Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Some have said that man's understanding is like a blank tablet on which nothing is yet written; others that it was a book which he had only to open in order to read; I believe it may be compared to a letter written in invisible ink, which looks white until rubbed with a mysterious liquid which brings out the black characters. The magic liquid is instruction and education.

189. Show me a single nation which of itself has emerged from a savage or a barbarous state. All known civilizations are subordinated one to another in an uninterrupted chain. European civilization owes much to Christianity, and something to the Roman; the Roman to the Greek; the Greek to the Egyptian; the Egyptian to the Oriental; and over the Oriental civilization hangs a veil which can be lifted only by the first chapters of Genesis.

190. In order to know the human mind it is necessary to study the history of humanity; whoever isolates objects too much runs in danger of mutilating them; hence so many ideological frivolities which have passed for profound investigations, although they were as far from true metaphysics as the art of arranging a museum symmetrically is from the science of the naturalist.

191. If innate ideas be defended, it is impossible to deny to our understanding a power to form new ideas accordingly as objects, especially language, excite it; otherwise it would be necessary to say that we do not learn any thing, and cannot learn any thing; that we have every thing beforehand in our mind, as if written in a book. Our understanding seems to resemble a case containing all kinds of types; but, in order that they may mean any thing, the hand of the compositor is necessary.

This image of printer's types reminds me of an important ideological fact: I mean the scanty number of ideas which are in our mind, and the great variety of combinations of which they are susceptible. All that is in the intellectual order, or is contained in the categories, whether we adopt those of Kant or those of Aristotle, or any others, may be reduced to a very few. Each of those ideas which we call generative is like a ray of light which, passing successively through innumerable prisms and refracted on a number of spectra, presents an infinite variety of colors, shades, and figures.

As our thought is almost entirely reduced to combination, and as this combination may be made in various ways, there is a wonderful agreement in the fundamental combinations which all minds have. In the secondary points there is divergence, but not in the principal. This proves that the human mind, in its existence and in its development, depends on an infinite intelligence, which is the cause and master of all minds.

192. Reject these doctrines so accordant with philosophy and with history, and spontaneity, whether of the individual or the race, either means nothing, or it expresses the vague and absurd theories of ideal pantheism.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FINAL CAUSALITY; – MORALITY

193. Those beings which act by intelligence must have, besides their efficient activity, a moral principle of their determinations. In order to will, the faculty of willing is not alone sufficient; it is necessary to know that which is willed, for nothing is willed without being known. Hence arises final causality, which is essentially distinct from efficient causality, and can exist only in beings endowed with intelligence.

194. Recalling what was said in the tenth chapter of this book, we may observe that final causes form a series distinct from that of efficient causes; what in the latter is physical action, is in the former, moral influence. In a painting, the series of efficient causes is the pencil, the hand, the muscles, the animal spirits, and the command of the will. This series, which is necessary for the execution of the painting, may be combined with different series of final causes. The artist may purpose by the brilliancy of his genius to acquire renown, and by renown to enjoy the happiness of a great name. Another series may be, to please a person for whom he is working; and this in order that the person may pay him a sum of money; and the money in order to gratify the artist's wants or pleasures. A third series may be, in order to seek in painting a distraction from a grief; and this in order to preserve his health. It is evident that many series of a purely moral or intellectual influence may be imagined, and which concur in the production of the effect only, in so far as combined with the series of efficient causes, they influence the artist's determination.

195. This moral influence may be exerted in two ways: either necessarily bending the will, or leaving it free to will or not will; in the first case, there is a voluntary, but necessary spontaneousness; in the second, there is a free spontaneousness. Every free act is voluntary, but not every voluntary act is free. God freely wills the conservation of creatures; but he necessarily wills virtue, and cannot will iniquity.

196. Regarding only efficient causality, we have only the relations of cause and effect; but considering final causality, a new order of ideas and facts is presented, which is morality. Let us first of all establish the existence of the fact.

197. Good and evil, moral, immoral, just, unjust, right, duty, obligation, command, prohibition, lawful, unlawful, virtue, and vice, are words which we all use continually, and apply to the whole course of life, to all the relations of man with God, with himself, and with his fellow-men, without any doubt as to their true meaning, and perfectly understanding each other, just as when we speak of color, light, or other sensible objects. When the term lawful or unlawful is applied to an act, who ever asks what it means? When this man is called virtuous, that vicious, who does not know the meaning of these expressions? Is there any one who finds a difficulty in understanding the expressions which follow: he has a right to perform this act; he is obliged to comply with that circumstance; this is his duty; he has neglected his duty; this is commanded; that is prohibited; this is right; that is wrong: this is a heroic virtue; that is a crime? No ideas are more common, more ordinarily used, by the ignorant as by the learned; by barbarous as by civilized nations; in the youth of societies as in their infancy, and in their old age; in the midst of pure customs, as of the most revolting corruption; they express something primitive, innate in the human mind and indispensable to its existence, something which it cannot throw off while it retains the exercise of its faculties. There may be more or less error and extravagance in the application of these ideas to certain particular cases: but the generative ideas of good and evil, just and unjust, lawful and unlawful, are the same at all times, and in all countries; they form, as it were, an atmosphere in which the human mind lives and breathes.

