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STUDIES IN THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

)

STUDIES

IN THE

CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

NORMAN SMITH, M.A.

UBCTURSB AT QUBEN MABOABBT GOLLBQE, AND ASSISTANT TO THE
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1902

All right* reserved

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1 1 q

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GLASGOW : PUINTKD AT THB UNIVBRSITY PB£8S
BY ROBERT MACLBHOBE AND CO.

PEEFACE.

When Huxley declares that Descartes advanced v
beyond his age and anticipated what would be the
thoughts of all men three hundred years after him,
he has mainly in view Descartes' achievements in/
the natural sciences. And in that relation the
assertion is undoubtedly justified. In a more
adequat©^ manner than even Galileo or Bacon,
Descartes formulated the methods and defined the
ideals of modern^flcignce. A very different estimate
must, however, be made of his work in
metaphysics. Though the new and definite concep-
tion of nature which he derived from his studies
in the sciences, enabled him to state the problem
of perception, and the problem of the relation of
mind and body, much in the form in which they
persist to the present day, his metaphysical teaching
is perverted, I shall try to show, by principles
wholly at variance with his own positive scientific

vi PREFACE

views. If the interpretation which I give of
Descartes' philosophy be correct, it is no exaggeration
to assert that all that lies outside his philosophy
of nature, or is not illumined by a reflex light
from it, remains in essentials scholastic in con-
ception.

My original intention, therefore, was to dwell
chiefly upon Descartes' philosophy of the sciences
as the really important part of his system ; but
realising more and more fully as I proceeded in
my study of the subject, how very artificial is the
connection between his metaphysics and his
scientific views, I came to the conclusion that sepa-
rate treatment of them would be advisable. His
philosophy of nature I have reserved for future
consideration, and i n this _^pre.flftnt .volume limit
^, ^i^ myself, as far as possible, to his metaphysics. I first
examine his metaphysical principles as they appear
in his own writings ; and then, by tracing their
influence on the thinking of ^ his successors, seek to
determine further tljieir^iiiaphcations and conse-
quences.

If we except the late Professor Veitch's volume
of translations, the preface of which is written from
a point of view no longer generally received, there

PREFACE vii

is but one English work — that of Professor Mahaffy
in the Blackwood Philosophical Series — exclusively
devoted to Descartes. And as Professor Mahaffy's
book is mainly biographical, I consider that no
apology is required for this attempt to examine in
detail the principles of the Cartesian Philosophy.
I may add that though this volume is not designed
to be an introduction to the study of Descartes, I
have throughout presupposed only such knowledge
of the period as may be gained from any history
of philosophy. I may specially refer the reader to
that section of Kuno Fischer's history, which has
been translated into English under the title, Descartes
and His School,

To the late^ Professor Adamson I am indebted
both for guidance in the literature of the subject
and for assistance in special difficulties. On one
point in particular, viz., Descartes* view of time and
its significance in his metaphysics, I received from
him invaluable suggestions of which I have sought
to make good use. In the autumn of last year
Professor Adamson read through my manuscript
and made several important criticisms. Professor
Henry Jones and Professor A. S. Pringle Pattison
have rendered me the same service, and for

viii PREFACE

their comments, by which my book has greatly

profited, I am most grateful. My thanks are

also due to my friend, Mr. William Menzies, for
reading the proofs of the whole book.

September y 1902.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE I.

PAOB

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES, 1

Aristotle and Descartes, l/ Augustine's treatment of
the problem of knowledge, 4. The advance from
Augustine to Descartes, 10. The influence of the
mathematical sciences, 11 K The Cartesian dualism, 12.
The cogito ergo sum a consequence of that dualism, 13.
The dualism raises new difficulties as to sense-percep-
tion, 15. Descartes' farther dualism of thought and
sense, 17.

CHAPTEE II.

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES, 19

True knowledge is certain and indubitable, 19. Such
knowledge is involved in ordinary experience, 20.
Descartes' method of separating out the indubitable
from the doubtful, 22. Why the problem of method
is so all-important, 23. ^The characteristics of the
mathematical method, 27^ Descartes criticises the
empirical method of Bacon, 27. Descartes' method
though deductive is not syllogistic, 28. Deduction and

CONTENTS

intuition, 32. Intuition is the source of all our know- paok
ledge, 33. Descartes' answer to the double question of
the method and limits of knowledge, 35. The ' simple
natures,* 36. They are all abstract conceptions, 38.
Descartes seeks to make science purely conceptual, 39.
Spontaneous generation from simple conceptions
asserted to be their peculiar characteristic, 41. Greo-
metrical science is perceptive, not conceptual, 43. So
also is arithmetical science, 45. The ' simple natures '
cannot be isolated units, 46. Conclusion, 47.

CHAPTER III.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES, - - - - 48

I. Introductory.

The cogito ergo sunif 48. Can be interpreted in two
ways, 49. Is a consequence of the dualism from which
Descartes starts, 51. The criterion of truth, 52. Des-
cartes' proofs of God's existence, 54. He interprets
the criterion of truth in the light of the scholastic
doctrine of essence, 60. Hence his occasionalism, 62.

II. The concjeptions involved in our knowusdoe of

THE MATERIAL.

Matter and extension, 65. Figure, motion, and ex-
tension, 68. Descartes' dualism conceals a purely
relative trinity of matter, motion, and mind, 70. Why
Descartes yet asserts motion to be a mere mode of
extension, 71. His view of time and of causation, 72.
Descartes interprets motion in two ways, geometrically
and mechanically, 75. And accepts occasionalism, 77.

CONTENTS xi

The relation of soul and body in sense-perception, 80.
In bodily movement, 82. In feeling and emotion, 83.
The conseqaences of Descartes' rationalism are em-
phasised by Malebranche, 85. Conclusion, 88.

III. The C0N0EPTI0N8 INVOLVED IN OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
THE MENTAL.

Mind is identified with consciousness or thought, 89.
Descartes' two views of consciousness, 90. Male-
branche's criticism, 92. Space cannot be perceived by
the mind as a state of itself, 92. Sensations, feelings,
and emotions, the only known modes of mind, 94.
Occasionalism again the outcome of Descartes' meta-
physics, 95. Descartes' contention that mind is better
known than matter disproved by Malebranche, 97.
Malebranche asserts the possibility of a rational
deductive science of mind, 101. This is the natural
extension of the rationalism of Descartes, 106. Con-
clusion, 107.

IV. Thought and will.

Descartes regards thought as passive, 108. The will
must therefore be regarded as quite distinct from
thought. 111. His rationalism is thus undermined, 113.
General conclusion, 115.

Appendices to Chapter III.

A. Arnauld's denial of the doctrine of representative

perception, 115.

B. Descartes' theory of perception, and account of the

relation between sense and understanding, 117.

xii CONTENTS

C. Descartes' view of time and of finite existence in paoe

time, 128.

D. The Cartesian views of consciousDess, 133.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA AND

LEIBNIZ, 137

Spinoza — His fundamental position, 137. He denounces
all explanation through general or abstract notions, 138.
The conflict of tendencies in his philosophy, 141. He
adopts the mathematical method of Descartes, 142.
And therefore identifies causation with explanation,
143. His doctrine of method, 144. The consequences
of his rationalistic view of causation, 146. His theory
of the attributes, 148. He adopts and extends Des-
cartes' ideal of physical explanation, 149. And applies
it to mind, 151. Qe gives no account of the causal
relation proper, 152. He fails to carry out his method,
153. His concrete view of God and of the attributes,
156. Conclusion, 160.

Leibniz — The fundamental argument for his monadism is
derived from his rationalism, 160. The principle of
identity and the principle of sufficient reason, 165.
He combines his rationalism with an equally extreme
spiritualism, 167* As a result modifies his rationalism,

169. His treatment of the mechanical world in space,

170. His view of the relation of thought and sense,

171. His views on the innateness of knowledge, 172.
He follows Descartes in regarding ideas as the objects
of mind, 174. His introduction of the conception of
the unconscious, 175. At times he indicates a different
view of ideas, 176. He cannot on his principles account
for sense-experience, 178. Conclusion, 180.

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER V.

PAGE

THE CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE, 181

Why Locke regards all sensations as isolated and
atomic, 181. He adopts the Cartesian dualism, 184.
His way of regarding ideas, and his spiritualism, 185.
His method, 188. Locke on the cogito ergo sum^ 189.
On the sources of experience, 189. His analysis of the
conception of substance, 191. His doctrine of sub-
stance partially frees him from the false rationalism of
Descartes, 192. The limits of ^knowledge, 194. His
views on the interaction of mind and body, 195. The
bearing of his doctrine of substance on Descartes'
proofs of God's existence, 199. He adopts Descartes'
views as to the nature of rational science, 200. He
asserts a twofold method to be necessary, 201. His
views on nominal and real essence, 203. Criticism of
his doctrine of real essence, 206. He condemns em-
pirical knowledge, 208. The ambiguity in his views
of substance and the primary qualities, 210. His
reasons for declaring a science of nature to be im-
possible, 211. His rationalism, 212.

CHAPTER VI.

HUME'S CRITICISM OF THE CARTESIAN PRIN-
CIPLES, 215

Hume's achievement, 215. The position of Berkeley,
215. That position is the outcome of a consistent
development of Descartes' principles, 216. Berkeley
simplifies and develops the occasionalist system, 217.
His spiritualism, 218. Hume on the principle of
causality, 222. On the causal relation between parti-

xiv CONTENTS

cular events, 226. His criticism of the occasionalist pags
system, 229. His analysis of the Cartesian spiritualism,
231. His criticism of the argument from design, 235.
He overthrows the occasionalist system, 241. His own
views on the causal relation, 242. His criticism of
the views of Descartes, ^43. He raises an entirely new
set of problems, 244. Criticism of Hume's theory of
knowledge, 246. His true position is phenomenalism,
not subjective idealism, 247. He yet practically retains
the doctrine of representative perception, 249. Hence
his sensationalism, 250. Conclusion, 252.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT, 253

ILant's Copernican idea, 253. He criticises the mathe-
matical method, 255. His own method, 156. His views
on causation, 257. His rationalism makes very modest
pretensions, 259. At first Kant takes up the Cartesian
position, 260. His true position, 263. His final
conclusions, 265.

Index, 267

CHAPTER I.

THE PROBLEM OF DESOAETES.

With Descartes philosophy made a fresh start: a

new set of problems had ariseti, and it is as the

first to face these problems that he has been called

"the father of modern philosophy." To comprehend

his position we must see how, from causes only in

part themselves philosophical, a new view of the

self and a new view of nature had grown up,

demanding a reconsideration of the problem of

knowledge.

If we seek to characterize the point of view of

the Greek philosophers, it would probably, on the

whole, be true to assert that for them man and

nature are inwardly related. The soul, Aristotle

teaches, realises itself in and through the body.

Matter and form, the material and the immaterial,

are two aspects involved in all natural existences, ji

and are separable only by abstraction, Descartes'

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

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attitude, on the other hand, is wholly different.
Those aspects of reality, which Aristotle in dis-
tinguishing reconciles, are by Descartes held apart
as absolute opposites. Between man and nature,
between soul and body, there is, on Descartes' view,
no internal kinship. The mind does not spread
itself over the body so as to become "Eoaterialised,
nor does the body through a vital force become
spiritualised. And the human body being, there-
fore, as purely material as any other object in space,
its conjunction with the immaterial soul must be
regarded as an ultimate fact, explicable only as due
to the arbitrary will of God. Thfe most absolute
spiritualism is made to complement an equally ex-
treme materialism. Souls are conceived as scattered
points of life in a universe of dead matter.

To trace this change of mental outlook in its
growth, and adequately to determine its causes,
would involve a history of the whole period from
Aristotle to Descartes, and we can therefore do no
more than name the main influences which brought
it about. Speaking very roughly, it was in Stoicism
and through Christianity that the antagonism be-
tween man and nature came to be felt. Through
the Christian conception of the value of each

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 3

human soul, the individual was separated out from
the cosmic whole, and given an independent reality
and worth. Attention was turned more to morality
and to the inner life, as distinguished from the
outward, purely social, civic life of the Greeks.
With the passing of the Greek civilization, men,
we may say, became hermits; and consciousness,
defeating its own ends, formed an inner world,
independent of, and even antagonistic to, the outer
world. This tendency towards subjectivity was
highly developed by the fourth century A.D., and we
need not, therefore, be surprised to find quite explicit
in Augustine' the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. A
mere list of the problems upon which Augustine
wrote treatises — divine grace and individual sin,
predestination and the freedom of the will^ — reveals
the break that has meantime taken place with
Greek modes of thought. As his treatment of the
problem of knowledge, in its emphasis on the sub-
jectivity of the process, is equally modem, and
strangely similar to that of Descartes, it will repay
us to dwell upon it at length.

^AU of these are problems foreign to the Greek mind.
Augustine's Confessions also form the first instance of what is
an entirely modern form of literature, autobiography.

«.«

\^'

« ' f ' <

4 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Augustine runs the problem of knowledge back
into three mysteries, which he recognizes as being
for him altogether insoluble. The first of these is
how the unextendedj» mind can contain images of
an extended world. Though the mind, in contrast .
to the body, is unextended, it is not so in the
sense of being oiU of space, for being finite it is
always located at a particular point in space. It
is out of space only in the sense of being a mathe-
matical point in it,^ not of being free from all the
limitations of it. Now since the mind has thus
its own position in space, it cannot any more than
a material body go outside its own boundaries — all
the more so, as Augustine's friend Evodius would
say, that it is not big enough to have boundaries.
All knowledge must be in and through knowledge

' ' 1 How small, Augustine notes, is the pupil of the eye which
' yet illumines the whole heavens above us. The eye, too, of the
eagle, though yet smaller, is far more powerful, which shows
that size has nothing to do with the power of perception.
Well, therefore, may the mind, which can contain in image not
only the whole heavens, but innumerable immense spaces, be
but a point {De Quantitate Animaey cap. xiv.). And, indeed,
the point is of all existences in space the best and most
powerful. In it the line begins and in it ends, line intersects
line through it, the angle is formed hy it, and by it also, as
centre, the direction of ^\exy part of that most perfect figure,
the circle, is regulated {De Quant, An, cap. xii.).

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 6

of the self, and if bodies outside it are to be
^own by it, that can only be by there appearing
i n it representations of them.^ The doctrine of V ^
representative perception is thus already full-blown
in Augustine. Knowledge* is a subjective process
going on separately in the mind of each individual.
"Each sees one thing in himself such that another
person may believe what he says of it, yet may
not see it."^ And it is as a consequence o f this
d octrine o f representative perception that Augustine
f ormulates th e cogito ergo sum as the sole immediate
certa inty. "We both are, and know that we are,
a nd delight in our being, and our knowledge of it.
Mor eover, i n these three things no true-seeming

•

^ Cf. Malebranche, Recherche de la VeriU, liv. iii., pt. ii., chap.
I., p. 377. (Our references throughout are to Jules Simon's
edition of Malebranche's works.) " Our minds cannot issue out
of the body in order to measure the magnitude of the heavens,
and in consequence cannot see external objects save by the ideas
that represent them. To this everyone must agree." Cf. Ibid.
p. 373. " We see the sun, the stars and an infinity of objects
outside us ; and it is not likely that the soul issues from the
body, and goes, so to speak, wandering in the heavens in order
to contemplate there all these objects (qu'elle aille, pour
ainsi dire, se promener dans les cieux pour y contempler tons
ces objets)." Cf. Descartes, Les Passions de lAme^ art. 33.

^De Trinitate, lib. ix., cap. vi. Eng. trans, (ed. by Dods),
p. 231.

' , '" < I *

6 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

tfo-y t(c <^/^{nusion disturbs us; for we do not come into

contact with these by some bodily sense, as we

perceive the things outside of us — colours, e,g. by

'. ' ^'Prr.seeing. sounds by hearing. smeUs by smeUing. tastes

^(f>- by tasting, hard and soft objects by touching — of

cs.u ' A ., -'aU which sensible objects it is the images resembli^

'.. ^r/ ^ '>• " them, but not themselves which we perceive in the

mind, and hold in the memory, and which excites

us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive

representation of images or phantasms, I am most

certain that I am, and that I know and delight in

this; In respect of these truths I am not at all
^ —
\ ^^^ ',-<• ' afraid of the Academicians, who say, What if you

are deceived ? For if I am deceived, I am. For

he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am

deceived, by this same token I am. And since I

am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing

that I am ? for it is certain that I am if I am

deceived."^

Augustine saw no difficulty in admitting that

bodies, by acting on the senses, produce images of

themselves in the mind. The problem, as it presented

itself to him, leather was how if, as is inevitable,

the images so produced conform to the nature of

* Be Civitate Dei, lib. xi., cap. xxvi. Eng. trans., pp. 468-9.

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 7

the unextended mind in which they appear, they
can yet be images of, and so a£ford knowledge of,
the extended. That is the problem over which he
puzzled to the end, with the full consciousness that
it wa^ for him insoluble. There is in the mind a
certain wonderful power {mira guaedam vis) by
which it can contain ta^da coeli, terrae, marisque
spatia.^

It is true that at times Augustine resorts to a
vague mystic solution of the difficulty, assuming that
the mind is capable of overooming spatial differ-
ences, and of being in many places at once — at
once present in the bodily eye perceiving, and also
present to the external distant object perceived*
But so long as space is regarded as real outside
the mind, and the physiological standpoint is main-
tained in explanation of the origin of knowledge,
such a view is meaningless. The really valuable
part of Augustine's teaching lies in his emphasis
on the necessity of taking the mind as unextended,
and yet as located in the extended.

The second mystery, which impressed Augustine,
_i8 h ow mind can know external objects, and yet

*Z>e Quant, An, cap. xiv. Cf. Confesdonum^ lib. x. cap.

VIII.-XVI.

8 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

be ignorant of those internal parts of the body
witJi which it is in immediate connection. "This
is a very important question which I now ask,
Why have I no need of science to know that
there is a sun in the heavens, and a moon, and
all the other stars; but must have the aid of
science in order to know, on moving my finger
whence the act begins — with my heart, or my brain,
or with both, or with neither; why I do not
require a teacher to know what is so far above
me; but must wait for someone else to learn
whence that is done by me which is done within
me ? ... How is it that, while we can
count our limbs externally, even in the dark and
with closed eyes, by the bodily sense which is
called * the touch,' we know nothing of our internal
functions in the very central region of the soul
itself, where that power is present which imparts
life [and sensation to the body], — a mystery this
which, I apprehend, no medical man of any kind,
whether empirics, or anatomists, or dogmatists, or
methodics (methodicos), or any man living, have any
knowledge o£"^

^Be Anima et ejus Origine^ lib. iv. cap. vi. (Eng. trans,
p. 305.)

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 9

L4> <-

The third myste ry, which is obviously connected^^ • ^ *'^'^^';
with the above, is the complement of the truth ^;.,^^^ ,
that self-consciousness is the essence of mind. . '^^*^-^- **"* '
"Neither the heaven of heavens, nor the measure ^,^
of the stars, nor the scope of sea and land, nor the f -^ ^tt^'-^
nethermost hell [are the tests of our incapacity] ; it ' ^
is our own selves whom ourselves are incapable of
comprehending; it is our own selves who, in our
too great height and strength, transcend the humble
limits of our own knowledge; it is our own selves
whom we are incapable of embracing, although ^
are certainly not outside ourselves."^ "We often
assume that we shall retain a thing in our memory
and so thinking, we do not write it down. But
afterwards, when we wish to recall it,, it refuses to
come to mind; and we are then sorry that we
thought it would return to memory, or that we did
not secure it in writing so as to prevent its escape;
when lo, on a sudden, without our seeking it, it
occurs to us. . . . Now how does it happen that
I knew not how we are abstracted from, and
denied to, ourselves ; and similarly are ignorant
how we are restored and reproduced to ourselves?
. . . For where do we make our quest, except in

^Ihid, (Eug. trans, p. 306.)

10 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

our own selves ? And what is it we search for,
except our own selves ? ... Do you not observe,
even with alarm, so deep a mystery ? And what is all
this but our own nature — not what it has been, but
such as it now is ? And observe how much wider
the question is than our comprehension thereof."^

Now the advance from Augustine to Descartes,
and the deepening of the problem in Descartes,
consists just in this, that while these three problems
remain, and remain at bottom as insoluble for
Descartes^^ as for Augustine, there has arisen,
through the growth of a scientific view of matter
the further problem, how soul and body can pos-
sibly interact, and how, therefore, the latter can
produce sensations in the mind. Like the Scholastics
after him, Augustine despised physical science as ixF
no use for the attaining of the soul's salvation.
What he alone sought was knowledge of God and
of the self. Deum et animam scire cupio, NihUne
plus? Nihil omnino^ And it was at least eight

^Ihid, cap. VII. (Eng. trans, p. 307.) Cf. Confessuytiumy
lib. X. cap. VIII.

^Augustine does not seem to have exercised any direct
influence upon Descartes. Nevertheless, these problems in-
evitably reappeared in Descartes' philosophy.

^ Soliloquiorum, lib. i. cap. ii.

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES

ce nturies b efore nature, through the love of her in
the arts, and the study of her in the sciences,
could b ecome the second reality, at once the
opposite and the complement of mind, and so one
further step be made in the problem of knowledge.
The Eenascence philosophers, however, in their
reaction against the theological view of nature as
the principle of evil, wetit to the other extreme,
and blurred its features by spiritualising it. It was
a return to the Greek point of view, and so far a
gain, a gain too in the restored respect for natural
science; but the mathematical sciences had, through
Galileo and Descartes, to speak more clearly, before
the specifically modern theory of nature could be
possible. In^ _ the sha rply outlined dualism of
Descartes there is a plastic clearness that is in as
great contrast to the mystic pantheism, all things
interfused, of the Eenascence thinkers, as to the
Aristotelian physics of the Schools.

It is by the all-important r61e ascribed to mntion 7/
that the Cartesian physics distinguishes itself from
Greek science.^ Matte r is perfectly homogeneous,

^ Descartes' views we state, on this and the following pages,
very summarily. They will be developed at length in chapters
IL and III.

•s

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

t!'

i.'

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: -^

and wh olly p assive : an inert continuous mass, it
canno t in any essential way be distinguished, either
by positive or by negative predicates, from the
space which it fills. It is, indeed, capable of
figure, but such differences of figure are due to
motion, and depend on its continuance. Motion is
the sole differentiating factor in nature, for it is
it alone that breaks up the inert continuous mass
into the different * kinds ' of material * atoms," and
that, by impelling them one against the other,
gives rise alike to the heavens and to the earth
with all that they contain. "Give me," says
[Descartes, "matter and motion, and I shall construct
the universe." In nature one single event, motion in
space, infinitely diversified with itself, alone takes place.
All the manifold qualitative differences, that appear to
be revealed by the senses, are the original creation of
mind, and by it projected out into the external world.
Nature is thus not merely dehumanised but also
despiritualised, and becomes the direct opposite of
the mind. All that is asserted of the one must be
denied of the other. Matter is extended, infinitely
divisible, purely passive : mind is unextended, in-
divisible, active. Matter as being in space has all
its parts external to one another: mind as being out

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 13

o f space has its w hole content within itself. Each
e xtend ed thing is dependent on what is beyond
it; the self is independent of all else, and self-
suflBcient. This dualism has been named the
, Cartesian dualism, not because Descartes invented
or discovered it, but simply because in him it
gained its most thorough and perfect expression.
It was involved in the scientific and general thought
of bis time, and to it, as the then ascertainable
truth about the self and nature, he had to adapt
his thinking. He starts from this dualism, and his
special metaphysical problem is to determine how
under these conditions knowledge is possible. I^
the spiritual world and the material world are in
absolute antagonism, how is the faxt of knowledge,
a fact which involves their interrelation, their inter-
penetration, to be accounted for? How can a
material world be known by an immaterial mind ?

Like Augustin e, Descartes regards the finite un-
extended mind as set into an infinitely extended
material world, and fixed down always to a particu-
lar locality in it, namely, to the brain, along with
which it moves to and fro in space. Without
thought that any other was possible, he took up
this physiological attitude, and doing so h^d no

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

^^'<

c it

\ •/-•c

/• r .

I U

option but also to adopt the doctrine of representa-
tive perception. The self can know nothing but
1^ its own states, and only indirectly by an inference
from them establish the existence of any other being.
Hence the utter misrepresentation of the internal
dialectic of Descartes* thought, if we start, as
Descartes himself does, with the cogito ergo sum as
the really ultimate element in his system. The
cogito ergo sum is simply one consequence of the
doctrine of ^representative perceptio n, which is itself
a consequence of his dualistic starting-point.

But inevitable though the doctrine of representa-
tive perception be as a consequence of Descartes'
dualism, as a solution of the problem of knowledge
it is a total failure. The problem is merely pushed
further back. Since ideas are regarded as the
objects of mind, and as exact copies of what exists
outside mind, all those activities and processes, which
the term *idea' was originally invented to express,
have to be thrown back into a mind supposed to
lie behind them, and the problem how the mind can
know anything, be it only a mental image,^ is not
so much as considered.

^ And surely that is as great and as real a problem as how
the mind should know a material body, for all the character*

THE PROBLEM OF DESCARTES 15 i ,

t-*'

Even granting , however, the admissibility ofWrtiu
regarding knowledge as consisting in the observation
by a mind of images within it, the new and scientific
v iew of mat ter throws special difficulties in the way
of such a doctrine; for sense-perceptions can no
longer be regarded either as caused by the external
objec ts or as copies of them. The time-honoured^
theory that material bodies are known by way of
the sense-organs ceases to have any meaning. Since
the sense-organs are parts of the extended organism,
t hey ar e as material as anything else, and therefore
the assertion, that bodies are known by way of them,
amounts to no more than the absurdity of saying
that bodies become known to mind by acting on
other bodies. Also, if this theory be taken as^
meaning that sensations are due to the action of the
h rain o n the miTid, it is contradicted by the fact
that, while the only form of action conceivable in
matter is impact, no impact can be given to the

istics of the external object are to be found in the image that
copies it, not excepting, as Augustine insists, its extendedness.
Saving the local difference between mind and external object,
there is not one difficulty that is removed by naming the image
* mental.' Even the mind * though very closely united to itself '
need not on that account, as Malebranche observes, be known
by itself.

