Revue Encyclopedique. Par M. V. Cousin [pp. 358-377]

German and French Philosophy.
"To create, is a thing easily conceived, for we constantly
do it ourselves. We create every time we do a free act. I
will, I make a resolution, I make another, then another, I
modify, suspend, or pursue it. But what do I do? I produce
an effect,which I refer to no one of you, but to myself as cause,
the only cause, so that, in relation to the existence of this effect,
I seek nothing above or beyond myself. See, then, what it is
to create. We create a free act; we create it, I say, for we
refer it to no principle (cause) superior to ourselves, we impute it to ourselves exclusively. It was not, it began to exist
in virtue of the principle of proper causality which we possess. So, to cause is to create. But with (from) what?
with nothing? No; but, on the contrary, with the foundation
of our existence, with all our creative force, with all our
liberty, our free activity, and our personality. Man does not
bring from nothing the action that he had not performed till
he attempted to perform it, he drew it from his power to perform it, from himself. Here is the type of a creation. The
divine creation is of the same nature. God, if he is a cause,
can create; if he is an absolute cause, he cannot but create;
and in creating the universe, he does not bring it from nothing, he derives it from himself, from that power of causation, of creation, in which we feeble men have a share; all
the difference between our creation and that of God, is the
general differerrce between God and man, the difference be.
tween the absolute and the relative cause.
"God creates then, he creates in virtue of his own creative
energy; he draws the world, not from the nothing, which is
not, but from himself, the absolute existence. This eminent
characteristic being an absolute creative force, which cannot
but pass into act, it follows, not simply, that creation is possible, but that it is necessary; it follows that God creates incessantly, infinitely; creation is inexhaustible and constantly
maintained. More than this; God creates from himself.
God is in the universe as the cause is in the effect, as we ourelves, feeble and limited causes, are, so far as we are causes, (en
tant que causes) in the limited and feeble effects that we produce."
In a subsequent lecture the author speaks thus: "In human reason we have found three ideas, which it
does not constitute, but which govern it in all its applications.
372