Kitabı oku: «Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)», sayfa 19

129. A most important consequence results from this analysis. The perception of time with us implies the perception of the non-necessity of things. When we perceive a being which is not necessary, we perceive a being which may cease to be, in which case we have the idea of succession, of real or possible time. Here another reflection arises which is also important: the idea of time is the idea of contingency: the consciousness of time is the consciousness of our weakness.

130. The idea of time is so deep in our mind, that without it we could not form the idea of the me. The consciousness of the identity of the me supposes a link³⁴ which it is impossible to find without memory. Memory necessarily involves the relation of past, and, consequently, the idea of time.

CHAPTER XVIII.
SUMMING UP

Let us collect together the doctrines of the preceding chapters.

131. Time is a question difficult to explain. Whoever denies this difficulty shows that he has meditated but superficially on the matter.

132. Motion is measured by time; but it is not a sufficient definition of time to call it the measure of motion.

133. It is impossible to find a primitive measure of motion; we must, at last, take some measure or another, and although arbitrarily chosen, we must refer motion to it. It should be the most uniform measure possible.

134. The resemblance between the ideas of time and space creates a suspicion that they ought to be explained in a similar manner.

135. There is no duration without something which endures; therefore there is no duration separate from things. If nothing existed, there could be no duration.

136. There is no succession without things which succeed: therefore succession cannot be realized as a form independent of things, although it may be conceived in the abstract by itself.

137. Time implies before and after, and, consequently, succession. It is succession itself, because in conceiving succession, we conceive time.

138. Succession involves the exclusion of some things by others. This exclusion may either be founded on the essence of things, or be derived from an external cause.

139. Time, therefore, involves exclusion: it is the general idea of the order of changes, or of the mutual relation of being and not-being.

140. If there were no change there would be no time.

141. No time had passed before the existence of the world. There was no other duration than eternity.

142. Eternity is the existence of the infinite being, without any alteration either actual or possible.

143. Time is not any thing absolute and independent of things, but is really in them. It is the order between being and not-being.

144. Co-existence is merely the existence of various beings. To conceive many beings without the idea of the negation of being, is to have the perception of co-existence.

145. Time may be considered under three aspects; the present, the past, and the future. All other relations of time, differently expressed in different idioms, are only combinations of these.

146. The present is the only absolute time: it is conceived without relation to the past or the future; but the past and the future are not conceived without relation to the present.

147. The idea of present accompanies the very idea of being; or rather, it is confounded with the idea of existence; that which has no present existence is not being.

148. The idea of past time is the perception of not-being, or of a being that has been destroyed, in relation to a present being: the idea of future time is the perception of a possible being proceeding from a cause already determined, and in relation to a present being.

149. The idea of time is excited by experience; but it cannot be called a fact of mere observation; for this would be opposed to its intrinsic necessity, by virtue of which it is the object of the exact sciences.

150. Still less can we say, that this idea is confined to the sensible order, since it includes every manner of change in general, whether sensible or supersensible.

151. The idea of time being the perception of the order between being and not-being, this relation, considered in general, belongs to the pure intellectual order. The transition to experience is realized in the same manner as in other general and indeterminate conceptions.

152. It is necessary to make a distinction between pure ideal time and empirical time: pure ideal time is the relation between being and not-being, considered in the greatest generality and the most complete indeterminateness; empirical time is the same relation subjected to a sensible measure.

153. To measure this succession, three things are necessary, and their union forms the idea of empirical time. They are, first, the pure idea of being and not-being, or of change; secondly, the application of this idea to a sensible phenomenon, as, for example, the solar motion; and thirdly, the idea of number applied to the determining of the changes of this phenomenon.

154. We thus conceive why empirical time implies a true necessity, and is the object of science. Of the three elements which compose it, the first is a metaphysical idea, the second, a mathematical idea, and the third, a fact of observation, to which these ideas are applied. If this fact be not real, it must, at least, be possible, in order to save the necessity of the calculation which is based upon it.

