In his discourse which he pronounced in 1813, on resuming his functions at the "Faculté des Lettres," M. Royer-Collard summed up his conclusions upon this fundamental question—conclusions very different, more different essentially than even apparently they are, from those arrived at by M. Jouffroy. Whereas M. Jouffroy believes systematic skepticism forever invincible, "because he regards it as the final word of the reason concerning the reason," M. Royer-Collard, on the contrary, ends his discourse with these words: "We cannot divide man; we cannot assign a part only to skepticism; as soon as skepticism once penetrates into the understanding, in [it?] invades it throughout." I would confirm this conclusion of M. Royer-Collard, by carrying still further the reasoning which led him to it.
"The most general result," says he, "presented by the history of modern philosophy—its most striking characteristic when contrasted with ancient philosophy—is its skepticism with respect to the existence of the external world; that world in which mankind has so long believed, which begins to reveal itself in us with our existence itself, and in the bosom of which we are forced to perceive ourselves as mere fragments of its immensity. … I am not here to reason in favor of the received opinion; that opinion needs neither proofs nor defenders; it is rooted deeply enough in our most intimate nature to brave all attack. It is not the world that risks anything at the hands of the philosophers; it is rather the honor of philosophy which suffers some discredit; it is rather philosophy that relieves the vulgar from a part of the respect which philosophy yet demands at its hands, when it gives birth to paradoxes bearing, seemingly, the very impress of folly. Moreover, whether the material world really exist or not, is not a matter in controversy; this question would resolve itself into one still more general—whether all those facilities of ours, of which the authority is indivisible, are organs of truth or organs of falsehood; and upon this point we shall ever be driven to accept the testimony of those very organs. The sole question which belongs to philosophical analysis, consists in examining if it be certain that our faculties attest to us the existence of an external world, and if the human race believes in this existence; for if it believes in it, this universal belief becomes a fact in our intellectual constitution; and whether this fact be a primitive one, or a deduction from any anterior fact—whether it be the immediate teaching of nature or an acquisition by reasoning—it is entitled to its place unmutilated in the synthetic table of science. Has it disappeared? Then the man of philosophy is not the man of nature; science is false, and consequently, the analysis without fidelity; and one may rest assured that philosophers have inserted in the understanding some principle, or some fact, which was not there before; or that they have not collected with care all the principles and facts which are actually there."
Having thus formalized the question, M. Royer-Collard follows it up with an inquiry as exact as it is profound, of the psychological fact of the perception of the external world which accompanies the fact of sensation: this inquiry leads him to this conclusion:
"Sensation has no object; sensation is merely relative to the sentient being; if not perceived, sensation does not exist. But the perception, which affirms an external existence, supposes two things—the mind which perceives, and the object which is perceived; the being that thinks, and the being that is the subject-matter of thought. Just as the sensation is relative to the mind, so is the act of the perception relative to it also, and just so does it suppose the mind; the object, on the contrary, supposes neither the mind nor the mind's perception. The object does not exist because we perceive it; but we perceive it because it exists—because we are endowed with the faculty of perception. In a city inhabited no longer, there remain no sensation, no idea, no judgment; the houses remain, and even the streets, and with them nature, with all nature's laws, which are not suspended in their course. To the universe, the energetic presence of its Creator suffices; it does not require our presence; the absence of spectators would not make it languish; it existed before us, it will exist after us; its reality is independent of us and of our thoughts—it is absolute. The authority which persuades us of this is no less than that of the consciousness itself; it is the authority of the primitive laws of thought, and to man's mind those laws are absolute laws of truth. The same draught may convey the impression of sweetness and of bitterness, because sensation is relative to the variable state of sensibility, and sensibility itself is relative to organization; but the laws of the mind are an immutable standard. The imperfection of knowledge does not render it uncertain, and although it admits of degrees, it does not admit of contradiction. Our limited faculties do not, it is true, perceive all that there is in things; but still, what they do perceive, is in effect there just as they perceive it. … If a man call upon me to prove this by reasoning, I shall, in my turn, demand of him, too, that he first prove to me by reasoning that reasoning is more convincing than perception; that he at least prove that the memory, without which there is no such thing as reasoning, is a faculty more to be relied upon than those faculties whose testimony they reject.
"Intellectual life is an uninterrupted succession, not merely of ideas, but of beliefs, explicit or implicit. The beliefs of the mind are the force of the soul and the moving incentives of the will. Whatever determines us to believe we call evidence. … Reason renders no account of what is evident; to condemn it to do so is to annihilate it, for it also has need of an evidence peculiar to itself. Did not reasoning rest upon principles anterior to the reason, analysis would be without end, and synthesis without commencement. The fundamental laws of belief constitute the intelligence itself; and as those laws all flow from the same source, they have the same authority; they judge by the same right; there is no appeal from the tribunal of one to that of another. Whoever revolts against any single one of these laws, revolts against them all, and so abdicates all his nature. Are there weapons of legitimate use against that faculty by which we perceive the external world? These same weapons may be turned against the conscience, the memory, the moral sense, against reason itself. … Let but, in any single point, the nature of knowledge—the nature, I say, and not the degree—be made subordinate to our means of knowing, and all certitude is at an end; nothing is true, nothing is false. But it is not enough to say this; for all is true and false altogether, since truth and falsehood no longer differ from sweet and bitter. The void itself is then deprived of its absolute nullity: it enters into the domain of the relative; it is something, nothing, according to the conformation of the spectator's eye. The useful is the sole subject that the understanding contemplates, the sole subject for which the heart has to make its laws. A legislation capricious and without efficacy, which applies only shifting rules to actions, and which has none for the intentions and for the desires. This is not mere declamation; all these consequences have been deduced from skeptical doctrines with an exactitude leaving nothing to be either desired or contested. It is then a fact that public and private morality, the order of society and the happiness of individuals, are directly at stake in the controversy between true philosophy and false philosophy respecting the reality of knowledge. For when existences themselves become problems, what force remains to the bond that unites them? We cannot divide the entire man; we cannot assign a part only to skepticism; as soon as skepticism once penetrates into the understanding it invades it throughout." [Footnote 78]
[Footnote 78: Fragments de M. Royer-Collard, in the works of Reid, translation of M. Jouffroy, vol. iv, pp. 426-451.]