_Of Pantheism; or of the Natural Ideas of the Divinity._
The false principle that matter is not self-existent; that by its nature
it is in an impossibility to move itself; consequently incompetent to
the production of those striking phenomena which arrest our wondering
eyes in the wide expanse of the universe; it will be obvious, to all who
seriously attend to what has preceded, is the origin of the proofs
upon which theology rests the existence of immateriality. After these
suppositions, as gratuitous as they are erroneous, the fallacy of which
we have exposed elsewhere, it has been believed that matter did not
always exist, but that its existence, as well as its motion, is a
production of time; due to a cause distinguished from itself; to an
unknown agent to whom it is subordinate. As man finds in his own species
a quality which he calls intelligence, which presides over all his
actions, by the aid of which he arrives at the end he proposes to
himself; he has clothed this invisible agent with this quality, which
he has extended beyond the limits of his own conception: he magnified it
thus, because, having made him the author of effects of which he found
himself incapable, he did not conceive it possible that the intelligence
he himself possessed, unless it was prodigiously amplified, would
be sufficient to account for those productions, to which his erring
judgment led him to conclude the natural energy of physical causes were
not adequate.
As this agent was invisible, as his mode of action was inconceivable, he
made him a spirit, a word that really means nothing more than that he
is ignorant of his essence, or that he acts like the breath of which
he cannot trace the motion. Thus, in speaking of spirituality, he
designated an occult quality, which he deemed suitable to a concealed
being, whose mode of action was always imperceptible to the senses. It
would appear, however, that originally the word spirit was not meant to
designate immateriality; but a matter of a more subtile nature than
that which acted coarsely on the organs: still of a nature capable
of penetrating the grosser matter--of communicating to it
motion--of instilling into it active life--of giving birth to those
combinations--of imparting to them those modifications, which his
organic structure rendered him competent to discover. Such was, as
has been shewn, that all-powerful Jupiter, who in the theology of the
ancients, was originally destined to represent the etherial, subtile
matter that penetrates, vivifies, and gives activity to all the bodies
of which nature is the common assemblage.
It would be grossly deceiving ourselves to believe that the idea of
spirituality, such as the subtilty of dreaming metaphysicians present it
in these days, was that which offered itself to our forefathers in the
early stages of the human mind. This immateriality, which excludes all
analogy with any thing but itself--which bears no resemblance to any
thing of which man is capacitated to have a knowledge, was, as we have
already observed, the slow, the tardy fruit of his imagination, after
he had quitted experience, and renounced his reason. Men reared in
luxurious leisure, unceasingly meditating, without the assistance
of those natural helps with which attentive observation would
have furnished them, by degrees arrived at the formation of this
incomprehensible quality, which is so fugitive, that although man has
been compelled to reverence it, to accredit it against all the evidence
of his senses, they have never yet been enabled to give any other
explanation of its nature, than by using a term to which it is
impossible to attach any intelligible idea. Seraphis said, with tears
in his eyes, "that in making him adopt the opinion of spirituality, they
had deprived him of his God." Many fathers of the church have given a
human form to the Divinity, and treated all those as heretics who made
him spiritual. Thus by dint of reasoning, by force of subtilizing, the
word spirit no longer presents any one image upon which the mind can fix
itself; when they are desirous to speak of it, it becomes impossible
to understand them, seeing that each visionary paints it after his own
manner; and in the portrait he forms, consults only his own temperament,
follows nothing but his own imagination, adopts nothing but his own
peculiar reveries; the only point in which they are at all in unison, is
in assigning to it inconceivable qualities, which they naturally
enough believe are best suited to the incomprehensible beings they have
delineated: from the incompatible heap of these qualities, generally
resulted a whole, whose existence they thus rendered impossible. In
short, this word, which has occupied the research of so many learned and
intelligent men; which is considered of such importance to mankind, has
been, in consequence of theological reveries, always fluctuating:
these never bearing the least resemblance to each other, it has become
destitute of any fixed sense, a mere sound, to which each who echoes it
affixes his own peculiar ideas, which are never in harmony with those of
his neighbour; which indeed are not even steady in himself, but like
the camelion, assume the colour of every differing circumstance. This
unintelligible word has been substituted for the more intelligible
one of matter; man, when clothed with power, has entertained the most
rancorous antipathies, pursued the most barbarous persecutions, against
those who have not been enabled to contemplate this changeable idea
under the same point of view with himself.