155. There is a close relation between the idea of time and the principle of contradiction. Each is explained by the other, yet this is not a vicious circle. The principle of contradiction consists in the mutual exclusion of being and not-being, and the idea of time is the perception of the order between being and not-being. Analysis must therefore lead to a part which is identical in both, to the comparison of the ideas of being and not-being.

156. Without the idea of time, memory would be impossible; consequently also, the unity of consciousness.

CHAPTER XIX.
A GLANCE AT THE IDEAS OF SPACE, NUMBER, AND TIME

157. We may now mark out and determine with perfect exactness the necessary elements which form the object of the natural and exact sciences. This is not only curious, but highly important; for it presents under the simplest aspect, an immense field of knowledge, the limits of which expand, as we advance; so that, it is impossible to assign a limit to progress.

158. Space, number, and time, are the three elements of all the natural and exact sciences. All else contained in them pertains to mere experience, to the order of contingent facts, which involve no necessity, and cannot strictly be the objects of science.

159. Universal arithmetic is founded on the idea of numbers, geometry on that of space, and the idea of time places us in communication with the sensible world, so as to determine the relations of its phenomena. These phenomena are isolated contingent facts, and cannot become the object of science, until subjected to the general ideas of space, number, and time.

160. Hence, there are two parts in every natural science; the theoretic, and the experimental. The former is founded on necessary ideas, the latter on contingent facts; the first without the second, would not come down to the real world; the second without the first, would not rise to the regions of science.

161. The natural sciences merit the name of science, in proportion to the quantity of necessary elements which they contain, and the closeness of the connection by which they unite with them contingent facts. But as no natural science can be conceived, without contingent facts, so there is none entirely free from the contingency which they communicate.

162. These observations reveal a great simplicity in the elements of science, and we may push this simplicity much farther, if we recollect what has been said when analyzing the ideas of number and time.

163. The idea of number arises from the idea of being and not-being: the same is also true of the idea of time; therefore, at bottom, these ideas are but one, though presented under different aspects.

164. Hence, all the natural and exact sciences may be reduced to two elements: the intuition of extension, and the general conception of being. Extension is the basis of all sensible intuitions: externally, it is a necessary condition of the relations which we conceive in the corporeal world; internally, it is a perception, without which the sensibility could not represent external objects. The conception of being, is the basis of all conceptions; developed in different ways, it generates the ideas of number and time; and these, combined with extension, constitute the necessary part of all the natural and exact sciences.

165. The ideas of space, number, and time are common to all men; the proof that they are identical to all is, that, in their application, all are led to the same results, and in speaking of them they all use the same expressions. All men measure space, and its various dimensions; they all count, they all conceive time: why, then, is there so great difficulty in explaining these ideas? why such difference of opinion among philosophers? Here we have a confirmation of what we have said³⁵ of the strength of direct perception, and the weakness of reflex. When we content ourselves with the direct perception of space, of number, and of time, our ideas are clear, and the understanding feels its strength and energy, it extends the sphere of its knowledge beyond all limits, and raises the edifice of the mathematical and exact sciences. But as soon as it turns upon itself, and, leaving the direct perception, passes to the reflex, endeavoring to perceive its perception, its strength fails, and it falls into a confusion which gives rise to interminable disputes. We scarce perceive that idea, which, a moment ago, we applied to every thing, which penetrated all our cognitions, and circulated, like our life, through all our perceptions; but in its isolation, and its purity, it continually escapes from us; mingled with all things, we see that it is something distinct from them; we separate it from one, and it unites with another; we make an effort to cut it off from all that is not itself, and the mind feels a kind of dizziness come over it, every thing vanishes from before it, and, unable to reach the reality, it is forced to be contented with names, which it pronounces and repeats a thousand times, turning over in them the little reality which they contain.

