II.
The second theory admits only forces in nature, and places in these forces the principle of all that is produced. It also goes up to the atom, and considers it as equally indivisible and imponderable. It attributes to matter properties, so to speak, immanent which give it its power and action. Atoms, separated from each other in the bodies which they compose, and forming mere simple mathematical points, possess, when they are reunited in mass, a force of attraction which acts at a distance, and then reacts on them in order to produce all the sensible phenomena.
Several savants and certain spiritualist philosophers agree on this theory. Both take facts as the starting point in establishing their synthesis; the former build it on a foundation more exclusively physical; the latter give to their generalization a more philosophical basis.
M. Magy and M. Laugel, hardly overstepping the limits of the experimental world, follow the action of forces into their different modes and transformations.
M. Paul Janet, in his turn, delivers his theory on matter.[202]
"It is in fact," he writes, "force and not extent which constitutes the essence of bodies; an atom in motion occupies successively places which it fits exactly. What distinguishes this atom from the space previously occupied by it? It is not the extent, since in both cases the shape is the same; every thing which relates to extent is absolutely identical in the empty and in the full atom. It is, therefore, something else which distinguishes them, and this something is solidity or weight; but neither solidity nor weight is a modification of extent; both are derived from force, and represent it."
M. Ch. Lévêque adds:[203]
"How do we make the extension which we need? Always by resistance; when extension is not a pure abstraction, when it is real and concrete, it is always equivalent to a sum of resisting points or forces. There is no longer occasion to ask how, with unextended elements, we may form extension. There is but one question possible, and it is this: How to form a sum of resistance with resisting points?"
This is what a learned Englishman, P. Bayma, establishes with precision.[204] According to him, the elements, or atoms, are indivisible points without material extent, and extension is not an essential property of matter.
"The extension of bodies is an appearance caused by the dissemination in space of the elements which compose them; abstract space is extension; consequently the science of extension, or geometry, is not a science of observation but of abstraction."
According to this theory, the forces placed from the beginning in elements govern every thing in the world. Nature is under their control; matter obeys them, or is, rather, entirely a compound of forces. One of the partisans of this system[205] lays down these conclusions: 1st, the last element of matter is always an active, simple, and indivisible force like the soul itself; 2d, the properties of matter are only manifestations of this simple active force. Then, pushing the consequences of this notion of force further, he admits
"that there is only one substance, material and spiritual, at the same time; spiritual in its elements, material in its composition. The soul, conscious of its personal energy, conceives physical beings as forces acting like itself."
A contemporary philosopher,[206] developing further the thesis of conciliation and relation between the two orders of existence, adds:
"Matter has at bottom no other substantial element than spirit. The essence of both is active force, consequently materialism has no reason to exist; there is no longer in nature any thing but spiritualism, or, to speak more correctly, dynamism. This dynamism has nothing which attacks the dignity and preëminence of the soul. The soul alone is capable of thinking or willing, because it alone is a simple force, whereas the smallest body is a compound of simple forces."
Such are the theories which, according to their supporters, are sustained by the most recent discoveries of science.
As for us, we admit that from a scientific stand-point there have been many new and curious observations collected; that the analysis of matter has exposed to view the most astonishing phenomena; that the material element has been almost apprehended, its depths investigated; that it has been stripped of extension as an essential property, its mode of action and constituting principle discovered; that it has been reduced to a unity as sovereign as it is marvellous; and we follow with the most lively interest these results of disinterested and impartial science. We go further; according as the plan gains in unity and grandeur, appearing at the same time more imposing and probable, it brings us nearer to Him who has conceived it, who has given it order and completion. The more of mystery we discover in the universe, the more we bow with admiration, but without astonishment, before the thought and will of the Sovereign who is the origin and reason of the existence of these wonders and of their laws.
But our reason cannot go beyond its limits, and the metaphysical consequences which some have attempted to draw from these phenomena, we have not up to the present been able to admit.
The theory which reduces all to force, which recognizes in bodies an intrinsic mode of acting, whether it divide these forces in the mass of matter, or cause them to mount up to the primitive element, to the atom, indivisible point, or monad, seems to us in every case to beg the question. What is in fact a force, and especially a force attributed to any object? It is undoubtedly neither a being, since it is joined to a first element, nor a substance, since it is considered as an attribute. It is only a manner of indicating an action, the cause of which is unknown. To say that matter acts because it bears in it the power of acting, is simply to say that it acts because it acts; to reply by asserting the fact itself which is in question. Therefore we have only one of those words, new or old, which may cause illusion for an instant, but which do not stand a serious analysis.
