saying that it exhausts God? By no means. Let us always consult
psychology. I know myself only by my acts; that is certain; and what is
not less certain is, that all my acts do not exhaust, do not equal my
power and my substance; for my power, at least that of my will, can
always add an act to all those which it has already produced, and it has
the consciousness, at the same time that it is exercised, of containing
in itself something to be exercised still. Of God and the world must be
said two things in appearance contrary,--we know God only by the world,
and God is essentially distinct and different from the world. The first
cause, like all secondary causes, manifests itself only by its effects;
it can even be conceived only by them, and it surpasses them by all of
the difference between the Creator and the created, the perfect and the
imperfect. The world is indefinite; it is not infinite; for, whatever
may be its quantity, thought can always add to it. To the myriads of
worlds that compose the totality of the world, may be added new worlds.
But God is infinite, absolutely infinite in his essence, and an
indefinite series cannot equal the infinite; for the indefinite is
nothing else than the finite more or less multiplied and capable of
continuous multiplication. The world is a whole which has its harmony;
for a God could make only a complete and harmonious work. The harmony of
the world corresponds to the unity of God, as indefinite quantity is a
defective sign of the infinity of God. To say that the world is God, is
to admit only the world and deny God. Give to this whatever name you
please, it is at bottom atheism. On the one hand, to suppose that the
world is void of God, and that God is separate from the world, is an
insupportable and almost impossible abstraction. To distinguish is not
to separate. I distinguish myself, but do not separate myself from my
qualities and my acts. So God is not the world, although he is in it
everywhere present in spirit and in truth.[283]
Such is our theodicea: it rejects the excesses of all systems, and
contains, we believe at least, all that is good in them. From sentiment
it borrows a personal God as we ourselves are a person, and from reason
a necessary, eternal, infinite God. In the presence of two opposite
systems,--one of which, in order to see and feel God in the world,
absorbs him in it; the other of which, in order not to confound God with
the world, separates him from it and relegates him to an inaccessible
solitude,--it gives to both just satisfaction by offering to them a God
who is in fact in the world, since the world is his work, but without
his essence being exhausted in it, a God who is both absolute unity and
unity multiplied, infinite and living, immutable and the principle of
movement, supreme intelligence and supreme truth, sovereign justice and
sovereign goodness, before whom the world and man are like nonentity,
who, nevertheless, is pleased with the world and man, substance eternal,
and cause inexhaustible, impenetrable, and everywhere perceptible, who
must by turns be sought in truth, admired in beauty, imitated, even at
an infinite distance, in goodness and justice, venerated and loved,
continually studied with an indefatigable zeal, and in silence adored.
Let us sum up this _resume_. Setting out from the observation of
ourselves in order to preserve ourselves from hypothesis, we have found
in consciousness three orders of facts. We have left to each of them its
character, its rank, its bearing, and its limits. Sensation has appeared
to us the indispensable condition, but not the foundation of knowledge.
Reason is the faculty itself of knowing; it has furnished us with
absolute principles, and these absolute principles have conducted us to
absolute truths. Sentiment, which pertains at once to sensation and
reason, has found a place between both. Setting out from consciousness,
but always guided by it, we have penetrated into the region of being; we
have gone quite naturally from knowledge to its objects by the road that
the human race pursues, that Kant sought in vain, or rather misconceived
at pleasure, to wit, that reason which must be admitted entire or
rejected entire, which reveals to us existences as well as truths.
Therefore, after having recalled all the great metaphysical, aesthetical,
and moral truths, we have referred them to their principle; with the
human race we have pronounced the name of God, who explains all things,
because he has made all things, whom all our faculties require,--reason,
the heart, the senses, since he is the author of all our faculties.
This doctrine is so simple, is to such an extent in all our powers, is
so conformed to all our instincts, that it scarcely appears a
philosophic doctrine, and, at the same time, if you examine it more
closely, if you compare it with all celebrated doctrines, you will find
that it is related to them and differs from them, that it is none of
them and embraces them all, that it expresses precisely the side of them
that has made them live and sustains them in history. But that is only
the scientific character of the doctrine which we present to you; it has
still another character which distinguishes it and recommends it to you
much more. The spirit that animates it is that which of old inspired
Socrates, Plato, and Marcus Aurelius, which makes your hearts beat when
you are reading Corneille and Bossuet, which dictated to Vauvenargues
the few pages that have immortalized his name, which you feel especially
in Reid, sustained by an admirable good sense, and even in Kant, in the
midst of, and superior to the embarrassments of his metaphysics, to wit,
the taste of the beautiful and the good in all things, the passionate
love of honesty, the ardent desire of the moral grandeur of humanity.