198. It is remarkable that even those who deny the distinction between good and evil, are forced to admit it in practice. A philosopher, with his pen in his hand, laughs at what he calls the prejudices of the human race concerning the difference between good and evil; but say to him: "It seems to me, Sir Philosopher, that you are a detestable wretch, to spend your time in destroying that which is most holy on earth;" and you will see how soon he will forget his philosophy and all that he has said of the empty meaning of the words virtue and vice, become indignant at being thus addressed, warmly defend himself, and attempt to prove to you that he is the most virtuous man in the world, giving repeated arguments of honesty, sincerity, and honor. It matters little that in his lofty theories, honor, sincerity, and honesty, are unmeaning words, since they can have no sense unless the word order is admitted; the philosopher is not staggered by an inconsequence, or rather, he takes no notice of it; moral ideas and sentiments are awakened in his mind as soon as he hears himself called immoral, he ceases to be a sophist, and becomes a man again.

199. Can the idea of this moral order be a prejudice, which, without any thing in reality corresponding to it, or any foundation in human nature, owes its origin to education, so that it would have been possible for men to have lived without moral ideas, or with others directly contrary to those which we now have? If it is a prejudice, how comes it that it is general to all times and countries? Who communicated it to the human race? who was strong and powerful enough to make all men adopt it? How did it happen that the passions, when in possession of their liberty, renounced it, and suffered a bridle to be put on them? Who was that extraordinary man who subdued all times and all countries, the most brutal customs, the most violent passions, the most obtuse understandings, and diffused the idea of a moral order over the whole face of the earth, notwithstanding the diversity of climates, languages, customs, and necessities, and the differences in the social condition of nations, and gave to this idea of the moral order such force and consistency that it has been preserved through the most complete revolutions, amid the ruins of empires, and the fluctuations and transmigrations of civilization, remaining firm as a rock, unmoved by the furious waves of the river of ages?

Here is not the hand of man; a phenomenon of this sort does not spring from human combinations; it is founded on nature, and it is indestructible because it is natural; thus, and thus only, is it possible to explain its universality and permanence.

200. To deny all difference between good and evil is to place one's self in open contradiction with the ideas the most deeply rooted in the human mind, with all its most profound and most powerful sentiments; all the sophisms of the world could not persuade any one, not even the sophist himself, that there is no difference between consoling one who is afflicted, and adding to his afflictions; between assisting the unfortunate, and increasing their misfortunes; between being grateful for a favor, and doing evil to the benefactor; between fulfilling a promise, and breaking it; between giving alms, and taking what belongs to another; between being faithful to a friend, and betraying him; between dying for one's country, and selling it to the enemy; between respecting the laws of modesty, and violating them without shame; between sobriety and drunkenness; between temperance and moderation in all the acts of life, and the disorder of unbridled passions. No argument, nor genius, nor cavil can destroy the dividing line. The sophist discusses, imagines, feigns, subtilizes, but in vain; nature is there; she says to senseless man: So far mayst thou go, but here shall thy pride be broken.

201. If there is no intrinsic difference between good and evil, and all that is said of the morality and immorality of actions is a collection of words which have no meaning, or only such as they have received from human convention; how is it that whilst the just man sleeps securely in his bed, the evil-doer is tossed about with a heart struggling with remorse? Whence come those sentiments of love and respect inspired by what we call virtue, and the aversion created by what is called vice? Do not the love of children, the veneration of parents, fidelity to friends, compassion for suffering, gratitude towards benefactors, the horror which all men have for a cruel father, a parricide son, an unfaithful wife, a dishonest friend, a traitor to his country, a hand red with the blood of its victim, oppression of the weak, desertion of the orphan, do not all these sentiments show clearer than the light of day the hand of the Almighty engraving in our souls the ideas of the moral order, and strengthening us with sentiments which instinctively show us, even when we have not time to reflect, the path which we should follow?

