The unknown cause of sensation which
Descartes calls the "je ne sais quoi dans les objets" or "choses telles
qu'elles sont," and Kant the "Noumenon" or "Ding an sich," is
represented by the musician; who, by touching the keys, converts the
potentiality of the mechanism into actual sounds. A note so produced is
the equivalent of a single experience.
All the melodies and harmonies that proceed from the piano depend upon
the action of the musician upon the keys. There is no internal mechanism
which, when certain keys are struck, gives rise to an accompaniment of
which the musician is only indirectly the cause. According to Descartes,
however--and this is what is generally fixed upon as the essence of his
doctrine of innate ideas--the mind possesses such an internal mechanism,
by which certain classes of thoughts are generated, on the occasion of
certain experiences. Such thoughts are innate, just as sensations are
innate; they are not copies of sensations, any more than sensations are
copies of motions; they are invariably generated in the mind, when
certain experiences arise in it, just as sensations are invariably
generated when certain bodily motions take place; they are universal,
inasmuch as they arise under the same conditions in all men; they are
necessary, because their genesis under these conditions is invariable.
These innate thoughts are what Descartes terms "verites" or truths: that
is beliefs--and his notions respecting them are plainly set forth in a
passage of the _Principes_.
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