Part 14

Men endowed with the greatest genius, perceive quickly the bounds of their faculties when they wish to go very far in the study of abstract metaphysical truths; but the simplest and least exercised mind, can distinguish the proofs of that order, which announces with so much splendour the end and design of sovereign wisdom. It seems, that all the knowledge proper to interest men has been placed within their reach. The learned astronomer, observing the course of our globe round the sun, perceives the cause of that regular succession of repose and vegetation, which secures the earth its fecundity, and adorns every season with renewed beauties; but the simple cultivator, who sees the treasurers of the earth renovated every year, and answer, with singular precision, to the wants of animated beings, is not less a witness of a phœnomenon which is sufficient to excite his admiration and gratitude! Newton analyzed light, and calculated the swiftness with which it runs over the immensity of space; but the ignorant herdsman, who sees, when he wakes, his hut enlightened by the same rays which animate all nature, is equally benefitted by them. The indefatigable anatomist attains a just idea of our inimitable structure, and the ingenious texture of our different organs; but the man most devoid of instruction, who reflects an instant on the pleasures, and the variety of the sensations, which we find ourselves susceptible of, partakes the blessing equally.

The transcendent knowledge of some people, is a degree of superiority which disappears when contrasted with the incomprehensible grandeur of nature; when we contemplate infinity, those talents which exalt one man above another are no more seen; and probably it is beyond the limits of our intelligence that the greatest wonders of nature begin. The knowledge of all ages has not explained what is the imperious authority of our will over our actions, nor how our thoughts could reach the most remote ages, how our souls could investigate that innumerable multitude of present objects, of recollections and anticipations; neither has it informed us how all those excellencies of the mind, sometimes remain unknown to itself, nor how they are sometimes at its command, issuing out of their long obscurity, and succeeding each other with method, or are profusely poured forth. At the sight of these astonishing phœnomena, we think man presumptuous, when, puffed up with pride, he mistakes the measure of his strength and wishes to penetrate into the secrets, whose confines are shut by an invisible hand. He should be content to know, that his existence is united to so many wonders; he should be satisfied with being the principal object of the liberality of nature, and he should adore with reverential respect that powerful Sovereign, who bestows so many blessings on him, and who has made him to sympathize with all the powers of heaven and earth.

The globe on which we live runs over every year a space of two hundred millions of leagues; and in this immense course, its distance from the sun, determined by immutable laws, is exactly proportioned to the degree of the temperature necessary to our feeble nature, and to the successive return of that precious vegetation, without which no animated being could subsist.

That celestial body, which fertilizes the seeds of life shut up in the bosom of the earth, is, at the same time, the source of that light which opens to our view the glorious sight of the universe. The rays of the sun run over in eight minutes about thirty millions of leagues: such an impetuous motion would be sufficient to pulverize the largest masses of matter; but, by an admirable combination, such is the incomprehensible tenuity of these rays, that they strike the most tender of our organs, not only without wounding it; but with a measure so delicate and precise, that they excite in us those extatic sensations, which are the origin and the indispensable condition of our greatest enjoyments.

Man, in immensity, is only an imperceptible point; and yet, by his senses and intelligence, he seems in communication with the whole universe; but how pleasant and peaceable is this communication! It is almost that of a prince with his subjects: all is animated round man, all relates to his desires and wants; the action of the elements, every thing on earth, like the rays of light, seems to be proportioned to his faculties and strength; and whilst the celestial bodies move with a rapidity which terrifies our imagination, and whilst they hurry along in their course our dwelling, we are tranquil in the bosom of an asylum, and under the protecting shelter allotted us; we enjoy there in peace a multitude of blessings, which, by another wonderful affinity, ally themselves to our taste, and all the sentiments we are endowed with.

In short, and it is another favour, man is permitted to be, in some things, the contriver of his own happiness, by his will and ingenuity; he has embellished his habitation, and united several ornaments to the simple beauties of nature; he has improved, by his care, the salutary plants; and even in those which seemed the most dangerous he has discovered some wholesome property, and carefully separated it from the envenomed parts which surrounded it; he can soften metals, and make them serve to augment his strength; he obliges the marble to obey him, and assume what form he desires; he gives laws to the elements, or circumscribes their empire; he stops the invasion of the sea; he restrains the rivers in their natural bed, and sometimes obliges them to take a different course, in order to spread their benign influence; he erects a shelter against the fury of the winds, and by an ingenious contrivance, makes use of that impetuous force, which he could not at first dream of defending himself from; even the fire, whose terrible action seems to presage destruction, he subjugates, and renders it, if I may so express myself, the confident of his industry, and the companion of his labours.

