_Order and Confusion.--Intelligence.--Chance._
The observation of the necessary, regular, and periodical motion in the
universe, generated in the mind of man the idea of ORDER; this term,
in its original signification, represents nothing more than a mode of
considering, a facility of perceiving, together and separately, the
different relations of a whole; in which is discovered, by its manner of
existing and acting, a certain affinity or conformity with his own. Man,
in extending this idea to the universe, carried with him those methods
of considering things which are peculiar to himself: he has consequently
supposed there really existed in Nature affinities and relations, which
he classed under the name of ORDER; and others which appeared to him not
to conform to those, which he has ranked under the term of CONFUSION.
It is easy to comprehend, that this idea of order and confusion can have
no absolute existence in Nature, where every thing is necessary; where
the whole follows constant and invariable laws, which oblige each being,
in every moment of its duration, to submit to other laws, which
flow from its own peculiar mode of existence. Therefore it is in his
imagination, only, man finds a model of that which he terms order or
confusion; which, like all his abstract, metaphysical ideas, supposes
nothing beyond his reach. Order, however, is never more than the faculty
of conforming himself with the beings by whom he is environed, or with
the whole of which he forms a part.
Nevertheless, if the idea of order be applied to Nature, it will be
found to be nothing but a series of action or motion, which he judges
to conspire to one common end. Thus, in a body that moves, order is the
chain of action, the series of motion, proper to constitute it what it
is, and to maintain it in its actual state. Order, relatively to the
whole of Nature, is the concatenation of causes and effects, necessary
to her _active_ existence--to maintaining her constantly together; but,
as it has been proved in the chapter preceding, every individual being
is obliged to concur to this end, in the different ranks they occupy;
from whence it is a necessary deduction, that what is called the ORDER
OF NATURE, can never be more than a certain manner of considering the
necessity of things, to which all, of which man has any knowledge, is
submitted. That which is styled CONFUSION, is only a relative term, used
to designate that series of necessary action, that chain of requisite
motion, by which an individual being is necessarily changed or disturbed
in its mode of existence--by which it is instantaneously obliged to
alter its manner of action; but no one of these actions, no part of
this motion is capable, even for a single instant, of contradicting
or deranging the general order of Nature; from which all beings derive
their existence, their properties, the motion appropriate to each.
What is termed confusion in a being, is nothing more than its passage
into a new class, a new mode of existence; which necessarily carries
with it a new series of action, a new chain of motion, different from
that of which this being found itself susceptible in the preceding
rank it occupied. That which is called order, in Nature, is a mode of
existence, or a disposition of its particles, strictly _necessary_. In
every other assemblage of causes and effects, of worlds, as well as
in that which we inhabit, some sort of arrangement, some kind of order
would necessarily be established. Suppose the most incongruous, the
most heterogeneous substances were put into activity, and assembled by
a concatenation of extraordinary circumstances; they would form amongst
themselves, a complete order, a perfect arrangement. This is the true
notion of a property, which may be defined, an aptitude to constitute a
being, such as it is actually found, such as it is with respect to the
whole of which it makes a part.
Order, then, is nothing but necessity, considered relatively to the
series of actions, or the connected chain of causes and effects, that
it produces in the universe. What is the motion in our planetary system;
but a series of phenomena, operated upon according to necessary laws,
that regulate the bodies of which it is composed? In conformity to these
laws, the sun occupies the centre; the planets gravitate towards it, and
revolve round it, in regulated periods: the satellites of these planets
gravitate towards those which are in the centre of their sphere of
action, and describe round them their periodical route. One of these
planets, the earth which man inhabits, turns on its own axis; and by the
various aspects which its revolution obliges it to present to the sun,
experiences those regular variations which are called SEASONS. By a
sequence of the sun's action upon different parts of this globe, all its
productions undergo vicissitudes: plants, animals, men, are in a sort of
morbid drowsiness during _Winter_: in _Spring_, these beings re-animate,
to come as it were out of a long lethargy. In short, the mode in
which the earth receives the sun's beams, has an influence on all its
productions; these rays, when darted obliquely, do not act in the same
manner as when they fall perpendicularly; their periodical absence,
caused by the revolution of this sphere on itself, produces _night_ and
_day_. However, in all this, man never witnesses more than necessary
effects, flowing from the nature of things, which, whilst that remains
the same, can never be opposed with propriety. These effects are owing
to gravitation, attraction, centrifugal power, &c.
