No one honours science more than I do, no one feels a greater admiration for it. It is a mission that man has to perform, and it is one of his glories; but it has no place in the relation of man with God, and in the action of God upon man. God is no sublime, no mighty doctor, who reveals truths of science to man, to give him the noble pleasure of contemplating them, or of publishing them; he has left such researches to labours purely human. The work of God is more complex and grander: it is essentially practical. That of which man, every man, stands in need, that after which he thirsts, that which all mankind asks of God, simple as well as learned, is to be enlightened as to the religious and moral truths which are to regulate his soul and his life, and to decide his lot in eternity. It is to all mankind that God responds; it is to the salvation of all men that the Scripture applies itself. A celebrated philosopher, a man of a mind lofty and sincere, but one of the most lost of the great lost ones of the human intelligence, thought differently. According to Spinoza, "all men are far from being called to enjoy eternal life in the same plenitude. … After death the reason,—just ideas survive; all the rest perishes. Souls governed by reason, philosophical souls, who even from the moment when their life in this world ceases, live in God, are consequently exempt from death; for death deprives them only of that which is of no value. But those dim and feeble souls, upon which reason hardly gleams at all, those souls made up entirely, so to say, of empty imaginings and passions, perish almost entirely; and death, instead of coming to them as a simple accident, penetrates to the very bottom of their being. The soul of the sage, on the contrary, cannot be more than barely troubled; possessing, by a sort of eternal necessity, the consciousness of itself and of God, and of things as they really are, it never ceases to exist; and as for real tranquillity of soul, it possesses it for ever." [Footnote 35]
[Footnote 35: Œuvres de Spinoza. According to the translation of Emile Saisset. Introduction, vol. iii. p. 291.]
I know not if human pride ever gave expression to a thought showing a stranger aberration of intellect; and in spite of the favour with which some men of distinguished abilities endeavour at the present day to encircle the name of Spinoza, I do not believe that there is any chance, at an epoch when war is declared against all privileges, for philosophers to make good their exclusive claim to the privilege of immortality.
Fourth Meditation.
Christian Ignorance.
When I use the term "Christian Ignorance," I would not have either the sense which I attach to the expression, or the intention with which I use it, misunderstood. I do not think that it should be denied to man to make any use of his intelligence, to exercise any right to inquire freely after truth, or after any kind of truth. Is the field which is open to the human mind limited in extent? Is the mind itself of limited reach? Is there a difference of degree in human knowledge according as the objects are different to which it is applied? These are questions, all of them, fundamentally contained in the words "Christian Ignorance;" and of these questions it is my aim to offer what appears to me to be the right solution.
I am in the presence of four sciences, and of six schools or systems, which have made, are making, and will always continue to make, much noise in the world. The sciences are, Physiology, Psychology, Ontology, and Theology. The systems to which these sciences have given birth are, Materialism, Positivism, Scepticism, Spiritualism, Scientific Theology, Mystical Theology. I am far from meaning to discuss here the principles of these systems, or to attempt to determine their value; it would be to undertake the task of examining all philosophy and all philosophies. I mean to touch only upon one of the special questions which furnish in our days matter of debate between Christianity and these different schools. It is thus, and thus only, that I can clearly establish the sense which I attach to the words "Christian Ignorance;" and determine, at the same time, their bearing and their limitation.