Kitabı oku: «Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)», sayfa 32

BOOK TENTH.
NECESSITY AND CAUSALITY

CHAPTER I.
NECESSITY

1. Beings are divided into two c∞∞lasses: necessary and contingent; necessary being is that which cannot but be; contingent is that which may be and cease to be. In these definitions every thing is said; but their laconism does not permit all that is expressed in them to be easily understood. Necessity and contingency may refer to different aspects and give rise to very diverse considerations. This makes a careful analysis of the ideas expressed by them necessary.

2. What is meant by necessity? In general that is called necessary which cannot but be; but the expression cannot, may be taken in different senses: in a moral sense, as when we say: I cannot but fulfil this duty; in a physical, as in this proposition; a paralytic cannot move himself; and in a metaphysical sense, as: A triangle cannot be a quadrilateral. In the first example, the obstacle is founded on a law; in the second, it arises from nature; in the third, it follows from the essence of the things. In all these suppositions, necessity implies the impossibility of the contrary, and this impossibility results from the necessity.

3. Hence it follows that the ideas necessity and impossibility are correlative, and that is metaphysically necessary whose opposite is metaphysically impossible. Impossibility consists in the exclusion of one thing by another; thus, "a circular triangle is impossible," means the same as "the nature of a triangle excludes the nature of a circle." In all impossibility, therefore, there is a term denied; as in all necessity there is a term affirmed; the metaphysically necessary is that whose opposite is contradictory; the existence of the absurd is impossible, the non-existence of the necessary is absurd. It is contradictory for a triangle to have four sides; and it is absurd for a triangle not to have three angles.

4. In the purely ideal order we see many necessities without any relation to existence; such are all geometrical truths. Even in the real order we conceive many hypothetical necessities in contingent beings: such are those which are obtained by applying absolute principles to any hypothesis furnished by experience. The principle of contradiction serves in an infinity of cases to found a certain necessity even in contingent beings. There is no absolute necessity of the existence of extended beings; but on the supposition that they exist, it is necessary for them to have the properties proceeding from extension.

5. In no finite being can there be an absolute necessity; the only necessity which it can have is hypothetical. The relation of its essential attributes is necessary; but, as its essence does not exist necessarily, whatever is necessary in it is so only hypothetically, that is, on the supposition that it exists.

6. We must then distinguish two necessities: one absolute, the other hypothetical. The latter relates to the essences of things, abstracting their existence, although implying it as a condition, and supposing another necessary as the ground of its possibility;⁷² the former relates to the existence of the thing. The absolutely necessary is that whose existence is absolutely necessary.

7. The essence of the necessary being must contain existence; its idea must involve the idea of existence, not only logical and conceptual, but also realized.

8. We can conceive the existence of the necessary being distinct from its essence, but the reason of this is in the imperfection of the idea, which with us is not intuitive, but discursive; and consequently, we can distinguish between the logical order and the real order.

Here we find the defect of Descartes' argument by which he pretends to demonstrate the existence of God from the fact that the predicate, existence, is included in the idea of a necessary and infinite being. The idea of necessary being involves existence, but not real existence, only logical and conceptual; since after we have the idea of the necessary being, it still remains to be proved that there is an object which corresponds to this idea; the predicate belongs to the subject according to the manner in which the subject is taken, and as this is only in the purely ideal order, the predicate is also purely ideal.

9. The reality of the necessary idea cannot be demonstrated from its idea alone; but it may be demonstrated with complete evidence by introducing into the argument other elements which experience furnishes us.

Something exists; at least ourselves; at least this perception which we have in this act; at least the appearance of this act. I leave aside for the present all the questions disputed between the dogmatists and the skeptics; I only suppose a datum which no one can deny me, though he carry skepticism to the utmost exaggeration. When I say that something exists, I only mean to affirm that not every thing is a pure nothing.

