Such was, indeed, the belief of Lamennais, that tragic and ardent spirit, who affirmed that life and truth were essentially one and the same thing--would that they were!--and that reason was one, universal, everlasting and holy (_Essai sur l'indifférence_, partie iv., chap, viii.). He invoked the _aut omnibus credendum est aut nemini_ of Lactantius--we must believe all or none--and the saying of Heraclitus that every individual opinion is fallible, and that of Aristotle that the strongest proof consists in the general agreement of mankind, and above all that of Pliny (_Paneg. Trajani_, lxii.), to the effect that one man cannot deceive all men or be deceived by all--_nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt_. Would that it were so! And so he concludes with the dictum of Cicero (_De natura deorum_, lib. iii., cap. ii., 5 and 6), that we must believe the tradition of our ancestors even though they fail to render us a reason--_maioribus autem nostris, etiam nulla ratione reddita credere_.
Let us suppose that this belief of the ancients in the divine interpenetration of the whole of Nature is universal and constant, and that it is, as Aristotle calls it, an ancestral dogma (_patrios doxa_) (_Metaphysica_, lib. vii., cap. vii.); this would prove only that there is a motive impelling peoples and individuals--that is to say, all or almost all or a majority of them--to believe in a God. But may it not be that there are illusions and fallacies rooted in human nature itself? Do not all peoples begin by believing that the sun turns round the earth? And do we not all naturally incline to believe that which satisfies our desires? Shall we say with Hermann[40] that, "if there is a God, He has not left us without some indication of Himself, and if is His will that we should find Him."
A pious desire, no doubt, but we cannot strictly call it a reason, unless we apply to it the Augustinian sentence, but which again is not a reason, "Since thou seekest Me, it must be that thou hast found Me," believing that God is the cause of our seeking Him.
This famous argument from the supposed unanimity of mankind's belief in God, the argument which with a sure instinct was seized upon by the ancients, is in its essence identical with the so-called moral proof which Kant employed in his _Critique of Practical Reason_, transposing its application from mankind collectively to the individual, the proof which he derives from our conscience, or rather from our feeling of divinity. It is not a proof strictly or specifically rational, but vital; it cannot be applied to the logical God, the _ens summum_, the essentially simple and abstract Being, the immobile and impassible prime mover, the God-Reason, in a word, but to the biotic God, to the Being essentially complex and concrete, to the suffering God who suffers and desires in us and with us, to the Father of Christ who is only to be approached through Man, through His Son (John xiv. 6), and whose revelation is historical, or if you like, anecdotical, but not philosophical or categorical.