CHAPTER XIIIOBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
I had not decided beforehand on the number of my chapters; it seems that there will be thirteen. If these pages have readers to whom the number thirteen is distressing, I beg of them at once to dismiss this feeling by saying: “He who objects to sit down thirteen at table, acknowledges by this that he does not believe in a supreme intelligence, superior to his own, which governs the world.”
Science, religion, reason, and faith, these four words form the circle in which all intellects move, now more than ever; on this all the world is agreed, but all the world does not know what the greatest thinkers have understood by these four words.
If we do not wish to deserve the title given to that collective being, “the man in the street,” the best means of avoiding it is to acknowledge openly that there are many unexplained problems facing us, and that man exists in order to do his part in solving them. Humanity is not composed of individuals who have been poured forth from a horn of plenty, its destiny cannot therefore be to diffuse itself over the surface of the earth without the means of knowing why it is there.
An ancient Greek said once that the gods were ready to sell all kinds of good things to mortals but at a high price, at the cost of hard work. If then we can only acquire the promised good things by the aid of hard work, our thoughts carry us at once to science, and weask what can this science do, upon which we so pride ourselves in this century, to explain the motive of our existence?
In proportion as physical science studies this universe, so it recognises more and more clearly that its most general phenomenon is vibration, a periodical movement, which propagates itself in waves succeeding each other at regular intervals.
We have all noticed the effect produced by drops of rain falling on water which the absence of wind leaves perfectly tranquil. Each drop forms a circle, but the causes of perturbation of an aqueous surface are infinite; the dip of an insect, the leap of a fish, all ceaselessly cause new circles, which follow each other, become wider, and finally lose themselves in each other under our eyes; the water is apparently a prey to shivering fits; this is a type of the vibrations whose percussions are felt by the whole world. We are all, body and soul, subject to the law of vibrations, each sense recognises its power by means of sensations whose various kinds are apprehended by physical science, by the calculation of the number of vibrations which, in a given time, affect differently each of our organs of sensation. Science records the number of vibrations which denote to our skin the exact degree of the external temperature, she counts the millions of vibrations which enable our eyes to see definite colours in the space of a second, and the thousands of vibrations which enable our ears to hear, in the same space of time, well defined sounds.
Thus physical science explains a general phenomenon which exerts its influence, indubitably, on all men since there have been men on earth.
When Bordas-Desmoulins, one of the first of our learned thinkers to study comparative science, said: “Without mathematics we cannot plumb the depths of philosophy; without philosophy we cannot penetrate mathematics; without the two we can reach the foundation of nothing,” did he see that this truth is so great as to be all embracing?
We see theologians walking steadily in the footsteps of those who study comparative science with conviction. Father Gratry contends that without it it is impossible to know God, man, and nature. Matter cannot be conceived without spirit, nor spirit apart from matter. Whilst a human being is in the embryonic stage, the soul, the principle of life, is occupied in forming the body, destined to cover it during its earthly existence. The moment arrives when this body is sufficiently prepared to appear in the light of day; it contains two nervous centres, the one supplying the vegetative life, the other the animal; they are distinct though not separated, and the soul still continues its work on the body, whether it sleeps or whether it wakes; but during sleep, whilst man’s will is torpid, the soul supplies by rhythmic movements of the nerves, the requisite matter for the reparation of the losses sustained during the waking periods.
This intimate union of mind and matter has been rejected by certain great philosophers. Descartes, for instance, completely separated the immaterial substance possessed of the property of thinking from the material body. Apparently we are of his way of thinking since we always speak of our soul as of one thing and our body as of another; this is to make two truths out of one and the same truth. But it is better to look upon it as one truth as Aristotle did formerly. At a later date certain doctors of the Church became of the same opinion, and atpresent Christian theologians, who are also thinkers, hold the same view.
