IMMUTABILITY OF NECESSARY AND UNCONDITIONED BEING.
22. The absolutely necessary and unconditioned is immutable. For its existenceis, or, to speak in modern language, issupposedabsolutely, by intrinsic necessity, without any condition; and with this existence itsstateis also supposed. We abstract for the present the nature of this state, whether it be of this or that perfection, this or that degree, or even finite or infinite. Its existence being supposed unconditionally, its state is supposed unconditionally also; therefore as itsnon-existenceis contradictory, (Ch. I.) itsno-stateis also contradictory. Change is only a transition from one state to another state which implies theno-stateof the first; therefore change in the necessary is contradictory.
23. In order to present this in a clearer and more precise manner, we will call E the necessary and unconditioned being. As E is supposed absolutely by intrinsic necessity, without any condition, thenot-Emust be contradictory. E is not abstract but real being, consequently it must have certain perfections, as intelligence, will, activity, or any other whatever; and it must have these perfections in a certain degree, abstracting for the present, whether it be greater or less, finite or infinite. With the absolute existence of E a state of perfection, which we shall call N, is also supposed. What has determined the state N? By the supposition, it can have been determined by nothing; since the state is unconditioned. Therefore, if the state N is absolutely and necessarily, thenot-Nis contradictory.Therefore the change by which E would pass from N tonot-Nis contradictory.
24. But let us for a moment suppose a change in the necessary being, and suppose it to have proceeded from this being itself. As the reason of the change must be necessary and eternal, we should have to admit an infinite series of evolutions, and should again fall into the impossibility of reconciling the infinity of the series with the existence of any one of its terms.[73]
25. Thus it is demonstrated that the necessary and unconditioned being can suffer no change which would cause it to lose its primitive state.
The necessary being can lose nothing; it cannot pass from N tonot-N; but who knows but what it is possible that without losing N, or passing tonot-N, it might acquire something which could be united to N in one way or another. In other words; N being given,not-Nis contradictory, but would N + P be contradictory, P expressing a perfection, or degree of perfection? This would be impossible; because P which is added must emanate from N; therefore all that is in P was already in N; therefore there has been no change, and to suppose it is contradictory.
26. It may be replied that P was in N virtually, and that the new state only adds a new form. But does this form, as such, involve somethingnewin reality? Either it does or it does not: if it does not, there is no change; if it does, it was either contained in N or not contained in it; if contained in it, there is no change; if not contained in it, whence does it come?
27. To elude this demonstration, some have imagined various necessary beings acting on each other, and mutually producing changes in each other,—by this means theyattempt to explain whence thenewstates come. But these are not only fictions, and evidently groundless cavils in contradiction with the principles of ontology, but they may be destroyed by one conclusive argument.
Let A, B, C, D, be the necessary and unconditioned beings; each is supposed absolutely, and with primitive states, which we shall respectively calla,b,c,d. Then, taking them in their primitive state, the collection of the existences will be united with a collection of necessary and unconditioned states, which we may represent in this formula: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, (1.) This expression represents a primitive, necessary, and unconditioned state: now I ask: whence come the changes? All is unconditioned; how then is the conditioned, the mutable introduced?
28. The force of the argument is not weakened by supposing the primitive and mutual action of A, B, C, D, to be implied in the primitive statesa,b,c,d. For the mutual actions, being primitive and absolute, would produce primitively and absolutely a result in their respective terms. This result would be primitively necessary, and would be contained in the formula. (1) Therefore the formula would suffer no variation by the new supposition; and consequently there would have been no change of any kind.
29. By imagining that the mutual action does not suppose a primitive state, but a successive series of states, we fall into the infinite series, and consequently into the impossibility of arriving at any term of it, without supposing the infinity to be exhausted, (Ch. II.).
30. Again, the essences of the necessary and unconditioned beings A, B, C, D, being distinct, what reason is there for supposing them to be in relations of activity? What is the ground of this relation if they are all four necessary, unconditioned, and therefore independent of each other?
31. But let us leave such absurdities, and go on with our analysis of the idea of a necessary and unconditioned being. Immutability excludes perfectibility, so that it is necessary either to suppose the summit of perfection primitively in the necessary being, or to admit that it can never attain this perfection. Perfectibility is one of the characteristics of the contingent, which improves its mode of being by a series of transformations; the absolutely necessary is what it is, and can be nothing else.
32. The contingent must emanate from the necessary, the conditioned from the unconditioned; therefore all perfections, of whatever order, must be found in the necessary and unconditioned being; therefore all the perfections of existing reality must be in it, at least,virtually, and those which imply no imperfection must be contained in itformally.[74]
33. The possibility of the non-existent must have a foundation;[75]possible perfections must exist in a real being, if their idea is possible; therefore the infinite scale of perfections, which we conceive in the order of pure possibility, besides those which exist, must be realized in the necessary and unconditioned being.