A Criticism.
Lafayette, Ind., April 21, 1874.
The article “On the Wing,” in The Catholic World for May, is one of unusual merit; but in the haste of composition, the writer, at page 216, makes a mistake in stating that S. Peter's Church at Rome was “built from the designs of Bernini, and completed by Michael Angelo.” Bernini had nothing to do with the edifice proper. He only built the baldacchino over the high altar and the colonnade in the public square adjoining the church. Michael Angelo completed the piers of the dome, and made a wooden framework on which to construct a dome; but the dome was constructed by Giacomo della Porta from designs of his own. The edifice proper was finished by Carlo Maderno, and on the plan of a Latin cross, the suggestion of Bramante, overruling Michael Angelo's suggestion of the form of a Greek cross.
It is very seldom that The Catholic World is at fault, even in ecclesiology; but I think here is a plain case.
Having made S. Peter's something of a study both in Rome and at home, I feel myself at liberty to make you these comments. Yours very truly,
J. A. Wilstach.
The poem “For ever,” originally sent to this magazine, and published in our May number, was also published in Lippincott's of the same month, the author concluding, from its non-appearance in The Catholic World, that it had been declined.
The Catholic World. Vol. XIX., No. 112.—July, 1874.
A Discussion With An Infidel.
Dr. Louis Büchner's work, Kraft und Stoff, first appeared in Germany in the year 1855, and met with such a favorable reception by a numerous class of ignorant or wicked progressionists[95] that from that year up to the end of 1870 it passed through ten German editions, without counting the several translations into other languages. The present writer had lately the fortune, or the misfortune, to be presented with an English copy of this abominable work,[96] and was informed that the knights of the square and the trowel had taken a special interest in its propagation. It could not be otherwise; for the work itself is a masonic work. No one who knows the true character of freemasonry, and has read the book, can have the least doubt of its masonic origin. Only a mason of the blackest dye could have displayed such a cool effrontery, artful dishonesty, and diabolic malice as the author of Force and Matter did in almost every page of his little volume. Dr. Büchner is one of those dangerous men who have a great talent for perverting truth. He knows how to dazzle the simple with brilliant quotations, how to perplex the acute with unanswerable riddles, how to entangle the cautious in a web of plausible objections. He knows how to supplant reason by rhetoric; and the more embarrassing his case, the greater is his assurance and the higher his pretension. It is in the name of science that he pretends to speak. Such is the fashion just now. Secret societies began their open war against the church and against God in the name of philosophy; when beaten on this ground, they appealed to liberality, then to progress, then to civilization, and now to science. All these words, on their lips, were lies. Freemasons and their cognate societies have never [pg 434] been fond of real “philosophy,” and never had truly “liberal” views. The world never made any “progress” in the right direction when it followed them; their pretended “civilization” never meant anything else than the tyrannical subjugation of the church by “civil” powers. And now their “science,” so far as it is theirs, is only a travesty and prostitution of truth. The world owes nothing to them except the increase of crime, the loss of public honesty, and the threatened triumph of villany.
With Dr. Büchner, as with many others of the same ilk, science is a mere pretext. His real object is to attack God's existence, a future life, human liberty, and all those truths which underlie sound philosophy, morality, and religious belief. A work so well calculated to do harm, and which has already infected with its poison a numerous class of readers, needs refutation, and we will engage in the unpleasant task. We hope we shall be able to show that Dr. Büchner's Force and Matter, all its pretensions notwithstanding, is, in a philosophical point of view, a complete failure. One ounce of truth and a cartload of lies is just what the doctor dispenses to his benighted admirers throughout the pages of his baneful production.
To make things clearer, and to give Dr. Büchner the best opportunity of speaking for himself, we have thought of putting the whole discussion in the form of a dialogue between the doctor and ourselves. We know that a lengthy conversation with such a sworn enemy of truth may prove disgusting in a high degree, as he will utter nothing but sophisms or blasphemies. But the sophist must be unmasked and the blasphemer confounded. We hope our readers will excuse us for paying such attention to an infidel writer; we would have ignored him altogether, if his work were not as dangerous as it is unworthy of a doctor.
I. Flippancy And Scholasticism.
Reader. Indeed, doctor, I fear that your Force and Matter will make you a bad reputation. Our most esteemed philosophers say that you are a sophist, and that a man of your attainments cannot be a sophist but by deliberate choice. They evidently imply that you are a knave and an impostor. As for myself, I confess that I do not see the cogency of your reasonings; but, before declaring you a knave and an impostor, I should like to hear from your own mouth what you may have to say in your behalf.
Büchner. I am not surprised, sir, at anything said against me. When I published my work, “I knew that my attempt was bold, and that I should have to sustain a fierce struggle with the prejudices of the age” (p. viii.) But “things cannot be represented different from what they are; and nothing appears to me more perverse than the efforts of respectable naturalists to introduce orthodoxy in the natural sciences” (p. xvii.) You say that our most esteemed philosophers call me a sophist. You mean the schoolmen, of course; in fact, the scholastic philosophy, still riding upon its high though terribly emaciated horse, conceives that it has long ago done with our theories, and has consigned them, ticketed materialism, sensualism, determinism, etc., to the scientific lumber-room, or, as the phrase goes, has assigned them their historical value. But this philosophy, my dear sir, sinks daily in the [pg 435] estimation of the public, and loses its ground (p. xviii.)
Reader. I would remark, with your permission, that the public is not nowadays a very acute judge of these matters. For what does the public know of scholastic philosophy?
Büchner. By the public I mean the scientific world, sir.
Reader. The scientific world, dear doctor, knows very little of scholastic philosophy. I am sure you will not deny the fact. Can you tell me where, when, for how many years, under what professors, and in what books, your scientific men had an opportunity of studying scholastic philosophy? They have, no doubt, heard something of it—just enough to realize the fact that there was a science in the world of which they were profoundly ignorant. But this gives them no right to pass a judgment. I venture to say that neither you nor Moleschott, Feuerbach, Darwin, Tuttle, Huxley, or any of your school, have ever studied, or consulted, or perhaps even so much as touched with your hands, a single volume of scholastic philosophy.
