I have already evinced that the inward and universal master, at all times, and in all places, speaks the same truths. We are not that master: though it is true we often speak without, and higher than him. But then we mistake, stutter, and do not so much as understand ourselves. We are even afraid of being made sensible of our mistakes, and we shut up our ears, lest we should be humbled by his corrections. Certainly the man who is apprehensive of being corrected and reproved by that uncorruptible reason, and ever goes astray when he does not follow it, is not that perfect, universal, and immutable reason, that corrects him, in spite of himself. In all things we find, as it were, two principles within us. The one gives, the other receives; the one fails, or is defective; the other makes up; the one mistakes, the other rectifies; the one goes awry, through his inclination, the other sets him right. It was the mistaken and ill-understood experience of this that led the Marcionites and Manicheans into error. Every man is conscious within himself of a limited and inferior reason, that goes astray and errs, as soon as it gets loose from an entire subordination, and which mends its error no other way, but by returning under the yoke of another superior, universal, and immutable reason. Thus everything within us argues an inferior, limited, communicated, and borrowed reason, that wants every moment to be rectified by another. All men are rational by means of the same reason, that communicates itself to them, according to various degrees. There is a certain number of wise men; but the wisdom from which they draw theirs, as from an inexhaustible source, and which makes them what they are, is but ONE.
SECT. LVIII. It is the Primitive Truth, that Lights all Minds, by communicating itself to them.
Where is that wisdom? Where is that reason, at once both common and superior to all limited and imperfect reasons of mankind? Where is that oracle, which is never silent, and against which all the vain prejudices of men cannot prevail? Where is that reason which we have ever occasion to consult, and which prevents us to create in us the desire of hearing its voice? Where is that lively light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world? Where is that pure and soft light, which not only lights those eyes that are open, but which opens eyes that are shut; cures sore eyes; gives eyes to those that have none to see it; in short, which raises the desire of being lighted by it, and gains even their love, who were afraid to see it? Every eye sees it; nor would it see anything, unless it saw it; since it is by that light and its pure rays that the eye sees everything. As the sensibler sun in the firmament lights all bodies, so the sun of intelligence lights all minds. The substance of a man’s eye is not the light: on the contrary, the eye borrows, every moment, the light from the rays of the sun. Just in the same manner, my mind is not the primitive reason, or universal and immutable truth; but only the organ through which that original light passes, and which is lighted by it. There is a sun of spirits that lights them far better than the visible sun lights bodies. This sun of spirits gives us, at once, both its light, and the love of it, in order to seek it. That sun of truth leaves no manner of darkness, and shines at the same time in the two hemispheres. It lights us as much by night as by day; nor does it spread its rays outwardly; but inhabits in every one of us. A man can never deprive another man of its beams. One sees it equally, in whatever corner of the universe he may lurk. A man never needs say to another, step aside, to let me see that sun; you rob me of its rays; you take away my share of it. That sun never sets: nor suffers any cloud, but such as are raised by our passions. It is a day without shadow. It lights the savages even in the deepest and darkest caves; none but sore eyes wink against its light; nor is there indeed any man so distempered and so blind, but who still walks by the glimpse of some duskish light he retains from that inward sun of consciences. That universal light discovers and represents all objects to our minds; nor can we judge of anything but by it; just as we cannot discern anybody but by the rays of the sun.
SECT. LIX. It is by the Light of Primitive Truth a Man Judges whether what one says to him be True or False.
