Aristotle's Philosophy is False

There are levels of opinions based on the people’s level of reason and knowledge:

• the vulgar,
• a false philosophy, and
• the true.

The true philosophy approaches nearer to the feelings of the vulgar, than to those of a mistaken knowledge.

It is natural for men, in their common and careless way of thinking, to imagine a connection between objects that have been constantly found united.

Habit has made it difficult to separate the ideas.

Thus, they think that such a separation is impossible and absurd.

But philosophers who can think above this habit immediately:

• perceive the falsehood of these shallow feelings, and
• discover that there is no known connection among objects.

To them, every different object appears entirely separate.

They perceive that it is not from a view of the nature and qualities of objects that we infer one from another, but only when we have observed them to have been constantly conjoined.

But they frequently search for the qualities which make up this agency, instead of:

• drawing a just inference from this observation, and
• concluding that we have no idea of power or agency, separate from the mind and belonging to causes.

They are displeased with every system that tries to explain this power. Their shallow error is that they think that there is a natural and perceivable connection between the sensible qualities and actions of matter.

They have some genius to free themselves from this shallow error.

But they do not have enough genius to stop themselves from chasing this connection into matter* or causes.

Had they fallen on the just conclusion, they would have returned to the shallow situation.

They would have regarded all these dissertations with indolence and indifference.

At present, Aristotle’s followers seem to be in a very lamentable condition.

Their condition is similar to how poets have described the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. It is most tormenting to eagerly seek something that:

• will forever evade us, and
• is impossible to ever exist.

Nature seems to have observed a kind of justice and compensation in everything.

• She has not neglected philosophers more than the rest of the creation.
• She has reserved them a consolation amid all their disappointments and afflictions.

This consolation is principally in their invention of the words= ‘faculty’ and ‘occult quality’.

Some deep words mean a significant and intelligible idea.

After the frequent use of such words, we usually omit the deep idea and just keep the habit of recalling that idea when we want. Likewise, some shallow words mean totally insignificant and unintelligible ideas.

After the frequent use of such words, we usually put them on the same footing as those deeper words. We imagine the shallow words to have a secret meaning, which we might discover by reflection.

The resemblance of the deep and shallow words:

• deceives the mind as usual, and
• makes us imagine a thorough resemblance and conformity.

Through this, these philosophers set themselves at ease. They finally arrive, by an illusion, at the same indifference, which:

• people attain by their stupidity, and
• true philosophers by their moderate skepticism.

They need only say:

• that any phenomenon, which puzzles them, arises from a faculty or an occult quality, and
• that there is an end of all dispute and enquiry on the matter.

The Peripatetics were guided by every trivial propensity of the imagination.

Their most remarkable are their sympathies, antipathies, and the idea that nature abhors a vacuum.

There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to:

• bestow the same emotions on external objects, which it observes in itself, and
• find everywhere those ideas which are most present to it.

This inclination is suppressed by a little reflection. It only takes place in children, poets, and the ancient philosophers.

It appears:

• in children, by their desire of beating the stones which hurt them,
• in poets, by their readiness to personify everything, and
• in the ancient philosophers, by these fictions of sympathy and antipathy.

We must pardon:

• children, because of their age, and
• poets, because they follow implicitly the suggestions of their fancy.

But what excuse do our philosophers have in such a weakness?