Now, does the answer resolve the problem? Does it really conciliate unity with multiplicity in the Infinite? Does it really maintain intact the two terms of the problem? We think that it does not, and maintain that it destroys both terms of the problem. The leading idea and principle of Pantheism is that unity is becoming multiplicity.
It is an existence in a continual ex-sistere in an emergence and manifestation. [Footnote 165]
[Footnote 165: Chalybäus' Lectures, etc.]
Now, who can fail to perceive that if unity is such, that is, unity when it is merely potential, when it has only the power of becoming, of passing into multiplicity, it is doubtless destroyed as soon as it passes from the power into the act; or, in other words, it is destroyed as unity when it becomes multiplicity? Strip this idea of a potential unity becoming actual multiplicity, strip it of all the logical phantasmagoria with which it has been adorned, especially by pantheists of the German school, which phantasmagoria can only impose upon the simple, and you can see, as clearly as that two and two make four, that the whole thing amounts to nothing but to this; that unity vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. It is with a special intention that we have made use of the simile of the silkworm. This poor creature too, like the unity of the pantheists, has an instinct given it by God, of unfolding and developing itself, and the effect of its operation is the silk which serves to set off the beauty of man. But unfortunately, the process of development exhausts the little creature; for when it is completed, the poor creature dies, and its development is its death, and its production is its shroud; yet, it has this advantage over the unity of the pantheists, that its remains continue to exist, whereas their unity evaporates completely in multiplicity. To speak more seriously, it is perfectly evident to every mind, that the answer of the pantheists destroys the very problem it undertakes to solve. Unity is unity so long as it is a potency, a power of becoming; it vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. Add to this, that their unity, to be infinite, must remain undefined, potential, and in the possibility of becoming; such being their idea of the Infinite. For which reason they eliminate from it every limitation, all individuality, all thought, all consciousness. The natural consequence of this principle must be that it remains infinite so long as it is wrapped up in its vagueness and indefiniteness. Let it come forth from its indefiniteness, let it become definite, limited, concrete, and its infinity together with its unity is gone. It evaporates in the finite forms it assumes. On the other hand, let it remain absorbed in its indefiniteness, in its abstractiveness, and consequently, in its infinity, and multiplicity can no longer be conceived. It is absurd then to speak of multiplicity in the Infinite of the Pantheists, since it is clear that, when it assumes multiplicity, it can no longer be either infinite or one; and when it remains infinite it cannot be conceived as multiple. All this we have said, conceding the premises of pantheism. But we have, in the first article, demonstrated the following principles:
1st. If the pantheists take their unity in the sense of a pure abstraction, a transient act, the elements of which do not last one single instant, it is in that case an absolute nonentity, an utter unreality, and then it is useless to speak of multiplicity, since ex nihilo nihil fit.
2d. Or, they suppose their unity as something really existing, having the power of gradual development, and in that case we have demonstrated that such a being could not develop itself without the aid of a foreign being.
The premises of pantheism then being false, the solution of the problem falls to the ground independently of its intrinsic value, if it have any, which we have shown it has not.
Pantheism cannot answer the problem of multiplicity. How can we then attain to its solution?
We answer: the Catholic Church resolves it, giving such an explanation of it as the finite and limited intellect of man may reasonably expect. For the Catholic Church does not pretend to give such a solution of the problem as to enable us thoroughly to understand it. She proceeds from two premises, to wit, that God is infinite, and that man, necessarily distinct from God, is finite, and therefore endowed only with finite intelligence. That these premises are true, appears evident from the demonstration we have already given, in which we have shown that the pantheistic idea of the infinite is the idea of finite being when it is not taken as meaning only an abstraction, a pure mathematical point. The ideas of the infinite and the finite exist, and therefore there must be also objects corresponding to these ideas. We shall return to this subject in a following number.
From these two ideas of the finite and the Infinite, it follows that man can never comprehend God; or, in other words, that the intelligence of man, with the relation to God as its object, must find mysteries or truths above and beyond its capacity. For, as it is absurd to shut up a body of large size in a body of much more limited size, supposing the present conditions of bodies not suspended, so it is absurd to suppose that the intellect of man, limited and finite, could grasp or take in God, who is infinite. We are aware of the opposition which is made by many to mysteries or super-intelligible truths; but we insist upon it, that all such opposition would vanish, if men would study philosophy more deeply and more assiduously. Why, a real philosopher, one who has sounded the depths of creation, and plunged into the profundity of the great ideas of being, of substance, of the absolute, of the infinite, the finite and the relative, into the ideas of eternity, of immensity, of immutability, of space and time, into the ideas of cause, of action, of movement; one who has entered into the labyrinth of his soul, and tried to catch the flying phenomena of its life, and to analyze all the fibres of its consciousness; such a one meets, at every step, with mysteries, and the more he digs into them, the profounder and the wider is the abyss lying at his feet. If we should meet with a man denying mysteries, and desirous to engage in a discussion, we would beg of him to go and first study the alphabet of philosophy.