Chapter 1

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

INTRODUCTION

An ancestor of the French divine who under the name of Fenelon has made for himself a household name in England as in France, was Bertrand de Salignac, Marquis de la Mothe Fenelon, who in 1572, as ambassador for France, was charged to soften as much as he could the resentment of our Queen Elizabeth when news came of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Our Fenelon, claimed in brotherhood by Christians of every denomination, was born nearly eighty years after that time, at the chateau of Fenelon in Perigord, on the 6th of August, 1651. To the world he is Fenelon; he was Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon to the France of his own time.

Fenelon was taught at home until the age of twelve, then sent to the University of Cahors, where he began studies that were continued at Paris in the College du Plessis. There he fastened upon theology, and there he preached, at the age of fifteen, his first sermon. He entered next into the seminary of Saint Sulpice, where he took holy orders in the year 1675, at the age of twenty-four. As a priest, while true to his own Church, he fastened on Faith, Hope, and Charity as the abiding forces of religion, and for him also the greatest of these was Charity.

During the next three years of his life Fenelon was among the young priests who preached and catechised in the church of St. Sulpice and laboured in the parish. He wrote for St. Sulpice Litanies of the Infant Jesus, and had thought of going out as missionary to the Levant. The Archbishop of Paris, however, placed him at the head of a community of "New Catholics," whose function was to confirm new converts in their faith, and help to bring into the fold those who appeared willing to enter. Fenelon took part also in some of the Conferences on Scripture that were held at Saint Germain and Versailles between 1672 and 1685. In 1681 an uncle, who was Bishop of Sarlat, resigned in Fenelon's favour the Deanery of Carenas, which produced an annual income of three or four thousand livres. It was while he held this office that Fenelon published a book on the "Education of Girls," at the request of the Duchess of Beauvilliers, who asked for guidance in the education of her children.

Fenelon sought the friendship of Bossuet, who revised for him his next book, a "Refutation of the System of Malebranche concerning Nature and Grace." His next book, written just before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, opposed the lawfulness of the ministrations of the Protestant clergy; and after the Edict, Fenelon was, on the recommendation of Bossuet, placed at the head of the Catholic mission to Poitou. He brought to his work of conversion or re-conversion Charity, and a spirit of concession that brought on him the attacks of men unlike in temper.

When Louis XIV. placed his grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy, under the care of the Duke of Beauvilliers, the Duke of Beauvilliers chose Fenelon for teacher of the pupil who was heir presumptive to the throne. Fenelon's "Fables" were written as part of his educational work. He wrote also for the young Duke of Burgundy his "Telemaque"--used only in MS.--and his "Dialogues of the Dead." While thus living in high favour at Court, Fenelon sought nothing for himself or his friends, although at times he was even in want of money. In 1693--as preceptor of a royal prince rather than as author--Fenelon was received into the French Academy. In 1694 Fenelon was made Abbot of Saint-Valery, and at the end of that year he wrote an anonymous letter to Louis XIV. upon wrongful wars and other faults committed in his reign. A copy of it has been found in Fenelon's handwriting. The king may not have read it, or may not have identified the author, who was not stayed by it from promotion in February of the next year (1695) to the Archbishopric of Cambray. He objected that the holding of this office was inconsistent with his duties as preceptor of the King's grandchildren. Louis replied that he could live at Court only for three months in the year, and during the other nine direct the studies of his pupils from Cambray.

Bossuet took part in the consecration of his friend Fenelon as Archbishop of Cambray; but after a time division of opinion arose. Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe Guyon became in 1676 a widow at the age of twenty-eight, with three children, for whose maintenance she gave up part of her fortune, and she then devoted herself to the practice and the preaching of a spiritual separation of the soul from earthly cares, and rest in God. She said with Galahad, "If I lose myself, I save myself." Her enthusiasm for a pure ideal, joined to her eloquence, affected many minds. It provoked opposition in the Church and in the Court, which was for the most part gross and self-seeking. Madame Guyon was attacked, even imprisoned. Fenelon felt the charm of her spiritual aspiration, and, without accepting its form, was her defender. Bossuet attacked her views. Fenelon published "Maxims of the Saints on the Interior Life." Bossuet wrote on "The States of Prayer." These were the rival books in a controversy about what was called "Quietism." Bossuet afterwards wrote a "Relation sur le Quietisme," of which Fenelon's copy, charged with his own marginal comments, is in the British Museum. In March, 1699, the Pope finally decided against Fenelon, and condemned his "Maxims of the Saints." Fenelon read from his pulpit the brief of condemnation, accepted the decision of the Pope, and presented to his church a piece of gold plate, on which the Angel of Truth was represented trampling many errors under foot, and among them his own "Maxims of the Saints." At Court, Fenelon was out of favour. "Telemaque," written for the young Duke of Burgundy, had not been published; but a copy having been obtained through a servant, it was printed, and its ideal of a true king and a true Court was so unlike his Majesty Louis XIV. and the Court of France, and the image of what ought not to be was so like what was, that it was resented as a libel. "Telemaque" was publicly condemned; Fenelon was banished from Court, and restrained within the limits of his diocese. Though separated from his pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy (who died in 1712), Fenelon retained his pupil's warm affection. The last years of his own life Fenelon gave to his work in Cambray, until his death on the 7th of January, 1715. He wrote many works, of which this is one, and they have been collected into twenty volumes. The translation here given was anonymous, and was first published in the year 1713.

