Kant's evolution, which makes dogmatism to result from scepticism, was
an entirely moral evolution, substituting for speculative the authority
of practical reason. The evolution we have now to deal with is of a
quite different character; it consists in passing from objective to
subjective knowledge, from the object to the subject. Even if all that
has been just said on the side of criticism were true, there is at least
invariably one existence that remains untouched by it: this existence is
that of the thinking subject, and this existence is incontestable. What
appears to us as a circle to the circumference are objects, in the
centre is the subject. We do not confound ourselves with our sensations,
we distinguish between them and ourselves. Can, then, this consciousness
of the thinking subject be no more than the transformation of external
events? No; for all exterior events reduce themselves to one--_i.e._,
motion; and all interior events to one--_i.e._, thought. There is no
transition or transformation possible between one of these phenomena and
the other. "We acknowledge," says a distinguished savant, Professor
Tyndall, "that a definite thought and a molecular action of the brain
occur simultaneously, but we do not possess the essential organ, nor
even a rudiment of the organ we should require in order to pass by
reasoning from the one to the other." Thus, then, the subject exists and
is not reducible to the object. Shall we say that this subject is
nothing more than a sum of phenomena? But what adds up these phenomena?
A common bond is needed. Have we any consciousness of such a bond?
"Yes," replies our author, "we call internal states of consciousness,
past, present, or possible; we attribute them to ourselves, we say that
they take place within us. What does this mean if the _ego_ to which we
refer them is only their succession? How comprehend the continuity of
consciousness?" In a word, our author admits absolutely that the _ego_
has a consciousness of its own being, as distinct from its sensations
and from external objects. "It is," he says, "an activity constantly
modified, but yet always one, which dominating its states refers them
to the unity of one same consciousness."
Here, then, we have, without possibility of mistake, the fundamental
doctrine of the spiritualistic philosophy of Descartes, Leibnitz, Maine
de Biran, and Jouffroy. By laying down this principle the author
believes himself enabled to reinstate that metaphysic which criticism
had condemned. We, for our part, have no doubt of this; but we fail to
see how the author can at the same time hold this principle and the
Kantian principle of idealism. The "Kritik" of Kant bears upon the
subject as well as the object; according to it both the one and the
other are unknowable and incomprehensible noumena. The human mind is but
a complex compound of sensations and categories, the unity of which is
reached by the same process as the unity of external objects. No doubt
Kant is, indeed, obliged to concede something to the _ego_, the _cogito_
as he calls it; but he does not very clearly say what it is; it is not a
substance, not a category, not a result. "It is," says he, "the vehicle
of all categories." What can be more vague? The metaphor shows both how
little disposed Kant was to assign its due part to the _ego_--how vague
and uncertain he left it, and at the same time how he was forced to take
it into account. The _ego_, the active, continuous, self-conscious
_ego_, is the rock ahead to Kant's philosophy. For how dispute the
consciousness of substance and of cause, when one admits "a continuous
activity dominating all states of consciousness and reducing them to
unity?"
What, then, is substance, according to our author? It is, he says,
something that does not change considered as the necessary condition of
that which changes. What is cause? Is it not the power of initiating any
given movement? Now, this same consciousness which gives us the _ego_ as
a continuous activity, does it not in so doing give it us as the
condition of phenomena and as the productive cause of movement in
voluntary efforts? Consequently, to grant that the _ego_ knows itself as
_ego_, and as activity, is in point of fact to restore the notions of
cause and substance which had been done away with. At most all that has
been gained from criticism is the difficulty of comprehending substance
and cause without objective, that is, material form. Its results, then,
amount only to the incomprehensibility of matter. But the cause of
metaphysic is not to be confounded with that of matter; metaphysic is
not tied to the existence of materialism; and were it even led in
self-defence to deny the very existence of matter altogether, one does
not see that such a negation need cost it much. Descartes did not
hesitate to place the existence of bodies in doubt, in order to save the
existence of spirit. Malebranche did not believe that the existence of
bodies could be proved except by revelation. Leibnitz did not think that
bodies were more than phenomena, the reality of which was spiritual.
