i*i *"""* I ^^X lo ^vx4? ,\\\E-UNlVERSy/i >&-Aav88n PHILOSOPHY BY JAMES BALMES. TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY HENEY F. BROWNSON, M.A, IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I . SJtto g0rk: D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 31 BARCLAY STREET, BOSTON: 128 FEDERAL STREET. MONTREAL : COR. OF NOTRE DAME AND ST. FRANCIS XAVIER 8T& 1871. Entered according to Act of Congress, tn the year lS5v By D. & J. SADLIEB & Co., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the SoutiwrB District of New York. 6 22! F1F m/ CONTENTS OF YOL. I. BOOK FIRST. ON CERTAINTY. CHAPTER PACK I. Importance and Utility of the Question of Certainty 3 IL True State of the Question 7 III. Certainty of the Human Race and Philosophical Certainty. 14 IV. Existence of Transcendental Science in the Absolute In- tellectual Order 24 V. Transcendental Science in tho Human Intellectual Order cannot emanate from the Senses 32 VI. Transcendental Science. Insufficiency of Real Truths.... 87 VII. The Philosophy of the Me cannot produce Transcendental Science 41 VIIL Universal Identity 56 IX. Universal Identity, Continued 64 X. Problem of Representation : Monads of Leibnitz 67 XI. Problem of Representation examined 71 XIL Immediate Intelligibility. 76 XIII. Representation of Causality and Ideality 83 XIV. Impossibility of Finding the first Principle in the Ideal Order 89 XV. The Indispensable Condition of all Human Knowledge. Means of perceiving Truth 92 XVI. Confusion of Ideas in Disputes on the Fundamental Prin- ciple 102 XVII. Thought and Existence. Descartes' Principle 106 XVIII. The Principle of Descartes, continued. His Method Ill XIX. Value of the Principle, I Think: Its Analysis 118 4: -, ' | , I -W IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XX. True Sense of the Principle of Contradiction. Kant's Opinion 126 XXL Does the Principle of Contradiction merit the Title of Fun- damental ? and if so, in what Sense ? 140 XXII. The Principle of Evidence 146 XXIII. The Criterion of Consciousness 151 XXIV. The Criterion cf Evidence 157 XXV. The Objective Value of Ideas 163 XXVI. Can all Cognitions be reduced to the Perception of Identity ? 171 XXVII. Continuation of the same subject 176 XXVIII. Continuation of the same subject 183 XXIX. Are there true Synthetic Judgments a priori in the Sense of Kant? 188 XXX. Vice's Criterion 200 XXXI. Continuation of the same subject 212 XXXIL The Criterion of Common Sense 219 XXXIII. Error of Lamennais on Common Consent 230 XXXIV. Summary and Conclusion 253 BOOK SECOND. ON SENSATION. I. Sensation in Itself 249 II. Matter is incapable of Sensation 255 IIL Sleep and Waking 263 IV. Relation of Sensations to an External World 267 V. An Idealist Hypothesis 273 VL Is the External and Immediate Cause of Sensations a Free Cause ? 276 VII. Analysis of the Objectiveness of Sensations 279 VIII. Sensation of Extension 283 IX. Objectiveness of the Sensation of Extension 287 X. Force of Touch to make Sensations Objective 293 XI. Inferiority of Touch compared with other Senses 296 XII. Can Sight alone give iis the Idea of a Surface ? 302 XIII. Cheselden's Blind Man 310 XIV. Can Sight give us the Idea of a Solid ? 315 CONTENTS. V CHAPTER PAG* XV. Sight and Motion 319 XVI. Possibility of other Senses 324 XVII. Existence of New Senses 328 XVIIL Solution of Lamennais' Objection 333 BOOK THIRD. EXTENSION AND SPACE. I. Extension Inseparable from the Idea of Body 339 II. Extension not Perceptible as the Direct and Immediate Object of Sensations 345 IIL Scientific Fruitfulness of the Idea of Extension 348 IV. Reality of Extension 357 V. Geometrical Exactness Realized in Nature 360 VI. Remarks on Extension 3(5 VII. Space. Nothing 369 VIII. Descartes and Leibnitz on Space 375 IX. Opinion of those who attribute to Space a Nature distinct from Bodies 380 X. Opinion of those who hold Space to be the Immensity of God 382 XI. Fenelon's Opinion 386 XII. What Space consists in 391 XIII. New Difficulties. 396 XIV. Another Important Consequence . 400 XV. Illusion of Fixed Points in Space 403 XVI. Observations on Kant's Opinion 407 XVII. Inability of Kant's Doctrine to solve the Problem of the Possibility of Experience 415 XVIII. The Problem of Sensible Experience 418 XIX. Extension abstracted from Phenomena 421 XX. Are there Absolute Magnitudes f 427 XXI. Pure Intelligibility of the Extended World 432 XXII. Infinite Divisibility 436 XXIII.. Unextended Points 439 XXIV. A Conjecture on the Transcendental Notion of Extension . . 442 XXV. Harmony of the Real, Phenomenal, and Ideal Orders 446 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACK XXVI. Character of the Relations of the Real Order to the Phe- nomenal 450 XXVII. Whether every Thing must be in some Place 452 XXVIII. Contingency of Corporeal Relations 459 XXIX. Solution of two Difficulties 462 XXX. Passive Sensibility 466 XXXI. Possibility of a greater Sphere in active Sensibility 469 XXXII. Possibility of the Penetration of Bodies 480 XXXIII. A Triumph of Religion in the Field of Philosophy 483 XXXIV. Conclusion and Summing up 489 NOTES TO BOOK FIRST , . 495 NOTE TO BOOK SECOND 614 NOTES TO BOOK THIRD 517 INTRODUCTION. THE foL:>wing translation of the great work of the lamented James Balmes on Philosophy, was un- dertaken at my suggestion and recommendation, and thus far I hold myself responsible for it. I have compared a considerable portion of it with the original, and as far as I have compared it, I have found it faithfully executed. The translator ap- pears to me to have rendered the author's thought with exactness and precision, in a style not inferior to his own. I have not added, as was originally contemplated, any Notes to those of the author. To have done so, would have swelled the volumes to an unreason- able size, and upon further consideration, they did not seem to me to be necessary. They would, in fact, have been an impertinence on my part, and the reader will rather thank me for not having done it. The work goes forth, therefore, as it came Vlll INTRODUCTION. from the hands of its illustrious author, with no ad- dition or abbreviation, or change, except what was demanded by the difference between the Spanish and English idioms. James Balrnes, in whose premature death in 1849, the friends of religion and science have still to deplore a serious loss, was one of the greatest writers and profoundest thinkers of Spain, and in- deed of our times. He is well and favorably known to the American public by his excellent work on European civilization, a work which has been translated into the principal languages of Europe. In that work he proved himself a man of free and liberal thought, of brilliant genius, and varied and profound learning. But his work on the bases of philosophy is his master-piece, and, taken as a whole, the greatest work that has been published on that important subject in the nine- teenth century. Yet it is rather as a criticism on the various erro- neous systems of philosophy in modern times, than as containing a system of philosophy itself that I have wished it translated and circulated in English. As a refutation of Bacon, Locke, Hume, and Con- dillac, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Spinoza, it is a master-piece, and leaves little to desire. In deter- mining the fundamental principles of philosophy, INTRODUCTION. IX and constructing a system in accordance with the real world, the author is not always, in my judg- ment, successful, and must yield to his Italian con- temporary, the unhappy Abbate Gioberti. When criticizing the errors of others, the distin- guished author reasons as an ontologist, but when developing his own system, he is almost a psycholo- gist. His ontology is usually sound, indeed, and his conclusions are for the most part just, but not always logically obtained. He recognizes no philosophical formula which embraces the whole subject-matter of philosophy, and does not appear to be aware that the primum pliHosophiawm is and must be a synthesis ; and hence he falls into what we may call, not eclecticism, but syncretism. This is owing to the fact that his genius is critical rather than construc- tive, and more apt to demolish than to build up. What I regard as the chief error of the illus- trious Spaniard, is his not recognizing that con- ceptions without intuitions are, as Kant justly maintains, empty, purely subjective, the mind it- self; and hence, while denying that we have intu- ition of the infinite, contending that we have a real and objectively valid conception of it. Throughout his book the reader will find him maintaining that the human mind may, by discursion, attain to valid conceptions of a reality which transcends intuition. 1* X INTRODUCTION. This I regard as an error. Discursion is an act of reflection, and though there is always less there can never be more in reflection than in intuition. If we have no intuition of the infinite, we have and can have no proper conception of it, and what is taken to be a conception of it is simply the human mind itself, and of no objective application or validity. The excellent author is misled on this point, by supposing that in intuition of the intelligible the mind is the actor and not simply the spectator, and that an intuition of the infinite implies an infinite intuition. In both cases he is mistaken. In intu- ition we are simply spectators, and the object affirms itself to us. In intuition of the infinite, it is not we who perceive and affirm the infinite, by our own in- tellectual act, but the infinite that reveals and af- firms itself to our intellect. In apprehending the infinite as thus revealed and affirmed, we of course apprehend it in a finite, not in an infinite manner. That which is intuitively apprehended is infinite, but the subjective apprehension is finite. The limit- ation is on the part of the subject, riot on the part of the object. The error arises from failing to distinguish sharp- ly between intuition and reflection. In intuition the principal and primary actor is the intelligible INTRODUCTION. XI object. In reflection it is the intellective subject; in the intuitive order the object presents itself as it is, with its own characteristics ; in the reflec- tive order it is represented with the limitations and characteristics of the thinking subject. As the subject is limited, its conceptions are limited, and represent the infinite not as infinite, but as the not- finite ; and it is in the reflective order, if we operate on our conceptions, instead of our intuitions, only by a discursive process that we can come to the con- clusion that the not-finite is the infinite. The au- thor not distinguishing the two orders, and taking conceptions which belong to the reflective order as if they belonged to the intuitive order, supposes that we may have valid conceptions beyond the sphere of intuition. But a little reflection should have taught him that, if he had no intuition, he could have no conception of the infinite. Following St. Thomas and all philosophers of the first order, the author very properly maintains that it is by the divine intelligibility, or the divine light, that the human mind sees whatever it does see ; but he shrinks from saying that we have intuition of God himself. So far as we are to understand intuition of God as intuition, or open vision of him as he is in himself, he is undoubtedly right. But objects are intelligible only in the light of God, INTRODUCTION. ana it is only by this light that we apprehend them. Do we ever apprehend objects by the light of God without apprehending the light which renders them apprehensible? In apprehending the object, we apprehend first of all the light which is the me- dium of its apprehension. The light of God is God, and if we have intuition of the light, we must have intuition of him who is the true light that " en- lighteneth every man coming into this world." We cannot see God as he is in himself, not because he is not intelligible in himself, but because of the excess of his light, which dazzles and blinds our eyes through their weakness. So, very few of us can look steadily in the face of the sun without being dazzled, yet not therefore is it to be said we cannot and do not see the sun. The author does not seem to be aware that sub- stance as distinguished from being or existence is an abstraction, and therefore purely subjective, and no object of intuition. Abstract from a thing all its prop- erties or attributes, and you have remaining simply zero. The substance is properly the concrete thing itself, and in the real order is distinguishable simply from its phenomena, or accidents, an abstract term, not from its so-called attributes or properties. Hence, the question, so much disputed, whether we perceive substances themselves, is only the question, INTRODUCTION. Xlll whether we see things themselves or only their phe- nomena. This question the Scottish school of Reid and Sir William Hamilton, have settled forever, and if it had not, Balmes has done it, making the cor- rection I have suggested, in a manner that leaves nothing further to be said. The author's proofs of the fact of creation arc strong