A fresh science is now in process of development. It connects psychical phenomena, such as sensation, thought, and action, with that which can be weighed and measured. This science bears several more or less characteristic names; in order to keep to generalities I will call it the new psychology; it is taught in Germany, England, Paris, and Russia, and perhaps elsewhere. There is only one way of dealing rightly with so vast a science, it should be treated in its entirety; but as I am anxious only to make known some of its more recent discoveries, I will content myself by doing this briefly and with many omissions.
Kant had as his disciple the physiologist J. Müller, who applied the method of his master to the study of sensations; and Helmholtz was trained by J. Müller.
At one time, rather more than fifty years ago, the germs of life were considered to be an exception on the terrestrial globe; but Helmholtz discovered them even in rocky masses; and he proved to Liebig that putrefaction was not a simple chemical reaction, but was due to the action of a living organism. M. Pasteur was one of the first to profit by this lesson.
Each definite science has its own special sphere in which it is occupied only with itself; Helmholtz, a physician and musician, worked entirely in connection with his own science only; without reference to the conclusion that comparative science might draw from his labours, he gave himself up to the study of the rapidity of the transmission of nervous impressions, and dogmatically laid down his thesis in his bookThe Physiological Theory of Music, which is perhaps the most important of his works; at least it is the one of which I have made the most use.
In nature we never hear simple sounds; nothing but a fusion of noises reaches us. Helmholtz, however, succeeded in distinguishing a fundamental sound in a mass of others; but it is quickly amalgamated with two or three other sounds which are higher and feebler than itself, as distant echoes. Helmholtz became convinced that music is composed of single sounds accompanied by others of a decreasing intensity, and he demonstrated by calculation that the number of vibrations of these secondary sounds called harmonics are greater than those of the fundamental sounds; and the differences of the grouping of harmonic sounds determines the difference of timbre. In this way Helmholtz discovered the cause of musical timbre, and was able to explain the reason, hitherto unknown, of the sound of a flute differing from that of a hautbois, or of a woman’s voice from that of a man’s.
There are two marvellous things in music; timbre and rhythm.
By rhythm is understood the number of a group of corresponding vibrations recurring in a second. Rhythm may be defined as a recurring movement, composed of unequal parts; the beat of a pulse, in which each pulsation can be separately distinguished, will serve as an example.
Rhythm may be found everywhere, in poetry equally with music; and it is this which imparts its chief charm. The beauty of the rhythmic prose of the Hebrew Nābhī naturally attracted the multitude independently of the subject matter of their words; and the rhythmic language of Renan’s translation of the book of Job enables us perfectly to grasp and appreciate the special charm incidental to rhythm.
Music is provocative of nervous effects, at times of great intensity; beneficent to the greater number of persons, but to others quite the reverse; in his infancy Mozart almost fainted on hearing the sound of the trumpet.
Professor Wundt—who in his works deals with the human soul and that of beasts—founded at Leipzig, in 1879, a laboratory with this inscription over the entrance, “Institute for Experimental Psychology.” Wundt said: “The result of my researches does not accord with the dualism of Plato and Descartes; from experimental psychology the animism of Aristotle (who connects psychology and biology) alone is evolved, as the plausible metaphysical conclusion.”
A wonderful man this Aristotle! Whether we wish to analyse those sensations which stir every fibre of our moral being, or to trace the etymology of a word, or study the most modern of all our sciences, the first to present himself to our mental vision is the sage of Stageira.
The first notes of an air by Mozart or of a sonata of Beethoven could never have been produced by them by chance, they were willed by a power which their composers considered outside themselves.
Inspiration—revelation—the same thing with all, in all time, and in every place, they differ but in degree. It is possible that a musical physician such as Helmholtz, added to a psychological physiologist as Wundt was, and the two grafted on to a philosopher such as Aristotle, might have been able to define, in a measure, the meaning of the words Inspiration and Revelation.
It is with a knowledge of causes that we are able to say: “The universal phenomenon of vibration is a fight for life, a fight betweenbeingandnot being.”
We do not always occupy ourselves with science, and writers of a poetical temperament like to write on the more serious subjects, at the dictation of their heart and conscience only, especially when they speak to themselves alone, with no thought of others.
