Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good Part 6

[55] Edit. Bened., vol. vi., p. 18. _Singula igitur propriis creata sunt rationibus. Has autem rationes ubi arbitrandum est esse nisi in mente Creatoris? non enim extra se quidquam intuebatur, ut secundum id const.i.tueret quod const.i.tuebat: nam hoc opinari sacrilegum est._

[56] _Ibid._ See also, book of the _Confessions_, book ii. of the _Free Will_, book xii. of the _Trinity_, book vii. of the _City of G.o.d_, &c.

[57] _Summa totius theologiae_. Primae partis quaest. xii. art. 11. _Ad tertium dicendum, quod omnia dicimus in Deo videre, et secundum ipsum de omnibus judicare, in quantum per partic.i.p.ationem sui luminis omnia cognoscimus et dijudicamus. Nam et ipsum lumen naturale rationis partic.i.p.atio quaedam est divini luminis._

[58] On the doctrine of Descartes, and on the proof of the existence of G.o.d and the true process that he employs, see 1st Series, vol. iv., lecture 12, p. 64, lecture 22, p. 509-518; vol. v., lecture 6, p. 205; 2d Series, vol. xi., lecture 11; especially the three articles, already cited, of the _Journal des Savants_ for the year 1850.

[59] See on Malebranche, 2d Series, lecture 2, and 3d Series, vol. iii., _Modern Philosophy_, as well as the _Fragments of Cartesian Philosophy_; preface of the 1st edition of our _Pascal_:--"On this basis, so pure, Malebranche is not steady; is excessive and rash, I know; narrow and extreme, I do not fear to say; but always sublime, expressing only one side of Plato, but expressing it in a wholly Christian spirit and in angelic language. Malebranche is a Descartes who strays, having found divine wings, and lost all connection with the earth."

[60] We use the only good edition of the treatise on the Existence of G.o.d, that which the Abbe Gosselin has given in the collection of the _Works of Fenelon_. Versailles, 1820. See vol. i., p. 80.

[61] Edit. de Versailles, p. 145.

[62] It is not necessary to remark how incorrect are the expressions, _representation of the infinite, image of the infinite_, especially _infinite image of the infinite_. We cannot represent to ourselves, we cannot imagine to ourselves the infinite. We conceive the infinite; the infinite is not an object of the imagination, but of the understanding, of reason. See 1st Series, vol. v., lecture 6, p. 223, 224.

[63] By a trifling anachronism, for which we shall be pardoned, we have here joined to the _Traite de la Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi-meme_, so long known, the _Logique_, which was only published in 1828.

[64] 4th Series, vol. i., preface of the 1st edition of _Pascal_: "Bossuet, with more moderation, and supported by a good sense which nothing can shake, is, in his way, a disciple of the same doctrine, only the extremes of which according to his custom, he shunned. This great mind, which may have superiors in invention, but has no equal for force in common sense, was very careful not to place revelation and philosophy in opposition to each other: he found it the safer and truer way to give to each its due, to borrow from philosophy whatever natural light it can give, in order to increase it in turn with the supernatural light, of which the Church has been made the depository. It is in this sovereign good sense, capable of comprehending every thing, and uniting every thing, that resides the supreme originality of Bossuet. He shunned particular opinions as small minds seek them for the triumph of self-love. He did not think of himself; he only searched for truth, and wherever he found it he listened to it, well a.s.sured that if the connection between truths of different orders sometimes escapes us, it is no reason for closing the eyes to any truth. If we wished to give a scholastic name to Bossuet, according to the custom of the Middle Age, we would have to call him the infallible doctor. He is not only one of the highest, he is also one of the best and solidest intelligences that ever existed; and this great conciliator has easily reconciled religion and philosophy, St. Augustine and Descartes, tradition and reason."

[65] The best, or, rather, only good edition is that which was published from an authentic copy, in 1846, by Lecoffre.

[66] These words, _d'une certaine maniere qui m'est incomprehensible, c'est en lui, dis-je_, are not in the first edition of 1722.

[67] _Leibnitzii Opera_, edit. Deutens, vol. ii., p. 17.

[68] _Ibid._, p. 24.

[69] 1st edition, Amsterdam, 1710, p. 354, edit. of M. de Jaucourt, Amsterdam, 1747, vol. ii., p. 93.

