NECESSITY AND CAUSALITY.

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CHAPTER I.

NECESSITY.

1. Beings are divided into two c88lasses: necessary and contingent; necessary being is that which cannot but be; contingent is that which may be and cease to be. In these definitions every thing is said; but their laconism does not permit all that is expressed in them to be easily understood. Necessity and contingency may refer to different aspects and give rise to very diverse considerations. This makes a careful analysis of the ideas expressed by them necessary.

2. What is meant by necessity? In general that is called necessary which cannot but be; but the expression cannot, may be taken in different senses: in a moral sense, as when we say: I cannot but fulfil this duty; in a physical, as in this proposition; a paralytic cannot move himself; and in a metaphysical sense, as: A triangle cannot be a quadrilateral. In the first example, the obstacle is founded on a law; in the second, it arises from nature; in the third, it follows from the essence of the things. In all these suppositions, necessity implies the impossibility of the contrary, and this impossibility results from the necessity.

3. Hence it follows that the ideas necessity and impossibility are correlative, and that is metaphysically necessary whose opposite is metaphysically impossible. Impossibility consists in the exclusion of one thing by another; thus, "a circular triangle is impossible," means the same as "the nature of a triangle excludes the nature of a circle." In all impossibility, therefore, there is a term denied; as in all necessity there is a term affirmed; the metaphysically necessary is that whose opposite is contradictory; the existence of the absurd is impossible, the non-existence of the necessary is absurd. It is contradictory for a triangle to have four sides; and it is absurd for a triangle not to have three angles.

4. In the purely ideal order we see many necessities without any relation to existence; such are all geometrical truths. Even in the real order we conceive many hypothetical necessities in contingent beings: such are those which are obtained by applying absolute principles to any hypothesis furnished by experience. The principle of contradiction serves in an infinity of cases to found a certain necessity even in contingent beings. There is no absolute necessity of the existence of extended beings; but on the supposition that they exist, it is necessary for them to have the properties proceeding from extension.

5. In no finite being can there be an absolute necessity; the only necessity which it can have is hypothetical. The relation of its essential attributes is necessary; but, as its essence does not exist necessarily, whatever is necessary in it is so only hypothetically, that is, on the supposition that it exists.

6. We must then distinguish two necessities: one absolute, the other hypothetical. The latter relates to the essences of things, abstracting their existence, although implying it as a condition, and supposing another necessary as the ground of its possibility;[72] the former relates to the existence of the thing. The absolutely necessary is that whose existence is absolutely necessary.

7. The essence of the necessary being must contain existence; its idea must involve the idea of existence, not only logical and conceptual, but also realized.

8. We can conceive the existence of the necessary being distinct from its essence, but the reason of this is in the imperfection of the idea, which with us is not intuitive, but discursive; and consequently, we can distinguish between the logical order and the real order.

Here we find the defect of Descartes' argument by which he pretends to demonstrate the existence of God from the fact that the predicate, existence, is included in the idea of a necessary and infinite being. The idea of necessary being involves existence, but not real existence, only logical and conceptual; since after we have the idea of the necessary being, it still remains to be proved that there is an object which corresponds to this idea; the predicate belongs to the subject according to the manner in which the subject is taken, and as this is only in the purely ideal order, the predicate is also purely ideal.

9. The reality of the necessary idea cannot be demonstrated from its idea alone; but it may be demonstrated with complete evidence by introducing into the argument other elements which experience furnishes us.

Something exists; at least ourselves; at least this perception which we have in this act; at least the appearance of this act. I leave aside for the present all the questions disputed between the dogmatists and the skeptics; I only suppose a datum which no one can deny me, though he carry skepticism to the utmost exaggeration. When I say that something exists, I only mean to affirm that not every thing is a pure nothing.

If something exists, something has always existed, or there is no moment in which it could be said with truth: there is nothing. If such a moment of universal nothingness had ever been, nothing would now exist, there never could have been any thing. Let us imagine a universal and absolute nothingness; I then ask: Is it possible that any thing should come from nothing? Evidently not; therefore on the supposition of universal nothingness reality is absurd.

10. Therefore something has always existed, with a cause, without a condition on which it depends; therefore there is a necessary being. Its existence is supposed always, without relation to any hypothesis; therefore its not-being is always excluded under all conditions; therefore there exists an absolutely necessary being, that is, a being whose not-being implies a contradiction.

11. Summing up the doctrine which precedes, we may say:

I. That we have the idea of a necessary being.

II. That we deduce its existence from its idea alone.

III. That in order to demonstrate the existence of a necessary being, it is sufficient to know that something exists.

IV. We know by experience that something exists; for experience presents to us, if nothing else, the existence of our own thought.

THE UNCONDITIONED.

12. The words, conditioned and unconditioned, are greatly used in modern philosophy; as the ideas which these terms express have a great analogy to those explained in the last chapter, I will briefly consider them here.

13. The conditioned is that which depends on a condition; that is to say, that which is supposed if another thing, which is called the condition, is supposed. If the sun is above the horizon, there is light; here the light is the conditioned, the sun the condition. The unconditioned is that which supposes no condition, as its name expresses.

14. The universe is an assemblage of conditioned beings; this is manifested by both internal and external experience: does any thing unconditioned exist? Yes.

15. Representing the universe by a series A, B, C, D, E, F, ... etc., the condition of F is in E; the condition of E in D; that of D in C; that of C in B, and so on successively. If there is nothing unconditioned this retrogression will extend to infinity, and we shall have an infinite series of conditioned terms.

To arrive at any term, for example, B, it will have been necessary to pass through the infinite conditions which precede it: the infinite series will have been exhausted: this is contradictory. And as what is said of B may be said of A, or of any other of the preceding or succeeding terms, it follows that they are all impossible: therefore the series is absurd.

16. In the supposed series all is conditioned, there is nothing unconditioned; and still the existence of its successive totality is necessary. Therefore the series in itself is unconditioned; therefore a collection of conditioned terms is unconditioned, although it is supposed impossible to assign any thing, out of the series, which is unconditioned. Who would admit such an absurdity?

17. Let us give a more precise formula to the argument. Taking any three terms in the series; A ... F ... N, we may form the following propositions.

If A exists, F and N will exist.
If N exists, F and A have existed.
If F exists, A has existed and N will exist.

Objections.—I. Whence arises the connection of the conditions with one another?

II. Why should any one of them be supposed?

18. By admitting a necessary, unconditioned being which contains the condition of whatever exists, every thing is explained. To the first objection it may be answered, that the connection of the conditioned conditions depends on the unconditioned condition. To the second, it may be said that the primitive condition has no need of any other condition, supposing it to be a necessary being. To ask why it should be supposed, is to fall into a contradiction; since it is unconditioned it has no why, the reason of its existence is in itself.

19. But if we admit nothing necessary, nothing unconditioned, neither the terms nor their connection can be explained. Infinite terms would exist, necessarily connected, with any internal or external sufficient reason. There would be no more reason for the existence of the universe than for its non-existence; being and nonentity would be indifferent to it; and it cannot be conceived why existence should have prevailed. For nothing it is evident that nothing is required; why then is there not an absolute and eternal nothing?

20. The more we examine the necessity of the connection of the conditions, one with another, the stronger this difficulty becomes; for if it be said that one condition cannot exist without another; with still more reason we ask why a first condition is not necessary for the collection of the conditions, or the entire series.

21. Therefore the conditioned supposes the unconditioned; the first given, we can conclude the second. The conditioned is given us in the external and in the internal world. Therefore there exists an unconditioned being, whose existence has no reason in any thing outside of itself.

CHAPTER III.

IMMUTABILITY OF NECESSARY AND UNCONDITIONED BEING.

22. The absolutely necessary and unconditioned is immutable. For its existence is, or, to speak in modern language, is supposed absolutely, by intrinsic necessity, without any condition; and with this existence its state is also supposed. We abstract for the present the nature of this state, whether it be of this or that perfection, this or that degree, or even finite or infinite. Its existence being supposed unconditionally, its state is supposed unconditionally also; therefore as its non-existence is contradictory, (Ch. I.) its no-state is also contradictory. Change is only a transition from one state to another state which implies the no-state of the first; therefore change in the necessary is contradictory.

23. In order to present this in a clearer and more precise manner, we will call E the necessary and unconditioned being. As E is supposed absolutely by intrinsic necessity, without any condition, the not-E must be contradictory. E is not abstract but real being, consequently it must have certain perfections, as intelligence, will, activity, or any other whatever; and it must have these perfections in a certain degree, abstracting for the present, whether it be greater or less, finite or infinite. With the absolute existence of E a state of perfection, which we shall call N, is also supposed. What has determined the state N? By the supposition, it can have been determined by nothing; since the state is unconditioned. Therefore, if the state N is absolutely and necessarily, the not-N is contradictory. Therefore the change by which E would pass from N to not-N is contradictory.

24. But let us for a moment suppose a change in the necessary being, and suppose it to have proceeded from this being itself. As the reason of the change must be necessary and eternal, we should have to admit an infinite series of evolutions, and should again fall into the impossibility of reconciling the infinity of the series with the existence of any one of its terms.[73]

25. Thus it is demonstrated that the necessary and unconditioned being can suffer no change which would cause it to lose its primitive state.

The necessary being can lose nothing; it cannot pass from N to not-N; but who knows but what it is possible that without losing N, or passing to not-N, it might acquire something which could be united to N in one way or another. In other words; N being given, not-N is contradictory, but would N + P be contradictory, P expressing a perfection, or degree of perfection? This would be impossible; because P which is added must emanate from N; therefore all that is in P was already in N; therefore there has been no change, and to suppose it is contradictory.

26. It may be replied that P was in N virtually, and that the new state only adds a new form. But does this form, as such, involve something new in reality? Either it does or it does not: if it does not, there is no change; if it does, it was either contained in N or not contained in it; if contained in it, there is no change; if not contained in it, whence does it come?

27. To elude this demonstration, some have imagined various necessary beings acting on each other, and mutually producing changes in each other,—by this means they attempt to explain whence the new states come. But these are not only fictions, and evidently groundless cavils in contradiction with the principles of ontology, but they may be destroyed by one conclusive argument.

Let A, B, C, D, be the necessary and unconditioned beings; each is supposed absolutely, and with primitive states, which we shall respectively call a, b, c, d. Then, taking them in their primitive state, the collection of the existences will be united with a collection of necessary and unconditioned states, which we may represent in this formula: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, (1.) This expression represents a primitive, necessary, and unconditioned state: now I ask: whence come the changes? All is unconditioned; how then is the conditioned, the mutable introduced?

28. The force of the argument is not weakened by supposing the primitive and mutual action of A, B, C, D, to be implied in the primitive states a, b, c, d. For the mutual actions, being primitive and absolute, would produce primitively and absolutely a result in their respective terms. This result would be primitively necessary, and would be contained in the formula. (1) Therefore the formula would suffer no variation by the new supposition; and consequently there would have been no change of any kind.

29. By imagining that the mutual action does not suppose a primitive state, but a successive series of states, we fall into the infinite series, and consequently into the impossibility of arriving at any term of it, without supposing the infinity to be exhausted, (Ch. II.).

30. Again, the essences of the necessary and unconditioned beings A, B, C, D, being distinct, what reason is there for supposing them to be in relations of activity? What is the ground of this relation if they are all four necessary, unconditioned, and therefore independent of each other?

31. But let us leave such absurdities, and go on with our analysis of the idea of a necessary and unconditioned being. Immutability excludes perfectibility, so that it is necessary either to suppose the summit of perfection primitively in the necessary being, or to admit that it can never attain this perfection. Perfectibility is one of the characteristics of the contingent, which improves its mode of being by a series of transformations; the absolutely necessary is what it is, and can be nothing else.

32. The contingent must emanate from the necessary, the conditioned from the unconditioned; therefore all perfections, of whatever order, must be found in the necessary and unconditioned being; therefore all the perfections of existing reality must be in it, at least, virtually, and those which imply no imperfection must be contained in it formally.[74]

33. The possibility of the non-existent must have a foundation;[75] possible perfections must exist in a real being, if their idea is possible; therefore the infinite scale of perfections, which we conceive in the order of pure possibility, besides those which exist, must be realized in the necessary and unconditioned being.

IDEAS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.

34. We have the idea of cause; the continual use which we are always making of it shows this. Philosophers do not alone possess it; it is the inheritance of mankind. But what do we understand by cause? All that makes any thing pass from not-being to being, as the effect is all that which passes from not-being to being. I am not now considering whether that which passes from not-being to being is substance or accident, nor the manner in which the cause influences this transition. Hence the definition includes every class of cause, and every species of causality.

35. The idea of cause contains:

I. The idea of being.

II. The relation to that which passes from not-being to being, as of a condition to the conditioned.

The idea of effect contains:

I. The idea of being.

II. The idea of the transition from not-being to being.

III. The relation to the cause, as of the conditioned to the condition.

36. Axiom I.—Nothing cannot be a cause; or in other terms: every cause is a being, or exists.

37. I say that this is an axiom, because it cannot be demonstrated, since the predicate existence, is evidently contained in the idea of cause. That which is a cause, is; if it is not, it is not a cause. To affirm the cause and deny that it is, is to affirm and deny at the same time. Therefore this proposition is an axiom. To be convinced of its truth, we need only to attend to the ideas of cause and effect, and we see the idea of being evidently contained in the idea of cause. The explanation which I give must not be regarded as a demonstration, but as an illustration, for the purpose of better comparing the two ideas. Whoever compares them as he ought will want no demonstration, he will see it intuitively, and this is what constitutes the character of an axiom.

38. Axiom II.—There is no effect without a cause.

39. To understand the sense of this axiom it must be observed, that here the word effect only means that which passes from not-being to being, whether it be caused or not; for, if by effect was meant a thing caused, the axiom would be an identical and useless proposition. Substituting for effect its meaning, it would be, "There is nothing caused without being caused,"—which is very true, but of no use. The sense then is this: whatever passes from not-being to being, requires something distinct from itself, which produces this transition.

40. I say that this proposition is an axiom, and to be convinced of it, we need only fix our attention upon the ideas contained in it. Let us consider a thing that is, and transfer it to the time when it was not. Let us abstract all that which is not it, let us suppose no other being which may have produced it or taken part in its production; I assert that we see evidently that the transition to being, will never be made. Not only is it impossible for us to make the object emanate from the pure idea of its not-being, but we also see that it can never emanate from it. There is no being, no action, no production of any kind; there is pure nothing; whence will the being emanate? The truth, of the proposition is then intuitively presented to us: we not only do not see the possibility of the apparition of being in the pure idea of not-being by itself, but we see in this idea the impossibility of this apparition. They are ideas which exclude each other; not-being is possible only by the exclusion of being, and vice versa.

41. When we conceive a productive action, we either refer it to the thing which from not-being must pass to being, or to something distinct from this. In the first case, we fall into contradiction; because we suppose an action and do not suppose it, since there is no action in pure nothing. Let us suppose that the thing is cause before being; we then find ourselves in contradiction with Axiom I, (§ 36). In the second case, we already conceive the cause, since cause is only that which produces the transition from not-being to being.

42. The common expression, "ex nihilo nihil fit," is a truth, if understood in the sense of Axiom II.

ORIGIN OF THE NOTION OF CAUSALITY.

43. Are there in the world any cause and effect? This is equivalent to asking whether there is any change in the world. All change involves a transition from not-being to being. The least change is inconceivable without this transition. Whatever is changed is, after changing, in another way than it was before the change; therefore it has this mode of being which it had not before. This mode did not exist before, it exists now; it has passed, therefore, from not-being to being.

44. Even if we were not in relation with the external world, and our mind was confined to internal facts alone, to the consciousness of the me and its modifications, we should know that there is transition from not-being to being, by the testimony of the successive appearance of new perceptions and affections. Within ourselves we experience the ebb and flow of modifications which pass from not-being to being, and from being to not-being.

45. It is clear, from what has been said, that the ideas of cause and effect suppose a real or possible order of contingent beings. If there were only necessary and immutable beings, there could be no causes and effects.

46. I said (Chap. IV.) that the idea of cause contains the idea of being and the idea of relation to the not-being which has passed or passes to being. The idea of cause is not a simple idea; it is composed of these two. The idea of being alone is not sufficient to constitute it; for we may conceive being without conceiving cause. What the idea of cause adds to the idea of being is something distinct from the idea of being, and not contained in it; it may be called causality, power, productive force, activity, or any such term; they all express the relation of one being to realize in another the transition from not-being to being.

47. In the idea of causality is likewise included another simple idea, which, though accompanying the idea of being, must not be confounded with it. If any one should call it a modification of the idea of being, I should have no objection.

48. Whence does the idea of causality arise? The mere intuition of the idea of being does not seem sufficient to produce it. The idea of being is simple, it expresses nothing but being; we can, therefore, find in it no relation to the transition from not-being to being.

49. Does it, perchance, spring from experience? Here we must distinguish between the idea of causality, and the knowledge of the existence of the cause. Experience reveals the succession of beings, that is, their transition from not-being to being, and vice versa. We have already remarked that in the intuition of not-being with relation to being we see the impossibility of a transition, without the mediation of some being which executes it; therefore the certainty of the existence of the cause arises from experience, combined with the intuition of the ideas of being and not-being.

50. If this experience did not exist, we should not know that causality is possible; because in the idea of being, as we possess it, we do not see the idea of force: we might perhaps conceive the force, but we could not know whether any thing in reality corresponds to it. We should thus have the notion of the force, but not the notice of its existence, nor even the certainty of its possibility.

51. But if we examine it well, this want of experience is an impossible supposition; because a limited intelligent being, as uniting intelligence with limitation, feels the succession of its perceptions, and, consequently, experiences within itself the transition from a not-being to being. And as, on the other hand, it perceives its power of combining ideas, it perceives within itself the existence of causality, of a power which produces its reflections.

52. The exercise of our will, whether with respect to internal or external acts, likewise gives us the knowledge of the dependence of some things upon others; and the impressions which we receive without our will, or against it, confirm us in this conviction. Without this experience we should see the succession of the phenomena, but should not know their relations of causality; for it is clear that the inclination to assign as the cause of a phenomenon that which preceded it, supposes the idea of cause and the knowledge of the dependence of the phenomena in the relation of causes and effects.

53. Some philosophers say that man has no idea of the creation, from which, without intending it, they come to the conclusion that we have not the idea of any cause. By creation is meant the transition of a substance from not-being to being, by virtue of the productive action of another substance. I hold that this is only the idea of causality in its highest degree, that is, as applied to the production of a substance; but since therefore we have the idea of cause, the idea of creation is not a new and inconceivable idea, but a perfection of an idea which is common to all mankind. We have seen that the idea of cause contains the idea of producing a transition from not-being to being; this power is an attribute of every active being, but with this difference, that finite causes have only the power to produce modifications, whilst the infinite cause has also the power to produce substances.

54. Here we find the same thing as in other branches of our philosophical cognitions: the idea of the essence pertains to reason, the knowledge of its existence depends on experience. The first is independent of the second, and we may reason on the essence by means of the condition of existence, that is, by means of a postulate.[76] We always have this postulate, if in nothing else, at least in the phenomena of our consciousness.

FORMULA AND DEMONSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY.

55. The principle of causality, or the proposition: all that commences must have a cause; has been somewhat disputed latterly; hence it is necessary for us to place it beyond the reach of attack. I believe it possible to do this, by presenting the doctrine of the preceding chapters under a clear point of view, which shall drive away all doubt and clear up all difficulty. I beg the reader's attention for a few moments to the argument which I am going to propose.

