The inclination for good is the principle of the restlessness of our will

The inclination for good in general is the principle of the restlessness of our will

This vast capacity that the will has for all goods in general, because it is made only for a good that contains in itself all goods, cannot be filled by all the things that the mind represents to it; and yet this continuous movement that God imprints in it toward the good cannot stop.

This movement, never ceasing, necessarily gives the mind a continual agitation; the will, seeking what it desires, obliges the mind to represent it to itself under all sorts of objects. The mind represents them, but the soul does not taste them; or, if it tastes them, it is not satisfied with them. The soul does not taste them, because often the view of the mind is not accompanied by pleasure; for it is by pleasure that the soul tastes its good; and the soul is not satisfied with it, because there is nothing that can stop the movement of the soul except the one who imprints it in it. All that the mind represents to itself as its good is finite; and all that is finite can turn aside our love for a moment, but it cannot fix it. When the mind considers objects that are very new and very extraordinary, or that partake of the infinite, the will suffers for some time that it examines them with attention, because it hopes to find there what it seeks, and that which appears infinite bears the character of its true good; but with time it becomes disgusted with them as well as with others. It is therefore always restless, because it is carried to seek what it can never find and what it always hopes to find; and it loves the great, the extraordinary, and what partakes of the infinite, because, not having found its true good in common and familiar things, it imagines finding it in those that are not known to it. We will show, in this chapter, that the restlessness of our will is one of the principal causes of the ignorance in which we are and of the errors into which we fall on an infinity of subjects; and, in the two following ones, we will explain what the inclination we have for everything that has something great and extraordinary produces in us.

Consequently of our lack of application and of our ignorance

It is sufficiently evident from the things that have been said: first, that the will hardly applies the understanding except to objects that have some relation to us, and that it greatly neglects others; for, always ardently desiring happiness by the impression of nature, it turns the understanding only toward things that appear useful to us and that cause us some pleasure.

Second, that the will does not allow the understanding to occupy itself for a long time with things that even give it some pleasure, because, as has just been said, all created things may please us for some time, but we soon become disgusted with them, and then our mind turns away and seeks elsewhere to satisfy itself.

Third, that the will is excited to thus make the mind run from object to object, because it is never without representing to it confusedly, and as from afar, the one who contains in himself all beings, as we have said in the third book. For the will, wishing, so to speak, to approach more closely its true good in order to be touched by it and to receive from it the movement that animates it, excites the understanding to represent it to itself under some aspect. But then it is no longer the general and universal being, it is no longer the infinitely perfect being that the mind perceives; it is something limited and imperfect, which, being unable to stop the movement of the will or to please it for long, it abandons to run after some other object.

However, attention and application of the mind being absolutely necessary to discover truths that are somewhat hidden, it is manifest that the common run of men must be in a very gross ignorance with regard even to things that have some relation to them, and that they are in an inconceivable blindness with regard to all abstract truths that have no sensible relation to them. But we must try to make these things felt by examples.

First example: morality little known by the common run of men

There is no science that has as much relation to us as morality; it is it that teaches us all our duties toward God, toward our prince, toward our parents, toward our friends, and generally toward everything that surrounds us. It even teaches us the path we must follow to become eternally happy; and all men are under an essential obligation, or rather an indispensable necessity, to apply themselves to it exclusively. However, there have been men for six thousand years, and this science is still very imperfect.

That part of morality which concerns what one owes to God, and which without doubt is the principal one, since it has relation to eternity, has hardly been known to the most learned, and one still finds at present persons of wit who have no knowledge of it. Yet it is the easiest part of morality; for, first, what difficulty is there in recognizing that there is a God? All that God has done proves it; all that men and beasts do proves it; all that we think, all that we see, all that we feel proves it; in a word, there is nothing that does not prove the existence of God or that could not prove it if attentive minds seriously applied themselves to seeking the author of all things.

