False Judgmenets

The false judgments that accompany our sensations and which we confuse with them.

At first glance, it is easy to foresee that very few people will agree with the general proposition we are about to advance: namely, that every sensation we receive from external objects contains one or more false judgments. Most people do not even believe that any judgment — true or false — is involved in our sensations at all. Surprised by the novelty of this claim, they will undoubtedly say to themselves: “How can this be? I do not judge that this wall is white; I simply see that it is. I do not judge that pain is in my hand; I feel it there with absolute certainty. Who could doubt such obvious facts, unless they perceive things differently from me?”

In fact, their attachment to the prejudices of childhood will carry them even further; and if they stop short of insulting or looking down upon those whose views differ from their own, they may still be counted among the more reasonable and moderate.

But we need not dwell on how difficult these ideas may be to accept. It is better to present them with such strong evidence and in such clear light that no one can reject them openly or examine them closely without being convinced. We must prove that every sensation of external objects contains some false judgment; here is the proof.

It seems undeniable that our souls do not occupy spaces as vast as the distance between us and the fixed stars — even if we were to grant that the soul has any extension at all. It is therefore unreasonable to believe that our souls are actually in the heavens when we see stars there. Nor is it credible that the soul travels thousands of feet outside the body just to see houses at a distance. It follows that the soul sees houses and stars where they are not, since it never leaves the body in which it resides, yet still perceives them as being outside itself.

Now, the only “stars” directly united to the soul — and therefore the only ones the soul can truly see — are not located in the sky. This means that when people look up and see stars in the heavens, and then freely judge that the stars are actually there, they are making two kinds of false judgments: one natural, the other voluntary. The first is a judgment of the senses, or a compound sensation, which arises in us without our doing and even against our will; it is not something we ought to rely on when forming conclusions. The second is a free judgment of the will, which we can choose not to make — and therefore ought not to make, if we wish to avoid error.

The reasons for these false judgments

Here is why we believe that the objects we immediately perceive exist outside the soul and in the world around us. The soul cannot choose to see them whenever it pleases; it becomes aware of them only when certain movements occur in the brain — movements to which, by the laws of nature, the ideas of these objects are linked. Since the soul does not perceive the activity of its own organs, but only the sensations themselves, and since it knows these sensations are not produced by itself, it naturally concludes that they exist outside it, in the things that cause them. This habit of judging in this way at the very moment of perception has become so ingrained that it is almost impossible to stop doing it.

To explain this fully, we would need to show how unnecessary it is to imagine those countless tiny entities called “species” or “ideas” — insubstantial beings supposedly created and destroyed at will, invented out of ignorance to explain things we do not understand. We would also need to explain the view that God is the true source of light, the only one who illuminates all minds; without Him, even the simplest truths would be unintelligible, and the sun itself, bright as it is, would remain invisible. This is the principle that led me to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that the ideas representing created things are nothing other than aspects of God’s own perfection, which correspond to and represent those things. In short, we would need to lay out and prove my understanding of the nature of ideas; only then could we speak more clearly on these matters. But this would take us too far afield; I will treat this fully in Book III, as the proper order of the subject requires.

For now, a simple and undeniable example will suffice to show how judgments become mixed together with sensation.

I believe everyone who looks at the moon sees it as being about a thousand paces away, and notices that it appears larger when it rises or sets than when it is high above the horizon. Most people assume they are simply seeing it as it is, without realizing that any judgment is involved in their perception. Yet it is certain that if no kind of judgment were mixed into the sensation, the moon would not appear as close as it does. Furthermore, it would look smaller when rising than when high in the sky — not larger — if it were not for a natural judgment (explained in Chapter VI) that makes us perceive it as farther away, and therefore as bigger.

In addition to these natural judgments, which we may regard as compound sensations, almost every perception also includes a free judgment. For example, people do not only feel pain in their hand — they also judge and believe that the pain is actually located there. They have become so accustomed to forming such judgments that it is very difficult to break the habit. Although these judgments are highly useful for preserving life, they are fundamentally false; our senses are designed only to serve the needs of the body, and any free judgment that follows the impressions of the senses strays far from the truth.

To make this clearer, we must distinguish two kinds of things: those that the soul sees directly, and those it knows only through the first kind. When I look at the rising sun, I first perceive the sun as it appears immediately to my mind. Because this perception arises only when something outside me causes certain movements in my eyes and brain, I then judge that this “sun as perceived” exists outside me and is the same as the real sun.

Yet it is possible to see this immediate appearance of the sun even when the real sun is not on the horizon, or even if it did not exist at all. Similarly, the sun may look larger when it rises than when it is high in the sky; and while it is true that the appearance I see directly is indeed larger at that moment, it does not follow that the real sun I am looking toward has actually grown in size. The real sun is millions of miles away and cannot be seen directly. What we truly see is the immediate appearance, which is exactly as it appears to us. We go wrong only when we judge that what we see directly exists in the external objects that gave rise to the sensation.

In the same way, when we see light as part of this immediate perception, we are not mistaken in believing that we are seeing light — that much is certain. The error lies in insisting, without reason and even against reason, that this light we perceive directly exists as a quality in the sun itself. The same applies to everything else we perceive through the senses.

Error lies not in our sensations themselves, but only in these judgments.

If we recall what has been said both at the beginning and throughout this work, it will be easy to see that among all the elements of a sensation, error is found only in the judgments we make — not in the sensation itself.

First, there is no error in being unaware that the action of objects consists in the motion of their particles, and that this motion is transmitted to our sense organs. These are the first two stages in every perception; but there is a great difference between not knowing something and being mistaken about it.

Second, we are not deceived in the third stage, which is the sensation itself. When we feel heat, or see light, colors, or other appearances, it is true that we are experiencing them — even if we were delirious. What visionaries claim to see, they truly do see; their mistake lies only in judging that what they see actually exists outside them, simply because it appears to them as being outside.

This judgment involves the free consent of our will, and for that reason it is open to error. We must always avoid making it, following the rule laid down at the start of this book: we should never form a judgment about anything unless we cannot avoid it, and unless clear evidence and certainty compel us to do so. That is not the case here. Even though a strong habit makes us feel compelled to believe that sensations exist in the objects themselves — that heat is in fire, or colors in a painting — we have no clear and certain reason to accept this belief. When we freely form such judgments, we are voluntarily surrendering to error through the misuse of our own freedom.