There have, however, been men who had sufficient courage to resist this
torrent of opinion--to oppose themselves to this delirium; who have
believed, that the object which was announced as the most important
for mortals, as the sole object worthy of their thoughts, demanded an
attentive examination; who apprehended that if experience could be of
any utility, if judgment could afford any advantage, if reason was of
any use whatever, it must, most unquestionably be, to consider this
quality so opposed to every thing in nature, which was said to regulate
all the beings which she contains. These quickly saw they could not
subscribe to the general opinion of the uninformed, who never examine
any thing, who take every thing upon the credit of others; much less was
it consistent with sound sense to agree with their guides, who, either
deceivers or deceived, forbade others to submit it to the scrutiny of
reason; who were themselves frequently in an utter incapacity to pass it
under such an ordeal. Thus some thinkers, disgusted with the obscure
and contradictory notions which others had through habit mechanically
attached to this incomprehensible property, had the temerity to shake
off the yoke which had been imposed upon them from their infancy:
calling reason to their aid against those terrors with which they
alarmed the ignorant, revolting at the hideous descriptions under which
they attempted to defend their hypothesis, they had the intrepidity to
tear the veil of delusion; to rend asunder the barriers of imposture;
they considered with calm resolution, this formidable prejudice,
contemplated with a serene eye this unsupported opinion, examined with
cool deliberation this fluctuating notion, which had become the object
of all the hopes, the source of all the fears, the spring of all the
quarrels which distracted the mind, and disturbed the harmony of blind,
confiding mortals.
The result of these inquiries has uniformly been, a conviction that no
rational proof has ever been adduced in support of this hypothesis;
that from the nature of the thing itself, none can be offered; that
an incorporeity is inconceivable to corporeal beings; that these only
behold nature acting after invariable laws, in which every thing is
material; that all the phenomena of which the world is the theatre,
spring out of natural causes; that man as well as all the other beings
is the work or this nature, is only an instrument in her hand, obliged
to accomplish the eternal decrees of an imperious necessity.
Whatever efforts the philosopher makes to penetrate the secrets of
nature, he never finds more, as we have many times repeated, than
matter; various in itself, diversely modified in consequence of the
motion it undergoes. Its whole, as well as its parts, displays only
necessary causes producing necessary effects, which flow necessarily
one out of the other: of which the mind, aided by experience, is more
or less competent to discover the concatenation. In virtue of their
specific properties, all the beings that come under our review,
gravitate towards a centre--attract analogous matter--repel that which
is unsuitable to combination--mutually receive and give impulse--acquire
qualities--undergo modifications which maintain them in existence for a
season--are born and dissolved by the operation of an inexorable
decree, that obliges every thing, we behold to pass into a new mode of
existence. It is to these continued vicissitudes that are to be
ascribed all the phenomena, whether trivial or of magnitude; ordinary
or extraordinary; known or unknown; simple or complicated; which are
operated in the universe. It is by these mutations alone that we have
any knowledge of nature: she is only mysterious to those who contemplate
her through the veil of prejudice: her course is always simple to those
who look at her without prepossession.
To attribute the effects to which we are witnesses, to nature, to
matter, variously combined with the motion that is inherent to it, is
to give them an intelligible and known cause; to attempt to penetrate
deeper, is to plunge ourselves into imaginary regions, where we find
only a chaos of obscurities--where we are lost in an unfathomable abyss
of incertitude. Let us then be content with contemplating nature, who,
being self-existent, must in her essence possess motion; which cannot
be conceived without properties, from which result perpetual action
and re-action; or those continual efforts which give birth to such a
numerous train of circumstances; in which a single molecule cannot be
found, that does not necessarily occupy the place assigned to it, by
immutable and necessary laws--that is for an instant in an absolute
state of repose. What necessity can there exist to seek out of matter
for a power to give it play, since its motion flows as necessarily out
of its existence as its bulk, its form, its gravity, &c. since nature in
inaction would no longer be nature?
If it be demanded, How can we figure to ourselves, that matter by its
own peculiar energy can produce all the effects we witness? I shall
reply, that if by matter it is obstinately determined to understand
nothing but a dead, inert mass, destitute of every property, incapable
of moving itself, we shall no longer have a single idea of matter; we
shall no longer be able to account for any thing. As soon, however,
as it exists, it must have properties; as soon as it has properties,
without which it could not exist, it must act by virtue of those
properties; since it is only by its action we can have a knowledge of
its existence, be conscious of its properties. It is evident that if
by matter be understood that which it is not, or if its existence
be denied, those phenomena which strike our visual organs cannot be
attributed to it. But if by nature be understood (that which she really
is), an heap of existing matter, possessing various properties, we shall
be obliged to acknowledge that nature must be competent to move herself;
by the diversity of her motion, must have the capability, independent
of foreign aid, to produce the effects we behold; we shall find that
nothing can be made from nothing; that nothing is made by chance; that
the mode of action of every particle of matter, however minute, is
necessarily determined by its own peculiar, or by its individual
properties.
