Chapter 5

Different senses which can be given to the word 'conciliation' in the question
'Does the struggle between the vital principle and foreign forces admit of conciliation?'

1836. In order to proceed on a sure path, we have to establish clearly the state of the following question: 'Does the apparent struggle between vital principle and foreign forces admit of conciliation?' This requires an explanation of the conciliation under discussion.
In practice, this word takes on different meanings. It can be understood as conciliation in fact, as the harmony pre-established by the Creator. It can also be understood as theoretical conciliation. This would be the case if we proved that there are not two struggling principles in existence, but a single operating principle which, although producing apparently different effects and even effects tending to reciprocal destruction as a result of their real opposition, does so as a result of the same law. In this case the differences would depend on accidental circumstances.

1837. Conciliation understood in the first sense is obviously possible. It is not, however, conciliation pertaining to the very nature of things. It presupposes the existence in nature of several forces operating with different laws and, as such, always liable to come into collision with one another. However these forces, continually assisted by a third agent, a mediator who governs, restrains and harmonises them, can never oppose one another as a result of some pure and independent accident. The possibility of this harmonic agreement cannot be a subject for discussion, nor is it in any way the question discussed by natural philosophers.

1838. The question is related, therefore, to conciliation taken in the second sense. We are not asking whether peace exists between the forces of nature; we do not deny, nor can we deny, that nature offers continual conflict. We want rather to investigate whether this conflict takes place as a result of several specifically different agents in nature which, by obeying different laws, are liable to collide with one another, or whether the opposing effects can be explained by reducing them all to a single principle, operating under a single law but determined in different ways by foreign circumstances which make it change course and appear to contradict itself. This is the state of the question we must now examine.