and well put, but fail to be absolutely con- clusive in consequence of his not recognizing intu- ition of the creative act. They all presuppose this intuition, and are conclusive, because we in reality have it ; but by denying that we have it, the au- thor renders them formally inconclusive. We have intuition of God, real and necessary being, we have also intuition of things or existences, and therefore must have intuition of the creative act, for things or existences are only the external terminus of the creative act itself. Hence it is that Gioberti very properly makes the ideal formula, or primum phUosophicum, the synthetic judgment, Ens creat existential. Real and necessary Being creates exist- ences. This formula or judgment in all its terms is given intuitively, and simultaneously, and it is be- cause it is so given we are able at one blow to con- found the skeptic, the atheist, and the pantheist. The illustrious Spaniard, uses in all his argument this formula, but he does so unconsciously, in contra- XIV INTRODUCTION. diction, in fact, to his express statements, because he could not reason a moment, form a single conclu- sion without it. His argument in itself is good, but his explication of it is sometimes in fault. If the learned and excellent author had recogni- zed the fact that we have intuition of the creative act of the first cause, and the further fact that all second causes, in their several spheres and degree, imitate or copy the first, he would have succeeded better in explaining their operation. He does not seem to perceive clearly that the 'nexus which binds together cause and effect is the act of the cause, which is in its own nature causative of the effect, and by denying all intuition of this nexus, he seems to leave us in the position where Hume left us, be- cause it is impossible to attain by discursion to any objective reality of which we have no intuition. These are all or nearly all the criticisms I am disposed to make upon the admirable work of Balrnes. They are important, no doubt, but really detract much less from its value than it would seem. It has, in spite of these defects, rare and positive merits. The author has not indeed a synthetic genius, but his powers of analysis are unsurpassed, and as far as my philosophical reading goes, un- equalled. He has not given us the last word of philosophy, but he has given us precisely the work INTRODUCTION. XV most needed in the present anarchical state of philo- sophical science. Not one of the errors to be de- tected in his work is peculiar to himself, and the most that the most ill-natured critic can say against him is, that, while he retains and defends all the truth in the prevailing philosophy of the schools, he has not escaped all its errors. Wherever he de- parts from scholastic tradition he follows truth, and is defective only where that tradition is itself defec- tive. He has advanced far, corrected innumerable errors, poured a flood of light on a great variety of profound, intricate, and important problems, with- .out introducing a new or adding any thing to con- firm an old error. This is high praise, but the philosophic reader will concede that it is well merited. The work is well adapted to create a taste for solid studies. It is written in a calm, clear, and dignified style, sometimes rising to true eloquence. The author threw his whole mind and soul into his work, and shows himself everywhere animated by a pure and noble spirit, free from all pride of opin- ion, all love of theorizing, and all dogmatism. He evidently writes solely for the purpose of advancing the cause of truth and virtue, religion and civiliza- tion, and the effect of his writings on the heart is no less salutary than their effect on the mind. XVI INTRODUCTION. I have wished the work to be translated and given to the English and American public, not as a work free from all objections, but as admirably adapted to the present state of the English and American mind, as admirably fitted to correct the more dangerous errors now prevalent among us, and to prepare the way for the elaboration of a positive philosophy worthy of the name. We had nothing in English to compare with it, and it is far better adapted to the English and American genius than the misty speculations we are importing, and attempting to naturalize, from Germany. It will lead no man into any error which he does not al- ready entertain, and few, perhaps none, can read it without positive benefit, at least without getting rid of many errors. With these remarks I commit these volumes to the public, bespeaking for them a candid considera- tion. The near relation in which I stand to the translator makes me anxious that his labors should be received with a kindly regard. He who trans- lates well a good book from a foreign language into his own, does a service to his country next to that of writing a good book himself. 0. A. BROWNSON. AUGUST 7, 1856. BOOK FIRST. FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. CHAPTER I. IMPORTANCE AND VTII.ITT OF THS QUESTION OF CERTAINTY. 1. WE should begin the study of philosophy by ex- amining the question of certainty ; before raising the edi- fice, we must lav the foundation. Ever since there has been philosophy, that is, ever since men first reflected on themselves and the beings around them, they have been engaged with those questions which have for their object the basis of human knowledge, and this shows that on this subject serious difficulties are encoun- tered. Inquirers, however, have not been discouraged by the sterility of philosophical labors ; and this shows that in the last term of the investigation an object of high import- ance is discovered. Philosophers have cavilled in the most extravagant manner up^n the questions of certainty; on few subjects has the history of the human mind presented such lament- able aberrations. This consideration may excite suspicion that such investigations offer nothing solid to the mind, and serve only to feed the vanity of the sophist. But here, as elsewhere, we attribute no exaggerated importance to the 4 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bic. I opinions of philosophers, and we are very far from believ- ing that they ought to be regarded as the legitimate repre- sentatives of human reason. It cannot, however, be denied that they are irj tL.e intellectual order the most active por- tion of the human race. When the whole body of philos- ophers dispute, humanity itself may be said to dispute. Every fact affecting the human race merits a thorough ex- amination ; to undervalue it, on account of the sophisms which envelop it, is to fall into the worst of all sophisms. There should be no contradiction between reason and common sense ; yet such a contradiction there would be, if we should, in the name of common sense, contemn what occupies the reason of the most enlightened minds. Often- times it happens that what is grave and significant, that which makes a thinking man meditate*, is the result neither of a disputation, nor of the arguments therein adduced, but the simple existence of the dispute itself. In itself it is sometimes of little importance, but by reason of Avhat it indicates, of great consequence. 2. All philosophical questions are in some manner in- volved in that of certainty. When we have completely unfolded this, we have examined under ore aspect or an- other all that human reason can conceive of God, man, and the universe. At first sight it may perhaps seem to be the simple foundation of the scientific structure ; but in this foundation, if we carefully examine it, we shall see the whole edifice represented : it is a plane whereon is projected, visibly and in fair perspective, the whole body it is to sup- port. 3. However limited may be the direct and immediate result of these investigations, they are of incalculable ad- vantage. It is highly important to acquire science, but not less important to know its limits. Near these limits there are shoals which the navigator ought 1o know. It CH. I.] ON CERTAINTY. 5 is by examining the question of certainty that we ascertain the limits of human science. In descending to the depths to which these questions lead us, the understanding grows dim, and the heart is awed with a religious fear. A moment ago we were con- templating the edifice of human ^knowledge, and grew proud to see it with its colossal dimensions, its beautiful forms, ts fine and bold construction ; we enter it, and are led .hrough deep caverns, and, as if by enchantment, the foundation seems to be subtilized, to evaporate, and the superb edifice remains floating in the air. 4. It must be remarked that in entering on the exam- ination of the question of certainty, we do not conceal from ourselves its difficulties. To conceal would not be to solve them; on the contrary, the first condition necessary to their complete solution, is to see them with perfect clear- ness, and to feel their full force. It is no humiliation to the human understanding to seek those limits beyond which it cannot pass, but it is to elevate and confirm it. Thus the intrepid naturalist, when in search of some object he has penetrated to the bowels of the earth, feels a mix- ture of terror and pride to be thus buried in subterranean caverns, with just light enough to see immense masses barely suspended above his head and unfathomable abysses beneath his feet. There is something sublime, something attractive and captivating in the obscurity of the mys- teries of science, in uncertainty itself, in the very assaults of doubt, threatening to destroy in one instant the work accomplished by the human mind only in the space of long ages. The greatest men have at all times enjoyed the contemplation of these mysteries. The genius which spread its wings over the east, over Greece and Rome, over the schools of the Middle Ages, is the same we now behold in modern Europe. Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, 6 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [BK. 1. Abelard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas of Aquin, Luis Vives, Bacon, Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibnitz, all, each in his own way, felt the sublime inspiration of philosophy. Whatever tends to raise man to lofty contemplation in the sanctuary of his soul, contributes to his aggrandizement; for it separates him from natural objects, reminds him of his noble origin, and proclaims to him his high destiny. In a mechanical and sensual age, when every thing seems opposed to the activity of the powers of the soul, except when they administer to the wants of the body, it is well to renew those great questions in which the mind roams free and untrammelled over unbounden realms of space. Only intellect can examine itself. The stone falls, but knows not that it falls; the ray calcines and pulverizes, ignorant of its power ; the flower knows not that its beauty is enchanting ; and the brute beast follows his instincts, but asks not the reason of them. Man alone, a fragile organi- zation, appearing for a moment on earth again to return to the dust, harbors a spirit, which first inspects the external world, and then, anxious to ascertain its own nature, enters into itself as into a sanctuary, and becomes its own oracle. What am I? What do I do? What do I think ? What phenomena do I experience within myself? Why am I subject to them ? What is their cause, their order of pro- duction, their relations ? The mind asks itself these ques- tions, serious and difficult indeed, but noble and sublime questions ; an unfailing proof that there is within us some- thing superior to inert matter susceptible only of motion and a variety of forms, that there is something, which, by an internal activity, spontaneous and rooted in our very na- ture, presents us an image of that infinite Activity, a single act of whose will created the world from nothing. (1) CH. II.] ON CERTAINTY. CHAPTER II. TRUE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 5. THAT we have certainty, common sense assures us, but what is its basis, and how it is acquired, are two difficult questions, which it is for philosophy to answer. Three very different questions are involved in that of certainty ; and if confounded, they contribute not a little to the creation of difficulties, and the confusion of matters which, even when they have their various aspects most ac- curately marked, are sufficiently hard and complicated. It will greatly conduce to the due determination of our ideas, carefully to distinguish between the existence of cer- tainty, its basis, and the mode in which it is acquired. Its existence is an indisputable fact; its basis the object of philosophical researches, and the mode of acquiring it fre- quently a concealed phenomenon not open to observation. 