Yes, we do not fear to repeat that we tend thither by all our views; it
is the end to which are related all the parts of our instruction; it is
the thought which serves as their connection, and is, thus to speak,
their soul. May this thought be always present to you, and accompany you
as a faithful and generous friend, wherever fortune shall lead you,
under the tent of the soldier, in the office of the lawyer, of the
physician, of the savant, in the study of the literary man, as well as
in the studio of the artist! Finally, may it sometimes remind you of him
who has been to you its very sincere but too feeble interpreter!
FOOTNOTES:
[263] Still living in 1818, died in 1828.
[264] In 1804.
[265] Died, 1814.
[266] This was said in 1818. Since then, Jacobi, Hegel, and
Schleiermacher, with so many others, have disappeared. Schelling alone
survives the ruins of the German philosophy.
[267] FRAGMENTS DE PHILOSOPHIE CARTESIENNE, p. 429: _Des Rapports du
Cartesienisme et du Spinozisme_.
[268] Part 1st, lectures 1 and 2.
[269] Part 2d.
[270] Part 3d.
[271] On Condillac, 1st Series, vol. i., _passim_, and particularly vol.
iii., lectures 2 and 3.
[272] We have never spoken of Locke except with sincere respect, even
while combating him. See 1st Series, vol. i., course of 1817, _Discours
d'Ouverture_, vol. ii., lecture 1, and especially 2d Series, vol. iii.,
_passim_.
[273] See 1st Series, vol. iv., lectures on Reid.
[274] _Ibid._, vol. v.
[275] For more than twenty years we have thought of translating and
publishing the three _Critiques_, joining to them a selection from the
smaller productions of Kant. Time has been wanting to us for the
completion of our design; but a young and skilful professor of
philosophy, a graduate of the Normal School, has been willing to supply
our place, and to undertake to give to the French public a faithful and
intelligent version of the greatest thinker of the eighteenth century.
M. Barni has worthily commenced the useful and difficult enterprise
which we have remitted to his zeal, and pursues it with courage and
talent.
[276] Part 1st, Lecture 3.
[277] Lecture 5, _Mysticism_.
[278] This pretended proof of sentiment is in fact, the Cartesian proof
itself. See lectures 4 and 16.
[279] M. Jacobi. See the _Manual of the History of Philosophy_, by
Tennemann, vol. ii., p. 318.
[280] On spontaneous reason and reflective reason, see 1st part, lect. 2
and 3.
[281] Lectures 4 and 5.
[282] See particularly lecture 5.
[283] We place here this analogous passage on the true measure in which
it may be said that God is at once comprehensible and incomprehensible,
1st Series, vol. iv., lecture 12, p. 12: "We say in the first place that
God is not absolutely incomprehensible, for this manifest reason, that,
being the cause of this universe, he passes into it, and is reflected in
it, as the cause in the effect; therefore we recognize him. 'The heavens
declare his glory.' and 'the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made;' his power, in the thousands of worlds sown in the boundless
regions of space; his intelligence in their harmonious laws; finally,
that which there is in him most august, in the sentiments of virtue, of
holiness, and of love, which the heart of man contains. It must be that
God is not incomprehensible to us, for all nations have petitioned him,
since the first day of the intellectual life of humanity. God, then, as
the cause of the universe, reveals himself to us; but God is not only
the cause of the universe, he is also the perfect and infinite cause,
possessing in himself, not a relative perfection, which is only a degree
of imperfection, but an absolute perfection, an infinity which is not
only the finite multiplied by itself in those proportions which the
human mind is able always to enumerate, but a true infinity, that is,
the absolute negation of all limits, in all the powers of his being.
Moreover, it is not true that an indefinite effect adequately expresses
an infinite cause; hence it is not true that we are able absolutely to
comprehend God by the world and by man, for all of God is not in them.