Renan, in hisHistory of the People of Israel, writes: “In presence of the social problems of our days, and of the question: Has life a premeditated end and object? What is it? Is it for the good of humanity? Is it for the good of the individual?” The author replies: “The universe, whose last word we never learn, attains its end by an infinite variety of germs; if we are amongst those who deceive themselves and rebel against authority, that may not be attended by serious consequences ... let us be quiet; if we miss the mark others will hit it; that which Jahvah wills, will come to pass.”
Understand if you can.
Those who wish to adore, always find an object of adoration; Renan seeks his religion in the love of science and art; Comte thought to find it in a life devoted to the happiness of humanity. Is it not of these, and of men similar to them, that the most intellectual and clearest sighted of judges, the mythological god Krishna, spoke when he said, “All those who adore idols, adore me.”
Everywhere we encounter God and His power; either He triumphs over man, or man vainly seeks to triumph over Him.
I have noticed that Renan’s work,La Vie de Jésus, to which earnest-minded persons have a great objection, has been the means of consoling more than one sincere soul. Is it to be reckoned a good or an evil? Who shall take upon himself to say? Renan has certainly an attraction for certain readers, they do not succeed in finding out what he believes, but that is not to the point; generally he confines himself to troubling the water, it becomes muddy; in muddy waters fish are sometimes taken—we throw our lines—and—marvellous—each one draws out his favourite fish.
Père Gratry has nothing in common with Renan, except that both are poets. Plato having said that all but thewicked have their eternal types in God, Gratry was authorised in the conclusion he drew in hisLogicthat “nothing in us, neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor prayer, can go too far; all is more beautiful than that of which we dream; all is higher than we can believe possible.”
This language has displeased certain moralists, and they have not spared their censures on the theologian who used it. They have accused him of dreaming whilst dealing with religion, and they would have preferred that Gratry should occupy himself simply with literature. “Above all,” they say, “how is it that Gratry has ventured to write five long chapters on the probable site of immortality, and to inquire where men will live when there is no longer death.”
Why should we not be permitted to ask ourselves these questions, and to reply to them as we please? Are not theologians men like ourselves? Especially that theologian who said: “The time when religion will have acquired the characteristics of a science is yet far distant.”
At an early period of our present era, various groups of men formed themselves into assemblies, “Churches,” as they were called, all teaching religion, and each from his own point of view. The study of these instructions is full of important lessons. First is to be noticed this fact that the truths on which all were agreed weighed more heavily in the balance than those on which they disagreed. It is necessary to disentangle true religion in itself from its surroundings. There is one true religion, as there is one God, and one logic. The expressions which are current with us of natural religion and revealed religion should belacking in our conversation, since they cause us to believe that they denote two different religions.[136]
Opinions are sometimes attributed to the founders of organised religions which really belong only to their disciples, or even to theologians who live in an age much more recent than the historical birth of the religion; if free discussion followed, suppositions and doubts might often be dissipated, but in certain cases laws are imposed and rules laid down which are considered infallible and not open to discussion.
According to the early Christian Doctors, the Church is external and visible, together with that which is within and invisible; the title, “Soul of the Church,” was given to the invisible union of men amongst themselves and with God; its dogma is, “All the righteous, none but the righteous can have their share in the soul of the Church; many are in the visible Church who do not belong to its soul; many are out of the visible Church who form a portion of the soul of the Church.”[137]
In speaking thus the Fathers rested on an ancient tradition; it came to them from Plato, whose words I have already quoted: “There is in the soul a point, which is the root by which the Divinity suspends his creatures to Himself; and this central point is the truth which connects all men from one end of the world to the other.” This explains the previous assertion of the Fathers.
But they did not content themselves with an assertion only; they imposed on reason the burden of explanation and the duty of knowing all. The first effort of our reason in natural sciences consists in examining facts and endeavouring to find the laws. If one eternal law did notrule over the whole of nature our labour would be in vain; if this same law did not govern our reason we should be incapable of finding those laws which govern the phenomena around us; and it is clear that there could consequently be no physical science. But it is not so apparent at first sight that if our reason were not governed by an eternal law, there could be no moral sciences either.