If something exists, something has always existed, or there is no moment in which it could be said with truth: there is nothing. If such a moment of universal nothingness had ever been, nothing would now exist, there never could have been any thing. Let us imagine a universal and absolute nothingness; I then ask: Is it possible that any thing should come from nothing? Evidently not; therefore on the supposition of universal nothingness reality is absurd.

10. Therefore something has always existed, with a cause, without a condition on which it depends; therefore there is a necessary being. Its existence is supposed always, without relation to any hypothesis; therefore its not-being is always excluded under all conditions; therefore there exists an absolutely necessary being, that is, a being whose not-being implies a contradiction.

11. Summing up the doctrine which precedes, we may say:

I. That we have the idea of a necessary being.

II. That we deduce its existence from its idea alone.

III. That in order to demonstrate the existence of a necessary being, it is sufficient to know that something exists.

IV. We know by experience that something exists; for experience presents to us, if nothing else, the existence of our own thought.

CHAPTER II.
THE UNCONDITIONED

12. The words, conditioned and unconditioned, are greatly used in modern philosophy; as the ideas which these terms express have a great analogy to those explained in the last chapter, I will briefly consider them here.

13. The conditioned is that which depends on a condition; that is to say, that which is supposed if another thing, which is called the condition, is supposed. If the sun is above the horizon, there is light; here the light is the conditioned, the sun the condition. The unconditioned is that which supposes no condition, as its name expresses.

14. The universe is an assemblage of conditioned beings; this is manifested by both internal and external experience: does any thing unconditioned exist? Yes.

15. Representing the universe by a series A, B, C, D, E, F, … etc., the condition of F is in E; the condition of E in D; that of D in C; that of C in B, and so on successively. If there is nothing unconditioned this retrogression will extend to infinity, and we shall have an infinite series of conditioned terms.

To arrive at any term, for example, B, it will have been necessary to pass through the infinite conditions which precede it: the infinite series will have been exhausted: this is contradictory. And as what is said of B may be said of A, or of any other of the preceding or succeeding terms, it follows that they are all impossible: therefore the series is absurd.

16. In the supposed series all is conditioned, there is nothing unconditioned; and still the existence of its successive totality is necessary. Therefore the series in itself is unconditioned; therefore a collection of conditioned terms is unconditioned, although it is supposed impossible to assign any thing, out of the series, which is unconditioned. Who would admit such an absurdity?

17. Let us give a more precise formula to the argument. Taking any three terms in the series; A … F … N, we may form the following propositions.

If A exists, F and N will exist.

If N exists, F and A have existed.

If F exists, A has existed and N will exist.

Objections. – I. Whence arises the connection of the conditions with one another?

II. Why should any one of them be supposed?

18. By admitting a necessary, unconditioned being which contains the condition of whatever exists, every thing is explained. To the first objection it may be answered, that the connection of the conditioned conditions depends on the unconditioned condition. To the second, it may be said that the primitive condition has no need of any other condition, supposing it to be a necessary being. To ask why it should be supposed, is to fall into a contradiction; since it is unconditioned it has no why, the reason of its existence is in itself.

19. But if we admit nothing necessary, nothing unconditioned, neither the terms nor their connection can be explained. Infinite terms would exist, necessarily connected, with any internal or external sufficient reason. There would be no more reason for the existence of the universe than for its non-existence; being and nonentity would be indifferent to it; and it cannot be conceived why existence should have prevailed. For nothing it is evident that nothing is required; why then is there not an absolute and eternal nothing?

20. The more we examine the necessity of the connection of the conditions, one with another, the stronger this difficulty becomes; for if it be said that one condition cannot exist without another; with still more reason we ask why a first condition is not necessary for the collection of the conditions, or the entire series.

21. Therefore the conditioned supposes the unconditioned; the first given, we can conclude the second. The conditioned is given us in the external and in the internal world. Therefore there exists an unconditioned being, whose existence has no reason in any thing outside of itself.