€ V th

<t c

16 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

immaterial. All that takes place in the brain is
motion of its material particles. These vibrations
can obviously neither transform themselves into sen-
sations, nor, while remaining as they are, hand over
to the mind sensations ready-made. Descartes is
therefore forced to regard all sensations as innate in
mind, and as produced by it out of itsel£

Then, secondly, these sense-perceptions cannot be
regarded as images of external objects. The visual
image, for instance, of an object is coloured, whereas
/the external ob[ect_is_ colourless. And what thus
holds of the secondary qualities is likewise true of
' ' the primary. We find in the mind, to use Descartes'
own illustration,^ two wholly diverse ideas of the
sun : the one idea, the sense-image, by which the
sun appears extremely small, seems to come to us
directly from the sun through the senses; the other
idea, whereby it is represented as many times larger
than the whole earth, we have constructed for our-
selves in physical science. These two ideas cannot
both resemble the same sun, and reason teaches us

^Meditations, in. (Cousin's edition, i. p. 271) ; Veitch's trans,
p. 120. As only the first three volumes of the new edition of
Descartes' works have been published, our references through-
out are to Cousin's edition.

THE PROBLEM OF DESCAHTES 17

that the one which is given us in sense, and which ,
seems to have immediately emanated from the sun,
is the most unlike. The true nature of the sun, as
it exists without us, is thus revealed not by sense ^-
but by though t. Our sense-imag es are but picture*^
in our minds, and do not represent, but misrepresent,
t he true na ture of the real. There are two external
worlds, the one rich with its bright variety of
diverse qualities, appearing to the ' senses,' the other,
poverty-stricken, constituted only of matter and
motion, and discovered by the understanding.

Now, it might be expected that Descartes, when
driven by his physical theories to make this dis-
tinction, would in the ordinary way assume that the
mind by a 'faculty of thought' constructs for itself
out of the materials of sense a conception of the ^ " ' '
reaL But it is not so. The conceptions, by which "!^*'
we grasp the real, are not, in Descartes' view,
activities whereby mind apprehends the non-mental,
but, like sense-images, objects which it contemplates.,,
within itself. Also they are not derived from the
perceptions, but wholly distinct from them in nature,
re semble t hem only in being likewise innate. By v
this strange opposition of conceptions to perceptions,

which he makes to be absolute, Descartes aggra-

r. } r

\
\

/
/

18 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

vates the difficulties, already great enough in all
truth, of his dualism, and lands himself, founder
though he be of the physical sciences, in a rational-
ism more extreme in its antagonism to sense-
experience than even the idealism of Plato. The
causes leading Descartes to this position are to be
found in his absorbing interest in the mathematical
sciences, whose method he misconceived.

CHAPTER IL

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES.i

Descartes in the Discourse states his method in
f our short rules , with little explanation of how the
reader is to interpret them, and for a more adequate
treatment of it we must look to his earlier and less
famous work, Begulae ad Directionem Ingenii?

We may start from his second rule, which runs
as follows: "We must attend only to those objects?
of which our mind is capable of acquiring knowledge V
that is certain and indubitable."^ Trivial and conp
monplace as that rule appears, we might almost
deduce from it Descartes' whole philosophy. The
reason why he turned to philosophy is, he tells us,
because his experience was a patchwork of true and

^In this chapter, as throughout, we have in view only
Descartes' metaphysics, and hence do not dwell on his method
in its relation to his work in mathematics and physics.

2 First published, fifty years after his death, in 1701.

^ Reg. II. (Cousin's edition, xi. p. 204).

/ . • v/

20 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

false, a mass of merely probable truths, opinion not
j^ knowledge. The raison d'itre of philosophy lies in
its attempt to carry us over from probability to
knowledge, and if it fails to do that, it fails alto-
gether. " He who doubts much is no wiser than he
who has never thought."

. .But further, since an assertion of probability can

'. lie made only on a basis of indubitable fact, the

'^^existence of probable knowledge proves that there

also exist some absolutely certain trutha Take the

y familiar instance of the die. The probability of its

^ ^ X ^ ^ falling, say, with the four up is one to six, and rests

v^ on the knowledge that the die has six sides, and

\/ that there is no special reason in the die itself why

it should fall on one side rather than janother.
Should these facts, and the laws of arithmetic
according to which we calculate the probability from
them, be doubtful, the probability would cease to
hold. ' Possibility and probability rest on certainty,
"^ ^ and hence can only follow it, cannot precede it. At
least a minimum of absolutely certain indubitable
knowledge must be possessed by all, in order that
ordinary experience, that patchwork of true and false,
be possible.

" We reject, then, according to this rule, all knov7-

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 21

ledge that is only probable, and assume as a principle
that we should trust only to those truths which are
certain, and of which no one can doubt." ^ But, it
is at once objected, that le^tves us with nothing but
a petty pedantic philosophy ; all that has complexity
and magnitude outstrips the mind ; and' hence all
science that is of worth can be but probable tenta-
tive knowledge. The lear ned under this prejudice,
Descartes repeats over and over again, have neglected
the^imple indubitable truths as too easy and within
t he rea ch of all. "Yet I assure them that there
is a greater number of such truths than they think,
and that they sufiBce to demonstrate firmly a multi-
tude of propositions, as to which they have hitherto
been able to express only probable opinions." ^
Those t ruths that are so simple and universal and
indubitable that no one can be ignorant of them,
just those apparently trivial and worthless truths,_are i/
the springs of knowledge.^

^ Reg, II. (xi. p. 205).

*^Reg, II. (xi. p. 205).

^Cf. Reg. IX. (xi. pp. 249-51). " It is a common failing among
men to regard the roost difficult things as the finest, and the
majority believe they gain no new knowledge, when they ^
discover a very clear and very simple solution of their difficul-
ties, while they admire the subtle and profound doctrines of the
philosophers, although they frequently rest on grounds that on

22 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

The method whereby the indubitable may be
,..§yBparated out from the doubtful, Descartes discovers
L. in a very simple manner. "All the sciences united

f *

^ ' are nothing but the human understanding, which

/o c^>iic.'L^ remains one and the same however varied be the
, 4 objects to which it applies itself, and which is no
\.i '"V more altered than is the light of the sun by the
..., '/ >r -Variety of the objects it illumines."^ That is, the
/;.,i '^^-t^-t^jictivities are one and the same in the construction

of all knowledge, and hence from any bit of true
knowledge the universal nature of the intelligence
which constructed it can be discovered. Now, in
mathematics we have true knowledge, and therefore
by separating off in the mathematical method what
is due solely to the special nature of its subject-
one has ever sufficiently verified : foolish admiration that
prefers darkness to the light. . . . This is a point on which I
would here insist more than on all others : namely, that every
one be firmly persuaded that it is not from the great and
difficult, but only from what is most simple and most easy that
we must deduce even the most recondite sciences.'' That point
of view is characteristic of all the great thinkers of the 17th
and 18th centuries, who in their reaction against the mediaeval
Gothic spirit hated obscurity, and misty or mystic vagueness of
outline, more than aught else. Pascal has, in words strikingly
similar to those of Descartes, given classical expression to this
attitude in his Pens^ea (Havet, ii. pp. 307-8).

1 lUg. I. (xi. p. 202).

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES

matter, what we shall have left in our hands will
be the ex pression of the essence of mind in all '^
its_ j>urity an d universality, a complete analysis of^
the light whereby objects are revealed to us. It is
with that high end in view that Descartes sets
himself to examine the method of the mathematical
sciences.

But before we proceed further, let us try to dis- , » *y. ' '*''
cover why for Descartes the problem of method is*
80 aU.impoitant He returns again and again to
the point, until we almost grow weary of his repeated
assertions that the supreme question for philosophy
is that of method; for after all, we naturally think,
is not method but the scaffolding, a means truly of
attaining knowledge, but not meant to monopolise
our attention? So long as that is our feeling, we
are still very far from a true understanding of the
position of Descartes.

In the first place, it_is not true that the method
is merely an instrument for constructing knowledge.
Sather, as appears from what has just been said, it
expresses the innermost essence of mind ; and the
problem of method is therefore identical with the
problem as to the nature and limits of knowledge.
Since in the method we have a complete analysis of

24 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

-^ the mind, in determining that method we necessarily

^ yjf^y/c^lao determine the measure and scope of mind.
" No question is more important than this of knowing
what human knowledge is, and how far it extends;
that is why we unite this double inquiry [that of
method and that of the limits of knowledge] in a
single question that we think ought to be examined
before all others . . . ; it is an inquiry which
^everyone who loves truth, be it ever so little, ought
to make once in his life, since it contains the true
organon of knowledge and the whole of method." ^

Secondly, Descartes declares that " we can know
nothing [even of what is within our reach] until we
know intelligence, since the knowledge of all thmgs
^ depends on it, and not it on that knowledge."^
Though mathematical science existed before the
nature of the intelligence was discovered, that was
only possible through the prior discovery by the
Ancients of the intelligence in a concrete form,^ the
analytical method of the Greeks being just the one
true method specialised in its application to number
and extension. And, as an historical fact, only in

^ Reg, VIII. (xi. pp. 245-6). »

2 R&g, VIII. (xi. p. 243).

3 Reg. IV. (XI. pp. 217-8, 220-4).

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 25

these mathematical sciences was any knowledge of
perfect certainty attained.

Thitdly, there is a statement, which Descartes
twice repeats in the Begvlae, which throws much light
on this point, viz. that it is impossible to make a false
i nference .^ What he means would seem to be this.
It is want of data, or want of right arrangement of
the da ta, that causes bad reasoning, never the failure
to draw the true inference from what is actually ^
before the mind.^ To draw a conclusion that does
not follow from the data considered would be for
thought to break in two. The laws of identity and
non-contradiction are not, as logicians assert, regula-
tive merely, but belonging to the unchangeable essence
of mind, not to its accidents, are therefore obeyed in
equal perfection by all men. And that phrase gives
us the key to Descartes' strange doctrine, jestingly
stated, but seriously designed, at the opening of the ^^^j^ r^
Discourse on Method: "Good sense is, of all things

1 Reg, II. III. (xi. pp. 207-8, 212).

* What we mean by a false inference is an inference out of
place. We reason falsely when we make one inference and
think we have made another. The fault lies always in the
falsity or inadequacy of the data — in the matter, that is, ^
and never in the form of reasoning. The inference drawn
from such data, though correctly following from them, will be a
false inference in the circumstances.

^r..r<

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

among men^ the most equally distributed ; for every
one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it,
that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy
in everything else, do not usually desire a larger
measure of this quality than they already possess.
And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken:
the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that
the powe r of judging^ aright and of disti nguish ing
tnlth from error, which is_properly what is called
V good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men.
. . . For inasmuch as reason is that alone which con-
stitutes us men, and distinguishes us from the brutes,
I am disposed to believe that it is to be found com-
plete in each individual; and on this point to adopt
the common opinion of philosophers, who say that
the difference of greater and less holds only among
the accidents, and not among the forms or natures of
individuals of the same speciesJ* Since all men, as
rational beings, are alike in the power of perceiving
rational connection, the capacity for procuring and

to say, the knowledge of method, is everything. It'
is, Descartes adds, to his method and not to any
surpassing genius that his own discoveries have been
due.

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES

Thus, then, a fair case can be made out for the
supreme importance of the problem of method, as
understood by Descartea^

And now we may follow him in his examination /^)^,
of the mathematical method. The characteristic of
mathematical science is its c ertaint y, and its certainty
consists in this, that it starts with truths that are
so simple and so self-evident that they cannot be
doubted by the mind, and that nothing else is
accepted as true, until it has be en shown to^ follow
necessarily from these ultimate self-evident trut hs. .
The fault of all previous philosophers is that the^
have neglected this method, and instead of getting
back to the ultimate simple truths, upon which all
others depend, have attempted the more complex
problems before they have solved the simpler ; have
approached physical problems before they have
mastered mathematics ; philosophical problems before
they have analysed the conceptions of which they
make use.

Even Bacon reveals an ignorance of the true
method, when he makes his successful attack upon
the unfruitful conceptions of a false metaphysic the
ground for a glorification of sense. Knowledge
cannot rest upon a foundation of ignorance; and as

^'/^

< '^

hFT-^'t

c< ^*

28 , THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

^ / the , sensi ble is the lea st amenab le to the demands
J /of thought forconceplu&l clearness, it must remain
/outside the sphere of science, till by an insight
/ derived from other sources its obscure complexity
I has been analysed. From experience we certainly
learn that fire melts wax and hardens clay, that the
magnet attracts iron, and innumerable other phe-
nomena. Since these, however, are not ultimate
' laws ' of nature, but only generalised statements of
highly complex matters of fact, the whole work of
science proper still remains to be done. Whereas the
senses reveal to us a world full of unbridgeable
qualitative differences, thought reveals the deeper
fact, that one single phenomenon, infinitely diversified,
motion in space, alone takes place. Before we can
"^explain any physical phenomena, even the simplest,
we mast therefore discover the laws of motion ; and
when we have discovered them, we are able to deduce
the various sensible appearances from them, and to
demonstrate their necessity. Not complex brute facts,
empirically verified, but the necessary truths involved
in our simplest conceptions, constitute the medium
of science.
, Yet Dfiscartfisl^method though d eductive is not

syllogistic. It is in intuition, not in the syl logism ,

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 29

that our knowledge develops. If a = 6, and 6 = c, then
a = c. In symbolic reasoning the 'if comes in, but
when definite quantities are set in the place of the
symbols, it falls away, and the truth of each is
intuitively perceived. Constructing a whole out of 4
our data, we then intuitively perceive a new relation

within it. ^^iT*-'*

Such a view of reasoning is very different from the^//*^ '
scholastic theory that all knowledge is gained throng^
the syllogism. Take the syllogism: All things
equal to the same thing are equal to one another.
a and c are things equal to the same thing ((),
therefore a and c are equal to one another. This h ^^'■^'^'''f
syllogism states the whole of the conditions upon "^ "^/^ v:*//
which the truth of the conclusion rests. There is
th e ma terial condition expressed in the minor, that /^^^^
a_and c are both equal to the same third thing 6 :
that, it will be noted, is the whole of the inference.
To know the minor is practically to know the whole
matter, and how that is done the syllogism makes no
attempt to explain : only, once we know all we need
to know, the syllogism will show what it presupposes.^

V^ "Logicians cannot form any syllogism to yield the true

ncSnclusion, if they do not already have the matter, that is to say

if they do not already know the truth which they deduce by

30 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Secondly, there is the fonrial condition expressed
in the major, namely that it be necessary always
and universally that whatsoever things are equal to
a third be equal to one another. This major ex-
presses the postulate that the laws of thought ac-
cording to which we reason hold absolutely and
universally, for ourselves at all times and also for
all other men. The truth of the conclusion involves
the truth of that postulate, and only on the assump-
tion of its truth are we justified in asserting the
conclusion. The function, therefore, of the syllogism
is neither to state the reasoning process whereby we
attain to a knowledge of the conclusion, nor to prove
it, but solely to unfold all its implications.^

this means. Whence it follows that this form yields them
nothing new, and that the common logic is therefore entirely
useless to those who wish to discover truth, and can only be
occas ionally of use for expounding to others truths already
known, and should therefore be transferred from philosophy to
rhetoric." Reg. x. (xi. p. 256).

^Descartes' opposition to the syllogism may, in one way, be
taken as following from his rejection of authority and^insistence
on personal verification of all truth. In using the syllogism the
mind is taught not itself to see truth but to believe it on the
authority of the syllogistic rules. The syllogism is so con-
clusive, logicians assert, from its mere form, that reason, while
remaining itself idle, can by virtue of this form, withojiC needing
to examine the evidence offered for the conclusion, accept it a.s
proved. To this Descartes replies, that not only does the truth

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 31

Since p articular truths are known by the same
process by which we apprehend the axioms, namely
by intuition, and possess therefore the same in-
trinsic underived validity,^ they do not require to be
deduced from the universal axioms. That two
plus two and three plus one are both equal to
four, and therefore both equal to one another,
are truths as certain as the axiom that things
equal to the same thing are equal to one another;
and as a matter of fact we must intuitively
perceive the certainty of such particular truths
before we can possibly comprehend the truth of
the universal principle. And if knowledge does
not consist in deduction from axioms or general
principles, still less does it consist in deduction
from definitions. The intuitions with which we

often escape these forms, but also that, as experience shows, by
them sophistries, which would never deceive anyone who
makes use only of the natural reason, entrap the sophists them-
selves. " And that is why, fearing above all else that our reason
should remain idle while we are examining any truth, we
reject those forms as contrary to our end, and prefer rather
to seek all the possible means of keeping our minds attentive."
Reg. X. (xi. pp. 265-6).

1 Here we are stating Descartes* attitude more explicitly than
he himself does, for as regards the function of the axioms he is
not very clear. Cf. below, p. 37, note 2.

32 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

start must be simple and self-evident, and would
therefore only be obscured by logical definitions.^

^' *^ '^ /" 'IXV Though Descartes adds to intuition deduction,
'/a-* A I I he does not mean by the latter anything really

tt^fcv/fyri, (distinct from intuition,^ We must, he admits,

/, ;

/; iO

1
\

) distmguish between the self-evident truths and
/ .V i those others whose certainty can only be dis-
covered by deduction from them. The process,
however, by which they are verified is in both
cases the same. Deduction is but a series of
intuitions, whereby terms not directly related are
discovered to be related through their relations to
intermediaries. Thus by a simple intuition the
mind may apprehend that a = &, and by another
intuition that 6 = c, and by a third that c = d, but
in order to perceive that a — d the mind has to
run back and forward quickly along the whole
series, and thereby gathering them together as the
content of a single more complex intuition render
the relation of a to rf visible. The detection of
that relation involves a positive increase in our
knowledge, and therefore involves that intuitive
process wherein alone knowledge can develop.

'^Reg, XII. (xi. pp. 279-80). Cf. Principles, i. 10.
'^Reg. III. (XI. pp. 213-4).

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES

When the series is too long thus to be gathered
into a single fruitful intuition, the memory of the
evidence previously verified in intuition has to be
relied upon.

Deductio n, then, is not the source of a special
kind of knowledge, but simply the process b j
which intuition extends itself so as. to take in the
complex that at fi rst spears to lie outside its
sphere. Thereby intuition shows itself to be not
an isolated particular act, not an instantaneous
photograph that once taken can develop no further,
but a growing capacity of the mind for truth,
each new truth serving as an instrument for the
discovery of others. When the light of intuition

C —

has spread from the simple truths over into the
c omplex, enlightening all that is obscure in them,
then, an d only then, is science attained. Since
it is by one and the same act of mind that
every truth once reached is recognised, no part of
knowledge is to be regarded as more obscure than
any other.^

The word 'intuition' by keeping bad company,
by mixing with the self-styled 'intuitional moralists,'
has got a bad name. When we speak of intuition

^Reg. IX. XII. (xi. pp. 250, 281-2).

34 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

nowadays, we think of something unusual, of some
special faculty in the individual, and that is just

the very opposite of what Descartes means by it.
Our intuitions are not an aristocracy with a pedi-
gree other than the mass of the knowledge that
is supposed to come to us in an ordinary and
common way. For Descartes intuition is the source
jo( all our knowledge. Being the name which he
gives to the birth of truth in the soul, though it
is for us a word and little more, it describes a
very real fact. Certainly, as the intuitionalists
aissert, it is miraculous and a mystery, but only
in that sense of the miraculous according to which
mystery is a universal element in things. The
mystery of intuition lies in its being one case of
growth, and therefore in its involving like all
growth the miracle of creation. Intuition is not
a fitting together of premisses, but a dialectic.
Given certain data, they produce out of themselves
a further truth ; it is a natural process, and that
is why it is impossible to make a false inference.
All that the conscious mind can do, says Descartes,^

^Reg, XIV. (xi. p. 295). Cf. Beg. iv. (xi. pp. 216-7). ("The
science of method) cannot teach us how these operations (of
intuition and deduction) are performed, for they are the

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES

is to prepare the con ditions for its appearance.
Since to determine the nature of intuition is really
to determine the nature of consciousness or mind,
we must look for a further treatment of it to
Descartes' metaphysics.

F rQm this new theory of reasoning Descarte s //i^
g ains his answer to the double question 9f_j^k® '^^
method and lim its of know ledge. The limits lie,
on the one side, in the simple truths than which ^
n othing can be conceived more ultimate, and which
are so completely and certainly known, that no
more perfect knowledge can be desired. .Descartesi
calls them 'innate ideas' and also 'simple natures!
They are the primary seeds of reason implanted in
us by God, and ma nifest their di v ine righ t by the
dearness and distinctness with which they present
themselves to the mind. The limits, in the opposite
direction, Ue first in the possible fruitfulness of
the * simple na tures,' and thaJt^ if we may judge

simplest and most primary ; so that if our intelligence could
not previously perform them, it would not comprehend any of
the rules of method, however easy they might be." * Intuition,'
that is to say^ is the term which Descartes thinks most fitted to
describe the fact, not a theory or explanation of it, and if we
nowadays think good to reject the term, that is no refutation
of Descartes' account of reasoning. The fact remains whatever
be our theory about it.

- J

4<« a.ir<. /»//i

36 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

from the proved fruitfulness of the conceptions
of number, extension, figure, and motion, is inex-
haustible;^ and secondly, in the adequacy of these
' simple natures ' to the comprehension of the real.
We can know nothing save through the few ultimate
conceptions with which our consciousness is endowed,
and hence only if they express the whole nature of
"^ the real, can the real be completely known by us.
Descartes' final answer to that last problem we shall
learn in the next chapter.
^^' ^^C <^ As to the method, the secret lies in the order and y

disposition of our inquiries, so that we do not attempt
^ ; any problem until we have the data requisite, that is,
' ' x the simple intuitions in the light of which all ob-
scurities of themselves vanish. Let us once get * the
simple natures' into our hands, and we are the
masters : they are the springs of knowledge, and from
them we have only to follow down the widening
V river of truth.

Everything, then, depends on discovery of the
* simple natures.' What are they ? The answer given

* Cf. Malebranche, Entretteiu 9ur la M^taphysique^ lii. p. 45.
"This idea (of extension) is so luminous, that geometricians
and good physicists form themselves in contemplating it ; and
it is so fruitful in truths, that all minds together can never
exhaust it."

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 37

by Descartes in the Regulae agrees with the answer

which he gave later in the Principles,^ All 7/ . /

things compound fall into three distinct series

— material things,^facts of mind, and qu alities common '-

to both. Analysing out from material things the

ultimate conceptions, upon which knowledge of them ^

depends, t hey are the notions of " figure, extension,

motion, etc." In the mental we have as ultimate

notions — "knowledge, doubt, ignorance, volition, and 2*

the like." Common to both mind and matter are

"existence, duration, unity, and others similar." ^vB. a

Since these conceptions are ' simple natures,' w e cannot /

know them at all without knowing them completely. ^ ^

" Otherwise we could not call them simple ; each one

would be a compound of that which we know in it

with that in it of which we believe ourselves

ignorant." ^

So far all is plain, but immediately we inquire how

(xi. p. 269 flf.).
Descartes here adds (cf. also the Principles^ i. 13) that to
that third class belong " those common notions that are, as it
were, bonds for uniting together the different simple natures,
and on the evid ence of which rests every conclusion : for example
tEis proposition : T? wo things^equaT'tb'a third are equal to one
another." That, however, must be regarded as but a lapse back
into the scholastic theory of reasoning, which he attacks.
^Reg. XII. (xi. pp. 272-3).

* «_

. .'. /> ^" 38

.^^J& t

I \

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

from these ' simple natures ' the rest of knowledge is
' to be developed, diflR^^^jlHpf^ im^Hiplj^ Fro m any one
f ^ taken separately nothing further can be derived. The
conception of space may be contemplated in perpetuity
without anything being thereby discovered. It is, so
Ck far, in all truth ' simple.* If, again, we compare them
together, we find indeed that figure necessarily involves
space, and that motion necessarily involves both space
and time, but other necessary relations than these
there are none. Descartes would doubtless _reply to
that difficulty, that the other simple natures -included
above in his ' etcetera ' must be brought in, so that
talking the angle, the line, and the number three,
along with figure and extension, we may construct
the complex figure, triangle,^ and thereupon, by com-
parison of the elements making up its complexity,
discover the varicjus properties necessarily holding
between them.
Ky i. If, however, we examine thes e diflFerent simplejiatures,
we find that they have a characteristic in common,
( namely, that they are one and all distract conceptions,
and ' simple ' only so long as they remain abstract. The
conception of space is certainly simple in the sense of

1 Reg, XII. (xi. p. 276), " the nature of the triangle is com-
posed of all these natures."

^
■4

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 39

being incapable of resolution into more ultimate con-
ceptions ; but in no other sense is it simple, for its
object is not only complex, but as a concrete reality is
inexhaustible in its possible modifications, forming the
inexhaustible subject-matter of the science of geometry.
The conception of figure is not even simple as an J/
abstraction, since it involves the conception of space ;
and it likewise owes its whole meaning to the particular
and complex figures from which it is derived. Des-
cartes, in fact, is committing the fundamental error of
taking the general conceptions, through which we
define and articulate the real, as being themselves ^in

abstraction from the real ^the subject-matter of
— ■ - — - /

science. Thereby seeking to eliminate the concrete
particularity of sense-perception, and so to make science
purely conceptual, he falls back into the rationalistic
view of k nowledge, which he criticises so excellently in
his attack on the syllogism. It is as impossible to
discover anything new from these 'simple natures,'
as from axioms and definitions.

Here, as elsewhere, we have to distinguish between
Descartes' attitude in science, and his attitude in
metaphysics. So long as he is treating concrete
problems, he does not go far astray. Since the
'simple natures' are never experienced in their

40 THB CARTElSlAN PHILOSOPHY

purity, they can only be reached by a process of
analysis that starts from the concretely real. And
for this analytic process Descartes is careful to lay
down rules, wherein he emphasises the importance
of observing and enuinerating the various conditions
involved in the particular phenomena examined.

c *<<-<: r In these rules there is never any suggestion of an
opposition between perception and conception, sense-
experience being not only regarded as the source,
I but also as the sole source of data. In metaphysics,

/ on the contrary, his attitude is wholly different;

for there the Descartes that declared his laboratory
to be his library, and praised the empirical observa-
tional method of Bacon as a valuable preparation
S )|br his own deeper one, denounces sense as alien
to thought, and asserts pure conceptions to be the
only legitimate organa of science.^ And though in
T^his metaphysics, just as in treating of physical
problems, he starts from concrete experience, knd
seeks by means of a universal doubt to analyse out
its ultimate indubitable elements, he, in the process,
omits the concrete detail, and is left only with a
few empty conceptions, from which he has, in
accordance with his stated method, to make a pre-

1 Cf. below, Appendix B to chap. iii. pp. 124-6.

V. N.

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 41

tence of reconstructing experience. Sense-ima ges,
he says, are of use to fix conceptions before
the mind. He had perforce to admit so much,
since he could not deny that in actual fact some
use is made of sense-perception in mathematics
and in physics. But the con ceptions are, he
holds, not derived from the perceptions, and in dis-
t inction fr om them form the subject-matter of all
science.