What a source of reflections is this dominion of the mind over the most dreadful effects of the movement of blind matter. It seems as if the Supreme Being, in submitting thus to the intelligence of men the most powerful elements, chose to give us an anticipation of the empire which His sovereign wisdom has over the universe.

However, it is in the influence of our spiritual faculties on themselves, that we observe, above all, their admirable nature; we see, with astonishment, the perfections which they acquire by their own action. Intelligence, considered in a general manner, undoubtedly is a great phœnomenon; but it is a still greater wonder, to see the thoughts of a man reach, by the most ingenious means, the knowledge of others, and form an alliance between the past and present productions of the mind. It is by such an alliance that the sciences have been improved, and that the mind of man has been acquainted with all its strength. The mighty of the earth cannot break this association, nor subject to their tyrannic divisions the noble heritage of knowledge; this gift, so precious, preserves the stamp of a divine hand;—and no one has yet been able to say it is mine.

The most noble use that has ever been made of the admirable union of so many talents, and so much knowledge, was to demonstrate how every thing in nature relates to the idea of a first cause; which forcibly announces a design full of wisdom, and a beneficent intention; but now, unhappily, these proofs of the existence of a God are not sufficient; imperious philosophers have laboured to subvert every thing founded on the connection and wonderful harmony of the system of nature; it is not sufficient to oppose to these new opinions the mere authority of final causes; they do not contest that there is a perfect conformity between our desires and wants, between our senses and the bounties of nature; they do not contest, from the cedar to the hyssop, from the insect to man, that there is a beauty of proportion in the whole, which is to be found equally in the relation that objects have with each other, as well as in their different parts; but this admirable harmony, in which the pious man, the man of feeling, perceives with delight the stamp of an eternal intelligence; others less fortunate, undoubtedly, obstinately present it to us as a fortuitous collision, as a play of atoms agitated by a blind movement, or as nature itself, existing thus from all eternity. What trouble they take to invent and defend these systems destructive of our happiness and hopes! I prefer my feelings to all this philosophy; but, to avoid an encounter would be to favour their presumption, and give additional strength to their opinions.

Thus I shall treat the most important question that man can consider. I shall endeavour first to show, that the different conjectures on the origin of the world all centre in the single opinion of the eternal and necessary existence of every thing which is; and I shall afterwards compare the basis of that system with the reason of that happy and simple belief which unites the idea of a Supreme Being with all we see and know; in short, to the universe, the most unlimitted of our conceptions.

CHAP. XIII. _The same Subject continued._

When we see the authors of the different systems, concerning the formation of the world, reject the idea of a God, under the pretext, that this idea is foreign to the nature of our perceptions, should we not have a right to expect some better substitute for it? But, far from answering our expectations, they abandon themselves to all the wanderings of the most fantastic imagination. In fact, whether we refer the origin of the universe to the effect of hazard, the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or whether we establish another hypothesis derived from the same principle, it is necessary at least to suppose the eternal existence of an innumerable multitude of little particles of matter, placed without order in the immensity of space; and to suppose, afterwards, that these atoms, disseminated to infinity, attracted each other, and corresponded by the inherent properties of their nature; and that there resulted, from their adhesion, not only organized, but intelligent faculties; it is necessary, in short, to suppose, that all those incomprehensible atoms have been settled with admirable order through the effect of a blind motion, and by the result of some of the possible chances in the infinity of accidental combinations. Indeed, after so many suppositions without example or foundation, that of an Intelligent Being, soul and director of the universe, had been more analogous and more consonant with our knowledge.

Let us return to the hypothesis we have just mentioned. We shall then recognize the trifling habit of the mind; it is accustomed to proceed from simple to compound ideas, every time it meditates, invents, or executes: thus, by an inverse method, the composers of systems have thought, that, in order to connect the universe to its origin, it was sufficient to detach, by the exercise of thinking, all its parts, and to break and subdivide them afterwards to infinity; but whatever may be the tenuity of these atoms, their existence, having organized and intellectual properties, which we should be obliged to grant them, would be a wonder almost equal to those phœnomena which surround us.

