Theodicy Part 20

A new reason makes a heavier weight, a new idea shines more brightly than the old; the fear of a heavy penalty prevails over some pleasure; when two pa.s.sions dispute the ground, it is always the stronger which gains the mastery, unless the other be a.s.sisted by reason or by some other [322]

contributing pa.s.sion. When one flings away merchandise in order to save oneself, the action, which the Schoolmen call mixed, is voluntary and free; and yet love of life indubitably prevails over love of possessions. Grief arises from remembrance of lost possessions, and one has all the greater difficulty in making one's resolve, the nearer the approach to even weight in the opposing reasons, as also we see that the balance is determined more promptly when there is a great difference between the weights.

325. Nevertheless, as very often there are divers courses to choose from, one might, instead of the balance, compare the soul with a force which puts forth effort on various sides simultaneously, but which acts only at the spot where action is easiest or there is least resistance. For instance, air if it is compressed too firmly in a gla.s.s vessel will break it in order to escape. It puts forth effort at every part, but finally flings itself upon the weakest. Thus do the inclinations of the soul extend over all the goods that present themselves: they are antecedent acts of will; but the consequent will, which is their result, is determined in the direction of that which touches most closely.

326. This ascendancy of inclinations, however, does not prevent man from being master in his own domain, provided that he knows how to make use of his power. His dominion is that of reason: he has only to prepare himself in good time to resist the pa.s.sions, and he will be capable of checking the vehemence of the most furious. Let us a.s.sume that Augustus, about to give orders for putting to death Fabius Maximus, acts, as is his wont, upon the advice a philosopher had given him, to recite the Greek alphabet before doing anything in the first heat of his anger: this reflexion will be capable of saving the life of Fabius and the glory of Augustus. But without some fortunate reflexion, which one owes sometimes to a special divine mercy, or without some skill acquired beforehand, like that of Augustus, calculated to make us reflect fittingly as to time and place, pa.s.sion will prevail over reason. The driver is master over the horses if he controls them as he should, and as he can; but there are occasions when he becomes negligent, and then for a time he will have to let go the reins:

_Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas_.

327. One must admit that there is always within us enough power over [323]

our will, but we do not always bethink ourselves of employing it. That shows, as I have observed more than once, that the power of the soul over its inclinations is a control which can only be exercised in an _indirect_ manner, almost as Bellarmine would have had the Popes exercise rights over the temporal power of kings. In truth, the external actions that do not exceed our powers depend absolutely upon our will; but our volitions depend upon our will only through certain artful twists which give us means of suspending our resolutions, or of changing them. We are masters in our own house, not as G.o.d is in the world, he having but to speak, but as a wise prince is in his dominions or as a good father of a family is in his home.

M. Bayle sometimes takes the matter differently, as though we must have, in order to boast of a free will, an absolute power over ourselves, independent of reasons and of means. But even G.o.d has not such a power, and must not have in this sense, in relation to his will: he cannot change his nature, nor act otherwise than according to method; and how could man transform himself all of a sudden? I have already said G.o.d's dominion, the dominion of wisdom, is that of reason. It is only G.o.d, however, who always wills what is most to be desired, and consequently he has no need of the power to change his will. 328. If the soul is mistress in its own house (says M. Bayle, p. 753) it has only to will, and straightway that vexation and pain which is attendant upon victory over the pa.s.sions will vanish away. For this effect it would suffice, in his opinion, to give oneself indifference to the objects of the pa.s.sions (p. 758). Why, then, do men not give themselves this indifference (he says), if they are masters in their own house? But this objection is exactly as if I were to ask why a father of a family does not give himself gold when he has need thereof? He can acquire some, but through skill, and not, as in the age of the fairies, or of King Midas, through a mere command of the will or by his touch. It would not suffice to be master in one's own house; one must be master of all things in order to give oneself all that one wishes; for one does not find everything in one's own house. Working thus upon oneself, one must do as in working upon something else; one must have knowledge of the const.i.tution and the qualities of one's object, and adapt one's operations thereto. It is therefore not in a moment and by a mere act of the will that one corrects oneself, and that one acquires a better will.

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329. Nevertheless it is well to observe that the vexations and pains attendant upon victory over the pa.s.sions in some people turn into pleasure, through the great satisfaction they find in the lively sense of the force of their mind, and of the divine grace. Ascetics and true mystics can speak of this from experience; and even a true philosopher can say something thereof. One can attain to that happy state, and it is one of the princ.i.p.al means the soul can use to strengthen its dominion.

