least disadvantage, although very imperfectly still, of the manner of
Plato: he sometimes expresses its elevation and grace; but he is far
from possessing the Socratic good sense, and, it must be confessed, no
one has clouded more the theory of ideas by exaggerations of every kind
which he has mingled with them.[59] Instead of establishing that there
is in the human reason, wholly personal as it is by its intimate
relation with our other faculties, something also which is not personal,
something universal which permits it to elevate itself to universal
truths, Malebranche does not hesitate to absolutely confound the reason
that is in us with the divine reason itself. Moreover, according to
Malebranche, we do not directly know particular things, sensible
objects; we know them only by ideas; it is the intelligible extension
and not the material extension that we immediately perceive; in vision
the proper object of the mind is the universal, the idea; and as the
idea is in God, it is in God that we see all things. We can understand
how well-formed minds must have been shocked by such a theory; but it is
not just to confound Plato with his brilliant and unfaithful disciple.
In Plato, sensibility directly attains sensible things; it makes them
known to us as they are, that is to say, as very imperfect and
undergoing perpetual change, which renders the knowledge that we have of
them almost unworthy of the name of knowledge. It is reason, different
in us from sensibility, which, above sensible objects, discovers to us
the universal, the idea, and gives a knowledge solid and durable. Having
once attained ideas, we have reached God himself, in whom they have
their foundation, who finishes and consummates true knowledge. But we
have no need of God, nor of ideas, in order to perceive sensible
objects, which are defective and changing; for this our senses are
sufficient. Reason is distinct from the senses; it transcends the
imperfect knowledge of what they are capable; it attains the universal,
because it possesses something universal itself; it participates in the
divine reason, but it is not the divine reason; it is enlightened by it,
it comes from it,--it is not it.
Fenelon is inspired at once by Malebranche and Descartes in the
treatise, _de l'Existence de Dieu_. The second part is entirely
Cartesian in method, in the order and sequence of the proofs.
Nevertheless, Malebranche also appears there, especially in the fourth
chapter, on the nature of ideas, and he predominates in all the
metaphysical portions of the first part. After the explanations which we
have given, it will not be difficult for you to discern what is true and
what is at times excessive in the passages which follow:[60]
Part i., chap. lii. "Oh! how great is the mind of man! It bears in
itself what astonishes itself and infinitely surpasses itself. Its ideas
are universal, eternal, and immutable.... The idea of the infinite is
in me as well as that of lines, numbers, and circles....--Chap. liv.
Besides this idea of the infinite, I have also universal and immutable
notions, which are the rule of all my judgments. I can judge of nothing
except by consulting them, and it is not in my power to judge against
what they represent to me. My thoughts, far from being able to correct
this rule, are themselves corrected in spite of me by this superior
rule, and they are irresistibly adjusted to its decision. Whatever
effort of mind I may make, I can never succeed in doubting that two and
two are four; that the whole is not greater than any of its parts; that
the centre of a perfect circle is not equidistant from all points of the
circumference. I am not at liberty to deny these propositions; and if I
deny these truths, or others similar to them, I have in me something
that is above me, that forces me to the conclusion. This fixed and
immutable rule is so internal and so intimate that I am inclined to take
it for myself; but it is above me since it corrects me, redresses me,
and puts me in defiance against myself, and reminds me of my impotence.