There is, then, no common cause between the interests of metaphysic, or
of what Kant calls _dogmatism_, and the question of material
objectivity, which may be left open without compromising the
fundamental basis of things. How, then, can our author appear to assign
the victory to criticism while in reality depriving it of its chief
support by restoring to the _ego_ the immediate consciousness of itself
as a being, one, active, permanent, and continuous? Kant may have played
this game, because, in effect, outside of criticism, he only admits
moral reasons for reinstating dogmatism. But although our author follows
him too on that ground, he nevertheless enters in point of fact upon an
entirely different path when he invokes immediate consciousness as a
guarantee of the existence and activity of the mind. These are not moral
and practical, but metaphysical reasons. Metaphysic, then, independently
of morality, has its own proper foundation, which, far from being
affected by criticism, is the very foundation of criticism itself. This
foundation once admitted, are we entitled to declare metaphysic no
science? We hold that we are not. Doubtless, if by science be meant an
absolutely adequate knowledge of the object, such as mathematics
affords, metaphysic cannot pretend to such knowledge; but we have here
only a question of degree. The perfection of a science is not the same
thing as its existence. A science is what it is by reason of the
difficulties its objects present, and the imperfections of its method;
but it is science none the less if it possesses a given object and a
solid foundation. Now, such a foundation is admitted by our author when
he admits the intuition of the _ego_ by itself; and hence it is no
longer a mere question of words to refuse the name of science to the
series of deductions that may be drawn from a principle which has been
admitted valid.
If our author grants the foundation of metaphysics by adhering to the
Cartesian principle of the immediate knowledge of the mind by itself, he
at the same time acknowledges its most elevated term by defending the
existence of an absolute perfection, a supreme type of spirituality. "If
in ourselves," he says, "relatively perfect ideas realize themselves in
virtue of their relative perfection, why should not the total perfection
from whence they are derived exist? There is nothing contradictory in
such an absolute." Is not this to admit the doctrine of the perfect
being as the Cartesian School has constantly expressed it? but is it
enough _to_ say that the total perfection _may_ exist, enough to inquire
why it should not exist? Should we not go further, and say with Bossuet,
"On the contrary, perfection is the reason of being." Here we are forced
to allow, in the views, or at all events in the expressions of our
author, a fluctuation and uncertainty which now impel him towards the
critical, and now towards the metaphysical position, without his
arriving at a sufficiently decided conclusion. "The absolute," he says,
"would then be the ideal of moral perfection. But by such a definition
do we not compromise its reality?" To which doubt he replies that the
"true reality is precisely the ideal." Now, this is an equivocal and
obscure reply, demanding explanation. No doubt the reality claimed for
the perfect being is not a sensible and material reality. But there is
another than material reality--there is a spiritual, such as is
manifested to us in the reality of consciousness, in the immediate
activity and intuition of our being. We may, indeed, style this sort of
existence _ideal_, in opposition to material existence; but the
expression is incorrect, for that which, properly speaking, is an ideal
existence is one merely represented to the mind when thinking of
something that no longer exists, does not yet exist, nor ever will
exist. Now, the question is, whether the moral absolute, of which we
have just had the definition given, belongs to the first or to the
second of these ideals; whether it exists for itself, or only for us, in
so far as we think it, and while we think it. For a mode of existence
like this, dependent on our own thought, is very far from being the
supreme reality; it is only a modal and subjective reality. Thus our
author, we see, expresses himself too uncertainly. Nevertheless, his own
principles sufficiently authorized him to declare himself with more
precision. Indeed, we have seen, on the one hand, that he, with Mr.
Herbert Spencer, affirms the existence of the absolute; and, on the
other hand, that he acknowledges the concept of total perfection to be
in nowise contradictory. Granting so much, must not absolute perfection
be the reason of the existence of the absolute, as relative perfection
is the reason of the existence of the relative? If, however, any choose
to call that supreme perfection the _Idea_, with Hegel--as Plato calls
it the _Good_, Aristotle the pure _Act_, Descartes the _Infinitely
Perfect Being_--we have nothing to object, so long as it be clearly
understood that the _idea_ shall signify the identity of the thought and
the being, and not merely a subjective conception of the human mind.
To sum up: it results from what has been already said, that spite of his
powers of thought, the author has not been able to escape a certain
fluctuation between criticism and spiritualism, and has only arrived at
a contradictory compromise between the two conceptions. From criticism
he borrows the ideality of the notions of space, time, substance, cause,
and the idea of a moral absolute founded on purely moral motives. From
spiritualism he borrows the existence of the absolute as the necessary
correlative of the relative, and the consciousness of the subject which
perceives itself in its continuity as the cause of its phenomena; and,
finally, the idea of a total perfection, which may, without involving
any contradiction, have the reason of its existence in itself. These two
orders of conception are not so closely connected as they should be; too
much is conceded to criticism, too little to metaphysic; and M. Liard
inclines overmuch to give to morality the exorbitant privilege of
deciding between the two.