330. If the Scotists and the Molinists appear to favour vague indifference (appear, I say, for I doubt whether they do so in reality, once they have learnt to know it), the Thomists and the disciples of Augustine are for predetermination. For one must have either the one or the other. Thomas Aquinas is a writer who is accustomed to reason on sound principles, and the subtle Scotus, seeking to contradict him, often obscures matters instead of throwing light upon them. The Thomists as a general rule follow their master, and do not admit that the soul makes its resolve without the existence of some predetermination which contributes thereto. But the predetermination of the new Thomists is not perhaps exactly that which one needs. Durand de Saint-Pourcain, who often enough formed a party of his own, and who opposed the idea of the special co-operation of G.o.d, was nevertheless in favour of a certain predetermination. He believed that G.o.d saw in the state of the soul, and of its surroundings, the reason for his determinations.

331. The ancient Stoics were in that almost of the same opinion as the Thomists. They were at the same time in favour of determination and against necessity, although they have been accused of attaching necessity to everything. Cicero says in his book _De Fato_ that Democritus, Herac.l.i.tus, Empedocles and Aristotle believed that fate implied necessity; that others were opposed to that (he means perhaps Epicurus and the Academicians); and that Chrysippus sought a middle course. I think that Cicero is mistaken as regards Aristotle, who fully recognized contingency and freedom, and went even too far, saying (inadvertently, as I think) that propositions on contingent futurities had no determinate truth; on which point he was justifiably abandoned by most of the Schoolmen. Even Cleanthes, the teacher of Chrysippus, although he upheld the determinate truth of future events, denied their necessity. Had the Schoolmen, so fully convinced of this [325]

determination of contingent futurities (as were for instance the Fathers of Coimbra, authors of a famous Course of Philosophy), seen the connexion between things in the form wherein the System of General Harmony proclaims it, they would have judged that one cannot admit preliminary certainty, or determination of futurition, without admitting a predetermination of the thing in its causes and in its reasons.

332. Cicero has endeavoured to expound for us the middle course taken by Chrysippus; but Justus Lipsius observed, in his _Stoic Philosophy_, that the pa.s.sage from Cicero was mutilated, and that Aulus Gellius has preserved for us the whole argument of the Stoic philosopher (_Noct. Att._, lib. 6, c. 2). Here it is in epitome. Fate is the inevitable and eternal connexion of all events. Against this is urged in objection, that it follows that the acts of the will would be necessary, and that criminals, being coerced into evil, should not be punished. Chrysippus answers that evil springs from the original const.i.tution of souls, which forms part of the destined sequence; that souls which are of a good natural disposition offer stronger resistance to the impressions of external causes; but that those whose natural defects had not been corrected by discipline allowed themselves to be perverted. Next he distinguishes (according to Cicero) between princ.i.p.al causes and accessary causes, and uses the comparison of a cylinder, whose rotatory force and speed or ease in motion comes chiefly from its shape, whereas it would be r.e.t.a.r.ded by any roughness in formation. Nevertheless it has need of impulsion, even as the soul needs to be acted upon by the objects of the senses, and receives this impression according to its own const.i.tution.

333. Cicero considers that Chrysippus becomes so confused that, whether he will or no, he confirms the necessity of fate. M. Bayle is almost of the same opinion (_Dictionary_, art. 'Chrysippus', lit. H). He says that this philosopher does not get out of the bog, since the cylinder is regular or uneven according to what the craftsman has made it; and thus G.o.d, providence, fate will be the causes of evil in such a way as to render it necessary. Justus Lipsius answers that, according to the Stoics, evil came from matter. That is (to my mind) as if he had said that the stone on which the craftsman worked was sometimes too rough and too irregular to produce a good cylinder. M. Bayle cites against Chrysippus the fragments of Onomaus and Diogenia.n.u.s that Eusebius has preserved for us in the _Praeparatio[326]

Evangelica_ (lib. 6, c. 7, 8); and above all he relies upon Plutarch's refutation in his book against the Stoics, quoted art. 'Paulicians', lit.

G. But this refutation does not amount to very much. Plutarch maintains that it would be better to deny power to G.o.d than to impute to him the permission of evils; and he will not admit that evil may serve a greater good. I have already shown, on the contrary, that G.o.d cannot but be all-powerful, even though he can do no better than produce the best, which includes the permission of evil. Moreover, I have pointed out repeatedly that what is to the disadvantage of a part taken separately may serve the perfection of the whole.

