elude the difficulty by a foolish play upon words. What is the meaning,
in this case, of uniting, of a tie? They are metaphors which if they
mean any thing must express the permanence of some _thing_ amid the
variety of the phenomena; the tie, the bond, must extend to the various
things which it connects and unites: therefore it must be _common_ to
them all; and this something, whatever it be, which remains constant in
variety, we call substance.
68. The mere succession of the phenomena or acts of consciousness is
not sufficient to transmit the belief of the numerical identity; if it
were, all men would be conscious of the previous acts of others. Let
_a_, _b_, be two successive acts of consciousness: if, in order that
the act _b_, which is numerically distinct from _a_, may represent
the numerical identity of consciousness, it is sufficient that _b_
should succeed _a_; since this succession is met with in the acts
of consciousness of different men, it must follow that all men have
consciousness of all the acts of the others. _Risum tematis?_ And yet
this conclusion is absolutely necessary: it cannot be avoided by saying
that there is a form of the internal sense, and that the succession
takes place in each man in his respective internal sense, and that
therefore the succession of the internal phenomena of one is in a
different time, in a different form from what it is in another. The
words, _respective_ internal sense, internal form of _each_ man, have a
meaning, if we admit something permanent in our interior; but if there
is nothing but successive phenomena, the word _respective_ is absurd,
because there can be no respective internal sense if there is nothing
to which it can refer. Suppose the man M, and the man N be merely
a succession of phenomena, and in _each_ one there is only a mere
succession: there is the same reason why the phenomena of N should be
connected with each other as with those of M. Therefore, if there is
a community of consciousness in the phenomena of M, without any other
sufficient reason than the mere succession, this community should be
found in all the phenomena, because they all have the same sufficient
reason.
69. It must be observed that in all this argument, I abstract the
nature of the substance of the soul, and only purpose to demonstrate
that we must admit something constant in the midst of the variety of
the phenomena, and common to them all. Call it a tie, a form, an act
of consciousness, or what you will, it is either something real or it
is not. If it is not something real, whoever expresses it, employs a
word without any meaning: if it is something real, the substantiality
of the soul is acknowledged, because a permanent reality is admitted
in the midst of the variety of the phenomena. We, who admit this
substantiality, do not pretend that the soul can be given in sensible
intuition, nor that we can express in an exact definition its internal
properties abstracted from the phenomena which we experience in it.
What we say is, that we know its real existence, its permanence, and
its numerical identity in the midst of the succession and diversity
of the phenomena. Therefore from the moment that it is admitted
that there is within us something real, permanent, and numerically
identical in the midst of diversity, the substantiality of the soul,
which we defend, is admitted. Disputes may arise on the distinctive
character of its nature; whether it is or is not a force, as Leibnitz
maintained, whether its essence consists in thought, as was the
opinion of Descartes: but these questions are foreign to the matter
now in hand. Is there something real and permanent amid the variety of
internal phenomena? If there is not, the consciousness of numerical
identity is absurd; if there is, then the substantiality of the soul is
demonstrated.
70. "The opinion of some ancient philosophers," says Kant, "that all
is transitory and nothing constant in the world, although it cannot be
maintained if we admit substances, still it cannot be refuted by the
unity of consciousness; because we cannot even judge by consciousness,
whether, as something, we are or are not permanent; for we attribute
to our identical _me_ only that of which we have consciousness, and
thus we must necessarily judge that we are precisely the same in all
the durations of which we are conscious." Kant expressly acknowledges
that the judgment that we are the same is necessary, that is, that
the identity of the _me_ is for us a necessary fact of consciousness.
It would be difficult to imagine a confession more injurious and more
conclusive against the arguments of the German philosopher. If we are
forced to judge ourselves identical, if consciousness tell us so, can
we deny or doubt this identity without destroying the fundamental
fact of all psychological investigations, and consequently falling
into the most complete skepticism? If the testimony of consciousness
is not valid, if the judgment to which it _necessarily_ forces us is
not certain, what shall we catch hold of in order that we may not be
precipitated into the most absolute skepticism? where shall we look for
a solid foundation for the edifice of our knowledge?
71. "But," Kant continues, "from the point of view of another, we
cannot hold this judgment valid, because, finding in the soul no
other constant phenomenon than the representation of the _me_ which
accompanies and unites all the other phenomena, we can never decide
that this _me_ (a simple thought) is not as fleeting as the other
thoughts, which are respectively connected by it." Do not, then, admit
that the representation of the _me_, although essentially representing
an identity, is valid; say that, although transitory it _necessarily_
brings us to the illusion of permanence; but draw also all the
consequences of this doctrine, and maintain that human reason avails
nothing, absolutely nothing; say that recollection is a pure illusion,
that although we are necessarily induced to believe that the thought
which we now have is the recollection of another previous thought,
that all this is pure illusion; that we are not sure that there is
the relation of recollection, and that we only know that at present
we have the consciousness of a thought which _seems_ to us connected
with another previous thought; say too that reasoning has no validity,
for all conviction of ideas is impossible without memory; and that,
although an internal representation necessarily produces an assent,
we must distrust the judgment which necessity demands: say too that
all that we think, all that we perceive, all that we will, all that
we experience within us, cannot enable us to know any thing, that we
are condemned to a complete impotence of acquiring any certainty of
any thing; and that the language of every philosopher should be the
following: "This now seems so; I am conscious of it; I know nothing
further; I experience a necessity of believing it, but perhaps this
belief is a pure illusion; I know nothing of the external world; I know
nothing either of the internal world; all knowledge is denied me; I
myself am only a succession of phenomena which pass away and disappear;
an irresistible necessity impels me to believe that these phenomena
have a common tie, but this tie is nothing; because when a phenomenon
disappears nothing is before it; if I acknowledge any reality, no
matter what, I fall into the substantiality of the soul, which I have
resolved not to admit; all is illusion, all is nothing, because, as I
am not even certain of the facts of consciousness, I am not certain
even of the illusion." Who can encounter such consequences?
CHAPTER XI.
SIMPLICITY OF THE SOUL.
72. I have confined myself in the preceding chapters to proving the
substantiality of the soul; to do which it was only necessary to
demonstrate by the testimony of consciousness that there is within
us a permanent reality, the subject of the modifications which we
experience. I shall now demonstrate that this substance is simple.
To proceed methodically, let us fix the meaning of the word _simple_.
When many beings are united and form a collection, the result is called
a composite being; so that there is a true composition wherever beings
substantially distinct are united; the band which unites them may be
of different species, which produces the diversity of compositions.
Simplicity is opposed to composition; the idea of simplicity
essentially excludes the idea of composition; as this last includes a
_number_ of distinct things which are united to form a whole, the idea
of simplicity essentially excludes the idea of number of things united
to form a whole. Therefore the simple is strictly one, and there is
simplicity in a substance when it is not a collection of substances.
When, therefore, we say the substance of the soul is simple, we mean
that it is not a collection of substances, but one substance.
73. The idea of simplicity thus determined with exactness, let
us see if it belongs to our soul. As the soul is not given us in
intuition after the manner of sensible things, and we only know it
by the presence of the internal sense, and by the phenomena which we
experience in the depths of our consciousness, we must examine these
two sources to see if we can find simplicity in them.
It is an indisputable fact that in all our acts, in all our internal
affections, we perceive the identity of the _me_.[48] There is no
identity between things that are distinct: consequently the internal
sense at once rejects the multiplicity of the soul. It may be said that
this identity does not exist between distinct substances, but that a
composite substance is identical with itself, and perhaps the identity
revealed by consciousness is only the identity of a composite with
itself: but this reply is destroyed by merely examining the testimony
of consciousness. That which we perceive as various and multiple is not
the _me_, but that which takes place in the _me_: we think, we will, we
perceive different things; but consciousness attests that what thinks
them, wills them, and perceives them, is one and the same, the _me_.
Therefore, the testimony of consciousness alone proves the simplicity
of the soul; for it is impossible to explain otherwise how we perceive
within us the permanent unity amid the multitude of internal phenomena.
[48] See Chaps. VI., VII., VIII., IX., and X.
74. Abstracting the testimony of the internal sense, and looking only
at the nature of the internal phenomena, it may be demonstrated that
the subject of them is a simple substance. If it were not so, the
thinking substance would be composed of various substances; let us see
what would follow from this supposition. Let the component substances
be three, for example, A, B, C; I say that this collection cannot
think. To demonstrate it with the most complete evidence, let us take
this judgment: metal is a body, and let us see if it is possible for
the collection of A, B, C, to form this judgment. Let us suppose the
representation of the subject, _metal_, to be in the substance A; the
idea of the predicate, _body_, to be in B; and the general idea of the
relation of the predicate to the subject, or the copula, _is_, to be
in C; can a judgment be the result? By no means. A will perceive the
metal, B the body, and C the general idea of the copula, _is_. Each
of these substances will have consciousness of its own; but as it is
not conscious of what is in the other two, it can form no judgment,
for this essentially consists in the relation of the predicate to the
subject.
75. If you say that each of the substances contains the representations
of the three things, we shall have three judgments, and there will
not be one thinking being, but three. Besides, either of the three
substances A, B, C, is composed of others, or it is not. If it is
not, is simple, and we have a simple and perceptive substance, why
then suppose three when one is enough? If it is composed of others,
the difficulty is increased; for supposing A to be formed of two
substances, which we may call _m_, _n_; the representation of metal
which was in A will be distributed between _m_ and _n_, in which case,
far from obtaining a judgment, we should not even have a subject; for
it would not be possible to form the representation of metal, supposing
it to be divided between _m_ and _n_.
If it is not possible to form a judgment, or even the idea of one term,
it is evident that all reasoning and thought would be impossible; for
reasoning implies a connection of judgments from which it deduces the
conclusion contained in the premises.
76. Acts of the will are also impossible in a composite substance;
there is no will where there is no cognition, and this latter is, as
we have just seen, inseparable from simplicity. But we may extend the
demonstration still further. An act of the will implies an inclination,
tendency, or whatever it may be called, towards an object known. Let us
suppose the two substances A and B to compose a substance which has a
will; and let us suppose all that is necessary for the act of willing
to be divided between them in such manner that the knowledge of the
object willed is in it, and the inclination or tendency in B; I say
such an act or will is absurd. To feel the force of this truth let us
suppose that the act of the will is to be formed of the cognition of
one man, and the inclination of another towards the object known by
the first; the pure cognition of one is not the act of the will, and
the inclination of the other towards an object is impossible unless he
has the cognition of the object towards which he is inclined, because
this is equivalent to supposing a relation without any term to which it
relates. These contradictions must be admitted by every one who denies
the simplicity of the substances which will; for either the inclination
and the cognition must be divided between the parts of the substances,
or all concentrated in one part, and then the others are unnecessary.
Moreover, the substances composing the substance which will are either
simple or composite; if simple, then there are simple substances which
know and will; if composite, each act of the will would be an aggregate
of the action of the parts, and what would an act of the will be which
should consist in an aggregate?