We have elsewhere said, that that which cannot be annihilated--that
which in its nature is indestructible--cannot have been inchoate, cannot
have had a beginning to its existence, but exists necessarily from all
eternity; contains within itself a sufficient cause for its own peculiar
existence. It becomes then perfectly useless to seek out of nature a
cause for her action which is in some respects known to us; with which
indefatigable research may, judging of the future by the past, render us
more familiar. As we know some of the general properties of matter;
as we can discover some of its qualities, wherefore should we seek its
motion in an unintelligible cause, of which we are not in a condition to
become acquainted with any one of its properties? Can we conceive that
immateriality could ever draw matter from its own source? Impossible; it
is not within the grasp of human intellect. If creation is an eduction
from nothing, there must have been a time when matter had not existence;
there must consequently be a time when it will cease to be: this latter
is acknowledged by many theologians themselves to be impossible. Do
those who are continually talking of this mysterious act of omnipotence,
by which a mass of matter has been, all at once, substituted to nothing,
perfectly understand what they tell us? Is there a man on earth who
conceives that a being devoid of extent can exist, become the cause of
the existence of beings who have extent--act upon matter--draw it
from his own peculiar essence--set it in motion? In truth, the more we
consider theology, the more we must be convinced that it has invented
words destitute of sense; substituted sounds to intelligible realities.
For want of consulting experience, for want or studying nature, for
want of examining the material world, we have plunged ourselves into an
intellectual vacuum, which we have peopled with chimeras, We have not
stooped to consider matter, to study its different periods, to follow it
through its numerous, changes. We have either ridiculously or knavishly
confounded dissolution, decomposition, the separation of the elementary
particles of bodies, with their radical destruction; we have been
unwilling to see that the elements are indestructible; although the
forms are fleeting, and depend upon transitory combination. We have
not distinguished the change of figure, the alteration of position, the
mutation of texture, to which matter is liable, from its annihilation,
which is impossible; we have falsely concluded, that matter Was not a
necessary being--that it commenced to exist--that this existence was
derived from that which possessed nothing in common with itself--that
that which was not substance, could give birth to that which is. Thus an
unintelligible name has been substituted for matter, which furnishes us
with true ideas of nature; of which at each instant we experience the
influence, of which we undergo the action, of which we feel the power,
and of which we should have a much better knowledge, if our abstract
opinions did not continually fasten a bandage over our eyes.
Indeed the most simple notions of philosophy shew us, that, although
bodies change and disappear, nothing is however lost in nature; the
various produce of the decomposition of a body serves for elements,
supplies materials, forms the basis, lays the foundation for accretions,
contributes to the maintenance of other bodies. The whole of nature
subsists, and is conserved only by the circulation, the transmigration,
the exchange, the perpetual displacement of insensible atoms--the
continual mutation of the sensible combinations of matter. It is by
this palingenesia, this regeneration, that the great whole, the mighty
macrocosm subsists; who, like the Saturn of the ancients, is perpetually
occupied with devouring her own children.
It will not then be inconsistent with observation, repugnant to reason,
contrary to good sense, to acknowledge that matter is self-existent;
that it acts by an energy peculiar to itself; that it will never be
annihilated. Let us then say, that matter is eternal; that nature has
been, is, and ever will be occupied with producing and destroying;
with doing and undoing; with combining and separating; in short, with
following a system of laws resulting from its necessary existence. For
every thing that she doth, she needs only to combine the elements of
matter; these, essentially diverse, necessarily either attract or repel
each other; come into collision, from whence results either their
union or dissolution; by the same laws that one approximates, the other
recedes from their respective spheres of action. It is thus that she
brings forth plants, fossils, animals, men; thus she gives existence
to organized, sensible, thinking beings, as well as to those who are
destitute of either feeling or thought. All these act for the season of
their respective duration, according to immutable laws, determined by
their various properties; arising out of their configuration; depending
on their masses; resulting from their ponderosity, &c. Here is the true
origin of every thing which is presented to our view; this indicates
the mode by which nature, according to her own peculiar powers, is in
a state to produce all those astonishing effects which assail our
wondering eyes; all that phenomena to which mankind is the witness; as
well as all the bodies who act diversely upon the organs with which
he is furnished, of which he can only judge according to the manner in
which these organs are affected. He says they are good, when they are
analogous to his own mode of existence--when they contribute to the
maintenance of the harmony of his machine: he says they are bad, when
they disturb this harmony. It is thus he ascribes views, ideas, designs,
to the being he supposes to be the power by which nature is moved;
although all the experience we are able to collect, unequivocally
proves, that she acts after an invariable, eternal code of laws.
