Part 5

Consequently, then, if the author, as appears to be the case from the passages we have quoted, thinks with Mr. Herbert Spencer that the notion of the absolute corresponds to an existence, and if he contents himself with maintaining its indeterminability, we may, if we like, consider this to be a singularly attenuated metaphysic, but we are not entitled to deny that it amounts to a departure from criticism and a return to metaphysic. If, on the other hand, criticism does at least suppose one fundamental datum,--thought, namely, and with the thought the thinking,--we are still forced to grant to Descartes, and consequently to metaphysic, the existence of the thinking subject; and hence that science which our author declares not to be one would be found already in possession of the claim by the single fact of what he has called the criticism of two fundamental postulates: I think, I am--I think the absolute, the absolute is. And is this then nothing?

We are therefore of opinion that M. Liard ought to have concluded the second part of his work as he did the first--that is to say, that he ought to have shown the insufficiency of criticism as he did that of positivism. To our mind, criticism supposes metaphysic, as positivism supposes criticism. Metaphysic contains the reason of criticism, as criticism does that of positivism. Instead, then, of saying that metaphysic is not a science, we should rather call it the culminating point of science. But in place of following this natural order, which is, indeed, only his own method, our author has preferred to prove criticism right in the second part of his book, and metaphysic right in the third, by a sort of _saltus_, not contained in what goes before. He has chosen to appear nearer to Kant than he really is; has chosen to carry on his own evolution in Kant's manner, and to rebuild on different bases what he had demolished; but we shall see that this evolution is in reality quite different from that of Kant, and that his justification of criticism is only apparent, or at least if he defends it, this is really only in order subsequently to undermine it.

III.

Kant's evolution, which makes dogmatism to result from scepticism, was an entirely moral evolution, substituting for speculative the authority of practical reason. The evolution we have now to deal with is of a quite different character; it consists in passing from objective to subjective knowledge, from the object to the subject. Even if all that has been just said on the side of criticism were true, there is at least invariably one existence that remains untouched by it: this existence is that of the thinking subject, and this existence is incontestable. What appears to us as a circle to the circumference are objects, in the centre is the subject. We do not confound ourselves with our sensations, we distinguish between them and ourselves. Can, then, this consciousness of the thinking subject be no more than the transformation of external events? No; for all exterior events reduce themselves to one--_i.e._, motion; and all interior events to one--_i.e._, thought. There is no transition or transformation possible between one of these phenomena and the other. "We acknowledge," says a distinguished savant, Professor Tyndall, "that a definite thought and a molecular action of the brain occur simultaneously, but we do not possess the essential organ, nor even a rudiment of the organ we should require in order to pass by reasoning from the one to the other." Thus, then, the subject exists and is not reducible to the object. Shall we say that this subject is nothing more than a sum of phenomena? But what adds up these phenomena? A common bond is needed. Have we any consciousness of such a bond? "Yes," replies our author, "we call internal states of consciousness, past, present, or possible; we attribute them to ourselves, we say that they take place within us. What does this mean if the _ego_ to which we refer them is only their succession? How comprehend the continuity of consciousness?" In a word, our author admits absolutely that the _ego_ has a consciousness of its own being, as distinct from its sensations and from external objects. "It is," he says, "an activity constantly modified, but yet always one, which dominating its states refers them to the unity of one same consciousness."

Here, then, we have, without possibility of mistake, the fundamental doctrine of the spiritualistic philosophy of Descartes, Leibnitz, Maine de Biran, and Jouffroy. By laying down this principle the author believes himself enabled to reinstate that metaphysic which criticism had condemned. We, for our part, have no doubt of this; but we fail to see how the author can at the same time hold this principle and the Kantian principle of idealism. The "Kritik" of Kant bears upon the subject as well as the object; according to it both the one and the other are unknowable and incomprehensible noumena. The human mind is but a complex compound of sensations and categories, the unity of which is reached by the same process as the unity of external objects. No doubt Kant is, indeed, obliged to concede something to the _ego_, the _cogito_ as he calls it; but he does not very clearly say what it is; it is not a substance, not a category, not a result. "It is," says he, "the vehicle of all categories." What can be more vague? The metaphor shows both how little disposed Kant was to assign its due part to the _ego_--how vague and uncertain he left it, and at the same time how he was forced to take it into account. The _ego_, the active, continuous, self-conscious _ego_, is the rock ahead to Kant's philosophy. For how dispute the consciousness of substance and of cause, when one admits "a continuous activity dominating all states of consciousness and reducing them to unity?"

