The Senses on Superphysics

One must not dwell on sensible manners

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Our senses do not deceive us only regarding their own objects, such as light, colors, and other sensible qualities; they even seduce us concerning objects that are not within their domain, by preventing us from considering them with enough attention to form a solid judgment. This deserves to be well explained.

The Nature and Properties of the Understanding

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Error is:

the cause of human misery
the evil principle that has produced evil in the world
what has given rise to and maintains the ills that afflict us

Holy Scripture teaches us that men:

Judgements and Reasonings

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One could fairly well conclude from the things we said in the previous chapter that the understanding never judges, since it only perceives, or that judgments and reasonings, even on the part of the understanding, are only pure perceptions; that it is the will alone that truly judges, by acquiescing in what the understanding represents to it and by voluntarily resting in it; and that thus it is the will alone that throws us into error. But these things must be explained at greater length.

Reply to some objections

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The first rule in the preceding chapter will not please everyone.

It will displease those imaginary scholars who claim to know everything and who never know anything, who take pleasure in speaking boldly about the most difficult things, and who certainly do not know the easiest.

The five principal causes of Error

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have just seen that one falls into error only because one does not make the use one ought to make of one’s freedom: that it is for lack of moderating the eagerness and ardor of the will for mere appearances of truth that one is mistaken, and that error consists only in a consent of the will that has more extent than the perception of the understanding, since one would not be mistaken if one judged only of what one sees.

How our senses are corrupted by sin

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When one attentively considers the senses and passions of man, one finds them so well proportioned to the end for which they are given to us that one cannot enter into the thought of those who say they are entirely corrupted by original sin.

Errors of Sight

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sight is the first, the noblest, and the most extensive of all the senses; so that if they were given to us to discover the truth, it alone would have a greater share than all the others combined. Thus it will suffice to ruin the authority that the eyes have over reason in order to undeceive us and to lead us to a general distrust of all our senses.

Errors of Sight

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Errors of our eyes concerning shapes

Our sight leads us less into error when it represents shapes to us than when it represents anything else to us; because shape in itself is nothing absolute, and its nature consists in the relationship that exists between the parts that bound some space and a point that we conceive within that space, and which we may call, as in the circle, the center of the figure. However, we are mistaken in a thousand ways concerning shapes, and we never know any of them through the senses with ultimate exactness.

Motion as the Effect

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have discovered the principal and most general errors of our sight with respect to extension and shapes.

We must now correct those into which this same sight leads us concerning the motion of matter.

Proof of the errors of our sight concerning motion

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

General proof of the errors of our sight concerning motion

Let:

A be the spectator’s eye
C the object which is far from A

Although the object remains immobile at C, one may believe it to be moving away to D or approaching to B. That although the object is moving away toward D, one may believe it to be immobile at C and even approaching toward B; and conversely, although it is approaching toward B, one may believe it to be immobile at C and even moving away toward D. That although the object has advanced from C to E or H, or to G or K, one may believe that it has moved only from C to F or I; and conversely, that although the object has moved from C to F or I, one may believe that it has moved to E, or H, or even to G or K. That if the object moves along a line equally distant from the spectator, that is to say along a circumference of which the spectator is the center: even though this object moves from C to P, one may believe that it moves only from B to O; and conversely, although it moves only from B to O, one may believe it to be moving from C to P. If beyond object C there is another object M, which one believes to be immobile, and which however moves toward N; although object C remains immobile, or moves much more slowly toward F, than M toward N, it will appear to move toward Y, and conversely, if, etc.

Of errors concerning sensible qualities

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The judgments we form on the report of our eyes concerning extension, shape, and motion are never exactly true.

However, they are not entirely false.

They contain at least this truth, that there is outside us extension, shapes, and motions of whatever kind.

Errors

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this chapter and in the following three, we shall treat of those four things which we have just said are confused and taken for a simple sensation; and we shall explain only, in general, the errors into which we fall: because if we wished to enter into detail, it would never be finished. We hope, however, to put the reader’s mind in a position to discover with very great ease all the errors into which the senses can lead us; but we ask of them, for this purpose, that they meditate with some application, both on the following chapters and on the one they have just read.

Errors concerning the movements of the fibres of our senses

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Errors concerning the movements of the fibres of our senses.

The second thing found in each of the sensations is the vibration of the fibres of our nerves, which is communicated to the brain; and we deceive ourselves in that we always confuse this vibration with the soul’s sensation, and that we judge that there is no such vibration when we do not perceive it through the senses.

The nature of sensations

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The third thing found in each of our sensations, or what we feel—for example, when we are near a fire—is a modification of our soul in relation to what is happening in the body to which it is united.

False Judgmenets

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

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?”

The Errors of Sight

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Explanation of the particular errors of sight, to serve as an example of the general errors of our senses.

I have explained how to recognize the errors of our senses regarding sensible qualities in general, which were discussed on the occasion of light and colors, as the order of things required that they be explained.

God alone is our good

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Another example drawn from morality, which shows that our senses offer us only false goods

We have presented proofs which, it seems to me, sufficiently show that this prejudice — that our sensations are in objects — is a principle highly fertile in errors in physics. We must now bring forward others drawn from morality, in which this same prejudice, joined with that other — that the objects of our senses are the true causes of our sensations — is also very dangerous.

Substantial Forms

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The errors of our senses serve us as general and very fertile principles for drawing false conclusions, which in turn serve as principles.

I have explained in what our sensations consist and the general errors found within them.

Two other examples

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It is certain that the primary cause of most of our errors is this strong application of the soul to what comes to it through the senses, and this negligence it shows toward the things that pure understanding represents to it. An example of great consequence for morals has just been given, drawn from human conversation; here are others drawn from the commerce we have with the rest of nature, which it is absolutely necessary to remark for physics.

Conclusion of Book 1

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have uncovered the general errors into which our senses lead us, both regarding their own objects and regarding things that can be perceived only by the understanding; and I do not believe that, by following their reports, we fall into any error whose cause cannot be recognized from what we have just said, provided one is willing to meditate on it a little.