Kitabı oku: «Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)», sayfa 37

CHAPTER XVII.
REMARKS ON SPONTANEITY

176. There is nothing easier than to write a few brilliant pages on the phenomenon of spontaneity; some philosophers of our day discourse of the genius of the poets, of the artists, and of the captains of all ages, the fabulous and the heroic times, mysticism and religion, in books which are neither philosophy, nor history, nor poetry, but which can only be regarded as a flood of agreeable and harmonious words with which writers of sparkling fancy and inexhaustible eloquence deluge the overpowered intellect of the ingenuous reader. And after all, what is this spontaneity, this inspiration of which they tell us so much? Let us fix our ideas by establishing and classifying facts.

177. Reason properly so called is not developed in the human mind when completely isolated from other minds; the sight of nature is not sufficient to arouse it. The stupidness of children found in the woods and the scanty intelligence of deaf-mutes are undeniable evidence of this truth.

178. The human mind, when placed in communication with other minds, experiences a development in part direct and spontaneous, in part reflex and elaborate. This is another fact which we all perceive within ourselves. Minds are developed with greater spontaneousness in proportion as their qualities are more advanced.

179. Of the thoughts which occur to us suddenly and which seem to us purely spontaneous, not a few are reminiscences, more or less faithful, of what we have before read, heard, or thought; and consequently they proceed from a preparatory fact, which we do not remember. This explains how labor perfects the inventive faculty.

180. As the organization of our body exercises a powerful influence in the development of the soul's faculties, we may say that the spontaneity of some internal phenomena is connected with certain changes of our organization.

181. There is no philosophical difficulty in admitting an immediate communication of our mind with another mind of a higher order; and consequently there is none in admitting that some internal spontaneous phenomena arise from the direct influence of this higher mind upon ours.

182. The human race did not originally have a spontaneous development independent of the action of the Creator; philosophy shows us the necessity of a primitive teaching, without which the human race would have remained in a state of brute-like stupidity. This last remark requires a further explanation.

183. Religion reveals a primitive instruction and education of the human race given by God himself to the person of the first man; this is in perfect conformity with what both reason and experience assert.

Our mind possesses innumerable germs, but their growth requires an external cause. What would a man be who had been alone from his infancy? Little more than a brute: the precious stone would be covered with coarse earth which would prevent its glistening.

Language does not and cannot produce ideas; this is certain: the reason of ideas is not in language, but the reason of language is in ideas. Words are signs; and that which is not conceived can have no sign. But this sign, this instrument is of a wonderful use; words are to the understanding what wheels are to the power of a machine; the power imparts motion, but the machine would not go without wheels. The understanding might have some motion without language, but very slow, very imperfect, very heavy.

184. The Bible represents man as speaking as soon as created; language was therefore taught him by God. This is another wonderful fact which reason fully confirms. Man could not invent language. This invention surpasses all that can be imagined, and would you attribute it to beings so stupid as men without language? Better to say that a Hottentot could suddenly invent infinitesimal calculus.

185. The most ignorant man who knows a language possesses an incredible treasure of ideas. In the simplest conversation we may find many physical, metaphysical, and moral ideas. Take the following sentence, which is within the comprehension of the lowest mind: "I did not wish to pursue the beast farther for fear that, becoming irritated, he might do harm." Here are the ideas of time, act of the will, action, continuity, space, causality, analogy, end, and morality.

Time past: – I did not;

Act of the will: —wish;

Action: – to pursue;

Continuity and space: —farther;

Analogy: —becoming irritated; since from irritation in other instances, it is inferred in the present; and it is also known from what happens to ourselves if molested.

Motive and end: —for fear, that irritated, etc.;

Causality: —he might do harm;

Morality: —not to harm others.

186. Science is discovering the affinity of languages, finding them united in great centres. The dialects of savages are not elements, but fragments; they are not the lisping speech of infancy, but the torpid and extravagant jargon of degradation and ebriety.

