elevated in the scale of being than inert bodies. This is for us an
evident truth. Could one demonstrate it by reasoning? I do not know; but
in contesting it, we should contradict the plainest evidence. Reason is
superior to matter. If, with the school which extends from Pythagoras to
Saint Augustine, and from Saint Augustine to Descartes, we connect
reason with God as its principle, the grand science of metaphysics is
founded. But if reason does not rise to God, what will happen? This
reason, which proclaims itself superior to matter, is not, as we have
said already, the individual thought of Francis, Peter, or John. If an
individual presented himself as being reason itself, the absolute
reason, and said, "I am the truth," it would be necessary to take one of
three courses. If we thought that he spoke truly, and if we received
his testimony, it would be necessary to worship him, for he would be
God. If it were feared that he spoke truly, and those who so feared were
unwilling to acknowledge his rule, it would be necessary for them to
kill him in order to endeavor to kill the truth. If it were thought that
he spoke falsely, it would be necessary to watch him, and the moment he
committed an act dangerous for society, to shut him up, for he would be
a madman. But the philosophers make no such pretension. The reason of
which they speak is the reason common to all, a reason which is not that
of an individual, but that of which all rational individuals partake.
This common, universal, eternal reason,--where and how does it exist?
Reason manifests itself by ideas, and ideas are the acts of minds. To
imagine an idea without a mind of which it is the act, is the same thing
as to imagine a movement without a body of which it is also the act, in
a different sense. Take away bodies, and there is no more movement. Take
away intelligences, and there are no more ideas. The philosopher who
speaks of an idea which is not the idea of an intelligence, utters words
which have no meaning. The reason which is not that of any created
individual remains therefore absolutely inconceivable without the