77. The union which we conceive in distinct substances is either
juxtaposition in space, simultaneousness in time, or the concourse
of forces producing a common effect: juxtaposition in space or
simultaneousness of time does not help us to explain thought, the
act of the will, nor any internal phenomena; and neither does the
concourse of forces producing a common effect solve the problem.
On this supposition we should have to conceive internal phenomena
as the products of an elaboration to which various substances have
occurred. Let us for a moment admit this absurdity; we advance
nothing by it, for we then ask, where does the phenomenon reside?
If in all the substances jointly it must be in itself composite,
and its consciousness would also be composite; none of the component
substances could say _I_ with respect to this phenomenon; there
would, therefore, be a multiplicity of consciousnesses. Either these
consciousnesses would be united in a point in order to form a common
consciousness, or they would not. If they are united, their point of
union must be a simple substance, or we relapse into the multiplicity
of consciousnesses: if they are not united, the different internal
consciousnesses of each man will be like the consciousnesses of
different men; each substance will think its own, without knowing what
the other thinks.
78. Finally, this divisibility of substance and of consciousness
will extend to infinity, or it will not; if the former, instead of
one thinking being, there will be an infinite number of thinking
beings within each one of us; if the latter, we must come to simple
substances with thought and consciousness, which is precisely what our
adversaries are opposed to. Infinite divisibility does not save them
from simplicity; the division separates the parts, but it supposes them
distinct; therefore, infinite division must suppose an infinite number
of simple beings which make the division possible.
CHAPTER XII.
KANT'S OPINION OF THE ARGUMENT PROVING THE SIMPLICITY OF THE SOUL.
79. Kant calls the argument, by which we have just proved the
simplicity of the soul, the second paralogism of psychology. He gives
it in these terms: "Every thing, the action of which can never be
conceived as the concurrence of many agents, is simple: the soul or
thinking substance is of this nature; therefore the soul is simple."
The German philosopher admits that this argument is not a mere sophism,
invented by some dogmatist for the purpose of giving his assertions
a slight appearance of truth; and he confesses that it seems to defy
the most attentive examination and the most profound reflection. Still
he flatters himself that he can expose its fallacy, showing that this
principal support of rational psychology is a false foundation, and
that, consequently, the whole edifice of this science is built in the
air.
80. Kant observes that the _nervus probandi_ of the argument is in
the fact that many representations cannot form a thought, except
inasmuch as they are contained in the absolute unity of the thinking
subject; "but no one," he says, "can prove this proposition _by
conceptions_. Where could he begin? The proposition: 'A thought can
only be the effect of the absolute unity of the thinking subject,'
cannot be analyzed; the unity of thought (and even thought results from
many representations) is collective; and as to simple conceptions,
their unity may just as well be referred to the collective unity of
substances which contribute to produce the thought (just as the motion
of a body is the motion of all its parts) as to the absolute unity of
the subject. The necessity of the supposition of a simple substance
cannot consequently be known by the rule of identity in a composite
thought. No one who understands the reason of the possibility of
synthetic judgments _a priori_, as we have explained them above, will
dare to affirm that this proposition can be known synthetically, and
perfectly _a priori_, or by pure conceptions." This reasoning is pure
sophistry, and will vanish in the light of evidence.
81. In the first place, it is not correct to say that all thoughts
result from many representations; in the perception of a simple idea,
as of being, for example, there are not many representations; therefore
Kant's argument fails at the first step; for if there be even one
thought which requires simplicity, it has already been demonstrated
that, if the soul is simple in one instance it cannot cease to be so in
another.
82. Let us now examine how the diversity of representations enter
into those thoughts which admit of this diversity. When these
representations form what is called a thought, they are united, as
it were, in a point which requires the unity of the perception and
of the subject perceiving. In the thought called judgment various
representations are combined, that of the subject and that of the
object; but these different representations do not constitute the
thought called judgment, except inasmuch as they are presented as
connected with the relation which authorizes us to affirm or deny the
predicate of the subject; therefore at the bottom of the diversity
there is unity, that is to say, the relation; therefore the thought by
which this relation is perceived is one, and the action of perceiving
is essentially one, notwithstanding the variety of the representations.
83. There is no order in our thoughts except as we compare them with
each other: all our intellectual acts are reduced to the perception and
comparison of ideas; in perception there is simplicity, as there must
also be in comparisons, since there can be no comparison of that which
is varied, except by reducing the varied to that which is one, that
is, to the relation which is perceived in the comparison. Therefore
in every thought there is unity; thought can never be conceived as
the concurrence of many agents; therefore the proposition, which Kant
considered indemonstrable, is demonstrated,--that many representations
cannot form a thought except in so far as they are contained in the
absolute unity of a thinking subject.
84. Let us present the same demonstration under a stricter form.
Suppose A, B, C, to be the three agents concurring in the formation of
the thought; each part will yield its contingent; let us suppose _a_
to correspond to the first, _b_ to the second, and _c_ to the third,
the result will be the union composed of _a_, _b_, and _c_; this will
be the thought; it will therefore be triple and can never constitute a
point of comparison; therefore, we must either reject this hypothesis,
or deny thought. Kant's sophism proceeds from his attending solely
to the diversity of the representations, and abstracting the unity
which is always met with in the perception of this diversity; hence
it is nothing strange that he does not find unity in the conception
of thought. He presents this conception incompletely, or rather,
falsely; he presents thought as a collection of representations, and
not as a most simple point in which representations unite, in order
to be perceived in the relation which they have among themselves. The
diversity of the representations does not form a collection after the
manner of sensible objects; the thought, in which the relation of two
different triangles is known, cannot be expressed by the sum of the
figures of the two triangles; it is something different from them;
something which is in the midst of them; which unites them by comparing
them, and which joins their diversity in the unity of their relation.
85. The example brought by Kant manifests the rudeness of his idea of
the character of the union of the representations in the formation of
a whole thought. The unity of the thought is, he says, collective, and
may be referred to the collective unity of many substances, just as the
motion of a body is the motion composed of all the parts of the body.
Here we see clearly wherein Kant's equivocation consists; he takes
the collection of the representations for the thought which relates
to them, and therefore it is no wonder that he cannot see the unity
implied in the diversity, on the supposition that this diversity has to
be thought.
To carry conviction to the farthest point, let us take this example of
motion, and suppose a cube to be moved. Let us call its eight verticles
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H; they all move, and the collection of their
motions, with those of the points which are between them, forms the
whole motion. What is there common in the result of this concurrence of
agents? Nothing, except juxtaposition in space, and the relation which
they preserve by the equal velocity of the motion. But the motion of
the vertex H is not the motion of the vertex A, as is evident if we
consider that the vertex A may be cut off from the cube, and remain
at rest without discontinuing or altering the motion of the vertex
H; therefore, the two motions are things absolutely distinct. It is
evident that the same holds true with respect to the other points;
therefore the unity of the composite motion is purely factitious; what
there is, in reality, is a multiplicity of substances, and of motions,
without any other than a purely extrinsical connection, the relation of
positions in space.
Let us change the vertices into representations, and see what will
be the result. Do they exist without any other connection than their
co-existence? Then they do not form a thought, but only a collection
of phenomena which may be considered as a _union_ of things, but not
a thought; in that case the sum of all the representations will be
similar to the sum of the motions; but it will produce no result in
relation to the object which we are now examining. If we give these
representations a point of union, that is, the relation under which
they are perceived, we shall have a thought; but what has this act,
which is _one_ and most simple, in common with, the totality of a
number of points in motion?
86. If Kant had wished to present a more seductive example, he ought
to have made use of a theory in mechanics, the application of which
to the present case presents, if not more difficulty, at least a more
deceitful appearance; I mean the resultant of a system of forces and
their point of application.
When several forces act upon a line, a plane, or a solid, they produce
an effect equal to that one force alone, which is called the resultant:
this force has a determinate direction and a point of application, as
though it were simple or had not emanated from others; why cannot this
be applied to thought? Why may not a thing, although it is simple,
be the product of the concurrence of various agents? This example
is more specious, because it presents the result of the composition
concentrated in a point, but if we examine it well, we shall find that
it proves nothing against us.
The disparity is this: thought is a simple act in itself, whilst the
resultant of the forces is so only in its relation to the effect
experienced, which is all that comes under our calculation. If two
forces are applied at the two extremities of an inflexible right line
the effect will be the same as though we applied one force equal to
the sum of them both at one point of the line, at a distance from
either extremity inversely proportioned to the value of the first
forces. But the unity of this effect depends on the cohesion of the
parts, which, not permitting isolated motions, must make the force
act on a single point; but the component forces do not cease to be
distinct and separate, so that at the moment the cohesion should
cease, the respective parts would each feel the action of the force
corresponding to it, and move in the direction and with the velocity
which the force impresses on them. If, while the cohesion lasts, it
were possible to give each of the component forces the consciousness of
its action, there would be two consciousnesses really distinct, which
could never form one common consciousness, and could only be united in
the production of an effect. If the point of their application should
have the consciousness of the action which it experiences, it might
have a consciousness similar to that of the action of one force, equal
to the sum of the components, if it did not know the manner in which
their action is transmitted to it; but from the moment that it becomes
conscious of their respective action, it would know that the result is
owing to the impossibility of each of them producing its effect in an
isolated manner. If, therefore, we compare the thinking subject to this
point of application of the forces, we must attribute to this subject
the consciousness of the origin of the representations which concur in
the production of the whole effect.
Perhaps it may be said that by the very analysis of the example,
we have prepared the way for the triumph of the adversaries of the
simplicity of the soul; because after arbitrary suppositions we
have at last come to a simple effect inherent in a simple thing,
and produced by the concurrence of various agents; but if we look
closer to it, we shall find that this pretended triumph was never
farther from being realized than it is in the last result to which we
are led by the analysis of the forces. For, in order to arrive at a
simple result produced by the concurrence of various forces, we also
require a simple point in which this result is concentrated. Then, and
precisely because we have arrived at this simplicity, we can abstract
the component forces, and consider the result as a simple effect,
produced by a simple force, and inherent in a simple subject, which
is the indivisible point, to which we consider the force as applied.
Therefore, continuing the comparison, we ought to say that, whatever
may be the number of the agents concurring in the production of the
thought, this thought must reside in a simple subject, and in that
case the simplicity of the soul is admitted. It is true that we should
then suppose a certain number of agents acting on the soul in order
to produce the thought; but the thought once produced, the soul alone
would be the thinking subject, just as the indivisible point is the
only one which unites the action of the component forces.
Thus all that our adversaries would have gained would be the burden of
the ridiculous invention of the concurrence of agents, and be forced
notwithstanding, to admit a simple thinking substance, which is all
that we proposed to demonstrate.
87. Kant pretends that it is impossible to deduce from experience
the necessary unity of the thinking subject, as the condition of the
possibility of all thought, because experience reveals no necessity,
and the conception of absolute unity belongs to an order different
from that which we are here considering. It is certain that experience
alone does not reveal any necessity; for it is limited to particular,
contingent facts, and does not reach the universal reason of objects;
but this is not true of experience regarded objectively, or in relation
to the cognition of the general reasons of things; for although
this cognition, considered subjectively as an individual act, is a
contingent fact, still inasmuch as it exists it represents a true
necessity in certain objects; unless we wish to renounce the certainty
of all the sciences, mathematics included.