[70] We have many times designated these two rocks, for example, 2d Series, vol. i., lecture 5, p. 92:--"One cannot help smiling when, in our times, he hears individual reason spoken against. In truth it is a great waste of declamation, for the reason is not individual; if it were, we should govern it as we govern our resolutions and our volitions, we could at any moment change its acts, that is to say, our conceptions. If these conceptions were merely individual, we should not think of imposing them upon another individual, for to impose our own individual and personal conceptions on another individual, on another person, would be the most extravagant despotism.... We call those mad who do not admit the relations of numbers, the difference between the beautiful and the ugly, the just and the unjust. Why? Because we know that it is not the individual that const.i.tutes these conceptions, or, in other terms, we know that the reason has something universal and absolute, that upon this ground it obligates all individuals; and an individual, at the same time that he knows that he himself is obligated by it, knows that all others are obligated by it on the same ground."--_Ibid._, p. 93: "Truth misconceived is thereby neither altered nor destroyed; it subsists independently of the reason that perceives it or perceives it ill. Truth in itself is independent of our reason. Its true subject is the universal and absolute reason."

LECTURE V.

ON MYSTICISM.

Distinction between the philosophy that we profess and mysticism. Mysticism consists in pretending to know G.o.d without an intermediary.--Two sorts of mysticism.--Mysticism of sentiment. Theory of sensibility. Two sensibilities--the one external, the other internal, and corresponding to the soul as external sensibility corresponds to nature.--Legitimate part of sentiment.--Its aberrations.--Philosophical mysticism. Plotinus: G.o.d, or absolute unity, perceived without an intermediary by pure thought.--Ecstasy.--Mixture of superst.i.tion and abstraction in mysticism.--Conclusion of the first part of the course.

Whether we turn our attention to the forces and the laws that animate and govern matter without belonging to it, or as the order of our labors calls us to do, reflect upon the universal and necessary truths which our mind discovers but does not const.i.tute, the least systematic use of reason makes us naturally conclude from the forces and laws of the universe that there is a first intelligent mover, and from necessary truths that there is a necessary being who alone is their substance. We do not perceive G.o.d, but we conceive him, upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to our view, and upon that of this other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves. By this double road we succeed in going to G.o.d. This natural course is that of all men: it must be sufficient for a sound philosophy. But there are feeble and presumptuous minds that do not know how to go thus far, or do not know how to stop there. Confined to experience, they do not dare to conclude from what they see in what they do not see, as if at all times, at the sight of the first phenomenon that appears to their eyes, they did not admit that this phenomenon has a cause, even when this cause does not come within the reach of their senses. They do not perceive it, yet they believe in it, for the simple reason that they necessarily conceive it.

Man and the universe are also facts that cannot but have a cause, although this cause may neither be seen by our eyes nor touched by our hands. Reason has been given us for the very purpose of going, and without any circuit of reasoning, from the visible to the invisible, from the finite to the infinite, from the imperfect to the perfect, and also, from necessary and universal truths, which surround us on every side, to their eternal and necessary principle. Such is the natural and legitimate bearing of reason. It possesses an evidence of which it renders no account, and is not thereby less irresistible to whomsoever does not undertake to contest with G.o.d the veracity of the faculties which he has received. But one does not revolt against reason with impunity. It punishes our false wisdom by giving us up to extravagance.

When one has confined himself to the narrow limits of what he directly perceives, he is smothered by these limits, wishes to go out of them at any price, and invokes some other means of knowing; he did not dare to admit the existence of an invisible G.o.d, and now behold him aspiring to enter into immediate communication with him, as with sensible objects, and the objects of consciousness. It is an extreme feebleness for a rational being thus to doubt reason, and it is an incredible rashness, in this despair of intelligence, to dream of direct communication with G.o.d. This desperate and ambitious dream is mysticism.

It behooves us to separate with care this chimera, that is not without danger, from the cause that we defend. It behooves us so much the more to openly break with mysticism, as it seems to touch us more nearly, as it pretends to be the last word of philosophy, and as by an appearance of greatness it is able to seduce many a n.o.ble soul, especially at one of those epochs of la.s.situde, when, after the cruel disappointment of excessive hopes, human reason, having lost faith in its own power without having lost the need of G.o.d, in order to satisfy this immortal need, addresses itself to every thing except itself, and in fault of knowing how to go to G.o.d by the way that is open to it, throws itself out of common sense, and tries the new, the chimerical, even the absurd, in order to attain the impossible.

Mysticism contains a pusillanimous skepticism in the place of reason, and, at the same time, a faith blind and carried even to the oblivion of all the conditions imposed upon human nature. To conceive G.o.d under the transparent veil of the universe and above the highest truths, is at once too much and too little for mysticism. It does not believe that it knows G.o.d, if it knows him only in his manifestations and by the signs of his existence: it wishes to perceive him directly, it wishes to be united to him, sometimes by sentiment, sometimes by some other extraordinary process.

