If philosophers would only be guided by their own systems, and would not forget them nor set them aside as soon as, or even before, they have finished explaining them, it might be said, that even if no reason can be given for human certainty, one can be given for philosophical certainty; but since these same philosophers make no use of these scientific means save when developing them _ex professo_, it follows that their pretended foundations are a mere theory, having little or no connection with the reality. 37. This demonstration of the vanity of philosophical systems relating to the foundation of certainty, far from leading to skepticism, has a directly contrary tendency; for it makes us appreciate at their true value, the emptiness of our cavils, compares their impotence with the irresistible force of nature, and thus destroys that foolish pride which would make us superior to the laws imposed upon our understanding by the Creator himself; it places us in the channel through which the torrent of humanity has for ages run; and it disposes us to receive with sound philosophy what the laws of our nature force us to accept.(3) CHAPTER IV. EXISTENCE OF TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE IN THE ABSOLUTE INTELLECTUAL ORDER. 38. Philosophers have sought a first principle of human knowledge; each has assigned his own, and now after so much discussion it is doubtful who is right, or even if any one is right. Before inquiring what the first principle is, they ought to have ascertained whether there be any such principle. We cannot suppose this last question to be answered affirmatively; for it is, as we shall hereafter see, susceptible of different solutions, according to the aspect under which it is seen. The first principle of knowledge may be understood in either of two senses; as denoting one first truth from which all others flow, or as expressing a truth which we must suppose if we would not have all other truths disappear. In the former sense it is a spring from which the waters flow, which fertilize the intellect; in the second sense it is a point whereon to rest a great weight. 39. Is there any one truth from which all others flow? There is in reality, in the order of beings, in the universal intellectual order; but in the human intellectual order there is none. 40. There is in the order of beings one truth, the origin of all truths; for truth is reality, and there is one Being, author of all beings. This being is a truth,--truth itself,--the plenitude of truth,--for he is being by essence, the plenitude of being. Every school of philosophy has in some sense recognized this unity of origin. The atheist talks of the force of nature; the pantheist of an only substance, of the absolute, of the unconditioned; both have abandoned the idea of God, and now labour to replace it by something which may be made the origin of the existence of the universe, and of the development of its phenomena.