It is clear that in speaking of thought and the thinking subject, we
cannot forget experience, since it is impossible to abstract the basis
of all psychological investigations,--_I think_,--a proposition which
expresses a fact of consciousness, an act of internal experience; but
with this experience is combined the idea of unity in general, or the
exclusion of distinction and multiplicity from the act of thought and
from the thinking subject. Thus the demonstration of the simplicity
of the soul follows in the same path as all demonstrations which
are confined to the purely ideal order, and which consequently are
formed of one premise which contains a necessary truth, and another
which establishes a fact of experience. In the present instance, the
necessary premise is the very definition of unity and simplicity;
the other expresses the fact experienced, that is, the nature of the
thought, as it is revealed in consciousness.
88. Hence the demonstration of the simplicity of thinking beings is not
limited to the human mind, but extends to all the subjects in which
the fact of consciousness exists. When Kant says we cannot extend this
demonstration, because we then go out of the field of experience, we
reply with this argument: our demonstration is founded on the idea of
unity and the fact of consciousness; the idea of unity is general,
and consequently is valid in all cases; the fact of consciousness
is a thing which is found in every thinking being, since thought is
inconceivable without a subject, which may say, _I think_; therefore,
we proceed legitimately in extending the demonstration of simplicity,
unless you mean to give to the word _think_ a very different meaning
from that which we all give to it, in which case we go out of the arena
of philosophy and enter on a discussion of words.
89. We must have received the idea of a thinking being from internal
experience: we may expand or restrict this idea, increasing or
decreasing its perfection; but at bottom it remains always the same,
and we cannot conceive thought in another being without attributing
to it something similar to what we experience in ourselves. In this
respect Kant is therefore right when he says that if we wish to
represent to ourselves a thinking being we must put ourselves in the
place of the object. According to him, we require for thought the
absolute unity of the subject, only because without this unity it would
be impossible to say, _I think_; since, although the totality of the
thought may be distributed among the various subjects, the subjective
_me_ cannot be divided or separated, and every thought supposes this
_me_. The proposition, I think, is the foundation on which psychology
raises the edifice of its knowledge: Kant admits this, but I cannot
understand why, admitting that this proposition is the form of the
apperception which is joined with and precedes all experience, he still
says that it is not experimental; as though the thought were not just
as subject to a real experience as its form; whereas if we closely
examine it, we should rather say that the form is experienced than the
thought itself, on the supposition that the latter is distinct whilst
the form is identical in every instance; for the form in itself is only
the consciousness of the unity identical in the midst of diversity.
90. In conceiving this absolute unity in the _me_, we do not, as Kant
pretends, conceive a topical unity, but a real unity, if we suppose
it to remain really the same through the variety of thought. When we
enunciate this unity in the proposition, I think, we do not speak of
a form in the abstract, common to all perceptions, but of something
positive which is within us, and the reality of which is indispensable
to the possibility of thought.
91. The German philosopher further says: "This subjective condition
of all knowledge cannot with propriety be converted into a condition
of the possibility of a knowledge of the objects; that is, into a
conception of thinking being in general, since we cannot represent
this being to ourselves without putting ourselves in its place by the
formula of our consciousness." I do not believe that the psychologists
who have pretended that they could demonstrate the simplicity of the
soul, ever flattered themselves with arriving at a perfect idea of
thinking beings, or denied that we obtain the type of this idea from
our own experience; what they have pretended is, that reason leads them
to infer that there is absolute unity of the subject wherever there is
a thinking being; whether its thought may belong to a higher or lower
order than our own.
92. When Kant observes that the subject in which the thought inheres is
only indicated in a transcendental way, without its properties being
discovered, and that, therefore, we do not know the simplicity of the
subject itself, he declares a fact which is in some sense admissible,
but he deduces from it a false consequence. It is true that we only
know the substance of the soul by the presence of the internal sense,
and by its relation to its acts; and consequently that the soul in
itself abstracted from all the phenomena which we experience, is not
given in immediate intuitions, and that when we arrive at this point we
are reduced to the idea of a simple being, but this indeterminateness,
and vagueness, in the knowledge of the substance of the soul, does not
prevent our knowing its simplicity, if this simplicity is revealed by
the internal sense, and also by the nature of the phenomena by which we
know the thinking subject.
93. Some persons may believe that the indeterminateness of the
knowledge of the substance of the soul is a fact recently discovered
by the German philosopher; but it is easy to show that it had
been observed long before, and is laid down in a very special and
interesting manner in the writings of St. Thomas. This eminent
metaphysician proposes the question whether the intellectual soul knows
itself by its essence, _utrum anima intellectiva seipsam cognoscat
per suam essentiam_, and after the various remarks on intelligence,
and the intelligibility of objects, he solves it in these remarkable
words: "Our understanding does not know itself by its essence, but by
its act; and this in two ways: in one way, in particular; inasmuch as
Sortes or Plato perceives that he has an intellectual soul, because
he perceives that he understands: in the second way, in general;
inasmuch as we consider the nature of the human mind in the act of
the understanding. But it is true that we derive the judgment and
efficacy of the knowledge by which we know the nature of the soul, by
the light of the divine truth of which our intellect participates, and
in which are contained the reasons of all things, as was said above.
Hence, Augustine says, in the ninth book on the Trinity: We have
intuition of the inviolable truth by which we perfectly determine,
as far as possible, not what the mind of each man is, but what it
should be according to the eternal reasons. But there is a difference
between these two cognitions, for, to have the first, we only need the
presence of the mind, which is the principle of the act by which the
mind perceives itself, and, therefore, we say that it knows itself
by its presence; but for the second, the presence of the mind is not
sufficient, but a careful and subtile investigation is necessary. Hence
many are ignorant of the nature of the soul, and many also have erred
on the nature of the soul; wherefore in the tenth book on the Trinity,
Augustine, speaking of this investigation, says: The soul should not
try to see itself as something absent, but endeavor to distinguish
itself as something present; that is, to know its difference from other
things, which is to know its quiddity and nature."[49]
[49] Non ergo per essentiam suam, sed per actum suum se cognoscit
intellectus noster, et hoc dupliciter. Uno quidem modo particulariter,
secundum quod Sortes, vel Plato percipit se habere animam intellectivam
ex hoc, quod percipit se intelligere. Alio modo in universali, secundum
quod naturam mentis humanæ ex actu intellectus consideramus. Sed verum
est quod judicium, et efficacia hujus cognitionis per quam naturam
animæ cognoscimus, competit nobis secundum derivationem luminis
intellectus nostri a veritate divina, in qua rationes omnium rerum
continentur, sicut supra dictum est. Unde August. dicit in 9 de Trin.
Intuemur inviolabilem veritatem, ex qua perfecte quantum possumus,
deffinimus, non qualis sit uniuscujusque hominis mens, sed qualis esse
sempiternis rationibus debeat. Est autem differentia inter has duas
cognitiones; nam ad primam cognitionem de mente habendam sufficit
ipsa mentis præsentia, quæ est principium actus, ex quo meus percipit
seipsam: et ideo dicitur se cognoscere per suam præsentiam. Sed ad
secundam cognitionem de mente habendam, non sufficit ejus præsentia:
sed requiritur diligens, et subtilis inquisitio. Unde et multi naturam
animæ ignorant, et multi etiam circa naturam animæ erraverunt. Propter
quod August. dicit 10 de Trin. de tali inquisitione mentis, Non velut
absentem se quærat mens cernere; sed præsentem quærat discernere; id
est cognoscere differentiam suam ab aliis rebus, quod est cognoscere
quidditatem, et naturam suam. S. Thom. _Sum. Theol._ P. I. Q.,
LXXXVII., A. 1.
94. It is to be observed that St. Thomas admits two cognitions of the
soul by itself;--that of its presence, as we perceive it in perceiving
our thought, _percipit se habere animam intellectivam ex hoc quod
percipit se intelligere_; and another which we deduce from the analysis
of the intellectual act reasoning from general considerations, and
reflecting on the light which the eternal reasons shed upon this
fact of experience. This is how St. Thomas explains the knowledge of
presence or consciousness contained in the proposition, _I think_; and
the general knowledge which we deduce from the same intellectual act in
its relations to the unity of the subject exercising it. That this last
contains something abstract and indeterminate no one denies; and when
Kant calls attention to it, he tells us nothing which the holy Doctor
had not already told us when he expressly affirmed that the soul knows
itself not in its essence, but in its acts. These few laconic words
express all the truth which is contained in Kant's diffuse explanation
of the limitation of our cognition to the acts of consciousness, and
the absence of the intuitive knowledge of the substance of the soul,
the transcendental subject of the thought.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN WHAT MANNER THE IDEA OF SUBSTANCE MAY BE APPLIED TO GOD.
95. In the idea of substance as formed from the beings around us and
from the testimony of our consciousness we find the relation to changes
which occur in it as their subject or recipient. But we have before
remarked that besides this relation there is a negation of inherence
in another as the modifications are inherent in the substance; this
negation implies a perfection which exempts it from the necessity of
inherence to which the changeable and transitory beings which we call
accidents or modifications are subject. As we are ignorant of the
intrinsic essence of substances, we do not know what this perfection
is; yet we cannot doubt that it exists in the very nature of the
subject, and is independent of the modifications which transform it.
If then the essence of the substance must consist in any thing, it
must be in this perfection of which we have a knowledge, but not an
intuitive cognition. When therefore substance is defined in relation
to accidents, _quod substat accidentibus_, it is rather defined by the
manner in which it is presented to us than by what it is in itself.
96. Hence, of the two definitions usually received in the schools:
_Ens per se subsistens_, a being subsisting by itself, and, _id quod
substat accidentibus_, the subject of accidents; the first is the more
correct, because it comes nearer the expression of what it is in
itself. Although we know finite substances only inasmuch as revealed by
accidents, and even our own mind knows itself only in its acts, reason
tells us that in order to be known things must exist, and in order that
our mind may find in them something permanent, it is necessary that
this something should be in them. Our knowledge does not produce its
objects; in order to be known they must exist.
97. These reflections manifest the possibility of the existence of a
substance not subject to accidents or change of any kind; and that
this substance not only does not lose the character of substance by
being immutable, but possesses it in a much more perfect degree. The
perfection of substance is not in its changes but in what is permanent
in it, not in having a succession of modifications inherent in it,
but in existing in such a manner as not to need to inhere in another.
The substance which should possess this permanence, this perfection
enabling it to exist by itself, and at the same time should have no
modification, should experience no change, would be infinitely superior
to all other substances. This substance is God.
98. Now it is easy to answer the question whether when applied to God
the idea of substance is understood in the same sense as when applied
to creatures; or, to speak in the terms of the schools, whether it is
taken univocally or analogously.
99. In the idea of every substance is contained the idea of being; what
does not exist cannot be a substance. Inasmuch as we conceive being as
a reality, as opposed to nothingness, the idea of being belongs both
to God and to creatures: God is, that is to say, God is a real thing,
not nothing. But if from this general idea, such as we conceive it in
opposition to nothingness, we pass to its realization in objects, to
the manner of its application, so to speak, we find all the difference
that there is between the contingent and the necessary, the finite and
the infinite. Although we do not intuitively see the infinite being,
nor the essence of finite beings, still we have evident knowledge that
the word _being_ applied to the infinite means something very different
from what it does when applied to the finite.