Hence, throughout his metaphysics, Descartes
speaks as if the mind could from the conceptions^;

of extension, figure, and motion, directly develop ^
all the particularity and variety of the real. We
have only, he seems to say, attentively to contem-
plate them, as a magician might gaze into a crystal
sphere, and they will unfold from the bosom of
their transparency the whole series of properties
and modifications of which they are capable. Such
spontaneous generation from simple conceptions of
particular modifications he not only regards as
possible to them, but also declares to be their
peculiar characteristic. By that strange inner power
of growth, the conceptions show that they have not
been framed by us; since, had the finite mind con-
structed them, it must have known from the start

[It c < ■

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

>!( C H

t.hftir wh olft fiontp.nt.^ Inevitably, however, to make
such a view at all conceivable, he has surreptitiously
to introduce into the barren conceptions the variety
revealed in sense. He takes, for instance, the con-
ceptions of the different geometrical figures as given,
and has then to regard only their special properties
as conceptually generated from them. And that
change in point of view is marked by his speaking
of the innate ideas as innumerable, citing as an
instance the notion ' triangle ' : . " What I here find
of most importance is, that I discover in my mind
innumerable ideas of certain objects . . . which
are not framed by me, though it may be in my
power to think, or not to think them, but possess
true and immutable natures of their own. As, for
example, when I imagine a triangle ..." That
idea, he proceeds to argue, though it cannot have
come into the mind through sense, can just as little
have been framed by the mind itself, for it is not
"in any degree dependent on my thought, as
appears from the circumstance, that diverse pro-
perties of the triangle can be demonstrated, viz.,
that its three angles are equal to two right, that
its greatest side is subtended by its greatest angle,

* Cf. below, chap. iii. pp. 108-10.

C I * r

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 43

and the like, which, whether I will or not, I now
clearly discern to belong to it, although before I
did not at all think of them, when, for the first
time, I imagined a triangle, and which accordingly
cannot be said to have been invented by me."^

Now when the objects, by contemplation of which
the mind acquires new knowledge, are thus regarded
as conceptions, and opposed to perceptions, the view
is utterly to be rejectedLfT^is a Platonic mysticism, /^//,^

and not a sane ratiorolism. Naturally enough it; JJtK*->

' fi

led to the false rationalism of Spinoza and Leibniz, "' ' /
both of whom believe in the generative power of
deductive reasoning, Spinoza pretending to develop
the whole order of nature and of man from the
single conception of divine substance, and Leibniz
insisting that every necessary truth is analytic.

The radical error of Descartes shows itself plainly
in his speaking of space and time as conceptual!
units by the combination and comparison of which
with others knowledge may develop. Space is never -,» ^ ^' ^
in geometry one of the elements compared, but i^ - /
that which renders possible the organisation of give^ *^
d ata into wholes wherein new relations can be\
d iscove red. Also it is no conception, but a concrete

1 Meditations V, (i. p. 310). Veitch's trans, p. 144.

44 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

reality revealed in perception, its continuity and
infinite complexity being the inexhaustible source
of geometrical variety. Thus if we are told that
a is to the right of 6, and h to the right of c, and
we infer that therefore a is to the right of c, the
mind does not, and cannot, derive that conclusion
from the contemplation, be it ever so prolonged, of
the two given separate facts, but only from the
construction of a spatial whole which includes them,
and determines them to have other relations besides
i^u < / those given. It is because the spatial whole is not
' * an abstract conception,^ but a concrete reality that

' if not perceived must be at least imaged, that it

can thus progressively reveal itself to the attentive
mind in new determinations. Similarly in the con-
ception of a triangle, even though we regard it as a
complex of simpler conceptions, nothing can be dis-
covered save what has been conceived from the start.
It must, in order to yield new knowledge, be con-

^A conception has just so much content and no more, and
when clearly conceived is known completely. There cannot, to
borrow a metaphor, exist in it unknown truths like opaque
particles in water, that by finally dissolving may become trans-
parent to the mind, and so reveal new relations in the old ideas.
Not from a conception, which is always a completed content in
mind, but only from a reality that in perception progressively
reveals itself to the mind, can new knowledge arise.

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES 45

structed in space, and it is because as so constructed
it is capable of infinite variation, the elements
composing it being so organically connected that
the least variation in any one necessitates corre-
sponding variations in all the others, that it is, as
Descartes says, one of the ' seeds ' of knowledge.^

Descartes' method may appear to be at least aiulf
adequate account of reasoning in arithmetic and
algebra, since in these sciences units conceptually
fixed are by combination and recombination made to

^ In the Regvlde Descartes insists most emphatically on the
importance of constructing our conceptions. "If the intelli-
gence seeks to examine anything that can be related to body, it
should form for itself in the imagination the most distinct idea
possible. To attain that end more easily, it should set before
the external senses the object that the idea represents." Reg.
XII. (xi. p. 268). Cf. Reg, xiv. Also, Descartes does not in
the Regvlae separate imagination and conception as absolutely
as he does later in the Meditations. (Compare his statements
in Reg, xii. with his corresponding statements in Medit, v.)
Still, spite of his being the creator of co-ordinate geometry,
wherein algebra and geometry, conception and imagination,
are made to co-operate, already in these Regvlae^ even while
t hus emphasising the import ance of imagination, he speaks
o f the co ncrete images, not as indispensable sources of data,
but only as external aids for fixing and rendering definite,
pure conceptions. For a different interpretation of Descartes'
views as to the relation between imagination and understanding,
cf. Natorp, Descarte^ Erkenntnisstheorie (Marburg, 1882). Our
view is supported by M. Pierre Boutroux in his pamphlet,
L^ Imagination et lea Math^matiques aelon Descartes (Paris, 1900).

46 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

reveal new truths. But really, as Kant was the first
to point out, just aa little in arithmetic and in algebra
as in geometry can the combinations be derived from
the isolated units. These sciences depend on the
continuous nature of time, in and through which
alone units are capable of combination. And it is,
again, because time is a perception, not a conception,
that it can render possible the discovery of ever new
relations between the units in it.
-7% We come, therefore, to the general conclusion that
j if the 'pimple natures * are conceptions no new know-
l ledge can be derived from them ; and that if they are
\isolated units they cannot be combined. Media are
necessary, and, when granted, render all talk about
'simple natures/ as so many units, impossible.
Whether outside the two concrete connecting media,
space and time, intuition of necessary relations is
possible, and if so, what are the media that render it
possible, are questions that Descartes did not see deep
enough to think of raising. How very far astray his
belief in the conceptual nature of science led him, we
shall see in his metaphysics.

Yet while we assert Descartes' theory of method
to be thus defective and incomplete, we must recog-
nise the historical importance of his insistence on the

THE METHOD OF DESCARTES

necessity for clearness and certainty in physics and
metaphysics as in mathematics, and of his consequent
demand that all complex conceptions be capable of
analysis into elements that are transparent to the
mind. There was only one other thinker in his day
inspired by such an intellectual ideal, and that was
Galileo, who by his pursuit of it in the physical
sphere created the science of mechanics. If, says
Descartes,^ magnetism is a qualitatively distinct
force, and not merely the resultant of a complex of
mechanical conditions, we are forever debarred from
knowing it;^ and we are debarred from knowin g
all that which is not explicable in terms of the few
ultimate conceptions with which consciousness is
endowed. What these ultimate conceptions are, and
how far they render knowledge possible, it is the
work of his metaphysics to show.

I ^ ^

1 Reg, XIV, (xi. pp. 294-5). Cf. Beg, xii. p. 281.

* To know it " we should require either new senses or a
divine mind." Loc. cit.

CHAPTER III.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES.

The instrument which Descartes uses for analysing
out from experience the ultimate conceptions upon
which it rests, is doubt, and on applying it he finds
that there is only one truth which is altogether
\ indubitable, the cogito ergo mm of Augustine. * If
nothing of all that I doubt exists, yet still my doubt
remains. If all that I perceive is illusory, yet none
the less my perception remains. If all that I imagine
be purely fictitious, it is yet true that I imagine.
And all these, doubt, perception, imagining, are
forms of consciousness, modes of thought. Conscious-
ness, therefore, or thinking, is that which is beyond
^the possibility of all doubt/ We know our ideas face
to face, and they are as we perceive them to be. It is
only when we go out beyond them, and assert the exist-
ence of something outside corresponding to them, that
we can fall into error. The inner self-transparency

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 49

of thought which sees itself, and can see nothing save ^ -J^ /->,<-
as reflected in itself, is the s ole indubitable certainty, ' ^ ^ '
t he one form of existence directly known to us.

Now the cogito ergo sum, considered as the primary
certainty in our knowledge, can be regarded in two
wayB; either as a ne cessary truth of reason^ and then //^
it must be universally expressed, y^erever there. 19 ' / r
conscious ness there is existence, of; as conveying our

certainty as to a p articular contingent fact, namely,
that I in being conscious exist at this particular
moment. Interpreting Descartes in accordance with
his treatment of the intuitive truths of mathematics,
we find that the two aspects of the cogito are insepar- jb^
able. A universal mathematical truth, we have seen,
is always apprehended in and through the particular,
the particular case being apprehended as an illustra-
tion of the universal, and the universal truth as
involved in the particular. So also is it in the cogito
which Descartes uses in both interpretations.

When used, h owever, to prove existence, the * I ' ;
is illegi timately brought in. The present conscious-
ness does not afford us any indubitable certainty of
our having existed in the past or of continuing to --i '
exist in the future, and yet such implications of
continuity of existence the use of the * I ' certainly

^' (Xi.' , ■

^ r

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

f t

f (

involves. Still less does immediate consciousness
prove the existence of the self as a simple indivisble
.t* ^;a ('< -Substance. Descartes in so arguing really interprets

■I ^

>bis 'ultimate' principle in accordance with an
assumed principle yet more ultimate, in logical though
not in temporal order, the principle namely, which he
explicitly states in his Principles'^y as a truth
manifest by the natural light of reason, "that Jo
nothing no aflFections or qualities belong." Th ought
he, without proof, assumes to be a quality, and
therefore, in accordance with that principle, to imply
a substance or self.^

Descartes, however, is also interested to derive
from the co gUo a univ ersal criterion of truth, and in so
doing interprets it in the universal way, as a necessary
V t^ r-^w^ /*< \fy^ Qf reason, showing the inseparability of the idea
of consciousness from the idea of existen/ze. Such
inseparability in thought, if in this case a sufficient
proof of in^separability in fact, must be so in all cases.
And his universal criterion of truth and reality there-
fore is, that all that in thought is clearly and

^ r. II. (hi. p. 69).

2 That, too, is how Malebranche and Regis interpret
Descartes' argument. Cf . Malebranche, Entretiens sur la Meta-
physique^ i. p. 5 ; and Regis, Cows Entier de Philosophie : la
M^taphysiqiie^ liv. i. pt. i. chap. xi. p. 96,

\^ C tA

>t,

-i< -v

> iT < *i ^

/..c.

THE METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 51

d istinctly conceived to be necessaril y connected must <
be likewise inseparable in existence. It will be noted* '
that the universal truth (the idea of existence is in^
separable from the idea of consciousness) is not
proved by the particular intuitive judgment, cogito
ergo w/m^ but only illustrated in it, and still less,
therefore, can the cogito prove the yet more universal
criterion of truth.

Now we must urge against the exaggerated im-
portance which Descartes attaches to the cogito ergo
Sfiirrby that we never need to prove existence, since we
can never get away from it, but only to define it.
When Descartes shows that consciousness involves
existence he proves, only too truly, what can never be
doubted, since, if existence is thus taken quite
vaguely, it is. certain that all the objects we perceive
even in dreams exist. When, on the other hand, he
pretends to have proved by the cogito the existence
of the self as a spiritual substance he asserts what
it can never prove. As proving existence, therefore,
the cogito is superfluous, and for defining it, it is useless.

Descartes, indeed, by adopting the doctrine of
representative perception^ as a necessary consequence

* Descartes' argument in the first Meditation most evidently
rests on an interpretation of knowledge in the light of that

< y<

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

i< * r

< < «

<-i. c< - f , / f/

of the dualism from which he starts, made inevitable
for himself the view that only in conscio usness ca n
come into direct contact with reality. And

further, since throughout his metaphysics he almost
invariably a ssumes that ideas are distinct from the

mind, attH fhoTnypr agaVliat fr^^ gt-flnrls a Sglf th^ t

contemplates them^ the existenc e of ideas is forhim
sufficient pr oof of the selCa ^ JEt^dstence. In the
doctrine of representative perception is thus con-
tained all that is of importance in the cogito. We
can know only ideas, but as we know them face to
face we cannot doubt either their existence or the
existence of the self whose thought they terminate.^
Since the criterion of truth is not proved by

still

[he mgitn jnrgn sfiirn,^ but only illustrated in it, it sti

doctrine. What is^impRed by Descatrtes is explicitly stated
by Malebranche, viz., that the doctrine of representative per-
ception is a self-evident truth. Cf. Recherche^ iii. pt. ii. chap. i.
p. 377, which has already been quoted below in note to page 5.
Arnauld was the only member of the Cartesian school who
thought of questioning this doctrine. Cf. Appendix A to this
chapter, p. 115.

1 Leibniz, in diflfering from Descartes, is really only making
Descartes' own position more explicit. Cf . Noivoeanx Easaia, liv.
vi., chap. II. sec. i. (Gerhardt, v. p. 347) : " It is not only im-
mediately clear to me that / thinh^ but it is just as clear to
me that I have different thoitghta, . . . Thus the Cartesian
principle is sound, but is not the only onVof-4^ kind,"

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 53

remains to be asked why, and with what right, we
trust to that criterion. Why must that which is
true for us and in the mind, be true for all others
and outside the mind ? Descartes replies by unfolding
the implications that underlie the acceptance of the
cogito ergo sum as a necessary truth. Though we cannot
doubt of any intuitive truth when it is present to y>
the mind,^ we can yet when we look back in memory ^^
on a conclusion that has been established by a chain
of such intuitive truths, distrust the validity of that
conclusion,, so long as we do not repeat in thought
and so verify in fact the necessity of belief in each
of the intuitions that compel its acceptance. And,
fur,ther, the doubt, when it is thus kept detached
from special simple intuitions, can become perfeqtly
universal : all our ideas, and therefore all the tijiths
that we perceive to be necessarily involved in them,
may one and all be false, being implanted in us by
some evil genius. As the possibility that two and i<
two should not make four, is only conceivable on the
assumption that the faculty of knowing is in its
essential nature deceptive, and that therefore all
knowledge is an illusion, this general doubt is the [
only form of doubt applicable to our simplest intui-

1 Principles^ i. 13 (iii. pp. 71-2).

64 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

criterion in all cases or in npne. Between rationalism
^ .jc and scepticism there is no alternative.

Descartes, however, refuses to recognise this fact,
and seeks to compound with reason in an impossible
compromise. He will trust reason just so far as
le sees to be necessary to establish the existence oT
rod, and will then throw on God the responsibility
^ Uof an unlimited trust. To avoid following him into
the sophistries that such a view necessitates, we shall
interpret his line of thought according to the higher
truth that forces him to seek to conceal the petitio
principii that such argument involves.^ .The accept-
ance of any truth, the cogito ergo sum or any oth er,
involves the acceptance of the universal criterion of
truth, and therefore the acceptance of all that
thought, in accordance with that criterion, shows to
be necessary. Everything or nothing is what reason
demands, and since to act is a necessity, the alter-
native to be chosen is decided for us.
'^^ , In his proofs of the existence of God Descartes'

y.* - The petitio principii lies in his using principles, which hie
*^ holds to be truths evident by the uatural light of reason, to

prove God's existence, and then guaranteeing the validity of

reason by the veracity of God.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 55

scholasticism comes to a height. Usually he conceives
God as a-^reator; and when he dispenses with that
obscure conception, it is only to fall back upon the
equally obscure notion c^ubstance. As it is hopeless
to attempt to disentangle the diverse lines of thought
involved in his arguments save by means of the clari-
fying analyses which Locke and Hume made of these
fundamental conceptions, we shall in the meantime
consider his arguments only so far as is necessary to
maintain the continuity of his thinking.

Starting with the assumption that creation is not
only .intelligible, but also the sole conceivable ulti-
mate explanation of origin, Descartes lays down as
principles " evident by the natural light of reason," ^
that nothing cannot be the cause of anything, and /^ '
that the more perfect cannot arise from the less '*^
perfect, so as to be thereby produced as by its
efficient and total cause, and that, therefore, ^1 that,
Js contained, in an idea, or a s it were in a picture,
must exist in its first and chief cause not only in
idea but also in fact. ^ We find in the mind the idea
of God as an absolutely perfect being, and as we do not
in any way find in ourselves the perfections contained
in that idea, we must conclude that they exist in

^Principles, I. 17 (in. p. 74).

*./ «

66 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

some nature dififerent from ours, that is, in God, who
\ must, therefore, be inferred to exist in order to cause
the idea in us.
f ^' And, again, starting from this other principle *in
the highest degree self-evident,' that it is more
difficult to create substance than any of the attri-
butes of substance,^ it must be inferred that, J^f we-
had made ourselves, we should have made ourselves

\i/\

^rfect in all our properties. But as we have the

knowledge of many perfections which we do not
possess, we must have drawn our origin from no
^^ , other being than from him who possesses in himself
*i • nU^Jall those perfections. Again, therefore, God must

i«^\^*»^*' ^y And, thirdly, to meet the objection that the idea
V'^^ . of an infinite all-perfect being may be derived from

experience by a combination, and ideal completion,
of the perfections we meet there, Descartes replies
V that it cannot be so, since the idea of the infinite
4s- involved in all consciousness of the finite as its
prior condition, " For how," he asks, " could I know

^Principlesy i. 20 (iii. pp. 76-7). Regis therefrom infers that
"all substances, with the exception of God, are equally perfect
in themselves" {Coura Entier: la M^taphyaiquey liv. i. pt. i.
chap. XII. p. 100).

jf\l /^ ^ t^kitf , ^-j.

A^>^

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES "'"^^S?

that I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting C\i^
to me, and that I am not wholly perfect, if I J f Im^ * * *■ ^
possessed no idea of a being more perfect than my- ^cjl <^^^'
self, by comparison of which I know the deficiencies j

of my nature ? " ^ The idea of God is, therefore, /
the primary fact in our consciousness, and makes
possible the consciousness of the self as a doubting
finite being. It is not merely as clear and distinct
as the c onsciousness of the selfs existence, but
clear er, since only through its mediation is such
conscio usness • possible. And with an over-emphasis
that is highly significant, Descartes concludes that
there can be no idea "more true or less open to the
suspicion of falsity ." ^ U\

That last argument leads up to, and indeed iS^*- ;
volves, the . pntological argument. ]^ we take any ^ [
geometrical conception, say that of a triangle, from^
the mere conception we can deduce with absolute'
certainty that the sum of its angles is equal to two
right angles. So, too, from the mere idea or con- '
ception of God we can deduce certain properties as
necessarily belonging to Him, and one of these pro-
perties is His ftxiat,ftnp.e. It is as impossible to

c onceive a Being absolute ly perfect to whom the

^Medit. III. (i. p. 281). Veitch*s trans, p. 126. ^Loc, cit.

)

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

perfection of actual real existence is yet awanting,
as to conceive a circle while denying that its radii
are all equal. Consequently it is as certain that
//God, who is this perfect Being, is or exists, as any
demonstration of geometry can be.

Now, the ontological argument by itself merely
proves a necessity of thought, the necessity of think-
iiig God as existing, if we think Him at dl " Th^
idea of God may be purely fictitious, and hence the
necessity it lays upon the mind of adding the further
idea of necessary existence may be a ^ctitiou§_iific«B-
sity. There are certain laws of thought that we
cannot escape even in the most imaginary of ideal
worlds, but that in these ideal worlds we are still
subject to the tyranny of some necessity or other
does not make them to be real. It must be prove d
that the idea of a perfect being is no such ar bitrary
idea, but an idea which the mind has not fabricated
for itself, and which it must think if it is to think
at all. The ontological argument, therefore, rests on
/and presupposes the preceding arguments whereby
'^that has been proved.^

^ The connection should be noted of the ontological argument
in the fifth Meditation with the proof that immediately pre-
cedes it| that conceptions are all objective and given to the

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 59

And now that Descartes has established the exist-
ence of God, he is able to overthrow all the sceptical
doubts, through which alone he was forced to reject
the truths of reason as possibly false. This result
he expresses in a very crude form, saying that one
of the qualities belonging to God's perfection is
veracity, and that, therefore. He cannot will to
deceive us. What Descartes means thereby, is that
God is the all-comprehensive absolute reality, in

mind, not framed by its own finite powers. Cf. below, pp.
108*10 in this chapter.

It is not true, we have seen in the preceding chapter, that
from the mere abstract conception of a triangle, as a space
enclosed by three straight lines, the other properties of the
triangle are discoverable, but only from the construction of it
in space. It is because it is a perception that it can reveal new
properties, not originally thought in it, to the mind. The con-
ception of God, however, is a pure cfinception, and therefore if
it involves existence, such necessary existence must have been
explicitly conceived in it from the start. The bearing of this
will appear in the chapter on Locke (p. 199). We shall see how
the conception of God, regarded as the Unconditioned, is just
the conception of absolute existence and nothing more, the
quality of perfection being illegitimately used as a metaphorical
synonym for absoluteness. Only because the idea of God can
be interpreted in these two ways, either as denoting a personal
moral agent, or as signifying the absolute reality in whom we
and all other beings are* contained, can Descartes, while offering
proofs of God's existence, still claim that no idea is '^ more true
or less open to the suspicion of falsity.''

ru^XVJ

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

whom we as well as all other beings are contained,
and that in Him truth and existence are one. The
necessity which constrains us to think in a certain
way is likewise a necessity which governs real ex-
istence. The nature of things is rational, and hence
rationalism is the true philosophy. All that we
clearly and distinctly conceive to be true, we may
safely accept as true.

Descartes, however, not only interprets that
criterion as meaning that what is inseparable in
thought is inseparable in the real, but also adds the
negative interpretation that in thd case of ideas
between which the mind can perceive no connection,
the existences corresponding to them must also be
unconnected. What misled him was the scholastic
doctrine that each substance has an essence peculiar
to itself, which constitutes it what it is, and is
inseparable from its existence, and that a sharp line
can be drawn between this essence and all else.
Though this teaching results in a conceptual atomism, >i
which is the direct opposite of the modern scientific
point of view, and of Descartes' own point of view
in his physics, according to which to know any
material thing we must relate it to other things
and ultimately to the whole universe, it W£is estab-

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 61

lished by an argument whose force, trifling as it now
appears, Descartes was unable to withstand. A
thing must either exist or not exist : there is no
third alternative. Further, it must exist altogether,
with the whole of its essence, or not at all. And
so, too, the scholastic mind argued, if it be clearly
and distinctly conceived, it must be conceived alto-
gether, through the whole of its essence, since what
we mean by essence is that without which a thing
can neither be nor be conceived. Svistance, essence,
and coneqption are all identical, and hence what is not V ^
essential to the conception of the thing is not essential
to its existen^ce} Applying his criterion, interpreted
in this negative way, Descartes argues, that since

^Cf. Itegis, Cours Entier: la M^taph, liv. i. pt. I. chap. ii.
axiom 4 : ^' that the essences of things are indivisible, and that
we can neither add to them nor diminish them without destroy-
ing them." Cf. Malebranche, Recherche, liv. iii. pt. ii. chap.
VIII. p. 422 : ** Philosophers sufficiently agree that we ought to
regard as the essence of a thing that which is recognised as
primary in it, that w)^ich is inseparable from it, and on which
depend all the properties that belong to it." Malebranche adds
in a note that " if we accept this definition of the word essence,
all the rest is absolutely demonstrated." Malebranche also
explicitly states on p. 424, as an indubitable truth, the further
principle, assumed both by himself and by Descartes, viz., that
everything must either be a substance or the modification of a
substance.

/«

/.,

•/

^ « < r r

62 > THE CARTESIAN BHILOSOPffY .

t/j»i»pure thought alone is inseparable from the mind,' it
\yj itself constitutes its whole essence; and similarly
that extension constitutes the whole essence of matter;
and that the two, mind and matter, are wholly in-
dependent of one another. Sensations and feelings
must have been introduced into mind, and motion
into matter, from the outside.^^ J^:^

One consequence of this identification of substance
and conception is that there can be no mean for
Descartes between complete knowledge and absolute
ignorance.^ The continual reference to God for explan-
ation of finite phenomena is no admission, as so many
of his commentators assume, of ignorance of the true
explanation, but is always based on the certain and
absolute knowledge that they are due neither tomi]

^A detailed account of Descartes' argument is given in
Appendix B at the end of this chapter, p. 117. Those readers
who are not acquainted with Descartes' theory of perception, or
with his account of the relation between sense and understand-
ing, are requested to read this appendix before proceeding, as a
knowledge of Descartes' views on these points is presupposed
in what follows.