334. Chrysippus had already made an observation to this effect, not only in his fourth book on Providence, as given by Aulus Gellius (lib. 6, c. 1) where he a.s.serts that evil serves to bring the good to notice (a reason which is not sufficient here), but still better when he applies the comparison of a stage play, in his second book on Nature (as Plutarch quotes it himself). There he says that there are sometimes portions in a comedy which are of no worth in themselves and which nevertheless lend grace to the whole poem. He calls these portions epigrams or inscriptions.

We have not enough acquaintance with the nature of the ancient comedy for full understanding of this pa.s.sage from Chrysippus; but since Plutarch a.s.sents to the fact, there is reason to believe that this comparison was not a poor one. Plutarch replies in the first place that the world is not like a play to provide entertainment. But that is a poor answer: the comparison lies in this point alone, that one bad part may make the whole better. He replies secondly that this bad pa.s.sage is only a small part of the comedy, whereas human life swarms with evils. This reply is of no value either: for he ought to have taken into account that what we know is also a very small part of the universe.

335. But let us return to the cylinder of Chrysippus. He is right in saying that vice springs from the original const.i.tution of some minds. He was met with the objection that G.o.d formed them, and he could only reply by pointing to the imperfection of matter, which did not permit G.o.d to do better. This reply is of no value, for matter in itself is indifferent to all forms, and G.o.d made it. Evil springs rather from the _Forms_ themselves in their detached state, that is, from the ideas that G.o.d has not produced by an act of his will, any more than he thus produced numbers and [327]

figures, and all possible essences which one must regard as eternal and necessary; for they are in the ideal region of the possibles, that is, in the divine understanding. G.o.d is therefore not the author of essences in so far as they are only possibilities. But there is nothing actual to which he has not decreed and given existence; and he has permitted evil because it is involved in the best plan existing in the region of possibles, a plan which supreme wisdom could not fail to choose. This notion satisfies at once the wisdom, the power and the goodness of G.o.d, and yet leaves a way open for the entrance of evil. G.o.d gives perfection to creatures in so far as it is possible in the universe. One gives a turn to the cylinder, but any roughness in its shape restricts the swiftness of its motion. This comparison made by Chrysippus does not greatly differ from mine, which was taken from a laden boat that is carried along by the river current, its pace becoming slower as the load grows heavier. These comparisons tend towards the same end; and that shows that if we were sufficiently informed concerning the opinions of ancient philosophers, we should find therein more reason than is supposed.

336. M. Bayle himself commends the pa.s.sage from Chrysippus (art.

'Chrysippus', lit. T) that Aulus Gellius quotes in the same place, where this philosopher maintains that evil has come _by concomitance._ That also is made clear by my system. For I have demonstrated that the evil which G.o.d permitted was not an object of his will, as an end or a means, but simply as a condition, since it had to be involved in the best. Yet one must confess that the cylinder of Chrysippus does not answer the objection of necessity. He ought to have added, in the first place, that it is by the free choice of G.o.d that some of the possibles exist; secondly, that rational creatures act freely also, in accordance with their original nature, which existed already in the eternal ideas; and lastly, that the motive power of good inclines the will without compelling it.

337. The advantage of freedom which is in the creature without doubt exists to an eminent degree in G.o.d. That must be understood in so far as it is genuinely an advantage and in so far as it presupposes no imperfection. For to be able to make a mistake and go astray is a disadvantage, and to have control over the pa.s.sions is in truth an advantage, but one that presupposes an imperfection, namely pa.s.sion itself, of which G.o.d is [328]

incapable. Scotus was justified in saying that if G.o.d were not free and exempt from necessity, no creature would be so. But G.o.d is incapable of being indeterminate in anything whatsoever: he cannot be ignorant, he cannot doubt, he cannot suspend his judgement; his will is always decided, and it can only be decided by the best. G.o.d can never have a primitive particular will, that is, independent of laws or general acts of will; such a thing would be unreasonable. He cannot determine upon Adam, Peter, Judas or any individual without the existence of a reason for this determination; and this reason leads of necessity to some general enunciation. The wise mind always acts _according to principles_; always _according to rules_, and never _according to exceptions_, save when the rules come into collision through opposing tendencies, where the strongest carries the day: or else, either they will stop one another or some third course will emerge as a result. In all these cases one rule serves as an exception to the other, and there are never any _original exceptions_ with one who always acts in a regular way.