56. Let us take any being, A. In order that the principle of causality may be applied to it it is necessary that it should have begun to be, and that it should not have existed before; for, if we do not suppose this beginning, A must have existed always.

We can then assign a duration in which A was not, and in which there was not-A. Therefore in the order of duration there has been a little series of two terms:

not-A ... A.

To begin is to pass from the first term, not-A to A. The principle of causality says: the transition from the first term to the second is not possible without the intervention of a third term, B, which must be something real.

57. What does the term not-A represent by itself alone? the pure negation of A, the mere nonentity of A. In the conception of not-A, instead of A, we find its contradictory term; so that, instead of the second being contained in the former, they mutually exclude each other, and make the proposition: it is impossible for not-A and A to exist at the same time, absolutely true. Thus it is impossible for A ever to emanate from the conception not-A, and consequently without a real term to produce the transition it is impossible to pass from not-A to A, even in the purely ideal order.

58. Observe, however, that I do not pretend to say that, conceiving not-A so as to deny A as known, it would be impossible to conceive A; for it is evident that whoever conceives not-A, must have just conceived A, and he might conceive it entirely alone, by simply destroying the negation; but I say that on the supposition that there is an absolute conception of not-A, conformed to the absolute objective not-A, A could never emanate from this conception; and if we reflect on it we shall see that there could not even be this conception, since the thought of pure negation is no thought, no conception. There would then be an absolute absence of conception; and in the purely ideal order, we should find ourselves in the first term of the series, in a pure negation, in not-A, without any means of passing to the second term, A.

59. Those, then, who deny the principle of causality, conceive the transition from not-A to A without any reason, or any intermediary: those who deny creation, admit what is a thousand times more incomprehensible than creation. Whence do they infer the possibility of this transition? Not from experience; because experience presents only succession, and therefore not absolute appearance in the manner which they suppose: not from reason; because reason cannot make a positive conception emanate from a pure negation.

60. How is the transition from not-A to A effected? Those who admit the principle of causality, say it is effected by the action of B, which they call the cause. If it is a substance which is produced, they suppose the intervention of an infinite power. But those who deny the principle of causality can only answer that the transition from not-A to A is made absolutely. They imagine the instant M, in which A did not exist; and then the instant N, in which A exists. But why? They allege no reason: without their knowing how, A has arisen from nothing, without the action of any thing. This is a manifest contradiction.

61. The principle of causality is founded on the pure ideas of being and not-being. Suppose only not-being, and we see evidently that being cannot begin. The principle then is purely ontological: those who, in order to establish, or oppose it, appeal only to reasons of experience, put the question badly; they take it from its true field; they confound the notice of causality with the notion or idea of causality.

Those philosophers who keep within the sensible order, cannot give a solid foundation to this principle; for this reason, they who admit no other ideas than sensations, have all fallen into errors or doubts on this point; and all sensists would have fallen into the same doubt if they had only been logical enough to draw the last consequences of their doctrine.

THE PRINCIPLE OF PRECEDENCY.

62. The transition from not-being to being implies succession: to conceive that something begins, we must conceive that something did not exist. The series

not-A, A,

has no sense if either term is wanting; and these terms, inasmuch as they are contradictory, cannot exist at the same time.

63. Let us imagine absolute nothingness. The first term, not-A, stands alone. All existence is denied: nothing can be affirmed without contradicting the supposition. Then there is no time; for time being only the succession of things, or of being and not-being,[77] cannot exist when there is nothing which can succeed. If we suppose any thing to begin, we establish the series not-A, A; in which case we imagine two different instants M and N, to which the terms of the series respectively correspond in this manner:

not-A .. A.
M .... N.

It may be said with truth: M is not N. What is the meaning of this proposition? Since time and duration in general is not distinct from the things that endure[78], N can only represent the existence of A, in relation to not-A; M in the same manner can represent only not-A, in relation to A. Hence the conception of A, in so far as it begins, contains the relation to not-A, without which it could not be conceived as begun.

64. What we have explained is conceivable on the supposition at least of one intelligence; because this intelligence would refer not-A and A to their proper duration, successively, if this duration were successive like ours; in some other way, if this duration were not successive. But if there is absolutely nothing, the series, not-A ... A, is inconceivable, since the relation of A, in so far as it begins, has no real or conceived term of comparison, unless we imagine a pure time, entirely empty, in which we suppose the terms of the series to be placed.

65. Thus it seems that by the mere fact of thinking A, in so far as begun, we think also a preceding existence, because there is no beginning unless not-A preceded A; and this precedence means nothing unless there is an existence to which it relates, either as to a successive series, or as to an immutable duration.

66. If A must be preceded by an existence B, then nothing can begin independently of a preceding existence, or unless something already exists; or the simple conception of succession implies the necessity of something always existing, in order that something may begin.

67. As duration is nothing distinct from things, the two terms of the series, B, A, of which one precedes the other, cannot be placed in an absolute duration distinct from the things themselves, as in two distinct instants, independently of the things. The relation, then, which exists between B and A is not a relation of one instant to another, since the instants in themselves are nothing, but of one thing to another. Therefore A, inasmuch as it begins, has a necessary relation to B. Therefore B is the necessary condition of the existence of A. Therefore it is demonstrated that every being which begins, depends on an existent being.

68. This demonstration, though differently developed, is found in the works of Baron Pascual Galuppi, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Naples;[79] and although it is impossible to deny that it is very profound, still it does not leave the understanding wholly satisfied. These are the words of the Italian philosopher:

"Is the proposition: there is no effect without a cause, an identical proposition? I have demonstrated its identity in this manner: whatever has a beginning of existence must have been preceded either by an empty time or by a being; because otherwise the thing of which we are speaking would be the first existence, and the first letter of the alphabet of beings, and it could not be said that it begins to be, for the notion of beginning of existence implies a priority in relation to the being which begins. These two notions, existence begun, and existence preceded by another, are then identical; but is it possible for an existence to be preceded by an empty time? I have proved that an empty duration is a chimera, a product of the imagination, without any reality. The development of this proof, which I shall not give in this place, may be found in my Essays on the Critique of Knowledge. I have there established that time is nothing else than the number of productions. Aristotle said that time was the number of motion. Therefore an existence begun is an existence preceded by another existence. This proposition is identical; but how can an existence be preceded by another? Is that which precedes, perchance, found in an instant of time prior to that in which that which is preceded is found? Then we fall again into the doctrine of a time distinct from existent things. Thus we must admit that the existence which precedes is such as to make the existence preceded existence begun. It is not begun because it is preceded; the priority of the existence which precedes, is a priority of nature, an objective priority, which makes the beginning of the existence which is preceded; it is therefore the efficient cause of this existence. Thus the great principle of causality stands invincibly demonstrated,—it is an identical proposition."

69. I say again that this demonstration does not leave one wholly satisfied; not because it is not conclusive in itself, but because it needs greater development. The nerve of the proof is in the impossibility of conceiving a beginning, without conceiving something pre-existent; or to conceive precedency, without the relation of that which begins to that which pre-exists. It is not easy to conceive how from this may be inferred the intrinsic dependence of the things; and founding the argument upon so difficult an idea as that of time, greatly increases the doubt.

70. Let us suppose the world to exist, and something to begin now. Precedence is then conceived without dependence. This, in fact, happens continually; since beings are continually beginning which are preceded by others on which they do not depend. It may be said that they do not depend on all those which precede them, but still they depend on one of them. This is precisely what is to be proved. In order to prove that the principle of causality is demonstrated by the mere idea of the order of duration, it is necessary to prove that the relation of precedence is a relation of dependence. That which begins supposes something: certainly; but it remains to be proved that it depends on this thing as on something producing it, and not only as on a condition which makes the conception of beginning possible for us. Until it is proved that the action of a being is indispensable for the transition from not-being to being, the principle of causality does not seem to be proved, but only that of precedency; and as the order of things in duration, as priority and posteriority, can represent no other dependence than that of pure succession, it would follow that if we should confine ourselves to precedency, we should not prove that every thing that begins must depend on another, but that every thing that begins must succeed another; this last is not the principle of causality, but of succession.

71. We will make these ideas clearer. The difficulty raised against the former demonstration will be better understood, if we observe that those who reject the principle of causality, do not conceive it impossible for any thing to begin at any moment without any cause. Let us represent the successive beings of the universe by the series ... A, B, C, D, E, ... and the times in which they exist, by the series ... a, b, c, d, e.... According to the demonstration which we are examining, no term could have begun, unless another had preceded it; wherefore, D begun means the same as D preceded. Therefore D has a necessary relation to C, because the instants d and c are nothing in themselves, as distinguished from D and C.

Any one who does not admit the principle of causality will say that D may begin without any dependence on C; and that in order that the conception of beginning may be possible, it is only necessary that there should always have been something existing, although the terms preceding and those preceded have no relation to each other. Thus as the order of beings is represented by the series ... A, B, C, D, E, ... another series ... M, N, P, Q, R, ... may be imagined, to both of which the series ... a, b, c, d, e, ... corresponds. Then D may begin without any necessary dependence on C, for it is sufficient that P pre-exists at the instant c, in order to make the conception of beginning possible for us; in which case, D will have no necessary relation, either to C or to P; since the precedence of either is sufficient. And as it is evident that what we have said of C and P may be said of any other terms of these or other series, it follows that the demonstration only leads us to the necessity of conceiving something pre-existent; and this only in order to make the conception of a beginning possible. If to this we add the peculiar difficulty proceeding from the nature of the ideas of time and of all duration, I think we must conclude that the demonstration is not so satisfactory as might be desired. Those who have not examined the idea of time very profoundly will scarcely understand the meaning of the proof; the others will see the contradiction involved in an absolute beginning demonstrated, and therefore the necessity of something having been always existing; but not the intrinsic dependence implied in the relation of an effect to a cause. These difficulties render a more rigorous and profound examination necessary.

72. The principle of precedency leads us to an important result. Our understanding conceives absolutely an external existence; since it is impossible for it to conceive an absolute beginning without a preceding being.

73. The conception of absolute nothing is impossible. I. Because this conception would be entirely void, or rather, the absence of all conception. We conceive negation relatively to an existence,[80] but not absolutely. II. Because a conception is not possible without consciousness, and consciousness implies the idea of a being, of something, and this is contradictory of absolute nothing.

74. Unable to conceive absolute nothing, we always conceive something existing; and since, as we have demonstrated, we cannot conceive an absolute beginning, it follows that we cannot think without our thought implying an eternal existence.

How luminous a truth! What reflections it inspires! Let us continue to meditate on it.

75. Hence the necessity of thinking the necessary and eternal is a primitive fact of our mind, and the confusion which we feel in thinking on duration in the abstract, and the inclination to imagine time before the world existed, arise from the necessity of conceiving the eternal,—a necessity, from which our mind cannot emancipate itself so long as it thinks.

76. The basis of the principle of contradiction, the idea of being, is found in our conceptions in an absolute manner; its opposite, the conception of not-being is found only in relation to the contingent, and is a sort of condition implied by contingency.

77. Every thing contingent includes some not-being, so far as contingent it can not be, and therefore its not-being is at least in the order of possibility. But these transitions from not-being to being are not even conceivable without presupposing something existing, necessary, and eternal.

78. Thus in our ideas we find being as absolute, and not-being only as relative; and we can conceive being which has proceeded from not-being, or has begun, only in relation to an absolute being.

79. This relation considered objectively does not seem at first sight to be the relation of causality, but only of succession; but it presents a subjective fact which brings us to the knowledge of the objective truth. Our conceptions of not-being and being are connected in such sort that we cannot conceive the transition from not-being to being without conceiving a pre-existent being: here we find a reflex of objective causality which is revealed to us in subjective facts. Duration, as distinct from things, is a pure imagination; the relation of durations is therefore a relation of beings. True, in this relation of durations we discover only succession, and not intrinsic dependence; but this dependence, though not known intuitively, is represented in the very connection in which we conceive beings in duration. It is certain that we can imagine different series; but that of time is a pure imagination in so far as we conceive it distinct from others. If the series of times disappears, there remains only the series of things: the relation between the terms will be the relation between the things; and what is called the dependence of succession will be the dependence of reality. The real relation of that which passes from not-being to being, with that which is absolutely, is a dependence of causality.

80. Let us imagine any series of realities. A, B, C, D, E, ... M, N, P, Q, R....

The series of times a, b, c, d, e, in so far as distinct from the others, means nothing. In this case it may be eliminated, and all the relations of some of the terms on others will be relations of things, not of time.

Now, it has been demonstrated that a term, D, for example, cannot be conceived as passing from not-being to being, or as beginning, without a relation, and it has been shown that this relation is a real relation of D to any of the terms. It has been objected that D, in order to begin, requires only a term which would make the conception of priority, and consequently, of beginning, possible, which term might be sought in another distinct series; but this is really only to change a name; for, if the term which is necessary for the beginning is found in another series, the cause is found in it also, for in it is found that which is necessary for the effect.

81. All the terms begun presuppose another, either one or more, for we here abstract their unity; therefore we must come at last to one or more terms not begun. Those which have begun could not have begun without the existence of those which have not begun; therefore the existence of these is necessary for the existence of those. Therefore the existence of these last contains the reasons of the beginning of the existence of the others; therefore they contain true causality.

82. The difficulties opposed to this demonstration arise from inadvertently violating the supposition by attributing to duration an existence distinct from the beings. In order to perceive the whole force of the proof, it is necessary to eliminate entirely the imaginary conception of pure duration: and then it will be seen that the dependence represented as the relation of duration is the dependence of the beings themselves,—a dependence which represents nothing else than the relation expressed by the principle of causality.

83. After completely eliminating the conception of pure duration as a thing distinct from the beings, there remains only the transition from not-being to being as all that is expressed by the word, beginning. In this case we find that the principle of precedency is the same as the principle of causality; and as we have had to abstract entirely duration in itself in order to solve the difficulties, we find that if the principle of causality is to be placed beyond all doubt, and to be regarded as an axiom, it can only rest on the contradiction between not-being and being, or the impossibility of conceiving a being which suddenly makes its appearance, without any thing more than a pure not-being preceding it.

84. Thus, after examining the question on every side, we come to what we established in the preceding chapters: a not-being cannot arrive at being without the intervention of a being: the series not-A, A, is impossible without the intervention of a being, B. We find it so even in our ideas, and to contradict this truth is to deny our reason.

I believe, then, that the principle of causality is completely explained only in the manner in which we have treated it in the preceding chapters. To begin supposes a not-being of that which begins; and it is impossible and contradictory to deduce being from the conception of not-being. The principle is true subjectively, because it is founded on our ideas; but it is also true objectively, because in these cases objectiveness is necessarily joined with subjectiveness.[81] The being which suddenly appears, without a cause, without a reason, without any thing, is an absurd representation which our intellect rejects as instantly and as strongly as it accepts the principle of contradiction.

As time is the relation of not-being to being—the order of the variable—it is a contradiction to conceive succession without any thing which pre-exists; and thus the principle of precedency confirms the principle of causality; or rather, it shows that the two are one, though presented under different aspects: the principle of precedency relates to duration, that of causality to being; but both of them express an application of the fundamental principle: it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAUSALITY IN ITSELF.—INSUFFICIENCY AND ERROR OF SOME EXPLANATIONS.

85. Causality implies relation: if in exercise, it implies actual relation; considered not in exercise, but in potentia, it implies a possible relation. Nothing causes itself; causality always relates to another. There is no cause where there is no effect; and there is no effect where there is no transition from not-being to being. If this transition takes place in a substance which was not, but begins to be, it is called creation; and is said to be passive, relatively to the effect, and active, in relation to the cause. If the transition is of accidents only, the effect is a new modification; we do not then say that there is a new being, but that the being is in another manner.

86. From this it may be inferred that causality is not the same as activity: all causality is activity, but not all activity is causality. God is active in himself; but he is cause only in relation to the external. His intelligence and his will are certainly infinite activity, considered in themselves, and abstracted from creation, as we conceive God from all eternity before the beginning of the world; yet, inasmuch as they are purely immanent, they are causality, for they produce nothing new in God. His intelligence is a pure act, infinitely perfect, and can never suffer any change; the same must be said of his will: therefore the divine intelligence and will with respect to God himself are not acts of causality. Even as referred to external objects, they are a producing cause in reality, only by subjection to the free will of the Creator; for otherwise we should have to admit that God created the world necessarily.

Activity in creatures, even in immanent operations, is always causality; for they cannot exercise their activity without producing new modifications. Acts of understanding and will are the exercise of an immanent activity, and yet they modify us in different ways. When we think or will we are in a different manner from that in which we are when we do not think or will; and when we pass from thinking or willing one thing to think or will another, this transition cannot take place without our experiencing new modes of being.

87. In what does the relation of efficient causality consist? What is the meaning of the dependence of the effect in relation to the cause? This is a difficult and a profound question; one of the most difficult and most profound which can be presented to science. The majority of men and even of philosophers imagine that they can solve it, by using words which, rightly analyzed, explain nothing.

88. To cause, it is said, is to give being. What means to give? To give is here synonymous with to produce. What means to produce? With this the explanations are at an end, unless one should wish to fall into a vicious circle, saying that to produce is to cause or give being.

A cause, it is also said, is that from which a thing results. What is understood by resulting? To emanate. What is to emanate? To emanate is to proceed, to flow from another. Always the same thing: metaphorical expressions which at bottom have all the same meaning.

It is said that a cause is that which gives, produces, makes, communicates, generates, etc., and that an effect is that which receives, proceeds, emanates, results, flows, comes, springs, etc.

89. Causality implies succession, but is not identified with it. We can clearly conceive that B is after A, without A being the cause of B.

Internal and external experience present continual examples of succession distinct from causality. A man goes out into the field, another follows him: between the going out of both there is succession, but there may be no causality. The two phenomena, whether considered objectively in themselves, or subjectively, as known by us, are connected by the relation of succession, but not by that of causality. There is as great a difference in philosophy as in ordinary language between post and propter, after and because of. The same is true in purely internal phenomena. I think of a question of philosophy, and then pass to a literary question: the two thoughts are successive, but one is not the cause of the other.

90. The relation of causality is not the connection of the ideas of things. The representations of A and B may be strongly connected in our mind without our even thinking of the relation of causality. We have seen in a place a scene which made a profound impression on us; ever afterwards the remembrance of the place recalls the scene, and the recollection of the scene reminds us of the place; here we find two internal representations strongly connected, without our therefore attributing to the objects the relation of causality. We know that two persons arrive at the same place and without the coming of the one influencing the coming of the other. The idea of the coming of the one will be associated in the mind with the idea of the coming of the other. There will then be a connection of representations, although we deny to the objects the relation of causality.

91. Although the connection of the ideas in our understanding may, in consequence of a constant experience, be such that one is always preceded by the other, as the conditioned is by the condition, this is not enough for true causality. An observer may have remarked the correspondence of the ebb and flow of the tide with the motion of the moon; but whether for reasons of philosophy, or because it has never occurred to him that the motion of the moon could influence the motion of the sea, he considers these phenomena entirely independent of one another, although he may try hard to explain so strange a coincidence. In the mind of this observer the two phenomena will be always joined, in such a way that the phenomenon of the moon will always be that of the ebb and flow, without its being possible to invert the order and make the ebb and flow precede the motion of the moon. Here then is a necessary priority in an idea, and yet true causality is not attributed to the object.

