpse. He attempts to reduce everything to mere sensation or impression, and in reality every step in what he calls a transformation is made under the influence of an activity and a principle which dominate and interpret this sensation, but which Condillac confounds with it. It is the operation of this activity and principle essentially distinct from sensation, that enables him to speak of attention, comparison, judgment, and personality. An attempt has been made to show that Condillac was the forerunner, in psychology, ethics, and sociology of the English school represented by Mill, Bain, and Spencer (Dewaule, Condillac et la psychologie an- glaise contemporaine, Paris, 1 892) ; but this view seems to overlook the influence of Locke upon his successors in England and the traditional tendency of English philosophical thought (cf. Picavet in Revue philoso- phique, XXXIX, p. 215).
CEuvre.i complHes (Paris, 1798. 1803, 1821); LAROMiacifeRE, Paradoxes de Condillac ou TefUxions sut la langue des calculs (Paris, 1805); Idem, Lefons de philosophie (Paris, 1815-18); (Cousin, Hist, de la philosophie modeme (Paris, 1827); Robert, Les theories logiques de Condillac (Paris, 1869); RfcTHORfc, Con- dillac ou I'empiricisme et le ralionalisme (Paris, 1864); Mill, A System of Logic (London, 1872), II, ii; Lewes, Biog. History of Phil. (London, 1871), II.
G. M. Sauvage.
Condition (Lat. conditio, from condo, to bring, or put, together; sometimes, on account of a somewhat similar derivative from condicere, confused with this) is that which is necessary or at least conducive to the actual operation of a cause, though in itself, with respect to the particular effect of which it is the con- dition, possessing in no sense the nature of causality. Thus the notion of a condition is not that of a real principle such as actually gives existence to the effect
Eroduced (which is the case in the notion of cause); ut rather of a circumstance, or set of circumstances, in which the cause readily acts, or in which alone it can act. Thus a suflScient light is a condition of my writing, though it in no sense is, as I myself am, the cause of the act of writing. The writing is the effect of the writer, and not of the light by which it was performed. A condition is also to be distinguished from an occasion, which latter imports no more than an event, or thing, by reason of the presence of which any other event, or thing, takes place — as, for exam- ple, the passage of the king in state is the occasion of my removing my hat — while the action, or actual operation, of the cause is absolutely dependent upon the presence of this particular one, or of some condi- tion. Condition is, for this reason, distinguished, with respect to the operation of any particular cause, (1) as the condition sine quA non, or condition without the presence of which this cause is wholly inoperative, an<l (2) as the condition simply such — when some one of several possible ones is necessary to the actual operation of the cause. To the former class belong such conditions as can be supplied by no others, such as, for example, that of the combustion of wood. A
