Reader. Yes; this is the only point which you have tried to establish, and you have failed, as I am ready to show. But that our understanding is limited by time and space you merely assert. That we falsely conclude that there is a primary cause you boldly assume. That God's existence is contradicted by scientific experience you impudently [pg 188] affirm, well knowing that it is a lie.
And now, with regard to the knowledge of the absolute, you are much mistaken if you believe that we know no absolute truth, no absolute good, and no absolute beauty. We know absolute being; and therefore we know absolute truth, absolute good, and absolute beauty.
Büchner. We know of no absolute being, sir.
Reader. Be modest, doctor; for you know of how many blunders you stand already convicted. Absolute being is not necessarily “that which transcends the surrounding sensual world.” The sun, the moon, the planets have their absolute being, and yet do not transcend matter. Now, can we not form a notion of the absolute being of these bodies? You say that “all our knowledge is relative, and results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects”; but you should reflect that all relative knowledge implies the knowledge of the absolute terms from the comparison of which the relation is to be detected. Hence you cannot admit the knowledge of the relative without assuming the knowledge of the absolute. Accordingly, it is false that “all our knowledge is relative,” at least in the sense of your argumentation. Nor is it true that all our knowledge “results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects.” There is a kind of knowledge which results from the comparison of intellectual principles, as the knowledge of the logical rules; and there is also a knowledge which results, not from the comparison, but from the intellectual analysis, of things, as the knowledge of the constituent principles of being. If I ask you what is distance, you will soon point out any two sensible objects, by the comparison of which distance may become known; but if I ask you what is syllogism, or what is judgment, or what is philosophy, I defy you to point out any “surrounding sensible objects,” by the comparison of which such notions may be understood.
I need not discuss your assertion that “we could have no notion of darkness without light, no conception of high without low, of heat without coldness, etc.” I may concede the assertion as irrelevant for, whenever we designate things by relative terms, it is clear that each relative carries within itself the connotation of its correlative. But it does not follow that all our knowledge is relative. How can we know, for instance, the relation of brotherhood intervening between James and John, if we know neither the one nor the other? Can we conceive the brother without the man? Or is it necessary, when we know the man, that in such a man we should see his peculiar relation to another man?
You pretend that we are not able to form any conception of “ever-lasting” or “infinite”; and, to prove this, you affirm that “our understanding, being limited by time and space, finds an impassable barrier for that conception.” Very well; but what did you mean when you contended that matter is “eternal” and “infinite”? Had you then any conception of “eternal” and “infinite”? If you had not such conceptions, you made a fool of yourself by using terms which you did not understand; while, if you had such conceptions, then it is false that we are not able to form them. In the same manner, have you any conception of the “absolute”? If you have it, then it is ridiculous to pretend that we cannot conceive [pg 189] the absolute; while, if you have it not, you know not about what you are speaking. Alas! poor doctor. What can you answer? It is the common fate of the enemies of truth to be inconsistent with themselves, and to demolish with one hand what they build with the other.
But is it true that our intellect “is limited by time and space”? No, it is not true. Imagination is indeed limited by time and space, as all our philosophers concede; but intellect understands things independently of either space or time. This is evident. For in what space do we place the universals? To what time do we confine mathematical truths? Two and two are known to make four in all places and in all times—that is, without restriction or limit in space and time; and the same is true of all intellectual principles. Hence it is obvious that our understanding transcends both space and time, and can reach the infinite and the eternal. It is through abstraction, of course, and not by comprehension or by intuition, that we form such notions; for our intellect, though not limited by time and space, is limited in its own entity, and therefore it cannot conceive the unlimited, except by the help of the abstractive process—that is, by removing the limits by which the objective reality of the finite is circumscribed. That we can do this I need not prove to you; for you admit that space is infinite, and pretend that matter itself is infinite, as I have just remarked; and consequently you cannot deny that we have the notion of infinity.
What shall I say of your next assertion, that, from being accustomed to find a cause for every effect, “we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Do you think that the principle of causality has no other ground than experience? or that, when we do not “find” the cause of a certain effect, we are to conclude that the effect has had no cause? I hope you will not deny that the notions of cause and effect are so essentially connected that there is no need of experiment to compel the admission of a cause for every effect. Hence we are certain, not only that all the effects for which we have found a cause proceed from a cause, but also that all the effects for which we cannot find a cause likewise proceed from a cause. This amounts to saying that the principle of causality is analytical, not empirical, as you seem to hold. Now, if all effects must have a cause, on what ground do you assert that “we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Our conclusion cannot be false, unless it be false that the world has been created; for if it was created, we must admit a Creator—that is, a primary cause. But the fact of creation is, even philosophically, undeniable, since the contingent nature of the world is manifestly established by its liability to continuous change. And therefore it is manifestly established that our admission of a primary cause is not a false conclusion. I might say more on this point; but what need is there of refuting assertions which have not even a shadow of plausibility? The primary cause, you say, “is perfectly inaccessible to our ideas.” I answer that, if the word “idea” means “concept,” your statement is perfectly wrong. You add that the existence of a primary cause “is contradicted by scientific experience.” I answer by challenging you to bring forward a single fact of experimental science which supports your blasphemous assertion.
You must agree, doctor, that a man who in a few phrases commits so many unconceivable blunders has no right to censure the metaphysicians or to attack revelation. It is rash, therefore, on your part, to declare that “however much metaphysicians may vainly attempt to define the absolute, however much religion may endeavor to excite faith in the absolute by the assumption of a revelation, nothing can conceal the defect of the definition.” Of what definition do you speak? Your own definition of the absolute, as “that which transcends the surrounding sensual world,” is certainly most deficient; but religion and metaphysics are not to be made responsible for it. Why did you not, before censuring the metaphysicians and the theologians, ascertain their definitions? We call absolute a being whose existence does not depend on the existence of another being; and in this sense God alone is absolute. He is the absolute antonomastically. And we call absolute analogically any being also whose existence does not depend on any created being, although it depends on the creative and conservative action of God; and in this sense every created substance is absolute. And we call absolute logically whatever is conceived through its own intrinsic constituents without reference to any other distinct entity; and in this sense we speak of absolute movement, absolute weight, absolute volume, etc. Without enumerating other less important meanings of the term, I simply observe that the absolute may be defined as that which is independent of extraneous conditions; and that the greater its independence, the more absolute and the more perfect is the being. Have you anything to say against this definition?
We must, then, conclude that all your argumentation is nothing but a shocking display of false assertions, and, I may add, of “intellectual jugglery.”