Then, in the knowledge that our soul has of itself, knowledge that implies other forms of knowledge not given by the visible world, and, moreover, far clearer to us,1 Thomassin shows us a firmer and surer point of support, whence we may rise to God, than the sight of the whole world could afford.2

Yet this rational knowledge of God, which we find naturally in us, rather teaches us that God is, than shows us what he is. That is to say, it is indirect rather than direct.

Moreover, the existence of God is also proved by all creation. It is demonstrated by that upward course of the mind which advances from the things which are seen to those which are not seen.4

Necessary geometric ideas, taken in themselves, also prove it.5

Both the Fathers and the Philosophers agree in recognizing these three ways of proving the existence of God: 1. The gradation of beings (cosmological proof); 2. Intelligence and the innate desire for the Good and the Beautiful (psychological proof); 3. Necessary ideas taken in themselves (metaphysical proof).

We therefore find here once more, both in Thomassin and in all those whom he consults, the two proofs a posteriori, from the sight of our soul and that of nature, and the proof a priori from ideas taken in themselves.

Thomassin considers the metaphysical proof a priori good; but he does not in any way separate it from the proof a posteriori, and the basis of his thought is as follows:

That, in reality, the starting-point for all knowledge of God, all efficacious and actual proof of his existence, is that

fact which is commonly known as the innate idea of God, but that it is essential to search into it and to describe it in a more philosophical manner.

IV.

Now, we have here the profoundly original, and, to our thinking, fundamental theory of what has been called the innate idea of God. It is given by Thomassin in the title of his nineteenth chapter, and elaborated throughout the chapter: "Higher, more central than the intelligence, there is a mysterious sense that touches God, rather than sees or conceives him." (Supra vim intelligendi est sensus quidem arcanus quo Deus tangitur, magis quam cernitur aut intelligitur.)

In this chapter Thomassin posits and describes the most profound of philosophic facts, which throws light on all psychology, gives the Theodicy its true basis, and reveals the true force of intelligence and will. It is what Aristotle, without describing it, calls the attraction of the desirable and the intelligible.

We do not hesitate to say that this point, which is the introduction in philosophy to true and necessary mysticism, is the chief point which philosophy has pursued from the beginning, without which it can never be completed, without which it would lack all root, by which it will be perfected, transformed, and organized. This truth is perhaps that perceived by the actual leader of German philosophy, Schelling, when he says that God can never again be only a rational being to philosophy, but must also be an experimental being, and he sees a transformation of philosophy in this new postulate. "It is in this direction," he says, "that philosophy is on the eve of yet another great revolution, which, 1 When I wrote these lines Schelling was still living.

so far as the substance of things is concerned, will be the last." 1

We believe these words well founded, and we say that Thomassin handles and describes the fact to which they relate better than any one. Moreover, Christians only will fulfil this prophecy.

Thomassin therefore posits and asserts the existence of a ' divine sense in the soul, a sense of divine contact, distinct from the necessary ideas also existent in the soul, which are a sort of vision of God. According to Thomassin, the soul is conscious of material bodies, is conscious of itself, is conscious of God. Here we have the sum total of sensitivity, which is thus divided into outward sense, inward sense, and divine sense.

But the divine sense, note it well, can only give from this contact with God an implicit knowledge and love of God, - a double element, which must be developed and directed in us by reason and liberty.

Thenceforth we know God as we know the world. Sensation gives our knowledge of the world an experimental, but confused and obscure basis: reason adds to this its lights; so, too, the divine sense gives an experimental basis for the knowledge of God, obscure and confused though it be; and reason adds its lights. While we actually have this obscure sense of the substance of God, we have, on the other hand, a clear idea of the evident, necessary, absolute, and immutable truths which also proceed from God, which are a sort of vision of God. Let us add these lights to the obscure sense; let the moral and affectional element implied in that sense be the mainspring and give the impetus; let reason proceed according to its law, according to that simple and natural process which seeks through all things nought save the uni

1 System of Transcendental Idealism, appendix to Cousin's Philosophy,

p. 393.

versal, the absolute, and the infinite affirmation, that is, God; then the genuine demonstration of the existence of God, rational and experimental, ideal and real, a priori and a posteriori, as certain as experience, as accurate as geometry, as beautiful as poetry, as simple as intuition, as living as prayer, is effected in the soul.

V.

But let us continue, with Thomassin, the analysis of the innate idea of God, or rather the analysis of that fact which has been called the innate idea of God and which Thomassin sometimes calls the natural presentiment of God (naturalis de Deo anticipatio), sometimes the anticipated consciousness of God (anticipata Dei notitia), or innate knowledge of God (innata Dei notitia), or natural knowledge of God imprinted on the human mind (notitia Dei naturaliter mentibus informata).1 Thomassin makes a more profound and complete analysis of this natural divine postulate than any other philosopher has ever done. Malebranche and many others regard it simply as a vision of God, and make a mistake in their description and appreciation of this sort of vision; the mystics regard it merely as a secret sense by means of which God inspires and touches us; Descartes considers it "the mark of the Maker stamped upon his work." Thomassin combines these three points of view. According to him the natural divine postulate is alike our own soul, the image of God, and the image of all; it is our own soul seeing God in necessary and eternal ideas; it is our own soul touching God through that mysterious sense which is, as it were, its root. We must quote his analysis:

The inward divine postulate consists "in those ideas which our essence implies; in the very nature of our soul, which in

1 Cap. xx. and xxi.

a sense and in its measure is all things, and which, therefore, as it develops, and, so to say, deploys its constituent fibres, perceives all intelligibles." It consists "in the commerce and kinship of the soul with the intelligible, whose omnipresent splendor shines upon it. Had the soul no ideas either accidentally impressed upon it, or substantially implicated and essentiated in it, nevertheless, as it is an intellectual eye, it has only to open and look about to behold the omnipresent and ever resplendent intelligibles." 2 It consists, lastly, "in that secret, incorporeal contact wherein the soul, by its centre and unity, touches God, and feels rather than sees him." 8

In the same place Thomassin also accepts Descartes' phrase," the Maker's mark stamped upon his work," and, he adds, that he accepts all these elements of the natural divine postulate provisionally in this form, until he can present the subject more precisely, in the proper time and place. He does this in the third book of the Theodicy, where he treats of God considered as truth, as the substance of the eternal ideas, and as love. It is there that he actually develops what was merely suggested in the first book, when he treats of the divine sense and expresses himself as follows: "Intelligence and will in man correspond to God considered as Truth and Love. But the unity itself of the soul, its deepest centre, should correspond, in man, to the unity itself of God, -that principle which is conceived as in some sort anterior to Truth and Love." That is to say, in sum, that a triple postulate, which he calls the divine touch, the vision of intelligibility, the love of the beautiful, corresponds in the soul to God considered as Power, Truth, and Love. The whole third book of the Theodicy is devoted to the development of the latter two elements of the divine postulate. Here, considering God as very Being, very Truth, and very Love, he first shows him, in so far as the source of ideas, manifest in the intelli1 Lib. i. cap. xx. § i. 2 Ibid. Ibid., cap. xix. § v.

4

8 Ibid.