6. That bodies exist is a fact that no man of sane mind can doubt. No questions raised upon this point can ever shake our firm conviction in the existence, without us, of what we call the corporeal world. This conviction is a pheno- menon of our existence. Explain it, perhaps we cannot ; but we certainly cannot deny it ; we submit to it as to an inevitable necessity. What is the basis of .certainty? Here we have not a simple fact, but a question solved by every philosopher in his own way. Descartes and Malebranche recur to the veracity of God; Locke and Condillac to the peculiar character and evolution of certain sensations. How does man acquire this certainty ? He knows not : 8 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I. he had it before reflecting on it ; he is astounded to hear it made a matter of dispute, and he might never have sus- pected it could be asked, why we are certain that what af- fects our senses exists. It is of no use to ask him how he made so precious an acquisition; he regards it as a fact scarcely distinct from his own existence. He has no recol- lection of the order of sensations in his infancy ; he finds his mind now developed, but is as ignorant of the laws of its development as he is of those which presided over th generation and growth of his body. 7. Philosophy should begin by explaining, not by dis- puting the fact of certainty. If we are certain of nothing, it is absolutely impossible for us to advance a single step in any science, or to take any part whatever in the affairs of life. A thorough-going skeptic would be insane, and that too with insanity of the highest grade. To such a one, all communication with other men, all succession of external actions, all thoughts, and even acts of the will would be im- possible. Let us, then, admit the fact, and not be so ex- travagant as to say that madness sits on the threshold of philosophy. It is the part of philosophy to analyze, not to destroy its object; for by destroying its object it destroys itself. Every argument must have a resting -point, which must be a fact. Whether it be internal or external, idea or ob- ject, the fact must exist: we must begin by supposing something, and this something we call a fact. Whoever begins by denying or doubting all facts, is like the anato- mist, who, before dissecting a corpse, burns it, and casts its ashes to the wind. 8. Philosophy then, it may be said, commences not with an examination, but with an affirmation. Granted, and this is a truth whose admission closes the door on much soph- CH.TI.] ON CERTAINTY. 9 istry, and sheds a brilliant light over the whole theory of certainty. Philosophers are deceived when they imagine that they begin by doubting. Nothing is more false ; when they think, they affirm, if nothing else, at least their own doubt : whenever they reason, they assert the connection of ideas, that is, the whole logical world. Fichte, who certainly was not easily satisfied with any- thing, begins to treat of the basis of human knowledge by making an affirmation, and this he confesses with an ingen- uousness that does him honor. Speaking of reflection, the foundation of his philosophy, he says : " The rules to which this reflection is subject, are not proved to be valid, but are tacitly presupposed to be known and admitted. They are, in their remotest origin, derived from a principle, the legitimacy of which can only be established on con- dition that they are valid. This is a circle, but an inevitable circle. But supposing it to be inevitable, and that we frankly confess it so to be, it is, in order to establish ' the highest principle, allowable to trust all the laws of general logic. We must start on the road of reflection with a prop- osition conceded by all the world without any contradic- tion."* 9. Certainty is to us a happy necessity ; nature imposes it, and philosophers do not cast off nature. Pyrrho once came very near being hit by a stone, but he very naturally took good care to get out of its way, without stopping to examine whether it was a real stone, or only the appear- ance of one. The bystanders laughed at him for this, and, at the same time, showed how inconsistent this act was with his doctrine ; but he gave this answer, which, under the * Fichte, Grundlapi Jer getammten Wistcnschaftslehre. Theil. i, 1. Ed. Berlin, 1845, p. 92. 1* 10 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bit. I. circumstances, was exceedingly profound : " It is hard en- tirely to throw off human nature." 10. In sound philosophy, then, the question turns not upon the existence of certainty, but upon its motives, and the means of acquiring it. It is an inheritance of which we cannot divest ourselves, although we repudiate those very titles which guaranty its possession to us. Who is not certain that he thinks, feels, wills ; that he has a body and that there are around him others similar to his, of which the corporeal universe consists ? Prior to all sys- tems, humanity was in possession of this certainty, so, also, is every individual, although he may never during his whole life have once asked himself what the world is, what bodies are, or in what sensation, thought, and will consist. Not even if we examine the foundations of certainty and ac- knowledge the serious difficulties concerning them, which arise from ratiocination, is it possible to doubt everything. There never was, in all the rigor of the word, a true skeptic. 11. It is the same with certainty as with other objects of human knowledge. The fact is presented to us in all its magnitude, and with all clearness ; but we do not pene- trate to its innermost nature. Our understanding is as well provided with means to acquire knowledge of phenom- ena in the spiritual as in the material order, and it is suf- ficiently perspicacious to detect, delineate, and classify the laws to which they are subject; but when it would ascend to the cognition of the very essence of things, or would investigate the principles of the science which makes its boast, it feels its strength fail, and the ground whereon it stands, tremble and sink beneath its feet. Happily, man possesses certainty independently of philo- sophical systems, not limited to phenomena of the soul, but extending as far as is needed n order to direct his conduct, both with regard to himself and to external objects. Be- CH. II.] ON CERTAINTY. 11 fore inquiring if there is certainty, all men were certain that they thought, willed, felt, that they had a body whose motions were governed by the will, and that there existed an assemblage of various bodies, called the universe. Since inquiries with regard. to certainty were first instituted, it has remained the same with all men, even with those who disputed it ; not one of whom could ever go farther than Pyrrho, and succeed in casting off human nature. 12. "We cannot determine to what extent the force of mind of some philosophers, engaged in combatting nature, may have succeeded in creating doubt on many points, but certain it is : first, that no one ever went so far as to doubt the internal phenomena whose presence he felt inwardly ; second, that if indeed any one ever did persuade himself that no external object corresponded to these phenomena, this must have been so strange an exception as to merit, in the history of science, and in the eyes of sound philosophy, no more weight than the illusions of a maniac. If Berkely went so far as to deny the existence of bodies, thus making the sophisms of reason triumph over the instincts of nature, he is alone, and in opposition to all mankind, and richly merits to have this saying applied to him : " Insanity is insanity still, no matter how sublime it may be." Those very philosophers, who carried their skepticism the farthest, agreed upon the necessity of accommodating themselves in practice to the appearances of the senses, and of reserving doubt for the world of speculation. Philoso- phers may dispute on every thing as much as they please, but, the dispute over, they cease to be philosophers, and are again men, similar to other men, and, like them all, en- joy the fruits of certainty. This, Hume, who denied with Berkely the existence of bodies, confesses : " I dine," he says; "I play a game at backgammon; I converse, and am happy with my friends ; and when, after three or four 12 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I hours of amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, so strained, and so ridiculous, that 1 cannot find it in my heart to enter into them any farther. Here, then, I find myself absolutely and necessarily deter- mined to live, and talk, and act, like other people, in the common affairs of life."* 13. We must, in discussing certainty, guard against the feverish desire of shaking the foundations of human reason. We should, in this class of questions, seek a thorough knowledge of the principles of science, and the laws which govern the development of our mind. To labor to destroy them is to mistake the object of true philosophy : we have only to make them a matter of observation, just as* we do those of the material world, without any intention of dis- turbing the admirable order prevailing in the universe. Skeptics, who, in order to render their philosophy more solid, begin by doubting every thing, resemble the man, who, desirous of ascertaining, and exactly determining the phenomena of life, should bare his bosom, and thrust the knife into his heart. Sobriety is as necessary to the health of the mind, as to that of the body : there is no wisdom without prudence, no philosophy without judgment. In the soul of man there is a divine light which directs him with admirable certainty. If we do not persist in extinguishing it, its splendor guides us, and when we reach the term of science it shows it to us, and makes us read in distinct characters the words, enough, you can go no farther. These words are written by the Author of all beings ; he it is that has given laws to the body as well as to the mind, and he contains in his infinite essence the ultimate reason of all things. 14. The certainty which is prior to all examination is * Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i., p: 467. CH. II.] ON CEETAINTY. 13 not blind ; ^n the contrary, it springs either from the clear- ness of the intellectual vision, or from an instinct conform- able to reason : it is not opposed to reason, but is its basis. Our mind, in discursive reasoning, knows truth by the connection of propositions, or by the light which is re- flected from one truth upon another. In primitive cer- tainty the vision is by direct light, and does not need reflection. When, then, we note the existence of certainty, we do not speak of a blind fact, nor do we seek to extinguish the light in its very source ; we would rather say, that it is more brilliant there than in its radiations. We see a body whose splendor illumines the world in which we live; ought we, if requested to explain its nature and its rela- tions with other objects, to begin by destroying these? When naturalists would examine the nature of light, and determine its laws, they do not begin by removing the light itself, and placing themselves in darkness. 15. True, this method of philosophizing is somewhat dogmatic, but dogmatic as it is, it has on its side, as we have seen, Pyrrho, Hume, and Fichte. It is not simply a method of philosophy, it is the voluntary submission of our very nature to an inevitable necessity, the combination of reason with instinct, a simultaneous attention to different voices calling from the depths of our soul. According to Pascal, " nature confounds the Pyrrhonians, and reason the dogmatists." This passes for a profound saying, and is so under a certain aspect; but it is notwithstanding somewhat inexact. The confusion is not the same in both cases : reason does not confound the dogmatist, unless he separ- ates it from nature; but nature confounds the.Pyrrhonian, either alone or joined with reason. The true dogmatist founds his reason upon nature ; it knows itself, confesses the impossibility ol proving every thing, and does not arbi- 14 I UN DAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [BK. I. trarily assume any principle that it needs unless nature itself furnishes it. And thus it does not confound the dogmatist, when guided by it he seeks a sure foundation for it. Nature, when it confounds the Pyrrhonian, attests the triumph of the reason of dogmatists, whose principal ar- gument against Pyrrhonians, is the voice of nature itself. Pascal's thought would have been more exact if thus worded : nature confounds the Pyrrhonian and is neces- sary to the reason of dogmatists. This is less antithetical, but more true. Dogmatists do not deny nature ; reason without it is impotent; to exercise its strength it needs a resting point. With such, Archimedes offered to move the earth, without this his immense lever could not stir a single atom. (2) CHAPTEE III. CERTAINTY OF THE HUMAN RACE, AND PHILOSOPHICAL CERTAINTY. 16. Certainty does not originate in reflection ; it is the spontaneous product of man's nature, and is annexed to the direct act of the intellectual and sensitive faculties. It is a condition necessary to the exercise of both, and without it life were a chaos ; we therefore possess it instinctively, and without any reflection, and we enjoy the fruit of this as of all those other benefits of the Creator, which are insepar- ably joined to our existence. 