In order absolutely to comprehend the infinite, it is necessary to have
an infinite power of comprehension, and that is not granted to us. God,
in manifesting himself, retains something in himself which nothing
finite can absolutely manifest; consequently, it is not permitted us to
comprehend absolutely. There remains, then, in God, beyond the universe
and man, something unknown, impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence in the
immeasurable spaces of the universe, and beneath all the profundities of
the human soul, God escapes us in that inexhaustible infinitude, whence
he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new beings, new
manifestations. God is to us, therefore, incomprehensible; but even of
this incomprehensibility we have a clear and precise idea; for we have
the most precise idea of infinity. And this idea is not in us a
metaphysical refinement, it is a simple and primitive conception which
enlightens us from our entrance into this world, both luminous and
obscure, explaining everything, and being explained by nothing, because
it carries us at first, to the summit and the limit of all explanation.
There is something inexplicable for thought,--behold then whither
thought tends; there is infinite being,--behold then the necessary
principle of all relative and finite beings. Reason explains not the
inexplicable, it conceives it. It is not able to comprehend infinity in
an absolute manner, but it comprehends it in some degree in its
indefinite manifestations, which reveal it, and which veil it; and,
further, as it has been said, it comprehend it so far as
incomprehensible. It is, therefore, an equal error to call God
absolutely comprehensible, and absolutely incomprehensible. He is both
invisible and present, revealed and withdrawn in himself, in the world
and out of the world, so familiar and intimate with his creatures, that
we see him by opening our eyes, that we feel him in feeling our hearts
beat, and at the same time inaccessible in his impenetrable majesty,
mingled with every thing, and separated from every thing, manifesting
himself in universal life, and causing scarcely an ephemeral shadow of
his eternal essence to appear there, communicating himself without
cessation, and remaining incommunicable, at once the living God, and the
God concealed, '_Deus vivus et Deus absconditus_.'"
APPENDIX.
Page 188: "What a destiny was that of Eustache Lesueur!"
It is perceived that we have followed, as regards his death, the
tradition, or rather the prejudices current at the present day, and
which have misled the best judges before us. But there have appeared in
a recent and interesting publication, called _Archives de l'Art
francais_, vol. iii., certain incontrovertible documents, never before
published, on the life and works of the painter of St. Bruno, which
compel us to withdraw certain assertions agreeable to general opinion,
but contrary to truth. The notice of Lesueur's death, extracted for the
first time from the _Register of Deaths of the parish church of
Saint-Louis in the isle of Notre-Dame_, preserved amongst the archives
of the Hotel de Ville at Paris, clearly prove that he did not die at the
Chartreux, but in the isle of Notre-Dame, where he dwelt, in the parish
of St. Louis, and that he was buried in the church of Saint-Etienne du
Mont, the resting-place of Pascal and Racine. It appears also that
Lesueur died before his wife, Genevieve Gousse, since the _Register of
Births_ of the parish of Saint-Louis, contains under the date 18th
February, 1655, a notice of the baptism of a fourth child of Lesueur.
Now, Genevieve Gousse must have deceased almost immediately after her
confinement, supposing her to have died before her husband's decease,
which occurred on the 1st of the following May. If this were the case,
we should have found a notice of her death in the _Register of Deaths_
for the year 1655, as we do that of her husband. Such a notice, however,
which could alone disprove the probability, and authenticate the vulgar
opinion, is nowhere to be found amongst the archives of the Hotel de
Ville, at least the author of the _Nouvelles Recherches_ has nowhere
been able to meet with it.
In the other particulars our rapid sketch of Lesueur's history remains
untouched. He never was in Italy; and according to the account of
Guillet de Saint-Georges, which has so long remained in manuscript, he
never desired to go there. He was poor, discreet, and pious, tenderly
loved his wife, and lived in the closest union with his three brothers
and brother-in-law, who were all pupils and fellow-laborers of his. It
appears to be a refinement of criticism which denies the current belief
of an acquaintance between Lesueur and Poussin. If no document
authenticates it, at all events it is not contradicted by any, and
appears to us to be highly probable.