Secondly, it is evident that one must follow the orders of God to be happy; for, being powerful and just, one cannot disobey Him without being punished, nor obey Him without being rewarded. But what does He ask of us? That we love Him, that our mind be occupied with Him, that our heart be turned toward Him. For why did He create spirits? Certainly He can do nothing except for Himself: He therefore made us only for Himself, and we are indispensably obliged not to turn elsewhere the impression of love that He continually preserves in us so that we love Him without ceasing.

These truths are not very difficult to discover with a little application. Yet this single principle of morality—that to be virtuous and happy it is absolutely necessary to love God above all things and in all things—is the foundation of all Christian morality. One does not need to apply oneself extremely to draw from it all the consequences we need, to establish the general rules of our conduct, although very few people do so, and one still disputes every day on questions of morality that are immediate and necessary consequences of a principle as evident as that one.

Geometers always make some new discoveries in their science; or, if they do not perfect it much, it is because they have already drawn from their principles the most useful and most necessary consequences. But most men seem incapable of concluding anything from the first principle of morality: all their ideas vanish and dissipate when they only want to think about it, because they do not want to as they should; and they do not want to because they do not taste it or because they become disgusted with it too soon after having tasted it. This principle is abstract, metaphysical, purely intelligible: it is not felt, it is not imagined. It therefore does not appear solid to carnal eyes or to minds that see only through the eyes. There is found in the dry and abstract consideration of this principle nothing that can make the restlessness of their will cease and that can fix the view of their mind to consider it with some attention. What hope, then, that they see it well, that they understand it well, and that they conclude from it directly what they ought to conclude from it?

If men understood only imperfectly this proposition of geometry—that the sides of similar triangles are proportional to each other—certainly they would not be great geometers. But if, besides this confused and imperfect view of this fundamental proposition of geometry, they still had some interest that the sides of similar triangles were not proportional, and that false geometry were as convenient for their perverse inclinations as false morality, they might well make paralogisms as absurd in geometry as in morality, because their errors would be agreeable to them, and truth would only embarrass them, stun them, and vex them.

One must not therefore be astonished at the blindness of men who lived in past centuries, during which idolatry reigned in the world, or of those who live now, and who are not yet enlightened by the light of the Gospel. It was necessary that eternal wisdom should finally make itself sensible to instruct men who consult only their senses. For four thousand years truth had spoken to their mind; but not entering into themselves, they did not hear it: it was necessary that it speak to their ears. The light that enlightens all men shone in their darkness without dissipating it, they could not even look at it; it was necessary that intelligible light veil itself and make itself visible; it was necessary that the Word become flesh, and that the wisdom hidden and inaccessible to carnal men instruct them in a carnal manner, carnaliter, says Saint Bernard [1]. Most men, and principally the poor, who are the most worthy object of the mercy and providence of the Creator, those who are obliged to work to earn their living, are extremely coarse and stupid: they understand only because they have ears, and they see only because they have eyes. They are incapable of entering into themselves by some effort of mind, to interrogate truth in the silence of their senses and passions. They cannot apply themselves to truth, because they cannot taste it; and often they do not even think of applying themselves to it, because they do not think of applying themselves to what does not touch them. Their restless and fickle will incessantly turns the view of their mind toward all sensible objects that please them and that divert them by their variety; for the multiplicity and diversity of sensible goods are the cause that one recognizes their vanity less, and that one is always in the hope of encountering there the true good that one desires.

Thus, although the counsels that Jesus Christ, as man, as author of our faith, gives us in the Gospel are much more proportioned to the weakness of our mind than those that the same Jesus Christ, as eternal wisdom, as inner truth, as intelligible light, inspires in the most secret of our reason; although Jesus Christ renders these counsels agreeable by His grace, sensible by His example, convincing by His miracles, men are so stupid and so incapable of reflection, even on things that it is of the utmost consequence for them to know well, that they almost never think of them as they ought. Few people see the beauty of the Gospel; few people conceive the solidity and necessity of the counsels of Jesus Christ; few meditate on them, few nourish themselves and strengthen themselves with them, the continual agitation of the will that seeks the taste of good not allowing them to stop at truths that seem to deprive them of it. Here is another proof of what I say.

