New Essay Volume 3
Appendix 19. (1465)
[Metaphysics and the branches of knowledge]
The metaphysics of antiquity, called the first branch of knowledge and the originator of all other branches, was in substance an 'ideology'. But heterogeneous matters were then introduced and confusion arose about teaching which dealt with ideal, mental and real beings. Metaphysics was no longer the first branch of knowledge in the sense which we are using here. But there was another deficiency in scholastic metaphysics considered as the first of the branches of knowledge and the source of other branches. Although recognising metaphysics as the root of the genealogical tree was a beautiful and useful truth, considerable ignorance remained about the way in which to deduce other branches of knowledge from it. As a result, metaphysics was thought to be more fruitful than it actually is, and observation of nature, which alone enables us to know the specific essences of things, was neglected. Things were then defined through abstractions and formalities, and being in all its universality, which of itself is not the essence of anything, took the place of all essences. This important comment comes from Fr. Malebranche who notes: 'The intimate presence of the vague idea of generic being' (he meant being in all its universality) 'is the cause of all inordinate abstractions of the mind' (Bk, 3, c. 8). He went on to apply his comment:
Read as attentively as possible all the definitions and explanations that are normally given of substantial forms, and examine carefully the essence of all those infinite entities which philosophers imagine as they please, and which they then have to divide and subdivide. I am quite certain, and I dare to affirm, that these divisions can do nothing more than stimulate the mind to think the idea of being and cause in general.
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This should have been enough to enable Malebranche, good man as he was, to realise that the idea of being to which he referred was deficient; it was not the idea of God, that is, of the supreme reality, as Malebranche thought. If he had noticed this, he would not have been included by that terrible Hardouin in what we may call his catalogue of Consequential Atheists.