s natural to the spirit, and that, while
even the condition of union with the body is artificial, the condition
of subjection to the body is wholly unnatural to it. Our primary
tendency is towards the supreme good, and we only love the objects of
our passions in so far as we "determine towards particular, and
therefore false goods, the love that God gives us for himself." The
search for happiness is really the search for God in disguise, and
even the levity and inconstancy with which men rush from one finite
good to another, is a proof that they were made for the infinite.
Furthermore, this natural love of God, or inclination for good in
general, "gives us the power of suspending our consent in regard to
those particular goods which do not satisfy it."[29] If we refuse to
be led by the obscure and confused voice of instinctive feeling, which
arises from and always tends to confirm our union with the body, and
wait for the light of reason which arises from and always tends to
confirm our union with God, we have done all that is in our power, the
rest is God's work. "If we only judge precisely of that which we see
clearly, we shall never be deceived. For then it will not be we that
judge, but the universal reason that judges in us."[30] And as our
love, even of particular goods, is a confused love of the supreme
good, so the clear vision of God inevitably brings with it the love of
him. "We needs must love the highest when we see it." When it is the
divine reason that speaks in us it is the divine love that moves us,
"the same love wherewith God loves himself and the things he has
made."[31]

The general result of the ethics of Malebranche is ascetic. The
passions, like the senses, have no relation to the higher life of the
soul; their value is only in relation to the union of soul and body, a
union which is purely accidental or due to the arbitrary will of God.
The more silently they discharge their provisional function, and the
less they disturb or interfere with the pure activity of spirit, the
more nearly they approach to the only perfection that is possible for
them. Their ideal state is to remain or become again simple instincts
that act mechanically like the circulation of the blood. Universal
light of reason casts no ray into the obscurity of sense; its
universal love cannot embrace any of the objects of particular
passion. It is indeed recogn