Second example: the immortality of the soul contested by some persons

The impious must undoubtedly be very concerned to know whether their soul is mortal, as they think, or whether it is immortal, as faith and reason teach us. This is a thing of the utmost consequence for them, their eternity is at stake, and even the rest of their mind depends on it. Why then do they not know it, or why do they remain in doubt, if not that they are not capable of a somewhat serious attention, and that their restless and corrupt will does not allow their mind to look fixedly at the reasons that are contrary to the sentiments they would like to be true? For finally, is it such a difficult thing to recognize the difference that there is between the soul and the body, between what thinks and what is extended? Is it necessary to bring such a great attention of mind to see that a thought is nothing round or square, that extension is capable only of different figures and different motions, and not of thought and reasoning, and that thus what thinks and what is extended are two entirely opposite beings? Yet this alone suffices to demonstrate that the soul is immortal, and that it cannot perish even if the body were annihilated.

When a substance perishes, it is true that the modes or manners of being of that substance perish with it. If a piece of wax were annihilated, it is true that the figures of that wax would also be annihilated with it, because the roundness, for example, of the wax is in effect only the wax itself in such a way; thus it cannot subsist without the wax. But even if God destroyed all the wax that is in the world, it would not follow from that that any other substance or that the modes of any other substance were annihilated. All stones, for example, would subsist with all their modes, because stones are substances or beings, and not manners of being of the wax.

Likewise, if God annihilated half of some body, it would not follow that the other half was annihilated. This latter half is united with the other, but it is not one with it. Thus, one half being annihilated, it follows well, according to the light of reason, that the other half no longer has relation to it, but it does not follow that it is no longer, since its being being different, it cannot be reduced to nothing by the annihilation of the other. It is therefore clear that thought not being the modification of extension, our soul is not annihilated, even if one supposes that death annihilates our body.

But one is not right to imagine that the body itself is annihilated when it is destroyed. The parts that compose it dissipate into vapors and dissolve into dust: one no longer sees them and no longer recognizes them. It is true, but one must not conclude from that that they no longer exist, for the mind always perceives them. If one separates a grain of mustard into two, into four, into twenty parts, one annihilates it to our eyes, for one no longer sees it; but one does not annihilate it in itself, one does not annihilate it to the mind, for the mind sees it, even if one divides it into a thousand or a hundred thousand parts.

It is a notion common to every man who uses his reason rather than his senses, that nothing can be annihilated by the ordinary forces of nature; for just as something cannot naturally be made from nothing, so a substance or a being cannot become nothing. The passage from being to nothing, or from nothing to being, is equally impossible. Bodies can therefore corrupt, if one wishes to call corruption the changes that happen to them, but they cannot be annihilated. What is round can become square, what is flesh can become earth, vapor, and whatever you please, for all extension is capable of all sorts of configurations; but the substance of what is round and of what is flesh cannot perish. There are certain laws established in nature, according to which bodies successively change forms, because the successive variety of these forms constitutes the beauty of the universe, and gives admiration for its author; but there is no law in nature for the annihilation of any being, because nothingness has nothing beautiful nor good, and the author of nature loves his work. Bodies can therefore change, but they cannot perish.

But if, stopping at the report of one’s senses, one wants to maintain with obstinacy that the resolution of bodies is a true annihilation, because the parts into which they are resolved are imperceptible to our eyes; let one remember at least that bodies can only divide into these imperceptible parts because they are extended; for if the mind is not extended it will not be divisible, and if it is not divisible it will be necessary to agree that in this sense it will not be corruptible. But how could one imagine that the mind were extended and divisible? One can by a straight line cut a square into two triangles, into two parallelograms, into two trapezoids, but by what line can one conceive that a pleasure, a pain, a desire can be cut, and what figure would result from this division? Certainly I do not believe that the imagination is fertile enough in false ideas to satisfy itself on that.

