[Footnote 63: Histoire générale de la philosophie, p. 433, ed. 1863.]
I think, with M. Cousin, that, rigorously and at bottom, there is here but one and the same system, but in appearance, and I say besides, in the opinion of its authors, the difference is great, and requires to be noticed. I postpone for the subject "Materialism," all that I have to say upon the subject of the so-called Pantheism, which admits no other existence than either that of the individualities that people the visible universe, or that of the primary matter whence they have issued. I occupy myself, at this moment, solely with the idealistic Pantheism.
Do we wish to behold a spectacle of how weak the human mind really is in the midst of all its grandeur, and of the limits which must finally and abruptly check its progress, however high its flight, we will read Plotinus, Spinoza, and Hegel, three martyrs to intellectual ambition, differing very much according to the difference of the eras and the nations to which they respectively belong, but similar in this point at least, that they ignore the visible world, and leave it behind them, to enter that world which dazzles their sight, where they plunge into a void in quest of what they call "Being!"
Two passions have impelled, are impelling, and will, probably, still occasionally impel men of eminent powers of mind to Pantheism: the passionate craving for an universal science, and the passionate longing for universal unity—feelings noble both, but illegitimate and incapable of satisfaction.
"I have resolved," said Spinoza, "to search if there exist a real Good, a Good capable, singly, of filling the entire soul after it shall have rejected all the rest—in a word, a Good that gives the soul, when the soul finds it and possesses it, the eternal and supreme happiness. … Man is essentially a being that thinks, and the highest degree of human knowledge ought to be the highest degree of human felicity. … My sources of enjoyment consist in the exercise of the reason." [Footnote 64]
[Footnote 64: Œuvres de Spinoza, French translation of M. Emile Saisset, vol. i, pp. 15, 16.]
What obliviousness of man's nature and of man's life! Man is not merely a being that thinks, but a being that feels, wills, and acts, a being moral and responsible for his acts, at the same time that he is a being of intelligence, and a being insatiate of knowledge. It is by his thought that he accounts to himself for his sentiments, and for the motives of his acts, but it is not from his thought that he derives either his sentiments or his liberty, neither does knowledge constitute his sole enjoyment. Spinoza mutilates man strangely when he places "the highest degree of human felicity in the highest degree of human knowledge." Man is more exacting than the philosopher, and it requires infinitely more to satisfy the most modest human soul than to satisfy the proudest mind. Infinitely more in respect of happiness, infinitely less in respect of science! Not that I would make their intellectual ambition a reproach to philosophers, even when it leads them astray. It is an honor to the human mind that it aspires higher than it can attain, that it torments itself in the struggle to carry its science into that invisible world, which it instinctively feels by anticipation, just as it does into that visible world that it sees. God granted to man this privilege; he implanted in his soul the ardent desire to know him and to possess him fully. But at the same time, God granted to men in general certain instincts and spontaneous beliefs which adequately satisfy this desire without the necessity of any profound study. What would have become of the human race if, in order to believe in God, to hope in him, and to pray to him, man had been obliged to wait until philosophers had resolved the problems which still weigh upon their genius? As God, in creating man free, took care that the maintenance of the general order in this world should not be completely abandoned to the disputes of men, so did he provide for the spiritual nourishment of mankind, without denying to the great ambitious ones of the earth either the prospect of a satisfaction more complete, or the right to search for it.