Büchner. This may be; but it is quite enough for us to know that “the singular attempts of the old school to construe nature out of thought instead of from observation have failed, and brought the adherents of that school into such discredit that the name of natural philosopher has become a byword and a nickname” (p. xix.)
Reader. No, doctor. This is not true. The name of natural philosopher is still much respected and revered; and I trust nothing will ever succeed in making it despicable, except, perhaps, the shameless usurpation of it made by your friends, the free-thinkers, whose philosophy is nothing but a mean conspiracy against truth. It is their fault, indeed, if the name of natural philosopher is sneered at when connected with their own persons. Why should they put on a garb which fits them not? If you call Moleschott or Darwin natural philosophers, every one certainly will smile; but call Ampère or Faraday by this name, and you will see every one take down his hat in sign of respect and approbation. Then, you should not imagine that because a few discoveries have been lately made by our men of science (I say a few, because most of them are only new applications of old theories, while many others are mere hypotheses), you should not imagine that we have acquired the right to despise the discoveries and the wisdom of all past ages. It was our forefathers who created modern science. Where would you be without a Kepler, a Galileo, a Newton, and scores of others, who laid down the ruling principles of all the branches of science? If they knew less than we do about empirical manipulations, they knew a great deal more about the conditions of legitimate speculation. To construe nature “out of thought instead of from observation” has never been their method; if I wished to retaliate, I could easily prove that it is yours.
Büchner (defiantly). Try, sir.
Reader. Well, since you challenge me, I shall ask you whether it is from observation, and not out of thought, that you have construed your “uncreated” matter. I know, and you also know, that it is only “out of thought.” But we shall have time to do justice to this and other topics. The point I now insist on is, that what you say of the scholastic method of “construing [pg 436] nature” is a rank calumny. Understand me, doctor. Natural science has two objects in view: the first is to ascertain the truth about natural facts; the second is to discover the nature of the principles and causes to which such facts must be traced. As the first of these two objects is attained by observation and experiments, so is the second by thought—that is, by reasonings based on the positive results of observation and experiment. Now, you must admit that the duty of the metaphysician is not to make observations or experiments. This belongs to the physicist. The metaphysician accepts the facts as ascertained by the physicist; and it is from such facts, not from thoughts, that he starts his speculation on the nature of things. Of course, if the physicist be wrong in his statement of facts, the metaphysician will be led astray and build a theory without foundation; yet the fault will not be his. And if the physicist be ignorant of some important law of nature, the metaphysician will be compelled to supply for the law with a guess at a probable hypothesis. This is in the nature of things. With a mutton-chop you cannot make roast beef, can you?
Büchner. No, indeed.
Reader. I mean that our forefathers had not at their disposal such an abundance of means for investigating the secrets of nature as we now possess. Certainly, the most important of such secrets, before the time of Copernicus, were inaccessible to the metaphysicians. I allow, then, that the theory of the scholastics remained incomplete, and was most imperfect so long as universal attraction was unknown and chemistry undeveloped. But this proves nothing. The imperfection of the old physics gives you no right to affirm that the schoolmen construed nature out of thought. Speculation always implies thought; but to start one's speculations from the data of observation, as it was customary with the scholastic philosophers, is not to reject observation.
Büchner. I demur to this statement, sir. It is well known that the old school was all grounded on the à priori method.
Reader. Certainly not, my dear doctor. One cannot reason without abstract principles; but when such principles are the result of experimental knowledge, it would be folly to pretend that they constitute an à priori method of construing nature out of thought instead of from observation. Do you demur to this also?
Büchner. What I assert, sir, is that “the times of the scholastic bombast, of philosophical charlatanism, or, as Cotta says, of intellectual jugglery, are passing away” (p. xix.)
Reader. You are not serious, doctor. First of all, you know nothing about scholastic bombast. Were you to read one page of any of our great scholastic doctors, you would be amazed at the simplicity of their style, and at the utter recklessness of your allegation. In the second place, the times of bombast and charlatanism are not passing away. Read Huxley. Can you find anything more bombastic than his Lay Sermons? Read Darwin. Is he not a philosophical charlatan? Read your own Kraft und Stoff....
Büchner. Brilliancy is not charlatanism, sir. It is a fact that while the pretended high speculations of the old school are hopelessly unintelligible, our discoveries, [pg 437] “by directing investigation to facts, have compelled thought to leave the misty and sterile regions of speculative dreams, and to descend to real life” (p. xxii.) Can you condemn us for this? “It lies in the nature of philosophy that it should be common property. Expositions which are not intelligible to an educated man are scarcely worth the ink they are printed with. The philosophical mist which envelops the writings of scholars appears intended more to conceal than to exhibit their thoughts” (p. xix.)
Reader. It is all a mistake, doctor. If you reflect for a moment on your oracular sentences, you will see that they are mere nonsense. You say that it lies in the nature of philosophy that it should be common property. I wonder if this can be true. I fancy that philosophy, like any other science or discipline which is acquired by study, is the property of those alone who have studied it; and I hope that no man of sense will contest such an evident truth. You say that philosophical expositions should be intelligible to every educated man; but this is true only on the assumption that the education of which you speak includes a thorough training in philosophy; which, unfortunately, is not the case with a great number of so-called educated men. You say that whatever is clearly conceived can be clearly expressed; but you forget that what is clearly expressed for the scholar may still be obscure to the uninitiated. Is it possible that a doctor like you, and a president of a medical association, should overlook the fact that every science has a number of technical terms and scientific phrases which must be learned in special books and by special study before its speculations can be comprehended? It is therefore supremely ridiculous to talk of “the mist that envelops the writings of scholars.” Everything is misty to the uninstructed. Let him study, and the mist will disappear; for it is not the doctrine that wants clearness, but it is the eye of the ignorant that is blurred.
