The Search after Truth: With Elucidations of The Search after Truth

822 Pages·1997·16.31 MB·English

by  Nicolas Malebranche

CAMBRIDGE TEXTS I~ THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
NICOLAS M:\LEBRA~CHE
The Search after Truth
CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Series editors
KARL AMERIKS
Professor ofP hilosophy at the University ofN otre Dame
DESMOND M. CLARKE
Professor ofP hilosophy at University College Cork
The main objective of Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy is to expand the range,
variety and quality of texts in the history of philosophy which are available in English. The
series includes texts by familiar names (such as Descanes and Kant) and also by less well
known authors. Wherever possible, texts are published in complete and unabridged fonn,
and translations are specially commissioned for the series. Each volume contains a critical
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For a list oft itles published in the series, please see end ofb ook.
NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE
The Search after Truth
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
THOMAS M. LENNON
University o[Wtsttm Ontario
AND
PAUL J. OLSCAMP
BoiiJiing Grten Statt University
Elucidations of The Search after Truth
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
THOMAS M. LENNON
. :·: ... CAMBRIDGE
::: UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Preis Syndicate of the University of Cambriclse
The Pin Buildin1, TnunpinJIOII S-, Cambriclae CB2 I RP
40 West 20ih Succt, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford llold, Ollleip, Mdboume 3166, Allllnlia
~The tnt of Tile Sttmll 11/itr TI'WIII, tnnslated by '1'11onw M. Lennon and Paul J. Olsamp,
is c:opyrisht Cll980 by the Ohio State University Preis. All ripb rcsen·ed. C in the editorial matter
Cambridse University Praa.
First publishecll997
Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridse
Malebnndte, Nicolas, 1638-1715.
(Recherche de Ia •-crite. EnsJish)
The reudl after truth: with ducidations of The search after truth/ Nicolas Malebnnc:he; tnnslated and
edited by Tbomas M. Lennon, Paul J. Olscamp.
p. an. -(Cambridse tnb in the hislary of philc.Jphy)
Includes bibliop-lphial noferences and index.
I. Knowledse, Theory of. I. Lennon, Tbomas M. II. Ollamp, Paul J. Ill. Title. IV. Series.
BI893.R332ES 1997
121~c20 96-23819 ap
ISBN 0 521 SII004 8 hordbaciL
ISBN 0 521 Sllfl95 9 paperbod
Contents
ltttrodwtiotr p11gtvii
Cl~nmology xxiv
Furthtr rtatlirrg xxvi
Trt~rrslaton 'prtfort xxviii
The Search after Truth xxxi
Preface xxxiii
Foreword xlv
Book One The Senses 1
Book Two Part One: The Imagination 87
Part Two: The Imagination 130
Part Three: The Contagious Communications of 161
S~glmaginations
Book Three Part One: The Understanding; or, Pure Mind 197
Part Two: The Pure Understanding. The Nature ofldeas 217
Book Four The Inclinations; or, the Mind's Natural Impulses 265
Book Five The Passions 337
Book Six Method 408
Elucidations of The Search after Truth 531
Translator's preface 537
Preface 539
Foreword 545
Elucidation One 547
Elucidation Two 559
Elucidation Three 561
Elucidation Four 563
Elucidation Five 566
vi Contmts
Elucidation Six 568
5n
Elucidation Seven
Elucidation Eight 579
Elucidation Nine 607
Elucidation Ten 612
Elucidation Eleven 633
Elucidation Twelve 639
Elucidation Thirteen 644
Elucidation Fourteen 653
Elucidation Fifteen 657
Elucidation Sixteen 687
Last Elucidation 720
Addendum 748
Tramlations ofL atirt aruJ Gruk passages 754
Reftre'IICes by Malebranche to other authors 764
Gmeral irtdtx 766
Introduction
Nicolas Malebranche shared the birth and death dates of the Sun King, Louis
XIV: 163~1715. The happenstance is suggestive. Malebranche may be regarded
as the philosopher of French classicism as Hardouin-Mansan was its architect,
Le Notre its gardener, Lebrun its painter, and Moliere, Racine, and Corneille its
playwrights. The same sharp division between kinds, the conceptual angularity,
as it were, and precise definition for beginnings and conclusions of every sort that
characterized the work of these classicists is to be found also in the philosophy of
Malebranche. The clear distinction that he sought between mind and body,
reason and sense, grace and nature, God and man, theology and philosophy yield
a view of the world so spare and precise that, for all its comprehensiveness, can
only be described as classical.