2 Consistently that is, for it need hardly be pointed out how
inconsistent is his assertion of partial knowledge of God, since
he tells us that the iSea of God is the clearest and most distinct
we possess. Another difficulty for Descartes is how, if extension
is completely known, new knowledge can continuously be acquired
Nrf its ' modes.' Cf. below, p. 68, note 2,

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 63

mor to matter (these being known completely), and that
j therefore, so far as they have any reality, they must
I be wholly dependent on what is outside both. It is
.by such a process of excltman (a form of argument
jvery important in the Cartesian system), that the
phenomena are »ref erred to God as the only remaining /o/^
jreality . On this assumption of completed knowledge
also rests, we may repeat, Descartes' negative interpre-
tation of the criterion of truth. Since niind and body
are in thought completely transparent to us, each
being exhaustively known in conception, where no
necessary connection is visible between them, or
between either of them and what is conjoined with it in
experience, there can be none, and such conjunction as
is vouched for by experience must be regarded as
external and contingent. There can, therefore, be no
rationalising of Descartes* implicit occasionalism with-
out desertion of his whole metaphysical position. His
metaphysics is, we shall see, the demonstration of the
impossibility either of explaining one finite fact from
another, or of deducing the finite rationally from the
infinite.^ There is required in order that his system,

^ If it is to be rescued from such a suicidal adm^ion, mthout
desertion of the doctrine of substance (as that which has all its
reality and relations within itself), that can only be at the

64 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

P.xJi tu.,^U^>Jt which thus comes to be not only dualistic but also

r/i^^^J c^ atomistic, may march at all, even in an artificial gal-

' y\^^\ vanised manner, the conception of a third kind of

^ reality capable of bringing about such connection as

the finite substances, be they spiritual or material,

cannot by themselves achieve. That is the real

ground for Descartes' inevitable assumption of God's

existence, and in comparison his oflBcial arguments are

of secondary importance.

Having thus gained and guaranteed the criterion of
truth, Descartes applies it at once to the concrete
contents of mind, and the problem, under which I
shall bring all the other points I wish to raise in his
metaphysics, is the problem deferred from the last
chapter, as to what he determines the ultimate concep-
. , , "Ttions or innate ideas to be, under how many categories
^^^ /,, he brings them, and how on his view they are

. . , interrelated. In solving that problem, Descartes gives

rcur

expense of the dualism. Either the finite substances must be
made absolute or they must be taken up into the absolute. We
must either with Leibniz pulverise the real into atoms (each
of them conceived as a complete world in itself), or with Spinoza,
identify it with the one indivisible divine substance. The
Leibnizian position is (if we can make such comparisons) the
more natural to Descartes, and that to which he most tends, the
mystic synthetic religious pantheism of Spinoza being wholly
alien to his plastic analytic purely intellectual cast of mind.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES

his answer to the question as to the limits of know-
ledge. Since, as he has shown in his doctrine of
method, the only knowledge possible to the mind is
that which is deducible from the innate ideas, our
knowledge will reach just so far as they do and no
farther.

Taking first the conceptions involved in the com-
prehension of the material world, they can all be
brought under the categories of matter, extension,
figure, an d motion. Through these the whole nature
of the material half of the universe is, Descartes
holds, completely known. By regarding extension as
constituting the whole essence of matter,^ Descartes
destroyed the belief, almost universal in his day, that
a tenuous and subtle fluid (such as air, and also fire as
then conceived) approximates to the spiritual. When

a gross substance is subtilised into a rare fluid, it does
n ot, De scartes easily demonstrates, thereby become
any the les s materia l This identification of space with
matter has, however, found many opponents. Locke,
for instance, t akes the feeling of resistance as revealing
the objective quality of solidity. To that objection
Descartes replies that, since the feeling of resistance is
as variable as the sensations of colour and heat, and

^Cf, Appendix B at the end of this chapter, pp. 117 ff,

It V .

.T,

' f

f ) '^ -c

S" ('A e ^.

66 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

equally inconceivable save as in a mind that is capable
of feeling, it must be regarded as likewise subjecti ve.
Descartes further shows that by the solidity of a body
we can mean nothing more than that it is extended,
and so fills a certain space. Space cannot be filled
twice over, and hence matter as filling space is ipso
fou:to solid. Another criticism made is that (since no
part of space can go outside itself to visit a neighbour-
ing space) if matter is extension it cannot be moved.
That objection, however, rests on a false inte^re^tion
of Descartes' teaching. He does not say that matter
is space, but contrariwise that spatial extension is
the essence of matter. Matter alone has substantial
reality, space being ' by a distinction of reasonj^cgn-
ceived as its attribute. A particular space (definable
and conceivable only as a particular set of relations
holding between bodies at least relatively fixed) though
inseparable from body, is not inseparable_ from_ any
particular body. When water is poured from a vessel,
the space vacated by the water is immediately taken
by air, and hence the spatial relations holding between
the sides of the vessel persist. Matter may move,
though the space thus defined remains. Greulincx ^ gives
a very subtle, but quite suflBcient answer to the one

^Metaphynca Vera : ii. Quinta Scieutia.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 67

remaining difficulty : how, if space is body, we ca n yet,
as we continually do, speak of body as in space. ^
Obviously body cannot be in body, since all body
excludes body. When we thus speak of bodies being
in space, we mean, Geulincx replies, particular bodies.
Such particular things are material but not matter:
they are distinguished from matter by their motion,
and therefore are in matter like the motion that
constitutes them.^

But, while we grant that the above objections
can all be met, there is still one criticism that
must be made, namely, that Descartes uses the
conception of substance and attribute to define the
relation of space to matter, and yet nowhere
analyses this category. Just as his dogmatic use
of the similarly unanalysed conception of causality,

that principle 'evident by the natural light of

reason ,' to denote the relation (on his theory in-
conceivable) of soul and body, directly gave rise
to the destructive criticism of it by the
occasionalists and Hume, so too the difficulties
involved in this identification of extension with

^ Matter, it must be l)orne in mind, is regarded bj Descartes
as homogeneous and continuous, motion being the sole differen-
tiating factor. To mind all the secondary qualities are due.
Cf. below, note 2, p. 68.

A"^ V<^^

68 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

matter, as also of pure thought with mind, im-
pelled both Locke and Leibniz to the examination
of the conception thus employed,^

Figure is a modification of space, and is, there-
fore, correctly enough described as__a Tnode of spac e,
though of course that is a mere description and no
adequate account of their connection.^ Descartes,
however, also defines the relation of motion to
extension, and therefore to matter, by that same
term, and thereby commits one of his fundamental

^ While Spinoza and Leibniz both retain Descartes' definition
of substance, as that which contains all its relations within
itself, the former drew the conclusion that it is only applicable
to the Divine Being, and the latter (virtually regarding the
distinction between the finite individual and Grod as merely one
of degree) the similar conclusion that each finite substance must
contain within its content the notion of the whole universe.
Cf. Descartes' statements in the PrificipleSy i. 51 (iii. pp. 94-5) on
the impossibility of applying the term substance in the same
sense at once to God and to created beings.

^ If bare extension is the whole essence of matter, then figure
must be introduced from outside as well as motion, and as a
^ ^^ matter of fact is so physically ^ since the differences of figure in

matter result from motion, and depend on its continuance. And
conceptually it must be so likewise, though Descartes ignores
the difficulty by constantly speaking as if all figures were
directly deducible by pure thought from extension. Malebranche
as usual boldly faces the problem, and explains the appearance
of figures in intelligible space as due to differences arising in
sense (an exact parallel to the physical explanation of them as
arising from motion). Under the stimulus of sense we attach

*|fn]

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 69

errors. The great achievement of Ga lileo and-^ /*. y
Descartes in physical science consisted rn^a new
jheo ry of m otion. Whereas by the Greek A tomists
a nd by Aristotle mot ion was anthropomorphically
conceived, as, like human activity, coming into
being, exhausting itself in exercise against obstacles,
and ceasing to be — the fleeting activity of a matter
that is alone abiding ; with Galileo and Descartes it
asserts its full rights. It is, they show, in its
ingenerable, indestructible nature, as different from
human activity as matter is from mind. Galileo
did not, however, realise the full significance of his
discoveries; and it was left to Desc artes to state
the diflBculties. involved in any attempt to derive
motion from matter, or to connect it in any
necessary way with matter. Matter and motion,
as conceived by Descartes, are quite d istingt _m nature,

different sensations of colour to the homogeneous unfigured
space, and so there arise for us different figures in it. Male-
branche's explanation applies, however, only to the perception of
figure. If colour be removed figure disappears too, and only
bare extension remains. The pure conception of figure is still
left unaccounted for. Descartes' whole treatment of figure and
its relation to space, whether in his method or in his meta-
physics, is very unsatisfactory, and that by no accident, since
'modes' of any kind are the crux of his philosophy. For
Spinoza's attitude towards this problem cf. below, chapter iv.
pp. 153 ff.

70 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

and in origin ;^ and equally svhsiantial, since thej are
equally ingenerable out of nothing, and equally in-
destructible. Indeed, Descartes so far anticipated
modem science as completely to reverse the r61es
hitherto played by matter and motion. In Greek
i V A /. science the differences between natural phenomena

/ i are ascribed to differences in matter, either to differ-

« - -

ences between atoms or to differences between
elements: in Descartes* philosophy of nature,^ in
modem science, they are ascribed to differences of
motion. Matter becomes the mere vehicle of motion,
and motion the all-important reality.

Strictly, therefore, Descartes' analysis of the real
•^ 7-, lands him not in a dualism, but in a trinity, and
.^ in a trinity one of whose elements mediates between
the other two. Motion, like matter, is unconscious,
but also, like mind, is unextended, immaterial, ^d
active.^ The fictitious dualism conceals a purely
relative trinity of the three substantial realities,

matter, motion, and mind.

^ Of, Appendix B at the end of this chapter, p. 121.

^ At least as active as he shows mind to be.

^ There still remains, of course, a dualism, with matter and
motion on the one side and mind on the other, but once motion
is admitted to be equally real with matter the dualism cannot be
formulated in the absolute manner of Descartes.

THE METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 71

That, however, is only the position which Descartes
takes up in his physics. In his metap hysical
exposition of his physical views he inconsistently
s peaks of motio n as a mere mode or form of ^.^/^
matter, his sole argument for so regarding it, as
dependency of matter, being that while extension,
which constitutes t he essence of matter, is conceiv-

°:^>

able apart from motion, motion cannot be conceived
apart from it . That argument, even granting it to
be a legitimate one,^ is disposed of by Kant when
he shows that we can only conceive a line by
drawing it in thought, a process which involves
motion.^ The reason of this misrepresentation of
his physical theory is to be found in his scholastic
cally interpreted criterion of truth. The ideal of
knowledge, which that criterion so interpreted in-
volves, is wholly inconsistent with explanation by
efficient mechanical causes. Rational connection and
physical causation form two distinct kinds of know-

^ -*^ "^ 1 ■ — Till I -IMII II ^^lll■■l■l I - - rp>v« wm ^ mm^i^mmm » — - «»aq» •rk<.»^««aw*

ledge: the one yields necessary truth that justifies
itself by its inevitableness for thought, the other
(so Hume urges and Kant agrees), contingent for

*The same argument would prove motion to be a mode of
time.

^The conceptions of time, space, and motion, Kant proves,
mutually involve one another.

72 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

^thought, can only be empirically ascertained.^ As
Descartes' rationalistic ideal is constructed solely in
the light of the first kind of knowledge, he has, in
i order to maintain its universality, to explain the
other away. That is what in his metaphysics he
[has come, at least partially, to recognise.^

First, he admits that thought can never establish
necessity of existence* Since never in the concep-
tion of any finite thing is existence involved, we
are forced in accordance with the criterion of truth
to regard its existence as contingent, that is to say,
as unaccountable by reason, and therefore, in
Descartes' way of stating it, as due to the arbitrary
will of God. But, further, not only is each finite
thing contingent in its origin, so also is its continued
existence, that also being inexplicable from its
essence. Since each mo^nent of time is distinct
from every other,* the persistence of an existence

^ Whatever ultimately be the connectiou between the principle
of sufficient reason and the law of causality, cause and reason
certainly cannot be straight away identified ; and yet that is
what Descartes by his principles is forced to do.

^As we shall see in the next chapter, this consequence is
recognised by Leibniz and Spinoza, both of whom identify
causation with explanation. The same identification is at the
root of the occasionalist denial of transient action.

^ It may at first sight seem strange that Descartes, who so

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 73

from one moment on to another demands an ex-
planation as much as its first origin, and yet again
none can be given, save only the will of God.
Persistence in existence, says Descartes, is in all
essentials perpetual and unceasing recreation.^ i*'' ^*^^ \\ ^-^

And if existence is thus in all its forms inex- C /

* -_— > — /

plicable, how much more so is causation ! Since "^ < « ' <r .
persistence in existence is traced to God, so con-
sistently must everything else. If finite bodies have
so little hold on reality that they require at each
moment to be recreated, they cannot be capable of
causing phanges in one another : not having sufficient

emphasises the continuity of space, should yet regard time as
discrete, but the truth is that his atomistic rationalism is wholly
inconsistent with the continuity of either space or time. (Cf.
below, chap. iv. p. 170.) The view of time which Descartes is
thus forced to advocate is also bound up with his scholastic
theology ; and, as it casts some light upon his metaphysics, we
have considered it more at length in Appendix C at the
end of this chapter, p. 128.

^Principles, i. 21 (in. p. 77), Veitch's trans, p. 202: "The
truth of this demonstration [that the duration alone of our life
is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God] will clearly
appear, provided we consider the nature of time, or the duration
of things ; for this is of such a kind that its parts are not
mutually dependent, and never co-existent ; and, accordingly,
from the fact that we now are, it does not necessarily follow
that we shall be a moment afterwards, unless some cause — viz.,
that which first produced us — shall, as it were, continually re-
produce us, that is, conserve us.''

74 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

reality to persist, they cannot have sufl&cient force to
act.^ The most ex treme occ asionalism is , therefore,
t he o utcome of Descartes' metaphysjcs. The con-
Ntinuity of existence, and therefore the continuity of
time and of causal connection in time, is broken up by
his atomistic doctrine of essence into a series of
detached events upheld in their existence and connec-
ticHi by God. God must, in his continuous recreation
of things, be regarded a& continuously modifying them
in accordance with a plan, the fixed though arbitrary ^
modes, in which He acts in the realisation of this plan,
being what we mean by the laws of nature,

1 Cf. below, Appendix (7, pp, 129-31. Even though bodies could
act on one another, as they do not persist, they cannot bear the
eflfects of other things, save as these are recognised by Grod in
their recreation.

^ Though Descartes recognises that the laws of motion, which
are the sole ultimate laws of nature, are not, like the truths of
mathematics, demonstrable as being rationally necessary, he
still pretends to give a * deduction ' of them. They are, he says,
necessary consequences of the unchangeableness of Grod^s will.
Malebranche, at first, in a similar way, regarded them as con-
sequences of the law of economy (the use of the simplest
means to a fixed end) which God as divinely wise obeys in
all His works ; but later, under the influence of Leibniz, he
admitted that even such justification of them is impossible, and
that it is only "by a species of revelation such as experience
supplies" that they can be determined. Cf. Malebranche's
Traits des Loix de la Communication des Mouvemens (published
1692).

THE METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 75

A more detailed examination of Descartes' treat-
ment of motion will serve to confirm the above state-
ments. Descartes really interprets motion in two
ways, geometrically and dynamically, the resulting
views being quite inconsistent with one another.
From the geometrical point of view (which is • em-
phjusised in his metaphysics) motion is mere trans-
ference from one place to another. So regarded it is
a TTwde of extension, and is even better known than
figure, as is proved by its use in geometry to account
for differences of figure. A further consequence is
that, being a inode of the particular body moved,
it cannot any more than the other modes of that
body be regarded either as transferable or as inde-
structible. Like figure, when it ceases to be in
one particular body, it must cease altogether.

Descartes could not, however, consistently hold
to that geometrical view of motion, as a mode
of matter, since it would have forced him to
adopt one of two disagreeable alternatives. Either,
first, motion being as untransferable as figure, he
would have had to ascribe to each particular body
the power of creating new motion in other bodies
on impact. Or, secondly, he would have been
forced to admit that body is incapable of acting

^ ^.

76 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

on body, and that therefore God is the sole
Mover.

To escape these alternatives, while still speaking
of motion as a mode^ he inconsistently continues
to conceive it as a separate entity, distinct both
vf 'vv<v7 Vfrom God who has created it, and from the matter
in which it may exist in varying quantities. It
is to all intents and purposes conceived as existing
in matter like a salt dissolved in water.^ Also,
being known only through its mysteriously generated
effect (motion in the geometrical sense, as change of
place), it must be regarded as an unknown and in-
comprehensible substance, divisible like matter, but
incorporeal like mind. It therefore overthrows not
only Descartes' dualism, but also his claim to com-
pleted comprehension of material phenomena. " Do
our senses teach us,** De la Forge asks, "how motion
can pass from one body to another ? Why there is
transferred only a part of it, and why a body cannot
communicate its motion in the same manner as a
teacher communicates his knowledge, without losing
any of that which he gives ? The cause of the motion

^ A metaphor actually i^ed by Bohault according to Leibuiz,
though we have been unable to identify the reference. Cf.
Leibniz, Nouveaux EssaU^ liv. ii. chap, xxiii. (Gerhardt, v.
p. 208).

THE METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 77

of bodies is not then so simple a matter as one might
think."!

It is worthy of note that, when pressed upon this
point by More,^ Descartes has to admit the incon-
sistency of his views, and that the alternative which
he chooses is occasionalism. More is very definite
and clear in his criticisms. He insists in his letter
to Descartes on the distinction between motion and
the force causing motion, and adds that if motion be
identified with change of place, and so be regarded
as a mode, it cannot any more than figure pass from
one body to another. " And finally, I am filled with
amazement, when I consider that so slight and mean
a thing as motion, which can be separated from its
subject and pass into another body, and which besides
is of so feeble and transitory a nature that it would
at once perish if it were not sustained by its subject,
should yet affect it so powerfully, and drive it with

1 TraiUde V Esprit de V Homme (pub. 1666X chap. xvi. pp. 242-3.
It has been asserted (cf. Stein, Arcfdv fii/r Oeschickte der Fhilo-
sophte^ I. p. 53) that this treatise was published in 1661, but as
1666 is the date on the title-page, and as De la Forge in one of his
notes (i, I, b) to the 1664 edition of Descartes' VHonvim himself
speaks of his treatise a» about to appear^ we retain the later
date.

^ Henry More (1614-1687) was one of the Cambridge
Platonists.

78 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

such force hither and thither."^ Descartes' reply to

the first point is, so far as it has any definiteness,

an acceptance of the extreme occasionalist position.

vHe admits the distinction between motion as mere

^/>t \'.' tfy — '

/ /. transference and motion in the sense of moving
, , / >i%t?i^, u}^^^^' While the first is a mere mode of matter,
<-^^JL ^ the second comes from God who continuously pre-
serves the same amount of transference (translatio) in
matter, as He has set into it at the first moment
of Creation. Descartes further states that the
reason why he has not emphasised this distinction
in his writings is that it is rather beyond the reach
of the vulgar, and might seem to favour the opinion
of those who believe God to be the soul of the world
and to be united to matter.

In replying to More's second objection, Descartes
makes his occasionalism still more explicit ''You
rightly observe that motion, so far as it is a mode

^ Lett X. p. 255. More is inclined to believe that there is
no commanication of motion, and that the impact of one body
on another is only the occasion whereapon the other is de-
termined to move, just as the mind has this or that thought
on the occasion of this or that motion in the brain. '' Motion
is in relation to body that which thought is in relation to
mind : neither the one nor the other is received into the subject,
but both have their birth from the subject in which they are
found."

■

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 79

of body, cannot pass from one body to another.
But neither have I asserted that. Eather I believe
that motion, so far as it is such a mode, is
in a state of continuous change. . . . WTien
I have said thai the amount of motion in Tnaiter
remains constanty I have understood that of the force
impelling its parts, which force now applies itself to
some parts of body, and tww to others. You need not
therefore worry yourself over the transference of rest
from one body to another, since not even motion, so
far as it is a mode opposed to rest, can be so
transferred."^

Descartes, however, had no liking for the occasionJt'
alism in which he is thus entrapped by his rationalism.
Not only does he still continue in his published
works to speak as if bodies transmitted motion by
impact, but also to assert that mind and body inter-
act in sense-perception and in volition.^

^Lett X. pp. 294-6. '

'Descartes was led to believe that soul and body interact
through one particular part of the brain^ namely the pineal
gland, first by the fact that it seemed to be the one organ
in the brain which is not double, and which, therefore, is
capable of combining the impressions made on the different
parts of the brain, and especially the twofold impressions from
the double organs of sight and hearing ; and secondly, by
the fact that having a central position in the brain, it is fitted

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

■r

u.'ii ^i f i(

First, as to sense-perception. He had been able
in his physics to reduce external objects to extension,
figure, and motion, only by separating off from the
objects all their other qualities and ascribing these
to the mind. But later, when he had demonstrated
that the whole essence of the self consists in pure
thought, and that sense and imagination are quite
distinct from pure thought,^ the problem arose how
these sensations can exist in mind any more than in
matter. To solve the difficulty he modifies his
dualism. Just as external objects acquire the
secondary qualities only through being brought into
relation to the mind, so too, he holds, sensations and
images can only arise in the mind WrbugE its union
with a material body. Corresponding to our pure
(conceptions there are, he dogmatically asserts, no brain
processes. Conception is a purely spiritual process,
and wholly independent of the body. Sense and
imagination, on the other hand, are conditioned by

to control the movements of those ' animal spirits/ which in his
theory correspond to the nervous currents of modern physiology^
The animal spirits move the pineal gland, and thereby rouse
in the mind sensations and feelings. Similarly the mind, by
setting the pineal gland in motion, affects a change in the course
of the animal spirits, and so brings about movement in the
members of the body.
*See Appendix B at the end of this chapter, pp. 126-7.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 81

brain-processes, and without them are not possible.^ ^ ,i

This attempt, however, to explain the rise of sensa-*^ t' ^^ ri^i^'\

tions and images by the action of body on miner C^^^" i > , ,

wholly fails, since even in sense and imagination

mind and body must be regarded as perfectly

distinct. The states of the brain are but modes of

matter and motion, and hence entirely different from

the sensations and images which correspond to them

in the mind. There can be no metamorphosis of

the brain state into the mental state. Dead unfeeling

matter cannot hand over to the mind sensations ready

made. Noth ing, Descartes says in one_of his letters, c^^a*^''*, '

can come into the mind from outside through the '^'^' '

senses, whence it follows that " the ideas of pain, of ^ ,

colours, sounds, and a ll such things niust be natural

to the mind," that is, innate in it.^ The action of

the body on the mind in perception can at most be

bjit the occasion or stimulus which determines the

mind to produce the sensation out of itself at this

^ See Descartes' curious statements, by no means reconcilable
with the rest of his teaching, as to the nature of imagination,
which are qaoted below in Appendix By note 2 to p. 126.

^LetU X. p. 96. Cf. VHommey iv. p. 361. Thus Descartes isi

in the end forced to give up the distinction, which he draws? z'

in the third Meditation^ between innate and adventitious'

ideas.

82 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

particular moment rather than at any other. Now
that is the very admission which Descartes sought to
avoid. He violates his dualism so far as to admit
that body can act on mind, but with no good result,
since the same problem still remains, how sensations
can arise in a mind whose whole essence consists in
pure thought. Sensations he can explain as due
neither to mind in itself, nor to body in itself, nor
to the two in union.

Secondly, with regard to the action of mind on
body in volition, Descartes kept consistently to his
dualism so far as to admit that the mind cannot
originate motion in the brain. That would be a
veritable creation of motion out of nothing by a mere
fiat of the will. It would also be in direct conflict
with Descartes' physical principle that only motion
can produce motion, and that the sum of motion in
nature is constant, and cannot be added to. Yet
incomprehensible as is the action of mind on body,
that does not prevent Descartes from most emphatic-
ally asserting that it takes place. "That the mind ,
-which is incorporeal, is capable of moving the body,
neither general reasoning, nor comparisons drawn
from other things, can teach us, yet none the less
we cannot doubt it, since so certain and so evident

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 83

experiences make it manifest to us every day of
our lives." ^ ^

Among the facts that thus make 'manifest' the
incomprehensible, the most important are the feelings
and passions. Had we only intellectual faculties, we
should perceive any bodily injury in a purely intel-
lectual way, as a captain perceives any damage to his

^Lett, X. p. 161, cf. also Lett, ix pp. 132-4.

*Some of Descartes' successors, however, Clauberg for
instance (cf. Corporis et ArumcLe Conjtmctio, cap xvi.), did
attempt by an analogy drawn from the material world to
explain the action of mind on body. The driver of a wagon
does not move the wagon, but only directs the motion of the
horses that pull it. So, too, the mind needs not to cause motion
in the brain, but only to direct the 'animal spirits' that
already exist in the brain and are continually circling about in
it. This analogy, however, as has often been pointed out, is
quite misleading, since to be applicable at all to the relation
between mind and body, the driver of the wagon would have to
guide the movements of the horses by his mere wish. That the
mind should divert a motion of the brain in a new direction is
not a whit less mysterious nor less at variance with Descartes'
physical teaching than that it should originate an entirely new
motion. Leibniz {Essais de Theodicee, sec. 60, Gerhard t, vi. pp.
135-6), and also many modern commentators, assert that
Descartes himself tried to escape the difficulty in this way.
But though Descartes frequently spea ks of the motion of thcj-
* animal spirits ' as being merely directed (not originated) by
the movements of the pineal gland, he never, so far as we are
aware, suggests that those movements of the pineal gland, which
are involved in voluntary action, can be explained in a similar
manner as previously existing and merely guided by the mind,

V-'Mi^^J

84 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

l^hip. It is the facts of pleasure and pain, and the
emotions, that show the relation between mind and
body to be closer and quite other than this.
"Nature teaches me by these sensations of pain,
hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my
body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so
intimately conjoined, and, as it were, intermixed with
it, that my mind and body compos e a certain un ity.
For if this were not the case I should not feel pain
when my body is hurt, seeing I am merely a thinking
thing, but should perceive the wound by the under-
standing alone, just as a pilot perceives by sight that
part of his vessel is damaged."^ The fee lings an d
passions are thus the real ground of the knowledge
we have of our dual nature, and to explain them m ind
and body must be admitted to be, as Descartes says,
'fused.* They reveal, therefore, the inadequacy of
his dualism, for if he fails to account for the inter-
action of soul and body in sense-perception and in
volition, much more must he fail to explain what he
regards as their still closer union in feeling and
emotion. 2

1 Medit. VI. (i. p. 336), Veitch's trans, p. 160.

^ Descartes' treatise on the emotions is a good example of how
little the delects in his metaphysics interfere with the excellence

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 85

Though Desc artes thus inconsistently and vainly
attempts to escape occasionalism, the inevitable c on-
sequences of hia rationalism are one and all em-
ph^ised by his successor, Malebra nche. We find
nothing, Malebranche insists,^ in the conception of
any finite thing which gives us the right to think
that it can act on, and produce effects in, other
things. This assumed power is a fiction, and there-
fo re every ph ilos opher has been able to conceive it
as he pleased, some by substantial forms, some by
special powers or faculties, others by figure and
motion; all of them alike, however, taking it as a
fact proved by sense-experience that when one ball

of his scientific treatment of particular problems, for the treatise
is remarkable alike in its psychological analysis of the emotions,
and in the treatment of their physiological conditions.