Many observations have been made by men of attentive and profound minds, but they have remained isolated for the most part. I will quote one or two that I have collected here and there; it is well to pass them in review, if only to assure one’s self that they are true.
“It is a great mistake to suppose that those who have read many books know many things. Reading supplies the material for knowledge, but reflection alone causes it to take root and grow.” Locke made this observation. I add to it that for reflection to bear fruit it must be joined to a good method. Père Gratry, who is a practical man, also enforces this in a chapter in hisLogic, in which he lays great stress on the importance of reserving the morning hours for study and reflection. It is a fine paragraph, and worthy of being reproduced.
“In the book of the Apocalypse we read, ‘And there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.’ In the heaven of souls this is rare. According to St Augustine the Eternal Wisdom does not cease to speak to human creatures, and reason does not cease its activities in us. We have only to listen, and to listen we must keep silence. But amongst men, and especially amongst thinkers, who can keep still silence? The generality of men, especially those who study, have not a single half hour of silence in the day, men of learning either listen to those who speak, or are speaking themselves; and when they find themselves alone and silent, then they permit books to speak to them, and they devour long discourses, with rapid glances, in a few minutes.”
Under these conditions all study requiring much reflection is impossible.
Attention, Abstraction, Contradiction, Speech—only a few persons appreciate the importance of these four words, and hardly any one doubts that they know the part played in their lives by the things which these words represent.
If we wish to know ourselves many subjects of all kinds must be studied simultaneously; religion and religions; the opinions of the ancients and of our contemporaries; men as they now are and as they were. Renan has well characterised primitive men in attributing to them “a special feeling for nature which enabled them, with wonderful delicacy and accuracy, of which we have no conception, to perceive the qualities which furnished names; and they saw innumerable things at once.”
The Hindoos, who were writers many centuries before our present era, must have inherited from their primitive ancestors this special feeling for nature, or they would not have composed those verses in the 129th hymn: “Everything in the beginning was hidden in gloom—the germ which was covered by the husk was brought forth by the power of heat. On this germ rested love, the spring of the mind, yes, and the poets, in meditating thereon, discovered in their souls the tie between the things created and the things uncreated.—This spark, comes it from the earth, piercing all, penetrating into all, or comes it from heaven?”
These passages have something modern in them; they might have been written now when science seeks to fuse heaven and earth, which was not done formerly.
The cord does not cease to vibrate. The persistence of this phenomenon has different comments made on it. “It is the effect of heredity,” says modern science; “it is a contemporaneous effect of the fall,” says theology. Perhaps the one and the other make of the human race one unique being which continues through the ages.
It is as though time had no existence for humanity. Space also apparently does not count for much with the race. If the singular facts are true which we hear, two persons separated by a great distance have the same thoughts at the same instant; not the universal thought naturally inherent in the human mind, but entirely personal. Has sympathy—which is as essentially human as it is mysterious—a relationship with electricity, which is a distinctly physical phenomenon? On those who reject such a supposition should fail the burden of finding another.
Each of us sees a landscape according to our sight; to the short-sighted (and this is a normal condition) the landscape appears simple; trees here, there houses and streets, men walking; but with strong glasses, as is well known, it is possible to see many more things. Again, the short-sighted can distinguish only the colour, veins and serrated edge of a leaf, but if this were placed under a microscope they would see a surface of green glittering with light, and strewn with gold and diamonds.
If there are two ways of looking at a leaf, there are at least three of looking at life; it can be seen from its pleasant or painful side, this is to feel that we live only; then we can grasp it with regard to the duties it imposes on us. This is a right point of view, but it shows one side only; or we may consider it as science represents it, that is its moral, rational, and religious aspect combined.
The more we observe and the more we reflect on what we observe, so much the more do we exercise our faculty of understanding things; and according as this faculty approaches or withdraws from the normal type, so it will correspond either with the leaf seen by the naked eye or with it as seen under the microscope.