187. Language cannot produce in the mind the idea of a sensation which it has not: all the words in the world could not give one born blind the idea of color. Still less could pure ideas, distinct from all sensation, result from language; and this is a strong argument in favor of innate ideas.

188. The ideas of unity, number, time, and causality express things which are not sensible; therefore they cannot be produced in us by any sensible representation expressed in language. Yet these ideas exist in us as germs susceptible of a great development, first by sensible experience, and then by reflection. The child who burns his hand in the fire begins to perceive the relation of causality, which he afterwards generalizes and purifies. The great ideas of Leibnitz on causality were the ideas of Leibnitz the child. The difference was in the development. Thus the organization of the giant oak is contained within the shell of the acorn.

Some have said that man's understanding is like a blank tablet on which nothing is yet written; others that it was a book which he had only to open in order to read; I believe it may be compared to a letter written in invisible ink, which looks white until rubbed with a mysterious liquid which brings out the black characters. The magic liquid is instruction and education.

189. Show me a single nation which of itself has emerged from a savage or a barbarous state. All known civilizations are subordinated one to another in an uninterrupted chain. European civilization owes much to Christianity, and something to the Roman; the Roman to the Greek; the Greek to the Egyptian; the Egyptian to the Oriental; and over the Oriental civilization hangs a veil which can be lifted only by the first chapters of Genesis.

190. In order to know the human mind it is necessary to study the history of humanity; whoever isolates objects too much runs in danger of mutilating them; hence so many ideological frivolities which have passed for profound investigations, although they were as far from true metaphysics as the art of arranging a museum symmetrically is from the science of the naturalist.

191. If innate ideas be defended, it is impossible to deny to our understanding a power to form new ideas accordingly as objects, especially language, excite it; otherwise it would be necessary to say that we do not learn any thing, and cannot learn any thing; that we have every thing beforehand in our mind, as if written in a book. Our understanding seems to resemble a case containing all kinds of types; but, in order that they may mean any thing, the hand of the compositor is necessary.

This image of printer's types reminds me of an important ideological fact: I mean the scanty number of ideas which are in our mind, and the great variety of combinations of which they are susceptible. All that is in the intellectual order, or is contained in the categories, whether we adopt those of Kant or those of Aristotle, or any others, may be reduced to a very few. Each of those ideas which we call generative is like a ray of light which, passing successively through innumerable prisms and refracted on a number of spectra, presents an infinite variety of colors, shades, and figures.

As our thought is almost entirely reduced to combination, and as this combination may be made in various ways, there is a wonderful agreement in the fundamental combinations which all minds have. In the secondary points there is divergence, but not in the principal. This proves that the human mind, in its existence and in its development, depends on an infinite intelligence, which is the cause and master of all minds.

192. Reject these doctrines so accordant with philosophy and with history, and spontaneity, whether of the individual or the race, either means nothing, or it expresses the vague and absurd theories of ideal pantheism.

CHAPTER XVIII.
FINAL CAUSALITY; – MORALITY

193. Those beings which act by intelligence must have, besides their efficient activity, a moral principle of their determinations. In order to will, the faculty of willing is not alone sufficient; it is necessary to know that which is willed, for nothing is willed without being known. Hence arises final causality, which is essentially distinct from efficient causality, and can exist only in beings endowed with intelligence.

194. Recalling what was said in the tenth chapter of this book, we may observe that final causes form a series distinct from that of efficient causes; what in the latter is physical action, is in the former, moral influence. In a painting, the series of efficient causes is the pencil, the hand, the muscles, the animal spirits, and the command of the will. This series, which is necessary for the execution of the painting, may be combined with different series of final causes. The artist may purpose by the brilliancy of his genius to acquire renown, and by renown to enjoy the happiness of a great name. Another series may be, to please a person for whom he is working; and this in order that the person may pay him a sum of money; and the money in order to gratify the artist's wants or pleasures. A third series may be, in order to seek in painting a distraction from a grief; and this in order to preserve his health. It is evident that many series of a purely moral or intellectual influence may be imagined, and which concur in the production of the effect only, in so far as combined with the series of efficient causes, they influence the artist's determination.