The mind is therefore not extended, it is not divisible, it is not susceptible to the same changes as the body; nevertheless it must be agreed that it is not immutable by its nature. If the body is capable of an infinite number of different figures and different configurations, the mind is also capable of an infinite number of different ideas and different modifications. Just as after our death the substance of our flesh will dissolve into earth, into vapors, and into an infinity of other bodies without being annihilated, so our soul, without returning into nothingness, will have thoughts and feelings very different from those it has during this life. It is necessary, now that we live, that our body be composed of flesh and bones; it is also necessary for living that our soul have the ideas and feelings it has in relation to the body to which it is united. But when it is separated from its body, it will be in full freedom to receive all sorts of ideas and modifications very different from those it has presently, just as our body on its side will be capable of receiving all sorts of figures and configurations very different from those it is necessary for it to have to be the body of a living man.

The things I have just said seem to me to show sufficiently that the immortality of the soul is not such a difficult thing to understand. How can it then come about that so many people doubt it, if not that it does not please them to bring to the reasons that prove it the little attention necessary to convince themselves? And why do they not want to, if not that their will being restless and inconstant agitates their understanding without ceasing, so that it has not the leisure to perceive distinctly even the ideas that are most present to it, such as those of thought and extension; just as a man agitated by some passion, and who turns his eyes incessantly in all directions, most often does not distinguish the objects closest and most exposed to his view; for finally the question of the immortality of the soul is one of the easiest questions to resolve, when, without listening to one’s imagination, one considers with some attention of mind the clear and distinct idea of extension and the relation it can have to thought?

If the inconstancy and lightness of our will does not allow our understanding to penetrate the depths of things that are very present to it and that it is of the utmost consequence for us to know; it is easy to judge that it will allow us even less to meditate on those that are distant and that have no relation to us. So that if we are in a very gross ignorance of most of the things it is very necessary for us to know, we will not be very enlightened in those that appear to us entirely vain and useless.

It is not very necessary that I stop to prove this by boring examples that contain no considerable truths, for if there are things that one should ignore, they are those that serve no purpose. Although there are few people who seriously apply themselves to entirely vain and useless things, there are still too many; but there cannot be too many people who do not apply themselves to them and who despise them, provided only that they do not judge them. It is not a defect in a limited mind not to know certain things, it is only a defect to judge them. Ignorance is a necessary evil, but one can and must avoid error. Thus I do not condemn in men the ignorance of many things, but only the rash judgments they make about them.

Our ignorance is extreme with regard to arbitrary things, or those which have little relation to us

When things have much relation to us, when they are sensible and when they fall easily under the imagination, one can say that the mind applies itself to them and that it can have some knowledge of them. For when we know that things have relation to us, we think of them with some inclination; and when we feel that they touch us, we apply ourselves to them with pleasure. So that we should be more learned than we are in many things, if the restlessness and agitation of our will did not trouble and fatigue our attention without ceasing.

But when things are abstract and little sensible, we can only with difficulty have any assured knowledge of them, not that abstract truths are in themselves very embarrassing, but because the attention and view of the mind ordinarily begin and end at the same time as the sensible view of objects, because one thinks only of what one sees and feels, and as long as one sees it and feels it.

It is certain that if the mind could easily apply itself to clear and distinct ideas without being as if supported by some feeling, and if the restlessness of the will did not incessantly turn aside its application, we would not find very great difficulties in an infinity of natural questions that we regard as inexplorable, and we could in a short time deliver ourselves from our ignorance and our errors with regard to them.