338. If there are people who believe that election and reprobation are accomplished on G.o.d's part by a despotic absolute power, not only without any apparent reason but actually without any reason, even a concealed one, they maintain an opinion that destroys alike the nature of things and the divine perfections. Such an _absolutely absolute decree_ (so to speak) would be without doubt insupportable. But Luther and Calvin were far from such a belief: the former hopes that the life to come will make us comprehend the just reasons of G.o.d's choice; and the latter protests explicitly that these reasons are just and holy, although they be unknown to us. I have already in that connexion quoted Calvin's treatise on predestination, and here are the actual words: 'G.o.d before the fall of Adam had reflected upon what he had to do, and that for causes concealed from us.... It is evident therefore that he had just causes for the reprobation of some of mankind, but causes to us UNKNOWN.'

339. This truth, that all G.o.d does is reasonable and cannot be better done, strikes at the outset every man of good sense, and extorts, so to speak, his approbation. And yet the most subtle of philosophers have a fatal propensity for offending sometimes without observing it, during the course and in the heat of disputes, against the first principles of good sense, when these are shrouded in terms that disguise them. We have here [329]

already seen how the excellent M. Bayle, with all his shrewdness, has nevertheless combated this principle which I have just indicated, and which is a sure consequence of the supreme perfection of G.o.d. He thought to defend in that way the cause of G.o.d and to exempt him from an imaginary necessity, by leaving him the freedom to choose from among various goods the least. I have already spoken of M. Diroys and others who have also been deluded by this strange opinion, one that is far too commonly accepted.

Those who uphold it do not observe that it implies a wish to preserve for, or rather bestow upon, G.o.d a false freedom, which is the freedom to act unreasonably. That is rendering his works subject to correction, and making it impossible for us to say or even to hope that anything reasonable can be said upon the permission of evil.

340. This error has much impaired M. Bayle's arguments, and has barred his way of escape from many perplexities. That appears again in relation to the laws of the realm of Nature: he believes them to be arbitrary and indifferent, and he objects that G.o.d could better have attained his end in the realm of grace if he had not clung to these laws, if he had more often dispensed with their observance, or even if he had made others. He believed this especially with regard to the law of the union between the soul and the body. For he is persuaded, with the modern Cartesians, that the ideas of the perceptible qualities that G.o.d gives (according to them) to the soul, occasioned by movements of the body, have nothing representing these movements or resembling them. Accordingly it was a purely arbitrary act on G.o.d's part to give us the ideas of heat, cold, light and other qualities which we experience, rather than to give us quite different ideas occasioned in the same way. I have often wondered that people so talented should have been capable of relishing notions so unphilosophic and so contrary to the fundamental maxims of reason. For nothing gives clearer indication of the imperfection of a philosophy than the necessity experienced by the philosopher to confess that something comes to pa.s.s, in accordance with his system, for which there is no reason. That applies to the idea of Epicurus on the deviation of atoms. Whether it be G.o.d or Nature that operates, the operation will always have its reasons. In the operations of Nature, these reasons will depend either upon necessary truths or upon the laws that G.o.d has found the most reasonable; and in the operations of G.o.d, they will depend upon the choice of the supreme [330]

reason which causes them to act.

341. M. Regis, a famous Cartesian, had a.s.serted in his 'Metaphysics' (part 2, book 2, c. 29) that the faculties G.o.d has given to men are the most excellent that they were capable of in conformity with the general order of nature. 'Considering only', he says, 'the power of G.o.d and the nature of man by themselves, it is very easy to conceive that G.o.d could have made man more perfect: but if one will consider man, not in himself and separately from all other creatures, but as a member of the universe and a portion which is subject to the general laws of motions, one will be bound to acknowledge that man is as perfect as he could have been.' He adds 'that we cannot conceive that G.o.d could have employed any other means more appropriate than pain for the conservation of our bodies'. M. Regis is right in a general way in saying that G.o.d cannot do better than he has done in relation to all. And although there be apparently in some places in the universe rational animals more perfect than man, one may say that G.o.d was right to create every kind of species, some more perfect than others. It is perhaps not impossible that there be somewhere a species of animals much resembling man and more perfect than we are. It may be even that the human race will attain in time to a greater perfection than that which we can now envisage. Thus the laws of motions do not prevent man from being more perfect: but the place G.o.d has a.s.signed to man in s.p.a.ce and in time limits the perfections he was able to receive.

342. I also doubt, with M. Bayle, whether pain be necessary in order to warn men of peril. But this writer goes too far (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. II, ch. 77, p. 104): he seems to think that a feeling of pleasure could have the same effect, and that, in order to prevent a child from going too near the fire, G.o.d could give him ideas of pleasure in proportion to the distance he kept from it. This expedient does not appear very practicable with regard to all evils, unless a miracle were involved.

