What confusion and mystery in the expression of the commonest things! How great Descartes appears beside Fichte! Each makes the fact of consciousness revealing existence the beginning of his philosophy. The one expresses his thoughts clearly, with simplicity and in a language which all the world does or may understand; the other, in order to seem an inventor, and to show that he has no master, envelops himself in a cloud of mystery, with darkness all around, whence in a hollow voice he pronounces his oracles. Descartes says: "I think, I cannot doubt it, it is a fact attested to me by my internal sense; no one can think without existing; therefore I exist." This is clear, simple, and ingenuous; it manifests a true philosopher, one without affectation or pretension. Fichte says: "Take any proposition whatever; for example, A is A: " and then goes on to explain how the verb to be in propositions does not express the absolute existence of the subject, but its relation with the predicate; the whole with a show of doctrine, wearisome in its form, and ridiculous in its sterility; and this too when he only wants to inform us that A is in the me, because the relation of the predicate with the subject, that is, X, is possible only in a being, since A denotes some being or other. Let us compare the two syllogisms. Descartes says: "No one can think without existing; but I think; therefore I exist." Fichte says literally what follows: "X is only possible in relation to an A; but X is really supposed in the me; therefore A must also be supposed in the me." There is at bottom no difference at all, and the only difference in form is that which exists between the language of a vain man and that of a sensible man.
At bottom the syllogisms are not different, we repeat it. Descartes' major proposition is: "Whatever thinks exists." He does not prove it, and admits that it cannot be proved. Fichte's major is: "X is possible only in relation to an A," or, in other words, no relation of a predicate with a subject, in so far as it is known, is possible without a being which knows. "X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of the same A, at least in so far as that relation is supposed," that is, inasmuch as it is known. And how does Fichte prove a relative supposition to suppose an absolute supposition, that is, a subject in which it is supposed? Like Descartes, he does not prove it at all. There is no relative A without an absolute A; what does not exist cannot think. This is clear and evident; farther than this neither Fichte nor Descartes goes.
Descartes' minor is: "I think;" this he does not prove, but refers to consciousness beyond which he confesses that he cannot pass. Fichte's minor is this: "X is really asserted in the me;" which is equivalent to saying: the relation of the predicate with the subject is really known by the me; and as, according to Fichte himself, the proposition may be selected at pleasure, to say that the relation of the predicate with the subject is known by the me, is the same as to say that any relation whatever is known by the me; which in clearer terms may be expressed thus, I think.
84. Here we would remark, that the difference, if any there be, is altogether in favor of the French philosopher, who understands by thought every internal phenomenon of which we are conscious. In order to establish this fact, he has no need of analyzing propositions, and confusing the understanding upon those very points where it most requires clearness and precision. Fichte, to arrive at the same point, takes a roundabout way. Descartes points his finger to it, and says: this is it. The one acts like a sophist, the other like a true man of genius.
Had the German philosopher confined his forms, little calculated as they are to illustrate science, to what we have thus far examined, their greatest inconvenience would have been to weary both the author and his readers; but unfortunately his mysterious me, which makes its appearance at the very vestibule of science, and which, in the eyes of sound reason, can only be what it was to Descartes, – the human mind, knowing its existence by its own thought, – goes on dilating in Fichte's hands, like a gigantic spectre, which, beginning in a single point, ends by hiding its head in the heavens and its feet in the abyss. This me, absolute subject, is then a being which exists because it supposed itself: it is a being which creates its own self, absorbs every thing, is every thing, and is revealed in the human mind as in one of the infinite phases of its infinite existence.
What we have thus far said, suffices to show the tendencies of Fichte's system. We are here treating of certainty and its foundations; this, then, is not the place to anticipate what we propose to say more at length upon this system when we come to explain the idea of substance and refute pantheism: for this is one of the gravest errors of modern philosophy; everywhere, and under all aspects, it must be combatted, but to do this we must attack it in its roots. This is why we have examined at such length Fichte's fundamental reflection in his Doctrine of Science, and stripped it of the importance which he claimed for it, so as to make it the basis of a transcendental science; for he flattered himself with being able to determine the absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge.(7)
CHAPTER VIII.
UNIVERSAL IDENTITY
85. In order to give unity to science, some appeal to universal identity; this, however, is not to discover unity, but to take refuge in chaos. Universal identity is not only an absurdity, but a groundless hypothesis. Excepting the unity of consciousness, we find in ourselves nothing that is one; but multiplicity of ideas, perceptions, judgments, acts of the will, impressions of various kinds; and in relation to external objects, we perceive multitude in the beings which surround us, or as some pretend, in their appearances. Where then are unity and identity, for we can neither find them within nor without ourselves?
