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Full text of "Guide to the knowledge of God : a study of the chief theodicies"

REESE LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFQRNI 






MAR 23 1894 






ts No 






GUIDE 



TO 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 



GUIDE 



TO 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 



A 

of t^e C^fef 



BY A. GRATRY 
ji 

PROFESSOR OF MORAL THEOLOGY AT THE SORBONNE 
TRANSLATED BY 

ABBY LANGDON ALGER 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER 



( This Work was Crowned by the French Academy ) 

f& * 

i CNJ\ -K 



BOSTOIT 

ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1892 



Copyright, 1892, 
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 



ress: 
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. PAOE 

BY WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER . . 1-11 



first 



CHAPTER I. 

EXPLANATORY. 

A summary of the whole work. Why philosophy begins with a treatise 
on the knowledge of God, with the knowledge whereby the mind of 
man rises to God. I. Is it possible and necessary to prove the 
existence of God? Are there atheists? II. General character of 
the genuine proof of the existence of God. III. Precise nature of 
that proof : it is the principal application of one of the two essential 
processes of reason ; it is the act and fundamental process of the ra- 
tional and moral life. The study of this proof is the study of phi- 
losophy in its principle : studied historically, it is the basis of the 
history of philosophy ; studied speculatively, it places the mind at 
the point where the roots of ontology, psychology, logic, and morals 
meet 13-25 

CHAPTER II. 

PLATO'S THEODICY. 

I. Why it belonged to the school of Socrates to give to the antique 
world the laws of the chief process of reason, and to attain to the 
true philosophical proof of the existence of God. II. Platonic dia- 
lectic : the condition for its exercise ; its point of support, its move- 
ment, its term. III. Discussion of texts from Plato concerning 
the nature of the dialectic process. IV. Use which man should 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

make of this divine gift, to conquer the obstacle, develop the sense 
of the immortal and the divine. V. Starting-point of the dialectic 
process in the spectacle of visible objects. VI. full description of 
the process. VII. Term of the process (re'Xos rijs nopeias). Two 
degrees of the divine intelligible : shadows of that which is, or divine 
phantasms : the Divine Being himself. VIII. The idea of the true 
God as found in Plato. IX. Plato combats the false application 
of the chief process of reason, sophistry. X. Summary of Plato's 
Theodicy. XI. What Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 
Bossuet, and Thomassin think of the Platonic doctrine . . . 26-61 

CHAPTER III. 
ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 

I. Relations between Plato and Aristotle. II. Proof of the existence 
of God given by Aristotle and summed up by Saint Thomas Aquinas. 
III. Discussion of that proof. Its logical value is doubtful in the 
form in which it is given. IV. The result of Aristotle's Theodicy : 
an immutable essence ; a principle whose essence is very act : God 
pure act; how the motionless motor moves; attraction of the desir- 
able and intelligible; God is an eternal and perfect living being, 
Goodness, Thought, and Life. That which is in us is finite, in God 
exists infinitely. V. Aristotle's error in regard to the eternity of 
the universe. VI. God's relation to the world, according to Aris- 
totle. VII. Summary of Aristotle's Theodicy. VIII. Distinction 
between the two degrees of the divine intelligible. IX. Aristotle's 
proof of the existence of God is at bottom precisely the same as that 
of Descartes. Decision in regard to Aristotle 62-94 

CHAPTER IV. 
SAINT AUGDSTINE'S THEODICY. 

I. Saint Augustine's opinion of philosophy. II. Analogy and differ- 
ence between Plato and Saint Augustine : Quidqmd a Platone dicitur, 
vivit in Augustino. III. What Saint Augustine sees in Plato ; 
what he adds to him. IV. Theory of the method which lifts us to 
God and the truth, according to Saint Augustine (gradus ad immor- 
talia faciendux) . V. Elaboration of what precedes. Saint Augus- 
tine more exact than Plato in regard to the theory of the philosophical 
method which proves God. VI. Great superiority of Saint Au- 
gustine over Plato concerning the theory of the divine sense, prin- 
ciple of the moral and intellectual impulse towards God. VII. The 



CONTENTS. vii 

PAGE 

final term attained by reason, when God lifts it to himself (Ratio 
perveniens ad Jinem suuni). VIII. Results of Saint Augustine's 
philosophical method. Idea of the infinite ; doctrine of the creation. 
IX. Journey of reason towards God, according to Saint Augus- 
tine : two degrees of the divine intelligible. X. Conclusion : the 
Temple ; two ways of regarding it 95-142 

CHAPTER V. 

SAINT ANSELM'S THEODICY. 

I. General sense of Saint Anselm's philosophical works. II. What 
is Saint Anselm's argument ? III. Fuller analysis of that argu- 
ment. IV. How far reason can go, according to Saint Anselm 143-157 

CHAPTER VI. 

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS* THEODICY. 

I. Relations between Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine. 
II. Literal translation of a Question by Saint Thomas Aquinas, which 
is an abridged treatise on the existence of God : De Deo an Dem sit 
(Sum. Theol. l a . q. 11). III. Discussion of this chapter from 
Saint Thomas. IV. Theory of the method which lifts our mind to 
God, according to Saint Thomas : 1. The starting-point in the spec- 
tacle of created beings ; 2. The process, which takes three names : 
via causalitatis, via eminently vel excellentice, via negationis vel re- 
motionis ; 3. The moral obstacle : veritatem Dei in. injustitia detinent. 
V. Distinction between the two degrees of the divine intelligible : 
visio speculariSy visio per essentiam. Distinction in the higher of the 
two degrees : light of grace, in via videntium ; light of glory, in pa- 
tria mdentium. VI. Conclusion 158-184 

CHAPTER VII. 

THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

Philosophic character of the seventeenth century : unity of mind of its 
great men ; unity of process. 

DESCARTES. 

I. His philosophical character. II. His starting-point to prove the 
existence of God : unity of his two proofs. III. Double character 
of the true proof, both rational and experimental. IV. Objective 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

reality of the idea of God, according to Descartes : this idea is a cer- 
tain vision of God. This vision is indirect : I possess it by the same 
faculty by which I know myself. It is the IMAGE of a genuine and 
immutable nature. That image is only that which we see when the 
mind conceives, judges, or reasons. V. How Descartes' two proofs 
are inseparable and form but one. VI. The process of Descartes 
does not differ from the dialectic of Plato. VII. Hiatus in the 
ideas of Descartes, or at least in his work. Danger of Cartesianism 
ill understood. Conclusion. To distinguish between, but not to 
separate, the two orders of the divine intelligible. 

PASCAL. 

I. Part played by Pascal considered as a philosopher. II. His scep- 
ticism is not genuine scepticism, any more than is Descartes' doubt. 
He is especially averse to isolated reason. III. Pascal's doctrine 
concerning the rational knowledge of God. Pascal's deficiency. 
Conclusion. 2// 

MALEBRANCHE. 

I. Merit of Malebranche. Solid side of his doctrine. II. Male- 
branche's practical and habitual method. III. How he proves the 
existence of God. IV. Malebranche confounds the two orders of 
the divine intelligible. This is his error. "*-*J 

FENELON. 

I. Fenelon's philosophical character. His superiority. II. Fenelon 
corrects the exclusive points of view of Pascal and Malebranche. 
His analysis of reason, the best that has been made, is at the same 
time the most beautiful of the proofs of the existence of God. 
III. Profound comparison by which Fenelon explains the nature of 
ideas and reason : his superiority over Malebranche. IV. His the- 
ory of the process by which our reason rises to God. Conclusion. 

PETAU AND THOMASSIN. 

I. Analysis of an important chapter by Petau, in which he explains 
his method of demonstrative theology. II. Philosophical character 
of Thomassin. III. Starting-point of the process which proves 
God, according to Thomassin. IV. Profoundly original theory 
given by Thomassin in regard to what has been called the innate 
idea of God. V. Continuation of that theory. VI. Remarks on 
the starting-point of the process which lifts our mind to God. 
VII. Theory of that process. Thomassin's excess of tolerance in 
regard to Neo-Platonism. VIII. Clear distinction between the 
two regions of the divine intelligible. 



CONTENTS. 



BOSSUET. 

PAGE 

I. Bossuet's philosophical character. II. Relations between the 
question of Quietism and the philosophic proof of the existence of 
God. III. God proved by the spectacle of nature and by his op- 
erations in us. IV. God proved by his idea taken in itself. 
V. Description of the practical process which lifts us to God. THE 
HIDDEN SPRING. The other light. jL7 L 

LEIBNITZ. 

I. Philosophical character of Leibnitz. His chief title to glory. 
II. Did Leibnitz understand the relation between the infinitesimal 
process and the corresponding logical process ? III. Leibnitz re- 
gards as good almost all the means which have been employed to 
prove the existence of God. He thinks he has reduced the proof of 
the existence of God to mathematic precision. He remoulds Saint 
Anselm's proof. IV. Summary of the Theodicy of Leibnitz. 
V. Analogy between his Theodicy and his geometry. Conclusion 185-303 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 

I. The true proof of the existence of God also gives us the attributes 
of God. Deduction of all God's metaphysical attributes from any 
one of those attributes. II. Intellectual and moral attributes. 
III. Ipsum intelligere Dei est ejus substantia. The various ideas 
in God. IV. God's providence. Creation. Death. V. To 
what the triple distinction between the attributes of God 
corresponds 304-326 

CHAPTER IX. 

INFINITESIMAL PROCESS. 

I. How the proof of the existence of God is, as Descartes and Leib- 
nitz assert, mathematically exact. It is the highest application of 
the general infinitesimal method, of which the geometrical infini- 
tesimal process is merely a special application. II. Why many 
minds reverse the process which lifts our mind to God, and direct 
it in a contrary course. The scientific process of modern atheism is 
only the infinitesimal process inversely applied. Its result is an ex- 
act proof, ad absurdum, of the existence of God. III. Conclusion 
of first part of the Treatise on the Knowledge of God . . . 327-348 



CONTENTS. 



fart econti. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TWO DEGREES OP THE DIVINE INTELLIGIBLE. 

I. Three states of reason. II. Description of these different states of 
reason. III. Causes of these different states. IV. Continuation. 
How reason attains to its highest term : Ratio perveniens ad Jinem 
suum . ...... . . 349-362 



CHAPTER II. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH. 

Distinction between the two degrees of the divine intelligible, that 
to which reason attains, and that which, of itself, it cannot grasp, 
according to Saint Thomas. II. Comparison between reason and 
faith, according to Saint Thomas, Thomassin, and Saint Augustine. 
III. Analogy to this distinction in Saint Paul. IV. What can 
reason do without faith ? V. Parallel between the two forms of 
wisdom, natural and supernatural, by Cornelius a Lapide. Reason 
and faith compared by the Council of Trent. VI. Evident limits 
of reason. VII. What is natural reason ? Analogy between the 
evolution of reason and that of faith. VIII. What is sound reason 
and what perverted reason? Reason conjoined to its principle; 
reason doubting its principle 363-392 



CHAPTER III. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued). 

I. What is sound reason (continued) ? Natural faith. II. Natu- 
ral faith, divine sense, according to the Holy Scripture. III. Natu- 
ral faith according to Aristotle, the Alexandrians, and Kant. 
IV. Natural faith, according to Thomassin. V. Reason supported 
by its principle, by natural faith. VI. Is there, actually, no super- 
natural gift mingled with sound natural reason 1 393-410 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER IV. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN KEASON AND FAITH (Continued). 

PAGE 

I. What can sound reason do ? It may recognize its limitations, and 
regret that which it lacks : this is its highest capability. II. Exact 
precision of theological formulas on this subject. The perfection of 
the rational creature depends upon a certain gift superior to the na- 
ture of the created being. Geometrical analogy. III. Natural 
desire to see God, according to Saint Thomas 411-431 

CHAPTER V. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued). 

I. Transition from reason to faith. II. Evening light and morning 
light. III. Genesis of light according to the Gospel . . . 432-417 

CHAPTER VI. 

RELATIONS BETWEEN REASON AND FAITH (Continued). 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

I. Two degrees of light : Sound reason. Perverted reason. Slug- 
gish reason. Comparison. II. Theological Summary. III. We 
must advance, with the help of God, to the higher of the two degrees 
of the divine intelligible 448-469 



UNJVEKblTY 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

BY WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. 



TN its original language the work here translated has 
passed through many editions, and has attained the 
rank of an authoritative classic. It is characterized by 
such comprehensiveness of scope, such force and beauty of 
style, such amplitude of learning, such ripeness and pre- 
cision of thought, such depth of experience, and such catho- 
licity of spirit that no one can fitly read it without being 
instructed, stimulated, and edified. The author sweeps with 
the ease of a consummate mastery through the wisdom of 
twenty-five centuries, gathers up the chief treasures depos- 
ited there by the kings of insight, and presents them con- 
structed into one harmonious whole. The question with 
which he grapples as strenuously as any one ever has done, 
is whether the human mind is able to attain to a real 
knowledge of God. To the examination of this sublime 
theme he brings both an intense earnestness and an unfail- 
ing sobriety; while adding to these high qualities all that 
historic erudition and training can yield from without, or 
personal acumen and consecration furnish from within. 
The result, as embodied in the present volume, is one with 
which, in point of attractiveness and solid value, no work 
on the same subject within the entire compass of English 
literature can for a moment stand a comparison. 

Gratry answers the question, Can man know God ? in the 
most effective way possible, by setting forth, in systematic 

i 



2 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

outline and with appropriate detail, the experimental and 
critical conclusions at which a large number of the most 
illustrious thinkers of our race, from Plato and Aristotle 
to Fe'nelon and Leibnitz, have actually arrived on that 
subject. He lays bare the methods they employed, the dif- 
ficulties they encountered, the arguments they constructed, 
the aids they received, the results they conquered, and their 
fundamental agreement through all. He does this with an 
incisiveness of thought, a summarizing skill, a patience, an 
impartiality, and a lucidity most admirable and most de- 
lightful. It is true that as we pass on from name to name 
there seems to be a good deal of repetition. But there is 
ever a variety in the sameness, a progressive growth in the 
exposition, a cumulative gain through the repeatals, which 
fully reward the reader. As he goes over, in theodicy after 
theodicy, what appear to be quite identical statements, he 
will more and more find doubts dissolved, objections an- 
swered, obscurities illuminated, peace bestowed, assurance 
and satisfaction breaking in. There are very few, even 
among professional students of philosophy, who will not 
find themselves abundantly repaid for a patient perusal of 
all the repetitions in these freighted pages, so momentous 
are the themes treated, and so masterly is the treatment. 

One of the central traits of this work is the appeal the 
author makes for the action of human nature in its integ- 
rity as regulated by the sovereign unity of the rational 
principle. He protests against the division of the soul into 
a collection of abstracting faculties which operate separ- 
ately and breed all sorts of error, fiction, and confusion. 
He quotes approvingly the bold remark of Fenelon, " Eeason 
is even more wanting on earth than religion." Having also 
cited the great saying of Saint Thomas, " In the moral order, 
crimes against nature are worse than sacrilege," he adds, 
" So in the intellectual order that crime against nature which 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 3 

attacks reason is worse than the sacrilege which attacks 
faith ; for to ruin reason is to prostrate the religious edifice 
by undermining the ground." 

The vindication of the powers and rights of reason, so 
nobly illustrated in the whole body of the work, has been 
formally stated by Gratry in the following eloquent passage, 
which is no less timely than it is just and weighty: 

" What is the common and natural state of the reason among 
men 3 We see it all about us. God is still unknown to the ma- 
jority of men, and almost all are profoundly ignorant of their des- 
tiny, their nature, and their duty. The majority still reject the 
unmistakable light thrown upon human questions by universal 
reason, aided by God, and they are unable to pass this first and 
natural initiatory step, and far from attaining to the higher initi- 
ation which God has prepared for all. Very few men even suc- 
ceed in gaining complete mastery of their body ; nearly all live a 
fortuitous and turbulent life, conducive to premature old age and 
untimely death. 

"How few reasonable beings there are who cultivate in them- 
selves the sacred gift of reason ! The greater number cultivate 
the earth ; others cultivate nothing. Throughout humanity, with 
but rare exceptions, reason, that sacred talent intrusted by God to 
every man on his entrance into this world, remains sterile or buried. 

" Bossuet, speaking of reason hidden in the flesh, says : ' What 
efforts must we not make to distinguish our soul from our body ! 
How many of us there are who never attain to the knowledge or 
slightest perception of this distinction ! ' ' How many are there 
who rise somewhat above this mass of flesh, and clear their soul 
from it?' 

" Yes, there are but very few men in whom reason is distinct 
from the mass of instincts, sensations, and wants, constituting a 
free force and an independent power. With almost all it is a 
sorely oppressed force, a power subordinated, not only to the im- 
agination, the senses, interests, and desires, but also to the cur- 
rent of the blood and the disposition, the influence of the matter 
which feeds otir body, and the forces of physical nature. Reason, 
the logical varnish of a purely animal life, the blind and trivial 



4 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

bond of our passions, desires, humors, and sensations, reason, 
blended with the whole, and carried away by the general move- 
ment, obeys slavishly, instead of ruling. 

"There are, among God's creatures, animals belonging to the 
lower grades of life. Their body is but a uniform mass, without 
distinct organs. Each point represents as well as any other the 
essential centres of life, and exercises all its functions vapidly and 
indifferently. There is no distinct heart or brain ; all is con- 
founded in the sum total of the mass. Well, just such is the in- 
tellectual organization of the multitude at the present day. Reason 
is in the germ, but not developed ; it is spread throughout the 
mass, but is destitute of distinct central organ. It does not form, 
let me repeat, a free force and an independent power. The minds 
of such men may be compared to those inferior organizations in 
the animal scale which have no distinct brain. 

"And with those who have developed the germ of reason to 
some slight degree, how is the development accomplished 1 ? 'We 
seldom encounter anywhere other than warped intellects,' said 
A*naud in the seventeenth century. What would he say now? 

" What is a warped intellect 1 Bacon defines it very "happily : 
' It is a mirror without symmetry, irregular, in the beams of the 
sun.' * Joubert uses the same figure in regard to one of our more 
excessive thinkers : ' Thomas has a concave head ; it exaggerates 
and enlarges everything which it reflects.' Now, just as crooked 
mirrors deform every image, so a warped intellect distorts the data 
which might raise it to the heights of truth. This one-sided in- 
telligence falsifies the truth which strikes it; it is addressed in 
words of truth, it hears falsehood ; beauty and sublimity are held 
up before it, it sees only deformity. This may be accounted for. 
Just as unsymmetrical surfaces are fantastic and distorted mirrors 
which falsify by their unevenly developed dimensions, so a warped 
intellect is a disproportionately developed intellect. For is not 
our weak understanding usually employed in the exclusive direc- 
tion of one ruling passion, one fixed idea or supreme prejudice'? 
Who is there whose intellectual mirror is a regular surface in every 
direction, spherical as the vault of heaven, or smooth as the mirror 
of the waters? 

"Certainly the majority of minds are strange and distorted 
reflectors. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 5 

" Being thus formed, they can derive only error from the spec- 
tacle of visible things and of the inner actions of the soul, and 
from that of human events. They gaze, and fancy that they see 
everything ; they do see everything but the sum total and the pro- 
portions. It is thus that we observe the world, that we write 
history, and that we describe mankind. It is thus that, day by 
day, we retrace present facts visible to every eye ; and the tale is 
false. We do not deliberately lie, but we give everything facti- 
tious dimensions, conformed to the desired effect. We enlarge 
what pleases us, and render imperceptible whatever offends. We 
are false, and we see things as we ourselves are. 

" There is another natural infirmity of the reason, which is very 
apparent at the present time. Even those who think somewhat 
correctly, think but little and almost fruitlessly, because they are 
isolated, because each mind sees by itself alone ; union and associa- 
tion of intellectual forces are yet to come. The confusion of tongues, 
the antagonism of sects, the subdivision of intellectual persons, and 
above all, the secret question at the bottom of every heart, 'God or 
no god,' the question which divides mankind into two camps, is 
anything more than this needed to keep apart those who think 1 
The sphere of the intellectual world is still inhabited on the exterior, 
not at the centre, where all rays meet, but only on the surface, where 
all are divided : so that there are, in the world of science and of 
thought, regions divided by space, subject to different heavens, 
speaking different languages, and much more foreign to one another 
than the various races of the earth. Each science is surrounded 
by a high wall, and so is every intellect. The unity of the human 
mind is less attained than that of the globe. 

"If we would save religion, society, and civilization, the first 
work to undertake is the restoration of public reason. We must 
re-establish in the minds of men a knowledge of and respect for 
reason and its laws, and the practice of these laws, logic. It must 
be known, for it has been forgotten, that there are both error and 
truth in the world, and that the one may be distinguished from 
the other; that there is a true method of human thinking, that 
is to say, there are fixed principles and legitimate processes ; that 
these principles and processes have been practised in all ages in- 
stinctively by many persons, and might have been so in a certain 
sense by all; that they were practised with some conscientious- 



6 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

ness and with admirable results by philosophical minds in every 
century; but that they were ignored and violated by the blind 
criticism and lawless practice of sophists in all ages ; that the true 
philosophical method, without being yet very completely defined, 
has nevertheless, in the course of ages, been determined and de- 
veloped by the success of its applications and the even clearer 
sense of those great intellects who made use of it ; but that there 
exists a false method and a sophistical process, which has never 
ceased to impede the advance of philosophy by its perturbing 
action, and that this power of contradiction, ever increasing, seems 
to borrow strength from the very progress of truth. 

" This being thoroughly perceived, we must proceed to separate 
these shadows and this light ; that is, we must at last learn to make 
a scientific distinction between sophistry and philosophy. We must 
give their true names, in history, to philosophers and sophists. 
Moving in a direction contrary to contemporary eclecticism, philo- 
sophy must at last proceed to the necessary excommunication of its 
domestic foes, instead of greeting and embracing them. The errone- 
ous method, and that whicli leads to truth, must be exactly defined j 
we must recognize, what is manifest enough, that the sophistical 
process is nothing but the philosophical method inverted. 

''The division once accomplished, and the sophists set apart, we 
must restore the legitimate rule of reason and philosophy among 
us by the study of genuine philosophers, by the practice and 
knowledge of their method, as well as by a study of the sophists, 
considered as a counter proof and demonstration through the 
absurd. 

"Philosophy, a universal science, must come forth from its isolation 
and look face to face at the special branches of science which regard 
philosophy with contempt. Philosophy, as a wise writer expresses 
it, must cross the boundary-line, enter the domain of science, and 
take possession of it. It is right that all these branches of science 
which philosophy created should be subject to it ; or rather, it is 
right that the human mind should cease to be divided into regions 
unknown each to the other, and that the various sciences should 
resume their natural relations in the unity of philosophy. 

" Still more must be done, if we are to re-establish the serious 
education of reason among us. 

" It is not enough that science should exist, it must become a 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 7 

part of human intelligence ; and reason must be actually developed 
in every man, or at least in the majority of those who desire to 
think, and believe that they do so. 

" Now, so long as we blindly refuse to recognize that the solid 
and healthy growth of thought proceeds from the growth of the 
entire soul and will, there can be no mental change. There can be 
no advance of reason without a corresponding advance in moral 
strength and freedom. Intellect and will, reason and freedom, are 
the two wings of the soul, upon which it rises to its only object, 
which is goodness, and at the same time truth. 

" Farther yet, and this is the supreme question in the life of 
the human mind and its history, a vital question for the human 
intellect, is our reason conjoined to that of God, or is it wholly 
separate ? Is reason destined to become holy, or to sink into 
degradation? At which extreme is it to stop] For it will not 
remain at this sterile and changeable intermediate, which is the 
end of nothing; it must either fall or rise. 

" Reason is a force that seeks for its beginning and end. Now, 
the truth is, that the beginning and the end of reason is God. 
The human heart seeks God no more unceasingly than reason does. 
Only in this pursuit the mind, as well as the heart, is subject to 
change. When the human heart changes, we have moral perversion. 
\V hen the human mind changes, we have intellectual perversion, 
the vice of sophists. ' Truth,' says Saint Augustine, ' lies in placing 
in God these three things, the cause of the world, the supreme 
good, the fulcrum of reason.' Nothing more profound could be said. 
Very certainly the whole history of philosophy and sophistry is con- 
tained in that sentence. Only Saint Augustine makes no mention 
here of the final abyss irto which the sophist plunges when, setting 
God apart from reason, he undermines the latter to discover its 
origin. 

" But what happens when, far from dividing it from God, we 
conjoin the two, and reason follows its research to the end? 
' Reason/ says Saint Augustine, * reason, attaining its end, be- 
comes virtue/ But what virtue? Let us see. 

" There is a height, according to Saint Augustine, where reason 
stops. This is its end. This is plain to every true philosopher. 
' The science of the human mind/ said Royer-Collard, ' will have 
been carried to the highest degree of perfection which it can attain 
when it can derive ignorance from its primary source.' 



8 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

" There is, therefore, let us say with Saint Augustine, a height 
where reason stops : this is its end. But there it goes on in 
something which is not itself; as one river flows into another, or 
is borne to the ocean. This is the point where the mind of man is 
continued in the mind of God himself, and is subject to it. This 
subjection, or rather this high degree of elevation of the human 
reason, subject to the mind of God, is faith. Faith, that is the 
virtue to which reason soars when it attains its end. 'Faith is 
indeed,' says Pascal, 'the last step of reason.' Only we must of 
course agree as to this capital truth whose admission or rejection 
decides the destinies of the world and the human mind. 

" We affirm that this subjection of the human mind to the Spirit 
of God is not the destruction of reason, but its final perfection. 
Reason, said Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most exact of philosophers 
as well as the greatest of theologians, reason is capable of a two- 
fold perfection ; namely, its proper and natural perfection, resulting 
from its own principles and its own powers, and the perfection 
which it borrows from its union and subjection to the Spirit of God 
himself, a principle higher and greater than it. This is its final 
and supernatural perfection ; it is the human mind engrafted upon 
the Divine mind, if we may so express it. Reason then bears 
fruits which it could not bear; and as the poet says, repeating the 
words of Nature herself, 

" 'Admires those fruits which are not hers.' 

" These fruits are those of the Spirit of God become the directly 
fertilizing principle of human reason, which none the less retains 
its individual principles. 

"Far from diminishing reason, the introduction of the higher 
principle lifts it to incomparable greatness, vivifies its powers, 
and increases the fruitfulness of its natural principle. 

" This alliance, in one sense, may be compared to the divine 
alliance, to which Saint Thomas Aquinas alludes when he says, 
' Divine knowledge in the soul of Christ did not kill human knowl- 
edge, but made it more luminous.' 

" It is of this alliance that a holily far-sighted spirit said, early 
in the seventeenth century : * There are three kinds of knowledge, 
purely divine knowledge, the purely human knowledge, and knowl- 
edge at once human and divine, which is indeed the true knowledge 
of Christians. 9 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 9 

" It was this alliance which the genius of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the parent of knowledge, actually sought. Instituted by those 
great men who were all at once theologians, philosophers, and 
scientists, from Kepler down to Leibnitz, passing by Pascal, 
Descartes, Malebranche, Bossuet, and Fenelon, this sacred alli- 
ance of all departments of intellect one with the other, and of the 
human mind with the divine mind, was the cause of the greatness 
and creative fertility of that period, the most luminous in history. 
But since this tie was severed, we have only dimmed that match- 
less light, and most of us can no longer even see it. 

" So that when human reason is conjoined to God through 
faith, history shows it, besides the new and sublime data 
which result, its natural powers are increased, its individual prin- 
ciples bear their rarest natural fruits, mingled with divine fruits. 
When, on the contrary, reason breaks the alliance always offered 
to every mind, in every age, this refusal, this reversion to its un- 
aided self, this isolation and sacrilegious negation, weaken its 
natural powers, and lead it, from negation to negation, to deny 
itself, an intellectual suicide whose name is sophistry. 

" Consider the great and wonderful symbolism, too little under- 
stood and too little heeded, which the eighteenth century affords 
us in that final scene when man strove to reject God and to wor- 
ship himself and his own reason only ! 

" What did man do when he attempted to place human reason 
on the altar, to adore that alone ? 

"Let history speak. He placed a naked prostitute upon the 
altar. That is, he put upon the altar reason smeared with mud, 
reason smothered in flesh and blood. 

" And what was cast down from that altar to make way for this 
infamous goddess '{ Heed the answer well ! Human reason was 
cast down, but human reason allied with God. 

"Men did not know, they do not yet know, that human reason 
can find place upon a Catholic altar. 

" What is there, then, on the Catholic altar if it be not Jesus 
Christ 1 ? And what is Jesus Christ, if he be not God allied to man ? 
' The Divine Word,' says our dogma, ' took on, in its incarnation, 
a human soul, a human soul gifted with reason. 9 

"I give the exact statement, in the language of the Church : 
* Verbura divinum aniniam humanam, eamque rationis participem, 
assumpsit/ 



10 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

" Thus, according to our dogma, human reason, in actual pres- 
ence, was upon the Catholic altar; it was there conjoined with God. 
It was driven thence, to be replaced by human reason degraded and 
dragged through the mud. The holy altar was stripped of the su- 
preme reason, the reason of Jesus, the reason of the Man-God, and 
replaced by the feeble reason of a lewd crew. Men were given 
their choice of alliance, reason allied to filth, or reason conjoined 
to God. They made their choice. 

"We will not rest satisfied with this choice. We will reject 
what we took, and take back what we rejected. Soon, I hope, the 
majority of us will understand what was so happily and finely ex- 
pressed in a now famous address : ' The great question, the supreme 
question, which now absorbs all minds, is the question put by those 
who recognize and those who do not recognize a supernatural, sure, 
and supreme order of things. . . . For our present and future safety 
alike, faith in the supernatural order, submission to the natural 
order, must re-enter the world, and the human soul must be born 
again in great minds as well as in simple ones, in the highest as 
well as in the humblest regions.' 

" Yes, our present and future safety demand faith in the super- 
natural order. 

" At this price reason may resume its sway over us ; the mind 
may be lifted up and rescued. At this price we may yet see some- 
thing of Leibnitz's great prediction accomplished: 'Let us hope 
that a time may come when men will devote themselves to reason 
more than they have hitherto done.' Upheld by God, and living 
by faith, far more men will succeed in some degree in freeing their 
soul and reason from this weight of flesh, and in living, throughout 
an entire lifetime, by the love of justice and truth alone ; more men 
will take up, conscientiously and vigorously, literature, science, and 
philosophy, as sacred instruments to be used for the good of hu- 
manity, for the increase of light, wisdom, and dignity among men, 
for the progress of the world towards God." 

Few works can compare with this one by Professor Gratry 
as an exhibition of the compass of human reason and of what 
Saint Thomas Aquinas calls " the much-misappreciated power 
of reasoning." He clearly shows the truth of the assertion 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 11 

of Descartes and Leibnitz, repeated by Cardinal Gerdil, that 
the existence of God and his infinite perfections may be as 
rigorously proved as the solution of any mathematical prob- 
lem. He shows this with the most brilliant originality, by 
proving that the demonstration of the existence of God is the 
supreme achievement of a general process of the reason, of 
which the infinitesimal methods of geometry are but a special 
application. The attention of the reader is particularly in- 
vited to the exposition of this assertion where it occurs in 
the following pages. It is no less fruitful and illuminating 
in its consequences than it is startlingly original in itself. 

The character and life of the illustrious author of this 
work were in full keeping with his attainments and fame. 
He was not merely a scholar and a philosopher, but likewise 
a philanthropist and a saint, who thoroughly lived the doc- 
trine he taught. In his spiritual will were found, after his 
death, these touching words : " 1 leave to every human being 
whom I have ever greeted or blessed, or to whom I have 
ever spoken any word o'f esteem or affection, the assurance 
that I love and bless him twice and thrice as much as I said. 
I entreat all such to pray for me, that I may attain to the 
kingdom of love, whither I will draw him too through the 
infinite goodness of our Father." 

In order to bring the two volumes of the original within 
the compass of a single larger volume in the translation, the 
superfluous appendices and some of the foot-notes contain- 
ing the texts rendered by the author in the body of his work, 
have been omitted. The prefaces to the first three editions, 
abounding with personal and local references, as well as a 
long and polemical Introduction, have likewise been left out. 

The editor of this translation deems it his duty, in bring- 
ing the work before the public in its English dress, to add a 
word of protest against the view which Gratry gives of the 
German school of philosophy as presented in the culminating 



12 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 

exposition of Hegel. Ecclesiastical prejudice, national bias, 
differences in points of view and in nomenclature, have pre- 
vented many Catholic thinkers of the highest ability, includ- 
ing even Eos mini, from seeing the real depth and the solid 
result of the speculative movement begun by Kant, advanced 
by Fichte, and carried through by Hegel. Because the dia- 
lectic of the transcendental school is that of a negative unity, 
its foes charge it with being exclusively negative, and ending 
in nihilism. But Aristotle says, in the first chapter of the 
last book of his Metaphysics, "All contraries inseparably 
belong to a subject." Hegel was the first thinker syste- 
matically to develop this statement through all its implica- 
tions. He showed, as Fichte had partly done before, that 
every lower set of contraries is reconciled in a higher cate- 
gory, whose unity contains and mediates them, the highest 
category being free self -consciousness. The negative dialectic 
presupposes the affirmative, as the affirmative dialectic pre- 
supposes the negative ; because both presuppose the absolute 
dialectic, without which neither of these could be. Thus 
the negative phase of the dialectic, when completed, is found 
to carry also the opposite phase, and to coincide with the 
whole sphere of a self-determining unity. Hegelianism ends 
neither with atheism nor pantheism nor nihilism, but with a 
solidly grounded vision of God, freedom, and immortality. 

This does not affect the value of the present work in its 
positive exposition, which unveils a mine of matchless 
wealth, hidden, for the most part, from the Protestant world 
by ignorance and prejudice. The central part of the divine 
wisdom of the Catholic Church, the speculative insight cu- 
mulatively developed in a broadening and brightening river 
of tradition by its peerless thinkers and saints through so 
many centuries, is here freely offered to all who are able to 
understand it and willing to receive it. 



GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 




CHAPTEE I. 

EXPLANATOKY. 



," says Bossuet, "consists in knowing God 
and knowing one's self." These words are, in 
brief, a true definition of philosophy. 

They mean, at the outset, that philosophy is the search 
for wisdom; that is, the search, both theoretical and prac- 
tical, for goodness and truth. They declare that philosophy 
is not that abstract and purely speculative knowledge of 
which Bossuet also says elsewhere, "Woe to that barren 
knowledge which never turns to love, and is false to itself ! " 

These words, moreover, limit the object of philosophy. 
That object is God and man; it is man seeking through the 
intellect and the will to find goodness and truth, which are 
God. 

On the other hand, this definition does not divide those 
things which are incapable of division, and does not exclude 
from philosophy a knowledge of bodies and of the visible 
world. "For," says Bossuet, "to know man, we must know 
that he is made up of two parts, which are the body and 
the soul." Hence we see that philosophy also treats of 
visible and material nature, especially in its relation to the 
soul and to God. 



14 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

So that the various divisions of philosophy are 

I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD (Theodicy). 

II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUL, considered in its re- 
lations to God and the body (Psychology). 

III. LOGIC, which is a further development of psychology, 
and which studies the soul through its intelligence, and the 
laws of that intelligence. 

IV. MORALS, which is another outgrowth of psychology, 
and which studies the soul through its will, and the laws 
of that will. 

We shall explain these different divisions of philosophy, 
each in turn, beginning with the theodicy. 

This order is that of Descartes, Fe'nelon, Malebranche, and 
Saint Thomas Aquinas. Bossuet followed the inverse order. 
But we prefer to begin with the theodicy, because in our 
view it implies the whole of philosophy. It shows it to 
us as a unity, a totality ; it contains all its roots. Every- 
thing proceeds from it; it is therefore the starting-point. 

Moreover, the theodicy, which is the loftiest, most pro- 
found department of philosophy, is also the simplest. 
Ideas of infinity and perfection, as Descartes, Bossuet, and 
the majority of philosophers remark, are the first which 
awakening reason reveals to us, which proves that reason 
first impels us towards God. It is the cause of nature, at 
the same time that it is the absolute order of truths taken 
in themselves. 

But by theodicy must not be understood only the knowl- 
edge of God; it also means most particularly the knowledge 
of the human mind aspiring towards God. 

The theodicy is the knowledge of that wonderful process 
of the reason which soars towards God and aspires to know 
and prove his existence, nature, and attributes. 

From this point of view we shall realize later how the 
theodicy sums up all philosophy in a single question, 



EXPLANATORY. 15 

namely, the proof of the existence of God and his attri- 
butes, a question which the readers of this book will, I 
hope, find neither barren nor commonplace, and upon which 
we must at once enter. 



Is it possible to prove the existence of God ? Is it essen- 
tial ? Is not the truth of the existence of God self-evident 
and indemonstrable as an axiom? Can there- be atheists? 

It seems at first that this proposition, God is, is identical 
with the similar proposition, Being is. And so it really is 
to all who know the meaning of the word God, since that 
word means " Him who is." This statement, therefore, is 
one of those which are evident as soon as their terms are 
known. Its terms imply its truth, for the subject and attri- 
bute are identical ; and it bears its certainty on its face, as 
does this, The whole is greater than a part. 

But all men do not know the meaning of the word God, 
all not understanding that God is none other than He who 
is. The truth of God's existence is not clear to all, and it 
requires to be proved from a basis of universal ideas. The 
proposition which asserts it is identical, but its identity is 
not apparent to all eyes. 

And in fact there are atheists. Atheism, both theoretical 
and practical, is a profound vice, or rather, the radical vice 
of the heart and human mind. No age has been free from 
it. Our own is more fully infected by it than we think. 
Practical atheism is visible to every eye, and philosophical 
atheism is revealed under the form of pantheism. More yet, 
express, exact, avowed, and declared atheism has a school of 
its own ; and this school of new atheism, more scientific 
than the old atheism, is built upon a foundation which it 
calls Modern Science. 



16 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

It is not difficult, in truth, to do justice to this would-be 
modern science. We shall prove, in the proper place, that it 
is nothing else than the radical vice of the human heart and 
mind disguised as doctrine, and that its scientific semblance 
conies from the fact that it applies, though in inverse order, 
the true method and fundamental process of reason. 

But first let us assert that the existence of God can be 
strictly proved, and that no geometrical theorem is more 
certain. This is, moreover, the opinion of Descartes, as well 
as of Leibnitz ; the learned Cardinal Gerdil said the same. 

We shall treat this point, which implies all metaphysics, 
all morals, all logic, and all the theory of the method, with 
the fulness which is deserved by this prime question of 
philosophy, whose basis and summary it is. 

II. 

In the first place, if there are true proofs of the existence 
of God, these proofs must be within the reach of all men ; 
for the light of God shines, and should shine, upon every 
man in this world. 

Therefore, to find useful proofs of the existence of God, 
we should seek his origin and reality in some ordinary and 
daily act of the human mind ; and this sublime and simple 
act being found, it will suffice to describe it, and translate it 
into philosophical language. We shall then prove its scien- 
tific value. 

Now, this ordinary daily act of the human soul, mind, and 
heart, intellect and will, is no other than the universal fact 
of prayer ; and I mean, philosophically speaking, by prayer 
what Descartes defines when he says, " I feel that I am a 
finite being, unceasingly striving for and aspiring to some- 
thing better and greater than I am." Prayer is the move- 
ment of the soul from the finite towards the infinite. 



EXPLANATORY. 17 

Scorn of present reality, so natural to man ; expectation of 
an ideal future, so habitual to the soul ; instinctive sense 
of the marvellous, and presentiment of infinity, are the 
source of this sublime and simple act, which proves God. 

Who does not know it? The soul of man, especially 
when it is pure and lofty, in its vigor and youth, conceives 
and desires without bounds all the beauties and virtues of 
which it sees any trace. All boundaries, all limits, all im- 
perfections, are destroyed. Being is conceived in all its 
plenitude ; the mind conceives of eternal love, happiness 
without change, truth without shadow, a will stronger than 
any obstacle, strength and energy that play with time and 
space, and of wonders, sudden creations realized by a word, 
a gesture, or a wish. All these premonitions of the heart 
of man, all these golden dreams of childhood, all these in- 
toxications of ideal nectar, imply a true and strictly scien- 
tific method. Analyzed by reason, this poetry, this faith, 
contain the strict proof of the existence of God and his 
attributes. 

In fact, this is the poetic and ordinary process which, 
with the help of education and tradition, lifts the majority of 
men to the knowledge of God. The spectacle of the world, 
the sense of life, the sight of finished beings and created 
beauties, when the heart and imagination grasp them to 
enlarge and urge them to infinity, by effacing evil, bounds, 
and limits, that impulse of the soul towards infinity from 
the finite, this it is that gives men an idea of God, a 
natural knowledge and love of him. 

And this intellectual and moral impulse, of which every 
human soul is capable, is the act and the fundamental pro- 
cess of the life of reason and the moral life. We say that 
the act and fundamental process of a life of reason and a 
moral life consist, as Bossuet expresses it, in passing without 
any circuit of reasoning, although by a very justifiable impulse 

2 



18 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

of the reason, from the finite to the infinite, from the genu- 
ine finite being which we are, which we see, which we can ac- 
tually touch, to the infinite Being, really and actually existing, 
which the existence of the finite implies and supposes. 

And while the simple, the ignorant, the humble, and the 
young, by a wholly instinctive and poetic method, perform 
this chief and necessary act of reason, this natural act of the 
soul is the foundation of the most scientific of methods, and 
all the demonstrations of the existence of God, given us by 
true philosophers of all times, summed up and exactly de- 
fined by the seventeenth century, are but the philosophical 
translation of the ordinary process which all men employ. 

This we shall show by enumerating and analyzing these 
various demonstrations, the entire substance of which we 
will afterwards sum up, and will prove their unerring 
exactness. 

III. 

But before entering into details and studying these proofs 
one by one, referring each to its author, we will set forth, 
without going into particulars, the nature and conditions of 
the complete essential proof, to which all others lead back 
more or less directly, according as they are more or less 
explicit, solid, and luminous. What we now simply state 
will be developed and demonstrated later on. 

We must know that there are two processes of reasoning, 
the one as exact as the other, syllogism and induction. 
Syllogism is tolerably familiar. But induction is not the 
vague process which it is supposed to be, it is a precise 
process ; it is the chief process of reasoning, and has been 
practised in all ages by all great minds as well as by the 
humblest, but it has never yet been sufficiently analyzed 
by any one. We will attempt this analysis by means of 
logic. 



EXPLANATORY. 19 

These two processes may also be called the syllogistic 
process and the dialectic process. They correspond to what 
Leibnitz called the logic of deduction and the logic of inven- 
tion, or the analytical part and the inventive part of logic. 
They correspond to the two kinds of minds which we find 
among men, and which we may represent by Aristotle and 
Plato. Aristotle called them syllogism and induction ; Plato 
calls them syllogism and dialectic. The seventeenth century 
deserves the credit for establishing the truly mathematical 
precision of the second process, by bringing it into practical 
use, as Leibnitz says ; which was done by the works of 
Descartes, Malebranche, and Fdnelon, and by the great dis- 
covery of Leibnitz, the invention of the infinitesimal cal- 
culus, a wonderful invention, which consists of actually 
introducing into mathematics this chief process of reasoning. 

This process, which in geometry is carried to mathemati- 
cal infinity, is also carried, in metaphysics, to the infinite 
Being, which is God. Exact as geometry, it is also much 
the simpler and quicker of the two processes of reasoning. 
Its very simplicity and rapidity have hitherto prevented any 
complete analysis of it. 

It consists, any degree of entity, beauty, or perfection being 
given, which we always have so soon as we are, see, or think, 
it consists, we say, in instantly destroying in thought the 
limits of the finite being and the imperfect qualities which we 
possess, or which we see, in order that we may affirm without 
other intermediary the infinite existence of the one Being 
and his perfections, corresponding to those we see. 

Assuredly the process is a simple one ; any one may use 
it, and the smallest minds, on certain points, employ it as 
quickly as others : but it is precise. This is now proved 
by the works of the seventeenth century, analyzed and 
compared. 

This process is not only applicable to the proof of the 



20 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

existence of God, but it leads up in everything to principles 
and ideas ; and as several philosophers, who will be quoted 
in due time, declare, it is a universal process of invention. 

Absolutely distinct from syllogism, it is quite as exact ; it 
alone gives the majors used by syllogism. 

This process, like syllogism, may rest either upon an ab- 
straction or a fact, an idea or a reality, upon a conception 
which is a priori true or false, or upon an experience. 

If the syllogism depend upon a simple possibility, which 
does not exist, upon a chimera, or even on a contradiction, 
which cannot be true, its deductions will be of the nature 
of the primary cause : a series of non-existent possibilities, 
or even a series of chimeras or a series of contradictions 
is deduced, sooner or later ending in downright absurdity, 
that is to say, in a conspicuous contradiction. But if 
it rest upon a real postulate, derived from the nature of 
things, as, for instance, Newton's law, all the deduc- 
tions drawn from it will be true, genuine, and existent in 
the nature of things. 

Now, it is precisely the same with the other process. 
Whether we take for our starting-point a pure possibility 
which does not exist, or a contradictory statement, or even, 
as Descartes says, a conception proceeding from nothing, 
which does not and cannot exist, the assertion obtained by 
the dialectic process will be a simple possibility, a chimera, 
or a contradiction. But if it be based upon an experimental 
postulate, a reality, or some actual and positive quality exist- 
ing in things, then its results will be as real as the point of 
departure, as real as those of the syllogism. If, for in- 
stance, it depended, as in certain German theories, upon the 
idea of non-being, it would affirm, as the Germans do, an 
absolute non-being, and all the resultant absurdities ; it 
would thus plainly obtain only a chimera and a monster. 
But if it rest upon some conception of being, a conception 



EXPLANATORY. 21 

which is clearly possible, it asserts the possibility of an 
infinite Being ; if, moreover, it add to this the experience of 
any real being whatsoever, actually existing, it concludes in 
the infinite Being, no longer as merely possible, but as really 
and actually existing. 

And these assertions, which proceed from finite reality to 
infinite reality, are always true ; since in metaphysics, as in 
geometry, every positive finite has its corresponding infinite. 
We can always go on asserting to infinity the existence of any 
real and positive quality, finite though it be, which we see. 
The assertion is always true, in God. This is because in 
metaphysics, as in geometry, as Leibnitz observes, "Finite 
laws always hold good of infinity, and vice versa" 

But if the process de facto be true, de facto again, all do 
not always carry it out. Just as every mind does not al- 
ways infer the consequences of principles with which it is 
familiar, so, too, every mind does not always move from every 
finite to the corresponding infinite, or from every phenom- 
enon to ideas, or from every creature to God. Just as there 
are minds without any syllogistic impulse, so too there are 
minds destitute of dialectic force. There are intellects which 
possess neither the one nor the other, neither deduction 
nor invention. All are necessarily deductive when they are 
driven to it. There is a logical constraint which can force 
any man to see a consequence in a principle ; but all, as a 
matter of course, are not necessarily inventive ; all do not 
possess the dialectic impulse, there is no intellectual con- 
straint possible upon this point. The intellect may lose or 
recover its strength of impulse towards the infinite. That 
depends upon the energy, the elasticity, of the soul and 
moral freedom, this impulse being alike and indissolubly 
intellectual and moral ; and it cannot be other than a move- 
ment of the human soul as a unity. The intellectual move- 
ment towards infinity is always true, always possible, since 



22 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

man is endowed with reason ; but as a fact, it cannot take 
place in the soul without the corresponding moral move- 
ment. This is why diseased souls can never perform it, 
even when the words of others assert it and execute it in 
their presence. A deduction presented from without is not 
always understood by a mind but slightly developed ; but a 
moment more, a moment of careful attention, will make it 
clear. The dialectic passage from the finite to the infinite 
is still oftener overlooked by weak or diseased minds; a 
moment of more active attention is not enough, a cure 
and moral change are requisite. 

This fact, but too little noted, is most important. It touches 
on the bond and relation between logic and morals, intellect 
and will, reason and liberty. There is a bond between rea- 
son and liberty, this is unquestionable ; there are opinions 
which are entirely free. Some schools of philosophy admit 
that all opinions are free and unbiassed : this is evidently a 
mistake ; for how can deduction be free ? A syllogistic con- 
clusion is inevitable when the primary causes are given. 
But still it is false to say that every true opinion is inevi- 
table. Dialectic advance from the finite to the infinite, and 
the opinion which results, is both true and free, yet although 
always true, is never obtained save under conditions which 
depend upon freedom. The first moral condition of the ex- 
istence of these dialectic decisions which proceed from every 
finite to the infinite, is what may be called the sense of in- 
finity, that divine sense which is always given, which is 
the omnipresent charm of the Sovereign Good for every soul. 
Then, according to the free reciprocal adaptation of each 
soul to this attraction of infinity, it pronounces, or does 
not pronounce, the true opinion which leads from every 
finite to infinity. It may even as the whole history of 
philosophy, especially modern German philosophy, proves 
pronounce that false opinion which leads from every 
finite, in an opposite direction from infinity, to nothing. 



EXPLANATORY. 23 

The proof of the existence of God therefore results from 
one of the two processes essential to reason, but, as a fact, is 
worked out freely, morally as well as rationally. 

This, I admit, is quite contrary to our wretched logical 
habits, which presuppose an absolute separation of logic 
and morals. But this gratuitous supposition might even be 
called strange, since it admits that intellect and will, two 
faculties of a single soul, have no common root where they 
touch ; this supposition, I say, is as false as it is strange. It 
has been, it still is, one of the stumbling-blocks of philoso- 
phy. It is unquestionable that, as a certain intellectual 
condition, and not only a condition but an act, a voluntary 
act, attention, is requisite to execute one of the movements 
of reason, to form or to comprehend a syllogism ; so too we 
also require a certain moral state, which we may call a 
right sense, and a voluntary and moral act, to understand 
and execute the other movement of reason. A right sense 
which is moreover the same thing as the divine sense is 
that hidden reason to 'which Pascal refers when he says, 
" The heart has its reasons which the reason does not know." 
It is this hidden reason which the fool lacks when he says 
in his heart, " There is no God." 

Such, then, is the nature, such are the conditions, of the 
true proof of the existence of God. 

In brief, the true proof of the existence of God is nothing 
else but the use of one of the two processes of reasoning, 
the chief one, that which gives the majors, and which consti- 
tutes the logic of invention. 

Every application of this process involves the proof of the 
existence of God. 

Let us repeat: this process consists, starting from every 
finite being and every finite quality, in affirming, by the sup- 
pression of finite limits, the infinite Being, or the infinite 
perfections corresponding to the finite that we see. 



24 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

And this assertion is always true, according to the princi- 
ple laid down by Leibnitz, that finite laws hold good of in- 
finity, and vice versa ; in other words, that the finite is an 
image of the infinite, which results, as Leibnitz also re- 
marks, from the fact that everything is governed by God, 
who governs all in conformity to himself. 

This process is as sure as geometry, to which, moreover, 
it is applied. This application is known as the infinitesimal 
calculus. 

On the other hand, this process is never de facto literally 
carried out, and only reaches God by a simultaneous act 
of intellect and will, reason and liberty. Its power in the 
mind is the divine sense, the sense of infinity, or, if you 
will, the inevitable attraction of the Sovereign Good for 
every soul. But this power, given to all, acts or ceases to 
act, or even changes its course, according to the moral state 
of the soul. 

We believe that we have proved all this in the totality 
of the present work in such a manner that it will henceforth 
be regarded as among the truths acquired by philosophy. 

We may be opposed at first ; but as all opposition will be 
vain, we hope our adversaries will soon have recourse to de- 
claring that these things have been known in every age, 
particularly in the seventeenth century, and that there is 
nothing new in what we say. We shall hasten to agree to 
this, merely reserving to ourselves the honor of having thrown 
more vivid light upon this central point of philosophy, where 
all rays meet. 

This settled, let us turn to details, and proceed to the his- 
toric study of the proofs of the existence of God. 

We shall enter most minutely into this question, studying 
in turn the theodicy of Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, 
Saint Anselm, and Saint Thomas Aquinas ; then take up the 
theodicy of the seventeenth century, treating of Descartes, 



EXPLANATORY. 25 

Pascal, Malebranche, Fe'nelon, Bossuet, Leibnitz, and the 
authors of two Latin Theodicies, unknown even to the 
trained public, which are the two finest and most complete 
ever written in any age. 

We shall linger the more willingly upon this point, be- 
cause it will at the same time afford us a study of the his- 
tory of philosophy. 

The history of the above-named philosophers is very nearly 
the whole history of philosophy. Now, we know a philoso- 
pher by his theodicy. The theodicy of a writer contains his 
method, implies his logic and his ethics, is his system of 
metaphysics and his theory of ideas also, therefore his psy- 
chology. In this sense all philosophy may be found in the 
theodicy. 

In treating, therefore, of the theodicy of all the great minds, 
each in its turn, we give at the same time a summary, and a 
brief history, of philosophy. 



CHAPTER II. 

PLATO'S THEODICY. 

PLATO comes first in chronological order; this is fortu- 
nate. Of all men who discussed the subject of God 
previous to the Christian era, he is the greatest. He has 
been called the divine ; Bossuet so styles him, and this is his 
distinguishing name among philosophers. Moreover, Plato 
is the especial representative of one of the two processes of 
human reason, the chief one, that which leads up to God. 1 
If Aristotle was the immortal and perfect lawgiver for the 
other process, Plato, without actually establishing the laws 
of that which forms his glory, laws which could not be de- 
fined exactly until the seventeenth century, Plato at least 
indicated them, and gave us, besides, the finest example of 
their use which human reason in the antique world produced. 

The glory reverted to the school of Socrates. And why ? 
Because the impulse of reason towards genuine infinity 
an impulse which constitutes that chief process to which we 
refer, and which gives us the proof of the existence of God 
can only be carried out de facto, in consequence of a moral 
state, under the impelling force of that "power" as Bossuet 
says, which is the " divine sense ; " or, if you prefer, the 
"attraction of the desirable and intelligible" as Aristotle 
expresses it. 

Now, the Socratic and Platonic school is of all ancient 
schools the most moral, and the one which best knew, under- 

1 Janet's admirable thesis on the "Dialectic of Plato" should be read on 
this subject. This brilliant work, but too little known, should be one of the 
first things read by all who desire to study Plato. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 27 

stood, and described the real attraction of Supreme Good- 
ness for the soul of man. 