It is more natural that what if it were too near would cause an evil should cause some foreboding of evil when it is a little less near. Yet I admit that it is possible such a foreboding will be something less than pain, and usually this is the case. Thus it indeed appears that pain is not necessary for causing one to shun present peril; it is wont rather to serve as a penalty for having actually plunged into evil, and a warning against [331]

further lapse. There are also many painful evils the avoidance whereof rests not with us. As a dissolution of the continuity of our body is a consequence of many accidents that may happen to us, it was natural that this imperfection of the body should be represented by some sense of imperfection in the soul. Nevertheless I would not guarantee that there were no animals in the universe whose structure was cunning enough to cause a sense of indifference as accompaniment to this dissolution of continuity, as for instance when a gangrenous limb is cut off; or even a sense of pleasure, as if one were only scratching oneself. For the imperfection that attends the dissolution of the body might lead to the sense of a greater perfection, which was suspended or checked by the continuity which is now broken: and in this respect the body would be as it were a prison.

343. There is also nothing to preclude the existence in the universe of animals resembling that one which Cyrano de Bergerac encountered in the sun. The body of this animal being a sort of fluid composed of innumerable small animals, that were capable of ranging themselves in accordance with the desires of the great animal, by this means it transformed itself in a moment, just as it pleased; and the dissolution of continuity caused it no more hurt than the stroke of an oar can cause to the sea. But, after all, these animals are not men, they are not in our globe or in our present century; and G.o.d's plan ensured that there should not be lacking here on earth a rational animal clothed in flesh and bones, whose structure involves susceptibility to pain.

344. But M. Bayle further opposes this on another principle, one which I have already mentioned. It seems that he thinks the ideas which the soul conceives in relation to the feelings of the body are arbitrary. Thus G.o.d might have caused the dissolution of continuity to give us pleasure. He even maintains that the laws of motion are entirely arbitrary. 'I would wish to know', he says (vol. III, ch. 166, p. 1080), 'whether G.o.d established by an act of his freedom of indifference general laws on the communication of movements, and the particular laws on the union of the human soul with an organic body? In this case, he could have established quite different laws, and adopted a system whose results involved neither moral evil nor physical evil. But if the answer is given that G.o.d was constrained by supreme wisdom to establish the laws that he has established, there we have neither more nor less than the _Fatum_ of [332]

the Stoics. Wisdom will have marked out a way for G.o.d, the abandonment whereof will have been as impossible to him as his own self-destruction.'

This objection has been sufficiently overthrown: it is only a moral necessity; and it is always a happy necessity to be bound to act in accordance with the rules of perfect wisdom.

345. Moreover, it appears to me that the reason for the belief held by many that the laws of motion are arbitrary comes from the fact that few people have properly examined them. It is known now that M. Descartes was much mistaken in his statement of them. I have proved conclusively that conservation of the same quant.i.ty of motion cannot occur, but I consider that the same quant.i.ty of force is conserved, whether absolute or directive and respective, whether total or partial. My principles, which carry this subject as far as it can go, have not yet been published in full; but I have communicated them to friends competent to judge of them, who have approved them, and have converted some other persons of acknowledged erudition and ability. I discovered at the same time that the laws of motion actually existing in Nature, and confirmed by experiments, are not in reality absolutely demonstrable, as a geometrical proposition would be; but neither is it necessary that they be so. They do not spring entirely from the principle of necessity, but rather from the principle of perfection and order; they are an effect of the choice and the wisdom of G.o.d. I can demonstrate these laws in divers ways, but must always a.s.sume something that is not of an absolutely geometrical necessity. Thus these admirable laws are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being, as opposed to the system of absolute and brute necessity, advocated by Strato or Spinoza.

346. I have found that one may account for these laws by a.s.suming that the effect is always equal in force to its cause, or, which amounts to the same thing, that the same force is conserved always: but this axiom of higher philosophy cannot be demonstrated geometrically. One may again apply other principles of like nature, for instance the principle that action is always equal to reaction, one which a.s.sumes in things a distaste for external change, and cannot be derived either from extension or impenetrability; and that other principle, that a simple movement has the same properties as those which might belong to a compound movement such as would produce [333]

the same phenomena of locomotion. These a.s.sumptions are very plausible, and are successful as an explanation of the laws of motion: nothing is so appropriate, all the more since they are in accord with each other. But there is to be found in them no absolute necessity, such as may compel us to admit them, in the way one is compelled to admit the rules of logic, of arithmetic and geometry.