17. It is r then, necessary to distinguish between the certainty of the human race and philosophical certainty, although, to speak frankly, it is not easy to conceive what can be the value of any hu-.nan certainty distinct from that CH. III.] ON CERTAINTY. 15 of the human race. If we set aside the efforts which the philosopher sometimes makes to discover the basis of hu- man knowledge, we shall readily find him confounded with the rest of mankind. This cavil leaves no trace in his mind with respect to the certainty of all that the human race is certain of. He then discovers that the doubt which he felt was not a real doubt, although he may have deluded himself into a contrary belief. His doubts were simple suppositions, nothing more. When his meditation is over, and perhaps even while it lasts, he finds that he is as cer- tain as the most ignorant individual of his internal acts, the existence of his own body, of other bodies around him, and of a thousand other things, which constitute the amount of knowledge requisite to the wants of life. Question all, from the infant of a few summers, to the sage of many years and mature judgment, on the certainty of their own existence, their acts internal or external, their friends and relatives, the people among whom they dwell, objects seen or heard of, and you will not detect any hesi- tation in their answers, or any kind of difference in the grades of their certainty. If they have no knowledge of the philosophical questions touching these matters, you may read in their countenances wonder and astonishment that any one should seriously investigate things so evident, 18. Impossible as it is for us to know in what manner the sensitive, intellectual, and moral powers of the child are developed, it is equally impossible to prove a priori, by analyzing the operations of his mind, that reflex acts do not concur to the formation of certainty ; but it will not be difficult to find proofs of this in the exercise of these facul- ties when well developed. If we observe attentively, we shall see that the child's faculties habitually operate in a direct, not a reflex manner; which shows that the devel- opment is made directly, not by reflection. Were the 16 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [BK. I. primitive development the work of reflexion, the reflective power would be great in the child. But this is not the case. Very few men are ever endowed with it, and in the greater part of them it is very nearly null. They whc attain to it, acquire it only by assiduous labor, and not without great violence to himself, can any one pass from direct to reflex cognition. 19. No matter what you teach a child, he perceives it indeed, but call his attention to the perception itself, and his understanding is at once obscured and confused. Let us make the experiment. Suppose we would teach a child the elements of geometry. " Do you see this figure bounded by three lines ? It is called a triangle ; the lines are called sides, and the points where they unite the vertices of the angles." " I under- stand that." " Do you see this other figure bounded by four lines ? It is called quadrilateral, and, like the triangle, has its sides and vertices of angles." " Very well." " Can a quadrilateral figure be a triangle, or vice versa f" " It cannot."" Never ?" " Never."" Why not ?" " One has three, and the other four sides : how then can they be the same thing?" "Who knows? It may seem so to you, but " " See here ! This has three, and this four sides ; and three and four are not the same thing." Torture his understanding as much as you please, but you cannot drive him from his position : and thus we see that his perception and his reason operate directly, that is, by direct application to the object. Of himself he does not direct his attention to his own internal acts, does not think upon his own thoughts, does not combine reflex ideas, nor seek in them the certainty of his judgment. 20. And here we detect a vital error in the art of think- ing as it has hitherto been taught. The young intellect is exercised in reflection, the most difficult part of science. CH. III.] ON CERTAINTY. 17 which is as inconsiderate as it would be to commence his physical development by the most painful gymnastic exer- cises. Man's scientific development should be governed by his natural development, which is direct not reflex. 21. Let us apply this remark to the exercise of the senses. " Do you hear that music?" asks the child. "What mu- sic ?" " Did you not hear it ? Are you deaf?" " It seems to you that .you hear it." " But, sir, I hear it so distinct- ly I How can it be possible ?" " But how do you know ?" "I hear it" From his / hear it you cannot drive him : he will not hesitate a moment, nor will he appeal to any reflex act in order to avoid your importunities. " I hear it: do not you hear it?" He asks nothing more, and all your philosophy cannot equal the irresistible force of sensation which assures him that there is music, and that whoever doubts it is either deaf or in jest. 22. Had the faculties of the child been developed by al- ternate direct and reflex acts; had he, when acquiring knowledge of things, thought of something besides the things themselves; evidently a continuation of such acts would have left some impression on his mind, and urged to assign the motives of his certainty, he would indicate those very means that he made use of in the gradual develop- ment of his faculties ; he would abstract the object, retire into himself, think upon his own thought in one way or another, and thus encounter the difficulty. Nothing of this character takes place, which proves that no such reflex acts have been performed, that there have been only per- ceptions accompanied by internal consciousness and cer- tainty of their existence ; but all in a confused, instinctive manner, without any thing flke philosophical reflection. 23. What has been said of the child, may be proved true also of adults, however clear and perfect their intel- 18 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bx. I. lect. If not initiated into questions of philosophy, they will give very nearly the same answers to difficulties pro- posed on the same matters, and even upon many others more exposed to doubt. Experience proves better than all ratiocination that no one acquires certainty by reflex acts. 24. Philosophers teach that the sources of certainty are the internal sense or consciousness of acts, the external senses, common sense, reason, and authority.. A few ex- amples will show us that there is reflection in all these, and how most men, and even philosophers, when they act like men and not like philosophers, think. 25. Suppose a clear-headed person, one however who is ignorant of the questions of certainty, has just seen some monument, the Escurial for instance, which leaves a lively and lasting impression on his mind, and while he recollects his gratification on seeing it, try to make him doubt the ex- istence of this recollection in his mind, and its correspond- ence as well with the act of seeing as with the edifice itself, and he will very certainly think you are in jest, or will be astounded, and will suspect you of being out of your senses. He discovers no difference between things differ- ent as are the actual existence of his recollection, its cor- respondence with the past act of seeing, and the agreement of both with the edifice seen. He knows in this case no more than a child of six years: "I recollect it, I saw it, it is as I recollect it." This is all his science : he neither re- flects, nor separates ; all is direct and simultaneous. No matter what suppositions you make, you can never get from the majority of men any better account of the phenomena of the internal sense, than you got frm the supposed individual's recollection of the Escurial: " all that I know is that it is so." There are here no reflex acts ; certainty attends the direct act, and no philosophical con- CH. III.] ON CERTAINTY. 19 siderations can add one iota to the security given by the very force of things, and the instinct of nature. 26. Example of the testimony of the senses. If we see any object, no matter what, at a proper dis- tance and in sufficient light, we judge of its size, figure, and color, and we are very confident of the truth of our judg- ment, although we may never, in all our life, have thought of a theory of sensation, or of the relations of our organs, either to each other or to external objects. No reflex act accompanies the formation of our judgment ; all is done instinctively, and without the intervention of philosophical considerations. We see it, and nothing else : this is enough for certainty. It is only after having handled books in which the question of certainty is agitated, that we turn our attention to our own acts; but this attention, it is to be remarked, lasts only so long as we are engaged in the scientific analysis ; when this is forgotten, which it very soon is, we return to our general routine, and seldom recur to philosophy. Note well that we speak here of the certainty of the judgment formed in consequence of sensation only in so far as it is connected with the uses of life, and not at all of its greater or less exactness with respect to the nature of things. Thus it matters little that we consider colors as in- herent qualities of bodies, although in reality they are not ; it is sufficient that the judgment formed does not in any sense change our relations to objects, whatever may be the philosophical theory. 27. Example of common sense. In the presence of a numerous assembly, throw a quan- tity of printer's types at random upon the ground, and tell the bystanders that their names will all be found printed. They will all with one accord laugh at your folly. But 20 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bs. I. what is the reason of this ? Have they all reflected upon the basis of their certainty ? Assuredly they have not. 28. Example of reason. We all reason, and in many cases rightly. Without art or reflection of any kind, we often distinguish the solid from the futile, the sophistical from the conclusive. This docs not require us to regard the course of our understand- ing ; without scarcely noticing it we follow the right road ; and a man may, in his life, have formed a thousand rigor- ous and exact ratiocinations without ever having once at- tended to his method of reasoning. Even those most versed in the dialectic art, repeatedly forget it ; they per- haps follow it very correctly in practice, but they pay no express attention to any one of its rules. 29. Ideologists have written whole volumes on the oper- ations of our understanding, and the simple rustic performs these operations without thinking that he performs them. How much has been written on abstraction, generalization, and universal ! Yet this is all well regulated in the mind of every man, ignorant as he may 'be of a science which examines it. In his language you will find the universal and the particular expressed, and every thing occupying its proper place in his discourse : he encounters no difficulty in his direct acts. But call his attention to these acts themselves, to abstraction for example; and what was in the direct act so clear and lucid, becomes a chaos the mo- ment it passes to the reflex order. Thus we see that reflection, whose object is the act per- formed, is of very little importance even in reasoning, its most reflective medium. 30. Example of authority. All civilized people know the existence of England, but most of them know this only from having heard or read of it, that is, by authority. Their certainty of the ex- CH. III.] ON CEKTAINTV. 21 istence of England evidently is not surpassed by that of objects of their own vision ; and yet how many of them have ever thought of analyzing the foundations of such a certainty? Yet is the certainty of those who have ex- amined it greater than that of those who have not ex- amined it ? In the present case, as in an infinity of others analogous to it, there is no intervention of reflex acts : cer- tainty is here formed instinctively, and needs no medium invented by philosophers. 31. These examples show that philosophers take a, very different road to certainty from that taught by nature. He who created all things out of nothing,, has provided them with all that is necessary to the exercise of their functions according to their respective positions in the universe ; and one of the first necessities of an intelligent being is the cer- tainty of some truths. What would become of us, if before beginning to receive impressions, and before the germina- tion of primary ideas in our understanding, we were obliged to perform the painful task of elaborating some system ca- pable of saving us from uncertainty ? Were it thus, our intellect would perish at its very birth, for no sooner would it open its eyes to the light than it would be involved in the chaos of its own cavils, and it could never, with its scattered forces, succeed in dissipating the clouds which would arise on all sides, and which would finally sink it in total darkness. If the greatest philosophers, the most clear and acute intellects, the strongest and most vigorous geniuses have labored to so little purpose to establish solid principles, such as might serve for the foundations of science, what would have happened had not the Creator succored us in this necessity, and given certainty to the tender intellect, just as he prepared for the preservation of the body the milk that nourishes and the air that vivifies it? 32. If any part of science ught to be regarded as purely 22 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B*. I. speculative, it is undoubtedly the part which concerns cer- tainty ; and this proposition, paradoxical as it may seem at first sight, is true, and can be easily demonstrated. 