When we see a plant grow, embellished with different colours, we only think of the period when its vegetation may be perceived by our senses; but the seed of this plant, or if you like better, the organized atoms, the first principle of this seed, would have offered also a grand subject of admiration, if we had been endowed with the faculties necessary to penetrate into the occult secrets of nature. But perhaps, in transforming into an imperceptible powder all the parts of matter, which have been collected to compose the world, we have only before our eyes a fugitive vapour, to which even our imagination cannot reach; and those who unfortunately love and defend this admiration, find besides, in the system of divisible atoms, means to defer, according to their fancy, the moment of their astonishment.

All these fantastic combinations serve only to lead us astray in our researches; and I do not think it a matter of indifference to make a general observation. The study of the first elements, of all the sciences which we acquire, such as geometry, languages, civil legislation, and several others, appear to us the simplest parts of our instruction. It is not the same, when we seek to know the laws of the physical world; for the works of nature never appear more simple than in their compounded state; they are then, to our mind, that which harmony is to the ear; it is the agreement of all parts which forms a union perfectly proportioned to our intelligence. Thus, man, for example, that wonderful alliance of so many different faculties, does not astonish our understanding, but appears to us in one point of view, a simple idea; but we are troubled, and, as it were, dismayed, when we try to analyze him, or mount to the elements of his liberty, will, thought, and all the other properties of his nature.

We only advance towards infinity, and consequently towards the most profound darkness, when we destroy the world in order to divide it into atoms, out of the midst of which we make it issue afresh, after having rallied all we have dispersed.

Let us admit, for a moment, that there exists organized and intelligent atoms, and that they are such, either by their nature, or by their adhesion to other atoms. We are now, of all these scattered atoms, to compose the universe, that master-piece of harmony, and perfect assemblage of every beauty and variety, that inexhaustible source of every sentiment of admiration; and in rejecting the idea of a God, creator and preserver, we must have recourse to the power of chance, that is to say, to the effects of an unknown continual motion, which, without any rule, produces, in a limited time, all the combinations imaginable; but, in order to effect an infinite variety of combinations, it is not only necessary to admit a continual motion, but besides, to suppose this continual motion changes its direction in all the parts of space subject to its influence. The existence of such a change, and a similar diversity in the laws of motion, is a new supposition which may be ranked with the other wild ones.

However, after these chimerical systems have been granted, we are not freed from the difficulties which the notion of the formation of the world by a fortuitous concourse of atoms produces.

It is difficult to comprehend how particles of matter, agitated in every manner, and susceptible, as has been supposed, of an infinity of different adhesions, should not have formed such a mixture, such a contexture, as would have rendered, the harmonious composition of the universe in all its parts, impossible.

When we represent to ourselves, abstractedly, the unlimmitted number of chances that may be attributed to a blind movement, the imagination, unable to conceive, is left to guess how an infinite number of atoms, endowed with a property of uniting themselves, under an infinite diversity of movements, could compose the heavenly bodies; but, as long before that period, when such an accidental throw would become probable; these same atoms might have formed an innumerable multitude of partial combinations; if one of these combinations had been incompatible with the harmony and composition of a world, that world could not have been formed.

The same considerations may be applied to animated beings: chance might have produced men susceptible of life, and the transmission of it, long before chance gave them all the faculties which they enjoy; and if they had been formed with only four senses, they could not have acquired a fifth; for the same reason that we do not see a new one spring up. Besides, the chance which might have produced living beings, must have always preceded the chance which afforded those beings every thing necessary for their subsistence and preservation.

It may indeed be supposed, that atoms assembled in a manner incompatible with the disposition of the universe, have been separated by the continuation of the motion introduced into the immensity of space; but this continual motion, sufficient to sever that which it has joined, would it not have destroyed that harmony which has been the result of one of the fortuitous chances to which the formation of the world has been attributed?

Will some object, that all the parts of matter, once united in the masses and proportions which constitute the heavenly bodies, have been maintained by the impression of a predominant force at the same time invariable? But how is it possible to reconcile the existence and dominion of such a force with that continual motion, which was requisite for the composition of the universe?