Nature is destitute of those views which actuate man; she acts
necessarily, because she exists: her system is immutable, and founded
upon the essence of things. It is the essence of the seed of the
male, composed of primitive elements, which serve for the basis of an
organized being, to unite itself with that of the female; to fructify
it; to produce, by this combination, a new organized being; who, feeble
in his origin, not having yet acquired a sufficient quantity of material
particles to give him consistence, corroborates himself by degrees;
strengthens himself by the daily accretion of analogous matter; is
nourished by the modifications appropriate to his existence: matured
by the continuation of circumstances calculated to give vigour to
his frame; thus he lives, thinks, acts, engenders in his turn other
organized beings similar to himself. By a consequence of his temperament
and of physical laws, this generation does not take place, except when
the circumstances necessary to its production find themselves united.
Thus this procreation is not operated by chance; the animal does not
fructify, but with an animal of his own species, because this is the
only one analogous to himself, who unites the qualities, who combines
the circumstances, suitable to produce a being resembling himself;
without this he would not produce any thing, or he would only give
birth to a being who would be denominated a monster, because it would be
dissimilar to himself. It is of the essence of the grain of plants, to
be impregnated by the pollen or seed of the stygma of the flower; in
this state of copulation they in consequence develope themselves in
the bowels of the earth; expand by the aid of water; shoot forth by
the accession of heat; attract analogous particles to corroborate their
system: thus by degrees they form a plant, a shrub, a tree, susceptible
of that life, filled with that motion, capable of that action which
is suitable to vegetable existence. It is of the essence of particular
particles of earth, homogeneous in their nature, when separated by
circumstances, attenuated by water, elaborated by heat, to unite
themselves in the bosom of mountains, with other atoms which are
analogous; to form by their aggregation, according to their various
affinities, those bodies possessing more or less solidity; having more
or less purity, which are called diamonds, chrystals, stones, metals,
minerals. It is of the essence of exhalations raised by the heat of
the atmosphere, to combine, to collect themselves, to dash against each
other, and either by their union or their collision to produce meteors,
to generate thunder. It is of the essence of some inflammable matter
to gather itself together, to ferment in the caverns of the earth, to
increase its active force by augmenting its heat, and then explode,
by the accession of other matter suitable to the operation, with that
tremendous force which we call earthquakes; by which mountains are
destroyed; cities overturned; the inhabitants of the plains thrown into
a state of consternation; these full of alarm, unused to meditate on
natural effects, unconscious of the extent of physical powers, stretch
forth their hands in dismay, heave the most desponding sighs, utter
aloud their complaints, and earnestly implore a cessation of those
evils, which nature, acting by necessary laws, obliges them to
experience as necessarily as she does those benefits by which she fills
them with the most extravagant joy. In short, it is of the essence of
certain climates to produce men so organized, whose temperament is so
modified, that they become either extremely useful or very prejudicial
to their species, in the same manner as it is the property of certain
portions of the land, to bring forth either delicious fruits or
dangerous poisons.
In all this nature acts necessarily; she pursues an undeviating course,
which we are bound to consider the perfection of wisdom; because she
exists necessarily, has her modes of action determined by certain,
invariable laws, which themselves flow out of the constituent properties
of the various beings she contains, and those circumstances, which the
eternal motion she is in must necessarily bring about. It is ourselves
who have a necessary aim, which is our own conservation; it is by this
that we regulate all the ideas we form to ourselves of the causes acting
in nature; it is according to this standard we judge of every thing
we see or feel. Animated ourselves, existing after a certain manner,
possessing a soul endowed with rare and peculiar qualities, we, like the
savage, ascribe a soul and animated life to every thing that acts upon
us. Thinking and intelligent ourselves, we give these, faculties to
those beings whom we suppose to be more powerful than mortals; but as we
see the generality of matter incapable of modifying itself, we suppose
it must receive its impulse from some concealed agent, some external
cause, which our imagination pictures as similar to ourselves.
Necessarily attracted by that which is advantageous to us, repelling by
an equal necessity that which is prejudicial to our manner of existence;
we cease to reflect that our modes of feeling are due to our peculiar
organization, modified by physical causes: in this state, either of
inattention or ignorance, we mistake the natural results of our own
peculiar structure, for instruments employed by a being whom we clothe
with our own passions--whom we suppose actuated by our own views--who,
possessing our ideas, embraces a mode of thinking and acting similar to
ourselves.