H. M.

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

SECTION I. Metaphysical Proofs of the Existence of God are not within Everybody's reach.

I cannot open my eyes without admiring the art that shines throughout all nature; the least cast suffices to make me perceive the Hand that makes everything.

Men accustomed to meditate upon metaphysical truths, and to trace up things to their first principles, may know the Deity by its idea; and I own that is a sure way to arrive at the source of all truth. But the more direct and short that way is, the more difficult and unpassable it is for the generality of mankind who depend on their senses and imagination.

An ideal demonstration is so simple, that through its very simplicity it escapes those minds that are incapable of operations purely intellectual. In short, the more perfect is the way to find the First Being, the fewer men there are that are capable to follow it.

SECT. II. Moral Proofs of the Existence of God are fitted to every man's capacity.

But there is a less perfect way, level to the meanest capacity. Men the least exercised in reasoning, and the most tenacious of the prejudices of the senses, may yet with one look discover Him who has drawn Himself in all His works. The wisdom and power He has stamped upon everything He has made are seen, as it were, in a glass by those that cannot contemplate Him in His own idea. This is a sensible and popular philosophy, of which any man free from passion and prejudice is capable. Humana autem anima rationalis est, quae mortalibus peccati poena tenebatur, ad hoc diminutionis redacta ut per conjecturas rerum visibilium ad intelligenda invisibilia niteretur; that is, "The human soul is still rational, but in such a manner that, being by the punishment of sin detained in the bonds of death, it is so far reduced that it can only endeavour to arrive at the knowledge of things invisible through the visible."

SECT. III. Why so few Persons are attentive to the Proofs Nature affords of the Existence of God.

If a great number of men of subtle and penetrating wit have not discovered God with one cast of the eye upon nature, it is not matter of wonder; for either the passions they have been tossed by have still rendered them incapable of any fixed reflection, or the false prejudices that result from passions have, like a thick cloud, interposed between their eyes and that noble spectacle. A man deeply concerned in an affair of great importance, that should take up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions of the chamber, the ornaments of the chimney, and the pictures about him, all which objects would continually be before his eyes, and yet none of them make any impression upon him. In this manner it is that men spend their lives; everything offers God to their sight, and yet they see it nowhere. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and nevertheless the world did not know Him"--In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit. They pass away their lives without perceiving that sensible representation of the Deity. Such is the fascination of worldly trifles that obscures their eyes! Fascinatio nugacitatis obscurat bona. Nay, oftentimes they will not so much as open them, but rather affect to keep them shut, lest they should find Him they do not look for. In short, what ought to help most to open their eyes serves only to close them faster; I mean the constant duration and regularity of the motions which the Supreme Wisdom has put in the universe. St. Austin tells us those great wonders have been debased by being constantly renewed; and Tully speaks exactly in the same manner. "By seeing every day the same things, the mind grows familiar with them as well as the eyes. It neither admires nor inquires into the causes of effects that are ever seen to happen in the same manner, as if it were the novelty, and not the importance of the thing itself, that should excite us to such an inquiry." Sed assiduitate quotidiana et consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi, neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper vident, perinde quasi novit as nos magis quam magnitudo rerum debeat ad exquirendas causas excitare.

SECT. IV. All Nature shows the Existence of its Maker.

But, after all, whole nature shows the infinite art of its Maker. When I speak of an art, I mean a collection of proper means chosen on purpose to arrive at a certain end; or, if you please, it is an order, a method, an industry, or a set design. Chance, on the contrary, is a blind and necessary cause, which neither sets in order nor chooses anything, and which has neither will nor understanding. Now I maintain that the universe bears the character and stamp of a cause infinitely powerful and industrious; and, at the same time, that chance (that is, the blind and fortuitous concourse of causes necessary and void of reason) cannot have formed this universe. To this purpose it is not amiss to call to mind the celebrated comparisons of the ancients.