33. What does philosophy here propose to do ? To pro- duce certainty ? But it exists independently of all philo- sophical systems, and mankind were certain of many things before ever any one thought of such questions. Moreover, since the question was first raised, few, compared with the. whole human race, have examined it ; so it is now, and so it will be ; and all the theories invented on this point can have no effect upon the fact of certainty. What has been said of its production may be said of the attempt to con- solidate it. When have the generality of men had, or when will they have, time and opportunity to examine these questions? 34. Philosophy could here have produced nothing but skepticism, for the variety and opposition of systems were more calculated to create than to dissipate doubts. Happily nature is the most invincible opponent of skepticism ; the sage's dreams pass not from his library to the every day uses of the life of ordinary men, or even of those who labor under or imagine them. 35. Philosophy here can propose to itself no more rea- sonable object than simply to examine the foundations of certainty, with the sole view of more thoroughly knowing the human mind, not of making any change in practice ; just as astronomers observe the course of the stars, inves- tigate and determine the laws to which they are subject, without therefore presuming to be able to modify them. 36. But even this supposition places philosophy in a very unsatisfactory position; for if we recollect what we have already established, we shall see that science observes a real and true phenomenon, but gives it a gratuitous expla- nation, by making an imaginary analysis of it. CH. IIIJ ON CERTAINTY. 23 Experience has in fact shown our understanding to be guided by no one of the considerations made by philoso- phers ; its assent, when it is accompanied by the greatest cer- tainty, is a spontaneous product of a natural instinct, not of combinations ; it is a firm adhesion exacted by the evidence of the truth, the power of the internal sense, or the impulse of instinct ; not a conviction produced by a series of ratioci- nations. These combinations and ratiocinations therefore exist only in the mind of philosophers, not in reality; when, therefore, they attempt to designate the foundations of certainty, we are told what could or should have been, but not what is. If philosophers would only be guided by their own sys- tems, and would not forget them nor set them aside as soon as, or even before, they have finished explaining them, it might be said, that even if no reason can be given for human certainty, one can be given for philosophical certainty ; but since these same philosophers make no use of these scien- tific means save when developing them ex professo, it fol- lows that their pretended foundations are a mere theory, having little or no connection with the reality. 37. This demonstration of the vanity of philosophical systems relating to the foundation of certainty, far from leading to skepticism, has a directly contrary tendency ; for it makes us appreciate at their true value, the emptiness of our cavils, compares their impotence with the irresistible force of nature, and thus destroys that foolish pride which would make us superior to the laws imposed upon our un- derstanding by the Creator himself; it places us in the chan- nel through which the torrent of humanity has for ages run ; and it disposes us to receive with sound philosophy what the laws of our nature force us to accept. (3) 24 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. fBic. I. CHAPTEB IV. EXISTENCE OF TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE IN THE ABSOLUTE INTELLECTUAL ORDER. 38. PHILOSOPHERS have sought a first principle of human knowledge ; each has assigned his own, and now after so much discussion it is doubtful who is right, or even if any one is right. Before inquiring what the first principle is, they ought to have ascertained whether there be any such principle. "We cannot suppose this last question to be answered affirm- atively ; for it is, as we shall hereafter see, susceptible of different solutions, according to the aspect under which it is seen. The first principle of knowledge may be understood in either of two senses ; as denoting one first truth from which all others flow, or as expressing a truth which we must sup- pose if we would not have all other truths disappear. In the former sense it is a spring from which the waters flow, which fertilize the intellect; in the second sense it is a point whereon to rest a great weight. 39. Is there any one truth from which all others flow ? There is in reality, in the order of beings, in the universal intellectual order; but in the human intellectual order there is none. 40. There is in the order of beings one truth, the origin of all truths ; for truth is reality, and there is one Being, .author of all beings. This being is a truth, truth itself, the plenitude of truth, for he is "being by essence, the plenitude of being. CH. IV.] ON CERTAINTY. 25 Every school of philosophy has in some sense recognized this unity of origin. The atheist talks of the force of na- ture ; the pantheist of an only substance, of the absolute, of the unconditioned; both have abandoned the idea of God, and now labour to replace it by something which may be made the origin of the existence of the universe, and of the development of its phenomena. 41. There is in the universal intellectual order one truth from which all others flow ; it is, that the unity of origin of all truths is not only found in realized truths, that is, in beings considered in themselves, but likewise in the concat- enation of ideas representing these beings. And thus if our understanding could ascend to the knowledge of all truths, and embrace them in their unity and in all the rela- tions uniting them, it would see them after arriving at a certain height, notwithstanding their dispersion and diver- gence as now perceived by us, converge to a centre, in which they unite, like rays of light in the luminous object from which they issued. 42. The most profound philosophical doctrines often ap- pear in the treatises of theologians explaining the doctrines of the church. Thus St. Thomas, in his questions on the understanding of angels, and in other parts of his works, has left us a very luminous and interesting theory. Accord- ing to him, spirits understand by a number of ideas smaller in proportion to the superiority of their order ; and so the diminution goes on even to God, who understands by means of a single idea which is his own essence. And thus ac- cording to the holy doctor, not only is there one being, author of all beings, but also one infinite idea which in- cludes all ideas. Whoever fully possesses this idea will see every thing in it ; but since this full possession, called* comprehension in theology, is solely a property of the in- finite intelligence of God, creatures, when in the other life 2 26 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I. they shall have obtained the beatific vision, will see more or fewer objects in God according to the greater or less perfec- tion in which they possess it. How wonderful! The dogma of beatific vision well understood, is also a truth which sheds much light upon philosophical theories. Malebranche's sublime dream about ideas was, perhaps, a reminiscence of his theological studies. 43. The transcendental science which embraces and ex- plains them all, is a chimera to our mind so long as we inhabit this earth, but it is a reality to other spirits of a higher order, and it will also l?e so to us when, freed from this mortal body, we attain the regions of light. 44. So far as we may conjecture from analogy, we have proofs of the existence of this transcendental science, which includes all sciences, and is in its turn contained in one sole principle, or rather, in one only idea, in one only in- tuition. If we observe the scale of beings, the grades of distinction between individual intelligences, and the succes- sive progress of science, the image of this truth will be pre- sented to us in a very striking manner. One of the distinctive characteristics of our mind is its power of generalization, of perceiving the common in the various, of reducing the multiplex to unity ; and this power is proportional to. its degree of intelligence. 45. The brute is limited to its sensations and the objects causing them. It has no power of generalization or of classification ; nothing beyond the impression received or the instinct of satisfying its wants. Man, however, as soon as he opens the eyes of his understanding, perceives un- numbered relations ; he applies what he has seen in one case to different cases ; he generalizes and infolds very many ideas in a single idea. The child desires an object above his reach ; he immediately takes a chair or a stool, and improvises a ladder. A brute will watch the object CH. IV.] ON CERTAINTY. 27 of its appetite whole hours when placed beyond its reach, without ever thinking of doing like the child, and form- ing a ladder. If every thing be so disposed as to enable it to climb, it will climb, but it is incapable of thinking that in similar circumstances it ought to act in like man- ner. In the former case, we see a being having the gen- eral idea of a means, and its relation to the end, of which it makes use when necessary : in the latter we see another being having indeed before its eyes the end and the means, but not perceiving their relation, unable to go beyond the material individuality of objects. In the former there is perception of unity ; in the latter there is no bond to join the variety of particular facts. It is seen by this simple example that the child will re- duce all the infinity of cases, in which an object may be placed beyond his reach, to this one case ; he possesses, so to speak, the formula of this little problem. True, he does not render himself an account of this formula, that is, does not reflect upon it ; but he has it in reality ; and if you give him an opportunity he will at once apply it, which proves that he has it. Or speak to him of things placed too high for his reach, and point rapidly from one to an- other of the objects before him ; he will at all times in- stantly apply the general idea of an auxiliary medium ; he will avail himself perhaps of his father's arm, or that of a servant, a chair, if in the house, a heap of stones, if in the fields ; he discovers in all things the relation of the means to the end. When he sees the end, he immediately turns his attention to the means of attaining it : the general idea seeks individualization in a particular case. 46. Art is the collection of rules for doingany thing well ; and is the more perfect in proportion as each rule embraces a greater number of cases, and consequently as the number of these rules is smaller. Doubtless, buildings that were 28 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B*. I. solid, well proportioned, and adapted to the purpose for which they were destined, had been constructed before the rules of architecture were reduced to formulas ; but the great progress of intelligence in the construction of buildings consisted in ascertaining what there was common to all well-built houses, in determining the cause of beauty and of solidity, in themselves considered, by passing from the individual to the universal, that is, by forming general ideas of beauty and solidity applicable to an indefinite number of particular cases, by simplifying. 47. The same may be said of all other liberal and me- chanical arts : the progress of intelligence in all of them consists in reducing multiplicity to unity, and including the greatest possible number of applications in the least possible number of ideas. This is why lovers of literature and the fine arts labor to discover an idea of beauty in general, in order to attain a type applicable to all literary and artistic objects. It is also obvious that those engaged in mechani- cal arts always endeavor to govern their proceedings by -a few rules, and he is held to be the most skilful who suc- ceeds in combining the greatest variety of results with the greatest simplicity of means, by making that, which others connect with many ideas, depend upon one idea alone. When we see a machine produce wonderful effects by a very simple process, we praise the artificer not less for the means than for the end: this we say, is grand, and the simplicity with which it works is the most astonishing. 