TRANSLATED FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.
MATTER AND SPIRIT IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE[196]
There is nothing more advantageous, and at the same time more dangerous; more beneficial to the cause of truth, and yet more apt to induce error, than the modern idea of studying man in nature alone; or rather, of scrutinizing its depths with the design of discovering all that concerns him.
Doubtless there were times when philosophy did not pay sufficient regard to the study of the physical sciences; when philosophers put themselves too far outside the physical world. Metaphysics were too full of abstractions, too much confined to the me and consciousness.
Some systems wished to dig an abyss between the world of matter and that of spirit, regarding the passage from the one to the other as impossible. Even the discoveries of Des Cartes in the realms of physical nature, as well as in the kingdom of his own consciousness, notwithstanding their importance and grandeur, only served to widen the abyss; for the Cartesian theory supposed the mind to be incapable of communicating with the exterior world save by a chain frequently broken—by a long and devious path. The preëstablished harmony of Leibnitz was the last term of the separation of these two worlds, which had no longer any thing in common even in their agreement, and only existed in juxtaposition without mutual action or reciprocal influence.
This was an excess of which metaphysics was at the same time the author and the victim; it deprived itself of a powerful element of investigation; it veiled one of the faces of nature; and closed the door to research and knowledge in one of the great domains of the world. Metaphysicians, in striving to obtain the exclusive and victorious reign of spirit, compromised its triumph.
Doubtless that which at the same time unites and separates the intellectual from the material world will never be perfectly understood. But it will always be necessary to throw light on both sides of the problem by comparing them without confounding them; to place both face to face without partiality or exclusion; the working of thought and of matter, and between the two the mysterious phenomenon of life which is their connecting link and term of similitude.
It could not be expected that philosophy should first and alone prepare the ground of this conciliation and comparison. The peculiarly speculative studies of metaphysicians would not naturally carry them to this point; and besides, the very elements necessary for this comparison were wanting to them.
It is, therefore, to the natural sciences, as they are called, that we must owe the most of our knowledge and comprehension of the two worlds, which co-penetrate each other. Not that the sciences have preconceived the thought of this result, and formed a plan on the subject; for the science of the day, especially that which really deserves the name, has confined itself generally to impartial discoveries, and for premise and conclusion has taken merely the facts themselves. Notwithstanding evil examples, which would persuade a different course, it still perseveres, and on this account it deserves praise in its isolated labors and exclusive studies. It would not be difficult to cite the names of some of the most distinguished savants, who, impartially and without being preoccupied with conclusions, have enriched the domain of truth with most important and curious discoveries. But the occupation of the savant, which is not without merit and trouble, cannot satisfy mankind.