Moreover, to attempt to compare and assimilate matter and spirit by giving to both the name of force, and attributing to them the properties attached to this name, is merely to use a word without a definite meaning; for if they were both forces, they would be forces of entirely different, if not opposite action. And if we say that force, being half body and half spirit, is the link which unites them to each other, we create, merely to suit our purpose, a third being which is discovered nowhere, a mere phantasmagoria without reality, which the imagination itself is incapable of representing to us.
Finally, in the parallel and assimilation between body and soul, to reserve, with the power of thinking, preëminence to the mind because it is a simple and unique force, while the smallest body is a compound of these same simple forces, amounts to saying that a body could think if it were only decomposed and reduced to its simple elements, and to the unity of force. There is such a difference in act, mode, and aim between what is called the force of resistance, attributed to bodies, and designated, we know not why, by the name of active force, and between the faculty of thinking, that no common appellation, no matter how specious it may be, can ever confound or identify them.
We would not be able to comprehend how the soul, considered as a monad or simple element, should have by this fact the faculty of thinking, and yet two or several monads united and forming a body would not possess the same power. Why, in the latter case, should there be absence of thought instead of a union of two or several thoughts, concordant or contrary? How could we say that, because there is an assemblage of forces, there is an impossibility of thinking, and that the part is capable of doing what the whole cannot do? It is useless to choose and isolate the most delicate and ethereal element in a body; we can never imagine the soul to be really one of its parts, no matter how pure that part may be.
The notion of force, for the soul as well as for the body, must be put among those appellations which explain nothing, and only serve to cloak our ignorance.
Science itself begins to renounce this name of force; and the first theory which we have exposed, that which recognizes only motions in matter combats the theory of forces with energy, and considers it as vain and illusory. It is not here, consequently, that we shall find the philosophical explanation of phenomena, nor the reconciliation between the two orders of spirit and matter.
The theory of motions rests on a more solid foundation; at least, it employs a word having a precise signification and resting on a real fact, motion. It is only by induction and reasoning that it ascends to ether and the atom. It has never seen either of them, although it affirms their existence. It makes a synthesis. It admits in the universe something else besides atoms and movement, since the thought which it expresses implies the idea of being, of substance and cause. It has seen motions, vibrations, radiations, currents, and it has concluded from them that there is something which moves, vibrates, radiates; thus it has mounted up to a second cause, to ether, to the atom. But this is not sufficient. If it has seen that there is no motion without an object which moves, logic compels it to acknowledge that there is no change without an agent, no movement without a mover; and if the atom exists and moves, this atom also has an origin, a reason of being, a principle from which it has received the gift of existence and the power of motion.
If an admirable plan embraces the universe, if a sovereign unity directs and governs all phenomena, there must be a cause for them. The plan appears more manifestly, and the cause shows itself more necessarily in the very simplicity of the work, in its grandeur in this double quality raised to a higher power.
If the world be, as it is acknowledged to be, the work of thought; if a general and supreme reason presides over the universe, this thought lives in a spirit, this reason belongs to a soul.[207] Can there be a thought without a thinking subject and being? A thought implies a thinking being; reason means a living intelligence; or it must mean nothing, and then there is no sense in words, no reality in things.
It is useless to object; the human mind will have it so; it is the law of its conscience, it is the result of its profound conviction that it does not derive all from itself, and that nothing can produce nothing.
Now, can we say of the atom and motion combined, behold the universe? Yes, the mechanical universe, perhaps. But the mechanical universe is not self-sufficing; for we can always say, Who has made the atom? who has created motion? And then we have the right to propose another affirmation and to conclude: the notion of causality is the entire world—the physical, intellectual, and moral world.
This has been true from the very beginning of thought and the commencement of human reason. This has been true from the days of ancient philosophy, proclaiming through its greatest logician that whatever is in the effect ought to be found in the cause, that the cause must really exist before the effect, and that the perfection of all effects supposes the existence of a primary cause which contains them—a living, spiritual, and perfect cause, which cannot be produced by what is imperfect, inferior, material, or deprived of life, but which is and must be necessarily its generating principle and producing power.