48. Let us apply this doctrine to the natural and exact sciences. The merit of our actual system of numeration consists in including the expression of all numbers in a single idea, making the value of each figure ten times that to the right, and filling all intervals with zeros. The expression of in- finite numbers is reduced to the simplicity of a single rule CH. IV.] ON CERTAINTY. 29 based upon a single idea ; the relation of position with p. tenfold value. Logarithms have enabled arithmetic to make a great advance by diminishing the number of its fundamental operations, since, with them it reduces multi- plication and division to addition and subtraction. Alge- bra is only the generalization of arithmetical expressions and operations, their simplification. The application of algebra to geometry is the generalization of geometrical ex- pressions ; formulas of lines, figures, bodies, only the ex- pression of their universal idea. In this idea as in a type, geometry preserves its first and generative idea, and it re- quires only the simplest applications in order to form an exact calculation of all lines belonging to the same class, which can possibly be met with in practice. In the simple expresssion ^-=A, called the differential co-efficient, is con- tained the whole idea of infinitesimal calculus. It origi- nated in geometrical considerations, but so soon as its uni- versality was conceived, it poured a flood of light upon every branch of mathematical and natural science, and led to the discovery of a new world, whose confines are still unknown. The prodigious fecundity of this calculus ema- nates from its simplicity, its prompt generalization of both algebra and geometry, and its uniting them in a single point which is the relation of the limits of the differentials of any function. 49. It is to this unity of idea that the human intellect in its ambition aspires, and once obtained, it proves the cause of great progress. The glory of the greatest geniuses is that they discovered it : the advance of science has consisted in profiting by it. Vieta explained and applied the prin- ciple of the general expression of arithmetical quantities ; Descartes extended this to geometrical quantities. Newton established the principle of universal gravitation ; and he, at the same time with Leibnitz, invented the infinitesimal 30 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I, calculus ; and the exaqt and natural sciences march, by the light of a vast flambeau, with gigantic strides along path? never before trodden. And all this because intelligence has approached unity, and become possessed of a genera- tive idea, involving infinite other ideas. 50. It is worthy of remark, that as we advance in science, we meet numerous points of contact, close relations, which no one at first sight would have suspected. Ancient mathematicians discussed the conic sections, but were far from imagining that the idea of the ellipse could be the basis of a system of astronomy: the foci to them were simple points, the curve a line, and the relations of both the object of combinations at once profitless and without appli- cation. Ages pass away, and these foci are the sun, the curve the orbit of planets. The lines on the geometrician's table represented a world ! The intimate connection of mathematical and natural science cannot be questioned ; and who shall say to what extent both are connected with ontological, psychological, theological, and moral science ? The extended scale over which beings are distributed may at first sight seem to be an assemblage of unconnected objects, but seen with the eyes of science, it is perceived to be a delicately worked chain, whose links present, as we advance, greater beauty and perfection. We see the different realms of nature united by close relations : the sciences, of which they are the objects, mutually borrow each other's light, and enter on each other's territory. The complication of objects among themselves involves this complication of science ; and the unity of the laws imposed upon different orders of beings makes all sciences approach, and tend to form, one only science. If it were given us to see the identity of their origin, the unity of the end and the simplicity of the means, we should come into the possession of the true CH. IV.j ON CERTAINTY. 31 transcendental science, the only science which involves all others, or more correctly speaking, the only idea in which every thing is represented as it is, and every thing seen without any necessity of combination, or effort of any kind, just as a magnificent landscape, its outlines, form, and colors are pictured on a perfectly clear mirror. In the meantime, we must rest satisfied with shadows of reality, and must see in the instinctive tendency of our understand- ing to simplify, to reduce every thing or make it approach as much as possible to unity, the announcement, the sign of this single science, this intuition of the one infinite idea ; just as in the desire for happiness which agitates our heart, the thirst after enjoyment which torments us we dis- cover a proof that all is not ended here below, and that our BOU! has been created for the possession of a good not to be attained in this mortal life. 51. If we compare men with men, and pay attention to the character of genius, the most elevated point of human intelligence, we shall see the truth of what has been said of the scale of human beings, and the progress of science. Men of true genius are distinguished by the unity and ex- tent of their conceptions. If they treat a difficult and complicated question, they simplify it, consider it from a high point of view, and determine one general idea which sheds light upon all the others. If they have a difficulty to solve, they show the root of the error, and with a word dispel all the illusion of sophistry. If they use synthesis, they first establish the principle which is to serve as its basis, and with one dash trace the road to be followed in order to reach the wished-for result. If they make use of analysis they strike in its secret resort the point where de- composition is to commence, they at once open the object, and reveal to us its most obscure mysteries. If there is question of a discovery, while others are seeking here and 3% FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I. there, they strike the ground with their foot, and exclaim, "the treasure is here." They make no long arguments, nor evasions ; their thoughts are few but pregnant ; their words are not many, but in each of them is set a pearl of inestimable value. 52. No doubt there is in the intellectual order a single truth from which all other truths emanate, one idea which includes all other ideas. ' This philosophy teaches, and the efforts, the natural and instinctive tendencies of every in- telligence, toiling after simplicity and unity, show it : such also is the dictate of common sense, which considers that thought the highest and most noble which is the most com- prehensive and the most simple. (4) CHAPTEE V. TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE IN THE HUMAN INTELLECTUAL ORDER CANNOT EMANATE FROM THE SENSES. 53. IN the human intellectual order, such as it is in this life, there is no one truth from which all others flow : philo- sophers have sought one in vain ; they have found none, for there was none to be found. In fact, where could it be found ? 54. Would it emanate from the senses? Sensations are as various as the objects which produce them : by them we acquire knowledge of individual and material things ; but no one truth, source of all other truths, can be found in any one of these, or the sensations proceed- ing from them. 55. If we observe our impressions received through sen CH. V.] ON CERTAINTY. 33 sation, we shall perceive that they are all equal so far as the production of certainty is concerned. We are just as cer- tain of the sensation caused by any noise whatever, as we are of that produced by an object which we sec, an odorous body which we smell, a savory morsel which we taste, 01 any thing which strongly affects our sense of touch. There is no gradation in the certainty produced by these sensa- tions : they are all equal ; for if we speak of sensation itself, we experience it in such a manner as to leave no uncer- tainty ; and if we speak of the relation of sensation with the existence of the object causing it, we are just as certain that the sensation called sight corresponds to an external object seen, as we are that an external object touched corre- sponds to the sensation called touch. Hence we infer that no one sensation is the origin of the certainty of other sensations ; in this they are all alike : and most men have no other reason than their experience why they should be sure of this certainty. We are aware that what happens to individuals from whose eyes cataracts have been removed, shows that simple sensation does not suffice for the due appreciation of the object perceived, and that one sense aids another : but this does not prove any one of them to be preferable ; for as the blind man, whose sight was suddenly restored, did not form an exact judg- ment as to the size and distance of objects seen by sight only, but required the assistance of touch ; so is it very probable that if a person of good eyesight had been de- prived from his birth of the sense of touch, he would not be able, were this sense given him suddenly, to form an ex- act judgment concerning objects touched, until, by the aid of sight, he had become accustomed to combine the new and the old order of sensations, and learnt by practice to determine the relations of sensation with its object, or to know by sensation the properties of its object 2* 34 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bit. I. 56. This fact of the blind man is however contradicted by others which lead to a directly opposite result. The youth, upon whom the oculist, Jean Janin, performed the same operation, and other persons blind from their birth, whose eyesight Luigi de' Gregori partly restored, did not, like the blind man of Cheselden, deem these objects stuck to their eyes, but that they saw them as things really ex- ternal and separate. Eosmini thus relates it,* although he gives the preference to the Cheselden case, which he says was repeated in Italy by the professor Giacomo di Pavia with precisely the same results. 57. It is not easy to ascertain how this combination of one sensation with another enables us to judge rightly of external objects ; chiefly because the development of our sensitive and intellectual faculties is completed before we can reflect upon it : and thus we find ourselves certain of the existence and properties of things before we have thought of certainty, and much less of the means of ac- quiring it. 58. But even supposing us, after occupying ourselves with sensations and their relations with objects, to set aside the certainty which we already have, and to act as if we sought it, we can find no one sensation the basis of the certainty of the other sensations. We should meet in that all the difficulties to be encountered in the others. 59. One of the chief difficulties upon this point is to de- termine the relations of the sense of sight with that of touch, and how far the one depends upon the other. We propose hereafter to examine these questions at some length, and we shall therefore now refrain from entering * Saggio sulV origine delle idee, p. 5, c. iv., tr. 11, p. 285, where he cites the theoretico-chemical observations on the cataracts of those born blind, by Luigi de' Gregori, professor of chemistry and pthalmia, published at Rome in 1826. CH. V.] ON CERTAINTY. 35 upon them, as well because they are not of a character to be incidentally investigated, as because whatever their so- lution, it is not at all opposed to what we shall here estab- lish. 60. It would be of no advantage to us to know that the certainty of all sensations was, philosophically speaking, founded upon that of some one sensation. Every sensa- tion is a contingent, individual fact : how then are we to draw from it light to guide us to necessary truths ? No matter under what aspect we consider sensation, it is only an impression received through our organs. We are sure of the impression because it is intimately present to our mind ; and its repetition aided by other sensations, whether of the same or another sense, makes us certain of its rela- tions with the object producing it: but every thing is done instinctively, with little or no reflection; and we are al- ways condemned, however much we reflect, to reach a point beyond which we cannot pass, for nature herself there stops us. 61. Far then from finding in any sensation a fundamental fact on which to found a philosophical certainty, we discover a collection of particular and mutually distinct facts, equal, however, so far as the production in us of that security which we call certainty is concerned. It is of no use to decompose man, and reduce him first to an inanimate ma- chine, then allow him one sense, making him perceive different sensations, afterwards grant him another sense, making him combine the new and the old sensations, and so on synthetically to the possession and exercise of them all. These things may do to entertain one's curiosity, to nourish philosophical pretensions, or to give a show of prob- ability to imaginary systems ; but they are in reality of little or no use; the evolutions which the observer im- agines do not resemble those of nature; and the true 36 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Ex. I. philosopher ought to examine what really is, not what is only in his conception. Condillac, animating his statue by degrees, and making the whole sum of human knowledge flow from one sensa- tion, is like those priests who got inside the statue of the idol, and thence emitted their oracles. It is not the statue which receives animation, that speaks and thinks, it is Con- dillac from within it. Let us, however, grant to the sensist all he demands ; let us allow him to regulate as he pleases the mutual dependence of sensations ; for the instant we require him to make use only of pure sensations in his dis- cussions, he will be utterly disconcerted, how much soever he may suppose them to be transformed. But we reserve these questions to the place in which we shall examine the nature and origin of ideas. 