It may be also demonstrated, that the formation of worlds, by the chances of a blind motion, and their regular continuity of existence, are two propositions which disagree. Let us explain this idea. The play of atoms, necessary in order to produce the unformed masses of the heavenly bodies, being infinitely less complicated than that which is necessary to produce them, inhabited as they are with intelligent beings, must have happened long before the other. Thus, in the system of the composition of the universe, by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, it is necessary to suppose, that these atoms, after having been united to form the heavenly bodies, have been severed, and united again, as many times as was necessary, to produce a planet inhabited by intelligent beings. Since beings thus endowed add nothing to the stability of the world, since they do not contribute to the grand coalition of all its parts; why the same blind motion which has united, dissolved, and assembled so often every part of the earth, before it was composed, such as it is; why does it not produce some alteration now? It should again reduce to powder our world, or at least, let us perceive the commencement of some new form.

It is not only to a world inhabited by intelligent beings, that the arguments, just mentioned, may be applicable; for we perceive around us an innumerable multitude of beauties and features of harmony, which were not necessary to the preservation of our world, and which, according to every rule of probability, would never have existed, unless we supposed, that the earth has been formed, dissolved, and reproduced, an infinity of times, before having been composed such as we see it; but then I would ask, why there are no vestiges of those alterations, and why that motion has stopped?

It would be possible, however, by the assistance of a new supposition, to resolve the difficulty I have just mentioned; some may say, that the union, and the successive dispersion of the universal atoms, are executed in a space of time, so slow and insensible, that our observations, and all those which we have from tradition, cannot inform us whether there will not be a separation of all the parts of the universe, by the same causes which have occasioned their adhesion.

It is obvious, that transporting us into infinity and admitting such a series of arbitrary suppositions, they are not indeed exposed to any rational attacks; but, making equally free with infinity, in order to oppose nonsense to nonsense, why may I not be allowed to suppose, that in the infinite combinations arising from perpetual motion, men have been created, destroyed, and again called into being, with the same faculties, remembrances, thoughts, relations, and circumstances; and why each of us separated from our former existence, only by a sleep, whose duration is imperceptible, should not be in our own eyes immortal beings? Infinity permits the supposition of this absurd hypothesis, as it authorises every flight of the imagination in which time is reckoned for nothing. We see, however, how we risk running into error, when with our limited faculties we wish to subject the incomprehensible idea of infinity, and boldly adjust it to the combinations of finite beings.

Let us produce, however, another objection. It may be said, that our planet is the result of chance; but is not this chance improbable, if we suppose that there existed in the infinity of space, an infinite number of other assembled atoms, equally produced by the first throw of the dice, which represent all the possible forms, and imaginable proportions? And I would also ask, by what laws, all these irregular bodies, necessarily subject, by reason of their number and masses, to an infinity of movements, have not disconcerted the planetary system formed, at the same time as they were, by chance?

I ought to observe, above all, that the order which we are acquainted with, is a proof of universal order; for, in immensity, where one part is nothing compared with the whole, no part, without exception, could be preserved, unless it was in equilibrium with every other.

Thus, whether _an infinite succession of chances_ be supposed, to which the entire mass of atoms has been uniformly subject, or whether the first general throw is thought sufficient, but divided _into an infinity of different sections_, our reason opposes invincible difficulties to the result which some want to draw from these various systems.

In short, we must observe, that in order to understand the accidental formation of a world, such as we are at liberty to suppose, the eternal existence of every kind of organized and intelligent atoms, must have preceded the formation of that world. I must again observe, that when they are obliged to such wonderful first principles, and to admit, in the beginning, a nature so astonishing, we can scarcely conceive how they can make it act suddenly a foolish part, in order to finish the work of the universe: a more exalted supposition, would have prevented their drawing a conclusion, so absurd.

It seems to me, that notwithstanding the immensity which has given rise to so many ridiculous notions about the formation of the world, they have such a resemblance to each other, that we can scarcely discern any difference; and considering the little circle which the imagination runs over, when it applies its force to deep conceptions, we think we discover something supernatural in its singular weakness: the authors of these systems seem to have a slavish turn of thinking, and the marks of their chains are very visible; it is always atoms, and atoms that they make play together, either at different times, or all at once, in infinite space; but when some want to form ideas of liberty and will, as they do not know in what manner to analyze these properties, they suppose them pre-existing in the elementary parts, which they made use of to create their universe; and they prudently take care not to grant any action to liberty and will, in order to prevent any resistance to those notions on which they build their universe.