Socrates is, in fact, as modern sophists very aptly com- 
plain, the founder of moral philosophy. His doctrine, as 
has been well said, is little more than a theory of virtue ; 
" and its only aim, according to the best judges," says 
Thomassin, " is to purify our affections by means of moral- 
ity." l Plato therefore claimed and this was the root of 
his system to rely wholly upon that love of goodness and 
that moral state without which reason does not apply the 
dialectic process leading up to God. To him, the beginning 
of all things was Goodness ; he knew that Goodness is the 
father of light, that the action of the mind which rises to 
God depends upon the forces of love, that this process, 
which he so happily calls the " movement of the soul's 
wings," implies a moral state, an outburst of love towards 
God, and that the soul can only put out wings by dint of 
virtue. 

This is why Plato knew and practised more than any 
other man in antiquity the chief process of reasoning. This 
is why he knew and proved the existence of the true God. 

Plato knew that there are two processes of reasoning, and 
not merely one. He knew that the most potent of these 
two processes, quite as exact as the other, is the scientific 
truth of which poetry is merely the image. For this very 
reason he was a poet in thought as well as by nature, like 
all philosophers who have made especial use of the chief 
process of reason. He understood that very beautiful meta- 
phors are true, because they imply the truth of the dialectic 
method, and that this chief form of philosophical thought is, 
in its spirit, like poetry itself, simple, easy, and popular. 
Plato knew above all he repeats it incessantly that 
sensuality and passion are the obstacle to light in the soul, 

1 Thomassin, Dogm. Theol., vol. ii. chap. x. p. 11. 



28 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

and that this obstacle must be overcome before we can rise 
to truth through reason. He knew that there are two 
courses open to the soul and its love, one of which leads the 
mind to illusion and error, the other to truth ; that philoso- 
phy is indivisibly a work of reason and freedom, of intellect 
and will, far more, a work of sacrifice and virtue. It is 
for this reason that he so constantly expounds the wonderful 
Socratic saying : " To philosophize is to learn how to die." 

And lastly, Plato knew that there are three soul-spheres, 
three lives, in man ; and he states this as clearly as Pascal. 
He describes the highest of the three as the contact of God 
with the roots of the soul ; and this divinity l in the soul, 
when the obstacle of vice is removed, is the power that lifts 
the reason to eternal truths. We must acknowlege that true 
philosophy is not, in Plato, unmixed with error, that is 
only given to Christians ; but he possessed all philosophy, 
all its essential features, all its fundamental elements. 

Plato has all the characteristics of true philosophic ge- 
nius ; he is the most brilliant instance in antiquity of 
those perfect minds which, as has been well said, use alike 
their reason and their heart, their learning and their poetry, 
their feet and their wings, to attain to truth. It therefore 
belonged to him to give in the ancient world the great proof 
of the existence of God. Let us see if he succeeded. 



II. 

Let us first recall the nature of the process that gives the 
true proof of the existence of God arid his attributes. 

Those visible things being given which beget one another, 
which are born and die, which change and which pass away, 
which might not exist, which are limited and imperfect, 
the mind should exceed these finite and visible beings, and 

1 T6 6etoi>. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 29 

rise through their images to the eternal, invisible, immu- 
table ideas which correspond to the images. We should rise 
from every finite object to the corresponding infinite. We 
shall see later, through the aid of geometry itself, that this 
is no vague mental action, but an exact process. This 
process destroys in thought the limits of finite being, and 
the imperfections of the qualities revealed to it by things, 
and asserts that the idea formed in our mind by this sup- 
pression of limits and defects, this idea of infinite being and 
infinite perfection, corresponds to a reality truer, more ac- 
tual, than the very object which we touch, and whence 
dialectic reasoning starts. It asserts that all these supreme 
realities are in God, and are God. Such is, at least, the duty 
of the mind in the light of reason ; and, in fact, the mind 
fulfils this duty whenever the moral obstacle that impedes 
its progress is removed. 

Did Plato fully understand this process ? Did he state lit- 
erally, did he know that the sum total of immutable, eternal, 
infinite ideas is in God, is the Word of God, which is God ? 
Some deny this ; we believe that we should affirm it, with 
Saint Augustine, Bossuet, Leibnitz, and Fe*nelon. 

In any case, whether Plato himself knew or did not know 
it, and I believe that he knew it, his dialectic process 
actually ends in God, in the infinite. This is the nature and 
the law of the process. Plato really made that supreme use 
of reason which consists in passing by a simple impulse, 
which is at the same time scholarly and systematic, from 
everything to God ; from the finite, the variable, and the 
uncertain to the infinite, immutable, and inevitable. 

My readers may judge of this by the brief statement 
which follows, and which will be verified later by quotations 
from the text. 

There is first in the soul a gift of God, which results from 
contact with God, and which is that voice, that inner tute- 



30 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

lary spirit given by God to every soul. This divine element, 
this sense of immortality and divinity, is the prime and 
essential element, the principle and very root of the soul, in 
its triple life. This is the power which proceeds from God 
and leads us up to God. Now, man does not rise to God by 
the mind alone, by the reason taken in that abstract sense 
in which sophists understand it ; man rises to the knowledge 
of God only through his whole soul; first by his will, by 
doing good, which directs the eye where it should look, 
then purifies it, makes it capable* of seeing. Knowledge of 
God implies a free moral element. The part of the will con- 
sists in conquering those moral obstacles which prevent us 
from developing the divine sense within us, or which destroy 
it. This divine sense is the condition, founded on expe- 
rience, of a knowledge of God. Such is the moral part of 
the process that leads us up to God. 

The intellectual and logical part is properly the dialectic. 
Dialectic is the process which advances, starting from this 
visible world, to the idea of Being itself, Goodness itself, 
absolute Being and Goodness. Thus dialectic, whose motive- 
power, principle, and force lie in the divine sense set free 
and made active by virtue, also relies in its action upon the 
data of the visible world, which stimulate the mind, both by 
likeness and contrast, to recall the supreme object, wholly 
different from these as it is, of which they are but the 
images. Dialectic progress consists in never pausing until 
Being itself, the Supreme Good which is, is attained. Bea- 
son starts from sensible things, as a conditional and essential 
point of departure ; but it goes beyond and aside from these 
sensible postulates, which stimulate it to recall intelligible 
things, seeing their unlikeness to the intelligible. From 
these postulates it passes to the essential ideas which our 
reason implies, such as geometric truths, which are, as Plato 
frequently repeats with a depth of meaning which is but too 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 31 

seldom understood, shadows of the light of God. From 
these shadows it learns to infer the existence of the sun. 
Let us show all this by quotations. 

III. 

In the first place, the most important of philosophical 
facts that central spring of the moral and rational life 
which we call the divine sense, and which is the real source 
of the proof of God's existence was so familiar to Socrates 
and Plato, and was taught by them with such full con- 
viction, in so concrete a form, that it was this very thing 
which produced the misunderstanding relative to the daemon 
of Socrates. Plato explains the meaning of this word in the 
most philosophic manner when he shows that this daemon 
was only the voice of conscience, the innate love of God. 

In the Apology, Plato puts these words into the mouth of 
Socrates : " The cause of all is merely what you have often 
heard me say, ' There is a divine will which speaks to me ' ... 
(Qeibv TI fcai ^aifioviov). I have heard this voice from my 
youth up. . . ." This voice is that " of God, which orders rne 
to live by seeking wisdom and a knowledge of myself. . . . 
I ought then rather to obey God than you, Athenians ! " 
It is clear that by daemon (Scupoviov) Socrates here under- 
stands the voice of God. 

Cicero understands it in the same way when he asserts 
that "Socrates' daemon is that something divine which checked 
him, and which he always obeyed." 

The dying Socrates said : " Let us go whither God leads ; " 
and he obeyed that divine voice even in death. Which 
suggests to a learned author the following thoughts : " That 
God was the voice which rang in his innermost soul, that 
light which illumined his intellect and declared to him what 
he was to do. It is what is commonly known as Socrates' 



32 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

daemon. . . . Socrates frequently refers to it as to a sort of 
spiritual director, sometimes calling it daemon, and sometimes 
God. He always seems to take it seriously, especially here, 
where he relies upon it both for life and death. According 
to some, Socrates understood by this the true God. Others 
are of a different opinion." Saint Justin has no doubt about 
it ; Saint Augustine hesitates. 

Plato, moreover, in his Timseus, explains it in a way which, 
as it seems to us, leaves no room for contradiction. We will 
go into the details of this explanation, because it leads us 
away from the incidental question of Socrates' da?mon, and 
shows us what may be called the heart of dialectic, the 
centre of Plato's philosophy, theology, and morals, the true 
power upon which Platonism depends to prove the existence 
of God, that motive power which we have called the divine 
sense. 

In his fine close to Timseus, Plato expresses himself as 
follows : 

" We have already said that the soul possesses a triple life, each 
part of which has its place and its distinct action. . . . Now, you 
must know touching the chief of these three lives, that it is the 
dcemon which God has given to every man. That part of the soul 
is that which occupies, as they say, the highest realm within us, 
and which, through its celestial parentage, lifts us from the earth 
and makes her the fruit of heaven rather than of earth, which is 
profoundly true ; for at that point which is the very origin of our 
soul, there the divine holds linked to it our root, our life principle, 
and uplifts the whole man." a 

Nothing can be plainer ; the word dcemon (Sai'fi&v) means 
precisely the divine sense in the soul, that point at which 
God touches us, the point which is our root, our origin, our 
source (Trpeor?? <vo-t?, pia) ; that point, as Plato admirably 
expresses it, whereby God holds us linked to him (TO Oelov 
rrjv K(j)a\r)v /cat pi^av fjp&v avaKpepavvvv). 
1 Timseus, 89, 90. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 33 

It clearly results from these quotations that, according 
to Plato, there are in man not three souls, as he is some- 
times made to say, but there are in the soul three regions, 
three parts, three lives, what matters the word, the 
highest of which is at the very root of the soul ; that con- 
tact with God which links us to him and lifts us to heaven, 
and that it is the same thing which Socrates called his 
divine voice and his daemon. 1 

This triple life pointed out by Plato in the soul, corre- 
sponds to the three worlds mentioned by Pascal, the ma- 
terial world, the spiritual world, and the divine world, which 
is God ; a triple life, which brings us into relation with nature 
through sensation, with the soul through the inner sense, 
with God through the divine sense ; the triple life known 
and described by Christian mystics when they say, " Let us 
turn from the outward inward, and from the inward let us 

1 The misunderstanding in regard to the three souls must be made clear by 
these quotations. We read in the passage quoted from Timseus, rpia fax?,* 
etdvj, and not rpia fax&v etSrj. Farther on we read rofis rpets rbirovs rrjs faxw> 
the three regions of the soul. Elsewhere Plato speaks of the parts of the soul, 
two of which, particularly, are distinct, the one rational, \oyi<TTiK&v vovs, 
which he also calls elsewhere, apxty fax?!* dBdvarov (Timseus) ; the other the 
irrational, or fleshly, aXoyia-riK 'jv, or irit}v/j.'r]TiK6i>, which are united by the BV/J.OS 
or Bv/jLoeidts (De Rep. IV.). This distinction doubtless refers to that one of the 
three faculties, knowledge, will, and feeling, which he establishes in the same 
book of the Republic. Plato had no more faith in three souls than Saint 
Thomas, who nevertheless makes a distinction between the rational soul, the 
sensitive soul, and the vegetative soul. 

Moreover, in Plato, etSos is often used as a synonym for /ufyos ; we often 
find eI5os Kai ^pos eidrj nal n^py. 

Cicero did not believe that Plato spoke of several souls, but of several 
spheres of the soul : Parfcs animi, secundnm Platonem. 

As for Aristotle, in his " Book of the Virtues and Vices," in the beginning, 
he says (Bekker's edition, page 1249): TpijuepoOs 5 rijs faxw XajM/UwopAnfi 
KO.TO. IlXdrwra, TOV pfv XoyurriKOv dper^i tanv i) Qpbvyffis, TOV dt 0vfj.oiSovs ij 
re TrppoTTjs /ecu ij dvSpcia, TOV 5t liri6vfjt.r}TiKov tf re GuQpofftivti Ka.1 i] y/cpareia, 
6'\?7S 5 XT;? \f/vx?i* 7? TC 6i/cato<7i/j'?7. Aristotle therefore admits here, with Plato, 
that there are these three parts of the soul, and names them as he does, and 
in his book on the Soul he none the less maintains the unity of the soul 
(P- 411). 

3 



84 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

mount to higher things ; " the triple life which one of the 
deepest thinkers of this century, Maine de Biran, rediscovered 
in the soul by his persistent analysis, in spite of the prejudi- 
ces of his starting-point, which admitted of but one. 

And when Plato speaks of the highest of the three (fcvpiw- 
rarov -^U^T)? eZSo?), that which he calls divine (TO delov), and 
elsewhere the immortal principle of the soul (apxyv ^v^s 
aOdvarov), when he assigns it an especial place and habita- 
tion, at the very root (p%a) where God holds us linked to 
himself (TO delov avaKpefiavvvv), whence the first genesis of 
the soul proceeds (e/ceWev o6ev rj irpwrif] TT}? tyv%f)s <yeve<Ti<$ 
e(f>v), Plato then speaks like Bossuet, who, pointing out 
this particular region of the soul, this inner sanctuary, ex- 
claims, " Hearken in thy innermost soul ; hearken in that 
place where the truth makes itself heard, where pure and 
simple ideas are found." And elsewhere, after saying, " The 
soul therefore is made for God, it is to him that it should 
ever be conjoined and as it were linked, through its knowl- 
edge and affection," Bossuet speaks of " a spot in the soul so 
deep and so retired that the senses do not suspect its ex- 
istence, it is so remote from their domain ! " 

Light is also thrown upon all this in the first Alcibiades, 
when he is advised by the philosopher, if he would know his 
soul, to look into that place in the soul where especially 
resides the virtue of the soul, wisdom, that is to say, the 
divine element of the soul ; then to consider the object itself, 
of which this part of the soul is the image, in God. 1 For we 
can never know ourselves if we look into that part of the 
soul which is all shadow, and where God is not 2 (et? TO aOeov 
KOI o-Koreivov). We must look into the divine part ; and 
that part of the soul is to the soul what the pupil is to the 
eye, the very centre, the primary sense, the channel itself 
of vision. 3 And it is by looking into this place in the soul, 

i Alcibiades, I. 133 C. 2 Ibid., 134 E. 8 Ibid., 133 B, 134 D. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 35 



where light and divinity dwell (et? TO Oeiov /cal 
ov) ; that the soul unfolds winged love within itself 



Thus, finally, it is clear that, according to Plato, there is a 
region in the soul, a central point of the soul, which he calls 
its root, its primary cause, its origin, and that this point is 
divine ; that is to say, it contains a gift which God has be- 
stowed on every man, by touching him at that point, and 
linking him to himself. 

Whether we call this divine attribute divine spirit, or 
divine sense, or the voice of conscience, or the attraction of 
supreme goodness, attraction of the desirable and intelligible, 
innate love of beatitude, innate idea of justice and injustice, 
natural law written on the heart, whatever name we give to 
this first, chief fact of all philosophy, which results 'from the 
fact that the soul only is and exists because God is and touches 
it, it will always be true that this divine attribute, peculiar 
to all men, is the principle and power which give its im- 
pulse to the mind as well as to the whole soul, in all its 
aspirations towards God. 

This Plato establishes in every possible way. 

Let us now proceed to state the use which should be, in 
his opinion, made of this attribute. 

IV. 

This divine attribute is the first cause of every movement 
of the mind towards God. The secondary cause is man's 
attempt to purify his soul, and thus remove the obstacle 
which interferes with the action of that force which God 
has given us. 

" Knowledge," says Plato, " is not what some imagine when 
they declare that they will give it to a mind which has it not, 

* Alcibiades, I. 135 E. 



36 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

which would be like giving sight to a blind man. This is a great 
mistake. There is within us a force, there is in every mind an 
organ, by means of which every man may acquire knowledge. We 
must treat this organ as we should the eye, were it impossible to 
turn it away from darkness to the light, save by employing our 
whole body, we must turn away our reason with our whole soul ; 
we must turn it away from the things which pass, to the One 
Being, and lift our spiritual vision to that radiant centre of Being 
which we call Goodness. 1 Instruction can only teach us how to 
direct the mind, and to turn its attention easily and effectually 
towards the light; education does not give us sight, it merely 
strives to direct in the right way the sight which already exists, 
but which is turned in the wrong direction, and does not look 
where it should look. 

" There are, in the soul, qualities which may be acquired by 
exercise and habit, as the body acquires certain powers and cer- 
tain habits. But reason shows its divine origin, and proves that 
it comes from something higher than ourselves, in that it never 
loses its power, but becomes useful or injurious, according to the 
way in which we use it. 2 Have you never noticed how quickly 
and clearly the small soul of the wicked grasps the things upon 
which it is bent, and what power it acquires in so doing 1 ? It sees 
very plainly, only it chooses to. direct its vision to evil things. 
But take those same souls in infancy, cut away and prune all the 
growth of passions akin to the flesh ; set them free from those 
heavy clods which cling to the pleasures of the table and similar 
delights ; take away that weight which drags the mental vision 
down to everything which is low. Instantly, in that same soul, 
the eye, set free, turns towards realities, and sees them as clearly 
as it now sees those things which absorb it." 3 

We must therefore purify the whole soul, if we wish our 
life and its attention to be turned and lifted towards its high- 
est region, where the divine sense dwells. Those who do not 
purify themselves, remain in the lowest of the three regions 
of the soul, rise from there towards the middle realm, again 
sink back into the lowest, and thus spend their lives in this 

1 De Rep., 518 C. 2 Ibid., 518 E. 3 Ibid., 519 B. 



PLATO'S THEODICY- 37 

oscillation between the carnal and the passional, without 
ever rising to that portion of the soul which God inhabits. 

"The man without wisdom and without virtue, 1 constantly a 
prey to and identified with all his fleshly appetites, necessarily 
falls into the lower region, rises from that to the middle portion, 
to wander thus his whole life long between the two ; but to pass 
through both these realms, to rise, indeed, whether by the eye 
alone or by his life, towards that which is truly high, is a thing 
which he cannot do." 

To attain, therefore, by the eye or by the life to that part 
of the soul where the divine sense dwells, the source of our 
knowledge of God, when we carry it out in our life and 
pierce it with our eye, we must first overcome the moral 
obstacle. 

" He who surrenders himself to the double slavery of the world 
and the flesh (eVe^v/xtas rj <iA.ovt/a'as, the carnal and the passional), 
can never have other than mortal thoughts (Soy/xora 



We must therefore overcome the moral obstacle by dint 
of virtue, and yield to the action of the divine power which 
directs our thoughts towards immortality and divinity. 

Let us quote the whole of that magnificent passage in 
which Plato teaches man how to cultivate in himself the 
divine sense, that he may rise to immortality and God, alike 
in thought and in life, things which Socrates and Plato 
do not separate: 

"He who, for love of the truth, strives to develop within him a 
sense of the immortal and divine (yeyiyxi/aoTxeVu) <f>povtlv ptv aOdvara 
Kat 0ia), that man must needs attain immortality, in so far as hu- 
man nature is capable thereof; and since he has cultivated naught 
save the divine (TO Otlov) within him, and has fed the Divine Spirit 
in his soul (Scu/xoi/a), which dwells there, he must reach supreme 
felicity. 

1 De Rep., 586. 2 Timseus, 90. 



38 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

" Now, every life is nourished by its own proper food, and by 
the movement which is adapted to it. But universal thoughts and 
movements are the natural movements of the divine within us. 
They are the thoughts and actions to which every man should con- 
form ; all should labor to correct, by contemplation of the harmony 
and the actions of the whole, those particular and irregular acts 
which the flesh inspires in the centre of our soul, to the end that 
the beholder, becoming like the object beheld, resumes his original 
nature, becomes fit to possess at last the perfect life which God 
offers to man both now and forever." 1 

Thus Plato asserts that there is in every man's soul a di- 
vine contact at that point where our soul is linked to God. 
This point is the root, the primary cause, the origin of our 
soul. Of the three lives which exist in our soul, that which 
God himself maintains in this part of the soul is plainly the 
chief, and should direct and lift the entire man towards di- 
vinity, towards immortality, towards God, in both life and 
thought. 

But, moreover, Plato here establishes the fact, which, ap- 
parent though it be, psychology, with us, so often refuses to 
note, the fact of the native lawlessness to which we are born. 
That is to say, that there is really an obstacle to the action 
of that divine power which labors to lift us to God. 

This obstacle is the double vice, which Plato calls the lust 
of the flesh and anger, which is to say, pride and sensuality, 
a double form of selfishness. 

The condition upon which we may rise to God, in life or 
in thought, is that we conquer this obstacle. 

The obstacle conquered, it at once follows that man de- 
velops within him the sense of immortality and divinity, and 
attains to truth. 

Truth leads bim to immortality and happiness. 

We reach this end by struggling against the innate law- 
lessness of our own thoughts and actions, by allying ourselves 

1 Timseus, 90. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 39 

to universal thought and action, by contemplating that uni- 
versal which is God, by becoming like unto God, who gives 
us immortality. 

Thus, so far we clearly perceive the Platonic procedure ; 
we have, first, a divine attribute within us, the primary cause 
and motive spring of every impulse towards God. We have, 
next, on the part of man, moral strength, which breaks, by 
dint of virtue and sacrifice, the shackles that hinder that 
impulse. This is the moral side of the dialectic process. 
Let us now turn to its logical side. 

V. 

The mind has a starting-point for every inquiry. This 
starting-point is not always a principle of deduction, far 
from it. Where is the human mind first placed? Conse- 
quently, whence does it ordinarily start ? The spectacle of 
nature. It sees changes, birth and death. Assuredly it is 
not from this starting-point, taken as a principle of deduc- 
tion, that it will derive by syllogism the knowledge of God. 
But by reason of these things it will think of God ; it emerges, 
on the contrary, from these things to find God. 1 It certainly 
starts from the spectacle of visible things. " It is with the 
senses, not elsewhere, that we begin ; it is with sight, touch, 
or some other sense; it cannot be otherwise." 2 But how can 
all these transitory things lift us to God ? Certainly not by 
their identity with God. Is it by their likeness to God ? Yes, 
but it is quite as much by their difference and their contrast 
with his eternal nature. " We see all these things striving to 
resemble him, yet remaining ever remote from him." 3 And 
these likenesses and contrasts alike remind us of him. You 
behold one thing, and in it you comprehend another. Whether 
this be due to likeness or to contrast, it is the object seen 

1 Rep., vii. 525. 2 Phaedo, 75. 8 Ibid., 75. 



40 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

that calls up the memory. 1 If we see, if we hear, if we per- 
ceive any object through any sense, and if, at the same time, 
besides seeing that object, we conceive another, the idea of 
which is not the same, but wholly different, should we not 
say that the second object, to the idea of which we have at- 
tained, is a memory suggested by the first? 2 A man and a 
lyre are not the same thing. And yet those who love, recall 
the loved object if they see the lyre which he has touched. 
Such is reminiscence. 3 

" There is an element in sense, impressions of which in no way 
stimulate the intellect, because it stops at the senses which are 
capable of judging it; and there is another element which does, 
on the contrary, stimulate the intellect, the senses being unable 
to deal with it." 4 

" The sensations which stimulate the intellect are those which 
imply both likeness and contrast; 5 as, for instance, when the 
sight of a certain number of objects awakens in us the idea of 
unity and that of infinite quantity." 6 

"It is upon these attributes those which stimulate the intel- 
lect that the process rests (/xa0>7/xa) which lifts us to the one 
Being, and which almost no one uses properly '."* 

VI. 

Plato gives a full account of this process in the closing 
pages of the sixth book of the Eepublic, which, I think, has 
never been fully understood. 

In this statement of logic as he understands it, Plato 
defines exactly the two processes of reasoning, one of which 
takes its starting-point (vTroOeo-is) 8 as its primary source 
(ap%??), and deduces consequences from it ; the other ad- 
vances from its point of departure to a universal principle 

1 Phsdo, 74. * De Rep., 523 B. 7 Ibid., 522, 523. 

2 Ibid., 73 C. 6 Ibid., 523. 8 Ibid., 510 et seq. 
Ibid., 73 D. 6 ibid., 525. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 41 

which is not contained in it (eV ap%r)v avwiroOerov ef VTTO- 
Qeo-eax; lovcra). One is clearly the law of syllogism; he 
calls the other the dialectic process (iropeia SiaXeKTi/crj). 
The first process, he says, is that of geometry ; the second is 
that of true philosophy. 1 

Geometricians take their definitions as their starting-point 
(Troirjo-d/jLevoi V7ro0e(reis avra). These points of departure 
they take as principles, principles of deduction from which 
they derive all the rest by means of inference and manifest 
identity (eV TOVTWV 8' dp^o^evoL rd XOLTTO, ij&rj SiegLovres 

T6\6VTO)(TiV 6yL60\070U/Z6Z/0?). 

Yet again, this process, syllogistic deduction, does not go 
back to the origin of things (OVK eV dp^hv lovcrav) ; evi- 
dently it can never rise above its starting-point, since it 
deduces by means of identity (eo? ov ^vva^vrjv TU>V viro- 
Oea-ewv avwrepw eicftaiveiv). 

The other, on the contrary, rises above its starting-point 
(eV <ipx*) v avwiroOerov ef vTrodecrecos lovcra). It does not 
take its starting-point as its primary source (ra? vTroQea-eis 
TToiovfjievos OVK a/o^a?) ; it only takes it as a fulcrum and 
to stimulate its flight (olov eV^acrei? re ical op/ia?). It 
speeds from this to the universal principle absolutely out- 
side and above the point of departure (^e-^pi rov dwiro- 
Berov 7rl rrjv rov Trai^ro? dpx*) v M*v) 

Afterwards only, it descends through inference to all 
which that principle touches and includes, once it possesses 
it (a\JrayLtez>o<? aur%, Trd\iv av e^6yLtez/09 TWV eiceivr}^ e^oyLteVwi/, 
oi/rct)? eVt T\vrrjv KarafBaivrj). 

Such are actually the two eternal processes of reasoning, 
the two divisions of logic, one of which may be called the 
logic of deduction, the other the logic of invention; or 
again, the one immanent logic, and the other transcendent 
logic. 

1 Geometry had not then be^n developed through the infinitesimal process. 



42 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

But to what do these two processes lead, according to 
Plato ? What are their different results ? 

Those who use the dialectic attain to some perception of 
being and of the intelligible (VTTO r% TOV SiaXeyeaOai, eiri- 
arrj/jirjs TOV 6Vro? re ical VOTJTOV Oeaipov^evov). 

Those who move by induction from their starting-point 
(al? at inrodeaeis dp%ai), and do not go back to the primary 
cause (&ia TO f^rj eV ap-^v dve\6ovTas), never really attain 
to an intelligence of their object, which is, however, intelli- 
gible if they know how to refer it to its primary cause (vovv 

OVK, 1(T%IV 7Tpl aVTU, KaiTOl VQT]TtoV OVTtoV /Jb6Ta a/ 



VII. 

" But," says Plato, " here we have a far more difficult 
point. ... I will deal with it to the best of niy ability : 
God alone knows if it be so." 

This point, -in our opinion, affords Plato opportunity to 
settle, in an admirable manner, perhaps the most important 
of all philosophical questions. 

The point is to distinguish the degrees of knowledge, and 
particularly of the knowledge of God. 

Plato first distinguishes clearly two degrees of knowledge 
in general, knowledge of sensible things (opaTOv), and 
knowledge of intelligible things (vorjTov). 1 

We shall speak of the intelligible only. 

Within this degree Plato notes two others, one of which 
corresponds to discursive thought (Sidvoia), the other to true 
intellect (vorjcris). 

The inferior degree, that of discursive thought, corre- 
sponds to the syllogistic process which, by means of identity, 
catches glimpses of essential and immutable truths, but 
without understanding their relation to the principle of their 
unity in God. 

1 De Rep., 509. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 43 

The superior degree, that of intellect, corresponds to the 
dialectic process which rises to the principle of all truths. 

In the superior degree, which is that of true science (eV*- 
cmjiJLr)'), 1 superior to discursive notions (Sidvoia), the mind 
contemplates that which Being and truth illuminate? 

But is this superior degree itself, such as it has been 
described, the final possibility of intellectual vision ? Or at 
least, has it not its degrees ? Is there nothing beyond the 
science that contemplates that which Being and truth illumi- 
nate ? " We have," says Plato, " beyond science, Being 
itself and truth itself (avro TO dXrjOes), which give to things 
truth (a\rjdeta), and, to the mind, strength to know; and 
there must be, beyond science, the very remote (reXeuraia), 
very faint vision (/-toyt? opaaOai) 8 of that selfsame Being 
which is supreme Goodness. For if science and truth are so 
fair, their source is fairer yet." " We should be mistaken," 
he says, " much mistaken, if we supposed that light and sight 
are the sun ; they are images or reflections of the sun (rJXto- 
ei&rj). So, too, we should mistake if we supposed science and 
truth (a\rj0t,a) to be supreme Goodness itself ; they are the 
images or reflections of supreme Goodness (ayadoe&rf)" 

So that science (eVto-TiJ/^?;), even that acquired through 
the dialectic, is, according to Plato, the vision of an image 
(ayaOoeiSrj'). But then can we never succeed in seeing, not 
merely the image (etV<5ya), but the truth itself (avro TO 
a\r)0es) ? 4 Can we not, when we have acquired through 
dialectic a perception OF DIVINE PHANTOMS AND SHADOWS 
OF THAT WHICH IS (^>avTa(TfiaTa Oela KOI ovaa? TWV OVTWV), 
judge that these shadows and these images are produced by 
a sun which corresponds to them (ovaa? Si eTepov TOLOVTOV 
<&>TO<?, &>? 7T/30? ri\ioVj Kplveiv cnTocrKLa^ofJieva^) 1 5 

Yes, we can ; we may attain to a vision even of the 

1 De Rep., 533. 3 Ibid., 517. 6 Ibid., 532. 

2 Ibid., 508 D. 4 ibid., 532. 



44 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

essence of things (eV CLVTO o eariv e/cacrrov oppav). 1 We 
may succeed in seeing the supreme Being of beings (TT/QO? 
rrjv TOV apiffTOV ev rot? oven Oeav) ; we may reach that high- 
est intellectual summit (eV avrw T&> TOV vorjrov reXet) ; we 
may grasp the supreme essential Being himself, through the 
mind itself (avro o eanv 'Aya6bv avrfj vorjaet, \dftrj) ; we 
may gain sight of supreme Goodness (rrjv TOV 'AyaQov ISeav). 
We see it dimly (poyis opdo-dai) ; but we may, we should, 
see it. 

We may do all this, says Plato, and we should do it. We 
should persistently pursue this inquiry, and never pause 
until we succeed in grasping, through the mind itself, the 
supreme Goodness itself (ical fj,rj aTroa-rfj irplv av CLVTO o 
(TTW 'Aya0bv avrfj vorjaei Xa/rty) ; 2 this is the final end of 
the impulse of the mind, the term of the dialectic (re\o? 
TT}? Trope/a?). 

Thus, according to Plato, beyond even that grand knowledge 
which the dialectic gives us, which is the vision of things illu- 
mined by the light of supreme Goodness, by the light of Being 
and of truth itself, beyond this knowledge and this truth re- 
flected in things, if we may so express it, we have Truth it- 
self, Being itself ; we have the idea and the sight of supreme 
Goodness ; we have the principle of all things ; we have the 
most perfect of beings and the height of the intelligible ; we 
have the final end and aim of the process, which is the at- 
tainment of supreme Goodness itself through the mind itself, 
directly and immediately. But this end, he says elsewhere, 
is not attained until after death. 

Plato makes these degrees of knowledge and the course 
of the process clear to us, by his famous description of the 
cavern, and the story of the deliverance of the captives. 

First we have captivity in the cave, and then liberty 
in the sunshine: which corresponds to the vision of 

1 De Kep., 532. 2 ibid., 532. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 45 

the two worlds, the world of sense, and the world of 
intellect. 

In the cave there are shadows (ovaa?) and echoes. At first 
they can only see by reflected rays, whether of light or of 
voice. Then there conies a change. They turn away from 
the shadows to objects and to the light (jMerao-rpo^rj atrb 
rwv atciwv eVl ra ei$o\a /cal TO c^ft)?). 1 

Outside the cave, in the real world, there are, Plato always 
affirms, many degrees of vision. At first, the captives see 
shadows (aicids} ; then (/iera TOVTO) we have another degree, 
they see the images of objects in the water (eV rot? 
vSacnv et'SwAa) ; then the objects themselves, men, and ani- 
mals. Then they gaze up at the sky, at first by night, to 
see the reflected light of the moon. " At last, after all this, 
they look upon the sun, not indirectly now, apart from 
itself, in its image reflected in the waters, but the sun itself, 
by itself, in its proper place." 2 

This admirable distinction between seeing shadows, reflec- 
tions, phantoms, images, and the direct sight of light in its 
course, this distinction, the vast results of which we shall 
see later on, was afterwards even more fully established by 
Saint Augustine when he speaks of reason attaining to its 
final end (ratio perveniens ad finem suum) ; and by Saint 
Thomas Aquinas, when he describes the two degrees of 
the divine intelligible (duplici igitur veritate divinorum 
intelligibilium existente). We beg the reader to keep this 
point well fixed in his memory. He will understand the 
bearing of it later. It is the most important point in all 
philosophy. 

For the rest, Plato seems to us to havo seen, or rather 
expressed, this fundamental distinction in a slightly confused 
way. This has given rise to discussions of his Theory of 
Ideas, and of the question whether to him the Word is God 

i De Rep., 532. 2 Ibid., 516 B. 



46 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

or is not God. But is it surprising that a truth which 
escaped Malebranche, this is the omission in his system, 

and over which Bossuet hesitates, should be expressed by 
Plato with some ambiguity ? Moreover, to all who can see 
clearly the great intellectual fact in dispute, it is evident 
that Plato saw the truth, although he may waver in his 
description. 

What Plato saw is, that truth as man possesses it, or finds 
it naturally, is only an image of God, but not the direct 
sight of God. Pascal says, "The truth taken in this sense 

is not God, but it is his image, and an idol which we 
should not adore." The essential, eternal, immutable truths 
of which reason gives us the certainty and the clear sight 
are, as Plato expresses it, but divine phantoms or shadows 
of what is, a magnificent expression, of the most fruitful 
depth, which we cannot sufficiently admire. Even geome- 
try, according to Plato, sees only shadows, the dream of 
Being, not waking vision of Being } another statement of 
deep meaning. But what man desires, and should desire, 
according to Plato, is to pass from shadows, reflections, 
echoes, and images. He desires to hurry on ; and he should 
do so, never pausing until he has grasped very Being, 
supreme Goodness itself, through his intelligence itself, 
that is to say, until he has acquired direct and immediate 
sight of God. 

Plato, therefore, sees here what Saint Augustine expresses 
so perfectly when he says, " God is intelligible ; these spec- 
tacles of scientific truths are so likewise. But what a differ- 
ence ! 2 The earth is visible, the light of the sun is visible ; 
but the earth is visible only by the light of the sun. There 
is all the difference of earth and sky between these phan- 
toms of assured truths and the intelligible majesty of God/' 3 

1 De Rep., 533 C. 8 Ibid., p. 686, 11 (v.). 

2 Soliloq., lib. i. p. 608, 14 (vii.). 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 47 

; 8ft% 
VIII. U> !TY 



t 
Thus, we see, Plato through his dialectic was able to rise 

to the true God, to very Being, to the most perfect of 
beings, to the beginnings of all things, to truth itself, to 
supreme Goodness which is. But did he ever really attain 
to the knowledge of the true God, to the genuine idea of 
God and his attributes'? We unhesitatingly answer, Yes. 

This is the opinion of Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas 
Aquinas, Bossuet, and also of Fe*nelon and Thomassin. We 
shall quote these decisive authorities later. Let us first 
show the fact. 

In the tenth book of his Laws, Plato, striving to establish 
that there is a Providence, rises through his dialectic to the 
idea of God, as follows : " There are in us certain virtues : 
therefore God possesses fully all virtue. 1 We can do some 
things : God can at least do all that we can do. 2 In us 
there may be both good and evil : in God, not." 3 

Thus the resemblance and contrast between ourselves and 
God lift Plato, according to his theory, to the reminiscence 
of God. 

These assertions, we see, are nothing but that common 
and natural dialectic which, in the spectacle of visible things 
and the sight of the human soul, effaces limits, omissions, and 
evil, thus elevating goodness to the infinite and affirming it 
to be of God. But Plato did this scientifically. 

However this may be, we have already seen that Plato's 
God is not an abstract God. Plato's God is the absolute Be- 
ing, without faults ; supreme Goodness ; the Being possessed 
of all virtue, wisdom, and providence; the sun of the intelligi- 
ble world, of which the essential and universal truths which 
we see are the shadow. This God, the author and Father of 

i Leg., 900 D. 2 Ibid., 901 D. 8 Ibid., 900 D. 



48 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

intelligible light, is also the author and parent of the sun 
and the visible world. He made the sun in his own image 
to enlighten the world, as he himself enlightens the world of 
intelligence. 1 He is that Goodness which we scarcely per- 
ceive, in the centre of the world of intelligence, but which, 
once seen, appears as the cause of all that is good and beau- 
tiful. 2 It is towards him that the soul of the true philo- 
sopher, which alone lias wings, strives to soar. 

He who is absolutely (rw Traz^reXw? OVTI), who is a living 
absolute (rw iravT^\el wo>), a perfect and living intelligible 
(TO> reXewraTft) fcal VOTJTO) foow), the living one who is, in 
whom the ideas are (evovaas tSea? TW o ecrn faW), the eter- 
nal essence (diSios ovo-ia), of whom, properly speaking, we 
cannot say that it has been, or will be, but only that it is 
(TO eo-ri povov) : it is the God who is forever (6Wo? ael Qeov). 3 
It is he who possesses motion in repose, who possesses au- 
gust and sacred intelligence ; which the sophist denies. " In 
God's name," exclaims Plato, " shall we be readily persuaded 
that he who is absolutely, has neither motion, nor life, nor soul, 
nor thought, that he is inert, that he is without august and 
sacred intelligence 1 Shall we let men tell us that he has 
intelligence, but has no life ? Shall we let them tell us that 
he has both, but not personality ? 4 Shall we let them tell 
us that he is personal, intelligent, living, but inert? All 
this would be absurd." 5 

Moreover, according to Plato, it is this God who made the 
world. Everything was made by God (Kara ye Bebv avra 
jijveo-Oat). The world does not proceed from a blind and 
spontaneous cause producing without consciousness (a?r6 
TWOS atr/a? avTOfjidrr)? real avev Siavoias (frvova-rjs), but it 
proceeds from a God who creates with knowledge and with 

* De Rep., 508 C. 2 Ibid., 517 C. 8 Tim., 30 et seq. 

4 We cannot here translate otherwise the word ^i/x 7 ?- This is plainly 
what Plato means. 
6 Sophist.. 265 C. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 49 

divine reason (/jLera \6yov re /cal eTricmjfjLTjs #e/a?, OLTTO Oeov). 
The beings, which were not at first, afterwards became 
through the God who made them (Oeov SrjpiovpyovvTos 
vo-repov ytyveaOat, TTporepov ov/c ovra). 1 

Such is the God given by the dialectic of Plato. This 
God is; he is good; he is the absolute Being, Goodness 
itself, intelligence and providence, author and Father of the 
world. He is the true God. 

But another decisive proof that Plato really knew the true 
God and his attributes, and that he constantly alludes to 
them, is that his entire doctrine may be called the doctrine 
of ideas, and that, according to Plato, ideas exist in God, and 
are God. 

That such is the thought of Plato, seems to us well estab- 
lished, in spite of all contradictions. Thomassin does not 
hesitate to maintain this thesis ex professo : " Ideas were 
placed in God by Plato ; that is the unanimous opinion of 
the Fathers." 2 

When Plato says, " Ideas are in the living one who is," it 
seems to me that this sentence alone should suffice to settle 
the question. 

Plato everywhere affirms that the world and all that 
therein is was made in the likeness of ideas. Now, in the 
Timseus, he asserts that things were made as they are, "to 
the end that the world might be as similar as possible to the 
intelligible and perfect living one (iva roS' o>? o/jboiorarov y 
Tc5 reXewrarw teal vorjTw fww)." 3 

Thus, according to Plato, ideas are actually that intelli- 
gible and perfect living one, i. e. God. He repeats the same 
thing elsewhere. "To the end," he says, "that the world 
may be like unto the living absolute (iva roBe . . . opoiov 

1 Sophist., 265 C. 

2 Thorn., Dog. Theol. This is the heading to chap. xii. lib. iii. 
* Tim., 39. 

4 



50 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

r) TO) 7ravTe\i &>&>)." l In the Timseus, Plato never ceases 
to consider the eternal exemplar of ideas (d'&Lov TrapdSeiypa) 
as being the living absolute, which includes all living intelli- 
gibles, and which is the intelligible, supreme, and perfect 
beauty of all points (ra yap Be vorjrd 000, Trdvra etcelvo Iv 
eavTM 7rpi\a/3bv e^et . . . TO> TWV voovfjbevwv Ka\\icrrw KOI 
Kara irdvra TeXea>)." 2 This is the assertion in exact words 
that ideas, the eternal example for the world, are precisely 
God. 

When Plato speaks of God, who is always (6Wo9 del Oeov), 3 
who created the world by gazing at that which is always (TO 
bv del), that is to say, the eternal exemplar, ideas, does not 
Plato clearly state that in gazing at that which is always, 
ideas, he regards only himself, who always is ? 

The texts in Plato which prove our thesis are superabun- 
dant. It only remains for us to show the precise cause of 
the misapprehension. If there be quotations which seem to 
contradict each other upon this point, it is because Plato, 
like ourselves, necessarily uses the word idea in two different 
senses, sometimes to signify the truth as it is in itself (avro 
TO dXrjOes), sometimes the truth as we see it in ourselves 
(eTTio-TijfjLrj Kal d\ijOeia). In the first case, according to 
Plato, ideas are in God and are God ; in the second, Being 
itself, supreme Goodness, is as superior to them as the sun is 
superior to the light reflected by the world, and to the vision 
which we have of that light. 4 here are ideas in God and 
ideas in us ; and between these two meanings of the word, 
there is all the difference that Saint Augustine finds between 
those two lights, of which one is the light that illumines (lu- 
men illuminans) : this is God, the idea of God ; and of which 
the other is only the light that is illuminated (lumen illu- 
minatum) ; that is, we ourselves, the idea in us, created 
intelligence. 

1 Tim., 31. 2 Ibid., 3t). 8 Ibid., 34. 4 De Rep., 508. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 51 

All the difficulties come from this. With this key we 
can, I think, settle them. 1 Moreover, we should be well 
aware that, for some time back, Plato, as well as Aristotle, 
has been turned to account by Hegelian sophists, who strive 
to take refuge beneath his wings, and shed their darkness 
over his light. We will amply prove this in the proper 
place. 

IX. 

Let us now turn from the result to the process. 

We see, by the fact, that Plato was familiar with the 
great and chief process of the reason, the only one which 
rises to God. 

But what is very remarkable, is that he also knew, de- 
scribed, and combated its abuse. It seems as if he foresaw 
the use which the Alexandrians would make of it, and 
the still more absurd use which German sophists would 
make of it in the nineteenth century. 

Plato puts the question and settles it with the utmost 
precision. It is strange that the importance of his solution 
of the point is not appreciated ! Leibnitz was struck by it, 
and quotes it as something of great value. We have, says 
Plato, the philosopher and the sophist. The philosopher 
and the sophist are exactly opposite in mind. The first 
alone deals with the true dialectic, which rises to the splen- 
dors of the one Being, the object of his inquiry and his con- 
templation. But what is the sophist's course ? What does 
he seek, and what does he see ? Hear Plato's answer : The 
sophist moves towards mere nothingness. He seeks and 
pursues non-being, and takes refuge in its shadows. 2 That 
is his dwelling and the habit of his mind. Aristotle notes 

1 See, on this point, book iii. de Deo, by Thomassin, and Nourisson's the- 
sis, " Quid Plato senserit de Idceis," a substantial summary of a great work. 

2 Sophist., 254. 



52 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

this opinion of Plato. " Plato," he says, " very fitly remarks 
' that sophism rests entirely upon non-being.' " 

The reader will understand later, if he does not already 
see, the depth of this observation. But this is not the place 
to develop it. 

We merely wish to show that Plato by his process, which 
is the true one, could not obtain an idol, a false god, or 
the empty and abstract unity of the Alexandrines, a 
unity without being, goodness, or intelligence, and still 
less that monster of contemporary pantheism, ontological 
nonentity. Far from this, Plato declares this tendency to 
be utterly contrary to philosophy, and uses the right phrase 
in regard to those who meditate upon non-existence, or, 
what is the same thing, the teachers of absolute identity. 
He calls their doctrine monstrous. " If any one call like- 
ness un likeness, and unlikeness likeness, it seems to me that 
it would be monstrous" * And he adds an expression 
which Malebranche seems to have translated when he lays 
stress upon that kind of identical proposition which strikes 
him as being fundamental : To perceive nothing, or not to 
perceive anything, are one and the same thing. " He who 
says nothing, necessarily, it seems, says nothing." We need 
not even admit that he says anything ; he says nothing, 
or rather, he does not speak, who undertakes to put into 
articulate utterance that which has no existence. 2 

In the face of so plain a statement, it is not admissible to 
take an unfair advantage of certain passages in the Par- 
menides or any other dialogue, to confound Plato with the 
sophists, who do not even distinguish nothingness from 
Being, and whose wholly perverted mind works the void and 
produces the absurd. If obscure, vague, or even inexact 
statements occasionally escape him in describing the process 
which leads to the light of supreme Being and supreme 

1 Parmetiid., 129. 2 Sophist., 237 E. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 53 

Goodness ; if, especially in translations, Plato seems to 
give a very strange idea of the infinite, we must first care- 
fully consider all the texts, and see whether sometimes, 
as certainly there are examples, we have not translated 
the word which should mean undetermined, or at most 
indefinite, as infinite, which would be the exact opposite 
of the true meaning. Then, if we still find errors in Plato's 
text itself, we should not be surprised. In regard to this 
difficult and even yet most obscure point, no exact solution 
was reached until since the seventeenth century, and that 
solution itself is still but little known. The precise theory 
of the infinite, before the new era, was scarcely possible; and 
many Christian sages have themselves used expressions con- 
cerning this subject which have only been noted and cor- 
rected by the Catholic Church within the last two hundred 
years. 

X. 

Let us sum up all that we have said. 

Plato employs the true process of reasoning which leads 
up to God, and he does indeed attain to the true God. He 
takes created things as his starting-point, not as the prin- 
ciple of deduction. He asserts that we should advance 
from this starting-point, taken merely as a fulcrum for 
our fliyht, to the universal primary cause which is outside 
the starting-point ; that reason, by the true dialectic process, 
rises to absolute Being, which is living, intelligent, personal, 
and active, which is the cause of all beauty, all goodness, 
which includes all perfection, with no trace of imperfection, 
which is supreme Goodness itself, the Father of the world, 
the creator of all things, who does not produce his work 
spontaneously and blindly, but with knowledge and divine 
reason, and creates the beings which are not at first, but 
which become through him. 



54 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Plato shows that reason, by the other process, which is 
syllogistic, does not reach this end, and can never rise above 
its starting-point or depart from it, since it takes it as the 
principle of deduction by means of identity. And, in fact, it 
is used by the purified soul only to return to the first pro- 
cess, wliich alone lias wings and is pre-eminently the philo- 
sophical process ; intelligence does not spread its wings and 
turn away from darkness to the light, except with the whole 
soul ; we must cut and prune within the soul, and, as it 
were, circumcise it; we must prune the natural instincts 
of the animal part, which turn the gaze of the soul down- 
ward ; then only can it change its direction and turn to the 
truth. Then its gaze is bent upon that which is divine and 
luminous, while the wicked and the impure have nought for 
their eye to rest upon but the empty shadows of God. 

This is precisely why the sophist, moving in the opposite 
direction from the philosopher, takes not-being as the end 
and object of his contemplation, and hides himself in the 
gloom of nothingness. 

And these two contrary directions of thought depend upon 
the free use which every man makes of the gift of God ; that 
is, of the contact of God with the root of the soul, at 
that point where every soul is joined to God. 

So Plato says. 

It is certain that man's reason moves in this way, alike 
in the humblest minds and in the profoundest philosophers. 

Reason, moving according to its fundamental law, should 
find the eternal, perfect, and infinite God, Father of men, 
Creator of the world. God, as Saint Paul teaches, shows 
himself sufficiently ; he is known through visible things, and 
man is inexcusable if he does not recognize and glorify him : 
this is the duty of reason. But there is a healthy reason 
and a perverted reason. Healthy reason rules in the soul 
which enjoys moral freedom, and perverted reason in the 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 55 

soul which is enslaved. The one looks higher than man, 
the other lower. 

XL 

It now remains for us to show that in our so favorable 
opinion of the Platonic doctrine we have gone no farther 
than Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Bossuet, nor 
perhaps so far as Thomassin. We say what they say, and 
that is enough. 

Saint Augustine sees in antiquity one true doctrine and 
two sects. The two sects are those of Epicurus and Zeno ; 
the true doctrine is that of Plato. 

We judge doctrine, according to Saint Augustine, by the 
point where it places these three things : supreme Goodness 
(faiem boni), the world-cause (causas rerum), the fulcrum 
of reason (ratiocinandi fiduciam). 

Now, Epicurus places these three things in the body and 
the senses : his sect is impure. Zeno places them in man 
himself : his sect is arrogant. Plato places them in the 
true God; his philosophy is the true one. So says Saint 
Augustine. 

He asserts that the Platonists " place in the true God 
the creative force of all things, the light of ideas, and the 
good of practical life." 1 He asserts that, as Cicero abun- 
dantly proves, " they place in an immutable, eternal, in no 
way human, but properly divine wisdom, the original wis- 
dom, stimulator of the other, these three things : supreme 
Goodness, the world-cause, and the fulcrum of reason." 2 
Saint Paul himself, he says elsewhere, does not accuse them 
of ignorance of the true God. Elsewhere, again, he declares 
" that Platonists place God far above the nature of every 
created spirit. He having created not only visible nature 

1 De Civit. Dei, lib. viii. cap. ix. t. vii. p. 320. 

2 St. Aug., Epist., c. xviii. t. ii. p. 502. 



56 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

but the soul itself, he enlightens every rational nature, such 
as the human soul is, and blesses it by admitting it to a 
share in his immaterial and immutable light." 1 

" Let all sects," he again says, " yield to the philosophers, 
who say not that man's blessedness is in his body, or in 
his soul, but in God alone : not as the mind enjoys the body 
or itself, or as men find their happiness one in the other, but 
indeed as the eye enjoys the light. . . . Plato places blessed- 
ness in virtue, virtue in knowledge and imitation of God ; and 
this itself is blessedness. He does not hesitate, he asserts 
that to philosophize is to love God.-" 2 

Such is Saint Augustine's opinion of Plato. 

As for Saint Thomas Aquinas, he 3 defends Plato against 
Aristotle in regard to a charge which strikes him as odious. 
He says that it is absurd (videtur absurdum) to impute fol- 
lies to such men as Socrates and Plato (talibus et tantis viris), 
to men who were the most virtuous of philosophers (qui 
fuerunt homines virtutibus dediti super omnes philosopher) ; 
who established virtue as the chief good of humanity (solas 
mrtutes bonum hominis ponebant), and all whose philosophy 
tended to virtue (qui ad componendos mores corrigendosque 
totam suam philosophiam effluerunt). 

Thus, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, Plato is not 
one of those philosophers whom Saint Paul stigmatizes, when 
he says that having known God, they have glorified him not, 
and on account of this have become vain in their imaginations 
and given themselves up to uncleanness. 

If the authenticity of the book De Regimine principum be 
contested, here is another testimony, taken from the Summa, 
the last work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the summary of all 
his teaching. He asserts that Plato established the idea of 

1 St. Aug., De Cirit. Dei, lib. viii. cap. i. 

2 Ibid., cap. viii. t. vii. p. 320. 

3 De regimine principum, cap. iv. t. iv. p. 822. Paris edition. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 57 

the true God. " He established," he says, " as a being apart, 
the idea of Being, the idea of the One, which he calls Being 
by itself, and Unity in itself ; being, unity, whence proceeds 
by participation all that can be called being or unity. . . . 
He also established that Being by itself, the One in itself, is 
supreme Goodness; and as Goodness, Being, and Unity are 
identical, he said that Goodness was God, in which all that 
may be called good must share. And all this is true," says 
Saint Thomas Aquinas ; " it is true that there is a first Being, 
which is by its very essence, which is Goodness, which is he 
whom we call God. Aristotle agrees on this point with 
Plato." 1 

Moreover, Saint Thomas Aquinas asserts, with Saint Justin, 
that Plato knew the book of Genesis and followed it in cer- 
tain points. We scarcely understand why this should be dis- 
puted. Is it possible that Plato could be wholly ignorant of 
Oriental traditions ? Could it be that among these traditions 
he knew nothing of the Jews, whose zeal and activity bring 
them to the front everywhere ? His utter ignorance on this 
point would be very hard to explain. Plato elsewhere, like 
Socrates, and this is to be carefully noted, everywhere 
enters into tradition so far as he can. He uses with the 
deepest respect, and accepts in his philosophy, all the sound 
doctrines which he encounters, Plato, like every genuine 
philosopher, sought after truth rather than after the mode of 
finding it. He had no trace of that strange pedantry, that 
barren mania known as rationalism, which consists in a de- 
sire to find the truth in a certain manner and in no other, 
and of one's self alone, through unaided human reason, without 
any mixture of tradition, authority, or feeling, or any especial 
help from God; like a man who plays at showing his strength, 
and announces that he will lift an enormous weight without 
a crowbar, with a single hand, and that the left. Does not a 

1 Summte, I a , q. iv. a. 4. 



58 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

true workman use both hands, and all the crowbars that he 
can find ? So, too, did Plato, who sought the truth with all 
his mind and with all his heart and with his whole soul, as 
he says we should do ; who studied all traditions, and trav- 
elled far and wide to find every trace of such ; who con- 
stantly invokes, as we see in his writings, the special and 
present help of God to know the truth, help which, accord- 
ing to Thomassin, was not refused him, and through which it 
was given him to know the true philosophy, that of which a 
Father of the Church said : " The Greeks found a law of right- 
eousness in philosophy," 1 a statement which Saint Thomas- 
quotes and confirms. 