SECT. V. Noble Comparisons proving that Nature shows the Existence of its Maker. First Comparison, drawn from Homer's "Iliad."

Who will believe that so perfect a poem as Homer's "Iliad" was not the product of the genius of a great poet, and that the letters of the alphabet, being confusedly jumbled and mixed, were by chance, as it were by the cast of a pair of dice, brought together in such an order as is necessary to describe, in verses full of harmony and variety, so many great events; to place and connect them so well together; to paint every object with all its most graceful, most noble, and most affecting attendants; in short, to make every person speak according to his character in so natural and so forcible a manner? Let people argue and subtilise upon the matter as much as they please, yet they never will persuade a man of sense that the "Iliad" was the mere result of chance. Cicero said the same in relation to Ennius's "Annals;" adding that chance could never make one single verse, much less a whole poem. How then can a man of sense be induced to believe, with respect to the universe, a work beyond contradiction more wonderful than the "Iliad," what his reason will never suffer him to believe in relation to that poem? Let us attend another comparison, which we owe to St. Gregory Nazianzenus.

SECT. VI. Second Comparison, drawn from the Sound of Instruments.

If we heard in a room, from behind a curtain, a soft and harmonious instrument, should we believe that chance, without the help of any human hand, could have formed such an instrument? Should we say that the strings of a violin, for instance, had of their own accord ranged and extended themselves on a wooden frame, whose several parts had glued themselves together to form a cavity with regular apertures? Should we maintain that the bow formed without art should be pushed by the wind to touch every string so variously, and with such nice justness? What rational man could seriously entertain a doubt whether a human hand touched such an instrument with so much harmony? Would he not cry out, "It is a masterly hand that plays upon it?" Let us proceed to inculcate the same truth.

SECT. VII. Third Comparison, drawn from a Statue.

If a man should find in a desert island a fine statue of marble, he would undoubtedly immediately say, "Sure, there have been men here formerly; I perceive the workmanship of a skilful statuary; I admire with what niceness he has proportioned all the limbs of this body, in order to give them so much beauty, gracefulness, majesty, life, tenderness, motion, and action!"

What would such a man answer if anybody should tell him, "That's your mistake; a statuary never carved that figure. It is made, I confess, with an excellent gusto, and according to the rules of perfection; but yet it is chance alone made it. Among so many pieces of marble there was one that formed itself of its own accord in this manner; the rains and winds have loosened it from the mountains; a violent storm has thrown it plumb upright on this pedestal, which had prepared itself to support it in this place. It is a perfect Apollo, like that of Belvedere; a Venus that equals that of the Medicis; an Hercules, like that of Farnese. You would think, it is true, that this figure walks, lives, thinks, and is just going to speak. But, however, it is not in the least beholden to art; and it is only a blind stroke of chance that has thus so well finished and placed it."

SECT. VIII. Fourth Comparison, drawn from a Picture.

If a man had before his eyes a fine picture, representing, for example, the passage of the Red Sea, with Moses, at whose voice the waters divide themselves, and rise like two walls to let the Israelites pass dryfoot through the deep, he would see, on the one side, that innumerable multitude of people, full of confidence and joy, lifting up their hands to heaven; and perceive, on the other side, King Pharaoh with the Egyptians frighted and confounded at the sight of the waves that join again to swallow them up. Now, in good earnest, who would be so bold as to affirm that a chambermaid, having by chance daubed that piece of cloth, the colours had of their own accord ranged themselves in order to produce that lively colouring, those various attitudes, those looks so well expressing different passions, that elegant disposition of so many figures without confusion, that decent plaiting of draperies, that management of lights, that degradation of colours, that exact perspective--in short, all that the noblest genius of a painter can invent? If there were no more in the case than a little foam at the mouth of a horse, I own, as the story goes, and which I readily allow without examining into it, that a stroke of a pencil thrown in a pet by a painter might once in many ages happen to express it well. But, at least, the painter must beforehand have, with design, chosen the most proper colours to represent that foam, in order to prepare them at the end of his pencil; and, therefore, it were only a little chance that had finished what art had begun. Besides, this work of art and chance together being only a little foam, a confused object, and so most proper to credit a stroke of chance--an object without form, that requires only a little whitish colour dropped from a pencil, without any exact figure or correction of design. What comparison is there between that foam with a whole design of a large continued history, in which the most fertile fancy and the boldest genius, supported by the perfect knowledge of rules, are scarce sufficient to perform what makes an excellent picture? I cannot prevail with myself to leave these instances without desiring the reader to observe that the most rational men are naturally extreme loath to think that beasts have no manner of understanding, and are mere machines. Now, whence proceeds such an invincible averseness to that opinion in so many men of sense? It is because they suppose, with reason, that motions so exact, and according to the rules of perfect mechanism, cannot be made without some industry; and that artless matter alone cannot perform what argues so much knowledge. Hence it appears that sound reason naturally concludes that matter alone cannot, either by the simple laws of motion, or by the capricious strokes of chance, make even animals that are mere machines. Those philosophers themselves, who will not allow beasts to have any reasoning faculty, cannot avoid acknowledging that what they suppose to be blind and artless in these machines is yet full of wisdom and art in the First Mover, who made their springs and regulated their movements. Thus the most opposite philosophers perfectly agree in acknowledging that matter and chance cannot, without the help of art, produce all we observe in animals.

