Chapter I. — The Metaphysics of the Understanding
A 3. MALEBRANCHE
The philosophy of Malebranche is in point
of matter entirely identical with that of
Spinoza, but it has another, a more religious
and more theological form; on account of
this form it never encountered the opposition
met with by Spinoza, and for the same reason
Malebranche has never been reproached with
Atheism. Nicholas Malebranche was born at
Paris in 1638. He was sickly and deformed
in body, and was hence brought up with great
care. He was diffident and loved solitude;
in his twenty-second year he entered the
congrégation de l’ oratoire, a sort of spiritual
order, and devoted himself to the sciences.
In passing a bookseller’s shop he happened
accidentally to see Descartes’ work De homine;
he read it, and it interested him greatly
— so much so that the reading of it brought
on severe palpitation and he was forced to
cease. This decided his future life; there
awoke in him an irrepressible inclination
for Philosophy. He was a man of most noble
and gentle character, and of the most genuine,
and unswerving, piety. He died at Paris in
1715, and in, the seventy-seventh year of
his age.(1)
His principal work bears the title: De la
recherche de la vérité. One part of it is
entirely metaphysical, but the greater part
is altogether empirical. For instance, Malebranche
in the first three books treats logically
and psychologically of the errors in sight
and hearing, in the imagination and understanding.
a. What is most important in this book is
his idea of the origin of our knowledge.
He says: “The essence of the soul is in thought,
just as that of matter is in extension. All
else, such as sensation, imagination and
will, are modifications of thought.” He thus
begins with two sides, between which he sets
an absolute chasm, and then he follows out
in detail the Cartesian idea of the assistance
of God in knowledge. His main point is that
“the soul cannot attain to its conceptions
and notions from external things.” For when
I and the thing are clearly independent of
one another and have nothing in common, the
two can certainly not enter into relation
with one another nor be for one another.
“Bodies are impenetrable; their images would
destroy one another on the way to the organs.”
But further: “The soul cannot beget ideas
from itself, nor can they be inborn,” for
as “Augustine has said, ‘ Say not that ye
yourselves are your own light.’ ” But how
then comes extension, the manifold, into
the simple, into the spirit, since it is
the reverse of the simple, namely the diverse?
This question regarding the association of
thought and extension is always an important
one in Philosophy. According to Malebranche
the answer is, “That we see all things in
God.” God Himself is the connection between
us and them, and thus the unity between the
thing and thought. “God has in Him the ideas
of all things because He has created all;
God is through His omnipresence united in
the most intimate way with spirits. God thus
is the place of spirits,” the Universal of
spirit, “just as space” is the universal,
“the place of bodies. Consequently the soul
knows in God what is in Him,” bodies, “inasmuch
as He sets forth” (inwardly conceives) “created
existence, because all this is spiritual,
intellectual, and present to the soul."(2)
Because things and God are intellectual and
we too are intellectual, we perceive them
in God as they are, so to speak, intellectual
in Him. If this be further analyzed it in
no way differs from Spinozism. Malebranche
indeed in a popular way allows soul and things
to subsist as independent, but this independence
vanishes away like smoke when the principle
is firmly grasped. The catechism says: “God
is omnipresent,” and if this omnipresence
be developed Spinozism is arrived at; and
yet theologians then proceed to speak against
the system of identity, and cry out about
Pantheism.
b. We must further remark that Malebranche
also makes the universal, thought, the essential,
by placing it before the particular. “The
soul has the Notion of the infinite and universal:
it knows nothing excepting through the Idea
which it has of the infinite; this Idea must
hence come first. The universal is not a
mere confusion of individual ideas, it is
not a union of individual things.” According
to Locke the individual from which the universal
is formed precedes (infra, p. 299); according
to Malebranche the universal Idea is what
comes first in man. “If we wish to think
of anything particular we think first of
the universal;” it is the principle of the
particular, as space is of things. All essentiality
precedes our particular conceptions, and
this essentiality comes first. “All essential
existences (essences) come before our ordinary
conception; they cannot be such excepting
by God’s presence in the mind and spirit.
He it is who contains all things in the simplicity
of His nature. It seems evident that mind
would not be capable of representing to itself
the universal Notions of species, kind, and
suchlike, if it did not see all things comprehended
in one.” The universal is thus in and for
itself, and it does not take its rise through
the particular. “Since each existent thing
is an individual, we cannot say that we see
something actually created when, for example,
we see a triangle in general,” for we see
it through God. “No account can be given
of how spirit knows abstract and common truths,
excepting through the presence of Him who
can enlighten spirit in an infinite way,”
because He is in and for Himself the universal.