To know Bocsuet's opinion of Plato, we have only to quote 
from that chapter of his " Logic " where he treats of eternal 
essences, 2 and thus expresses himself: 

"These eternal truths which our ideas present are the true ob- 
ject of science, and therefore that we may become truly wise, Plato 
incessantly reminds us of those ideas which present not that which 
shapes itself, but that which is ; not that which engenders and suf- 
fers corruption, which is seen and then passes away, which is made 
and destroyed, but that which eternally subsists." 

"This is that intellectual world which this divine philosopher 
has put into the mind of God before the world was formed, and 
which is the model for that sublime work." 

"These are the simple, eternal, immutable, imperishable, and in- 
corruptible ideas to which he refers us if we would comprehend the 
truth." 

"This is why he said that our ideas, the images of divine ideas, 
were also directly derived from them, and did not come through 
the senses, which do indeed serve, he said, to awaken them, but 
not to form them in our mind." 

Let us now come to the testimony of Thomassin, who goes 
very far in regard to Plato, sometimes perhaps too far in 

1 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., lib. i. no. 20. 

2 Logic, liv. i. ch. xxxvii. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. 59 

regard to the Platonists. Thomassin sees in the philosophy 
of Plato what it itself asserts, a doctrine which is both 
speculative arid moral, a struggle against the flesh and a 
constant contemplation of death (perpetua mortis meditatio 
et conflictatio cum corpore) ; l a doctrine which unfolds, by 
means of reminiscence, the eternal reasons hidden in the soul 
(latitantes in anima rationes per reminiscentiam exeitarej : a 
doctrine which does not cast man upon externals, but leads 
him back from external things to himself, and from himself 
to that which is higher (nee in externa hominem refundere, 
sed ab Us ad ipsum, ut ipsum summum contempletur) ; 2 a 
doctrine which thus found truth, not by chance, but by its 
very method, as Tertullian says (non tantum casu in verum 
quandoque incurrisse)" 3 

This doctrine, adds Thomassin, strives to purify the affec- 
tions, to lift our mind to God ; and the very basis of Platon- 
isrn, according to Saint Augustine, is the placing of ideas in 
God : the Fathers agree on this point. The contrary error 
comes from Aristotle tirst, then from the Gnostics and Arians. 
Plato is the father of philosophy ; and he went to the verge 
of philosophy, having more than any other philosopher 
recognized and asserted the fact of the actual intervention 
of God, by his help and his grace, in the contemplation of 
immutable truths. 4 And this help was not denied him. 
The Platonists, again says Thomassin, are praised by Saint 
Augustine for attributing to divine light whatever was given 
them in the order of that contemplation. 5 God, in fac^ 
aided them ; and, moreover, they found help from the 
Hebrews (Dei auxilio adjuti ; deinde Hebrceorum quandoque 
contubernio). Thus we praise, we quote, this patrician race 

1 Logic, lib. vi. cap. iii. n. i., 2. 2 Ibid., lib. i. cap. ii. n. 2. 

3 Ibid., cap. xxiv. n. 1. 

4 Dog. Theol., t. iii. lib. iv. cap. ii. n. 10. 

5 Ibid., t. ii. lib. iii. cap. v. n. 15. 



60 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

of philosophers ; and to make their doctrine harmonize with 
our dogmas is not a difficult work, still less is it a sterile 
task, as Saint Bernard himself proved. 1 

Finally, in the preface to his Theodicy, Thomassin thus 
sums up his opinion of Plato: "That which precedes will 
readily explain to you why, in the first part of this treatise, 
I have mingled in proof Plato and his disciples with the 
Fathers of the Church, Greek and Latin. For although for 
the last five hundred years our most famous teachers have 
gained their philosophic education in the school of Aristotle, 
we must remember that all the Fathers acquired theirs in the 
school of Plato. Baronius might truly say, ' The Academy 
is the antechamber to the Church ; ' and the admirable Saint 
Augustine, himself imbued with that patrician philosophy, 
as Cicero calls it, declares that by changing a very few 
words and thoughts, a Platonist becomes a Christian. To 
this I have clung tenaciously (mordicus), showing in every- 
thing the harmony of their thoughts and expressions with 
our Scriptures and our holy Fathers, and pointing out the 
differences where they exist." 2 

In the face of these amazing testimonials from the Fathers 
and from Catholic scholars, testimonials paid to the Pla- 
tonic philosophy, and of this wonderful agreement between 
philosophy and theology, this perfect union of philosophers 
and theologians of the first order, we ask the meaning of 
that war between religion and philosophy, reason and faith, 
of which we have heard so much for a century past. For 
myself, I see but one cause for this unhealthy division of the 
universal light of the Word in human minds. That cause is 
a decay of the human mind, and a simultaneous degeneration 
of reason and faith. The light has grown dim in men's souls, 
because they are less turned towards God. Winter reigns. 
Faith, in those who still have it, has a lesser radiance ; 

1 Dog. Theol., t. ii. lib. iii. cap. xxiii. n. 9. 2 Prsef., t. iii. n. 10. 



PLATO'S THEODICY. Cl 

shrinking and repressed in the innermost heart, it no longer 
sheds its divine dew upon the mind. Faith does not suffi- 
ciently seek intelligence, as Saint Augustine urges it to do. 
On the other hand, reason, in those who cultivate it, no longer 
leads to any result, and misses the object of its career, as Plato 
expresses it ; it does not search enough to find. Those who 
rise highest, pause " at divine phantoms and the shadows of 
what is," but they do not reach " the sun which casts these 
shadows." Insufficiently upheld by God, whom it neither 
seeks nor loves, reason completes its work in but very few 
men. Its weak and fine-spun thoughts, its partial and 
broken lights, have ceased to be more than the ruins and 
fragments of integral philosophy. Better simple ignorance 
than this ignorance which ignores itself ; better actual night 
than a gloomy twilight which deems itself broad day, and 
doubts not that the sun is shining. 

At the present time, therefore, those souls in whom God 
has placed through faith the source of light, are like a 
clouded sky, in which the sun no longer beams ; and those 
others, destitute of faith, but to whom God still sends a few 
rays from without, are like the Earth when, in the first glim- 
mer of dawn which puts out the stars without yet giving us 
the sun, she no longer sees by any sign that her light cometh 
to her from Heaven. 



CHAPTER III. 

ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 

LET us understand plainly that the question of the proofs 
of the existence of God, which includes that of his at- 
tributes, is not a question of any particular system of philos- 
ophy, but is the question of philosophy in general. The effort 
of the intelligence to show that there is a God, is the search 
after truth, nothing less. In treating this general question, 
we take up the Theodicy, consequently Metaphysics; we 
take up Logic, because we are concerned with one of the two 
processes of reasoning, and that the chief one. We must 
evidently treat of Morals, since the condition without which 
nothing can be proved, the existence of God, is a moral 
question, a free act of our soul ; then we treat of Psy- 
chology, since we are concerned with the principal acts of 
both the intelligence and the will : we are at the point 
where all branches of philosophy meet, at the centre, the 
root, of philosophy. This is why we are forced first to 
settle this supreme question. 

Let us not fear, therefore, to dwell as long as may be 
needful upon this central point, which includes everything, 
even the history of philosophy. 

I. 

Aristotle arrives at the same results as Plato. For, as we 
shall see in the course of this work, all geniuses of the first 
order agree, often even when they seem or believe them- 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 63 

selves to be in opposition. In reality, it is the sophists 
who contradict one another and contradict the philosophers. 
Cicero declares that the difference between the Academy and 
the Portico is only a difference of words. 1 

And yet it must be said that if, indeed, the great results 
are the same, there is more than a difference of words, there 
is a difference in the method, at least so far as regards 
the statement. 

There are two processes of reasoning, as we have already 
said. Now, we may assert and distinctly settle this point : 
Plato represents the one, and Aristotle the other. Plato is 
above all else dialectic ; Aristotle is peculiarly syllogistic. 
It is only unconsciously that he ever handles the dialectic 
process, and he gives no complete analysis of it. 

And yet Aristotle could not be ignorant of these two in- 
tellectual processes, and he calls them syllogism and induc- 
tion (eiraycoyr)). He says, what is true, that induction gives 
us primary causes ; syllogism, consequences* He sees, what 
we have already observed, that a knowledge of primary 
causes considered, not as possible, but as actual and existing, 
presupposes experience as the point of support of induction. 2 
Thus Aristotle saw the facts. 

But the great difference between Plato and Aristotle is 
that the latter, in practice, strove to find everything, or at 
least to prove everything, by syllogism ; and in theory he 
knew neither all the conditions nor all the compass of the dia- 
lectic process. He even denies, in Plato, its legitimacy ; and 
if he himself makes use of it, it is often without knowing it, 
and in an implied form. For twenty years the disciple of 
Plato, he received the results of his work. He had in ad- 
vance that supreme idea of God given us by the chief pro- 
cess of reason, used by Plato, and above all brought to us 

1 Academ., lib. i. cap. ix. 

2 Analyt. prior., lib. i. cap. xxxi. 3. 



64 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

by tradition diffused throughout the world, and to which he 
himself alludes. Aristotle retains all these data, but he en- 
velops them in syllogisms, so that we lose sight of the way 
in which the mind obtains them. 

There occurs, upon this point, in the Theodicy, between 
Plato and Aristotle, what occurred, at the close of the seven- 
teenth century, in the domain of geometry, between Leibnitz, 
the inventor of the Infinitesimal Calculus, and a famous alge- 
braist, 1 who pretended to deny the discovery, attacked its prin- 
ciples as inexact and productive of error, and then tried to 
reproduce and demonstrate, by common algebra, the results 
which Leibnitz^ obtained by his infinitesimal method. This 
adversary of Leibnitz kept the Academy of Sciences in sus- 
pense for several years, twenty years after the discovery. A 
skilful algebraist, a bold calculator, but as a writer wrapped 
in obscurity, as Montucla describes him, he reached, or 
seemed to reach, by vast algebraic circumlocutions, and end- 
less equations, the same results which Leibnitz found by 
mere play, and proved with such marvellous simplicity. 
Obscure and interminable equations enveloped what Leib- 
nitz analyzed, explained, and made clear in brief and simple 
formulas. That which Leibnitz found by the infinitesimal 
method, his adversary could never have found by his alge- 
braic method, deductive from identity to identity; but the 
results being given, he sometimes reproduced them by dint of 
hard work. Only, in his obstinate attempt to reproduce 
them all, there were instances where he only succeeded by 
the aid of false calculations and incorrect deductions, forcing 
a way to attain the wished-for result. 

And this is what must necessarily happen, in metaphysics, 
to those who insist upon forcing their way by continuous 
reasoning, syllogism, and thus reaching from creatures to 
God, from finite to infinite. Sceptics stop them, and readily 

1 See Montucla, Hist, of Mathematics, ii. 360. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 65 

show them that the continuity of the deduction is only ap- 
parent, and covers up voids and gulfs which only the other 
process of reasoning can bridge over. 

Our comparison between these philosophers and geometri- 
cians is faulty, I believe, at but one point : that is, that there 
was no equality between Leibnitz and his foe, while between 
the genius of Plato and that of Aristotle, on the contrary, 
there was parity. But we maintain that those who try to 
establish by the logic of deduction the results produced by 
the other process of reasoning, are like the mathematician 
who denied the infinitesimal calculus, would use nothing 
but common algebra, and used false figures in order to do 
without the infinitesimal method. 

Did Aristotle use false trains of reasoning to establish 
the same results as Plato, though without succeeding at all 
points ? We dare not affirm that he did ; we submit the 
question to those who think themselves competent to answer 
it. It would be a curious study in logic. But it is certain 
that Plato is simple and luminous, and Aristotle is involved 
and obscure ; that the Platonic dialectic is poetic and popu- 
lar ; and that the Aristotelian syllogisms, on the question of 
first principles, are so extremely difficult and subtle that 
the best-equipped intellects would find it a long and difficult 
task to decide whether the proofs be exact or not. Kant, 
we are all aware, pronounced them false; only he treats all 
the rest no better. But when h2 sets forth the type, which, 
in his opinion, affords the true proof, that type is nothing 
else, it seems, but the dialectic of Plato with its double logi- 
cal and moral condition. 

II. 

Be this as it may, let us try to face the proofs of the exis- 
tence of God as set forth by Aristotle. We will not at first 
refer to the original. We will take Aristotle as explained 



66 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

by Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose genius is quite as power- 
ful, but much more lucid than that of Aristotle. We are 
fortunate to find such a guide. Saint Thomas Aquinas 
takes his instances from Aristotle's collective works, he 
having commented upon them all, and he sums them up 
as follows in his Summa Contra Gentes. 1 
We quote literally : 

" Having proved that it is possible to demonstrate the exis- 
tence of God, let us consider such proofs of it as have been given 
to us." 

" Here are those of Aristotle, who tries to prove the existence of 
God in two ways, from the fact of motion." 

"First proof. Everything which is in motion is moved by 
something. Now, our senses show us that something moves, the 
sun, for instance. Therefore it is moved by some other thing which 
moves it. Moreover, either that other motor is a motion, or it is 
motionless. If it be motionless, our assertion is proved, namely ; 
that it is essential to establish a motionless motor, which is God. 
If, on the contrary, it be in motion, it is moved by some other 
motor. We must, therefore, either go on in this way forever, or 
come at last to the motionless motor. But it is impossible to go 
on thus forever. Accordingly, we must affirm the existence of a 
primary motionless motor." 

"But in this proof there are two propositions to be proved, 
namely : That every moving thing in motion is moved by a 
motor other than itself, and that we cannot admit of an infinite 
series of motors." 

" Aristotle proves the first proposition in three ways : 

" 1st. If a motor be self-moving, it must contain in itself the 
primary cause of its motion ; otherwise it is plain that it i& moved 
by some other motor. It must also be moved by a primary move- 
ment ; that is to say, by itself, and not by one of its parts, like an 
animal borne along by the motion of its feet. For in this first 
case the whole would not be moved by itself, but by its part, and 
one part by the other. 2 This motor which moves must itself also 
be divisible, have parts ; for everything that moves is divisible, as 

1 Lib. i. cap. iii. 2 Physics, book vii., opening pages. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 67 

is proved in the sixth book of the Physics. This settled, the phi- 
losopher reasons thus : 

" Everything which we suppose is self-moving is moved by a 
primary motion. Therefore, inaction of one of its parts involves 
the inaction of all. For if the inaction of one part leaves the other 
part in motion, it ceases to be the whole itself which moves by a 
primary motion ; it is that part alone, since it continues to move 
while the other part is at rest. But nothing which stops as soon 
as another thing stops is self-moving ; for that object whose cessa- 
tion involves the cessation of the other, is also that whose motion 
involves the motion of the other ; therefore that other is not self- 
moving. Accordingly, that which we supposed to be self-moving 
does not actually move of its own impulse. Accordingly, finally, 
all which is in motion is necessarily moved by some motor other 
than itself." 

"We cannot destroy this reasoning by saying that what is 
supposed to be self-moving can have no part of it in repose ; 
and again, that the part can neither stop, nor move, save by 
accident, as Avicenna so scandalously holds (ut Avicenna calum- 
niatur). In reality, the whole force ot this reasoning lies in the 
fact that if anything be self-moving by a primary movement, and 
of itself, not by reason of its parts, it follows that its motion no 
longer depends upon an outside motor. Now, the movement of 
the divisible, as well as its being, depends on the being and move- 
ment of its parts ; hence it cannot move of itself by a primary 
motion. It is therefore not essential to the truth of the condi- 
tional proposition inferred here, that we should admit as abso- 
lutely true that the part moves in the inaction of the whole ; it is 
enough that the sum-total of this conditional proposition is true ; 
namely, That if the part be at rest, the whole will be at rest. 
And it may be true even if the antecedent proposition were 
impossible ; as in this instance : If a man were an ass, he would 
be an irrational animal." 

" 2d. Aristotle again proves the same proposition as follows : a 

" Everything that moves by accident does not move of itself, 
but is moved by the movement of some other thing ; this is evi- 
dent ; neither that which moves naturally, by an inward motion, 

1 Physics, text, comm., xxvii. ct infra. 



68 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

as the animal whose body is only moved by the soul ; nor that 
which is moved by nature, by an outward motion, as heavy bodies ; 
for everything of this kind moves only by the way of generation 
or else by the removal of an obstacle. Now, all that is moved is 
moved either by accident or by itself. If by itself, . . . etc." 

Let us stop here. What will it profit us to prolong this 
endless chain of propositions, each more obscure and more 
incomprehensible than the other ? What reader would 
follow us? Who now believes in this mode of reasoning? 
The seventeenth century banished it under the name of 
Aristotelianism. 

What we have just quoted is but a fourth part of the 
demonstration. We had yet to finish the second mode in 
which Aristotle proves his major : All that is in motion is 
moved by something other than itself. Then we should also 
be forced to give the third mode of proving that same major. 
After that there would still remain three other ways of prov- 
ing the minor, namely : That there is not an infinite series of 
motors. Then only would the syllogism be demonstrated. 

Lastly, we should have to set forth the second syllogism, 
which Aristotle also uses to prove, from motion, the existence 
of God. We shall not undertake such a task, but shall con- 
fine ourselves to a closer study of the basis of the line of rea- 
soning which we have just shown. What we have thus far 
quoted includes all its postulates. 

III. 

Aristotle takes the position, There is motion. 

And from this he concludes : Therefore there is a first 
motionless motor. We call this God. 

Now, there are in this train of reasoning words which can 
in no wise be filled by the syllogisms which we have just 
repeated. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 69 

What ! from seeing motion shall we infer the motionless, 
by syllogism, by means of identity ? 

That is to say that from the variable we infer immuta- 
bility; from the imperfect, perfection; or from the finite, 
infinity ! Let any one show us a genuine syllogism which 
establishes such inference from the fact of motion presented 
by the senses. 

Where are the passage and the middle term between these 
two worlds ? How can we derive immutability from motion 
by means of deduction ? Clearly, it is impossible. 

Most assuredly it was none of these arguments that led 
Aristotle to assert immobility from seeing motion. 

This conclusion involves a long story in the career of the 
human mind. Heraclitus spent his life in saying, Every- 
thing passes, everything slips away (TTCWTCL pee/) ; and amidst 
these passing waves he never perceived the immutable. 
This was the cause of his sorrow. And that sublime regret 
a sense of the imperfection of this changing world, a long- 
ing for immutability did not lead him up to the conclusion 
that the immutable exists. He understood motion and its 
strange significance, but nothing more. Plato also under- 
stood motion, and he said : All that we see slips away ; 
everything passes, is born, and dies ; and we behold nothing 
that does not change. But having said this, Plato did 
not confine himself to regret. The contrast between this 
changing spectacle, this perishable nature, and an innate 
longing for perfection, immutability, and immortality, awoke 
in his soul that memory of the eternal, unchanging, and per- 
fect Being which our soul also feels ; and he asserted the 
existence of the immovable on the occasion of that which 
passes. And this very point was the basis of his whole pro- 
cess and his whole doctrine. 

Aristotle, therefore, was furnished in the advance with this 
result, which cannot be obtained otherwise. Aristotle pos- 



70 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

sesses the truth and strives to set it forth. To explain it 
he wraps it in syllogisms. This seems clear to those who are 
beginning to think; and Aristotle taught. These syllogisms, 
with which it was impossible to find the truth, were no more 
useful to prove it; they throw no light upon it, they veil it. 
We can scarce recognize it under this disguise. We may 
even question whether they do not destroy it, and whether 
there are not gross faults of logic in this chain of reasoning. 
Who will prove the contrary ? Who 'will sift all the mean- 
ings of the words motion, immobility, immutability, and 
inertia, to learn whether, in one of the links in his chain, 
Aristotle does not confuse them ? 

To Aristotle, the idea of motion is identical with that 'of 
change. 1 He defines motion as the transition from poten- 
tiality to act? 

Plato made motion synonymous with life (KLV^CTLV teal 
%wi]v\ and thence placed motion in the absolute, infinite 
Being (KLVVJO-IV teal farjv . . . rc3 Traz/reXaK OVTL). Now, 
Aristotle himself sometimes takes motion in the same sense 
as Plato, as Saint Thomas Aquinas remarks. 

Nevertheless, in the proof of the existence of God through 
motion, it is clear that motion is understood in the sense of 
change, or of the transition from potentiality to act. 

This established, let us put Aristotle's reasoning into 
exact form, and see if it be possible for us to judge from 
it, to admit it or to deny it. 

The entire chain of reasoning may be reduced to the two 
following syllogisms : 

FIRST SYLLOGISM. 

Major. Everything in motion is moved by a motor other than 
itself; in other words, nothing moves of itself. 

Minor. Now, our eyes show us the fact of motion. 

1 Metaph., xi. 11, 12. We quote from the Berlin edition. 

2 Ibid., xi. 9. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 71 

Conclusion. Therefore, there is something else which moves that 
-which we see in motion. 

SECOND SYLLOGISM. 

Major. There cannot be an infinite series of motors ; in other 
words, there can only be a finite series of motors ; in other words, 
there is one first motor. 

Minor. Now, this motor would not be the first if it were in 
motion, since it would then be moved by some other thing (as 
results from the first major). 

Conclusion. Therefore, there is one first motionless motor. We 
call this God. 

These syllogisms are correct in form, but are they true as 
facts ? 

We see at the first glance that they are true if the majors 
be true. But who will prove those majors ? There lie the 
yawning voids. 

For instance, how can we prove by syllogism, starting from 
an obvious general proposition, that nothing moves of itself ? 
Yet Aristotle tries to do so. It is in this way that he tries 
to establish the existence of the one first motionless motor ; 
that is, the existence of God. 

He makes the attempt ; we have seen his efforts to prove 
the first major, namely, " that everything in motion is moved 
~by a motor other than itself." But his arguments on this 
point are so subtle and so doubtful that Avicenna claims 
that the reasoning is false ; and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who 
considers Avicenna's objection scandalous (ut Avicenna ca- 
lumniatur), is still forced to confess that the argument rests 
on a conditional proposition, whose condition may be impos- 
sible or contradictory, as in this : If man be an ass, he is an 
irrational animal (Si homo est asinus, est irrationalis). 

Who shall be the judge ? Is the argument good ? I know 
not, being unable to understand all parts of it. Is it false, 
on account of the contradictory conditional ? I dare not say 



72 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

so, for even in algebra we introduce and calculate with imagi- 
nary quantities, that is, impossibilities and contradictions. 
What I assert is that these syllogisms are, to say the least, 
not valid ; they do not discover the great truth which they 
contain ; they do not make it manifest, and if, strictly speak- 
ing, they demonstrate it, it is because they include the other 
process of reasoning. 

Moreover, Aristotle never puts his arguments into such 
scholastic form as Saint Thomas has done here. But it is 
certain that he generally tries to deduce everything by syllo- 
gism from an evident fact or an abstract major. He seldom 
advances in his statement by any other than the deductive 
process of reasoning ; and this annoying habit often deprives 
his reasoning I refer to the reasoning only of its clear- 
ness, validity, utility, sometimes perhaps its solidity. 

Does it follow from this that Aristotle's Theodicy contains 
nothing new or valuable? Far from it; and we will now 
attempt to show what he accomplished. 

IV. 

If Aristotle be syllogistic in his statement, proceeding by 
abstract majors and deductions, we cannot conclude from this 
that in his inner mental action he retained nothing of the 
other process of reasoning. We have already said, and we 
shall show when we come to logic, that he mentions and 
clearly distinguishes between the two processes of reasoning, 
attributing to the one the invention of majors, and to the 
other deduction. In his profound meditations he made use 
he could not but make use of the sublime process which 
leads to God. But he generally managed to use it unawares, 
like the majority of mankind, and concealed, through a trick 
of style, his mode of discovery by a very different mode of 
statement and proof. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 73 

Be this as it may, not only did this powerful genius renew 
in his thought the data of tradition in regard to God, and 
the results of the Platonic method ; but we may also say 
that on several points, not on all, he gave clearness and pre- 
cision to Plato's theology. Had he added to the theodicy 
nothing but the three words, God is pure act, a formula 
which has been marvellously commented upon and used in 
every way by Saint Thomas Aquinas, he would have given 
the human mind an idea of capital significance. 

To judge Aristotle, we should know the last chapters of 
the twelfth book of his Metaphysics. 

We will try to give an idea of these chapters by quotations 
and brief commentaries. Our quotations will be given in 
exactly the order in which they occur in the original. We 
shall glean the truth from these chapters, setting aside the 
often inexact reasoning which he brings to bear upon it, as 
well as his errors in regard to the nature of the physical 
heavens, the imperishable nature of the stars, and the eter- 
nity of the world, errors to correspond with which there are 
other metaphysical errors and inexplicable contradictions. 
In spite of these exceptions, these chapters are still a truly 
admirable summary of a theodicy. 

" There are three essences, two of which are natural, and 
one immutable. . . . For there must necessarily be one 
eternal, unchanging essence." 1 

Yes, there are two natural or created essences, mind and 
matter ; one immutable or uncreated, which is God. Saint 
Thomas Aquinas explains this as follows : " There are two 
substances which are natural, because there is motion in 
them ; besides these two substances, there is a third which 
is immovable or immutable, and no longer natural." Nat- 

1 Metaph., xii. 6. It is a mistake to translate this: "There are three es- 
sences, two physical, the other immutable," for the word physical does not 
mean natural, but corporeal. Saint Thomas Aquinas translates it with perfect 
accuracy: ducB quidem naturales. 



74 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

ural, mobile, subject to change, are one and the same thing, 
according to Aristotle ; as also, on the other hand, immobile, 
immutable, eternal, and supernatural are terms each of which 
includes the other. Pascal expresses the same truth in other 
words : " There are three worlds, the world of bodies, 
the world of mind, and the third, which is supernatural, 
which is God." This had been established by Genesis long 
before : " In the beginning God made heaven and earth ; " 
where we must understand, with the Fourth Council of the 
Lateran, that heaven and earth signify mind and matter, 
natural things, which began, which were born. 

" There must," adds Aristotle, " be a first cause such that 
its essence is pure act." 1 

Otherwise the world could not exist, as Aristotle says. 
This the sophists ignore, who believe that Being began with 
a mere potentiality or possibility, which is the same as 
saying that effects can exist without a cause. 

" A being which moves without being moved is eternal, is 
pure essence, is pure act. " 2 

The formula God is pure essence ; God is pure act is 
immensely fruitful. Saint Thomas Aquinas, who develops it 
by the light of his Christian genius, superior as such to that 
of Aristotle, extracts genuine treasures from it, discovers 
wonderful depths of meaning in it. We will only say here, 
in a few words, that when we know that God is pure essence, 
that is, that all is essential in God, we know that in him there 
is no accident, no variable or secondary qualities. His being 
is his essence, that is to say, it is necessary; his knowl- 
edge is his essence, his will is his essence, his blessedness is 
his essence. When we knqw that God is pure act, in other 
words, that in him everything is act, we know that there 
is not in him, as in us, virtual and actual, possible and real, 
potentiality and act, but that with God all that is possible 

i Metaph., xii. 6. 2 ibid., /. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 75 

is actual ; that there is nothing in him to be developed or 
completed ; that he is already perfect ; that he is not, like his 
creatures, capable of indefinite development, but that he is 
already now, if we may so express it, infinitely developed. 
This establishes absolutely the distinction between the finite 
and the infinite. To be pure essence and pure act is pre- 
cisely the divine characteristic of infinity. At least, this 
is what Saint Thomas Aquinas asserts in these formulas, 
whether or no Aristotle ever perceived it. 

What immediately follows in the original is both clear and 
profound. It is the way in which the one first motionless 
motor moves the other two essences. 

" It moves thus. The desirable and the intelligible moves 
without being moved. ... It moves as the object of love." l 

" The supreme, desirable, and intelligible are one and the 
same thing (TOVTWV TO, Trpwra ra avrd)" 

This essence moves as the object of love; it attracts. 
Here we have the universal charm or attraction of the 
desirable and intelligible, which, according to Aristotle, at- 
tracts everything, material and spiritual, each in its way, 
and which causes, without exception, all motion, that uni- 
versal attraction of which physics now knows something, 
and with which psychology, let us hope, will some day be 
familiar as the original source of all motion, all facts, the 
entire history of the soul. And here Aristotle makes this 
important remark by the way : " The object of desire is the 
apparition of the Beautiful ; but the object of will is the 
Beautiful itself." 2 

Furthermore : " So soon as there is a being which moves, 
although motionless, and which is motionless, although in 
action, that being ceases to be subject to change." 

" This motor, then, is a necessary being ; and in so far 
as necessary, is the Good, and is the First Cause." 

1 Metaph., xii. 7. 2 Ibid. 



76 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

" Such is the First Cause, upon which hang heaven and 
earth." l 

This reminds us of Plato's statement that " the divine is 
bound to us by the very roots of our being ; " and that other 
Platonic doctrine, that " the First Cause is the Good itself." 

Here, now, is what the First Cause actually is : 

" We taste fugitive happiness ; he possesses it forever." 
" His happiness is his very act ; to be awake, to feel, to think, 
is our good ; afterwards, memory and hope." 2 

But what is his act or his happiness ? It is thought in itself. 

"But thought in itself is the thought of the best in itself; and 
the thought above all other thought is that of the Good above all 
other good. Now, thought thinks itself by grasping the intelligible, 
and it becomes intelligible by this contact and this thinking ; so 
that the thought and its object are one and the same thing. To 
grasp the intelligible, to grasp the essence, is thought : this very 
possession is its act. And this act, which constitutes all thought, 
has, it seems, a divine character ; so that contemplation is cer- 
tainly happiness and perfection." 

" But if God continually tastes this happiness, of which man 
can only enjoy the fugitive taste, assuredly his bliss is wonderful ; 
more wonderful still if this happiness is greater in him than it is 
in us. Now, it is so. For this very thing, this happiness itself, 
is his life ; the intelligible in act is life ; now, he is all act ; so 
the act in itself is his life, eternal and supreme life. We call God 
a perfect and eternal living being, because continual and eternal 
life is in him; or rather, that life itself is God." 3 

Certainly, this is a truly profound contribution to the The- 
odicy, full of most fruitful and luminous points, although 
they are but slightly developed, and thus very remote from 
our habits of thought, which demand so many explanations. 
It is plain that we have here a powerful implicit light, and 
that it is not easy for human reason to go higher, or to 
see farther. 

i Metaph., xii. 7. 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 77 

In this extract we have some faint vision of deep mys- 
teries. When Leibnitz observes the amazing phenomenon 
of the reflection of minds, which consists in the fact " that a 
mind is itself its own immediate object and acts upon itself, 
thinking of itself and of what it has done ; " 1 when he recog- 
nizes " that this reduplication gives in a similar absolute sub- 
stance an image of two respective substances, that which 
understands and that which is understood," and when, more- 
over, he considers that " that which is modal, accidental, 
imperfect, and changeable in us, is real, essential, complete, 
and immutable in God," Leibnitz sees in this reduplication, 
as it were, a trace of the plurality of divine persons in the 
Unity of God. It seems to us that this is exactly what 
Aristotle, unconsciously, no doubt, catches a glimpse of here 
both in the soul and in God. 

He calls these three principles : 1. Good in itself (TO /ca0 y 
avro apiorrov). 2. Thought in itself (vorjais 77 /caO' avrrjv). 
3. Act or Life in itself (evepyeia Be 77 /caO' avrrjv e/ceivov 



But thought in itself is thought of the Good in itself (r; Be 
rj /ca6' avTrjv rov Kad' avro aplcrrov) ; and thought 
and its object, the Good, are one and the same thing (wo-re 
TCLVTOV vovs KOii vo^Tov). But this mutual possession of 
thought and its object is its act (euepyel Se excov) ; this act 
in itself is the life of God (Ixeivov fw??) ; and this excellent, 
eternal life is God himself (TOVTO yap 6 eo<?). So that the 
Good, thought, and life, which mutually possess one another, 
are one and the same thing, and all this is God. 

But what we should particularly note in this quotation is 
the method manifestly implied in it. 

This method is precisely that of the Platonic dialectic : it 
is the only and the true method by which to lift one's self 
to God; it is the chief process of reasoning, a process so 

1 Vol. i. p. 24, complete works. 



78 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

natural, simple, and direct, so native to reason, that all 
men, even self-observant thinkers, employ it without knowing 
it, a process, in fine, which consists, when God is its sub- 
ject, in attributing to the infinite those finite qualities which 
we find in ourselves. This is Leibnitz's remark : " God's per- 
fections are those of our own souls, without the limits to be 
found there." 

" We taste a fugitive happiness," says Aristotle ; " he pos- 
sesses it forever." 

We find fugitive happiness within ourselves; the mind 
grasps this idea of happiness, destroys limitations, does away 
with time, the past, the future, all change, thus makes hap- 
piness eternal, and attributes it to God. 

This is not all. What is this happiness ? To be awake, 
to think, to feel, to live, in brief, this is our good. All this 
is ours partially ; all this, therefore, must be God's absolutely, 
infinitely. 

He is forever awake, since he is all act ; there is in him 
nothing latent or dormant ; nothing which sleeps in the pos- 
sible and awaits the future; no force which rests while pre- 
paring its act : all is already act. 

He thinks absolutely. His thought is thought in itself ; 
it thinks the Good above all good ; and moreover it is that 
which it thinks. We, when we think, try to touch and to see 
the intelligible, which may be momentarily permitted to us ; 
he not only sees and touches the intelligible, but he is him- 
self that intelligible. His thought does not approach the 
goal more or less closely, it is the goal. 

He lives absolutely, infinitely, since his life is no other 
than this act itself, this mutual penetration, and this iden- 
tity of the intelligent and the intelligible, and since not 
only he has this life, supreme and eternal, but what is the 
crowning point, he is himself this life. He is eternal and 
perfect life. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 79 

So that plainly Aristotle rises here from what he sees in 
us to God, and passes from the one to the other, positing the 
infinite everywhere, urging everything towards the absolute, 
by the suppression of all limitations. 

The fundamental idea of pure act is especially worthy of 
attention in this connection. We see in everything poten- 
tiality and act, possible and actual; everything that lives, 
becomes, grows, tends towards a superior limitation, which it 
is as impossible to reach as it is by adding unities to unities 
to reach infinity ; there will always be some possibility to be 
developed in us, some future to be realized : this is the in- 
superable and necessary gulf which divides the finite and the 
infinite. Well ! there is a Being who does not become, who 
is ; who is absolutely, who is that superior limitation towards 
which everything moves and which nothing can ever reach, 
because we do not become infinite; we are infinite. He 
therefore is infinite; he is absolute development, complete 
and unlimited life, and the infinity of potentialities already 
realized. It was in this sense that Saint Thomas Aquinas 
said, " God is the absolute actuality of all things " (Deus est 
actualitas omnium rerum). This is what modern sophists 
fail to understand. But this is surely the sovereign idea 
which all reason seeks through every finite postulate; this 
is surely the rational process above all processes: to rise 
from finite to infinite, from all to God. 

Furthermore : " That there is an eternal, immovable sub- 
stance, distinct from sensible things, is plain from what we 
have just said. It is also plain that this substance has no 
particular size, but that it is without parts, that it is indi- 
visible. It moves for an infinite time, and nothing finite has 
an infinite force." 1 

In all these statements there are exact mathematical 
truths. We see here the origin of the strict idea of the infi- 
1 Metaph., xii. 7. 



80 . GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

nite. Aristotle here catches a glimpse of that formula of 
prime importance which was not expressed until the seven- 
teenth century, and even then imperfectly and not by all : 
that that which is infinite in one sense, is infinite in every 
sense ; that that which is finite in a single sense is finite in 
every sense; that the finite and the infinite are absolutely 
incommunicable ; but that botli exist ; that there are two nat- 
ural, finite substances, which we see ; that there is one eter- 
nal, immovable, infinite (without special size), indivisible, and 
absolutely continuous substance. Aristotle understood that 
the infinite, the continuous, the indivisible, the eternal, and 
the essential are one and the same. Elsewhere, however, he 
wavers, and of the two natural and movable substances he 
makes one, the heaven, eternal and movable during an in- 
finite time. This is his mistake in regard to the eternity 
of the world, a mistake which contradicts his own formu- 
las. He ought to see that nothing eternal can be finite, or 
that nothing finite can be of infinite duration; as he sees 
that nothing finite can have infinite power. This is the 
same thing. 

V. 

A question now remains to be solved, which we should 
scarcely have expected to see Aristotle consider, it seems to 
us so simple. 

" Must this essence be regarded as unique ? or are there 
several of them ? And if there are several, how many are 
there ? " l 

Now, here we find in the text an apparent contradiction 
of so singular a nature that the author of the finest modern 
work on Aristotle which we have, 2 does not fear to assert 
that one of the terms of the contradiction is nothing else 
than a thesis, which Aristotle first develops, that he may 

1 Metaph., xii. 8. 2 M. Ravaisson. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 81 

contest it later ; as, for instance, when Saint Thomas 
Aquinas begins his theses by positing the antitheses. But 
this explanation does not really agree with the text. 1 Aris- 
totle admitted that the world was eternal : this was a source 
of error to him. He is obliged to admit, as it were by 
consequences, not only a first God, but other secondary 
Gods, also eternal, immovable, and indivisible. But neither 
the ancients nor Saint Thomas mention the smallest contra- 
diction in this chapter. There is no contradiction, there are 
errors. Aristotle begins by declaring that " the primary 
cause of beings, the first being, is motionless, whether in 
himself or accidentally, and that it is he who imparts to 
everything the first, eternal, and simple motion. 2 But," he 
adds, " besides the simple, universal motion, which we say is 
produced by the essence of the prime immovable, we also 
see in the world other eternal motions, those of the planets, 3 

1 Besides, Aristotle proves in his Physics, to which he refers here, that 
the motions of the planets are eternal, and that eternal motion can only be 
produced by an eternal motor, and any motion whatsoever by a motionless 
motor. Saint Thomas Aqninas refers us, for these proofs, to the book on 
Physics and the one on the Heaven. 

2 Metaph., xii. 8. 

8 Aristotle here alludes at first to the diurnal motion which seems to carry 
the whole celestial vault through a revolution of twenty-four hours' duration : 
this is what he calls the simple, primary motion ; then he speaks of the 
various movements of the planets, each of which seems to add a motion of its 
own to this general and primary movement. Aristotle rests too much here 
upon the postulates of experience as the senses have given them to him. 
Plato also rested upon the experience of the senses, but he used his reason 
more, was freer from the illusion of the senses, less directly ready to accept it 
as the type of truth. In regard to the heaven and the stars, Plato probably 
accepted Pythagorean ideas, and distrusted appearances. But Aristotle, lim- 
iting knowledge on this point to what he saw, boldly asserts that there are 
seven motionless, eternal motors, because there are seven planets ; and that 
the eighth sphere, that of the fixed stars, is moved by the immovable, 
eternal, and primary motor. Upon which Saint Thomas says (Paris edition, 
vol. iv. p. 453, commmentary on book xii. chap. 8 of Aristotle's Metaphysics) 
that in Aristotle's day astronomers had not yet observed, as the) r have since, 
the proper movement of fixed stars ; but that thence Aristotle in every case, 
in his system, asserts the existence of too few motors. 

6 



82 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

for every spherical body is eternal, and cannot cease to be 
in motion : we have proved this by physics. Each of these 
movements, therefore, must be produced by an essence im- 
movable in itself and eternal ; for the nature of the stars is 
eternal in its essence. ... It is therefore evident that there 
must necessarily be as many essences, eternal in their 
nature, immovable in themselves, and indivisible." 1 This 
established, Aristotle again returns to the one first motion- 
less motor, the first essence. He says that it alone is im- 
material, because it is all act ; that nothing of it is in a 
potential state, and that it has its end in itself, as is expressed 
by the Greek word entelechy 2 (eV, reXo?, e%&>z>), and he con- 
cludes : " The first motionless motor is therefore a Unity 
both as regards form and number." 3 

But even after this he falls back into his error concerning 
several secondary gods, and says that the fabulous mythology 
of the ancients contains this basis of truth, "That the stars 
are gods, and that the divine surrounds all nature (OTI 6eoi 
re cl&iv ovrot KOI Tre/ote^et TO Oeiov rrjv o\r)v <uen,i>);" and 
these secondary gods are distinguished by Aristotle from the 
sovereign God, in that he alone is first, in that he alone is 
immovable loth in himself and accidentally, he alone is all 
act, has his end in himself, and is entelechy. The others 
are not all act, they are immovable by themselves, but 
movable accidentally. He alone, again, is the first desirable 
and the first intelligible, and the sovereign Good. 



VL 

God's relations with the world, according to Aristotle, are 
these : 

"We must now consider 4 how universal nature includes the 
Good, the sovereign Good. Is it as a separate being, existing in 
i Metaph., xii. 8. * Ibid . 3 Ibid . 4 Ibid<> 10 . 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 83 

itself, or rather as the cosmic order, or in both ways at once, as in 
an army 1 For the good of an army is its order, and it is also, 
its chief, particularly its chief: order does not constitute the 
leader, it is the leader who gives order." 

Aristotle admits both, and shows the absurdities which 
flow from any other system. Those, for instance, who do 
not accept the supreme Good as a separate principle existing 
by itself, those who " derive beings from non-being, or, 
to escape this necessity, reduce everything to absolute 
unity." 1 

Here Aristotle stigmatizes, as Plato does, the old absur- 
dity of atheism which derives being from non-being, as well 
as the old absurdity of pantheism, which refers everything 
to absolute identity. He thus at once attacks the present 
German sophists at both ends, those alike who admit non- 
being and absolute identity, and who still fancy that in 
Aristotle they have a powerful ally. Aristotle at the same 
time refutes those who admit of two opposite principles, 
as these sophists also do, and shows that they " are forced 
to give an opposite to supreme knowledge and wisdom, 
an excess which we avoid," 2 says Aristotle. " The first prin- 
ciple has no opposite (ov yap larlv evavriov rw irpwrtd 
oi)6ev). The first principle is unique. Those who take for 
their principle number and an infinite series of essences, 
each essence having its principle, make the universe a collec- 
tion of episodes and a host of principles (eVe^ro&wS?; rrjv 
rov Travrbs ovcriav iroiovcnv . . . KOI ap^a^ TroXXa?). But 
beings do not wish to be ill-governed. Homer says, "A 
multiplicity of leaders is of no avail. Let one alone 
rule : 

" OVK dyadov TroXvKoipavirj. Eis Koipavos eoro>." 8 

Thus closes, with the twelfth book of Aristotle's Meta- 
physics, this fine abstract of a Theodicy. 

""ORNIA. . 



Metaph., xii. 10. 2 Ibid. II. ii. 204^ ' 



84 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 



VII. 

It was doubtless to his Metaphysics that Aristotle alluded, 
when, on Alexander's reproaching him for having revealed 
the sublimities of knowledge, he replied, " I have so revealed 
them as not to reveal them." It is still true that these books, 
more than any of his others, earned for Aristotle the title of 
the Dark. 

In his work on the World he is clearer. 1 After developing 
his ideas in regard to the world, he adds, 

" It remains for us to speak briefly of the cause which contains 
and governs the whole. An old tradition, circulated among all 
mankind by our fathers, tells us that everything comes from God 
and through God, that no nature suffices unto itself (ovSe/xta Se 
<f>vcris avTTj KaO 1 eavrrjv ecrnv aurapKrys), and exists only by his help. 
. . . God is, in fact, the preserver and Father of all that is in the 
world, and he acts in everything that acts, not as the workman 
who labors and grows weary, but as an omnipotent virtue which 
operates. . . . 2 

"We must know of God that his might is irresistible, his beauty 
complete, his life immortal, his virtue supreme, and that, invisible 
to any mortal nature, he is visible in his works. And surely all 
motions and all beings which are in the air, on the earth, or in the 
waters, are really the works of God, who contains the universe. . . . 3 

"God is an immutable law, a law which can be neither changed 
nor corrected, a law holier and better than the laws written on our 
tables. Governing all by incessant activity and infallible harmony, 
he directs and orders the entire universe, heaven and earth, and 
diffuses himself throughout all beings. . . . 4 

" He is One, but he has several names, derived from his various 
modes of action in the woild. Does it not seem that when we call 
him both Zena, and Dia we mean Him ~by whom we live ? . . . 5 

1 I know that the authenticity of this book is contested. But there is a 
passion for disputing the authenticity of books to which we should only yield 
on decisive proof. 

2 De Mundo, vi. p. 397. 4 Ibid. p. 401. 
8 Ibid., p. 399. . 6 ibid. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 85 

"All these names stand for God alone, as the noble Plato re- 
marks. God therefore, according to ancient tradition, is the be- 
ginning, end, and middle of all that is, and traverses all nature in 
a straight line (showing to all things his direct course), ever fol- 
lowed by justice, the avenger of those who transgress upon this 
divine line, justice which all should possess who desire to attain 
in the future to a state of blessedness, and all who desire to be 
happy in the present." 1 

VIII. 

Certainly all that precedes is grand and beautiful, but we 
now come to a point where Aristotle's genius seems to us 
amazing. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas 2 asserts that Aristotle first called 
attention to the great distinction between the two degrees of 
the divine intelligible, which we have already encountered in 
Plato. 

Doubtless Aristotle is far from having seen the whole of 
this vast question: that was impossible in his day. But 
evidently he saw the truth, and grasped certain features of 
it with admirable precision. 

In the first place, he distinguishes in man, with perfect 
distinctness, the two lights which Saint Augustine calls light 
which illuminates and the light which is illuminated, and 
which Fe'nelon describes as the reason which borrows and the 
reason which gives. " Everywhere in nature," says Aristotle, 
" we find the distinction between that which is only in the 
potential state, and that which, being already actual, pro- 
duces the passage from potentiality to act. This distinction 
necessarily recurs in the soul. There is a passive intellect 
capable of becoming anything, and there is an active intellect 
capable of producing everything. The latter is like the light. 
Light converts into actual fact colors which only exist in 
potentiality. So, too, separable intellect (distinct from man), 

1 De Mundo, close of the book. 2 Contra Gentes, cap. iii. 3. 



86 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

impassive and entirely pure, is act in essence. . . . That in- 
tellect is Being itself, it alone is immortal, eternal, and with- 
out it the passive intellect can do nothing." 1 

Aristotle, therefore, perceived, in the analysis of reason, 
that fundamental distinction which Fdnelon develops so 
finely, between the reason which is within us, and the reason 
which is God himself. 

In all his works he recurs to this. He everywhere main- 
tains that this principle, intelligent and intelligible, pure in- 
tellect, is not the same thing as the soul, 2 and that neither 
perception (alaOdvecrOcu), 3 memory, nor ordinary thought 
(Sofae>), 4 nor reasoning (Xo7<r/zo<?), 5 nor any discursive in- 
tellectual act (Sidvoia)? " are the functions of contemplative 
intellect (vovs QewprjTiKos), 7 but rather the functions of man, 
who gives life to that intellect." 8 

This intellect is radically distinct from the soul, it is a 
being and a substance apart which supervenes in man (6 Se 
vovs eoitcev e<yylveo-0ai, oixria rt? ovcra) ; 9 which supervenes 
from without (OvpaOev) ; 10 which is divine (Oelov elvai)\ 
which is separable from the soul as the eternal from the 
perishable (eVSe^erat ^(opl^aOai, KaOdirep TO dt'Siov rov 
(f)0aprov') ; n which is in us as another kind of soul (eoi/cc tyv^s 
7eVo<? erepov eivai) ; as a light which not only is not given 
to animals, but which does not even seem to be granted to all 
men (aXX' ovSe rot? dv6pu>irois vrao-t). 12 This latter assertion 
would correspond with those solemn words of holy Scripture : 
" The sun of intelligence has not risen upon them." 13 

Aristotle, clearly, here refers to the final perfection of in- 

1 De Anima, iii. 5. * Ibid. 7 Ibid. 

2 Ibid., i. 2. 5 ibid., ii. 3. 8 Ibid., i. 4. 
8 Ibid., 5. 6 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 

10 De Generat. Amina, ii. 3, and ii. 6. n De Anima, ii. 2. 

12 "Intelligence, in the sense in which we understand it, does not seem to 
exist indifferently in all animals, or even in all men" (De Anima, i. 2). 

1 3 Wisdom, v. 6. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 87 

telligence, its end and last term, which Plato calls the term 
of the intellectual procedure, and Saint Augustine, reason 
attaining its end, a termination which consists, accord- 
ing to Aristotle, in seeing the intelligible as he sees him- 
self, in seeing him by touching him (Oiyydvcov /cal vowv), and 
in becoming one with him (ware ravrbv vov$ /cal VOTJTOV) ; 
which Saint Augustine also considers as the proper charac- 
teristic of the vision of God. But this contemplation, says 
Aristotle, which is happiness, and which, in God, is continu- 
ous, is only granted to man at rare intervals. 1 

Our mind is naturally in respect to this high degree of 
light as the eye of the owl in respect to the sun. 2 God 
always sees this pure intelligible light, it is himself : in God 
intelligence and the intelligible are identical. 3 But with re- 
gard to us, this divine light is supernatural ; and the soul, in 
so far as we consider it as illuminated by this light, is not 
purely natural* This light, according to Aristotle, does not 
come by generation. The soul, in so far as vegetative, sensi- 
tive, rational, that is to say, in so far as including life, ani- 
mality, and humanity, the soul comes by generation, and 
develops with the total germ. But this light of intelligence 
alone comes to man otherwise, it only is divine. 5 

This light is the end and object of man, and the sovereign 
good consists in its contemplation. 

So thinks and says Aristotle. We will consider these 
extracts further elsewhere. Let the reader ponder well the 
beautiful words which follow : 

" If it be true that happiness is virtue in act, it is, above all, the 
act of the highest virtue ; it is, above all, the act of that which is 
best in man. Whether this best be the intellect, or any other 
principle which, by nature, should prevail in man, and which pos- 

1 Metaph., xii. 7. 4 Part. Anim., p. 641. 

2 Ibid., ii. 1. 5 De Generat. Anim., ii. 2. 
8 Ibid., xii. 7. 



88 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

sesses in itself the light of the divine and the good; whether this 
test be the divine itself, or that which is most divine in man, in 
any case it is the action of that principle, acting in harmony with 
its own peculiar virtue, which must constitute perfect happiness. 
We have already said that this action is contemplation. . . . But such 
a life is superior to the life of man : it is not in that he is man that 
he mill live thus, but in that a divine principle lives within him ; 1 
and inasmuch as this principle differs from that compound which 
is man, just so much will its action triumph over the action of 
every other virtue. If the intellect be divine relatively to the 
man, the life according to its action will be divine relatively to 
human life. Man, therefore, according to the warning of the 
wise, must learn to rise above the mere human, to lose all sense 
of anything mortal, and to live immortally with the life of the 
higher principle which lives within him." 

Let the reader take heed lest he forget these fragments 
from Aristotle. We shall make use of them again. 



IX. 

Let us close this study of Aristotle's theodicy with two re- 
marks, one concerning the method, and the other the result. 

As regards the method, it is plain that Aristotle used both 
processes of reasoning. This we have seen. Nothing else 
was possible ; but Aristotle did not always realize this with 
sufficient distinctness. 

Aristotle possessed that profound good sense peculiar to 
the genius which seeks truth rather than the mere means of 
finding it. He was particularly free from the unbearable 
sophistical madness which demands absolute proof of every- 
thing. " It is ridiculous " (<ye\oiov), he said, " to pretend to 
prove that nature exists." " There are some," he says else- 
where, "who admit of no other proofs than mathematical 
ones ; others who only need to have examples ; others love to 

1 Moral, ad Nicom., x. 7. 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 89 

lean upon the authority of the poets. There are some who 
demand that everything should be accurately proved, while 
others find such accuracy unendurable. . . . And it must be 
confessed that there is a certain futility beneath the pretence 
of accuracy. . . . We should not exact mathematical accuracy 
in everything, save in the case of abstract things." 

Thus it was not a foregone conclusion with Aristotle to 
apply syllogistic deduction to every question. He knew and 
he maintained that majors were not to be found in this way, 
but rather by the other process, induction (eirayoyytj). At 
times he even calls this process Dialectic, with Plato . " This," 
he said, " is the bent of dialectic : it is an investigator by 
nature, and searches out the first principles in every branch 
of learning." 1 This we shall discuss more fully in logic. 
But we must confess that Aristotle errs in not recognizing 
the Platonic dialectic as one of the two processes of reason- 
ing, that which leads to God, that which he himself em- 
ployed in his search for the first principle, for the Being all 
act, the eternal and perfect living one. He often unwit- 
tingly veils, disguises, and hinders this simple and powerful 
process, by the syllogistic form. Hence those strange majors 
which are the weak side of Aristotle, the point at which mod- 
ern thinkers attack him. For instance, " Every spherical body 
is eternal, and is eternally in motion." This is what revolted, 
and justly so, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

But what we also affirm is that these majors were often 
the fruit of the profoundest thought, and the legitimate re- 
sult of the process which reason possesses for the discovery 
of majors. Such is, for instance, one which is fundamental 
with Aristotle, and of which we have already spoken : " Every- 
thing that moves is moved by some other thing, or, rather, 
Nothing is self -moving!' Who would imagine that, in another 
form, this major is the precise point from which Descartes 
starts to find God ? This we shall show. 