What, then, is substance, according to our author? It is, he says, something that does not change considered as the necessary condition of that which changes. What is cause? Is it not the power of initiating any given movement? Now, this same consciousness which gives us the _ego_ as a continuous activity, does it not in so doing give it us as the condition of phenomena and as the productive cause of movement in voluntary efforts? Consequently, to grant that the _ego_ knows itself as _ego_, and as activity, is in point of fact to restore the notions of cause and substance which had been done away with. At most all that has been gained from criticism is the difficulty of comprehending substance and cause without objective, that is, material form. Its results, then, amount only to the incomprehensibility of matter. But the cause of metaphysic is not to be confounded with that of matter; metaphysic is not tied to the existence of materialism; and were it even led in self-defence to deny the very existence of matter altogether, one does not see that such a negation need cost it much. Descartes did not hesitate to place the existence of bodies in doubt, in order to save the existence of spirit. Malebranche did not believe that the existence of bodies could be proved except by revelation. Leibnitz did not think that bodies were more than phenomena, the reality of which was spiritual. There is, then, no common cause between the interests of metaphysic, or of what Kant calls _dogmatism_, and the question of material objectivity, which may be left open without compromising the fundamental basis of things. How, then, can our author appear to assign the victory to criticism while in reality depriving it of its chief support by restoring to the _ego_ the immediate consciousness of itself as a being, one, active, permanent, and continuous? Kant may have played this game, because, in effect, outside of criticism, he only admits moral reasons for reinstating dogmatism. But although our author follows him too on that ground, he nevertheless enters in point of fact upon an entirely different path when he invokes immediate consciousness as a guarantee of the existence and activity of the mind. These are not moral and practical, but metaphysical reasons. Metaphysic, then, independently of morality, has its own proper foundation, which, far from being affected by criticism, is the very foundation of criticism itself. This foundation once admitted, are we entitled to declare metaphysic no science? We hold that we are not. Doubtless, if by science be meant an absolutely adequate knowledge of the object, such as mathematics affords, metaphysic cannot pretend to such knowledge; but we have here only a question of degree. The perfection of a science is not the same thing as its existence. A science is what it is by reason of the difficulties its objects present, and the imperfections of its method; but it is science none the less if it possesses a given object and a solid foundation. Now, such a foundation is admitted by our author when he admits the intuition of the _ego_ by itself; and hence it is no longer a mere question of words to refuse the name of science to the series of deductions that may be drawn from a principle which has been admitted valid.

