The Existence of GodFénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-
Religion
The Existence of God
Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-
God; Ontology
summons, at least I am certain they are not far off. They may lurk
in some deep corner, but I am not totally ignorant of them as I am
of things I never knew; for, on the contrary, I know confusedly what
I look for. If any other image offers itself in the room of that I
called for, I immediately dismiss it, telling it, "It is not you I
have occasion for." But, then, where lie objects half-forgotten?
They are present within me, since I look for them there, and find
them at last. Again, in what manner are they there, since I look
for them a long while in vain? What becomes of them? "I am no
more," says St. Augustin, "what I was when I had the thoughts I
cannot find again. I know not," continues that father, "either how
it comes to pass that I am thus withdrawn from and deprived of
myself, or how I am afterwards brought back and restored to myself.
I am, as it were, another man, and carried to another place, when I
look for, and do not find, what I had trusted to my memory. In such
a case we cannot reach, and are, in a manner, strangers remote from
ourselves. Nor do we come at us but when we find what we are in
quest of. But where is it we look for but within us? Or what is it
we look for but ourselves? . . . So unfathomable a difficulty
astonishes us!" I distinctly remember I have known what I do not
know at present. I remember my very oblivion. I call to mind the
pictures or images of every person in every period of life wherein I
have seen them formerly, so that the same person passes several
times in my head. At first, I see one a child, then a young, and
afterwards an old, man. I place wrinkles in the same face in which,
on the other side, I see the tender graces of infancy. I join what
subsists no more with what is still, without confounding these
extremes. I preserve I know not what, which, by turns, is all that
I have seen since I came into the world. Out of this unknown store
come all the perfumes, harmonies, tastes, degrees, and mixtures of
colours; in short, all the figures that have passed through my
senses, and which they have trusted to my brain. I revive when I
please the joy I felt thirty years ago. It returns; but sometimes
it is not the same it was formerly, and appears without rejoicing
me. I remember I have been well pleased, and yet am not so while I
have that remembrance. On the other hand, I renew past sorrows and
troubles. They are present; for I distinctly perceive them such as
they were formerly, and not the least part of their bitterness and
lively sense escapes my memory. But yet they are no more the same;
they are dulled, and neither trouble nor disquiet me. I perceive
all their severity without feeling it; or, if I feel it, it is only
by representation, which turns a former smart and racking pain into
a kind of sport and diversion, for the image of past sorrows
rejoices me. It is the same with pleasures: a virtuous mind is
afflicted by the memory of its disorderly unlawful enjoyments. They
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