1 Top., i. 2. 



90 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

We have only to recall that movement, with Aristotle, means 
the path from potentiality to act. Thus Aristotle's major 
means : Everything that passes from potentiality to act, passes 
thus only under the action of a cause already in act. Now, is 
it not clear that Descartes sees the same truth and translates 
Aristotle's algebra into ordinary speech, when he says : " I 
know that I am an imperfect, incomplete thing, dependent 
upon another, constantly tending and aspiring towards some- 
thing better and greater than myself ; but I also know, at 
the same time, that he upon whom I depend, possesses in 
himself all those great things to which I aspire, . . . not 
indefinitely and only IN POTENTIALITY, but that he en- 
joys them indeed ACTUALLY and INFINITELY, and so he 
is God." Descartes therefore saw, like Aristotle, the created 
being passing from potentiality to act; now, he could not 
thus pass into act and tend towards the best, save under the 
influence of a cause which is not in potentiality, but in act : 
and this cause which is ever in act is God. We see that this 
is precisely Aristotle's major. It is also exactly the process 
of Plato, who found the immutable in the variable, and the 
infinite in the finite. And,- in fact, Plato says the selfsame 
things in the Timaeus. He first asserts the absolute distinc- 
tion between that which becomes and that which is abso- 
lutely ; that is to say, of that which passes from potentiality 
to act, and that which is already all act. " Let us first dis- 
tinguish the being which is always and which has not to be- 
come, from the being which becomes and never is entirely. 
Now, all that which becomes, necessarily becomes under the 
influence of a cause. For it is impossible for any being to 
become without an author." In other words, there is no effect 
without a cause. This is exactly Aristotle's major : Nothing 
passes from potentiality to act, save through a cause already 
in act. And it is in this truth that Plato, like Descartes, 
sees the proof of the existence of God : " We have said that 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 91 

all which becomes, must needs have an author who is the cause 
of its becoming. But to find and know this author and this 
father of all, is a grand work." l 

Here then, in regard to this fundamental starting-point 
and in regard to the process which leads to God, we trace 
Descartes back to Plato, and, what we did not expect, to 
Aristotle. This is because the human mind is one, and truth 
is one. By God's goodness, man stands face to face with 
truth, and the light shines for every man coming into this 
world. All those who see, see the same things, and all that a 
man has seen is true. So Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine 
alike affirm. Thus, at bottom, all geniuses of the first order 
agree ; and there is one human universal philosophy, which, 
from this fact, has been accepted, elevated, consecrated and 
crowned by Christian theology. There are none to contradict 
this whole, divine and human, save the never-ending sect of 
error, which, by a satanic method, succeeds in breaking away 
from reason and turning away its head, that it may not see. 

Our second remark in regard to Aristotle's Theodicy relates 
to its result. 

It is clear that this result is that of Plato, that of all wise 
men, of all men subject to common-sense and followers 
of reason. Aristotle we have cited all the texts ad- 
mits of a God distinct from the world and present in the 
world, all natures in which he pervades and penetrates, a 
living, omnipotent God, the first cause, efficient cause, final 
cause ; motionless motor, only being wholly in act, that is to 
say the only being perfectly immutable, a perfect and eternal 
living being ; a God who is sovereign goodness and supreme 
good ; a God infinitely intelligent, since he is identical with 
the intelligible itself, and since his act, his life, consists in 
the very possession of that intelligible which is identical with 
him ; a God invisible in himself, visible in his works ; a 

1 Timaeus, p. 28. 



92 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

God governing all by his action and by his Providence, as a 
leader governs an army ; a just God, who punishes free man, 
the violator of his unchanging law, and rewards by happi- 
ness, now and in the future, those who cling fast to justice. 

We see that this is Plato, it is tradition, it is common- 
sense, it is universal wisdom. 

Aristotle here fully confirms Plato's saying: "All wise 
men have but a single voice." 

It is therefore certain, let us repeat it, and insist upon this 
point, it is certain that there are universal truths in regard 
to which all philosophers agree, if by philosophers we mean 
sages, and not sophists. There is a universal philosophy, a 
natural and common wisdom, which is the same in all men 
amenable to the light of reason. All thinkers of the first 
rank plainly come under this head. The sophists are outside 
this guild. They are the heretics of reason, the sectarians of 
humanity. As there are in the Catholic Church articles of 
faith, there are in mankind articles of never-ending reason. 
And this universal wisdom is only denied by the false and 
vain minds whose pride prevents them from obeying the 
dictates of common-sense, and whose intellectual weakness 
at the same time forbids them from rising to the luminous 
society of great minds, souls separated who do not live by 
the heart, in the fruitful warmth of the common sun, and 
who can no longer attain, in spirit, to the contemplation of 
the light which would lead back their hearts to the true 
source of life. These sad souls, doubly sectarian, doubly sep- 
arated 1 from the universal faith and the common reason, 
unfortunately exist in vast numbers in this age. And the 
leaders of this perversion possess an audacity which the 
sophists never had, they aspire to a radical change of the 
human conscience and the human mind and the government 
of the world. They undertake, and they avow it, to alter 

1 Eradicate, bis mortuae (Epist. cath. B. Judse, 12). 



ARISTOTLE'S THEODICY. 93 

universal logic and the meaning of human language. But 
they will not succeed. They will, on the contrary, serve; and 
we intend, for our part, to use them for this purpose : they 
will serve clearly to separate the light from the darkness, by 
themselves becoming darkness, and to make the truth more 
apparent by proving it through their own absurdity. 

If we divide into two classes the men who have thought 
or pretended to think , if we call the one philosophers or 
sages, the others sophists, Aristotle, as we see, has nothing 
in common with the sophists of any age. He is a philoso- 
pher properly so called, and one of the seven or eight ge- 
niuses of the first order. Let us again remark that he has 
nothing in common with that kind of mind now known as 
rationalists, who are the minds hesitating between sophistry 
and philosophy, always much nearer to the one than to 
the other ; minds less keen for results than for mere proofs ; 
bold and prejudiced minds, which create for themselves ex- 
clusive methods, and reject all that does not come within the 
compass of these methods ; who abuse individual reason by 
excluding in advance all which it has not built up in each 
of them ; who shut it out alike from all faith and all tradi- 
tion and the thought of other minds, alike from feeling, 
from the heart, and from knowledge of visible nature ; who, 
besides, mutilate reason itself, and always take its clear 
side and remove its warm side, the source of all light; 
ignoring what Seneca said : " Reason is not made up of 
evidence alone ; its best and greatest side is hidden and 
obscure." 

Aristotle, through his profound good sense, the precision 
of his results, his respect for the thought of others and for 
healthy antiquity, through his great knowledge of natural 
facts, his intellectual universality, has nothing in common 
with these unfortunate and sterile eccentrics. 

The foregoing is enough, we hope, to justify the admira- 



94 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

tion of the great Catholic scholars of the Middle Ages for 
Aristotle. Aristotle has too long been rejected by Bacon, 
Descartes, and above all, by Protestantism. If classical stud- 
ies ever revive among us, Aristotle will resume his proper 
place. That vigorous genius may yet aid us to cast aside 
those flabby and facile habits of thought which weaken the 
mind, and to return to strong certainties, to recover that 
strength of reason which now eludes us, and with humble 
and firm penetration to subject this reason to the super- 
natural light of divine contemplation, so that we may " rise 
above man and his mortal feelings to live on a higher 
plane than man, the life of the superior principle which 
lives within us." 



CHAPTER IV. 

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 

Quidquid a flatone dicitur, vivit in Augustino. 



TT7E now pass from the ancients to the moderns; from 
Greek philosophers to Christian sages regarded as 
philosophers ; from Aristotle and Plato to Saint Augustine^ 
Saint Thomas Aquinas, and others. We shall see at the 
first glance that Saint Augustine clings to the school of 
Plato, and Saint Thomas to that of Aristotle. Neither of 
them tries to disguise it. 

I do not know why Christians are sometimes accused 
of abjuring philosophy, of killing reason by faith. We 
shall now find occasion to throw some light on this 
point. 

Thomassin states it is an historic fact that Christian 
scholars, from the twelfth to the seventeenth century exclu- 
sively, formed themselves, as philosophers, in the school of 
Aristotle ; whereas the Fathers of the first centuries were 
formed in Plato's school. 

This being an undoubted fact, it follows that the Christian 
doctors of no century ever abjured philosophy. 

And in fact, all teach that philosophy and theology, prop- 
erly so called, are two not separate, but distinct things, that 
there is a divine knowledge and a human knowledge, which 
are wholly distinct, and that true Christian knowledge lies 
in the union of the two, without ever destroying the one by 
the other. Saint Thomas asserts, and faith teaches us, "that 



96 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

in Jesus Christ divine knowledge does not destroy human 
knowledge, but, on the contrary, renders it more luminous." 
Such is also, in our opinion, the relation between these two 
kinds of knowledge. 

Human knowledge that is, philosophy from the ortho- 
dox point of view, therefore, exists, and will always exist ; 
just as there will always be a human mind different from 
the mind of God. 

This is why Christians, when the Gospel light illumined 
the world, did not have to change the elements of genuine 
philosophy then extant. They had merely to accept them, 
just as they could not otherwise than admit geometry They 
received Plato and Aristotle, in the bulk of their works, as 
they accepted Euclid. 

Certainly they developed philosophy, and will develop it 
still farther : they have purged it of many errors, but they 
have never changed its principles or its bases. We shall 
invent no other rules for syllogism than those given us by 
Aristotle ; and we shall discover no other process of rea- 
soning than the two processes represented by Aristotle and 
Plato. Thus there is a philosophy properly so called, dis- 
tinct from revelation. 

The prejudice prevailing among many men of the world, 
I know, is that philosophy does not exist. This is an error 
due to the same ignorance which leads so many others to 
believe that divine revelation does not exist. There is a 
philosophy. What is it? we are asked. We answer that 
it is the philosophy of Socrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, cf 
Saint Augustine, of Saint Thomas Aquinas, of Descartes, of 
Bossuet, of Leibnitz, and of all geniuses of the first order, 
without a single exception. 

I do not say that philosophy has yet attained to its fullest 
strength, or even that all its organs are perfectly developed ; 
I do not say that it is yet at every point fully aware of its 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 97 

method ; above all, I do not say that it has a very great 
number of followers : but I say that it has existed in the 
human race for long centuries back, and independently of 
Christian revelation. 

Hear Saint Augustine on this head. " As for what con- 
cerns speculative philosophy," he says, "and moral philo- 
sophy as well, there is no lack of keen and clever minds to 
show us that Aristotle and Plato agree, although the inat- 
tentive and incapable suppose them to be very wide apart ; 
so that in my opinion, the struggle and strife of thought, 
with the help of centuries, have at last produced a genuine 
philosophy (una verissimcc philosophies disciplina)" Only, 
as Saint Augustine instantly adds, this philosophy, even 
begotten by human reason, could not become popular save 
through the incarnate Word, which is profoundly true. 

Saint Augustine believes so fully that philosophy exists 
in the presence of revelation that he goes on to say : " And, 
to tell you my entire thought, know that whatever may be 
this human wisdom, I do not believe I yet possess it as an 
entirety. I am now thirty-three years old ; but that is no 
reason to despair of attaining it. I despise all else, all 
that men deem advantages, and I devote my life to seek- 
ing after it. ... I have, on the one hand, Christ's authority, 
from which nothing shall part me ; . . . but for that which 
the effort of my reason can attain, I am decided to possess 
the truth, not only through faith, but also through intelli- 
gence ; and in this connection I believe I find in Plato 
doctrines which agree with our dogmas." So speaks the 
humility of genius and sanctity. 

And it is well to observe that these texts, according to 
Thomassin, who quotes them, and according to the Bene- 
dictines, are not those to which Augustine refers in his 
Pietractations, when he believed that he had given too much 
praise to Plato and the Platonists. 

7 



98 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

These texts, therefore, are decisive. The saint in the 
school of Christ reads Plato. And why ? To possess, if he 
may, the human mind in its entirety, all reason, all hu- 
man reason, to the end that he may bring back to God 
the whole man, and subject all to Jesus Christ. 



II 

Let us now recall the way in which Plato distinguishes 
two degrees in the advance of the human mind towards 
intelligible light. 

There are in the world of intelligence these two degrees, 
vision of shadows, and vision of eternal realities ; in other 
words, there is vision of God himself, God, who is the 
sovereign Good, and vision of divine phantoms, shadows 
of that which is. What are these divine phantoms, these 
eternal shadows of that which is eternally ? They are the 
essential truths, the laws and axioms, the unchanging rules 
OJT definitions, of geometry, logic, and morals. This is the 
.first degree of intellectual vision lifted above the senses ; 
and from this vision of unchanging shadows, the soul infers 
the existence of a sun capable of producing these shadows. 
This is the work of Platonism, but nothing more. It has 
recognized by a legitimate process the existence of the sun ; 
it has surmised its beauty, its benefits. Has it seen the 
sun itself? We say, No. 

To see God ! This is the business of Christianity. " No 
man has ever seen God," says the gospel. It is the incarnate 
Word that brings to man the possibility of the vision of 
God himself, the direct and immediate vision. Through 
the incarnate Word we shall cease to guess at the sun from 
the shadow, we shall see the sun itself. 

In our present state, our physical eye is not framed to 
look upon the visible sun, but only to behold the world in 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 99 

the light of that sun. The eye is not made for the source 
of light, but only for the objects which the rays from that 
source strike. This fact is full of deep meaning. It is the 
same with our soul. In the natural state of man, in that 
state with which we are familiar, our soul is incapable of 
seeing God himself ; but it is made for the light which he 
diffuses, and which he sheds upon that soul and upon all 
objects. To see God himself requires a modification of hu- 
man nature, a conversion, a transformation ; or, rather, a 
new birth, which man cannot by his own efforts attain, and 
which God alone, who created him, can give him. After 
this supernatural new birth, the soul can and should see 
God. And its first look at God is faith, faith, which is 
dim at first, like the first .inkling of a great light, but which 
becomes clear vision in proportion to the growth of our 
soul. "Faith, that attempt at vision," says Bossuet; "Faith, 
that dawning vision," says Saint Thomas Aquinas. 

This established, we can grasp the difference between 
Plato and Saint Augustine, and understand why we took as 
heading to this sketch, the words: "All that Plato says, lives 
in Augustine." 

The first difference between Plato and Augustine is, that 
Augustine is, as it were, the type by which Plato is judged. 
Every one judges in this way, theologians, philosophers, 
Christians, and others. We prune away in Plato, as acci- 
dental excrescences, all that does not fit this type; we 
praise and admire all that reminds us of it. We strive to 
discover, in the great philosopher, beams of that light which 
bathes us in the great saint. The fact is that the Theodicy 
of Christian philosophers, the fruit of human reason, sus- 
tained and directed in its search after God by that great and 
new divine postulate which is faith, is no longer, like the 
ancient Theodicy, a dawn mingled with shadows and illu- 
sions, seen by scarce one or two men who watch upon the 
mountains ; it is broad day, visible to the whole world. 



100 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

We have p'ointed out the method and results of Plato's 
Theodicy. Is it necessary to say that in Saint Augustine, 
considered solely as a philosopher, the results as to God 
are perfect, exact, absolute, uri mixed with error, doubt, or 
hesitation ? 

Why ? Because Saint Augustine did, as a moral and 
intellectual means of rising to God, precisely what Plato 
directs : he purified himself, kept himself holy, detached 
himself from earth, wrested from his soul those nails to 
which Plato refers, by which pleasure holds us -fast; he 
despised honors, riches, sensual delights ; he turned his whole 
soul to God, lived in his love and contemplation : antique 
and simple truths which the light of reason teaches to those 
who think, but between seeing and practising which there is 
a gulf. It is easy for me to say that I ought to keep myself 
holy; but it is less easy to do it, and to cross the gulf. Now, 
the gulf was crossed by Plato and by Augustine. When we 
measure the progress of "that universal man" of whom Pas- 
cal speaks, the progress of the human mind compared in 
these two brother geniuses, we seem to see but a single man, 
first in his early and poetic youth, then in the strength of 
maturity. In his youth, when he was Plato, he loved virtue 
and truth ; he said to himself, " I will be good, and I will 
possess knowledge ; I will know the mysteries of this beau- 
tiful world ; I will become acquainted with him who is its 
Father and author ; " and he foresaw and pursued this ideal 
in his rich imagination : and now, after cruel struggles, after 
a whole lifetime of labor and courage ; after many prayers, 
tears, and victories ; after learning by experience the source of 
strength ; after a new alliance with God, with God no longer 
dreamed of as a poetic spectacle, but possessed as the sub- 
stance of life, this man, at last triumphant, and upheld 
by the Father in whom he trusted, this man knows the truth ; 
he is good, and carries in his soul, matured by the sun of 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 101 

God, the forces and virtues of the fruits whereof his youth 
bore the flowers. 

Such are Plato and Augustine, if we compare the results. 

As for the theory of the method, the difference cannot be 
the same. Plato is particularly interested in the method, 
Augustine in the results. Nevertheless the general light 
which the saint possesses in an incomparably greater degree 
than the Greek philosopher, gives the saint a much clearer 
knowledge of the soul, and one especially more experimental ; 
whence necessarily result new and vivid lights upon the pro- 
cedure of the soul in its flight towards God. 

Thus, Plato affirms that the mainspring of the dialectic or 
of the passage of the soul to God is love. Saint Augustine, 
who possesses that love in the highest degree, knows this far 
better than Plato, and expresses it better. Plato speaks of the 
divine sense, or at least of that divine part of the soul where 
God touches it, binds it to himself. Saint Augustine knows 
this sense of God by experience ; in him the inner senses are 
all developed; he knows that inward touch of God, those 
inward perfumes, those savors of the soul, and those vis- 
ions, those divine voices which spoke to him with far greater 
clearness than to Socrates, and which did not merely bid him 
abstain, but act, as when he heard the words, Tolle, legc. 

Better than Plato he knew the vanity of all transitory 
things, of all that is born and dies, and he is still less a prey 
to them, whether in practice or in speculation. And yet he 
is never excessive : he does not, like Plato, call them appear- 
ances which do not exist ; he calls them ffie things which are 
less, which, compared to God, do not exist, which is the most 
exact and precise truth. He knows their use and their re- 
lation to God better than Plato ; better than Plato he knows 
how they proceed from God, how they belong to God, how 
we may see God in them. 

Better than Plato, he sees the emptiness of those eternal 



102 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

shadows, those divine phantoms, those cold, geometrical, log- 
ical, or other truths, which we recognize in ourselves by the 
light of God. Better than he, he understands that they are 
not God, but his shadow seen in the mirror of the soul ; 
more than he, he seeks and longs for the sun capable of 
casting those shadows. 

Another high advantage of Saint Augustine over Plato, 
is that he clearly explains that the fulcrum of the process 
which leads to God is not only the material world, but also 
and more especially the inward world which is our soul ; he 
is intimately acquainted with the soul, and knows better than 
Plato how it differs from and how it resembles God. The 
ancients, Plato himself, knew their souls but slightly, through 
experience. Upon this head, Christians are incomparable ; 
the saints and mystics are the only men who possess true 
knowledge of the soul. 

Lastly, it is very plain that Plato, who, according to our 
views and those of most of the Fathers, does not posit ideas 
elsewhere than in God, nevertheless failed to develop this 
point in a thoroughly lucid way, or to assert this truth so 
exactly and so often as Saint Augustine. It seems as if 
Plato, too clear-sighted to posit his eternal ideas elsewhere 
than in God, dared not explain that they are in God, and 
how they are there. Augustine is exact and complete upon 
this head. 

Shall we say, on the other hand, that Saint Augustine has 
borrowed much from Plato ? It is certain that he did : he 
never denies the fact. Only, it is with Saint Augustine in 
regard to Plato as it is with Descartes in regard to Saint Au- 
gustine. Fenelon very fitly remarks that all of Descartes may 
be found in Saint Augustine. Undoubtedly ; but Descartes, 
when meditating, studied Saint Augustine little or not at 
all: he studied reason. I certainly do not say that all Saint 
Augustine is contained in Plato ; I say that Saint Augustine, 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 103 

with greater knowledge of the past than Descartes, often saw 
things both in Plato and in reason. We should merely con- 
clude from these coincidences that these three master minds, 
not to mention others, saw, each for himself, the same light, 
and bore the same witness to it. 

This settled, we will first follow, in Saint Augustine the 
method in action. 



III. 

Of all that Plato says on this subject, Saint Augustine 
possesses and gives us, if we may so express it, the experi- 
mental intuition. Whatever is said by Plato, lives in 
Augustine. 

Now, what did Plato say ? Saint Augustine himself sums 
it up as follows : 

" If Plato lived, and if he condescended to answer my ques- 
tions; if he taught me that it is not the physical eye, but the 
pure mind that sees truth ; that every soul, which allies itself to 
truth, becomes happy and perfect ; that the obstacle to this good 
is a life subject to passions, the vision of the illusory images of 
the world of sense, the source of so many errors and idle opinions ; 
that the soul must be healed before it can learn to see the un- 
changing form of things, and eternal beauty, always and at all 
points the same ; that beauty which space does not disperse, 
which time does not alter in its motionless unity, beauty whose 
existence is unknown to men, while it exists supremely and all 
else is born and dies, is fluid and slips away; if he told me that 
all these things, in so far as they exist, are the works of the ever- 
lasting God, effected in this truth : works amidst which the rational 
soul can alone contemplate the eternity of God, be endowed and 
imbued by it, and thus merit that eternity itself; that held back 
by all which becomes and which passes, wounded by grief or by 
love, given over to sensuality and the gross habits of this life, 
lulled to sleep by its images and its dreams, that soul heeds not 
when it is told that there exists a Being visible without the phys- 



104 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

ical eye, intelligible without images, and seen by the mind alone : 
if Plato taught me these things." l 

This is what Saint Augustine reads in Plato. 

Now, while in regard to all these questions Plato gives an 
outline of truth, Saint Augustine always shows it to us in 
action ; he does not give a didactic description of his process, 
he' relates his life. We see the living intelligence and light 
in his ardent soul, and we cannot but apply to him his own 
words when, speaking of this contemplation of the light, he 
says : " These things have been foretold in the proper meas- 
ure by those great and matchless souls who have seen them, 
who, as we believe, still see them." 

Thus Plato teaches us that to attain to the sight of God, 
we must first heal our soul, purify it, free it from transitory 
things ; that then it may soar to the contemplation of ever- 
lasting beauty, that motionless unity which space does not 
disperse or time alter. This implies the whole theoretical 
and practical Theodicy. What will Saint Augustine tell us 
of this whole ? 

In the first place, in regard to the need for purifying and 
healing the soul, while Plato, from this point of view, re- 
bukes with the strongest irony the gross sensuality of men 
plunged in foul pleasures, Saint Augustine does more : he 
says little of the last degrees of the impure, he looks into 
his own soul, and sees that soul, already luminous and living, 
still covered with wounds, almost dying, exhausted, divided, 
dispersed. In his actual, experimental intuition of the soul, 
he sounds it and penetrates it in every part ; he sees in it all 
that prevents it from being filled with God, from knowing 
him, from being one with and absorbed in him ; and his 
words upon this point have a tone of direct experience 
which no art could ever imitate. 

1 De vera Relig., chap. iii. 3. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 105 

He sees in the soul what he calls the tumor of pride, 
a tumor which puffs it up, which makes it empty, forces it 
to a lesser being, diffuses it abroad, and, as it were, causes 
it to cast outside itself its central life, which is God himself. 
" The soul," he says, " does not exist of itself, since it is 
changeable, and since there is in it a want of being; the 
soul, therefore, is nothing in itself, but all of being which it 
possesses is given it by God ; united to God through its de- 
pendent state, the vital essence of its soul and conscience is 
the very presence of God. This is its secret treasure. What, 
then, does it mean in being puffed up with pride ? It means 
to reach out after external things, to make the interior 
empty and idle, to be ever less and less. But to reach after 
external things is nothing else than casting forth its own 
entrails, that is to say, removing God from itself, not by 
space, but by mind and affection." l 

Saint Augustine sees that the soul becomes inwardly ex- 
hausted when it scatters its forces and wastes them upon 
externals ; that it forsakes unity, stability, fulness of life ; 
that it sinks into a state of dispersion, and into the flood of 
created beings which pass away and flow towards death, and 
which bear it away as they flow ; he sees that the soul should 
struggle to recover, reascend, and return to life and rest: 
what that power is which incessantly recalls it and can heal 
it. Saint Augustine's vision of the soul, and its false life, 
compared to true life, is a translucid intuition : his descrip- 
tion of it is most striking. No man ever described as he has 
done our failings and our fickleness, our longing for the im- 
mutable and our need of healing. Here is a fine example of 
this description: 

" God of power, comfort us, show us thy face, and save us. 
For, be the object what it may which turns my soul away from 
thee, it is riveted to some sorrow ; it may cling to all beauties 

1 De Musica, lib. vi. cap. xii. 40. 



106 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

outside itself, outside thee, beauties which yet cannot exist save 
through thee. These beauties are born and die ; they begin, 
they increase, they grow until they reach their highest point ; 
that attained, they wither and fall. Everything tends downward 
again, and decays. When they spring up, they strive to be ; 
and the more they labor to be, the more they hasten not to be. 
Such is their limitation. Thou hast given them these bounds, 

Lord ; they are the successive phases of things which are never 
complete in every part at any one time : but by their birth and 
death they make up that universe of which they are the parts. 
They are like the words of a speech, which is entire and finished 
when each word, having uttered all its syllables, retires, that 
another word may take its place. 

" Let my soul therefore praise thee in these beauties, God, 
Creator of all ; but let it never be fastened unto these things with 
the glue of love and the senses of the body ! For they continue 
to pass away, and cease to exist, and they rend my soul as they 
go ; and as for my soul, it would fain exist, it would fain linger 
with that which it loves. But how can we linger with that which 
is not lasting, with that which is fugitive ; how can we follow these 
things with the senses of the flesh ; how can we ever grasp them as 
a whole when they pass away 1 The sense of the flesh is slow and 
weak, and, in its turn, it has limits. It sufficeth unto its end, but 
it sufficeth not to stay things running their course from their ap- 
pointed starting-place to their end, to grasp at once the origin and 
consummation. Thy divine Word alone, which creates them, saith 
unto them, ' Depart and return/ Then be no longer foolish-, 
my soul; permit not this tumult to close the ear of thine heart. 
Hearken : the Word to thee also cries, Return to the place of ever- 
lasting rest, where love is not forsaken, if itself forsaketh not. Do 

1 ever depart 1 saith the Word of God. Fix thy dwelling in him, 
my soul ! Wearied at last of illusions, restore to him what came 
to thee from him. Restore to Truth what Truth hath given thee, 
and thou shalt nevermore lose aught; what was decayed in thee 
shall bloom again, what languished shall be healed, what was scat- 
tered and dispersed shall be reformed and renewed. Things shall 
no longer bear thee away in their course, hut shall stand fast with 
thee in the steadfast and abiding God." 1 

1 Confess., lib. iv. cap. x. 15. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 107 

Here we have direct intuition to a degree never possessed 
by Plato. It is thus that Saint Augustine saw the soul, its 
wounds, its stigmas, its dispersedness, its illusions, its vain and 
painful struggle to seize and fix that which is fugitive, its mis- 
taken and impotent sensualities, its raptures over that which 
vanishes; and yet in the midst, God, ever motionless and pres* 
ent, who recalls it, who receives it, who heals it, who restores 
all to it. It is thus that Saint Augustine sees arid touches 
both the soul which would fain be purified, and the power 
that purifies it. We feel that all this lives within him. 

And if, again, he speaks of the efforts of the purified soul 
to attain to the sight of God, it is still his own life that he 
relates : 

" I sought and I longed to know by what model we should 
judge the beauty of bodies, terrestrial or celestial; by what light 
we should judge this changing world, and say, This should be 
thus, but that not ; and I found, above my soul and my 
thoughts, themselves variable, an unchanging light and an eter- 
nal truth. I ascended from my senses to the soul which per- 
ceives through them; I went to that inward power to which the 
senses refer things external, that point to which the faculties of 
animals reach. I went still farther, and I came to reason, the judge 
of what the senses give us. But my reason, seeing itself, beheld 
itself variable, and seeing this, rose above itself and understood 
itself; then, leaving behind it the torpor of habit and bewildering 
phantasms, to find the light by which it was illumined, it cried 
out without hesitation that the unchangeable was superior to the 
changeable; and this itself was the beginning of knowledge of the 
unchangeable. For if it had not known it, how should it have 
preferred it to the changing world; how could it have left visible 
certainties to attain the Being one of whose raj's we cannot see 
without trembling ? Thus I understood and saw invisible things 
through the things which God made; but I could not fix my gaze 
thereon, and falling back upon my own weakness, restored to habit, 
I retained of this momentary intercourse only a loving memory, a 
regretful longing for the odors of the celestial food." * 
1 Confess., lib. vii. cap. xvii. 23. 



108 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

When Plato says serenely, " The wise man considers the 
eternal light," he says well ; he knows that which should be. 
But when Saint Augustine speaks of that ray and the dark- 
ness which followed it, and of that living memory, and of 
the trace of those perfumes, it is evident that he is telling us 
what has happened, and that he is recounting to us his own 
life. 

Yes, this indeed is the life, the deep and actual life of a 
soul that seeks God and rises to God, which feels him, which 
has seen him. 

We must repeat it: what Plato hopes and conjectures, Saint 
Augustine possesses and sees. What falls from the sublime 

O JT 

lips of the philosopher, exists and lives in the soul of the 
saint, and bursts forth from his heart and his mouth, more 
divine than that of Plato, with intonations, radiance, and 
ardors' which the real presence of God alone can give. 

IV. 

We have now seen the method as a whole in action. Let 
us look more in detail at the theory of the method, according 
to Saint Augustine. 

It is not to be expected that all readers will understand 
Saint Augustine either in what follows or what precedes. 
No one who does not live his life and undergo the same ex- 
periences can understand his narratives and his descriptions 
of life. " Give me," he says somewhere, " a man who loves, 
and he will understand me." So that, unless you love as he 
did, you cannot understand him. 

Highly cultivated literary minds can but admire him; 
they see that his style is always vivid and full of life ; they 
therefore see that it possesses the characteristic of beauty. 
But they do not sufficiently comprehend that this beauty is 
only the splendor of truth, and they do not perceive the 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 109 

strictly philosophic basis of those beauties. As almost no 
one knows the chief process of reason, that by which the 
creature mounts to God, which is at once poetic and logical, 
they do not see the logical thread in all this sacred poetry, or 
the stern reason beneath the raptures and the prayers of the 
saintly soul. This we must now make clear by showing that 
his sublime spirit was fully conscious of its acts, philosophi- 
cally familiar with their nature, their range, and their abso- 
lute certainty. 

The chief difficulty in this explanation and this analysis 
is the abundance of noble passages, among which the mind 
hesitates. We will select, combining and supplementing 
them one with the other, two or three connected passages, 
in which Saint Augustine states theoretically the progress 
of the mind towards God, as Plato tells the story of the 
captives in the cave, who leave false lights behind them to 
gain the sun of the true world. 

After an ardent invocation to God, the Father of awaking 
and light (pater emgilationis et illuminationis nostrce), and 
before describing the process of reason which rises to God, he 
speaks of reason itself, and says, 

" My reason is a movement of my soul, a power which distin- 
guishes and unites to know ; it is a guide which but too few of 
us use to lead us to God, or even to the soul which is within us ; 
. . . and this becanse, too deeply plunged in the details of sen- 
sible phenomena, it is hard for us to return into ourselves. We 
only apply our reason to illusory accidents ; we can neither know 
it in itself, or in its laws." * 

"Thus, the soul is diffused over that which is mortal: 
this is the fall; to reascend is to bring reason back to it- 
self." 2 Saint Augustine then describes the same progress of 
reason which Plato calls dialectic, and to which he also gives 
that name. 3 This progress does not consist in ceasing to see 

i De Ordine, lib. ii. c. xi. 30. 2 Ibid., n. 31. 8 Ibid., xiii. 38. 



110 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

this visible world, in suppressing it in thought ; we should, 
on the contrary, first seek the traces of reason in the world 
of sense. 1 We must learn to distinguish, in all that material 
substances show us, the visible and the intelligible, the sign 
and the significance. 2 

When reason can distinguish the sign from the significance 
in sensation, " when it has developed itself through language, 
it takes itself as object, and, being itself reflected, it produces 
the knowledge of knowledges, which we call dialectic. It is 
this knowledge which teaches us to teach, and which teaches 
us to learn ; in it reason shows itself and declares what it is, 
what it can, and what it desires, to do. It is a knowledge 
which knows itself, which can and will give knowledge." 3 

"But reason desires to rise higher yet, and to pass from 
study of itself to contemplation of divine things ! There, 
that it may not fall into a vacuum, it seeks steps, and makes 
itself a regular road through its previous acquisitions. It 
desires to see that beauty which alone, and by a mere glance, 
it can attain without the physical eye. But the senses hold 
it back. What does it do ? It half turns its gaze towards 
those same sensible objects which, crying to us that they are 
the truth, importune us with their tumult when we would 
fain rise higher." 4 

Saint Augustine holds this to be an important point in the 
theory of the method ; to him the visible world is a step, a 
point of support, by which to rise higher. He often recurs 
to this elsewhere: "I will mount higher than this very 
power which is in me, and will regard it as a step to rise to 
him who made me." 5 " Let us see how far reason can go 
in its ascent from the visible to the invisible, from the transi- 
tory to the eternal. I will not gaze in vain at all the beauty 
of the sky, the regular course of the stars. ... I will not gaze 

i De (Mine, lib. ii. c. xi. 33. 2 Ibid., 34. 3 Ibid., xiii. 38. 

4 Ibid., xiv. n. 39. e Confess., lib. x. cap. viii. 12. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. Ill 

at them in idle curiosity, but will make use of them as steps 
to raise myself to the immutable and immortal." l 

The way to rise to God, therefore, does not consist in de- 
stroying in one's self the images of this world, but rather in 
making of them steps (gradus ad immortalia faciendus) ; 
we should not consider them exclusively, we should consider 
them soberly (in eos ipsos paululum aciem torsit}. We 
should consider them sufficiently to compare them, but not 
so much as to lose sight of the other term of the comparison. 
This feature of the method distinguishes healthy philosophy 
from the mystic sophism which destroys images. 

" But in its marvellous power of discernment, reason in- 
stantly understands all the difference that lies between a 
sensation itself and that which it signifies." 2 It speedily 
recognizes that it is their laws which constitute the order, 
value, light, and beauty of phenomena. But what are these 
laws? 

What are laws? Modern science knows. Saint Augus- 
tine divined : these laws are geometrical forms, numbers. 
" Reason," he says, " having reached this point, understands 
that it is numbers that rule all the visible world." (Intel- 
ligebat regnare numeros.) 3 

And what are these forms and these numbers themselves ? 
They are eternal, consequently divine, truths (reperiebat 
divinos et sempiternos) ; 4 they are ideas perceived by reason. 
Now, what reason sees always exists, and is immortal ; such 
are numbers (Illud quod mens videt semper est prcesens et 
immortale approbatur ; cujus generis numeri apparebant)? 
Eeason here makes an essential distinction between the 
numbers and the geometrical figures which the intelligence 
includes, and those shown to it by the eyes. Hence it 

1 De ver. Relig., xxix. 52. * Ibid., 41. 

2 De Ordine, lib. ii. cap. xiv. 39. 6 Ibid., lib. iii. cap. xiv. 41. 

3 I hid. 



112 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

creates geometry ; it applies geometry to the forms and 
movements of the stars ; it creates astronomy, astronomy, 
that grand and potent spectacle for religious souls, that pain- 
ful labor for curious minds (magnum religiosis argumentum, 
torrnentumque curiosis). * 

Thus reason sees perfectly that these forms and these geo- 
metric laws, such as it conceives them in itself, are abso- 
lutely true ; but it recognizes at the same time that it 
perceives in things only the shadow and vestige of truth. 2 

To bear within one's self eternal ideas of which all this 
visible world possesses merely the shadows, what a mar- 
vel is this ! There is, then, within us something eternal ; 
my mind, then, is immortal ! Here then, at least, I am very 
close to what I sought. My reason, in which I perceived 
these divine and eternal numbers, must itself be the same as 
that which I see in it. Must it not itself be that primi- 
tive number which reckons the others ? Whether it be so or 
not, it is at least certain that it possesses in itself the object 
of its search (aut si id non esset, ibi tamen eum esse quo per- 
venire satageret). It therefore grasps at last that Proteus 
who shall reveal to it the truth ; it grasps him in its hands, 
and it holds him with all its might. 3 

It is this primitive number which counts all the rest ; 
this single number which we must capture and never again 
let it escape us. 4 For we must know what unity is, and of 
what it is capable. Add to this the dialectic, and we shall 
quickly pass from the mathematic and abstract unity of sen- 
sible postulates to the sovereign unity which exists in the uni- 
verse. We pass from these abstract sciences to Philosophy, 
and there too we find nought save unity; but a different 
unity, deep and divine in a far different way ; and we learn at 
last to distinguish the two worlds, and the Father of both. 

1 De Ordine, lib. iii. cap. xiv. 41. 8 Ibul. 43. 

2 Ibid. xv. 42. 4 Ibid. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 113 



V. 

Let us explain all this still further. 

The soul which seeks wisdom, having reached that point, 
after first examining and observing itself, arid having recog- 
nized that reason is itself, or is its own (aut seipsum aut 
suam esse rationem), that the numbers of reason are its 
beauty and its power, and that reason is itself number, the 
soul goes on and says : " By this movement and this inward 
and secret power which is called reason, I distinguish and 
reunite in order to know. But why distinguish ? To judge 
of that which seems one, and yet is not, or at least, that 
which is less of a unit than it seems. And why reunite, save 
to recompose unity ? Thus, whether I divide or reunite, it 
is unity which I love and desire. When I divide, it is that 
I may have pure unity ; and when I reunite, it is to have 
it total." 1 

Everything tends towards unity, my reason, all nature, 
society, love, and friendship. 2 

What, then, is this unity ? What I seek, what I desire 
to know, is God. Can this logical, mathematical unity, the 
laws, forms, numbers, absolute, essential, eternal verities 
that follow from it, be God? They give me a perfect 
assurance : then must not knowledge of them be knowl- 
edge of God ? 3 

Let us now refer to Plato. These truths, he says, are not 
God himself, nor the end of the process of reason (re'Xo? rr;? 
Tropeia^, but they are divine phantoms, shadows of that 
which is (<f>avTd<r/jLaTa Oela /cal <ncias rwv OVTCOV). 

No, says Saint Augustine, this order of truths is neither 
God nor knowledge of God ; " If they were knowledge of 

1 De Ordine, lib. iii. cap. xv. 48. 8 Soliloq., lib. i. cap. v. 11. 

2 Ibid. 



114 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

God, in knowing them I should have the same rapture that I 
should have in seeing God. 1 I am forced to confess that there 
is all the difference of the heaven from the earth between 
the intelligible majesty of God and the images otherwise true 
and certain, which such knowledge gives us." 2 

And in fact, " God is intelligible ; these logical spectacles 
are also intelligible : but what a difference ! 3 The earth 
also is visible, even as light is visible; but the earth, if 
there were no light, could not be seen. Just as all these 
scientific truths, which in the eyes of those who understand 
them are absolutely certain, are only intelligible because 
they too are illumined by another sun which .is theirs." 

This is an important point, and it is clear. We have here 
the fundamental distinction between the two degrees of the 
intelligible world, a distinction which many modern think- 
ers do not suspect, and whose absence casts them into the 
strangest embarrassment. 

" Now," adds Saint Augustine, " reason, which cries aloud 
within thee, promises to show God to thy mind as the 
sun shows itself to thine eyes. Our mind also has eyes, 
and our soul has senses: and all assured truths may be 
compared to earthly objects upon which the sun shines 
and makes them visible, by shedding its light upon them : 
but here, the sun is God: and I, reason, am to the mind 
what sight itself is to the eyes." 4 

Let us stop a moment, and note that thus far the theory 
of the method of the progress of reason ascending to -God 
is the same in Plato and in Saint Augustine. It is scarcely 
possible that there are no direct reminiscences of Plato here ; 
and yet it is evident that Saint Augustine is profoundly 
original elsewhere ; it is the same truth, seen and described 
by two minds of the first order, the second of which was 

1 Soliloq., lib. i. cap. v. 1. 8 Ibid., viii. 15. 

2 Ibid. 4 Ibid., vi. 12. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 115 

necessarily familiar with the first. But they are really two 
witnesses in favor of the true method. 

Only, we think we may assert that Saint Augustine is 
more exact and more precise than Plato. Plato is sometimes 
vague in his description of the starting-point of dialectic 
reason. What he calls the starting-point (i/7ro0eo-i?), or the 
fulcrum of thought (fc7r/3acre9 ical op/Acts), by which it rises 
to the principle which the starting-point does not include 
(eV dpxvv avvir66erov e vTroOecrecos lovcra), is not always 
clearly the visible world to him. Neither do we see that it 
is the soul itself. Often, on the contrary, he seems to give 
us to understand, he even states, that we should solely and 
simply turn away from the earth to gaze only at the sun. 
Saint Augustine, on the contrary, is entirely explicit and 
exact in regard to this ; he says that reason, wishing to attain 
to the contemplation of divine things, should, lest it fall into 
a void (ne de alto caderef), have points of support, stepping- 
stones (qucesivit gradus), an assured way through its pre- 
vious acquisitions. And he declares that these points of 
support are given us by our sight of the world ; and what 
no one of whom I know, but Saint Augustine, has said fitly, 
he asserts that we should consider them soberly, with a free 
and impartial eye (aciem parce detorsif), so that we do not 
linger over them, or see them only, but compare them with 
the world after which they are patterned : that we may grasp 
both their likeness and their difference in regard to the di- 
vine world, of which the visible world is the image. 

It is the very uncertainty of the Platonic method upon 
this subject, which permits Aristotle to attack it as leading 
to nothing real, and proceeding only to abstractions, to the 
abstract unity of empty being, while our metaphysics, says 
Aristotle, that is to say, our method, which starts from ma- 
terial things to raise us to that which is above, gives us, out- 
side and above nature, a real essence, neither abstract nor 



116 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

empty. In our opinion, Aristotle errs in condemning Plato 
here ; but it is true that Plato was not sufficiently explicit 
on this head. Saint Augustine explains it. 

But this is just where Saint Augustine was incomparably 
superior to Plato in analysis, precision, philosophic and sci- 
entific development. It is a question of what Plato calls the 
divine in the soul, the familiar spirit which God gives to each 
of us, and which is the mainspring of the dialectic process. 

We shall understand this superiority as we go on with the 
guide-book of reason given us by Saint Augustine. 

VI. 

Let us suppose that the reason, starting with the visible 
world, has reached that degree of the intelligible world where 
we find the geometric, logical, essential, absolute, eternal 
truths, which are not God, but which are intelligible only 
through his light. Eeason understands it, understands that 
these divine phantoms, these eternal shadows, are the shadow 
of the divine sun : it longs to see this sun. 

Now, what, in Plato's opinion, urges reason to seek this 
sun ? It is the divine within us, it is that divine spirit, that 
divine part of our soul, that point and very root of the soul 
(pi&v), where God touches and holds us fast to him, a sa- 
cred gift which some exercise and develop, and which leads 
them to the contemplation of God, but which others stifle by 
the lusts of the flesh and by pride. 

Saint Augustine says the same things, but with what 
wealth and with what clear-sighted precision ! 

To him there is God, there is the soul. God is in the soul, 
the soul feels him. 

Such is the pure and simple truth which explains everything. 

Saint Augustine sees not only, like Plato, the soul joined to 
God ly its root, he sees a yet more intimate relation be- 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 117 

tween God and the soul. God is at the centre of the heart 
(intimus cordi) ; he is the secret good of the soul (hoc bonum 
habet intimum)\ l God gives it life as if he were its vital 
essence (ipsius Dei prcesentia veyetatur). 2 The rational soul 
only lives, is enlightened and happy only through the very 
substance of God (animam humanam et mentem rationalem 
vegetari, non beatificari, non illuminari, nisi ab ipsa substan- 
tia Dei)? The soul should be perpetually moulded and per- 
fected by him, attaching itself to him (semper ab illo fieri 
semper que per fid debemus inhcerentes ei)* For the soul to 
withdraw from God, is like casting forth one's very entrails 
(intima projicere id est longe a se facere Deum) ; 6 it is to 
become empty and vain, and to be less and less (inanescere 
minus minusque esse). Q 

Such is the secret and necessary contact of God with the 
soul. But is our soul conscious of it ? Does it feel and see 
it ? In other words, has it the divine sense ? Yes ; although 
withdrawn from God by the affections, it still feels the charm 
of the supreme Good, by some hidden remembrance (per 
quamdam occultam memoriam quce in longinqua progressam 
non deseruit); 7 there is also a secret trace of the supreme 
unity which exists within us and disturbs us (vestigium secre- 
tissimce unitatis, ex qua eram, curce habebam). 8 Although 
exiled, we are not cut off from the unchangeable source (nee 
tamen inde prcecisi atque abrupti sumus). g This is why, al- 
though in the midst of time, we do not cease to seek eternity 
(ut non etiam in istis mutabilibus et temporalibus ceternita- 
tern qucereremus). 10 Whence, unless we depended on heaven, 
we should not here seek these things (unde nisi penderemus 
Jiic ea non qucereremus). 11 All seek here below : all therefore 

1 De Musica, lib. vi. cap. xiii. 40. 6 Ibid. 

2 Ibid. 7 De Trinit, x. iii. 315. 

3 In Joan. Tract., xxiii. 5. 8 Confess., lib. i. cap. xx. 31. 

4 Ibid. 9 De Trinit., iv. i. 2. 

5 De Musica, lib. vi. cap. xii. 40. Ibid. u Ibid. 



118 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

have this sort of knowledge and of reminiscence of God (nee 
amarent nisi esset aliqua notitia ejus in memoria eorum). 1 
It is a sort of idea of the Supreme God through impression 
(impressa notio ipsius Boni] ; 2 it is a sort of inner sense (in- 
terior nescio quoe conscientia)? 

The soul exists, because God exists, has created it, preserves 
and sustains it. Because God touches the soul and the 
soul feels it, by this very thing the soul lives, it knows, and 
it desires, and it, is perpetually disturbed by the attraction 
of the sovereign Good and sovereign Truth. It bears with- 
in it absolute Being, Truth itself, Good itself; and it 
necessarily feels something of this. This is what Plato calls 
reminiscence. Saint Augustine also uses this word, but 
understands it differently ; to him this memory of God is a 
sort of consciousness of God, a sense of God, which comes 
from the presence of God. Saint Augustine thus unveils the 
mpst sublime of truths, which even Plato dared not believe, 
because it was as yet too great for his sublime mind. 

The soul, therefore, feels God. It feels him when any 
object whatsoever arouses it. For, everything being an 
image of God, everything arouses some sense of the model. 
But this awakened sense instantly shows us wherein every- 
thing lacks, wherein it resembles, wherein it differs ; and the 
soul judges of the infinite difference between the imperfect 
and variable image and the immutable perfection of the 
model. It judges created beings, "seeing in all visible 
beauty wherein it copies from God, and wherein it cannot 
copy him." 4 

At least, such is the duty and the power of the soul. 
Now, in reality, what does it do ? Do we all see God in his 
creatures ? Assuredly not ; but why not ? 

" Why does not this visible beauty speak alike to all ? " 5 

1 Confess., x. 22. * De vera Relig., xxxii. 40. 

2 De Trinit., vii. 6 ibid., xxxiv. 64. 
8 Lib. de util. cred., cap. xvi. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 119 

" Animals see it, but they cannot question it, because they 
have no judgment : with them reason is not the judge of the 



senses." 



" But men can question it, to the end that they may see 
and understand the invisible God through his visible work. 
Instead of that, they are made subject to this world through 
love of it; and having subjected themselves, they can no 
longer question it. The world, answers only those who 
judge it. It is understood only by those who compare its 
voice, received from without, with the truth which they bear 
within them." Such are the purified souls, which, never 
having yielded to the visible world through love, regard it 
with an impartial eye, master it, and judge it. 

These souls, thus taking the earth as their footstool, rise 
higher: again becoming free, they reascend to themselves, 
they return towards reason (regressus in rationem}. Re- 
stored to themselves, and free from the abuses of the out- 
ward senses, they recover the inward sense, the divine sense 
(sensus animce) ; they recognize their own imperfection and 
variability more and more distinctly as the divine sense 
grows in vigor. Without yet knowing God, they fully 
understand that they perceive nothing, either world or soul, 
which can be compared to him (qui nondum Deum nosti, 
unde nosti niliil te nosse Deo simile). 2 

Repossessed of its reason, the soul is not slow to judge 
that the light which illumines that reason, and in which it 
sees all that is within it, is not itself (spectamina ilia non 
posse intelligi, nisi ab alio quasi suo sole illustrentur). 

The soul therefore seeks the source of that light in which 
it sees all these shadows. But here Plato and all philosophy 
stop. Those of Plato's followers who, on reaching this point, 
desire to go farther through philosophy, and to contem- 
plate the source itself of light, these, according to Saint 

1 Confess., i. 295. 2 Soliloq., lib. i. cap. ii. 7. 



120 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Augustine, have taken the wrong road ; they are following 
a path which looks true, but is not so. 1 

Beyond comes a wholly different order of things, another 
life, another world. This is what Christianity calls the super- 
natural world. We cannot penetrate it by the aid of philoso- 
phy alone. 2 We can enter only through an actual new birth, 
a radical cure, which allows the soul to return wholly and 
entirely to the source of light, and no longer exclusively 
attend to the objects which are revealed by that light. And 
this is the new birth which follows that death of which 
Socrates and Plato said : " To philosophize is to Jearn 
to die." 

Thus Plato dimly perceived these things, and he speaks of 
them ; but Christianity alone effects them. Saint Augustine 
explains this as follows. 

VII. 

God exists in us as force, as light, as love ; we feel him. 
But this natural sense of the soul, given to all by the presence 
of God, is at first only the vague and indeterminate attrac- 
tion towards the desirable and the intelligible, to which the 
soul has not yet responded. A few very imperfect responses 
to this attraction raise it to the point which we have men- 
tioned. There must be a decisive answer, which God inces- 
santly provokes, which is God's work in us and with us, 
which is the new birth, the new life. The soul which has 
entered this other life believes in the Being, hopes for the 
Truth, and desires the Good. Its three natural faculties are 
actually exercised under the influence of their supreme ob- 
ject and their supernatural life ; the implicit basis of our 
being, which we ourselves do not know, clings to the eternal 
Being through faith ; the intelligence clings to the light 
of God through hope ; the will clings to the will of God 

1 Epist. cxx., cap. i. 6. 2 Ibid. ,,4. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 121 

through love. " Without these three things, no soul can be 
healed in such a manner as to see God." (Sine tribus istis 
anima nulla sanatur, ut possit Deum suum videre.) 1 

Made whole, let it gaze ! That gaze is still reason, but 
set free and made clear-sighted ; that straightforward look, 
that perfect look, which actually follows vision, is a virtue ; 
that look, that vision, attain to God himself. What a gaze ! 
The gaze of " the soul is reason ; but every eye that gazes does 
not yet see ; the true and straightforward gaze, that which 
sees, is a virtue. Yes, true reason, upright reason, is a virtue. 
The gaze of the purified soul, therefore, turns towards the 
light, when these three things dwell within us, faith, which 
believes that the object of the gaze constitutes happiness 
when it is seen ; hope, which knows that the gaze shall see ; 
love, which desires to see and love. Such is the gaze which 
follows the vision of God himself, and this is the final end 
of the gaze ; not because the eye then rests, but because it 
has found the supreme object of its search. Yes, this itself 
is virtue, reason attaining to its end ; it is supreme virtue 
and bliss. As for vision itself, what is it but intelligence, 
actual and present compounded of that which understands 
and that which is understood, even as sight depends alike 
on the eye and the light?" 2 

These words are most profound and most exactly true. 
They touch and solve the question of the relation between 
.Philosophy and Eeligion, reason and faith. 

But to continue. When reason reaches its end (ratio 
perveniens ad finem suum; reXo? rijs Trope/a?), then truly 
begins the living, real, and experimental knowledge of God, 
that knowledge which Saint Augustine calls indeed " ex- 
perimentalem Dei notitiam" a strong expression, quoted 
and adopted by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Then only do the 
inner senses of the soul develop for God ; we^become 

i Soliloq., lib. i. cap. vi. 12. 2 Ibid., 1 




122 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

master of the other senses, because the divine sense tow- 
ers above them ; this sense itself develops, because we are 
master of the other senses. Then, too, " by continence, 
verily, is the soul bound up and brought back into One, 
whence it was dissipated into many (per continentiam 
colligimur et redigimur in unum, a quo in multa defluxi- 
mus')" 1 Saint Augustine has reached this point, and en- 
tered into possession of the inner life of the soul, when 
he exclaims : " My life at last shall wholly live, as wholly 
full of thee (viva erit vita mea, totaque plena te\" 2 Then 
he thus invokes the source of his life, that life which he 
possesses and touches, which he sees, whose divine savor he 
tastes, whose celestial perfumes he inhales : 

" I have loved thee too late, thou Beauty, old and yet ever 
new ! I have loved thee too late ! Thou wert within me ; I was 
abroad. And I sought thee abroad, and flinging myself upon 
those beauties created by thee, I lost my own fair form. They 
held me far from thee, those beauties, which would never exist, 
did they not exist in thee. Thou hast called me ; thou hast cried 
aloud ; thou hast overcome my deafness. Thou hast shone, thou 
hast sparkled, and thou hast triumphed over my blindness. Thy 
perfumes made themselves manifest ; I breathed, and I breathe 
for thee ; I have tasted thee, I hunger and thirst after thee. I 
have touched thee, and my heart has ceased to long for aught 
save the abiding peace which is in thee." 8 

VIII. 

We have seen the method in action, and then the theory 
of the method. Let us now proceed to the results. 

Let us repeat, the philosophic results acquired by Saint 
Augustine in regard to the nature of God are complete, 
exact, absolute, unmixed with error, equivocation, or un- 

1 Confess., lib. x. cap. xxix. 40. 8 Ibid., cap. xxvii. 38. 

2 Ibid., cap. xxviii. 39. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 123 

certainty. This is the philosophy of Christians. This is 
the wisdom mentioned by one of our most learned teach- 
ers, " which is," he says, " both divine and human, and 
which is therefore properly true Christian wisdom." We 
mean that human wisdom, illumined by divine wisdom, 
whose existence Saint Thomas Aquinas makes clear to us in 
these words : " The divine wisdom of Christ did not dim his 
human wisdom, but increased its clarity." 

In considering, therefore, merely the advance of the rational 
Theodicy, the purely human and non-theological side of wis- 
dom, we must show not only the transition of knowledge 
which is almost solely speculative into knowledge which is 
at the same time experimental and speculative, but also 
'observe greater scientific precision upon capital points, 
which, moreover, all combine in a single one, the idea 
of infinity. 