SECT. IX. A Particular Examination of Nature.

After these comparisons, about which I only desire the reader to consult himself, without any argumentation, I think it is high time to enter into a detail of Nature. I do not pretend to penetrate through the whole; who is able to do it? Neither do I pretend to enter into any physical discussion. Such way of reasoning requires a certain deep knowledge, which abundance of men of wit and sense never acquired; and, therefore, I will offer nothing to them but the simple prospect of the face of Nature. I will entertain them with nothing but what everybody knows, and which requires only a little calm and serious attention.

SECT. X. Of the General Structure of the Universe.

Let us, in the first place, stop at the great object that first strikes our sight, I mean the general structure of the universe. Let us cast our eyes on this earth that bears us. Let us look on that vast arch of the skies that covers us; those immense regions of air, and depths of water that surround us; and those bright stars that light us. A man who lives without reflecting thinks only on the parts of matter that are near him, or have any relation to his wants. He only looks upon the earth as on the floor of his chamber, and on the sun that lights him in the daytime as on the candle that lights him in the night. His thoughts are confined within the place he inhabits. On the contrary, a man who is used to contemplate and reflect carries his looks further, and curiously considers the almost infinite abysses that surround him on all sides. A large kingdom appears then to him but a little corner of the earth; the earth itself is no more to his eyes than a point in the mass of the universe; and he admires to see himself placed in it, without knowing which way he came there.

SECT. XI. Of the Earth.

Who is it that hung and poised this motionless globe of the earth? Who laid its foundation? Nothing seems more vile and contemptible; for the meanest wretches tread it under foot; but yet it is in order to possess it that we part with the greatest treasures. If it were harder than it is, man could not open its bosom to cultivate it; and if it were less hard it could not bear them, and they would sink everywhere as they do in sand, or in a bog. It is from the inexhaustible bosom of the earth we draw what is most precious. That shapeless, vile, and rude mass assumes the most various forms; and yields alone, by turns, all the goods we can desire. That dirty soil transforms itself into a thousand fine objects that charm the eye. In the compass of one year it turns into branches, twigs, buds, leaves, blossoms, fruits, and seeds, in order, by those various shapes, to multiply its liberalities to mankind. Nothing exhausts the earth; the more we tear her bowels the more she is liberal. After so many ages, during which she has produced everything, she is not yet worn out. She feels no decay from old age, and her entrails still contain the same treasures. A thousand generations have passed away, and returned into her bosom. Everything grows old, she alone excepted: for she grows young again every year in the spring. She is never wanting to men; but foolish men are wanting to themselves in neglecting to cultivate her. It is through their laziness and extravagance they suffer brambles and briars to grow instead of grapes and corn. They contend for a good they let perish. The conquerors leave uncultivated the ground for the possession of which they have sacrificed the lives of so many thousand men, and have spent their own in hurry and trouble. Men have before them vast tracts of land uninhabited and uncultivated; and they turn mankind topsy-turvy for one nook of that neglected ground in dispute. The earth, if well cultivated, would feed a hundred times more men than now she does. Even the unevenness of ground which at first seems to be a defect turns either into ornament or profit. The mountains arose and the valleys descended to the place the Lord had appointed for them. Those different grounds have their particular advantages, according to the divers aspects of the sun. In those deep valleys grow fresh and tender grass to feed cattle. Next to them opens a vast champaign covered with a rich harvest. Here, hills rise like an amphitheatre, and are crowned with vineyards and fruit trees. There high mountains carry aloft their frozen brows to the very clouds, and the torrents that run down from them become the springs of rivers. The rocks that show their craggy tops bear up the earth of mountains just as the bones bear up the flesh in human bodies. That variety yields at once a ravishing prospect to the eye, and, at the same time, supplies the divers wants of man. There is no ground so barren but has some profitable property. Not only black and fertile soil but even clay and gravel recompense a man's toil. Drained morasses become fruitful; sand for the most part only covers the surface of the earth; and when, the husbandman has the patience to dig deeper he finds a new ground that grows fertile as fast as it is turned and exposed to the rays of the sun.