"The result of all this is, that the two terms, as well as the relation of generation which draws the second from the first, and which, without cessation, refers to it, are the three integral elements of reason. It is not in the power of reason, in its boldest abstractions, to separate any one of these three terms from the others. Try to take away unity, and variety alone is no longer susceptible of addition—it is even no longer comprehensible; or, try to take away variety, and you have an immovable unity—a unity which does not make itself manifest, and which, of itself, is not a thought; all thought expressing itself in a proposition, and a single term not sufficing for a proposition; in short, take away the relation which intimately connects variety and unity, and you destroy the necessary tie of the two terms of every proposition. We may then regard it as an incontestable point, that these three terms are distinct but inseparable, and that they constitute at the same time a triplicity and an indivisible unity." [Footnote 163]
[Footnote 163: Lecture Fifth.]
As the reader may have observed, Cousin raises the problem of multiplicity. He expresses it under a logical form, but the problem is a metaphysical one, and hence applicable to all orders, logical as well as ontological. It is raised by all pantheists, whose words we abstain from quoting for brevity's sake; and so far as the problem itself is concerned, it is a legitimate one; and every one, who has thought deeply on these matters, and is not satisfied with merely looking at the surface of things, must accept it.
Let us put it in its clearest light. The infinite, considered merely as unity, actuality, (all words which mean the same thing,) can be known neither to itself nor to any other intelligence. It cannot be known to itself. For to know implies thought, and thought is absolutely impossible without a duality of knowing and of being known, of subject and of object. It implies an intelligence, an object, and a relation between the two. If, then, there is no multiplicity in the infinite, it cannot know itself. It is, for itself, as if it were not; for what is a being which cannot know itself?
Nor can it be known to any other intelligence; for mere existence, pure unity does not convey any idea necessary to satisfy the intelligence.
Moreover, the mere existence and unity of an object does not make it, on that account, intelligible. For an object to be intelligible, it is required that it should be able to act on the intelligence, such being the condition of intelligibility. [Footnote 164] Now, action implies already a multiplicity, a subject and the action. Therefore, if the infinite were mere pure unity, it could not be intelligible to any intelligence. But in the supposition that there is a kind of multiplicity in the infinite, how would multiplicity be reconciled with unity? How would these two terms agree?
[Footnote 164: See Balmes's Fundamental Philosophy, on Intelligibility.]
Multiplicity seems to be a necessary condition of the infinite, without which it would not be intelligible either to itself or to others. Absolute unity seems also to be a necessary attribute of the infinite, and yet these two necessary conditions seem to exclude each other. How then must we bring them together?
This is the problem to be solved; the grandest and most sublime problem of philosophy; which has occupied every school of philosophy since man began to turn his mind to philosophical researches.