^ Cf. Eclaircissement sur chap. Hi, pt. ii. liv. vi. de la Recherche :
*' There are many reasons which prevent me from attributing to
secondary or ruitural causes, a force, a power, an efficacy to
produce any effect whatsoever. But the chief reason is that
this opinion does not seem to me even conceivable. However I
may strive to comprehend it, I fail to find in me any idea that
can represent the force or power that is attributed to created
things." Indeed, that is a most obvious consequence of Descartes'
position. If we cannot find in the conception of a material
body anything which can justify us in ascribing to it the powei
of maintaining itself in existence, a fortiori we cannot hope t(
find in it anything that would represent the power to modifj
the existence of other bodies.

86 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

strikes another it sets it in motion. But this pre-
te nded demonstration fai t piM, Malebranche declares/
since it reveals the feebleness of the human mind,
that even philosophers do not know that it is reason
that must be consulted, and not those senses whose
function consists only in revealing what is needful
for the preservation of life. " When I see one ball
strike another, my eyes tell me, or seem to tell me,
that it is the true cause of the motion that it im-
presses on it; but that is only because the true
cause of motion in bodies does not appear to my
eyes. When I interrogate my reason I see clearly
that as boSies are not able to move themseTvesTand
as their motive force is solely the will of God, who
preserves them successively in different places,^ they
cannot communicate a power that they do not possess,
and that they could not communicate it even if they
had it at their disposal. For the mind will never
conceive how a body purely passive can transmit to
another the power that transports it, whatever that
^ower may be." Though God has established as the
first law of motion, that bodies once in motion continue

^ Loc. cit, Cf. also M^ditatiom Ckr^tiennes, vi. p. 67.

' Cf . Meditations Chr^tiennes, v. p. 54 : " Qui lea cr6e ou qui les
conserve successivement en diff^rents lieux."

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 87

to move in a straight line, that does not mean that
bodies of themselves persist in motion. Bodies have
710 more inherent power of continuing in motion than
of continuing in existence. It means only that God
m^aintains and ' moves ' each body by creating it anew
sfuxxessively in different places, Malebranche, that is
to say, denies the reality of motion altogether, save
as miraculously determined change. God is not
only the first, but also the sole Mover. "When I
consu lt reason I recognise clearly that my senses
misle ad me, and that it is God qui fait tout en toiUes
choses." ^ And since even within the material worliT
all change is due to God, it does not require special
proof that the interaction of mind and matter is
also inconceivable, and that feelings, sensations, and
ideas, have the same miraculous origin.^

1 Loc. cit Of. Entretiens, vii. pp. 159-60, 162.

^Begis similarly distinguishes between the geometrical and
the dynamical aspects of motion {Cours Entier : Physique^ liv. i.
pt. II. chap. iv). Like De la Forge and Malebranche, he con-
cludes that God is the sole cause of motion on impact. " When
the body A moves the body By it is not by producing in it a new
force, but by determining God, who moved the body -4, to
commence to move the body 5" — Ibid. chap. vi. As regards
the interaction of soul and body, De la Forge still holds that the
human will is the direct and efficient cause of voluntary move-
ments. Since Eegis and Clauberg in a similar manner ascribe
to the mind a directive power, Cordemoy and Geulincx must

88 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Thus only, then, can Descartes, wten consistent,

make the transition from his geometry to his physics.

yerything that is in nature over and ab ove its m ere

be regarded as the first consistent and thorough occasionalists.
(Cf. the article by Stein — Zwr Genesis dea Occasioncdigmns — ^in the
Archivfiir Geschickte der PhdasopkU^ i. p. 63.) As we have not
been able to procure a sight of Cordemoy's first and chief work
— Dissertations Philosophiques sur le Dtscemenient du Corps et de
VAme (pub. 1666)—- we give a sentence from it that is quoted by
Bouillier {Histoire de la PhUosopJde Cartesienne (3rd edition),
chap. XXIV. pp. 516-6): "To consider the matter exactly, it
seems to me that we should not find the action of mind on body
more inconceivable than that of body on mind; for we
recognise that if our souls cannot move our bodies, bodies are
just as incapable of moving other bodies; and as we should
recognise that the meeting of two bodies is an occasion upon
which the power that moved the first moves the second, we
should have no difficulty in conceiving that our will is an
occasion upon which the power that already moves a body
directs its motion in a certain direction corresponding to our
thought." Stein states evidence, in the article above quoted, to
show that though Cordemoy's Dissertations were published in
1666, that is to say, a year later than the first part of the Ethica
of Geulincx, Cordemoy had already developed his views as early
as 1658: It was, however, by Geulincx that Occasionalism was
first elaborated into a system. From his fundamental principle,
that a cause can only produce that which it knows how to
produce — impossibile est ut is faciat qui nescit quomodo fiat —
it at once follows that spirit is the only conceivable agent, and
that as the human soul, though conscious, is ignorant how bodily
movements are brought about, it cannot be the cause even of
its voluntary actions. Cf . Metaphysica Vera^ i. Quinta Scientia
(Land's ed. ii. p. 150). The first volume of Malebranche*8
Recherche was published in 1674, and the second in 1675.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 89

extendedness, all individuality and all change^ have to, /r/i^^ 4,^ v
be traced to, and find their sole ground in, the -i? . -/ r-
miraculous intervention of God. Nature is not ex-/^^"^^^'^-^* ' '

.^1.

plained, but explained away. The conceptual theory ^'^ 'Yp^
of mathematical knowledge may conceal its defects so ^ ^^^ ^
long as it is tested only by those facts in the light of
which it has been formulated, but immediately we
come with it to the treatment of the sensible there is
a complete breakdown.

Turning now to the conceptions involved in our ^^^ y
apprehension of the mental, let us see whether

^'^

Descartes here applies his rationalistic ideal with any t ^ ry,^ ^
better success. These conceptions are mind, which ho'
identifies with consciousness or thought, imagination, .
a nd sense. Since imag ination"and sense are as com-^
pletely distinct in nature and origin from thought,^
as motion is from matter, Descartes again resorts to
the vague term * mode ' to describe their relation to
their common attribute. The term 'mode' he also
uses to define the relation to thought of particular
conceptionSy and the special difi&culties resulting there-
from we shall note immediately.

Already in the BegtUae, as still more emphatically
later in the Meditations, Descartes takes intelligence

^ See Appendix B at the end of this chapter, pp. 124 ff.

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

• V

Jixf

< i

as that which is alone ultimate in our knowledge.
"We can know nothing/' he says in the Begulae,^
" until we know intelligence, for the knowledge of all
things depends on it, and not it on this knowledge/^
Or, as he expresses it in the Meditations, all forms of

1 "perception, imagination, and conception, that is, all
forms of knowledge are forms of consciousness or
thinking, and hence consciousness is known in know-
ing anything. And he adds in the Meditations, that
mind is therefore better known than matter.

Now thought or consciousness is used in two senses
by Descartes. Sometimes it is used as a gen eral nam e
for all states of consciousness. All the contents of
consciousness, as ideas or states of the self, are known
directly face to face, and are necessarily such as they
appear to the mind to be. And on this view the un-
conditioned nature of consciousness is shared in by
all its ultimate and irreducible contents. These
contents, indeed, are regarded as being identical with
it, and the necessary expression of its nature. " All
the sciences united are nothing but the human
understanding" — the rest of the sentence, however,
indicates the want of clearness in Descartes' view
of consciousness — " All the sciences united are

^ Eeg. VIII. (xi. p. '243).

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 91

nothing but the human understanding, whose light
remains one and the same whatever be the objects to
which it applies itself."^ Consciousness is here dis- ..
fcinguished from its contents. They are its objects, £;
a nd it is but the light by which thej are revealed to
the mind.^ It is in this way, as an ultimate
unanalysable simple force or light, that Descartes
conceives consciousness, when he takes it as
one member of his dualism and defines it in
opposition to extension. When regarded as expressing
itself in and through its innate ideas, and therefore
partially in and through the conceptions of matter and
motion, it obviously cannot be so defined in opposition
to them. And to have attempted to define it in
abstraction from all its contents, when indeed it is the
merest abstraction, is another of the fundamental
errors of the Cartesian philosophy.^

^ Reg. I. (xi. p. 202). The latter part of the sentence is con-
densed in order to bring out more clearly its essential meaning.
The complete translation is given in the chapter on Descartes'
Method, p. 22.

2 Of. Norris : Theory of the Ideal World, ii. pp. 113-4.

3 While Descartes thus in his metaphysics takes consciousness. /
as a simple unanalysable light, Kant regards the unity of con- *
sciousness as, of all things in the universe, the most complex,
since it involves irreducibly in its unity the distinction of
subject and object, the object again involving the element of

92 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

If now we first follow Malebranche in his criticism
of Descartes, and see how space (even ' intelligible '
space) with all its contents is the object of mind and
not a modification or state of it, is not a self but a
not-self, and so clear up the ambiguities involved in
Descartes' use of the term 'mode' to denote the
relation of the objects of mind to itself,^ we shall then
be able to bring to a clear issue the question whether
or not Descartes is justified in assertii^ that mind is
better known than matter.

Malebranche has no difiScultj in showing that
Descartes, on his own principles, cannot assert that
the mind knows extension by perceiving it in itself,
as a state or modification of itself. We can conceive
extension alone without thinking of any other thing,
and we can never conceive modes without conceiving
the subject of which they are the modes. And not

space, and implying the categories of substance and causality.
By means of this analysis of Descartes' ultimate, Elant provides
a sure basis for the rationalism which Descartes fails to found,
and solves many problems which for Descartes and his
successors had been insoluble. The CSartesian views of conscious-
ness are treated more at length in Appendix D at the end of
this chapter, p. 133.

^We must see how ideas cannot any more than motion be
regarded as modes, and that just as figure is the only possible
modification of extension, so feeling is the only known modifi-
cation of mind.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 93

only do we thus conceive extension without thinking
of mind, we cannot even conceive how it could be a
modification of mind. We can conceive space as
limited, and so as having figure, and that mind cannot
have. We must also conceive it as divisible into
parts, and we see nothing in mind that is so divisible.
And lastly, while space is infinite, the self is finita
For all these reasons, space cannot be seen in mind>
and, therefore, cannot be a modification of it.^ The
mind cannot contain extension without itself becoming
extended, and, what is more, infinite in extent.^

Also, we have only to appeal to our experience to
assure ourselves that when we apprehend extension,
we apprehend something distinct from the self. When
we perceive the sun for instance, though we cannot see
the actual material sun, since it is not in itself know-
able, that which we do see, and with which the mind

^Malebranche adds also the further argument, that we can
think on a circle or triangle in general, though it is a contra-
diction that the soul, which is a particular thing, should have a
modification in general.

* Cf. Meditations Chr^tienneSf i. p. 13 : " Do you think you
have sufficient scope to contain in yourself even that which you
can conceive in what is called an atom ; for you conceive clearly
that the smallest part of matter that you imagine, being in-
finitely divisible, potentially includes an infinity of different
figures and relations.'' The study of Augustine brought this
difficulty home to Malebranche,

94 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

is immediately united, we perceive clearly to be
something distinct from us ; and therefore we fly in
the face of all the evidence {^'eontre notre lumidre et
contre notre conscience") when we say that the mind
sees in its own modifications all the objects that
it perceives.^

Separating, then, from the mind all ideas in which
space is involved as being the objects of mind and
non-mental, what is left on the mental side ? Male-
branche answers, and we must agree with him, nothing
but feelings. " Pleasure, pain, taste, heat, colour, all
our sensations, and all our passions, are modifications
of the mind " ^ They are not involved in the concep-
tion of matter, and as it would be impiety to ascribe
them to God, arguing by exclusion, we must refer them
to the mind. And in spite of the differences between
sensations and emotions, they must (since we in no

^ Eclairdssement sur chap. viii. pu it. liv. in. de la Recherche. It
will be noted that the above criticism presupposes that concep-
tions are objects of mind, and it is in that way that Descartes
also views them (cf. in this chapter, pp. 108-9), saving on the few
occasions when he interprets consciousness in the first and non-
dualistic manner. Either, then, his dualistic view of conscious-
ness as the opposite of extension must be given up, which would
involve the complete transformation of his system ; or this
criticism of Malebranche must be granted as unanswerable.
Cf. below, Appendix 2), p. 133,

2 JjOC, cit,

THE . METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 95

case know them) be all alike called feelings. Can we
compare heat with taste, odour with colour, or even
one colour with another?^ With these modes of
mind it is not as with figures, that being known in
conception can be compared one with another and
their relations clearly recognised. Between those
intelligible figures, which are clear and distinct ideas,
and these modes of mind, which are only confused
feelings, there is no community. And that being so,
why, Malebranche asks, pretend that those intelligible
figures can only be known if they are modes of mind,
when the mind knows none of what alone undoubtedly
are its modes by clear conception, but only by inner
sense ? ^ Instead of the sensations and feelings being
related to mind, as Descartes would fain make out, as
motion is to matter, and pure conceptions being its
proper modes, it is just the reverse.

If Descartes is to separate, as in his metaphysics he
continually does, ideas (taking ideas in the strict sense
as distinguished from feelings) from the mind, and to
define the consciousness, whereby they are supposed to
be revealed to mind, as the opposite of that element of
extension, which is the fundamental and only real

^ Cf. R^ponse d Amauld, chap. viii.

2 " Par conscience oii par sentiment interieur," loc, cit

96 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

element in all of them,^ then of course the above
criticism of Malebranche is unanswerable.^ Conscious-
ness cannot contain its opposite as a state of itself, nor
indeed know it at all, unless God be again regarded as
miraculously intervening, and presenting to mind what
could never otherwise be known by it.^

^ Malebrauche's proof that, on Cartesian principles, strictly
interpreted, we can have no * ideas ' of the spiritual, will be given
immediately.

^ The same criticism was made by Gassendi in his excellent
Objections to Descartes' Meditations^ and Descartes in his reply
caref ally avoids the main issue.

' Malebranche's own solution, that we know space by partici-
pation in God's knowledge of it, explains nothing, for the same
diflSculty recurs with the same force in the case of God. How
can space exist in the mind of God without God becoming
thereby material ? That difficulty, which he could not solve, he
escapes by asserting the unknowableness of Grod. " God includes
in Himself the perfections of matter without being material
. . . He possesses also the perfections of created spirits, without
being spirit, in the manner we conceive spirit : his true name is,
He that is, that is to ^ say, Being without restriction. All Being,
Being infinite and universal." Recherche, liv. iii. pt. ii. chap, ix.,
at the end. Cf. Entretiens, viii. p. 185. The futility of Regis'
reply to Malebranche, iu defence of their common master, is an
interesting demonstration of the unanswerableness of Male-
branche's criticisms. Begis admits that the mind cannot know
space of itself and by its own natural powers, since not being
extended, extension does not belong to its essence. But after
proving that no known faculty will account for the appearance
of extension in mind, he concludes by exclusion that it must
belong to the essence of sovl as distinguished from mind, and

THE METAPHYSICS OP DESCARTES 97

Now, as a consequence of this removal of the
objective content of knowledge to the not-self, it
follows that so far is Descartes' contention that the
mind is better known than matter from being true,
that it must now be admitted that it is not known
at all, but only felt> When Descartes asserts that

that therefore the soul knows it by itself, and by its own proper
nature. {Cours Bntier de Philosophte: la Metaph. liv. ii. pt.
I. chap. III.) Soul (Vdme) he distinguishes from mind {Vesprit)
as being the mind temporarily modified by its union with the
body. Experience tenches us, he says, that it is one of the laws
established by the Author of Nature, that the mind {V esprit)^ so
long as it is united to the body, have the idea of extension
{Ibid, liv. I. pt. II. chap. vi.). It is in accordance with this
condition that the soul {Vdme) thinks always on some body.
But how it is possible for the mind thus to be modified Eegis
makes no attempt to explain. The empirical fact, spite of its
inexplicability, is ultimately his sole reply to Malebranche's
and GassendPs criticism. The problem of how the unextended
mind can know extension remains as insoluble for Descartes and
Malebranche as for Augustine. Of. N orris : Theory of the Ideal
World, I. pp. 296-7. Arnauld (cf . Appendix A, p. 115) asserts
that it is as ridiculous to ask how the mind, whose essence con-
sists in the power of perception, can perceive objects, as to
demand how matter can be divisible or have figure {Des Vraiea
et des Fausses Id4es, chap. ii.). He forgets that consciousness
has been defined as the opposite of extension, while extension
has not been defined as the opposite of divisibility or of figure.
Also, while our knowledge of extension is clear and distinct, we
have, as Malebranche and Hume both show, no distinct know-
ledge of mind ; and still less, if that be possible, of any
* faculty ' or * power ' of mind.
' Even the fact of the self s existence is, Malebranche holds, not

98 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

we know it completely, and even better (the
over - emphasis is significant) than extension, he
is viewing consciousness in .the dualistic manner as
a simple unanalysable light, and therefore as better
known in its simplicity than is the extension
that requires a science of geometry to unfold its in-
exhaustible multiplicity.^ As all forms of knowledge
are forms of it, must it not, Descartes asks, be known
in knowing anything ? This, however, according to
Malebranche, does not follow: that by which all
things are known need not be itself known.^ As

kDown, but only felt. Though universal axioms are recognised
through the intuition of particular quantities, the same can
hardly be said of the universal truth, that all consciousness in-
volves existence, for the assurance, which the self has of being
conscious at a particular moment, is not an ' intuition ' in the
seuse of being the apprehension of necessary relation between
particular given quantities, but only the immediate assurance
in feeling of a contingent fact. This is likewise emphasised by
Leibniz. Cf. N<mveaux Essais^ liv. iv. chap. ii. sec. 1, also chap.
VII. sec. 7 (Gerhardt, v. pp. 347-8 and 391-2). And to such
criticism Descartes cannot reply. Since, on his own admission,
existence (save as regards the Divine Being) falls altogether
outside the sphere of rational knowledge, the self s existence can
be no exception. The ambiguities involved in Malebranche's
use of the term * feeling,' as not knowledge and yet a form
of knowing, we cannot here discuss.

^That too, doubtless, would be Descartes' answer to the
question why, if mind is better known than matter, there
is no science of it corresponding to the mathematical sciences.

^This contention of Malebranche certainly holds against

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 99

Augustine points out, the eyes, by which we see all
things, cannot see themselves directly, and, if there
were no mirrors, would never see themselves at all.
The absence of the knowledge to which Descartes
here pretends is well brought out by Malebranche*s
English disciple, Norris: "What this formal thought
or perception is, as to the reality of the thing, you
will ask me in vain, because 'tis in vain that I ask
myself! I know, or rather feel by inward sentiment
that I think, and I make a shift in a rational method
to find out what it is that thinks in me; but what
that act of mine which I call thinking is, I want,
I will not say words ta express, but penetration of
thought to comprehend. Sometimes my fancy
whispers me that 'tis a kind of application of the
mind to its ideal or intelligible object; but then I
reject that again as ia figurative way of speaking,
borrowed froin the position or conservation of one
body to another. Then, again, I say to myself, that
sure 'tis an intellectual sight, a kind of vision of the
mind. But here I correct myself again, as soon as I
consider the meaning of what I say. . . . But what
then shall I say that it is ? Or without oflfering at

Descartes, so long as Descartes interprets consciousness
abstractly as something real apart from its contents.

100 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

anything further, shall I own my ignorance ? That
I find I must do, since there is no seeing without
light. I enter into myself again and again^ I consult
myself over and over, but can have no answer." ^

Indirectly the same conclusion may be proved in
three ways. First, this consciousness that is supposed
to be so clearly known can only be defined by
negatives, all of which gain meaning through
that opposite, extension, which is asserted to be the
less clearly known. It is defined by Descartes
as ^nextended and ^divisible. Though he adds the
positive predicate ' active,' that is just what later he
shows that consciousness is not;^ and being there-
fore forced to introduce an obscure faculty of
will, distinct from thought, he destroys what little
clearness was remaining in his analysis of mind.

Secondly, the indirect manner in which Descartes
proves the secondary qualities to be modes of mind,^
itself indicates our ignorance of mind. " Since we are
obliged to consult the idea of extension, in order to

^Norris: The Theory of the Ideal World (pub. 1704), vol. ii.
pp. 109-10.

2 Cf. below, pp. 108 ff.

^ Descartes' argument is that, as they are not involved in our
idea of extension, they must belong to the only other substantial
form of existence, viz., mind.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 101

discover whether the sensible qualities are modes of
mind, is it not evident that we have no clear idea of
mind ? Otherwise would we think of taking this
roundabout road ? When a philosopher wishes to
discover whether figure belongs to extension, does he
consult the idea of mind or any idea save that of
extension ? Does he not see clearly in the very idea
of extension that figure is a modification of it ? And
would it not be absurd if, to enlighten himself, he
argued thus : there are two kinds of existence, mind
and matter, figure is not a mode of mind, therefore it
is a mode of matter ? " ^

From this unavoidable acceptance of the feelings
and sensations as modes of mind Malebranche
draws his third argument for its unknowableness.
As they are modes of mind, they must be deducible
from the conception of mind, just as the different
figures and their necessary relations are deducible
from the idea of that of which they are the modifi-
cations. But since it is obvious that no such
deduction can be made, and that (as was pointed
out above^) between the different sensations and
feelings no relations can be perceived, the conclusion

^ EclairdasemeTU sur chap. vii. pt, it. liv. Hi. de la Recherche,
2 p". 95.

102 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

is unavoidable that the archetypal idea of mind,
upon which they are dependent, is unknown to us.
"Without this archetypal idea of mind I cannot
know that I am capable of feeling the taste of
melon, the sensation of red, the pain of toothache,
unless I have actually experienced these feelings:
feelings, I say, that are confused and make them-
selves felt, without making either themselves or the
substances which they modify known." ^ To the

^B^nse d Amauld^ chap. xiii. Cf. Norris : Theory of the
Ideal Worlds ii. pp. 213-5 : " What the nature of that pleasure
or pain is which we feel . . . that we know no more of than
if we had never felt either of them. Not but that this is an
intelligible thing, because God knows it, and we ourselves may
possibly know it hereafter, when we come to have a sight (a
great and engaging sight indeed) of that archetypal idea, upon
which our souls were formed. ... I need not scruple to say
that he that can see knows no more of light or colour than he
that is bltndJ^ This tendency to regard the sensations of the
secondary qualities as illusory appearances of intelligible realities
runs through the whole Cartesian school. At times Spinoza and
Leibniz even speak as if they regarded sound, light, and colour,
as illusions that would completely vanish on perfected know-
ledge. Geulincx alone, of all the Cartesians, insists on
their intrinsic reality and worth. Cf. Geulincx's Annotata ad
Metaphysicam (Land's edition, ii. p. 288) ; " So God has
in a sense made two worlds, one in itself. . . The other
God has made in us and in our senses, endowing it with
wonderful and most beautiful images and phantasms (spectris
et phantaamatihus) ; and this latter world is far more lovely and
more artistic ; in it there breathes more wisdom and goodness
than in that other world."

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 103

natural question, what such conceptual knowledge
of sensations and feelings would be like, Malebrancbe
may of course reply that as we are wholly
ignorant of the nature and essence of mind, we
cannot expect to be able to form any notion of
what a rational science of mind, corresponding to
the rational sciences of matter, would reveal^ Only
we can assume, he adds, that , as mind is a creature
infinitely more perfect than matter, we should, iff*^
we knew it, in our absorption in the gradual clari-
fication of the mysteries of mind, despise all other
knowledge, even mathematics. If the properties of
unintelligent space are so marvellous, so luminously
interconnected and yet so inexhaustively varied, a
very image of Deity in the combination of necessary
unity with inexhaustible variety, what may we not
expect from the unknown idea of mind ? ^ " Could

^From this impossibility, in the actual limitation of our
knowledge, of a rational science of mind Malebranche drew
the conclusion that an empirical method is the only possible one
in psychology ; and so became one of the founders of the
science of empirical psychology, anticipating Berkeley in his
analysis of sense-perception.

^M^itations Chr^ennes^ ix. pp. 120-21 : "If a mathe-
matician has so much delight when he compares magnitudes
among themselves that he often sacrifices his pleasures and his
health to find out the properties of a line . . . what pleasure
would men npt take in compariug among themselves by a clear

104 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

we attend to the preservation of a body that would
trouble incessantly the sweet delights of contemplat-
ing the inconceivable perfections of an intelligent
nature ? " ^

And therein we find the reason, which Augustine
sought in vain, why a benevolent Deity has revealed

view of the understanding so many different modifications [of
their own being], of which the bare feeling, although feeble
and confused, does so strangely busy and employ them. For
you must know that the mind contains in itself all the beauty
which you see in the world, and which you attribute to the
objects which surround you. Those colours, those odours, those
tastes, and an infinity of other feelings by which you have
never been affected, are nothing but modifications of your
substance. That harmony which carries you away is not in the
air that strikes your ear, and those infinite pleasures, of which
the most voluptuous have only a feeble feeling, are included in
the capacity of your mind." The possible modes of mind are,
Malebranche believes, like the possible modifications of exten-
sion, unlimited in number. Cf. Norris' Ideal Worlds ii.
pp. 259-60 : " How many more [senses] we may be capable of,
if the power of the soul were wholly reduce^i to act, who can
say? . . . And what more [impressions] we might experi-
ence if God should create, not new organs of sense in us, but
only new bodies to make different impressions upon those we
have already, is a vast abyss which no line of thought can ever
fathom. But then consider what a great and noble being this
soul of ours is, and how large is its capacity, that carries enclosed
in its single self the beauties of a whole world ; those I mean
which we ascribe to it, and distribute among the several parts
of it, and withal think a sufficient furniture for the adorning
of that immeuse fabrick."
^ R^ponse d Atyiaidd, chap. xxii.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 105

to US the knowledge of what is without us, and
yet has left us in utter darkness as to what is
within: our knowledge is suflBcient for the perform-
ance of our duties, and any further knowledge
would only distract us from the work that has to
be done.^

1 Cf . Norris : Theory of the Ideal Worlds ii. pp. 263-4 : " Happy
time indeed, when we shall know both God and ourselves,
and ourselves in God, whose superlative beauty will not allow
us to grow proud of our own. . . . Now our feeble eyes
would be dazzled with our own light, and we should fall in love
with the dear image of oor own being ; but when the looking-
glass shall be so much more charmingly beautiful than the face,
we may then securely behold ourselves in it. In the meantime
let us esteem that the best knowledge of ourselves is to have
a deep sense of our infirmities, and not be ashamed of that
ignorance which is the guardian of our humility." Perhaps,
too, it might be suggested, we have here the explanation of
Augustine's problem, how we should know the stars so far
above us, and yet remain ignorant of the bodily processes
* within 'us. We have the knowledge which we lequire (the
modem theory of evolution explaining further the reason why),
and no other.

