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Updated: May 20, 2025
It made me impatient to reach the age when I should be eligible to attend the class at school called 'Philosophy. I did not wish to learn or do anything else there, but simply to exist and be guided entirely by the mind of Bergotte, and, if I had been told then that the metaphysicians whom I was actually to follow there resembled him in nothing, I should have been struck down by the despair a young lover feels who has sworn lifelong fidelity, when a friend speaks to him of the other mistresses he will have in time to come.
And in fact, this is the only conceivable form of the hypothesis now before us; namely, the theory of the ancient metaphysicians, that every particle of matter and every aggregate of it is accompanied, or animated, by a distinct mind.
The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting to define the various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed, as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder.
But no such mind, exempt from bodily processes, animal impulses, savage traditions, infantile impressions, conventional reactions, and traditional knowledge, ever existed, even in the case of the most abstract of metaphysicians. Kant entitled his great work A Critique of Pure Reason.
Such was Aenesidemus, whom it might be thought Pascal had read, so much does the latter give the reasons of the former when he is not absorbed in faith, and when he assumes the position of a sceptic precisely in order to prove the necessity of taking refuge in faith. Reversion to Metaphysics. Imaginative Metaphysicians after the Manner of Plato, but in Excess.
People will refrain from the suppressive drug treatment under the influence of metaphysical teachings, which appeal to the miracle-loving element in their nature, when they cannot be convinced by common sense Nature Cure reasoning. Thus metaphysicians assist Nature indirectly by noninterference and directly by soothing fear and worry, by instilling faith, hope and confidence.
It was never understood by the people at all, nor is it ever taught to them to-day. It is a religion of metaphysicians, a religion of scholars, a religion so difficult to be understood, even by persons of some philosophical training, that it might well be mistaken for a system of universal negation.
Now, I dare say, I have not expressed myself with philosophical correctness, because I have not given myself to the study of what metaphysicians have said on the subject; but I think I have a strong true meaning in what I say which will stand examination.
Or is this infusion of strength, whereby to continue its operations, a sudden tightening of those invisible cords which bind the All-Father to the spirits he has created? Truly, there is no Oedipus for this vexing riddle. Many luckless theories have been devoured by the Sphinx; when will metaphysicians solve it? One tells us vaguely enough, "Who knows the mysteries of will, with its vigor?
The latter is the solution adopted by metaphysicians generally, and by Saint Augustine himself when hard pressed by the exigencies of his double allegiance. God, he tells us, is just, although not just as man is, nor as man should be. In other words, God is to be called just even when he is unjust in the only sense in which the word justice has a meaning among men.
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