If our author grants the foundation of metaphysics by adhering to the Cartesian principle of the immediate knowledge of the mind by itself, he at the same time acknowledges its most elevated term by defending the existence of an absolute perfection, a supreme type of spirituality. "If in ourselves," he says, "relatively perfect ideas realize themselves in virtue of their relative perfection, why should not the total perfection from whence they are derived exist? There is nothing contradictory in such an absolute." Is not this to admit the doctrine of the perfect being as the Cartesian School has constantly expressed it? but is it enough _to_ say that the total perfection _may_ exist, enough to inquire why it should not exist? Should we not go further, and say with Bossuet, "On the contrary, perfection is the reason of being." Here we are forced to allow, in the views, or at all events in the expressions of our author, a fluctuation and uncertainty which now impel him towards the critical, and now towards the metaphysical position, without his arriving at a sufficiently decided conclusion. "The absolute," he says, "would then be the ideal of moral perfection. But by such a definition do we not compromise its reality?" To which doubt he replies that the "true reality is precisely the ideal." Now, this is an equivocal and obscure reply, demanding explanation. No doubt the reality claimed for the perfect being is not a sensible and material reality. But there is another than material reality--there is a spiritual, such as is manifested to us in the reality of consciousness, in the immediate activity and intuition of our being. We may, indeed, style this sort of existence _ideal_, in opposition to material existence; but the expression is incorrect, for that which, properly speaking, is an ideal existence is one merely represented to the mind when thinking of something that no longer exists, does not yet exist, nor ever will exist. Now, the question is, whether the moral absolute, of which we have just had the definition given, belongs to the first or to the second of these ideals; whether it exists for itself, or only for us, in so far as we think it, and while we think it. For a mode of existence like this, dependent on our own thought, is very far from being the supreme reality; it is only a modal and subjective reality. Thus our author, we see, expresses himself too uncertainly. Nevertheless, his own principles sufficiently authorized him to declare himself with more precision. Indeed, we have seen, on the one hand, that he, with Mr. Herbert Spencer, affirms the existence of the absolute; and, on the other hand, that he acknowledges the concept of total perfection to be in nowise contradictory. Granting so much, must not absolute perfection be the reason of the existence of the absolute, as relative perfection is the reason of the existence of the relative? If, however, any choose to call that supreme perfection the _Idea_, with Hegel--as Plato calls it the _Good_, Aristotle the pure _Act_, Descartes the _Infinitely Perfect Being_--we have nothing to object, so long as it be clearly understood that the _idea_ shall signify the identity of the thought and the being, and not merely a subjective conception of the human mind.

To sum up: it results from what has been already said, that spite of his powers of thought, the author has not been able to escape a certain fluctuation between criticism and spiritualism, and has only arrived at a contradictory compromise between the two conceptions. From criticism he borrows the ideality of the notions of space, time, substance, cause, and the idea of a moral absolute founded on purely moral motives. From spiritualism he borrows the existence of the absolute as the necessary correlative of the relative, and the consciousness of the subject which perceives itself in its continuity as the cause of its phenomena; and, finally, the idea of a total perfection, which may, without involving any contradiction, have the reason of its existence in itself. These two orders of conception are not so closely connected as they should be; too much is conceded to criticism, too little to metaphysic; and M. Liard inclines overmuch to give to morality the exorbitant privilege of deciding between the two.

IV.