CHAPTER III.
IMMUTABILITY OF NECESSARY AND UNCONDITIONED BEING

22. The absolutely necessary and unconditioned is immutable. For its existence is, or, to speak in modern language, is supposed absolutely, by intrinsic necessity, without any condition; and with this existence its state is also supposed. We abstract for the present the nature of this state, whether it be of this or that perfection, this or that degree, or even finite or infinite. Its existence being supposed unconditionally, its state is supposed unconditionally also; therefore as its non-existence is contradictory, (Ch. I.) its no-state is also contradictory. Change is only a transition from one state to another state which implies the no-state of the first; therefore change in the necessary is contradictory.

23. In order to present this in a clearer and more precise manner, we will call E the necessary and unconditioned being. As E is supposed absolutely by intrinsic necessity, without any condition, the not-E must be contradictory. E is not abstract but real being, consequently it must have certain perfections, as intelligence, will, activity, or any other whatever; and it must have these perfections in a certain degree, abstracting for the present, whether it be greater or less, finite or infinite. With the absolute existence of E a state of perfection, which we shall call N, is also supposed. What has determined the state N? By the supposition, it can have been determined by nothing; since the state is unconditioned. Therefore, if the state N is absolutely and necessarily, the not-N is contradictory. Therefore the change by which E would pass from N to not-N is contradictory.

24. But let us for a moment suppose a change in the necessary being, and suppose it to have proceeded from this being itself. As the reason of the change must be necessary and eternal, we should have to admit an infinite series of evolutions, and should again fall into the impossibility of reconciling the infinity of the series with the existence of any one of its terms.⁷³

25. Thus it is demonstrated that the necessary and unconditioned being can suffer no change which would cause it to lose its primitive state.

The necessary being can lose nothing; it cannot pass from N to not-N; but who knows but what it is possible that without losing N, or passing to not-N, it might acquire something which could be united to N in one way or another. In other words; N being given, not-N is contradictory, but would N + P be contradictory, P expressing a perfection, or degree of perfection? This would be impossible; because P which is added must emanate from N; therefore all that is in P was already in N; therefore there has been no change, and to suppose it is contradictory.

26. It may be replied that P was in N virtually, and that the new state only adds a new form. But does this form, as such, involve something new in reality? Either it does or it does not: if it does not, there is no change; if it does, it was either contained in N or not contained in it; if contained in it, there is no change; if not contained in it, whence does it come?

27. To elude this demonstration, some have imagined various necessary beings acting on each other, and mutually producing changes in each other, – by this means they attempt to explain whence the new states come. But these are not only fictions, and evidently groundless cavils in contradiction with the principles of ontology, but they may be destroyed by one conclusive argument.

Let A, B, C, D, be the necessary and unconditioned beings; each is supposed absolutely, and with primitive states, which we shall respectively call a, b, c, d. Then, taking them in their primitive state, the collection of the existences will be united with a collection of necessary and unconditioned states, which we may represent in this formula: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, (1.) This expression represents a primitive, necessary, and unconditioned state: now I ask: whence come the changes? All is unconditioned; how then is the conditioned, the mutable introduced?

28. The force of the argument is not weakened by supposing the primitive and mutual action of A, B, C, D, to be implied in the primitive states a, b, c, d. For the mutual actions, being primitive and absolute, would produce primitively and absolutely a result in their respective terms. This result would be primitively necessary, and would be contained in the formula. (1) Therefore the formula would suffer no variation by the new supposition; and consequently there would have been no change of any kind.

29. By imagining that the mutual action does not suppose a primitive state, but a successive series of states, we fall into the infinite series, and consequently into the impossibility of arriving at any term of it, without supposing the infinity to be exhausted, (Ch. II.).

30. Again, the essences of the necessary and unconditioned beings A, B, C, D, being distinct, what reason is there for supposing them to be in relations of activity? What is the ground of this relation if they are all four necessary, unconditioned, and therefore independent of each other?

