"'The two terms of this so comprehensive formula do not constitute a dualism, in which the first term is on one side and the second on the other, without any other connection between them than that of being perceived at the same time by the intelligence; so far from this, the tie which binds them is essential. It is a connection of generation which draws the second from the first, and constantly carries it back to it, and which, with the two terms, constitutes the three integrant elements of intelligence. ... Withdraw this relation which binds variety to unity, and you destroy the necessary bond of the two terms of every proposition. These three terms, distinct, but inseparable, constitute at once a triplicity and an indivisible unity. ... Carried into Theodicy, the theory I have explained to you is nothing less than the very foundation of Christianity. The Christians' God is at once triple and one, and the animadversions which rise against the doctrine I teach ought to ascend to the Christian Trinity.'" (P. 540.)
We said in our article, "Under the head of substances he (Cousin) ranges all that is substantial or that pertains to real and necessary being, and under the head of cause the phenomenal or the effects of the causative action of substance. He says he understands, by substance, the universal and absolute substance, the real and necessary being of the theologians; and by phenomena, not mere modes or appearances of substance, but finite and relative substances, and calls them phenomena only in opposition to the one absolute substance. They are created or produced by the causative action of substance. [Footnote 38] If this has any real meaning, he should recognize three categories as in the ideal formula, Ens creat existentias, that is, Being, existences, or creatures, and the creative act of being, the real nexus between substance or being and contingent existences, for it is that which places them and binds them to the Creator."
[Footnote 38: Fragments Philosophiques, t i. pp. xix. xx.]
The passage cited by the reviewer from Cousin is brought forward, we suppose, to show that it does recognize this third category; but if so, what becomes of the formal statement that he has reduced the categories to two, substance and cause, or, as he sometimes says, substance or being and phenomenon? Besides, the passage cited does not recognize the third term or category of the formula. It asserts not the creative act of being as the nexus between substance and phenomenon, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, etc.; but generation, which is a very different thing, for the generated is consubstantial with the generator.
6. We were arguing against Cousin's doctrine, that God, being intrinsically active, or, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, actus purissimus, most pure act, must therefore necessarily create or produce exteriorly. In prosecuting the argument, we anticipated an objection which, perhaps, some might be disposed to bring from Leibnitz's definition of substance, as a vis activa, and endeavored to show that, even accepting that definition, it would make nothing in favor of the doctrine we were refuting, and which Cousin undeniably maintains. We say, "The doctrine that substance is essentially cause, and must, from intrinsic necessity, cause in the sense of creating, is not tenable. We are aware that Leibnitz, a great name in philosophy, defines substance to be an active force, a vis activa, but we do not recollect that he anywhere pretends that its activity necessarily extends beyond itself. God is vis activa, if you will, in a supereminent degree; he is essentially active, and would be neither being nor substance if he were not; he is, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, most pure act; ... but nothing in this implies that he must necessarily act ad extra, or create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his own divine nature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his infinite being, for he is complete in himself, is in himself the plenitude of being, and always and everywhere suffices for himself, and therefore for his own activity. Creation, or the production of effects exterior to himself, is not necessary to the perfection of his activity, adds nothing to him, as it can take nothing from him. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him without conceiving him as infinitely, eternally, and essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute substance or being, without conceiving him to be necessarily acting or creating ad extra."
The reviewer says, sneeringly, "This is the most remarkable passage in this remarkable article." He comments on it in this manner:
"Thus appearing to accept the now exploded Leibnitzian theory, which Cousin has combated both in its original form, and as maintained by De Biran, our critic tries to escape from it by this subtle distinction between the southern and south-eastern sides of the hair. He enlarges upon it. God, according to him, is indeed vis activa in the most eminent degree, but this does not imply that he must act ad extra, or create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his nature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his own infinite being. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him but as infinitely and essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute substance without conceiving him to be necessarily creating, or acting ad extra. M. Cousin, he says, evidently confounds the interior acts of the divine being with his exterior or creative acts.
"We have no wish to deny that he does make such a confusion. To one who holds that 'to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, and that such reality can never be established,' this kind of subjective activity of the will, which seems so nearly to resemble passivity—these pure acts, or volitions, which never pass out of the sphere of the will into causation—may be satisfactory; but to one who believes that God is not a scholastic abstraction—to one who worships the 'living God' of the Scriptures—it will sound like a pitiful jugglery with words thinly veiling a lamentable confusion of ideas. God is a person, and he acts as a person. The divine will is no otherwise conceivable by us than as of the same nature as man's will; it differs from it only in the mode of its operation—for with him this is always immediate, and no deliberation or choice is possible—and it is as absurd to speak of the activity of his will, the eminently active force, never extending 'out of the circle of his own infinite being,' as it would be to call a man eminently an active person whose activity was all merely purpose or volition, never passing into the creative act ad extra, or out of the circle of his own finite being.