CONTRADICTION OF PANTHEISM TO THE PRIMARY FACTS OF THE HUMAN MIND.
150. I do not know how any philosopher who has meditated on the human mind can incline to pantheism. The deeper we go into themefrom which it is pretended to deduce such an absurd system, the more we discover the contradiction in which pantheism appears in respect to the primary ideas and facts of our mind. My development of this observation will be brief, for it turns on questions largely examined in their respective places.
151. We have seen (Bk. VI., Ch. V.) that the idea of number is found in every understanding, and experience teaches that we employ it explicitly or implicitly in almost all our words. We scarcely speak without using the plural, and this can have no meaning without the supposition of the idea of number. Pantheism reduces all existence to an absolute unity; multiplicity either has no real existence, or is limited to phenomena, which, in the judgment of some followers of this system, contain no reality of any sort, and, in the opinion of all pantheists, can contain no substantial reality. According to them, therefore, the idea of number either has no correspondence in the reality, or it relates only to modes of being, to the various modifications of the same being, and therefore does not extend to the beings themselves, for in this system there is only one being. If this be so, how is it that the idea of number exists in our understanding? how is it that we conceive not only many modes of being, but many beings? In the system of the pantheists not only is thereno multiplicity of beings, but it is impossible that there should be; why, then, has our understanding this radical vice which necessarily leads it to conceive the multiplicity ofthings, if this multiplicity is absurd? why is this ideal defect confirmed by experience which also necessarily leads us to believe that there are many distinctthings?
152. In the system of the pantheists our understanding is only a modification, a manifestation of the only substance; but it is impossible to explain this disagreement between the phenomenon and the reality, this necessary error into which the phenomenon of the substance leads us in respect to the substance itself. If we are a mere manifestation of the unity, why do we find the idea of multiplicity as a primitive fact within us? Why this continual contradiction between the being and its appearances? If we are all one same unit, whence do we obtain the idea of number? If the phenomena of experience are only evolutions, so to speak, of this one unit, why do we feel ourselves irresistibly inclined to suppose multiplicity in the phenomena, and to multiply thethingsin which they succeed?
153. The idea of distinction opposed to that of unity is also fundamental in our mind;[67]yet pantheism gives it no correspondence in the reality. If there is only being, if all is identical, there is nothing distinct, and the idea of distinction is a pure chimera. In this system distinction not only does not exist, but it is impossible; consequently the idea of distinction is absurd; therefore one of the primary facts of our mind is a contradiction.
154. Negative judgments form a considerable part of the wealth of our understanding;[68]pantheism destroys them. In this system the proposition: A is not B, can never betrue; for, if all is identical, one thing cannot be denied of another, there would be no distinct things, there would be nooneoranother; all would be one; the negative judgment must be limited to the following: in reality A is the same as B, there is only the appearance of distinction; B is A existing orpresenteddifferently.
155. The idea of relation is also absurd in the pantheistic system; there is norelationwithout a term ofreference, and there is no reference without distinction. According to the pantheists the subject referred and the term of the reference are absolutely identical; there are, consequently, no true, but only apparent, relations; thus we find another of the primary facts of our understanding radically absurd, because it is in contradiction with the reality, and even with the possibility.
156. The support of all our knowledge, the principle of contradiction, it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time, is without meaning, and can have no real or possible application, if the doctrine of pantheism be admitted. When we say that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be at the same time, we understand that there is the possibility of not-being; in our mind the idea of being excludes that of not-being only with respect to the same thing and at the same time. If there is only one being, and all other being is impossible, it follows that the idea of not-being is absolutely contradictory, and all the propositions in which it is expressed are absurd. There is in this case only one being which is every thing, to this being negation of being can never be applied; this negation, then, is absolutely absurd, and another idea of our mind is absolutely contradictory.
157. The idea of contingency is also contradictory if pantheism be admitted; all that can be is, and all that does not exist is impossible; therefore when we distinguish contingency from necessity we contradict both the reality and the possibility. Hence there is another primary illusion of our mind which presents to us as possible, and even existent, that which in itself is absurd.
158. Neither can the ideas of finite and infinite co-exist in the system. One of them must be contradictory; if the only being is infinite, there is and can be nothing finite; therefore the opposition between the finite and the infinite is a chimera of our mind, to which there is nothing in reality corresponding. There is only one thing; it must be finite or infinite; in either case, one of these terms must disappear, one of these ideas is contradictory, since it is in opposition to an absolute necessity.
159. The system of absolute unity destroys the idea of order. In this idea is contained the arrangement of distinct things, distributed in a convenient manner to conspire to an end. If there is no distinction there is no order, and the distinction is impossible if there is absolute unity. The idea of order is still one of the fundamental ideas of our mind; literary and artistic unity, and in general that of all sensible beauty, is the unity of order: substitute for this absolute unity, and you destroy all beauty of the imagination; art becomes absorbed by chaos.
160. It is useless to add that pantheism destroys liberty of will; this liberty of which we are so clearly and vividly conscious, and which accompanies us through every moment of our existence. In this monstrous system absolute unity is inseparable from absolute necessity; the existent and the possible are confounded; nothing which is can cease to be; nothing which is not can be. The action must spring from the only substance by a spontaneous development; understanding by spontaneity the absence of an external cause; but this action cannot but exist, it will be an irradiation, as it were, of the only substance, just aslight radiates from luminous bodies. Without liberty of will merit is absurd; a being that acts by absolute necessity can have no merit or demerit. Then laws are to no purpose, rewards and punishments useless; the history of individuals as of all mankind is only a history of the phases of the only substance, which goes on eternally developing itself in subjection to absolutely necessary conditions which have no other foundation than the substance itself.
161. Pantheism not only destroys freedom of will, but it renders unintelligible all affections which relate toanother. If there is only one being, what mean the sentiments of love, respect, gratitude, and in general, all those which suppose a person distinct from themewhich experiences them? No matter how distinct we suppose the term of these affections, they can never have any; and although they seem to proceed from different principles, they spring from only one. The man who loves one man and hates another is themeloving and hating itself; appearances denote diversity and opposition, but at bottom there is unity, identity. Who can accept such absurdities?
162. Thus pantheism, after destroying the intellectual man, annihilates the moral man; after declaring the fundamental ideas of our mind contradictory, it attacks the most precious fact of our consciousness,—the freedom of will; it destroys the sentiments of the heart, denying our individuality, it precipitates us all into the deep abyss of the only substance, the absolute being, confounding and identifying us with it, till we lose within it our own existence, as the molecules of a grain of dust are lost in the immensity of space.