“We have a clear idea of God,” of the universal:
“We can have such only through union with
Him, for this idea is not a created one,”
but is in and for itself. As with Spinoza,
the one universal is God, and in so far as
it is determined, it is the particular; we
see this particular only in the universal,
as we see bodies in space. “We already have
a conception of infinite Being, inasmuch
as we have a conception of Being without
regard to whether it is finite or infinite.
To know a finite we must limit the infinite;
and this last must thus precede. Thus spirit
perceives all in the infinite; this is so
far from being a confused conception of many
particular things that all particular conceptions
are merely participations in the universal
Idea of infinitude — in the same way that
God does not receive this Being from"
finite “creatures, but,” on the contrary,
“all creatures only subsist through Him."(3)
c. As regards the turning of the soul to
God, Malebranche says what Spinoza said from
his ethical point of view: “It is impossible
that God should have an end other than Himself
(the Holy Scriptures place this beyond doubt);”
the will of God can only have the good, what
is without doubt universal as its end. “Hence
not only is it essential that our natural
love, i. e., the emotion which he brings
forth in our spirit, should strive after
Him" — "the will is really love
towards God" — "but it is likewise
impossible that the knowledge and the light
He gives to our spirit should make anything
else known than what is in Him,” for thought
only exists in unity with God. “If God were
to make a spirit and give it the sun as an
idea or as the immediate object of its knowledge,
God would have made this spirit and the idea
of this spirit for the sun and not for Himself.”
All natural love, and still more knowledge,
and the desire after truth, have God as their
end.” All motions of the will as regards
the creatures are only determinations of
motion as regards the creator.” Malebranche
quotes from Augustine “that we see God even
from the time we first enter upon this life
(dès cette vie), through the knowledge that
we have of eternal truths. The truth is uncreated,
unchangeable, immeasurable, eternal above
all things; it is true through itself, and
has its perfection from no thing. It makes
the creator more perfect, and all spirits
naturally seek to know it: now there is nothing
that has these perfections but God, and thus
the truth is God. We perceive these unchangeable
and eternal truths, hence we see God.” “God
indeed sees but He does not feel sensuous
things. If we see something sensuous, sensation
and pure thought are to be found in our consciousness.
Sensation is a modification of our spirit;
God occasions this because He knows that
our soul is capable of it. The Idea which
is bound up with the sensation is in God;
we see it, etc. This relation, this union
of our mind and spirit with the Word (Verbe)
of God, and of our will with His love, is
that we are formed after the image of God
and in His likeness."(4) Thus the love
of God consists in relating one’s affections
to the Idea of God; whoever knows himself
and thinks his affections clearly, loves
God. We further find sundry empty litanies
concerning God, a catechism for children
of eight years of age respecting goodness,
justice, omnipresence, the moral order of
the world; in all their lifetime theologians
do not get any further.
We have given the principal of Malebranche’s
ideas; the remainder of his philosophy is
composed partly of formal logic, and partly
of empirical psychology. He passes to the
treatment of errors, how they arise, how
the senses, the imagination, the understanding,
deceive us, and how we must conduct ourselves
in order to effect a remedy. Then Malebranche
goes on (T. III. L. VI. P. I. chap. i. pp.
1-3) to the rules and laws for recognizing
the truth. Thus here the term Philosophy
was even applied to the manner in which reflections
on particular objects are drawn from formal
logic and external facts.
Notes:
1. Buhle: Gesch. d. neuern Philosophie,
Vol.
III. Sec. 2, pp. 430, 431.
2. Malebranche: De la recherche de
la vérité
(Paris, 1736), T. II. L. III. Part
I. chap.
i. pp. 4-6; T. I. L. I. chap. i. pp.
6, 7;
P. II chap. ii. pp. 66-68; chap. iii.
p.
72; chap. iv. p. 84; chap. v. p. 92;
chap.
vi. pp. 95, 96.
3. Malebranche: De la recherche de
la vérité,
T. II. L. III. Part II. chap. vi. pp.
100-102.
4. Malebranche: De la recherche de la vérité,
T. II. L. III. P. II. chap. vi. pp. 103-107,
109-111.
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