It is something that suddenly inspires me, provided I listen to it, and
I am never deceived except in not listening to it.... This internal rule
is what I call my reason....--Chap. lv. In truth my reason is in me; for
I must continually enter into myself in order to find it. But the higher
reason which corrects me when necessary, which I consult, exists not by
me, and makes no part of me. This rule is perfect and immutable; I am
changing and imperfect. When I am deceived, it does not lose its
integrity. When I am undeceived, it is not this that returns to its end:
it is this which, without ever having deviated, has the authority over
me to remind me of my error, and to make me return. It is a master
within, which makes me keep silent, which makes me speak, which makes me
believe, which makes me doubt, which makes me acknowledge my errors or
confirm my judgments. Listening to it, I am instructed; listening to
myself, I err. This master is everywhere, and its voice makes itself
heard, from end to end of the universe, in all men as well as in
me....--Chap. lvi.... That which appears the most in us and seems to be
the foundation of ourselves, I mean our reason, is that which is least
of all our own, which we are constrained to believe to be especially
borrowed. We receive without cessation, and at all moments, a reason
superior to us, as we breathe without cessation the air, which is a
foreign body....--Chap. lvii. The internal and universal master always
and everywhere speaks the same truths. We are not this master. It is
true that we often speak without it, and more loftily than it. But we
are then deceived, we are stammering, we do not understand ourselves. We
even fear to see that we are deceived, and we close the ear through fear
of being humiliated by its corrections. Without doubt, man, who fears
being corrected by this incorruptible reason, who always wanders in not
following it, is not that perfect, universal, immutable reason which
corrects him in spite of himself. In all things we find, as it were, two
principles within us. One gives, the other receives; one wants, the
other supplies; one is deceived, the other corrects; one goes wrong by
its own inclination, the other rectifies it.... Each one feels within
himself a limited and subaltern reason, which wanders when it escapes a
complete subordination, which is corrected only by returning to the yoke
of another superior, universal, and immutable power. So every thing in
us bears the mark of a subaltern, limited, partial, borrowed reason,
which needs another to correct it at every moment. All men are rational,
because they possess the same reason which is communicated to them in
different degrees. There is a certain number of wise men; but the wisdom
which they receive, as it were, from the fountain-head, which makes them
what they are, is one and the same....--Chap. lviii. Where is this
wisdom? Where is this reason, which is both common and superior to all
the limited and imperfect reasons of the human race? Where, then, is
this oracle which is never silent, against which the vain prejudices of
peoples are always impotent? Where is this reason which we ever need to
consult, which comes to us to inspire us with the desire of listening to
its voice? Where is this light _that lighteneth every man that cometh
into the world_.... The substance of the human eye is not light; on the
contrary, the eye borrows at each moment the light of the sun's rays. So
my mind is not the primitive reason, the universal and immutable truth,
it is only the medium that conducts this original light, that is
illuminated by it....--Chap. lx. I find two reasons in myself,--one is
myself, the other is above me. That which is in me is very imperfect,
faulty, uncertain, preoccupied, precipitate, subject to aberration,
changing, conceited, ignorant, and limited; in fine, it possesses
nothing but what it borrows. The other is common to all men, and is
superior to all; it is perfect, eternal, immutable, always ready to
communicate itself in all places, and to rectify all minds that are
deceived, in fine, incapable of ever being exhausted or divided,
although it gives itself to those who desire it. Where is this perfect
reason, that is so near me and so different from me? Where is it? It
must be something real.... Where is this supreme reason? Is it not God
that I am seeking?"
Part ii., chap. i., sect. 28.[61] "I have in me the idea of the infinite
and of infinite perfection.... Give me a finite thing as great as you
please--let it quite transcend the reach of my senses, so that it
becomes, as it were, infinite to my imagination; it always remains
finite in my mind; I conceive a limit to it, even when I cannot imagine
it. I am not able to mark the limit; but I know that it exists; and far
from confounding it with the infinite, I conceive it as infinitely
distant from the idea that I have of the veritable infinite. If one
speaks to me of the indefinite as a mean between the two extremes of the
infinite and the limited, I reply, that it signifies nothing, that, at
least, it only signifies something truly finite, whose boundaries escape
the imagination without escaping the mind.... Sect. 29. Where have I
obtained this idea, which is so much above me, which infinitely
surpasses me, which astonishes me, which makes me disappear in my own
eyes, which renders the infinite present to me? Whence does it come?