86. If it be said that nothing is offered to us but phenomena, and that we do not attain to the reality, the absolute and identical unity hidden beneath them, we can reply with this dilemma: either our experience is confined to phenomena, or it reaches the very nature of things: if the former, we cannot know what is concealed under the phenomena, nor absolute and identical unity; if the latter, then nature is not one but multiplex, for we everywhere encounter multiplicity.
87. It is curious to observe how easily men, the most skeptical in the simplest things, suddenly become dogmatic at the very point where the greatest motives of doubt are presented. With them the external world is either a pure appearance, or a being having no resemblance to the conception formed of it by the human race: the criterion of evidence, that of consciousness, and that of common sense have little power to command assent: the crowd alone should be satisfied with such weak foundations; the philosopher demands others far more solid. But strange as it may seem, the very philosopher who styled reality a deceitful appearance, and saw obscurity in what the human race considered luminous, so soon as he quitted the world of phenomena and arrived in the dominions of the absolute, finds himself illumined by a mysterious splendor, he requires no discussion, but by a most pure intuition, he sees the unconditioned, the infinite, the one in which every thing multiplex is involved, the great reality, the basis of all phenomena, the great All which re-unites in its breast all existences, re-assumes every thing, and absorbs every thing into most perfect identity. He fixes his philosophic eye upon this focus of light and life, sees it roll out like the ocean of existence in vast billows, and thus explains what is various by what is one, the composite by the simple, the finite by the infinite. All these prodigies do not require him to leave himself; he has only to go on destroying all that is empirical, to ascend even to pure act by mysterious by-paths unknown to all except himself. This me, which may have believed itself an existence perishable and dependent on another superior existence, is astounded at finding itself so great; it discovers in itself the origin of all beings, or, more correctly speaking, the only being, of which all others are but phenomenal existences; it is the universe itself become by a gradual development conscious of itself: whatever is without itself, and at first appears distinct, is only itself, a reflection of itself, presented to its eyes, and unfolded under a thousand different forms like a magnificent panorama.
Let not the reader think we have imagined a system for the sake of combatting it; the doctrine which we have here exposed, is the doctrine of Schelling.
88. One cause of this error is the obscurity of the problem of knowing. To know, is an immanent action, having, at the same time, relation to an external object, excepting those cases in which the intelligent being becomes, by a reflex act, its own object. In order to know a truth, whatever it may be, the mind does not quit itself; it does not operate beyond itself; its own consciousness tells it that it remains, and that its activity is developed, within itself.
This immanent action extends to objects the most distant in time and place, and the most unlike in their nature. How is the mind to come in contact with them? How is it to ascertain whether their representation conforms to reality? There can be no cognition without this representation; without conformity, there is no truth, cognition is a pure illusion to which nothing corresponds, and the human understanding is unceasingly the sport of vain appearances.
Undeniably this problem is liable to very serious difficulties, which perhaps the science of man, while in this life, cannot solve. Here arise all the ideological and psychological questions ever treated by the most eminent metaphysicians. However, as it is not our intention to anticipate what is to be hereafter considered, we shall confine ourselves to the point of view indicated by our present question of certainty and its fundamental principle.
89. Consciousness attests the fact of representation; without this there is no thought; and the affirmation I think is, if not the origin of all philosophy, at least its indispensable condition.
90. Whence comes the representation? How is a being placed in such communication with other beings, and this not by a transient but by an immanent act? How explain the conformity between the representation and the object? Does not this mystery indicate that there is unity, identity, at the bottom of all things, that the being which knows, is the very being known, which appears to itself under a distinct form, and that what we call realities are only phenomena of one and the same being, always identical, infinitely active, which develops its strength in various ways, and forms by its development what we call the universe? No! This neither is nor can be! It is an absurdity which the most extravagant reason cannot accept: it is a resource as desperate as it is impotent to explain a mystery, if you will, but one a thousand times less obscure than the system which pretends to clear it up.
91. Universal identity explains nothing, but greatly confuses everything; it does not dissipate the difficulty, but strengthens it, and renders it insolvable. It certainly is no easy matter to explain how the mind obtains the representation of things distinct from itself; but it is no easier to show how the mind can have the representation of itself. If there is unity, complete identity between the subject and the object, how are the two presented to us as distinct things? How can duality proceed from unity, or diversity spring from identity?