If after this it be asked, What is the end of nature? We shall reply
that on this head we are ignorant; that it is more than probable no man
will ever fathom the secret; but we shall also say, it is evidently to
exist, to act, to conserve her whole. If then it be demanded, Wherefore
she exists? We shall again reply, of this we know nothing at present,
possibly never shall; but we shall also say, she exists necessarily,
that her operations, her motion, her phenomena, are the necessary
consequences of her necessary existence. There necessarily exists
something; this is nature or the universe, this nature necessarily acts
as she does. If it be wished to substitute any other word for nature,
the question will still remain as it did, as to the cause of her
existence; the end she has in view. It is not by changing of terms that
a geometrician can solve problems; one word will throw no more light
on a subject than another, unless that word carries a certain degree
of conviction in the ideas which it generates. As long as we speak of
matter, if we cannot develope all its properties, we shall at least have
fixed, determinate ideas; something tangible, of which we have a slight
knowledge, that we can submit to the examination of our senses: but
from the moment we begin to talk of immateriality, of incorporeity,
from thence our ideas become confused; we are lost in a labyrinth of
conjecture--we have no one means of seizing the subject on any
side--we are, after the most elaborate arguments, after the most subtle
reasoning, obliged to acknowledge we cannot form the most slender
opinion respecting it, that has any thing substantive for its support.
In short, that it is precisely that thing "of which every thing may be
denied, but of which nothing can with truth be affirmed." Let us clothe
this incomprehensible being with whatever qualities we may, it will be
always in ourselves we seek the model; they will be our own faculties
that we delineate, our own passions that we describe. In like manner
man, as long as he is ignorant, will always conjecture that it is for
himself alone the universe was formed; not withstanding, he has nothing
more to do, than to open his eyes in order to be undeceived. He will
then see, that he undergoes a common destiny, equally partakes with all
other beings of the benefits, shares with them without exception the
evils of life; like them he is submitted to an imperious necessity,
inexorable in its decrees; which is itself nothing more than the sum
total of those laws which nature herself is obliged to follow.
Thus every thing proves that nature, or matter, exists necessarily; that
it cannot in any moment swerve from those laws imposed upon it by its
existence. If it cannot be annihilated, it cannot have been inchoate.
The theologian himself agrees that it requires a miracle to annihilate
an atom. But is it possible to derogate from the necessary laws of
existence? Can that which exists necessarily, act but according to the
laws peculiar to itself? Miracle is another word invented to shield our
own sloth, to cover our own ignorance; it is that by which we wish to
designate those rare occurrences, those solitary effects of natural
causes, whose infrequency do not afford us means of diving into their
springs. It is only saying by another expression, that an unknown cause
hath by modes which we cannot trace, produced an uncommon effect which
we did not expect, which therefore appears strange to us. This granted,
the intervention of words, far from removing the ignorance in which we
found ourselves with respect to the power and capabilities of nature,
only serves to augment it, to give it more durability. The creation
of matter becomes to our mind as incomprehensible, and appears as
impossible as its annihilation.
Let us then conclude that all those words which do not present to the
mind any determinate idea, ought to be banished the language of those
who are desirous of speaking so as to be understood; that abstract
terms, invented by ignorance, are only calculated to satisfy men
destitute of experience; who are too slothful to study nature, too timid
to search into her ways; that they are suitable only to content those
enthusiasts, whose curious imagination pleases itself with making
fruitless endeavours to spring beyond the visible world; who occupy
themselves with chimeras of their own creation: in short, that these
words are useful only to those whose sole profession it is to feed the
ears of the uninformed with pompous sounds, that are not comprehended
by themselves--upon the sense of which they are in a state of perpetual
hostility with each other--upon the true meaning of which they have
never yet been able to come to a common agreement; which each sees after
his own peculiar manner of contemplating objects, in which there never
was, nor probably never will be, the least harmony of feeling.
Man is a material being; he cannot consequently have any ideas, but of
that which like himself is material; that is to say, of that which is
in a capacity to act upon his organs, which has some qualities analogous
with his own. In despite of himself, he always assigns material
properties to his gods; the impossibility he finds in compassing them,
has made him suppose them to be spiritual; distinguished from the
material world. Indeed he, must be content, either not to understand
himself, or he must have material ideas of the Divinity; the human mind
may torture itself as long as it pleases, it will never, after all its
efforts, be enabled to comprehend, that material effects can emanate
from immaterial causes; or that such causes can have any relation with
material beings. Here is the reason why man, as we have seen, believes
himself obliged to give to his gods, these morals which he so much so
highly esteems, in those beings of his race, who are fortunate enough
to possess them: he forgets that a being who is spiritual, adopting the
theological hypothesis, cannot from thence either have his organization,
or his ideas; that it cannot think in his mode, nor act after his
manner; that consequently it cannot possess what he calls intelligence,
wisdom, goodness, anger, justice, &c. as he himself understands those
terms. Thus, in truth, the moral qualities with which he has clothed
the Divinity, supposes him material, and the most abstract
theological notions, are, after all, founded upon a direct, undeniable
_Anthropomorphism_.