Where have I obtained it?... Once more, whence comes this marvellous
representation of the infinite, which pertains to the infinite itself,
which resembles nothing finite? It is in me, it is more than myself; it
seems to me every thing, and myself nothing. I can neither efface,
obscure, diminish, nor contradict it. It is in me; I have not put it
there, I have found it there; and I have found it there only because it
was already there before I sought it. It remains there invariable, even
when I do not think of it, when I think of something else. I find it
whenever I seek it, and it often presents itself when I am not seeking
it. It does not depend upon me; I depend upon it.... Moreover, who has
made this infinite representation of the infinite, so as to give it to
me? Has it made itself? Has the infinite image[62] of the infinite had
no original, according to which it has been made, no real cause that has
produced it? Where are we in relation to it? And what a mass of
extravagances! It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to conclude that
it is the infinitely perfect being that renders himself immediately
present to me, when I conceive him, and that he himself is the idea
which I have of him...."
Chap. iv., sect. 49. "... My ideas are myself; for they are my
reason.... My ideas, and the basis of myself, or of my mind, appear but
the same thing. On the other hand, my mind is changing, uncertain,
ignorant, subject to error, precipitate in its judgments, accustomed to
believe what it does not clearly understand, and to judge without having
sufficiently consulted its ideas, which are by themselves certain and
immutable. My ideas, then, are not myself, and I am not my ideas. What
shall I believe, then, they can be?... What then! are my ideas God?
They are superior to my mind, since they rectify and correct it; they
have the character of the Divinity, for they are universal and immutable
like God; they really subsist, according to a principle that we have
already established: nothing exists so really as that which is universal
and immutable. If that which is changing, transitory, and derived, truly
exists, much more does that which cannot change, and is necessary. It is
then necessary to find in nature something existing and real, that is,
my ideas, something that is within me, and is not myself, that is
superior to me, that is in me even when I am not thinking of it, with
which I believe myself to be alone, as though I were only with myself,
in fine, that is more present to me, and more intimate than my own
foundation. I know not what this something, so admirable, so familiar,
so unknown, can be, except God."
Let us now hear the most solid, the most authoritative of the Christian
doctors of the seventeenth century--let us hear Bossuet in his _Logic_,
and in the _Treatise on the Knowledge of God and Self_.[63]
Bossuet may be said to have had three masters in philosophy--St.
Augustine, St. Thomas, and Descartes. He had been taught at the college
of Navarre the doctrine of St. Thomas, that is to say, a modified
peripateticism; at the same time he was nourished by the reading of St.
Augustine, and out of the schools he found spread abroad the philosophy
of Descartes. He adopted it, and had no difficulty in reconciling it
with that of St. Augustine, while, upon more than one point, it
corroborated the doctrine of St. Thomas. Bossuet invented nothing in
philosophy; he received every thing, but every thing united and
purified, thanks to that supreme good sense which in him is a quality
predominating over force, grandeur, and eloquence.[64] In the passages
which I am about to exhibit to you, which I hope you will impress upon
your memories, you will not find the grace of Malebranche, the
exhaustless abundance of Fenelon; you will find what is better than
either, to wit, clearness and precision--all the rest in him is in some
sort an addition to these.
Fenelon disengages badly enough the process which conducts from ideas,
from universal and necessary truths, to God. Bossuet renders to himself
a strict account of this process, and marks it with force; it is the
principle that we have invoked, that which concludes from attributes in
a subject, from qualities in a being, from laws in a legislator, from
eternal verities in an eternal mind that comprehends them and eternally
possesses them. Bossuet cites St. Augustine, cites Plato himself,
interprets him and defends him in advance against those who would make
Platonic ideas beings subsisting by themselves, whilst they really exist
only in the mind of God.
