III WHAT IS THIS PRINCIPLE?

I cannot prove synthetically the existence of the principle of action, the prime mover, the Supreme Being, as Dr. Clarke does. If this method were in the power of man, Clarke was, perhaps, worthy to employ it; but analysis seems to me more suitable for our poor ideas. It is only by ascending the stream of eternity that I can attempt to reach its source.

Having therefore recognised from movement that there is a mover; having proved from action that there is a principle of action; I seek the nature of this universal principle. And the first thing I perceive, with secret distress but entire resignation, is that, being an imperceptible part of the great whole; being, as Plato says in the Timæus, a point between two eternities; it will be impossible for me to understand this great whole, which hems me in on every side, and its master.

Yet I am a little reassured on seeing that I am[211] able to measure the distance of the stars, and to recognise the course and the laws which keep them in their orbits. I say to myself: Perhaps, if I use my reason in good faith, I may succeed in discovering some ray of probability to lighten me in the dark night of nature. And if this faint dawn which I seek does not come to me, I shall be consoled to think that my ignorance is invincible; that knowledge which is forbidden me is assuredly useless to me; and that the great Being will not punish me for having sought a knowledge of him and failed to obtain it. IV WHERE IS THE FIRST PRINCIPLE? IS IT INFINITE?

I do not see the first motive and intelligent principle of the animal called man, when he demonstrates a geometrical proposition or lifts a burden. Yet I feel irresistibly that there is one in him, however subordinate. I cannot discover whether this first principle is in his heart, or in his head, or in his blood, or in his whole body. In the same way I have detected a first principle in nature, and have seen that it must necessarily be eternal. But where is it?

If it animates all existence, it is in all existence: that seems to be beyond doubt. It is in all that exists, just as movement is in the whole body of an animal, if one may use so poor a comparison.

But while it is in what exists, can it be in what does not exist? Is the universe infinite? I am[212] told that it is; but who will prove it? I regard it as eternal, because it cannot have been made from nothing; because the great principle, “nothing comes from nothing,” is as true as that two and two make four; because, as we saw elsewhere, it is an absurd contradiction to say that the active being has spent an eternity without acting, the formative being has been eternal without forming anything, and the necessary being has been, during an eternity, a useless being.

But I see no reason why this necessary being should be infinite. Its nature seems to me to be wherever there is existence; but why, and how, an infinite existence? Newton has demonstrated the void, which had until his time been a matter of conjecture. If there is a void in nature, there may be a void outside nature. What need is there that beings should extend to infinity? What would an infinite extension be? Nor can we have infinity in number. There is no number and no extension to which I cannot add. It seems to me that in this matter the conclusion of Cudworth is preferable to that of Clarke.

God is present everywhere, says Clarke. Yes, doubtless; but everywhere where there is something, not where there is not. To be present in nothing seems to me a contradiction in terms, an absurdity. I am compelled to admit eternity, but I am not compelled to admit an actual infinity.

In fine, what does it matter to me whether space is a reality or merely an idea in my mind? What does it matter whether or no the necessary, intelligent, powerful, eternal being, the former of all being,[213] is in this imaginary space? Am I less his work? Am I less dependent on him? Is he the less my master? I see this master of the world with the eyes of my mind, but I see him not beyond the world.

It is still disputed whether or no infinite space is a reality. I will not base my judgment on so equivocal a point, a quarrel worthy of the scholastics. I will not set up the throne of God in imaginary spaces.

If it is allowable to compare once more the little things which seem large to us to what is great in reality, let us imagine a gentleman of Madrid trying to persuade a Castilian neighbour that the king of Spain is master of the sea to the north of California, and that whoever doubts it is guilty of high treason. The Castilian replies: I do not even know whether there is a sea beyond California. It matters little to me whether there is or not, provided that I have the means of subsistence in Madrid. I do not need this sea to be discovered to make me faithful to the king my master on the banks of the Manzanares. Whether or no there are vessels beyond Hudson Bay, he has none the less power to command me here; I feel my dependence on him in Madrid, because I know that he is master of Madrid.