The ancients had no clear idea of infinity ; the moderns 
have that idea : the influence of Christianity has devel- 
oped it. 

Pythagoras so deceived himself upon this point that he 
gives us the following qualities, quoted by Aristotle : on the 
one hand, the finite, perfect, good, etc. ; on the other, the 
infinite, imperfect, lad, etc. To him, finite meant finished, 
and infinite meant indeterminate. He had no idea of the 
determinate, finished, perfect infinite ; that is, in a word, of 
the infinite, which he confounded with the indefinite. 

Plato occasionally hesitates in regard to this matter. Still 
he sees between God and his creatures such a difference 
that he names as God " the One who exists absolutely " (ro5 
7rai>TeXw<? oim), and calls the creatures " those who always 
become and- never are " (/cal /JLTJ OVTO). This implies the 
idea of the infinite. But there is an equivocation here. Do 
God's creatures exist, or do they not exist ? Plato seems 
rather to say that they do not exist; and he is forced to 



124 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

this conclusion for lack of a high enough idea of the infinite. 
For, clearly feeling that the Being of God and the being of 
his creatures are incomparable, to aggrandize God and show 
that he is matchless, he says that his creatures do not exist. 

Aristotle, by his idea of the motionless motor, and espe- 
cially of the primary cause, which is pure act, implies the 
idea of infinity : however, he does not yet fully comprehend 
that infinite ; he does not know that God is everywhere 
present as a whole ; he knows that God is in the world, 
but he thinks that he occupies a central point, and that his 
creatures receive the life which proceeds from him, with 
more or less abundance, according to their physical distance 
from that centre. Frequently, moreover, he gives us most 
inexact notions of the metaphysical infinite. 

But that which especially shows us how little idea of the 
infinite the ancients had, is their incapability of conceiving 
an infinite power, in other words, a power which can 
create from nothing. Have we not seen that Aristotle, 
while saying that this world is the work of God, supposes it 
eternal, and that Plato also believes matter to be eternal '\ 
Neither of them knew this exact principle, most unfamiliar 
even in the present day : Infinite Being is infinite in every 
sense ; finite being is finite in every sense. Whence it fol- 
lows that finite being is finite in duration : therefore it did 
not always exist, for it would have already actually infinite 
duration. The ancients maintained that nothing can come 
from nothing, which is truth itself, if there be not an 
infinite power; but if there be an infinite power, the in- 
finity in the power consists precisely in its creating, that 
is to say, producing that which was not, or in producing 
from nothing. 

Now, all this has been known from the first ages of the 
Christian Theodicy. Saint Augustine develops it, avoiding 
all errors and equivocations. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 125 

Far from confounding, as Pythagoras does, the infinite 
with the imperfect, two things which are exactly opposite, 
he says of the wisdom of God that it is infinite : "It is 
manifest that the measure and form of everything arise 
thence, and that it may be suitably called infinite, with 
respect not to its extension in space, but to its power, 
which transcends all the limits of human thought." l And 
he adds this very profound remark : " Not that this wis- 
dom is formless and indeterminate, like a body which has 
no contour." 2 He declares in these words concerning that 
which is still discussed in our day, that the infinite is in 
110 wise the indeterminate. 

In the same place, while stating that God is not infinite 
in extent, he asserts that he is everywhere and wholly pres- 
ent, which is, upon this point, the exact and absolute for- 
mula : 3 "He is wholly present everywhere, like truth ; and 
Truth is God himself." Saint Augustine points out the two 
meanings of the word " infinite," one actually signifying 
the infinite, while the other is very inaccurate, and signifies 
the indefinite, increasing size whose limit is not known, all of 
which is not visible. In the inaccurate sense it is applied to 
physical size, and in the other to the spiritual greatness of 
God : " In this sense it is applied to the incorporeal great- 
ness which we call total, because no place can bound it, and 
which may ~be called loth total and infinite : total, because 
it lacks nothing; infinite, because it is not limited by any 
circumscription." 4 

As for the incomparable distance between God and his 
creatures, the exact and explicit idea of the infinite allows 
Saint Augustine to conceive of it without destroying the 
creatures. Why ? Because infinite Being is such that finite 
being, although really something, is nothing when compared 

1 Epist, exviii. cap. iv. 24. 8 Ibid., 23. 

2 Ibid. 4 Ibi(i . 



126 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

with the infinite, which is an exact principle now adopted 
by science. Geometricians and algebraists assert and are 
justified in asserting this formula : The addition to the infi- 
nite of any quantity, however great, adds nothing ; l and this 
other : However great a quantity may be, when compared to 
the infinite it becomes nothing. This is expressed in the 
Holy Scriptures by the text: "My being is as nothing be- 
fore thee, my God ! " 2 And Saint Augustine says : " Why 
compare with the infinite a finite thing, however great it 
may be ? " 3 And elsewhere, commenting on the phrase : 
"I am He who is," he says: 4 "God exists in such manner 
that, compared to him, that which has been created does not 
exist. Created beings, not compared to God, actually exist ; 
for they exist through him ; but if they be compared to God, 
they do not exist; for the true Being is the immutable Being, 
and he alone is immutable." 

Nothing can be more exact and precise than these words. 

Finally, if we seek in Saint Augustine's works for his ideas 
concerning the origin of things, the creation, the relation be- 
tween God and his creatures, and between the creatures and 
God, here above all we must admire the precise, explicit, and 
exact knowledge of the great teacher, a truly mathematical 
knowledge of the infinite, the finite, and their mutual relations. 
Those absolute assertions, which the imagination does not 
conceive, but which figures and geometry prove, exist already 
in that powerful reason which aids the energy of faith to 
surpass imagination. Saint Augustine says boldly, leaning 
upon the Catholic faith, and also because reason requires it 
and the idea of the infinite proves it, God made all from 
nothing. It is clearly understood that Saint Augustine avoids 
here the absurdity of those sophists in all ages who consider 

1 Algebra gives us these formulae, which geometry confirms : oo 4- = oo, 
and _ = 0. 

oo 

2 Ps. xxxviii. 6. 8 Enar. rat. in Psalt. xxxvi. 16. * Ibid., cxxxiv. ?. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 127 

nothing as something. He goes on to explain : " The crea- 
ture does not proceed from the divine nature, but from noth- 
ing. 1 To be created out of nothing is the same thing as not 
to be of the same nature with God. 2 When we say 'God 
made all from nothing/ we say no more than this : ' He had 
nothing outside himself with which to make his work, he 
made it because he willed it.' " 3 This was expressed by the 
Greek Fathers thus : " He made beings which were not." 4 

God made all from nothing is one of those absolute propo- 
sitions implying the infinite ; that is to say, incomprehensible, 
which the imagination does not conceive , but in metaphysics 
it is an exact truth, and we find very evident traces of it in 
mathematics. When, for instance, algebraic formulae teach 
us th&t finite greatness, however great, multiplying zero always 
produces zero, it corresponds to the axiom Ex nihilo nihil, 
Nothing from nothing. But if, instead of taking a finite 
quantity as multiplier, we take the infinite, the statement 
becomes : Zero multiplied by the infinite gives us all finite 
greatness. 

So, too, no finite force can create, can produce from noth- 
ing ; but the omnipotent infinite can create or produce from 
nothing. 

We shall develop in its proper place a truly wonderful 
theory of the creation, found in Saint Augustine at the close 
of his book "De Musica." This amazing intuition of the 
basis of things is, moreover, in perfect harmony with the 
answer which science is now preparing to the great question, 
What is matter ? 

We do not dwell upon the sum total of the results con- 
tained in Saint Augustine's works ; these results are truth 
itself, as Christianity gives it to us, as human reason under- 
stands it in that light, as the modern world knows it, as we 

1 Contra Jul, lib. v. xxxi. * Ad Oros., iii. 

2 Ibid., xlii. * T& uvra. tirolrifffv IK 



128 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

have taught it to our children ever since the first century of 
the Christian era. 

IX. 

Let us sum up this doctrine. 

How can we know God ? What is the course of reason, 
from the blindness and ignorance in which we are born, up 
to the time when we see God ? 

The first step is a practical one. Few men use their reason 
to rise to God. The soul must be purified. The soul is 
given over to the senses. It must be brought back to reason 
(regressus in rationem). Attached to earth, the soul is parted 
from itself and from God : it knows neither God nor reason. 
The soul requires a first purification, under the natural moral 
law, which shall free it from animality and raise it to a ra- 
tional state. Let it return to itself by a first effort to resist 
the senses which divide it, and it will recover its reason, the 
judge of its sens.es. But reason, beholding itself, sees that 
it is imperfect and changeable (quce se quoque in me compe- 
riens mutabilem). Now, to see change and mutability, is to 
regret the immutable which it conceives by contrast (unde 
nosset ipsum immutabile, quod nisi aliquo modo nosset, mdlo 
modo illud mutabili prceponeret). Reason therefore, judging 
itself, rises above itself and understands itself (erexit se ad in- 
telligentiam suam). It sees that it is not light by itself, and 
seeks to know what that light is by which it is enlightened 
(ut inveniret quo lumine aspergeretur). Thus it understands 
the invisible divine by the sight of that which is created 
(tune invisibilia tua per ea qucefacta sunt intellecta conspexi). 

But how can we conceive of the immutable by seeing that 
which is mutable ? How are we to seek eternity thus in 
time itself (in mutabilibus et temporalibus ceternitatem quce- 
reremus) ? It is because we cling to God and are joined to 
him (unde penderemus) ; because we only exist and live in 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 129 

so far as we cling to him (semper ab illo fieri debemus inhce- 
rentes ei) ; because, thenceforth, we are conscious of him by 
a sort of occult memory (per quamdam occultam memoriam); 
by a luminous impression of the Sovereign Good (impressa 
notio ipsius Boni}\ by a sort of inner sense which urges us 
to seek him always (interior nescio quce conscientia quceren- 
dutn Deum). 

This is the true inward principle, the power and mainspring 
which lift us to reason and to God, starting from the senses 
in which we were buried. 

But it is not necessary, in order to return from the senses 
to reason, and from reason to God, to suppress the use of the 
senses. The use and acuteness of the senses is one thing ; 
their abuse is another thing (aliud est utilitas, vivacitas sen- 
tiendi ; aliud libido sentiendi). On the contrary, we must 
make use of them to rise and make a stepping-stone of them. 
It is in our sensations that we find the first vestiges of reason 
(tenemus qucedam vestigia rationis in sensibus) ; the mind 
finds these traces as soon as it discerns in the sensation the 
sign and the significance (aliud sensus ; . . . aliud per sensuni ; 
pulcher motus, et pulchra motus siguificatio). Keason also 
takes sensible things as stepping-stones (qucesivit gradus), 
stepping-s tones to rise to God himself (gradus ad immortalia 
faciendus). The earth, says the Gospel, is the footstool of 
God. Eeason contemplates sensible things that it may make 
use of them, but contemplates them soberly (in eos ipsos pau- 
lulum aciem detorsit), in order to seize the sensation less in 
itself than for what it signifies (ratio vidit quid inter sonum, 
et id cujus signum esset, distaret). This it does through its 
great power of abstraction (ista potentissima secernendi). 
And what does it find as the meaning of the visible symbol- 
ism of nature ? It finds the geometric laws, forms, and num- 
bers which govern phenomena (intelligent regnare numeros). 
It at once understands that these laws are eternal and divine 



130 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

(reperiebat divinos et sempiternos). But these forms and 
numbers, these laws, in brief, are only actually found in ma- 
terial bodies in the state of shadows and vestiges (in his quce 
sentiuntur umbras eorum potius atque vestigia). It is only 
in reason itself that reason finds them absolute and true 
(quas in seipsa cogitando intuebatur verissimas). 

Here, then, I have something eternal and absolute. 
Henceforth I no longer work at random to lift myself to 
the divine (non temere jam qucerit ilia divina). 

But is it God himself that I see when I see these true and 
absolute principles, these numbers, laws, and axioms ? Far 
from it, certainly. If it were God, the sight would over- 
whelm me with joy (tantum gauderem quantum Deo cog- 
nito). Between these truths and the holy majesty of God, 
there is all the distance that there is between heaven and 
earth, or the sun and the objects upon which it shines 
(quantum in suo genere a ccelo terram, tantum ab intel- 
liyibili Dei majestate spectamina ilia disciplina vera et 
certa differre). These truths, such as we see them, are 
not God ; they are sights lit up in us by the sun of God- 
There is, therefore, one world, the world of sense ; another 
world, the world of intelligence ; and above them both, 
the Father of worlds (duos mundos, et ipsum parentem 
universitatis). 

Eeason advances from the world of sense to the world of 
intelligence by the steps which we have just described. 
But to see God himself, reason must be transformed and 
become energy. It becomes energy by becoming pure and 
perfect reason (est enim virtus vel recta vel perfecta ratio). 
It becomes energy when it attains its supreme end (hcec est 
vere perfecta virtus, ratio perveniens adfinem suum). What 
is that end ? The very vision of God (ipsa visio Dei quce est 
finis aspectus). This is supernatural, and comes through 
the three virtues which God gives, Faith, Hope, and 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 131 

Charity, three virtues without which no soul can be 
healed in such manner as to see God (Fides, Spes, Caritas, 
. . . sine tribus istis anima nulla sanatur, ut possit Deum 
suum videre). To see God, this is the final aim of reason, in 
the soul united to God : this vision is the union of the soul 
which sees, with God himself, who is seen (intellectus ille 
qui conficitur ex intelligente et eo quod intelligitur). 

But all this course is the fruit of the successive purifica- 
tion of the soul. It is clear that the soul which, turning away 
from God, should seek its own light, to the exclusion of that 
of God, would find only shadows (anima si ad lucem suam 
attenderit tenebratur ; si ad lucem Dei, illuminatur). The 
more the soul, turned away from the light of justice, strug- 
gles, the farther it is removed from light, and the deeper 
it is buried in the gulf of shadows (anima avertens se a luce 
justitice, quanta magis qucerit tanto plus a luce repellitur, et 
in tenebrosa repellitur). 

Such is, according to Saint Augustine, the course of rea- 
son towards God. 

It is very plain that this course of reason implies all 
philosophy, logic, morals, knowledge of the soul and of 
God. 

Thus we desire first to exhibit philosophy, in its broad out- 
lines, to the attentive intelligences which may consent to 
follow us. We try to put before them in living form the 
actual thought of all wise men of the first order. Their ac- 
cord gives us the teachings of a human authority without a 
parallel. Intelligence and clear vision are requisite. I only 
ask you to show respect and attention to these authorities. 
Eespectful attention to the words and testimony of these 
sublime geniuses or saints who, more than any others, have 
sought and seen the truth, will soon direct your gaze to that 
truth itself, which all have seen, which all describe with 
one accord, each aiding the other by his splendid testimony. 



182 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Little by little, their words will lead you to see for your- 
selves the intelligible object which they contemplated as 
they spoke. Or rather, as Saint Augustine tells us, the 
Master who enlightened them, the sole Master of all men, 
who is in you as he was in them, will show you the 
meaning of the words uttered by his most advanced dis- 
ciples. You will see in the light itself the assurance, as 
well as the omissions, in their teachings and in ours. 

X. 

We have now given a most imperfect account of Saint 
Augustine's- Philosophy. We have been forced to select 
from his vast store of riches, and perhaps have omitted the 
best. We have grasped and separated from the living 
current of his thought certain features which seem chilled 
by isolation. We have done what may be worse yet, 
we have repeated, out of place and out of connection, some 
few of the deep accents of his soul and his love; and if 
these accents fall upon the ear of one who does not love, 
who does not believe or hope, they cannot be understood, 
The inexperienced heart, which has never lived the life 
of the most sublime and saintly love, cannot comprehend 
Saint Augustine. How must it be with the empty, impure, 
and perverse soul ? Destitute of the divine perceptions 
developed in the soul of the saint, how should I understand 
that which senses I do not possess permit him to see, smell, 
taste, hear, and touch of God ? If he tells me of those 
lights, those perfumes, and those voices, I am like a blind 
man listening to an account of the sunrise : I hear the 
words, I cannot see the things ; the words do not correspond 
to the life I know, but to that which I do not know ; and 
then how often I am tempted to say, These are words, and 
nothing more ! 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 133 

Bead Saint Augustine in the poetic period of early youth. 
If your soul be beautiful, you will find a certain charm; 
because there is nothing more complete than his genius, and 
the sacred inspiration of the loftiest poetry pervades his 
work. But you will not understand his knowledge, because 
you have no knowledge of your own ; you will feel nothing 
of his love, because you have as yet no love yourself, or the 
love which you have is of another order. Take up Saint 
Augustine twenty years later, when your soul has developed, 
for if the light of your soul is dimmed, you will not take 
up his work, re-read him after you have lived, sought, suf- 
fered, and struggled for the truth ; then you will know that 
mind and that soul which you did not know before: you 
will be amazed that you could have read without under- 
standing, and looked without seeing. You will see the life 
under the words; and if you have yourself at times half 
seen the light, if you have possessed wisdom but for an hour, 
it is that wisdom and that light, all whose virtues, all whose 
beams, you recover here. 

From this point of view only can we judge the great sys- 
tem of philosophy of the modern world, of which Saint 
Augustine is the Plato ; we can understand the likeness and 
all the difference between these two brother geniuses, born 
under different skies ; and in this difference we seize upon 
the chief feature in the history of the human mind, a 
feature which, if it be understood, at last shows us what 
Philosophy, the true, total, useful Philosophy, is. 

Christian dogma teaches us that there is the same differ- 
ence between the old Mosaic law and the new law of Jesus 
that there is between the precept and the life, and the 
same difference between these two states of religion in his- 
tory that there is between the image and the reality. When 
we are closely acquainted with Plato and Saint Augustine, 
and have actually practised their teachings, we see that 



134 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

there is in several respects, between the two systems of 
philosophy, the same difference as there is between the old 
and the new law. 

Several Fathers of the Church have compared Greek phi- 
losophy to the old law ; they regard it as a sort of evangelical 
preparation, and look upon true philosophers as prophets. 1 
Now, as the Gospel tells us, when Christianity came, it came, 
not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it; so too it does not 
come to destroy the human fruit of philosophic thought, but 
to ripen it. It effects in the human mind and its imperish- 
able philosophy precisely the same revolution which it causes 
in the eternal and universal religion of mankind. 

We have seen that Plato desired, awaited, dimly foresaw 
this divine revelation ; Saint Augustine declared it to be 
accomplished; and the eye which can judge sees it indeed, 
longed for in Plato, fulfilled in Saint Augustine. 

I repeat it, the fundamental fact in the history of the hu- 
man mind has been accomplished. Philosophy, properly so 
called (I do not refer to Theology, which is distinct from it), 
Philosophy, I say, has passed from infancy to manhood. 

Of the two regions of the world of intelligence perceived 
by all who foresaw the light, the human mind occupied one, 
and, by a certain conjecture, regretted the other; now it 
occupies both. 

There are two regions in the world of intelligence, let us 
again repeat with Plato : first that of God himself, and then 
that of divine phantoms, shadows of that which is, essential 
truths, eternal and absolute, but which are not God. Now, 
Plato is, of all men of the old world, the one most familiar 
with this distinction. Plato went as far as human reason 
can go in its first estate. He saw all that exists in man ; he 
reached the very apex of the soul ; he teaches, as Saint Au- 

1 Saint Clement of Alexandria, Saint Justin. See Melchio Cano, lib. x. 
cap. iv. and vi. 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY 135 

gustine observes, that the sight of the essence of God is given 
by a light absolutely distinct from man, absolutely divine ; 
he knows that this light is God, that its source is the Sover- 
eign Good ; he asserts that our soul is capable of attaining to 
the direct and immediate vision of this source of light. And 
yet Saint Augustine says of Plato : He saw only the image 
of God ; he did not find the true way to attain to the sover- 
eign Good ; he dealt with the eternal images of the True, not 
with the True itself; he dealt with that truth which is not 
God, but which is his image ; 1 that is to say, Plato did not 
see the two regions, the difference between which he knew, 
he saw the lower of the two, and conjectured the other. 

"It is one thing to see our peaceful fatherland from the top of 
a mountain and from the bosom of a wild forest, without the abil- 
ity to find the road, and to seek a path of escape in vain amidst 
enemies who surround and pursue us, ... it is quite another 
thing actually to hasten over the road which leads us home." 2 

"Platonists, therefore, know, after a certain fashion, invisible, 
immutable, immaterial nature ; but the path that leads to this 
supreme beatitude, namely, Jesus Christ crucified, seems to them 
contemptible, they refuse to follow it, and thenceforth can never 
reach the sanctuary which is its resting-place and end, although 
the light that proceeds from it strikes their intelligence with a dis- 
tant radiance." 3 

It would take too long to explain here of what use the 
Cross of Christ may be in philosophy. But the rest of this 
book will, we hope, show it in a scientific way. There will 
be found the deepest of philosophic truths, which was not 
sufficiently well known. As it has been said that there are 
two watersheds in history, one on this side the Cross, the 
other on the other side, so too it must be said that the same 
holds good of the human mind. These two watersheds are 

1 Confess., lib. vii. cap. ix. 14. 8 Epist., cxx. cap. i. 4. 

2 Ibid., lib. viii. cap. xxi. 27. 



136 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

just those two regions of the world of intelligence described 
by Plato and all other philosophers after him. 

Now, at that period of history at which we write, the 
middle of the nineteenth century, the human mind is clearly 
full of trouble, confusion, and contradiction. Minds delib- 
erate, are excited, hesitate, repel, exclude, condemn, and at- 
tack one another around a single point, Christianity. War 
is waged around the Cross. Some desire to overthrow it 
and return to the antique world behind the Cross ; others 
strive to uphold it and advance into the new world beyond 
it. Meantime, and while the battle rages, the mass of man- 
kind dwell in an arid desert midway between the Promised 
Land and Egypt, Egypt, to which they will not return, 
and the Promised Land, which they will surely enter. But 
those who refuse to go thither will die in the desert, and 
will drag us down with them, until a new generation shall 
arise, whom God may find resolved to follow him. 

The sterilizers, the mortal foes of all progress of the hu- 
man mind, are, in philosophy, those now called rationalists. 
I call those rationalists who rely upon pure reason in such 
a way as to exclude faith and all supernatural aid. We 
defend the rights of human reason, they say. We reply, 
By defending the rights of human reason as you do, do you 
know the depths to which you have allowed Philosophy to 
fall ? I do not say below the seventeenth century, below the 
thirteenth century, below the time of the Fathers. I say below 
Aristotle and Plato, far below that beautiful Greek philoso- 
phy which we uphold and which you cannot uphold ; you 
have taken it back and delivered it over to the sophists 
before Socrates. Gorgias and Protagoras have returned : they 
live, they teach, they speak and write. We hear nothing 
else ; for as for you, you are no longer heard. You who 
claim to uphold Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes, and who 
reject the Cross of Christ as the guide of a fresh advance 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 137 

in the world of intellect, what are you doing ? You deny 
Plato's last and highest thought. He desired to turn 
towards the sun which had not yet risen; and you require 
us to turn away from the sun which is actually shining. I 
call that the Judaism of philosophy ; and to this Judaism we 
say, with Saint Paul : Hebrcei sunt, plus ego ! You are for 
Aristotle and Plato, we are for them more than you; you 
are for them, as the Jews were for Moses ; you reject him 
whom they awaited. Is this supporting Plato ? It is de- 
stroying him in his totality ; it is denying what Plato called 
the goal of the onward march, the end of the process ; it is 
taking for final realities those truths, absolute no doubt, 
but empty, which he called shadows of the world of in- 
telligence and divine phantoms ; it is taking Plato's dialec- 
tic in exactly the wrong way on this point ; and I shall show 
you that the only rationalistic philosophy, which moves and 
stirs to-day, is nothing but an inversion of the Platonic 
dialectic. 1 

What is to be done ? We must grow and advance, as 
Plato did in Saint Augustine. We must maintain the 
distinction between the two regions of the world of intelli- 
gence. A\ 7 e must learn that the first is merely shadows and 
images, and is useful only as an image and prophecy of the 
second. It is the second that we must enter, with our 
whole soul, as Plato expresses it, that is, with heart, life, 
and mind. There must be that total change of soul which 
turns us away from the shadows seen on the walls of the 
cave, towards the light and the objects which cast the 
shadows. We must pass from that natural vision of God, 
mediately and indirectly perceived in the essential truths of 
reason, to that other vision of God, the direct and immediate, 
which Christianity calls supernatural ; in short, we must 
pass from the light of God, seen in ourselves, to the light of 
1 See the Logic, Book II. 



138 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

God seen in God himself. We must advance from reason 
to faith, the dim and imperfect beginning of that other light. 
Does it follow from this that we forsake reason? No, 
says Saint Augustine, we urge it to its last term, we make 
of it a virtue, by rooting it in the faith which it preceded 
and which it sought. For reason, as it is given to us, and as 
it illumines us when we enter this world, teaches us to con- 
clude the existence of the other light, which is the direct 
vision of God in himself, a direct vision which the indirect 
vision of God within ourselves leads us to suspect. And 
the rough outline of this vision is faith, faith, that attempt 
at vision, as Bossuet says ; faith, that eye of the heart, says 
Saint Augustine ; faith, that incipient vision, says Saint 
Thomas. Will that new vision destroy the other? Will 
that divine knowledge overwhelm my human knowledge? 
Will my acquaintance with God deprive me of my acquain- 
tance with myself, and that of God which that acquaintance 
implies ? Saint Augustine asserts that, even in the world to 
come, the soul shall see God, both in himself and in itself, 
which shows that our knowledge will remain eternally, both 
human and divine, and that that wisdom, of which philoso- 
phy is the beginning, shall endure. For if philosophy be 
only God seen within us, the eternal vision is only God seen 
in himself. 

And when Saint Augustine says further : " There is within 
my heart a depth which I do not know, and which thou 
knowest, Lord ! a depth which is nought but shadows until 
it becomes light beneath the splendor of thy face," Saint 
Augustine, speaking thus, leads us to understand that he 
perceives the two regions of the soul corresponding to the 
two regions of the world of intelligence. 

All philosophers have referred to this sanctuary of the 
soul, where God is, and where he is necessarily, as the cause 
of my being and my life. They have spoken of that point 



SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 139 

where God touches the soul to join it to himself, by which 
he makes it living by holding it in his hand. Who does 
not know that this is beyond all philosophy ? The world 
touches us on the surface, God at the centre, and we are 
between the two, and three worlds live in us, God, Nature, 
and ourselves. Our soul is the temple, the place of contem- 
plation. The centre, where God lives in us, is the sanctuary. 
The circumference, where the world lives in us, is the outer 
entrance. The intermediate enclosure is our proper abode ; 
it is double, and is called intelligence and will, will is the 
more central, intelligence more external. 

Plato describes a cave, in illustration of the progress and 
degrees of philosophy. We may be allowed to describe a 
temple. 

In childhood we play about the entrance ; if we attain to 
manhood of mind, we enter the enclosure. The entrance is 
illumined only by the light of the material sun ; the enclosure 
is illumined only by the sacred flame which shines at the 
centre. The splendid images of the enclosure, the forms 
which cover it, are the divine phantoms of which Plato 
speaks. We gaze at them ; Christ, on entering the temple, 
himself gazed at the adornments ; he saw wherein the sacred 
edifice conformed to the divine model. 

But there is a difference between the temple of the soul 
and those temples built by the hand of man : in these latter, 
the lamp which lights the sanctuary is a pale image of the 
sun ; in the temple of the soul, on the contrary, the sun is 
but a pale image of the lamp. Now, there are some souls 
which have attained to the inner degree of the intellectual 
life, which move inwardly about the temple, but do not 
approach the altar. To approach the altar, one must go 
past the will ; reason must become energy. Such minds are 
unwilling to look at anything but these images of God, and 
they become adorers of those sacred forms which are within 



140 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

us, and are ourselves : as those who remain at the threshold 
remain adorers of visible nature, which is less than we are. 
These are the two philosopic sects which place either in 
nature or in man " the sovereign Good, the cause of the 
world, the fulcrum of reason." 

Where does genuine philosophy begin and end ? - It be- 
gins in the soul, which, having gazed at those divine phan- 
toms illumined by the holy light proceeding from the 
centre, perceives that as yet it has seen its surface only, 
and not its depth ; that all the light of the enclosure comes 
from the centre, and that in order to gaze at the sacred 
images it has never ceased to turn its back upon the source 
of light, the inner sanctuary, the central place, the abode of 
God in us. This is the first step of true philosophy. Its 
second step is to conclude that, if the images are so fair, the 
model is far more beautiful, and that the term of contem- 
plation and the purpose of the temple is the direct con- 
templation of the Holy of Holies ; that this Holy of Holies 
is in us, but is not us ; that we have seen its reflections 
shining on the enclosure, on the inner surface of the soul, 
and that we shall see its source in our centre. We under- 
stand that there is within us a central enclosure to which 
we have never penetrated, and that we must make our way 
there at last by traversing the will. Plato goes thus far, but 
Saint Augustine goes farther yet: he performs what Plato 
thinks; he takes his eye from those arches and all their 
splendor ; he ceases to move curiously about the temple ; 
he turns towards the sanctuary, moves towards the altar, 
ascends the steps ; he becomes a priest ; l he opens the 
tabernacle to touch, see, and hear God, to taste him and 
live by him. He turns back : the temple is no longer empty, 
it is full of the stir of people ; gone are the images and 
the statues; now, the images of God are men. 

1 Gens sancta, regale sanctorum. 






SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEODICY. 141 

It seems that the soul which has tasted God, God pres- 
ent in its centre, that soul contains a thousand others : 
those which, being with God, are with it. Abandoning 
solitary and abstract reflection to seek God, it has found 
him ; and in recovering God, has recovered mankind, its 
life, its common-sense, its universal communion. 

When the priestly soul turns towards the altar, towards 
God, it sees its divine knowledge. When it turns towards 
the vast enclosure, which is itself, arid towards the other 
souls, which commune with it in God, it sees its human 
knowledge. Both subsist in the holy sacrifice with its 
eternal solemnity. 1 

But there are necessary initiations before we can enter 
the central enclosure ; there are conditions to be complied 
with before we can become a priest: there is one which 
includes them all. 

This single condition consists in taking up the Cross of 
Jesus Christ. This is what I have called the philosophic 
use of the Saviour's cross. To take up the Cross of Christ is 
to practise the Christian sacrifice ; it is to die to self in 
order to live again ; it is to leave not only the outward life 
of nature which we lived upon the threshold, but also the 
inward life of solitary reflection, which contemplated the 
images in the structure of the soul. Having quitted the life 
of the world in us, to quit also our own life, to pass on to 
the life of God himself, this is what Christianity calls 
" taking up your cross and dying : " and it is of such death 
that it is said : " If the grain of wheat die not, it remains 
single ; if it die, it bears much fruit." Potent life, pro- 
ceeding from the central point where God gives it, unfolds 

1 This does not mean that the soul shall have only a supernatural knowl- 
edge of God, and a natural knowledge of his creatures and itself. It will have 
the natural knowledge of God and his creatures, when it looks at his crea- 
tures and sees God in them ; it will have supernatural knowledge of God and 
his creatures when it beholds God and sees his creatures in him. 



142 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

all the riches of the germ which desired to die in God, and, 
at the tip of every twig or every ray of that life, the grain 
which was dead and is born again bears fruit like unto 
itself, an image of the soul turned towards God, developed 
and become priestly, which, forasmuch as it liveth in God, 
makes a world of souls live within it. 

There is nothing superfluous in our description of the 
temple. Search carefully, and you will find all this in the 
history of philosophy, consummated and complete. 



CHAPTEK V. 

THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 

LIKE the two Sums of Saint Thomas, the two philosophic 
works of Saint Anselm might be called "Intelligence 
Seeking for Faith" " Faith seeking for Intelligence." l The 
latter title was at first given by Saint Anselm himself to his 
second work, the Proslogium. As for the first, the Mono- 
logium, the saintly doctor tells us how he wrote the book for 
his monks, who asked him for purely philosophic medita- 
tions, in which absolutely nothing should rest upon the 
authority of Scripture, but everything should depend upon 
the evidence of truth and the necessary conclusions of rea- 
son. 2 This is why, in the Monologium, he " supposes a man 
seeking for truth by his unaided reason." 3 And, he says, "if 
it be a question of most of the truths which we believe in 
regard to God and the creation, I think that such a man, 
who does not know them or does not believe them, may still, 
if he be only of ordinary intellect, convince himself of them 
by his unaided reason." * 

Yet this book was at first entitled by Saint Anselm, 
" Meditations on the Eeason of Faith" (Exemplum medi- 
tandi de ratione Fidei). The saintly doctor does not merely 
demonstrate the existence of God and his attributes in this 
work, he goes farther. He proves the necessity of Faith, 
and he goes so far as to meditate on the mystery of the Holy 
Trinity. He claims that, this doctrine being given and 

1 Intellectus quaerens Fidern. Fides quserens Intellectum. 

z Monol., preface. 8 Ibid. 4 Ibid., chap. i. 



144 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

taught by revelation, the intelligence can find profound and 
admirable reasons for the mystery. 

Saint Anselm therefore wrote the first of his two works 
for the same purpose that Saint Thomas wrote the Summa 
PhilosopJiica ; that is, to bring natural reason to bear against 
those who do not admit the authority of the Scriptures and 
of revelation. 

And like Saint Thomas, after proving the existence of 
God, Saint Anselm too goes farther. He proves by reason 
the necessity of another light. From the very fact that 
reason on reaching a certain point fails, another light must 
needs intervene. Like Saint Thomas again, Saint Anselm 
gives his listeners a statement of that which the other light 
reveals to us, and compels reason to see nothing therein which 
is opposed to it, but, on the contrary, to discover rich stores of 
truth. This, moreover, is the traditional course of all Catholic 
schools of thought. All make a radical distinction between 
Faith and Eeason; all maintain both; all affirm that un- 
aided reason can accomplish certain things, that it has rights 
and duties : but none stops at an isolated rational doctrine ; 
all regard healthy reason, living reason, as a power which 
lives and moves in the regret and desire for another power, 
under the attraction of a higher truth : none supposes reason 
apart from the superior attraction which seeks to elevate it. 
All consider reason as correlative to faith, and always see, 
either intelligence in search of faith, or else faith seeking for 
intelligence. And we say, with full conviction, that this 
point of view is not merely theological, but it is properly 
and rigidly philosophical. To set it aside is to desert philo- 
sophy and take up sophistry. Our future studies will show 
this. 






THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 145 



II. 

Now, how does Saint Anselm prove the existence of God ? 
What is his argument ? Is that argument good or bad ? Is 
it or is it not a sound chain of reasoning ? What is its place 
in logic ? It is not for us to answer this question, lest we 
should seem too fully to agree with our own selves : we will 
rather leave it to the eminent writer who has so skilfully disr 
cussed the philosophic work of Saint Anselm, and who was 
first, so far as we know, to understand fully the nature- of 
his famous argument. "! am convinced," says M. de Ke'mit- 
sat, " that the foes of this argument will always have an easy 
victory if we persist in turning it into a syllogism. The ma- 
jor must always be such that it carries the decision of: the 
question. . . . Therefore it is the major that we should con- 
sider. It is the fundamental idea, not mere reasoning, tthat 
we should bring to bear against our foes." l This is the truth 
in regard to Saint Anselm's argument. In our opinion we 
should undoubtedly bring both the fundamental idea and 
the force of reasoning to bear against our foes ; but we must 
first recognize that this reasoning is not a syllogism. What 
then is it ? " It is an example of that boldness of induction 
upon which ontology is based." 2 Yes, this reasoning, taken 
with its true point of departure, is an induction, although, to 
our thinking, there is no boldness about it. It is simply the 
chief process of reason, that which finds the majors; that 
which in our opinion logic does not bring sufficiently to the 
front ; that which the best minds see dimly, which they even 
describe, as our author does here, but which they dare not 
frankly introduce into logic as an exact process, intimidated 

1 Saint Anselm, p. 533. We are considering only the philosophical part 
of M. de Remnsat's book. Were we considering the historic and religious 
part, we should be compelled to make certain reserves. 

2 Page 535. 

10 



146 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

as they are, despite the authority of Aristotle and all great 
philosophers, by the time-honored prejudice that reason has 
but one process, the syllogistic. 1 

Saint Ansel m's argument, taken as a whole, is, in our opin- 
ion, a little masterpiece, containing in its simple form a great 
wealth of ideas : it is the key to ontology, psychology, and 
logic. Let us try to turn this key and see what it hides. 

Let us see what occurs in the soul which attains to the 
idea of God, that chief major of all philosophy. 

In the first place, every soul always feels the attraction of 
the Sovereign Good. Moreover, it sees all things, in a certain 
degree, in the light of God. All desire for any finite Good 
whatever implies some desire for the Sovereign Good. The 
vision of any finite being whatsoever implies a certain degree 
of vision of the infinite Being. The attraction of the desir- 
able and the intelligible, the divine sense, this is always the 
beginning. 

But this sense and this vision of God which is given us, or 
at least offered us by everything desired or known, is implicit. 
The soul sees as if it did not see ; it feels as if it did not feel ; 
it has eyes and sees not, senses and feels not. Why ? Be- 
cause there is an obstacle, a double obstacle, the obstacle 
which results from the necessary limitations of the finite, 

1 Re-read from this point of view the last chapter of De Remusat's book. 
In those remarkable pages, full of good sense, penetration, elevation, ingenious 
and truthful insight, the writer seems to consider in turn, from without, all 
the phases of a leading idea of which he never gives a complete description, 
and which he develops with some hesitation. What would be the living bond, 
the precise unity, the solid axis of all this chapter ? It would be this propo- 
sition, understood as we understand and set it forth in this work: "There is 
in the human mind, besides syllogism, another process quite as exact, which 
leads up from effects to causes, and from the finite to the infinite." But what 
is there to prove clearly that this process is an exact one ? This. This pro- 
cess is applicable and applied to geometry, whose mainstay it is.. For several 
years back this important observation has been made, both in France and Ger- 
many. Little by little, those who devote themselves to philosophy will pay 
heed to it. 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 147 

and, besides, the sickly obstacle of a guilty and debased life. 
" For the sense of my soul," says Saint Anselm, " has become 
hardened, and, as it were, stupefied by the ancient languor of 
sin." l In a sickly soul there must first be a certain moral 
condition, a sacrifice of evil as an obstacle, and, moreover, 
another sacrifice in humility, which is the sight of and regret 
at the narrow confines of finite nature. There must be this 
double sacrifice before the divine sense can become explicit 
in us. But, moreover, we must have recourse to reason, to 
make up for the degradation and obscurity of that inner 
sense. Reason, or rather ratiocination, reproduces, with toil 
and complication, what the divine sense, were it perfectly 
active, would give us at once. 

Reason, therefore, makes it clear to us that the desire for a 
limited good is only the beginning of the desire for a sover- 
eign good, and that the sight of finite beings is only the 
beginning of the sight of the Being which is infinite. Why ? 
Because my reason cannot conceive of a limited good with- 
out conceiving a greater one, and a greater yet, and thus 
it speeds until it reaches a term which it attains at a single 
bound, and where it necessarily pauses ; namely, the idea of 
a being such that none greater can be conceived? of a first, 
supreme and absolute Being, upon whom all being neces- 
sarily rests, as my thought rests and pauses in him alone. 
But this simple ideal postulate once established, this sim- 
ple name of a Being such that none greater can be con- 
ceived, being merely mentally expressed, does not the mind 
clearly recognize that which it saw implicitly, and does 
not the inner sense of the soul support that light with all 
the living force which is within it ? Does not the soul 

1 Proslog., cap. xvii. 

2 Id quo majus cogitari nequit (Contra insipientem, cap. viii.). 
Invenisti eum esse quiddam summum omnium, quo nihil melius cogitari 

potest (Prosl., cap. xiv.). 



148 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

instantly believe in the actual existence of the Being such 
that none greater can be conceived ? 

Here, then, are two moments, the one which, starting 
with the desire or the sight of limited good, conceives the 
name and formula of the Being such that none greater can 
be conceived, that is to say, simply Being ; and the other 
which instantly recognizes under this single name, actual 
and real existence, as being necessarily contained therein, 
since we cannot say : Being is not. 

If we ask Saint Anselm how we arrive at this idea of the 
Sovereign Good, he replies that we arrive at it by the sight of 
limited good (de minoribus bonis ad major a conscendendo). 
We pass from the idea of a Good such that a greater one can 
be conceived (ex Us quibus majus cogitari valet, CONJICERE 
id quo majus cogitari nequit), that is to say, from the idea 
of finite good (quod initium et finem habet) we rise to the 
idea of infinite good (quod nee finem habet nee initium). 
All lower good, in so far as good, has some likeness to the 
Sovereign Good (omne minus bonum intantum est simile 
majori bono inquantum est bonum). There is, therefore, a 
point of support to aid us in arriving at the idea of the infinite 
(est igitur unde possit conjici quod majus cogitari nequeat). 
Eeason reveals this to every rational mind (cuilibet rationali 
menti). But if any Christian deny it, continues our holy 
doctor, we must remind him of the words of Saint Paul : 
" The invisible perfections of God are visible in the created 
world." 1 

This is the real basis of St. Anselm's argument, as the 
eminent writer whom we have quoted, very truly remarks. 
The argument is not an empty one, as is so constantly re- 
peated, as Leibnitz and Kant believed, Leibnitz, who labors 
to provide it with a point of support, and Kant, who strives 
to destroy the whole argument. Would that they had un- 
derstood Saint Anselm ! 

1 Contra insipientem, cap. viil 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 149 

In general, much trouble might be saved if, in studying 
the human mind, great men were only considered in their 
totality. By a comparative study of their various works, we 
should arrive at the living idea which filled their mind, at 
the object which they saw. Then, above all errors of tex*, 
distractions of rnind, and padding between patches of light, 
we should see clearly the general form of their thought, and 
recover that phase of the immutable truth which their genius 
perceived. Then we should comprehend the harmony of 
great minds and how always excluding the sophists who 
gaze into darkness, and the fools who speak without look- 
ing all minds which see, supplement and sustain, instead 
of contradicting, each the other. 

III. 

Thus, according to Saint Anselm, the sight of finite beings 
and the desire for transient goods, leads us to the idea of 
and desire for the Supreme Good and the infinite Being. 
But, once more, how and why does this idea of the Supreme 
Good and the infinite Being imply the actual and real exis- 
tence of that Being whom the mind conceives ? This must 
be fully understood, for this is the kernel of the argument. 
Here is the plain and simple answer. It is because an idea, 
an idea properly so called, is a particular view of the ob- 
ject. Modern pantheists assert that the idea is the object. 
Those who have no philosophy, on the contrary, believe that 
an idea can have no object. The truth is midway. " We 
do not perceive nothing," Malebranche constantly reiterates. 
There can be no idea without an object ; but no idea in man 
is his object. The idea is a particular view of the object. In 
God alone is the idea identical with its object. But what is 
the idea, properly so called? It is neither the sensation 
nor the image of it which remains in the memory. The idea 



150 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

has reference only to the universal, the permanent, the true in 
itself, the essential ; it is therefore a particular view of God. 
But the sight of a thing implies its existence. It is thus, 
Saint Ansel m says, I have the idea of a Being such that 
none greater can be conceived, that is, of an infinite Being ; 
therefore that infinite Being exists ; for you see him, in a 
certain sense, so soon as you think of him. For if he did 
not exist, he would not be such that none greater could be 
conceived. Far from being infinite, he would be nought. 
If you could conceive that being, such that none greater can 
be conceived, does not exist, you would simultaneously con- 
ceive the truth of two contradictory terms. 

Now, there is a singular syllogistic form, which shows this 
contradiction, and it is the argument of Saint Anselm. 

I have the idea of a being such that none greater can be 
conceived. 

But if this being did not exist, he would not be greater 
than any that can be conceived. 

Therefore it is a contradiction to affirm that the Being 
such that none greater can be conceived does not exist. 

This singular argument proves the existence of God under 
a mathematical form and with mathematical precision. 
For it starts with a notion which exists in the mind, like 
that of the triangle, and deduces from this notion that of 
necessary existence, as from that of the triangle we deduce 
the necessary properties of the triangle. And yet it does 
not end in an ideal, abstract God, but in a real God. This 
is due to the fact that the argument is at the same, time 
a priori and a posteriori. It proves that God is because he 
must be, and also because we see his existence. This argu- 
ment holds good only of God, for the very reason that God 
is the only necessary Being. Outside of God the ideal and 
the real are separate. In him real and ideal are identical. 
And this is what Aristotle seems to show us when, speaking 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 151 

of the double series of the desirable and the intelligible, 
he says that the first desirable and the first intelligible are 
identical. 1 

But let us see more explicitly by what process reason 
rises from created things to God. 

Since nothing exist's or subsists save through the presence 
of the creative and preservative Being, 2 we can understand 
how, in seeing the created world, we must, according to 
Saint Paul, see something of the Creator. More yet, all 
that we see, we see by the light of God (quidquid video, per 
illam video). 3 Lastly, the soul is a mirror in which God is 
seen. 4 

But if I see in all things both the creature and the light 
of God, if I see at once, in some measure, the absolute 
perfection of God and the relative qualities of his creatures, 
I must sepaiate, in all my thoughts and sensations, those 
two things which are so absolutely different ; I must dis- 
tinguish that which shows me God, and that which shows 
me his creatures. What can I affirm of God ? Of all that 
I can affirm of created things, what is there which befits 
the wonderful nature of God ? 5 I am amazed if among the 
words applicable to beings created out of nothing I find any 
which can be worthily applied to the creative substance 
of all. Let us see, however, what reason will tell us on 
this point. 

Here comes in the rational process to which we have 
already referred, and to which we shall have frequent occa- 
sion to refer : we must efface bounds and limits. We must 
efface, as Descartes says, all that partakes of imperfection 
and nothingness. As it is impossible to say that the su- 
preme substance is something the non-existence of which 

1 Metaph., lib. ii. cap. vii. * Monol., cap. Ixvii. 

2 Monol., cap. xiii. 5 Ibid., xiii. 
* Prosl., cap. xvi. 



152 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

would be, in any sense whatsoever, better than existence ; 
so, too, it must necessarily be all whose existence is bet- 
ter than non-existence : for it alone is the Sovereign 
Good. We must therefore suppress every attribute of the 
supreme essence which is less good than its negation, just 
as we must affirm its every attribute which is better than 
its negation. 1 Therefore we should affirm its life, wisdom, 
beauty, goodness, omnipotence, beatitude, eternity, and every 
other attribute which may be always and in every case 
better than its negation. Now, this logical choice, almost 
unintelligible in its theoretical statement, is practised spon- 
taneously by every pure and religious soul, at every instant 
of life. 

It is accordingly by considering the works of God, but 
above all by viewing itself, that the soul sees God, or at 
least his image or reflection. 2 " For," says our Doctor, " it is 
evident that we cannot see in ourselves that supreme nature, 
but can only see it through an intermediary ; it is cer- 
tain that that which can best raise us to a knowledge 
thereof is the sight of the created being most like it. ... 
So that the rational soul which, on the one hand, can alone 
among created beings rise to the search after God, is also, on 
the other hand, the very object in which it may find traces 
of that which it seeks." 

" We may therefore say of the soul, with perfect truth, 
that it is to itself a mirror wherein it sees the image of him 
whom it cannot behold face to face." 3 

Keason, adds Saint Anselm, transfers to God the attri- 
butes which it finds in the soul, but it does not transfer 
them as they are. It speaks of them in the same terms, but 
those terms have two meanings : one meaning relating to the 
creature, another meaning relating to God ; and the meaning 
relating to the creature, that petty meaning (tenuem signifi- 

1 Monol., cap. xv. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., cap. Ixvii. 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 153 

cationem), 1 is only the image, and, as it were the enigma, of 
their meaning in God. 

By summing up the foregoing, we see how complete Saint 
Anselm's idea was. Nothing is wanting : the divine sense, 
the attraction of the desirable and the intelligible ; the ob- 
stacle to that attraction ; the state of degradation of the 
divine sense in the soul ; the need for moral preparation, 
for cure, in order that the divine sense, God's image in us, 
which includes the memory of God, and which leads to the 
knowledge and love of God, may be in some measure devel- 
oped ; the effort of the thought and will to develop that 
sense and derive light and love from it ; the external point 
of departure of this task of reason, in the sight of finite 
beings, limited goods ; the flight of reason from that which 
is limited to the Being which is without limitations; the 
crossing of the gulf between the world and God ; the scien- 
tific operation which divides that which befits the Infinite 
and that which could never befit him; the fundamental 
process which finds the truth ; the syllogism which more 
explicitly reveals the truth found, we encounter all this at 
one and the same time in the thought of the holy Doctor. 



IV. 

It remains to determine what sort of knowledge Saint 
Anselm believed he should acquire by this exercise of the 
reason. He tells us, in the admirable summary which con- 
cludes his philosophical work from which we quote, 

" Hast thou found, my soul, all that thou hast sought 1 Thou 
hast sought God. Thou hast found that God is the Being such 
that none greater can be conceived : that he is life itself, light, 
wisdom, goodness, everlasting beatitude, blessed eternity ; that he 
is all this, everywhere and always. For if thou hast not found 

1 Monol., cap. Ixv. 



154 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

God, how canst thou say that he is all which thou hast understood 
with such complete certainty, such absolute truth 1 But if thou 
hast found him, why doth not thy heart feel the great God whom 
thou hast found ? Why, God, why doth my soul not feel thee, 
if my soul possesseth thee ] Can it be that it hath not found 
him whom it hath recognized as light and truth] How hath it 
understood this, if it be not by seeing thy light and thy truth 1 
Can it understand aught of thee, save through thy light and 
truth 1 If it hath seen light and truth, it hath seen thee. If it 
hath not seen thee, it hath not seen light and truth. But per- 
haps what it hath seen is indeed light and truth, although it hath 
not yet seen thee thyself. It hath seen thee in a certain fashion, 
but it hath not seen thee as thou art (vidit te aliquatenus, sed non 
vidit sicut es). 1 My God, my Creator, my Regenerator, tell my 
soul, estranged from thee though it be, what thou art, above and 
beyond what it hath seen, to the end that it may one day learn to 
see thee purely. 

" Verily, Lord, that light wherein thou dwellest is an inacces- 
sible light, and nought can penetrate it, so far as to see thee thy- 
self. I therefore do not see it, it is far beyond me ; there is no 
proportion between it and me ; and yet by means of it I see all that 
I see : even as my feeble sight sees by the light of the sun all that 
it sees, although it cannot gaze at that light in the sun itself." 

Thus this knowledge of God, acquired by reason, is a vision 
which is still problematic, a vision in a mirror. Keason 
entereth not into that inaccessible light which shows God 
directly and immediately. But if that light be inaccessible 
to the forces of nature, man may be raised to it by the favor 
of God (quce inacessibilis est viribus nostris, sed acceditur 
ad earn munembus divinis)? Saint Anselm, therefore, distin- 
guishes, as do all the Fathers, between the two modes, natural 
and supernatural, indirect and direct, in which the soul may 
see the light of God. 

It is thus that he distinguishes between knowledge which 
is purely human and knowledge which is purely divine. But 

1 Prosl., xiv. a Homil., iv. in Ev. sec. MattL 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 155 

in practice he clings particularly to that knowledge, at once 
human and divine, which is the fruit of reason working in 
the light of revelation. This is expressed by those beautiful 
words so often quoted, which are, as it were, the motto of all 
Saint Anselm's works : 

" I long to possess, in so far as possible, the intelligence of the 
truth, my God, of that truth which my heart loves and believes. 
I seek not intelligence to the end that I may believe, but I would 
believe to the end that I may have intelligence. I believe things 
which I could never comprehend if I did not first believe them. 1 . . . 
Thanks to thee, my God, that which at first I believed by thy 
grace I now see by thy light ; so that if I should cease to believe 
that thou art, my God, I could not cease to know it." 2 

So that, according to Saint Anslem, truths at first received 
through faith become so luminous that we can no longer help 
seeing them, even independently of faith. Faith, therefore, 
is the root of knowledge. " But if the true order exacts that 
Christian mysteries be received through faith, before reason 
undertakes to discuss them, so too we should be, it seems to 
me, guilty of negligence if, when we are established, we did 
not seek eagerly for the intellectual possession of that which 
we believe." 3 

And, in our opinion, this is incomparably the best way to 
arrive at philosophical discoveries. The example of Saint 
Anselm himself is a proof of this. Saint Anselm, in fact, is 
the stimulator of the great Scholastic movement, which is of 
all historic movements that which has done most to develop 
human reason. Moreover, Saint Anselm is perhaps the first 
of all the philosophers to handle methodically the idea of the 
infinite, that lever of science. If ideas required a genealogy, 
and if every clear-sighted mind did not perceive them in 
the light of God, there would be strong reasons for thinking 

1 Prosl., cap. i. 8 Cur Deus homo., lib. i. cap. ii. 

2 Ibid., cap. iv. 



156 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

that Saint Anslern's metaphysics form, in the development 
of the human mind, the first perceptible germ from which 
the invention of the infinitesimal calculus was afterwards to 
be developed. Saint Anselm's great idea, the formula which 
constantly recurs in his writings, is this : " The being such 
that none greater can be conceived." Now, this formula is 
not merely synonymous with the word infinite, it is a defini- 
tion of it. The infinite is a word often used, which will often 
be used again, in a vague or false way, t.o the point of con- 
founding it, as did the ancients, with the indefinite. Now, 
Saint Anselm's formula is the proper definition of the infinite, 
such as our reason can conceive it. The indefinite, in fact, 
is such that we can always conceive of something beyond it. 
The infinite, on the contrary, the infinite alone, is such that 
we can conceive of nothing beyond it. It is that absolute 
limit of which Leibnitz speaks, which is above and outside 
all size, which increasing size cannot attain, and which itself 
cannot increase. Now, faith, completely reasoned out, become 
evident, faith in the existence of the real and actual infi- 
nite, is the highest of all ideas, and the strongest of all scien- 
tific motives. It is, as it were, a type of truth, a general 
method of discoveries. This idea teaches us, in all things, 
to push reason to its farthest limit, to refer every contingent 
notion to its eternal exemplar, to seek out what may be the 
divine idea to which every object corresponds, as being its 
transitory and partial image ; in fine, to study his creatures 
in God, as when geometry searches in the infinite for the 
laws and secret nature of finite forms. 

