BURIDAN’S ASS.

John Buridan, born at Bethune in Artois, was one of the most distinguished philosophers of the fourteenth century. He discharged a professor’s place in the university of Paris with great reputation, and wrote commentaries on the Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics of Aristotle, which were much esteemed. A celebrated sophism of his, usually called Buridan’s ass, was a sort of proverb or example which subsisted a very long time in the schools.

They who hold free-will, properly so called, admit a power in man of determining himself, either to the right or to the left, even when the motives are exactly equal from the two opposite objects; for they pretend that our soul can say, without having any other reason than to make use of its liberty,—I chuse this rather than that, though I see nothing more worthy of my choice in this than in that. But they do not give that power to beasts; they suppose that the latter could not determine themselves, if two objects were present, which drew them with equal force opposing ways; that, for example, an hungry ass would starve between two bushels of oats, which acted equally on his faculties; for, having no reason to prefer the one before the other, he would remain unmoveable, like a piece of iron between two loadstones of the same force. The same thing would happen if he were equally pressed with hunger and thirst, and had a bushel of oats and a pail of water before him, which acted with equal force on his organs. He would not know where to begin; and if he eat before he drank, his hunger must be greater than his thirst, or the action of the water weaker than that of the oats; which is against

the supposition. Buridan made use of this example to shew that, if an external motive does not determine beasts, their soul has not the power to chuse between two equal objects. There was reason enough to laugh and break jests upon the supposition of such an ass, and a field for subtilizing the cavils of logic according to the mode of those times. It is no wonder then that Buridan’s ass became famous in the schools. It has lately occurred to me, that Buridan’s ass might be a sophism, which that philosopher proposed as a kind of dilemma, that, whatever answer were given him, he might draw some puzzling conclusions from it. He supposed either an ass much famished between two measures of oats of an equal force, or an ass equally pressed with thirst and hunger between a measure of oats and a pail of water, which acted equally on his organs. Having made this supposition, he asked, What will this ass do? If any body answered, He must remain immoveable; then, concluded he, he must die of hunger between two measures of oats—he must die of thirst and hunger within reach of meat and drink. This seemed absurd, and he must have the laughers on his side, against whoever should make him that answer. If he were answered, That the ass has more sense than to die of hunger and thirst in such a situation; then, concludes be, he must turn on the one side rather than on the other, though nothing moves him more strongly towards that place than towards this: then he is endowed with a free will; or, which is all one, it may happen that, of two weights poised in equilibrio, one may move and raise the other. These two consequences are absurd: there remained then only one answer, that the ass must ever find himself more strongly moved by one of the objects than by the other: but this was overthrowing the supposition; and thus Buridan gained his cause, in what manner soever his question was answered. This sophism puts me in mind of the crocodile of the Stoics, of the Electra of Eubulides, and of such like captious questions of the ancient logicians; to which they gave the name of the thing which they took for an example. Spinoza confesses plainly, that, if a man should be in that ass’s condition, he would die of hunger and thirst; but his concession is very ill grounded; for there are at least two ways whereby a man may disengage himself from the snare of the equilibrium. One I have already mentioned, viz. in order to flatter himself with the pleasing imagination that he is master at home, and does not depend on outward objects, he might resolve thus; “ I will prefer this before that, because I will have it so;” and in this case determination results not from the object; the motive is only taken from the idea that men have of their own perfections or of their natural faculties. The other way is that of the lot or chance. A man is to decide the precedency between two ladies; he finds nothing in them that determines him; but if he were of necessity obliged to prefer one to the other, he would not be at a stand, but make them draw lots. Chance would decide with whom he should begin; the equilibrium would not keep him in a state of inaction, as Spinoza pretends: a remedy would be found.

After all, the sophism called Buridan’s ass may be only the Pons Asinorum of the logicians, mentioned by Rabelais, book II, chap. XXVIII, where, being in doubt whether he ought to describe the battle between Pantagruel and the giants, or omit the recital of it, he invokes Thalia and Calliope, and beseeches them to draw him out of this difficulty. In the third chapter of the same book, Garagantua, being now old, is represented in the like embarrassment, not knowing whether he should cry for the loss of his wife Badabec, who died in child-bed, or laugh for joy of his new born son. “ The good man,” says Rabelais, “had sophistical arguments on one side and the other, which choaked him; but he could not solve them, and so he

remained entangled, like a mouse in a trap, or a kite in a snare.” We here behold the origin of our old proverb of “ the ass between two bundles of hay.” Half the acuteness of the scholars was in this manner thrown away upon the canvas of positions, possible only by hypothesis.—Ed. ⁶⁶—Art.Buridan.