_Logic_, book i., chap. xxxvi. "When I consider a rectilineal triangle
as a figure bounded by three straight lines, and having three angles
equal to two right angles, neither more nor less; and when I pass from
this to an equilateral triangle with its three sides and its three
angles equal, whence it follows, that I consider each angle of this
triangle as less than a right angle; and when I come again to consider a
right-angled triangle, and what I clearly see in this idea, in
connection with the preceding ideas, that the two angles of this
triangle are necessarily acute, and that these two acute angles are
exactly equal to one right angle, neither more nor less--I see nothing
contingent and mutable, and consequently, the ideas that represent to me
these truths are eternal. Were there not in nature a single equilateral
or right-angled triangle, or any triangle whatever, every thing that I
have just considered would remain always true and indubitable. In fact,
I am not sure of having ever seen an equilateral or rectilineal
triangle. Neither the rule nor the dividers could assure me that any
human hand, however skilful, could ever make a line exactly straight, or
sides and angles perfectly equal to each other. In strictness, we should
only need a microscope, in order, not to understand, but to see at a
glance, that the lines which we trace deviate from straightness, and
differ in length. We have never seen, then, any but imperfect images of
equilateral, rectilineal, or isosceles triangles, since they neither
exist in nature, nor can be constructed by art. Nevertheless, what we
see of the nature and the properties of a triangle, independently of
every existing triangle, is certain and indubitable. Place an
understanding in any given time, or at any point in eternity, thus to
speak, and it will see these truths equally manifest; they are,
therefore, eternal. Since the understanding does not give being to
truth, but is only employed in perceiving truth, it follows, that were
every created understanding destroyed, these truths would immutably
subsist...."
Chap. xxxvii. "Since there is nothing eternal, immutable, independent,
but God alone, we must conclude that these truths do not subsist in
themselves, but in God alone, and in his eternal ideas, which are
nothing else than himself.
"There are those who, in order to verify these eternal truths which we
have proposed, and others of the same nature, have figured to themselves
eternal essences aside from deity--a pure illusion, which comes from
not understanding that in God, as in the source of being, and in his
understanding, where resides the art of making and ordering all things,
are found primitive ideas, or as St. Augustine says, the eternally
subsisting reasons of things. Thus, in the thought of the architect is
the primitive idea of a house which he perceives in himself; this
intellectual house would not be destroyed by any ruin of houses built
according to this interior model; and if the architect were eternal, the
idea and the reason of the house would also be eternal. But, without
recurring to the mortal architect, there is an immortal architect, or
rather a primitive eternally subsisting art in the immutable thought of
God, where all order, all measure, all rule, all proportion, all reason,
in a word, all truth are found in their origin.
"These eternal verities which our ideas represent, are the true object
of science; and this is the reason why Plato, in order to render us
truly wise, continually reminds us of these ideas, wherein is seen, not
what is formed, but what is, not what is begotten and is corrupt, what
appears and vanishes, what is made and defective, but what eternally
subsists. It is this intellectual world which that divine philosopher
has put in the mind of God before the world was constructed, which is
the immutable model of that great work. These are the simple, eternal,
immutable, unbegotten, incorruptible ideas to which he refers us, in
order to understand truth. This is what has made him say that our ideas,
images of the divine ideas, were also immediately derived from the
divine ideas, and did not come by the senses, which serve very well,
said he, to awaken them, but not to form them in our mind. For if,
without having ever seen any thing eternal, we have so clear an idea of
eternity, that is to say, of being that is always the same; if, without
having perceived a perfect triangle, we understand it distinctly, and
demonstrate so many incontestable truths concerning it, it is a mark
that these ideas do not come from our senses."
_Treatise on the Knowledge of God and Self._[65] Chap. iv., sect. 5.
_Intelligence has for its object eternal truths, which are nothing else
than God himself, in whom they are always subsisting and perfectly
understood._
"... We have already remarked that the understanding has eternal
verities for its object. The standards by which we measure all things
are eternal and invariable. We know clearly that every thing in the
universe is made according to proportion, from the greatest to the
least, from the strongest to the weakest, and we know it well enough to
understand that these proportions are related to the principles of
eternal truth. All that is demonstrated in mathematics, and in any other
science whatever, is eternal and immutable, since the effect of the
demonstration is to show that the thing cannot be otherwise than as it
is demonstrated to be. So, in order to understand the nature and the
properties of things which I know, for example, a triangle, a square, a
circle, or the relations of these figures, and all other figures, to
each other, it is not necessary that I should find such in nature, and I
may be sure that I have never traced, never seen, any that are perfect.