Certainly, these terms of clear division distinguish Malebranche from Leibniz,
for example, whose preference for the curved over the rectilinear, for gradation
and continuity over division and discreteness, made him rather the philosopher
of the baroque. Most of Leibniz's years also fell within the Sun King's span, and
there were sufficient rationalist similarities between him and Malebranche that
they competed for preeminence in this heyday of rationalism. In the event, it was
Malebranche who prevailed--at least during that time and for some time there
after, not least of all for the reason that he did express the classicism of the era. 1
Malebranche was born into a prosperous family, the youngest of thirteen
children. His father was a kind of tax-farmer, among other state occupations, and
was ennobled the year of Malebranche's birth. The family was very much in the
ascendancy, financially and socially, during Malebranche's childhood. But he him
self was less lucky, having been born with a curvature of the spine and sunken
chest that complicated his health. His constitution in childhood was so frail that
a private tutor was required for his education. Only at age sixteen was he strong
1 Sec Gilles Dcleuze. 1M Foltl: Lnlnaz. •"" tlu Bt~rtJ~~W (Minneapolis. Univcrsiry ofMinncsora Pras, 1994),
cspccially p. llS. Although he usa the term baroque in thcnrhcrdiffcrcnr liltDSCofCarlj. Friedrich., Cnit
WaJron dnws anmtion 10 both the dichoromics in Malebnncbc and his coincidmc:c wilh Louis XIV in Dr
ill rrtlwrrluiM#Iinr: A StruJyofM.Jm.,.JuiStinl,ufEtltks(fhc Hap, Martinus NijhofT, 1972), pp .. J..-.4.
vii
viii lr~troductior~
enough to leave the home, to enroll at the College de La Marche. Although
originally destined by his family for the law, he went from there to the Sorbonne,
completing his studies in scholastic philosophy and theology, none of which, how
ever, was much to his liking.
In 1660, soon after the death of his parents, Malebranche entered the Oratory,
where he was to remain until his death fifty-five years later. The Oratory was a
community of ecclesiastics founded by Cardinal Berulle as part of the French
effort at reform from within the Catholic Church. While aimed at promoting piety,
the Oratory did not require of its members the sort of discipline exacted by the
rules of monastic orders, and in nonreligious intellectual matters the ani tude was
one of openness and toleration. The Oratory was approved by the Pope in 1613,
and by 1615 the first of its schools had opened-schools that succeeded and pro
liferated to such an extent that they came to rival those of the Jesuits. Initially the
Oratory found royal favor, but by the time Malebranche joined, it had become
associated with both Cartesianism and Jansenism, both of which were then viewed
as threatening the infrastructure of the French state. These associations were
exploited by the Jesuits, and by the late 1670s, with the Oratory close to being
suppressed, Malebranche considered leaving. The crisis was abated when certain
members were driven out, an upheaval whose effects Malebranche was not entirely
to escape.
Perhaps the most important year in Malebranche's life was 1664, when he was
both ordained a priest and converted to a new philosophy. His ordination was to
be expected, but his discovery of Descartes was so dramatic, at least according to
his first biographer, that the retelling of its story has been de rip#ur in the litera
ture ever since. It seems that while walking the quai des Augwtim, or perhaps the
rut St. Jacques, Malebranche came across a bookseller who in response to his
request for something new put in his hands Descartes's Treatig or1 Mar~. ''The
joy of learning about so many recent discoveries caused him such violent palpi
tations of the heart that he was forced to put the book down and interrupt his
reading in order to breathe more easily."2
What had he picked up that might have occasioned such cardio-pulmonary
enthusiasm? The Treatise or~ Mar~ is one of two surviving parts of what was
intended to be a single work that would, as Descanes boasted in correspondence,
"explain all the phenomena of nature, i.e. aU of physics. "l As the weD-known story
has it, Descartes learned of the Church's condemnation of certain of Galileo's
views and decided therefore not to publish his own. The manuscript was found
among his other papers in Stockholm after his death there in 1650, and was pub
lished by his literary heir Oaude Clerselier in 1664.4 This first appearance of the
2 Andre, p. 12. See Further reading, pp. uvi-xnii, for this and other shortened titles below.
' To Mersenne, 13 No.....,ber, 1M PltiltMIItiu.l Wrililrp •f/ Jn&•rrn, trans. J. Coltingham, R. Stoothoff
and D. Murdoch (CambridF, CambridF Univenity Press, 1991), vol. 3, p. 7.
M••·
' See Dac:artes, Trr•life'"' translation and mmmenwy by Thomas Steele HaU (CambridF, Han-an!
Univasitv Press. 19721. o. xxiv.
lntroduttion IX
French text would have thus been a recent publication when it found its way into
the hands ofMalebranche.SThe edition is also of interest since it contains illus
trations and notes by the physician Louis de La Forge, whose Trait/ tk l'tsprit
rle l'horrune of two years later was to be an important source for Malebranche's
doctrine of occasionalism.