167. One of the causes of this weakness and of the errors which are its ordinary consequence, is, as I have before said, our mad desire of representing every idea as an internal form, or image, whereas we ought to consider that in many cases there is only a perception, a simple act in the lowest depth of our mind, – an act, which can be represented by nothing, which resembles nothing, and which cannot be explained in words, because it cannot be decomposed, and it is only present as a simple fact of consciousness. But this fact of consciousness is an active fact; by it we penetrate into things, and see what they have in common, and separate it from what is particular, establishing in our mind, as it were, a central, culminating point, from which we contemplate the internal and the external world, and roam through the boundless regions of possibility.

BOOK EIGHTH.
THE INFINITE

CHAPTER I.
TRANSITORY VIEW OF THE ACTUAL STATE OF PHILOSOPHY

1. In the works on transcendental philosophy which have been published of late years, we find the words infinite, absolute, indeterminate, unconditioned, frequently repeated, and made to play a very prominent part in the explanation of the most recondite secrets which can be presented to the consideration of man. The words finite, relative, determinate, conditional, are easily combined with these; and from this combination they pretend that a ray of light will arise to dissipate the darkness of philosophical questions.

2. In spite of the bad use many make of such words, we must confess that the fact indicated is consoling by reason of the great desire there is to use them. This desire marks an effort in the human mind to raise itself from the mire in which the impious school of the last century has sunk it.

3. What was the world in the eyes of the false philosophers who preceded the French revolution? A mass of matter, subject to simple mechanical laws of motion, the whole explanation of which was given in two words, blind necessity. What was the human mind? Nothing but matter. What was thought? A modification of matter. In what did the difference between thinking and non-thinking matter consist? In a little greater or less subtilty, in a more or less happy disposition of atoms. What was morality? An illusion. What were sentiments? A material phenomenon. What was the origin of man? That of matter, – a phenomenon offered by a quantity of molecules, which at one moment happen to be disposed one way, and a moment after in a very different way. If you inquired if there were a destiny beyond the grave, We argue that question! they would answer with a scornful smile. Have you such a word as religion? The scorn increased and changed into contempt. Do you recognize the dignity of the human race? O, yes! we admit this dignity, and we are of opinion that it is of the same nature as that of the brutes, only it has reached a higher degree of perfection. We do not deny that your form may be more noble and elegant than that of the monkey, nor do we dispute the superiority of your intelligence; but we would have you take good care not to make pretensions to a nobler origin or a loftier destiny. The course of ages may develop and perfect the monkey form, and render it equal with yours; it may develop and perfect his cerebral organs, so that from this very monkey, whose extravagant motions and ridiculous attitudes now amuse, men will be born such as were Plato, Saint Augustine, Leibnitz, or Bossuet.

4. With such a system, it was useless to deal in ideas: they retained only sensations. Whatever could occupy the mind of man, whether the most imbecile or endowed with the loftiest genius, was nothing more than a sensation transformed. The very brutes possessed all the elements of human intelligence; to think was only to feel more perfectly. Such was the last term of their analysis; such the result of their most accurate observation; such the solution their profoundest philosophy gave to the problems of man's understanding. Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, Descartes, Malebranche and Leibnitz were nothing but sublime dreamers, whose genius strongly contrasted with their ignorance of the true nature of things. None of them knew any thing about ideology or metaphysics; these sciences were an unknown world until Locke and Condillac came and discovered them.

5. This school, as fatal as frivolous, has involved and stifled mind in matter. The butterfly could not unfold his wings of fair and various colors; he was forced to lay them off and to change into a stupid and filthy worm, entangled in a covering as loathsome and unclean as itself. In this consisted progress. The limit of ideological perfection was to deny ideas; that of metaphysical studies, to deny spirits; that of morals, to deny morality; that of society, to deny authority; that of politics, to establish license; that of religion, to deny God. Thus, human reason, thinking to advance, marched in a retrograde direction; and proposed to raise the edifice of its knowledge, when there was nothing left to demolish: thus they imagined to attain a scientific result by denying every thing, and by finally denying themselves.

