Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

In order to be able to conceive of a real being, we require it to be presented to us with some property. Being and not-being, substance and accidents, cause and effect, are, when combined with something positive, highly fruitful ideas; but taken in general, with nothing determinate assigned to them, they do not offer us any existing, or even possible object.

132. The idea of being presents us that of a thing in the abstract; but if we would conceive of this as existing or as possible, we must imagine this thing to be something with characteristic properties. Whenever we hear an existing thing spoken of, we instinctively ask what it is, and what is its nature. God is essentially being, is infinite being; but nothing would be represented to our mind were we to conceive of him only as of being, and not also as intelligent, active, free being endowed with all the other perfections of his infinite essence.

133. The idea of substance offers us that of a permanent being, which does not, like a modification, inhere in another. This idea, taken in its generality without other determination than that added to the idea of being, by that of subsistence, offers us nothing real or realizable. Permanence in general, subsistence by itself, non-inherence in a subject, do not suffice to enable a substance to exist or to be possible; some characteristic mark, some attribute is also needed, as corporeal, intelligent, free, or any other you please, to determine the general idea of substance.

134. The same may be said of the idea of cause, or productive activity. An active thing, in general, offers us nothing either real or possible. In order to conceive an existing activity, we must refer to a determinate activity; the idea of acting, or of being able to act, in general, does not suffice; we must represent it to ourselves, as exercising itself in one way or another, referring to determinate objects, producing, not beings in general, but beings having their own characteristic attributes. True, we do not need to know what these attributes are; but we do need to know that they exist with their determinateness.

The most universal cause conceivable is God, the first and infinite cause; and although we do not conceive of him as of cause in the abstract, regarding the simple idea of productive activity, but we attach to the general idea of cause the ideas of free will and intelligence. When we say that God is omnipotent, we assign an infinite sphere to his power; we do not know the characteristic attributes of all the beings which can be created by this infinite activity; but we are certain that every existing or possible being must have a determinate nature; and we do not conceive it to be possible for a being to be produced, which, without any determination, would be nothing but being.

135. We do not meet this determination, indispensable as it is to us, if we would conceive of the existence or possibility of a being, in indeterminate ideas, but must take it from experience; wherefore, if our understanding were limited to the combination of those relations offered in indeterminate conceptions, it would be condemned to a perfectly sterile science. We have already seen (Chap. XIV.) that the absolute non-communication of the real with the ideal order is impossible if the intelligible order be not deprived of all consciousness of itself. It is not enough to know, that such a communication exists, but we must ascertain in what points it is verified, and how far it extends.

136. Before passing to this investigation, we would observe, that the doctrine explained in this chapter is not to be confounded with that of the fourteenth chapter. There, it was shown that general ideas of themselves alone, have only a purely hypothetical value, and lead to nothing because they are not combined with any thing positive, furnished by experience; here, we have proved that indeterminate ideas of being, substance, and cause, do not of themselves alone suffice to enable us to conceive of any thing either existing or possible, if they be not accompanied by some determinate idea, which gives a character to the general ideas. There, a hypothetical value, with respect to their existence, was allotted to general ideas: here, we affirm it to be necessary for these ideas to be accompanied by some property that shall render them capable of constituting an essence, at least in the possible order. These are very different things, and must not be confounded; hence the importance of not forgetting the distinction between general and indeterminate, and between particular and determinate ideas.

CHAPTER XXII.

LIMITS OF OUR INTUITION

137. Could we assign limits to the field of experience, and determine exactly how much they inclose, we could also determine the characteristics by which a being may be presented to us as existing or as possible.

138. Passive sensibility, active sensibility, understanding, and will, are, if we be not mistaken, all that our understanding contains; and this is why we cannot conceive of any attribute characteristic of being, except these four. Let us examine these, each in its turn, and with the care required by the importance of the results which will follow this demarcation.

139. By passive sensibility we understand the form under which bodies are presented. As we have already explained it in several places, this form is reducible to figured or bounded extension.

It cannot be denied that this attribute contains a true determination, as there is nothing more determinate than objects presented to our senses, with extension, and figure, and other properties annexed to these fundamental attributes. Motion and impenetrability are determinations which accompany extension, or rather they are relations of extension. To us, motion is the change of the situations of a body in space, or the alteration in the positions of the extension of a body, with respect to the extension of space. Impenetrability is the reciprocal exclusion of two extensions. The idea of solid and liquid, of hard and soft, and other similar ideas, express relations of the extension of a body to their admission, with greater or less resistance, of the extension of another in one and the same place.