347. It seems, when one considers the indifference of matter to motion and to rest, that the largest body at rest could be carried along without any resistance by the smallest body in motion, in which case there would be action without reaction and an effect greater than its cause. There is also no necessity to say of the motion of a ball which runs freely on an even, horizontal plane, with a certain degree of speed, termed A, that this motion must have the properties of that motion which it would have if it were going with lesser speed in a boat, itself moving in the same direction with the residue of the speed, to ensure that the ball, seen from the bank, advance with the same degree A. For, although the same appearance of speed and of direction results through this medium of the boat, it is not because it is the same thing. Nevertheless it happens that the effects of the collision of the b.a.l.l.s in the boat, the motion in each one separately combined with that of the boat giving the appearance of that which goes on outside the boat, also give the appearance of the effects that these same b.a.l.l.s colliding would have outside the boat. All that is admirable, but one does not see its absolute necessity. A movement on the two sides of the right-angled triangle composes a movement on the hypotenuse; but it does not follow that a ball moving on the hypotenuse must produce the effect of two b.a.l.l.s of its own size moving on the two sides: yet that is true.

Nothing is so appropriate as this result, and G.o.d has chosen the laws that produce it: but one sees no geometrical necessity therein. Yet it is this very lack of necessity which enhances the beauty of the laws that G.o.d has chosen, wherein divers admirable axioms exist in conjunction, and it is impossible for one to say which of them is the primary.

348. I have also shown that therein is observed that excellent law of continuity, which I have perhaps been the first to state, and which is a kind of touchstone whose test the rules of M. Descartes, of Father Fabry, Father Pardies, Father de Malebranche and others cannot pa.s.s. In virtue of this law, one must be able to regard rest as a movement vanishing [334]

after having continually diminished, and likewise equality as an inequality that vanishes also, as would happen through the continual diminution of the greater of two unequal bodies, while the smaller retains its size. As a consequence of this consideration, the general rule for unequal bodies, or bodies in motion, must apply also to equal bodies or to bodies one of which is at rest, as to a particular case of the rule. This does result in the true laws of motion, and does not result in certain laws invented by M.

Descartes and by some other men of talent, which already on that score alone prove to be ill-concerted, so that one may predict that experiment will not favour them.

349. These considerations make it plain that the laws of Nature regulating movements are neither entirely necessary nor entirely arbitrary. The middle course to be taken is that they are a choice of the most perfect wisdom.

And this great example of the laws of motion shows with the utmost clarity how much difference there is between these three cases, to wit, firstly _an absolute necessity_, metaphysical or geometrical, which may be called blind, and which does not depend upon any but efficient causes; in the second place, _a moral necessity_, which comes from the free choice of wisdom in relation to final causes; and finally in the third place, _something absolutely arbitrary_, depending upon an indifference of equipoise, which is imagined, but which cannot exist, where there is no sufficient reason either in the efficient or in the final cause.

Consequently one must conclude how mistaken it is to confuse either that which is absolutely necessary with that which is determined by the reason of the best, or the freedom that is determined by reason with a vague indifference.

350. This also settles M. Bayle's difficulty, for he fears that, if G.o.d is always determinate, Nature could dispense with him and bring about that same effect which is attributed to him, through the necessity of the order of things. That would be true if the laws of motion for instance, and all the rest, had their source in a geometrical necessity of efficient causes; but in the last a.n.a.lysis one is obliged to resort to something depending upon final causes and upon what is fitting. This also utterly destroys the most plausible reasoning of the Naturalists. Dr. Johann Joachim Becher, a German physician, well known for his books on chemistry, had composed a prayer which looked like getting him into trouble. It began: 'O sancta[335]

mater natura, aeterne rerum ordo'. And it ended by saying that this Nature must forgive him his errors, since she herself was their cause. But the nature of things, if taken as without intelligence and without choice, has in it nothing sufficiently determinant. Herr Becher did not sufficiently take into account that the Author of things (_natura naturans_) must be good and wise, and that we can be evil without complicity on his part in our acts of wickedness. When a wicked man exists, G.o.d must have found in the region of possibles the idea of such a man forming part of that sequence of things, the choice of which was demanded by the greatest perfection of the universe, and in which errors and sins are not only punished but even repaired to greater advantage, so that they contribute to the greatest good.