It is a fact testified by experience, not the experience of external objects, but that of consciousness, by that which is most hidden in our soul, that there is in every cognition a subject and an object, perception and the thing perceived, and without this difference the act is not possible. Even when by an effort of reflection, we take ourselves for our own object, the duality appears; if it does not exist, we imagine it, for without this fiction we cannot think.
92. Even in the most intimate and concentrated reflection, duality, upon careful examination, is to be found, not by fiction, as it might seem at first sight, but in reality. When the understanding turns upon itself, it does not see its own essence, for it has no direct intuition of itself: it sees its acts, and these it takes for its object. The reflex act is not the act reflected. When I think that I think, the first thought is distinct from the second, and so distinct that one succeeds the other, for the reflective thought can exist only subsequently to the thought reflected.
93. This is confirmed by a profound analysis of reflection. Is reflection possible without an object reflected upon? Evidently not. What is this object in the present case? The thought itself: then this thought must have preceded the reflection. If it be supposed that they must not of necessity follow in different instants of time, and that the dependence is saved, notwithstanding the simultaneousness, still the force of the argument is not lost; we grant, but do not concede, that the simultaneousness is possible; but the dependence at least is not possible without distinction. Dependence is a relation; relation supposes opposition of extremes; and this opposition draws with it distinction.
94. That these acts are distinct, although simultaneous, may be demonstrated in another manner. One of them, that reflected upon, may exist without the reflex act. We continually think, without thinking that we think; and the same may be proved true of every reflection whatever, whether it is occupied with the act thought, or it disappears and leaves only the direct act: these acts are, therefore, not only distinct but separable; therefore, the duality of the subject and the object exists not only in the external world, but also in that which is the most intimate and pure in our soul.
95. It avails not to say that the object of reflection is not any determinate act, but thought in general. This is in many cases false; for we not only think that we think, but that we think a determinate thing. Moreover, although the object of reflection is sometimes thought in general, not even then does the duality disappear: in that case the subjective act is an individual act, existing in a determinate instant of time, and its object is thought in general, that is, an idea representative of all thought, an idea which involves a sort of confused recollection of all past acts, or of what is called activity, intellectual force. The duality then exists more evidently, if possible, than when the object is a determinate thought. In one instance at least two individual acts are compared; but in this case an individual act is compared with an abstract idea, a thing existing in one instant of time with an idea that either abstracts it, or confusedly embraces all that has passed since the epoch when the consciousness of the reflecting being commenced.
96. These arguments have much greater weight when directed against those philosophers who place the essence of the mind not in the power of thinking but in thought itself; who give to the me no other existence than what springs from its own knowledge, affirming that it exists only because it supposes itself, by knowing itself, and only in so far as it supposes itself, that is, in so far as it knows itself. With this system there is duality, or rather plurality, not only in the acts, but even in the me itself; because this me is an act, and acts follow like a series of fluxions developed to infinity. Thus, far from saving the unity and identity of subject and object, plurality and multiplicity are established in the subject itself; and the unity of consciousness itself, in danger of being broken by the cavils of philosophers, is forced to take refuge in the obscurity of invincible nature.
97. We have thus incontestably proved that there is in us a duality of subject and object, that without it knowledge is inconceivable, and that representation itself is a contradiction unless in one sense or another we admit things really distinct in the recesses of intelligence. We beg to observe that we have a sublime type of this distinction in the august mystery of the Trinity, the fundamental dogma of our holy religion, covered, indeed, with an impenetrable veil, but which sends forth light to illustrate the profoundest questions of philosophy. This mystery is not explained by feeble man, but is for him a sublime explanation. Thus Plato availed himself of glimmerings from this focus as a treasure of immense value to philosophical theories; thus the Holy Fathers and theologians, in endeavoring to throw some light upon it by arguments of congruity, have illustrated the most occult mysteries of human thought.
98. The upholders of universal identity, besides contradicting a primitive and fundamental fact of consciousness, signally fail in their efforts to explain by it either the origin of intellectual representation or its conformity to its object. Evidently no man has an intuition of the nature of the individual me, and still less of the absolute being which these philosophers suppose as the substratum of whatever exists or appears. It is impossible for them to explain a priori, without this intuition, the representation of objects or their conformity to the representation. The fact, therefore, on which they would base their whole philosophy, either does not exist, or is unknown to us: in neither case can it serve as the foundation of a system.
Were this fact to exist, it could not be presented to our mind by any enunciation to which we could arrive by reasoning. It must be seen rather than known; either occupy the first place or none. If we begin to reason without taking this fact for our basis, we start from the apparent in order to attain to what truly is; we make use of an illusion to arrive at reality. Thus it evidently follows from the system of our adversaries that philosophy must either start with the most powerful intuition, or else it cannot advance a single step.