100. In the idea of substance is also contained the idea of something
permanent; this permanence belongs also to God: the infinite being is
essentially permanent.
101. In the substances around us we find this permanence combined
with the succession of the modifications which affect them; these
changes are impossible in God. The relation to modifications is a
characteristic quality of finite substances.
102. Substances are not inherent in others as modifications are
inherent in them; this non-inherence also belongs to the divine
substance.
103. Substances must contain something which exempts them from the
necessity of inherence and raises them above the things which so
rapidly succeed each other, and in their existence always need another
to sustain them; this perfection is found in the divine substance which
is being essentially, the fountain of perfection.
104. It follows from this analysis that all the perfection contained in
the idea of substance may be applied to the infinite being; and that
all that is contained in this idea which cannot be applied to this
being is what implies negation or imperfection.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN IMPORTANT REMARK, AND SUMMARY.
105. When we say, that a substance is a being subsisting by itself,
we do not mean that it is a being which has absolutely no need of
another for its existence. To confound these two things would produce
a frightful confusion of ideas, and is itself produced by a not less
frightful confusion of the relation of cause and effect with the
relation of substance and accidents.
106. The relation of cause and effect consists in the cause giving
the effect its being; the relation of substance and accident consists
in the substance serving as subject to the accident. So great is the
difference between these two relations that not only does reason
show them to be distinct, but at every moment experience presents
them as separate. Our soul is the subject of many accidents in the
production of which it has no part, but on the contrary opposed to
their production as far as it is able. Such are all painful sensations,
all disagreeable impressions, all troublesome thoughts which present
themselves in spite of us, and when we wish to think of something else.
In these cases the soul is the subject, and not the cause: it has the
relation of substance to things of which it is not the cause, and with
respect to which it is entirely passive. If I am not greatly mistaken,
this example is conclusive, and marks the line which divides causality
from substance, effect from accident.
107. To be subsistent by itself expresses an exclusion; if this
exclusion is referred to causality, to be subsistent by itself is to be
not caused; if referred to inherence, it means to be not inherent in
another as accidents are in their substance. When substance is defined
a being subsistent in itself, it is understood in the second sense, not
in the first, and this distinction is sufficient to overthrow the whole
system of Spinoza, and all the pantheists, whatever be the aspect under
which they present their error.
108. In order to enter on the question of pantheism free from all
confusion, let us sum up in a few words all that reason and experience
teach concerning substance.
I. Within us there is a being, one, simple, identical, permanent, the
subject of the phenomena which we experience.
II. Outside of us there are objects which preserve something constant
through the variety of this phenomena.
III. In the idea of substance are contained the ideas of permanence and
non-inherence in another as a modification.
IV. The relation of a subject to its modifications, is found in all
finite substances.
V. Relation to modifications is not inseparable from the ideas of
being, permanence, and non-inherence in another.
VI. An immutable substance implies no contradiction.
VII. To subsist by itself is not the same as to be independent of
all other beings. The relation of cause and effect ought not to be
confounded with the relation of substance and accident.
VIII. _Non-inherence_ in another is characteristic of substance; but
this negative idea must be founded on something positive; on the
_force_ to subsist by itself without the necessity of adhering to
another.
CHAPTER XV.
PANTHEISM EXAMINED IN THE ORDER OF IDEAS.
109. The idea of substance and all its applications, as well to the
external as to the internal world, are far from leading us to infer the
existence of a _single_ substance; on the contrary, reason according
with experience forces us to acknowledge a _multitude_ of substances.
Why should we admit only one substance? This is one of the most
important questions of philosophy, and from the most ancient times has
given occasion to the most serious errors; it consequently deserves a
careful investigation.
110. Those who admit only one substance must found their opinion either
on the idea of substance or on experience; our mind can have no other
recourse than to its primitive ideas, or the teachings of experience.
Let us begin with the _a priori_ method or that which is founded on the
idea.
111. What do you understand by substance? we ask. If by substance you
understand a being subsisting by itself, and by this subsistence you
mean that it has no need of another, and never had any need of another
in order to exist, then you are speaking of a being that is _not
caused_, of a necessary being which has in itself the sufficient and
necessary reason of its existence. If you say this being is only one,
or that there is no other of its kind, we agree with you, only we tell
you that you take the name of substance in an improper sense. But at
bottom the difference would be only in the name; and in order to come
to a mutual understanding it is only necessary for us to know that
by substance you understand an absolutely necessary, and consequently
absolutely independent being. But if you assert that this being is the
only one in the sense that there is nothing, and can be nothing beside
it, then your assertion is gratuitous and we ask for joint proof.
Why should the necessary being exclude the possibility of other beings?
Is it not more reasonable to conclude that it contains the reason of
their possibility and existence? The being which has in itself the
necessity of existing, must possess activity, and the external term of
this activity is production. Why may not other beings be the result of
this production? Inasmuch as produced they would be distinct from the
being producing them.
112. Without going beyond our ideas we find contingency and
multiplicity. Experience reveals a continual succession of forms within
us; these appearances are something; they cannot be a pure nothing,
for they must be something, though only appearances. In them we behold
a continual transition from not-being to being, and from being to
not-being; therefore there is a production of something which is not
necessary, since it is, and ceases to be; therefore there is something
besides the being which is supposed the only one. This argument is
founded on the purely internal phenomena, and, therefore, is valid even
against the idealists, against those who take from the external world
all reality, and reduce it to mere appearances, to simple phenomena of
our mind. These appearances exist at least as appearances; they are
then something, they are contingent, they are not therefore necessary
being. Therefore besides this being there is something which is not it;
therefore the system which asserts the existence of only one being is
not sustainable.
The idea of a being absolutely independent by reason of its absolute
necessity does not exclude the existence of contingent beings; it only
shows that the necessary being is the only necessary being, not that it
is the only being.
113. Neither does it follow from the idea of necessary being that
there cannot be contingent beings, _caused_, and yet subsisting by
themselves in the sense that they are not inherent as modifications in
others. Not to be caused and not to be inherent are two very distinct
things; the first implies the second, but the second does not imply
the first. Every being not caused must be free from inherence, because
if it is not caused it is necessary, and contains in itself all that
is necessary in order not to inhere in another. If necessary, it must
be absolutely independent of all others, which it would not be if it
needed them as a modification needs a substance. But not every thing
which is not inherent is necessarily not caused, for its cause may have
made it such that it does not need to be inherent as a modification in
another. It would then depend on another as an effect on its cause, but
not as an accident on its substance; there would be between them the
relation of causality, but not that of substance; things which we have
shown in the last chapter to be very distinct.
114. Never will the pantheists be able to prove that because a thing is
not a modification it must be not caused; and this is precisely what
they must prove in order to carry their system through in triumph. Once
prove that whatever subsists in itself is not caused, and you will
have proved whatever subsists in itself to be necessary. And as the
necessary being must be only one, you will have proved that there is
only one substance.
115. The secret of pantheism is the confounding of non-inherence with
absolute independence; and the means of overthrowing its arguments
is always to distinguish these two things. All that is not caused is
substance, but not all that is substance is uncaused. All that is
not caused is necessary and therefore not inherent, but not every
substance is necessary. Finite substance is not inherent in another
being, but it is caused by another being. It cannot exist without this
other being, it is true; but this dependence is not the dependence of a
modification on its substance, but that of an effect on its cause.
The cause gives being to the effect; the substance sustains the
accident: the cause is not modified by the effect; the substance is
modified by the accident. These ideas are clear and distinct; by them
pantheism is destroyed in all its transformations, and forced, as old
Proteus was by Menelaus, to resume its primitive form. Atheism is its
nature, and should be its name. Many of the erroneous systems which
disturb the ideal world are founded on an equivocation; to oppose
them with success, we must fix ourselves on the point which clears
up their equivocation, and not go out of it. The equivocation will
assume different forms, but we must not suffer ourselves to be deceived
or confounded by it; we must always return to the same distinction
and make that the battle-ground. The passage of the immortal poet
in the place just alluded to, might be taken as a fable giving an
excellent method of defeating sophisms: "Collect all your strength
and courage," says the goddess Idothea to Menelaus, "and, throwing
yourself upon him, hold him tightly despite all his efforts; for he
will metamorphose himself in a thousand ways in order to escape from
you: he will take the semblance of all the most savage animals. He
will also change himself into water; he will become fire: but let none
of these frightful forms terrify you, or force you to let him go; on
the contrary, hold him and strain him the more tightly. But as soon as
he returns to _the first form_ in which, he was, ... then use no more
violence, but let him go.[50]" So it is with pantheism, it will speak
of matter, of mind, of the reality of phenomenal, of the _me_, of the
_not-me_, of subsistence and non-subsistence, of the necessary and the
contingent; but do not allow it to go beyond the fundamental ideas,
lead it to them; it will at last return to its first form, and when it
has returned to this, then let it go, showing it to the world as it
is, saying: "See it in its horrible deformity; it has always been what
it is now; notwithstanding all its transformations, it is nothing but
atheism."
[50] Odyss., Bk. IV.
CHAPTER XVI.
PANTHEISM EXAMINED IN THE ORDER OF EXTERNAL FACTS.
116. If pantheism is unsustainable in the region of ideas, it is not
less so in the field of experience. The latter, far from leading us to
the exclusive unity of substance, shows us on all sides multiplicity.
117. There is unity where there is no division, when in the thing that
is one no others can be distinguished, when it admits no negative
judgment. Nothing of all this is observed in the external world; but a
constant experience presents directly the contrary.
118. In the external world division is visible, palpable; there is
no other unity than that of order, of direction to an end; besides
this, all is multiplicity. The only medium by which we are placed
in communication with the external world are the senses, and they
encounter multiplicity on every side--sensations distinct in number,
diverse in species, graduated in a thousand different ways, distributed
into infinite groups, which, although they are connected in this or
that point, may be divided and are divided in a thousand others.
119. Multiplicity is as truly revealed by the testimony of the senses
as the very existence of objects. If we deny the competency of their
testimony in the first, we must deny it also in the second. They not
only tell us that such a body exists, but that it is not another body.
We know nothing with more certainty than that an external object
corresponds to a sensation, that the objects of two distinct sensations
are distinct.
To say that the senses are not good judges in this matter, because they
are limited to mere sensation, and consequently cannot judge of the
objects of the sensation, is to appeal to idealism, for by the same
reason we may assert that the senses, limited to mere sensation, cannot
give us certainty of the existence of their respective objects.
120. To establish unity outside of ourselves is to annihilate the
corporeal world. The idea of extension contradicts unity. In that which
is extended some parts are not the others. This is evident, and whoever
attempts to doubt it attacks the basis of the certainty of geometry. If
the world is something real, it is extended; if it is not extended, we
cannot be certain that it is any thing real. We have the same certainty
of its extension as of its existence. Its very existence is manifested
by the extension presented to our senses. If, then, this extension does
not exist, sensations are a mere internal phenomenon, a pure illusion,
in so far as we attribute to them a correspondence to the exterior.