Every one admits that Lesueur studied and admired Poussin. It would
certainly be strange if he did not seek his acquaintance, which he could
have obtained without difficulty, since Poussin was staying at Paris
from 1640 to 1642. It would be difficult for them not to have met. After
Vouet's death in 1641, Lesueur acquired more and more a peculiar style;
and in 1642, at the age of twenty-five, entirely unshackled, and with a
taste ripe for the antique and Raphael, he must frequently have been at
the Louvre, where Poussin resided. Thus it is natural to suppose that
they frequently saw each other and became acquainted, and with their
sympathies of character and talent, acquaintance must have resulted in
esteem and love. If Poussin's letters do not mention Lesueur, we would
remark that neither do they mention Champagne, whose connection with
Poussin is not disputed. The argument built on the silence of Guillet de
Saint-Georges' account is far from convincing; inasmuch as being
intended to be read before a Sitting of the Academy, it could only
contain a notice of the great artist's career, without those
biographical details in which his friendships would be mentioned.
Lastly, it is impossible to deny Poussin's influence upon Lesueur, which
it seems to us at least probable was as much due to his counsels as to
his example.
Page 190: "But the marvel of the picture is the figure of St. Paul."
We have recently seen, at Hampton Court, the seven cartoons of Raphael,
which should not be looked at, still less criticised, but on bended
knee. Behold Raphael arrived at the summit of his art, and in the last
years of life! And these were but drawings for tapestry! These drawings
alone would reward the journey to England, even were the figures from
the friezes of the Parthenon not at the _British Museum_. One never
tires of contemplating these grand performances even in the obscurity
of that ill-lighted room. Nothing could be more noble, more magnificent,
more imposing, more majestic. What draperies, what attitudes, what
forms! Notwithstanding the absence of color, the effect is immense; the
mind is struck, at once charmed and transported; but the soul, we can
speak for ourselves, remains well-nigh insensible. We request any one to
compare carefully the sixth cartoon, clearly one of the finest,
representing the Preaching of St. Paul at Ephesus, with the painting we
have described of Lesueur's. One, immediately and at the first sight,
transports you into the regions of the ideal; the other is less striking
at first, but stay, consider it well, study it in detail, then take in
the whole: by degrees you are overcome by an ever-increasing emotion.
Above all, examine in both the principal character, St. Paul. Here, you
behold the fine long folds of a superb robe which at once envelops and
sets off his height, whilst the figure is in shade, and the little you
see of it has nothing striking. There he confronts you, inspired,
terrible, majestic. Now say which side lays claim to moral effect.
Page 193: "The great works of Lesueur, Poussin, and so many others
scattered over Europe."
Of all the paintings of Lesueur which are in England, that which we
regret most not having seen is _Alexander and his Physician_, painted
for M. de Nouveau, director-general of the _Postes_, which passed from
the Hotel Nouveau to the Place Royale in the Orleans Gallery, from
thence into England, where it was bought by Lady Lucas at the great
London sale in 1800. The sale catalogue, with the prices and names of
the purchasers, will be found at the end of vol. i. of M. Waagen's
excellent work, _Oeuvres d'Art et Artistes en Angleterre_, 2 vols.,
Berlin, 1837 and 1838.
We were both consoled and agreeably surprised on our return, to meet, in
the valuable gallery of M. le Comte d'Houdetot, an ancient peer of
France, and free member of the Academy of Fine Arts, with another
Alexander and his physician Philip, in which the hand of Lesueur cannot
be mistaken. The composition of the entire piece is perfect. The drawing
is exquisite. The amplitude and nobleness of the draperies recall those
of Raphael. The form of Alexander fine and languid; the person of Philip
the physician grave and imposing. The coloring, though not powerful, is
finely blended in tone. Now, where is the true original, is it with M.
Houdetot or in England? The painting sold in London in 1800 certainly
came from the Orleans' gallery, which would seem most likely to have
possessed the original. On the other hand, it is impossible M.
Houdetot's picture is a copy. They must, therefore, both be equally the
work of Lesueur, who has in this instance treated the same subject twice
over, as he has likewise done the Preaching of St. Paul; of which there
is another, smaller than that at the Louvre, but equally admirable, at
the Place Royale, belonging to M. Girou de Buzariengues, corresponding
member of the Academy of Sciences.[284]
We borrow M. Waagen's description of the works of Lesueur, found by that
eminent critic in the English collections: _The Queen of Sheba before
Solomon_, the property of the Duke of Devonshire, vol. i., p. 245.