92. There is a fact in the history of philosophy which proves with the greatest evidence the truth of what I have just said. This fact is the system of occasional causes maintained by eminent philosophers. If a body, they say, strike another body at rest, it will communicate to it its motion; but this communication does not imply a true causality, but that the motion of the impinging body is a mere occasion of the motion of the body impinged. Here then a thing is conceived as a necessary condition of the existence of another, and yet it is denied that there is between them the relation of causality. In thinking of the two phenomena we cannot invert the order, and conceive the motion of the body impinged as the condition of the motion of the impinging body, yet we can deny the relation of causality between the condition and the conditioned. Therefore the idea of causality represents something besides the necessary order of things among themselves.

93. This brings us to a new phasis of the question. Is the relation of causality faithfully represented in the conditional proposition: if A exists, B will exist? The connection expressed by this proposition is not the relation of causality. If the fruit-tree N flourishes in a certain country, M will flourish. A constant experience proves it. The conditional proposition in this case does not express the relation of causality of the flourishing of N with respect to the flourishing of M; yet the proposition is true. One phenomenon may be the sign of the immediate approach of another, without being its cause.

94. Conditional propositions, in which the existence of one object is affirmed as the condition of the existence of another, express a connection; but this may not be a connection of the objects with each other, but with a third. If a gentleman's servant goes to a place, and then another servant of the same gentleman goes to the same place, the cause of the going of the second may not be the going of the first, but simply that their master wished them to go one after the other. The crops in one field indicate the state of the crops of another field, and this indication may be expressed by a conditional proposition. Why so? Is it on account of the causality of the crops in one field in relation to those in another? Certainly not; but because the circumstances of the climate and the soil produce a sufficiently fixed order between them to verify the conditional proposition, without the intervention of the idea of the causality of one in relation to the other.

95. There are many cases in which the relation between the condition is necessary, and yet the condition neither is, nor can be, the cause of the conditioned. We are here treating of efficient cause, of that which gives being to the thing, and it would often be absurd to attribute this kind of causality to conditions which on the other side are necessarily connected with the conditioned. Take away the pillar on which a body rests, and the body will fall; the connection of the condition with the conditioned, or of the taking away the pillar with the fall of the body is necessary; the proposition in which this connection is expressed is true and necessary in the natural order; and still it cannot be said that the removal of the pillar is the efficient cause of the fall of the body.

96. Even a purely occasional connection is all that is necessary for the truth of the conditional proposition; and no one ever confounds the occasion with the cause. In the present example, the body cannot fall unless the pillar is removed; and it must necessarily fall if it is removed; but the cause of the fall is not in the removal of the pillar, but in the weight of the body, as is evident if we suppose the specific gravity of the body to be equal to that of the fluid in which it is submerged, since in that case, the removal of the pillar is not followed by the fall of the body.

97. Causality cannot express a necessary relation of the condition to the conditioned, unless we deny all free causes. Supposing the idea of causality to be correctly expressed in this proposition: if A exists, B will exist; by substituting God and the world for A and B, it will become: if God exists the world will exist; which would lead us into the error of the necessity of the creation. By substituting man and determinate actions for A and B, we shall have the proposition: if man exists, his determinate actions will exist, which implies necessity, and destroys free will.

98. Here arises the question: would the relation of causality be correctly expressed by a conditional proposition, taken in an inverse sense, or with the effect, as the condition and the cause as the conditioned, (not conditioned in the order of existence, but only as a thing necessarily supposed,) that is, if, instead of saying: if A exists, B will exist, we say: if B exists, A exists? In this case, the proposition may be applied even to the dependence of creatures on God, and in general of all free actions on their causes; for we can say with truth: if the world exists, God exists; if there is a free action, there is a free agent.

99. Although at first sight this seems to explain the relation of causality, this new formula cannot be regarded as correct. For, though it is true in general, that if there is an effect there is a cause, it is also certain that oftentimes one thing supposes another, not as its cause, but as a mere occasion, as a condition sine qua non; which is far from being true causality. Supposing the body supported by the pillar to be so placed that it cannot fall unless the pillar is removed, we might form the conditional proposition: if the body has fallen, the pillar has been taken away; the proposition is true, although the removal of the pillar is not the efficient cause of the fall of the body.

100. God could have so created the world that creatures would have no true action of causality upon one another, and yet have so arranged them that the phenomena would correspond with each other in the same manner as they now do. This is the opinion of defenders of the doctrine of occasional causes, and to this is reduced the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz, according to which all the monads constituting the universe are like so many clocks, which, though independent of one another, agree with admirable exactness. On this hypothesis we might form infinite conditional propositions expressing the correspondence of the phenomena without the idea of causality entering into any of them.

101. From what has been said we must infer that this idea is something distinct from the necessary connection, and that it is not correctly expressed in all its purity by the relation contained in the conditional propositions, whether the cause be taken as the condition or as the conditioned. The dependence of the effect on its cause is something more than the simple connection. To say that whatever is necessarily connected, even successively and in a fixed order, is connected by the relation of causality, is to confound the ideas of common language as well as those of philosophy.

CHAPTER IX.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS OF TRUE ABSOLUTE CAUSALITY.

102. We have just seen that the necessary connection of two objects is not enough to establish the character of causality; what circumstances are then necessary?

103. If we conceive an object, B, which begins, and suppose that the object A was necessary to its existence, and that of itself alone it was sufficient for the existence of B, we find in the relation of A to B the true character of the relation of a cause to its effect. For the complete character of absolute cause, two conditions are indispensable: I. The necessity of the existence of A for the existence of B. II. That the existence of A be sufficient for the existence of B, without any thing more being requisite.

These conditions may be expressed in the following propositions or formulas:

If B exists, A exists.

The existence of A alone is sufficient for the existence of B.

When the relation between two objects is such that both these propositions are true at the same time, there is a relation of absolute causality.

104. From this explanation it is evident that the character of cause must be denied to all mere occasions, since the second proposition cannot be applied to them. When two facts are occasionally connected, it may be said that if the one exists the other must exist, and the first proposition is verified in this case; but it cannot be said that the existence of the one is sufficient for the existence of the other; and therefore the second proposition fails of its application. If two men have agreed that the one shall fire a pistol when the other gives a signal with his hand, it may be said that if the signal is given the pistol will be fired, but not that the signal alone contains what is sufficient for the firing of the pistol. For, supposing the man with the pistol to be asleep, the signal may be repeated a number of times without the firing of the pistol.

105. The character of cause must also be denied to every condition which is only the removal of an obstacle (removens prohibens). To such the first proposition is applicable, but not the second. In the case of a body resting on a pillar so that it cannot fall unless the pillar be removed, we may say: if the body has fallen, the pillar has been taken away; but not that the removal of the pillar is sufficient for the fall of the body; because if the body were of a less specific gravity than the fluid in which it is submerged, or united to another body which would prevent its falling, it would not fall. It is evident that the removal of the obstacle is not sufficient for the fall, but that something more is required, as the force of gravity, or an impulse.

106. All phenomena connected in succession of time necessarily and in a fixed order, must be denied the relation of cause and effect, unless the application of these ideas is made legitimate by something else; because, although the constant order authorizes us to say that if A happens, B will happen, and then C, and then D, and so on successively, it cannot be said that in the existence of A is contained that which is sufficient for the existence of B, nor in the existence of B what is sufficient for the existence of C, since we suppose an indispensable condition outside of the series.

107. The first proposition: if B exists, A exists; is true of every cause whether necessary or free. The second proposition is likewise applicable to both these classes of causes. It is necessary to observe with care that the proposition does not say that if A exists, B will exist; but that the existence of A is all that is requisite in order that B may exist. If, supposing A, B is necessarily supposed also, the cause is necessary; but if, supposing A, only that which is sufficient for the existence of B is supposed, the cause remains free; because the existence of B is not affirmed, but only the possibility of its existence.

108. Let us apply this doctrine to the first cause. If the world exists, God exists: this proposition is absolutely true. If God exists, the world exists; this proposition is false, because, God existing, the world might not have existed. If God exists, the world may exist; that is, in the existence of God is contained that which is sufficient for the possibility of the existence of the world: this proposition is true; because in the infinite being is contained the possibility of finite beings, and in him is found sufficient power to give them existence, if he thus freely wills it.

SECONDARY CAUSALITY.

109. In determining in the last chapter the conditions of true causality, I spoke only of absolute causality; the reason of this, which I shall now explain, turns on the difference between the first cause and second causes.

110. We have seen that the pure idea of absolute causality is the perception of three conditions: the necessity of one thing for the existence of another; the sufficiency of the first alone for the existence of the second; and lastly (when the cause is free) the act of the will necessary for the production of the effect. These three conditions are fulfilled absolutely in the first cause, since nothing can exist unless God exists; and for the existence of any object the existence of God, with the free will of creating the object, is sufficient. It is evident that causality cannot be applied in the same sense to second causes; of none of them can it be said that its existence is absolutely necessary for the existence of the effect, since God could have produced it either by means of another secondary agent, or immediately by himself; neither is its existence alone sufficient for the existence of the effect, since whatever exists presupposes and requires the existence of the first cause.

111. Thus, then, the idea of causality applied to God has a very different meaning from that which it has when applied to second causes: it is necessary to bear this in mind, and not to raise questions concerning second causes before the meaning of the word cause is strictly defined. It is certain that the relation of an effect to its cause is a relation of dependence; but we have seen that the words dependence, connection, condition, etc., are susceptible of different meanings; if they are not clearly and strictly determined it is impossible to give any solution to these questions.

112. What then is meant by secondary causality? After the observations which we have made, it is not difficult to say. In the order of created beings A will be the cause of B when the following conditions are fulfilled.

I. That the existence of A is necessary (according to the order established) for the existence of B; which may be expressed by this formula: if B exists, A exists or has existed.

II. That in the order established B and A form a series which goes back to the first cause, without the concurrence of the terms of any other series being requisite.

This last condition will not, perhaps, be understood, unless explained by some examples.

113. The motion of my pen is the effect of the motion of my hand; here I have the true relation of secondary causality, for I pass through a series of conditions, which do not require the conditions of any other series: the motion of the pen depends on the motion of my hand; that of my hand depends on the animal spirits (or whatever cause physiologists may please to assign); that of the animal spirits depends on the command of my will; and my will depends on God, who created it, and preserves it. I here find a series of second causes to which I give the true character of causality, in so far as it can exist in a secondary order; and the efficient cause, the principal among secondary causes is my will; because in the secondary order of it is the first term of the series. The motion of the pen of my secretary depends on my will, not however as its true efficient cause, but as its occasion; because in the secretary is found the same series as in the former example: the first term of this series is his will, which I cannot absolutely determine, since being free, it determines itself. There is true efficient causality in the will of the secretary; because there ends the series whose first term is at my disposal only in an improper sense, that is to say, so long as the secretary pleases.

114. The body, A, in motion strikes upon the body, B at rest: the motion of the body A is the cause of the motion of the body B, and the causality will be found in all the terms of the series, that is, in all the motions whose successive communication has been necessary in order that the motion might reach the body B. Let us suppose that in the series of these communications obstacles have been removed which impeded the communication of the motion; the removal of the obstacles is an indispensable condition on the supposition that they existed, but it is not a true cause, since it is a term foreign to the series of the communications, and might not have existed, without the motion therefore ceasing to exist. For, supposing there had been no obstacles, they would not have been removed, and yet the motion would have been communicated. But it is not the same with respect to the terms which form the series of the communications; for if we represent them by A. B. C. D. E. F. . . . . . . . . . the motion of A cannot reach F if one of the intermediate bodies serving as the vehicle of the communication be taken away.

115. From this theory it follows that the idea of secondary causality represents a concatenation of various objects forming a series, which terminates in the first cause, whether by a necessary order, as in the phenomena of corporeal nature, or by the medium of a first term in the secondary order with a determination of its own, as is the case in things which depend on free will.

FUNDAMENTAL EXPLANATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE OBSCURITY OF IDEAS IN WHAT RELATES TO CAUSALITY.

116. It may be asked, of what nature is this connection of the terms of the series; how one communicates with another; what it is which is communicated; by virtue of what quality they are placed in relation. All these questions arise from a confusion of ideas which has been the occasion of interminable disputes. In order to avoid them we must remember the difference between intuitive and discursive knowledge, and between determinate and indeterminate, intuitive and not-intuitive ideas, as explained in its proper place.[82]

117. I there said[83] that the pure intellect may exercise its functions by indeterminate ideas, or those representing general relations which are not applied to any real or possible object, until a determination furnished by experience is added to them.[84] The idea of cause is indeterminate;[85] and, consequently, taken in general, it cannot be presented to us without the relation of being and not-being, or of beings united among themselves by a certain necessity, but in an absolute indeterminate manner.[86] Therefore the idea of cause is not enough to determine the character of this activity and its means of communication; this idea by itself can tell us nothing of the particular; it can only teach us certain truths a priori; the application of these truths to beings rests on experience.

118. I said[87] that our intuition is confined to passive sensibility, active sensibility, intelligence, and will; whatever lies outside of this sphere we can know only by indeterminate conceptions, and, consequently, it is impossible for us to expose to the intuition of another that which we feel to be wanting to our own. We may develop this doctrine farther by applying it to the philosophical questions on causality.

119. There have been great disputes as to whether bodies exercise a true action on each other; and those who hold the negative are always asking, how one body can cause any thing in another? what that is which is transmitted, and what is the character of its active quality? Various replies have been made; but I greatly doubt if it is possible to make any which is satisfactory, without considering the doctrine which I have just explained,—what answer, then, can be made? It is this: we know nothing intuitively of bodies except passive sensibility, which, in the last result, is only extension with its various modifications.[88] Now these modifications are reduced to figure and motion; whatever would make us depart from these two intuitions, requiring an explanation with characteristic determinations, would ask for that which is beyond the power of man. The limits of our intuition on this point are confined to extension and motion, and their relations to our sensibility; we must, therefore, be contented with observing the phenomena of bodies, and subjecting them to calculation within the circle of this intuition: all beyond this is impossible. We know that the body A moves with a certain velocity, which we measure by the relation of space to time; when it arrives at the place where it meets B, B moves in a corresponding direction and with a corresponding velocity. Here there is a succession of phenomena in time and space; the phenomena are subject to constant laws, which are known by experience. Our intuitive cognitions go no farther; when we attempt to go beyond this we find the general relations of being and not-being, of being before and being after, of condition and conditioned, which present nothing determinate by which we can explain the true character of secondary causality.

120. Philosophy, when treating of bodies, is limited to what is strictly called physics; when it attempts to rise to the region of metaphysics bodies disappear, in so far as they are phenomena subject to sensible observation, and there remains only the general and indeterminate ideas of them.

121. As regards the sensitive faculty, we are in some sort passive, inasmuch as we receive the impressions which we call sensations. Whatever activity we possess in sensation does not depend on our free will, supposing that we are subject to the conditions of sensibility. If you put your hand in the fire it is impossible for you not to experience the sensation of heat. In what regards the causality which we have as to the reproduction of past sensations or the production of new sensible sensations, it is vain to ask us the manner in which we exercise this activity: its exercise is a part of consciousness; all we know about it is that it exists in such or such a manner in our consciousness.

122. The same may be said of the elaboration of ideas. None of the philosophers can explain the manner of this immanent production; ideological investigations go no farther than the characterizing and classifying these phenomena and showing the order of their succession; they can tell us nothing concerning the manner in which they are produced.

123. The exercise of the will presents to our intuition, or if you please, to our consciousness, another series of phenomena, of the manner of the production of which we know nothing. Consciousness testifies that the free principle which exercises this activity is within us: this is all that we know about it. These phenomena are found at times connected with motions of our bodies, which a constant experience presents as depending on our will, but how things so different are connected, we know not: philosophy will never know.

CHAPTER XII.

CAUSALITY OF PURE FORCE OF THE WILL.

124. In what does creation consist? How can God produce things from nothing? Such a thing is incomprehensible. This is the language of many who do not reflect that the same incomprehensibility is found in the exercise of secondary causality, both in the corporeal and in the incorporeal world. If we knew God in the intuitive manner in which, according to the Catholic dogma, the blessed see him in the mansion of glory, we might know intuitively the manner of the creation. As it is, we say that in so far as we can form any idea of the action of the Creator, he produces all things from nothing by the force of his will; which besides according with the teachings of religion, is in harmony with what we experience in ourselves. God wills, and the universe springs up out of nothing: how can this be understood? To him who asks this, I say: man wills, and his arm rises; he wills, and his whole body is in motion. How can this be understood? Here is a small, weak, and incomplete, but true image of the Creator: an intelligent being which wills, and a fact which appears. Where is the connection? If you cannot explain it to us in so far as concerns finite beings, how can you ask us to explain it with respect to the infinite being? The incomprehensibility of the conception of the motion of the body with the force of the will does not authorize us to deny the connection; therefore the incomprehensibility of the connection of a being which appears for the first time with the force of the infinite will cannot authorize us to deny the truth of the creation: on the contrary, the finding a similar thing in ourselves greatly strengthens the ontological arguments which demonstrate its necessity. In the dogmas of the Christian religion, besides what they reveal that is supernatural, we find at every step philosophical truths as profound as they are important.

125. The causality which relates to purely possible effects can only be understood by placing it in an intelligence. The cause which does not produce an effect, but which may produce it, involves a relation of the existent to the non-existent; the cause exists, the effect does not exist; the cause does not produce it, but may produce it; what is the relation of that which exists to that which does not exist? is not a relation without a term to which it relates, a contradiction? It is certainly, if abstracted from the intelligence: the intelligence alone can relate to that which does not exist; for it can think the non-existent. A body can have no relation to a body which does not exist; but an intelligence may have a relation to that which does not exist, even knowing that it does not exist; we may ourselves wander at pleasure through the regions of pure possibility.

126. The will also participates of this character of the intellect. Desire relates to an enjoyment which is not, but which may be; we will and will not, we love and hate things that are often purely ideal, and whose identity we know perfectly well, still this does not prevent our willing them. Thus we desire things to happen which are not, and we may even desire things which we know to be impossible. We may wish to recover that which we know is lost forever; we may wish for the presence of a friend whom we know to be at so great a distance as to render his coming impossible; we may wish that time would stop or hurry on in conformity to our wants or our caprices.

127. Thus we find both the intellect and the will in relation to that which does not exist;—a relation which is not even conceivable in a being destitute of intellect. This leads to an important result. The absolute beginning of any thing is not possible unless we conceive causality as having its root in the intellect. That which begins passes from not-being to being, and how is it possible that a being has produced in another a transition from not-being to being, if the relation to the other before it existed was intrinsically impossible? An intelligent being may think another although the other does not exist; but for an unintelligent being if the other does not exist in reality it does not exist at all; consequently no relation to it is possible, any such relation that may be imagined is contradictory, and therefore it is absurd to suppose that which is not to begin to be.

128. This reasoning proves that in the origin of things there is an intelligent being, the cause of every thing, and that without this intelligence nothing could have begun. If something has begun, something must have existed from all eternity; and that which began was known by that which existed. Not admitting intelligence, beginning is absurd. Imagine in the origin of things a being without intelligence, its relations can only be to that which exists; it can have no relation to the non-existent; how then is it possible for the non-existent to begin to exist, through the action of the existent? In order that the non-existent may begin to be, some reason is necessary; for otherwise the beginning of one thing or of another, and even its beginning or not-beginning would be indifferent. Unless we suppose a being which knows that which does not exist, and may establish, so to speak, a communication with nothing, the being which does not exist can never exist.

CHAPTER XIII.

ACTIVITY.

129. To understand more clearly the idea of causality, it will be useful to reflect on the ideas of activity and action, as also on those of inertness, or inactivity, and inaction.