351. M. Bayle, however, has extended the free choice of G.o.d a little too far. Speaking of the Peripatetic Strato (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 180, p. 1239), who a.s.serted that everything had been brought forth by the necessity of a nature devoid of intelligence, he maintains that this philosopher, on being asked why a tree has not the power to form bones and veins, might have asked in his turn: Why has matter precisely three dimensions? why should not two have sufficed for it? why has it not four? 'If one had answered that there can be neither more nor less than three dimensions he would have demanded the cause of this impossibility.' These words lead one to believe that M. Bayle suspected that the number of the dimensions of matter depended upon G.o.d's choice, even as it depended upon him to cause or not to cause trees to produce animals. Indeed, how do we know whether there are not planetary globes or earths situated in some more remote place in the universe where the fable of the Barnacle-geese of Scotland (birds that were said to be born of trees) proves true, and even whether there are not countries where one could say:

_... populos umbrosa creavit_ _Fraxinus, et foeta viridis puer excidit alno?_

But with the dimensions of matter it is not thus: the ternary number is determined for it not by the reason of the best, but by a geometrical necessity, because the geometricians have been able to prove that there are only three straight lines perpendicular to one another which can intersect at one and the same point. Nothing more appropriate could have been [336]

chosen to show the difference there is between the moral necessity that accounts for the choice of wisdom and the brute necessity of Strato and the adherents of Spinoza, who deny to G.o.d understanding and will, than a consideration of the difference existing between the reason for the laws of motion and the reason for the ternary number of the dimensions: for the first lies in the choice of the best and the second in a geometrical and blind necessity.

352. Having spoken of the laws of bodies, that is, of the rules of motion, let us come to the laws of the union between body and soul, where M. Bayle believes that he finds again some vague indifference, something absolutely arbitrary. Here is the way he speaks of it in his _Reply_ (vol. II, ch. 84, p. 163): 'It is a puzzling question whether bodies have some natural property of doing harm or good to man's soul. If one answers yes, one plunges into an insane labyrinth: for, as man's soul is an immaterial substance, one will be bound to say that the local movement of certain bodies is an efficient cause of the thoughts in a mind, a statement contrary to the most obvious notions that philosophy imparts to us. If one answers no, one will be constrained to admit that the influence of our organs upon our thoughts depends neither upon the internal qualities of matter, nor upon the laws of motion, but upon an _arbitrary inst.i.tution_ of the creator. One must then admit that it depended altogether upon G.o.d's freedom to combine particular thoughts of our soul with particular modifications of our body, even when he had once established all the laws for the action of bodies one upon another. Whence it results that there is in the universe no portion of matter which by its proximity can harm us, save when G.o.d wills it; and consequently, that the earth is as capable as any other place of being the abode of the happy man.... In short it is evident that there is no need, in order to prevent the wrong choices of freedom, to transport man outside the earth. G.o.d could do on earth with regard to all the acts of the will what he does in respect of the good works of the predestined when he settles their outcome, whether by efficacious or by sufficient grace: and that grace, without in any way impairing freedom, is always followed by the a.s.sent of the soul. It would be as easy for him on earth as in heaven to bring about the determination of our souls to a good choice.'

353. I agree with M. Bayle that G.o.d could have so ordered bodies and [337]

souls on this globe of earth, whether by ways of nature or by extraordinary graces, that it would have been a perpetual paradise and a foretaste of the celestial state of the blessed. There is no reason why there should not be worlds happier than ours; but G.o.d had good reasons for willing that ours should be such as it is. Nevertheless, in order to prove that a better state would have been possible here, M. Bayle had no need to resort to the system of occasional causes: it abounds in miracles and in hypotheses for which their very originators confess there is no justification; and these are two defects such as will most of all estrange a system from true philosophy. It is a cause for surprise, in the first place, that M. Bayle did not bethink himself of the System of Pre-established Harmony which he had examined before, and which for this matter was so opportune. But as in this system all is connected and harmonious, all following from reasons and nothing being left incomplete or exposed to the rash discretion of perfect indifference, it seems that it was not pleasing to M. Bayle: for he was here somewhat bia.s.sed in favour of such indifference, which, notwithstanding, he contested so strongly on other occasions. He was much given to pa.s.sing from one extreme to the other, not with an ill intention or against his own conviction, but because there was as yet nothing settled in his mind on the question concerned. He contented himself with whatever suited him for frustrating the opponent he had in mind, his aim being only to perplex philosophers, and show the weakness of our reason; and never, in my opinion, did either Arcesilaus or Carneades argue for and against with more eloquence and more wit. But, after all, one must not doubt for the sake of doubting: doubts must serve us as a gangway to the truth. That is what I often said to the late Abbe Foucher, a few specimens of whose work prove that he designed to do with regard to the Academicians what Lipsius and Scioppius had done for the Stoics, and M. Ga.s.sendi for Epicurus, and what M. Dacier has so well begun for Plato. It must not be possible for us to offer true philosophers such a reproach as that implied in the celebrated Casaubon's answer to those who, in showing him the hall of the Sorbonne, told him that debate had been carried on there for some centuries. What conclusions have been reached? he said to them.

