ERROR OF LAMENNAIS ON COMMON CONSENT.
329. The instinctive faith in human authority, of which we have
just treated, is a fact attested by experience, and one which no
philosopher has presumed to call in doubt. This faith, duly directed
by reason, constitutes one criterion of truth. The errors to which
it may sometimes lead are inherent in human weakness, and are amply
compensated for by the advantages derived from it by society and
individuals.
A celebrated writer undertook to include all criteria in that of human
authority, resolutely affirming "common consent, _sensus communis_,
to be to us the only seal of truth."[33] His system, as strange as
erroneous, in which words as unlike as _sensus_ and _consensus_ are
confounded, is defended with that eloquent exaggeration characteristic
of its eminent author; but profound philosophy does not always
accompany eloquence. The sad fate of this genius, as brilliant as
erring, shows the results of such a doctrine; it opens an abyss which
swallows up all truth, and the author himself was the first to fall
into it. To appeal to the authority of others in all things, and
for all things, is to despoil the individual of every criterion,
to annihilate them all, not excepting the very one he attempts to
establish. It is inconceivable how such a system could have found favor
with so gifted an intellect. We feel, when reading the eloquent pages
of its development, an undefinable pain to see such brilliant passages
squandered on the repetition of all the common-places of skepticism,
ending in a most glaring paradox, and the least philosophical system
imaginable.
[33] Lamennais, _Essai sur l'Indifference en Matière de Religion_. T.
2, C. 13.
Lamennais calls common sense the only criterion; nevertheless, we have
only to glance at the others to be convinced that this new criterion is
sterile, and could not produce them.
330. The testimony of consciousness, in the first place, cannot rest in
any sense upon the authority of others. Formed as it is by a series of
acts intimately present to our own mind, and, as without it, it is not
possible for us even to conceive individual thought, it must evidently
exist prior to the application of any criterion, since no criterion is
possible to him who does not think.
Under a scientific aspect nothing can be weaker than his pretended
refutation of Descartes' principle. "When, trying to rise from his
methodical doubt, Descartes establishes this proposition, _I think,
therefore I am_, he passes an immense abyss, and lays in the clouds
the corner-stone of the edifice he is about to raise; for, strictly
speaking, we cannot say _I think_, we cannot say _I am_, we cannot say
_therefore_, or affirm anything as a consequence."[34]
[34] Ibid.
Descartes' principle merited a more careful examination from whoever
would invent a system. To oppose to it that we cannot say _therefore_,
is to repeat the worn-out argument of the schools; and to affirm that
we cannot say _I think_, is to contradict a fact of consciousness not
denied even by skeptics. In place of this, we will explain at due
length what is, or at least, what ought to be, the sense of Descartes'
principle.
If, according to Lamennais, we cannot say _I think_, still less can we
say that others think; and as his system recognizes one only criterion,
common consent, which absolutely needs the thought of others, it
follows that Lamennais has laid his corner-stone higher in the clouds
than he who founded philosophy upon a fact of consciousness.
331. A criterion, especially when it pretends to be the only one, ought
to have these two conditions: to apply to all cases, and not to suppose
another. Now the criterion of common consent is precisely that which is
farthest from possessing these conditions: prior to it is the testimony
of consciousness; prior also to it is the testimony of the senses, for
we cannot know the consent of others if sight or hearing do not make us
certain of it.
332. In many cases this criterion is impossible; in many others it is
exceedingly difficult if not wholly impossible. To what point is common
consent needed? If the word _common_ refers to the whole human race,
how are the suffrages of all mankind to be recognized? If the consent
need not be unanimous, to what point does the contradiction, or the
simple non-assent of some, destroy the legitimacy of the criterion?
