RAPID GLANCES AT THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS OF PANTHEISTS.
163. The principal arguments on which pantheism rests are founded on the unity of science, the universality of the idea of being, the absoluteness and exclusiveness of the idea of substance, and the absoluteness and exclusiveness of the conception of the infinite.
164. Science must be one, say the pantheists, and it cannot be completely so, unless there is unity of being. Science must be certain, and there cannot be absolute certainty, unless there is identity of the being which knows with the thing known.
The solution of these difficulties consists in denying the gratuitous propositions on which they are founded.
It is not true that human science must be one, nor that unity of being is necessary for the unity of science. They must prove both these assertions; to triumph in a discussion it is not enough to assert. Far from either of them being sufficiently proved, they are both contradicted by reason and by experience. It is unnecessary to repeat here, what I have explained at full length when treating of the possibility and existence of transcendental science as well in the absolute intellectual order as in the human. For this I refer the reader to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the first book.
The second proposition which exacts the identity of the subject knowing with the object known, has also been sufficiently refuted. I have elsewhere shown that the system of universal identity does not help to explain the problem of representation, and I have proved by incontestible arguments, that besides the representation of identity, there are the representations of causality and ideality.[69]I have also demonstrated the objective value of ideas, in so far as distinguished from objects, founding my proof on the unity of consciousness.[70]
The doctrines of Kant which convert the external world into a purely subjective fact, and thus give rise to Fichte's transcendental idealism, are refuted in the second book, where I have demonstrated the objectiveness of sensations,—in the third book, where I have proved the reality of extension, and in the seventh book, where I have proved that time is not a pure form of the internal sense.
165. The argument founded on the idea of the universality of being, that is, the impossibility of more than one being, because the idea of being is absolute and embraces every thing, is a sophism in which there is a transition from the ideal order to the real, by which an indeterminate and abstract idea is converted into an absolute being. To form a perfect conception of this idea and its relations to the reality, see what has been said in the fifth book, when treating of the idea of being.
166. Spinosa, Fichte, Cousin, Krause, and all who have taught pantheism under one form or another, start with a wrong definition of substance. It is impossible to overrate the necessity of acquiring clear and distinct ideas of this definition, for there is no doubt but that here is the origin of the error of the pantheists, and the secret to put a stop to their progress. When one examines profoundly the principles of systems which have made so much noise in the philosophical world, one is surprised at contemplating their insubsistency in its nakedness. The doctrines summed up in Chapter XIV. should be kept always in sight.
167. In the importance and transcendency of the definition, the notion of the infinite may compete with that of substance. It is incredible to what extent this word has been abused without any care to explain its different senses, or its origin, or the legitimacy of its applications.
All the arguments which the pantheists pretend to found on the idea of the infinite vanish like smoke when we clearly understand the character, the origin, and the application of this idea.[71]
168. I will conclude with one remark. I am profoundly convinced that the most baneful systems in philosophy arise in great part from confusion of ideas, and the superficiality with which the most fundamental points of ontology, ideology, and psychology are examined. My ruling idea in the present work is to prevent this evil; this is why I have so greatly extended the part offundamental philosophy, abstracting, as far as possible, all secondary questions. These last are easily answered, after we have once acquired a clear and exact knowledge of the fundamental ideas of human science. (4)