On the other hand, this _order_, which man admires as a supernatural
effect, is sometimes disturbed, or changed into what he calls
_confusion_: this confusion is, however, always a necessary consequence
of the laws of Nature; in which it is requisite to the support of the
whole that some of her parts should be deranged and thrown out of the
ordinary course. It is thus, COMETS present themselves so unexpectedly
to man's wondering eyes; their eccentric motion disturbs the
tranquillity of his planetary system; they excite the terror of the
misinstructed to whom every thing unusual is marvellous. The natural
philosopher, himself, conjectures that in former ages, these comets
have overthrown the surface of this mundane ball, and caused great
revolutions on the earth. Independent of this extraordinary _confusion_,
he is exposed to others more familiar to him: sometimes, the seasons
appear to have usurped each other's place; to have quitted their regular
order: sometimes the opposing elements seem to dispute among themselves
the dominion of the world; the sea bursts its limits; the solid earth
is shaken and rent asunder; mountains are in a state of conflagration;
pestilential diseases destroy both men and animals; sterility desolates
a country: then affrighted man utters piercing cries, offers up his
prayers to recall order; tremblingly raises his hands towards the Being
he supposes to be the author of all these calamities; nevertheless, the
whole of this afflicting confusion are necessary effects, produced by
natural causes; which act according to fixed laws, determined by their
own peculiar essence, and the universal essence of Nature: in which
every thing must necessarily be changed, moved, and dissolved; where
that which is called ORDER, must sometimes be disturbed and altered into
a new mode of existence; which to his deluded mind, to his imagination,
led astray by ignorance and want of reflection, appears CONFUSION.
There cannot possibly exist what is generally termed _a confusion of
Nature_: man finds order in every thing that is conformable to his
own mode of being; confusion in every thing by which it is opposed:
nevertheless, in Nature, all is in order; because none of her parts are
ever able to emancipate themselves from those invariable rules which
flow from their respective essences: there _is_ not, there _cannot_
be confusion in a whole, to the maintenance of which what is _called_
confusion is absolutely requisite; of which the general course can never
be discomposed, although individuals may be, and necessarily are; where
all the effects produced are the consequence of natural causes, that
under the circumstances in which they are placed, act only as they
infallibly are obliged to act.
It therefore follows, there can be neither monsters nor prodigies;
wonders nor miracles in Nature: those which are designated MONSTERS, are
certain combinations, with which the eyes of man are not familiarized;
but which, therefore, are not less the necessary effects of natural
causes. Those which he terms PRODIGIES, WONDERS, or SUPERNATURAL
effects, are phenomena of Nature, with whose mode of action he is
unacquainted; of which his ignorance does not permit him to ascertain
the principles; whose causes he cannot trace; but which his impatience,
his heated imagination, aided by a desire to explain, makes him
foolishly attribute to imaginary causes; which, like the idea of order,
have no existence but in himself; and which, that he may conceal his
own ignorance, that he may obtain more respect with the uninformed,
he places beyond Nature, out of which his experience is every instant
demonstrably proving that none of these things can have existence.
As for those effects which are called MIRACLES, that is to say, contrary
to the unalterable laws of Nature, it must be felt such things are
impossible; because, nothing can, for an instant, suspend the necessary
course of beings, without the whole of Nature was arrested; without
she was disturbed in her tendency. There have neither been wonders nor
miracles in Nature; except for those, who have not sufficiently studied
the laws, who consequently do not feel, that those laws can never be
contradicted, even in the most minute parts, without the whole being
destroyed, or at least without changing her essence, her mode of action;
that it is the height of folly to recur to supernatural causes to
explain the phenomena man beholds, before he becomes fully acquainted
with natural causes--with the powers and capabilities which Nature
herself contains.
_Order_ and _Confusion_, then, are only relative terms, by which man
designates the state in which particular beings find themselves. He
says, a being is in order, when all the motion it undergoes conspires to
favor its tendency to its own preservation; when it is conducive to the
maintenance of its actual existence: that it is in confusion when the
causes which move it disturb the harmony of its existence, or have a
tendency to destroy the equilibrium necessary to the conservation of its
actual state. Nevertheless, confusion, as we have shown, is nothing but
the passage of a being into a new order; the more rapid the progress,
the greater the confusion for the being that is submitted to it: that
which conducts man to what is called death, is, for him, the greatest
of all possible confusion. Yet this death is nothing more than a passage
into a new mode of existence: it is the eternal, the invariable, the
unconquerable law of Nature, to which the individuals of his order, each
in his turn, is obliged to submit.
