Doctor Büchner has published, under the title of Force and Matter, a small volume which has rapidly reached a seventh edition, and has lately been translated into French.[64] Materialism is there set forth with perfect arrogance, or, to speak more moderately, with perfect audacity. The author pretends to confine himself strictly within the domain of experience, and it is wonderful with what haughtiness he proscribes the researches of philosophy. It would seem therefore that the question of the nature of things ought to remain outside the circle of his studies. Nevertheless, he declares matter to be eternal and the universe infinite. I ask you how long it would be necessary to have lived in order to pronounce matter eternal in the name of experience; and what journeys it would have been necessary to make, before ascertaining by means of observation that the universe is infinite. We shall have occasion to recur to this subject. Meanwhile we may be very sure that experience supplies no system of metaphysics, and that materialism is a metaphysical system as strongly marked as any. When its adepts cry out, Away with philosophy! they mean by that simply: We will have no good philosophy, that we may be free to make bad philosophy of our own without rivalry. A proceeding which reminds one of certain demagogues who cry with all their might, Down with tyrants! and who thus succeed in making out of the fear of the tyranny of others the solid foundation of their own despotism.
We find then in Germany, first of all the doctrine of the idea set forth with éclat by Hegel, then atheism mixed up with political notions and projects, and lastly materialism. The elements are the same as in France, but exhibit themselves in a different order. This diversity suggests some observations worth your attention.
France, setting out with the materialism of the eighteenth century, rose to that adoration of man which characterizes at the present day the greater part of its atheistical manifestations. German atheism, having as its starting-point an abstract idealism of which the adoration of man was the result, has descended to the levels of materialism.[65] We may inquire into the theory of these facts, and say why materialism rises to the adoration of man by a natural movement; and why, also by a natural movement, the adoration of man descends again to materialism.
Materialism infers from its principles the denial of any future to man, and not only any future, but any true value, any real existence. We are nothing but an agglomeration of molecules, ready to separate without leaving any trace of ever having been together. Is not this a thing to be said sadly, as the saddest thing in the world? Why then are the apostles of matter nearly always assuming the loftiest tone, and uttering shouts of triumph? It is that they feel themselves free, emancipated from that terror which has made the gods,
. . . that brood of idle fear
Fine nothings worshipped,—why, doth not appear;
The gods—whom man made, and who made not man.[66]
Emancipation! Such is the watchword of materialism. Listen, for example, to the conclusion of Baron d'Holbach's System of Nature: "Break the chains," says he, "which are binding men. Send back those gods who are afflicting them to those imaginary regions from whence fear first drew them forth. Inspire with courage the intelligent being; give him energy; let him dare at length to love himself, to esteem himself, to feel his own dignity; let him dare to emancipate himself, let him be happy and free." Strange accents these, at the close of a large philosophical treatise intended to prove that there is nothing in the universe but matter. Whence proceeds the dignity of that fragment of matter which calls itself man? Understand well what passes in the mind of these philosophers. In proportion as man lowers his own origin, in the same proportion,—if he does not wish to make himself a brute, in order to live as do the animals,—he exalts himself in an inevitable sentiment of pride. In vain does he give out that the material frame is everything; he feels that thought is more than the material frame; and he accords to himself the first place in the universe. The materialist ignores the Eternal Mind in order to emancipate himself; and whatever he may say, his real deity is not the atom, but himself. The encyclopedists, sons of an age which yielded at once to noble influences and to guilty seductions, united the worship of progress to a degrading philosophy. Consider with what a feeling of pride they lowered man, and you will understand why eternal nature gave place to sacred humanity. When France had fallen into the delirium of irreligion, it was not a little dust in an earthen vase which was offered for public adoration, but they led in procession through the streets of Paris a woman who was called the goddess Reason.
So it was that materialism ended in the adoration of man. Let us endeavor to understand how the adoration of man turns again to materialism. The mind endowed with intelligence and will is more elevated in the scale of being than inert bodies. This is for us an evident truth. Could one demonstrate it by reasoning? I do not know; but in contesting it, we should contradict the plainest evidence. Reason is superior to matter. If, with the school which extends from Pythagoras to Saint Augustine, and from Saint Augustine to Descartes, we connect reason with God as its principle, the grand science of metaphysics is founded. But if reason does not rise to God, what will happen? This reason, which proclaims itself superior to matter, is not, as we have said already, the individual thought of Francis, Peter, or John. If an individual presented himself as being reason itself, the absolute reason, and said, "I am the truth," it would be necessary to take one of three courses. If we thought that he spoke truly, and if we received his testimony, it would be necessary to worship him, for he would be God. If it were feared that he spoke truly, and those who so feared were unwilling to acknowledge his rule, it would be necessary for them to kill him in order to endeavor to kill the truth. If it were thought that he spoke falsely, it would be necessary to watch him, and the moment he committed an act dangerous for society, to shut him up, for he would be a madman. But the philosophers make no such pretension. The reason of which they speak is the reason common to all, a reason which is not that of an individual, but that of which all rational individuals partake. This common, universal, eternal reason,—where and how does it exist? Reason manifests itself by ideas, and ideas are the acts of minds. To imagine an idea without a mind of which it is the act, is the same thing as to imagine a movement without a body of which it is also the act, in a different sense. Take away bodies, and there is no more movement. Take away intelligences, and there are no more ideas. The philosopher who speaks of an idea which is not the idea of an intelligence, utters words which have no meaning. The reason which is not that of any created individual remains therefore absolutely inconceivable without the eternal Spirit, or God. Idealism is based upon this impossible conception. Thus it is that thought, trying in vain to maintain itself in this abstract domain, ends by holding as chimerical the world of ideas in which it has met with nothing to which to cling. It is seized with giddiness and falls. Whither does it fall? To the ground. It is always thither one falls. Wearied with its efforts to find footing on shifting clouds, the human mind comes back to the positive by a violent reaction. Here is the secret of that haughty and derisive materialism of certain modern Germans, who jeer and scoff at the lofty pretensions of philosophy. So it was that Hegel brought upon the scene Doctor Büchner and his fellows.
The great conflict of the spiritual world is not, as it is often said to be, the combat of idealism against materialism. Idealism begins well, and we must not refuse to acknowledge the services which it has rendered to the cause of truth. But philosophy must follow the road traced out in an ancient adage: Ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab interioribus ad superiora.[67] If the mind does not go to the end of this royal road; if idealism, having surmounted the fascinations of the senses, remains in ideas, without ascending to the supreme Mind, the worship of matter and the worship of the idea call mutually one to another, and revolve in a fatal circle. The struggle between these two forms of atheism reminds one of those duels, in which, after having satisfied honor, the adversaries breakfast together, and gather strength to combat, in case of need, a common enemy. The great combat which forms the main subject of the history of ideas is the combat between belief in God and an atheistical philosophy. Whether atheism admits for its first principle an atom without a Creator, or a reason without an Eternal Mind, is a fact very important for the history of philosophy, but the importance of which is small enough in regard to the interests of humanity.