130. An absolutely inactive being is a being without intelligence, without will, without sensibility, without any kind of consciousness, containing in itself nothing which can change its own state or that of any thing else.

Thus absolute inactivity or inertness requires the following conditions: I. The absolute denial of all principle, of intelligence, of will, of sensibility, and in general of every thing which is accompanied by consciousness. II. The absolute denial of all principle of change in itself. III. The absolute denial of all principle of change in others. The union of these three conditions forms the idea of absolute inactivity or inertness: the state of such a being is that of absolute inaction.

131. A being of this nature, regarded in general, presents only the idea of an existing thing: we may also consider it as a substance, supposing it not to inhere as a modification in another, or rather, supposing it as a substratum capable of receiving modifications by the action of other beings upon it.

The only means by which we can characterize to a certain extent this general idea, so that it may be presented to our intuition, is to add to it the idea of extension, by which we make in some manner the idea of inert matter.

132. After the ideas of inertness and inaction are explained, their opposites, the ideas of activity and action, are clearly understood.

When we conceive a being which has the reason of its changes within itself, we conceive an active being.

When we conceive a being which has within itself the reason of the changes of other beings, we conceive an active being.

When we conceive a being which knows, wills, perceives, or has consciousness in any way, we conceive an active being.

Hence activity may represent three things to us: the origin of its own changes; the origin of the changes of others; and consciousness.

133. The first kind of activity can belong only to changeable beings; the second also to immutable beings, which are causes; the third is an activity which belongs to mutable or immutable beings, abstracting absolutely the idea of causality.

134. The general relation of principle of its own or another's changes, is an indeterminate idea; consequently the only activity of which we can have an intuitive idea is that of intelligence, of will, and in general of whatever relates to the phenomena which require the perception called consciousness.

135. We must consider consciousness as an activity, and include in this order the idea of intelligence and will abstracted from all relation to their own or another's changes, unless we mean to say that God was from all eternity an inactive being, because he had no other action than the immanent acts of knowing and willing.

136. Therefore not all activity is transient, but there is a true immanent activity, of which we have an intuitive knowledge in the phenomena of our consciousness.

137. The activity which we can conceive in bodies is reduced to a principle of their own changes or those of some other being; it is therefore something of which we can have no intuitive knowledge. In fact, we are in relation with bodies only by means of the senses, which present but two orders of facts with respect to corporeal nature; subjective facts, or the impressions which we experience and call sensations, and which we believe to emanate from the action of bodies upon our organs; and objective facts, that is, extension motion, and the different modifications which the senses discover in extended things which move. Neither the first class of facts nor the second give us an intuitive idea of the activity of corporeal beings.

Subjective facts or sensations are immanent, that is, are in us, not in the things; and inasmuch as subjective tell us nothing of what is outside of us, but only what is within us. Even supposing sensations to be a true effect of the activity of bodies, this activity is not presented in the effect. When our hand is warmed by the fire we have the intuitive perception of the sensation of heat, inasmuch as it is in us; if we suppose that this sensation is really an effect of the activity of the fire, we know the relation of our sensation to this activity considered in general, and indeterminately as the origin of our sensation; but we do not know the activity intuitively in itself, because as such it is not represented in our sensation.

Neither do objective facts, that is, extension, motion, and whatever we conceive which is not in our sensation, but in the object itself, give us any intuitive idea of the activity of corporeal things. The modifications of extension, or figures, motion with all its accidents, and in general all that presents the corporeal world to our senses, are the changes themselves and their relations, but not the principle of these relations or of these changes. The body A, which is in motion, strikes upon the body B at rest; B after the impact begins to move: without considering whether the impact of A is the cause of the motion of B, that which we are certain of is, that we have no intuition of the activity producing the motion. What do the senses tell us of the body A? They only tell us that it has moved with a certain velocity towards the point M where the body B was situated. What do they tell us of the body B? Only that it began to move the instant the body A reached the point M: so far we have only the relations of space and time between the two extended objects A and B. Where is the intuition of the activity of A, and of its action on B? We see absolutely nothing of it. By reasoning, by analogy, by considerations of order, of agreement, and such like, we may prove with more or less evidence that in the body A there is an activity which causes the motion of the body B; but this gives us only an indeterminate idea, not an intuition of activity.

138. These considerations are conclusive as applied to all the phenomena of corporeal nature. Take any one you please, select that one which leads us most strongly to imagine a true activity; analyze it well, and you will find our intuition limited to relations of extension in space and in time.

That all bodies are heavy is a fact of experience; do we know intuitively the principle from which the phenomena of weight proceed? By no means. Let us examine it in the subjective order and in the objective. What does weight as perceived by us present to us? Only that affection which we call heaviness, that is, the pressure on the members of the body. What does it present objectively? Only the direction of bodies towards a centre with a certain velocity depending on circumstances. We find in all this only a purely internal fact, which is the unpleasant sensation of weight or heaviness, or the pure relations of extended objects in space and time.

139. The fire burns objects and reduces them to ashes; nothing could be better suited to give us the idea of activity. Still we cannot say that we know it intuitively. In the subjective order we have the painful sensation of burning, which thus far is a purely internal fact; in the objective order we have the disorganization of the bodies burnt, which presents to the senses only a change in the size, figure, color, and other qualities relative to our senses—all this may be the effect of the activity, but it is not the activity itself.

140. The light reflected from an object strikes our eyes, painting on the retina the object which reflects it. Have we in this case an intuition of the activity of light. Not at all. In the subjective order we find the sensation called seeing; in the objective order, we find the size, figure, and other qualities of the object in space. If we consider the light itself, we find a fluid whose rays have this or that direction in subjection to determinate laws, but we have no intuitive knowledge of its activity; and in order to persuade ourselves that the activity exists, we reason from principles which are not within the sphere of our intuition.

141. The four intuitions of passive sensibility, active sensibility, intelligence, and will, may be reduced to two:[89] extension and consciousness; including in extension all its modifications, and in consciousness all the internal phenomena of a sensitive or intellectual being; in so far as they have the common ground of consciousness. We therefore know intuitively two modes of being: consciousness and extension; consciousness is within us, it is a subjective fact; extension is external, its existence is revealed by sensations, particularly those of sight and touch.

142. The classification of these two intuitions is important beyond measure for the distinction of the active from the inert. In consciousness we find a type of true activity; in extension, as such, we have a type of true inertness. In thinking of consciousness, we think of something active without adding any other idea; when we think of extension, it presents to us the image of a thing susceptible of various modifications, the principle of none of which is contained in extension; in order to think of a corporeal activity we have to go out of the pure idea of extension, and consider a principle of change in general, which is not the object of the intuition of the extended.

143. Thus the only activity which we know intuitively is that of consciousness; for we have only indeterminate ideas of corporeal activity. The words action, reaction, force, resistance, impulse, express only indeterminate relations, and represent something fixed and determinate, only in their effects. Mechanists express forces by lines or numbers, that is, by results subject to calculation. Even Newton, in establishing his system of universal attraction, declares his ignorance of the immediate cause of the phenomenon, and confines himself to assigning the laws to which the motions of bodies are subjected.

144. Activity in changeable beings represents a principle of their own and others' changes, a sort of superabundance of being which constantly develops itself, and, in proportion as it is developed, perfects itself. We find an example of this development in our own mind. The child at its birth receives in a confused manner the impressions of all that surrounds it. By the repetition of these impressions its activity is developed; that which was obscure becomes clear, the confusion is put into order, that which was feeble becomes strong, thought arises, comparison begins, reflection is unfolded, and the being which was torpid and almost inert becomes perhaps a genius which astonishes the world. Materials have come to it from without, but of what use would they have been without that living fire of activity which transformed them and deduced from them new and valuable products? The same phenomena of nature are presented to the eyes of brute animals as to Kepler or Newton; but what for the first is only a sensible impression is for the latter a starting-point of sublime and wonderful theories.

145. The active being possesses virtually the perfections which it is to acquire; it may be compared to the acorn which contains the mighty oak, whose development depends on circumstances of soil and climate. On the other hand, the inactive being can give itself nothing; it has a state, and it preserves it till some other changes it; and it remains in this new state until another action from without takes it away and communicates another.

146. Activity is a principle of its own or another's changes; this activity may operate in two ways: with intelligence and without it. When the being is intelligent its inclination to that which is known is called will. The will is inclined to the object necessarily or not necessarily: in the first case, it is a necessary spontaneity; in the second, it is a free spontaneity. Liberty, then, does not consist solely in the absence of coaction; it requires the absence of all, even spontaneous, necessity; the will must be able to will or not will the object; if this condition is wanting there is no freewill.

147. It is worthy of remark that our intuition of the external relates only to the inactive, to extension; and that internal intuition relates principally to activity, to consciousness. By the first we know a substratum of changes, since all change seems to take place in extension; by the second we know no subject intuitively, but only the changes themselves. We prove the unity of their subject by reasoning, but we do not see it intuitively.[90] Extension, as such, is presented to us as simply passive: consciousness, as such, is always active; for, even in those cases in which it is most passive, as in sensations, in so far as there is consciousness, it implies activity; for by it the subject gives itself an account, explicitly or implicitly, of the affection experienced.

POSSIBILITY OF THE ACTIVITY OF BODIES.

148. Having marked the limits of our intuitive knowledge with respect to causality and activity, it is easy to answer the objections against secondary causality, which arise from confounding intuitive and indeterminate ideas; but we have still to examine whether there are true second causes, that is, whether there really is in finite beings a principle of their own and others' changes. Some philosophers, among others the illustrious Malebranche, have denied the efficacy of second causes, thus reducing them to mere occasions. The author of the Investigation de la VÉritÉ goes so far as to maintain that secondary causality not only does not exist, but is impossible.

149. The universe contains two classes of beings,—immaterial beings, and corporeal beings: each presents difficulties which it will be well to examine separately. Let us begin with matter. It is said that matter is incapable of all activity, that its essence is indifferent to every thing, susceptible of any sort of modification. I cannot discover on what this general proposition is founded, nor do I see how it is possible to prove it either by reason or by experience.

150. In order to maintain that matter is completely inactive, or incapable of any activity, it would be necessary to know its essence; but this we do not know. By what right do we deny the possibility of an attribute when we are ignorant of the nature of the object to which it should belong, when we do not know even one of its properties to which this attribute is repugnant? It is true that we deny to matter the possibility of thought, and even of sensation; but we can do so only because we know enough of matter, to establish this impossibility. In matter, whatever may be its intrinsic essence, there are parts, consequently there is multiplicity; and the facts of consciousness necessarily require a being which is one and simple.[91]

It is not the same with respect to activity; for activity, when it does not present the intuitive idea of consciousness, gives us only the indeterminate conception of a principle of changes in itself or in other beings. This does not contradict the idea of multiplicity. Suppose bodies in motion to have a true activity which really produces motion in others, there is no contradiction in this activity being distributed among the different parts of the other body, which at the moment of impact produce their respective effects, causing motion in the parts of the other body with which they come in contact.

151. Consequently, examining the question a priori, or considering the idea of body, we can find no reason for denying the possibility of its being active. It is true that the extension of bodies, inasmuch as extension, is presented to us as something without life, indifferent to all figures and to all motions, and that we do not discover in it any principle of activity;[92] but this can prove nothing, unless we suppose that the essence of bodies consists in extension, and that extension contains nothing more than is presented to our senses, that it includes nothing on which its activity can be founded. The first is an opinion, but one without any foundation; the second can never be demonstrated, because it escapes all observation, and cannot be the object of investigations a priori.

152. How can it be proved that the essence of bodies consists in extension?[93] What we may say is, that we experience it, and that all corporeal nature is presented to us under the form of extended. If we assert any thing more than this we do so without any foundation, we substitute for the reality a play of our fancy. The essence of any thing is that which constitutes it what it is, that which serves as the internal ground or root of the properties: who can say that we know this ground, this root, in corporeal objects? Our senses, it is true, perceive nothing not extended: we cannot conceive to what bodies would be reduced if deprived of extension; but from this we can only infer that extension is a form under which bodies are presented to our senses; that this form is a necessary condition of the affection of our sensibility; but not that the form is the essence of the thing, not that there is in the object nothing more intimate in which the form itself has its root.

153. If the essence of bodies consisted in extension, such as it appears to our senses, extension being equal there would be equality of essence; the essences of bodies might be measured like their dimensions; two globes of equal diameters, would be two essentially equal bodies. Experience, and even common sense are opposed to this. It may be said, that pure dimension, in so far as subject to measure, is not enough to form equality of essence; but that the equality of nature of the extension of both bodies is also requisite; but what, I ask, is the meaning of the nature of extension? If the word nature here means any thing, it must mean something distinct from extension, in so far as subject to our sensibility; in which case I infer that just as in order to diversify the essences of bodies something is imagined which is not contained in extension in so far as subject to sensible intuition, something may in the same manner be supposed which is capable of activity, and which offers to our understanding an accessory idea giving life, so to speak, to the dead matter which we find in extension, considered as the simple object of purely geometrical ideas.

154. Experience cannot demonstrate the impossibility of the activity of bodies. Absolute inactivity cannot affect us, and therefore cannot be known by experience. We can only experience action, or the exercise of activity; inaction, or the state of an absolutely inactive thing, cannot be the object of experience without a contradiction.

CONJECTURES AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF CORPOREAL ACTIVITY.

155. Experience, far from authorizing us to infer the absolute inertness of bodies, on the contrary inclines us to believe that they are endowed with activity. Although the senses do not give us intuition of any corporeal activity, they present a continuous series of changes in a fixed order in the phenomena of the corporeal world; and if the true activity of some on others can be inferred from the coincidence of their relations in space and time, from the constant succession in which we see some follow others, and the invariable experience that the existence of some suffices for the existence of others; then we must admit true activity in bodies. Whatever this argument may be worth at the tribunal of metaphysics, it has always been sufficiently powerful to convince the majority of mankind, and hence it is that the denial of the activity of bodies is contrary to common sense.

156. If we consider our relations to the corporeal world, we are equally led to believe that there is true activity in bodies. Whatever may be our ignorance of the manner in which sensations are produced within us, it is certain that we experience them in the presence of bodies which are connected with us in space and time, and in a fixed and constant order, which authorizes us to prognosticate with safety what will follow in our senses if such or such bodies are placed in relation with our organs. The idea of activity presents to us the idea of a principle of changes in other beings; bodies are continually producing real or apparent changes in us. The exercise of the sensitive faculties implies a communication with corporeal beings; in this communication the sensitive being receives from bodies a multitude of impressions causing continual changes.

157. It is said that experience shows bodies to be indifferent to rest or motion, and some works on physics at the very beginning lay it down as a thing beyond all doubt, that a body placed at rest would remain in the same state for all eternity, and if put in motion it would move for all eternity in a right line, and always with the same velocity which it at first received. I do not know how they could have learned this from experience; and I maintain that not only they could not know it, but experience seems to prove directly the contrary.

158. Where was there ever a body that was indifferent to rest or motion? In all terrestrial bodies we find a tendency to motion, if no other, at least that of gravitation towards the centre of the earth. Celestial bodies, so far as our observation extends, are all in motion; calculation agrees with experience in showing them to be subject to universal attraction: where, then, is the indifference to rest or motion, revealed by experience? We should rather say that experience reveals a general inclination of bodies to be in motion.

159. It would be objected that this inclination does not flow from any activity in the bodies, but that it is a simple effect of a law imposed by the Creator. Let it be so: but at least do not tell us that experience presents bodies as indifferent to motion or rest; explain motion, if you will, without activity, maintain that there is no activity, despite the appearances of experience; but do not tell us that these appearances show the absence of activity.

160. If I place a body on my table, it remains at rest, I find it there the next day, and if I return after many years I still find it there. But this body is not indifferent to motion or rest; here it is at rest, but it is continually exercising its activity, as is evident from its pressure on the table which supports it. This exercise is incessant, it is experienced at every moment; try to raise it and it offers resistance, take away the table and it falls, place your hand under it and it will press upon your hand, and it changes the form of soft bodies on which it rests.

161. To say that the attraction of the centre of the earth acts upon the body, proves nothing against corporeal activity but rather confirms it; for this centre is another body, and thus you take activity from one body to give it to another. Moreover, all observations show that attraction is mutual, and therefore attractive activity is a property of all bodies.

162. The corporeal world, far from appearing to us as an inert mass, presents the appearance of an activity developing its colossal forces. The mass of bodies which move in space is colossal; the orbit which they describe is colossal; their velocity is colossal; the influence, at least apparent, which they exercise upon each other, is colossal; the distance at which they communicate is colossal. Where is the want of activity revealed by experience? Rays of light inundate space, producing in sensitive beings the wonderful phenomena of sight: rays of heat extend in all directions, and motion and life spring up on all sides; where is the want of activity revealed by experience? Do not the vegetation which covers our globe, the phenomena of life which we experience within us, and in the animals around us, require a continual motion of matter, an ebb and flow, so to speak, of action and reaction of bodies on each other, in reality or in appearance? Do not the phenomena of electricity, of magnetism, of galvanism, appear to be principles of great activity, the origin of motion wherever they exist, rather than objects indifferent to motion or rest? The ideas of activity, of force, of impulse, are not alone suggested to us by our internal activity, but also by the experience of the corporeal world, which displays before our eyes, and in obedience to constant laws, a continual variety of magnificent scenes, whose origin seems to indicate a fund of activity surpassing all calculations.

163. With how little reason then do you appeal to experience to combat the existence of causality in bodies, and how much more in accordance with experience are those philosophers who give a true activity to bodies, is apparent from what I have said. In assigning the limits of our intuition in relation to causality and activity in themselves,[94] I said enough to show that I do not judge it possible to demonstrate metaphysically the existence of activity in the corporeal world; yet I cannot but insist that if the constant relation of phenomena in space and time, and the invariable succession of some things after others, prove any thing in favor of causality, we must admit the opinion which holds that there is true activity in bodies; that in a secondary order the reason of the changes of some is contained in others; and that consequently there is in the corporeal world a chain of second causes which reaches back to the first cause, the origin and the reason of all that is.

INTERNAL CAUSALITY.

164. Consciousness reveals the existence of a faculty within us which produces certain internal phenomena. If we concentrate our attention by means of a free act of our will, we experience the production of images and ideas. The works of the imagination are an irrefutable proof of our internal activity. Sensations furnish the materials; but the fancy builds edifices with them. Who, if not ourselves, gave them their new form? We must confess that if we are absolutely without activity, nature completely deludes us, making us believe that we are active.

Our recollections offer another proof of true activity. We propose to think of a country which we have visited, and wish to recollect its details; at the command of the will the imagination is aroused and displays to our intuition the scenes which we once saw. But these images already existed, it will be said, and it was only necessary to awaken them; but it cannot be said that they existed in act, for we had no actual consciousness of them; and the command of our will was necessary and sufficient in order to force them to reappear. This new presence adds something to our habitual state, and is produced within us by the mere act of the will.

It is true that we do not know the manner of this production; but it is certain that consciousness assures us that it immediately follows an act of our will; and we have, to say the least, a strong proof that there is in us a force which produces the transition of these images from their habitual to an actual state. The same may be said of all recollections; and if we often find that we cannot recollect all that we wish to, this only proves that our active faculties are limited by certain conditions from which they cannot free themselves.