The human body is said to be in order, when its various component parts
act in that mode, from which results the conservation of the whole; from
which emanates that which is the tendency of his actual existence;
in other words, when all the impulse he receives, all the motion he
communicates, tends to preserve his health, to render him happy, by
promoting the happiness of his fellow men. He is said to be in health
when the fluids and solids of his body concur to render him robust, to
keep his mind in vigour; when each lends mutual aid towards this end. He
is said to be in _confusion_, or in ill health, whenever this tendency
is disturbed; when any of the essential parts of his body cease to
concur to his preservation, or to fulfil its peculiar functions. This
it is that happens in a state of sickness, in which, however, the motion
excited in the human machine is as necessary, is regulated by laws as
certain, as natural, as invariable, as that which concurs to produce
health. Sickness merely produces in him a new order of motion, a new
series of action, a new chain of things. Man dies: to him, this appears
the greatest confusion he can experience; his body is no longer what it
was--its parts no longer concur to the same end--his blood has lost
its circulation--he is deprived of feeling--his ideas have vanished--he
thinks no more--his desires have fled--death is the epoch, the cessation
of his human existence.--His frame becomes an inanimate mass, by the
subtraction of those principles by which it was animated; that is, which
made it act after a determinate manner: its tendency has received a
new direction; its action is changed; the motion excited in its ruins
conspires to a new end. To that motion, the harmony of which he calls
order, which produced life, sentiment, thought, passions, health,
succeeds a series of motion of another species; that, nevertheless,
follows laws as necessary as the first; all the parts of the dead
man conspire to produce what is called dissolution, fermentation,
putrefaction: these new modes of being, of acting, are just as natural
to man, reduced to this state, as sensibility, thought, the periodical
motion of the blood, &c. were to the living man: his essence having
changed, his mode of action can no longer be the same. To that regulated
motion, to that necessary action, which conspired to the production
of life, succeeds that determinate motion, that series of action which
concurs to produce the dissolution of the dead carcass; the dispersion
of its parts; the formation of new combinations, from which result new
beings; and which, as we have before seen, is the immutable order of
active Nature.
How then can it be too often repeated, that relatively to the great
whole, all the motion of beings, all their modes of action, can never be
but in order, that is to say, are always conformable to Nature; that in
all the stages through which beings are obliged to pass, they invariably
act after a mode necessarily subordinate to the universal whole? To say
more, each individual being always acts in order; all its actions,
the whole system of its motion, are the necessary consequence of its
peculiar mode of existence; whether that be momentary or durable. Order,
in political society, is the effect of a necessary series of ideas,
of wills, of actions, in those who compose it; whose movements are
regulated in a manner, either calculated to maintain its indivisibility,
or to hasten its dissolution. Man constituted, or modified, in the
manner we term virtuous, acts necessarily in that mode, from whence
results the welfare of his associates: the man we stile wicked, acts
necessarily in that mode, from whence springs the misery of his fellows:
his Nature, being essentially different, he must necessarily act after
a different mode: his individual order is at variance, but his relative
order is complete: it is equally the essence of the one, to promote
happiness, as it is of the other to induce misery.
Thus, order and confusion in individual beings, is nothing more than
the manner of man's considering the natural and necessary effects, which
they produce relatively to himself. He fears the wicked man; he says
that he will carry confusion into society, because he disturbs its
tendency and places obstacles to its happiness. He avoids a falling
stone, because it will derange in him the order necessary to his
conservation. Nevertheless, order and confusion, are always, as we
have shewn, consequences, equally necessary to either the transient or
durable state of beings. It is in order that fire burns, because it
is of its essence to burn; on the other hand, it is in order, that an
intelligent being should remove himself from whatever can disturb his
mode of existence. A being, whose organization renders him sensible,
must in virtue of his essence, fly from every thing that can injure his
organs, or that can place his existence in danger.