333. Lamennais' error consists in taking the effect for the cause, and
the cause for the effect. We detect certain truths, upon which all men
are agreed, and we say: the guaranty that each one is right is the
consent of all. If we analyze this well, we shall perceive that the
reason of each individual's certainty is not the consent of others; but
on the contrary the reason why all agree is that each one for himself
feels obliged to give his assent. In this universal voting of the
human race, each one gives his own vote, impelled in a certain sense
by nature herself; and as all experience the same impulse, all vote
alike. Lamennais says every one votes in the same way, because all vote
so; but he does not observe that then the voting could never begin
nor end. This comparison is not an accidental satire, but a strictly
philosophical argument, to which there can be no reply; it suffices to
show the system of Lamennais to be unfounded and contradictory; just
as, on the other hand, it indicates the origin of the equivocation, the
taking the effect for the cause.
334. Lamennais, in order to prove his criterion to be the only one,
appeals to the testimony of consciousness. In our opinion this
testimony establishes directly the contrary. Who ever waited for the
authority of others to be certain of the existence of bodies? Do we not
see even brutes, by force of a natural impulse, making, in their own
way, their sensations objective? Had we not in giving our assent to the
words of men some other criterion than common consent, we could never
believe any one, for the simple reason that it would be impossible to
be certain of what others say or think without beginning by believing
some one. Does the child refer to the authority of others before giving
faith to what its mother recounts? Does it not rather obey the natural
instinct communicated to it by the beneficent hand of the Creator? It
does not believe because all believe; but all children believe because
each one of them believes: their individual belief does not spring from
a general belief, but rather the general belief is formed from the
assemblage of individual beliefs; it is not natural because universal,
but universal because natural.
335. Lamennais' chief argument consists in this: that in certain cases
in order to make sure of the truth relatively to the other criteria,
we appeal to that of common consent, and that folly itself is only the
deviation from this consent. If you tell a man that his eyes deceive
him as to an object which he sees, he instinctively turns to other
men, and asks them if they do not see it in the same way. If all agree
that he is wrong, and he is satisfied they are in earnest, he will
experience a momentary vacillation of his faith in the testimony of
sight; he will approach the object, will take a different position,
or adopt whatever other means may seem to him best suited to make
sure that he is right. If he still sees the object in the same way,
and the same persons and others who arrive persist in assuring him
that the thing is not as he sees it, he will distrust the testimony
of sight, and believe himself subject to some infirmity affecting his
sight. To this is the argument of Lamennais reduced. What results from
it? Nothing to support the system of common consent. True, the other
criteria are, in exceptional circumstances, liable to error; in certain
cases when a doubt arises an appeal is taken to the testimony of
others: but why? Simply, in order to make sure that one has not labored
under one of those derangements to which human misery is subject. We
know that what is natural is general; and he who doubts inquires of
others, that he may ascertain if he has by some accident been out
of his ordinary natural state. Who sees not the unreasonableness of
raising an exceptional means to the rank of sole and general criterion?
Who sees not the extravagance of asserting that we are assured of the
testimony of the senses by the authority of other men, solely because,
in extreme cases fearing some derangement of our organs, we ask others
if something appears to them as it does to us?
336. Greater exaggeration we cannot have than that of Lamennais,
when he affirms "that the exact sciences are also founded on common
consent; that in this they enjoy no privilege, and that the very term
_exact_, is one of those empty titles under which man seeks to conceal
his weakness; that geometry itself only exists by virtue of a tacit
convention, a convention which may be thus expressed: _we are obliged
to hold such principles to be certain, and we pronounce every one
a rebel to common sense, that is, to the authority of the number,
who shall demand a demonstration of them_." This is an intolerable
exaggeration. The arguments which he adduces in his notes to prove
the intrinsic uncertainty of mathematics are exceedingly feeble;
and some of them might make us suspect the author of the _Essai sur
l'Indifference_ to be a less profound philosopher than eloquent writer.
I am not ignorant of what has been advanced against the certainty
of the exact sciences, nor of the difficulties they present when
called before the tribunal of metaphysics. In the first volume of
_Protestantism compared with Catholicity_, I consecrated a chapter to
what I call _instinct of faith_; and this instinct, I there maintained,
also exercises its influence upon the exact sciences. These I do not
place above moral sciences; I esteem these latter the more; but I must
avoid an exaggeration that would destroy them all.