165. Without considering recollections, every one knows how ideas are elaborated in meditation. Our ideas are not the same when we begin to reflect on any subject, as after we have meditated for a long time on it. Sometimes without the assistance obtained by reading any new work or hearing any new observation, by the mere force of our own reflection we have made clear and distinct what was before only a confused idea. To say that the new ideas are the result of others which already existed in our mind only proves that our understanding has a true activity; for this result, whatever its origin, is something new, it produces a new state in the soul, since it now knows perfectly what before it either knew not at all, or only in a confused manner. The relations of the sub-secant to the secant, and of the sub-tangent to the tangent, are geometrical ideas within the reach of the most ordinary intellects: so also are the similarity of the triangles which are imagined for the purpose of comparing lines with each other, and the successive approximation of the sub-secant to the sub-tangent, and of the secant to the tangent; but to reduce those elements to the point where the wonderful theory of infinitesimal calculus shines forth with the strongest light, an immense distance has to be passed over. Shall we say that those geniuses who first crossed over this distance thought nothing new, because they already had the elements from the combination of which this theory results?

166. If this productive activity is clearly seen in any phenomena, it is certainly in the acts of freewill. What becomes of freedom, if the soul does not produce its volitions? Freedom means nothing, if they are only phenomena produced by another being, in which the soul has no other part than that it is the subject in which they are produced. It is a contradiction to say that the soul is free, and at the same time deny that it is the principle of its determinations.

167. Mere intelligence, even mere sensibility, and in general, every phenomenon implying consciousness, seems to be the exercise of an activity; and in this sense I have shown[95] that we have intuition of an internal activity. If to know, to will, to have consciousness of a sensation, are not actions, I know not where the type of a true action can be found. To perceive a thing, to will it, the imperative act of the will which makes me seek the means of obtaining it, are undoubtedly actions; and action is the exercise of activity. The idea of life represents activity in its most perfect degree; and among the phenomena of life, the most perfect are those which imply consciousness; if we do not call these actions, we must say that we have no idea of action or of activity.

Although we do not know the manner of the production, we are conscious of it, we have intuition of the action in itself. When we see a bodily motion we behold a passive modification; but when we experience within ourselves the phenomena of consciousness, we behold an action, and consequently have an intuition of our activity.

168. Here an objection arises. If internal phenomena are truly actions, why are they so often independent of our will? We suffer despite ourselves; ideas come upon us which we would fain cast off; thoughts arise so quickly and spontaneously as to seem rather inspirations than the fruit of labor. Where in such cases is the activity? Are we not forced to say that these phenomena are wholly passive?

169. This objection, apparently so conclusive, proves nothing against internal activity. In the first place, we might answer that the soul being passive in some cases, does not prove that it is so in all; and that in order to affirm the existence of internal activity, we require only certain phenomena to be produced by it. But it is not even necessary to admit that activity is not found in the cases proposed by the objection; for, if we carefully examine them, we shall find that even there the soul exercises a true activity.

The force of the objection rests on the appearance within us of certain phenomena without the concurrence of our will, and at times in spite of it; but this only leads us to infer that there are other functions in the soul independent of freewill without obliging us to believe that these functions are not active. With this observation the difficulty at once disappears. There are within us certain phenomena which we neither willed before nor after they appeared; so far I concede. Therefore there are within us phenomena in which the soul is purely passive; this I deny. The consequence is illegitimate; all that could logically be deduced is, that certain phenomena appear and are continued in the soul without the concurrence of our will.

The same thing happens with the body: there are functions which it exercises independently of our freewill, such as the circulation of the blood, respiration, digestion, assimilation of food, transpiration, and others; but there are others which are only performed at the command of the will, as eating, walking, and in general whatever relates to the motion and position of the members. Why may not a similar thing happen in the soul? Why may not the soul have active faculties which are developed, and produce various phenomena, without the concurrence of the will?

I do not believe any reply to this solution possible. Still I propose to strengthen it by some remarks on the character of the phenomena in which it is pretended that the soul is purely passive.

170. The objection speaks of painful sensations, in which apparently the soul has no activity. Who will say that a man to whom I apply a burning iron, and who suffers horrid pain, exercises in this the activity of his soul? Is it not more reasonable to say that the soul is here purely passive, and in a state very like that of the body when pressed down by the weight of another body? If any activity is exercised in such a case it is rather that of reaction against a painful sensation. Reflect well upon these observations, and you will find that they contain no difficulty whose solution cannot be found in the preceding paragraph. I admit that the painful sensation does not depend on the freewill of the sufferer, and that his free action is opposed to this sensation; but despite all this, the soul may have a true activity in the mere fact of perceiving: it only shows that the exercise of this activity is subject to necessary conditions which when they exist are more powerful for its development than is our will to prevent it. Nothing is more certain than the development of certain active faculties independently of our freewill. What more active than violent passions? And yet it is often impossible for us not to feel them; and it requires all the command of our freewill to restrain them within the bounds of reason.

171. Sensation in itself cannot be all passive; and those who maintain that it is, show that they have meditated but little on the facts of consciousness. These facts are essentially individual, and inasmuch as they are facts of consciousness, absolutely incommunicable. Another may feel a pain very like, and even equal to, that which I suffer; but he cannot experience the same numerically considered; for my pain is so essentially mine, that if it is not mine it does not exist. Therefore pain cannot be communicated as an individual entity to me, and all that can be done to produce it in me, is to excite my sensitive power so as to experience it.

This observation shows that sensations cannot be merely passive facts. A passive modification is all received; the subject suffering does nothing. From the moment that the subject has in itself some principle of its modification, it is not purely passive. Sensation cannot be all received; it must be born in the subject under some influence or other, on this or that occasion; but the being which experiences it must contain a principle of its own experience; otherwise it would be a lifeless being, and could not perceive.

172. The objection speaks of painful sensations as though their necessity were an exception from the general rule; whereas all sensations, pleasant or unpleasant, are equally necessary, provided the sensitive faculties are placed in the conditions necessary for their exercise. There is the same necessity in the pain which I feel if a burning coal is placed in my hand, as in the sight of a beautiful painting placed before my eyes.

173. The spontaneousness of internal phenomena, in the pure intellectual order, or in that of imagination or sentiment, confirms the existence of an activity independent of our freewill, and by no means indicates that these phenomena are purely passive.

There is an important circumstance to be observed here. The exercise of the functions of the soul is connected with the phenomena of the organization. Experience teaches that the soul perceives with more or less activity, according to the disposition of the body; and it is a fact known from all antiquity that certain liquors have an inspiring power. The state of the digestion causes heavy dreams and torments the fancy with horrible forms; fever raises or depresses the imagination; sometimes it increases the strength of the understanding, and sometimes it produces a stupor in which intelligence is extinguished. These phenomena offer a greater field to observation when they reach a very high degree, as happens when the organic functions are greatly disturbed; but this shows that there is an immense scale passed over before arriving at the extremity; so that some phenomena, whose spontaneous appearance seems inexplicable, perhaps depend on certain unknown conditions to which our organization is subject. Whatever opinion be adopted as to the equality or inequality of human souls, no one has any doubt but that the differences of organization may have an influence on the talent or character, and that certain minds of extraordinary faculties owe a part of their endowments to a privileged organization.

Hence it may be inferred that what is called the spontaneity of the soul, and which has attracted so much attention from some modern philosophers, is a phenomenon very generally known, and one which neither destroys internal activity nor tells us any thing new as to its character.

It is certain that there are certain phenomena in our soul which are independent of our freewill; but there is no doubt that their presence is sometimes sudden and unexpected, because the conditions of our organization with which they are connected are unknown. But this is only extending to a greater number of cases what we have frequently remarked in psychological facts, the effects of disease, and what we constantly experience in sensations. What is a sensation but a sudden appearance of a phenomenon in our soul, produced by a change in the state of the organs?

174. I do not mean by this to say that all spontaneous thoughts, and in general all phenomena which suddenly appear within us without any known preparation, arise from affections of the organization; I only wished to recall a physiological and psychological fact, the neglect of which might produce useless and even dangerous speculations. In reading the works of some modern philosophers who treat this point, it seems as though their object were to prepare the way for maintaining that the individual reason is only a phenomenon of the universal and absolute reason; and that inspirations, and in general all spontaneous phenomena independent of freewill, are only indications of the absolute reason appearing to itself in the human reason; that what we call our me is a modification of the absolute being; and the personality of our being is only a phasis of the absolute and impersonal reason.

175. What is called spontaneity, the intuition of former times, to the eyes of reason and of criticism can only be the primitive teaching which the human race received from God: whatever some modern philosophers say to the contrary is only a partly disguised repetition of the sophisms of the incredulous of every epoch, presented in a deceitful dress by men who abuse the talents which they possess. Read with reflection the writings to which we allude, strip them of some high-sounding and enigmatical terms, and you will find in them nothing more than what Lucretius and Voltaire had already said after their own fashion.

REMARKS ON SPONTANEITY.

176. There is nothing easier than to write a few brilliant pages on the phenomenon of spontaneity; some philosophers of our day discourse of the genius of the poets, of the artists, and of the captains of all ages, the fabulous and the heroic times, mysticism and religion, in books which are neither philosophy, nor history, nor poetry, but which can only be regarded as a flood of agreeable and harmonious words with which writers of sparkling fancy and inexhaustible eloquence deluge the overpowered intellect of the ingenuous reader. And after all, what is this spontaneity, this inspiration of which they tell us so much? Let us fix our ideas by establishing and classifying facts.

177. Reason properly so called is not developed in the human mind when completely isolated from other minds; the sight of nature is not sufficient to arouse it. The stupidness of children found in the woods and the scanty intelligence of deaf-mutes are undeniable evidence of this truth.

178. The human mind, when placed in communication with other minds, experiences a development in part direct and spontaneous, in part reflex and elaborate. This is another fact which we all perceive within ourselves. Minds are developed with greater spontaneousness in proportion as their qualities are more advanced.

179. Of the thoughts which occur to us suddenly and which seem to us purely spontaneous, not a few are reminiscences, more or less faithful, of what we have before read, heard, or thought; and consequently they proceed from a preparatory fact, which we do not remember. This explains how labor perfects the inventive faculty.

180. As the organization of our body exercises a powerful influence in the development of the soul's faculties, we may say that the spontaneity of some internal phenomena is connected with certain changes of our organization.

181. There is no philosophical difficulty in admitting an immediate communication of our mind with another mind of a higher order; and consequently there is none in admitting that some internal spontaneous phenomena arise from the direct influence of this higher mind upon ours.

182. The human race did not originally have a spontaneous development independent of the action of the Creator; philosophy shows us the necessity of a primitive teaching, without which the human race would have remained in a state of brute-like stupidity. This last remark requires a further explanation.

183. Religion reveals a primitive instruction and education of the human race given by God himself to the person of the first man; this is in perfect conformity with what both reason and experience assert.

Our mind possesses innumerable germs, but their growth requires an external cause. What would a man be who had been alone from his infancy? Little more than a brute: the precious stone would be covered with coarse earth which would prevent its glistening.

Language does not and cannot produce ideas; this is certain: the reason of ideas is not in language, but the reason of language is in ideas. Words are signs; and that which is not conceived can have no sign. But this sign, this instrument is of a wonderful use; words are to the understanding what wheels are to the power of a machine; the power imparts motion, but the machine would not go without wheels. The understanding might have some motion without language, but very slow, very imperfect, very heavy.

184. The Bible represents man as speaking as soon as created; language was therefore taught him by God. This is another wonderful fact which reason fully confirms. Man could not invent language. This invention surpasses all that can be imagined, and would you attribute it to beings so stupid as men without language? Better to say that a Hottentot could suddenly invent infinitesimal calculus.

185. The most ignorant man who knows a language possesses an incredible treasure of ideas. In the simplest conversation we may find many physical, metaphysical, and moral ideas. Take the following sentence, which is within the comprehension of the lowest mind: "I did not wish to pursue the beast farther for fear that, becoming irritated, he might do harm." Here are the ideas of time, act of the will, action, continuity, space, causality, analogy, end, and morality.

Time past:—I did not;

Act of the will:—wish;

Action:—to pursue;

Continuity and space:—farther;

Analogy:—becoming irritated; since from irritation in other instances, it is inferred in the present; and it is also known from what happens to ourselves if molested.

Motive and end:—for fear, that irritated, etc.;

Causality:—he might do harm;

Morality:—not to harm others.

186. Science is discovering the affinity of languages, finding them united in great centres. The dialects of savages are not elements, but fragments; they are not the lisping speech of infancy, but the torpid and extravagant jargon of degradation and ebriety.

187. Language cannot produce in the mind the idea of a sensation which it has not: all the words in the world could not give one born blind the idea of color. Still less could pure ideas, distinct from all sensation, result from language; and this is a strong argument in favor of innate ideas.

188. The ideas of unity, number, time, and causality express things which are not sensible; therefore they cannot be produced in us by any sensible representation expressed in language. Yet these ideas exist in us as germs susceptible of a great development, first by sensible experience, and then by reflection. The child who burns his hand in the fire begins to perceive the relation of causality, which he afterwards generalizes and purifies. The great ideas of Leibnitz on causality were the ideas of Leibnitz the child. The difference was in the development. Thus the organization of the giant oak is contained within the shell of the acorn.

Some have said that man's understanding is like a blank tablet on which nothing is yet written; others that it was a book which he had only to open in order to read; I believe it may be compared to a letter written in invisible ink, which looks white until rubbed with a mysterious liquid which brings out the black characters. The magic liquid is instruction and education.

189. Show me a single nation which of itself has emerged from a savage or a barbarous state. All known civilizations are subordinated one to another in an uninterrupted chain. European civilization owes much to Christianity, and something to the Roman; the Roman to the Greek; the Greek to the Egyptian; the Egyptian to the Oriental; and over the Oriental civilization hangs a veil which can be lifted only by the first chapters of Genesis.

190. In order to know the human mind it is necessary to study the history of humanity; whoever isolates objects too much runs in danger of mutilating them; hence so many ideological frivolities which have passed for profound investigations, although they were as far from true metaphysics as the art of arranging a museum symmetrically is from the science of the naturalist.

191. If innate ideas be defended, it is impossible to deny to our understanding a power to form new ideas accordingly as objects, especially language, excite it; otherwise it would be necessary to say that we do not learn any thing, and cannot learn any thing; that we have every thing beforehand in our mind, as if written in a book. Our understanding seems to resemble a case containing all kinds of types; but, in order that they may mean any thing, the hand of the compositor is necessary.

This image of printer's types reminds me of an important ideological fact: I mean the scanty number of ideas which are in our mind, and the great variety of combinations of which they are susceptible. All that is in the intellectual order, or is contained in the categories, whether we adopt those of Kant or those of Aristotle, or any others, may be reduced to a very few. Each of those ideas which we call generative is like a ray of light which, passing successively through innumerable prisms and refracted on a number of spectra, presents an infinite variety of colors, shades, and figures.

As our thought is almost entirely reduced to combination, and as this combination may be made in various ways, there is a wonderful agreement in the fundamental combinations which all minds have. In the secondary points there is divergence, but not in the principal. This proves that the human mind, in its existence and in its development, depends on an infinite intelligence, which is the cause and master of all minds.

192. Reject these doctrines so accordant with philosophy and with history, and spontaneity, whether of the individual or the race, either means nothing, or it expresses the vague and absurd theories of ideal pantheism.

FINAL CAUSALITY;—MORALITY.

193. Those beings which act by intelligence must have, besides their efficient activity, a moral principle of their determinations. In order to will, the faculty of willing is not alone sufficient; it is necessary to know that which is willed, for nothing is willed without being known. Hence arises final causality, which is essentially distinct from efficient causality, and can exist only in beings endowed with intelligence.

194. Recalling what was said in the tenth chapter of this book, we may observe that final causes form a series distinct from that of efficient causes; what in the latter is physical action, is in the former, moral influence. In a painting, the series of efficient causes is the pencil, the hand, the muscles, the animal spirits, and the command of the will. This series, which is necessary for the execution of the painting, may be combined with different series of final causes. The artist may purpose by the brilliancy of his genius to acquire renown, and by renown to enjoy the happiness of a great name. Another series may be, to please a person for whom he is working; and this in order that the person may pay him a sum of money; and the money in order to gratify the artist's wants or pleasures. A third series may be, in order to seek in painting a distraction from a grief; and this in order to preserve his health. It is evident that many series of a purely moral or intellectual influence may be imagined, and which concur in the production of the effect only, in so far as combined with the series of efficient causes, they influence the artist's determination.

195. This moral influence may be exerted in two ways: either necessarily bending the will, or leaving it free to will or not will; in the first case, there is a voluntary, but necessary spontaneousness; in the second, there is a free spontaneousness. Every free act is voluntary, but not every voluntary act is free. God freely wills the conservation of creatures; but he necessarily wills virtue, and cannot will iniquity.

196. Regarding only efficient causality, we have only the relations of cause and effect; but considering final causality, a new order of ideas and facts is presented, which is morality. Let us first of all establish the existence of the fact.

197. Good and evil, moral, immoral, just, unjust, right, duty, obligation, command, prohibition, lawful, unlawful, virtue, and vice, are words which we all use continually, and apply to the whole course of life, to all the relations of man with God, with himself, and with his fellow-men, without any doubt as to their true meaning, and perfectly understanding each other, just as when we speak of color, light, or other sensible objects. When the term lawful or unlawful is applied to an act, who ever asks what it means? When this man is called virtuous, that vicious, who does not know the meaning of these expressions? Is there any one who finds a difficulty in understanding the expressions which follow: he has a right to perform this act; he is obliged to comply with that circumstance; this is his duty; he has neglected his duty; this is commanded; that is prohibited; this is right; that is wrong: this is a heroic virtue; that is a crime? No ideas are more common, more ordinarily used, by the ignorant as by the learned; by barbarous as by civilized nations; in the youth of societies as in their infancy, and in their old age; in the midst of pure customs, as of the most revolting corruption; they express something primitive, innate in the human mind and indispensable to its existence, something which it cannot throw off while it retains the exercise of its faculties. There may be more or less error and extravagance in the application of these ideas to certain particular cases: but the generative ideas of good and evil, just and unjust, lawful and unlawful, are the same at all times, and in all countries; they form, as it were, an atmosphere in which the human mind lives and breathes.

198. It is remarkable that even those who deny the distinction between good and evil, are forced to admit it in practice. A philosopher, with his pen in his hand, laughs at what he calls the prejudices of the human race concerning the difference between good and evil; but say to him: "It seems to me, Sir Philosopher, that you are a detestable wretch, to spend your time in destroying that which is most holy on earth;" and you will see how soon he will forget his philosophy and all that he has said of the empty meaning of the words virtue and vice, become indignant at being thus addressed, warmly defend himself, and attempt to prove to you that he is the most virtuous man in the world, giving repeated arguments of honesty, sincerity, and honor. It matters little that in his lofty theories, honor, sincerity, and honesty, are unmeaning words, since they can have no sense unless the word order is admitted; the philosopher is not staggered by an inconsequence, or rather, he takes no notice of it; moral ideas and sentiments are awakened in his mind as soon as he hears himself called immoral, he ceases to be a sophist, and becomes a man again.

199. Can the idea of this moral order be a prejudice, which, without any thing in reality corresponding to it, or any foundation in human nature, owes its origin to education, so that it would have been possible for men to have lived without moral ideas, or with others directly contrary to those which we now have? If it is a prejudice, how comes it that it is general to all times and countries? Who communicated it to the human race? who was strong and powerful enough to make all men adopt it? How did it happen that the passions, when in possession of their liberty, renounced it, and suffered a bridle to be put on them? Who was that extraordinary man who subdued all times and all countries, the most brutal customs, the most violent passions, the most obtuse understandings, and diffused the idea of a moral order over the whole face of the earth, notwithstanding the diversity of climates, languages, customs, and necessities, and the differences in the social condition of nations, and gave to this idea of the moral order such force and consistency that it has been preserved through the most complete revolutions, amid the ruins of empires, and the fluctuations and transmigrations of civilization, remaining firm as a rock, unmoved by the furious waves of the river of ages?