Questions upon the nature of extension have no place here. Extension is, so far as we are concerned, a determinate object, presented to us in the clearest intuition. The attribute of passive sensibility has ever been regarded as one of the most characteristic determinations; and this is why it has been made to enter as a fundamental classification in the scale of beings. The distinctions of corporeal and incorporeal, of material and immaterial, of sensible and insensible, are of as frequent use in ordinary language as in that of the schools; and it is obvious that the words, corporeal, material, and sensible, although not perfectly synonymous under some aspects, are usually taken to be such, in so far as they express a kind of beings, whose characteristic properties are those forms under which they are offered to our senses.

140. Active sensibility is the faculty of feeling; and is to us an object of immediate experience, since we have it within us. From the clear presence of sensitive acts, we may easily conceive what feeling is in other subjects than ourselves. We have no consciousness of what passes in another subject when it sees; but we know what it is to see; it is in others the same as in ourselves. In our own consciousness that of others is portrayed. We well know what is spoken of, when we hear a sensitive being mentioned; and this too by a perfectly determinate, not by a vague idea. If the question be raised, whether other senses are possible, the idea of a being endowed with them, loses a certain amount of its determinateness: our understanding has no intuition of what it would be; it discourses upon the reality or possibility by means of general conceptions.

141. Understanding, or the force of conceiving and combining, independently of the sensible order, is another of the data furnished by our own experience. As this is a fact of consciousness, we know it by intuition, not by abstract ideas; it is the exercise of an activity which we feel within ourselves; it is the me which we ourselves are. This activity, by reason of its very union, its identity with the subject perceiving it, is present to us in so intimate a manner that we find no difficulty in perceiving it.

The idea of understanding is intuitive to us, not indeterminate, since it presents an object which is immediately given to our perception in our soul itself. When we speak of understanding, we fix our views upon what passes within ourselves, and we see greater or less perfection in the scale of intelligent beings portrayed in the gradation of the cognitions which we experience within ourselves; and when we would conceive of a far higher understanding, we enlarge and perfect the type we have discovered within ourselves; just as we represent to ourselves greater, more perfect, and more beautiful sensible objects, than those we see, without quitting the sphere of sensibility, but making use of the elements it furnishes to us, and enlarging and embellishing them so as to attain to that ideal type already conceived of in our imagination.

142. The will, although an inseparable companion of the understanding, and even necessary to its existence, is nevertheless a very different faculty from it; for the will offers to our intuition a series of phenomena very unlike the phenomena of the understanding. To understand is not to will; a thing may be known, and yet not willed. One and the same act of the understanding may unite at various times, or in diverse subjects, very different if not contradictory acts of the will; to will and to not will; or inclination and aversion.

The cognition of that series of phenomena called acts of the will, is not a general but a particular, not an abstract but an intuitive, cognition. What necessity is there of abstraction or discursion to ascertain what we will or do not will, what we love or what we abhor? This cognition is intuitive, so far as the acts of our own will are concerned; and although we have no immediate intuition of what the will of others is, we know perfectly well what passes in them, from seeing it in some degree manifested by what we ourselves experience. When we hear the acts of another's will spoken of, have we, by chance, any difficulty in conceiving the object in question? Are we obliged to proceed discursively by abstract ideas? Certainly not! The same occurs in others as in ourselves. When they will, or do not will, they experience just what we ourselves experience when we will or do not will. The consciousness of our will is the image of all others existing or possible. We conceive that will to be more or less perfect, which unites in a higher or lower degree the actual or possible perfections of our own: and if we would conceive a will of infinite perfection, we must elevate to an infinite degree the actual or possible perfection which we discover in the finite will.

143. When the Sacred Text tells us that man is created to the image and likeness of God, it teaches us a truth highly luminous, whether considered in a purely philosophical or in a supernatural aspect. We discover in our soul, in this image of infinite intelligence, not only a multitude of general ideas which carry us beyond the limits of sensibility, but also an admirable representation wherein we contemplate, as in a mirror, every thing that passes in that infinite sea which cannot be known by immediate intuition so long as we remain in this life. This representation is imperfect, is enigmatical; but it is a true representation: in its minutest particles, infinitely increased, we may contemplate the infinite; its feeblest brilliance reflects back to us the splendor of infinity. The slight spark struck from the flint may lead the imagination to that ocean of fire, discovered by astronomers in the orb of day.

CHAPTER XXIII.

OF THE NECESSITY INVOLVED IN IDEAS

144. In all ideas, even in those that relate to contingent facts, there is something of the necessary, something from which science may spring, but something which cannot emanate from experience, however multiplied we suppose it. Every induction resulting from experience is confined to a limited number of facts, – a number, which, even if augmented by all the experience of all men of all ages, would still remain infinitely below universality, which extends to all that is possible.