In the same way, our dependence on the great being is not due to the fact that he is present outside the world, but to the fact that he is present in the world. I do but ask pardon of the master of nature for comparing him to a frail human being in order to make my meaning clearer.

V THAT ALL THE WORKS OF THE ETERNAL BEING ARE ETERNAL

The principle of nature being necessary and eternal, and its very essence being to act, it must have been always active. If it had not been an ever-active God, it would have been an eternally indolent God, the God of Epicurus, the God who is good for nothing. This truth seems to me to be fully demonstrated.

Hence the world, his work, whatever form it assume, is, like him, eternal; just as the light is as old as the sun, movement as old as matter, and food as old as the animals; otherwise the sun, matter, and the animals would be, not merely useless, but self-contradictory things, chimæras.

What, indeed, could be more contradictory than an essentially active being that has been inactive during an eternity; a formative being that has fashioned nothing, or merely formed a few globes some years ago, without there being the least apparent reason for making them at one time rather than another? The intelligent principle can do nothing without reason; nothing can exist without an antecedent and necessary reason. This antecedent and necessary reason has existed eternally; therefore the universe is eternal.

We speak here a strictly philosophical language; it is not our part even to glance at those who use the language of revelation.

VI THAT THE ETERNAL BEING, AND FIRST PRINCIPLE, HAS ARRANGED ALL THINGS VOLUNTARILY

It is clear that this supreme, necessary, active intelligence is possessed of will, and has arranged all things because it[69] willed them. How can one act, and fashion all things, without willing to fashion them? That would be the action of a mere machine, and this machine would presuppose another first principle, another mover. We should always have to end in a first intelligent being of some kind or other. We wish, we act, we make machines, when we will; hence the great very powerful Demiourgos has done all things because he willed.

Spinoza himself recognises in nature an intelligent, necessary power. But an intelligence without will would be an absurdity, since such an intelligence would be useless; it would do nothing, because it would not will to do anything. Hence the great necessary being has willed everything that it has done.

I said above that it has done all things necessarily because, if its works were not necessary, they would be useless. But does this necessity deprive it of will? Certainly not. I necessarily will to be happy, but I will it none the less on that account;[216] on the contrary, I will it all the more strongly because I will it irresistibly.

Does this necessity deprive it of liberty? Not at all. Liberty can only be the power to act. Since the supreme being is very powerful, it is the freest of beings.

We thus recognise that the great artisan of things is necessary, eternal, intelligent, powerful, possessed of will, and free. VII THAT ALL BEINGS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, ARE SUBJECT TO ETERNAL LAWS

What are the effects of this eternal power that dwells essentially in nature? I see only two classes of them, the insensitive and the sensitive.

The earth, the seas, the planets, the suns, seem admirable but lifeless things, devoid of sensibility. A snail that wills, has some degree of perception, and makes love, seems, to that extent, to have an advantage greater than all the glory of the suns that illumine space.

But all these beings are alike subject to eternal and unvarying laws.

Neither the sun, nor the snail, nor the oyster, nor the dog, nor the ape, nor man, has given himself any one of the things which he has; it is evident that they have received everything.

Man and the dog are born, unwittingly, of a mother who has brought them into the world in spite of herself. Both of them suck the mother’s[217] breast without knowing what they do, and they do this in virtue of a very delicate and complex mechanism, the nature of which is known to few men.

Both of them have, after a time, ideas, memory, and will; the dog much earlier than the man.

If the animals were mere machines, it would be another argument for the position of those who believe that man also is a mere machine; but there are now none who do not admit that the animals have ideas, memory, and a measure of intelligence, and that they improve their knowledge; that a hunting-dog learns its work, an old fox is more astute than a young one, and so on.

Whence have they these faculties, if not from the primordial eternal cause, the principle of action, the great being that animates the whole of nature?

Man obtains the faculties of the animals much later than they, but in a higher degree; can he obtain them from any other source?

He has nothing but what the great being has given him. It would be a strange contradiction, a singular absurdity, if all the stars and elements, the animals and plants, obeyed, unceasingly and irresistibly, the laws of the great being, and man alone were independent of them.