_Christ at the foot of the Cross supported by his Family_, belonging to
the Earl of Shrewsbury, vol. ii., p. 463, "the sentiment deep and
truthful," remarks M. Waagen. _The Magdalen pouring the ointment on the
feet of Jesus_, the property of Lord Exeter, vol. ii., p. 485, "a
picture full of the purest sentiment;" lastly, in the possession of M.
Miles, a _Death of Germanicus_, "a rich and noble composition,
completely in Poussin's style," remarks M. Waagen, vol. ii., p. 356. Let
us add that this last work is not met with in any catalogue, ancient or
modern. We ask ourselves whether this may not be a copy of the
Germanicus of Poussin attributed to Lesueur.
The author of _Musees d'Allemagne et du Russie_ (Paris, 1844) mentions
at Berlin a _Saint Bruno adoring the Cross in his Cell, opening upon a
landscape_, and pretends that this picture is as pathetic as the best
Saint Brunos in the Museum at Paris. It is probably a sketch, like the
one we have, or one of the wanting panels; for as for the pictures
themselves, there were never more than twenty-two at the Chartreux, and
these are at the Louvre. Perhaps, however, it may be the picture which
Lesueur made for M. Bernard de Roze, see Florent Lecomte, vol. iii., p.
98, which represented a Carthusian in a cell. At St. Petersburg, the
catalogue of the Hermitage mentions seven pictures of Lesueur, one of
which, _The infant Moses exposed on the Nile_, is admitted by the author
cited to be authentic. Can this be one of two _Moses_ which were painted
by Lesueur for M. de Nouveau, as we learn from Guillet de Saint-Georges?
Unless M. Viardot is deceived, and mistakes a copy for an original, we
must regret that a real Lesueur should Lave been suffered to stray to
St. Petersburg, with many of Poussin's most beautiful Claudes (see p.
474), Mignards, Sebastian Bourdons, Gaspars, Stellas, and Valentins.
Some years ago, at the sale of Cardinal Fesch's gallery, we might have
acquired one of Lesueur's finest pieces, executed for the church of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, which had got, by some chance, into the
possession of Chancellor Pontchartrain, afterwards into that of the
Emperor's uncle. This celebrated picture, _Christ with Martha and Mary_,
formed at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, a pendent to the _Martyrdom of St.
Lawrence_. Will it be believed that the French Government lost the
opportunity, and permitted this little _chef-d'oeuvre_ to pass into
the hands of the King of Bavaria? A good copy at Marseilles was thought,
doubtless, sufficient, and the original was left to find its way to the
gallery at Munich, and meet again the _St. Louis on his knees at Mass_,
which the catalogue of that gallery attributes to Lesueur, on what
ground we are not aware. In conclusion, we may mention that there is in
the Museum at Brussels, a charming little Lesueur, _The Saviour giving
his Blessing_, and in the Museums of Grenoble and Montpelier several
fragments of the _History of Tobias_, painted for M. de Fieubet.
Page 193: "Those master-pieces of art that honor the nation depart
without authorization from the national territory! There has not been
found a government which has undertaken at least to repurchase those
that we have lost, to get back again the great works of Poussin,
Lesueur, and so many others, scattered in Europe, instead of squandering
millions to acquire the baboons of Holland, as Louis XIV. said, or
Spanish canvases, in truth of an admirable color, but without nobleness
and moral expression."
Shall we give a recent instance of the small value we appear to set on
Poussin? We blush to think that in 1848 we should have permitted the
noble collection of M. de Montcalm to pass into England. One picture
escaped: it was put up to sale in Paris on the 5th of March, 1850. It
was a charming Poussin, undoubtedly authentic, from the Orleans gallery,
and described at length in the catalogue of Dubois de Saint-Gelais. It
represented the _Birth of Bacchus_, and by its variety of scenes and
multitude of ideas, showed it belonged to Poussin's best period. We must
do Normandy, rather the city of Rouen, the justice to say, that it made
an effort to acquire it, but it was unsupported by Government; and this
composition, wholly French, was sold at Paris for the sum of 17,000
francs, to a foreigner, Mr. Hope.