There are two kinds of opposition. Very often we come upon a true thought in a book which shocks us because for the moment we do not recognise its truth. We also forget that all truths can be viewed at various angles; or we do not understand a truth because it is expressed in a novel way.
A manual treating of physics will best explain the reason of our false impression. When a ray of light is transmitted from one medium to another of different density, as from air to water, a change of direction is impressed on the ray, making the straight line appear broken; this change of direction is calledrefraction. Cardinal Newman made a very true observation on this subject. “If an idea is presented unexpectedly to us,” he said, “clothed in words to which we are unaccustomed, it is sufficient to cause us to speak of it as erroneous; this illusion is only a simple effect of therefraction of words; that is to say, that in the mind of the writer of this truth which startles us, the idea followed a straight line, but in our mind it became broken.”
The second kind of opposition is of a different nature. It is amusing to watch two individuals who are taking opposite sides in a heated discussion concerning some philosopher. “What I tell you is correct; A, who is a great scholar, says so.” “Yes, but I also know a great scholar, B, and he says just the contrary.”
There seems to be a charm in controversy which few persons can resist; they ignore what you say, and bluntly tell you that you are in the wrong.
Not only is abstraction fatal to study, but it often plays us sorry tricks apart from our occupations. Sometimes abright idea comes into our mind, but touching only the surface; if by inattention or idleness we do not fix it firmly in our memory by clothing it in suitable words, it is a hundred to one that it is not irrevocably lost to us. It is not more possible to arrest its flight than to fasten a placard to the wall without nails or gum.
It is difficult to note with exactness the amount of inattention which so frequently accompanies the act of opening a serious book even with the fixed intention of reading it.
I once surprised myself in a flagrant act of inattention. I was staying with a friend, and took up Pascal’sPensées, which I had not read for some time. The edition was not the same as the one I had at home. Whilst turning over the leaves I said to myself occasionally, “How the style has changed—this is not clear—this observation is very shallow”; and so I went on, astonished at not being able to admire this celebrated work as I had formerly done. Suddenly I came upon this phrase, “Monsieur Pascal confond tout cela.” What was my humiliation to discover that in this edition “les Pensées de Pascal” were followed by “les Pensées de Nicole.” I had passed from the one to the other without noticing it. But what could have given rise to this impression of Nicole’s? I turned back a few pages, and read: “A book has just appeared which is perhaps the most useful that could be placed in the hands of princes; it is a selection of the ‘Pensées de Pascal.’ I do not say that all are equally good ... I find amongst them many well polished stones and fit to adorn a great building; but the remainder appeared to be mixed material, for which I can hardly suppose that M. Pascal could find a use.... There are even certain sentiments which hardly appear to be exact, and are like scattered thoughts thrown out at random, which are written only that they may afterwards be examined with more care and attention. Monsieur Pascal supposes thatennui comes from that which we see in ourselves—from what we think of ourselves. That assertion is perhaps more subtle than solid. Thousands of persons experience ennui without thinking of themselves at all; they feel weariness not from what they think, but because they do not think enough.... M. Pascal confond tout cela.” Upon my word, I felt consoled for my lapse into inattention; to this fault I owe my acquaintance with M. Nicole’s acute remark: “Men do not feel weariness from what they think, but because they do not think enough.”
When the members of the human family began to use theclamor concomitanswhich accompanied their occupations, asclamor significans, these simple materials formed the roots which indicated such and such acts, and produced verbal and nominatival bases composed of predicative and demonstrative elements. During the course of ages the first became conjugated and the second were declined. By means of adding the successive acts together, and retaining them united in the mind, or subtracting in several directions, our ancestors diversified the meaning of all the primitive roots; they formed collective and abstract nouns in their simplest form by combination. The process never varied; thus the thought progressed from the first root to the last concept. But the first word ever pronounced by a human creature was a true proposition, and our last literary chef-d’œuvre consists of a series of propositions.
