The "System of Nature."
The author of the "System of Nature" has had the advantage of being read by both learned and ignorant, and by women. His style, then, has merits which that of Spinoza wanted. He is often luminous, sometimes eloquent; although he may be charged, like all the rest, with repetition, declamation, and self-contradiction. But for profundity, he is very often to be distrusted both in physics and in morals. The interest of mankind is here in question; we will, therefore, examine whether his doctrine is true and useful; and will, if we can, be brief.
"Order and disorder do not exist." What! in physics, is not a child born blind, without legs, or a monster, contrary to the nature of the species? Is it not the ordinary regularity of nature that makes order, and irregularity that constitutes disorder? Is it not a great derangement, a dreadful disorder, when nature gives a child hunger and closes the œsophagus? The evacuations of every kind are necessary; yet the channels are frequently without orifices, which it is necessary to remedy. Doubtless this disorder has its cause; for there is no effect without a cause; but it is a very disordered effect.
Is not the assassination of our friend, or of our brother, a horrible disorder in morals? Are not the calumnies of a Garasse, of a Letellier, of a Doucin, against Jansenists, and those of Jansenists against Jesuits, petty disorders? Were not the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Irish massacre, etc., execrable disorders? This crime has its cause in passion, but the effect is execrable; the cause is fatal; this disorder makes us shudder. The origin of the disorder remains to be discovered, but the disorder exists.
"Experience proves to us that the matter which we regard as inert and dead assumes action, intelligence, and life, when it is combined in a certain way."
This is precisely the difficulty. How does a germ come to life? Of this the author and the reader are alike ignorant. Hence, are not the "System of Nature," and all the systems in the world, so many dreams?
"It would be necessary to define the vital principle, which I deem impossible." Is not this definition very easy, very common? Is not life organization with feeling? But that you have these two properties from the motion of matter alone, it is impossible to give any proof; and if it cannot be proved, why affirm it? Why say aloud, "I know," while you say to yourself, "I know not"?
"It will be asked, what is man?" etc. Assuredly, this article is no clearer than the most obscure of Spinoza's; and many readers will feel indignant at the decisive tone which is assumed without anything being explained.
"Matter is eternal and necessary; but its forms and its combinations are transitory and contingent," etc. It is hard to comprehend, matter being, according to our author, necessary, and without freedom, how there can be anything contingent. By contingency, we understand that which may be, or may not be; but since all must be, of absolute necessity, every manner of being, which he here very erroneously calls contingent, is as absolutely of necessity as the being itself. Here again we are in a labyrinth.
When you venture to affirm that there is no God, that matter acts of itself by an eternal necessity, it must be demonstrated like a proposition in Euclid, otherwise you rest your system only on a perhaps. What a foundation for that which is most interesting to the human race!