Men may speak and discourse to us in order to instruct us: but we cannot believe them any farther, than we find a certain conformity or agreement between what they say, and what the inward master says. After they have exhausted all their arguments, we must still return, and hearken to him, for a final decision. If a man should tell us that a part equals the whole of which it is a part, we should not be able to forbear laughing, and instead of persuading us, he would make himself ridiculous to us. It is in the very bottom of ourselves, by consulting the inward master, that we must find the truths that are taught us, that is, which are outwardly proposed to us. Thus, properly speaking, there is but one true Master, who teaches all, and without whom one learns nothing. Other masters always refer and bring us back to that inward school where he alone speaks. It is there we receive what we have not; it is there we learn what we were ignorant of; and find what we had lost by oblivion. It is in the intimate bottom of ourselves, he keeps in store for us certain truths, that lie, as it were, buried, but which revive upon occasion; and it is there, in short, that we reject the falsehood we had embraced. Far from judging that master, it is by him alone we are judged peremptorily in all things. He is a judge disinterested, impartial, and superior to us. We may, indeed, refuse hearing him, and raise a din to stun our ears: but when we hear him it is not in our power to contradict him. Nothing is more unlike man than that invisible master that instructs and judges him with so much severity, uprightness, and perfection. Thus our limited, uncertain, defective, fallible reason, is but a feeble and momentaneous inspiration of a primitive, supreme, and immutable reason, which communicates itself with measure, to all intelligent beings.
SECT. LX. The Superior Reason that resides in Man is God Himself; and whatever has been above discovered to be in Man, are evident Footsteps of the Deity.
It cannot be said that man gives himself the thoughts he had not before; much less can it be said that he receives them from other men, since it is certain he neither does nor can admit anything from without, unless he finds it in his own bottom, by consulting within him the principles of reason, in order to examine whether what he is told is agreeable or repugnant to them. Therefore there is an inward school wherein man receives what he neither can give himself, nor expect from other men who live upon trust as well as himself. Here then, are two reasons I find within me; one of which, is myself, the other is above me. That which is myself is very imperfect, prejudiced, liable to error, changeable, headstrong, ignorant, and limited; in short it possesses nothing but what is borrowed. The other is common to all men, and superior to them. It is perfect, eternal, immutable, ever ready to communicate itself in all places, and to rectify all minds that err and mistake; in short, incapable of ever being either exhausted or divided, although it communicates itself to all who desire it. Where is that perfect reason which is so near me, and yet so different from me? Where is it? Sure it must be something real; for nothing or nought cannot either be perfect or make perfect imperfect natures. Where is that supreme reason? Is it not the very God I look for?
SECT. LXI. New sensible Notices of the Deity in Man, drawn from the Knowledge he has of Unity.
I still find other traces or notices of the Deity within me: here is a very sensible one. I am acquainted with prodigious numbers with the relations that are between them. Now how come I by that knowledge? It is so very distinct that I cannot seriously doubt of it; and so, immediately, without the least hesitation, I rectify any man that does not follow it in computation. If a man says seventeen and three make twenty-two, I presently tell him seventeen and three make but twenty; and he is immediately convinced by his own light, and acquiesces in my correction. The same Master who speaks within me to correct him speaks at the same time within him to bid him acquiesce. These are not two masters that have agreed to make us agree. It is something indivisible, eternal, immutable, that speaks at the same time with an invincible persuasion in us both. Once more, how come I by so just a notion of numbers? All numbers are but repeated units. Every number is but a compound, or a repetition of units. The number of two, for instance, is but two units; the number of four is reducible to one repeated four times. Therefore we cannot conceive any number without conceiving unity, which is the essential foundation of any possible number; nor can we conceive any repetition of units without conceiving unity itself, which is its basis.
But which way can I know any real unit? I never saw, nor so much as imagined any by the report of my senses. Let me take, for instance, the most subtle atom; it must have a figure, length, breadth, and depth, a top and a bottom, a left and a right side; and again the top is not the bottom, nor one side the other. Therefore this atom is not truly one, for it consists of parts. Now a compound is a real number, and a multitude of beings. It is not a real unit, but a collection of beings, one of which is not the other. I therefore never learnt by my eyes, my ears, my hands, nor even by my imagination, that there is in nature any real unity; on the contrary, neither my senses nor my imagination ever presented to me anything but what is a compound, a real number or a multitude. All unity continually escapes me; it flies me as it were by a kind of enchantment. Since I look for it in so many divisions of an atom, I certainly have a distinct idea of it; and it is only by its simple and clear idea that I arrive, by the repetition of it, at the knowledge of so many other numbers. But since it escapes me in all the divisions of the bodies of nature, it clearly follows that I never came by the knowledge of it, through the canal of my senses and imagination. Here therefore is an idea which is in me independently from the senses, imagination, and impressions of bodies.