Descartes’ brief phrase “Cogito, ergo sum” may be better rendered and still more briefly by one word. The Greek word Logos, meaning word and thought combined, had originally, as I have already remarked, the two meanings of assembling and combining. “Cogito” = I think, which is the short for co-agito = I assemble. Theact of assembling presupposes that of separating, seeing that it is impossible to combine two or more things without at the same time separating them from other things. The child who is taught the first rules of arithmetic adds and subtracts, which can only be done by combining and separating. However little intelligence he may have, his task does not present great difficulties to him; and yet the most abstruse mathematical problem consists in adding and subtracting, and the most astounding calculations of Newton, and the most profound mathematical speculations of Kant, are but the results of addition and subtraction, of combining and separating.
In the course of time all that fills our dictionaries and our grammars was developed and achieved, and nothing remained for poets and philosophers to do but to add to and deduce from the materials which they had inherited or had themselves acquired as the result of their own efforts; and however powerful the imagination of poets may be, and however subtle the reasoning of philosophers, the materials which both use to form their monuments are exactly the same, and these are nothing but the words derived from roots and collected in dictionaries. Most decidedly Michael Angelo was something more than a mason or bricklayer, but yet the basilica of St Peter’s is made only of stones and bricks and a little cement, which, when brought down to its final constituents, is nothing but pulverised stone. Most decidedly one of Shakespeare’s plays is possessed of other qualities than a mere assemblage of the letters of the alphabet arranged in a certain order, but the materials of which the plays are formed were drawn from the inexhaustible supply of words accumulated during thousands of years, and which contain no single particle of gold or silver that is not found in the thousand roots of our language and the 121 concepts conceived in our minds.
Amongst the men who know how to think, many areastonished that the so-called civilised portion of humanity should have advanced so little, there is nothing astonishing in this; let us consider the point, and remember that we are only now on the morrow of the day when we were still immature humanity, and in which the human character, with its germs of language and of thought, only began to be visible in us. The universe obeys the unchangeable law which we name Divine Providence; an irresistible law which compels matter to make certain predetermined movements, and the mind to tend towards perfection; man knows that he is morally free, and not necessarily subject to animal impulses.
Man’s moral liberty being conceded, he uses it as he will; at times he seeks and finds opportunities for resisting the moral law; man, even the nominal Christian, stifles the spirit’s higher voice and compels himself to listen to the lower voice of the flesh. Pascal said plainly: “According to the carnal Christian the Messiah has come to dispense us from the necessity of loving God by providing sacraments which act as charms apart from our co-operation,” and our hatred and our injustice continue—under cover of a scrupulous observance of rites—to infect the world as well as ourselves. He spoke truly, and saw clearly, who first said: “Every being tends to preserve its existence.” With regard to the man of whom Pascal speaks, this means to follow incessantly his evil practices. But, happily, there exist other men who feel that, besides oxygen and pleasure, they must also absorb science and true prosperity for their well-being.
We read in the book of Ecclesiasticus: “In every good work trust thine own soul” (Ecclesiasticus xxxii. 23). Yes, let us believe in our own soul, which is the true Ego, and it will bid us live. I am far from sharing Pascal’s opinion, which is, that the Ego always merits contempt.
Science, after having noted and counted the exact number of vibrations of all kinds which from all partsaffect us, at a certain point ceases to have the power to calculate further, and recognises that beyond and above all vibrations there exists that which can neither be named nor counted. In my opinion that which is the best part of science is that it knows its limitations; with some people it is a well known experience that when they have once grasped the fact that their inability rightly to comprehend something they desire to know arises from an immutable decree, they become at once imbued with a profound quiescence, closely allied to certainty.
After which there is but one step left to human reason, to forsake that reason which is but temporary, and to lose oneself in that which has neither beginning nor end. This last step is an act of faith. Someone, who does not think sufficiently, calls this a leap in the dark, but for him who accomplishes it this darkness becomes transparent as crystal.
“Yes,” these persons exclaim, “and such was Kant’s last act.” It would be more correct to say Kant ended as he began, by an act of reason, since he drew the logical conclusion of what he had learnt.