Here is not the hand of man; a phenomenon of this sort does not spring from human combinations; it is founded on nature, and it is indestructible because it is natural; thus, and thus only, is it possible to explain its universality and permanence.

200. To deny all difference between good and evil is to place one's self in open contradiction with the ideas the most deeply rooted in the human mind, with all its most profound and most powerful sentiments; all the sophisms of the world could not persuade any one, not even the sophist himself, that there is no difference between consoling one who is afflicted, and adding to his afflictions; between assisting the unfortunate, and increasing their misfortunes; between being grateful for a favor, and doing evil to the benefactor; between fulfilling a promise, and breaking it; between giving alms, and taking what belongs to another; between being faithful to a friend, and betraying him; between dying for one's country, and selling it to the enemy; between respecting the laws of modesty, and violating them without shame; between sobriety and drunkenness; between temperance and moderation in all the acts of life, and the disorder of unbridled passions. No argument, nor genius, nor cavil can destroy the dividing line. The sophist discusses, imagines, feigns, subtilizes, but in vain; nature is there; she says to senseless man: So far mayst thou go, but here shall thy pride be broken.

201. If there is no intrinsic difference between good and evil, and all that is said of the morality and immorality of actions is a collection of words which have no meaning, or only such as they have received from human convention; how is it that whilst the just man sleeps securely in his bed, the evil-doer is tossed about with a heart struggling with remorse? Whence come those sentiments of love and respect inspired by what we call virtue, and the aversion created by what is called vice? Do not the love of children, the veneration of parents, fidelity to friends, compassion for suffering, gratitude towards benefactors, the horror which all men have for a cruel father, a parricide son, an unfaithful wife, a dishonest friend, a traitor to his country, a hand red with the blood of its victim, oppression of the weak, desertion of the orphan, do not all these sentiments show clearer than the light of day the hand of the Almighty engraving in our souls the ideas of the moral order, and strengthening us with sentiments which instinctively show us, even when we have not time to reflect, the path which we should follow?

202. I do not deny that serious difficulties are encountered in examining the grounds of morality; I admit that the analysis of the knowledge of good and evil is one of the most hidden points of philosophy; but these difficulties prove nothing against the difference we have established. No one denies the existence of a building because he cannot see how deep its foundations go: its depth is a proof of its solidity, a guaranty of its duration. The difference between good and evil demonstrated a priori by the interior sentiments of the heart, is strengthened with further evidence if we regard the consequences of its existence or non-existence. Let us admit the moral order, and suppose all men to regulate their conduct conformably to this prejudice. What will be the result? The world becomes a paradise; men live like brothers, using with moderation the gifts of nature, dividing with each other their happiness, and aiding one another to bear misfortune; the most lovely harmony reigns in the individual, the family, and society; if the moral order is a prejudice, let us confess that never did prejudice have more grand, beneficial, and delightful consequences; if virtue is a lie, never was there one more useful, fairer, or more sublime.

203. But let us make the counterproof. Let us suppose this prejudice to disappear, and all men to be convinced that the moral order is a vain illusion which they must banish from their understanding, their will, and their acts; what will be the result this time? The moral order destroyed, the physical alone remains; every one thinks and acts according to his views, passions, or caprices; man has no other guide than the blind instinct of nature or the cold speculations of egotism; the individual becomes a monster, all the ties of family are broken asunder; and society, sunk in a frightful chaos, rapidly advances to complete destruction. These are the necessary consequences of the rejection of the prejudice. Language would be horridly mutilated if the ideas of the moral order should disappear; good and bad conduct would be words without meaning; praise and blame would have no object; even vanity would lose a great part of its food; flattery would be forced to confine itself to natural qualities, considered in the purely physical order; to pronounce the word merit, would be forbidden under pain of falling into absurdity.

204. See, then, if any objection could be sufficient to make such consequences admissible. Whoever, frightened at the difficulties accompanying the examination of the first principles of morality, should undertake to deny morality, would be as foolish as the husbandman who, seeing the stream which waters his fields, should insist on denying the existence of its waters because inaccessible crags prevent his approach to their source.

CHAPTER XIX.

VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS OF MORALITY.

205. There have been many disputes concerning the origin and character of the morality of actions; the same happening here as elsewhere, that the understanding becomes perplexed and confused whenever it attempts to penetrate into the first principles of things. As I am not going to write a treatise on morals, but only to analyze the foundations of this science, I shall confine myself to giving the character, as far as possible, of the primitive ideas and sentiments of the moral order, without descending to their application. In this I shall proceed, as usual, on the analytic method, decomposing the fact established in the preceding chapter, glancing at the various explanations which have been given of it, showing the insufficiency and inexactness of some of them, before coming to the only one which appears to me true and complete.

206. What is good? what is evil? why are things good or evil? in what does goodness or evil consist? what is their origin?

We are told that good is that which is conformed to reason, that which is in harmony with the eternal laws, that which is pleasing to God, and that evil is that which is opposed to reason, that which contradicts the eternal law, that which displeases God. This is true, but does it completely solve the question on a scientific ground?

The moral worth of the dictate of reason depends on its conformity to the eternal law; when, therefore, to found the moral order, you call in the former, you also appeal to the latter; they are not therefore two solutions of the question, but only one.

Acts cannot please or displease God, except as conformed to the eternal law; therefore, to judge of the goodness or evil of acts by their relation to the pleasure or displeasure of God, is to judge of them by their conformity to the eternal law.

From this it may be inferred that, although an act conformed to reason, one agreeing with the eternal law, and one displeasing to God, express different aspects of an idea, they all mean the same when used in explaining the foundations of the moral order.

207. The rules of the eternal law do not depend on the free will of God, since, in that case, God could make good evil, and evil good. The eternal law cannot be any thing else than the eternal reason, or the representation of the moral order in the divine intellect. Morality thus seems, according to our mode of conception, to precede its representation; that is to say, morality seems to be represented in the divine intellect because it is; but not that it is because it is represented. In the moral order we come to something resembling metaphysical and geometrical science. Geometrical truths are eternal, inasmuch as they are represented in the eternal reason; and this representation supposes an intrinsic and necessary truth in them, since the representation would otherwise be false. As this truth must have some eternal foundation,[96] and this foundation cannot be in any finite being, it must be sought for in the essentially infinite being, which contains the reason of all things. The infinite intellect represents the truth, and is, therefore, true; but this truth is itself founded on the essence of the infinite being which knows it.

208. Moral truths are not distinguished in this respect from metaphysical; their origin is in God, moral science cannot be atheistic. Why are some things represented in God as good and others as evil? To ask the reason of this is like asking why triangles are not represented as circles, and circles as triangles. If there is an intrinsic necessity, either we can assign no reason for it or we must at any rate come to a reason which can be explained by no other reason. It will in any case, be necessary for us to come to a point where we can only say: It is so. Any further satisfaction, which we might desire, is beyond our reach, as we do not intuitively see the infinite essence which contains the first and ultimate reason of all things.

209. It is necessary first to suppose good and evil before things can be represented as such, or even conceived as so represented. What is a good thing? If we say it is being represented as good in the divine mind, the thing defined is contained in the definition; the difficulty still remains: what is it to be represented as good?

Goodness cannot consist in the simple representation, so that whatever is represented in God is good; for then every thing would be good, as every thing is represented in God.

Therefore, in order that a thing may be good, it must not only be represented, but represented under such or such a character which makes it good; but still the difficulty remains: what is this character?

210. Let us make these ideas clearer by comparing a metaphysical with a moral truth. All the diameters of the same circle are equal; this truth does not depend on any particular circle, it is founded on the essence of all circles; this essence is in turn represented eternally in the infinite essence, where with the plenitude of being, is contained the representation and knowledge of all the finite participations in which the wisdom and power of God may be exercised. All the participations are subject to the principle of contradiction, in none of them can being cease to exclude not-being, or not-being to exclude being; hence proceeds the necessity of all the properties and relations, without which the principle of contradiction cannot subsist; among these is the equality of all the diameters of the same circle.

211. These considerations suggest the question: is it possible to explain the moral order like the metaphysical and mathematical, by showing it contained in the principle of contradiction?

212. It is easy to see that in all metaphysical and mathematical truths, identity is expressed or denied. All formulas are reduced to A is B, or A is not B; this is the general formula of all truths of an absolute order. But it is otherwise in the moral order, where nothing is ever expressed absolutely, as is shown by the very form of the propositions. God is good, expresses a metaphysical truth, God must be loved, or in other words, we ought to love God, expresses a moral truth. Note the difference: in one case we say is absolutely; in the other, must be, ought to be, there is obligation, etc., using different expressions which all mean the same thing; but in all, the verb to be, as an absolute affirmation, disappears. It seems that no moral proposition could be thus expressed, if we regard the primitive elements of our moral ideas; for all these propositions express the idea of duty, which is essentially a relative idea.

213. To love God is good. This is a moral proposition whose structure seems to contradict what I have just established. Here an absolute affirmation is found expressed simply by is, as in metaphysical or mathematical propositions. Still, the least reflection will suffice to show that this absolute character is destroyed by the nature of the predicate. What is the meaning of good? Here we have an essentially relative idea which communicates this character to the proposition. To love God is good, is the same as: to love God is a thing conformed to reason, or to the eternal law, or pleasing to God, or a thing which we are under obligation to do; it is always a relative idea, and never absolute, like being, not-being, a triangle, a circle, etc.

214. Good, say some, is that which leads to the end which corresponds to intelligent beings. This explanation must not be confounded with the theory of private interest;—a theory alike rejected by religion and by the sentiments of the heart, and combated by the most profound thinkers;—here, in speaking of end, the last end is meant, which is something superior to what is understood by the expression, private interest. Without doubt, to arrive at the last end, is a great interest of every intelligent being; but at least this interest is taken in an elevated sense, and does not promote the development of a paltry egotism.

Having thus designated the difference between these doctrines, I say that not even the latter seems to me admissible. Moral good must lead to the end; but this does not constitute the character of morality. For, what is meant by end? If God himself is meant, a moral act is that which leads to God; in which case the difficulty still remains, for we again ask, what is meant by leading? If it means to conduce to the happiness which consists in a union with God, how does it conduce to this happiness? By the performance of what God has commanded;—certainly; but then we ask: I. Why does doing what God has commanded conduce to happiness? II. Why has God commanded some things and prohibited others?—which is equivalent to putting anew the question of intrinsic morality.

215. Besides, the idea of happiness represents something very different from the idea of morality. Imagining a being which sacrifices all that it possessed for the sake of other beings, we have the idea of a highly moral being, but not a happy being. If morality consisted in happiness, the participation of happiness would be the participation of morality; every enjoyment would be a moral act; and could only be immoral because too short or feeble. In proportion as we rose to the idea of a stronger and more lasting enjoyment, we should form the idea of a more elevated morality; the enjoyment the most free from trouble would be the purest act of morality; who does not see that this overthrows all our moral ideas, and is repugnant to every sentiment of the heart?

216. It is not enough to say that a moral being will obtain happiness, and that its happiness will be great in proportion to its morality; this only proves that happiness is the reward of morality; it does not authorize us to confound the two, the guerdon with the merit.

217. To confound morality with happiness is to reduce morality to a calculation, to strip virtue of the pure lustre which charms and attracts us, and makes it appear more beautiful accordingly as it is joined with greater suffering. If we identify happiness with morality, disinterestedness becomes a calculation of interest, a sacrifice of a smaller to a greater interest, a loss for the present to gain in the future.

No! the morality of actions is not an affair of calculation: the virtuous man obtains a reward; but, in order that the act may be virtuous, something more is necessary than a combination for the purpose of obtaining it; there must be something which makes the act merit the reward; and we cannot even conceive that a reward can be reserved for any act, unless the act is in itself meritorious.

When God prepared punishment for some acts and rewards for others, he must have found an intrinsic difference in them; and therefore he gave them different destinies; but, according to the systems which we are opposing, acts could be good only inasmuch as they lead to a reward, and there would be no reason why some should lead to it rather than others. This reason must be found in an intrinsic difference in the acts themselves; or we fall into the absurdity of saying that all actions are in themselves indifferent, and the good may be evil, and the evil good.

218. To lead to the good of mankind is another incomplete character of the morality of actions. It is clear that this morality would be only human, and would not include the intrinsic morality which we consider common to all intelligent beings.

219. What, too, is the good which is spoken of? In what state are mankind considered? Do you mean a society constituted as a nation, or mankind, properly so called; one generation or many; their destiny on earth or hereafter in another life? Are you speaking of their well-being, or of their development and perfection abstracted from their greater or less well-being? If the morality of actions is to be placed in their conduciveness, so to speak, to the general good of mankind, in what does this supreme good consist? Is it the development of the understanding, of the imagination, or of the heart; or in the perfection of the arts, which secure material enjoyments? You must not, then, place moral perfection as the end; for by the supposition it is only the means; and the actions will be more moral accordingly as they are more useful means of obtaining the general good.

220. To say that morality is only the object of sentiment, and that no other mark of what is good can be given than the mysterious perfection which we find in virtue, is to banish morality as a science, and to shut the door against all investigation. I do not deny that there is in us a moral sentiment, or that our heart feels mysterious sympathy for virtue; but I believe the scientific study of the foundations of the moral order to be compatible with this fact. It is necessary to acknowledge the primitive character of some facts of our mind, and not attempt to explain every thing; but we must guard against exaggeration in this respect, which is only the more dangerous when covered with the cloak of modesty.

FUNDAMENTAL EXPLANATION OF THE MORAL ORDER.

221. There must be something absolute in morality. It is not possible to conceive any thing all relative, without something absolute on which it is founded. Moreover, every relation implies a term to which it relates, and, consequently, though we suppose a series of relations, we must come to a last term. This shows why purely relative explanations of morality do not satisfy the understanding; reason, and even sentiment seek an absolute basis.

Besides, this purely ontological argument in favor of the absolute in morality, there are others not less conclusive, and which are within the reach of ordinary men.

222. In the infinitely perfect being we conceive infinite holiness, independently of the existence of creatures; and what is infinite holiness but moral perfection in an infinite degree? This argument is decisive for all the world, excepting atheists: whoso admits the existence of God must admit his holiness; the contrary is repugnant to reason, to the heart, to common sense. Therefore something absolutely moral exists; therefore morality in itself cannot be explained by any relation of creatures to end, since morality in an infinite degree would exist though there had never been any creature.

223. In conceiving a created intelligent being, we also conceive morality as an inflexible law to which the actions of this being must be subjected. It is to be observed that we conceive this morality, even supposing only one intelligent being; therefore morality cannot be explained by the relations of creatures to each other. Imagine one man all alone on the earth, can you conceive him exempt from all morality? Would he be equally beautiful in the moral order, whether he labored to perfect his intellect and develop his faculties harmoniously, or abandoned himself to his coarse instincts, lowering himself to the level of the beasts by his stupidity and debasement? Imagine the earth, the whole corporeal universe, and all created beings, except one intelligence, to disappear; can you conceive this creature wholly exempt from all moral law? Can you suppose all his thoughts and acts of the will to be indifferent, and that morality is for him an unmeaning word? Impossible, unless you place yourself in open struggle with our primary ideas, with our profoundest sentiments, with the common sense of mankind. This, then, is another proof that in the moral order there is something absolute, an intrinsic perfection, independent of the mutual relations of creatures; that certain acts of an intelligent and free creature have a beauty of their own.

224. The imputability of actions offers another argument in confirmation of this truth. Morality is never measured by the result; its perfection is appreciated by what is immanent, that is, by the motives which have impelled the will, by the greater or less deliberation which preceded the act of the will, by the greater or less intensity of the act. If the result is sometimes considered, all its moral worth arises from the interior of the soul. Whether the result was foreseen or unforeseen; whether it was possible or not to foresee it; whether it was willed or not; whether it was proposed as the principal or secondary object; whether it was desired or accepted with sorrow; these and other such considerations are present when the merit or demerit of an action which has had such or such result, is weighed and appreciated. Hence this result has no weight in the moral order except in so far as it is the expression of the act of the will.

225. This character of immanence, which is essential to all moral acts, overthrows all the theories which found morality on external combinations; and shows that the act of a free and intelligent being is good or bad in itself, absolutely abstracted from its good or bad consequences, which were not contained in the internal act in one way or another. A man, who, by an act which he did not and could not foresee, should seriously injure the whole human race, would be innocent; and another who with an evil intention should benefit mankind, would be guilty. It is not a virtuous act to save one's country through a motive of vanity or ambition; and the unfortunate man, who with a pure and disinterested intention and with an ardent desire to save his country, should by an error produce its downfall, would not cease to be virtuous; the very act whose result is so sad, is considered an act of virtue.

226. In what, then, does absolute morality consist? Where is the hidden source of this ray of beauty which we all perceive, which penetrates every thing, making all things beautiful, and without which the world of intelligences would wither and fade away?

It seems to me that on this point, as on many others, science has not paid sufficient regard to the admirable profoundness of the Christian religion, which answers with one word, as full of tenderness as of meaning: Love.

I particularly call the attention of my readers to the theory which I am going to unfold. After so many difficulties as we have hitherto encountered concerning the moral order, we must try to gain some light on so important a subject. This light will more and more confirm a truth which science reveals. When we come to the principles or the last results of science, the ideas of Christianity are not useless; they throw light on the foundation and on the summit of the edifice of human knowledge.

Let not the reader imagine that instead of a scientific theory, I am going to offer him a chapter of mysticism. I am sure that in the end the reader will be convinced that, even under a purely scientific aspect, this doctrine is much more exact and profound than that of those authors who carefully avoid using the word God, as though this august name would be a blot on the pages of science.

227. Absolute morality is the love of God; all moral ideas and sentiments are applications and participations of this love.

Let us give a proof of this by carrying this principle to all the parts of the moral world.

What is absolute morality in God? What is the attribute of the infinite being, which we call holiness? The love of himself, of his infinite perfection. In God there is no duty, properly so called, there is an absolute necessity of being holy; for he is under the absolute necessity of loving his infinite perfection. Thus morality in its most absolute sense, in its highest degree, is infinite holiness; it is independent of all freewill. God cannot cease to be holy.

228. But it may be asked, why must God love himself? This question has no meaning if the matter is rightly understood; for it supposes that what is entirely absolute can be exactly expressed in relative terms. The proposition: God must love himself is not exact; strict exactness is expressed only in this: God loves himself; for it expresses an absolute fact in an absolute manner. If it is now asked, why God loves himself; I answer that it might as well be asked, why God knows himself, why he knows the truth, or why he exists; when we come to these questions, we have arrived at the primitive origin, at absolute, unconditioned things; therefore every why is absurd.

229. Morality can, therefore, be expressed in an absolute proposition. It is in itself, in an infinite degree, an absolute truth; it implies an identity whose opposite is contradictory: it is not less connected with the principle of contradiction than all metaphysical and geometrical truths. Its simplest formula is: the infinite loves itself.

