A phenomenon is always found placed between two other phenomena, one
of which is its ‹efficient›, and the other its ‹final› cause; [p514]
and science has not done with that phenomenon as long as either of
these relations remains undeveloped.
The human mind generally begins, I think, with the discovery of
final causes, because they are more immediately interesting to us.
No species of knowledge, besides, leads us with more force towards
religious ideas, or is more fitted to make us feel in all the fibres
of our heart a lively sense of gratitude for the inexhaustible
goodness of God.
Habit, it is true, has so familiarized us with a great number of
these ‹providential intentions›, that we enjoy them without thought.
We see, and we hear, without thinking of the ingenious mechanism of
the eye and of the ear. The sun, the dew, the rain, lavish upon us
their useful effects, or their gentle sensations, without awakening
our surprise or our gratitude. This is solely owing to the continued
action upon us of these admirable phenomena. For let a final cause,
although comparatively insignificant, come to be disclosed to us for
the first time, let the botanist explain to us why this plant affects
such or such a form, or why that other is clothed in such or such a
colour, we immediately feel in our heart the unspeakable enchantment
with which new proofs of the power, the goodness, and the wisdom of
God never fail to penetrate us.
The region of final intentions, then, is for man’s imagination as an
atmosphere impregnated with religious ideas.
But after we have perceived, or had a glimpse of the phenomenon in
this aspect, we have still to study it in another relation, that is
to say, to seek for its efficient cause. [p515]
It is strange, but it sometimes happens, that after having obtained
the full knowledge of that cause, we find that it carries with it
so necessarily the effect which we had admired at first, that we
refuse to recognise in it longer the character of a final cause; and
we say: “I was very simple to believe that God had provided such an
arrangement with such a design; I see now that the cause which I have
discovered being given (and it is inevitable), this arrangement must
follow necessarily, apart from any pretended providential intention.”
It is thus that defective and superficial science, with its scalpel
and its analyses, comes sometimes to destroy in our souls the
religious sentiment to which the simple aspect of nature had given
rise.
This is the case frequently with the anatomist and the astronomer.
What a strange thing it is, exclaims the ignorant man, that when an
extraneous substance penetrates into a tissue, where its presence
does great injury, an inflammation and a suppuration take place,
which tend to expel it! No, says the anatomist, there is nothing
intentional in that expulsion. It is a ‹necessary› effect of the
suppuration; and the suppuration itself is a ‹necessary› effect of
the presence of an extraneous substance in our tissues. If you wish
it, I shall explain to you the mechanism, and you will acknowledge
yourself that the effect follows the cause, but that the cause has
not been arranged intentionally to produce that effect, since it is
itself the necessary effect of an anterior cause.
How I admire, says the ignorant man, the foresight of God, who has
willed that the rain should not descend on the soil in a sheet, but
should fall in drops, as if it came from the gardener’s watering-pot!
Were it not so, vegetation would be impossible. You throw away your
admiration, answers the learned naturalist; the cloud is not a sheet
of water; if it were, it could not be supported by the atmosphere.
It is a collection of microscopic vesicles, or minute bladders like
soap-bubbles. When their density increases, or when they burst by
compression, these thousands of millions of infinitesimal drops fall,
growing larger in their descent by the vapour of the water which they
precipitate, etc. If vegetation is benefited in consequence, it is by
accident; but we must not think that the Creator amuses himself in
sending us down water through the sieve of a monster watering-pot.
Ignorance, we must confess, very often imparts a certain plausibility
to science, when the connexion of causes and effects is regarded in
this way, by attributing a phenomenon to a final intention which
does not exist, and which is dissipated before the light of superior
knowledge. [p516]
Thus, in former days, before men had any knowledge of electricity,
they were frightened by the noise of thunder, being able to recognise
in that astounding voice, bellowing amid the storm, nothing less
than a manifestation of Divine wrath. This is an association of
ideas which, like many others, has disappeared before the progress
of physical science. Man is so constituted, that when a phenomenon
affects him, he searches for the cause of it; and if he finds out
that cause, he gives it a name. Then he sets himself to find out
the cause of that cause, and so he goes on until he can mount no
higher, when he stops, and exclaims, “‹It is God; it is the will of
God›.” This is his ‹ultima ratio›. He is arrested, however, only
for the moment. Science advances, and soon this second, third, or
fourth cause, which had remained unperceived, is revealed to his
eyes. Then science says, This effect is not due, as we believed, to
the immediate will of God, but to that natural cause which I have
just discovered. And man, after having taken possession of this
discovery, after having gained this step in the region of science,
finds himself, so to speak, one step farther removed from the region
of Faith, and again asks, What is the cause of that cause? And not
finding it, he persists in the ever-recurring explanation, “It is the
will of God.” And so he proceeds onwards for indefinite ages, through
a countless succession of scientific revelations and exercises of
faith.
This procedure on the part of mankind must appear to superficial
minds to be destructive of every religious idea; for is the result
of it not this, that as science advances, God recedes? Do we not see
clearly that the domain of final intentions is narrowed in proportion
as the domain of natural causes is enlarged?
Unhappy are they who give to this fine problem so narrow a solution.
No, it is not true that as science advances, the idea of God
recedes. On the contrary, what is true is that, as our intelligence
increases, this idea is enlarged, and broadened, and elevated. When
we discover a natural cause for what we had imagined an immediate,
spontaneous, supernatural act of the Divine will, are we to conclude
that that will is absent or indifferent? No, indeed; all that it
proves is, that that will acts by processes different from those
which it had pleased us to imagine. All that it proves is, that the
phenomenon which we regarded as an accident in creation occupies
its place in the universal frame; and that everything, even the
most special effects, have been foreseen from all eternity by the
divine prescience. What! is the idea which we form of the power of
God lessened when we come to see that each of the countless results
which we discover, or which escape our [p517] investigations, not
only has its natural cause, but is bound up in an infinite circle of
causes; so that there is not a detail of movement, of force, of form,
of life, which is not the product of the great whole, or which can be
explained apart from that whole.
But why this dissertation, which is foreign, as it would seem,
to the main object of our inquiries? The phenomena of the social
economy have likewise their efficient cause, and their providential
intention. In this department, as in natural science, as in anatomy,
or in astronomy, men have frequently denied the final cause precisely
because the efficient cause assumes the character of an absolute
necessity.
The social world abounds in harmonies, of which we can form no
adequate or complete conception until the mind has remounted to
causes, in order to seek their explanation, and descended to effects,
to discover the destination of the phenomena. . . . .