Man calls those beings _intelligent_, who are organized after his
own manner; in whom he sees faculties proper for their preservation;
suitable to maintain their existence in the order that is convenient to
them; that can enable them to take the necessary measures towards this
end, with a consciousness of the motion they undergo. From hence, it
will be perceived, that the faculty called intelligence, consists in a
possessing capacity to act comformably to a known end, in the being
to which it is attributed. He looks upon these beings as deprived of
intelligence, in which he finds no conformity with himself; in whom
he discovers neither the same construction, nor the same faculties:
of which he knows neither the essence, the end to which they tend, the
energies by which they act, nor the order that is necessary to them. The
whole cannot have a distinct name, or end, because there is nothing out
of itself, to which it can have a tendency. If it be in himself, that
he arranges the idea of _order_, it is also in himself, that he draws up
that of _intelligence_. He refuses to ascribe it to those beings, who
do not act after his own manner: he accords it to all those whom he
supposes to act like himself: the latter he calls intelligent agents:
the former blind causes; that is to say, intelligent agents who act
by _chance_: thus chance is an empty word without sense, but which
is always opposed to that of intelligence, without attaching any
determinate, or any certain idea.
Man, in fact, attributes to _chance_ all those effects, of which the
connection they have with their causes is not seen. Thus he uses the
word _chance_, to cover his ignorance of those natural causes, which
produce visible effects, by means which he cannot form an idea of; or
that act by a mode of which he does not perceive the order; or whose
system is not followed by actions conformable to his own. As soon as he
sees, or believes he sees, the order of action, or the manner of motion,
he attributes this order to an _intelligence_; which is nothing more
than a quality borrowed from himself--from his own peculiar mode of
action--from the manner in which he is himself affected.
Thus an _intelligent being_ is one who thinks, who wills, and who acts,
to compass an end. If so, he must have organs, an aim conformable to
those of man: therefore, to say Nature is governed by an intelligence,
is to affirm that she is governed by a being, furnished with organs;
seeing that without this organic construction, he can neither have
sensations, perceptions, ideas, thought, will, plan, nor action which he
understands.
Man always makes himself the center of the universe: it is to himself
that he relates all he beholds. As soon as he believes he discovers a
mode of action that has a conformity with his own, or some phenomenon
that interests his feelings, he attributes it to a cause that resembles
himself--that acts after his manner--that has faculties similar to those
he possesses--whose interests are like his own--whose projects are in
unison with and have the same tendency as those he himself indulges: in
short, it is from himself, or the properties which actuate him, that he
forms the model of this cause. It is thus that man beholds, out of his
own species, nothing but beings who act differently from himself;
yet believes that he remarks in Nature an order similar to his own
ideas--views conformable to those which he himself possesses. He
imagines that Nature is governed by a cause whose intelligence is
conformable to his own, to whom he ascribes the honor of the order which
he believes he witnesses--of those views that fall in with those that
are peculiar to himself--of an aim which quadrates with that which is
the great end of all his own actions. It is true that man, feeling his
incapability of producing the vast, the multiplied effects of which he
witnesses the operation, when contemplating the universe, was under the
necessity of making a distinction between himself and the cause which
he supposed to be the author of such stupendous effects; he believed
he removed every difficulty, by amplifying in this cause all those
faculties of which he was himself in possession; adding others of which
his own self-love made him desirous, or which he thought would render
his being more perfect: thus, he gave JUPITER wings, with the faculty of
assuming any form he might deem convenient: it was thus, by degrees,
he arrived at forming an idea of that intelligent cause, which he has
placed above Nature, to preside over action--to give her that motion
of which he has chosen to believe she was in herself incapable. He
obstinately persists in regarding this Nature as a heap of dead, inert
matter, without form, which has not within itself the power of producing
any of those great effects, those regular phenomena, from which emanates
what he styles _the order of the Universe_. ANAXAGORAS is said to have
been the first who supposed the universe created and governed by an
intelligence: ARISTOTLE reproaches him with having made an automaton
of this intelligence; or in other words, with ascribing to it the
production of things, only when he was at a loss to account for their
appearance. From whence it may be deduced, that it is for want of being
acquainted with the powers of Nature, or the properties of matter, that
man has multiplied beings without necessity--that he has supposed the
universe under the government of an intelligent cause, which he is, and
perhaps always will be, himself the model: in fine, this cause has been
personified under such a variety of shapes, sexes, and names, that
a list of the deities he has at various times supposed to guide this
Nature, or to whom he has submitted her, makes a large volume that
occupies some years of his youthful education to understand. He only
rendered this cause more inconceivable, when he extended in it his own
faculties too much. He either annihilates, or renders it altogether
impossible, when he would attach to it incompatible qualities, which
he is obliged to do, to enable him to account for the contradictory and
disorderly effects he beholds in the world. In fact, he sees confusion
in the world; yet, notwithstanding his confusion contradicts the
plan, the power, the wisdom, the bounty of this intelligence, and the
miraculous order which he ascribes to it; he says, the extreme beautiful
arrangement of the whole, obliges him to suppose it to be the work of
a sovereign intelligence: unable, however, to reconcile this seeming
confusion with the benevolence he attaches to this cause, he had
recourse to another effort of his imagination; he made a new cause,
to whom he ascribed all the evil, all the misery, resulting from this
confusion: still, his own person served for the model; to which he
added those deformities which he had learned to hold in disrespect: in
multiplying these counter or destroying causes, he peopled Pandemonium.
