一三五 祷告——绝对的善行
**六 祷告——绝对的善行**
说到祷告的方式，只要是真诚的，任何一种都好。把你的书翻过来，沉入宇宙的深渊。
我们目前知道有种哲学否认无穷。还有一种哲学，按照病理学分类，否认太阳，那种哲学叫做盲目。
把由于缺乏而产生的某种感觉当作真理的源泉，这真是盲人的一种可贵的自负。
奇怪的是那种摸索哲学对看见上帝的哲学所抱的那种自高自大、目空一切、悲天悯人的态度。你仿佛听见一只田鼠在叫：“我真可怜他们那些人在太阳下有东西可看！”
我们知道有些人是鼎鼎大名的无神论者。事实上，迫着他们回到真理上来的正是他们自己，他们也不是绝对肯定自己是无神论者，在他们，这只是个名词问题，在任何情况下，如果他们在思想上不能证明上帝，他们也证明不了没有上帝。
我们在这里一面毫不容情地攻击那种哲学，一面也对他们致以无上的敬意。
我们继续往下说。
值得注意的是，他们对文字是很讲究的。一个北方的形而上学派具有几分雾气，误认为人的意志可以代替力的差异，他们称之为“意志”。
他们说：“植物愿意，不是植物生长。”这其实非但无所增益，反而有所减损，因为如果这是植物的意志，便等于说植物不是一个物体，而是灵魂了。这和我说的上帝，实在毫无区别。一个形而上学家，越是大好老，便越没有错误。
这一学派和我们原无关系，这里提到它，只因我们反对它。无论什么学派，如果对先验的“无限”不作让步，便会陷入对“无限”的否定。而否定“无限”便直接导致虚无主义。一切都成了“思想的概念”。
对于虚无主义，没有什么可讨论的，因为否定虚无论者怀疑和他说话的人是否存在，他自己也不肯定和他说话的人真的存在。
从他们的观点来看，他本人甚至也有可能只是一种“思想的概念”。
但是他完全没有发现，他既然承认他所说的一切不过是思想的概念，那么他在说“思想”这个词时，已经肯定了思想的实体，即全体。
总之，凡是把一切都归结为一个单音名词“无”的哲学，对于思想的出路来说，是一无所有的。
对于“无”，唯一的答复是“有”。
虚无主义是没有意义的。
虚无不存在。零不存在。任何事物都是某种事物。无就是无，不存在。
人活着，不单靠面包，主要靠肯定。
看见、展示、观察，都不够。哲学应当是一种动力，它的作用和目标应当是改善人类。苏格拉底必须进入亚当的体内，并产生马可·奥里略①，换句话说，就是使享乐的人变为智慧的人。把伊甸园改为学园。科学应当是一种强心剂。享乐，多么可怜的目的！不消说，兽类也知道享乐。文明给人类提供思想，这才是人类的高尚所在。把上帝的观念当作甘露，洒遍人间。使良知和科学在人们心中水乳交融。通过这种神秘的对照，使人们成为正直的人。这就是真正哲学的作用。道德是真理之花。静观导致行动。绝对必须能够实践。理想应当能呼能吸能饮能吃，是人类的食品，是人的思想。理想有权说：“请用，这是我的肉，这是我的血。”智慧是对上帝的灵交。在这种条件下，它能不再是对科学的无结果的爱好，而成为团结人类唯一的最崇高的方法，并由哲学升华为宗教。
哲学不应当是一座为了满足好奇心而面对神秘建筑的无事忙的大厦。
就我们来说，暂且不谈我们另外的见解，我们只限于说，如果没有信念和爱这两种力量，我们不认为人能做到以出发点是“人”，以归宿是“进步”。
进步是目的，理想是标准。
什么是理想呢？是上帝。
理想，绝对，完美，无穷，是一个意思。
With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they
are sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite.
There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is
also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun;
this philosophy is called blindness.
To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth, is a fine blind
man’s self-sufficiency.
The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate airs
which this groping philosophy assumes towards the philosophy which
beholds God. One fancies he hears a mole crying, “I pity them with
their sun!”
There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom,
led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure
that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition,
and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they
prove God.
We salute them as philosophers, while inexorably denouncing their
philosophy.
Let us go on.
The remarkable thing about it is, also, their facility in paying
themselves off with words. A metaphysical school of the North,
impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a
revolution in human understanding by replacing the word Force with the
word Will.
To say: “the plant wills,” instead of: “the plant grows”: this would be
fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add: “the universe wills.”
Why? Because it would come to this: the plant wills, therefore it has
an _I_; the universe wills, therefore it has a God.
As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject
nothing _a priori_, a will in the plant, accepted by this school,
appears to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe
denied by it.
To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on
any other conditions than a denial of the infinite. We have
demonstrated this.
The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything
becomes “a mental conception.”
With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts
the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists
itself.
From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only
“a mental conception.”
Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in
the lump, simply by the utterance of the word, mind.
In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all
end in the monosyllable, No.
To No there is only one reply, Yes.
Nihilism has no point.
There is no such thing as nothingness. Zero does not exist. Everything
is something. Nothing is nothing.
Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread.
Even to see and to show does not suffice. Philosophy should be an
energy; it should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the
condition of man. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus
Aurelius; in other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge
from the man of felicity. Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science
should be a cordial. To enjoy,—what a sad aim, and what a paltry
ambition! The brute enjoys. To offer thought to the thirst of men, to
give them all as an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and
science fraternize in them, to render them just by this mysterious
confrontation; such is the function of real philosophy. Morality is a
blossoming out of truths. Contemplation leads to action. The absolute
should be practicable. It is necessary that the ideal should be
breathable, drinkable, and eatable to the human mind. It is the ideal
which has the right to say: _Take, this is my body, this is my blood_.
Wisdom is holy communion. It is on this condition that it ceases to be
a sterile love of science and becomes the one and sovereign mode of
human rallying, and that philosophy herself is promoted to religion.
Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it at
its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to
curiosity.
For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another
occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither
understand man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without
those two forces which are their two motors: faith and love.
Progress is the goal, the ideal is the type.
What is this ideal? It is God.
Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity: identical words.
