99. The schools distinguish between the principle of being and the principle of knowledge, _principium essendi et principium cognoscendi_; but this distinction has no place in the system which we oppose; being is there confounded with knowledge; what exists, exists because it is known, and it exists only in so far as it is known. To draw out the series of cognitions, is to develop the series of existences. They are not even two parallel movements; they are but one movement; the _me_ is the universe, and the universe is the _me_; whatever exists is a development of the primitive fact, is the fact itself which is displayed under different forms, extending like an infinite ocean; its position is unlimited space; its duration eternity.(8)
100. These systems, as absurd as they are fatal, although under distinct forms, and by various means, they tend to prepare the way for pantheism, contain a profound truth which, disfigured by vain cavils, seems to be an abyss of darkness, whereas it is in itself a ray of most brilliant light.
The human mind seeks that by reason to which it is impelled by an intellectual instinct; how to reduce plurality to unity, to re-unite, as it were, all the variety of existences in a point from which they all proceed, and in which they are all absorbed. The understanding knows that the conditioned must be included in the unconditioned, the relative in the absolute, the finite in the infinite, the various in the one. In this, all religions, all schools of philosophy agree. The proclamation of this truth belongs to no one of them exclusively; it is to be met with in all countries of the world, in primitive times, back even to the cradle of the human race. Beautiful, sublime tradition! Preserved through all generations, amid the ebb and flow of events, it offers us the idea of the Divinity presiding over the origin and destiny of the universe.
101. Yes! The unity sought by philosophers is the Divinity itself,--the Divinity whose glory the firmament declares, and whose august face of ineffable splendor appears to us in our inmost consciousness. Yes! it is the Divinity which enlightens and guides the true philosopher, but blinds and confounds the proud sophist; it is what the true philosopher calls GOD, and venerates and adores in the sanctuary of his soul, but what the insensate philosopher, with sacrilegious profanation, calls the _me_. Considering its personality, its consciousness, its infinite intelligence, and its most perfect liberty, it is the foundation and the copestone of religion: distinct from the world, it produced the world from nothing, and preserves and governs it, and leads it by mysterious paths to the destiny assigned in its immutable decrees.