FIRST REFLECTION: OF EXISTENCE' IN GENERAL

Even in the profoundest of treatises, the rule of thoroughness does not always demand that every concept employed should be developed or defined. No such requirement exists, namely, if one is assured that the clear and ordinary concept by itself can occasion no misunderstanding in the context in which it is employed. Such is the case with the geometer who with the greatest certainty uncovers the most secret properties and relations of that which is extended, even though in doing so he merely makes use of the ordinary concept of space. And such is also the case in the deepest science of all, where the word ‘representation’ is understood with sufficient precision and employed with confidence, even though its meaning can never be analysed by means of definition.

Hence, in these reflections I should not aspire to analyse the very simple and well-understood concept of existence, were it not for the fact that the present case is one in which such an omission could occasion confusion and lead to serious errors. It is certain that anywhere else in philosophy the concept could confidently be employed in the undeveloped form in which it occurs in ordinary usage. The one exception is the question concerning absolutely necessary existence and contingent existence. In this one case, an investigation of a subtler sort has drawn erroneous conclusions from an unhappily contrived but otherwise very pure concept. These erroneous conclusions have extended themselves over one of the most sublime parts of philosophy.

It is not to be expected that I shall begin by offering a formal definition of existence. Such a procedure is always undesirable when the correctness of the suggested definition is so uncertain. This situation arises more frequently than one perhaps realises.

I do not esteem the use of an endeavour, such as this present one, so highly as to suppose that the most important of all our cognitions, there is a God, would waver or be imperilled if it were not supported by deep metaphysical investigations. It was not the will of Providence that the insights so necessary to our happiness should depend upon the sophistry of subtle inferences. On the contrary, Providence has directly transmitted these insights to our natural common sense. And, provided that it is not confused by false art, it does not fail to lead us directly to what is true and useful, for we are in extreme need of these two things. Thus, that employment of sound reason, which still lies within the limits of ordinary insights, yields sufficiently convincing proofs of the existence and properties of this Being, though the subtle scholar will everywhere feel the lack of demonstration and of the exactitude of precisely determined concepts and regularly connected syllogisms. Nonetheless, one cannot refrain from searching for this demonstration, in the hope that it may present itself somewhere. For, without mentioning the reasonable desire to achieve, in cognition of such importance, something which is complete and distinctly understood, – and no understanding which is accustomed to investigation can renounce this desire – it is to be hoped that such an insight, once it has been attained, will be able to illuminate much else in this object. To achieve this purpose, however, one must venture the bottomless abyss of metaphysics. Metaphysics is a dark and shoreless ocean, marked by no beacons. One must proceed as the mariner proceeds on an unnavigated sea: as soon as he makes a landing, he subjects his voyage to scrutiny, with a view to determining whether undetected currents, for example, may not have carried him off course, in spite of all the care, prescribed by the art of navigation, which he has taken.

To pursue every curiosity and to allow no limits to the thirst for knowledge apart from that of impotence – such zealousness does not ill-become learning. But, from among the innumerable tasks which spontaneously offer themselves, to choose that task, the solution of which is of importance to man – such choice is the merit of wisdom. When science has run its course, it naturally arrives at the point of modest mistrust and says, dissatisfied with itself: How many are the things which I do not understand! But reason, matured by experience into wisdom, serenely speaks through the mouth of Socrates, who, surrounded by the wares of a market-fair, remarked: How many are the things of which I have no need. In this way, two very dissimilar aspirations eventually flow together, even though to begin with they started out in very different directions, the one being vain and dissatisfied, the other composed and contented. For, in order to choose rationally one must already have knowledge of what is superfluous, indeed, impossible. But, eventually science arrives at the determination of the limits imposed upon it by the nature of human reason. All the fathomless projects, however, which may not in themselves, perhaps, be unworthy, except that they lie outside the sphere of man, fly to the limbo of vanity. It is then that even metaphysics becomes that which it is far from being at the moment, and which one would least expect it to be, namely, the companion of wisdom. For, as long as the opinion survives that it is possible to attain to an understanding of such remote things, wise simplicity will call in vain that such great aspirations are superfluous. The feeling of satisfaction which accompanies the extension of knowledge will very easily assume the appearance of dutifulness and convert that deliberate and reflective contentment into the foolish simplicity, which wishes to oppose the ennoblement of our nature.

I cannot blame the cautious reader at all, if, in the course of this book, he has begun to feel reservations about the method which the author has thought proper to follow. For by placing the dogmatic part of the work before the historical part, and thus reasons before experience, I must have created the suspicion that I was proceeding in a cunning fashion. For, although I might perhaps already have had the story in my mind, I nonetheless proceeded as if I knew nothing apart from the pure, abstract observations, my purpose being to end by surprising the completely unsuspecting reader with a welcome confirmation derived from experience. And, indeed, this is a stratagem which philosophers have very successfully deployed on a number of occasions. For it is not to be forgotten, that all knowledge has two ends by which it can be caught; an a priori end, and one which is a posteriori. Various modern students of nature, it is true, have declared that one must start with the a posteriori end; they think that the eel of science can be caught by the tail, their view being that, if enough empirical cognitions are acquired, they can then gradually ascend to higher general concepts. Whether or not this is a prudent procedure, it is far from being sufficiently learned or philosophical, for this manner of proceeding soon leads to a Why? to which no answer can be given. And this is about as creditable to a philosopher as it would be to a merchant who, when requested by a client to settle a bill of exchange, politely requested the creditor to call again some other time. Thus, to avoid this difficulty, men of penetrating understanding have started from the opposite extremity, namely, from the pinnacle of metaphysics. But this approach involves a new difficulty: one starts, I know not whence, and arrives, I know not where; the advance of the arguments refuses to correspond to experience.