The Church pays the following amazing testimony to Saint 
Anselm's philosophic work : " His writings show plainly that 
he derived from Heaven the form of doctrine by which he 
defends our faith, and which has been followed since by all 
theologians who apply the Scholastic method to sacred 

things." 1 

1 Brev. Rom., April 21, lect. vi. 



THEODICY OF SAINT ANSELM. 157 

What is this form of doctrine ? It is plainly that great 
Christian method, that complete process of thought which 
seeks Faith through Intelligence, and Intelligence through 
Faith. Saint Anselm, more exactly than the Fathers, gives 
his law to the school, and founds the admirable theologic and 
philosophic instruction in which the two principles of light, 
reason and faith, always radically distinct, remain profoundly 
united. And this is that which was derived from Heaven, 
and which earth needs, as, I hope, may be understood in 
proportion as philosophy revives. 






CHAPTER VI. 

THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 
I. 

WE may say that Saint Thomas Aquinas is to Saint Au- 
gustine what Aristotle is to Plato. We may also say 
that Saint Thomas includes Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas, as a philosopher, includes all the 
substance of his three great predecessors. But his mind is 
that of Aristotle. There are two kinds of mind, correspond- 
ing to the two processes of reasoning. Every mind employs 
both processes ; but in almost all, one of the two prevails. 
Some move particularly by means of syllogistic identity, oth- 
ers by means of dialectic transcendence. Plato and Saint 
Augustine proceed mainly by means of transcendence, Aris- 
totle and Saint Thomas by means of identity. 

It is clear that Saint Thomas Aquinas must have deduced 
and wrought chiefly by syllogisms, since the majors were given 
him. That which Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Augustine found 
in philosophy, he had not to search out. Certainly he veri- 
fied their postulates with more scrupulousness, profundity, and 
precision than any other man without exception, But still, 
his work was chiefly one of deduction, and he had reached 
that point of intellectual effort to which Plato alludes when, 
after describing one of the two processes of reasoning, that 
which, from the point of departure taken as primary cause, 
deduces its consequences by syllogisms, he passes to the other 
process, and says that reason, by its dialectic impulse, seizes 
the primary cause, not contained in the point of departure, 
then, thus possessing the idea and that which is dependent 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 159 

upon it, it descends from idea to idea towards all the conse- 
quences of the chief idea. Such is the most customary field 
of Saint Thomas's syllogisms. It is not only syllogism ap- 
plied to the postulates of the senses and to abstract notions, 
but it is chiefly syllogism applied to ideas, which is Plato's 
distinguishing feature. This has never been sufficiently 
noticed. An eminent mind, a partisan of Plato and Saint 
Augustine, who did not fear to call Saint Thomas Aquinas 
a destroyer of Philosophy, was led to this error from lack of 
grasping the above distinction. There is here, according to 
Plato, all the difference that there is between the two regions 
of the world of intelligence, and, according to Saint Augus- 
tine, all the difference that there is between heaven and earth. 
Saint Thomas Aquinas reasons in heaven, not on earth ; he 
deduces, but he deduces from heaven, not from earth. 

So much for the syllogistic side of the argument. But 
every mind necessarily makes use of both processes of 
reasoning. Aristotle practises, and, up to a certain point, 
describes both. Now, we may assert that Saint Thomas 
Aquinas uses, far more than Aristotle, the chief process of 
Philosophy. Saint Thomas, moreover, did not misunder- 
stand Saint Augustine, as Aristotle misunderstood Plato, by 
rejecting his dialectic ; he set aside nothing in his glorious 
predecessor ; and that process of rational ascent, advancing 
from the sensation to God, so well described by Saint 
Augustine, is practised, mentioned, and also described by 
Saint Thomas. 1 

There is in philosophy, in regard to the method, the same 
difference between Aristotle and Plato that there is between 
Lagrange and Leibnitz. Lagrange is blind and unjust in 
respect to Leibnitz ; he does not admit his principles ; he is 

1 Alia rationalis scientia dialedica quse ordinatur ad acquisitionem inven- 
tivam, et alia scientia demonstrativa quse est veritatis deterrainativa. 2 a , 2" , q. 
51, 2, ad 3 m . 



160 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

willing to retain merely the results, which he claims to reach 
strictly by a better method. " He desires to base the entire 
differential calculus upon simple algebraic identities," em- 
ploying for this purpose " one of those metaphysical paralo- 
gisms into which the greatest masters are liable to fall," l 
and depending, to attain this end, upon a general principle, 
which is false in certain cases. 2 Instead of this, there is, 
between Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine, only 
the difference that there is between Newton and Leibnitz, 
minus the dispute. Newton made the same discovery as 
Leibnitz, but without expressing the idea of infinite small - 
ness ; his idea is less distinct than that of Leibnitz, but it 
is the same, and he recognized it. Now, if Saint Thomas, 
upon this point, obscures Saint Augustine, it is in a yet more 
transparent manner, as we shall see. 



II. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the question of the existence of 
God and its proof, starts with a main idea from which he 
never deviates ; it is that of Saint Paul : the invisible God 
is seen in his visible effects. We see that this is the prin- 
ciple of the proving of the infinite through the finite. 

Henceforth, if any one object that the existence of God 
cannot be proved, because the proposition God is, is an iden- 
tical and self-evident proposition, Saint Thomas confesses 
that it would be so to those who might know God in him- 
self, but not to us, who only know him through his works. 

If any one object that the existence of God is a truth 
superior to reason, and that faith alone can attain to it, he 

1 Cournot, Elementary Treatise on the Theory of Functions, vol. i. p. ix, 
French edition. 

2 This was proved by M. Lefebure de Fourcy in his lectures on the infini- 
tesimal calculus. 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 161 

denies it, and declares that reason is capable of perceiving 
and proving God through his works. 

These two objections removed, Saint Thomas proceeds to 
prove the existence of God by his works. 

We quote the whole of this argument. It is the second 
question in the THEOLOGICAL SUM, which we translate lit- 
erally, word for word. The reader will thus get an idea of 
one chapter in that famous SUM, that abridgment of Theol- 
ogy written for beginners, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says. 

"QUESTION II. DOES GOD EXIST? 

" This question includes three : 1. Is the existence of God self- 
evident? 2. Is it capable of proof 1 ? 3. Does God exist? 

"ART. I. Is the existence of God self-evident? 

" Those who hold that it is, proceed thus : 

" 1. It is self-evident that God exists. For we call self-evident 
that which we know necessarily and naturally, like first principles. 
But, as John of Damascus asserts, every mind knows naturally 
that God exists. Therefore the existence of God is self-evident. 

" 2. Moreover, all that is instantly certain, so soon as we know 
the meaning of the terms, is self-evident : such is the evidence 
which characterizes, according to Aristotle, the first principles of 
proof. When you know what the whole is, and what the part is, 
you at once know, by this very knowledge, that the whole is- 
greater than the part. But so soon as we know the value of the 
word God, we at once know that God is. For that name signifies, 
* That which has nothing superior to it.' But that which is both 
real and intelligible is superior to that which is merely intelligible. 
Hence, God being intelligible, since you possess the idea, it fol- 
lows that he is also real. Therefore the existence of God is self- 
evident. [This is Saint Anselm's proof.] 

" Moreover, it is self-evident that truth is ; for if you deny that 
truth is, you grant that it is not ; but if truth is not, it is true 
that it is not. Therefore there is something true. Therefore 
truth is. Now, truth is God himself. ' I am the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life,' says the Word. Therefore it is evident that God is. 

" On the contrary, we grant that none can conceive the opposite 

11 




162 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

of that which is self-evident, as Aristotle declares in regard to the 
first principles of proof. Now, as a fact, we can think the oppo- 
site of the proposition: 'God is,' as we see in the Scriptures; 
'The fool saith in his heart, There is no God.' Therefore the 
existence of God is not self-evident. 

" I reply to all this that a truth is self-evident in two ways : 
1 . In itself absolutely, and not relatively to us. 2. In itself, and 
at the same time relatively to us. A proposition is self-evident 
when the attribute is included in the definition of the subject, as 
follows : ' Man is an animate being.' For the idea of ' animate 
being ' is included in the definition of l man.' If, therefore, every 
one knew both the attribute and the subject of a proposition, that 
proposition would be self-evident to all. This is the case with 
axioms whose terms are words familiar to all, such as ' being,' ' non- 
being,' Hhe whole/ or 'the part.' But if any one is ignorant of either 
subject or attribute, the proposition, evident in itself, is not so to 
him. Thus it happens, says Boethius, that there are truths evident 
in themselves to sages only, such as : * That mind is not subject 
to space.' I say, therefore, that the proposition, ' God is,' taken 
in itself, is evident, since the attribute and the subject are identi- 
cal. For God is his very being, as we shall show. But because 
we do not know what God is, the proposition is not for us directly 
evident, but requires to be proved by intermediaries more familiar 
to us, although in themselves less clear, I mean the sensible 
effects of God's power. 

"This established, we must reply to the first objection : that we 
have, it is true, naturally within us, a sort of confused and general 
knowledge of the existence of God, since, in fact, God is our sov- 
ereign Good; since the desire for the sovereign Good is natural, and 
what we desire naturally, we also know naturally. But this is not 
exactly knowing the existence of God ; as, when I know that some 
one is coming, I may not therefore know the man who is coming, 
although I see him coming. And, indeed, all wish for perfect hap- 
piness ; but some believe that perfect happiness lies in wealth, 
others in pleasure, and so on. 

" We reply to the second objection that those who hear the 
word God, may not understand thereby the Being than whom 
no higher can be conceived, since there are some who have 
thought that God was a body. But admitting that all under- 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 163 

stand by the word 'God ' the Being than whom no higher can be con- 
ceived, it does not follow that we admit that such a Being, although 
he be intelligible (he is this, since we think of him), therefore 
exists in the nature of things. And we cannot maintain that he 
is necessarily real, unless we grant that there is, in the nature of 
things, a being such that no greater can be conceived. And this 
is precisely what those who deny God do not grant. 

"As for the third objection, it is plain, in general, that there 
is something true ; but it is not evident, relatively to us, that 
there exists a first truth. 

"ART. II. Can we prove the Existence of God ? 

" Those who deny it, proceed thus : 

" 1. We cannot prove the existence of God, for it is an article 
of faith. Now, faith is not capable of proof, for proof yields 
knowledge ; but faith refers to things which are not seen, as the 
Apostle says (Epistle to the Hebrews) : therefore, the existence 
of God is not capable of proof. 

" 2. Moreover, the middle term of a demonstration is the 
essence of the subject. But we know of God, not what he is, but 
only what he is not, as John of Damascus says. Therefore, we 
cannot prove the existence of God. 

" 3. Moreover, if we could prove God, it would only be through 
his effects. But his effects bear no proportion to him, since he is 
infinite and his effects finite, and there is no connection between 
the finite and the infinite. A cause cannot be proved by an effect 
disproportionate to that cause. Therefore we cannot prove the 
existence of God. 

" On the contrary, we cannot ignore what the Apostle says : 
The invisible God is seen in his visible effects. This would be 
false, if we could not by his effects prove that God is, for the first 
thing to be perceived of a being is to perceive that it is. 

" I reply that there are two kinds of proof , the one called proof 
on account of which (propter quid), which starts from the cause, 
from that which is intrinsically prior ; the other called proof 
because (quia), which starts from the effect, and is prior only 
relatively to us. 1 When a certain effect is clearer to us than 

1 These are the two proofs mentioned by Plato, one of which starts from 
the principle and deduces its consequences, while the other reaches the prin- 
ciple by starting from a postulate which does not contain it. Repub., book 
vi., close. 






164 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

its cause, we proceed to the knowledge of the cause by starting 
from the effect. Now, every effect is sufficient proof that its 
individual cause exists, when we are more familiar with these 
effects than with their cause. The effect depending on the cause, 
it is certain, if the effect exists, that the cause pre-exists. Thus 
the existence of God, which to us is not self-evident, is proved by 
its effects which we know. 

" To the first objection it may be answered that the existence 
of God, and other truths concerning God which may be known to 
us through natural reason, as Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the 
Romans, are not articles of faith, but preambles of faith. Faith 
presupposes reason and natural knowledge, as grace presupposes 
nature, and perfection presupposes the perfectible. Nevertheless, 
nothing prevents the reception of that which is intrinsically capa- 
ble of proof and naturally capable of being known as an article of 
faith by those who do not understand the proof. 

"We reply to the second objection that when we prove a cause 
by its effects, we cannot start with a definition of the cause, but 
must depend upon the effect ; and this is especially true in regard 
to God ; because, to prove that a thing is, we must start with the 
signification of its name, and not with its definition, the defini- 
tion coming after the proof of existence. Now, as we shall see, 
the names of God are borrowed from his effects ; when, therefore, 
we prove God by his effects, we may take the meaning of one or 
other of his names as our middle term. 

"We reply to the third objection : From effects dispropor- 
tionate to their cause we can gain no complete knowledge of that 
cause, but every effect is sufficient to prove that its cause exists. 
Therefore the effects of God's power can prove to us that God is, 
although they cannot acquaint us with all that he is. 

" ART. III. Is there a God ? 

" Those who deny this, proceed thus : 

" It seems that there is no God. If one of two opposites 
be infinite, the other is not. But the word God means infinite 
good. Therefore, if God were, there would be no evil. Now, 
actually, there is evil. Therefore God is not. 

" 2. Moreover, that which can be explained by a few principles, 
does not depend on a greater number. Now, all that we see in 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 165 

the world may be explained by two principles, on the supposition 
that God is not. All material things may be referred to a single 
principle, nature ; all spiritual things may be referred to an- 
other principle, reason and will. It is unnecessary to suppose 
another principle, God. 

" On the other hand, it is written : ' I am that I am.' 

" I reply that the existence of God may be proved in five ways. 

" Motion is the first and most manifest. 

" It is an assured fact, and we see, that there is motion in the 
world. Now, every object in motion is moved by some other. 
Nothing can be moved, if it be not in potentiality relatively to 
the movement imparted to it ; and nothing could move save as 
being in act, motion being only the passage from potentiality to 
act. Clearly, nothing can be changed from potentiality to act, 
save by that which is in act. Just as the fire, actually burning, 
makes the wood, which was burning in potentiality, actually burn- 
ing, and thereby moves and changes it. Now, it is impossible that 
one and the same thing should be at once actual and potential in 
one and the same respect, but only in different respects. That 
which is hot in act is not hot in potentiality on the same point, 
but upon that point cold in potentiality. It is therefore impossi- 
ble that one and the same object, from one and the same point 
of view, can be at once moved and motor, that is to say, that it 
can move itself. Therefore, all that is in motion is moved by 
some other thing. Therefore this motor, if it be itself in motion, 
is in its turn moved by another, and that other by still another. 
But there must be a pause ; we cannot go on thus to infinity, 
for there would be no prime motor ; if there were no prime motor, 
there would not be any motor, since secondary motors only move 
by the prime motor, as a stick is only moved by the hand. There 
must therefore be a primary motor which no other moves. Every 
one understands that such a motor is God. 

" The second proof is that of the efficient cause. 

" We find in visible things a series of efficient causes, each of 
which produces the other ; but we find nothing, and we can find 
nothing, which is its own efficient cause, since such a cause would 
be before being, which is impossible. Now, it is not possible to 
reascend endlessly from cause to cause, for in the sum total of the 
series of causes, the beginning is the cause of the middle, the mid- 



166 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

die of the end, whatever may be the number of terms. But if 
we remove the cause, we remove the effect. Therefore if there 
were no first efficient cause there would be no middle or end to 
the series. But if there were an infinite series of efficient causes, 
there would be no first one, and therefore there would be neither 
a last effect, nor middle efficient causes, which is manifestly 
false. Therefore, there must be a first efficient cause, which all 
call God. 

" The third proof is that of the possible and the necessary. 

" We see beings who may be or not be, since there are corrup- 
tions and generations. Now, it cannot be that that which is such 
can endure forever, for that which may not be, in a certain space 
of time ceases to exist. If, therefore, all might not be, it would 
follow that there was a time when nothing was. But in that 
case there would still be nothing now, for that which is not, does 
not begin to be, save through that which is already. If, therefore, 
nothing was, nothing can ever have begun to be ; therefore there 
would be nothing, which is false. Therefore all beings are not 
merely possible, and there is a necessary being. Now, that which 
is necessary has in itself or outside itself the cause of its neces- 
sity. But there cannot be an endless series of necessary beings, 
external necessities, any more than there is an endless series of 
efficient causes. We must therefore establish the fact that there 
is something necessary itself, having no other cause for its neces- 
sity, but being the cause of all which is necessary. Now, the 
being necessary in itself is God. 

" The fourth proof is that of the degrees of perfection. 

" We find more or less, and degrees of goodness, truth, nobility, 
and all other qualities of things. But the more and less can only be 
applied to various beings variously approaching a sovereign type , 
as, for example, warmth is that which partakes more or less of 
absolute heat. There is therefore also a being who is supremely 
good, supremely true, supremely noble, and who thence is the 
Supreme Being. For, as Aristotle says, that which is supremely 
true is supremely. Now that which is supremely endowed with 
all perfection, of whatsoever kind it may be, is the cause of all 
degrees of perfection of the same kind, as fire is the cause of all 
heat. There is, therefore, a being who is the cause of the being, 
of the goodness, of the perfection of all being, and that being is God. 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 167 

" Lastly, the fifth proof is drawn from the government of the 
world. 

" We see certain intelligent beings, such as bodies, tend to an 
end, since they do, usually or always, and in the same way, that 
which leads them to a desired goal. Therefore it is not acciden- 
tally, but rather in consequence of an intention, that they attain 
that end. But having no knowledge, they have no individual 
intention, and advance to their end only as directed by an intelli- 
gence which possesses intention, as when the arrow is directed by 
the hunter. There is therefore an intelligent being who orders 
nature and guides it to its end. We call this God. 

" Let us answer the first objection in Saint Augustine's words. 
God, being supremely good, would by no means suffer the presence 
of evil in his work, if he were not so all powerful and all good 
that he can make good proceed from evil. The infinitude of 
God's goodness endures if he permits evil only in order to produce 
a greater good. 

" To the second objection we reply that as nature, which acts 
in that intention, advances towards its end only through the 
manifest intention of a superior mind, we must refer to God, as 
prime cause, all that nature effects. So, too, that which acts 
through intention should also be referred to a higher cause than 
human reason or will, because those two powers are variable and 
defectible. Now, everything variable, everything defectible, pre- 
supposes a first principle immutable and intrinsically essential, 
as we have just shown." 

III. 

Throughout this little treatise by Saint Thomas Aquinas 
upon the existence of God, in all his proofs and arguments 
there is one leading idea, namely, the invisible God can be 
proved through his works. Now, this is precisely the basis 
of true demonstration, that which rises from the sight of 
the finite to the infinite, the proof which is familiar to every 
one, to Plato, Aristotle, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, all 
thinkers, to poets and the people. 

Moreover, St. Thomas Aquinas clearly distinguishes be- 




168 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

tween the proof which moves from cause to effect, which 
deduces, which derives a consequence from a principle by 
means of syllogism, and that which reascends from the 
effect to the cause not contained in the effect, which advances 
from finite effect to infinite cause. 

He knows the objection to this point, and presents it 
vigorously (Art. II., ad. 3 m ). " We can only," he objects, 
" prove God through his works. Now, his works are wholly 
disproportionate to himself, since he is infinite and his works 
are finite, and there is no proportion between finite and in- 
finite." He replies, " That an effect, disproportionate to its 
cause, cannot reveal its entire cause, but can prove that it 
exists." 

He asserts, by the way, that those who say that there is 
no God, do not accept actual infinity ; that is to say, the being 
so great than none greater can be conceived (Art. L, ad. 2 m ). 

He refutes Saint Anselm's proof, regarded as purely syllo- 
gistic and a priori, by the same remark that there may be 
minds who deny actual infinity, and consequently do not 
accept Saint Anselm's major. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas therefore is perfectly aware that 
this argument, to be complete, should be a proof at the same 
time a priori and a posteriori, the proof of the existence of 
God being the only one capable of combining these two ex- 
tremes, because God is the only being at once ideal and real, 
whose ideality is identical with reality, which Saint Thomas 
expresses perfectly in that statement, whose importance is 
not understood : His being is his essence (suum esse est sua 
essentia) ; that is to say, his ideality and his reality are iden- 
tical. Every other being has his idea in God, and his reality 
is distinct from his idea, as the finite is from the infinite. 
God, who alone is infinite, is identical with his ideal, which 
is himself. Therefore the proof of the existence of God is 
both rational and experimental. 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 169 

To establish this proof, we must know a posteriori that 
there is a Being such that none greater can be conceived. 
How can we know this a posteriori ? By what effect, what 
experience, are we to reach it ? By the path traced out by 
Saint Anselm, as we have seen, and followed by Descartes 
when he said, " I am an imperfect, incomplete being, depend- 
ent upon others, ceaselessly tending and aspiring towards 
something higher and better than I am;" and Descartes con- 
cludes from this experimental postulate the existence of ac- 
tual infinity. And this by an intellectual and moral impulse 
which clings to the inner attraction of the sovereign Good. 
Saint Thomas shows the existence of this attraction in the 
soul (Art L, ad. l m ), when he explains the remark of John of 
Damascus which is brought to bear against him, That all 
men know God naturally. We have, he says, a confused 
knowledge of him in our desire for happiness. Now, this 
confused knowledge is the experimental basis of distinct 
knowledge; it is the chief effect upon which reason relies 
for rising to God. This desire for happiness, this attraction 
of the sovereign Good, is the sense of infinity naturally ex- 
isting in all men, if they do not destroy it by their own 
perversity. 

IV. 

For a better knowledge of Saint Thomas's theory of the 
method which rises to God, we should read his comments on 
Saint Paul's great words : " The invisible God is seen in his 
works." This divine text, as we have already seen, contains 
all the ideas of Saint Thomas upon this subject. Saint 
Thomas explains it thus. 

Saint Paul is speaking of those men " who changed the 
truth of God into a lie, and hid that which may be known 
of God, which God had showed unto them. For the in- 
visible things of him from the creation of the world are 



170 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead." 
In fact, says Saint Thomas, 

" Knowledge of the true God of itself leads us to the Good, but 
it is captive and bound by wilful love of injustice." 

" These men, therefore, possessed to a certain extent the true 
knowledge of God ; for what we may know of God (quod notum est 
Dei), that is, what man may know of him through reason, shone 
within them, was showed unto them by some inner faculty, by 
the intrinsic light of the soul." 

" Not that, in one respect, God may not be unknown to man in 
this life, according to the mysterious inscription found by Saint 
Paul, Ignoto Deo. We do not know what God is. In fact, our 
knowledge of God begins with the spectacle of the world in which 
we live, with the sight of those sentient creatures whose limita- 
tions can in no wise represent the divine essence. On the other 
hand, however, the sight of his creatures leads us to know God in 
three ways, as Dionysius shows in his book on the Divine Names. 

"First, by causality (viam causalitatis) . For all creatures 
being liable to change and imperfection, we must needs refer 
them to a perfect and unchanging principle. And this teaches 
us that God is." 

"Secondly, by excellence (viam excellentice). For when we 
refer all creatures to their beginning and cause, it is a beginning 
which they do not contain, and a cause which absolutely trans- 
cends them, and thence we know not only that God is, but that 
he is above all." 

" Thirdly, by negation (viam negationis). For this cause tran- 
scends all its effects ; we must deny of it in a certain sense that 
which we see in created beings ; and it is thus that we say of 
God that he is infinite and immutable, his creatures being finite 
and variable." 

" God therefore, as Saint Paul says, made himself manifest." 

" Now, God makes himself manifest in two ways : first, by 
shedding inward light upon our soul, and then by showing us the 
outward signs of his wisdom and power, created beings. God 
thus made himself manifest to all men, both by this inward light 
and by his creatures, in whom we may read, as in a book, the 
knowledge of God." 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 171 

" But, more exactly, what do we learn of God from these postu- 
lates 1 The invisible perfections of God, says Saint Paul, that is, 
his essence (per guce intelligitur Dei essentia) ; but not in his unity. 
We find traces and images of him in his creatures, which show us 
partially and by their multiplicity that which is one in God, and 
through this our intelligence considers the essence of God under 
the forms of a goodness, a wisdom, a power, which are not such in 
God." 

" Secondly, we know his creative power, that he is the begin- 
ning of all things." 

" Thirdly, we know his divinity ; we know that he is the end to 
which all beings tend." 

" The first knowledge, that of the essence, is acquired by nega- 
tion ; the second, by causality ; the third, by excellence." 

" What is the nature of this knowledge 1 The Apostle tells us : 
we see these things by intellect (intellectu conspiciuntur) . In 
fact, we know God by the intellect, not by the senses or imagina- 
tion, which have not that power of transcendence which rises 
above material things: and God is a spirit." 

Such is the commentary on Saint Paul's words. It shows 
us clearly the method of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Created 
beings are the starting-point ; the active force is reason, the 
light which God sheds within the soul, the process to 
which he gives three names (causalitatis, excellentice, or 
eminentice, negationis), and which leads us to perceive that 
created beings, being subject to change and imperfection, 
do not exist of themselves ; that is to say that God is, 
and that God, existing of himself, is neither subject to 
change or imperfection, this process consists in perceiving 
perfection (excellentia) in imperfection, in denying (via ne- 
gationis) the limits of the finite qualities which we see. 

Saint Thomas very aptly observes that to do this we must 
rise by means of intellect (transcendere) above that which 
imagination and the senses can give us. This is precisely 
the process of transcendence to which we have so often re- 
ferred, and which is defined by the words : The way of excel- 



172 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

lence and of negation (mam excellentice et negationis), a 
process which he calls elsewhere the way of eminence and 
of elimination (via eminentice, via remotionis), and of which 
he says: "These negations do not mean that he lacks that 
which we deny of him, but that he possesses it in excess 
(hcec non removentur ab eo propter ejus defectum, sed quia 
super excedit)" 

But Saint Thomas perfects this doctrine and touches its 
depths, in his comments upon the rest of the same chapter 
of Saint Paul's Epistle. 

Saint Paul shows how the knowledge of God, which is 
given us, is not accepted ; it is in us, but we smother it. 

It is iniquity that smothers the knowledge of God within 
us. Saint Paul has already declared this, it is his first re- 
mark: "They held the truth in unrighteousness. . . . They 
are without excuse ; they knew God, and they glorified him 
not. . . . But they became vain in their imaginations, and 
their foolish heart was darkened. . . . Professing themselves 
to be wise, they became fools. . . . They changed the truth 
of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature 
and not the Creator." 

" Glory" says Saint Thomas, " is nothing but the light it- 
self of the divine nature." Men smother it within them, and 
become vain in their imaginations. The human spirit es- 
capes vanity only by resting upon God ; so soon as it ceases 
to rely on God it is vain : the mind is empty and the heart 
darkened; the light of the spirit no longer illumines the heart; 
that heart becomes more and more foolish ; it has lost that 
light of divine wisdom which alone can give us true knowl- 
edge of God. The eye loses sight of objects when the rays of 
the sun cease to give this to it ; so too he who turns away 
from God, finding his support in himself, and not in God, loses 
the light of the mind. What does the man who does not as- 
cribe to God the glory of God, that is, the divine light which 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 173 

falls upon him, do with that glory ? He ascribes it to created 
beings ; he sees its cause in nature or in himself. He at- 
tributes to the image that which only exists in the original, 
reversing everything, and making that which is secondary first. 
. . . The same reversal is immediately wrought in that soul 
which puts God below the world, from opinion and affection : 
its reason, which is divine, also places itself below the appe- 
tites, and falls into that reprobate mind (sensum reprobum) 
of which the Apostle speaks, which is the very opposite of 
nature, as is proved by the strange and unnatural vices to 
which it falls a prey. And all this because, having true 
knowledge of God through the light of reason, together with 
the sight of created beings, man does not accept it nor ex- 
plain it, preferring to remain in vice. 

Such is the commentary of Saint Thomas upon this grand 
text of Saint Paul. 

All this is clearly the very foundation of the truth in re- 
gard to the question : Why not prove God explicitly ? The 
elements of the knowledge of God are, everywhere and al- 
ways, given to us, within us and outside us : within us, God 
himself enlightens us ; outside us, he also enlightens us, by 
giving us a book which is his work, the world. Why do not 
men read this book ? Their vices prevent them ; this is the 
real obstacle. Saint Thomas, as well as Saint Paul, analyzes 
this mystery of iniquity ; he says : It is a reversal (converte- 
runt primum in ultimum). Theoretically, man believes 
himself to be the source of that light which God never ceases 
to shed upon him, or else he believes the material world to 
be its source, and that reason comes from the senses. This 
is a reversal. Practically, he subjects his reason to the sen- 
sual impulses which nature excites within him. Another 
reversal. Sense is reversed. Man overturns and reverses 
everything, in practice and speculatively. We shall see, in 
the course of this work, whether the doctrine of scientific 



174 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, 

atheism, as it is formulated to-day, be not the doctrine of re- 
versal exactly and methodically applied to philosophy. This 
curious intellectual and moral phenomenon should throw a 
flood of light upon a multitude of moral, logical, and psycho- 
logical questions. 

Thus, in order to rise to God, we must first conquer the 
obstacle, as all true philosophers say. Then only are we 
able to take the spectacle of the world as our point of de- 
parture from which to rise to God ; then reason displays its 
powers, and the process which ascends to God is carried out. 
Then only do we wake from that guilty folly to which Saint 
Paul refers, and of which Saint Thomas says elsewhere : 
"Such folly is sinful" (stultitia estpeccatum). 

As for the process as a whole, we find in the writings of 
Saint Thomas a multitude of passages which show us how 
he understood it ; notably these statements : " God is all 
things infinitely (Deus est omnia eminenter) ; God is in act 
that which in things is only potential (Deus est actualitas 
omnium rerum) ; All of being, goodness, and perfection to 
be found in any creature whatsoever, exists pre-eminently in 
God (Quidquid entitatis, bonitatis, perfectionis est in qua- 
cumque creatura, totum est eminentius in Deo) ; " and through 
his creatures we know God, by applying to the good quali- 
ties which we see, a process of elimination which deprives 
them of their limitations (ad cognoscendum Deum oportet 
via remotionis.) 

V. 

Everything has not been said regarding the theory of 
the knowledge of God as Saint Thomas Aquinas states it. 
Hitherto we have shown him as speaking after Aristotle's 
method and somewhat after Plato's fashion. He will now 
speak wholly like Plato and like Saint Augustine. Saint 
Thomas not only knew the first of those two regions of the 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 175 

world of intelligibility distinguished by those sublime minds ; 
as a Christian and a theologian, he must have known the 
other. He did know it ; and we must own that he dis- 
tinguishes both regions, and describes them with a precision 
and exactness equalled by no other theologian or philosopher 
whatever. Therefore the name of the Angel of the School, 
applied to Saint Thomas, will endure. 

The reader will recall what Saint Augustine says of 
reason attaining to its end and becoming power (ratio 
perveniens ad finem suum . . . virtus vocatur). This final 
end of reason is the sight of God. Transcending the vision 
of those absolute truths, which are but the eternal and cer- 
tain shadow of the divine essence and the living truth, reason 
finds, as Plato and Augustine say, truth itself, or the sun it- 
self, which makes these other truths apparent. Saint Thomas 
knows and discriminates so fully between these two degrees 
of intelligibility that he usually makes separate questions 
of them ; and the reader who does not effect a reconciliation, 
sometimes takes Saint Thomas for a rationalist, that is, for 
a mind arrested at natural philosophy, which does not go to 
the end, nor even so far as Plato when he speaks of the term 
of the dialectic (re'Xo? rr/? Tropeias}. Now, Saint Thomas goes 
farther than Plato upon this point, as far as Saint Augus- 
tine ; and he is more exact on this point than even Saint 
Augustine, who is far more exact than Plato. 

" There are," distinctly says Saint Thomas, " two degrees 
of divine intelligibility (duplici igitur veritate divinorum 
intelliyibilium existente). There are, relatively to us, two 
modes of divine truth (duplex veritatis modus . . . duplicem 
veritatem divinorurri)" 

This is fundamental : THERE ARE TWO DEGREES OF DIVINE 

INTELLIGIBILITY. 

" Reason," he says elsewhere, " has a double term and two 
degrees of perfection : a first degree, to which natural light 



176 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

leads us, and a second degree, to which the supernatural light 
is our guide." The reader must not judge this latter state- 
ment without fully comprehending it and knowing the idea 
to which it corresponds in the thought of the theologians 
who employ it. 

Thus there are clearly two degrees of divine intelligibility 
to which our intelligence may attain. But wherein does the 
distinction lie ? 

The distinction, according to Saint Thomas, is that which 
Saint Paul makes : " For now we see through a glass darkly 
(per speculum) ; but then face to face (tune autem facie ad 
faciem)" 

Saint Thomas comments on this text in the same strain 
as all commentators who come after him. " Now," says an 
esteemed author, " we see God, not in himself immediately, 
but indirectly, by reflected rays ; . . . then we shall see him 
directly, perfectly, in his divine essence. ... I shall see God 
himself, as I am myself known of God." This is the thought 
of Saint Thomas, whose admirable commentary upon Saint 
Paul's grand expression we must quote entire. He says, 

" What is this sight through a glass, and what is this sight 
face to face?" 

44 We may see," he replies, " either light itself (ipsa lux), which 
strikes the eye itself (quce presens est oculo), or else its reflex 
image, as when we perceive the white color of an object." 

" Now, God sees himself in the first way. His essence is di- 
rectly present to his intelligence, since his intelligence is his 
essence (in Deo idem est sua essentia et suus intellectus, et ideo 
sua essentia est prcesens suo intellect fit)." 

" As for us, we know God in this life, by seeing his invisible 
beauty in his creatures. The whole creation is like a mirror to 
us. The order, beauty, and grandeur which God imparts to his 
works teach us to know his wisdom, truth, and divine infinity. 
This is the knowledge which has been called seeing through 
a glass." 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 177 

And now what is it to see him face to face ? 

" When we look into a glass, we do not see the thing itself, 
but its image; and when we look face to face, we see the thing 
itself just as it is. When, therefore, the Apostle tells us that in 
heaven we shall see God face to face, he means that we shall 
see the essence of God." 

"Even as God knows my essence, I too shall know God in 
his essence." 

" Those who say that we shall never see God, save by simili- 
tude, say what is false and impossible. ... To say that God 
can only be seen by the image and reflection of his light, is 
to say that we cannot see the essence of God. But the soul: 
itself is an image of God ; the sight of the soul, wherein migra- 
tory man sees God, would therefore be no more enigmatic and 
specular than that elear, direct vision promised to us in glory.. 
. . . And then the natural desire of mankind to reach the First 
Cause and behold his very self would be idle and vain." 

Here certainly is light, full noonday, thrown upon what we 
must call the central point of Philosophy. Eecall Plato's 
distinction between the sight of divine phantasms, shadows 
of that which is, and the sight through the intellect of the 
Good itself such as it is. Kecall the same distinction as 
made by Saint Augustine, almost in the same terms. 

Saint Thomas quotes and comments on these passages 
from Saint Augustine's works. In this specular sight, he 
says, in this first degree of intelligibility, it is indeed eternal 
truths that we see (rationes incorporates et sempiternas) ; 
these truths are higher than the human soul, since they are 
immutable (quoe nisi supra mentem essent, incommutaliles 
profecto non essent) : Saint Augustine rightly speaks thus. 
But these truths, as we see them, are not God himself. " We 
see them in God, since they are eternal." Yes ; but only in 
the sense that we see them in his light, that is, by the 
natural light of reason, which is a participation in the divine 
light, Saint Augustine, to whom some very inopportunely 

12 



178 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

take exception here, expresses himself perfectly when he says : 
" These intelligible spectacles only become visible to us as illu- 
mined by their sun, which is God. Just as in order to see an 
object with our eyes, it is not necessary to see the substance 
and body of the sun, so, too, to see the intelligible of this 
degree, it is not necessary to see the essence of God." 

In this lower degree of the intelligible world, without 
seeing the essence of God, we still know God through our 
natural reason. When Saint Augustine says : " The eye of 
the soul is diseased, and it cannot gaze unblenchingly at this 
excellent light, except it be purified by the justice of faith;' 
he refers to the sight of the essence of God. But when 
Saint Paul says, "That which may be known of God is 
manifest in them," he refers to that knowledge of God which 
is given to us by reason, without faith. Assuredly that 
reason rests upon sensible postulates which cannot show us 
the divine essence, since these visible effects are in no wise 
adequate to their cause, which is God. But yet, as these 
effects would not exist unless their cause existed, they prove 
to us that God is, and they teach us that he must be, as the 
cause of all, superior to all. We know that he is nothing of 
all that which he has created, but that all which we deny of 
him must be denied, not because he lacks that which we 
deny, but because he possesses it in excess. 

Such is, according to Saint Thomas, the first of the two 
degrees of the world of intelligibility. The second is proba- 
bly distinct therefrom. 

Saint Thomas speaks of this second degree particularly in 
that question in the Sum : How may the human mind know 
God ? (l a , q. xii.) We give the headings of the articles into 
which he divides this question : 

1. Can the created intellect see God in his essence ? Yes. 

2. Does the created intellect which sees God's essence, 
see it by any image or likeness ? No. 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 179 

3. Can God's essence be seen by the material eye ? No. 

4. Can created intellect see God's essence by the unaided 
powers of its own nature (per sua naturalia) ? No. 

5. Does created intellect require the intermediation of 
any created light in order to see God's essence? No. 

6. Can God's essence be seen more or less perfectly ? 
Yes. 

7. Is seeing God's essence the same thing as understand- 
ing God ? No. 

8. Does the soul which beholds God's essence see every- 
thing in that essence ? No. 

9. Does the soul see what it sees in God's essence, under 
any figure ? No. 

10. Does he who sees God's essence, see in God, at a 
single glance, all that he sees therein ? Yes. 

11. Is it possible, in this life, to see God's essence ? No, 
save it be by a miracle. 

12. Can we, in this life, know God by our natural reason? 
Yes. 

13. Can we have, in this life, a knowledge of God deeper 
than that which our natural reason can give ? Yes. 

Here we have this great distinction settled with a clear- 
ness and vigor which the ancients could not apply to it. 
There is the same difference between these two degrees of 
divine intelligibility that there is between the heaven and 
the earth. 

But then and this seems to result from what has just 
been established in regard to the question cited it would 
follow that of the two degrees of divine intelligibility, one 
would be only for this world and this life, and the other 
for heaven and the life to come. Thus Plato and Aristotle 
must have been under an entire illusion when they spoke 
of the highest degree of divine intelligibility as capable of 
being grasped in this life, although with great difficulty and 
dimness. 



180 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Let us distinguish. Yes, according to Saint Thomas, as 
well as according to Saint Paul and all Christian theology, 
the clear vision of God's essence, save in certain rare and 
miraculous cases, is reserved for the life to come, for the 
heavenly home. 

But it must be understood that in this higher of the two 
degrees of divine intelligibility the one which gives us, 
not shadows, images, phantasms, and likenesses of God, but 
his essence there are also two degrees : one to which the 
soul will only attain after its struggle, its labor, and its con- 
summation, when it has reached its goal and gained the 
peace and rest of the heavenly home (in patria videntium) ; 
and the lower, which the soul attains during its progress 
(in ma videntium). And these two degrees of the same 
light may be distinguished by these terras : the light of grace 
and the light of glory (lumen gratice, lumen glorice) ; or else, 
the light of faith and the light of vision (lumen fidei et 
lumen visionis), faith, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, 
being but the beginning, still dim and unskilled, of the 
direct vision of God and his essence. "Faith, as to the 
assurance which it gives, is knowledge, and may be called 
science and vision. Faith is an assured beginning of the 
beatific vision of God. Faith belongs to the same order as 
the vision of the heavenly country." 

Saint Thomas invariably declares faith to be the beginning 
of the intrinsic knowledge of God, as distinct from that 
reflex and abstract knowledge given by the natural light 
of reason. 

While the natural light of reason is created truth (veritas 
creata), that is to say, the divine light reflected by a created 
object, or, if you prefer, an image of unrevealed truth 
reflected in us (similitudo veritatis increatce in nobis resul- 
tantis), the object of faith, on the contrary, is uncreated 
truth, original truth (oljectum fidei, veritas prima, veritas 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 181 

increata). " Faith, when it is virtue, raising human intelli- 
gence above its proper light, unites it to truth itself as it 
exists in the divine intelligence, truth which is the un- 
created itself (ipsius rei increatce objectum)" Undoubtedly, 
we must carefully distinguish between faith and supreme 
vision ; but they both have the same object The object of 
supreme vision is original truth, in so far as luminous ; the 
object of faith is original truth in so far as obscure. It is 
neither God's creatures, men or angels, whose testimony 
leads us to believe, nor the images under which we believe, 
that are the object of faith, it is God himself, with the 
knowledge of whom the assent of faith brings us into unity. 
Original truth is indeed, in itself and first of all, the object 
of faith (veritas prima est primo et per se objectum fidei). 

We quote a fine passage from Saint Thomas Aquinas upon 
this subject ; it includes everything : 

" Light, during our earthly pilgrimage, is given to us in two 
ways : sometimes in a lesser degree, and as it were in faint rays. 
This is the light of our native intelligence, which is a participation 
in the eternal light, although remote, defective, comparable to 
darkness mingled with a little light ; which gives man that reason, 
the shadow of intelligence itself, whose feeble radiance gives birth 
to a diversity of opinions to be destroyed by the direct radiation 
of light. Sometimes light is given in a higher degree, in more 
abundant clearness, and which brings us as it were face to face with 
the sun. But there our sight is dazzled, because it beholds that 
which is beyond us, beyond human understanding; and this is 
the light of faith." 

Such, therefore, is the beginning of the second degree of 
divine intelligibility ; it is faith, the beginning of the knowl- 
edge which we shall have in heaven (fides qucedam prceli- 
batio brevis quam in futuro habebimus cognitionis). 

We have here a fine distinction between the two degrees 
of divine intelligibility, that one may be obtained by the 
search of reason, and that the other transcends all efforts of 



182 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

human reason. It is this second degree which is the ob- 
ject of faith, and " although reason by faith cannot wholly 
grasp it, yet a high degree of perfection is given it, if it can 
grasp it in any way, through faith." Profane philosophy 
does not enter here, and it is of this that Saint Paul speaks 
when he says : " God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit what 
none of the princes of this world knew." " The princes of 
this world," says Saint Thomas, "are the philosophers." 
Philosophers suspect and know by conjecture and reasoning 
the existence of this region, but they do not enter it ; and, as 
Saint Thomas says, " Certain of them see the light, but are 
not in the light." And he lays stress on Isaiah's vigorous 
words: "Seeing many things, thou observest not." (Qui 
multa vides, nonne custodies ?) (Is. xlii. 20.) 

Thus, in brief, the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas is 
this : God is light ; man may see the light which is God, 
directly or indirectly. These are the two degrees of divine 
intelligibility. Naturally he sees only the second degree ; 
that is to say, the reflection or image of uncreated truth in 
the mirror of created beings, or the mirror of the soul. This 
is what is called the natural light of reason. But there is a 
higher degree of light for which the human mind has some 
natural desire. The human mind would fain see the First 
Cause itself in itself. This sight is the sight of the essence 
of God, the direct sight of the light which is God. This is 
why this degree is called that of supernatural light, God 
being above and beyond all nature. But there are two de- 
grees of lucidity, in the supernatural degree itself ; there is 
the confused, implicit, dazzled, and unpractised vision : this 
is faith, the light of grace ; and there is clear vision, supreme 
vision in the light of glory. The one is offered to man dur- 
ing his journey through this life (in via videntium) ; and 
the other awaits just men and saints at the end of their jour- 
ney in the heavenly home (in p'atria videntium). 



THEODICY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS. 183 

UNlT 
VI. 



Do not understand, I beg, all these terms, faith, grace, 
glory, natural light, and supernatural light, as being more 
than names applied to the intelligible objects described; 
let us for a moment forget their theological meaning. We 
say that at any rate we have here an exact description and a 
complete guide to that world of intelligibility into which 
Plato looked. Saint Thomas is as superior to Plato in exact 
knowledge of the world of intelligibility as Kepler and New- 
ton are to Pythagoras in astronomy. Pythagoras indeed 
thought that the stars must form a heart, of which the sun, 
the source of light, was lord and centre ; so he said. But 
Kepler and Newton said: Yes, these worlds revolve about 
the sun in curves whose geometric nature is as follows ; they 
are attracted towards that centre by a force whose law is as 
follows. Here, moreover, you have the speed and weight of 
each of these worlds. 

Such is the distance between the conjecture and instinct of 
genius, on the one hand, and on the other revealed and ex- 
act knowledge. I rank Plato very high, but I consider 
Saint Thomas Aquinas as even more above Plato than our 
knowledge of the physical world is above that of the Greeks. 
Plato worked almost alone, amidst the gloom of the antique 
world ; Saint Thomas worked beneath the sun of Christianity, 
sustained by the labor, the experience, and the wisdom of 
innumerable witnesses of the light, just as our modern sci- 
ence, the fruit of a common industry, is enlightened by all 
which is shown it by thousands of eyes, increased by all that 
hundreds of thousands of hands can bring to it. 

But Saint Thomas Aquinas is not understood ! There are 
in him heights, depths, and precisions which contemporary 
intellect is far from suspecting, and which may perhaps be 



184 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

understood several generations hence, if philosophy is re- 
vived, if wisdom reappears among us. Aristotle says some- 
where that probably the arts and philosophy have been 
discovered and lost several times over ; that this is the cause 
of those fragments of antique wisdom brought down to us by 
tradition, I believe this also, but in a different sense. 
Philosophy was discovered by Plato and Aristotle, by Saint 
Augustine, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, by the seventeenth 
century, but was lost in the intervals. To-day, among us, 
it is evidently lost. We read ancient monuments without 
understanding them ; we do not know the language in which 
they are written ; we do not penetrate their meaning. 

The centuries lose wisdom or find it again, just as a man 
may lose or find the truth, at different periods of his life, 
according as his soul is dissolved in sensual pleasure and 
fallen into the night of the senses, or steeped in virtue and 
lifted towards the intelligible. When a man renounces 
wisdom, he does not therefore forget the discourse which 
divine wisdom has held with his soul, the words which it 
has graven on his memory : but those words have lost their 
aureole, their life, their charm, their meaning ; they are 
withered remnants, which thought, whose abode is elsewhere, 
rolls along in its course because they are there ; but she no 
longer uses them or believes in them. Such is the state of 
contemporary thought in regard to the noble philosophy of 
the past and the wisdom of the great ages ; it possesses all 
their monuments, but has not their intelligence, and still less 
their faith. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
PART FIRST. 

FROM Saint Thomas Aquinas we pass to the seventeenth 
century. In the interval, the human mind has ap- 
parently undergone a great change: on all sides Aristotle 
is rejected ; the Scholastic system and Saint Thomas 
Aquinas himself are held in less esteem, and this among 
the wisest and most learned. Clever intellects exclude and 
despise the philosophy of the past. Men desire to see for 
themselves ; they ardently search after truth, rather than 
the mere tradition of truth. They have resolved to find 
true knowledge; the mind takes a fresh flight, and, by a 
generous effort, sheds upon this noble age the greatest flood 
of human light ever known. We shall now see whether 
this light be other than the light of the past. 

The mind of man will doubtless extend itself to fresh 
objects, and shine with more lustre in certain directions ; 
but its laws will remain unchanged. Its former acquisitions 
will become deeper ; it will complete and verify what it had 
already found in past ages, and, according to an admirable 
expression of the Holy Scripture, their knowledge shall le 
renewed ; but we shall see that the light has not changed, 
and that the renewed knowledge is, in fact, ever old and 
ever new. 



The seventeenth century should be treated as a single 
man, or better, as a choir of voices. Never were the har- 



186 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

mony and unanimity of great minds more apparent, despite 
certain easily corrected dissonances. True, these noble 
geniuses count as nothing Spinoza, that questionable spirit, 
and, with the exception of Leibnitz, who was far too amiable, 
have nothing to say to Locke, an opaque intellect. The 
seventeenth century did not take the absurd in earnest, but 
set sophists on one side, and practised, in philosophy, the 
great literary precept : Hoc amet, hoc spernat, " Know how 
to love, and how to scorn," an important characteristic of 
truly philosophic minds or ages, which, because they know 
the true, also know the false, and because they are lumi- 
nous, drive away darkness. Night alone is favorable to the 
equality of systems and to a common respect for error and 
truth. The seventeenth century, on the contrary, is exclu- 
sive in the light, and firm in the unity of truth. From 
this centre, it radiates light and strength and the wealth of 
its harmonies. Would that I might reproduce something of 
this in these pages ! My readers would then feel that if the 
mind of man is destined to take another step forward, the 
next great century, still more united in its view of the truth, 
still more fully divided from the false, will witness the birth 
of certainties of which we have lost sight, of unanimities for 
which we have ceased to hope, and of some beginning of 
that luminous peace which is to unite sciences and minds 
in God. 

All the philosophers of the great century sought God be- 
fore anything else, knowing that he is the first truth and 
the universal light. Certainly it was not to demonstrate the 
existence of God that these men, full of practical sense as 
they were, meditated their demonstrations. But they 
knew that there would be found the centre of all phi- 
losophy, the foundation of metaphysics, the vital question 
of method, the science of the soul, the point of contact be- 
tween logic and morals, the basis of physics, and the essen- 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 187 

tial meaning, so long sought for, of geometry. Kepler, the 
oldest of these pleiades, worked in science, discovered the 
heavens, only that he might " frame a tabernacle for his God 
therefrom." The others had the same purpose : Descartes, 
Pascal, Malebranche, Fenelon and Bossuet, Leibnitz, Clarke 
and Newton, Thomassin and Petau, the latter twain too little 
known, because they wrote in Latin : all seek God in every 
direction of thought ; and all these voices are truly united in 
one and the same tone, one and the same song ; their subject 
is Being and infinite perfection; and everything is com- 
bined in this wondrous symphony, from Theology, with its 
dogmatic decisions, to mathematics themselves, by the mar- 
vellous invention of Leibnitz. 

Let us cast a comprehensive glance at the proof of the 
existence of God given by all these great minds. We will 
listen to each of them in turn. 

The mystics shall begin, I mean the true mystics, those 
whom Bossuet calls, " Safe mystics." 1 

All mysticism is contained in this motto: "Not only hear, 
but feel and suffer, the divine." 2 It is of this degree of 
inner contemplation that Saint Bonaventura says : " Not 
only to see divine spectacles, but to taste divine savors." 3 
The mystic school is a school of divine experiments. 

I do not hesitate to affirm that the distaste for abstract 
and isolated reasoning, and the need of experiment, which 
characterizes the modern scientific movement, was first made 
manifest among the mystics, and probably comes from them. 
The " Imitation of Christ " popularized this feeling ; then 
the ardent piety of the Jesuits and the saintly spirit of the 
close of the seventeenth century rooted it in men's souls. 
Saint Philip Neri, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Theresa, 

1 Mystici in tuto. 

2 Non solum discens, sed et patiens divina. 

8 Non solum ad tuenda spectacula, sed etiam ad gustanda divina solatia. 



188 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Saint Francis de Sales, the pious school of Condren and Olier, 
and a multitude of ascetic writers of that period, spread 
abroad a feeling of contempt for abstract reasoning and " dry 
light," as Bossuet expresses it, and they urged men's souls to 
the direct perception of reality, to knowledge of life by per- 
sonal experience. They apply this process of realism to the 
knowledge of God and the soul ; others later on were to 
apply it to the knowledge of nature. 

Upon this basis of practical piety, the effort of genuine 
thinkers stands out in bold relief : after the saints come the 
sages. The latter develop the profound truth grasped by 
the mystics ; they descend into their own souls, and seek 
there for traces of God. Descartes, meditating on the soul, 
marks the way by these words : " I am an imperfect, in- 
complete thing, dependent upon another, ever tending and 
aspiring towards something better and higher than I am ; 
but the great things to which I aspire are actually and in- 
finitely possessed by him on whom I depend." l 

Here we have the finite and the infinite face to face. The 
finite seen in ourselves as such by the direct experience of 
life, and the infinite grasped in the finite by a contrast of ex- 
perience, and by the impulse of reason, which, without devi- 
ation or turn or discourse, conceives and declares the infinite. 

Here we have the whole dialectic method. The entire, chief 
process of reasoning is contained here : the soul, a bounded 
thing, regarded as finite and imperfect, furnishes a starting- 
point : desire for the perfection which we do not possess, but 
would fain have, is the motive spring; hence results the 
flight of reason towards its object, the absolute and ac- 
tual infinite. 

But Descartes and others bring out features which their 
predecessors of the Middle Age merely indicated. This is 
the advance in the proof of the existence of God. For 

1 Third Meditation, close. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 189 

instance, they explain two things which Saint Thomas 
stated, but possibly without bringing them into sufficient 
juxtaposition, and which include the whole process : 

1. God is all things eminently (that is, infinitely). All 
the being, goodness, perfection, found in any creature what- 
soever, all this is in God in an infinite degree. 1 

2. To know God, we must employ a process of elimination. 2 
They all say with Leibnitz : " The perfections of God are 

those of our souls, but raised to infinity." They all say 
with Fdnelon : " Destroy limitations, and you will dwell in 
the universality of Being." Take the finite, destroy its 
limitations, and you have that which corresponds to it in the 
infinite. And they determine this process to such a point 
that they apply it to geometry, and renew the aspect of 
mathematical science by the application. We shall now 
endeavor to make this clear by details. 

DESCARTES. 

I. 

I will not say, 

11 At last Descartes comes, and, the first in France," 

founds philosophy by restoring freedom to human reason. 
I do not know who was the founder of philosophy, and 
human reason had been free for many centuries : Jesus 
Christ set it free, with the entire man. 

But without exaggerating the influence of Descartes, it is 
very evident that he imparted a great and fertile movement 
to his century. 

I must confess that I never greatly admired his Discourse 
on Method. I see, moreover, as all admit, and as the Index 

1 1. Deus est omnia eminenter. Quidquid entitatis, bonitatis, perfections 
est in quacumque creatura, totum es eminentius in Deo. 

2 2. Ad coguitionem Dei oportet uti via remotionis. 