And now, what shall I say of that pompous phrase of yours, that modern discoveries “have compelled thought to leave the misty and sterile regions of speculative dreams, and to descend to real life”? I hope you will allow me to call it “modern bombast” and “philosophical charlatanism”; for I cannot call it by any other name. If you mean by such words to denounce Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and other German dreamers of the same school, I have nothing to say in their defence; but if you intend thereby to stigmatize the Catholic schools, to which you Germans, no less than the rest of the civilized world, owe your intellectual education, I cannot help saying, dear doctor, that your hostile insinuations are dictated by malice and hatred of truth. Why do you defame what you know not? How can you call a sterile region that speculative philosophy which formed all our great men? or dreams those evident conclusions against which reason cannot rebel without slaying itself? Is not this very strange in a doctor? You were confident that “intellectual jugglery,” to use Cotta's expression, would be stronger than historical truth; but we are quite prepared to meet you on this ground as on others; for we Catholic thinkers are not afraid of bombastic words. We do not even think that your “jugglery” is at all “intellectual.” For is it intellectual [pg 438] to make sweeping assertions when you can give no proofs? Or is it intellectual to sneer at your opponents, instead of replying to their arguments? I presume, dear doctor, that your freemasons alone would see anything intellectual in such a proceeding.
Büchner. You imagine, sir, that I must be a freemason. I shall not answer that, as it has nothing to do with my book. Yet I wish to inform you that freemasonry everywhere favors the progress of “modern science”; and therefore I would not object to being called a freemason, whether I am one or not. But as to making assertions of which I give no proofs, I defy you, sir, to substantiate the charge; and as to my not replying to my opponents, I am sure you will modify your judgment when you examine the prefaces to the various editions of my work.
Reader. I accept the challenge. It will not be more difficult to give you full satisfaction on these two points than it has been to rebut your flippant denunciations of the scholastic philosophy.
II. Tergiversation And Jugglery.
Reader. You say, then, that in the prefaces to the various editions of your work you have replied to your opponents.
Büchner. Certainly I do.
Reader. I have read all your prefaces. In the very first you make this declaration: “We will not be in want of opponents; but we shall only notice those who speak from experience and combat us with facts” (p. xx.) This amounts to saying: “When we shall be attacked with any sort of arms, arrows, pistols, knives, swords, guns, and sticks, we shall not defend ourselves except against sticks.” Against sticks, of course, you may defend yourself by the use of other sticks; but, if you are attacked with artillery, will your sticks be to you a sufficient protection? You knew very well, when publishing your book, that you were to be attacked with reasons. To declare that you would notice only those adversaries who would attack you with facts was to declare that you were not ready to meet your real opponents.
Büchner. Against fact there is no reasoning.
Reader. This is not the question. It is true that against fact there is no reasoning; but when we argue against your false conclusions, we do not attack your facts, but your sophisms only, most erudite doctor.
Then you add that “speculative philosophers may fight among themselves from their own point of view, but should not delude themselves into the belief that they alone are in possession of philosophical truth” (p. xx.) These words reveal your tactics, which are: “Let them fight among themselves, and not against me; but if one of their number attacks me, and I cannot hold my ground, let him know that, if he is right, I also am right; for he is not alone in possession of philosophical truth.” This is, doctor, the silly plan of defence you have adopted and carried out against the attacks of Catholic philosophers. How can you, then, pretend that you have answered your opponents? I mean your real opponents.
When the Frankfurter Katholische Kirchenblatt took you to task for your impious and absurd publication, what did you answer? Here are your words: “We shall [pg 439] pass over the fierce denunciations of the Frankfürter Katholische Kirchenblatt, conducted by the parish priest, Beda Weber. The melancholy notoriety which that individual has acquired, as one of the most eccentric of the ultramontane party, permits us simply to dismiss him. We shall only tell the reader that the Frankfürter Kirchenblatt carries its hatred against the modern direction of science so far as to recommend the application of the criminal law against its representatives. The public may thus learn what these gentlemen are capable of, should they ever become possessed of power. The same bloody hatred with which science was once persecuted by religious fanaticism would revive anew, and with it the Inquisition, and auto-da-fés, and all the horrors, with which a refined zealotism has tortured humanity would be resorted to, to satisfy the wishes of these theological cut-throats. We must turn from these enemies, quite unworthy of a serious refutation, to another opponent” (p. xxiii.) Here, then, you confess that you have cowardly turned your back to the enemy.
Büchner. Cowardly?
Reader. Yes. If you do not like the word, I will say prudently. In fact, the reason you allege—that such an enemy was unworthy of serious refutation—is a miserable pretext. Whoever is not blind can see that your furious declamation against Beda Weber was an impudent attempt at crushing, if possible, by insults, the man whom you could not defeat with reasons. It is mean and disgusting. What can your readers say when you dare not even let them know Beda Weber's objections, on the plea that the reverend priest “has acquired a melancholy notoriety as one of the most eccentric of the ultramontane party”? If such is the verdict of the masonic lodges, we cannot but congratulate Beda Weber for the compliment paid to him. His very “hatred against the modern (masonic and infidel) direction of science” shows that he is a man of sound and clear judgment; and his opinion that “the criminal law” should be applied against the atheists and the corruptors of youth recommends him to us as a man of order and a true friend of civil society; for nothing is more necessary for the preservation of order and the peace of society than the enforcement of law. When such men make denunciations, they should not be “simply dismissed,” dear doctor. Religious fanaticism, refined zealotism, tortures of humanity, persecution of science, and the rest, even if they were not thread-bare lies, would not authorize you to “simply dismiss” a learned opponent as unworthy of serious refutation. I will say nothing about that malicious insinuation concerning “what these gentlemen are capable of, should they ever become possessed of power.” Were they capable of any monstrosity, this would not help your defence of Force and Matter. But those gentlemen have been possessed of power for ages, and the nations redeemed from barbarism, and enriched with monuments of art, and with scientific, literary, and charitable institutions, show “what they were capable of.” Of course freemasonry is capable of something else; a glance at the present deplorable condition of Germany suffices to show what you are capable of when you are possessed of power. But, I repeat, were we as wicked, in [pg 440] your opinion, as you are in fact, this would be no reason for not answering our arguments. Your book is an attack against religion. The professors of religion are therefore your natural opponents. It is to them, therefore, that you owe your explanations. And yet this is what you publicly profess yourself unable to do.
Büchner. I never made such a profession.