354. M. Bayle goes on (p. 166): 'It is true that since the laws of motion were inst.i.tuted in such forms as we see now in the world, it is an inevitable necessity that a hammer striking a nut should break it, and[338]

that a stone falling on a man's foot should cause some bruise or some derangement of its parts. But that is all that can follow the action of this stone upon the human body. If you want it in addition to cause a feeling of pain, then one must a.s.sume the inst.i.tution of a code other than that one which regulates the action and reaction of bodies one upon another; one must, I say, have recourse to the particular system of the laws of union between the soul and certain bodies. Now as this system is not of necessity connected with the other, the indifference of G.o.d does not cease in relation to the one immediately upon his choice of the other. He therefore combined these two systems with a complete freedom, like two things which did not follow naturally the one from the other. Thus it is by an arbitrary inst.i.tution he has ordained that wounds in the body should cause pain in the soul which is united to this body. It therefore only rested with him to have chosen another system of union between soul and body: he was therefore able to choose one in accordance wherewith wounds only evoke the idea of the remedy and an intense but agreeable desire to apply it. He was able to arrange that all bodies which were on the point of breaking a man's head or piercing his heart should evoke a lively sense of danger, and that this sense should cause the body to remove itself promptly out of reach of the blow. All that would have come to pa.s.s without miracles, since there would have been general laws on this subject. The system which we know by experience teaches us that the determination of the movement of certain bodies changes in pursuance of our desires. It was therefore possible for a combination to be effected between our desires and the movement of certain bodies, whereby the nutritive juices were so modified that the good arrangement of our organs was never affected.'

355. It is evident that M. Bayle believes that everything accomplished through general laws is accomplished without miracles. But I have shown sufficiently that if the law is not founded on reasons and does not serve to explain the event through the nature of things, it can only be put into execution by a miracle. If, for example, G.o.d had ordained that bodies must have a circular motion, he would have needed perpetual miracles, or the ministry of angels, to put this order into execution: for that is contrary to the nature of motion, whereby the body naturally abandons the circular line to continue in the tangent straight line if nothing holds it [339]

back. Therefore it is not enough for G.o.d to ordain simply that a wound should excite an agreeable sensation: natural means must be found for that purpose. The real means whereby G.o.d causes the soul to be conscious of what happens in the body have their origin in the nature of the soul, which represents the bodies, and is so made beforehand that the representations which are to spring up one from another within it, by a natural sequence of thoughts, correspond to the changes in the body.

356. The representation has a natural relation to that which is to be represented. If G.o.d should have the round shape of a body represented by the idea of a square, that would be an unsuitable representation: for there would be angles or projections in the representation, while all would be even and smooth in the original. The representation often suppresses something in the objects when it is imperfect; but it can add nothing: that would render it, not more than perfect, but false. Moreover, the suppression is never complete in our perceptions, and there is in the representation, confused as it is, more than we see there. Thus there is reason for supposing that the ideas of heat, cold, colours, etc., also only represent the small movements carried out in the organs, when one is conscious of these qualities, although the multiplicity and the diminutive character of these movements prevents their clear representation. Almost in the same way it happens that we do not distinguish the blue and the yellow which play their part in the representation as well as in the composition of the green, when the microscope shows that what appears to be green is composed of yellow and blue parts.

357. It is true that the same thing may be represented in different ways; but there must always be an exact relation between the representation and the thing, and consequently between the different representations of one and the same thing. The projections in perspective of the conic sections of the circle show that one and the same circle may be represented by an ellipse, a parabola and a hyperbola, and even by another circle, a straight line and a point. Nothing appears so different nor so dissimilar as these figures; and yet there is an exact relation between each point and every other point. Thus one must allow that each soul represents the universe to itself according to its point of view, and through a relation which is peculiar to it; but a perfect harmony always subsists therein. G.o.d, if he wished to effect representation of the dissolution of continuity of [340]