62. Why are we sure that the agreeable sensation which we experience in our sense of smell proceeds from an object called a rose? Because we recollect having experienced the same sensation on a thousand other occasions ; because both sight and touch confirm the testimony of smell. But how do we know that these sensations are something beside the impressions received in our soul ? Why may we not believe them to come from some cause or other, without re- lation to external causes? Is it because other men say the contrary ? Are we certain that they exist ? How do they know what they tell us ? How do we know that we hear rightly ? There is the same difficulty with the other senses as with that of hearing, and if we doubt the testimony of three senses, why shall we not doubt that of four? Eeasoning is here of no avail ; it would lead us to cavils which would require an impassible doubt, and would tear from us a security, of which, notwithstanding all our efforts, we cannot despoil ourselves. Moreover, if we appeal to the principles of reason, in Cn. VI. ] ON CERTAINTY. 37 order to prove the truth of sensation, we leave the territory of sensations, and do not place in them the primitive truth, origin of all other truths, nor accomplish what we under- took. 63. Hence it follows : First, that there is no one sensa- tion which is the origic of the certainty of all others ; this we have only indicated here, reserving the demonstration of it to our treatise on sensations. Secondly, although such a sensation were to exist, it could not serve as the basis of any thing in the intellectual order, for with sensa- tion alone it is impossible even to think. Thirdly, that sen- sations, so far from being able to serve as the basis of tran- scendental science, cannot serve of themselves alone to estab- lish any science; because necessary truths cannot flow from them, since they are contingent facts. (5) CHAPTEE VI. TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE. INSUFFICIENCY OF REAL TRUTHS. 64. WE have thought proper briefly to refute Condillac's system, not on account of its intrinsic importance, or be- cause it was not before in sufficiently bad repute, but in order to clear the field for higher and more strictly philo- sophical discussions. "We should not omit to guard philo- sophy against the prejudice cast upon it by a system as vain as it is profitless. All that is most sublime in the science of the mind disappears with the statue-man and transformed sensations : we vindicate the rights of human reason by showing that before entering upon more tran- scendental questions it is indispensable to discard Condillac's 38 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bt I. system; just as it is necessary before making a good road to clear away the brushwood which obstructs the passage. 65. We come now to the proof that in the human intel- lectual order, such as it is in this life, there is no one truth the source of all truths; because no one truth includes them all. Truths are of two kinds, real and ideal. We call facts, or whatever exists, real truths ; we call the necessary con- nection of ideas ideal truths. A real truth may be ex- pressed by the verb to be, taken substantively, or at least it supposes a proposition in which this verb has been taken in this sense: an ideal truth is expressed by the same verb taken copulatively, as signifying the necessary relation of a predicate with a subject, abstracting it, how- ever, from both. We are, that is, we exist, expresses a real truth, a fact. Whoever thinks exists, expresses an ideal truth, for it does not affirm that there is any one who thinks or exists, but that if there is any one who thinks, he exists ; or, in other words, it affirms a necessary relation between thought and being. To real truths corresponds the real world, the world of existences ; to ideal truths the logical world, that of possibility. The verb to be, is sometimes taken copulatively, although the relation expressed by it be not necessary : such is the case with all contingent propositions, and when the predi- cate does not belong to the essence of the subject. Some- times the necessity is conditional, that is, it supposes a fact ; and then there is no absolute necessity, since the supposed fact is always contingent. When we speak of ideal truths, we refer to those that express an absolute necessary rela- tion, abstracting it from all order of existence ; and on the other hand, we understand by real truths all those that sup- pose a proposition in which a fact has been established. To CH. VI.] ON CERTAINTY. 39 this class belong the truths of natural science, for they all suppose some fact which is the object of observation. 66. No real finite truth can be the origin of all others. Truth of this kind is the expression of a particular contin- gent fact, and consequently can neither include other real truths or the world of existences, nor ideal truths which refer only to necessary relations in the world of possi- bility. 67. Were we to see intuitively infinite existence, cause of all existences, we should know a real truth, origin of all others ; but as we know this infinite existence only by dis- cursion and not by intuition, it follows that we do not know the fact of that existence in which the reason of all other existences is contained. Neither is it possible for us, after having by means of discursion reached this cognition, to explain from this point of view the existence of the finite by the sole existence of the infinite; for if we abstract the existence of the finite, the discursion, by which we attained to the cognition of the infinite, disap- pears, and then our whole scientific fabric tumbles to the ground. Demonstrate to a man by means of discursion the existence of God, and require him, setting aside the point of departure, and depending upon the sole idea of the in- finite, to explain not only the possibility, but also the reality of creation ; and he cannot do it. If he only sets aside the finite all his reasoning fails, and no effort can prevent its failing ; he is like an architect who, after having built a superb cupola, is required to support it although the foun- dations of the edifice are removed. 68. Take any real truth whatever, the plainest and most certain fact, and yet we can derive nothing from it if ideal truth comes not to fecundate it. We exist, we think, we feel; these are indubitable facts, but science can deduce nothing from them; they are particular contingent facts, 40 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Ite. I. whose existence or non-existence neither affects other facts nor reaches the world of ideas. These truths are of the purely sensible order, have not of themselves any relation with the order of science, nor can they be elevated to it if not combined with ideal truths. Descartes, when he brought forward the fact of thought and existence, driven as he was by his attempt to raise a scien- tific edifice, passed unawares from the real to the ideal order. I think, he said; and had he stopped here he would have reduced his philosophy to a simple intuition of con- sciousness ; but he wished to go farther, he wished to rea- son, and then of necessity availed himself of an ideal truth : whoever thinks exists. Thus with a universal and necessary truth he fecundated his individual and contingent fact ; and as he needed some rule to guide him in his onward march, he sought one in the admissibility of the evidence of ideas. And thus also we see how this philosopher, who so toiled in search of unity, came all at once in contact with tripli- city: a fact, an objective truth, a criterion: a fact in the consciousness of the subject; an objective truth in the ne- cessary relation of thought with existence ; a criterion in the admissibility of the evidence of ideas. We may defy all the philosophers in the world to reason upon any fact whatever without the aid of ideal truth. We shall find in all facts the same sterility as in the fact of con- sciousness. This is no conjecture, but a rigid demonstra- tion. Only one existence contains the reason of all other existences ; if, then, we do not immediately and intuitively know it, we cannot discover any one real truth, origin of all others. 69. Even supposing there to be in the order of creation a fact of such a nature, that the whole universe is only a simple development of it, we should not therefore have found the real truth source of all science, for it would not CH. VII.] ON CERTAINTY. 41 enable us to make any advance towards the world of pos- sibility, the ideal order, infinitely superior to that of finite existences. If we suppose the progress of natural science to lead to the discovery of a single, simple law, which presides over the development of all others, and the application of which, varied according to circumstances, is a sufficient reason of all the phenomena now referred to many and very compli- cated laws ; this would, without doubt, be an immense pro- gress in sciences the object of which is the visible world ; but what would it give us to know of the world of intel- ligences ? What of the world of possibility ? (6) CHAPTER VII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ME CANNOT PRODUCE TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE. 70. THE testimony of consciousness is sure and irresist- ible, but it has no connection with that of evidence. The object of the one is a particular and contingent fact ; that of the other, a necessary truth. That I now think, is to me absolutely certain ; but this thought of mine is not a neces- sary but a decidedly contingent truth ; for I might never have thought, or even existed : it is a purely individual fact, is confined to me, and its existence or non-existence in nowise affects universal truths. Consciousness is an anchor, not a beacon : it saves the understanding from shipwreck, but does not light it on its way ; in the assaults of universal doubt, consciousness is at hand to shield it from destruction ; but if asked to direct us, it gives us only particular fa ts. 42 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [B K . I These facts have no scientific value, except when made objective, or rather, when the mind, reflecting upon them, bathes them in the light of necessary truths. We think, we feel, we are free ; these are facts ; but of themselves they are barren. If we would fecundate them, we must take them as a kind of material of universal truths. Thought becomes immovable, it congeals, if de- prived of the impulse of these ideas ; sensation is common to us and the brutes ; and liberty, without combination of motives presented by reason, has no object, no life. 71. Here we discover the cause of the obscurity and sterility of German philosophy since Fichte. Kant fixed himself upon the subject, without, however, destroying objectivity in the internal world ; and therefore his philos- ophy, although containing many errors, offers to the mind some luminous points : but Fichte went farther, planted himself upon the me, and made no use of objectivity, save when it was necessary to the more solid establishment of a fact of consciousness ; and so he found only realms of darkness and contradiction. Men of gifted minds have labored in vain to make some ray of light emanate from a point condemned to obscurity. The soul sees itself in its own acts ; and that it presents immediately to itself facts conducing to its own cognition is the only title it has, more than other beings distinct from it, to be conceived by itself. What would it know were it not to perceive its own thought, its will, and the exercise of all its faculties ? How is it to discuss its own nature, if not from data furnished by the testimony of its own acts ? The me then does not see itself intuitively ; is offered to itself only mediately, by its acts ; that is, so far as it is known, it is in the same category as all other external beings, which are all known by their effects upon us. The me, in itself considered, is not a luminous point ; it CH. VII.] ON CERTAINTY. 