Reader. You made it very openly. “With regard to parsons and ecclesiastics,” you say, “who never cease to enlighten and to assail us with their eloquence, we beg to repeat that we cannot discuss with them” (p. lxiv.) Of course you endeavor to cover your retreat, as usual, by pretending that “these good people have, from the beginning of the world, had the privilege of using their zeal and ignorance in crying down everything that does not suit their business” (ibid.); but this vile language only betrays your inability to cope with them. You are so generous as “not to disturb them in their vocation,” because “no rational man doubts the total incapacity of these gentlemen to enter upon such questions” (p. lxv.)
Büchner. Why should I answer them? They are mere theologians; and I maintain that “there is no theological or ecclesiastical natural science, and there will be none so long as the telescope does not reach the regions where angels dwell” (p. lxv.)
Reader. This is a very poor excuse, dear doctor. Theologians are not debarred from dealing with natural sciences. To mention no others, Copernicus was a canon; Secchi is a Jesuit; Moigno is a priest. Moreover, the subject of the question is not natural science, but your sophistry; and you cannot deny that ecclesiastical studies make men competent to judge of logical blunders. But, leaving all this aside, did you not try to refute the Allgemeine Zeitung, though you pretend that “in struggling with such pen-heroes, it seems to you that you are acting like Don Quixote” (p. xxviii.)? Did you not fight, also, against Mr. Karl Gutzkow, although he, “as is well known, has never impeded the daring flight of his genius by the ballast of science” (p. xxix.)? And, to omit others, did you not do your best to answer the Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung, although it meets you, as you say, “with theological eccentricity and rodomontades” (p. xxxvii.)? It would appear, then, that you are not afraid of accepting battle when you have any hope of overcoming your adversary. And therefore, when you shrink from answering your Catholic opponents, it is evident that you do so only because with them you have no hope of success.
Büchner. You are quite mistaken, sir.
Reader. No, indeed. I am certain that you cannot hold your ground against a Catholic opponent, and I am ready to show you immediately that such is really the case. I have already told you that your Force and Matter is a book full of sweeping assertions, of which no proof is given. You challenged me to substantiate the charge, and I have accepted the challenge. I say, then, that your very first proposition, on which all the other arguments employed in your work are ultimately based, is one of those assertions of which no proof is or can be given. Do you accept the battle on this ground?
Büchner. I do.
Reader. Please, then, what do you consider to be the fundamental proposition of your work?
Büchner. It is this: “No matter without force, and no force without matter” (p. 2).
Reader. Is this proposition altogether universal, so as to admit of no possible exception?
Büchner. Yes, sir, absolutely universal, without any possible exception.
Reader. Then please tell me on what grounds such an absolute universality can be established.
Büchner. On many grounds. First, as Dubois-Reymond profoundly remarks, “fundamentally considered, there are neither forces nor matter. Both are merely abstractions, assumed from different points of view, of things as they are. They supplement and presuppose each other. Separately they do not exist. Matter is not like a carriage, to which the forces, like horses, can be put or again removed from. A particle of iron is, and remains, the same, whether it crosses the horizon in the meteoric stone, rushes along in the wheel of the steam-engine, or circulates in the blood through the temples of the poet. These qualities are eternal, inalienable, and untransferable” (pp. 1, 2).
Reader. I would remark that the qualities of matter are not eternal. Of course, as long as matter continues to exist, its essential constitution must remain intact; but to say that the qualities of matter are eternal is to assume not only that matter will last for ever, but also that it has existed from all eternity. Science has no right to make this assumption, since it has no means of ascertaining its truth; for evidently eternity does not come under observation and experiment. But leaving aside this question, which we may examine later, I say that your quotation from M. Dubois does not account for the universality of your proposition.
Büchner. Hear Moleschott: “A force not united to matter, but floating freely above it, is an idle conception” (p. 1).
Reader. This is a mere assertion.
Büchner. Hear Cotta: “Nothing in the world justifies us in assuming the existence per se of forces independent of the bodies from which they proceed and upon which they act” (p. 2).
Reader. This is no proof. It is quite clear that those forces which proceed from the bodies cannot be independent of the bodies. But your proposition is that no force whatever can exist without matter; and therefore you should prove that all forces, without exception, are dependent on matter.
Büchner. First of all, we must admit that there is no matter without force. “Imagine matter without force, and the minute particles of which a body consists without that system of mutual attraction and repulsion which holds them together, and gives form and shape to the body; imagine the molecular forces of cohesion and affinity removed; what then would be the consequence? The matter must instantly break up into a shapeless nothing. We know in the physical world of no instance of any particle of matter which is not endowed with forces by means of which it plays its appointed part in some form or another, sometimes in connection with similar or with dissimilar particles. Nor are we in imagination capable of forming a conception of matter without force. In whatever way we may think of an original substance, there must [pg 442] always exist in it a system of mutual repulsion and attraction between its minutest parts, without which they would dissolve and tracelessly disappear in universal space. A thing without properties is a non-entity, neither rationally cogitable nor empirically existing in nature” (pp. 2, 3).
Reader. Very good so far. But this is no recent discovery; it is an old truth constantly taught, and much more exactly expressed, by those schoolmen whom you imagine to have been “the persecutors of science.” Thus far, then, you have only rehearsed the old doctrine. But now you have to show that, as there is no matter without force, so also there is no force without matter.
Büchner. Yes. “Force without matter is equally an idle notion. It being a law admitting of no exception that force can only be manifested in matter, it follows that force can as little possess a separate existence as matter without force” (p. 3).
Reader. Take care, doctor! You are now assuming what should be proved. You assume a law, admitting of no exception, that force can only be manifested in matter.
Büchner. The law is known. “Imagine an electricity, a magnetism, without the iron or such bodies as exhibit these phenomena, and without the particles of matter, the mutual relation of which is just the cause of these phenomena; nothing would then remain but a confused idea, an empty abstraction, to which we have given a name in order to form a better conception. If the material particles capable of an electric condition had never existed, there would have been no electricity, and we should never have been able by mere attraction to acquire the least knowledge or conception of electricity. Indeed, we may say electricity would never have existed without these particles. All the so-called imponderables, such as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc., are neither more nor less than changes in the aggregate state of matter—changes which, almost like contagion, are transmitted from body to body. Heat is a separation, cold an approximation, of the material atoms. Light and sound are vibrating, undulating bodies. Electrical and magnetic phenomena, says Czolbe, arise, as experience shows, like light and heat from the reciprocal relation of molecules and atoms” (pp. 3, 4).