230. God in his intelligence sees from all eternity an infinity of possible creatures. Containing in himself the ground of their possibility and of all their relations among themselves or to their Creator, nothing can exist independent of him; hence it is not possible for any being to cease to be directed to God. The end which God proposed in the creation can be no other than himself; since before the creation only God existed, and after the creation there were no perfections in creatures which were not contained in God in an infinite degree, either formally or virtually. Therefore this direction of all creatures to God as their last end, is a condition inseparable from them, and seen by God from eternity in all possible worlds. Whatever is created or may be created is a realization of a divine idea, of that which was represented in the infinite mind, with the absolute or relative properties which pre-existed in that representation. Therefore whatever exists or may exist must be subject to this condition, it must be directed to God, without whom its existence would be impossible.

231. Among the creatures, in which is realized the representation pre-existing in the divine mind, there are some endowed with will, which is an inclination to what is known, and, by means of an act of the understanding, becomes a principle of its own determinations. If the creature knew God intuitively, the acts of its will would be necessarily moral; for it would necessarily be an act of the love of God. The rectitude of the created will would then be a constant reflection of the infinite holiness, or of the love which God bears himself. The moral perfection of the creature would not in that case be free, though it would still be an eminent degree of moral perfection. There would be a perpetual conformity of the created will to the will of God, for the creature loving God by a happy necessity, could will nothing but what God wills. The morality of the created will would be this constant conformity to the divine will, which conformity would not be distinguished from the essentially moral and holy act, by which the creature would love the infinite being.

But since the knowledge of God is not intuitive, since the idea which the creature has of God is an incomplete conception involving many indeterminate notions, the infinite good is not loved by necessity, because it is not known in its essence. The will has an inclination to good, but to good indeterminately; and therefore it does not feel a necessary inclination to any real object. The good is presented under a general and indeterminate idea, with various applications, and to none of them is the will inclined necessarily; hence proceeds its freedom to depart from the order seen by God as conformed to his sovereign designs; when freedom, far from being a perfection, is a defect arising from the weakness of the knowledge of the being which possesses it.

232. The rational creature conforming in its acts to the will of God, realizes the order which God wills; loving this order, it loves what God loves. If, although realizing this order, the creature in its freedom does not love the order, but acts from motives independent of it, its will, performing the act materially, does not love what God loves; and here is the line which divides morality from immorality. The proper morality of an act consists in explicit or implicit conformity of the created will to the divine will; the mysterious perfections of moral acts, that loveliness in them which charms and attracts us, is nothing else than conformity to the will of God; the absolute character which we find in morality is the explicit or implicit love of God, and, consequently, a reflection of the infinite holiness, or of the love by which God loves himself.

By applying this doctrine to facts, we shall see more clearly still its perfect exactness.

233. To love God is a morally good act; to hate God is a morally evil act, and of the most detestable character. Where is the morality of the act of loving God? In the act itself, the reflection of the infinite holiness, which consists in the love which God has for his infinite perfection; here is a palpable proof of the truth of our theory. The love of the creature for the Creator has always been regarded as an essentially moral act, as the purest morality; which shows that in the secondary and finite order, this act is the purest and most faithful expression of absolute morality.

234. If we ask why we must love God, we are ordinarily reminded of the benefits which he has conferred upon us, of the love which he bears us, and even of the example of the love which we owe to our friends and benefactors, and especially our parents; these reasons are certainly very useful in order to make the morality of the act in some sense palpable, and to move our heart; but they are not completely satisfactory in the field of science. For, if we could doubt that we ought to love the infinite Being, the author of all beings, it is clear that we should also doubt that we ought to love our parents, our friends, or our benefactors. Therefore our love for them must be founded on something higher, or else, when asked why we love them, we must remain without an answer.

235. To wish to perfect the understanding is a moral act in itself. Whence proceeds the morality of this act? God, in giving us intelligence, evidently wished us to use it. Its use, therefore, enters into the order known and willed by God; in willing this order, we will what God wills; we love this order which God loved from all eternity, as a realization of his supreme designs; if, on the contrary, the creature does not perfect his intellectual faculties, and making use of his freedom leaves these faculties unexercised, he departs from the order established by God, he does not will what God wills, he does not love what God loves.

236. A man may perfect these faculties merely for the sake of obtaining the pleasure of being praised by others; in this case he realizes the order in the perfection of his understanding, but he does not do so from love of the order in itself, but from love of something distinct which does not enter into the order willed by God; for it is evident that God did not endow us with intellectual faculties for the fruitless object of obtaining each other's praise. Here, then, is the difference which we know, which we perceive between two equal actions done with different ends: the will in one perfects the understanding as a simple realization of the divine order; perhaps we may not be able to explain what there is there, but we know for certain that this will is right; in the other the will is the same, it wills the same thing, but it suffers something foreign to this order to mingle with it; and the understanding and the heart both tell us this act which does something good, is not good, it is not virtue,—it is meanness.

237. There is a person in great want, but who, nevertheless, has every probability of soon improving his fortunes, Lentulus and Julius each give him an alms. Lentulus gives his, because he hopes that when the poor man is better off he will remember his benefactor, and assist him if necessary. The action of Lentulus can have no moral value; in judging of it we see a calculation, not a virtuous act. Julius gives the alms solely in order to succor the unfortunate man, who excites his pity, without thinking of the return which may be made; the action of Julius is morally beautiful, it is virtuous. Whence this difference? Lentulus does good, assisting the needy; but not from love of the internal order of the act; he bends this order towards himself. God, willing that men should stand in need of each other, also willed that they should mutually help one another; to help one, therefore, simply in order to alleviate his wants is to realize simply the order willed by God; to help one for a particular end, is to realize this order not as it is established by God, but as combined by man. There is a complication of view, the simplicity of intention is wanting,—this simplicity so recommended by Christianity, and even in philosophy containing a profound meaning.

238. Regarding the purely natural order, we find that all moral obligations have in the last result a useful object; as all prohibitions are directed to prevent an injury; but it does not suffice for morality, that we will its utility, we must will the order itself from which the utility results; for the greater the reflection, and the love with which this order is willed, without any mixture of heterogeneous views, the more moral is the act.

To help the poor with the simple view of assisting them, out of love for them, is a virtuous act; to help them, out of this love, and with the explicit reflection that it is complying with a duty of humanity, is still more virtuous; to help them, for the thought of God, because you see in the poor man the image of God, who commands you to love him, is a still more virtuous act than either of the other two; to help them, even against the inclination of your own heart, excited by resentment against them, or moved by other passions, to subdue yourself with a firm will for the love of God, is an act of heroic virtue. Observe that the moral perfection of the act increases in proportion as the thing in itself is willed with greater reflection and love; and arrives at the highest point when, in the thing loved, it is God himself that is loved. If the views are selfish the order is perverted, and morality is banished; when there are no selfish views, but the act is prompted principally by sentiment, the action is beautiful, but belongs rather to sensibility than to morality; when the sacrifice tears the heart, but the will preceded by reflection commands the sacrifice, and the duty is performed because it is a duty; or perhaps an act not obligatory is done for the love of its moral goodness, and because it is agreeable to God, we see in the action something so fair, so lovely, so deserving of praise, that we should be confounded if asked the reason of the sentiment of respect which we feel for the person who for such noble motives sacrifices himself for his fellow-men.

Conformably to these principles we may clearly and exactly determine the ideas of morality.

239. Absolute morality, and consequently the origin and type of the moral order, is the act by which the infinite Being loves his infinite perfection. This is an absolute fact of which we can give no reason a priori.

In God there is, strictly speaking, no duty; there is the absolute necessity of being holy.

240. The act essentially moral in creatures is the love of God. It is impossible to found the morality of this act on the morality of any other act.

241. The acts of creatures are moral in so far as they participate of this love, explicitly or implicitly.

242. Creatures which see God intuitively, love him necessarily; and thus all their acts, stamped with this august mark, are necessarily moral.

243. Creatures which do not see God intuitively necessarily love good in general, or under an indeterminate idea; but they do not love necessarily any object in particular.

244. In this love of good in general, these free acts are moral, when their will wills the order which God has willed, without mingling with this order foreign or contrary combinations.

245. In order that an act may be moral, it is not necessary that the one who performs it should think explicitly of God, nor that his will should love him explicitly.

246. The act is more moral, in proportion as it is accompanied with greater reflection on its morality and its conformity to the will of God.

247. Moral sentiment was given us in order that we might perceive the beauty of the order willed by God; it is, so to speak, an instinct of love of God.

248. As this sentiment is innate, indelible, and independent of reflection, even atheists experience it.

249. The idea of moral obligation or duty results from two ideas: the order willed by God, and the physical freedom to depart from this order. God granting us life, wills us to try to preserve it; but man is free, and sometimes kills himself. He that preserves his life fulfils a duty; he that destroys himself, infringes it. Thus the idea of duty contains the idea of physical freedom, which cannot be exercised, in a certain sense, without departing from the order which God has established.

250. Punishment is a sanction of the moral order; it serves to supply the necessity which is impossible in free beings. Creatures that act without knowledge, fulfil their destiny by an absolute necessity; free beings do not fulfil their destiny by an absolute necessity, but by that kind of necessity produced by the sight of a painful result.

251. Here may be seen the difference between physical evil and moral evil even in the same free being; physical evil is pain; moral evil is the departure from the order willed by God.

252. Unlawful is what is contrary to a duty.

253. Lawful is what is not opposed to any duty.

254. The eternal law is the order of intelligent beings, willed by God conformably to his infinite holiness.

255. Intrinsically moral acts are those which form a part of the order which God (supposing the will to create such or such beings) has willed necessarily, by force of the love of his infinite perfection. Such actions are commanded because they are good.

256. The actions which are good because they are commanded are those which form a part of the order which God has willed freely, and of which he has given creatures knowledge.

257. The command of God is his will communicated to creatures. If this will is necessary, the precept is natural, if free, the precept is positive.

258. Regarding the natural only, the order willed by God is that which leads to the preservation and perfection of created beings. Actions are moral when conformed to this order.

259. The natural perfection of beings consists in using their faculties for the end for which their nature shows them to be destined.

260. Nature has charged each individual to take care of his own preservation and perfection.

261. The natural impossibility of man's living alone, shows that the preservation and perfection of individuals must be obtained in society.

262. The first society is the family.

263. Parents must support and educate their children; for without this the human race could not be preserved.

264. Conjugal duties arise from the order necessary for the preservation and perfection of the society of the family, which is indispensable for the preservation of the human race.

265. The more necessary the connection of an act with the preservation and perfection of the family, the more necessary is its morality, and consequently the less subject to modifications.

266. The immorality of acts contrary to chastity, and especially of those against nature, is founded on great reasons of an order indispensable for the preservation of the individual and the species.

267. Passions, because they are blind, are evidently given us as means, not as ends.

268. Therefore, when the gratification of the passions is taken, not as a means, but as the end, the act is immoral. A simple example will explain this idea. The pleasure of eating has a very useful object in the preservation of the individual; thus to eat with pleasure is not evil, but good; to eat for the pleasure of eating is to invert the order: the act is not good. The same action which in the first case is very reasonable, in the second, is an act of gluttony. Common sense renders any proof of this superfluous.

269. If a man lived all alone, the use of his physical freedom could never injure any one but himself; the moral limit of his freedom would be to satisfy his wants and desires in conformity to the dictates of reason. But as men live in society, the exercise of the physical freedom of one necessarily interferes with the freedom of others; to prevent disorder it is necessary that the physical freedom of each one should be restricted a little, and that all should be subjected to an order conformed to reason and conducive to the general good; hence the necessity of civil legislation. But as the legislation cannot be established or preserved by itself alone, a public power becomes necessary. The object of society is the general good, in subjection to the principles of eternal morality; the same is the object of the public power.

270. This theory explains satisfactorily the double character presented by the moral order: the absolute, and the relative. The heart, reason, and common sense force us to acknowledge in the moral order something absolute and independent of the consideration of utility; this is explained by rising to an absolute act of absolute perfection, and regarding the morality of creatures as a participation of that act. Reason and experience teach that the morality of actions has useful results; this is explained by observing that the absolute act includes the love of the order which must rule among created beings in order that they may fulfil their destinies. This order, then, is at the same time willed by God, and conducive to the special end of each creature; therefore it is at the same time both moral and useful.

271. But these two characters are always kept essentially distinct; the first we perceive; the second we calculate. When the first is wanting, we are evil; when the second fails, we are unfortunate. The painful result is punishment when our will has knowingly violated the order; otherwise, it is simply misfortune.

272. I hope I may flatter myself that this theory is somewhat more satisfactory than those invented by some modern philosophers for the purpose of explaining the absolute nature of morality. I had need of the idea of God, it is true; but I conceive no moral order, if God be taken from the world. Without God morality is nothing but a blind sentiment, as absurd in its object as in itself; the philosophy which does not found it on God, can never explain it scientifically; it must confine itself to establishing the fact as a necessity whose character and origin they know nothing of.

273. I shall add one observation which is an epitome of my whole theory, and will show wherein it differs from others which likewise acknowledge that the foundation of the moral order is in God, and that the love of God is the first of all duties. The systems to which I refer, suppose the idea of morality to be distinct from the idea of the love of God; but I say that the love of God is the essence of morality. Thus I assert that the infinite holiness is essentially the love with which God loves himself; that the first and essentially moral act of creatures is the love of God; that the morality of all their actions consists in explicit or implicit conformity to the will of God, which is the same as the explicit or implicit love of God.

One of the most remarkable results of this theory which places the essence of morality in the love of God, or of the infinite good, is that it destroys the difference of form of moral and metaphysical propositions, showing that the must and ought of the former is reduced to the absolute is of the latter.[97] The explanation of this important result is the following. The proposition: to love God is good morally, is an absolute and identical proposition; for moral goodness is the same thing as the love of God.

The proposition: to love our neighbor is good, is reduced to the former, since to love our neighbor is, in a certain sense, to love God.

The proposition: to help our neighbor is good, is reduced to the last, for to help is to love.

The proposition: man ought to preserve his life, is explained by this absolute proposition: the preservation of man's life is willed by God. Thus the word ought expresses the necessity that man should preserve his life, if he does not mean to oppose the order willed by God.

These examples are enough to show how easily moral propositions may be reduced to an absolute form. I cannot see how this is possible, if instead of saying that the love of God is morality, we distinguish between morality and love, saying that the love of God is a moral act.

274. Whatever judgment may be formed of this explanation, it cannot be denied that by it, a profound wisdom, even in the natural and philosophical order, is recognized in that admirable doctrine of our divine Master, in which he calls the love of God the first and greatest of the commandments; and in which, when he wishes to point out the character of the moral good, he especially designates the fulfilment of the divine will.

275. If we place the essence of morality in love, that which is moral must appear beautiful, since nothing is more beautiful than love; it must be agreeable to the soul, since nothing is more pleasing than love. We see also why the ideas of disinterestednessss and sacrifice seem so beautiful in the moral order, and make us instinctively reject the theory of self-interest; nothing more disinterested than love, nothing more capable of great sacrifices.

276. Thus egotism is banished from the moral order: God loves himself, because he is infinitely perfect; outside of him there is nothing to love which he has not created. The love which he has for creatures is completely disinterested, since he can receive nothing from them. The creature loves itself and also others; but what it loves in itself and in other creatures, is the reflection of the infinite good. It desires to be united to the supreme good, and in this it places its last happiness; but this desire is united with the love of the supreme good in itself, which the creature does not love precisely for the reason that thence results its own happiness.

A GLANCE AT THE WORK.

277. I have approached the term of my labor; and it is well to cast a glance over the long path which I have travelled.

I proposed to examine the fundamental ideas of our mind, whether considered in themselves, or in their relations to the world.

278. With regard to objects, we have found in our mind two primitive facts; the intuition of extension, and the idea of being. All objective sensibility is founded on the intuition of extension; all the pure intellectual order in what relates to indeterminate ideas, is founded on the idea of being. We have seen that from the idea of being proceed the ideas of identity, distinction, unity, number, duration, time, simplicity, composition, the finite, the infinite, the necessary, the contingent, the mutable, the immutable, substance, accident, cause, and effect.

279. We find in the subjective order, as facts of consciousness, sensibility, or sensitive being, (including, in this, sentiment as well as sensation,) intelligence, and will; whence we have intuitive ideas of determinate modes of being, distinct from extended beings.

280. Thus all the elements of our mind are reduced to the intuitive ideas of extension, sensibility, intelligence, and will, and the indeterminate ideas which are all founded on the idea of being.

281. From the idea of being, combined with not-being, springs the principle of contradiction, which of itself produces only indeterminate cognitions. In order that science should have an object that could be realized, the idea of being must be presented under some form. Our intuition gives two: extension, and consciousness.

282. Consciousness presents three modes of being: sensibility, or sensitive being; intelligence, and will.

283. Extension, considered in all its purity, as we imagine it in space, is the basis of geometry.

284. The same extension modified in various ways, and placed in relation with our sensibility, is the basis of all the natural sciences, of all those which have for their object, the corporeal universe.

285. Intelligence gives rise to ideology and psychology.

286. The will, in so far as moved by ends, gives rise to the moral sciences.

287. The idea of being begets the principle of contradiction; and, by this principle, the general and indeterminate ideas, whose combination produces ontology, which circulates, like a life-giving fluid, through all the other sciences.

288. Such I conceive the tree of human science: to examine its roots was the object of the Fundamental Philosophy.

NOTES TO BOOK SEVENTH.

ON CHAPTER I.

There are not wanting those who have believed that time is a thing very easily explained. Such is the opinion of Buffier in his celebrated TraitÉ des premiÈres veritÉs.[98] After explaining in his own way in what duration and time consist, he adds:

"J'admire donc que tant de philosophes aient parlÉ du temps et de la durÉe comme de choses inexplicables ou incomprÉhensibles: si non rogas, intelligo, leur fait-on dire, et selon la paraphrase de Locke, plus je m'applique À dÉcouvrir la nature du temps, moins je la conÇois. Le temps qui dÉcouvre toutes les choses ne saurait Être compris lui-mÊme. Cependant, À quoi se rÉduisent tous ces mystÈres? A deux mots que nous venons d'exposer."

It is strange that so distinguished a writer should not have known, or should not have remembered, that the difficulty of explaining time was acknowledged not only by the philosophers of whom he speaks, but even by so eminent a man as St. Augustine. The words to which he alludes are from St. Augustine, and are found in the fourteenth chapter of the second book of his confessions:

"Quid enim est tempus, quis hoc facile, breviterque explicaverit? Quis hoc ad verbum de illo proferendum vel cognatione comprehenderit ... quid ergo est tempus? Si nemo ex me quÆrat scio, si quÆrenti explicare velim nescio."

"What is time? If no one ask me, I know, but if I wish to explain it, I know it not."

The great doctor discovered here a profound question, and like all great geniuses when they find themselves in sight of a deep abyss, he felt a strong desire to know what was hidden in its bottom. Full of a holy enthusiasm, he turns to God, and begs him to explain this mystery:

"Exarsit animus meus nosse istud implicatissimum enigma. Noli claudere, Domine Deus, bone pater; per Christum obsecro, noli claudere desiderio meo ista et usitata, et abdita, quominus in ea penetret, et dilucescant allucente misericordia tua, Domine! Quem percunctabor de his? et cui fructuosius confitebor imperitiam meam nisi tibi, cui non sunt molesta studia mea flammantia vehementer in scripturas tuas? Da quod amo; amo enim, et hoc tu dedisti. Da, pater, qui vere nosti data bona dare filiis tuis. Da, quoniam suscepi cognoscere te; et labor est ante me donec aperias.