In despite of all their subtilties, the theologians cannot do otherwise;
like all the beings of the human species, they have a knowledge of
matter alone: they have no real idea of a pure spirit. When they speak
of the intelligence, of the wisdom, of the designs of their gods, they
are always those of men which they describe, that they obstinately
persist in giving to beings, of which, according to their own shewing,
to the evidence they themselves adduce, their essence does not render
them susceptible; who if they had those qualities with which they clothe
them, would from that very moment cease to be incorporeal; would be in
the truest sense of the word, substantive matter. How shall we reconcile
the assertion, that beings who have not occasion for any thing--who are
sufficient to them selves--whose projects must be executed as soon as
they are formed; can have volition, passions, desires? How shall we
attribute anger to beings without either blood or bile? How can we
conceive an omnipotent being (whose wisdom we admire in the striking
order he has himself established in the universe,) can permit that this
beautiful arrangement should be continually disturbed, either by the
elements in discord, or by the crimes of human beings? In short, this
being cannot have any one of the human qualities, which always depend
upon the peculiar organization of man--upon his wants--upon his
institutions, which are themselves always relative to the society
in which he lives. The theologian vainly strives to aggrandize, to
exaggerate in idea, to carry to perfection by dint of abstraction, the
moral qualities of man; they are unsuitable to the Divinity; in vain it
is asserted they are in him of a different nature from what they are
in his creatures; that they are perfect; infinite; supreme; eminent; in
holding this language, they no longer understand themselves; they can
have no one idea of the qualities they are describing, seeing that
man can never have a conception of them, but inasmuch as they bear an
analogy to the same qualities in himself.
It is thus that by force of metaphysical subtilty, mortals have no
longer any fixed, any determinate idea of the beings to which they have
given birth. But little contented with understanding physical causes,
with contemplating active nature; weary of examining matter, which
experience proves is competent to the production of every thing, man
has been desirous to despoil it of the energy which it is its essence
to possess, in order to invest it in a pure spirit; in an immaterial
substance; which he is under the necessity of re-making a material
being, whenever he has an inclination either to form an idea of it to
himself, or make it understood by others. In assembling the parts
of man, which he does no more than enlarge, which he swells out to
infinity, he believes he forms an immaterial being, who, for that
reason, acquires the capability of performing all those phenomena, with
the true causes of which he is ignorant; nevertheless those operations
of which he does comprehend the spring, he as sedulously denies to be
due to the powers of this being; time, therefore, according to these
ideas, as he advances the progress of science, as he further developes
the secrets of nature, is continually diminishing the number of actions
ascribed to this being--is constantly circumscribing his sphere of
action. It is upon the model of the human soul that he forms the soul
of nature, or that secret agent from which she receives impulse. After
having made himself double, he makes nature in like manner twofold, and
then he supposes she is vivified by an intelligence, which he borrows
from himself, Placed in an impossibility of becoming acquainted with
this agent, as well as with that which he has gratuitously distinguished
from his own body; he has invented the word spiritual to cover up
his ignorance; which is only in other words avowing it is a substance
entirely unknown to him. From that moment, however, he has no ideas
whatever of what he himself has done; because he first clothes it with
all the qualities he esteems in his fellows, and then destroys them by
an assurance, that they in no wise resemble the qualities he has been
so anxious to bestow. To remedy this inconvenience, he concludes this
spiritual substance much more noble than matter; that its prodigious
subtilty, which he calls simplicity, but which is only the effect
of metaphysical abstraction, secures it from decomposition, from
dissolution, from all those revolutions, to which material bodies, as
produced by nature, are evidently exposed.
It is thus, that man always prefers the marvellous to the simple; the
unintelligible to the intelligible; that which he cannot comprehend, to
that which is within the range of his understanding; he despises those
objects which are familiar to him; he estimates those alone with which
he is incapable of having any intercourse: that of which he has only
confused vague ideas, he concludes must contain something important for
him to know--must have something supernatural in its construction.
In short, he needs mystery to move his imagination--to exercise his
mind--to feed his curiosity; which never labours harder, than when it is
occupied with enigmas impossible to be guessed at; which from that very
circumstance, he judges to be extremely worthy of his research.