Reader. Have you done?
Büchner. Yes, sir.
Reader. Is this all your proof?
Büchner. Yes, sir.
Reader. Then allow me to state that you have not shown what you promised. You have proved, indeed, that the forces of matter exist nowhere but in matter; but as every one admits this, there was no need of your proof. Your duty was to prove the universal proposition, no force without matter; and therefore you had to show that there are no other forces than the forces of matter.
Büchner. This is evident; as “force can as little exist without a substance as seeing without a visual apparatus, or thinking without an organ of thought” (p. 4).
Reader. I am afraid, doctor, that you do not speak to the point. The question is not whether a force can or cannot exist without a substance; it is, whether there is no other substance than matter. Before denying the existence of force without matter, you must [pg 443] conclusively show that all substance is matter.
Büchner. “Nothing but the changes we perceive in matter by means of our senses could ever give us any notion as to the existence of powers which we qualify by the name of forces. Any knowledge of them by other means is impossible” (p. 4).
Reader. I should be glad to know how you can infer from such a remark that all substance is matter. What you perceive in material objects proves, indeed, the existence of matter and of the forces of matter; but how does it prove the non-existence of other substances and of other forces? You, surely, imagine that our senses are our only source of knowledge, and that the supersensible, as unknowable, must be consigned to the region of dreams.
Büchner. Certainly. “We maintain that human thought and human knowledge are incapable of discovering or knowing anything supersensual. This is the necessary general result of modern investigation” (p. xli.)
Reader. A curious result indeed! By which of your senses do you perceive abstractions, such as philosophy, morality, affirmation, veracity? I put you the alternative: either show that you touch, hear, smell, taste, or see, with your material eyes, any of such abstract notions, or confess, according to the general result of your ridiculous modern investigations, that you can have none of such notions, and are essentially incapable of reasoning.
Büchner. You try to draw me out of the real question, sir.
Reader. By no means. It is your denial of our capability of knowing anything supersensual that draws us out of the question.
Büchner. My object was to show that there is no matter without force, and no force without matter. This proposition can be established without any special reference to our mental operations.
Reader. You may try; on condition, however, that our knowledge of the supersensible be not called in question.
Büchner. The science of force is physics. “This science makes us acquainted with eight different forces: gravitation, mechanical force, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, affinity, cohesion, which, inseparably united to matter, form and give shape to the world” (p. 18). Any force which cannot be reduced to a combination of these forces is therefore to be looked upon as chimerical. Nothing is more evident.
Reader. Evident? I think, doctor, if I were you, I would be ashamed of uttering such a rank sophism. You beg the question altogether. What right have you to assume that there are no real forces in the universe but those mentioned in our physical treatises? To assume this is to assume that there is nothing in the world but matter—the very thing which you should demonstrate. And therefore you are as far as ever from having shown your universal proposition, no force without matter. Indeed, you will never show it. Truth is stronger than you.
Büchner. Then tell me, sir, on what ground do you base your belief in the existence of supersensual forces?
Reader. Excuse me, doctor. We were not discussing the question, “What are my grounds for believing their existence?” Our question was, “What are your own grounds for proclaiming their non-existence?” [pg 444] When a man makes an assertion contrary to the common belief, it is his duty to give good reasons in its support. If he cannot, let him give up his assertion, and go back to the common belief. Common beliefs, on the contrary, are in no need of special demonstration so long as they are not attacked with plausible reasons. That there are supersensual forces is a common belief. As you have failed to adduce any serious proof to the contrary, this common belief remains unshaken. You ask on what grounds I base my belief. I might answer that I base it on the ground of universal consent, and I might show that this universal consent must have a universal foundation, which cannot be invalidated. But I will tell you a special reason for admitting supersensual forces. It is that there are facts which cannot be accounted for by the forces of matter.
Büchner. What fact? Do you mean the exploded fact of creation?
Reader. I will soon come to the fact of creation, if you wish, and compel you to swallow back your nasty epithet. But the fact I alluded to was that the phenomena of consciousness and of volition are unaccountable, if there is nothing besides material forces. This you cannot deny; for you say you “cannot but acknowledge that in the relation of brain and soul, phenomena occur which cannot be explained from the simple physical relation of force and matter” (p. lxiv.) As long, therefore, as you admit nothing but matter and material force, there are facts which, by your own confession, cannot be explained. Thus, you see, not only have you failed to substantiate your fundamental assertion, no force without matter, but you are constrained, on your own showing, to admit forces that transcend matter.
III. Creation.
Reader. You say, doctor, that creation is an exploded fact. May I ask why?
Büchner. “Those who talk of a creative power, which is said to have produced the world out of itself, or out of nothing, are ignorant of the first and most simple principle, founded upon experience and the contemplation of nature. How could a power have existed not manifested in material substance, but governing it arbitrarily according to individual views? Neither could separately-existing forces be transferred to chaotic matter, and produce the world in this manner; for we have seen that a separate existence of either is an impossibility” (p. 5).
Reader. I beg to remind you that we have not seen the impossibility of force without matter. All your efforts to show it have been vain. It is childish, therefore, on your part, to pretend that those who talk of a creative power “are ignorant of a first principle founded upon experience and the contemplation of nature.” The contemplation of nature is, on the contrary, the ladder by which rational creatures ascend to the knowledge of the Creator. You ask: How could a power have existed not manifested in material substance? I answer by another question: How could the world have existed, if no such power exists? This is the real question at issue. And pray, doctor, do not speak of separately-existing forces transferred to chaotic matter. This is not the way we account for the [pg 445] production of the world. We do not admit of chaotic matter before creation. And again, do not suppose that we can ever dream of a Creator producing the world out of himself. We are not pantheists; and we know that the world has been produced out of nothing. This is the true notion of creation according to both theology and philosophy.
Büchner. Very well. But “the world could not have originated out of nothing. A nothing is not merely a logical, but also an empirical non-entity. The world, or matter with its properties, which we term forces, must have existed from eternity, and must last for ever—in one word, the world cannot have been created” (p. 5).