121. This argument seems to me one of the most conclusive than can
be brought against Spinosa, who, together with the oneness of the
substance admits extension, as one of its attributes. The extended
is essentially multiplex; it always involves the distinction between
its parts; we can always say of it: "The part A is not the part B."
Pantheism cannot escape this argument except by taking refuge in
pure idealism; and in this respect Fichte and Hegel are more logical
than most persons give them credit for being. In order to maintain
the exclusive oneness of substance, it is necessary to convert the
external world into mere phenomena, whose only reality consists in
their being thus presented to us. This is to absorb the world in the
_me_, and concentrate the reality in the idea; but this absorption,
this concentration, notwithstanding its obscurity, is a necessary and
logical consequence of the principle established. There is absurdity,
but there is at least the consequence of the absurdity.
122. Those who call Spinosa the disciple of Descartes, have not
observed that there is a necessary contradiction between the two
systems. The argument founded on extension, which I have just
presented, although conclusive under every hypothesis, is still more
so against those who admit with Descartes, that the essence of bodies
consists in extension. In that case, the various parts of extension
are essentially distinct, since each part constitutes an essence. The
essential and substantial multiplicity of bodies would be in proportion
to the multiplicity of extension.
123. If you maintain that extension is not the essence of bodies, but
an attribute or modification of bodies, whether a determination founded
on their essence or an accidental determination, and pretend that
this modification or attribute may belong to the only substance, we
ask you whether this substance in itself abstracted from extension is
simple or composite. If composite, it implies multiplicity, and Spinosa
coincides with the common opinion of a corporeal world, composed of
many parts, one of which will have no more right than another to be
the true substance. For then there would not be a single substance,
but one composed of many; and the corporeal universe cannot be called
a substance except in the sense in which it is commonly called one,
that is, not taking the oneness in a strict sense, but inasmuch as all
its parts are connected together, and disposed in a certain order to
conspire to the same end. If the substance, the subject of extension is
simple, the result will be a simple substance determined or modified
by extension, a simple extended substance, which is a contradiction.
A thing cannot be conceived as a modification of another unless it
is modified by it; this is what the words express. A modification
modifies, giving to the thing modified the form of the modification,
applying itself to the thing modified. Extension cannot modify except
by making the thing modified extended; and to be extended, and to
have extension, are absolutely identical expressions. Therefore it
is repugnant for a simple substance to have extension for one of its
modifications; therefore Spinosa's system is absurd.
CHAPTER XVII.
PANTHEISM EXAMINED IN THE ORDER OF INTERNAL FACTS.
124. The multiplicity of substances is no less attested by the
consciousness of ourselves, or of the internal world. Our first
reflex act reveals within us something which is one, indivisible, and
remaining always the same through all the transformations of our being.
This unity of the _me_ is indispensable to the connection of all the
phenomena in a point; without it all memory, all combination, and all
consciousness are impossible; our own being disappears, and there
remains only a series of unconnected phenomena. But this unity, which
we must take as an internal fact which consciousness places beyond
all doubt, and the conviction of which it is impossible for us to
withstand,--this unity produces the knowledge of multiplicity. There is
something which affects us and which is not ourselves. Our will, our
activity, is impotent to resist other activities which act upon us;
there is, then, something which is not ourselves, which is independent
of us. There is something which is not a modification of ourselves,
because very often it does not affect us, does not modify us. This
something is a reality, for nothing cannot affect any thing. It is not
inherent in us; it is, then, in itself, or in something which is not
ourselves. There is, therefore, a substance which is not our substance;
and the _me_ and the _not-me_ which have made so much noise in German
philosophy, far from leading to the unity of the substance, lead to
multiplicity; and destroy pantheism entrenched behind idealism.
125. At the very first we meet at least with duality, the _me_ and the
_not-me_; but carrying our observations a little farther, we find a
striking multiplicity.
Our mind is not alone: the consciousness of what we daily experience
proves our communication with other minds, which, like our own, have
the consciousness of themselves--a sphere of activity of their own,
and, like our own mind, are subjected to other activities without their
will, and sometimes even against it. The _me_ and the _not-me_ existing
for our consciousness, exists also for theirs; what in us alone was
duality becomes a wonderful multiplicity by means of the repetition of
the same fact which we have experienced in ourselves.
126. To attribute this variety of consciousnesses to the same being,
to take them as modifications of the same substance, as revelations
of itself to its own eyes, is a gratuitous assertion; and not only
gratuitous but absurd.
With full confidence I can defy the greatest philosopher of the world
to assign any reason, I do not say satisfactory, but even a specious
reason, proving that two individual consciousnesses belong to a common
consciousness, or are consciousnesses of the same being.
127. In the first place, this doctrine is in contradiction to common
sense, and is rejected with irresistible force by the internal sense
of every man. The sentiment of our existence is always accompanied by
the sentiment of our distinction from other beings like us. We are not
only certain that we exist, but that we are distinct from others; and
if in any thing the sentiment of this distinction is profoundly marked,
it is in what regards the phenomena of our consciousness. Never at any
time, in any country or phase of society, could men be persuaded that
the consciousness of all their acts and impressions belonged to one and
the same being in which individual consciousnesses were united. It is a
bad philosophy which begins by struggling against humanity, and placing
itself in open contradiction to an irresistible sentiment of nature.
128. The very idea of consciousness excludes this monstrous absurdity,
which attempts to transform individual consciousnesses into
modifications of one universal consciousness. Consciousness, that is,
the internal sentiment of what a being experiences, is essentially
individual, it is, so to speak, incommunicable to every other. To
others we communicate the knowledge of our consciousness, but not
our consciousness itself. It is an intuition or a sentiment which is
completed in the innermost recesses of our being, in that which is most
our own. What, then, would that consciousness be which does not belong
to us as individuals, which is not our own which is nothing of what we
believe it to be, but only a property of an unknown being,--a being of
which we have no knowledge, and of which we are only a phenomenon, a
passing modification? Where would be the unity of consciousness in the
midst of such diversity, opposition, and mutual exclusion? This being,
modified by so many consciousnesses, would have no consciousness of its
own, for it could give itself no account of what it experiences.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FICHTE'S PANTHEISTIC SYSTEM.
129. I am going to fulfil a promise made in the beginning of this
work,[51] to explain and refute the system of Fichte. We have seen
the cabalistic forms employed by the German philosopher to obtain a
simple result, which amounted to neither more nor less than Descartes'
principle, "I think, therefore, I am." The reader could never imagine
that any one should attempt to found pantheism on this fact of
consciousness, and that the human mind, because it finds itself, should
have the arrogance to maintain that nothing exists beside itself,
that whatever there is, proceeds from itself, and what is still more
extraordinary, that it is itself produced by itself. In order to
believe that such things have been written we have to see them, and
therefore in explaining Fichte's system, I shall copy his own words.
[51] See Bk. I., Chap. VII.
Thus, although he may suffer a little from the foreign garb, and the
reader may be fatigued with deciphering enigmas, he will have an idea
of the matter and of the form of the system, which he could not have,
if we should take from the philosopher his extravagant originality,
which, however, relates to the form, rather than to the substance.
130. "This act, namely X = I am, is founded on no higher principle."[52]
[52] _Grundlage der gesammten Wissensehaftslehre._ Erst. Th. 1. § 6. b.
This is true to a certain extent, inasmuch as it affirms that in the
series of the facts of consciousness, we come to our own existence
as the last limit, and can go no farther. The reflex act, by which
we perceive our existence, is expressed by the proposition, _I am_,
or, _I exist_; but this proposition by itself alone, tells us nothing
as to the nature of the _me_, and is very far from proving our
absolute independence. On the contrary, from the moment that we begin
to reflect, internal facts are presented to us which incline us to
believe that our being is dependent on another; and in proportion as
we continue to reflect, we acquire a deep conviction of this truth,
arising from a rigorous demonstration.
In no way can we affirm that the act, _I am_, does not depend on any
higher principle, if we mean by that, that the act does not spring
from any _principle of action_, and that by itself alone, it produces
existence. Besides plainly contradicting common sense, this assertion
is without any proof, and is also opposed to the most fundamental
notions of sound philosophy.
131. Fichte thinks differently, and without knowing why, he deduces
from the above propositions these consequences: "Therefore it (the
act, X = _I am_) is _supposed absolutely_, and _founded on itself_,
as the principle _of a certain_ (and, as will be seen by the whole
_Doctrine of Science_, _of every_) act of the human mind, consequently,
also of its pure character,--the pure character of activity in itself,
abstracted from its particular empirical conditions." It is no great
discovery that the character of _act_ is _activity_; but this character
is not _pure_, since in us no act is pure activity, but it is always a
particular exercise of activity.
"Consequently," he continues, "the supposition of the _me_ by itself is
its pure activity. The _me supposes itself_, and it _is_, in virtue of
this mere supposition by itself; and on the other hand, the _me is_ and
it _supposes_ its being, by virtue of its mere being. It is at the same
time the acting, and the product of the act; the active, and that which
is brought about by the activity; act and fact are one and precisely
the same thing; and, therefore, _I am_ is the expression of an act, and
also of the only one possible, as must be seen from the whole _Doctrine
of Science_."
He that can, may understand what is the meaning of a being which is at
the same time producing and produced, principle and term of the same
action, cause and effect of the same thing. He that can, may understand
the meaning of existing in virtue of a mere action, and exercising this
action in virtue of existence. If these be not contradictions, I know
not what is. In God, who is infinite being, essence, existence, and
action are identical; but we cannot say that the action _produces_ his
being, that he _supposes_ himself by his action; we say that he exists
necessarily, and that it is therefore impossible that he should have
been produced, that he should have passed from not-being to being.
132. There occurs to me here a rational explanation of Fichte's
language, an explanation which even if admissible would not excuse the
philosopher for expressing very simple things in contradictory terms.
However, it is this. The soul is an activity; its essence consists in
thought, by which it is manifested to its own eyes, and finds itself
in the act of consciousness. In this sense we may say that the soul
supposes itself, that is, knows itself, takes itself as subject of a
proposition to which it applies the predicate of existence. The soul is
the principle of its act of consciousness; and thus it is productive;
it is also presented in the act of consciousness as object, hence it
may also be said, though inexactly, that in the ideal order it is
produced; in this way it is the principle and the term of the action,
but under different respects. This explanation, whether more or less
founded, is at least reasonable and even intelligible, and the basis on
which it rests, that the essence of the soul consists in thought, has
the name of Descartes in its favor. Thus although we do not defend the
words of Fichte, we might at least defend his ideas. But unfortunately,
the philosopher has taken good care to prevent even this; his words
could not have been more opposed to it.
"We now consider once more," he says, "the proposition: _me is me_.
"The _me_ is supposed absolutely. If it is admitted that the _me_ which
in the above proposition stands in the place of the formal subject is
the _me supposed absolutely_; and that in the place of the predicate
means the _existing me_; it is expressed in the judgment which is
absolutely valid, that both are completely one, or supposed absolutely;
that the _me_ is, _because_ it has supposed itself."