Moreover, however little we reflect upon the certainty of the truths intimately connected with experience, such as are arithmetical and geometrical truths, we cannot fail to perceive that the confidence with which we build upon them is not founded upon induction, but that we assent to them independently of any particular fact, and consider their truth as absolutely necessary, although we cannot verify it by the touchstone of experience.

145. The verification of ideas by facts is in many cases impossible, because the weakness of our perception and of our senses, and the coarseness of the instruments we use, fail to render us certain that the facts correspond exactly to the ideas. It is sometimes absolutely impossible to establish this proof, since geometrical truth supposes conditions such as cannot be realized in practice.

146. Let us apply these observations to the simplest truths of geometry. Certainly no one will doubt the solidity of the proof called superposition: that is to say, if one of two lines, or surfaces, be placed upon the other, and they exactly correspond, they will be equal. This truth cannot depend upon experience: first, because experience is limited to a certain number of cases, whereas the proposition is general. To say that one serves for all is to say that there is a general principal, independent of experience, since, without recognizing an intrinsic necessity in this truth, the universal could in no other way be deduced from the particular. Secondly, because even where experience avails, it is impossible for us to make it exact, since superposition made in the most delicate manner imaginable, can never attain to geometrical exactness, which repudiates the minutest difference in any point.

It is an elementary theorem, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This truth does not rest upon experience: first, because the universal cannot be deduced from the particular; secondly, because, however delicate be the instruments for measuring angles, they cannot measure them with geometrical exactness; thirdly, because geometry supposes conditions which we cannot realize in practice; lines have no thickness, and the vertices of angles are indivisible points.

147. If general principles depended upon experience they would cease to be general, and would be limited to a certain number of cases. Neither would their enunciation be absolute, even for the cases already observed; for it would of necessity be reduced to what had been observed, that is to say, to a little more or less, but never be perfect exactness. Consequently we could not assert that the three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles; all that we could say would be, that so far as our experience goes, we have observed that in all triangles the three angles are very nearly equal to two right angles.

This would obviously destroy all necessary truths; and even mathematical truths would be no more certain than the reports of adepts in any profession who recount to us their observations concerning their respective objects.

148. There can be no science without necessary truths; and even the cognition of contingent truths would become exceedingly difficult without them. How do we collect the facts furnished by observation, and adjust them? Is it not by applying certain general truths to them, as, for example, those of numeration? Otherwise we could have no perfect confidence in them, nor in the results of observation.

149. Human reason cannot live, if it abandon this treasure of necessary truths which constitute its common patrimony. Individual reason could take no more than a few short steps, overwhelmed as it constantly would be with the mass of observations; distracted unceasingly by the verifications to which it would always have to recur; in want of some light to serve for all objects; and prohibited ever from simplifying, by uniting the rays of science in a common centre.

General reason would also cease to be, and men would no longer understand each other: every one would be confined to his own experience: and since there would be in the experiences of all men, nothing necessary, nothing to connect them, there would be no unity in them all together: all the sciences would be a field of confusion, to which all restoration of order would be utterly impossible. No language could have been formed; or even if formed could be preserved. We meet in the simplest enunciations of language, as well as in the complication of a long discourse, an abundance of general and necessary truths, which serve as the woof for the weaving-in of contingent truths.

150. To inquire, therefore, if there are necessary truths, is to inquire, if individual, if general reason exists; if what we call reason, and discover in all men, really exists, or is but a fantastical illusion. This reason does exist: to deny it is to deny ourselves: not to wish to admit it, is to reject the testimony of our consciousness, which assures us that it is in the depth of our soul; it is to make impotent efforts to destroy a conviction irresistibly imposed by nature.

151. And here I would remark that this community of reason among all men of all ages and of all climes; this admirable unity, discoverable in the midst of so much variety; this fundamental accord which neither the diversity nor the contradiction of views can destroy, evidently proves that all human souls have one common origin; that thought is not a work of chance; that, besides human intelligences, there is another which serves as their support, illuminates them, and has, from the first moment of their existence, endowed them with all the faculties needed to perceive, and to know what they perceived. The admirable order which reigns throughout the material world, the concert, the unity of plan discoverable in it, are not a more conclusive proof of the existence of God, than are the order, the concert, the unity, offered by reason in its assent to necessary truths.