Reader. These are bold assertions indeed. How can you make them good?
Büchner. “The notion ‘eternal’ is certainly one which, with our limited faculties, is difficult of conception. The facts, nevertheless, leave no doubt as to the eternity of the world” (p. 5).
Reader. What facts, if you please?
Büchner. Here is one fact: “That the world is not governed, as is frequently expressed, but that the changes and motions of matter obey a necessity inherent in it, which admits of no exception, cannot be denied by any person who is but superficially acquainted with the natural sciences” (p. 5). Now, if the world is not governed by a superior power, we cannot make it dependent for its origin on any superior power. This leaves no doubt as to the eternity of the world.
Reader. I wonder, doctor, if you have ever learned or understood the first principles of philosophy. Young students may teach you that, from the necessity to which matter is subjected of obeying certain laws of motion, it is absurd to infer the necessity of its existence. What is subject to obedience is not independent, and what has a necessity of obeying is essentially dependent. Moreover, do you not see that what is subject to change cannot be necessary, and cannot be eternal? You appeal to natural sciences. This is ridiculous. There is no need of modern sciences to know that the phenomena of the material world follow an invariable law. This was known in all past ages; yet no man in his senses has thought of concluding that therefore matter was a necessary being. Pagan philosophers, who had lost the primitive traditions of mankind, admitted uncreated matter without further examining the question; but none of them pretended to prove the eternity or necessity of matter from its subjection to definite laws of motion. The absurdity of such a deduction is manifest. Suppose a geometrician were to argue thus: What follows an invariable and necessary law exists from eternity; but every triangle follows this invariable and necessary law: that the sum of its angles equals two right angles; and therefore every triangle exists from eternity. What would you reply?
Büchner. I would reply that the laws of geometry are mere abstractions.
Reader. And so are all physical laws also. When a thing exists, it cannot but be what it is according to its essence. If it is a figure of geometry, it exists according to geometric laws, and has its geometric properties; and if it is a material substance, it cannot but have the properties of matter, and so long as it exists it cannot but retain [pg 446] the same properties. This is evident. But from the fact that a thing existing is necessarily subject to the laws of its nature you cannot conclude that it necessarily exists, unless, indeed, you are not even superficially acquainted with the laws of reasoning. Hence it is clear that your argument has no weight.
Büchner. “But that a power—taken for the once in its abstract sense—could only exist so long as it is active is no less clear. In assuming, therefore, a creative absolute power, a primeval soul, an unknown x—it matters not what name we give it—as the cause of the world, we must, in applying to it the notion of time, say that it could not have existed either before or after the creation. It could not have existed before, as the notion of power is not reconcilable with the idea of nothing or inactivity. It could not have been a creative power without creating something. We must, therefore, suppose that this power has for a time been inert in the presence of chaotic and motionless matter—a conception we have already shown to be absurd. It could not have existed after the creation, as rest and inactivity are again incompatible with the notion of force. The motion of matter obeys only those laws which are inherently active; and their manifestations are nothing but the product of the various and manifold accidental or necessary combinations of material movements. At no time and nowhere, even in the most distant space reached by our telescope, could a single fact be established, forming an exception to this law, which would render the assumption of a force external, and independent of matter, necessary. But a force which is not manifested does not exist, and cannot be taken into account in our reasoning” (p. 6). What do you answer, sir?
Reader. I answer that this pretended argument cannot entrap any one but an ignorant man, or one who desires to be cheated or to cheat himself. And first I observe that you begin by surmising that the Creator would be “an abstract power”; now, the surmise is an absurdity. Secondly, you suppose that we “assume” a creative absolute power—which is not the case; for we do not assume its existence, but we prove it. Thirdly, you call the Creator “a primeval soul, an unknown x”; and both expressions are very wrong indeed. Fourthly, you say that we must apply to the Creator “the notion of time”—which is sheer folly; as every one knows that time has no existence but in the successive changes of created things. Even you yourself say that “the mere application of a limited notion of time to the creative power involves a contradiction” (p. 7). And therefore, when you affirm that the creative power “could not have existed either before or after creation,” you commit a great blunder by assuming that before creation there should have been time. But leaving aside all this, and supposing that the phrase “before the creation” may be understood in a legitimate sense as expressing the priority of eternity and not of time, I will come directly to your argument.
You say that a creative power could not exist before creation, “as the notion of power is not reconcilable with the idea of nothing or inactivity.” This reason proves nothing, except, perhaps, your ignorance of logic. Try to reduce your argument to the syllogistic form, and you will see what it amounts to.
Büchner. The syllogism will run thus: A power can exist only as long as it is active. But the creative power before the creation was not active. Therefore the creative power could not exist before the creation. I hope this proves something else than my ignorance of logic.
Reader. And yet your logic is sadly at fault. Do you not see the equivocation lurking in the middle term? What do you mean by active? Does this word stand for acting, or for able to act? If it stands for acting, then your major proposition is false; for a power exists as long as it is able to act, although it is not actually acting. This is clear; for have you not a power of talking as long as you are able to talk, although you may actually be silent? If, on the contrary, the word active stands for able to act, then it is your minor proposition that will be evidently false; for the creative power, before the creation, was able to create the world, although we conceive it as not yet creating anything. Hence your nice syllogism is a mere sophism, and your conclusion a blunder.
Your other assertion, “It could not have been a creative power without creating something,” is likewise sophistical. For the epithet “creative” in your argumentation means “able to create”; and consequently it does not entail actual creation, but only its possibility. Thus the blunder is repeated.
But you proceed: “We must, therefore, suppose that this power has for a time been inert in the presence of chaotic or motionless matter.” In these few words I find three mistakes: First, you again introduce time where there can be nothing but eternity; secondly, you assume that a power not exercised is inert—which is false, because inertness means destitution of self-acting power; thirdly, you put chaotic and motionless matter in the presence of the creative power before this power has been exercised—which is to assume that chaotic matter was not created, but only received movement. You understand, doctor, that in arguing, as you do, from the point of view of your adversaries, you cannot take such liberties. If you wish to refute creation, you must take it as it is understood and defended by its supporters; or else you will only refute your own hallucinations. But I will not insist on these latter remarks. I made them only that you may better realize how deficient and miserable is your method of reasoning.