Sentiment plays so important a part in mysticism, that our first care must be to investigate the nature and proper function of this interesting and hitherto ill-studied part of human nature.

It is necessary to distinguish sentiment well from sensation. There are, in some sort, two sensibilities: one is directed to the external world, and is charged with transmitting to the soul the impressions that it sees; the other is wholly interior, and is related to the soul as the other is to nature,--its function is to receive the impression, and, as it were, the rebound of what pa.s.ses in the soul. Have we discovered any truth? there is something in us which feels joy on account of it. Have we performed a good action? we receive our reward in a feeling of satisfaction less vivid, but more delicate and more durable than all the agreeable sensations that come from the body. It seems as if intelligence also had its intimate organ, which suffers or enjoys, according to the state of the intelligence. We bear in ourselves a profound source of emotion, at once physical and moral, which expresses the union of our two natures. The animal does not go beyond sensation, and pure thought belongs only to the angelic nature. The sentiment that partakes of sensation and thought is the portion of humanity. Sentiment is, it is true, only an echo of reason; but this echo is sometimes better understood than reason itself, because it resounds in the most intimate, the most delicate portions of the soul, and moves the entire man.

It is a singular, but incontestable fact, that as soon as reason has conceived truth, the soul attaches itself to it, and loves it. Yes, the soul loves truth. It is a wonderful thing that a being strayed into one corner of the universe, alone charged with sustaining himself against so many obstacles, who, it would seem, has enough to do to think of himself, to preserve and somewhat embellish his life, is capable of loving what is not related to him, and exists only in an invisible world! This disinterested love of truth gives evidence of the greatness of him who feels it.

Reason takes one step more:--it is not contented with truth, even absolute truth, when convinced that it possesses it ill, that it does not possess it as it really is; as long as it has not placed it upon its eternal basis; having arrived there, it stops as before its impa.s.sable barrier, having nothing more to seek, nothing more to find. Sentiment follows reason, to which it is attached; it stops, it rests, only in the love of the infinite being.

In fact, it is the infinite that we love, while we believe that we are loving finite things, even while loving truth, beauty, virtue. And so surely is it the infinite itself that attracts and charms us, that its highest manifestations do not satisfy us until we have referred them to their immortal source. The heart is insatiable, because it aspires after the infinite. This sentiment, this need of the infinite, is at the foundation of the greatest pa.s.sions, and the most trifling desires. A sigh of the soul in the presence of the starry heavens, the melancholy attached to the pa.s.sion of glory, to ambition, to all the great emotions of the soul, express it better without doubt, but they do not express it more than the caprice and mobility of those vulgar loves, wandering from object to object in a perpetual circle of ardent desires, of poignant disquietudes, and mournful disenchantments.

Let us designate another relation between reason and sentiment.

The mind at first precipitates itself towards its object without rendering to itself an account of what it does, of what it perceives, of what it feels. But, with the faculty of thinking, of feeling, it has also that of willing; it possesses the liberty of returning to itself, of reflecting on its own thought and sentiment, of consenting to this, or of resisting it, of abstaining from it, or of reproducing its thought and sentiment, while stamping them with a new character. Spontaneity, reflection,--these are the two great forms of intelligence.[71] One is not the other; but, after all, the latter does little more than develop the former; they contain at bottom the same things:--the point of view alone is different. Every thing that is spontaneous is obscure and confused; reflection carries with it a clear and distinct view.

Reason does not begin by reflection; it does not at first perceive the truth as universal and necessary; consequently, when it pa.s.ses from idea to being, when it refers truth to the real being that is its subject, it has not sounded, it even has no suspicion of the depth of the chasm it pa.s.ses; it pa.s.ses it by means of the power which is in it, but it is not astonished at what it has done. It is subsequently astonished, and undertakes by the aid of the liberty with which it is endowed, to do the opposite of what it has done, to deny what it has affirmed. Here commences the strife between sophism and common sense, between false science and natural truth, between good and bad philosophy, both of which come from free reflection. The sad and sublime privilege of reflection is error; but reflection is the remedy for the evil it produces. If it can deny natural truth, usually it confirms it, returns to common sense by a longer or shorter circuit; it opposes in vain all the tendencies of human nature, by which it is almost always overcome, and brought back submissive to the first inspirations of reason, fortified by this trial. But there is nothing more in the end than there was at the beginning; only in primitive inspiration there was a power which was ignorant of itself, and in the legitimate results of reflection there is a power which knows itself:--one is the triumph of instinct, the other, that of true science.