This, without doubt, is the reason he looks upon matter, which he
has continually under his eyes, which he sees perpetually in action,
eternally changing its form, as a contemptible thing--as a contingent
being, that does not exist necessarily; consequently, that cannot exist
independently: this is the reason why he has imagined a spirit, which he
will never be able to conceive; which on that account he declares to be
superior to matter; which he roundly asserts to be anterior to nature,
and the only self-existent being. The human wind found food in these
mystical ideas, they unceasingly occupied it; the imagination had play,
it embellished them after its own manner: ignorance fed itself with the
fables to which these mysteries gave rise; habit identified them with
the existence of man himself: when each could ask the other concerning
these ideas, without any one being in a capacity to return a direct
answer, he felt himself gratified, he immediately concluded that the
general impossibility of reply stamped them with the wondrous faculty
of immediately interesting his welfare; of involving his most prominent
interests, more than all the things put together, with which he had
any possible means of becoming intimately acquainted. Thus they became
necessary to his happiness; he believed he fell into a vacuum without
them; he became the decided enemy to all those who endeavoured to lead
him back to nature, which he had learned to despise; to consider only as
an impotent mass, an heap of inert matter, not possessing any energy
but what it received from causes exterior to itself; as a contemptible
assemblage of fragile combinations, whose forms were continually subject
to perish.
In distinguishing nature from her mover, man has fallen into the same
absurdity as when he separated his soul from his body; life from the
living being; the faculty of thought from the thinking being: deceived
on his own peculiar nature, having taken up an erroneous opinion upon
the energy of his own organs, he has in like manner been deceived upon
the organization of the universe; he has distinguished nature from
herself; the life of nature from living nature; the action of nature
from active nature. It was this soul of the world--this energy of
nature--this principle of activity, which man first personified, then
separated by abstraction; sometimes decorated with imaginary attributes;
sometimes with qualities borrowed from his own peculiar essence. Such
were the aerial materials of which man availed himself to construct the
incomprehensible, immaterial substances, which have filled the world
with disputes--which have divided man from his fellow--which to this day
he has never been able to define, even to his own satisfaction. His own
soul was the model. Deceived upon the nature of this, he never had any
just ideas of the Divinity, who was, in his mind, nothing more than a
copy exaggerated or disfigured to that degree, as to make him mistake
the prototype upon which it had been originally formed.
If, because man has distinguished himself from his own existence, it has
been impossible for him ever to form to himself any true idea of his
own nature; it is also because he has distinguished nature from herself,
that both herself and her ways have been mistaken. Man has ceased to
study nature, that he might, recur by thought to a substance which
possesses nothing in common with her; this substance he has made the
mover of nature, without which she would not be capable of any thing; to
whom every thing that takes place in her system, must be attributed;
the conduct of this being has appeared mysterious, has been held up as
marvellous, because he seemed to be a continual contradiction: when if
man had but recurred to the immutability of the laws of nature, to the
invariable system she pursues, all would have appeared intelligible;
every thing would have been reconciled; the apparent contrariety
would have vanished. By thus taking a wrong view of things, wisdom and
intelligence appeared to be opposed by confusion and disorder; goodness
to be rendered nugatory by evil; while all is only just what it must
inevitably be, under the given circumstances. In consequence of these
erroneous opinions, in the place of applying himself to the study of
nature, to discover the method of obtaining her favors, or to seek the
means of throwing aside his misfortunes; in the room of consulting his
experience; in lieu of labouring usefully to his own happiness; he has
been only occupied with expecting these things by channels through
which they do not flow; he has been disputing upon objects be never can
understand, while he has totally neglected that which was within the
compass of his own powers; which he might have rendered propitious to
his views, by a more industrious application of his own talent; by a
patient investigation, for the purpose of drawing at the fountain of
truth, the limpid balsam that alone can heal the sorrows or his heart.
Nothing could be well more prejudicial to his race, than this
extravagant theory; which, as we shall prove, has become the source of
innumerable evils. Man has been for thousands of years trembling before
idols of his own creation--bowing down before them with the most servile
homage--occupied with disarming their wrath--sedulously employed in
propitiating their kindness, without ever advancing a single step on
the road he so much desires to travel. He will perhaps continue the same
course for centuries to come, unless by some unlooked for exertion on
his part, he shall happen to discard the prejudices which blind him; to
lay aside his enthusiasm for the marvellous; to quit his fondness for
the enigmatical; rally round the standard of his reason: unless, taking
experience for his guide, he march undauntedly forward under the banner
of truth, and put to the rout that host of unintelligible jargon, under
the cumbrous load of which he has lost sight of his own happiness;
which has but too frequently prevented him from seeking the only means
adequate either to satisfy his wants, or to ameliorate the evils which
he is necessarily obliged to experience.