Büchner (bitterly). Thank you for the compliment.
Reader. However, I have more to say; and I hope, doctor, that you will not lose your temper, if I proceed onward in the same strain. In the second part of your argument you say that the creative power “could not have existed after the creation, as rest and inactivity are again incompatible with the notion of force.” This is evidently a mere reiteration of the sophism just refuted. If the reason you allege had any weight, it would follow that, when you have ceased curing a patient, your medical power would vanish, and, when you have ceased talking, your talkative power would be extinct; in fact, rest and inactivity, according to you, are incompatible with the notion of power. I say “power,” although you here make use of the word “force,” which is calculated to mislead your readers. The word “force” is frequently [pg 448] used to express a quantity of movement; and, of course, rest and movement exclude one another; hence to designate the creative power by the name of “force” may be a dishonest trick, though a very clumsy one, to inveigle readers into the belief that rest and creative power are incompatible. Here, however, I must point out another great blunder, which a man of your talent should have been able to avoid. There is a truth, doctor, of which you seem to be quite ignorant, though certainly you must have heard of it more than once. It is that the creative power, after the production of creatures, does not remain inactive. Creatures need positive conservation, and would fall into nothingness were they not continually kept in existence by the same power by which they have been first brought into being. Hence the creative power is always at work. What is, then, your supposition of its inactivity but a new proof of your ignorance?
What you add concerning the motion of matter has no importance. I might admit with you that, prescinding from miracles (which you are blind enough to deny), “at no time and nowhere, even in the most distant space reached by our telescope, could a single fact be established which would render the assumption of a force external, and independent of matter, necessary.” This, however, regards only the stability of the laws of motion; and it would be absurd to infer that therefore the existence of matter and its conservation need not be accounted for by an external cause. But you again give a proof of your ignorance by adding that “the motion of matter obeys only those laws which are inherently active.” What does this mean? Try to understand the term “law,” and you will see that to call law “inherently active” is an unpardonable nonsense. And hoping that this suffices to show the absolute worthlessness of your pretended argument, I will let you go on with your other allegations.
Büchner. You do not reflect, sir, that in your theory the creative power must have been idle for an eternity; and this cannot be admitted. For “to consider the power in eternal rest, and sunk in self-contemplation, is an empty arbitrary abstraction without any empirical basis” (p. 6).
Reader. Not at all, doctor. To consider God in eternal rest is not an empty arbitrary abstraction; it is a real and necessary conclusion from incontrovertible premises. Is it philosophical to assume, as you do, that creation would likely put an end to God's eternal rest? God always rests unchangeably in himself, whether he actually exercises his creative power or not. He has in himself his happiness, and in himself he rests for ever independently of creation. This we say without thinking for a moment of your “empirical basis.” For we know that it is a silly thought, that of endeavoring to find an empirical basis for a purely intellectual truth. But if by the want of an empirical basis you mean a want of known facts from which to show God's existence and infinite perfection, then your duty would have been to substantiate your assertion by showing that such facts are not real facts, or have no connection with the existence of a supreme being. This you have omitted to do, and thus all your argument consists of bold assertions, not only without proofs, but without the possibility of proof.
Is it not strange, then, that you [pg 449] fancy to have cornered your readers, and compelled them to resort to the most absurd fictions to uphold the existence of a creative power? You say, in fact, that they have no other resource but to admit “the singular notion that the creative power had suddenly and without any occasion arisen out of nothing, had created the world (out of what?), and had again, in the moment of completion, collapsed within itself, and, so to say, dissolved itself in the universe” (p. 7). Indeed, were we as stupid as any creature can be, we would still find it impossible to dream of such a foolish assumption. You add that “philosophers and others have ever cherished this latter notion, believing that they could, by this mode of reasoning, reconcile the indisputable fact of a fixed and unchangeable law in the economy of the universe with the belief in an individual creative power” (ibid.) I do not hesitate to tell you, doctor, that nothing but hatred of truth could prompt you to utter such a gross lie.
Büchner. Yet “all religious conceptions lean more or less towards this idea” (p. 7).
Reader. This I deny.
Büchner. Let me explain. Philosophers admit the idea, “with this difference: that they conceive the spirit of the world reposing after the creation, but yet, as an individual, capable of again suspending his own laws” (p. 7).
Reader. This explanation is not to the point. Your assertion implied that philosophers and others ever cherished the notion that the creative power had suddenly arisen out of nothing, and that all religious conceptions lean more or less towards this idea. This is what I challenged you to show. Does your explanation show it? On the contrary, it shows that the idea towards which religious conceptions lean is quite different.
Büchner. Be this as it may, “conceptions of this kind cannot concern us, not being the result of philosophical reasoning. Individual human qualities and imperfections are transferred to philosophical notions, and belief is made to occupy the place of actual knowledge” (p. 7).
Reader. I perceive, doctor, that you are persistently wrong. It seems as though you could not open your mouth without uttering some false or incongruent assertion. What are those conceptions which “cannot concern us”? Are they not the dreams you have just imagined? How, then, do you insinuate that the existence of a creative power does not concern us, because your dreams are not the result of philosophical reasoning? And pray, who ever “transferred individual human qualities and imperfections to philosophical notions”? Has this phrase any intelligible meaning? Lastly, it is evidently false that, in order to admit a creative power, “belief is made to occupy the place of actual knowledge.” The existence of God is a philosophical truth; now, philosophy is a method of knowledge, not of belief.
I trust I have sufficiently exposed your “intellectual jugglery” to let you see that you are at best a charlatan, not a philosopher.
To Be Continued.
Dante's Purgatorio. Canto Fourteenth.
Note.—This canto, like the preceding (XIII.), illustrates the sin of envy, which Dante deems a special vice of the Florentines, against whom and the other inhabitants of Valdarno he inveighs with a bitterness that savors more of the style of the Inferno than of “the milder shade of Purgatory.”
In the Thirteenth Canto, Envy has been rebuked by voices of love and gentleness; as, for instance, the kindly comment of the Virgin at the marriage feast of Cana, “They have no wine.” These and similar words are the scourge which the envious have to endure. But the bridle, Dante says, are tones of a contrary import, such as the terrific voice of Cain, who passes by in a peal of thunder, but invisible, followed by the dreadful cry of Aglauros, described in the concluding paragraph of this canto.
