But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself to be; and it may be that all those perfections which I attribute to God in some way exist potentially in me, although they do not yet show themselves and are not reduced to act. Indeed, I am already conscious that my knowledge is being increased and perfected by degrees; and I see nothing to prevent it from thus gradually increasing to infinity, nor any reason why, after such increase and perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire all the other perfections of the Divine nature; nor in fine, why the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it really now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce the ideas of them. Yet on looking more closely into the matter I discover that this cannot be; for in the first place, although it were true that my knowledge daily acquired new degrees of perfection, and although there were potentially in my nature much that was not as yet actually in it, still all these excellences make not the slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom there is no perfection merely potentially, but all actually existent; for it is even an unmistakable token of imperfection in my knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. Further, although my knowledge increase more and more, nevertheless I am not therefore induced to think that it will ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach that point beyond which it shall be incapable of further increase. But I conceive God as actually infinite, so that nothing can be added to his perfection. And in fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a being that is merely potentially existent,—which properly speaking is nothing, but only a being existing formally or actually.
And truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it is not easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured and as it were blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more perfect than myself must of necessity have proceeded from a being in reality more perfect. On this account I am here desirous to inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of God, could exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from whom could I in that case derive my existence? Perhaps from myself, or from my parents, or from some other causes less perfect than God; for anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined. But if I were independent of every other existence, and were myself the author of my being, I should doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing, and in fine, no perfection would be wanting to me; for I should have bestowed upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than that of which I am already possessed; for on the contrary, it is quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a thinking substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the greater perfection of which I have now spoken,—in other words, if I were the author of my own existence,—I would not at least have denied to myself things that may be more easily obtained, as that infinite variety of knowledge of which I am at present destitute. I could not indeed have denied to myself any property which I perceive is contained in the idea of God, because there is none of these that seems to be more difficult to make or acquire; and if there were any that should happen to be more difficult to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me (supposing that I myself were the source of the other things I possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my power.
PAUL DESJARDINS
(———)
BY GRACE KING
hat a man stands for, in the life and literature of his day, is easily enough estimated when his name passes current in his language for a hitherto undesignated shade of meaning. One of the most acute and sensitive of contemporary French critics, M. Jules Lemaître, in an article on an evolutionary phase in modern literature, expresses its significant characteristic to be—"L'idéal de vie intérieure, la morale absolue,—si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, le Desjardinisme" (The ideal of spiritual life, absolute morality,—if I may so express myself, Desjardinism). The term, quickly appropriated by another French critic, and one of the remarkable women of letters of her day,—the late Baronne Blaze de Bury,—is literally interpreted as "summing up whatever is highest and purest and of most rare attainment in the idealism of the present hour." And she further, with the intuition of her sex, feeling a pertinent question before it is put, singles out the vital germ of difference which distinguishes this young writer as typical of the idealism of the hour, and makes him its name-giver:—"What is in other men the indirect and hidden source of their public acts, is in Paul Desjardins the direct source of life itself—the life to be lived; and also of the mode in which that life is to be conceived and to be made apparent to the world." Of the life, "sincerity is its prime virtue. Each leader proves his faith by his individual conduct, as by his judgments on events and men. The pure passion of abstract thought fires each to do the best that is his to do. His life is to be the word-for-word translation of his own spirit."
The death-bed repentance of a century, born skeptical, reared decadent, and professing practical materialism; the conversion of a literature from the pure passion of the senses to the pure passion of abstract thought; the assumption of an apostolic mission by journalists, novelists, playwrights, college professors, and scientific masters, will doubtless furnish the century to come with one of its most curious and interesting fields of study. It is an episode in evolution which may indeed be termed dramatic, this fifth act of the nineteenth-century epic of France,—or it might be called, of Paris; the story of its pilgrimage from revolution to evolution. M. Melchior de Voguë, himself one of the apostles of the new life, or of the new work in the old life, of France, describes the preparation of the national soil for the growth of Desjardinism. He says:—
"The French children who were born just before 1870 grew up in an atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat. National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, revealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment. Literature ... reflected these same tendencies; it was dejected or vile, and distressed the heart by its artistic dryness or disgusted it by its trivial realism. Science itself ... began to appear to many what it is in reality, namely, a means, not an end; its prestige declined and its infallibility was questioned.... Above all, it was clear from too evident social symptoms that if science can satisfy some very distinguished minds, it can do nothing to moralize and discipline societies....