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204 Notes on Helvétius’s On the Mind1 P. 2: In us we have two faculties, or if I dare to say it, two passive powers, whose existence is generally and clearly acknowledged. It seems to me that it would be necessary to distinguish purely organic and local impressions from the universal impressions that aVect the whole individual. The former are only simple sensations, the others are sentiments. P. 2: memory is nothing but a continued, but weakened, sensation. not; memory is the faculty of recalling sensation, but sensation, even weakened, does not last continuously. P. 6: to remember, as I am going to prove, is properly only to feel. I do not yet know how he is going to prove that; but I know very well that to feel the present object and to feel the absent object are two operations whose diVerence very much deserves to be examined. P. 6, note: in sum up to the so-called miracles of Mohammed, up to those prodigies attested to by so many Arabs, and the falseness of which nevertheless is still very probable here below, where liars are so common and prodigies so rare. [Rousseau put bracket and a cross in the margin of this passage.] P. 7: then my internal organs must necessarily be found just about in the same position as they were at the sight of this oak tree. They are found in it in truth; but by the eVect of a very diVerent operation. P. 7: Now this position of the organs must incontestably produce a sensation . . . What do you call a sensation? If a sensation is the impression transmitted by the external organ to the interior organ, the position of the interior organ might well be assumed to be the same, when that of the external organ is lacking, this lack alone is enough to distinguish memory from sensation. Moreover it is not true that the position of the interior organ is the same in the memory2 and in the sensation. Otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish the memory of the sensation from the sensation. Also the Author takes refuge in a just about. But a position of organs that is only just about the same ought not to produce exactly the same eVect.3 P. 7: it is then evident that to remember is to feel. there is this diVerence that the memory produces a similar sensation, and not the sentiment, and this other diVerence also that the cause is not the same. P. 7: Now this capacity [of perceiving the similarities and diVerences] is only the same physical sensitivity . . . This is something amusing! After having thoughtlessly aYrmed that to perceive and to compare are the same thing, the author concludes with great display that to judge is to feel. The conclusion appears clear to me, but it is the antecedent that is the issue. P. 8: these objects [that nature presents us] have relations . . . among themselves ; the knowledge of these relations forms what is called Intelligence4 . . . The greater or lesser aptitude for knowing them is what makes up greater or lesser intelligence. P. 9: Now, since judgment is only that perception itself [of similarities and diVerences], or at least pronouncement of that perception, it follows that all the operations of the mind are reduced to judging. To perceive objects is to feel; to perceive relations is to judge. P. 9: I can say equally, I judge or I feel that, of the two objects, the one that I call fathom, makes a diVerent impression on me than the one I call foot; that the color that I name red acts diVerently on my eyes than the one that I name yellow . . . here there is a very subtle and very important sophism to take note of well. It is one thing to feel a diVerence between a fathom and a foot; and another thing to measure that diVerence. In the first operation the mind is purely passive, but in the other it is active. The one who has more precision in his mind to transport the foot upon the fathom by thought and to see how many times it is contained in it5 is the one who has the more precise mind on this point and judges the best. P. 9: I conclude from this that in a such a case to judge is never anything but to feel. it is a diVerent thing; because the comparison of yellow and red is...

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