[...]1 even from their synthesis, did not contribute to the
transformation of our judgements, and did not put their mark on them, will
the development of philosophical thinking not offer this richness, this
harmonious diversity that in its ever identical formalism it is powerless
to furnish the logical framework of judgement. The secret of the
predilection of a Leibnitz for diversity, spontaneity, hierarchy, harmony,
universal correspondences, of a Descartes for clarity, intelligibility and
of so many philosophers for mystery and obscurity, the secret of the
completely fundamental energy of a Pascal, and even the pure
intellectualism of a Spinoza, it is only in the understanding that it must
be sought, and without that is it possible to explain their systems or
that their systems were different on this point? The indifference of a
sceptic is less the effect that the cause of his scepticism and the ardent
trust of a Christian philosopher is explained less by mystical dogmatism
than it is explained by it. But the question now is more particularly to
stop ourselves at free will and to determine what exactly is the part it
plays in our judgements. The same is true for free will. If at very first
our beliefs alone appear to be the arbitrary creation of our will, then
the uniformity of our judgements, our certainty would be the pure work of
our reason, by comparing our beliefs to our certainties we see that their
natures are more alike and that their natures differ only in appearance
and that in the synthesis of one and of the other there does not enter
almost as much of the will and reason. The certainty of some seem
debatable to others as a belief. How many have given to their beliefs that
full adherence of mind that seemed to reserve for certainty judgements
that seem erroneous today but appeared to those that held them as
irresistible evidence! Yet when we form a judgement we certainly claim at
that moment to be free of the influence of our will. We feel that our
judgement is so much outside its influence that after having passionately
wished to judge differently, we are forced, by the evidence of reason, in
spite of ourselves and contrary to our wishes, to make judgements in a way
we do not like, which sometimes makes us despair. It is in fact the part
our will plays in our judgement that the philosopher may well understand
but the man who states the judgement, himself the philosopher at the
moment he makes a judgement, is not conscious of it. The critical
philosopher the moment he affirms this judgement that judgement is the
product of the will, thinks he is performing a purely intellectual action.
But the strength of this illusion does not prove that it might not be an
illusion. Intellectualism may be the necessary point of view of the mind
that judges, like the freedom of the will that results, like the coarsest
realism of the understanding that organizes its sensations. Although the
most informed philosopher has no consciousness of the operation by which
he projects externally his sensations of colour and associates them with
muscular sensations so as to appreciate a distance, this operation is no
less real. So it is from the unconscious intervention of the will within
the judgement. It is quite impossible to deny so that if one supposes for
a moment that a philosopher in attempting to realize a judgement from
which the will is absent, no judgement will be forthcoming. This
hypothesis becomes realized in any case up to a certain point in the
intellectual attitude as though it went by the name of scepticism.
Scepticism is judgement from the purely intellectual point of view, and
this would mean, if it were absolutely rigorous, the complete absence of
judgement. The mind on its own cannot produce a judgement because for
every intellectual reason for making a judgement in a certain way, it can
immediately be opposed by another. If it no longer had any it would always
have this at its disposition for which it is often mistaken, in that it is
fallible, and that it prefers to suspend its judgement rather than risk
being mistaken once again. Reduced to its purely intellectual aspect
judgement does not exist. It is necessary that there is a preference
dictated by this aspect of the sensibility that applies itself to the
intelligence and out of which derives enthusiasm, philosophical ambition,
passion brought to bear more particularly to certain ideas, coming to bend
the will that then stops the procession of contradictory reasons attaching
itself to the judgement chosen from the possible judgements, admits it as
existing in reality, objectively, finally adds existence to its logical
possibility. But at least if it is the will that realizes judgement, that
admits it, is it really reason that shapes it? If in the same way as in
exterior perception, the illusion of realism is dissipated, one finds
oneself in the presence of an objective reality that explains and
legitimizes that perception.
Will we likewise find an objective truth that the intelligence is
unable to perceive outside of itself, but to the existence of which its
judgements correspond. If there is no objective reality and an
intelligible objective reality, the very basis of certainty, of knowledge
itself no longer exists. This is what the extreme partisans of the theory
of voluntary belief went so far as to contest. Not only is it the will
that admits to the reality of judgement but once again if it is a question
of a truly profound objective reality, of a moral reality, the will alone
can understand it because it infinitely surpasses the limits of thought.
Ultra sensitive this reality is not susceptible to experimental
verification, ultra intellectual it does not prove itself through rigorous
attachment to notions such as mathematical truths. The will alone
determined through the love of goodness places it at the foundation of
existence. From this depth supreme reality is external to the greater part
of our understanding. In order to achieve it we must have that mysterious
impetus in our hearts. However seductive this theory may be we must
recognize that it is obliged to attribute to the will a value of proof
that it does not know how to possess. Assuredly the will makes us believe
but only what the mind has judged believable. If a thing is not true and
our mind is not able to believe in it the best will in the world will not
make it true. We finish perhaps by believing in it, but far from this act
of faith, be it the highest manifestation of our morality, it consists of
a lie, in an artifice, a kind of trickery of our opinion by our heart that
tries to obscure in it any uncomfortable clarity. The mind on the contrary
(and it is in this way that in order to conclude we will restore to the
judgement its own place after having created for the will its own and
after having the part of illusion that holds this judgement we give back
its objective value) even in the limits of the human and individual mind
it is fashioned to recognize Existence. It is the cause and the
consciousness of it. The loftiest moral realities, the idea of Duty itself
are less a feeling, a simple object of the heart's aspiration, than the
transcendental yet still intelligible certainty of the most essential law
of existence. In this way our mind pursues through our will a content that
is truly real and so gives to our judgement as it does to our conduct its
rules, its material and its value.
1. The first two pages are missing.
From NAF 16611, Papiers scolaires. Presumably written for Darlu's philosophy class, Condorcet 1888-1889.
Created 01.11.15.