43 supports the fabric of reason, but is not the rule accord- ing to which it is to be constructed. The true light is found in objectivity, for it is properly the object of knowl- edge. The me can neither be known nor thought, save inasmuch as it makes itself its own object, and consequently places itself on a level with other beings subject to intellectual activity, which operates only by virtue of objective truths. 72. Intelligence cannot be conceived without at least internal objects ; but if the understanding do not conceive relations and consequently truths in them, they will be sterile. These truths will have no connection, will be isolated facts, if they involve no necessity ; and even those relations which refer to particular facts furnished by ex- perience will not be susceptible of any combination if they do not, at least conditionally, involve some necessity. The brilliancy of the light in the room where I now write is in itself a particular, contingent fact, and science, as such, cannot make it its object except by subjecting the move- ment of the light to geometrical laws, that is, to necessary truths. Science then may find a resting -point in the me itself as subject, but no point of departure. The individual is of no service to the universal, nor the contingent to the neces- sary. Assuredly there would be no such thing as the individual A's science, if the individual A himself did not exist ; but the science which stands in need of the individual subject is not science properly so called, but the collection of individual acts by which the individual perceives science. This collection of acts is not the science perceived, which is something common to all intellects, and does not need this or that individual : the fund of truths constituting science does not spring from this collection of individual acts, particular facts, which are lost like minutest drops in the ocean of intelligence. 44 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bx. I. How then can science be based solely upon the subjective me? How can the object be made to spring from this sub- ject? Consciousness has no connection with science, ex- cept in so far as it furnishes facts to which we may apply objective, universal, and necessary principles, independent of all finite individuality, constituting the patrimony of human reason, but not requiring the existence of any man. 73. No analysis of the facts of consciousness will produce the origin of the lights of science. Such an act would be either direct or reflex. If direct, its value is objective not subjective, the act does not found science, but the truth perceived, not the subject but the object, not the me, but that which is seen by the me. If reflex, it supposes another previous act, to wit, the object of reflection, which is primi- tive, and not the act. Neither is the combination of the direct with the reflex act of any service to science, except as connected with necessary and .objective truths, which are independent of the subject. An act individually considered, is an internal phenomenon, which, apart from objective truths, teaches us nothing. It has, indeed, a scientific value, if considered under the general ideas of being, cause, effect, principle or product of activity, modification, or its relations with its subject, which is the substratum of other similar acts; that is, if it be considered as a particular case, comprised in the general ideas as a contingent phenomenon, to be appreciated by the help of necessary truths, as an experimental fact to which a theory may be applied. The reflex act is only a cognition of a cognition, feeling, or some other internal phenomenon ; and therefore all re- flection upon consciousness presupposes a prior direct act. The object of this direct act is not the me ; the fundamental principle of the cognition therefore is not the me, as the CH. VII. J ON CERTAINTY. 45 object known, but only as the necessary condition, since there cannot be thought without a thinking subject. 74. These considerations destroy the very foundations of the system of Fichte, and that of all who take the human me as their point of departure on the voyage of science. The me, in itself, is not presented to us; we know it only by its acts ; and herein it participates of a quality of other objects, the essence of which is not immediately offered to us, but only what emanates from it by the exercise of their activity upon us. Thus guided by objective and necessary truths, which are the laws of our understanding, the type of the relations of beings, and consequently a sure standard of them, we ascend by reasoning to the cognition of things themselves. We know that our mind is simple, because it thinks, whereas the composite, the multiplex cannot think. It is thus we know the me. We are conscious of its thinking activity, and this is the material furnished by the fact, but then comes the principle, the objective truth to illumine the fact, and show the repugnance between thought and composition, and the necessary connection between simplicity and consciousness. Upon examination, this reasoning will be found to apply not only to the me, but to every thinking being ; and this is why we can extend our demonstration to all such beings : the me, therefore, which applies this truth, does not create, it only knows it, and knows itself to be a particular case comprised in the general rule. 75. To pretend that truth has its source in the subjective me, is to begin by supposing the me to be an absolute, infinite being, the origin of all truths, and the reason of all beings ; which is equivalent to making philosophy commence by deifying the human understanding. But as one individual has no more right to this deification than another, to admit it is to establish a rational pantheism, which, as we shall 46 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Ba., I. hereafter see, is nearly, if not quite, identical with absolute pantheism. If we suppose individual reason to be only a phenome- non of the one absolute reason, and consequently what we call spirits not to be true substances, but modifications of a single spirit, and each particular consciousness to be only a manifestation of the universal consciousness, we can then conceive why the source of all truth is sought in the me, and why we interrogate our own consciousness as a kind of oracle through which the universal consciousness speaks. But the difficulty is that such a supposition is gratuitous, and that they who thus seek the reason of all truths, begin by establishing the most incomprehensible and absurd of propositions. Who will persuade us that our consciousness is only the modification of another ? Who will make us believe that what we call the me is common to all men, to all intelligent beings, and that the only difference between them is the difference of the modifications of one absolute being ? Why, then, is not this absolute being conscious of every consciousness which it comprises ? Why does it not know that which it contains, and by which it is modified ? Why does it believe itself multiplex, if indeed it be one ? Where is the bond of this multiplicity ? If each particular consciousness were only a modification, would it preserve its unity, and a connected series of all that happens to it, when this series, this unity is wanting to the substance which it modifies ? 76. However this may be, not even by supposing pan- theism, can the friends of subjective philosophy at all advance their pretensions. With pantheism they legit- imate, so to speak, their pretension, but do not realize it. They call themselves gods, and as such, have a reason for the source of truth being in them ; but as there is in their consciousness only one apparition of their divinity Cn. VII.] ON CERTAINTY. 47 only one phase of the orb of light, they can only see in it what it presents to them; and their divinity finds itself subjected to certain laws which make it impossible for it to give the light demanded by philosophy. 77. If we interrogate our consciousness upon necessary truths, we shall perceive that, far from pretending to found or to create them, it both knows and confesses them to be independent of itself. If, thinking of this proposition : " It is impossible for a thing to be, and not be at the same time ;" we ask ourselves if the truth of this originates in our thought, consciousness at once answers that it does not. The proposition was true before our consciousness existed ; and should it now cease to exist, the proposition would still be true ; true, also, when we do not think of it : the soul is as an eye which contemplates the sun, but is not, therefore, necessary to the existence of the sun. 78. Another consideration demonstrates the sterility of all philosophy which seeks in the me alone the sole and universal origin of human knowledge. Every cognition requires an object ; purely subjective cognition is inconceiv- able; although we suppose the subject and object to be identified, duality of relation, real or conceived, is still ne- cessary ; that is, the subject as known must stand in a cer- tain opposition, opposition at least conceived, with itself as subject knowing. Now, what is the object sought in the primitive act ? Is it something not the subject ? Then the philosophy of the subject falls into the current of other philosophies, since in this something which is not the sub- ject are objective truths. Is it the subject itself? Then we ask, is it the subject in itself or in its acts ; if the sub- ject in its acts, then the philosophy is reduced to ideological analysis, and has no special characteristic; if the subject in itself, we say it is not known intuitively, and least of all can they who call it the absolute pretend to this cognition ; 48 FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. [Bs. I. it is for them even more than for others a dark abyss. In vain will you stoop over this abyss, and shout for truth ; the dull rumbling which reaches your ears is only the echo of your own voice ; the profound cavern rolls back to you only your own words still more hollow and mysterious. 79. Eminent among the philosophers most given to empty cavils is the author of the Doctrine of Science, Fichte, of whose system Madame de Stael ingenuously re- marked, that it very much resembled the awakening of Pygmalion's statue from sleep, which, turning alternately to itself and to its pedestal said, lam, lam not. Fichte says, in the beginning of his work entitled Doc- trine of Science, that he proposes to seek the most absolute principle, the absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge. This his method is erroneous : he be- gins by supposing what is unknown, and does not even sus- pect that there may be a true multiplicity in the basis of human cognitions. "We believe that there may be, and that there really is such a multiplicity, that the sources of our knowledge are various, and of different orders, and that we cannot reduce them to unity without leaving man and as- cending to God. We repeat it, this equivocation has be- come exceedingly general, and its only result has been use- lessly to fatigue inquiring minds or to drive them to ex- travagant systems. Few philosophers have toiled harder than Fichte after this absolute principle ; and yet, to speak plainly, he accom- plishes nothing ; he either repeats Descartes' principle, or amuses himself with a play upon words. We feel pity at seeing him labor so earnestly to so little purpose. We beg the reader to follow us with patience in our examination of the German philosopher's doctrine, not with the hope of finding a thread to serve as a clue to the Daedalus of phil- osophy, but in order to judge, with a knowledge of the CH. VII.] ON CERTAINTY. 49 cause, doctrines which have made so much noise in the world. " If this principle," says Fichte, " is absolutely the first, it can neither be defined nor demonstrated. It must express the act, which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the bottom of all consciousness, and alone makes con- sciousness possible."* Without any antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble to show on what he bases it, Fichte as- sures us that the first principle must express an act Why may it not be an objective truth ? This, at least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools, the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objec- tive truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in order to establish the fact of thought and existence. " Whoever thinks exists," or, in other words, " whoever does not exist cannot think.". 80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from being known because it is absolute ; for if we do not know it, we cannot assert that it is absolute ; and if it is not, and cannot be pre- sented among the empirical determinations of our c