Let us then re-conduct bewildered mortals to the altar of nature; let us
endeavour to destroy that delusion which the ignorance of man, aided by
a disordered imagination, has induced him to elevate to her throne; let
us strive to dissipate that heavy mist which obscures to him the paths
of truth; let us seek to banish from his mind those visionary ideas
which prevent him from giving activity to his experience; let us teach
him if possible not to seek out of nature herself, the causes of the
phenomena he admires--to rest satisfied that she contains remedies for
all his evils--that she has manifold benefits in store for those, who,
rallying their industry, are willingly patiently to investigate her
laws--that she rarely withholds her secrets from the researches of those
who diligently labour to unravel them. Let us assure him that reason
alone can render him happy; that reason is nothing more than the science
of nature, applied to the conduct of man in society; that this reason
teaches that every thing is necessary; that his pleasures as well as
his sorrows are the effects of nature, who in all her works follows only
laws which nothing can make her revoke; that his interest demands he
should learn to support with equanimity of mind, all those evils
which natural means do not enable him to put aside. In short, let us
unceasingly repeat to him, it is in rendering his fellow creature happy,
that he will himself arrive at a felicity he will in vain expect from
others, when his own conduct refuses it to him.
Nature is self-existent; she will always exist; she produces every
thing; contains within herself the cause of every thing; her motion is a
necessary consequence of her existence; without motion we could form
no conception of nature; under this collective name we designate the
assemblage of matter acting by virtue of its peculiar energies. Every
thing proves to us, that it is not out of nature man ought to seek the
Divinity. If we have only an incomplete knowledge of nature and her
ways--if we have only superficial, imperfect ideas of matter, how shall
we be able to flatter ourselves with understanding or having any certain
notions of immateriality, of beings so much more fugitive, so much more
difficult to compass, even by thought, than the material elements;
so much more shy of access than either the constituent principles of
bodies, their primitive properties, their various modes of acting, or
their different manner of existing? If we cannot recur to first causes,
let its content ourselves with second causes, with those effects which
we can submit to experience, let us collect the facts with which we have
an acquaintance; they will enable us to judge of what we do not know:
let us at least confine ourselves to the feeble glimmerings of truth
with which our senses furnish us, since we do not possess means whereby
to acquire broader masses of light.
Do not let us mistake for real sciences, those which have no other
basis than our imagination; we shall find that such can at most be but
visionary: let us cling close to nature which we see, which we feel,
of which we experience the action; of which at least we understand the
general laws. If we are ignorant of her detail, if we cannot fathom the
secret principles she employs in her most complicated productions,
we are at least certain she acts in a permanent, uniform, analogous,
necessary manner. Let us then observe this nature; let us watch her
movements; but never let us endeavour to quit the routine she prescribes
for the beings of our species: if we do, we shall not only be obliged to
return, but we shall also infallibly be punished with numberless errors,
which will darken our mind, estrange us from reason; the necessary
consequence will be countless sorrows, which we may otherwise avoid.
Let us consider we are sensible parts of a whole, in which the forms are
only produced to be destroyed; in which combinations are ushered into
life, that they may again quit it, after having subsisted for a longer
or a shorter season. Let us look upon nature as an immense elaboratory
which contains every thing necessary for her action; who lacks nothing
requisite for the production of all the phenomena she displays to our
sight. Let us acknowledge her power to be inherent in her essence; amply
commensurate to her eternal march; fully adequate to the happiness of
all the beings she contains. Let us consider her as a whole, who can
only maintain herself by what we call the discord of the elements; that
she exists by the continual dissolution and re-union of her parts; that
from this springs the universal harmony; that from this the general
stability has its birth. Let us then re-establish omnipotent nature, so
long mistaken by man, in her legitimate rights. Let us place her on that
adamantine throne, which it is for the felicity of the human race she
should occupy. Let us surround her with those ministers who can never
deceive, who can never forfeit our confidence--_Justice and Practical
Knowledge_. Let us listen to her eternal voice; she neither speaks
ambiguously, nor in an unintelligible language; she may be easily
comprehended by the people of all nations; because _Reason_ is her
faithful interpreter. She offers nothing to our contemplation but
immutable truths. Let us then for ever impose silence on that enthusiasm
which leads us astray; let us put to the blush that imposture which
would riot on our credulity; let us discard that gloomy superstition,
which has drawn us aside from the only worship suitable to intelligent
beings. Above all, never let us forget that the temple of happiness can
only be reached through the groves of virtue, which surround it on every
side; that the paths which lead to these beautiful walks can only be
entered by the road of experience, the portals of which are alone opened
to those who apply to them the key of truth: this key is of very simple
structure, has no complicated intricacy of wards, and is easily formed
on the anvil of social intercourse, merely by _not doing unto others
that which you would not wish they should do unto you._