It is, for example, an incontestable truth for every man who uses his mind that creation and annihilation surpass the ordinary forces of nature. If one therefore remained attentive to this pure notion of the mind and of reason, one would not admit with so much facility the creation and annihilation of an infinite number of new beings, such as substantial forms, qualities and real faculties, etc. One would seek in the distinct ideas one has of extension, figure, and motion, the reason for natural effects; which is not always as difficult as one imagines, for all the things of nature hold together and prove each other.

The effects of fire, like those of cannons and mines, are very surprising and their cause is quite hidden. Nevertheless if men, instead of stopping at the impressions of their senses and at some false or deceptive experiences, stopped firmly at this single notion of pure mind, that it is not possible that a body that is very little agitated produce a violent motion, since it cannot give more than it has itself, it would be easy from this alone to conclude that there is a subtle and invisible matter, that it is very agitated, that it is generally spread throughout all bodies, and several other similar things that would make us know the nature of fire and that would also serve us to discover other more hidden truths.

For since such great motions are made in a cannon and in a mine, and all the visible bodies that surround them are not in a sufficiently great agitation to produce them, it is a certain proof that there are others invisible and insensible that have at least as much agitation as the cannonball, but which being very subtle and very fine can alone pass freely and without breaking anything through the pores of the cannon before the fire is there—that is to say, as one can see explained at greater length and with enough plausibility in Mr. Descartes [2], before they have surrounded the hard and coarse parts of the saltpeter of which gunpowder is composed. But when the fire is there—that is to say, when these very subtle and very agitated parts have surrounded the coarse and solid parts of the saltpeter and have thus communicated to them their very strong and very violent motion—then it is necessary that everything burst, because the pores of the cannon, which left free passages on all sides to the subtle parts we speak of when they were alone, are not large enough to let pass the coarse parts of the saltpeter and some others of which gunpowder is composed, when they have received the agitation of the subtle parts that surround them.

For just as the water of rivers that flows under bridges does not shake them because of the smallness of its parts, so the very subtle and very fine matter just spoken of continually passes through the pores of all bodies without making sensible changes in them.

But just as this river is capable of overturning a bridge when, dragging in the course of its waters some large masses of ice or some other more solid bodies, it pushes them against it with the same motion it has; so the subtle matter is capable of producing the surprising effects that we see in cannons and in mines, when having communicated to the parts of the powder that float in its midst its infinitely more violent and rapid motion than that of rivers and torrents, these same parts of the powder cannot freely pass through the pores of the body that encloses them, because they are too coarse, so that they break them with violence to make themselves a free passage.

But men cannot so easily represent to themselves subtle and fine parts, and they regard them as chimeras because they do not see them. Contemplatio fere desinit cum aspectu, says Bacon. Most even of philosophers prefer to invent some new entity so as not to remain silent on these things they are ignorant of. And if one objects against their false and incomprehensible suppositions that it is necessary that fire be composed of very agitated parts, since it produces such violent motions, and that a thing cannot communicate what it does not have—which certainly is a very clear and very solid objection—they do not fail to confuse everything by some frivolous and imaginary distinction, such as that of equivocal and univocal causes, in order to appear to say something when in effect they say nothing. For finally it is a notion common to attentive minds that there cannot be in nature a truly equivocal cause in the sense they understand it, and that only the ignorance of men invented them.

Men must therefore attach themselves more to the consideration of clear and distinct notions if they wish to know nature; they must somewhat repress and stop the inconstancy and lightness of their will if they wish to penetrate the depths of things, for their minds will always be weak, superficial, and discursive, if their wills remain always light, inconstant, and fickle.

It is true that there is some fatigue and that one must constrain oneself to become attentive and to penetrate the depths of the things one wishes to know, but one has nothing without pain. It is shameful that persons of wit and philosophers, who are obliged by all sorts of reasons to the search and defense of truth, speak without knowing what they say, and content themselves with terms that awaken no distinct idea in attentive minds.