Sentiment which accompanies intelligence in all its proceedings presents the same phenomena.

The heart, like reason, pursues the infinite, and the only difference there is in these pursuits is, that sometimes the heart seeks the infinite without knowing that it seeks it, and sometimes it renders to itself an account of the final end of the need of loving what disturbs it. When reflection is added to love, if it finds that the object loved is in fact worthy of being loved, far from enfeebling love, it strengthens it; far from clipping its divine wings, it develops them, and nourishes them, as Plato[72] says. But if the object of love is only a symbol of the true beauty, only capable of exciting the desire of the soul without satisfying it, reflection breaks the charm which held the heart, dissipates the chimera that enchained it. It must be very sure in regard to its attachments, in order to dare to put them to the proof of reflection. O Psyche! Psyche! preserve thy good fortune; do not sound the mystery too deeply. Take care not to bring the fearful light near the invisible lover with whom thy soul is enamored. At the first ray of the fatal lamp love is awakened, and flies away. Charming image of what takes place in the soul, when to the serene and unsuspecting confidence of sentiment succeeds reflection with its bitter train. This is perhaps also the meaning of the biblical account of the tree of knowledge.[73]

Before science and reflection are innocence and faith. Science and reflection at first engender doubt, disquietude, distaste for what one possesses, the disturbed pursuit of what one knows not, troubles of mind and soul, sore travail of thought, and, in life, many faults, until innocence, forever lost, is replaced by virtue, simple faith by true science, until love, through so many vanishing illusions, finally succeeds in reaching its true object.

Spontaneous love has the native grace of ignorance and happiness.

Reflective love is very different; it is serious, it is great, even in its faults, with the greatness of liberty. Let us not be in haste to condemn reflection: if it often produces egotism, it also produces devotion. What, in fact, is self-devotion? It is giving ourselves freely, with full knowledge of what we are doing. Therein consists the sublimity of love, love worthy of a n.o.ble and generous creature, not an ignorant and blind love. When affection has conquered selfishness, instead of loving its object for its own sake, the soul gives itself to its object, and miracle of love, the more it gives the more it possesses, nourishing itself by its own sacrifices, and finding its strength and its joy in its entire self-abandonment. But there is only one being who is worthy of being thus loved, and who can be thus loved without illusions, and without mistakes, at once without limits, and without regret, to wit, the perfect being who alone does not fear reflection, who alone can fill the entire capacity of our heart.

Mysticism corrupts sentiment by exaggerating its power.

Mysticism begins by suppressing in man reason, or, at least, it subordinates and sacrifices reason to sentiment.

Listen to mysticism: it says that by the heart alone is man in relation with G.o.d. All that is great, beautiful, infinite, eternal, love alone reveals to us. Reason is only a lying faculty. Because it may err, and does err, it is said that it always errs. Reason is confounded with every thing that it is not. The errors of the senses, and of reasoning, the illusions of the imagination, even the extravagances of pa.s.sion, which sometimes give rise to those of mind, every thing is laid to the charge of reason. Its imperfections are triumphed over, its miseries are complacently exhibited; the most audacious dogmatical system--since it aspires to put man and G.o.d in immediate communication--borrows against reason all the arms of skepticism.

Mysticism goes farther: it attacks liberty itself; it orders liberty to renounce itself, in order to identify itself by love with him from whom the infinite separates us. The ideal of virtue is no longer the courageous perseverance of the good man, who, in struggling against temptation and suffering, makes life holy; it is no longer the free and enlightened devotion of a loving soul; it is the entire and blind abandonment of ourselves, of our will, of our being, in a barren contemplation of thought, in a prayer without utterance, and almost without consciousness.

The source of mysticism is in that incomplete view of human nature, which knows not how to discern in it what therein is most profound, which betakes itself to what is therein most striking, most seizing, and, consequently, also most seizable. We have already said that reason is not noisy, and often is not heard, whilst its echo of sentiment loudly resounds. In this compound phenomenon, it is natural that the most apparent element should cover and dim the most obscure.

Moreover, what relations, what deceptive resemblances between these two faculties! Without doubt, in their development, they manifestly differ; when reason becomes reasoning, one easily distinguishes its heavy movement from the flight of sentiment; but spontaneous reason is almost confounded with sentiment,--there is the same rapidity, the same obscurity. Add that they pursue the same object, and almost always go together. It is not, then, astonishing that they should be confounded.