202. I do not deny that serious difficulties are encountered in examining the grounds of morality; I admit that the analysis of the knowledge of good and evil is one of the most hidden points of philosophy; but these difficulties prove nothing against the difference we have established. No one denies the existence of a building because he cannot see how deep its foundations go: its depth is a proof of its solidity, a guaranty of its duration. The difference between good and evil demonstrated a priori by the interior sentiments of the heart, is strengthened with further evidence if we regard the consequences of its existence or non-existence. Let us admit the moral order, and suppose all men to regulate their conduct conformably to this prejudice. What will be the result? The world becomes a paradise; men live like brothers, using with moderation the gifts of nature, dividing with each other their happiness, and aiding one another to bear misfortune; the most lovely harmony reigns in the individual, the family, and society; if the moral order is a prejudice, let us confess that never did prejudice have more grand, beneficial, and delightful consequences; if virtue is a lie, never was there one more useful, fairer, or more sublime.

203. But let us make the counterproof. Let us suppose this prejudice to disappear, and all men to be convinced that the moral order is a vain illusion which they must banish from their understanding, their will, and their acts; what will be the result this time? The moral order destroyed, the physical alone remains; every one thinks and acts according to his views, passions, or caprices; man has no other guide than the blind instinct of nature or the cold speculations of egotism; the individual becomes a monster, all the ties of family are broken asunder; and society, sunk in a frightful chaos, rapidly advances to complete destruction. These are the necessary consequences of the rejection of the prejudice. Language would be horridly mutilated if the ideas of the moral order should disappear; good and bad conduct would be words without meaning; praise and blame would have no object; even vanity would lose a great part of its food; flattery would be forced to confine itself to natural qualities, considered in the purely physical order; to pronounce the word merit, would be forbidden under pain of falling into absurdity.

204. See, then, if any objection could be sufficient to make such consequences admissible. Whoever, frightened at the difficulties accompanying the examination of the first principles of morality, should undertake to deny morality, would be as foolish as the husbandman who, seeing the stream which waters his fields, should insist on denying the existence of its waters because inaccessible crags prevent his approach to their source.

CHAPTER XIX.

VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS OF MORALITY

205. There have been many disputes concerning the origin and character of the morality of actions; the same happening here as elsewhere, that the understanding becomes perplexed and confused whenever it attempts to penetrate into the first principles of things. As I am not going to write a treatise on morals, but only to analyze the foundations of this science, I shall confine myself to giving the character, as far as possible, of the primitive ideas and sentiments of the moral order, without descending to their application. In this I shall proceed, as usual, on the analytic method, decomposing the fact established in the preceding chapter, glancing at the various explanations which have been given of it, showing the insufficiency and inexactness of some of them, before coming to the only one which appears to me true and complete.

206. What is good? what is evil? why are things good or evil? in what does goodness or evil consist? what is their origin?

We are told that good is that which is conformed to reason, that which is in harmony with the eternal laws, that which is pleasing to God, and that evil is that which is opposed to reason, that which contradicts the eternal law, that which displeases God. This is true, but does it completely solve the question on a scientific ground?

The moral worth of the dictate of reason depends on its conformity to the eternal law; when, therefore, to found the moral order, you call in the former, you also appeal to the latter; they are not therefore two solutions of the question, but only one.

Acts cannot please or displease God, except as conformed to the eternal law; therefore, to judge of the goodness or evil of acts by their relation to the pleasure or displeasure of God, is to judge of them by their conformity to the eternal law.

From this it may be inferred that, although an act conformed to reason, one agreeing with the eternal law, and one displeasing to God, express different aspects of an idea, they all mean the same when used in explaining the foundations of the moral order.

207. The rules of the eternal law do not depend on the free will of God, since, in that case, God could make good evil, and evil good. The eternal law cannot be any thing else than the eternal reason, or the representation of the moral order in the divine intellect. Morality thus seems, according to our mode of conception, to precede its representation; that is to say, morality seems to be represented in the divine intellect because it is; but not that it is because it is represented. In the moral order we come to something resembling metaphysical and geometrical science. Geometrical truths are eternal, inasmuch as they are represented in the eternal reason; and this representation supposes an intrinsic and necessary truth in them, since the representation would otherwise be false. As this truth must have some eternal foundation,96 and this foundation cannot be in any finite being, it must be sought for in the essentially infinite being, which contains the reason of all things. The infinite intellect represents the truth, and is, therefore, true; but this truth is itself founded on the essence of the infinite being which knows it.