“What man is this who round our mountain goes,
Before that death has let his pinions free,
Who doth at will his eyelids ope and close?”
“I know not; but am sure not sole is he:
Demand thou of him who the nearest art,
And gently ask, that he may deign reply.”
Thus to the right two spirits there, apart,
Bent each toward each, conferred as I came nigh;
Then turning up their faces as to speak,
One said: “O soul! that still in mortal hold
Art on the way thy home in heaven to seek,
For charity console us, and unfold
Whence comest, and who art thou? for the grace
Accorded thee in us the wonder wakes
Due unto things which ne'er before had place.”
And I: “Through middle Tuscany there flows
A brook whose founts in Falterona spring,
Nor do an hundred miles its current close:
From that stream's banks this body of mine I bring:
'Twere vain to tell you how my title goes;
For yet my name hath not much heralding.”
“If well I probe the sense thou hast conveyed
With intellect,” the first who spake replied:
“Thou meanest Arno!”—and the other shade
Said to the former: “Wherefore did he hide
That river's name as men are wont to do
Of things most horrible?”—and then the one
Whom that inquiry was directed to,
Discharged him thus:
Guido Del Duca.
“Why he that name doth shun
I cannot tell: but meet it is the name
Of such a valley perish from the earth!
Since from its head (where so abounds the same
Great alpine chain which cast Pelorus forth,
With springs that few spots are impregnate more)
To where it seeks, arriving at the main,
What the sky sucks from ocean to restore
(Whence rivers have what waters they contain),
Virtue by all is hunted for a foe
As 'twere a snake;—whether from fault of place
Or evil custom goading nature so:
Wherefore that miserable valley's race
Have changed their kind to that degree 'twould seem
Circe had pastured them. Among brute swine,
More fit for mast than human food, the stream
Winds its poor way; then, lower down its line,
Finds curs that snarl beyond their power to bite,
And turns from them his nostril as in scorn.
Falling it goes, and more it grows in might,
The curst ditch finds that of those dogs are born
A pack of wolves. Through many a whirlpool then
He comes to foxes in deceit so deep
They fear no catching by more crafty men.
What though o'erheard, no silence will I keep!
And well for this man, if in mind he bear
What my true spirit unfolds. One of thy blood
Shall hunt those wolves. I see thy grandson there
Harrowing the borders of that savage flood;
All fly before him, all are in despair:
He makes a market of their living flesh,
Then, like old beasts for slaughter, lays them low:
Staining his fame with many a murder fresh;
He comes all bloody from that wood of woe,
Leaving such wreck that in a thousand years
To its primeval state it shall not grow.”
Like one whose visage alters when he hears
Ill hap foretold, as 'twere in dread which way
The blow may strike, I saw that other soul
Stand turned to hear, disturbed and in dismay,
Soon of those words as he had grasped the whole.
His troubled air, and what the other said,
To know their names wrought in me such a thirst
That I with prayers direct inquiry made.
Wherefore the shade who had addrest me first
Began again: “Thou wouldest that I deign
Do thee a grace I did in vain beseech;
But since the will of God in thee so plain
Doth favor show, I will not stint my speech;
Therefore know this: Guido del Duca am I.
My blood with envy was so burnt, so bad,
Thou mightst have seen me livid grow and dry
Had I but seen another's face look glad.
Such of my sowing is the straw I reap!
O human race! why bring your wishes down
To pleasures that exclude all partnership?
This is Rinieri; this the prize and crown
Of Casa Calboli, whereof no child
Hath made himself an heir of his renown.
Nor yet alone hath his blood been despoiled,
'Twixt Po, the Pennine, Reno and the shore,
Of what best needs for truth and happiness;
For through those borders there be plenty more
Of stock so bad, to make their venom less
By cultivation 'twere but vain to try.
Where is good Lizio? and Mainardi? Where
Pier Traversaro and Carpigna's Guy?
O Romagnuoles! what bastard shoots ye bear,
When sprouts a Fabbro in Bologna, when
Bernardin Fosco makes Faenza heir
From coarse grass to a growth of gentlemen!
No wonder, Tuscan, at my weeping thus
While I recall, remembering them so well,
Guido of Prata when himself with us,
And Ugolin of Azzo, used to dwell:
Frederic Tignoso and his goodly troop;
The Traversara, Anastagi race;
Now disinherited both houses droop!
Ladies and knights, the toils repose and grace
They wrapt us in of courtesy and love
There where the best blood such bad hearts debase!
“O Brettinoro! why dost thou not move
From thy proud seat, thy family wholly gone,
And many more, to shun corruption's course?
Bagnacaval does well to have no son,
And Castrocaro ill, and Conio worse
To breed such Counties taking further pains:
And well enough too, when their devil is dead,
May the Pagani do, though some remains
Bear witness 'gainst them of impureness fled.
O Ugolin de' Fantoli! most sure
Is thy good name, since no degenerate head
Is looked for now its brightness to obscure.
But go thy ways now, Tuscan! more delight
I find in weeping than in words—too stirred
By this talk of our country.” We were quite
Sure those dear souls our way's direction heard,
And from their silence knew that we went right.
Soon as proceeding we became alone,
A voice, like lightning when it strikes, did say,
Rushing on tow'rds us with its thunderous tone,
“Whoever findeth me the same shall slay!”[97]
Then fled as thunder, when the bolt is thrown
From the torn cloud, in rumbling dies away.
When on our ears a moment's truce there fell,
Another crash came of like rattling shock
As of a rapid thunder, peal on peal:
“I am Aglauros, who became a rock!”
On this, I drew back from my forward pace
To cling for shelter close behind the bard,
And when the air was hushed in all its space,
He said to me: “That was the bit[98] full hard
Which should each man within his limit stay.
You take the bait so fondly that the small
Hook of th' old enemy makes you his prey,
And bridle boots you naught, nor warning call.
Heaven calleth to you, and the eternal round
Shows you of beauties that about you roll,
And still your eye is grovelling on the ground;
Wherefore He smites you who discerns the whole.”