From our knowledge of extension Malebranche derives even
such knowledge of mind as is required to prove its independence
of body and its immortality. (Cf. RSponse d Amatddy chap.
XXIII. and also M4ditatio7is Chrdtiennes^ ix. p. 122.) Descartes'
reply to Gassendi, when the latter made the same objection, that
the substance of the self is not known, is utterly helpless. (Cf.
Gassendi's Objections to the Meditations^ and Descartes' reply
thereto.) For Begis' defence of Descartes, cf. Covrs Entier : la
Metaph. liv. ii. pt. i. chap. vi.

106 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Now, such a romantic conception of the possi-
bilities of rational science, which significantly
reappears in the English matter-of-fact Locke, ^
cannot be put aside as a mystic dream of the
Malebranche that is a follower of Plato and
Augustine: it is also the natural extension of the
rationalism of Descartes. Either there is a limit
set to his rationalism in sense, with a resulting
dualism between the intelligible and the sensible,^
or such a deduction of the sensations and feelings
from the conception of mind is as possible as is
the deduction of mathematical truths from the
conception of space. This application, however, of
the mistaken conception of mathematical method to
mind and its states, brings out the fantastic nature
of the rationalism that necessitates such a con-
clusion. It appears to the undisceming mind
^\possible enough from the conception of space, or at
least from the conceptions of the different figures
in space, by sheer power of reasoning to deduce all

^Cf. Essay : iv. iii. 27, and iv. xii. 12.

''^ Descartes only kept this difficulty out of sight by a
persistent ignoring of sense, and an alternate reference of it
now to matter and now to mind. If we keep to his criterion of
truth, and to his presupposed doctrine of essence, this theory of
Malebranche of a rational science of mind is the only possible
outlet.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 107

the content of geometrical science, but the illusion
wears thin, and the teaching becomes doubtful,
when in like manner the possibility is asserted of
deducing from the conception of mind all the
various sensations and feelings that we experience
in it. We see how long a road it is from such a
rationalism to the rationalism of Kant : we are
still under the influence of the mystic idealism
of Plato. ^

Thus we come to the general conclusion that, alike >
in the metaphysics of matter and in the metaphysics
of mind, Descartes' rationalism reveals its inadequacy,
for while in the one we are brought to an irresolvable
dualism between the geometrical and the mechanical,

^ Malebranche's rationalism ought consistently to be carried
yet further. Since souls are modifications of consciousness, the
different souls and their relations to one another must be
deducible, as well as the content of each separate soul. The
idea from which deduction must start is not the idea of a
particular concrete self, which as concrete and particular is
complex and derivative, but the simple, and therefore ultimate,
idea of consciousness in general. Thus impossible as Male-
bran che's rationalism seems, it is outdone by that of Spinoza
who takes that last step. The perpetual interchange of the
most simple with the most complex, to which Cartesian thinking
was condemned, is here again apparent. It is also illustrated in
t he position of Leib niz. Regardin g the idea of the individual
soul a s the datum from which de3Siction must proceed, he is
forced to infer that it involves in its content the notion of the
whole universe.

108 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

iu the other we reach a similar dualism of thought
and sense. And if we follow him a step further,
while he states the relation in which he
regards thought as standing to its intelligible
contents, when, that is, he approaches the problem
seriously, and ceases to pretend to dismiss it by the
co,nveniently indefinite term * mode,' we shall see how
he is forced not only to recognise the limitations of
his rationalism, but also to undermine its very
foundations.

Thought, Descartes emphasises, is purely passive in
knowledge, being governed wholly by its o bject s.^ If,
he says,2 I conceive a triangle, even supposing there
is not and never was in any place in the universe
apart from my thought any such figure, nevertheless
it remains true that the conception possesses a certain
determinate immutable nature or essence, which is not
framed by me, and is not in any way dependent on
my individual thinking. Though the mind is free to

\^Cf. Lett IX. p. 166 :" I do not distinguish oth erwise betwee n
^inind and its ideas than between a piece of wax and the
-*^different figures that it can receive ; and as it is not properly
an action, but a passion in the wax to receive different figures,
it seems to me that it is also a passion in the mind to receive
such and such an idea, and that only its volitions are actions."
Cf. Lett, VIII. p. 513.

2 M^it, V. at the beginning.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 109

think or not to think such ideas, once thought .they
control and govern our minds, there being in each
of them a necessity that forces us to develop it in
one particular way. It is thus that conceptions
separate themselves out from the subjective life of
feeling and imagination, and set themselves over
against the mind as something objective.^

That, then, is the fact : h ow is it to be explained ?
How is it possible that the mind should at will
bring into consciousness ideas which yet it has not
formed or created, and over whose development it has
no control ? Descartes' answer is that they must /
h^ve been implanted in the mind by God. They^*,
are innate, and therefore the mind has not to form
them, but simply by its attention to throw on them
the light of consciousness.^ The understanding is

^ Note how entirely Descartes agrees with Malebranche that
couceptions are objects of mind.

2 Malebranche's objections (Recherche, liv. iii. pt. ii. chap iv.
p. 390 ff.) to this position are, first, that it would involve the
existence of an infinitely infinite number of ideas in the finite
mind ; and, secondly, that even if the mind had stored up in it
all these ideas, it would be impossible to explain how it could
at any moment find among them those it wanted. The kinship
of Descartes' position to the monadism of Leibniz may be noted.
How near Descartes can yet at times come to Malebranche's
own position appears from the following : " Intuitive knowledge
is an illumination of the mind by God, by which it sees in the

110 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

purely passive alike in the reception of its innate
ideas and in their development. All we need to do
is to keep our minds fixed on them, and out of them
spontaneously all truth will arise.^

light of God the things which he pleases to reveal to it, by a
direct impression of the divine clearness on our understanding,
which in that is not considered as agent, but only as receiving
the rays of the divine Being" {Lett x. p. 130).

^ It is because Descartes regards the mind as passive in
thinking, that the problem of accounting for error is felt so
strongly by him, and is dwelt upon at such length in the fourth
Meditation and in the Principles. If God cannot deceive us,
-> and is the ultimate source of ideas, must not all our ideas be
^ true and error impossible ? Descartes' reply is th at error ne ver
ri'iQa. i- O ^^®® "^ ^^^ ideas, but only in the judgments which we make

about them. And according to Descartes all judgment is an
act of t he wil l. Though the understanding furnishes the ideas,
before these ideas, which are but subjective appearances in the
mind, can become knowledge, the will must intervene and
confer upon them by affirmation that objective reference which
in themselves they do not possess. If the un derstanding alo ne
conceives, the will alone affirms. Truth is the united pr oduc t
of the understanding and the will. Now since the faculty of
will is the faculty of a rational being, the active side of a mind
whose essence consists in pure thought, its activities ought to be
guided by the understanding. The will, however, being infinite
V (cf. below, p. 113) rouses in us an infinite desire for knowledge.
, And error arises when, impelled by this desire, we do not
restrain the will within the same limits as the understanding,
but give our assent or denial also to those ideas of which we
^^^' *^< have only an obscure and confused apprehension. Error thus
consists in a wrong use of the freedom of the will. All deception
is self-deception.

.' ' . I* t

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES HI

In order to make out the opposition to matter C- i< ,,. >
Descartes has to take the self as active, and on its /^ ^ U4/..i.(^
activity he all along insists. But now that he has )
s hown the mind in thinking to be passive, he has
either to deny that it is really any more active than
material bodies, or to withdraw his definition of
its essence as consisting in pure thought, and in pure
t hought alon e.^ This internal dialectic of his system
is reinforced, and the alternative to be chosen decided

^ Here again Malebranche is the more consistent Cartesian,
though, of course, as a student of Augustine, he would be pre-
disposed to question the freedom of the will. " Will is a
property which always accompanies the mind, be it united with
the body or be it separate from it ; but yet it is not essential to
it, since it presupposes thought, and we can conceive a mind
without will, just as we can conceive a body without motion "
{Recherche^ liv. in. pt. i. chap. i. p. 342). Will is as externally
related to mind as motion is to matter. " Not only are bodies
incapable of being the true causes of anything whatsoever, spirits
the most noble are equally powerless. They can know nothing
uuless God enlightens them. They can feel nothing unless
God affects them. They are capable of willing nothing
uuless God moves them towards the good in general, that is to
say, towards himself" {HM. liv. vi. pt. ii. chap. iii. p. 327).
His fifth Meditation (p. 50) opens with the prayer, " Increase my
love for the truth, in order that my attention be renewed, and
that you may grant this natural prayer after you have formed it
in me.'' Malebranche's attempt, in spite of these admissions,
still to vindicate the freedom of the will is sincere but sophis-
tical. It is interesting to compare Malebranche's view of the
self both with that of Spinoza and with that of Hume.

112 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

for him, by the emphasis laid on the will in the
religious thought of his time. Being always careful
to respect, even in minor matters, the doctrines of the
Church, he not only conforms to the theological
doctrine of the freedom of the will in all its absolute-
ness, but insists on it in a way that shows his con-
formity to be complete.^ To it he is ready to sacrifice
his most cherished convictions, even his rationalism.
y *^ Since thought is passive, necessarily the will must
^ ^ be altogether different from it. If the will were
j^ , . ^/ identical with thought, or determined by it, it would
/ .. ,' like thought be determined by an impersonal authority
ti.^Xi,< s^ outside and above the self, and so would not be will
-at all, not anything which could express the reality
of the self as an independent agent. In this way
Descartes, immediately after having declared that
the whole essence of the self consists in pure thought,
is forced inconsistently to assert that it is something
quite distinct from thought that form^ its essence,
namely, an inconceivable occult will.^ The power

1 Cf . Principles, i. 39 (in. pp. 86-7).

'^ The contradiction Descartes conceals by the assertion that
thought reveals itself as being of a twofold nature, at once
active and^ passive. Principles^ i. 32 (in. p. 83). Cf. Lett viii.
pp. 275 and 513, where he asserts that action and passion are
one and the same thing. Cf. also below, pp. 135-6.

' i K t

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 113

of will alone of all faculties in us is infinite and
perfect,^ the necessary truths of reason being but an
eostemal limit set to it by God.^

Also, as a further consequence, he had to interpret d^y^<^
the nature of God in the same impossible way. Ideas, - et.tu^ ■ < ^
and the 'necessary' truths of reason which they
involve, cannot be regarded, Descartes holds, as the
objects of divine thought, for in that case they would
be an alien necessity governing God's mind just as
they do ours, and we should thereby commit the

^ M4dit. IV. (i. pp. 300-2) VeitclVs trans, pp. 137-8 : " If I
consider the faculty of understanding which I possess, I find
that it is of very small extent and greatly limited. ... In the
same way if I examine the faculty of memory or imagination,
or any other faculty I possess, I find none that is not small and
circumscribed. ... It is the faculty of will only, or freedom of
choice, which I experience to be so great that I am unable to
conceive the idea of another that shall be more ample and
extended ; so that it is chiefly my will which leads me to dis-
cern that I bear a certain image and similitude of Deity.'* Cf.
ibid. p. 140: **As the will consists only of a single element,
and that indivisible, it would appear that this faculty is of such
a nature that nothing could be taken from it [without destroying
it]." Spinoza gives an interesting, and very complete, criticism
of Descartesncloctriiie <»f the will. Ethica^ ii. 49, Scholium ; cf.
below, chap. iv. pp. 138-9, and note to p. 139.

2 That God, through the innate ideas which He has implanted

in the mind, should concur with us in forming our acts of will,

is, Descartes is careful to add (loc. cit. pp. 140-1), bo cause of

complaint, " since those acts are wholly good and true, in so far

as they depend on God."

lU THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

absurdity of subjecting Gfod " to destiny and Styx." ^
The ideas of God's mind, .and the ' eternal * truths of
reason which they involve, must be regarded as
created by God, and therefore as who lly depe ndent
on His will : — though how God's mind could exist
r^ without ideas over against it, any more than ours
could, Descartes did not stop to inquire. As Norris
remarks, Descartes conceives God as working in
darkness to create the light. " For if even necessary
truth be the effect of God, then antecedently to the
eflPecting of it there was no truth, and consequently
no knowledge, because nothing knowable. And so
God in the production of truth (if, indeed. He did
produce it) must be supposed to act in the dark, and
without intelligence to order even an intellectual '
system." 2 Thus does Descartes' ration alism, af ter
showing itself to be inadequate to the treatment of th e
real, either as matter or as mind, end in the suicidal i
admission of the absolute relativity of all knowledge. i
His rationalism, which gave as answer to the problem i
of the limits of knowledge, that there are none, and
that the material and the mental are alike transparent
to us, changes into a complete agnosticism.

1 Lett VI. p. 109.

2 Norris ; Theory of the Ideal World, i. p. 337. Cf. pp. 343 ff.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 115

Ip Descartes' system, then, as we have tried to show,
there are three fundamental tenets, viz., the doctrine
of representative perception, a very peculiar form of
rationalism, and the conception of spirit as an active
creative agency. In these three doctrines his whole
system may be regarded as summed up. The dualism,
which forms his problem, inevitably gave rise to the
first ; from his studies in mathematics he derived
the second ; and by the third (based on immediate
experience, but interpreted chiefly in the light
of certain scholastic principles) he constructs a
completed system, spite of all the insoluble difficulties
in which he is landed by the first two. We shall
seek, in the following chapters, to confirm this inter-
pretation of Descartes' teaching by an examination
of these three fundamental principles as they re-
appear in the systems of his successors.

APPENDICES TO CHAPTER III.

Ai— ARNAULD'S DENIAL OF THE DOCTRINE OF
REPRESENTATIVE PERCEPTION.

The only thinker within the early Cartesian School
who called in question the doctrine of representative

^ To p. 52, above.

116 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

perception was Arnauld. In his TraiU des Vraies et
des Fausses Id4es} which was written as a criticism of
Malebranche's Recherche de la VeriU, he states in the
most definite manner that there is no direct evidence
of the existence of subjective states, acting as inter-
mediaries between mind and matter, and that the
sole (and on his view insufficient) ground for their
assumption is (as we have already seen in the Chapter
on Descartes' problem) the local difference between
object known and the brain through which it is
known.2 But as Arnauld himself accepts the Car-
tesian dualism in all its absoluteness, his denial of
this fundamental tenet of the Cartesian system comes
to no fruitful result. His assertion that the mind's
faculty of knowing objects distinct from it constitutes

^Published in 1683. ,

2 Des Vraies et des Fausses Id^es, chap. iv. Even the ground
that objects cannot be known directly, since they are material
and therefore wholly different from the immaterial mind,
reduces to this one ground. For it is because the mind is
unextende<i, that, even though it be locally present to a body,
it still remains external to it. As Malebranche remarks,
though the mind were to issue out of the body in order to visit
the sun, being uuextended it could not contain that star
within itself, and would therefore, even though it got inside it,
still remain as external to it as one body is to another. Also,
as Arnauld, following Augustine and Malebranche, emphasisesi
the mind knows least of that to which it is most closely united,
namely the brain, Cf. Arnauld, chap, viii.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 117

its very essence, and ought therefore to be accepted
as an ultimate, is an arbitrary and dogmatic attempt
to set a limit to legitimate scientific analysis.^ In
that assertion the Cartesian assumption of the self
as an abiding, simple, substantial agent again reveals
itself. It is interesting to compare Malebranche's
reply to Arnauld ^ with Hume's criticism of the same
theory.^ Eeid's position is in essentials identical with
that of Arnauld, the flagrant unfairness in his state-
ment of the latter's theory* being indirect proof
thereof.

B 6— DESCARTES* THEORY OF PERCEPTION, AND
ACCOUNT OF THE RELATION BETWEEN
SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING.

The criterion of truth Descartes first applies to the
content of perception. What is it, he asks, that we
clearly and distinctly perceive when we perceive an
external object ? " Take, for example, this piece of
wax; it is quite fresh, having been but recently

^ Cf . above, note 3 to p. 96, at the eud.

* Edaircissement 9v/r la Nature des IdUes : 1" Objection.

3 Given below, cbap. vi. pp. 228 ff.

^Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man: Essay ii. chap.

XIII.

^ To p. 62, above.

118 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

t aken from th e bee-hive ; it has not yet lost the
sweetness of the honey it contained-; it still retains
somewhat of the odour of the flowers from which it
was gathered; its colour, figure, size, are apparent
[to the sight]; it is hard, cold, easily handled; and
sounds when struck upon with the finger. In fine,
all that contributes to make a body as distinctly
known as possible, is found in the one before us.
But, while I am speaking, let it be placed near the
tire — what remained of the taste exhales, the smell
evaporates, the colour changes, its figure is destroyed,
its size increases, it becomes liquid, it grows hot, it
can hardly be handled, and although struck upon,
it emits no sound. Does the same wax still remain
after this change ? It must be admitted that it does
remain, no one doubts it, or judges otherwise."^
What, then, is it that remains the same ? It can be
^ none of the original sensible qualities, since they have
all disappeared. It must be that we distinguish in
the piece of wax a body which appeared to us a
moment before under these sensible qualities, and
now appears to us under others : and if we remove
all the changeable qualities from it, nothing remains
but a body, a something, extended, flexible, and

^MSdit. II. (i. pp. 256-7) Veitch's trans, pp. 110-11.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES

119

moveable. The wax in all its possible forms, so long
as it exists at all jnnat fill apflpp hp it a larger or be it
a smaller space, for otherwise it would exist nowhere,
and therefore not at all. So too, though the number
of different shapes it may take on are infinite, it

miiRf. un der all finnditinns p oaapRfi anVnft figiirp And

finally, as a consequence of its being extended, it ii
alway s capable of being moved : since it is always
somewhere, it can always be shifted somewhere else.
These three qualities are the only qualities, which the
piece of wax preserves throughout all its changes,
and must therefore constitute the 'it' we refer to,
when we say that ' it ' remains the same spite of
its transformations. These qualities constitute the
essence, the self-identity, of the piece of wax. That
argument Descartes strengthens by a second applica-
tion of his criterion of truth, showing that all the
other sensible qualities are known only obscurely and
cmfusedly. Thus to take as an example the quality,
yellow. Though as a sensation in the mind it is w
perfectly clear, as a quality in the wax it is in its
exact nature unknown. And further, the knowledge
we have of the wax through that quality is also
confused. Colour exists in the mind, not in materia];},^
things, and when we refer colour as a quality to a

(

120 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

material thing, we confound together mind and body,
the spiritual and the material. The object exists
apart from our perception, and hence apart from the
qualities with which we clothe it in the act of
perception. The three qualities, then, of extension,
figure, and motion, are alone known clearly, as they
exist in the external object, and distinctly, as apart
from the mind, and together must constitute its
whole essence.

Descartes next proceeds to determine the rela-
tions in which these qualities stand to one another,
and to the material bodies whose qualities they
are ; and that he does by means of the three
scholastic terms, substance, attribute, and mode.
As regards their relation to one another, though we
can conceive extension apart from any particular
figure, and apart from all motion, we cannot in a
similar way conceive figure and motion apart from
extension. To extension^ figure and m otion ar e
related, Descartes therefore concludes, as mod ej^ to a
common attribute. Again, Descartes takes the
relation of extension to matter as that of
attribute to substance. Extension is the attribute,
-^and, further, it is the sole attribute, of body.
Matter is perfectly homogeneous ; having no inner

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 121

determinations or qualitative differences, its whole
nature is exhausted in the fact that it fills space.

From this identification of matter and extension
there follow several important consequences. First,
since space is related to body as attribute to sub-
stance, and since save in substance no attribute
can exist, there can be no empty space. Secondly,
matter, like space, must be continuous, and there-
fore both infinite in divisibility and infinite in
extent. Thirdly, since there cannot be different
kinds of extension, there cannot be different kinds
of matter. There are different planetary systems,
but the material substance constituting them all
is one and the same. Fourthly, it is obvious that
)ody as thus identified with extension is purely
issive. Motion must therefore have been intro-
duced into the material world by some cause outside
it, and that cause can only be God. Also, since
bodies have no power to produce motion, they
cannot increase or diminish it. The quantity of
motion in nature therefore remains constant. And
lastly, since all bodies are thus passive, with no
inner forces, the only causes of motion are the ex-
ternal efficient causes, impact and pressure.

The material world, then, on Descartes' view is

122

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

L,.\

ju a world that has lost all the sensible qualities
under which it appears to us, and preserves only
its geometrical qualities, extension and figure, and
as introduced from outside, motion. Yet what the
natural world loses in richness and variety, it gains
in simplicity and clearness; what may appear an
aesthetic loss is an intellectual gain, since instead
of the confused bewildering world of the senses,
we have a world in which one single phenomenon,
motion in space, infinitely diversified with itself,
alone takes place. And if the m aterial wor ld
seems to be impoverished by being t hus reduced
to a dead mechanism, the mental is thereby enriched.
All that can find no home in nature must be
ascribed to the mind.

Having thus shown that the only qualities of

* ^ ^ -M , bodies that are clearly and distinctly known in per-
\' ception are extension, figure, and motion, Descartes

'.' "/!.' prc^ceeds to ask whether these qualiti

by sense or by thought. Since * imagination ' may
be taken as a general name for the whole sense-
side of our nature, the question runs: Is the real
essence of the piece of wax known through imagin-
ation or through pure thought ? Is it sufficient
I that I imagine (that is, image or picture) the wax

iies are known

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 123

now as round, now as square, and now as triangular ?
Certainly not, says Descartes, for " I cannot by my
imagination run through the infinite number of
possible shapes the wax may take on, and conse-
quently the essence of the wax cannot be realised,
compassed, adequately expressed, through the imagin-
ation." Onlv in conception, not in an image, nor
i£^.a_8jiie§^i)f imagp%..caa it ba.knnwn.. ., So, too,
with the attribute of extension. Since the piece of
wax can (under the influence of heat and cold)
increase or decrease in size in an infinite number of
degrees, we do not apprehend its essence according
to the truth, if we do not think it as capable
of receiving more varieties of figure and extension
than we can ever imagine in a series of particular
images. By the understanding alone can the real
essence of a material body be known. "The per-
ception is neither an act of sight, of touch, noi
of imagination, and never was either of these, though
it might formerly seem so, but is simply an intuition
{inspectio) of the mind, which may be imperfect and
confused, as it formerly was, or very clear and
distinct, as it is at present,"^ when the attention
has separated off what is clearly and distinctly

^ M4dit. II. Veitch's traiis. p. 112,

124 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

conceived in it, from what is obscurely and confusedly
felt .
/^v<^f u^^^ In the sixth Meditation Descartes develops further
/ d. c<^<;,v,l his distinction between ' imagination and pure con-
ritcG^ j/^? ception. First he shows that they are quite distinct
* from one another. So long as we keep to such

simple figures as the triangle, it is hard to dis-
tinguish between the conception and the image.
The radical distinction between them at once appears,
however, when we pass to more complex figures.
If we wish to think of a chiliogon, though we can-
not picture the thousand sides as we can picture
the three sides of a triangle, we can yet, Descartes
asserts, conceive the chiliogon just as easily as we
pan conceive the triangle. That is to say, the more
complex the figure the more indistinct becomes the
image, while, on the other hand, the conception
remains just as clear and distinct as ever.^ In
order that this be possible, the conception and the
image must be quite distinct from one another.
If they were one and the same, or essentially

^GassendPs criticism of this argument is very much to the
point (ii. p. 21 2). All that it establishes, he there points out,
is that we can comprehend in a more or less adequate manner
the meaning of the word chiliogon, but not that we can conceive
t\i^ figure any better than we can image it.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 125

connected, necessarily the confusion of the image
would bring confusion into the conception.

Further, in the case of complex figures, it becomes
obvious that it is through the conception alone that
we can have knowledge. The indistinct image ^//<^^'^:*^A^.

■ f ' < « »

whereby we represent to ourselves a chiliogon diflers
not at all from the image whereby we represent to /^
ourselves a myriogon or any other figure of a great ^-7' ^'
many sides, and can, therefore, be of no use for dis- *^ < • ' • <
covering the properties which distinguish a chiliogon
from all other polygons.^ And that is equally true,
though not so obvious, even in the case of the simplest
figures. The image even of a square is always
inexact, and can therefore only be used in so far as
we have compared it with the conception as its
standard, correcting in it what is false and sup-
plementing in it what is incomplete.^ The con-
ception is all the while the true object of the
mind, and the image is really only of use as an -^

^ Here Descartes' false view of geometrical science as derived
from jg^ure conceptions instead of from their construction in per-
ception^ and therefore, in image, is again leading him astray.

2 That, however, it will be noted, does not prove that the
conception has any meaning apart from the concrete material
that it thus organises. In denying the existence of such
^pure,' that is, abstract conceptions, Berkeley is altogether in
the right.

126 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

external aid in fixing and rendering more vivid
the conception.^

Having thus shown that imagination and concep-
tion are separate and distinct from one another, and
that imagination is quite unessential to adequate
knowledge of the objects with which the mind deals,
Descartes proceeds to prove that the essence of the
; mind consists in pure thought apart from all sense
^Jand imagination.^ In the proof he applies the same
method of argument as he has applied to determine

'Cf. above, note to p. 45.