"Per Christum obsecro, in nomine ejus sancti sanctorum nemo mihi obstrepat. Et ego credidi propter quod et loquor. HÆc est spes mea, ad hanc vivo, ut contempler delectationes Domini. Ecce veteres posuisti dies meos, et transeunt; et quomodo, nescio. Et dicimus, Tempus et tempus, tempora et tempora. Quamdiu dixit hoc ille; quamdiu fecit hoc ille; et quam longo tempore illud non vidi; et duplum temporis habet hÆc syllaba; ad illam simplam brevem. Dicimus hÆc, et audimus hÆc: et intelligimur, et intelligimus. Manifestissima et usitatissima sunt, et eadem rursus nimis latent, et nova est inventio eorum. (Lib. XI., cap. xxii.)

"Video igitur tempus quamdam esse distensionem, sed video an videre mihi videor? Tu demonstrabis lux, veritas. (Cap. xxiii.)

"Et confiteor tibi (Domine) ignorare me adhuc quid sit tempus; et rursus confiteor tibi (Domine) scire me in tempore ista dicere, et diu me jam loqui de tempore, atque idipsum diu, non esse nisi moram temporis. Quomodo igitur hoc sciam, quando quid sit tempus nescio? an forte nescio quemadmodum dicam quod scio? Hei mihi qui nescio saltem quid nesciam! Ecce Deus meus coram te, quia non mentior; sicut loquor ita est cor meum. Tu illuminabis lucernam meam, Domine Deus meus; illuminabis tenebras meas." (Cap. xxv.)

To present as easy things which seemed difficult to the greatest men, is, to say the least of it, rather bold. The author flatters himself, in such instances that he has settled the question when he has not penetrated beyond its surface. It often happens that objects seem very clear at first, and we only discover the difficulty which they present, when we examine them more closely. Ask a man unskilled in questions of philosophy, what extension is, or space, or time, and he will wonder that you find any difficulty in things so clear. And why? Because his first reflex act does not go beyond the ordinary idea of these objects, or rather, the use of this idea. Father Buffier says, in the chapter from which we quoted before:

"Dans toutes ces recherches de mÉtaphysique, si embarassÉes en apparence, il ne faut, comme je l'ai dit d'abord, que distinguer les idÉes les plus simples que nous avons dans l'esprit d'avec les noms qui y sont attachÉs par l'usage, pour y dÉcouvrir ce qui nous doit tenir lieu de premiÈre vÉritÉ À leur sujet."

I do not deny that this observation presents a useful criterion; but I cannot see in it so simple a means of solving the most difficult questions of philosophy. For the difficulty is in distinguishing with exactness these simple ideas, which, because they constitute the foundation of our knowledge, are, for this very reason, generally placed at a greater depth, and covered over with a thousand different objects, which hinder us from perceiving them clearly and distinctly, Father Buffier was led astray by the very clearness of his explanation of time, and believed he saw the bottom of the abyss, when he only saw the reflection on its surface:

"Qu'est-ce que durer? C'est exister sans Être dÉtruit: voilÀ l'explication la plus nette qu'on puisse donner de la durÉe; mais le simple mot de durÉe fait comprendre la chose aussi clairement que cette explication.

"Outre l'idÉe de la durÉe, nous avons l'idÉe de la mesure de la durÉe, qui n'est pas la durÉe elle-mÊme, bien que nous confondions souvent l'une avec l'autre; comme il arrive d'ordinaire de confondre nos sentiments ou avec leurs effets, ou avec leurs causes, ou avec leurs autres circonstances.

"Or, cette mesure de la durÉe n'est autre chose que ce que nous appelons le temps; et le temps n'est que la rÉvolution rÉguliÈre de quelque chose de sensible, comme du cours annuel du soleil, ou du cours mensuel de la lune, ou diurnal d'une aiguille sur le cadran d'une horloge.

"L'attention que nous avons À cette rÉvolution rÉguliÈre fait prÉcisÉment en nous l'idÉe du temps. L'intervalle de cette rÉvolution se divisant en de moindres intervalles forme l'idÉe des parties du temps, auxquelles nous donnons aussi le nom de temps plus long ou plus court, selon les divers intervalles de la rÉvolution.

"Quand nous avons une fois acquis cette idÉe du temps, nous l'appliquons À toute la durÉe que nous concevons ou que nous supposons rÉpondre À tel intervalle de la rÉvolution rÉguliÈre, et par lÀ nous donnons À la durÉe mÊme le nom de temps, appliquant le nom de de la mesure À la chose mesurÉe; mais sans que la durÉe qu'on mesure soit au fond le temps auquel on la mesure, et qui est une rÉvolution. Ainsi, Dieu a durÉ avant le temps, c'est-À-dire a ÉtÉ sans cesser d'Être avant la crÉation du monde, et avant la rÉvolution rÉguliÈre d'aucun corps."

Here follows the passage already quoted, where the author shows his surprise that the explanation of time has been found so difficult. After giving his rule that the simplest ideas must be separated from the terms which custom has joined to them, he concludes with these words:

"Par ces deux moyens nous trouvons tout d'un coup l'idÉe ou la notion de durÉe et de temps: j'ai l'idÉe d'un Être en tant qu'il ne cesse pas d'Être, c'est ce qui s'appelle durÉe; j'ai l'idÉe de cette durÉe en tant qu'elle est mesurÉe par la rÉvolution rÉguliÈre d'un corps ou par les intervalles de cette rÉvolution, c'est ce que j'appelle temps. Il me semble que ces notions sont aussi claires qu'elles peuvent l'Être, et celui qui cherche À les Éclaircir davantage est À peu prÈs aussi peu sensÉ que celui qui voudrait Éclaircir comment deux fois deux font quatre et ne font pas cinq."

What explanation is contained in these passages? I can see none. Duration, says Buffier, is uninterrupted succession, and time is the measure of this duration. But he ought to have reflected that only what has quantity can be measured; and consequently duration cannot he measured, unless he supposes a length before the measure. This is precisely what the difficulty consists in. It is well known that time is measured by reference to the revolution of some quantity. But what he ought to have explained was, the nature of that which is measured, of this quantity, or length, independently of the measure. Measure requires a greater and a less, and this greater and less exists independently of all measure. What, then, is the nature of this quantity, of this greater and less?

Father Buffier observes, that although there were no succession of thought in us, and we should have only one thought, we should still have the idea of duration as much as ever. This is true, if we make the idea of duration the same as the idea of uninterrupted existence. But on this hypothesis we could not measure this duration, and consequently could not have the idea of time.

"In God," says Buffier, "there is no succession, for, does not his being endure always?" No doubt of it; but this argument instead of confirming his doctrine, only shows its weakness. The duration of God cannot be measured unless we suppose a greater and less in the duration of necessary and infinite being. Therefore, the idea of duration, or uninterrupted existence, does not give us the idea of time, or of a duration that can be measured.

ON CHAPTER IV.

The denial of all succession in eternity, and making it all present, without any past or future, must not be regarded as a vain subtlety of the schools. Long before the scholastics this had been taught by the most eminent authors. St. Augustine says:

"Idipsum enim tempus tu feceras: nec prÆterire potuerunt tempora antequam faceres tempora. Si autem ante coelum et terram nullum erat tempus, cur quÆritur quid tunc faciebas? Non enim erat tunc, ubi non erat tempus; nec in tempore tempora prÆcedis; alioquin non omnia tempora prÆcederes.

"Sed prÆcedis omnia tempora prÆterita, celsitudine semper prÆsentis Æternitatis: et superas omnia futura; quia et illa futura sunt; et cum venerint prÆterita erunt; tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient. Anni tui nec eunt, nec veniunt: isti autem nostri, et eunt, et veniunt, ut omnes veniant. Anni tui omnes simul stant, quoniam stant; nec euntes À venientibus excluduntur, quia non transeunt: isti autem nostri omnes erunt cum omnes non erunt. Anni tui dies unus: et dies tuus non quotidie, sed hodie: quia hodiernus tuus non cedit crastino neque succedit hesterno. Hodiernus tuus Æternitas; ideo coÆternum genuisti, cui dixisti: Ego hodie genui te. Omnia tempora tu fecisti, et ante omnia tempora tu es, nec aliquo tempore non erat tempus." (Conf. Lib. XI., cap. xiii.)

In another place we find the same doctrine in these terms:

"Anni Dei Æternitas Dei est. Æternitas ipsa Dei substantia est, quÆ nihil habet mutabile. Ibi nihil est prÆteritum, quasi jam non sit; nihil est futurum, quasi nondum sit. Non est ibi, nisi est. Non est ibi, fuit et erit, quia et quod fuit jam non est; et quod erit nondum est; sed quidquid ibi est, non nisi est." (In Psal. 101; Serm. 2, num. 10.)

Plato was not ignorant of this truth, and the holy fathers have constantly taught it. When the scholastics adopted the definition of BoËthius, that eternity is interminabilis vitÆ tota simul et perfecta possessio, they only embraced a doctrine as solid as it was universal.

It is difficult to explain these sublime ideas in a more lofty or a more profound manner than Fenelon does in his Treatise on the Existence of God.[99]

"C'est retomber dans l'idÉe du temps, et confondre tout, que de vouloir imaginer en Dieu rien qui ait rapport À aucune succession. En lui rien ne dure, parce que rien ne passe: tout est fixe; tout est À la fois; tout est immobile. En Dieu rien n'a ÉtÉ, rien ne sera; mais tout est. Supprimons donc pour lui toutes les questions que l'habitude et la faiblesse de l'esprit fini, qui veut embrasser l'infini À sa mode Étroite et raccourcie, me tenterait de faire. Dirai-je, Ô mon Dieu, que vous aviez dÉjÀ une ÉternitÉ d'existence en vous-mÊme avant que vous m'eussiez crÉÉ, et qu'il vous reste encore une autre ÉternitÉ, aprÈs ma crÉation, oÙ vous existez toujours? Ces mots de dÉjÀ et d'aprÈs sont indignes de celui qui est. Vous ne pouvez souffrir aucun passÉ et aucun avenir en vous. C'est une folie que de vouloir diviser votre ÉternitÉ, qui est une permanence indivisible: c'est vouloir que le rivage s'enfuie, parce qu'en descendant le long d'un fleuve, je m'Éloigne toujours de ce rivage qui est immobile. InsensÉ que je suis! Je veux, Ô immobile vÉritÉ, vous attribuer l'Être bornÉ, changeant et successif de votre crÉature! Vous n'avez en vous aucune mesure dont on puisse mesurer votre existence; car elle n'a ni bornes ni parties; vous n'avez rien de mesurable: les mesures mÊme qu'on peut tirer des Êtres bornÉs, changeants, divisibles et successifs, ne peuvent servir À vous mesurer, vous qui Êtes infini, indivisible, immuable et permanent. Comment dirai-je donc que la courte durÉe de la crÉature est par rapport À votre ÉternitÉ? N'Étiez-vous pas avant moi? Ne serez-vous pas aprÈs moi? Ces paroles tendent À signifier quelque vÉritÉ; mais elles sont À la rigueur indignes et impropres. Ce qu'elles ont de vrai, c'est que l'infini surpasse infiniment le fini; qu'ainsi votre existence infinie surpasse infiniment en tout sens mon existence, qui, Étant bornÉe, a un commencement, un prÉsent et un futur. Mais il est faux que la crÉation de votre ouvrage partage votre ÉternitÉ en deux ÉternitÉs. Deux ÉternitÉs ne feraient pas plus qu'une seule: une ÉternitÉ partagÉe, qui aurait une partie antÉrieure et une partie postÉrieure, ne serait plus une vÉritable ÉternitÉ: en voulant la multiplier, on la dÉtruirait, parce qu'une partie serait nÉcessairement la borne de l'autre par le bout oÙ elles se toucheraient. Qui dit ÉternitÉ, s'il entend ce qu'il dit, ne dit que ce qui est, et rien au delÀ; car tout ce qu'on ajoute À cette infinie simplicitÉ l'anÉantit. Qui dit ÉternitÉ ne souffre plus le langage du temps. Le temps et l'ÉternitÉ sont incommensurables, ils ne peuvent Être comparÉs; et on est sÉduit par sa propre faiblesse toutes les fois qu'on imagine quelque rapport entre des choses si disproportionnÉes. Vous avez nÉanmoins, Ô mon Dieu, fait quelque chose hors de vous; car je ne suis pas vous, et il s'en faut infiniment. Quand est-ce donc que vous m'avez fait? Est-ce que vous n'Étiez pas avant que de me faire? Mais que dis-je? Me voilÀ dÉjÀ retombÉ dans mon illusion et dans les questions du temps. Je parle de vous comme de moi, ou comme de quelque autre Être passager que je pourrais mesurer avec moi. Ce qui passe peut Être mesurÉ avec ce qui passe; mais ce qui ne passe point est hors de toute mesure et de toute comparaison avec ce qui passe: il n'est permis de demander ni quand il a ÉtÉ, ni s'il Était avant ce qui n'est pas, ou qui n'est qu'en passant. Vous Êtes, et c'est tout. O que j'aime cette parole, et qu'elle me remplit pour tout ce que j'ai À connaÎtre de vous! Vous Êtes celui qui est. Tout ce qui n'est point cette parole vous dÉgrade. Il n'y a qu'elle qui vous ressemble. Eu n'ajoutant rien au mot d'Être, elle ne diminue rien de votre grandeur. Elle est, je l'ose dire, cette parole, infiniment parfaite comme vous. Il n'y a que vous qui puissiez parler ainsi, et renfermer votre infini dans trois mots si simples. Je ne suis pas, Ô mon Dieu, ce qui est. HÉlas! je suis presque ce qui n'est pas. Je me vois comme un milieu incomprÉhensible entre le nÉant et l'Être. Je suis celui qui a ÉtÉ; je suis celui qui sera; je suis celui qui n'est plus ce qu'il a ÉtÉ; je suis celui qui n'est pas encore ce qu'il sera; et dans cet entre-deux que je suis, un je ne sais quoi qui ne peut s'arrÊter en soi, qui n'a aucune consistance, qui s'Écoule rapidement comme l'eau; un je ne sais quoi que je ne puis saisir, qui s'enfuit de mes propres mains, qui n'est plus dÈs que je le veux saisir ou l'apercevoir; un je ne sais quoi qui finit dans l'instant mÊme oÙ il commence; en sorte que je ne puis jamais un seul moment me trouver moi-mÊme, fixe et prÉsent À moi-mÊme, pour dire simplement: Je suis. Ainsi, ma durÉe n'est qu'une dÉfaillance perpÉtuelle. O que je suis loin de votre ÉternitÉ qui est indivisible, infinie, et toujours prÉsente tout entiÈre! Que je suis mÊme bien ÉloignÉ de la comprendre! Elle m'Échappe À force d'Être vraie, simple et immense; comme mon Être m'Échappe À force d'Être composÉ de parties, mÊlÉ de vÉritÉ et de mensonge, d'Être et de nÉant. C'est trop peu que de dire de vous que vous Étiez des siÈcles infinis avant que je fusse. J'aurais honte de parler ainsi; car c'est mesurer l'infini avec le fini qui est un demi-nÉant. Quand je crains de dire que vous Étiez avant que je fusse, ce n'est pas pour douter que vous existant, vous ne m'ayez crÉÉ, moi qui n'existais pas: mais c'est pour Éloigner de moi toutes les idÉes imparfaites qui sont au-dessus de vous. Dirai-je que vous Étiez avant moi? Non; car voilÀ deux termes que je ne puis souffrir. Il ne faut pas dire, vous Étiez; car vous Étiez marque un temps passÉ et une succession. Vous Êtes: et il n'y a qu'un prÉsent, immobile, indivisible et infini que l'on puisse vous attribuer, pour parler dans la rigueur des termes. Il ne faut point dire que vous avez toujours ÉtÉ, il faut dire que vous Êtes; et ce terme de toujours, qui est si fort pour la crÉature, est trop faible pour vous; car il marque une continuitÉ et non une permanence. Il vaut mieux dire simplement et sans restriction, que vous Êtes. O Etre! Ô Etre! votre ÉternitÉ, qui n'est que votre Être mÊme, m'Étonne; mais elle me console. Je me trouve devant vous comme si je n'Étais pas; je m'abÎme dans votre infini; et loin de mesurer votre permanence, par rapport À ma fluiditÉ continuelle, je commence À me perdre de vue, À ne me trouver plus, et ne voir en tout que ce qui est; je veux dire vous-mÊme. Ce que j'ai dit du passÉ, je le dis de mÊme de l'avenir. On ne peut point dire que vous serez aprÈs ce qui passe; car vous ne passez point. Ainsi, vous ne serez prÉsent en parlant de vous. On ne dit point d'un rivage immobile, qu'il devance ou qu'il suit les flots d'une riviÈre: il ne devance ni ne suit; car il ne marche point. Ce que je remarque de ce rivage par rapport À l'immobilitÉ locale, je le dois dire de l'Être infini par rapport À l'immobilitÉ d'existence. Ce qui passe a ÉtÉ et sera, et passe du prÉtÉrit au futur par un prÉsent imperceptible, qu'on ne peut jamais assigner. Mais ce qui ne passe point existe absolument, et n'a qu'un prÉsent infini: il est, et c'est tout ce qu'il est permis d'en dire: il est sans temps dans tous les temps de la crÉation. Quiconque sort de cette simplicitÉ, tombe de l'ÉternitÉ dans le temps."

NOTE TO BOOK EIGHTH.

(3) Perhaps some of my readers, who are not well acquainted with the history of philosophy, may think that I have extended the explanation of the idea of the infinite to too great length, and consider these questions as serving rather to subtilize, than to acquire solid knowledge. This is a great mistake. At all times the philosophical questions of the idea of the infinite have held a prominent position, and at the present time there is scarcely any which require to be more carefully examined, if we wish to stay the progress of pantheism. I shall not cease to repeat that a great many of the most serious errors have their birth in a confusion in their fundamental ideas; if one is well grounded in these ideas, he has nothing to fear from certain works whose secret in leading one astray, consists in using incomprehensible words, or in giving a false sense to those which can be understood. However this may be, I would remind those who believe these questions mere scholastic cavils, that they must regard as cavillers the most eminent philosophers of ancient and modern times.

NOTE TO BOOK NINTH.

(4) I know that some modern philosophers, and more especially M. Cousin, reject the accusation of pantheism, and explain in their own way those passages of their works in which this error is professed. As it is not possible for me to examine at any length, a question which would require the insertion of long extracts, I merely refer the reader to what I have said in the body of the work, and with respect to M. Cousin, to the extracts which I have made in my Letters to a Skeptic in Matters of Religion, Letter I. It is not the fault of M. Cousin's adversaries that he has used such clear expressions that no man of sound judgment can doubt that they contain a full profession of pantheism. Leaving to the philosopher the responsibility of his intentions, I shall only beg our young men not to judge lightly of the disputes of the neighboring kingdom, which are not always received here through faithful organs; and to withhold their faith from those who would attempt to persuade them that there is no ground for the alarms of men of sound philosophical doctrine.

THE END.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Variations in hyphenation have been standardised, but other variations in spelling, accents and punctuation are as in the original.

P 208, § 18, Book VII, fourth paragraph.

"A space whose parts are not continuous, is not a space; neither is a time whose parts are not continuous, a space."

The final "space" has been changed to time.

Footnote 61 reads "III. Th. § 5, II., p. 256.". From the context it appears that Ib., was omitted.

Book X Chapter 1. The first sentence read
"1. Beings are divided into two classes: necessary and contingent; necessary being is that which cannot be;"
This has been changed to "cannot but be;"

The repetition of the title of each book on consecutive pages at the beginning has been removed.