It will no doubt be argued, that as Nature contains and produces
intelligent beings, either she must be herself intelligent, or else she
must be governed by an intelligent cause. We reply, intelligence is
a faculty peculiar to organized beings, that it is to say, to beings
constituted and combined after a determinate manner; from whence results
certain modes of action, which are designated under various names;
according to the different effects which these beings produce: wine
has not the properties called _wit_ and _courage_; nevertheless, it
is sometimes seen that it communicates those qualities to men, who are
supposed to be in themselves entirely devoid of them. It cannot be
said Nature is intelligent after the manner of any of the beings she
contains; but she can produce intelligent beings by assembling matter
suitable to their particular organization, from whose peculiar modes of
action will result the faculty called intelligence; who shall be capable
of producing certain effects which are the necessary consequence of this
property. I therefore repeat, that to have intelligence, designs and
views, it is requisite to have ideas; to the production of ideas, organs
or senses are necessary: this is what is neither said of Nature nor
of the causes he has supposed to preside over her actions. In short
experience warrants the assertion, it does more, it proves beyond
a doubt, that matter, which is regarded as inert and dead, assumes
sensible action, intelligence, and life, when it is combined and
organized after particular modes.
From what has been said, it must rationally be concluded that _order_ is
never more than the necessary or uniform connection of causes with
their effects; or that series of action which flows from the peculiar
properties of beings, so long as they remain in a given state; that
_confusion_ is nothing more than the change of this state; that in the
universe, all is necessarily in order, because every thing acts and
moves according to the various properties of the different beings it
contains; that in Nature there cannot be either confusion or real evil,
since every thing follows the laws of its natural existence; that there
is neither _chance_ nor any thing fortuitous in this Nature, where no
effect is produced without a sufficient, without a substantial cause;
where all causes act necessarily according to fixed and certain laws,
which are themselves dependant on the essential properties of these
causes or beings, as well as on the combination, which constitutes
either their transitory or permanent state; that intelligence is a mode
of acting, a method of existence natural to some particular beings; that
if this intelligence should be attributed to Nature, it would then be
nothing more than the faculty of conserving herself in active existence
by necessary means. In refusing to Nature the intelligence he himself
enjoys--in rejecting the intelligent cause which is supposed to be the
contriver of this Nature, or the principle of that _order_ he discovers
in her course, nothing is given to _chance_, nothing to a blind cause,
nothing to a power which is indistinguishable; but every thing he
beholds is attributed to real, to known causes; or to those which by
analogy are easy of comprehension. All that exists is acknowledged to
be a consequence of the inherent properties of eternal matter, which by
contact, by blending, by combination, by change of form, produces order
and confusion; with all those varieties which assail his sight, it
is himself who is blind, when he imagines blind causes:--man only
manifested his ignorance of the powers of motion, of the laws of Nature,
when he attributed, any of its effects to _chance_. He did not shew a
more enlightened feeling when he ascribed them to an intelligence, the
idea of which he borrowed from himself, but which is never in conformity
with the effects which he attributes to its intervention--he only
imagined words to supply the place of things--he made JUPITER, SATURN,
JUNO, and a thousand others, operate that which he found himself
inadequate to perform; he distinguished them from Nature, gave them an
amplification of his own properties, and believed he understood them by
thus obscuring ideas, which he never dared either define or analyze.