Perhaps no man ever had a more judicious or more methodical genius, or
was a more acute logician than Mr. Locke, and yet he was not deeply
skilled in the mathematics. This great man could never subject himself
to the tedious fatigue of calculations, nor to the dry pursuit of
mathematical truths, which do not at first present any sensible objects
to the mind; and no one has given better proofs than he, that it is
possible for a man to have a geometrical head without the assistance of
geometry. Before his time, several great philosophers had declared, in
the most positive terms, what the soul of man is; but as these absolutely
knew nothing about it, they might very well be allowed to differ entirely
in opinion from one another.
In Greece, the infant seat of arts and of errors, and where the grandeur
as well as folly of the human mind went such prodigious lengths, the
people used to reason about the soul in the very same manner as we do.
The divine Anaxagoras, in whose honour an altar was erected for his
having taught mankind that the sun was greater than Peloponnesus, that
snow was black, and that the heavens were of stone, affirmed that the
soul was an aerial spirit, but at the same time immortal. Diogenes (not
he who was a cynical philosopher after having coined base money) declared
that the soul was a portion of the substance of God: an idea which we
must confess was very sublime. Epicurus maintained that it was composed
of parts in the same manner as the body.
Aristotle, who has been explained a thousand ways, because he is
unintelligible, was of opinion, according to some of his disciples, that
the understanding in all men is one and the same substance.
The divine Plato, master of the divine Aristotle,--and the divine
Socrates, master of the divine Plato--used to say that the soul was
corporeal and eternal. No doubt but the demon of Socrates had instructed
him in the nature of it. Some people, indeed, pretend that a man who
boasted his being attended by a familiar genius must infallibly be either
a knave or a madman, but this kind of people are seldom satisfied with
anything but reason.
With regard to the Fathers of the Church, several in the primitive ages
believed that the soul was human, and the angels and God corporeal. Men
naturally improve upon every system. St. Bernard, as Father Mabillon
confesses, taught that the soul after death does not see God in the
celestial regions, but converses with Christ's human nature only.
However, he was not believed this time on his bare word; the adventure of
the crusade having a little sunk the credit of his oracles. Afterwards a
thousand schoolmen arose, such as the Irrefragable Doctor, the Subtile
Doctor, the Angelic Doctor, the Seraphic Doctor, and the Cherubic Doctor,
who were all sure that they had a very clear and distinct idea of the
soul, and yet wrote in such a manner, that one would conclude they were
resolved no one should understand a word in their writings. Our
Descartes, born to discover the errors of antiquity, and at the same time
to substitute his own, and hurried away by that systematic spirit which
throws a cloud over the minds of the greatest men, thought he had
demonstrated that the soul is the same thing as thought, in the same
manner as matter, in his opinion, is the same as extension. He asserted,
that man thinks eternally, and that the soul, at its coming into the
body, is informed with the whole series of metaphysical notions: knowing
God, infinite space, possessing all abstract ideas--in a word, completely
endued with the most sublime lights, which it unhappily forgets at its
issuing from the womb.
Father Malebranche, in his sublime illusions, not only admitted innate
ideas, but did not doubt of our living wholly in God, and that God is, as
it were, our soul.
Such a multitude of reasoners having written the romance of the soul, a
sage at last arose, who gave, with an air of the greatest modesty, the
history of it. Mr. Locke has displayed the human soul in the same manner
as an excellent anatomist explains the springs of the human body. He
everywhere takes the light of physics for his guide. He sometimes
presumes to speak affirmatively, but then he presumes also to doubt.
Instead of concluding at once what we know not, he examines gradually
what we would know. He takes an infant at the instant of his birth; he
traces, step by step, the progress of his understanding; examines what
things he has in common with beasts, and what he possesses above them.
Above all, he consults himself: the being conscious that he himself
thinks.
"I shall leave," says he, "to those who know more of this matter than
myself, the examining whether the soul exists before or after the
organisation of our bodies. But I confess that it is my lot to be
animated with one of those heavy souls which do not think always; and I
am even so unhappy as not to conceive that it is more necessary the soul
should think perpetually than that bodies should be for ever in motion."
With regard to myself, I shall boast that I have the honour to be as
stupid in this particular as Mr. Locke. No one shall ever make me
believe that I think always: and I am as little inclined as he could be
to fancy that some weeks after I was conceived I was a very learned soul;
knowing at that time a thousand things which I forgot at my birth; and
possessing when in the womb (though to no manner of purpose) knowledge
which I lost the instant I had occasion for it; and which I have never
since been able to recover perfectly.