190 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

has decided, that Descartes is open to correction. But it is 
impossible to regard him as a sceptic and a wicked spirit. 
Such a spirit is to be excluded, not corrected. Clearly, the 
methodic doubt of Descartes is merely a vigorous defiance 
of scepticism. " I am called a sceptic," he says somewhere, 
" because I have fought sceptics. I am called an atheist, 
because I have proved the existence of God." Descartes 
claimed to sound the active powers of reason, and to reveal 
its resources ; this certainly is one of the most useful tasks 
which could be undertaken for the benefit of mankind. 
Descartes understands what Fe*nelon says later : " There is 
far greater lack of reason than of religion in this world." 
He knew as we may also conclude from a passage in the 
works of Saint Thomas Aquinas that attacks upon reason 
are still more dangerous than attacks upon faith, because 
they ruin both at the same time, that is to say, the sacred 
edifice, and the ground on which it stands. He labored to 
prepare the way for that future prophesied by Leibnitz : 
"A time will come when men will devote themselves to 
reason far more than hitherto." He showed in this work a 
matchless energy, an' invincible determination, and a faith 
which made him victorious. 

To begin with, he proceeded at once to the heart of 
philosophy, to the basis and origin of reasoning, which is 
God ; and there he stood fast almost throughout his career. 
Pascal was unjust when he reproached him with a wish to do 
without God in his physical researches. Descartes was even 
then pursuing in matter the laws, that is, the traces, of God. 
He abstracted, but he did not deny. 

Descartes took up again, stated precisely, and simplified 
the proof of the existence of God, that living proof which 
is, as we have already said, the act and fundamental process 
of the rational life. If the way in which Aristotle set 
forth his proofs made them dry and inapplicable in practice, 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 191 

it is not so with the work of Descartes. Many minds have 
been powerfully impressed and uplifted by the mighty im- 
pulse of his vigorous reasoning ; and we might quote women, 
even in this century, whom the reading of Descartes has led 
to the most ardent piety, by the direct certainty and the 
species of intellectual perception of God derived therefrom 
by those who understand what they read. 

II. 

The true Cartesian proof of the existence of God rests 
upon what we may call natural prayer. Natural prayer is 
the impulse of the soul, which feels that it is limited and 
imperfect, towards the infinite which it conceives and de- 
sires. This prayer, or this impulse of the soul, which rises 
to God through desire and thought, and which proves his 
existence by thinking of and desiring him, is contained in 
these words, which we quote in full : " Not only do I know 
that I am an imperfect, incomplete thing, dependent on 
another, ever tending and aspiring towards something greater 
and better than I am, but I also know that he on whom I 
depend possesses in himself all those great things towards 
which I aspire, the ideas of which I find within myself," 
and that he possesses them " not indefinitely and potentially 
alone, but actually and infinitely, and thus that he is God." 1 

These profound words contain the conditions of the true 
proof in the most precise and explicit form : (1) the point of 
support, which is the finite being whom we see and whom 
we are ; (2) the moral condition, or the motive spring, 
namely, the moral life, which consists, speaking exactly, 
in constantly tending and aspiring towards something better 
and greater ; that is, in yielding to the charm of the su- 
preme Good ; (3) the process, that is, the advance of reason 
from disdain of the imperfect to the idea of infinite perfection. 

1 Descartes, Third Meditation, near close. 



192 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

" There are but two ways," says Descartes, " in which we 
can prove that there is a God, namely, one by his works, 
and the other by his essence." l That is to say, there is 
the experimental proof and the rational proof, the proof 
a posteriori, and the proof a priori. We have already ex- 
plained that the two proofs combined form the unassailable 
proof. 

Now, in the words of Descartes already quoted, the two 
proofs are in one. It should be so, because God is the 
Being in whom ideality and reality are identical. 

Descartes, it is true, afterwards elaborates them separately, 
and sometimes, perhaps, seems to lose sight of their unity ; 
nevertheless, he does not break the connecting link, they 
are always united in his thought. 

He states the first one thus : " The existence of God is 
demonstrated by his works from the mere fact that his idea 
is innate in us." 2 

He states the second thus : " We may prove that there is 
a God from the mere fact that the necessity of being or 
existence is included in our notion of him." 3 

Let us try to set forth the double rational and experimen- 
tal proof contained in this double proof, to show the pro- 
found unity of the two, and their absolute certainty when 
we do not isolate them. 



III. 

We are not now demonstrating ; we are showing, we are 
setting forth, we are striving to place these truths before 
the eye of the mind, the mind which will see and com- 
prehend them. 

I think, I am. My thought is imperfect, because it hesi- 

1 Reply to the First Objection, i. 395. 

2 Medit., i. 293. Ibid., iii. 72. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 193 

tates, doubts, and mistakes ; my being is imperfect, limited, 
finite; I see it and I feel it. 

What is it to see and feel that my being is finite ? It is 
to see, in seeing the finite, the infinity by contrast. 

My whole being tends and aspires towards something 
greater and better than myself ; and not only does it now 
aspire thus, but we see plainly that it will always thus 
aspire, that is, it always aspires towards something greater 
than any given greatness. But something greater than any 
given or assignable greatness is infinity. Thus, my life is a 
tendency towards the infinite. 

It is evident that this is true of every upright mind and 
healthy will. A perverse will, a corrupt mind, far from tend- 
ing towards the infinite, tends towards lesser being, or noth- 
ingness : all true philosophers have noted this. There i a 
moral as well as an intellectual condition for this conception 
of the mind and this tendency of life towards infinity. 

But this condition presupposed, it being no other than a 
healthy state of the moral and intellectual being, that moral 
and intellectual being, finite and imperfect as it is, coneeives, 
from the very perception of its own imperfection, perfection ; 
and it is drawn towards the perfect being by the very centre 
of its own being and the root of its life. Moreover, this 
is only what Aristotle says when he speaks of the first 
motionless motor which moves everything by its attraction, 
the attraction of desirability and of intelligibility. 

The attraction of the sovereign Good is felt by all men : 
every philosopher, every theologian, every man who uses his 
reason, sees this and says it. It is a truth at once rational 
and experimental ; it is a moral law, as real and scientific as 
that of the universal attraction of bodies. 

God is at the same time desirable and intelligible, two 
qualities which are but one in him : as desirable and as 
intelligible, he attracts all souls; and this actual effect of 

13 



194 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

God within us is called either the attraction of the sovereign 
Good, the natural and universal desire for happiness, or the 
natural knowledge of God, or else the innate idea of God, or 
yet again, the divine sense. 

The last expression is the simplest, most complete and 
exact ; it includes and amends the others : the others are 
somewhat exclusive, and refer either to the intelligible alone, 
or to the desirable alone ; this, from its complex meaning, is 
relative to both aspects. Like sensation itself, which is, as 
has been remarked, both representative and affective, the 
divine sense implies two elements, an element of knowl- 
edge and an element of love ; the divine sense is both intel- 
lectual and moral, its cause being both intelligible and 
desirable, as we are both intelligence and will. Moreover, 
the divine sense implies these elements, but does not explain 
them ; it gives a vague attraction and a confused idea, as 
Saint Thomas Aquinas observes ; it is, as Aristotle says, a 
power close at hand, ready to burst forth, but only bursting 
forth when the obstacle is removed. God, by his presence, 
makes us this gift, which is innate, continual, universal. 
The gift has been made : it is put into our hands ; it 
remains for us to accept it with our reason and our free- 
dom ; it remains for us to render explicit within us, by 
reason, the confused idea of God, and by freedom, the vague 
attraction towards God. The corrupt spirit, the perverted 
intellect, changes the confused idea into a thousand mon- 
strous errors, into general idolatry. A perverted will 
changes the vague attraction into corrupting passions. We 
have our choice ; there is the act, both rational and free, 
which we must call the fundamental act of both intellectual 
and moral life. From the finite being which he sees, which 
he is, which exists up to a certain point, but not beyond it, 
man may infer Being or nothing. Stimulated by the divine 
sense, which urges him towards the Absolute from the one 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 195 

side or the other, man decides the direction in which he will 
be urged, and chooses his own conclusion. One man con- 
cludes in infinite Being, another in non-being; one asserts 
the existence of Good, the other, of evil ; one says God, the 
other, nothing. This is what actually, historically, takes 
place in the bottom of every man's heart. 

In this inner history of the soul's relation to God we 
should always read and study the proof of the existence of 
God. There we find it at once and inseparably moral and 
intellectual, rational and experimental, and conceive of God 
felt through his effects in the living reality, and seen by the 
essential idea which he puts within us. 

It is therefore clear how the idea of infinite, necessary 
Being is actually developed in the mind as soon as the will 
yields to the moral attraction which implies it, and how this 
idea comes, by virtue of that infinite, necessary Being which 
shows itself as intelligible, after having made itself felt as 
desirable. 

-And here, as Descartes says, is the point "chiefly to be 
considered, and upon which all the force and all the light, 
or the intelligence, of this argument depend." 1 In fact, 
God himself makes himself visible in his idea. In a certain 
way it is God that we see. Henceforth we are sure that he 
exists, since we see him. Herein lies the depth and solidity 
of the proof. 

Descartes and all the great school of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, in harmony, moreover, with the philosophy of the past, 
maintain that, in the idea of God, it is God who shows him- 
self, and that in a certain sense we see him. " The idea is 
the thing itself conceived" 2 Descartes constantly says, 
an excellent phrase, which implies this axiom, accepted by 
Descartes, " All that is ideal is real, all that is real is ideal : " 
a profound truth, but one which should be thoroughly un- 

i Vol. i. p. 375. 2 Ibid., p. 370. 



196 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

derstood, for we may carry it to an absurd conclusion, as 
the Germans do at the present day. 

IV. 

Descartes and the seventeenth century, we say, concede 
that in the idea of God it is, in a fashion, God whom we 
see. In what fashion ? This is the only question. Is God 
seen directly in himself? Or is God seen indirectly in the 
soul ? 

Descartes grasps the truth in regard to this question. 
Malebranche and others go too far. What is the idea of 
God, according to Descartes ? Is it God ? Is it ourselves ? 
It is both God and ourselves, seen at the same time ; or 
rather, it is my soul, seen in the light of God: I see my soul 
directly ; I see it in the light of God, without which every- 
thing is invisible, and I see God, who is that light, but by 
a reflected ray. 

Descartes maintains that the idea is the thing itself con- 
ceived} which he explains thus: 

" The idea of God is God himself, existing in the understanding, 
not, it is true, formally, as he is intrinsically, but objectively, 
that is, in the way that objects usually exist in the understanding. 
This existence in the understanding is not a mere nothing. 2 It is 
not something feigned by the mind, not, as the saying is, an im- 
aginary being ; it is something real which is distinctly conceived, 
and which, certainly, requires some cause other than the under- 
standing for its conception. Thus we must regard the objective 
reality which exists in the idea of God ; its cause can only be an 
actually existing God. Yes, for the very reason that we have 
within us the idea of God, in which all conceivable perfection is 
contained, we may very clearly infer thence that this idea depends 
upon and proceeds from some cause which actually contains in it- 
self all this perfection ; namely, an actually existing God." * 

1 Vol. i. p. 370. - Ibid., p. 371. 8 Ibid., pp. 373, 374. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 197 

All this is true, unless it be that Descartes does not ex- 
plain with sufficient distinctness that, in the idea of God, it 
is the light itself of God which we see wholly in the soul, 
or the soul which we see in the light of God. He comes 
closer to it in what follows : " This idea is imprinted in a 
similar fashion upon every human mind, . . . and therefore 
we suppose that it belongs to the very nature of our mind, 
and certainly not improperly ; but we forget one thing, which 
we ought chiefly to consider, and on which all the force and 
all the light or intelligence of this argument depends, which 
is that this faculty of having in one's self the idea of God 
could not le in us if our mind were only a finite thing, 
as it actually is, and if it had not, as the cause of its being, 
a cause which was God," l that is to say, infinite. This is of 
the utmost importance. Thus we see something finite and 
something infinite ; any perception which we have of the 
infinite is an effect of which God is the cause, or rather it is 
God himself, thought. 2 It is God indirectly perceived, God 
seen, not in himself, but in the mirror of the mind. Des- 
cartes explains his meaning still better : " And, in fact, it is 
not strange that God, in creating me, should impress me with 
this idea, to be as it were the Maker's mark stamped upon 
his work ; and neither is it necessary that this mark should 
be anything different from that work itself ; for the mere 
reason that God created me it is very credible that he should 
in some measure make me after his own image and likeness, 
in which the idea of God is contained, and that I should 
know him ly the same faculty ly which I know myself" 

Descartes therefore plainly understands it thus : the idea 
of God is God and myself, or rather it is my soul seen in 
the light of God ; this idea implies a finite element, which is 
my soul, and an infinite element, which is the light of God, 
whom I see, and in which I at the same time see my soul by 
the same faculty. 

1 Vol. L p. 375. 2 Medit. III. (close). 



198 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Hence it is evident that "this idea is not something 
feigned or invented, dependent only on my thought, but 
that it is the image of a true and immutable nature." 1 

And let no one say that Descartes here falls into a famil- 
iar trap, and treats the idea of God degradingly, by calling it 
an image. Descartes is as far from this as possible. Hear 
what he says further : " Assuredly I do not think that this 
idea is of the same nature as the images of material things 
painted in phantasy ; but, on the contrary, I believe that it 
can only be conceived by the understanding, and that, indeed, 
it is only that very thing which we perceive through its means 
(by means of the understanding), either when it conceives, or 
when it judges, or when it reasons" 2 This is both exact and 
true. The very light of thought I mean the light which 
illumines my thought, and without which I cannot think 
is God himself. Malebranche would be satisfied with this, 
and we should not concede him an iota too much. 

Descartes develops this still further elsewhere : " The 
rule which I have established namely, that the things 
which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all 
true is only secure because God exists, and is a perfect 
being, and all which is in us comes from him ; whence it 
follows that our ideas or notions being real things, and pro- 
ceeding from God, in all wherein they are clear and distinct 
they can be no other than true." 

Thus, according to Descartes, it is in our soul that we see 
God : this vision of the soul, the image of God, actually en- 
lightened by God, without which it would not be visible, is 
the idea of God. Our idea of God, therefore, includes the 
direct vision of our soul enlightened by God, and the indirect 
vision of God who enlightens the soul. The idea of the per- 
fect Being is placed in us by the perfect Being. The idea of 
the perfect Being is an effect which transcends the power of 

1 Vol. i. p. 316. * ibid., p. 425. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 199 

an imperfect being : I can conceive it, but only under the 
influence of the perfect Being. I can see in a glass the sun 
which is not actually there, but I could not see it if the sun 
did not exist, and did not cast its image into the glass. The 
idea of God is God seen in the mirror of the soul, a com- 
parison so true, so profound, so exact, that none who do not 
understand it can know what an idea is. 



V. 

Having said this, let us again take up Descartes' two 
proofs, his proof a priori and his proof a posteriori. 

1. I have the idea of a perfect Being, therefore he exists; 
for this idea implies his existence. 

2. I have the idea of a perfect Being, therefore he exists ; 
for he only could have placed this idea in me. 

In themselves, and properly, these two proofs are true, 
and each sustains itself separately. In fact, relatively to 
us, they form but one, and are mutually sustained. 

The first, which is Saint Anselrn's proof, to which Descartes 
with justice clings so closely, is true in itself ; for it is true 
that God is the necessary Being. If he is the necessary Being, 
that means that it is of his essence actually to exist; his 
being and his essence are identical, as Saint Thomas Aquinas 
shows ; in him real and ideal are identical ; his idea is his 
being; whoever knows what God is, sees that he is by es- 
sence ; whoever knows what every being, other than God, is, 
sees that those beings do not exist by essence, that is to say, 
are not necessary. The true idea of any being whatsoever, 
except God, implies the possibility of that being; the true 
idea of God implies, rigorously speaking, his necessary exist- 
ence, his actual reality, as the idea of a triangle implies the 
equality of the three angles to two right angles. 

From the very idea of perfection and infinity, as Descartes 



200 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

constantly repeats, it follows that this perfect and infinite 
Being exists : the idea of infinite Being implies that of neces- 
sary existence. For what is the meaning of the words, " The 
perfect and infinite Being?" They signify absolute Being, 
that is, Being itself. For to speak of Being simply, is to 
speak of Absolute Being, as Saint Augustine truly remarks. 
Now, would it not be the most violent and absurd of all con- 
tradictory propositions to say: Being is not? Therefore, 
Being is, that is, the absolute, perfect, and infinite Being, 
that is, God, is. 

Descartes confesses, and we must admit, that at first sight 
this argument, that the mere idea of the infinite and perfect 
Being implies the idea of necessary existence, seems a soph- 
ism to those who do not fathom it. The reason, *he says, is 
this : " We are so accustomed in all other things to distin- 
guish existence from essence that we do not consider how it 
appertains to the essence of God rather than to that of other 
things. . . . But we must make a distinction between possible 
and necessary existence, and observe that possible existence 
is included in the notion or idea of all things of which we 
conceive clearly or distinctly, but that necessary existence is 
included in the idea of God alone." a 

Therefore the existence of God is at once an actual truth, 
a reality; and a rational truth, a necessary idea a priori, 
which is not true of any other existence. Not only does God 
exist, but he must exist, which is not true of any other being. 
It is as much a necessity, says Descartes, as the fact that the 
three angles of a triangle equal two right angles. It is just 
as necessary, and even clearer, says Descartes, and he says 
truly ; for the proposition, Being is, is clearer than that the 
three angles of a triangle equal two right angles. It is plain 
that Being is ; and Being is God. 

All this, therefore, is intrinsically true ; but is all this a 
1 Vol. i. p. 390. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 201 

proof relatively to us, to every mind, to man as he comes 
into this world ? As Saint Thomas Aquinas remarks, if we 
do not already know what God is, if we have not his true 
idea, how can we know that his essence implies his existence, 
as the idea of a triangle implies the equality of the three 
angles to two right angles ? We must first have his idea, 
true, real, and living, that is to say, enacted and caused in us 
by him. He gives us that divine sense which implies the 
true idea, divine sense, natural rational faith, or innate 
idea, as so many gifted minds express it; confused knowl- 
edge, as Saint Thomas says ; vague thought, as Leibnitz says : 
this is the germ given by God. But how is this germ set 
free ? Ordinarily, it is set free by the word of another : an- 
other mind, by its word, is the father of mine, and sets in 
action that divine sense which is the first potentiality of 
the idea of God. This proximate potentiality passes into 
act under the influence of speech, if my mind responds to it ; 
that is to say, if my reason, by the power which is in it, rises 
to the meaning of the word. And reason has this power 
naturally, because it is the light which illumines every man 
coming into the world, and because, starting from God, it 
"seeks God. But the moral obstacle must not arrest it in this 
spontaneous energy of its impulse towards the infinite. If, 
therefore, the spirit, under the inner influence of the divine 
sense and the outer influence of the word, responds, by an 
act of moral and intellectual consent, to the light which God 
shows it, and which is God, the mind then has the true idea 
of God, in which it can clearly see, by a throng of reasons, 
that existence is implied. 

Thus it is that Descartes' two proofs are actually insep- 
arable to us, and constitute but one. The proof of the exist- 
ence of God, derived from the idea alone, is clear and proved 
to us only when we have the idea of God. Now, the ob- 
taining of this idea of God supposes an experimental pos- 



202 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

tulate, and also a moral condition, which is the starting- 
point of the second proof. At the same time, the moral 
and experimental condition does not suffice. It is essential 
that the divine sense, or, if you prefer, the real attraction of 
the desirable and intelligible, felt by the soul, should come into 
the light ; our reason must take possession of it. Seeing this 
faint light of the implicit idea of God, that is to say, see- 
ing our soul, wherein God shines, reason must distinguish 
the light from the glass, God from the soul, the infinite from 
the finite, and the perfect from the imperfect; to the end 
that it may assert the infinite at the same time that it sees 
the finite. 

Theoretically, the dim idea of infinity passes into light by 
the following degrees. We feel at first, simultaneously and 
obscurely, the finite and the infinite, God and the soul, life 
itself being only the harmony of the two ; soon we see clearly 
the finite, but not as such, not as imperfect ; then the dim 
sense of the infinite, or perfection, leads us to see the finite, 
or our soul, as imperfect; the sight of the finite as imper- 
fect leads us to a clear conception, by contrast, of infinity 
and perfection. And this knowledge of perfection, or 
of God, bears in itself the double assurance of the exist- 
ence of its object, first because it is experimental, then 
because it is recognized, when once it is possessed, as being 
necessarily rational, so that the opposite statement implies 
contradiction. 

Thus, to sum all this up once more, I see God in my soul 
as in a glass ; this sight is experimental, like sensation ; this 
sublime sense of God, to produce an actual emotion, requires 
a moral condition ; this emotion, in order to pass into light, 
supposes an act of reason. This act of reason divides the 
infinite from the finite, and the light, which is God, from the 
mirror wherein it appears, which is ourself. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 203 



VI. 

It remains for us to clear up a single point. Did Des- 
cartes regard this act of reason as a simple, spontaneous act, 
a sort of direct intuition of which nothing more can be said, 
or is it performed by some process which may be described ? 
According to Descartes, there is a process, although this pro- 
cess is by no means complicated. This process is Plato's 
dialectic ; it is that of which Saint Thomas says : " To know 
God, we must employ a process of elimination." 

Just as the will, under the charm of desirability, through 
regret at its own imperfection, desires perfection, so too the 
intellect, in the light of intelligibility, at the sight of the 
finite, by the negation of limitations, raises itself to the idea 
of the infinite. The assertion of all that is positive in the 
finite, with the negation of its limitation, an assertion which 
raises this negation to the infinite, such is the process. 

Descartes aptly remarks that this process gives, at one 
stroke, not only the existence of God, but moreover the 
knowledge, in so far as we can obtain it, of what God is. 1 
" We also acquire, through proving in this way the existence 
of God, the advantage that we are made acquainted, by the 
selfsame means, with what he is, in so far as the weakness of 
our nature permits ; for in reflecting upon the idea which 
we actually have of God, we see that he is eternal, omnis- 
cient, omnipotent, the source of goodness and truth, the 
creator of all things, and in fact that he possesses in him- 
self all perfection, or the absence of all imperfection." 2 

And this by the following process : " According to the 
trains of reasoning just made, to know the nature of God, 
in so far as my own is capable of so doing, I had but to con- 
sider, concerning all the things any idea of which I found in 
1 Principles, p. 235. 2 j^d., p . 239. 



204 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

me, whether it was or was not a perfection to possess them ; 
and I was assured that none of them, possessed of any imper- 
fection, was to be found in him, but that all the others 
were." l He asserts all perfection and denies all imperfec- 
tion. He denies of God all those negative ideas "which pro- 
ceed from nothingness ; that is to say, which are in me only 
because something is lacking in my nature, and it is not 
wholly perfect." 2 I deny those negative ideas, which are 
only in me "inasmuch as I have defects." 3 I affirm the 
real and positive idea of God, or of a supremely perfect 
Being. I deny the negative idea of nothingness, that is, 
"of that which is infinitely removed from any kind of 
perfection." 4 I efface all limitations in whatever I find in 
me that is positive. I see my knowledge grow ; but it 
will always be limited; I must destroy my limitations in 
order to conceive of God's actual infinity. For " although 
my knowledge may increase more and more, nevertheless 
I know that it can never be actually infinite, since it will 
never reach so high a degree of perfection as to be incapable 
of greater increase. But I conceive of God as actually in- 
finite to so high a degree that nothing can be added to the 
sovereign perfection which he possesses." 5 

We see, therefore, what there is in us that is positive, and 
we raise it to the infinite. " Thus, the idea which we have, 
for instance, of the divine understanding does not seem to 
me to differ from that which we have of our own under- 
standing, save only as the idea of infinite number differs 
from the idea of binary or ternary number; and it is the 
same with all the attributes of God, some vestiges of which 
we recognize in ourselves. 6 . . . And we know that none of the 
things which we conceive to be in God and in ourselves, 
and which we consider separately in him as if they were 

1 Vol. i. p. 151. 3 Ibid. 6 Ibid., p. 283. 

2 Ibid., p. 278. * Ibid., p. 295. 6 Ibid., p. 422. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 205 

distinct, because of the weakness of our understanding and 
because we experience them so in ourselves, belong to God 
and to us in the way which is called in the schools uni- 
vocal" 1 That is, we must in some sort transpose them 
from ourselves to God in conceiving their " immensity, sim- 
plicity, and absolute unity." 2 " Unity and immensity we 
conceive without ourselves possessing them, but God him- 
self impresses them upon us, like the workman's mark 
stamped upon his work." 3 Upon which Descartes very aptly 
remarks that this process gives us a certain precise knowl- 
edge of what God is. Doubtless, according to Descartes, I 
do not comprehend the infinite, but I apprehend it. " For 
to apprehend clearly and distinctly that a thing is such that 
it is unlimited at every point, is clearly to apprehend that it 
is infinite." 4 Now, thoroughly distinguishing between the 
indefinite and the infinite, Descartes adds this most impor- 
tant assertion : " And there is nothing which I can properly 
call infinite, save that in which I can find no limits at any 
point ; in which sense God alone is infinite." 5 

Such is the description of the speculative process : in see- 
ing the finite, to efface all limitations, and thus affirm to 
infinity everything positive found there. 

As for the practical and total process, Descartes himself 
describes it thus: "I will now close my eyes, stop my ears, 
I will efface from my very thoughts all images of material 
things, or at least because this can hardly be done I will 
esteem them false and empty, and thus communing with 
myself alone, I will try to become better acquainted and 
more intimate with myself." 

"I am a thing that thinks, that doubts, that affirms, that 
denies, that understands some few things, that is ignorant of 
many, that loves, that hates, that desires, that desires not." 6 

1 Vol. i. p. 412. 8 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 

2 Ibid. * Ibid., 385. 6 Ibid., p. 263. 



206 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

This is the beginning of the Third Meditation, wherein we 
recognize exactly the process of the ascetics and con tern pla- 
tors, who say, "Forsake the exterior; leave the world of 
sense, enter into yourselves ; know yourselves ; know your 
miseries; and from the knowledge of your miseries rise 
higher: go to God." This is the course of prayer. 

Thus Descartes saw plainly how the human mind ascends 
to God. 

VII. 

We perceive but one break in all this. Descartes says 
nothing of the great distinction between the two regions 
of the world of intelligibility, nor of what Pascal, Plato, and 
Saint Augustine call the last step of reason. This is because 
Descartes had resolved, as he often says, riot to touch on 
theology, but to keep to pure philosophy. 

We all know the active faith and ardent piety of Descartes ; 
and if Christina of Sweden, his pupil, could quit a throne to 
return to the bosom of the Church, that rare strength of 
conviction was in part derived from the lessons of the 
philosopher and Christian whom she admired. Therefore 
Descartes knew whither reason must lead us. But he had 
his views. This energetic friend of truth wished to conse- 
crate his life to reinforcing all truth, by essaying to educate 
reason taken in itself. 

Like his methodic doubt, this rigorous separation of the 
purely rational order was on his part a manoauvre : in that 
great contest which the spirit of truth wages with the ever- 
recurring shadows of doubt, ignorance, and unbelief, he 
tried to oppose reason alone to the enemy. At this period, 
men were beginning to attack faith in the name of reason, 
and reason in the name of faith. Protestants and Jansenists 
had almost denied reason and the order of natural knowl- 
edge. Others free thinkers, as they were called denied 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 207 

faith. The structure of Scholasticism, that admirable com- 
bination of divine and human light, was attacked on both 
sides. Aristotle was pursued into the bosom of the theol- 
ogy with which he had meddled, and even into reason 
itself, reason and faith being frequently wounded, under 
pretext of reaching Aristotle. 

Very well ! said Descartes, destroy this temple, and it 
will be rebuilt ; overthrow everything, and it shall be lifted 
again. When everything is dashed to the ground, will it be 
less true that we think and that we exist ? Now, with that 
one truth, all others can be restored. The entire order of 
rational truths will be re-established, reason will be restored, 
and reason, again raised up, will soon recover the grand 
foundations of faith, and accept the whole order of divine 
truths. 

So Descartes thought ; but it is not generally known that 
at the same date many theologians, on their side, were effect- 
ing the same movement. " Make a clean separation of the 
two orders," was the cry ; " give up that lawless use of scholas- 
tic theology which attempts to explain our mysteries to the 
faithful. Our mysteries are inexplicable." We find a very 
curious indication in this respect in Re*gis. 

" This disorder," he says in his concordance of faith and of 
reason, " this disorder, which proceeded rather from theo- 
logians than from Theology, had prevailed in past centuries, 
but it has at last been remedied in ours, where we see 
theology more purified, and treated with greater dignity 
than formerly. . . . Less heed is now paid to argument 
than to authority. . . . The historic bases of Christianity 
are proved, like truths of fact, and thereby those who have 
admitted them are brought even to belief in the Trinity and 
all the other mysteries. . . . Philosophic proofs are no 
longer mingled with them. ... It is to this point," adds 
Re*gis, " that the University of Paris [the Sorbonne] has 



208 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

reduced the chief part of its Theology. It is only to be 
desired that it may keep on as it has begun ; for which 
there is reason to hope." l 

Without dwelling upon the astonishing fact of an opinion 
which sees disorder, lawless use, and a lack of dignity in that 
Theology of past ages which gave us Saint Thomas Aquinas, 
the Angel of the School and the prince of Catholic theolo- 
gians, let us confine ourselves to showing that the Cartesian 
philosophy did on its side what the Sor bonne did on its own. 
There was an effort to divide, more than had been done in 
the past, the two orders of reason and faith, which, each 
in its sphere, have in themselves their proper authority. 
Philosophers and theologians agreed to free themselves mu- 
tually, to maintain apart the two authorities and their 
proper consistency : well knowing that the maintenance of 
either of the two was enough to save the whole. Both, 
besides, were equally anxious for the triumph of theology 
and of philosophy : the Sorbonrie was as jealous of the 
triumph of reason as Descartes, in his substantial piety, was 
jealous of the triumph of faith. But men were very glad 
to oppose unaided reason to the mystic evil scepticism of 
Jansenism and Protestantism ; and to the free thinking of 
paltry rationalists, faith alone with its divine authority. 

And yet, what has happened ? These tactics, which were 
well meant, but which, as Kegis aptly remarks, were novel, 
being neither those of the Fathers rior of the Middle 
Age, produced very different results from what were ex- 
pected. Bossuet foresaw the mischief when he wrote to a 
disciple of Descartes and Malebranche : " I see a great 
contest making ready against the Church, under the name of 
Cartesian philosophy. I see more than one heresy springing 
from its bosom and its principles, which are, in my opinion, 
misunderstood." More yet, Bossuet points out the mischief 

1 Regis, Concordance of Faith and Reason, book iii. ch. xxviii. p. 370. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 209 

as already accomplished : " From those same principles, mis- 
understood as they are, another formidable evil is visibly 
gaining ground ; for on the pretext that we should only 
accept what we understand clearly, which, reduced to cer- 
tain bounds, is very true, every man takes the liberty to 
say, I understand this, and I do not understand that ; and 
upon this basis alone, he approves or rejects whatever he 
pleases, without thinking that besides our clear and dis- 
tinct ideas, there are others, confused and general, which nev- 
ertheless contain truths so essential that by denying them 
we overthrow everything. Upon this pretext a freedom of 
opinion is introduced which leads men to advance boldly 
anything that they may think, without regard to tradition." l 

Thus, upon the plea of Cartesianism, those who pique 
themselves on their philosophy ensconce themselves in their 
reason and their clear ideas, and from that shelter judge of 
everything, authority, tradition, and faith. 

But, on the other hand, the theologians forsaking proofs 
and philosophical reasons, and "seizing the highest thing," 
as Kegis says, theology became more and more obscure, par- 
ticularly in the eyes of those who wished nothing but light. 
Saint Augustine said, " I exhort your faith to the love of in- 
telligence." The Middle Age took for its motto, "Faith 
seeking intelligence." Saint Thomas Aquinas said, " The- 
ology may receive from philosophy a grander manifestation 
of her dogmas." A means of manifestation was therefore 
lost, that is to say, a means of introducing into the mind 
of men the revealed divine light. 

So that these tactics produced but one result. They had, 
in a certain sense, divided one from the other, faith and 
reason, and had permitted the enemy to cut off the right and 
left wings of truth, as has ingeniously been said. 2 The 

1 To a Disciple of Malebranche. Letter to Father Lami. 

2 Father Lacordaire. 

14 




210 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

army of truth, thus reduced, must lose a battle. The 
consequences have been before us for a century. The eigh- 
teenth century, seeing faith and reason march separately, 
flung itself between them, isolated them, and ruined faith in 
the name of reason. This done, the enemy turned against 
reason itself; and, as we know, philosophy was at once 
ruined by the rebound, since it is plain that what is called 
the philosophy of the eighteenth century is merely the ab- 
sence and ignorance of all philosophy. And what shall we 
say of the final consequences of this great rout ; namely, the 
formal and radical negation of reason in all its postulates, 
the premeditated and avowed destruction of logic in its ne- 
cessary laws, a mystery of intellectual death and decomposi- 
tion which has been preparing for fifty years, and which now 
bursts upon us ! For, as we see, reason is attacked in all its 
laws, as well as in all its postulates, as directly and as radi- 
cally as faith was attacked ; the very foundations of logic 
are denied, and the leader of this vast sophistic movement 
exclaims : " The time has come to transform logic ; " and it is 
indeed transformed, by destroying the antagonism of affirma- 
tion and negation, whose identity is proclaimed, which 
destroys logic itself, with every trace of theoretic and prac- 
tical reason. 

May this history be a lesson to our age ! Let us return to 
the tactics of the Fathers and the Middle Age ; or rather, let 
us have no tactics. Let us confine ourselves to not parting 
that which God hath joined together. Certainly human 
light, reason, is as different from divine light, faith, as man is 
inferior to God, the creature lower than the Creator. The 
advance of philosophy and theology in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and the decisions of the Church, have made a greater 
distinction than ever between the two orders of the natural 
and supernatural ; and nothing is more necessary, and at the 
same time more fruitful, than an exact and precise knowl- 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 211 

edge of this radical distinction : but this is precisely where 
all Christianity rests upon the mystery of the two natures of 
Christ, infinitely distinct, but closely united in the unity of 
his person. So, too, as has been said, the true knowledge 
of Christians should rest upon the union and mutual com- 
munication of the two lights, otherwise radically distinct. 
This union constitutes the great knowledge, " at once human 
and divine," which all the Fathers and all the great theolo- 
gians seek ; which Saint Gregory Nazianzen calls the highest 
philosophy; and without which, says Origen in regard to 
Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, who approves of it, true 
piety can never possess all its power. 

PASCAL. 
I. 

In this admirable concert of illustrious voices which 
teach us to seek God through reason, Pascal develops and 
sustains an idea which is one of the most beautiful and most 
essential to the truth of the whole. Not that by his melan- 
choly and his moans he does not sometimes make a discord 
with the others, but it is an indispensable discord, which 
must be understood and brought into the general harmony. 

Pascal insists upon the practical side of the rational search 
for God ; he shows us particularly its real condition, which, 
if it be fulfilled, suffices ; which, if it be wanting, renders 
the rest impossible, and actually arrests all passage of the 
mind towards God. 

Pascal knows that the reasoning which rises to God re- 
quires, as its motive-spring, a moral condition, and that the 
point of support of the proof is not only the experimental 
knowledge of our existence, but also that of our imperfec- 
tion. He knows that the knowledge of our imperfection im- 
plies some sense of perfection, and that this divine sense of 



212 GUIDE TO TEE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

the perfect and the infinite is developed by moral rectitude, 
and obliterated by depravity of will, as is proved by these 
words of Scripture : " The fool saith in his heart, There is no 
God." The fool, that is, the man deprived of the divine 
sense by his folly, lacks any real starting-point for the proof 
of God. He cannot understand that proof if it be offered to 
him ; his mind neither receives it nor produces it. The side 
of his reason which is capable of attaining the actual infi- 
nite, does not work, for lack of a motive-spring ; the other 
side is active and entire, but the former is paralyzed by an 
obstacle, that obstacle which Aristotle saw in the sensu- 
ality, intoxication, and blind torpor in which we live. 

We see how important it was to develop vigorously this 
part of the truth, amid those great minds who raised the 
glory of human reason to such a height, by their doctrine 
and their works. 

Pascal, moreover, seems to counterbalance Descartes, who 
devoted himself wholly to natural philosophy, and not to 
Theology ; who sets faith apart, and makes so strong a dis- 
tinction between " the two orders of divine intelligibility " as 
to isolate them. Pascal incessantly urges the mind towards 
the higher of the two orders, scorning the lesser. He rushes 
with all his might towards the term of the process, as Plato 
would say, and forgets the intermediaries. He knows that 
the last step of reason is a surrender to faith, and he hastens 
thither. He goes at once to the last depths, to the centre of 
the soul, which he calls the heart, then directly from the 
heart to God, to the God of Christians, to the supernatural 
knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. 

Thus, on the one hand, we have the moral condition indis- 
pensable to the flight of the mind towards God ; on the other 
hand, the necessity for attaining the supernatural goal ; the 
vanity of purely natural knowledge of God: such are the 
points to which the energetic eloquence of Pascal is devoted. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 213 



II. 

Pascal's scepticism, in reality and in its intention, is not 
genuine scepticism : it is scarcely more than the sentiment 
expressed by Bossuet : " 111 befall the barren knowledge which 
does not turn to loving and betray itself ! " it is scarcely 
more than the development of Bacon's words : " Human in- 
telligence is not a dry light (Intellectus humanus luminis sicci 
non est)" For if that light be dried up, by isolating it from 
the heart, from feeling, from the divine sense, Pascal fails to 
understand how it can reach to the knowledge of God. " The 
heart," he says, " the heart has its reasons, which reason does 
not know." 1 Now, in his eyes, " it is the heart that feels 
God, not the reason. This is faith : God perceptible to the 
heart, not to the reason." 2 Moreover, Pascal sees an element 
of freedom in the use of this heart-sense, the beginning of 
the knowledge of God. "I say that the heart loves the uni- 
versal Being naturally and itself naturally, according as it 
applies itself thereto ; and it hardens itself against one or the 
other at its own choice. You reject one and retain the other : 
is it reason that leads you to love ? " 3 This is indeed the 
core of the question : the heart's free choice in regard to God's 
natural attraction in the soul decides everything, and guides 
our mind towards God or turns it from him. 

But what does Pascal understand by the heart ? 

We must know the original but deep significance which 
he gives to the word. To him the heart is the chief of the 
soul's faculties, implicating the roots of intelligence and will, 
- that which, in the soul, adheres directly to the first prin- 
ciples of the desirable and the intelligible, that is, the heart. 
On the other hand, to Pascal, most frequently at least, reason 
means ratiocination, and ratiocination means syllogism. 
Hence we can understand what follows: 

i Edit. Faug&re, ii. 172. 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 



214 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

"We know the truth, not only through the reason, but also 
through the heart : it is the first principles of this latter sort that 
we know, and it is in vain that ratiocination, which has no share 
therein, strives to combat them. . . . The knowledge of the first 
principles is as steadfast as any of those which our ratiocinations 
give. And it is upon such knowledge of the heart and instinct 
that reason should rest and should base all its discourse. Princi- 
ples are felt, propositions are inferred ; and all this with equal cer- 
titude, though by different ways. And it is as absurd for reason 
to require of the heart proof of its first principles as a requisite 
for consenting to them, as it would be absurd for the heart to de- 
mand of reason a feeling for all the propositions that it proves, 
before it will receive them. 771 

We see that Pascal here describes inner facts which all 
philosophers have seen, only he calls "heart and instinct" 
what some call " direct perception of evidence ; " others, 
" spontaneous knowledge;" others, "natural faith;" others, 
"the sense of the desirable and the intelligible;" and we 
understand how and in what sense he criticises reason : he 
wishes, like all sceptics of a dogmatic bent, to humiliate, not 
intrinsic reason, but reason isolated, mutilated, separated 
from its source in the soul and from its source in God. 

Besides, Pascal does not deny that there is a natural and 
rational knowledge of God, independently of Christian faith ; 
but he says that this knowledge is barren, barren of salvation. 
"All those," he says, "who seek God without Jesus Christ, 
can never find such light as will afford them true satisfaction 
or genuine fruit. For either they do not advance so far as 
to know that there is a God, or if they do. it is in vain." 2 He 
therefore confesses that we can reach this natural knowledge ; 
he points out three modes of knowing God, as a heathen, 
as a Jew, and as a Christian. " The divinity of Christians 
does not consist of a God who is merely the author of geo- 
metric truths and the order of the elements ; that is the lot 

1 Edit. Faugfcre, ii. 108. 2 Complete Works, ii. 307 (Lattaye). 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 215 

of the heathen. It does not consist merely of a God who 
exercises his providence over the life and welfare of men, to 
give a happy length of years to those who adore him ; that 
is the share of the Jews. But the God of Abraham and 
Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and consola- 
tion: he is a God who fills the soul and heart which he 
possesses." l 

Pascal, therefore, clearly distinguishes between natural and 
supernatural knowledge of God. But he points out the dry- 
ness and sterility of the natural knowledge. " If a man," he 
says, " should be persuaded that the proportions of numbers 
are immaterial and eternal truths dependent on a first truth in 
which they subsist, and which is called God, I should not con- 
sider that man had made great progress towards salvation." 2 

Pascal does not deny the legitimacy of the metaphysical 
proofs of God ; he only remarks, with the world in general, 
upon their extreme difficulty, and their almost absolute in- 
utility in practice, at least, when they are given under 
certain forms. Who does not see the perfect justice of the 
following observation ? " The metaphysical proofs of God 
are so remote from human reasoning, and so complicated, 
that they strike us but little ; and if they should serve some 
persons, it could only be during the moment that they see 
that demonstration ; but an hour later, they fear lest they 
were deceived. Besides, this sort of proofs can only guide 
us to a speculative knowledge of God." 3 

It is plain enough that Pascal refers here to certain proofs 
which he calls metaphysical, which are so remote from 
human reasoning, and so complicated, which only guide us 
to a speculative knowledge, which have nothing common, 
popular, experimental, about them, nothing which rests 
upon the divine sense and the moral side of the soul; 

1 Complete Works, ii. 306. 8 ibid., p. 305. 

2 Ibid., p. 202. 



216 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

hence, what can be truer than this criticism ? Let us recall 
Aristotle's proofs, as stated by Saint Thomas Aquinas. 

Pascal wishes the knowledge of God always to rest both 
upon the mind and upon the entire soul ; if it rests on the 
mind alone, in his opinion it is only an idol. " Men make 
an idol of truth itself ; for truth without charity is not 
God, it is his image, and an idol which should neither be 
loved nor worshipped," words of wonderful depth. 

Lastly, it seems to me impossible to regard Pascal as a 
genuine sceptic, if we weigh the following passages : " We 
must learn to doubt where it is requisite, to assume where 
it is requisite, to submit where it is requisite. He who fails 
to do this does not understand the power of reason. 1 . . . 
There are two excesses, to exclude reason, and to admit 
nothing but reason. 2 ... It is your assent to yourself, and 
the firm voice of your own reason, not that of others, which 
should lead you to believe." 3 

III. 

From what precedes, it follows that in reality Pascal's 
doctrine concerning the knowledge of God is this : 

God is perceptible to the heart naturally, but the soul 
destroys or increases this divine feeling, "according as it 
applies itself, and of its own volition." When deprived of 
this feeling, the soul has no power to rise to the idea of 
God ; and the arguments which it then accumulates afford it 
no useful light or assurance. On the contrary, with this 
feeling, which is developed in the soul in proportion as it 
becomes more familiar with its selfishness and poverty, the 
least argument at once raises the mind to God. In this 
case, " all our reasoning is reduced to yielding to emotion." 
In the former case, " reason acts slowly, and with so many 

1 Edit. Faugere, ii. 347. 2 Ibid., p. 348. 8 Ibid., p. 351. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 217 

different views and principles which it must always consider, 
that it continually grows drowsy, or goes astray for want of 
seeing them all at once. It is not so with feeling ; it acts 
in an instant, and yet is always ready to act." 1 Plainly, 
Pascal has here in view the two processes of reason ; and he 
shows the clumsiness, slowness, and complications of the 
syllogistic process, when used to reproduce what the dia- 
lectic process, although perfectly exact, seizes by a rapid, 
almost simple impulse, comparable to a prayer or an 
emotion. 

Then, beyond all this, Pascal feels keenly that there is 
another degree of the divine intelligibility, and that in 
practice the true knowledge of God, serving for the salvation 
of the world and of every soul, is that which faith in Christ 
Jesus develops in us. 

Such, I believe, is the solid basis of Pascal's philosophy. 
But it must be confessed that it is not easy to grasp a sys- 
tem among the scattered fragments which we know as his 
works, since we find manifest contradictions in that maze, 
where doubts and opinions, questions and assertions, ob- 
jections and replies, are blended. 

We see clearly that Pascal undertook to correct that 
purely syllogistic semi-reason, paralyzed in its best part, set 
apart from life, emotion, the heart, and all faith, whether 
natural or supernatural, indifferent to all guidance, destitute 
of rule or principles, limping, and blind to the infinite, even 
in geometry, as it asserts. When, therefore, this puny 
reason becomes arrogant, he humbles it, he overthrows it; 
and that is only just. 

But it is quite as plain that Pascal, being a Jansenist, was 
liable to mistake, and was mistaken in regard to the rela- 
tions between faith and reason. In the first place, he allows 
natural reason but too little light, and the will but too little 

1 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 362. 



218 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

liberty. He knows no healthy and upright reason but that 
which rests on emotion and affection ; and at the same time 
he admits of no other love of God but that supernatural 
love, the gift of grace, which is charity. Moreover, he not 
only says that the supernatural light of faith is a gift of 
God, snperadded to reason, he believes that this gift is 
arbitrary on God's part; that nothing can prepare us for it ; 
that no effort can avail, even indirectly, to make us less 
incapable of it, and that God refuses it to souls which labor 
with all their might, by reason and by freedom, to remove 
the obstacle ! " We utterly fail to understand the works of 
God," he says, " unless we accept it as a principle that God 
blinds some, and enlightens others. 1 No man ever believes 
with a true and saving faith, unless God inclines his heart ; 
and no man, when God inclines his heart, can refrain from 
thus believing. 1 " 2 He also allows himself elsewhere to be so 
far carried away that he writes these almost blasphemous 
words: "Neither discourses nor books, neither our sacred 
Scriptures nor our Gospel, neither our most holy mysteries, 
nor alms, nor fasts, nor mortifications of the flesh, nor mira- 
cles, nor the use of sacraments, nor the sacrifice of our body, 
nor all my efforts, nor those of the whole world combined, 
can do anything at all to begin my conversion, if thou dost 
not add to all these things the most extraordinary aid of thy 
grace." 3 So that between the two worlds, between the two 
degrees of the divine intelligibility, one of which, however, 
supposes the other, according to Plato and Saint Thomas Aqui- 
nas, there is no possible intermediary but an arbitrary decree 
of God and a most extraordinary effort of his grace ; and 
neither the proper use of reason and liberty, nor recourse to 
the sacraments, nor reading of the gospel, nor all our efforts, 
be they what they may, aided and preceded by that universal 

1 Thoughts (Paris, 1714), p. 47. 8 Ibid., p. 303. 

2 Ibid., p. 177. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 219 

grace which God sheds like his sun upon all men, absolutely 
nothing can avail to begin the soul's return to eternal life. 
And in speaking thus, Pascal imagines that he is following 
Saint Augustine, while Saint Augustine teaches this : " Do 
you think that man can believe if he desire it not, or that he 
can abstain from believing if he desire to believe ? That would 
be absurd. Therefore faith is in our power. . . . But, as the 
Apostle says, all power comes from God. . . . God gives us 
the power to believe, without imposing upon us the necessity. 
. . . Faith, therefore, is in our power, since we believe if we 
choose, and if we believe, it is because we choose." l 

Such is sectarian blindness. A man may rely upon 
Saint Augustine while he teaches the exact opposite of his 
doctrines. In this respect, in what concerned sects and 
their quarrels, no one was more sincerely blind and hasty 
than Pascal. It was a matter of temperament and character 
as much as of zeal and conviction. 

Look at Pascal's portrait, sketched by Domat, in his 
Corpus Juris, with such striking truth. Never did face 
better express a whole history. At a single glance you 
read in those features the courage, tenderness, terrors, and 
tears of that generous heart ; the vigor and sombre enthusi- 
asm of that splendid genius, as well as the strange error 
which showed him an abyss ever yawning at his feet ; and 
this other error, far worthier of pity, in which, without being 
responsible for it, I hope, he slandered the purest of men. 

MALEBRANCHE. 
I. 

"France is not sufficiently proud of her Malebranche," 
said De Maistre. Others have called Malebranche the Chris- 
tian Plato. And, indeed, if Plato brought all philosophy to 

1 De Spirit, et Litter., pp. 54, 55. 



220 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

the search and the vision of eternal ideas, which are God, 
to what did Malebranche bring all philosophy, if not to see 
everything in God? 

What the Gospel says, " The Word is the light of men ; " 
what Saint Augustine adds in his commentary on this pass- 
age, " This light of men is reason ; " all Descartes' efforts 
to show that the idea of God proceeds from God, is God con- 
ceived, and even that every idea, every opinion, every act of 
the understanding, is, or supposes, a certain perception of 
the light which is God, is eagerly grasped by Malebranche, 
developed with matchless fulness and untiring zeal, main- 
tained with contagious conviction, penetrative lucidity of 
reasoning and style. No man, so much as he, has shown 
the presence of God in reason. 

All the resources of his style, undulating with light, all 
the power of the lofty poetry at his command, although a 
systematic foe to imagination, all the rigor of his geometry, 
all the perfection and the impetus of the most ardent faith, 
and all the genuine warmth of a soul as loving as it was 
clear-sighted, all these resources are used, not in abstract 
demonstration of the existence of God, but in manifestation 
of God as the Word present in the soul. And this Word 
Malebranche calls sometimes " Eeason," and sometimes 
"Jesus Christ." 

Let us hear what he says. He begins his Christian 
Meditations with this prayer: 

" Eternal Wisdom ! I am not my light to myself, and the 
bodies which surround me cannot enlighten me ; intelligences 
themselves, not containing in their being the reason which ren- 
ders them wise, cannot communicate that reason to my mind. 
Thou art alone the light of angels and of men; thou art alone 
the universal light of minds, wisdom, eternal, immutable, ne- 
cessary. Oh, my true and sole Master \ show thyself to me ; 
make me see light in thy light. I address myself to none save 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 221 

thee ; I would consult only thee. Speak, Eternal Word, word of 
the Father, word which has always been spoken, which is spoken 
now, and which will be spoken forever. Speak, and speak loudly 
enough to make thyself heard, despite the noisy confusion which 
my senses and my passions make in my mind. 

" But, Jesus ! I pray thee to speak in me only for thy 
glory, and to make me know only thy greatness. . . . Make me 
know, Jesus ! that which thou art, and how all things subsist 
in thee. Pervade my mind with the splendor of thy light, con- 
sume my heart with the ardor of thy love, and grant me in the 
course of this work, which I write solely for thy glory, expressions 
clear and true, vivid and breathing, worthy of thee, and such that 
they may increase in me and in those who deign to meditate 
with me the knowledge of thy greatness and the sense of thy 
benefits ! " 

II. 

Let us try, then, to meditate a little while with Male- 
branche. He listens, he questions, and the inward master 
answers him. 

Master. " Dost thou not feel that the light of reason is ever 
present to thee, that it dwells within thee, and that when thou 
retirest within thyself thou dost become completely illumined 
therewith 1 Dost thou not hear that it answers thee when thou 
dost question it, when thou canst question it by a serious atten- 
tion, when thy passions and senses are reverent and silent? 

" Retire into thyself, and hear me. . . . Thus doth truth speak 
to all those who love her and who with ardent desire implore her 
to feed them with her substance : 

"I feed minds with my own self; ... I give myself wholly 
to all and wholly to each. I have created them to make them 
like unto myself, and to feed them with my substance ; and they 
are the more rational the more perfectly they possess me." l 

Soul. " What, my Jesus, is it thyself who dost speak to me in 
my most secret reason 1 ? It is then thy voice I hear. Thou 
comest to shed light in an instant through my soul ! What ! 

1 Meditation II., Nos. 11, 12, 13. 



222 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

It is thou alone that enlightenest all men ! Alas, how dull was I 
when I believed that thy creatures spoke to me, when thou didst 
reply ! How vainglorious was I when I fancied that I was a light 
unto myself, when thou didst enlighten me ! . . . Oh, my only 
master, may men know that thou dost penetrate them in such 
manner that when they believe they answer themselves and con- 
verse with themselves, it is thou who dost speak with them and 
hold converse with them ! Yes, light of the world, I understand 
it now : it is thou who dost enlighten us, when we discover any 
truth whatsoever ; it is thou who dost exhort us, when we see the 
beauty of order ; it is thou who dost correct us, when we hear the 
secret reproaches of reason ; it is thou who dost punish us or con- 
sole us when we feel that deep remorse which rends our interiors, 
or those words of peace which fill us with joy. 1 

" May those who know thee as a God ever attent upon them, 
acting in them, enlightening them, entreating them, correcting 
them, consoling them, render perpetual thanks to thee for the 
benefits they receive at thy hands, so that they may deserve fresh 
favors, and that thou mayst at last make them worthy to possess 
thee forever. May those who, unconscious of the secret opera- 
tions by which thou actest in us, do not know the author of their 
being, nor him who gives them every moment fresh motion and 
life, seek their benefactor with all their strength, with love, eager- 
ness, and persistence, and may they tend an altar to the unknoivn 
God, until thou dost reveal thyself, to them. 2 

" As for me, Lord, I implore thee to teach me that mode of 
consulting thee which is ever rewarded by a clear and evident 
knowledge of the truth." 

Master. " Thou already knowest in part that which thou dost 
ask. I have already told thee, but thou dost not reflect thereon. 
Dost thou not remember that I have often answered thee as soon 
as thou hast desired it? Thy wishes, therefore, suffice to force 
me to answer thee. True, I desire to be entreated. But thy 
desire is a natural prayer which my mind frames in thee. It is 
the actual love of truth that prays, and that obtains the sight 
of truth." 8 



1 Meditation II., No. 15. 8 Meditation III, Nos. 9 and 10. 

2 Ibid., No. 19. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 223 

This is the beginning of these wonderful Meditations. 
What follows, although placed in the middle of the work, 
may be regarded as their conclusion. 