208. Moral truths are not distinguished in this respect from metaphysical; their origin is in God, moral science cannot be atheistic. Why are some things represented in God as good and others as evil? To ask the reason of this is like asking why triangles are not represented as circles, and circles as triangles. If there is an intrinsic necessity, either we can assign no reason for it or we must at any rate come to a reason which can be explained by no other reason. It will in any case, be necessary for us to come to a point where we can only say: It is so. Any further satisfaction, which we might desire, is beyond our reach, as we do not intuitively see the infinite essence which contains the first and ultimate reason of all things.

209. It is necessary first to suppose good and evil before things can be represented as such, or even conceived as so represented. What is a good thing? If we say it is being represented as good in the divine mind, the thing defined is contained in the definition; the difficulty still remains: what is it to be represented as good?

Goodness cannot consist in the simple representation, so that whatever is represented in God is good; for then every thing would be good, as every thing is represented in God.

Therefore, in order that a thing may be good, it must not only be represented, but represented under such or such a character which makes it good; but still the difficulty remains: what is this character?

210. Let us make these ideas clearer by comparing a metaphysical with a moral truth. All the diameters of the same circle are equal; this truth does not depend on any particular circle, it is founded on the essence of all circles; this essence is in turn represented eternally in the infinite essence, where with the plenitude of being, is contained the representation and knowledge of all the finite participations in which the wisdom and power of God may be exercised. All the participations are subject to the principle of contradiction, in none of them can being cease to exclude not-being, or not-being to exclude being; hence proceeds the necessity of all the properties and relations, without which the principle of contradiction cannot subsist; among these is the equality of all the diameters of the same circle.

211. These considerations suggest the question: is it possible to explain the moral order like the metaphysical and mathematical, by showing it contained in the principle of contradiction?

212. It is easy to see that in all metaphysical and mathematical truths, identity is expressed or denied. All formulas are reduced to A is B, or A is not B; this is the general formula of all truths of an absolute order. But it is otherwise in the moral order, where nothing is ever expressed absolutely, as is shown by the very form of the propositions. God is good, expresses a metaphysical truth, God must be loved, or in other words, we ought to love God, expresses a moral truth. Note the difference: in one case we say is absolutely; in the other, must be, ought to be, there is obligation, etc., using different expressions which all mean the same thing; but in all, the verb to be, as an absolute affirmation, disappears. It seems that no moral proposition could be thus expressed, if we regard the primitive elements of our moral ideas; for all these propositions express the idea of duty, which is essentially a relative idea.

213. To love God is good. This is a moral proposition whose structure seems to contradict what I have just established. Here an absolute affirmation is found expressed simply by is, as in metaphysical or mathematical propositions. Still, the least reflection will suffice to show that this absolute character is destroyed by the nature of the predicate. What is the meaning of good? Here we have an essentially relative idea which communicates this character to the proposition. To love God is good, is the same as: to love God is a thing conformed to reason, or to the eternal law, or pleasing to God, or a thing which we are under obligation to do; it is always a relative idea, and never absolute, like being, not-being, a triangle, a circle, etc.

214. Good, say some, is that which leads to the end which corresponds to intelligent beings. This explanation must not be confounded with the theory of private interest; – a theory alike rejected by religion and by the sentiments of the heart, and combated by the most profound thinkers; – here, in speaking of end, the last end is meant, which is something superior to what is understood by the expression, private interest. Without doubt, to arrive at the last end, is a great interest of every intelligent being; but at least this interest is taken in an elevated sense, and does not promote the development of a paltry egotism.

Having thus designated the difference between these doctrines, I say that not even the latter seems to me admissible. Moral good must lead to the end; but this does not constitute the character of morality. For, what is meant by end? If God himself is meant, a moral act is that which leads to God; in which case the difficulty still remains, for we again ask, what is meant by leading? If it means to conduce to the happiness which consists in a union with God, how does it conduce to this happiness? By the performance of what God has commanded; – certainly; but then we ask: I. Why does doing what God has commanded conduce to happiness? II. Why has God commanded some things and prohibited others? – which is equivalent to putting anew the question of intrinsic morality.

215. Besides, the idea of happiness represents something very different from the idea of morality. Imagining a being which sacrifices all that it possessed for the sake of other beings, we have the idea of a highly moral being, but not a happy being. If morality consisted in happiness, the participation of happiness would be the participation of morality; every enjoyment would be a moral act; and could only be immoral because too short or feeble. In proportion as we rose to the idea of a stronger and more lasting enjoyment, we should form the idea of a more elevated morality; the enjoyment the most free from trouble would be the purest act of morality; who does not see that this overthrows all our moral ideas, and is repugnant to every sentiment of the heart?

216. It is not enough to say that a moral being will obtain happiness, and that its happiness will be great in proportion to its morality; this only proves that happiness is the reward of morality; it does not authorize us to confound the two, the guerdon with the merit.