99. The schools distinguish between the principle of being and the principle of knowledge, principium essendi et principium cognoscendi; but this distinction has no place in the system which we oppose; being is there confounded with knowledge; what exists, exists because it is known, and it exists only in so far as it is known. To draw out the series of cognitions, is to develop the series of existences. They are not even two parallel movements; they are but one movement; the me is the universe, and the universe is the me; whatever exists is a development of the primitive fact, is the fact itself which is displayed under different forms, extending like an infinite ocean; its position is unlimited space; its duration eternity.(8)
CHAPTER IX.
UNIVERSAL IDENTITY, – CONTINUED
100. These systems, as absurd as they are fatal, although under distinct forms, and by various means, they tend to prepare the way for pantheism, contain a profound truth which, disfigured by vain cavils, seems to be an abyss of darkness, whereas it is in itself a ray of most brilliant light.
The human mind seeks that by reason to which it is impelled by an intellectual instinct; how to reduce plurality to unity, to re-unite, as it were, all the variety of existences in a point from which they all proceed, and in which they are all absorbed. The understanding knows that the conditioned must be included in the unconditioned, the relative in the absolute, the finite in the infinite, the various in the one. In this, all religions, all schools of philosophy agree. The proclamation of this truth belongs to no one of them exclusively; it is to be met with in all countries of the world, in primitive times, back even to the cradle of the human race. Beautiful, sublime tradition! Preserved through all generations, amid the ebb and flow of events, it offers us the idea of the Divinity presiding over the origin and destiny of the universe.
101. Yes! The unity sought by philosophers is the Divinity itself, – the Divinity whose glory the firmament declares, and whose august face of ineffable splendor appears to us in our inmost consciousness. Yes! it is the Divinity which enlightens and guides the true philosopher, but blinds and confounds the proud sophist; it is what the true philosopher calls God, and venerates and adores in the sanctuary of his soul, but what the insensate philosopher, with sacrilegious profanation, calls the me. Considering its personality, its consciousness, its infinite intelligence, and its most perfect liberty, it is the foundation and the copestone of religion: distinct from the world, it produced the world from nothing, and preserves and governs it, and leads it by mysterious paths to the destiny assigned in its immutable decrees.
102. There is then unity in the world; there is unity in philosophy. In this all agree; the difference is that some separate, with the greatest care, the finite from the infinite, the thing created from the creative power, unity from multiplicity, and maintain the necessary communication between the free will of the omnipotent agent and finite existences, between the wisdom of the sovereign intelligence and the fixed course of the universe: while others, affected with melancholy blindness, confound the effect with the cause, the finite with the infinite, the various with the one, and reproduce in the domain of philosophy the chaos of primeval times; but all scattering and in frightful confusion, without any hope of order or union: the earth of these philosophers is void, and darkness is upon the face of their deep; the spirit of God has not moved over the waters to fecundate the chaos, and produce oceans of life and light out of darkness and death.
The absurd systems invented by philosophical vanity explain nothing; the system of religion, which is that also of sound philosophy, and of all mankind, explains everything: the intellectual, as well as the corporeal world, is a chaos to the human mind the instant it abandons the idea of God: restore this and order reappears.
103. The two capital problems: whence the intellectual representation, and whence its conformity to objects, have with us a most simple explanation. Our understanding, although limited, participates in the infinite light; this light is not that which exists in God himself, but a semblance communicated to a being created according to his image.
Illumined by this light, objects shine upon the eyes of our mind, whether because they are in communication with it by means unknown to us, or because the representation is given to us directly by God, in the presence of objects.
The conformity of the representation to the thing represented, results from the divine veracity. An infinitely perfect God cannot take pleasure in deceiving his creatures. Such is the theory of Descartes and Malebranche, eminent thinkers, who took no step in the intellectual order, without looking to the Author of all light, and who never wrote a page on which the name of God was not traced.
104. As will hereafter be seen, Malebranche admitted that man sees every thing in God, even in this life; but his system, far from identifying the human me with the infinite being, carefully distinguishes them, not finding other means to sustain and enlighten the former than by approximating and uniting it to the second. To read the great metaphysician's immortal work is enough to convince one that his system was not that of this pure, primitive intuition, which is an act required of all empiricism, and which seems to rise within the limits of philosophy, from that intuition of the simple fact, the origin of all ideas and all facts, in which one of the dogmas of our religion, the beatific vision, seems realized upon earth in the domain of philosophy. These are senseless pretensions, and as far from the mind as from the system of Malebranche.(9)