Neither is it necessary that I should think that there is motion in the
world in order to understand the nature of motion itself, or that of the
lines which every motion describes, and the hidden proportions according
to which it is developed. When the idea of these things is once awakened
in my mind, I know that, whether they have an actual existence or not,
so they must be, that it is impossible for them to be of another nature,
or to be made in a different way. To come to something that concerns us
more nearly, I mean by these principles of eternal truth, that they do
not depend on human existence, that, so far as he is capable of
reasoning, it is the essential duty of man to live according to reason,
and to search for his maker, through fear of lacking the recognition of
his maker, if in fault of searching for him, he should be ignorant of
him. All these truths, and all those which I deduce from them by sure
reasoning, subsist independently of all time. In whatever time I place a
human understanding, it will know them, but in knowing them it will find
them truths, it will not make them such, for our cognitions do not make
their objects, but suppose them. So these truths subsist before all
time, before the existence of a human understanding: and were every
thing that is made according to the laws of proportion, that is to say,
every thing that I see in nature, destroyed except myself, these laws
would be preserved in my thought, and I should clearly see that they
would always be good and always true, were I also destroyed with the
rest.
"If I seek how, where, and in what subject they subsist eternal and
immutable, as they are, I am obliged to avow the existence of a being in
whom truth is eternally subsisting, in whom it is always understood; and
this being must be truth itself, and must be all truth, and from him it
is that truth is derived in every thing that exists and has
understanding out of him.
"It is, then, in him, in a certain manner, who is incomprehensible[66]
to me, it is in him, I say, that I see these eternal truths; and to see
them is to turn to him who is immutably all truth, and to receive his
light.
"This eternal object is God eternally subsisting, eternally true,
eternally truth itself.... It is in this eternal that these eternal
truths subsist. It is also by this that I see them. All other men see
them as well as myself, and we see them always the same, and as having
existed before us. For we know that we have commenced, and we know that
these truths have always been. Thus we see them in a light superior to
ourselves, and it is in this superior light that we see whether we act
well or ill, that is to say, whether we act according to these
constitutive principles of our being or not. In that, then, we see, with
all other truths, the invariable rules of our conduct, and we see that
there are things in regard to which duty is indispensable, and that in
things which are naturally indifferent, the true duty is to accommodate
ourselves to the greatest good of society. A well-disposed man conforms
to the civil laws, as he conforms to custom. But he listens to an
inviolable law in himself, which says to him that he must do wrong to no
one, that it is better to be injured than to injure.... The man who sees
these truths, by these truths judges himself, and condemns himself when
he errs. Or, rather, these truths judge him, since they do not
accommodate themselves to human judgments, but human judgments are
accommodated to them. And the man judges rightly when, feeling these
judgments to be variable in their nature, he gives them for a rule these
eternal verities.
"These eternal verities which every understanding always perceives the
same, by which every understanding is governed, are something of God, or
rather, are God himself....
"Truth must somewhere be very perfectly understood, and man is to
himself an indubitable proof of this. For, whether he considers himself
or extends his vision to the beings that surround him, he sees every
thing subjected to certain laws, and to immutable rules of truth. He
sees that he understands these laws, at least in part,--he who has
neither made himself, nor any part of the universe, however small, and
he sees that nothing could have been made had not these laws been
elsewhere perfectly understood; and he sees that it is necessary to
recognize an eternal wisdom wherein all law, all order, all proportion,
have their primitive reason. For it is absurd to suppose that there is
so much sequence in truths, so much proportion in things, so much
economy in their arrangement, that is to say, in the world, and that
this sequence, this proportion, this economy, should nowhere be
understood:--and man, who has made nothing, veritably knowing these
things, although not fully knowing them, must judge that there is some
one who knows them in their perfection, and that this is he who has made
all things...."
Sect. 6 is wholly Cartesian. Bossuet there demonstrates that the soul
knows by the imperfection of its own intelligence that there is
elsewhere a perfect intelligence.
In sect. 9, Bossuet elucidates anew the relation of truth to God.