6. At present, there is a reaction against so degrading a philosophy. We have only to open the writings of the philosophers of this age to convince ourselves of this consoling truth. We everywhere meet the word idea in contraposition to that of sensation; that of mind to that of matter; that of activity of thought to that of bodily motion; those of cause, order, liberty, of free will, morality, infinity. The ideas which accompany them are sometimes inexact, sometimes extravagant; but at the bottom of all this we distinguish an anxious desire to rise from the abyss down to which an atheistical and material philosophy had dragged the human mind. Some who have contributed to the reaction do not admit a free and intelligent God, distinct from the universe. What we have said above is therefore true, that pantheism is atheism in disguise; nevertheless, the atheism of the pantheist now-a-days is an atheism which is ashamed to confess itself such, and which sometimes, perhaps, deceives itself, being persuaded that it is not.

7. The atheism of modern philosophers unites itself with the infinite: it does not reject those great ideas which as relics of a primitive tradition were common in the old world, and were afterwards fixed, cleared up and elevated by the superior teaching of Christianity. The philosophy of the last century sat down in the darkness and shadow of death and declared itself alone in possession of light and life. Philosophy now still remains in obscurity, but it is not satisfied with it, and gropes about in the dark, seeking some outlet to the regions of light. Hence those desperate efforts to resolve itself, not into matter, but into the focus of intelligence, into the me, that is, the mind: hence the continual use of the words absolute, unconditional, infinite, words which, notwithstanding they ordinarily lead to absurdities, do yet indicate a sublime aspiration.

8. These observations show that we do not confound the philosophy of to-day with that of the past century; that we do not regard the pantheism of to-day as a pure materialism, and that, notwithstanding the atheism of which we accuse the doctrine of certain philosophers, we do not deny that they have, even in the midst of their extravagance, preserved a kind of horror of it, and that, lost as they are in the labyrinth of their speculations, they seek the thread which shall conduct them to the gates of truth.

9. This act of justice we willingly render to modern philosophers, but it will not prevent us from combating their pretension to a merit they do not possess. They style themselves restorers of the spirituality of the soul, and of human liberty; and when they speak of God they almost exact a tribute of gratitude from him for having replaced him upon his throne. Before making such proud pretensions they ought to have considered that they are even yet far from the truth with respect both to God and to man, not only as Christianity has at all times taught it, but also as the most illustrious modern philosophers have professed it. They are ambitious to be called restorers, but their restoration with its licentious frequency is a new revolution, at times as terrible as the evil it attempts to combat.

10. Another consideration ought to have moderated their zeal to be thought inventors, which is that they have said nothing concerning God, the human mind, thought, ideas, the liberty of freewill, which may not be read in all the works of the philosophers who flourished before, or even in the beginning of, the eighteenth century. Open the text-books of the schools, and you will find many things which they would have us believe to be important discoveries. The great philosophers gloried in knowing what they had before learned when children. The philosophical tradition of sound ideas was not interrupted during the past century. In many parts of Europe schools existed which taught them with scrupulous fidelity. And besides human schools, there was that of the God-Man, the Church of Jesus Christ, which, among its supernatural dogmas, preserved even natural truths, notwithstanding the senseless efforts which have been made to obliterate them.

11. To what, then, are the invention and restoration reduced? Invention there is not, either with respect to God, to the human mind, or to morality, for nothing true has been said of them which had not already been said. Restoration, properly so called, there is not; for what does not perish cannot be restored. The truth exists; and has been known and revered during the whole six thousand years it has refused to bow the knee to Baal. Let not deserters say, when they turn and come back to the truth that they have restored it, but that they have recovered it; not that they give, but that they receive it; not that they enlighten the world, but that they are blind, and that it is the goodness of Providence which opens their eyes to the light.