" I confess it, my only Master, and I wish to consult thee 
solely concerning the truths which are necessary to me to lead 
me to the possession of true good. The time is short, death 
draws near, and I must enter such an eternity as I shall have 
deserved. The thought of death changes all my views and in- 
terrupts all my plans. Everything vanishes or changes its as- 
pect when I think of eternity. Abstract knowledge, brilliant 
and sublime as you may be, you are but vanity, and I forsake 
you. I will study religion and morals ; I will work to become 
perfect and happy, and quit the weary task which God has given 
to the children of men, all that empty knowledge of which it is 
written, that those who acquire it, instead of becoming wise and 
content, but add to their labors and their cares." T 

We feel it to be our duty to give this quotation to show 
the genius of Malebranche and the practical result which he 
attained. In fact, Malebranche believed thoroughly in the 
inward converse of the soul with the universal Word. He 
did not merely state these things as speculative rules, he 
practised them habitually. 

He took literally and accepted, as a philosopher, Christ's 
words in answer to those who asked him, " Who art thou ? " 
"I am the beginning of all things, I who speak with you." 
Malebranche considered that these words contained the very 
principle of philosophy. The universal Word naturally speaks 
always to all men. This inner appeal of God, and our 
natural capacity for understanding its meaning, is reason. 
According to Malebranche, he who does not know this, knows 
nothing of philosophy. From this point of view any other 
knowledge than that of the Word itself seemed to him fruit- 
less. We see that, like Plato, he regarded the abstract sci- 

1 End of Meditation IX. 



224 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

ences, brilliant and sublime as they might be, as merely the 
shadows of that which is, and as divine phantasms. He 
wishes to pass from the shadow to the reality, which gives 
us the profoundly philosophic meaning of the beautiful and 
devout words just quoted. 



III. 

As for the proof itself of the existence of God, as Male- 
branche understands it, we find germs of it in the preceding 
passages. But here it is in plain terms, 

"God 1 is He Who is; that is to say, the Being which contains 
in its esssence all the reality and perfection to be found in all 
beings ; the Being infinite in every sense, in a word, Being. 

" Our God is Being, without any restriction or limitation. He 
includes in himself, in a manner incomprehensible to the finite 
mind, all perfections, all true reality possessed by created and 
potential beings. He includes in himself whatever there is of 
reality or perfection in matter, the last and most imperfect of 
beings, but without its imperfection, its limitation, its nothing- 
ness ; for there is no nothingness in being, no limitation in the 
infinite of every kind." 

Thus, " our God is all that he is wherever he is present, 
and he is omnipresent." Malebranche does not take the 
pains to conclude otherwise, or to add: As God is Being, 
and can be none other, and as Being necessarily exists, 
therefore God exists. 

This is Saint Anselm's proof, and Descartes' second proof, 
that which he sums up thus: We have the idea of God, 
therefore he exists, for that idea implies his existence. 

But to this proof Malebranche instantly makes answer, 
through the mouth of the adversary, with the objection which 

1 Conversation between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, 
ii. 365 (Paris, 1837). 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 225 

might be expected: We admit that the idea of infinity 
includes the idea of Being; "but we deny that infinity 
exists." 1 

This is the same objection made by Saint Thomas to Saint 
Anselm's proof : " The atheist," said he, " denies the very fact 
that infinity exists." 

Malebranche answers this objection with Descartes' first 
proof: I have the idea of God, therefore he exists; for he 
alone could inspire me with that idea. 

" This," says Malebranche, " is a very simple and very natural 
proof of God's existence, the most simple of all those which I 
could give you. 

" To think of nothing and not to think, to see nothing and not 
to see anything, is the same thing. Therefore all that the mind 
perceives directly and immediately, is or exists. ... All that the 
mind perceives immediately, really . is. For if it were not, in 
perceiving it I should perceive nothing, therefore I should not 
perceive. 

"Now, I think of the infinite: I perceive the infinite imme- 
diately and directly. Therefore it exists." 2 

To this the opponent answers, 

" I admit that if the immediate object of your mind were the 
infinite, when you think of it this would necessitate its existence ; 
but then the immediate object of your mind is only your mind 
itself. . . . Thus it does not follow that the infinite exists ab- 
solutely and aside from us merely because we think of it." 

Malebranche replies, 

" That which does not exist cannot be perceived. To perceive 
nothing and not to perceive anything, is the same thing. It is 
therefore evident that, in a finite mind, we cannot find sufficient 

1 Conversation between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, 
ii. 365. 

2 Ibid., pp. 365, 366. 

15 



226 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

reality to see the infinite in it. Heed this well. Is not your idea 
of space alone infinite 1 Your idea of the heavens is very vast, but 
do you not feel that your idea of space infinitely exceeds it ? 
Does not this idea assure you that whatever impetus you may 
give your mind to traverse it, you can never exhaust it, because 
it has actually no bounds'? But if your mind, your own sub- 
stance, does not contain sufficient reality to find out the infinite 
in extent, this or that infinite, a particular infinite, how can you- 
see in it the infinite in every kind of being, the infinitely perfect 
Being, in a word, Being 1" 

Thus, " nothing finite containing the infinite, the very fact 
that we perceive the infinite, necessitates its existence. All 
this is based on the simple, evident principle that nothing 
cannot be directly perceived, and that to see nothing and not 
to see nothing is the same thing." : 

Malebranche, therefore, understands this proof thus : In 
his opinion the idea of God is an immediate knowledge, an 
experimental perception of God ; it is God himself who by 
his presence gives us his idea, or rather, all ideas. "This," 
he says, "is how I understand it. The infinitely perfect 
being containing in himself all reality and perfection, he 
can, by touching us with his efficacious realities, that is, by 
his essence, reveal or represent to us all beings. I say, "by 
touching us ; for although my mind be capable of thinking 
or perceiving, it can only perceive that which touches or 
modifies it, and such is its greatness that none save its Crea- 
tor can act immediately in it. God is the life of intelli- 
gences and the light which illumines them. ... He contains 
in his essence the ideas or archetypes of all beings, and 
reveals them to us. ... But gross and carnal men do not 
comprehend this." 2 And, indeed, " the perception with 
which the infinite touches us is so slight that you regard as 

1 Conversation between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, 
ii. 366. 

2 Ibid., ii. 37L 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 227 

nothing that which touches you so slightly, . . . like chil- 
dren who think that the air is nothing, because their percep- 
tion of it is unconscious." l 

These two demonstrations, the one through the idea itself 
of the infinite, as involving the idea of necessary existence, 
the other through the idea of the infinite considered as an 
effect of God, as Descartes expresses it, and as a vision of 
God present, these two demonstrations combined constitute 
the entire Cartesian proof, both rational and experimental, 
as we have stated it. Add to this the cosmologic proof, of 
which we are about to speak, and we shall have the complete, 
manifest, universal proof of God's existence such as man- 
kind, wise or ignorant, philosophers or poets, have united in 
seeing and describing. 



IV. 

In the same Dialogue, Malebranche thus presents the 
cosmologic proof : " The proof which you have just given me 
of God's existence," says the interlocutor, "is very simple, 
but it is so abstract that it does not wholly convince me. 
Have you none which is more concrete ? " "I will give you 
as many as you please, for there is nothing visible in the 
world which God has created whence we cannot rise to 
the knowledge of the Creator, provided that we reason 
correctly." 2 

In fact (we here abridge Malebranche's long exposition), 
any object whatsoever, seen by us, proves God, because no 
object can be seen save through God and in God. 

According to Malebranche, God brings about in us directly 
and immediately all our ideas and sensations. He effects 

1 Conversation between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, 
ii. 366, 367. 

2 Ibid., p. 368. 



228 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

them by his presence and his contact in the same way that 
he effects in us his own idea, the idea of the infinite. 

Here Malebranche confounds two truths. He believes 
that our natural idea of God is the direct and immediate 
vision of God himself. According to him, at least as he 
develops it in his " Search After Truth," the sight of created 
beings and the sight of our soul are but a sight of God ; 
we therefore see only God, who effects within us, by the occa- 
sional cause of our soul and the world, the impressions, the 
sensations, the emotions which we attribute to the world 
and our soul. Malebranche does not say, with Saint Paul, 
" We see God through his creatures ; " he says the opposite, 
"We see his creatures through God." He seems to forget 
the passage from the Scriptures : " No man has ever seen God." 
And, indeed, have we, such as we are and are born into 
this world, a " direct and immediate " vision of God ? Who 
can believe this ? But we understand Saint Paul ; we under- 
stand that when we see nature and our soul and all creation, 
we really gain a certain indirect and implicit view of God, 
since he is the light which enlightens us, without which 
nothing would be visible. 

Malebranche confounds the two degrees of the divine in- 
telligibility : here lies all his error. He attributes to reason, 
that is, to the natural vision of God in the mirror of the soul, 
characteristics which only belong to the supernatural vision 
of God in his essence. " The dogma of the beatific vision, 
profoundly meditated," says Balmes, " sheds floods of light 
upon philosophy. Malebranche's sublime dream may be only 
a reminiscence of his theological studies." l It could not be 
better expressed. Yes, the dogma of the supernatural vision 
of God bathes philosophy in light, since it reveals the final 
perfection of reason, and at the same time its limits ; its 
natural range, its range : it is a certain perception of the 
1 Files, fund., i. 27. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 229 

Word ; its limits : it is only the indirect perception thereof ; 
its final perfection: it may be called to see directly the 
source of light, the essence of God. This is where Male- 
branche becomes confused. He dreams in a sublime dream 
that in his natural reason he already has the direct, immedi- 
ate vision of God himself. Like Pascal, he goes at once to 
the goal ; but while Pascal, in gazing at the supreme goal, 
neglects and despises the intermediary, Malebranche does the 
exact opposite, and fancies that the intermediary is the goal. 
He confounds, let us once more repeat, the two degrees of the 
divine intelligibility. 

For if now, upon this plea, any one enter against this 
great mind a charge of pantheism, I answer that in the 
seventeenth century I recognize no pantheist but Spinoza, 

Spinoza, whom Malebranche calls " that evil spirit, the 
miserable Spinoza." Spinoza was a pantheist, consciously, 
by choice. Spinoza loves the error ; Malebranche detests it. 
Spinoza sets up falsehood and develops it ; Malebranche sees 
and upholds truth, but in some details expresses himself un- 
happily. This has occurred, on one point or another, to the 
best and greatest intellects. The philosopher who strives 
for truth and is accidentally mistaken, is radically different 
from the sophist who strives for error and accidentally 
speaks the truth. 

Malebranche saw clearly and brought to light this truth, 

that in every idea, every vision, every intellectual action, 
there is the light of God, and that nothing is visible save in 
the light of the divine sun. Have we not seen this doctrine 
in Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas ? It is a 
supreme truth. But Malebranche does not fully grasp the 
relation of the light to the soul and to objects, although he 
distinguishes the three terms perfectly. 

As for the proof of God's existence, Malebranche gives it 
to us entire. 1, He takes his point of support in experience, 



230 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

in the vision of the soul and of the world ; 2, he sees and 
describes admirably the divine impetus, the sense of the 
infinite, the sense of God, of God who gives us his idea 
by touching us ; 3, he sees the obstacle to the development 
of this proximate power " in gross and carnal men who do 
not comprehend it." He therefore knows the moral condition 
of the proof ; in his Treatise on Morals, he develops it in all 
forms, notably in chapter xi., to which he gives the title, 
" In what Sort we must die to see God and be conjoined to Rea- 
son" which recalls Socrates' profound words: "To philoso- 
phize is to learn to die." "4, As for the process itself by 
which we may rise to God, it is found in these words: There is 
nothing visible in the world which God hath created, whence 
we may not rise to the knowledge of the Creator, provided we 
reason correctly ; . . . since he contains all true reality to be 
found in all created and potential beings, even in matter, but 
without their imperfection, limitation, and nothingness." 

Let us repeat, in closing, that Malebranche, by his classic 
style, which gains truth an entrance to the human mind, 
rendered philosophy the immortal service of showing, better 
than any other man before him, the presence of God in reason. 
It was essential that in the seventeenth century this funda- 
mental truth should be as loudly asserted as the impotence of 
human thought when isolated from its source in God. Now, 
these two truths, of which Pascal and Malebranche each 
maintained one, sometimes even excessively and discor- 
dantly, Fe*nelon was charged to maintain together, and 
to bring the dissonance into a strong accord. 

FtfNELOK 
I. 

We have already said, the best of all philosophers are 
the theologians. Saint Augustine is deeper and more ex- 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 231 

act than Descartes in matters of philosophy, because he is 
more of a theologian. Fenelon and Bossuet are more exact 
than Malebranche and Pascal, because the latter two are 
no great theologians. As for Fenelon, let no one doubt that 
he is an admirable theologian. In his dispute with Bossuet 
on divine love and the soul's relations to God, he teaches 
Bossuet more things than Bossuet teaches him, although 
Bossuet was the victor. 1 As a philosopher, Fe'nelon is the 
most exact of all the philosophers of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The great philosophic idea of that century was the 
idea of the infinite. Upon this point Fenelon is the most 
complete, explicit, and sure of any. Strange to say, he 
knew far more about the metaphysics of the infinite than 
Leibnitz himself, the inventor of the infinitesimal calculus. 
Moreover, he avoids all exaggerations, both that of Pascal 
and that of Malebranche, the eccentricities of Leibnitz, and 
many others beside. In every particular his genius is well 
balanced, compounded as much of heart as of mind, of 
reason as of religion, of impulse as of good sense ; in every- 
thing he preserves a happy medium, and that completely cen- 
tral human voice, of which it was so well said : " Fe*nelon's 
voice is neither a man's voice nor a woman's voice, but, like 
the voice of wisdom, it has no sex." 2 



II. 

In his Treatise on the Existence of God, Fe'nelon gives all 
the proofs of the existence of God at length, consecutively, 
and methodically. He develops in due order, 1, the proof 
through the sight of the material world (cosmologic proof) ; 
2, the proof from the sight of the soul (psychologic proof) ; 

1 This is shown in the fine work by the learned M. Gosselin, entitled, "The 
Literary History of Fenelon." 

2 Joubert's Thoughts, ii. 108. 



232 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

3, the proof called metaphysical, based on the nature of 
the idea of God. He demonstrates briefly the existence 
of God from the spectacle of nature; then he states with 
greater amplitude how reason and freedom, which exist in 
us by the presence of God, prove God ; and how the idea 
alone which we have of the infinite, gives us immedi- 
ately, by way of direct consequence, the idea of neces- 
sary existence. 

In this treatise Fe*nelon corrects, particularizes, and 
completes the exclusive points of view of Pascal and 
Malebranche. 

Pascal scourged reason, declaring it usually incapable of 
advancing to God. Malebranche deified it, and said : Not 
only does reason demonstrate God, but it is God himself 
that we see directly and immediately when we reason; 
reason shows God, because it is God. Fe'uelon develops 
perfectly and simultaneously what Pascal and Malebranche 
maintain, each for himself, far too exclusively. Let us see 
how he combines them into a whole which is the truth. 

In searching for the proof of God's existence in the spec- 
tacle of our mind and the analysis of reason, he sees, first, 
in the mind of man, that double character of pettiness 
and grandeur clearly to be found there, and which strike us 
at the first glance ; he sees the perfection and imperfection, 
the constant disappointments and the infallible rule, the 
evident limitations of the finite, the visible traces of the 
infinite : he everywhere asserts that in reason we find both 
God and ourselves. 

We must quote these splendid passages, which should be 
taken in their literal sense. 

Having first described the weaknesses of our thought, he 
shows the idea of the infinite therein, and exclaims, 

" Oh, how great is the mind of man ! He bears within him 
matter to amaze and infinitely to surpass himself, his ideas are 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 233 

universal, eternal, and immutable. 1 Those unbounded ideas can 
never be changed, altered, or effaced in us; they are the very 
foundation of reason. 2 

"Behold the mind of man, weak, uncertain, limited, full of 
errors. Who hath put the idea of the infinite that is to say, of 
perfection into a subject so limited and so full of imperfection ?" 
Who hath placed in me that idea of the infinite which is " the 
true infinite of which we have the thought 1 " 8 

This idea is in me, but it is no part of me. Trr\, fixed 
and immutable ideas, which are the basis of rr xocison, are 
not a part of me. 

" This fixed and immutable will is so inward and intimate that 
I am tempted to take it for myself; but it is superior to me, since 
it corrects me, sets me right, puts me on my guard against myself, 
and warns me of my own impotency. It is something which 
inspires me every hour, if I do but hearken to it ; and I am never 
deceived save when I hearken not to it. 4 

" This inward rule is what I call my reason, but I speak of my 
reason without grasping the force of that expression. 5 

" Truly, my reason is within me, for I must unceasingly return 
into myself to find it ; but the superior reason which corrects me 
in case of need, and which I consult, is not mine, and does not 
form a part of myself. That rule is perfect and unchanging ; I 
am changeable and imperfect. When I err, it preserves its recti- 
tude ; when I am undeceived, it is not it that returns to the goal ; 
without ever itself straying from the goal, it has authority to 
recall me and compel me to return to it. It is an inward master 
that commands me to be silent, to speak, to believe, to doubt, to 
confess my errors or confirm my judgments; this master is omni- 
present, and his voice is heard from one end of the universe to the 
other, by all men as by me. 6 

" Thus, what seems most our own and to be our very essence, 
I mean our reason, is least peculiarly ours, is what we should 
account most borrowed. We unceasingly and obviously receive a 

1 First Part, chap. ii. No. 52. * Ibid., No. 54. 

2 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 

Ibid., No. 53. 6 ibid., No. 55. 



234 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

reason superior to ourselves, as we unceasingly breathe the air, 
which is a foreign body, or as we unceasingly see all the objects 
about us in the light of the sun, whose rays are bodies foreign to 
our eyes. 1 

" In all things we find, as it were, two principles within us : the 
one gives, the other receives ; the one lacks, the other supplies ; 
the one errs, the other corrects ; the one is prone to fall, the other 
lifts it up. . . . Every man feels within him a limited and in- 
ferior reason, which goes astray so soon as it escapes entire sub- 
jection-, and which can only be rectified when it again submits to the 
yoke of another superior, universal, and immutable reason. Thus, 
everything in us bears the mark of an inferior, limited, shared, 
and borrowed reason, which requires another to correct it at 
every turn. 2 . . . 

" Now, doubtless, the man who fears the correction of that 
incorruptible reason, and who goes astray from not following 
it, is not this perfect, universal, and unchanging reason which 
corrects him in his own despite. 8 . . . 

" There are then two reasons to be found within me, one of 
which is myself, the other is superior to me. That which is my- 
self is very imperfect, faulty, uncertain, prejudiced, headstrong, 
subject to error, changing, hasty, ignorant, and limited ; in fact, it 
possesses nothing that is not borrowed. The other is common to 
all men and superior to them ; it is perfect, eternal, immutable, 
ever ready of access and ready to rectify all minds that err, in 
fine, incapable of ever being exhausted or divided, although it is 
freely given to all those that desire it. Where is this perfect 
reason which is so near me, and yet so different from me 1 ? 
Where is it 1 It must be something real ; for nothing cannot be 
perfect or render imperfect natures perfect. Where is this su- 
preme reason-? Is it not the God whom I seek 1 " 4 

Such is this superb analysis of reason, the best which has 
been made; and at the same time the most certain, most 
immediate, and most beautiful demonstration of the existence 
of God. 

1 First Part, chap. ii. No. 56. Ibid. 

2 Ibid., No. 57. * Ibid., No. 60. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 285 

Fe*nelon completes this point of view by analyzing the will 
as he has before analyzed the intelligence. Just as he finds 
in us an inferior and a superior reason, the double light which 
Saint Augustine called "the illuminating and the illumi- 
nated light," and between which Malebranche also makes a 
distinction in more than one place ; so, too, he sees in our 
will two faces : " On the one hand I am free, on the other I 
am dependent. 1 I am dependent on a first Being even 
in my own will, and nevertheless I am free. What is this 
dependent liberty, this borrowed freedom?" 2 Dependence 
reveals the nothingness from which I come, that is to say that 
I am a secondary cause and a finite being; my freedom, 
which I cannot doubt, is a greatness which comes from 
the infinite. 3 

Here we have everything in man clearly distinguished. 

And here we have inferior reason scourged and contemned 
when it sets itself apart, as Pascal contemned it ; we have 
infallible and supreme reason deified as Malebranche deifies 
it : both points of view are equally true ; but Fenelon com- 
bines them without confusing anything, without exaggerating 
anything. 

III. 

Fe*nelon understood what few fully understand even 
now, namely, that the marvellous thing which we call 
our reason, "without penetrating into the extent of this 
word," is God and ourself ; or, more exactly speaking, it is a 
relation of God to us, in which, on our side, we may be found 
lacking, by turning away and isolating ourselves. Fe*nelon 
knows that our ideas exist in God and in us, pertain to 
God and to us. He knows the true theory of intellectual 
vision, which Malebranche perceives but incompletely : it is 

1 First Part, chap. ii. No. 63. 3 Ibid., No. 69. 

2 Ibid., No. 69. 



236 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF G0l>. 

that of Plato, Saint Augustine, and Saint Thomas Aquinas, 
who (I will say it, however much metaphysicians may mis- 
trust images) held fast to truth by an image, by depending 
upon the poetry of God, and comparing intellectual vision to 
physical vision, a comparison of which Kant took excel- 
lent advantage on an important point, and of which philoso- 
phers will yet make greater use when they have acquired 
the true principle and practice of comparative science. 
We quote this comparison, as used by F^nelon. 

" There is a sun of spirits. ... As the natural sun lights all 
bodies, so the sun of intelligence lights all minds. The substance 
of a man's eye is not the light; on the contrary, the eye borrows, 
every moment, the light from the rays of the sun. Just so, my 
mind is not the primitive reason, the universal and immutable 
truth, it is only the organ through which that original light 
passes, and which is lighted by it. ... That universal light dis- 
covers and represents all objects to our eyes; and we cannot 
judge of anything save by it, even as we cannot discern any body 
save by the rays of the sun." x 

This is the precise truth that Malebranche describes im- 
perfectly and inexactly. The soul, in its actual state, does 
not see God directly, it sees itself, and it sees its ideas in 
the light of God, as the eye sees objects in the light of day; 
but to see daylight is not the same as to see the sun itself 
directly, although the daylight proceeds from the sun; to 
see the colors and forms of objects is not the same as seeing 
the sun, although forms are only visible by means of the 
sun, and colors are only the light itself of the sun, broken, 
refracted, and partially reflected by objects. So, too, it is 
impossible to say that every idea, all vision, all knowledge, 
are immediately and directly the vision of God, although we 
can have no idea without God, and all knowledge implies 

* First Part, chap. ii. No. 58. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 237 

God, as all vision through the eyes implies light, both the 
source of light and its presence. 

This Malebranche does not recognize. Malebranche's 
lofty intelligence is dazzled by the most admirable of 
truths, namely, " that if we do not see God in some man- 
ner, we shall not see anything ; " l that we see everything, 
without exception, in the light of God, and that in a certain 
sense we see God in all vision, spiritual or corporeal. But 
Malebranche believes that this necessary vision of God, 
which all vision and all thought imply, " is the direct and 
immediate vision of God ; " 2 that we see nothing, even ma- 
terial bodies, save by seeing their ideas, which exist in God, 
and which are' God. 3 So that it is no longer possible for 
him to distinguish between the two degrees of the divine 
intelligibility. This 1 distinction is the capital truth that he 
lacks. He half perceives it when the objection is offered ; 
but if he for a moment forsakes his error, it is only to 
return to it speedily. " No," he says, " we cannot conclude 
that spirits see God's essence, from the fact that they see all 
things in God in this manner. . . . For we see not so much 
the ideas of things, as the things themselves which the ideas 
represent ; for instance, when we see a square, we do not say 
that we see the idea of that square which is united to the 
mind, but only the square which is on the exterior. . . . We 
do not say that we see God by seeing truths, but by seeing 
the ideas of those truths. ... To our thinking, we see God 
when we see eternal truths ; not that these truths are God, 
but because the ideas on which these truths depend exist 
in God." 4 

Malebranche here renounces his error, and teaches no 

1 Search after Truth, book iii. part ii. chap. vL 

2 Ibid., chap. vii. 
Ibid., chap. ix. 

* Ibid., book ii. chap. XL 



238 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

other than the theory of Plato, Saint Augustine, and Saint 
Thomas, 1 which is the truth. But he does not stand fast ; 
his dazzled condition carries him away, and in the selfsame 
pages he maintains it is his ruling idea that " God 
shows all things to spirits simply by desiring that they shall 
see what is most central in themselves ; that is, that which 
in him is in relation with those things and represents 
them. 2 ... It is," he says, " only God that we see with 
direct and immediate vision. It is only he who can en- 
lighten the mind by his own substance. . . . We know 
things by their ideas, that is, in God. ... It is in God 
and by their ideas that we see bodies and their properties, 
and therefore our knowledge of them is very perfect ; . . . 
for when we see things as they are in God, we always see 
them in a very perfect manner." 3 Saint Thomas says no 
more than this of the beatific vision of the essence of God. 
To see things in a very perfect manner, as they are in God, 
in their very ideas, which are God, is the vision of 
God's essence. Malebranche's error, therefore, plainly con- 
sists, as Balme's has observed, in his failure to distinguish 
the beatific vision from that natural and indirect vision of 
God without which we can see nothing. As a theologian, 
he can evade this objection only by contradicting himself 
and momentarily deserting his system. He grants, in the 
sixth chapter, that in natural knowledge what spirits " see 
in God is very imperfect, and God is very perfect." Hav- 
ing thus answered the objection, he asserts in chapter vii. 
" that it is in God and by their ideas that we see bodies, 
and that we have a very perfect knowledge of them." This 
is what may be called in Malebranche a dazzled bewilder- 

1 Omnis cognoscens, cognoscit implicite Deum in quolibet cognito. Ferit., 
q. xxii. 2, l m . 

2 Search after Truth, chap. vi. 
8 Ibid. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 239 

ment. But F^nelon here seems to us to see the whole truth, 
without confusion or exaggeration. He asserts everywhere 
that " it is the light of God that reveals objects to us, and 
that we can judge of nothing save through it. This same 
knowledge of individual things, where God is not the imme- 
diate object of my thought, can only be acquired in so far 
as God gives to the creature intelligibility, and to me actual 
intelligence. It is therefore in the light of God that I 
see all that can be seen." l F^nelon does not say, as 
Malebranche does, that in everything we see God directly 
and immediately, but only that we see everything in the 
light of God. He does not speak of direct vision, and this 
is the great point ; if he speaks of immediate vision, he 
makes a distinction : " The immediate object of all my uni- 
versal knowledge is God himself, and the single being or 
created individual . . .is the immediate object of my sin- 
gle knowledge." 2 But how is God himself the immediate 
object of my general knowledge, for instance, of the idea 
of the infinite ? " Who is it that put the idea of the infi- 
nite in a subject so limited t . . . Let us suppose that the 
mind of man is like a looking-glass. . . . What being was 
able to imprint within us the image of the infinite, if the 
infinite never existed ? . . . This image of the infinite is the 
true infinite of which we have the thought. ... If it were 
not, could it be engraved on the very essence of our 
minds ? " 3 Accordingly, our idea of God is not the di- 
rect vision of God, but it is an image of God, that is, a 
vision reflected in the mirror of the soul. Here we again 
meet with the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas, natural 
vision of the truth is, in the soul, the reflection (refulgentia) 
of uncreated truth. For if Fdnelon goes so far as to say 

1 Treatise on the Existence of God, part ii. ch. iv. No. 8. 

2 Ibid., No. 60. 

8 First part, chap. ii. No. 53. 



240 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

that, when we see the truth, "it is God himself, infinite 
truth, that is revealed immediately to us, with the limita- 
tions under which he may communicate his being," 1 he 
understands it as he has just explained it: God graves his 
image in our soul, he reflects himself in the mirror of the 
soul. This is the very doctrine of Descartes. 

So that, to sum up the whole, in Fdnelon's simile the idea 
of God is the image of the sun in the mirror : all general 
knowledge is the full rays of that image ; the light of God 
reflected in the soul is then the immediate object of intellectual 
vision. As for special knowledge, it is like the vision of bod- 
ies by sunlight; I see bodies by their colors, partial, decom- 
posed rays of the universal light that makes bodies visible. 
But, in that very case, the eye sees something of the sun. 
"Thus," says Fenelon, "our ideas are a constant mixture of the 
infinite Being of God, who is our object, and of the limitations 
which he always gives essentially to each of his creatures." 2 

IV. 

The reader will now better understand the admirable 
demonstration of the existence of God derived from the 
theory of reason. Fdnelon proves God from the spectacle 
of the human mind as we prove the sun from light. He 
sees, in our mind, the contrast between " a weakness which 
strays and an infallibility which corrects, an insignificance 
ignorant of its own thoughts, and an unlimited fund of ideas 
which nothing can efface or alter." From the sight of this 
weakness he learns that we are not the infallible ; from the 
sight of this insignificance he learns that we are not the 
infinite or the unlimited fund of ideas, but that all this is 
God, or an effect of the presence of God. He concludes from 
this that God exists. It is thus that the sight of darkness 

1 Part ii. No. 53. 2 Ibid., chap. iv. No. 54. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 241 

informs us in regard to light, tells us that it exists, in itself, 
independently of objects, since they are only visible by it, 
and are effaced when it ceases to lend its aid. 

No one has known or developed better than Fe'nelon the 
conditions of the true proof of the existence of God. The 
point of support, in reality, takes up the whole of the first 
part of his treatise. He does not drop it when he proceeds 
to the metaphysical proof through the intrinsic idea of th& 
infinite and necessary Being. As for that sense of the di- 
vine and that divine impulse which raise us to God and 
call us to the light, it is described in these charming 
words : 

" Where is that pure, sweet light, which not only enlightens the 
eyes that are open, but which opens the eyes that are closed ; 
which heals diseased eyes ; which gives eyes to those who have 
none wherewith to see \ in brief, which inspires us with a desire 
to be enlightened by it, and which makes itself loved even by 
those who fear to see it 1 " l 

Fe'nelon perceives the obstacle in these clouds of our pas- 
sions on the divine sun ; he sees the diseased eyes closed to 
the light ; he therefore knows the moral condition and the 
proof of the existence of God. 

As for the process by which our mind rises from the sight 
of the finite to the knowledge of the infinite, Fe'nelon de- 
scribes it perfectly. He says, 

" God is veritably in himself all that there is real and positive 
in the human mind, all that there is real and positive in material 
bodies, all that there is real and positive in the essences of all 
possible creatures, of which I have no distinct idea. He has all 
the being of the body, without being limited to the body ; all the 
being of the mind, without being limited to the mind ; and the 
same of the other possible essences. He is all being in such a 
manner that he has all the being of each of these creatures, but 

1 Treatise on the Existence of God, part ii. chap. iv. No. 58. 
16 



242 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

without the limitation that bounds it. Remove all bounds; re- 
move all the difference which confines being to species : you 
retain the universality of being, and, consequently, the infinite per- 
fection of Being by itself. 1 

" And when I conceive it thus in that kind which the School 
calls transcendental, which no difference can ever cause to lose its 
universal simplicity, I conceive that it can equally derive from its 
simple and infinite being, minds, bodies, and all the other possi- 
ble essences which correspond to these infinite degrees of beings." 2 

In short, for what properly concerns the result of the pro- 
cess, and the idea of the infinite which it should give, I find 
it nowhere given with precision and completeness save in 
Fe*nelon alone. Here is a passage in which he himself sums 
it up: 

" I could never conceive of more than a single infinite ; that is to 
say, other than the being infinitely perfect, or infinite in every kind. 
Any infinite which was infinite in but one kind would not be a 
true infinite. To speak of a genus or species is plainly to speak of 
limitation, and to exclude all ulterior reality, which establishes 
the fact of a finite and limited being. To restrict the idea of the 
infinite to the limits of a genus shows that we have not considered 
it with sufficient simplicity. It is clear that it can only be found 
in the universality of being, which is the being infinitely perfect 
in every kind, and infinitely simple." 8 

Nothing could be more important than these words. This 
we shall see later. 

In short, Fe*nelon corrects Pascal and Malebranche; and 
he gives Descartes exactness and completion. 

V. 

Fe'nelon being our subject, we may be allowed to say a 
few words more concerning him. 

1 Treatise on the Existence of God, part ii. chap. v. No. 66. 

2 Ibid., No. 67. 

8 Letters on Metaphysics, letter iv. 3. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 243 

Errors may be found in the writings of every man of the 
seventeenth century. I ask if any be found in Fdnelon ? 

Not that in asking this question I forget the matter of 
Quietism, and the just condemnation which concluded it. I 
have it in mind. But did Fenelon submit to that condem- 
nation ? Did he burn his book ? Yes ; consequently he 
yielded to the truth. If he yielded to the truth, he was not 
mistaken. This we must admit, unless we mean to impute 
to him the erasures in his manuscripts, and reproach him 
with the pages which he flung into the fire. Let us learn at 
least to appreciate the greatness of a mind capable of sacri- 
ficing the first forms of its thought. Such a mind is great, 
because it is greater than itself. The sacrificer of the false, 
who immolates it in his own mind, is not a victim of error, 
but a martyr to truth ; and he rises, by virtue of the sacri- 
fice, above himself to the truth which is God. " Leave self, 
to enter into the infinity of God!" exclaimed Fe*nelon. 
Now that which he has said, that he has done. 

Consider, amidst the great geniuses of the seventeenth 
century, this admirable intellectual character, his perfect 
proportions, his firm attitude in the truth. Fuller and 
more luminous than Descartes in regard to the theory of 
ideas and reason ; incomparably more exact that Leibnitz as 
to the theory of the infinite ; avoiding the bitter melancholy 
of Pascal, who seems to curse nature, as well as the brilliant 
exaggeration of Malebranche, who believes that our natural 
reason is the very vision of God ; more absolute, more clear- 
sighted, than most in his opposition to pantheism and the 
sophists ; firmer and more decided in regard to the error of 
Jansenism than even Bossuet, who sometimes seems to wa- 
ver ; truer than Bossuet, too, in regard to the theory of abil- 
ity and liberty, and the great question of the relations of 
Church and State ; holily animated with a pious and gen- 
erous belief in the future and in the progress of the world, 



244 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

a faith very rare at that time, and perhaps as rare now ; 
admirable for his mystic learning, which he taught to Bossuet 
day by day, until he made an accomplished master of that 
sublime pupil ; 1 more amiable, more attractive than all oth- 
ers through the happy equilibrium of his courage, his intelli- 
gence, and his goodness, the only man, in short, besides 
Saint Vincent de Paul, whose aureole has remained visible 
to all eyes through the lapse of two centuries : consider all 
these features of perfect human beauty, and see if these 
glorious pre-eminencies do not seem to realize in Fe'nelon 
the words of Scripture : " He who humbles himself shall be 
exalted." 

When shall we learn what sacrifice is, in things of the 
spirit, and what it can do ? "Our will is finite," says Bos- 
suet ; " in so far as it restricts itself to itself it gives itself 
limits. If you would be free, release yourself. Cut away, 
retrench. Have no will but that of God." This is the 
moral sacrifice. Now we may, by copying these words, say 
also : " Our intellect is finite ; in so far as it restricts itself 
to itself, it gives itself limits. If you would be free, release 
yourself. Cut away, retrench. Have no thoughts but those 
of God." Behold intellectual sacrifice ! 

Fenelon cut away and retrenched. " If your right hand 
offend you," says the Gospel, " cut it off and cast it from 
you." Fe'nelon cast far from him thoughts full of error and 
danger ; but the fund of truth which was in his soul, and 
which those imperfect and faulty formulas curtailed and im- 
paired, was set free by the action of the Church, to dif- 
fuse itself into the human mind. True orthodox mysticism, 
theologically perfected, dates from that period. That is to 
say, before Fe'nelon' s effort to systematize mystic science the 
writings of the most saintly authors contained inexacti- 
tudes on this head, not of intention, but in expression ; so 

1 See the " Literary History of Fenelon," by the Abbe Gosselin. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 245 

that the chief point of mystic theology, the final word of 
true wisdom, was then, and then only, defined and fixed. 
We know that Fe*nelon's effort attracted the attention of 
Bossuet, who was very justly moved ; Fe*nelon's vigorous 
and luminous defence taught Bossuet the science ; Bossuet, 
well armed by his opponent, urged on the contest. The con- 
test was judged by the Church : the false side of Fe*nelon's 
thought, or at least of his words, was corrected in the most 
just and delicate way ; nothing that he had seen, felt, or 
written of the truth, was touched, in short, Fenelon's sur- 
render ended all in peace, in unity, and in truth. 

Peace ! peace in unity and in truth ! when will these good 
things be granted to us ? When shall we advance towards 
this goal ? " Quarrelsome race of men ! " exclaims Saint 
Chrysostom. Quarrelsome race indeed ! Yes, we are born 
to quarrel, dissension, and division. Not only does human- 
ity form two camps and two cities, for and against God, 
for and against the truth, but, not to mention here the 
sophists and the criminals, behold the history of the good 
and of those who have pursued the truth with upright 
spirit. Behold them all in presence of the sun : each is 
bathed in its rays ; but each considers his soul and its 
thought in that light, instead of considering the light itself 
in the soul and the thought ; each limits, modifies, and di- 
versifies the light, chooses the rays each according to its 
proper color, and instead of understanding that all tints are 
but the same light, suppose that the colors are contradictory, 
as if the vivid purple of dawn should deem itself contra- 
dicted by the dazzling whiteness of noon, or the dark violet 
of the evening clouds. I am well aware that Plato divined 
the necessary unanimity of the wise, and said, " All wise men 
agree." Meantime, Plato and Aristotle are divided, Saint 
Augustine and Saint Jerome do not always agree. Saint 
Thomas and Saint Bonaventura give rise to two schools that 



246 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

contend for centuries. See Pascal opposed to Descartes 
and the Jesuits, Descartes to Aristotle, Fe'nelon to Male- 
branche, Newton to Leibnitz, and Bossuet to Fenelon; see 
all these glorious couples struggling, often even in the sharp- 
est anger! But in reality, as Saint Augustine affirms of 
Aristotle and Plato, they differ owing to accidents which are 
overcome by him who sees the true harmony of these 
beauteous tints in the unity of light. Moreover, the separa- 
tion between Plato and Aristotle is incomparably deeper 
than that of the shades of philosophic doctrine in the Chris- 
tian Fathers; when we weigh things well, we find that these 
very shades are far less pronounced in the Middle Age 
than in the Patristic age; and in the seventeenth century, 
the sophists always excepted, the divisions are even less 
marked. This is undoubtedly because the two Cities, among 
men, are continually closing in and becoming stronger, each 
in its own unity. 

But under what influence and by what cause does the 
unity of righteous hearts and docile minds thus increase, if 
not because, since Plato and Aristotle, he who has been 
called the Prince of Peace has arisen, and the Angel of 
Peace has cast upon the earth the beginning of unity? 
That part of humanity truly united to God has assumed a 
visible centre, as astronomers say that they perceive in the 
heavens, in the formation of worlds, a period when the 
vague cloud, the raw material of the stars, assumes a centre 
and labors to acquire regularity, roundness, and unity. God 
then lays, as Genesis says, " a firmament in the midst of the 
waters." l So too, a time has come in history when God is 
placing, in the bosom of the ever-changing and scattered 
mass of mankind, the centre of attraction which strives for 
the increasing union of men in God. 

Do we not see, in this supreme question of the soul's 

1 Dixit quoque Deus, Fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum. Genesis i. 6. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 247 

relations to God in love, that Bossuet and Fenelon, who, by 
themselves, were forever divided, were only reunited by the 
power and authority of that centre, and brought their diffi- 
culties, unjust on both sides, to it, Bossuet sacrificing his 
ignorances little by little, under the ascendency of Catholic 
theology and the tradition of the saints which Fe*nelon op- 
posed to him, and Fe*nelon yielding wholly by a single ef- 
fort at the first warning of Unity, to the voice of the repre- 
sentative of him of whom he himself had said, " It is in this 
centre that all men meet, from one end of the world to 
the other"? 

Thus, there is in the world a uniting force and a visible 
basis of unity. May peace then come in unity and in 
truth ! 

Deign, O God, ever to attract us more and more, both by 
thy secret power and by the firm though gentle authority of 
the visible centre of thy eternal unity ! Grant that by con- 
sidering self less, we may see thee more, may lose sight 
of our diversities, and contemplate thy unity. May we be 
at length permitted to divide light less ; may the partial tint 
of our souls impair less the whiteness of the ray ; may our 
mind, despite its insignificance, and through the disinterest- 
edness that comes from thee, love and seek the universality 
and immensity of truth, and may our defects and our limits 
at least never turn to negations and blindness. Give us, 
with the charity of the heart, that of the mind. Grant that, 
as Saint Ignatius says, a Christian may ever be more ready 
to accept than to reject the word of his brother. Grant that 
in spite of the difficulty of language and the imperfect form 
of human thought, we may learn to reascend through the 
word of another to the pure origin of the ray which has pro- 
duced this word and this thought. Grant that by this char- 
ity of mind we may learn to leave self behind and reach out 
after the lights of others, and grasp in intellectual struggles 



248 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

the aspect of truth which is opposed to us, and which we 
lack. Grant, above all, that we may be docile to the intel- 
lectual unanimity of our Fathers, and to the supreme author- 
ity of the holy inspiration that directs thy Church ; to the 
end that by docility, humility, and charity, men may attain 
to some communion of minds on earth, and, being united, 
understanding one another in God more and more, may ap- 
proach that eternal goal of which Saint Augustine says: 
"We shall then all see the thoughts of all; we shall see 
God in our own intelligence; we shall see him in that of 

others." l 

1 De Civitate Dei, lib. xxii. cap. xxix. 6. 



CHAPTEK VII. 

THE THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
PART SECOND. 

PETAU AND THOMASSIK 

T^VERY one knows that Leibnitz wrote a Theodicy, 
" Fenelon the Treatise on the Existence of God, Bossuet 
a book On the Knowledge of God and self ; that Descartes, 
Malebranche, and others cleared, deepened, and developed 
the proofs of God's existence, and the way that leads the 
mind to the knowledge thereof ; but scarcely any one knows 
that there also appeared in the seventeenth century two 
Latin Theodicies, each of considerable length, equivalent 
to eight or ten volumes like ours, and that these two 
works are masterpieces of philosophic depth and learning. 

Two great minds, scarcely inferior to the greatest, Petau 
and Thomassin, brought together in these admirable works 
all the substance of the fathers and the ancient philoso- 
phers, in regard to the Theodicy ; then, with wondrous art, 
they worked up and grouped the precious materials in the 
light of their individual reflection. I know no books where 
original thought is better blended with the thought of 
others, where the intuition of genius is more perfectly sup- 
ported by the power of tradition and the weight of author- 
ity; and when Thomassin says, "Thus decree the patricians 
of thought and the fathers of religion;" when he goes on 
to proclaim these decrees, all luminous in the light of his 
expositions, we see that he is himself one of those patri- 



250 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

cians, one of those fathers, voting with the rest, and utter- 
ing his vote in a voice worthy to be heard with the most 
illustrious. 

Thomassin lived nearly fifty years after Petau, who died 
about the same time as Descartes. His work is longer than 
that of the famous Jesuit, more complete, perhaps still more 
philosophic and more original. As it would be little else 
than a repetition to speak in equal detail of two such similar 
works, we will pay special attention to that of Thomassin. 
We will merely give an analysis of one of Petau's chapters, 
which will suffice to show the bearing of his mind. 

We will take the chapter on Demonstrative Theology ; that 
is to say, the process by which reason rises to God. 

We give an abridged translation l : 

" Demonstrative Theology treats of what are commonly known 
as attributes; attributes which are divided into affirmative and 
negative attributes. We shall deal with them in general in this 
chapter, then in detail in the ensuing chapters. 

"This division into positive and negative properties is usual 
only with the ancient theologians : it is owing to the fact, as Saint 
Cyril observes, that we know in two ways that which it is fit that 
we should assert regarding the divine substance : we know God 
from what he is, and from what he is not. Saint Dionysius, in his 
Mystic Theology, has done more than any one else to point out this 
twofold way : ' We must,' he says, ' posit in God all affirmations 
which are true of all things, and they are true of him, because he 
is the cause of all ; but then we must deny them, because he is 
superior to all, and we should not suppose that these negations are 
contrary to those affirmations ; and certainly the First Cause is 
superior to these negations, being superior to all negation and even 
all affirmation.' The same author remarks elsewhere that the 
Scripture adopts sometimes one and sometimes the other of these 
two modes : for it sometimes culls God Reason, Mind, Substance, 
Light and Life ; sometimes designates him by very different terms, 
as when it declares that he is invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible, 

1 Theologicorum Dogmatum, lib. i. cap. v. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 251 

and by other terms which express, not what he is, but, on the con- 
trary, what he is not. 

"This is elegantly summed up by Saint Gregory Nazianzen 
in the words : * End of all, thou art one, thou art all that is, 
being neither one nor all.' l 

" Theology, therefore, seeks God by this twofold process of affir- 
mation and negation ; but negation, according to Saint Dionysius 
and other Fathers, is more potent here than even affirmation, which 
he explains as follows in his celestial hierarchy. ' It is,' he says, 
* because in denying his identity with the things we see, we speak 
truly, and thus attain, although indirectly, his substance raised above 
all other substance, and his infinity incomprehensible to the mind as to 
all speech.' 

" In fact, these negations, as Saint Dionysius says elsewhere, in 
no way signify that there is in God any privation of that which they 
deny, but, on the contrary, excess and plenitude. To say of God that 
he is not substance, means that he is infinite substance; to say 
that he is not life, means that he is supreme life ; to say that he 
is not thought, means that he is sovereign thought. 2 This is sup- 
ported by Saint Maximus when he remarks that negations are 
more efficacious than assertions in God. 

"Nevertheless, if negative statements are superior in exactness 
to affirmative ones, still the latter should be maintained ; the two 
should be combined and modified one by the other. These negi- 
tions and affirmations are not contradictory, but, on the contrary, 
they support and complete one another. And, as Theodore Abu- 
cara says, positive properties should be attributed to God, as well 
as negative ones, in such manner as to transfer to God all the per- 
fections of our souls, taking away, by negation, all that proceeds from 
accident or fault . 3 

" This is very well shown by John Cyparissiotus when he de- 
velops the thought that negation is far from refusing to God what 
affirmation attributes to him. 

"Very far from this, affirmative statements, positive notions, 
are, by these negations, extended and made perfect : negation wipes 
away and removes everything in the affirmation which is gross, nar- 

1 Tu finis cunctorum, unus, simul omnia, nullus, 
Non unus, non cuncta. 

2 Dion., cap. iv. de Divin. non. 8 Theod. Abuc., opusc. tert. 



252 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

row, or borrowed from the creature whence it proceeds ; the idea 
remains, purer, more transparent, worthier of God. As if marble, 
says Saint Dionysius, contained innate statues : the hand of the 
artist need only remove that which conceals them, and could un- 
veil these hidden beauties by removing that which is not they. 
This Maximus makes still clearer by his charming comments. He 
says that there are two sorts of natural cameos, those which the 
artist takes from the lump without adding anything, and which he 
draws by removal ; and those which Euripides calls innate forms 
(avrojjLopfoi) : as when Nature herself creates a design in a precious 
stone. Such was that cameo of Pyrrhus mentioned by Pliny, 1 
where the Nine Muses and Apollo with his lyre were engraved, not 
by the hand or art of any man, but by Nature herself, which had 
so disposed the forms and shades of the stone as to produce these 
figures, and even to give each of the nine sisters all her attributes 
in minute detail. In this case, the artist, without touching the 
material itself, had only to remove the waste and smooth off the 
roughness to reveal the innate masterpiece. This comparison ad- 
mirably befits the notion of God shaped in us by the process of 
theological elimination, a process which Plotirms believed to be 
universal, because we know in general the nature of a being if we 
take everything accidental from it. ' To know any nature,' he says, 
* we must see it in its purity ; knowledge is prevented by accidental 
additions to its essence. Therefore we should seek the essence by 
eliminating the accidental.' 2 

" All this agrees with the thought of Aristotle, who gives us his 
first category, not by a positive, but by a negative definition. 
Ammonias discusses and understands it in the same way. Alcinous 
compares this process of rising to God by negation and elimina- 
tion, to the geometric process which rises to the idea of a point by 
eliminating the sensible forms of extension, passing from a solid 
body to the surface, from the surface to the line, and from the line 
to the point. 

"In short, this process is peculiarly applicable to the idea of 
God. For, as a Platonist, Herennius, observes in an unpublished 
book, affirmations define, circumscribe; negations alone have an 
infinite extent ; only negation has the power to rise, from beings 
restricted in their limitations, to the illimitable Being whom noth- 
ing can circumscribe." 

1 Book xxxvii. chap. i. 2 Plot. Enn., i. 7, c. ix. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 253 

Such is this chapter of Petau's Theodicy. 

Assuredly the chief process of reason, which rises to the 
infinity of God, which is, moreover, the universal process for 
the knowledge of all intrinsic truth, was never described 
better, never more completely or more profoundly analyzed, 
than in this splendid chapter. 

How is it that this fine work is unknown ; that it is not in 
the hands of every one who makes a study of philosophy ; 
that the Theodicy can be discussed without a knowledge 
of it? 

II. 

Thomassin writes Latin as Malebranche does French, if 
we make a slight reservation in regard to purity of classic 
taste. Sometimes, in Thomassin's rapid composition, strange 
excrescences of language and brilliant barbarisms slip in. 
But the wealth, lucidity, and elevation of style are the same 
in Thomassin and in Malebranche. As prodigiously learned 
as Malebranche was not, he is no less original. In both, the 
central idea, the philosophic cult, is the same : it is the wor- 
ship of the Everlasting Word considered under both its 
phases, both as the Universal Eeason which enlightens all 
men, and as the Incarnate Word, the Saviour of mankind. 

In both points of view Thomassin's motto is this : " Christ 
comes at all times" (Christus venit semper^). As Reason, he 
enlightens every man coming into this world ; as Saviour or 
Incarnate Word, he also comes for all, and acts from the be- 
ginning, according to the words of Scripture which speak 
" of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 

Hence the vigorous eclecticism of Thomassin, which, in 
the light of Catholic truth, and supported by the steadfast 
basis of dogma, refers to Christianity, as its peculiar property, 
all fragments and vestiges of truth which at any time and in 
any place the Universal Word has sowed in the mind of 



254 GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

men who have cultivated and followed their reason. Tho- 
massin takes everything in good part, when it is not utterly 
impossible; he rejects but little, accepts much. His broad 
genius is generously hospitable ; he can always find room for 
every man. He rejects none but the vicious and the impious ; 
all who have been serious and sincere in their search for 
truth are received. After Saint Augustine, Plato more than 
any other, and all that relates to Plato, is dear to him. 1 The 
whole train of Neo-Platonists is well received, and his good- 
ness is not sufficiently on its guard againt Plotinus, who gener- 
ally is half a sophist. He practises, even to excess, the words 
of Saint Paul: "Charity believeth all things." Nor ever 
does this abundant and perpetual hospitality inconvenience 
him. He remains free in the midst of the multitude: he 
contrives to live at once with all and with himself. He is 
always conversing, but never stops meditating ; and while 
entering into the thoughts of others, he never abandons his 
own. By the pertinency of his questions, and the compari- 
son which he constantly evokes between the universal and 
the individual mind, he attributes to some, even often the 
best, more intellect than they possess. He is well aware 
that all the world has more intellect than any individual ; 
therefore he brings all the world as near together as he can. 
The mutual penetration of free thought and tradition, of 
theology and philosophy, was never carried farther. No 
man ever labored more for the reconciliation of all truths, 
the reciprocal illumination of each order of things by all the 
others. It was his aim to take up the sum total of human 

1 We know that there are two ways of judging Plato : we may take him in 
a good or in a bad sense. "We believe the former to be the truer way, and on 
this subject we agree with the good Franciscan monk who printed at Bologna, 
in 1627, a book entitled, " Christianse Theologicse cum Platonica comparatio, 
atictore Livio Galante, sacri Seraphici ordinis Theologo." On the frontispiece, 
the author engraved a rose. That rose is Plato. Upon the rose, to the right, 
is a bee ; at the left, a spider. Above the bee are the words, hinc mel ; and 
above the spider, hinc venenum. Now, Thomassin is a bee. 



THEODICY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 255 

intellect ; to survey and compare its entire sphere ; to recover, 
by placing himself at the centre of that sphere, its lost unity 
and forgotten harmonies ; to bring down from the central 
point the universal light of the Word, or catholic truth, in all 
the circles and upon all the points of the sphere ; to create the 
true encyclopaedia, and apply it to the education of minds. 

Besides his great theological work, which is really an 
admirable comparison of theology and philosophy, he left 
behind as monuments of his labor four fine works, even 
less known than his Theological Dogmas, " Christian Meth- 
ods of Studying and Teaching Philosophy;" "Grammar;" 
"Historians;" "Poets." 

Lastly, Thomassin elaborates his views in regard also to 
" the mode of referring to God even physics and natural his- 
tory, which is one of the finest parts of Philosophy, most 
important, useful, and instructive." It is certainly high 
time to follow these hints of genius given us by the seven- 
teenth century, if we desire to renew science, letters, and 
philosophy, to re-establish education and instruction, to re- 
store public reason, and through reason, religion. 

But let us return to our subject, which is Thomassin's 
Theodicy. 

III. 

This work, which forms the first part of the Theological 
Dogmas, is divided into ten books, each of which is about 
the length of Fenelon's Treatise on the Existence of God, 
and which bear the following titles : I. On the Existence of 
God ; II. On the Unity of God and his Goodness ; III. On 
God considered as Absolute Being, as Truth, Beauty, Love, 
and Life (where Ideas are treated of) ; IV. On the Sim- 
plicity of God; V. On the Immensity, Immutability, and 
Eternity of God ; VI. On the Vision of God (how souls see 
God) ; VII. On the Knowledge and Will of God. The last 
three books are purely theological, and treat of predestinati