Every judgment implies identity of the predicate and the subject; but
in the proposition: _me_ is _me_, the identity is not only implied but
explicitly asserted; for which reason, the proposition belongs to the
class of what are termed identical propositions, because its predicate
explains nothing concerning the idea of the subject, but only repeats
it. Whence then does Fichte deduce that the _me_ exists because it has
supposed itself? So far we have only the _me_ saying: _me is me_; it
affirms itself and thus _supposes_ itself as subject and predicate of
a proposition: but it is clearer than day-light that to _suppose by
affirming_ is altogether different from _supposing by producing_: on
the contrary, common sense and reason alike teach that the existence of
the thing affirmed is necessary to the legitimacy of the affirmation.
To confound these two ideas, to consider it the same thing to _affirm_
as to _suppose by producing_, is an inconceivable absurdity.[53]
[53] Here, as elsewhere, in the examination of Fichte's system, I
have translated the German word _setzen_ and the Spanish _poner_ by
the verb _to suppose_. Had I known any better word I should have used
it, but I think this sufficiently explains the philosopher's meaning.
I have also found the French word _poser_ which exactly corresponds
to it, and which M. Cousin uses in his sketch of Fichte's system,
translated _suppose_ by Mr. Ripley, in the _Specimens of Foreign
Literature_.--TRANSLATOR.
133. Explaining this in a note, Fichte adds what follows: "It is also
certainly so according to the logical form of every proposition. In the
proposition A = A, the first A is that which is supposed in the _me_
either absolutely as the _me_ itself, or on any other ground as every
determined _not-me_. In this case the _me_ represents the absolute
subject, and hence the first A is called the subject. The second A
denotes what the _me_, which takes itself as the object of reflection,
finds as _supposed_ in itself because it has first supposed it in
itself. The judging _me_ predicates something, not properly of A, but
of itself, namely, that it finds an A in itself; and hence the second A
is called the predicate. So in the proposition: A = B, A denotes that
which is supposed now; B that which is found already supposed. _It_
represents the transition of the _me_ from the act of supposing to the
reflection on that which is supposed."
What does Fichte mean by this comparison of ideas and of language? Does
he mean that in this proposition the _me_ is subject and predicate
according to the different aspects under which it is considered? Does
he mean that the _me_, in so far as it occupies the place of subject,
expresses simply existence, and that as predicate it is presented as
an object of reflection? What does he mean by the word _suppose_? If he
means by it to produce, how is it possible for a thing which is not to
produce itself? If he means by it the manifestation of itself, so that
the object manifested may serve as the logical term of a proposition,
why does he tell us that the _me_ exists because it supposes itself?
But let us follow the German philosopher in his wandering deductions.
134. "The _me_ in the first acceptation and that in the second must
be absolutely the same. We can therefore invert the above proposition
and say: the _me_ supposes itself, absolutely _because_ it is. It
_supposes_ itself by its mere being, and _is_ by its mere supposition."
Without defining the sense of the word _suppose_, without saying any
thing more than what all the world knows; that the _me_ is the _me_; he
infers that the _me_ exists because it supposes itself, and supposes
itself because it exists: he identifies existence with supposition
without even noticing that at least some preliminary remarks were
necessary before placing himself in direct opposition with common sense
and the doctrines of all philosophers, including Descartes, who make
existence necessary for action, and regard it as a contradiction for a
thing to be active without existing. Leibnitz thought that there was
nothing and could be nothing without a sufficient reason; but thanks
to the author of the _Doctrine of Science_, we may henceforth people
the world at pleasure with finite or infinite beings, and if asked
whence they came, we may answer that they have been supposed; if we
are further asked why they have been supposed, we may answer; because
they exist; and if still again asked why they exist, we may say,
because they have been supposed; thus we may pass from supposition to
existence, and from existence to supposition, without any danger of
refutation.
135. Although this philosophy is any thing but clear, it seems to have
satisfied its author, who goes on with admirable gravity to say: "Thus,
then, it is _perfectly clear_ in what sense we here use the word _me_,
and we are led to a determinate explanation of the _me_ as absolute
subject. _Every thing whose being (existence) consists solely in its
supposing itself as being_, is the _me_, as absolute subject. So far
as it _supposes_ itself, it _is_; and so far as it _is_, it _supposes_
itself; and the _me_ is therefore absolute and necessary for the _me_.
That which is not for itself is no _me_." Ideal pantheism could not be
established more explicitly, and at the same time more gratuitously;
one is astonished to find one's self seriously occupied with such
extravagances. They have made a noise, because they have not been
known; they ought therefore to be presented to the reader as they are,
even at the risk of fatiguing him.
136. Fichte tries to make his ideas clearer, but we may be always sure
that each explanation will add to their obscurity. Let us permit him to
continue:
"Explanation! One often hears the question asked, _what_ was I before
I came to the consciousness of myself? The natural answer to this is:
_I_ was nothing at all; for I was not the _me_. The _me_ is only in
so far as it is conscious of itself. The possibility of this question
is founded on a confusion of the _me_ as _subject_, and the _me_ as
_object_ of the reflection of the absolute subject, and is entirely
inadmissible. The _me_ represents itself, takes itself so far under the
form of the representation, and is now for the first time _something_,
an object; consciousness receives under this form a substratum which
_is_, and although without actual consciousness, is here thought
corporeally. Such a case is considered, and it is asked: what was then
the _me_; that is, what is the substratum of consciousness? But even
then we think the _absolute subject_ as that which has intuition of
this substratum, _together with it_, although we do not take note of
it; we also, without taking note of it, at the same time think that
which we pretended to abstract, and thus fall into a contradiction. We
can think absolutely nothing without at the same time thinking the _me_
as conscious of of itself; we can never abstract our own consciousness:
hence all questions of this kind are unanswerable; for they would be,
if well understood, unaskable."
That the _me_ did not exist as the object of its reflection before
it had consciousness of itself, is an evident truth; before thinking
itself, it does not think itself; who ever doubted it? But the
difficulty is, whether the _me_ is any thing, independently of its
own reflections or its objectiveness in relation to itself; that is,
whether there is in the _me_ any thing more than the being thought
by itself. The question is not contradictory, but it is one which
naturally presents itself to reason and to common sense; for reason as
well as common sense resist the taking as identical, that which exists,
and that which is known; that which knows itself, and that which
produces itself. We are not now examining whether we have or have not
a clear idea of the _substratum_ of consciousness; but it is curious
to hear the German philosopher remark that when we do not conceive
the _me_ as the object of reflection, we conceive it under a bodily
form. This is to confound imagination with ideas, things, as I have
elsewhere[54] shown, which are very different.
[54] See Bk. IV., from Ch. I. to X.
137. It follows from Fichte's doctrine that the existence of the _me_
consists in its supposing itself by means of consciousness; and that
if consciousness should not exist, the _me_ would not exist. In this
case to be and to be known are the same thing. Although I might ask
Fichte for his proofs of so extravagant an assertion, I shall confine
myself to insisting on the difficulty which he proposes, and which he
only eludes by a confusion of ideas. What would the _me_ be, if it were
not conscious of itself? If to exist is to have consciousness, when
there is no consciousness there is no existence. Fichte answers that
the _me_ without consciousness is not the _me_, in which case, it does
not exist; but that the question rests on an impossible supposition,
the abstraction of consciousness. "We can think absolutely nothing,"
he says, "without at the same time thinking the _me_ as conscious of
itself; we can never abstract our own consciousness." I say again;
these words do not solve the difficulty; they only elude it. I pass
over his assertion that consciousness is the same as existence: but
it is certain that we conceive an instant in which the _me_ is not
conscious of itself. Has this conception never been realized? Has
there, or has there not, been an instant in which the _me_ was not
conscious of itself? If we admit this instant, we must admit that at
this instant the _me_ did not exist; therefore it never could have
existed, unless Fichte will concede that the _me_ depends on a superior
being, and thus admit the doctrine of creation. If we do not admit this
instant, the _me_ has always existed, and with the consciousness of
itself; therefore the _me_ is an eternal and immutable intelligence;
it is God. There is no way for Fichte to escape this dilemma. There is
no room here for the distinction between the _me_ as subject and the
_me_ as object: we are speaking of the _me_ as having consciousness
of itself,--that consciousness in which Fichte makes its existence
consist,--and we ask whether this _me_ has always existed or not; if
the first, the _me_ is God; if the second, you must either acknowledge
creation, or hold that a being which does not exist can give itself
existence.
138. Fichte does not retreat from the first consequence, and although
he does not call _me_ God, he gives it all the attributes of divinity.
"If the _me_," he says, "is only in so far as it supposes itself, it
is only _for_ the supposing, and supposes only for being. _The me
is for the me_,--but if it supposes itself absolutely as it is, it
supposes itself necessary, and is necessary, for the _me_. _I am only
for myself; but I am necessary for myself_--(in saying _for myself_ I
always suppose my being.)
"_To suppose itself_, and _to be_, are, speaking of the _me_, entirely
the same. The proposition: I am, because I have supposed myself, can,
therefore, be also expressed in this manner: _I am absolutely, because
I am_.
"Moreover, the _me_ which supposes itself, and the _me_ which is, are
entirely identical; they are one and the same thing. The _me_ is for
that _which_ it supposes itself; and it supposes itself as _that_ which
it is. Therefore, _I am absolutely, what I am_.
"The immediate expression of the act which we have now developed would
be the following formula: _I am absolutely_, that is, _I am absolutely,
because I am; and am absolutely, what I am; both for the me_.
"But if the enunciation of this act is intended to be placed at
the head of a doctrine of science, it should be expressed somewhat
in the following manner: _The me originally supposes its own being
absolutely._"[55]
[55] _Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre_, I. Theil, § I., pp.
97-98.
There is only one fact which is clear in all this extravagance of
expression; and that is, the pantheism openly professed by Fichte;
the deification of the _me_, and, consequently, the absorption of all
reality in the _me_. The _me_ ceases to be a limited spirit; it is an
infinite reality. Fichte does not deny it: "The me determines itself,
the absolute totality of reality is ascribed to the _me_. The _me_
can determine itself only as reality, for it is supposed absolutely as
reality, and no negation whatever is supposed in it.[56]
[56] Ib., II., Th. § 4. B., p. 129.
"But reality is supposed in the _me_. Therefore the _me_ must be
supposed as the _absolute totality_ of reality, (therefore as a
quantity, which contains all quantities, and which may be a measure for
them all;) and this, too, originally and absolutely, if the synthesis,
which we have just explained problematically, be possible, and the
contradiction is to be solved in a satisfactory manner. Therefore:
"The _me_ supposes absolutely, without any foundation, and under no
possible condition, the _absolute totality of reality_, as a quantity,
than which, by virtue of this supposition, none greater is possible;
and this absolute maximum of reality it supposes _in itself_. All
that is supposed in the _me_ is reality: and all reality that is, is
supposed in the _me_....
* * * * *
... "The conception of reality is similar to the conception of
activity. All reality is supposed in the _me_, is the same as: All
activity is supposed in the _me_, and reversely; all in the _me_ is
reality, is the same as: The _me_ is _only_ active; it is the _me_ only
in so far as it is active; and in so far as it is not active, it is the
_not-me_."[57]
[57] Ib., D., pp. 137-8.