Mr. Locke, after having destroyed innate ideas; after having fully
renounced the vanity of believing that we think always; after having laid
down, from the most solid principles, that ideas enter the mind through
the senses; having examined our simple and complex ideas; having traced
the human mind through its several operations; having shown that all the
languages in the world are imperfect, and the great abuse that is made of
words every moment, he at last comes to consider the extent or rather the
narrow limits of human knowledge. It was in this chapter he presumed to
advance, but very modestly, the following words: "We shall, perhaps,
never be capable of knowing whether a being, purely material, thinks or
not." This sage assertion was, by more divines than one, looked upon as
a scandalous declaration that the soul is material and mortal. Some
Englishmen, devout after their way, sounded an alarm. The superstitious
are the same in society as cowards in an army; they themselves are seized
with a panic fear, and communicate it to others. It was loudly exclaimed
that Mr. Locke intended to destroy religion; nevertheless, religion had
nothing to do in the affair, it being a question purely philosophical,
altogether independent of faith and revelation. Mr. Locke's opponents
needed but to examine, calmly and impartially, whether the declaring that
matter can think, implies a contradiction; and whether God is able to
communicate thought to matter. But divines are too apt to begin their
declarations with saying that God is offended when people differ from
them in opinion; in which they too much resemble the bad poets, who used
to declare publicly that Boileau spake irreverently of Louis XIV.,
because he ridiculed their stupid productions. Bishop Stillingfleet got
the reputation of a calm and unprejudiced divine because he did not
expressly make use of injurious terms in his dispute with Mr. Locke. That
divine entered the lists against him, but was defeated; for he argued as
a schoolman, and Locke as a philosopher, who was perfectly acquainted
with the strong as well as the weak side of the human mind, and who
fought with weapons whose temper he knew. If I might presume to give my
opinion on so delicate a subject after Mr. Locke, I would say, that men
have long disputed on the nature and the immortality of the soul. With
regard to its immortality, it is impossible to give a demonstration of
it, since its nature is still the subject of controversy; which, however,
must be thoroughly understood before a person can be able to determine
whether it be immortal or not. Human reason is so little able, merely by
its own strength, to demonstrate the immortality of the soul, that it was
absolutely necessary religion should reveal it to us. It is of advantage
to society in general, that mankind should believe the soul to be
immortal; faith commands us to do this; nothing more is required, and the
matter is cleared up at once. But it is otherwise with respect to its
nature; it is of little importance to religion, which only requires the
soul to be virtuous, whatever substance it may be made of. It is a clock
which is given us to regulate, but the artist has not told us of what
materials the spring of this chock is composed.
I am a body, and, I think, that's all I know of the matter. Shall I
ascribe to an unknown cause, what I can so easily impute to the only
second cause I am acquainted with? Here all the school philosophers
interrupt me with their arguments, and declare that there is only
extension and solidity in bodies, and that there they can have nothing
but motion and figure. Now motion, figure, extension and solidity cannot
form a thought, and consequently the soul cannot be matter. All this so
often repeated mighty series of reasoning, amounts to no more than this:
I am absolutely ignorant what matter is; I guess, but imperfectly, some
properties of it; now I absolutely cannot tell whether these properties
may be joined to thought. As I therefore know nothing, I maintain
positively that matter cannot think. In this manner do the schools
reason.
Mr. Locke addressed these gentlemen in the candid, sincere manner
following: At least confess yourselves to be as ignorant as I. Neither
your imaginations nor mine are able to comprehend in what manner a body
is susceptible of ideas; and do you conceive better in what manner a
substance, of what kind soever, is susceptible of them? As you cannot
comprehend either matter or spirit, why will you presume to assert
anything?
The superstitious man comes afterwards and declares, that all those must
be burnt for the good of their souls, who so much as suspect that it is
possible for the body to think without any foreign assistance. But what
would these people say should they themselves be proved irreligious? And
indeed, what man can presume to assert, without being guilty at the same
time of the greatest impiety, that it is impossible for the Creator to
form matter with thought and sensation? Consider only, I beg you, what a
dilemma you bring yourselves into, you who confine in this manner the
power of the Creator. Beasts have the same organs, the same sensations,
the same perceptions as we; they have memory, and combine certain ideas.
In case it was not in the power of God to animate matter, and inform it
with sensation, the consequence would be, either that beasts are mere
machines, or that they have a spiritual soul.
Methinks it is clearly evident that beasts cannot be mere machines, which
I prove thus. God has given to them the very same organs of sensation as
to us: if therefore they have no sensation, God has created a useless
thing; now according to your own confession God does nothing in vain; He
therefore did not create so many organs of sensation, merely for them to
be uninformed with this faculty; consequently beasts are not mere
machines. Beasts, according to your assertion, cannot be animated with a
spiritual soul; you will, therefore, in spite of yourself, be reduced to
this only assertion, viz., that God has endued the organs of beasts, who
are mere matter, with the faculties of sensation and perception, which
you call instinct in them. But why may not God, if He pleases,
communicate to our more delicate organs, that faculty of feeling,
perceiving, and thinking, which we call human reason? To whatever side
you turn, you are forced to acknowledge your own ignorance, and the
boundless power of the Creator. Exclaim therefore no more against the
sage, the modest philosophy of Mr. Locke, which so far from interfering
with religion, would be of use to demonstrate the truth of it, in case
religion wanted any such support. For what philosophy can be of a more
religious nature than that, which affirming nothing but what it conceives
clearly, and conscious of its own weakness, declares that we must always
have recourse to God in our examining of the first principles?
Besides, we must not be apprehensive that any philosophical opinion will
ever prejudice the religion of a country. Though our demonstrations
clash directly with our mysteries, that is nothing to the purpose, for
the latter are not less revered upon that account by our Christian
philosophers, who know very well that the objects of reason and those of
faith are of a very different nature. Philosophers will never form a
religious sect, the reason of which is, their writings are not calculated
for the vulgar, and they themselves are free from enthusiasm. If we
divide mankind into twenty parts, it will be found that nineteen of these
consist of persons employed in manual labour, who will never know that
such a man as Mr. Locke existed. In the remaining twentieth part how few
are readers? And among such as are so, twenty amuse themselves with
romances to one who studies philosophy. The thinking part of mankind is
confined to a very small number, and these will never disturb the peace
and tranquillity of the world.
Neither Montaigne, Locke, Bayle, Spinoza, Hobbes, the Lord Shaftesbury,
Collins, nor Toland lighted up the firebrand of discord in their
countries; this has generally been the work of divines, who being at
first puffed up with the ambition of becoming chiefs of a sect, soon grew
very desirous of being at the head of a party. But what do I say? All
the works of the modern philosophers put together will never make so much
noise as even the dispute which arose among the Franciscans, merely about
the fashion of their sleeves and of their cowls.