2 We need not be afraid to interpret quite literally Descartes'
strange utterances as to the nature of imagination. He is much
too emphatic on the point to allow of our regarding them as
metaphorical merely. There are, he tells us, no brain- processes
corresponding to pure intellection, whereas save through brain-
processes imagination is not possible. In order to form imxiges
the mind, he further adds, has to look outside itself at the im ages
J formed on the pineal gland (and it must be borne in mind that
I Descartes believed that in visual perception there are not only
j two images impressed on the surface of the brain exactly corre-
. sponding to the images impressed on the two retinae but also a
^ single image, combining them, on the pineal gland). This,
according to Descartes, is the reason of the effort involved in
imagining complex figures, an effort that is not required for the
conception of them, conception being a process natural to the
spiritual nature of the mind, and wholly immanent. Cf . MSdit.
VI. (i. pp. 323-5), Veitch's trans, pp. 151-3 ; Descartes' Reply to
Oassendi (ii. p. 297) ; Reg. xii. (xi. pp. 265-6). Descartes obviously
here retains much of the curious scholastic doctrine of the subtilisa-
tion of material into mental images. Descartes, however, could

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES

127

the essence of matter. In the soiil are the three
cognitive faculties, thought, sense, and imagination.
These together constitute its nature, and through them
does it exist. But of these only one is inseparable
from it, namely, thought or conception. Since^ we

h ave a clear and distinct conception of the soul apa rt
f rom sense and imagination, neither c an belong to its
essence. Pure thought is the one attribute of mind as

C...C

^ /

fAnX'x.

extension is the one attribute of body. But while
thought can thus be conceived apart from sense and
imagination, sense and imagination , as both involving
some form of intellection, cannot be conceived ap art
f rom it. Sense and imagination are, therefore, related
to thought in the same way that figure and motion are
related to extension, that is, as modes to their common
attribute.^ ' In this way Descartes completes the J

not help seeing that the above view applied only to figure, and
that resistance, colour, sound, and the other secondary qualities,
bear no resemblance to their physiological causes ; and hence, in
treating of the physiological conditions of these sensations, he
inevitably developed the more consistent occasionalistic view.
Cf. Le Mondky chap. i.

^ Strictly, the different conceptions or ideas are for Descartes
the only proper modes of thought, corresponding to figures as
the proper modifications of extension ; while sense and imagina-
tion, together with the feelings and emotions, constitute the
external modifications of thought, corresponding to the motion
that is externally introduced into matter,

128 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

absoluteness of his dualism. On the one hand there
exists a material world whose whole nature consists in
extension and in extension alone. On the other there
exists a spiritual world whose whole essence consists
in pure thought, and in that alone. Each stands
sharply outlined over against the other, and they have
nothing whatsoever in common.

C 1— DESCAKTES' VIEW OF TIME AND OF FINITE

EXISTENCE IN TIME.

Descartes' view of time rests on the scholastic
distinction between time and eternity. " To be
eternal is to possess entirely, perfectly, and all at once,
all the attributes and perfections that the thing called
eternal can possess."^ Since God is absolutely perfect,
and also absolutely simple. His perfection can neither
be added to nor subtracted from without total destruc-
tion. All His qualities are essential qualities, and
can in no way be modified by accidents that may be
one moment real and another moment unreal, and so
gi^e rise to temporal succession in the mode of his
existence. Finite things, on the other hand, are so

1 To p. 73, above.

2 That is the definition given by De la Forge, following
Boethius, Cf, Traits de V Esprit de VHomme^ chap. xii. p. 178.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 129

imperfect that they are unable to possess at one and
the same time all the attributes, modes, and accidents,
of which their nature is capable. A material body
cannot be at one and the same time round and square,
at rest and in motion ; the mind cannot by a single
act of thought perceive all the things that it is capable
of knowing. Whereas created things can be con-

ceived through the three modes of time, fuisse, esse,
fore, the first and last of which involves the notion of
not-being; to God, the absolutely real (maosime ens,
sive ens simpHciter), is ascribable only esse, esse sine
mutatione}

Now since God, the absolutely real, cannot be con-
ceived save as being, He must contain in Himself the
ground of His own being, and so be Causa Sui, rinh;e
things, which are as easily conceived non-existent
as existent, do not contain in their conception the
ground of their existence, and must therefore be
brought into existence by something else. That
something else cannot be another finite thing, which
as finite cannot create itself, and therefore a fortiori
cannot create anything distinct from itself. The
ground must therefore be God, the sole Cavsa Sui?

^ Cf. Clauberg : Exerdtationes, xxxiii.

2 Cf . R^onsea aux Premieres Objections, i. pp. 382-3,

130 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

That argument is strengthened by appeal to the
scholastic principle, which Descartes employs in
the proof of God's existence, viz. that it is more
difficult to create substance than any of the attributes
of substance. But while it was there argued that
as the self has not given to itself all the perfections
with which it is acquainted, it cannot have given
to itself its existence, it is now urged ^ that as many
of the qualities and states of the self are beyond
our power to create, it is absurd to hold that the
self can create that of which these are only the
modes. And what holds of the self s first existence
holds likewise of its continued existence. Since
there are many states of the self that the self
is unable to maintain, still less can it have the
power to conserve that of which they are the
states.

Descartes himself adds the further argument,^ that
as the self which is nothing but a thinking thing,
and therefore necessarily conscious of all its activities,
is unaware of actively preserving itself in existence,
it cannot really do so. Since we cannot act with-

^ Cf. Regis : Coun Entier : la Metaph, liv. i. pt. i. chap, xii
Clauberg : Exercitatumes^ xxiv.

^ H^fxmses aux Fremiires Objections, i. p. 383.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 131

out being conscious that we act, absence of
consciousness proves absence of activity. To the
objection that neither are we conscious of the
activity whereby God preserves us, Clauberg (follow-
ing Clerselier) gives the reply,^ that what is not,
when it is being created for the first time, cannot
feel the act creating it at the moment of creation,
since it is not yet, and when it has been created,
and so is able to perceive it, already God has ceased
from the work of creation. The same holds true
of preservation in existence, since it is due, as
Clauberg consistently argues, to such separate and
distinct acts of creation repeated in the separate and
successive moments of time. t/ ^^ (u i '^

Since Descartes' assertion that the parts of time
are independent of one another really rests, though
he nowhere explicitly says so, on the assumption
that time is discrete,^ such argument defeats itself
by its own internal self-contradictoriness. As the
moments of time in which God recreates us are
separate and distinct, either they must be indivisible,
and so having no duration be incapable of composing

^ Exercitationes, xxvii.

^ Regis, it is significant, speaks of time as divisible into a great
number of parts. Loc. cit

132 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

time, or self-continuance in existence, however short
that continuance be, is admitted. To recognise, on
the other hand, the infinite divisibility of time is
to recognise its continuity, and therefore to deny *
that assumption of independent real parts upon
which the argument proceeds. This assumption of
the discreteness of time Descartes partly conceals
by speaking of God as continually conserving us.
If his view of time be correct, our existence is
like a line composed of dots, a repeated alternation
between the state of being and the state of not-
being.

This whole line of argument is of value only as
an illustration of the impossible demands of Descartes'
rationalism, and of the absolute occasionalism which
is its only refuge. By conceiving God through the
unanalysed, and mystically formed, conceptions of
absolute perfection (that includes the perfection of
self-caused reality), and of perfect simplicity (that
does not exclude the richest variety), Descartes
assumes all that is required to account for what
he has made unaccountable in the finite.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 133

Di— THE CAKTESIAN VIEWS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

The two views of consciousness, which we have
traced in Descartes, by commingling gave rise to a
third view of great importance in the Cartesian
development, the view, namely, that consciousness
is no mere general name for the varying states of /,
consciousness, but that it includes in its essence all '^ ^' ^^ ^ ^
ideas, particular ideas being but limitations or modes of ^ -^ '^^/-^ '
it. This view, which is an excellent illustration of the
Cartesian tendency to hypostasise abstract and empty
conceptions into absolute realities, first appears in
De la Forge, and was developed by Spinoza. " Just
as every particular body has necessarily during
every moment of its existence some figure that
limits its extension, in the same manner the mind
has always some idea that is present to it, and
terminates its thought ; and just as extension in
general is indivisible, body in general being insepar-
able from any of the parts that it contains one and
all at every moment within itself, and that cannot
be removed outside it, and as no bounds or limits
can be assigned to its extension, so likewise the
thought of the sovereign and infinite Mind cannot

^ To p. 92, above.

134 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

be divided by any particular idea; and as it is
JCwithout bounds and without limits, it has no need
of being terminated by any of those forms ; but it
includes in one single and identical thought all
that can be known: so that those who deny that
the mind of man has always some particular idea
that limits its consciousness and determines it, un-
wittingly render it in a manner infinite."^ This
view of consciousness corresponds to Descartes' view
of extension as the reality of the material world, at
once including all bodies, and yet at the same time
being quite indifferent to any particular form of
body.

These conceptions, however, of extension and of
consciousness, which the Cartesians would fain make
the richest, are in reality the emptiest in content. If
bdre extension is the reality of the material worlds all
figure and motion are illusion ; and if consciousness in
general is the whole essence of mind suc h consciou s-
ness is the consciousness only of being in general. " At
the very time when we believe that we are thinking of
nothing, we are necessarily full of the vague and
general idea of being . . . this idea of leivig^ greasy vasty

^ De la Forge : Traits de V Esprit de VHommey chap. x. pp.
128-9.

THE METAPHYSICS OF DESCARTES 135

real avd positive though it be, is so familiar to us and
affects us so little . . . that we judge it to have little
reality, and to be formed by the confused assemblage
of particular ideas, although in reality it is in it alone
and hy it alone that we perceive all particular eadstences" ^
Certainly, as Malebranche here asserts, consciousness
of being in general is logically prior to the conscious-
ness of particular kinds of being ; but consciousness of
being in general is in the above quotation from De la
Forge, and still more explicitly in Spinoza, regarded as
an absolute reality that forms the whole essence and
content of particular concrete states of consciousness.
Berkeley was the first clearly to demonstrate the
unreality of such general notions. Being in general
(and the same holds of extension in general and of
consciousness in general) is, he shows, no more capable
of existence than is colour in general.

A fourth view of thought, as a faculty capable of
creating ideas, also appears in De la Forge,^ as well as
in Arnauld,^ and had some ground in several of
Descartes' inconsistent utterances. Spite of his proof
of the passivity of mind in knowing, he asserts * that

^Malebranche : Recherche^ liv. in. pt. ii. chap. viii. p. 419.

2 Traits, pp. 137-8.

^Cf. Appendix -4, pp. 116-6.

* R^onses aux Troidhnjes ObjectionSy i. pp. 492-3.

136 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

it possesses the faculty of producing ideas. And again
he says in one of his letters: "I have never either
written or believed that the mind has need of innate
(' natural ') ideas, which are anything different from its
faculty of thinking."^ Descartes' frequently quoted
statement,^ that ideas are innate in mind in the same
sense that generosity or some disease is innate in
certain families, is as unenlightening as it is indefinite.

^ Lett X. p. 94. ^Lett, x. loc, cit.

CHAPTEE IV.

THE CAETESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA AND

LEIBNIZ.

In his fundamental conception of the reaL Spinoza
completely transcends the atomistic conceptualism of
Descartes. The infinite he throughout insists (develop-
ing the important line of thought that is no more than
suggested in Descartes' Medita>tions) is prior both in
idea and in existence to the finite. Finite beings are
not independent substances, constituted by private and
peculiar qualities, but as manifestations of a common
substance are inwardly related. Their interaction is
not the incomprehensible passing over of influence
from one self-centred being to another, but the result
of their mutual participation in the universal nature
of things. The aim of Spinoza's philosophy is, there-
fore, to show how all things live and move and have
their being in the all-comprehensive reality, that may

138 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

indiflPfirently bft naniftH P.if.hftr an(\ nr yTfltnrp At one

time he speaks with the tongue of the religious devotee
to whom God is all in all;^ and at another in the
language of science teaches the inexorable universality
of natural law.^

The finite, which is thus neither self-explanatory nor
self-active, cannot, Spinoza further insists, be explained
through general or abstract notions. "It is above
everything necessary for us to deduce all our ideas
from things physical or from real entities, by advancing
as strictly as possible according to the sequence of
causes from one real entity to another real entity,
and not passing over to abstracts and universals, neither
for the sake of deducing anything real from them, nor
of deducing them from anything real, for in either way
we interrupt the true progress of the intellect."*
Even Descartes has been guilty of attempting to
explain real phenomena from general notions. The
power of will which he ascribes both to God and to

^ Cf . EMca^ V. t)rop. 36. The love which we bear towards God
is part of that very love whereby God loves Himself.

^Spinoza denies what is ordinarily understood by the free-
dom of the will. Both man and God act from the necessity of
their nature. Hence also Spinoza's denial of all final causes and
of miracles.

3 Tractatus delntellectug Emendatione : Van Vloten and Land's
edition, i. p. 33 (Stirling's trans, p. 55).

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 139

man, being a purely occult quality, is, like all occult
qualities, a mere general notion or entity of the
reason. "Will dififers from this or that particular
volition in the same way as whiteness differs from
this or that white object, or humanity from this or
that man. It is, therefore, as impossible to conceive
that will is the cause of this or that volition, as to
conceive that humanity is the cause of Peter and
Paul."^ "Man thinks himself free because he is

^ Epistula 2. Cf. Ethica^ ii. 48, Scholium (White and Stirling's
trans, pp. 94-5) : "In the same manner it is demonstrated that
in the mind there exists no absolute faculty of understanding,
desiring, loving, etc. These and the like faculties, therefore, are
either altogether fictitious, or else are nothing but metaphysical
or universal entities, which we are in the habit of forming from
individual cases. The intellect and will, therefore, are related to
this or that idea or volition as rockiness is related to this or
that rock, or as man is related to Peter or Paul." Spinoza also
gives a very complete criticism {Etkica, ii. 49, Scholium) of
Descartes' attempt (cf. above, chap iii. note to p. 110) to combine
a passive process of thinking with unlimited power of will.
There is no such thing, Spinoza points out, as a general faculty
of will, which is the source of all particular affirmations. Such
a will is an hypostatised abstraction. Affirmations differ just as
greatly as do the various ideas affirmed. Secondly, even grant-
ing that a general faculty represents anything real, there are as
good grounds for believing that we possess an infinite faculty of
perception, as there are for Descartes* contention that we possess
an infinite wilL " For as by the same faculty of will we can
affirm an infinite number of things (one after the other, for we
cannot affirm an infinite number of things at once) so also by the

140 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

conscious of his wishes and appetites, whilst at the
same time he is ignorant of the causes by which he
is led to wish and desire, not dreaming what they
are." ^ A similar criticism must be passed when men
take refuge in that other sanctuary of ignorance, final
causes and the will of God. " When men behold the
structure of the human body, they are amazed ; and
because they are ignorant of the causes of such art,
they conclude that the body was made not by
mechanical but by a supernatural and divine art,
and has been formed in such a way so that the one
part may not injure the other." ^ In this opposition to
general notions, Spinoza even goes so far as to deny all

same faculty of feeling we can feel or perceive (one after another)
an infinite number of bodies." And thirdly, Spinoza, in agree-
ment with many of the best modern logicians, denies Descartes'
distinction between conceiving and judging. We have no free
power of suspending our judgment. Suspension of judgment is
itself an act of perception or judgment. **For when we say
that a person suspends judgment, we only say in other words
that he sees that he does not perceive the thing adequately.
The suspension of the judgment, therefore, is in truth a percep-
tion and not free will"

1 Etkicay I. Appendix (White and Stirling's trans, p. 39).

2 Loc, cit pp. 42-3. Cf . in the same Appendix, p. 41 : " This
opinion alone would have been sufficient to keep the human race
in darkness to all eternity, if mathematics, which does not deal
with ends, but with the essences and properties of forms, had
not placed before us another rule of truth." Cf. Descartes,
Regvlae ad Directionem Ingenii, iv.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 141

objective validity to the moral and aesthetic categories.
In using the general term * man/ we leave out of sight
the differences between individuals, and therefore
wrongly assume that those individuals who have the
same outward appearance are equally capable ot
attaining the highest perfection possible for the genus ;
and according as their actions are in agreement or
at variance with such perfection, declare them to be
good or bad. " But as God does not know things
abstractly, or through such general definitions, and as
things have no more reality than the divine under-
standing and power bestows upon them," ^ it follows
that all such conceptions, good and bad, beautiful and
ugly, perfect and imperfect, are but modes of thinking,
and have no application to real things. Since each
individual acts according to the necessity of his nature,
it is as absurd to blame an individual for any of his
actions as to condemn a triangle for not having the
properties of a circle.^

There is, however, a curious conflict of tendencies

1 Epistvla 19.

2 Spinoza was, of course, also forced to this position by the
exigencies of his pantheism. As all things are in God, and
therefore all things divine, evil must be mere privation. Simi-
larly such freedom as Descartes ascribes to the individual is not
only inconceivable in itself, but also incompatible with the
supremacy of God.

142 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

in Spinoza's philosophy. Though he maintains that
we must view things in the concrete setting of their
constitutive relations, he was yet himself driven to
deny the existence of the finite, the knowledge of
which he thus sought to complete; and though he
denounces any attempt to explain the concrete through
the general and abstract, he himself in the end
hypostatises, as the sole reality, a few merely abstract
conceptions. The cause of this strange contradiction
between the results at which he aims and the con-
clusions which he establishes, lies, we shall try to
show, in those rationalistic principles which he shares
with Descartes. The mathematical method is, he
believes, the sole possible method and of universal
application. '^ I shall therefore pursue the same
method in considering the nature and strength of the
afifects and the power of the mind over them which
I pursued in our previous discussion of God and the
mind, and I shall consider human actions and
appetites just as if I were considering Unes, planes,
or bodies."^ And since he interprets this method in
the same mistaken manner as Descartes, he likewise
believes that from a pure conception (such as is un-
folded in the definition of a geometrical figure, and

^ Ethica, III. Preface (White and Stirling's trans, p. 105).

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 143

such as he would distinguish sharply from merely
general or abstract notions) further knowledge can be
directly derived. An adequate conception or defini-
tion is such " that all the properties of the thing,
when the definition is considered by itself alone and
not conjoined with others, may be inferred from it, as
we observe is the case with the definition of a circle." ^
From ultimate conceptions, by pure deduction, all
true knowledge is derived. If we can now show that
this Cartesian method is at variance with the views
which Spinoza seeks to maintain, we shall afford
further proof of the correctness of our interpretation
of that method, and also at the same time bring out
more clearly its implications and consequences.

One consequence, inevitably resulting from the
mathematical method, is the identification of a causa-
tion with explanation. If all things follow from their
grounds in the same way that the different properties
of a triangle follow from its definition, the one possible
form of connection between real existences must be
that of logical dependence. And that all-important
consequence (implied though not openly recognised in
Descartes' system) Spinoza states in the most explicit
manner. Like Leibniz, he takes the principle of

^ Tractatvs de Intellectua Emendatione (Stirling's trans, p. 53).

144 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

causality as being a necessary truth of reason, and as
identical with the principle of ground and consequent.^
The effect is that which can be deduced with logical
necessity from the notion of the cause. When no
such necessary conceptual relation exists between
phenomena, they cannot be causally related.^

This view of causation comes out clearly in
Spinoza's own statement of his method in the un-
finished Tractatvs de Intellectus Hmendatione, Method,
he there tells us, is knowledge arising from reflection
(cognitio refleodva), or the idea of an idea : it is the
knowledge of an idea in the mind as being true, and
hence as being an instrument whereby we can acquire
other true ideas. It is with the idea as it is with the
reality corresponding to the idea. As all things in
nature are connected with other things, their ideas will
necessarily have the same connections. If anything^
is a cause, the effect as arising out of the cause will be
deducible from the idea of the cause, and arise out of
it. Ordo et conneodo idearum idem est ac ordo et
conneodo remm.

1 Considered in the manner of Spinoza, it in the end resolves
itself into the law of identity, the effect being one ^f the
qualities constituting the substance of the cause. Cf. below,
pp. 146-8.

2 Cf. EihyxLy i. 3 ; also Epistula 4.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 145

But from the fact that every idea must altogether
agree with the reality which it represents, " it is clear
that in order that our mind may exactly reproduce
the pattern of Nature it must draw all its ideas from
that idea which reproduces the origin and fountain of
the whole of Nature, so that it may also become the
source of other ideas." ^ That primary idea is the
idea of God. Ex nihilo nihil Jit, that from which
reality is to be deduced must contain within itself all
that is developed out of it. We must, if knowledge
of the finite is to be possible, " have a knowledge of
God equal to that which we have of a triangle."^

Now though it be undeniable that that from which
all knowledge is deducible must be the idea of an all-
comprehensive Being, to affirm that is very different
from saying that we must, as Spinoza implies, start
straight away with an adequate idea of God, and in it
by analysis discover all else.^ Spinoza's position

^ Tractattbs de Intellectus Evnervdatione : Van Vloten and Land,
I. p. 14 (Stirling's trans, pp. 20-1).

2 De Intellectus Emendatione : Van Vloten and Land, i. p. 27
(Stirling's trans, p. 44). Cf. Epistvla 56.

^That is all that deduction can mean for Spinoza. The
deduced is discovered to constitute that from which it * follows.*
Cf. De Intellectus Emendatione : Van Vloten and Land, i. p. 31
(Stirling's trans, pp. 61-2). " For in truth the knowledge of the
effect is nothing else than the acquisition of a more perfect
knowledge of the cause."

146 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

involves him in a dilemma. Only if we start with
the idea of an absolute all-containing reality, can we
deduce all reality from it ; yet, on the other hand, if
we start with it, we have it already, and need not to
proceed further.^ Spinoza, like Descartes, is here
confusing the two meanings of the term ultimate. It
may mean that upon which all else depends, that in
and through which other things are alone conceivable,
or it may signify that which contains within itself all
else, not merely the condition but also the conditioned.
As a matter of fact, Spinoza, in the same way as
Descartes, starts from certain abstract conceptions
(these include extension and consciousness, which
Spinoza does not, and cannot, deduce from his idea
of God), and explains away all that cannot be reduced
to them.

That this perpetual interchange of the simple with
the most complex, to which all Cartesian thinking
seems condemned, should thus in Spinoza find its
most pronounced expression, is in great part due to

^This dilemma would not apply all-roiiud. It applies to
Spinoza in so far as he believes that we start in knowledge from
conceptions that are known clearly and adequately, and that
from them by logical * deduction ' we derive all else. As we
have seen in considering the method of Descartes, nothing can
be derived from a conception that has not been thought in it
from the start.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 147

the consistency with which he develops the conse-
quences of the Cartesian interchange of real cause and
logical ground. The relation of cause and effect, he in
the end shows, is not only identical with that of
ground and consequent, but also with that of substance
and quality.^ Since the cause is that in whose notion
the effect is necessarily and timelessly involved, the
effect must be an inherent and permanent quality of
the substance that is its ground.^ The * simple,' from

1 Spinoza explicitly adopts the Cartesian doctrine that every-
thing is either a substance or the quality of a substance.
Mkica, I. 6 coroll. Cf. Epistvla 4 : '* Besides substances and
accidents, nothing exists really or externally to the intellect."
Though the term * accident' is here used in a very general
sense, we can still assert of Spinoza's philosophy as a whole that
it leaves no place for the conception of relations between sub-
stances relatively indepeudent.

^One point, therefore, at which a critic might attack the
closely-woven web of argument that forms the metaphysics of
Spinoza is this identification of cause, reason, and substance.
The criticism would then be the criticism of Hume, that a cause
is never a reason, and an effect never a quality of its cause.
Since the fundamental fact at the root of all causal connection
is change, even if the cause be regarded as itself being or
becoining the effect, the phenomenon is still a process in time,
and therefore something which the relation of logical depend-
ence cannot completely express. Even though it were granted
(cf. Bosanquet's discussion of the relation of cause and reason.
Logic, I. pp. 264 ff.) that ultimately the causal relation may
merge in that of ground and consequent, that would not justify
us in directly equating them, as in all forms identical. Spinoza
shows that change takes place only wiihin a system that itself

148 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

which we start, must comprehend as its constitutive
qualities all the complexity that is * deduced ' from it.

From this view of causation follows with equal
inevitableness, and for the same reasons, the pantheism
of Spinoza. Creation, conceived as a form of transient
action, whereby God might bring into existence a
reality that lay outside the circle of His own essence,
is as inconceivable as any form of transient action
between independent finite existences. As an effect is
always an inherent quality of its cause, all causation
without exception is immanent causation, and the
created world the revelation of the Divine Being
whose essence it constitutes.

From Spinoza's view of causation follows likewise
his theory of the attributes. Since neither extension
nor thought involves the other in its conception, there
can be no causal relation between them.^ Motion can
produce nothing but motion, and an idea can give rise
to nothing but other ideas. As both attributes, how-
is unchanging, but as the finite and changing is related to the
completed system through its changing relations to other finite
elements, the causal interaction of finite existences is one that
still requires its own special analysis. Only when the diffi-
culties raised by Hume's analysis of causation have been taken
into account can any genuine reconciliation of causation with
explanation be brought about.
1 Cf . Ethica, i. 3.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA

149

.ever, necessarily inhere in God, and follow from the
absolute unity of His nature, they must in Him find
the ground of their connection. And the only way
which Spinoza can see of reconciling their absolute
diversity with God's unity is by regarding each as co-
extensive with the whole essence of God, expressing it
in its own way. Since substance is that which exists,
and is intelligible, in and through itself, it will then
follow that each attribute that expresses it must be so
likewise. Each will be found to obey laws that follow
solely from its own essential nature. But though only
these two attributes of extension and thought are
known to us, God as infinitely real expresses His
nature through an infinite number of such infinite
attributes. And as every finite being, so far as it has
real existence, shares in the essence of God, it also
must be expressed through all the infinite attributes of
God, and therefore, in our experience, through both
the attributes of extension tind of thought. . That is
the ground of Spinoza's fundamental principle, cn^do
et conneodo idearum idem est Uc ordo et connexio rerum,
Spinoza thus adopts and extends Descartes' ideal of
physical explanation. Everything material, however
complex or highly organised, is brought into existence
through the operation of universal mechanical laws.