"Only in the understanding is there reality; it is the faculty of the
_actual_; _in_ it the ideal first becomes real."[58]
[58] Ib., Deduction der Vorstellung, III., pp. 233-4.
"The _me_ is only that which it supposes itself; it is infinite; that
is, it supposes itself infinite....
"Without the infinity of the _me_,--without a productive faculty whose
tendency is unlimited and illimitable,--it is impossible to explain the
possibility of representation."
139. Let us give a glance at these ravings. Psychology starts from a
fundamental fact--the testimony of consciousness. The human mind cannot
think without finding itself; the starting-point of its psychological
investigations is the proposition, I think; in this is found the
identity of which Fichte speaks--the _me_ is the _me_. All thought,
from the first moment that it exists, perceives itself subject to a
law; the perception of every thing involves the perception, either
explicit or implicit, of the identity of the thing perceived. In this
sense, the most simple formula in which we can express the first law
of our perception is: A is A; but this formula is as sterile as it is
simple; and it is impossible to conceive how any one could pretend to
raise upon it a system of philosophy. This formula, supposing it to be
enunciated, involves the existence of the _me_ which enunciates it.
It cannot be said that A is A, if there is not a being in which the
relation of identity is supposed. If the proposition A = A is true, it
is necessary to suppose an A, or a being in which it exists. A purely
ideal truth, without any foundation in a real truth, is an absurdity,
as we have elsewhere proved and explained at great length.[59]
[59] See Bk. IV., Chs. XXIII., XXIV., XXV., XXVI., and XXVII.; and Bk.
V., Chs. VII. and VIII.
140. But the existence of an ideal truth, _in so far as it is
represented in us_, that is to say, in so far as it is a fact of our
consciousness, is not necessary, but hypothetical, it exists when
it exists; but when it exists it may not exist, or when it does not
exist it may exist. Necessity cannot be inferred from existence:
the testimony of consciousness assures us of the fact; but in this
consciousness we find no proof that the fact is necessary, that it has
not depended on a higher agent; quite the contrary, the sentiment of
our weakness, the shortness of the time to which the recollections of
our consciousness extend, the natural and periodical interruptions of
them which we experience during sleep, every thing shows that the fact
of consciousness is not necessary, and that the being which experiences
it has but a little while ago commenced its existence, and might lose
it again as soon as the infinite being should cease to preserve it. The
_me_ which we perceive within us knows itself, affirms itself; the word
_supposes_ itself has no reasonable meaning, unless it mean that the
_me_ affirms its existence; but this knowing itself is not producing
itself; whoever asserts such an absurdity is under obligation to prove
it.
141. In truth it requires all the gravity of Fichte to pretend to
connect such a collection of extravagant absurdities into science. It
was reserved for modern times to see a man seriously occupied with a
system whose existence will, with difficulty, be believed by those
who read the history of the aberrations of the human mind. The system
of Fichte is already judged by all thinking men, and there is no
surer means to make it forgotten than to expose it to the eyes of the
judicious reader.
142. Having established the necessary and absolute existence of the
_me_, Fichte proposes to demonstrate that from the _me_ proceeds the
_not-me_, that is to say; all that is not the _me_. "But the _not-me_
can only be supposed in so far as a _me_, to which it is opposed, is
supposed in the _me_ (in the identical consciousness).
"But the _not-me_ must be supposed in the identical consciousness.
"Therefore the _me_ must also be supposed in it in so far as the
_not-me_ is supposed in it."
... "If _me_ = _me_, all is supposed which is supposed in the _me_....
"The _me_ and the _not-me_ are both products of original acts of the
_me_, and the consciousness itself is a product of the first original
act of the _me_, of the supposition of the _me_ by itself."[60]
[60] Ib., § 3., pp. 106-7.
This, then, is how according to Fichte, the _not-me_, that is to
say; this which we call the external world, and all that is not the
_me_, is born of the _me_; the distinction of one thing from another
is a pure illusion, a play of relations by which the _me_ conceives
itself as _not-me_ in so far as it limits itself; but the _me_ and the
_not-me_ are absolutely identical. "The _me_ and the _not-me_ inasmuch
as they are supposed identical and opposed by the conception of
mutual limitation, are something in the _me_ (accidents) as divisible
substances, supposed by the _me_, the absolute and illimitable subject,
to which nothing is identical and nothing opposed. There all judgments,
the logical subject of which is the limitable or determinable _me_,
or something which defines the _me_, must be limited or defined by
something higher; but all judgments, the logical subject of which is
the absolutely illimitable _me_, cannot be determined by any thing
higher, because the absolute _me_ is not determined by any thing they
are founded on, and defined absolutely by themselves." This is the last
result of Fichte's system, the _me_ converted into an absolute being,
which is determined by nothing above itself, into an unlimited and
illimitable subject, an infinite being, into God. Every thing emanates
from this absolute subject. "In so far as the _me_ supposes itself
as infinite, its activity (that of supposing itself) is spent on the
_me_ itself, and on nothing else than the _me_. Its whole activity is
spent on the _me_, and this activity is the ground and the compass of
all being. The _me_ is therefore _infinite in so far as its activity
returns to itself_, and consequently so far also is its activity
infinite as its product, the _me_, is infinite. (Infinite product,
infinite activity; infinite activity, infinite product; this is a
circle, but not a vicious one, for it is one from which reason escapes,
for it expresses that which is absolutely certain by itself, and for
its own sake. Product, activity, and active are here one and the same
thing, and we separate them only in order to express ourselves.)
The _pure activity_ of the _me_ alone, and _the pure me alone_ are
infinite. But pure activity is that which has no object, but returns to
itself."
"In so far as the _me_ supposes limits, and, according to what we
have said, supposes itself in these limits, its activity is not spent
immediately on itself, but on a _not-me_ which is to be opposed to
it."[61]
[61] Ib., III., Th. § 5, II., p. 256.
How shall we sum up this doctrine? In the words of Fichte: "In so far
as the _me_ is absolute, it is _infinite_ and _unlimited_. It supposes
all that is; and that which is not supposed, is not (_for_ it; and
_out of_ it there is nothing). But all that it supposes, it supposes
as _me_; and it supposes the _me_ as all that it supposes. Hence in
this respect the _me_ contains in itself all, that is, an infinite,
unlimited reality.
"In so far as the _me_ opposes to itself a _not-me_, it necessarily
supposes _limits_, and supposes itself in these limits. It divides the
totality of the being supposed in general between the _me_ and the
_not-me_; so far supposes itself necessarily as _finite_."[62]
[62] Ib., p. 255.
143. Thus Fichte in a few words destroys the reality of the external
world, converting it into a modification or development of the
activity of the _me_. Is it necessary to stop any longer to refute
such an absurd doctrine, one, too, founded on no proof? I believe
not: especially since I have established on solid principles the
demonstration of the existence of an external world, and have
explained the origin and character of the facts of consciousness,
without having recourse to such extravagant absurdities.[63]
[63] See Bks. II., III., and IV.
CHAPTER XIX.
RELATIONS OF FICHTE'S SYSTEM TO THE DOCTRINES OF KANT.
144. I have already shown[64] how Kant's system leads to Fichte's.
When a dangerous principle is established, there is never wanting an
author bold enough to deduce its consequences, whatever they may be.
The author of the _Doctrine of Science_, led astray by the doctrines
of Kant, establishes the most extravagant pantheism that was ever
invented. In concluding his work, he says that he leaves the reader
at the point where Kant takes him; he ought rather to have said that
he takes the reader at the point where Kant leaves him. The author
of the _Critic of Pure Reason_, by converting space into a purely
subjective fact, destroys the reality of extension, and opens the door
to those who wish to deduce all nature from the _me_; and by making
time a simple form of the internal sense, he causes the succession of
phenomena in time to be considered as mere modifications of the _me_ to
the form of which they relate.
[64] See Bk. III., Ch. XVII.
145. But it is far from being necessary for us to hunt after
deductions; the philosopher himself, in the midst of his obscurity
and enigmatical language, does not cease to lay down in the most
precise manner this monstrous doctrine. Let us hear how he speaks in
his transcendental Logic, where he proposes to explain the relation
of the understanding to objects in general, and the possibility of
knowing them _a priori_. "The order and regularity in phenomena, that
which we call nature, _is consequently our own work_; we should not
find it there if we had not placed it there by the nature of our mind;
for this natural unity must be a necessary unity, that is to say, a
certain unity _a priori_ of the connection of the phenomena. But how
could we produce a synthetic unity _a priori_, if there were not in
the primitive sources of our mind subjective reasons of this unity _a
priori_, and if these subjective conditions were not at the same time
_objectively valid_, since they are the grounds of the possibility of
knowing in general an object in experience?"[65] Who does not see in
these words the germ of Fichte's system, which deduces from the _me_
the _not-me_, that is to say, the world, and gives to nature no other
validity than that which it has received from the _me_?
[65] Kant, _Critik der reinen Vernunft, Trause. Log._
146. But Kant is still more explicit, where he is explaining the nature
and attributes of the understanding. He says: "We have before defined
the understanding in different ways; we have called it a spontaneity of
knowledge, (in opposition to the receptivity of sensibility,) a faculty
of thought, or rather, a faculty of conceptions or judgments; these
definitions, rightly explained, are but one. We may now characterize
it as a _faculty of rules_. This character is more fruitful, and comes
nearer to the essence of the thing: sensibility gives us forms (of
intuition) and the understanding rules. The latter is always applied
to the observation of phenomena in order to find in them some rule.
The rules, if objective, (if, consequently, necessarily united to the
knowledge of the object,) are called laws. Although we know many laws
by experience, still these laws are only particular determinations
of other higher laws, the highest of which (to which all the others
are subjected) _proceed_ a priori _from the understanding itself_,
and are not taken from experience, but, on the contrary, they give to
the phenomena their validity, and therefore make experience possible.
The understanding, then, is not simply a faculty of making rules for
itself, and comparing phenomena; _it is also the legislation for
nature; that is to say, that without the understanding there would
be no nature_, or synthetic unity of the multiplicity of phenomena
according to certain rules. For the phenomena, as such, cannot exist
out of us; on the contrary, they only exist in our sensibility; but
this, as the object of the knowledge in an experience, with all that
it can contain, is only possible in the unity of the apperception.
The unity of the apperception is the transcendental foundation of
the necessary legitimacy of all the phenomena in an experience; this
unity of the apperception in relation to the multiplicity of the
representations (in order to determine the multiplicity by starting
from only one) is the rule, and the faculty of these rules is the
understanding. All phenomena, then, as possible experiences, are _a
priori_ in the understanding, and from it they derive their formal
possibility, in the same manner that they are pure intuitions in the
sensibility, and are only possible by it in relation to the form."
In the _deduction of the pure conceptions of the understanding_, Kant
not only pretends that the objects of our knowledge are not things in
themselves, but that it is impossible that they should be, because
we could not then have conceptions _a priori_. He adds, that the
representation of all these phenomena, consequently all objects which
we know, are all in the _me_, and are determinations of _my identical
me_, which expresses the necessity of a universal unity of these
determinations in only one and the same apperception.