For our own part, we ingenuously confess, that we can discover no more solid, more conclusive, or more clear proof of the existence of God, than that deduced from the world of intelligences. Beyond this it has another advantage, which is, that it takes for its point of departure the act most immediate to us, the consciousness of our own acts. It is true, the proof best adapted to the capacity of ordinary men, is the one founded on the admirable order reigning over the corporeal world: but this is because they are unaccustomed to meditate upon insensible objects, upon what passes within themselves; wherefore it is that they abound more in direct cognitions than in power of reflection.

The atheist asks how we can be certain of the existence of God, and demands an apparition of the divinity: very well, this apparition exists, not without, but within us: and although it may be pardonable for men of little reflection not to perceive it, most certainly it is not pardonable for those who pretend to be adepts in metaphysical science, not even to endeavor to discover it. The system of Malebranche, which makes men see every thing in God, cannot be sustained, but it shows a very profound thinker.

CHAPTER XXIV.

EXISTENCE OF UNIVERSAL REASON

152. General truths have some relation to particular truths; for since they are not a vain illusion, they must of necessity be connected with some object either existing or possible. Whatever exists is particular; not even possible being can be conceived of, if it be not, so to speak, particularized in the regions of possibility. God himself, being by essence, is not a being in abstract, but an infinite reality. In him, the general idea of the plenitude of being, of all perfection, of infinity, is, so to speak, particularized.

General truths would then be vain illusions did they not refer to something particular either existing or possible. Without this relation, cognition would be a purely subjective phenomenon; science would have no object; knowledge would be had, but there would be nothing known.

The appearance of knowing is never offered to us as a purely subjective fact; that is to say, when we think we know, we think we know something either within or without us, according to the matters which occupy us. Supposing, then, the phenomenon of cognition to be purely subjective, and to become objective for itself, we should have what would constantly lead us into error; for the human reason would be infected with a radical vice, which would oblige it to view these phenomena as means of perceiving the truth, whereas they are only eternal sources of deception.

153. There may arise a doubt in this correspondence of general with particular truth, as to which is the principle; that is, whether general truth is truth by means of particular truths, or the contrary. "All the diameters of a circle are equal;" this is a general truth. If we suppose a circle to exist, all its diameters will be equal. We have already seen that the certainty of the general truth neither does nor can reach us through the particular truth; but neither, on the other hand, does the particular stand in need of the general; so that it seems, that even when we abstract all intelligence, capable of perceiving this general truth, the existing circle will not cease to have all its diameters equal.

154. Moreover, if the truth fail in one single instance, it cannot be general; but the particular may be true although it fail in general. The equality of the diameters of an existing circle is, then, a condition necessary to the general truth; but the general truth is not necessary to the equality of the diameters. It is true in general that all diameters are equal, since this is verified in all either existing or possible, and the general truth is only the expression of this verification; but yet it does not appear that the diameters, in any one particular case, are equal by reason of the general truth. It is true that one particular whole is greater than one of its parts, although considered in itself, abstracted from all general truth; but it would not be true that the whole is greater than one of its parts, if in any one particular whole, the axiom should fail.

155. It would seem that from these observations we could infer that the truth of principles depends upon the truth of facts, and not vice versa. Nevertheless, if we reflect more upon this matter, we shall discover that truth is not based upon particular facts, but upon something superior to them.

I. We cannot from a particular fact infer a universal truth; but from universal truth we can infer the truth of all particular existing or possible facts. The reason why this consequence is legitimate is found in the necessary connection of the predicate and subject; and this necessity cannot be discovered in particular facts of their own nature contingent.

II. Neither can the reason of this necessity be found in the simple proposition enunciating it, since this establishes nothing, but only expresses. The enunciation is true, because it expresses the truth; but the existence of the truth does not depend upon its enunciation.

III. Nor can it depend upon our ideas; for these are not productive of things; all imaginable perceptions cannot change one iota of reality. The idea may express a thing, but does not make it. The relation of ideas with each other, in so far avails as it expresses the relation of objects; if for one moment we permit ourselves to doubt this correspondence, our reason becomes reduced to utter impotence, to a vain illusion of that which ought to be of no account. The properties of the triangle are contained in the idea we have of it; but if this idea were purely subjective, if it had no exact or approximate relation to any real or possible object, it and all that is built upon it, would be mere phenomena of our mind, would signify absolutely nothing, and would have no more weight than the ravings of a madman.

IV. The reason of necessary truths can in nowise be discovered in our understanding; every one perceives them, without thinking of others or even of himself. Truth existed before any individual; and when we shall have disappeared, it will continue the same, it will lose nothing.

V. All men, although they neither do nor can agree, perceive certain necessary truths; all individual intelligences, therefore, have drunk at some common fountain; therefore universal reason exists.

CHAPTER XXV.