But is this equivalent to saying that we blame our author for his enterprise, and for the attempt he has made to reconcile criticism with dogmatism? By no means; for we are inclined to believe that this is the very aim that all metaphysic should set before itself at the present day. How, indeed, could we possibly admit that so powerful, so lofty an intellectual effort as that initiated by Kant, which under the name of criticism, of subjective or objective idealism, or even of positivism, has but been the development of his primary thought; that so prodigious a mental movement as this should be absolutely void of meaning, and destined to leave no trace in science? How believe that since the days of Descartes the human intellect has gone mad? Would not this be to express ourselves in the same way as those who, including Descartes himself in this condemnation, have maintained that since St. Thomas the whole course of human thought has been only one long error? Can there be anything more contrary to the laws of the human mind than this hypothesis of absolute truth discovered once for all, leaving no room beside it for anything but error? And besides, what more did Kant do than, under the form of a system (a defective form, no doubt, but hitherto the only one known to philosophy)--what more, we ask, did he than develop and render prominent what had been implicitly contained in the teaching of all preceding metaphysicians? Had not they all assigned a share in human consciousness to the subjective and relative, and very often a larger share than we are led to think, if we only regard their conclusions? Has there, for example, been since the days of Plato a single metaphysician who has denied the knowledge of the senses to be relative, and has the full scope and bearing of this principle been accurately measured? Can that be denied which has been scientifically demonstrated, which Descartes already affirmed, _i.e._, that light and sound--Nature's two great languages--are only the products of our physical organization, and that outside of the eye that sees, and the ear that hears, there is nothing external to us but a series of vibrations and undulations, which are neither luminous nor sonorous? Reduced to itself, without the presence of men or animals, matter is merely darkness and silence! What sort of matter may this be, and how little resembling the one we know? But is not, it may be said, the reality of that matter attested at least by resistance, by impact? The reality--yes; but is the very nature of the external thing, as it is in itself, manifested thereby? What is impact, what is resistance, if not a mode of our sensations? To be assured of this, we have but to turn to all that metaphysicians teach us as to the nature of God. All agree in saying that God has no sensations. If God be cognizant of matter, as is indubitable, it follows that He does not know it through sensations similar to ours. The _argumentum baculinum_ which appears so convincing to Sganarelle, would be powerless with regard to a pure spirit, still more an infinite spirit. Now is not this as much as to say that impact is the mode of action bodies exercise on each other, and by which sentient beings are made aware of their existence, but that it is a mode purely relative to the sensibility of finite beings? Say that, we at least admit with Descartes the reality of extension. But what is the real size of the extended things by which we are surrounded, and which according to the shape of our lenses we see enlarged, diminished, or even distorted in a thousand ways? Were it to please God, as Leibnitz has said, to collect the immensity of worlds into a walnut-shell, while preserving the proportion of objects, we should never find it out; and such diminution might be carried on infinitely, without ever reaching any term of smallness. 'We grant it,' will be the reply--'all sensible knowledge is relative; Plato, Malebranche, Leibnitz, have sufficiently told us this; but above the senses there is the understanding, which alone is made for truth. Our senses give us the appearance of things, our understanding makes us see them as they are in themselves.' Nothing more true, and this is the basis of metaphysics. But the question is, to what point the understanding is separated and separable from sensibility, and reciprocally, to what point sensibility enters into the understanding. Is there anything in us which can really be called understanding pure? Understanding--yes; but pure--no! Man cannot think without images, says Aristotle; this alone demonstrates that our understanding is always obliged to sensibilize its most abstract concepts. Moreover, between pure concepts and the data of sensibility there is still a debatable and obscure region--that, namely, of space and time. And here it is that Kant has made his mark ineffaceably. It is by so doing that he renovated metaphysics. He believed, thought, that both these domains belonged to sensibility and not to intelligence, that they too were only modes of representation--that is to say, modes purely relative to the nature of our mind. On this point also traditional metaphysics came to his support, at least as regards time. For is it not said by all schools whatever that God is not in time, that He is an eternal _Now_, that past and future are nothing to Him? Is it not this conception which is constantly appealed to as affording the solution of the conflict between divine prescience and human liberty? Now to affirm that God is not in time, and that He sees all portions of time in one sole and eternal present, is not this as much as to say that time is only the mode of representation of finite beings with regard to themselves; that, consequently, it is an image belonging to their finitude, but not to what they are in themselves, since God, who must see them as they are, sees them in an absolutely and radically different manner? Let us add another difference between the human and divine intelligence, pointed out by Bossuet, when he said, "We see things because they are, but they are because God sees them." Therefore in God intelligence is anterior to things, in us posterior. Now, though we can, through artistic creation, form some idea of an intelligence anterior to things, the analogy is, after all, a coarse one, since in us creative imagination only deals with materials borrowed from without. Hence it follows that our intelligence is but a very imperfect image of the divine. Now, as the latter alone can be the type of veritable intelligence, we can only attribute to ourselves a relative intelligence, subordinated to the conditions of the creature. But does not this amount precisely to saying that we only see things in a subjective and human manner, and that, consequently, we do not know them as they are in themselves? Let us go further still; let us raise ourselves to conceptions of the perfect being, the divine being. Here, too, all metaphysicians agree in acknowledging that we have only an entirely relative view of the Divinity. Is there one who admits that we can, without anthropomorphism, understand literally all the attributes that we impute to the Deity? Has not God Himself defined Himself in Scripture as _Deus absconditus_, and does not the doctrine of mysteries in every great religion imply that the true essence of the Deity is unknown to us, and that, consequently, the philosophic doctrine of the attributes of God is a purely human conception, by which we strive to represent to ourselves the unrepresentable, and to bring within the grasp of our sensibility and our imagination the august and sublime notion that confounds all created substance?