“In order to be truly virtuous,” he says, “one should always act in a certain moral spirit: I mean that the choice of an action should be a free one, determined only by the nature of the acts one accomplishes. Now it is virtue that renders this choice laudable and good.”[112]
It is not the natural faculties of the mind then, no more than those of the heart and body, that deserve the name of virtues. It is those same faculties, developed and cultivated by the will: on this condition alone do they deserve esteem and respect. The intellect is in itself of a higher order than the senses, the appetites, the passions: it is therefore incumbent upon us to give it the largest share in our personal development. “It is to that we are allied,” says Pascal, “not to space and time. Let our efforts then tend to think well; this is the principle of morality.” The intellect presents two particular forms: it is either contemplative or active, theoretical or practical. The virtue of the contemplative intellect is knowledge; that of the practical intellect prudence. Finally a third virtue might be admitted: judgment or common sense, which is a critical,[113] not a practical faculty, and which partakes at the same time of both sides of the understanding.
These subtle distinctions of Aristotle have not lost their correctness and application with time. One can, in fact, employ his mind in three ways: either contemplate absolute truth by the means of science;—or judge of events and men and foresee future things without contributing toward their occurrence;—or again deliberate as to what is to be done or not to be done to bring about actions useful to one’s self and to others. Hence three kinds of men: the wise, the intelligent, the prudent.
Knowledge.—Taking up again, one after the other, these three qualities, we ought to ask ourselves whether knowledge is a duty for man; if he is held to develop his mind in a theoretical manner and without any practical end. But before we examine whether it is a duty, let us first find out whether it is lawful.
The scientific and speculative culture of the mind on the part of man, has often been regarded as a proud or conceited refinement.
This opinion was expressed by some writers of the seventeenth century—for instance, by Nicole, in the preface to the Logique de Port Royal:
“These sciences,” he says, “have not only back-corners and secret recesses of very little use, but they are all useless when viewed in themselves and for themselves. Men were not born to spend their time measuring lines, examining the relations of angles, studying the divers movements of matter: their mind is too vast, their life too short, their time too precious, to occupy themselves with such small matters.”
Malebranche expresses himself in about the same terms:
“Men were not born to become astronomers or chemists, to spend their whole life hanging on a telescope or fastened to a furnace, for no better purpose than to draw afterwards from their laborious observations useless consequences. Granting some astronomer was the first in discovering lands, seas, and mountains in the moon; that he was the first to perceive spots moving upon the sun, and that he has calculated their movements exactly. Granting some chemists to have finally discovered the secret of fixing mercury or to make that alkahest by means of which Van Helmont boasted he could dissolve all matter: were they the wiser and happier for it?”
In expressing themselves so disdainfully concerning the sciences, Nicole and Malebranche meant, in fact, only that one should not prefer speculative knowledge to the science of man or to the science of God; and it is most true that if we view the sciences from a standpoint of dignity, we must admit that the moral sciences have greater excellence than the physical sciences. But that which is equally true is, that we must not measure the merit of the sciences by their material or even moral or logical utility. Science is in itself, and without regard to any other end but itself, worthy to be loved and studied. Intelligence, in fact, was given to man that he might know the truth of things; investigation is its natural food. Man, in raising himself to science, increases thereby the excellence of his nature; he becomes a creature of a higher order; for in the order of divine creatures, the most perfect are at the same time those who know the most, and the highest degree of happiness promised to religious faith, is to know truth face to face. It is therefore no frivolous amusement to increase here below the sum of knowledge we are capable of, though this knowledge be only that of the things of this world, and not yet the higher and direct knowledge of God.