195. This moral influence may be exerted in two ways: either necessarily bending the will, or leaving it free to will or not will; in the first case, there is a voluntary, but necessary spontaneousness; in the second, there is a free spontaneousness. Every free act is voluntary, but not every voluntary act is free. God freely wills the conservation of creatures; but he necessarily wills virtue, and cannot will iniquity.

196. Regarding only efficient causality, we have only the relations of cause and effect; but considering final causality, a new order of ideas and facts is presented, which is morality. Let us first of all establish the existence of the fact.

197. Good and evil, moral, immoral, just, unjust, right, duty, obligation, command, prohibition, lawful, unlawful, virtue, and vice, are words which we all use continually, and apply to the whole course of life, to all the relations of man with God, with himself, and with his fellow-men, without any doubt as to their true meaning, and perfectly understanding each other, just as when we speak of color, light, or other sensible objects. When the term lawful or unlawful is applied to an act, who ever asks what it means? When this man is called virtuous, that vicious, who does not know the meaning of these expressions? Is there any one who finds a difficulty in understanding the expressions which follow: he has a right to perform this act; he is obliged to comply with that circumstance; this is his duty; he has neglected his duty; this is commanded; that is prohibited; this is right; that is wrong: this is a heroic virtue; that is a crime? No ideas are more common, more ordinarily used, by the ignorant as by the learned; by barbarous as by civilized nations; in the youth of societies as in their infancy, and in their old age; in the midst of pure customs, as of the most revolting corruption; they express something primitive, innate in the human mind and indispensable to its existence, something which it cannot throw off while it retains the exercise of its faculties. There may be more or less error and extravagance in the application of these ideas to certain particular cases: but the generative ideas of good and evil, just and unjust, lawful and unlawful, are the same at all times, and in all countries; they form, as it were, an atmosphere in which the human mind lives and breathes.

198. It is remarkable that even those who deny the distinction between good and evil, are forced to admit it in practice. A philosopher, with his pen in his hand, laughs at what he calls the prejudices of the human race concerning the difference between good and evil; but say to him: "It seems to me, Sir Philosopher, that you are a detestable wretch, to spend your time in destroying that which is most holy on earth;" and you will see how soon he will forget his philosophy and all that he has said of the empty meaning of the words virtue and vice, become indignant at being thus addressed, warmly defend himself, and attempt to prove to you that he is the most virtuous man in the world, giving repeated arguments of honesty, sincerity, and honor. It matters little that in his lofty theories, honor, sincerity, and honesty, are unmeaning words, since they can have no sense unless the word order is admitted; the philosopher is not staggered by an inconsequence, or rather, he takes no notice of it; moral ideas and sentiments are awakened in his mind as soon as he hears himself called immoral, he ceases to be a sophist, and becomes a man again.

199. Can the idea of this moral order be a prejudice, which, without any thing in reality corresponding to it, or any foundation in human nature, owes its origin to education, so that it would have been possible for men to have lived without moral ideas, or with others directly contrary to those which we now have? If it is a prejudice, how comes it that it is general to all times and countries? Who communicated it to the human race? who was strong and powerful enough to make all men adopt it? How did it happen that the passions, when in possession of their liberty, renounced it, and suffered a bridle to be put on them? Who was that extraordinary man who subdued all times and all countries, the most brutal customs, the most violent passions, the most obtuse understandings, and diffused the idea of a moral order over the whole face of the earth, notwithstanding the diversity of climates, languages, customs, and necessities, and the differences in the social condition of nations, and gave to this idea of the moral order such force and consistency that it has been preserved through the most complete revolutions, amid the ruins of empires, and the fluctuations and transmigrations of civilization, remaining firm as a rock, unmoved by the furious waves of the river of ages?

Here is not the hand of man; a phenomenon of this sort does not spring from human combinations; it is founded on nature, and it is indestructible because it is natural; thus, and thus only, is it possible to explain its universality and permanence.