A wise philosophy distinguishes[74] them without separating them.

a.n.a.lysis demonstrates that reason precedes, and that sentiment follows.

How can we love what we are ignorant of? In order to enjoy the truth, is it not necessary to know it more or less? In order to be moved by certain ideas, is it not necessary to have possessed them in some degree? To absorb reason in sentiment is to stifle the cause in the effect. When one speaks of the light of the heart, he designates, without knowing it, that light of the spontaneous reason which discovers to us truth by a pure and immediate intuition entirely opposite to the slow and laborious processes of the reflective reason and reasoning.

Sentiment by itself is a source of emotion, not of knowledge. The sole faculty of knowledge is reason. At bottom, if sentiment is different from sensation, it nevertheless pertains on all sides to general sensibility, and it is, like it, variable; it has, like it, its interruptions, its vivacity, and its la.s.situde, its exaltation and its short-comings. The inspirations of sentiment, then, which are essentially mobile and individual, cannot be raised to a universal and absolute rule. It is not so with reason; it is constantly the same in each one of us, the same in all men. The laws that govern its exercise const.i.tute the common legislation of all intelligent beings. There is no intelligence that does not conceive some universal and necessary truth, and, consequently, the infinite being who is its principle. These grand objects being once known excite in the souls of all men the emotions that we have endeavored to describe. These emotions partake of the dignity of reason and the mobility of imagination and sensibility.

Sentiment is the harmonious and living relation between reason and sensibility. Suppress one of the two terms, and what becomes of the relation? Mysticism pretends to elevate man directly to G.o.d, and does not see that in depriving reason of its power, it really deprives him of that which makes him know G.o.d, and puts him in a just communication with G.o.d by the intermediary of eternal and infinite truth.

The fundamental error of mysticism is, that it discards this intermediary, as if it were a barrier and not a tie: it makes the infinite being the direct object of love. But such a love can be sustained only by superhuman efforts that end in folly. Love tends to unite itself with its object: mysticism absorbs love in its object.

Hence the extravagances of that mysticism so severely and so justly condemned by Bossuet and the Church in quietism.[75] Quietism lulls to sleep the activity of man, extinguishes his intelligence, subst.i.tutes indolent and irregular contemplation for the seeking of truth and the fulfilment of duty. The true union of the soul with G.o.d is made by truth and virtue. Every other union is a chimera, a peril, sometimes a crime.

It is not permitted man to reject, under any pretext, that which makes him man, that which renders him capable of comprehending G.o.d, and expressing in himself an imperfect image of G.o.d, that is to say, reason, liberty, conscience. Without doubt, virtue has its prudence, and if we must never yield to pa.s.sion, there are diverse ways of combating it in order to conquer it. One can let it subside, and resignation and silence may have their legitimate employment. There is a portion of truth, of utility even, in the _Spiritual Letters_, even in the _Maxims of the Saints_. But, in general, it is unsafe to antic.i.p.ate in this world the prerogatives of death, and to dream of sanct.i.ty when virtue alone is required of us, when virtue is so difficult to attain, even imperfectly.

The best quietism can, at most, be only a halt in the course, a truce in the strife, or rather another manner of combating. It is not by flight that battles are gained; in order to gain them it is necessary to come to an engagement, so much the more as duty consists in combating still more than in conquering. Of the two opposite extremes--stoicism and quietism--the first, taken all in all, is preferable to the second; for if it does not always elevate man to G.o.d, it maintains, at least, human personality, liberty, conscience, whilst quietism, in abolishing these, abolishes the entire man. Oblivion of life and its duties, inertness, sloth, death of soul,--such are the fruits of that love of G.o.d, which is lost in the sterile contemplation of its object, provided it does not cause still sadder aberrations! There comes a moment when the soul that believes itself united with G.o.d, puffed up with this imaginary possession, despises both the body and human personality to such an extent that all its actions become indifferent to it, and good and evil are in its eyes the same. Thus it is that fanatical sects have been seen mingling crime and devotion, finding in one the excuse, often even the motive, of the other, and prefacing infamous irregularities or abominable cruelties with mystic transports,--deplorable consequences of the chimera of pure love, of the pretension of sentiment to rule over reason, to serve alone as a guide to the human soul, and to put itself in direct communication with G.o.d, without the intermediary of the visible world, and without the still surer intermediary of intelligence and truth.

But it is time to pa.s.s to another kind of mysticism, more singular, more learned, more refined, and quite as unreasonable, although it presents itself in the very name of reason.