The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

But although one may bring the absolute skeptic to agree that a difference between good and evil can indeed exist, as he is forced to agree that one does exist between that which is and that which is not, just as I have demonstrated in my preceding Examination; would he not be right in saying, that to know in general, that good and evil can differ and consequently exist separately, does not prevent confounding them in particular; and that he can doubt that man may be able to make the distinction, until one may have proved to him that not alone their knowledge, but that some sort of knowledge is possible? Assuredly, this is pushing doubt very far. One could dispense with replying to this, since the skeptic already interrogated concerning the difference existing between what is and what is not has been forced to admit it and to acquire thus some sort of knowledge of being; but let us forget this, in order to examine why the savants of Germany have inadequately removed a difficulty which they have imposed upon themselves.

It is Kant, one of the ablest minds that Europe has produced since the extinction of learning, who, resolved to terminate with a single blow the struggle springing up unceasingly between dogmatism and skepticism, has been the first to form the bold project of creating a science which shotild determine, a priori, the possibility, the principles, and the limits of all knowledge." This science, which he named Critical Philosophy, or method of judgment,* he has developed in several works of considerable length and very difficult of comprehension. I do not intend here to

■> Kritik der Reinen Vemunft (Critique de la Raison pure), s. 6. ^ Du mot grec KpiriKbt, celui qui est apt i juger.

Examinations of the Golden Verses 207

make an explanation of this science; for this labour, out of place in these Examinations, would carry me too far. My intention is only to show the point wherein it has given way, and how it has furnished new weapons for the skeptics, in not holding well to the promise that it had made of determining the principle of knowledge. Therefore, I will suppose the doctrine of Kant understood or partially so.

Several works, circulated somewhat extensively in France, have unravelled it sufficiently to the savants."' I will only say what the authors of these works have been unable to say, and this will be the general result of the impression that the study of this doctrine has made upon me : it is that Kant, who pretends to found all his doctrine upon principles, a priori, abstraction being made of all the underlying notions of experience, and who, rising into an ideal sphere there to consider reason in an absolute way, independent of its effects so as to deduce from it a theory transcendental and purely intelligible, concerning the principle of knowledge, has done precisely the opposite from what he wished to do ; for not finding what he sought, he has found what he has not sought, that is to say, the essence of matter.

Let the disciples of this philosophy give attention to what I say. I have known several systems of philosophy and I have put considerable force into penetrating them; but I can affirm that there exists not a single one upon the face of the earth, wherein the primitive matter of which the Universe is composed may be characterized by traits as striking as in that of Kant.

I believe it impossible either to understand it better or to depict it better. He uses neither figtires, nor symbols; he tells what he sees with a candour which would

L'Histoire comparee des Systimes de Philos., par De G^rando, et des MSlanges de Phil., par Ancillon de Berlin. These two writers, whatever one may say, have analysed very well the logical part of Kantism, and have penetrated, especially the former, into the rational part, as far as it was possible, for men who write upon the system of a philosopher without adopting the principles and making themselves his followers.

2o8 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras have been appalling to Pythagoras and Plato; for what the Koenigsberg professor advances concerning both the existence and the non-existence of this matter," and of its intuitive reality, and of its phenomenal illusion, and of its essential forms, time and space, and of the labour that the mind exercises upon this equivocal being, which, always being engendered, never, however, exists; all this, taught in the mysteries, was only clearly revealed to the initiate. Listen a moment to what has transpired in India: it is the fundamental axiom of the Vedantic school, the illustrious disciples of Vyasa and of Sankar^chS.rya, an axiom in accordance with the dogmas of the sacred books.

Matter exists [say these philosophers], but not of an existence such as is imagined by the vulgar; it exists but it has no essence independent of intellectual perceptions; for existence and perceptibility are, in this case, convertible terms. The sage knows that appearances and their exterior sensations are purely illusory and that they would vanish into nothingness, if the Divine energy which alone sustains them was for an instant suspended.*