[62] It is not necessary to remark how incorrect are the expressions, representation of the infinite, image of the infinite, especially infinite image of the infinite. We cannot represent to ourselves, we cannot imagine to ourselves the infinite. We conceive the infinite; the infinite is not an object of the imagination, but of the understanding, of reason. See 1st Series, vol. v., lecture 6, p. 223, 224.
[63] By a trifling anachronism, for which we shall be pardoned, we have here joined to the Traité de la Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi-même, so long known, the Logique, which was only published in 1828.
[64] 4th Series, vol. i., preface of the 1st edition of Pascal: "Bossuet, with more moderation, and supported by a good sense which nothing can shake, is, in his way, a disciple of the same doctrine, only the extremes of which according to his custom, he shunned. This great mind, which may have superiors in invention, but has no equal for force in common sense, was very careful not to place revelation and philosophy in opposition to each other: he found it the safer and truer way to give to each its due, to borrow from philosophy whatever natural light it can give, in order to increase it in turn with the supernatural light, of which the Church has been made the depository. It is in this sovereign good sense, capable of comprehending every thing, and uniting every thing, that resides the supreme originality of Bossuet. He shunned particular opinions as small minds seek them for the triumph of self-love. He did not think of himself; he only searched for truth, and wherever he found it he listened to it, well assured that if the connection between truths of different orders sometimes escapes us, it is no reason for closing the eyes to any truth. If we wished to give a scholastic name to Bossuet, according to the custom of the Middle Age, we would have to call him the infallible doctor. He is not only one of the highest, he is also one of the best and solidest intelligences that ever existed; and this great conciliator has easily reconciled religion and philosophy, St. Augustine and Descartes, tradition and reason."
[65] The best, or, rather, only good edition is that which was published from an authentic copy, in 1846, by Lecoffre.
[66] These words, d'une certaine manière qui m'est incompréhensible, c'est en lui, dis-je, are not in the first edition of 1722.
[67] Leibnitzii Opera, edit. Deutens, vol. ii., p. 17.
[68] Ibid., p. 24.
[69] 1st edition, Amsterdam, 1710, p. 354, edit. of M. de Jaucourt, Amsterdam, 1747, vol. ii., p. 93.
[70] We have many times designated these two rocks, for example, 2d Series, vol. i., lecture 5, p. 92:—"One cannot help smiling when, in our times, he hears individual reason spoken against. In truth it is a great waste of declamation, for the reason is not individual; if it were, we should govern it as we govern our resolutions and our volitions, we could at any moment change its acts, that is to say, our conceptions. If these conceptions were merely individual, we should not think of imposing them upon another individual, for to impose our own individual and personal conceptions on another individual, on another person, would be the most extravagant despotism.... We call those mad who do not admit the relations of numbers, the difference between the beautiful and the ugly, the just and the unjust. Why? Because we know that it is not the individual that constitutes these conceptions, or, in other terms, we know that the reason has something universal and absolute, that upon this ground it obligates all individuals; and an individual, at the same time that he knows that he himself is obligated by it, knows that all others are obligated by it on the same ground."—Ibid., p. 93: "Truth misconceived is thereby neither altered nor destroyed; it subsists independently of the reason that perceives it or perceives it ill. Truth in itself is independent of our reason. Its true subject is the universal and absolute reason."
[71] See the preceding lectures.