31. But let us leave such absurdities, and go on with our analysis of the idea of a necessary and unconditioned being. Immutability excludes perfectibility, so that it is necessary either to suppose the summit of perfection primitively in the necessary being, or to admit that it can never attain this perfection. Perfectibility is one of the characteristics of the contingent, which improves its mode of being by a series of transformations; the absolutely necessary is what it is, and can be nothing else.

32. The contingent must emanate from the necessary, the conditioned from the unconditioned; therefore all perfections, of whatever order, must be found in the necessary and unconditioned being; therefore all the perfections of existing reality must be in it, at least, virtually, and those which imply no imperfection must be contained in it formally.⁷⁴

33. The possibility of the non-existent must have a foundation;⁷⁵ possible perfections must exist in a real being, if their idea is possible; therefore the infinite scale of perfections, which we conceive in the order of pure possibility, besides those which exist, must be realized in the necessary and unconditioned being.

CHAPTER IV.
IDEAS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

34. We have the idea of cause; the continual use which we are always making of it shows this. Philosophers do not alone possess it; it is the inheritance of mankind. But what do we understand by cause? All that makes any thing pass from not-being to being, as the effect is all that which passes from not-being to being. I am not now considering whether that which passes from not-being to being is substance or accident, nor the manner in which the cause influences this transition. Hence the definition includes every class of cause, and every species of causality.

35. The idea of cause contains:

I. The idea of being.

II. The relation to that which passes from not-being to being, as of a condition to the conditioned.

The idea of effect contains:

I. The idea of being.

II. The idea of the transition from not-being to being.

III. The relation to the cause, as of the conditioned to the condition.

36. Axiom I. – Nothing cannot be a cause; or in other terms: every cause is a being, or exists.

37. I say that this is an axiom, because it cannot be demonstrated, since the predicate existence, is evidently contained in the idea of cause. That which is a cause, is; if it is not, it is not a cause. To affirm the cause and deny that it is, is to affirm and deny at the same time. Therefore this proposition is an axiom. To be convinced of its truth, we need only to attend to the ideas of cause and effect, and we see the idea of being evidently contained in the idea of cause. The explanation which I give must not be regarded as a demonstration, but as an illustration, for the purpose of better comparing the two ideas. Whoever compares them as he ought will want no demonstration, he will see it intuitively, and this is what constitutes the character of an axiom.

38. Axiom II. – There is no effect without a cause.

39. To understand the sense of this axiom it must be observed, that here the word effect only means that which passes from not-being to being, whether it be caused or not; for, if by effect was meant a thing caused, the axiom would be an identical and useless proposition. Substituting for effect its meaning, it would be, "There is nothing caused without being caused," – which is very true, but of no use. The sense then is this: whatever passes from not-being to being, requires something distinct from itself, which produces this transition.

40. I say that this proposition is an axiom, and to be convinced of it, we need only fix our attention upon the ideas contained in it. Let us consider a thing that is, and transfer it to the time when it was not. Let us abstract all that which is not it, let us suppose no other being which may have produced it or taken part in its production; I assert that we see evidently that the transition to being, will never be made. Not only is it impossible for us to make the object emanate from the pure idea of its not-being, but we also see that it can never emanate from it. There is no being, no action, no production of any kind; there is pure nothing; whence will the being emanate? The truth, of the proposition is then intuitively presented to us: we not only do not see the possibility of the apparition of being in the pure idea of not-being by itself, but we see in this idea the impossibility of this apparition. They are ideas which exclude each other; not-being is possible only by the exclusion of being, and vice versa.

41. When we conceive a productive action, we either refer it to the thing which from not-being must pass to being, or to something distinct from this. In the first case, we fall into contradiction; because we suppose an action and do not suppose it, since there is no action in pure nothing. Let us suppose that the thing is cause before being; we then find ourselves in contradiction with Axiom I, (§ 36). In the second case, we already conceive the cause, since cause is only that which produces the transition from not-being to being.

42. The common expression, "ex nihilo nihil fit," is a truth, if understood in the sense of Axiom II.