The evolution of the human race will not become clear to us unless we remember that a time existed when man was without language and without reason.
During this obscure period which we name the dawn of humanity, the material wants and their satisfaction, comprised the whole being of man, as it does that of the animal. With man commenced the line of individuals leading to the higher order of social life. It is possible that the feeling of being one of many was one of the first to awake in man, since it was owing to the support afforded him by his fellows that he obtained what he needed; he was also conscious of family ties, this emotion and sentimentwas the cradle of all his best qualities; afterwards would come the attractions of race; this feeling might so dominate the individual as to cause him to forget that he was a separate entity; then by a concurrence of circumstances difficult to define, national feelings were developed from the salient features of the race, and national languages separated themselves from the central source. The knowledge of being a portion of humanity arrived at a much later period; he is still at this present time a part of a feeble few, and he can be summed up in the well-known sentence, of which the first words are, “Homo sum.” If we consider the meaning of this classical quotation it is very striking.
We often mention the pre-historic times, but we seldom ask ourselves at what date history can have begun. With the first heap of stones piled up by the men of a certain tribe at the burial of a venerated chief, history commenced; this heap became the point at which the past touched the future, a visible link in the interminable chain of human thought.
At the origin of all this mental activity we find an inspiration—a poetical fiat. It was a historical moment—no other similar to it has ever been, before or since—when the first group of human creatures acclaimed with inarticulate cries their first cavern, or the first den dug by themselves. At a much later date when man, looking up at the vault of heaven—his curiosity aroused—wished to know what were the brilliant things he saw moving high above him, was he not impelled by the feeling of the presence of a Being hitherto unknown, and to whom he paid unconscious homage by giving Him a name? If the feeling had not made itself felt simultaneously with the awakened attention caused by the appearance of the sky, the electric spark would not have burst forth.
At a later date still to what can we attribute the union of pure thought and beating hearts but to the first definiteperception of the Divine breath, and the conception of an invisible yet longed for God, whose name descended from generation to generation down to ourselves? Aristotle, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and Max Müller, have all described this ascension of the reason from the first thought which contained the germ of the idea, up to God Himself.
We thus arrive at a high level though starting from low ground; we should be higher still, but that we are retarded equally by lack of speech and of thought. As long as we fondly imagine that in possessing a word we are also masters of the thought attached to it, and that to penetrate to the heart of a thought is nothing but a linguistic exercise, or an intellectual gymnastic feat, we shall not use the sole method with which we are supplied, of growing morally, rationally, and religiously.
We form ideas of many things, but we know them only partially and disjointedly; sciences which we have learnt possess unity, since with grammar is connected synthesis, and with mathematics, algebra; (this word algebra is of Arab origin, “al djabroun,” and means the reduction of dislocated members), is it possible that we—the creators of these sciences—should be destined to wander around and away from unity, and never attain it?
It is time to end this study; I suspect that I am not the only one of this opinion. It is possible that amongst my readers—if I have any—some may already have found means of shortening it for themselves; they will perhaps turn over the pages, read a few, and say, “How tedious the old pedant is,” then shut the book and not open it again.
This would be a pity in my opinion; they should read a little more.
No philosophical work can be written without the wordsperceiveandconceiveappearing very frequently in it. The Latin language possesses the word “capio,” which means to seize something with the hand; only convincing facts can lead us to believe that these terms toperceiveand toconceiveare derived fromcapio; thus the word expressing the well-known physical movement of taking something with the hand was the origin of the two wordsperceptandconcept, without which no philosophical idea could take shape or be developed in us.
The space which separates the wordcapiofromperceptandconceptincludes neither more nor less than the entire evolution of man; that is, our own history.
That of which we think so little is in reality the indelible sign impressed once for all on man, that which alone distinguishes him from the animals, and which may yet help to form in man an excellence hitherto unknown to us; this distinguishing mark is thought and speech.
We are men—but has the type of the “genus homo” been realised? Is it impossible?
It has been undoubtedly proved that man is free in certain directions, and not in others; happily he is not free not to be a man.
THE END
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