200. To deny all difference between good and evil is to place one's self in open contradiction with the ideas the most deeply rooted in the human mind, with all its most profound and most powerful sentiments; all the sophisms of the world could not persuade any one, not even the sophist himself, that there is no difference between consoling one who is afflicted, and adding to his afflictions; between assisting the unfortunate, and increasing their misfortunes; between being grateful for a favor, and doing evil to the benefactor; between fulfilling a promise, and breaking it; between giving alms, and taking what belongs to another; between being faithful to a friend, and betraying him; between dying for one's country, and selling it to the enemy; between respecting the laws of modesty, and violating them without shame; between sobriety and drunkenness; between temperance and moderation in all the acts of life, and the disorder of unbridled passions. No argument, nor genius, nor cavil can destroy the dividing line. The sophist discusses, imagines, feigns, subtilizes, but in vain; nature is there; she says to senseless man: So far mayst thou go, but here shall thy pride be broken.

201. If there is no intrinsic difference between good and evil, and all that is said of the morality and immorality of actions is a collection of words which have no meaning, or only such as they have received from human convention; how is it that whilst the just man sleeps securely in his bed, the evil-doer is tossed about with a heart struggling with remorse? Whence come those sentiments of love and respect inspired by what we call virtue, and the aversion created by what is called vice? Do not the love of children, the veneration of parents, fidelity to friends, compassion for suffering, gratitude towards benefactors, the horror which all men have for a cruel father, a parricide son, an unfaithful wife, a dishonest friend, a traitor to his country, a hand red with the blood of its victim, oppression of the weak, desertion of the orphan, do not all these sentiments show clearer than the light of day the hand of the Almighty engraving in our souls the ideas of the moral order, and strengthening us with sentiments which instinctively show us, even when we have not time to reflect, the path which we should follow?

202. I do not deny that serious difficulties are encountered in examining the grounds of morality; I admit that the analysis of the knowledge of good and evil is one of the most hidden points of philosophy; but these difficulties prove nothing against the difference we have established. No one denies the existence of a building because he cannot see how deep its foundations go: its depth is a proof of its solidity, a guaranty of its duration. The difference between good and evil demonstrated a priori by the interior sentiments of the heart, is strengthened with further evidence if we regard the consequences of its existence or non-existence. Let us admit the moral order, and suppose all men to regulate their conduct conformably to this prejudice. What will be the result? The world becomes a paradise; men live like brothers, using with moderation the gifts of nature, dividing with each other their happiness, and aiding one another to bear misfortune; the most lovely harmony reigns in the individual, the family, and society; if the moral order is a prejudice, let us confess that never did prejudice have more grand, beneficial, and delightful consequences; if virtue is a lie, never was there one more useful, fairer, or more sublime.

203. But let us make the counterproof. Let us suppose this prejudice to disappear, and all men to be convinced that the moral order is a vain illusion which they must banish from their understanding, their will, and their acts; what will be the result this time? The moral order destroyed, the physical alone remains; every one thinks and acts according to his views, passions, or caprices; man has no other guide than the blind instinct of nature or the cold speculations of egotism; the individual becomes a monster, all the ties of family are broken asunder; and society, sunk in a frightful chaos, rapidly advances to complete destruction. These are the necessary consequences of the rejection of the prejudice. Language would be horridly mutilated if the ideas of the moral order should disappear; good and bad conduct would be words without meaning; praise and blame would have no object; even vanity would lose a great part of its food; flattery would be forced to confine itself to natural qualities, considered in the purely physical order; to pronounce the word merit, would be forbidden under pain of falling into absurdity.

204. See, then, if any objection could be sufficient to make such consequences admissible. Whoever, frightened at the difficulties accompanying the examination of the first principles of morality, should undertake to deny morality, would be as foolish as the husbandman who, seeing the stream which waters his fields, should insist on denying the existence of its waters because inaccessible crags prevent his approach to their source.