147. From these passages it clearly follows that Fichte's system, or
the ideal pantheism which reduces every thing to modifications of the
_me_, accords with the principles established in the _Critic of Pure
Reason_, and is even expressly laid down, although it does not form its
principal object in that work. For the sake of impartiality I cannot
do less than refer the reader to the seventeenth chapter of the third
book, where I have intimated that the German philosopher attempts to
explain his expressions so as to escape idealism, which he professes to
refute. But this he seems to me to do only by an inconsequence.
148. However, my opinion of the connection of modern pantheism with the
_Critik der reinen Vernunft_ is confirmed even by the Germans. "From
these depths," says Rosenkranz, speaking of this work, "the results
of the transcendental æsthetics and logic receive a new importance in
the great problems of theology, cosmology, morals, and psychology,
which was not even suspected by the dull sense of the greater part of
its admirers. They know nothing of the chain which unites Fichte's
_Doctrine of Science_, Schelling's _System of Transcendental Idealism_,
Hegel's _Phenomenology and Logic_, and Herbart's _Metaphysics_, with
Kant's _Critic_....
"I may say that the English and French in particular will understand
nothing of the development of German philosophy since Kant, until they
have penetrated the _Critic of Pure Reason_, for _we Germans always
look to that_.... Just as we use the houses, the palaces, the churches,
but most of all the towers which rise over every thing to guide us in
a large city; so also in contemporary philosophy, amid the labyrinth
of its quarrels it is impossible to take a single step with security
unless we keep our sight fixed on Kant's _Critic_. Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, and Herbart made this work the great centre of their operations
for attack or defence."[66]
[66] Preface of the edition of Leipsic, 1838.
149. I do not mean by this that the German philosophers since Kant have
added nothing to the _Critic of Pure Reason_: I have already observed
(in the seventh chapter of the first book) that the cause of the
greater obscurity which is found in Fichte's words, proceeds from his
having gone farther than Kant in his abstraction of all objectiveness
both external and internal, placing himself in I know not what pure
primitive act, from which he pretends to deduce every thing; in which
he differs from the author of the _Critic of Pure Reason_, whose labors
did not so absolutely annihilate the objectiveness of the internal
world, and therefore his observations are less incomprehensible, and
even present here and there some few luminous points: I only wished to
show the baneful importance of Kant's works, to place those incautious
persons on their guard, who, judging from what they have heard, are
inclined to regard him as the great restorer of spiritualism and sound
philosophy, when, in reality, he is the founder of the most pernicious
schools which the history of the human mind has known, and would be one
of the most dangerous writers that ever existed, were it not that the
obscurity of his ideas, increased by the obscurity of their expression,
renders him intolerable to the immense majority of readers, even of
those versed in philosophical studies.
CHAPTER XX.
CONTRADICTION OF PANTHEISM TO THE PRIMARY FACTS OF THE HUMAN MIND.
150. I do not know how any philosopher who has meditated on the human
mind can incline to pantheism. The deeper we go into the _me_ from
which it is pretended to deduce such an absurd system, the more we
discover the contradiction in which pantheism appears in respect to the
primary ideas and facts of our mind. My development of this observation
will be brief, for it turns on questions largely examined in their
respective places.
151. We have seen (Bk. VI., Ch. V.) that the idea of number is found
in every understanding, and experience teaches that we employ it
explicitly or implicitly in almost all our words. We scarcely speak
without using the plural, and this can have no meaning without the
supposition of the idea of number. Pantheism reduces all existence
to an absolute unity; multiplicity either has no real existence, or
is limited to phenomena, which, in the judgment of some followers
of this system, contain no reality of any sort, and, in the opinion
of all pantheists, can contain no substantial reality. According to
them, therefore, the idea of number either has no correspondence in
the reality, or it relates only to modes of being, to the various
modifications of the same being, and therefore does not extend to
the beings themselves, for in this system there is only one being.
If this be so, how is it that the idea of number exists in our
understanding? how is it that we conceive not only many modes of being,
but many beings? In the system of the pantheists not only is there no
multiplicity of beings, but it is impossible that there should be; why,
then, has our understanding this radical vice which necessarily leads
it to conceive the multiplicity of _things_, if this multiplicity is
absurd? why is this ideal defect confirmed by experience which also
necessarily leads us to believe that there are many distinct _things_?
152. In the system of the pantheists our understanding is only a
modification, a manifestation of the only substance; but it is
impossible to explain this disagreement between the phenomenon and
the reality, this necessary error into which the phenomenon of the
substance leads us in respect to the substance itself. If we are a mere
manifestation of the unity, why do we find the idea of multiplicity as
a primitive fact within us? Why this continual contradiction between
the being and its appearances? If we are all one same unit, whence do
we obtain the idea of number? If the phenomena of experience are only
evolutions, so to speak, of this one unit, why do we feel ourselves
irresistibly inclined to suppose multiplicity in the phenomena, and to
multiply the _things_ in which they succeed?
153. The idea of distinction opposed to that of unity is also
fundamental in our mind;[67] yet pantheism gives it no correspondence
in the reality. If there is only being, if all is identical, there is
nothing distinct, and the idea of distinction is a pure chimera. In
this system distinction not only does not exist, but it is impossible;
consequently the idea of distinction is absurd; therefore one of the
primary facts of our mind is a contradiction.
[67] See Bk. V., Chs. IX. and X.
154. Negative judgments form a considerable part of the wealth of
our understanding;[68] pantheism destroys them. In this system the
proposition: A is not B, can never be true; for, if all is identical,
one thing cannot be denied of another, there would be no distinct
things, there would be no _one_ or _another_; all would be one; the
negative judgment must be limited to the following: in reality A is the
same as B, there is only the appearance of distinction; B is A existing
or _presented_ differently.
[68] See Bk. V., Ch. IX.
155. The idea of relation is also absurd in the pantheistic system;
there is no _relation_ without a term of _reference_, and there is no
reference without distinction. According to the pantheists the subject
referred and the term of the reference are absolutely identical; there
are, consequently, no true, but only apparent, relations; thus we find
another of the primary facts of our understanding radically absurd,
because it is in contradiction with the reality, and even with the
possibility.
156. The support of all our knowledge, the principle of contradiction,
it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same
time, is without meaning, and can have no real or possible application,
if the doctrine of pantheism be admitted. When we say that it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time, we
understand that there is the possibility of not-being; in our mind
the idea of being excludes that of not-being only with respect to
the same thing and at the same time. If there is only one being, and
all other being is impossible, it follows that the idea of not-being
is absolutely contradictory, and all the propositions in which it is
expressed are absurd. There is in this case only one being which is
every thing, to this being negation of being can never be applied; this
negation, then, is absolutely absurd, and another idea of our mind is
absolutely contradictory.
157. The idea of contingency is also contradictory if pantheism
be admitted; all that can be is, and all that does not exist is
impossible; therefore when we distinguish contingency from necessity
we contradict both the reality and the possibility. Hence there is
another primary illusion of our mind which presents to us as possible,
and even existent, that which in itself is absurd.
158. Neither can the ideas of finite and infinite co-exist in the
system. One of them must be contradictory; if the only being is
infinite, there is and can be nothing finite; therefore the opposition
between the finite and the infinite is a chimera of our mind, to which
there is nothing in reality corresponding. There is only one thing;
it must be finite or infinite; in either case, one of these terms
must disappear, one of these ideas is contradictory, since it is in
opposition to an absolute necessity.
159. The system of absolute unity destroys the idea of order. In this
idea is contained the arrangement of distinct things, distributed in
a convenient manner to conspire to an end. If there is no distinction
there is no order, and the distinction is impossible if there is
absolute unity. The idea of order is still one of the fundamental ideas
of our mind; literary and artistic unity, and in general that of all
sensible beauty, is the unity of order: substitute for this absolute
unity, and you destroy all beauty of the imagination; art becomes
absorbed by chaos.
160. It is useless to add that pantheism destroys liberty of will; this
liberty of which we are so clearly and vividly conscious, and which
accompanies us through every moment of our existence. In this monstrous
system absolute unity is inseparable from absolute necessity; the
existent and the possible are confounded; nothing which is can cease to
be; nothing which is not can be. The action must spring from the only
substance by a spontaneous development; understanding by spontaneity
the absence of an external cause; but this action cannot but exist, it
will be an irradiation, as it were, of the only substance, just as
light radiates from luminous bodies. Without liberty of will merit is
absurd; a being that acts by absolute necessity can have no merit or
demerit. Then laws are to no purpose, rewards and punishments useless;
the history of individuals as of all mankind is only a history of the
phases of the only substance, which goes on eternally developing itself
in subjection to absolutely necessary conditions which have no other
foundation than the substance itself.
161. Pantheism not only destroys freedom of will, but it renders
unintelligible all affections which relate to _another_. If there is
only one being, what mean the sentiments of love, respect, gratitude,
and in general, all those which suppose a person distinct from the _me_
which experiences them? No matter how distinct we suppose the term
of these affections, they can never have any; and although they seem
to proceed from different principles, they spring from only one. The
man who loves one man and hates another is the _me_ loving and hating
itself; appearances denote diversity and opposition, but at bottom
there is unity, identity. Who can accept such absurdities?
162. Thus pantheism, after destroying the intellectual man,
annihilates the moral man; after declaring the fundamental ideas of
our mind contradictory, it attacks the most precious fact of our
consciousness,--the freedom of will; it destroys the sentiments of
the heart, denying our individuality, it precipitates us all into the
deep abyss of the only substance, the absolute being, confounding and
identifying us with it, till we lose within it our own existence, as
the molecules of a grain of dust are lost in the immensity of space.
CHAPTER XXI.
RAPID GLANCES AT THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS OF PANTHEISTS.
163. The principal arguments on which pantheism rests are founded
on the unity of science, the universality of the idea of being, the
absoluteness and exclusiveness of the idea of substance, and the
absoluteness and exclusiveness of the conception of the infinite.
164. Science must be one, say the pantheists, and it cannot be
completely so, unless there is unity of being. Science must be certain,
and there cannot be absolute certainty, unless there is identity of the
being which knows with the thing known.
The solution of these difficulties consists in denying the gratuitous
propositions on which they are founded.
It is not true that human science must be one, nor that unity of
being is necessary for the unity of science. They must prove both
these assertions; to triumph in a discussion it is not enough to
assert. Far from either of them being sufficiently proved, they are
both contradicted by reason and by experience. It is unnecessary to
repeat here, what I have explained at full length when treating of
the possibility and existence of transcendental science as well in
the absolute intellectual order as in the human. For this I refer the
reader to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the first
book.
The second proposition which exacts the identity of the subject
knowing with the object known, has also been sufficiently refuted.
I have elsewhere shown that the system of universal identity does
not help to explain the problem of representation, and I have proved
by incontestible arguments, that besides the representation of
identity, there are the representations of causality and ideality.[69]
I have also demonstrated the objective value of ideas, in so far
as distinguished from objects, founding my proof on the unity of
consciousness.[70]