What Malebranche would have found in Descartes's treatise is a mechanical
account of human physiology. By the slim means of a homogeneous matter whose
motion changes upon contact, Descartes attempted to explain the entire working
of the human body. Although certain topics such as excretion and reproduction
are either given short shrift or ignored altogether, others such as the circulation
of the blood, the operation of the muscles and nerves, and sensation are treated at
length. The physiology of vision is given special attention. The obvious signifi
cance of this mechanical physiology is that it would have upset the basis for the
scholastic theories ofm atter and form in which Malebranche had until then exclu
sively been trained. A new world was opened to him. Certainly, the range of
Descartes's topics and his principles in dealing with them were immediately
embraced and never relinquished by Malebranche.
What kind of picture might we form, literally and otherwise, of this man?
Malebranche's modesty was such that he long refused the entreaties of friends to
sit for a portrait, to the extent that they resorted to ruse. A portraitist was engaged
and sent to Malebranche under pretext of presenting problems in geometry for
his solution. While Malebranche was working on them, the draft portrait was
done, to be completed later; but when with the ruse discovered and the likeness
remarked, Malebranche agreed reluctantly to sit. In the end, we possess at least a
few portraits, in oil, pencil engraving, and lithograph, the best of which is the
painting by Santerre, done in 1713, two years before Malebranche's death. This
portrait largely confirms a number of physiognomical features that are ascribed to
Malebranche by written descriptions from the period. Of aU people, it is Bertrand
Russell whose face is most brought to mind. The portrait also suggests the great
bodily height that is inevitably mentioned in the contemporary descriptions. But
in one respect, at least, the portrait falsifies what we know, for it shows the
Russellian head atop a huge body, the stockiness of which suggests alongshore
man. However, according to his friend Lelong, Malebranche was so thin that his
heartbeat seemed visible beneath his clothes. His clavicles were said to be wide
fortunately, since his breathing was thus made easier given his malformation of
the chest-but it seems likely that if he sat at all, it was only for the head to which
a body was later added.
In addition to his malformation, Malebranche suffered from an acidic stomach
and was able to digest but little wine and no vinegar or onions. 6 On the other hand,
s Ibid. nxiv. The work had apparecl two yean earlier in a problematic Larin translation by Flomniuo
Scbuyl. We do no1 know for ccnain 1ha11his •• no11hc IClllllw Malcbranchc picked up; nor is lhcrc any
hdp from lhe inveniOr}' of his library, which, curiously, conwns no edition ofil.
' CurioiUiy, lhe lllcienl sounzofwh11 mip11 be c:alled liliaa:auo idolauy. Sec pp. 447,451 below.
X I ntrodu,tion
Malebranche chewed tobacco, which was thought to contribute to his gauntness,
and he was one of the first coffee drinkers in Paris, coming to depend on its
comforting effect in dealing with an unpleasant task. This dependence caused
him problems when during Lent he drank it only in the evening. In addition,
from an early age he passed kidney stones and eventually had to be operated on
for them. He also suffered from fevers, and he discovered, apparently to general
surprise, that drinking large quantities of water was of help. He never shirked his
ecclesiastical duty, although its ceremonies often required him to stand for long
periods of time, thus causing him severe back pain. Despite all, he was said to be
dexterous, exhibiting skill at billiards, for example, and also supple, since he was
capable of placing his feet behind his head. Why he should ever have engaged in
the latter, or how he discovered the capacity, is not recorded.
In 1673 Malebranche sold a house that he owned which left him an annual
income, initially over three times what he paid for his room and board at the
Oratory; although diminishing somewhat over time, this investment freed him
from worries about money. Visitors remarked on how well furnished his quarters
there were, but the inventory of his postmortem remains suggests a humble
material existence. More impressive was his library of some l,l SO volumes, com
prising 723 titles, which along with the rest of his belongings were left to the
Oratory. The major investment of Malebranche's life, in any event, was one of a
very different kind, one being made at the same time he sold his house.
Malebranche and Cartesianism
After his dramatic first encounter with the philosophy of Descartes, Malebranche
turned to other works by the great man: the Dis(ours~ on M~tlrod, the M~dito.tiolfS,
and the Prinopl~s ofP lrilosoplry. Not that he was entirely convinced by everything
that he found there. While fully persuaded by what Descartes had to say about
the physical world, Malebranche felt that certain correctives were necessary in
metaphysics, especially with respect to the mind. He therefore read, or reread, St.
Augustine. The upshot was a philosophical balance that Malebranche built into
Tire Sto.r(/r 4/ter Truth and carefully preserved thereafter. The balance is in
evidence right from the Preface of the Sto.r(/r, where the human mind is viewed
as located in an intermediary position in the cosmological scheme of things.
Infinitely above the mind stands its Creator, while below it is all of material
creation. The mind's relation to God is such a close and essential relation, accord
ing to Malebranche, that without it, the mind would not exist. This union with
God "raises the mind above all things. Through it, the mind receives its life, its
light, and its entire felicity." The mind's relation to material creation through the
human body, on the other hand, "debases man and is ... the main cause of all his
errors and miseries" (p. xxxiii).
For the distinction between mind and matter, Malebranche took over
Descartes's dualistic ontology according to which the world exhaustively divides