150 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Mind can neither act on matter nor govern it.
*' When men say that this or that action of the body
springis from the mind, which has command over the
body, they do not know what they say, and they do
nothing but confess with pretentious words that they
know nothing about the cause of the action, and see
nothing in it to wonder at." ^ To the objection that
it is impossible that solely from the laws of the
material world we should be able to deduce the causes
of pictures or other works of art, and that the human
body is not capable, unless it is determined and led by
the mind, of building a single temple, Spinoza replies :
" I have shown that [those who make this objection]
do not know what the body can do, nor what can be
deduced from the consideration of its nature alone,
and that they find that many things are done merely
by the laws of nature which they would never have
believed to be possible without the direction of the
mind. ... I adduce also here the structure itself of
the human body, which so greatly surpasses in work-
manship all those things which are constructed by
human art."*

^Bthicaj III. 2, Scholium (White and Stirling's trans,
p. 109).

^Loc. cit. (p. 110). As we have seen, Spinoza denies that
matter is organised according to ideas which lie outside it

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 151

This ideal of scientific explanation Spinoza also
applies to mind. Since mind and matter are two
different expressions of one and the same reality, and run
parallel to one another throughout all existence, the
mind is as much a part of nature as the human body.
If the human body is determined to be what it is by
its relation to all other bodies in infinite space, the
complex organisation of ideas which forms the human
soul must similarly be determined by its relation to the
other infinitely varied ideas that constitute the infinite
attribute of thought. Spinoza's theory of mind is,
however, less developed than his theory of matter, and
constantly he fills up the gaps in his knowledge of
the mental by analogies taken from the material
world. ^

in the mind of God. It is interesting to compare Spinoza's
position with that of Hume. Cf. below, chap. vi. pp. 235 ff.

^ Cf. above, Appendix D to chapter in. pp. 133-5. As has
been pointed out in that Appendix, the view of particular ideas
as modes arising by limitation of universal consciousness is
formed on the analogy of the relation of geometrical figures to
the space in which they are constructed. Cf. also below, note 1
to p. 152. Spinoza retains Descartes' view of understanding as a
special faculty quite distinct from imagination. Imagination is,
on Spinoza's view, associative thinking, and involves a more or
less explicit mental atomism. Just as he makes no attempt to
reconcile his assumption of mechanical action with his theory of
causation, so likewise he ignores the problem of reconciling his
view of association with his doctrine of pure thought.

152 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Now there is involved in this mechanical explana-
tion of body and of mind that other kind of causality
in which the effect follows in time upon the cause.
One body is assumed to be able to move another
through impact, and one idea to be capable of
recalling another associated with it in the past.^
How such causation is possible, and in what it con-
sists, or how it stands to the relation of logical conse-
quence, Spinoza tells us absolutely nothing. Yet, even
though Spinoza had clearly recognised that this form
of relation is distinct from that of logical dependence,
and had admitted his incapacity to give any definite
account of its nature, he would not, for that reason, have
been forced, like Descartes, to deny its possibility. ^
Finite existences being, on his view, manifestations
of a single substance, transient action ceases to be

1 Spinoza simply takes over from ordinary experience the fact
that bodies are set in motion on impact, and that ideas recall one
another. The laws of motion he regards as necessary truths of
reason, and the laws of association he interprets (and it is an
illustration of his tendency to fill up gaps in our knowledge of
the mental by analogies taken from the material) as the subjec-
tive counterpart of the objective connections between brain
processes.

2 That, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, Descartes is
forced to do when he consistently develops his fundamental
principles. The occasionalist solution is the attempt to intro-
duce in an external form that necessary relation to the infinite,
which ought to have been kept in view from the start.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 153

inconceivable. As has already been said, it need no
longer be regarded as the mysterious passing over of
influence from one self-centred being to another, but
rather as a natural consequence of their mutual partici-
pation in the common nature of things. Descartes'
diflBculty reappears, however, in Spinoza's system in a
new form. As Spinoza starts from the assumption of
a single substance, of which all finite existences are
but modes, his problem is not so much to explain
their interaction as to account for their independence.
And it is in his failure to vindicate their independence,
that those rationalistic principles which he shares with
Descartes e^gain reveal their inherent insufficiency.

Though Spinoza's position, as formulated in his
method, is that from the conception of God, known as
adequately as we know a triangle, all else is deducible,
he really makes his start from the two attributes, as_

revealed in experie nce, of extension and thought. But
even irom these two conceptions he does not dire ctly
develop out the variety of the real. Instead of that
progressive course to which his method commits him,
he starts from the actual nature of finite existences,
and by a regressive process, wherein the qualities con-
stituting their finitude are explained as purely nega-
tive, reduces their essential reality to the continuous

154 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

TifttiirP of P.Yt.P.nainn and nf t.hmight As regards the

material world Spinoza carries out this process of
reduction by first of all regarding motion as merely
change of place, and therefore as purely geometrical
The sole differences in nature are diSerences of position
and of figura Figure, again, arises by limiting off
from infinite space one finite portion of it; and as
this limitation is mere negation, the finite figure qud
finite is unreal.^ In extension, viewed 'concretely,'^
no divisions or distinctions can be asserted to exist.
Similarly all particular ideas are unreal limitations
of universal consciousness,^ and therefore in their
finitude have no more than a negative existence.
Finite existences are illusions of the imagination that
vanish when their essence is realised to be continuous
with, and indivisible from, the one reality. This
tendency to explain finite existences, not through their

^Cf. EpUtvla 50: "He who says that he perceives figure,
says only that he has before his mind a limited thing, and the
manner in which it is limited. But this limitation does not
pertain to a thing in its * esse^ but contrariwise in its ' Tion-esse '
\i,e. it signifies, not that some positive quality belongs to the
thing, but that something is wanting to it]. Since, then, figure
is but limitation, and limitation is but negation, we cannot say
that figure is anything." We give Dr. Caird's translation of
the passage {Essays^ p. 354).

^Cf. Ethicay i. 15, Scholium : also Epistvla 12.

' Cf . above. Appendix D to chapter in. pp. 133-5.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 155

relations to other finite beings within an organised
system, but directly as modifications of an unchanging
reality, finds very definite expression in the Tractatus
de Intdlectus Hmendatione in a passage which we have
already partially quoted.^ After saying that "it is
above everything necessary for us to deduce all our
ideas from things physical or from real entities, by
advancing as strictly as possible according to the
sequence of causes from one real entity to another
real entity, and not passing over to abstracts and
universals," Spinoza adds : " It is to be observed,
however, that 1 do not here understand by the
sequence of causes and real entities the sequence of
individual, mutable things, but the sequence only
of things fixed and eternal." And he proceeds :
" Moreover, it is not necessary that we should under-
stand the sequence [of individual mutable things],
since the essences of individual mutable things are
not to be drawn from their sequence or order of
existence, for this gives us nothing but external
marks, relations, or at the best, unessential properties,
all of which are far from being the internal essence
of things." 2 That last sentence is specially signifi-
cant Spite of Spinoza's emphatic adoption of the

^ Cf. above, p. 138. * Stirling's trans, pp. 65-6.

156 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

point of view of physical science, and of his extension
of it to the mental, his thinking is still ruled by the
Cartesian opposition between internal and external,
between the unchanging essence of things and their
contingent changing relations. He fails to adapt the
timeless relation of necessary consequence, which is his
sole conception of causal connection, so as to account
for these ' external ' relations. All determination, he
is forced to conclude, is mere negation, and hence can
cause nothing. There is no transient action between
finite existences, since finite existences there are none.
Differing from Descartes only in the more consistent
development of his rationalism, Spinoza equally fails to
account for the facts of our time-experience.

These results, however, as we have already stated,
by no means express the point of view which Spinoza
seeks to establish. To represent adequately the
meaning and significance of his teaching, we must also
recognise the alternative view of God, and of the
attributes, which it presents. When he develops the
above view, finite existence and change in time are
regarded as illusions, and so far as they are
explained at all, even as illusions, are accounted for
by a ghostly remnant of the spiritualism of Descartea
They are unrealities pictured by the mind, so far as the

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA 157

mind is individual, and therefore itself unreal.^ To
^ certain extent also, the understanding is made to
account for the attributes, or rather to reconcile the
variety of the attributes with the simplicity of God's
nature. " By attribute, I mean that which the
intellect perceives as constituting the essence of
substance." Thereby Spinoza would at times seem to
imply that the understanding is the prism that breaks
up the white light of the Divine Substance into the
variety of its appearances. But with that view
Spinoza is not altogether in earnest. So soon as the
problem of reconciling the unity of God with the
variety of the attributes falls into the background, he
brings forward his alternative view of God as contain-
ing in the fullness of His being all possible reality, and
declares that the defect in our knowledge lies not in
our apprehending His unity through two wholly diverse
attributes, but in our knowing only these two, and not
an infinite number of others equally diverse. There
is, however, do analogy possible between our know-
ledge of such a God and our knowledge of a triangle.
As regards the two attributes of extension and

^ Spinoza, like Leibniz, declares sense to be confused thought.
All the secondary qualities would presumably, on his view,
cease to exist for perfected knowledge.

158 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

thought, a similar duality of view appears in Spinoza'a
teaching. When he applies his geometrical method,
extension, we have seen, is regarded as simple, exclud-
ing motion and figure. Since all determination is
negation, on adequate knowledge differences of figure
vanish, leaving only continuous and empty space.
And, in that same way, the uniform light of conscious-
ness is regarded as known completely in any and
every act of thought. When, on the other hand,
Spinoza seeks to maintain the concrete reality of God,
he denies that extension is the passive extension, or
thought the passive thinking of Descartes. Motion is
not added from outside to a passive extension, nor are
the ideas, that give variety to the uniform light of
consciousness, external to the nature of consciousness.
Since both attributes are expressions of the Divine
Substance, they reveal its inexhaustible creative energy
by unceasingly giving rise, through the divine power
that is in them, to all possible bodies and to all possible
ideas. "From the supreme power of God, or from
His infinite nature, infinite things in infinite ways,
that is to say, all things, have necessarily flowed, or
continually follow by the same necessity, in the same
way as it follows from the nature of a triangle, from
eternity and to eternity, that its three angles are

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN SPINOZA

fqiia) tn two righfc anglfis. The omnipotence of God
has therefore been actual from eternity, and in the
same actuality will remain to eternity/'^ Though
this view of extension as involving motion is not
developed by Spinoza,^ and though the relation of the
particular ideas to their attribute is also left quite
obscure, in both cases he dwells upon the active
nature of the modal existence. Each body is a
cmiatus quo unaquaeque res in suo esse perseverare
conatur. Similarly, each idea is regarded as having
an independent existence. Containing its essence
within itself, it is neither a shadowy image of an
external reality nor a mere state of a mind or subject.

^Ethica^ I. 17, Scholium (White and Stirling's trans, pp. 20-1).

2 When Tschimhausen (Epistulae 80 and 82) demanded of
Spinoza how from the conception of extension there can be
deduced a priori the existence of bodies that possess figure and
motion, Spinoza replied (Epistula 83) : " As to your question,
whether the variety of existing things can be demonstrated a
priori from the mere conception of extension, I think I have
already sufiSciently shown that that is impossible, and that,
therefof*e, matter is ill-defined by Descartes as consisting in
extension. It must necessarily be explained by an attribute
which expresses an eternal and infinite esseuce. But this I
shall, perhaps, some day, if my life be prolonged, discuss more
clearly with you. For hitherto I have not been able to set
down anything orderly on this matter." The above (written
15th July, 1676) is, however, the last letter which we possess
from Spinoza's hand.

/
/

160 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

It is an activity expressive of the divine nature, and
as such involves an affirmation.^

There are thus two interpretations in Spinoza of
God and the attributes — a concrete interpretation in
which he adopts the scientific point of view and
anticipates modern thought, and the abstract inter-
pretation to which he is forced by the inadequacy of
the rationalistic principles which he inherits from
Descartes.

^A.*-^l«<. '• N \

{',',, '--.n- ■ M.--' r ,1 --t;,) coexir

We m|iy now proceed to indicate, with equal
brevity, ' the influence exercised by the Cartesian
principles upon the thinking of Leibniz.^ Like
Malebranche, he holds that from the conception of the

^ Cf. Ethica^ II. 43, Scholium : ii. 49, Scholium.

^Though Leibniz is certainly a systematic thinker, it is his
many-sided snggestiveness that has been most remarked. Our
aim, however, is merely to show that his system is in its main
outlines based upon Cartesian principles, and that in his
philosophy these principles, so far as they remain in essentials
unmodiBed, inevitably lead to the same unsatisfactory con-
clusions. While, therefore, we must omit all detailed reference
to those other parts of his teaching which are not closely bound
up with these principles, this omission must not be taken as
implying any desire, on our part, to minimise their significance
and importance.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 161

self all its different states must be capable of direct
deduction. That, however, is not, as in Malebranche,
a final consequence to which his thinking leads, but
the fundamental doctrine upon which his system is
based. Quite unafraid of any apparent paradoxes in
his contention, he maintains that from the idea of the
self must be deducible not only its different possible
experiences — a capacity for the different sensations
and feelings — but also the reason of the actual happen-
ing of every single 'contingent' experience, past
present, and to come. " The nature of an individual
substance, or complete being, is to have a notion so
completed that it suffices to comprehend, and to render
deducible from it all the predicates of the subject to
which this notion is attributed. . . . God, seeing the
individual notion or hecceity of Alexander, sees in it
at the same time the foundation and the reaiSon of all
the predicates which can truly be attributed to him, as
e,g. whether he would conquer Darius and Porus, even
to knowing a priori (and not by experience) whether
he died a natural death or by poison, which we can
only know by history."^ This position of Leibniz is

^Gerhardt, ii. p. 433 (Russeirs trans, p. 214). Cf. iv. p. 436.
" The notion of an individual substance involves once for all
everything that can ever happen to it, and in considering this
notion, we can see all that can be truly predicated of it^ just as

162 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

based on the atomic conceptualism, which, as we have
seen, results from the scholastic doctrine of essence.
Every true predicate must be included, implicitly if
not explicitly, in the notion of the subject, since other-
wise to assert that it belongs to the subject would
necessarily be false. Even predicates that aflSrm
relations hold true only if they express some attribute
inhering in each of the substances so related, the
essence of the proposition consisting in the assertion of
that inherent quality.

But if everything that can happen to an individual
is included in its notion, and follows necessarily
from it, if "our thoughts are the consequences of
the nature of our soul, and come to birth in virtue
of its notion, it is useless to demand in explanation
of their appearance the influence of another particular
substance, besides that this influence is absolutely
inexplicable."^ Each soul must be a world apart
All our perceptions and feelings would arise in
order as they do now, even though the whole
external world were annihilated, and only God and
the self remained.^

we can see in the nature of the circle all the properties that can
be deduced from it."

* Grerhardt, ii. p. 69.

2Cf. Gerhardt, iv. p. 440,

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 163

Now just as Spinoza argues that only from the
one all-comprehensive idea can the real be deduced,
so Leibniz is forced to conclude that if everything
is deducible from the notion of the individual, that
notion must be all-inclusive*^ Since, as experience
shows, everything is bound up with everything
else, and varies with it, every individual having
some relation, direct or indirect, to every other
individual, the above theory of predication can only
be maintained through the counter-assertion that
each concrete and completed notion is infinite, and
mirrors in its complexity the whole Universe.
Further, in order that the so-called external and
accidental relations to other individuals similarly
complete in themselves, be deducible from even this
infinite notion, there is required, as the objective
counterpart of the above assumption, the hypothesis
of concomitance or pre-established harmony, the
hypothesis, namely, that to every experience in one
soul there must exist a corresponding experience in
every other. And combining that last hypothesis

^Thus common to both Spinoza and Leibniz is the view of
substance as that which is conceived in and through itself. But
while Spinoza starts from the idea of Divine Substance to
deduce the finite individual, Leibniz starts with the conception
of the individual to reconstruct the Universe.

164 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

with the truth that no two individuals can be
altogether alike without being identical, we may
finally conclude that while each individual mirrors
the same universe, each must mirror it from a
dififerent point of view. "Thus the universe is in
a manner multiplied as many times as there are
substances, and the glory of God is at the same
time redoubled by as many representations, all
different, of His work."^ These conclusions may,
Leibniz repeatedly states, appear paradoxes; but as
they follow necessarily from the indubitable principle

^Gerhardt, iv. p. 434. Leibniz adds that each substance
imitates according to its nature the infinite wisdom and omni-
potence of God. " It expresses, although confusedly, all that
happens in the universe, past, present, and to come, that which
has some resemblance to an infinite perception or knowledge ;
and as all the other substances express it in their turn and
accommodate themselves to it, it may be said that it extends its
power over all the others in imitation of the omnipotence of the
Creator." That last sentence indicates Leibniz's mode of
explaining, and justifying, the ordinary notions of causal inter-
action. Since the dififerent monads mirror one and the same
universe with dififerent degrees of distinctness, change of
state may well find its explanation, not in the monad in which
it occurs, but in some other. One thing may be said to act in so
far as it has perfection, and to be acted upon in so far as it is
imperfect. And one created thing is more perfect than another
when, having more distinct perceptions, there is found in it that
which serves to explain a priori what takes place in the other.
Causation is thus always ideal ; it is identical with explanation.
Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 3 ; v. 40.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 165

that every true predicate inheres in the notion of
the subject, they must be accepted by all those
who desire to think consistently.^

What specially concerns us is to determine more
exactly Leibniz's meaning in the assertion that all
predicates follow from, are a priori consequences of,
the notion of their subject. In seeking the relation
of predicates to their subject, two points of view
are, according to Leibniz, possible. If we consider
the direct relation of the predicates to the subject,
the principle of their connection must be that of
identity. The predicates follow from, are conse-

^Our attention was first drawn by the late Prof essor Adamson
to those letters of Leibniz to Arnauld in which the above
argament is stated. The importance of this argument has,
however, recently been pointed out by Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell
{The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 8) holds that this argument "is
alone capable of explaining why Leibniz held that substances do
not interact." Leibniz denies interaction because it is wholly
inconsistent with the rationalistic principles which he shares
with Descartes. Leibniz's argument that the existence of the
composite (as it appears in ordinary consciousness) necessitates
the assumption of simple elements as its constituents — which is
the argument upon which he chiefly relies in his later works for
proof of the existence of monads — is by no means satisfactory,
since the composite is what, on his principles, cannot be
accounted for. Cf. La Monadologie, sec. 2 (Latta's trans, p.
217) : " And there must be simple substances, since there are
compounds ; for a compound is nothing but a collection or
aggregatum of simple things."

166 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

quences of, the notion of the subject, in the sense
that by analysis they can be discovered in it, and
be found to constitute it. Were anyone of the predi-
cates changed, the subject, whose notion they
express, would cease to be the same individual. In
those cases, however, in which we fail to discover
the predicate in our notion of the subject, we are
forced to adopt a second point of view, namely, to
consider the predicates in relation to the other
predicates, either coexisting or preceding, and in
that indirect way to determine their relation to
their common subject. Though these other predi-
cates may not involve it in their notion, and so
justify it by the law of identity, they may yet
supply a sufl&cient reaso'n why it should be so, rather
than otherwise. The problem which the philosophy
of Leibniz sets to the commentator is to connect
these two points of view, to reconcile the purely
logical attitude expressed in the law of identity
with the more empirical expressed in the law of
sufficient reason. The universal application of the
first would destroy both time and space, and allow
only of eternal and logical, never of temporal or
causal, connections. The application of the second
on the other hand, implies the existence of space

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 167

and time, and allows, as having at least phenomenal,
practical, validity, explanation by efficient causes.
From the point of view of the first, monads are
notions with an eternal and completed content.
From the point of view of the second, each is an
activity that progressively realises its notion in time
through its tendency towards the good. This opposi-
tion is identical with the opposition, which we have
considered at length in our treatment of Descartes,
between rational connection and temporal causation.
Leibniz, following Descartes, combines his peculiar
rationalism with an equally extreme spiritualism.
While an analysis of what is involved in true
predication leads to the assumption of individual,
completed, and all-comprehensive, notions, it is only
in inner experience, Leibniz believes, that such indi-
viduality is to be found. In the Cogito, and there
alone, do we find a unity such as those notions,
if real, must possess.^ Combining, therefore, these

^In it we have experience of a unity that is capable of
maintaining itself throughout the variety of its states, and of an
activity that progressively unfolds that unity in the realisation
of desire. Further, within the unity of each perception there
id always involved a multiplicity, infinitely complex. In thus
insisting that in mind the two opposites, unity and variety, are
inseparable, and that all reality— dA distinguished from the
unreal abstractions of thought — has that twofold aspect,

/
/

168 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

two truths, that of general reasoning and that of
inner experience, Leibniz constructs a system that,
however different in detail from the philosophy of
Descartes, still maintains unchanged its fundamental
principles. When his rationalism comes short, active
spirit is made to fill the gaps.

Leibniz does not prove that spirit has the
capacity of infinite inner development. Having
shown that the notion of the individual must be
all-comprehensive, and that spirit is the only
form of unity in variety known to us in the real,
he at once identifies the two. In the logical

Leibniz, like Spinoza, prepared the way for a truer and more
organic point of view. The impossibility of explaining the
unity of consciousness in any mechanical fashion is strongly
insisted upon by Leibniz. Cf. La MoTiadologie^ sec. 17 (Latta's
trans, pp. 227-8) : " It must be confessed that perception and
that which depends upon it are inexplicahle on mechanical
grounds^ that is to say, by means of figures and notions. And,
supposing there were a machine so constructed as to think, feel,
and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size,
while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into
it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining
its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and
never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in
a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that
perception must be sought for." That the spiritualism and the
rationalism are very externally conjoined in Leibniz's system is
not surprising, since at bottom, as interpreted by Leibniz, they
are utterly at variance with one another.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 169

notion are involved all its predicates : in the self
must therefore be contained the complete conditions
of all that it realises through its activities. The
relation of the predicates to the subject is logical:
from the self all actions must be similarly deducible.
From this point, however, in Leibniz's argument the
spiritualism takes the upper hand. His rationalism
aflFords the basal argument for his monadism, but
the monad being further interpreted as spirit, his
rationalism is in the resulting system greatly modified
to suit this deeper and more adequate conception of
the nature of the individual. Since he now declares
all substances to be active entities, endowed with
desire and with perception, he no longer conceives
the process by which the various predicates are
deduced from the notion of each individual as
purely, and entirely, logical. Though he still speaks
of the process as a priori, the a priori reasons are
such as incline without necessitating. As the
development of the conscious being is ruled by the
contingent principle that what is sought is the
good, each of its activities is to be deduced (in
accordance with that principle which inclines with-
out necessitating) from the individual's prior know-
ledge of what is for the best. But in order to

170 IHE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

maintain his rationalism, even in that highly
modified form, Leibniz has to make good the
extreme assertions that all change in nature is the
outcome of desire, and that nothing has absolute
reality save subjective experience.

From his spiritualism Leibniz derives what little
metaphysical explanation ,he is able to give of the
mechanical world in space. Accepting as an empiri-
cal fact that bodies do appear to us as interrelated
in space, he asserts that this appearance has its
source in the confused perceptions of the monads.
Thus condemning the mechanical world as pheno-
menal, he escapes the demand that his theory of
causation be tested by the peculiar facts which it
reveals. Since the mechanical world would resolve
for complete knowledge into purely ideal relations
between spiritual monads,^ knowledge of it as
appearance can only proceed according to the con-
tingent laws of its actual nature. These, as experi-
ence shows, are the laws of motion. All change in

* Leibniz indirectly proves that the atomistic conceptualism of
Descartes is as incapable of accounting for space, as, on
Descartes' own showing, it is of accounting for time. The
essentially relational nature of space and time, as revealed in
their continuity, is inconsistent with any interpretation of
reality that is exclusively based on the conception of sub-
stance.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 171

the material world arises upon impact, and the
sufl&cient reason for any change is therefore to be
found in a preceding change capable, according to
the laws of motion, of bringing it about. But just
as Leibniz fails to explain how the obscurity and
confusion in the perceptions of monads should trans-,
form the discrete harmony of the universe into the
continuous form of space,^ so he fails to connect in
any real way the laws of motion (which must in
the end be regarded as the phenomenal manifesta-
tion of the inner striving of the monads) with the
choice of the good.^

As regards the problem of knowledge, Leibniz's
contribution is very suggestive, and in many respects
anticipates modem views, ^ but when interpreted

1 Cf . below, pp. 34-6.

2 Cf . Russell : The Philosophy of Leibniz^ p. 89 : " Leibniz has
acquired much credit for the vaunted interconnection of his
views in these two departments [Dynamics and Metaphysics],
and few seem to have perceived how false his boast really is. As
a matter of fact, the want of connection is, I think, quite one of
the weakest points in his system."

3 Such anticipations of more modern views are for the most
part due to the principle of continuity which Leibniz applies
with great acuteness and originality in all departments of know-
ledge. It leads him, in his theory of knowledge, to deny the
absoluteness of such distinctions as those between the conscious
and the unconscious, between thought and sense, between the
necessary and the contingent.

172 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

quite strictly, in the light of his fundamental
principles, proves less important than at first sight
appears. Though he rejects Descartes' impossible
opposition of thought and sense, he does so only
in order to support the equally extreme contention
that sense is confused thought. On complete know-
ledge, colour, sound, and the other secondary qualities,
would, he believes, become transformed into something
fundamentally dififerent from themselves. Thinking,
if it could be thoroughly carried out, would consist
in a progressive elimination of sense by clarification
of the confused perceptions into the distinct ideas of
which they are composed. By that view of sense he
seeks to mediate between Descartes and Locke, asserting
with the one that the mind possesses innate ideas,
and with the other that all knowledge is based on
concrete sense-experience, and develops from it.

Three different views of the innateness of know-
ledge can be detected in Leibniz. First, there is
that view which has always gone along with
subjective idealism, namely, that the self is an
independent substantial agent, and by reflection on
its own nature acquires those notions through
which it interprets all else. Since we are, so to
speak, innate to ourselves, in apprehending the self

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 173

we necessarily apprehend those ideas which are
implied in the idea of the self, such as being, sub-
stance, unity, sameness, activity, perception.^ This
theory, however, seems to be propounded by
Leibniz simply as a step towards the second and
deeper view which he develops at length in the
Nouveavx JSssais in opposition to ^the teaching of
Locke. The necessary truths of reason are not,
and cannot be, guaranteed by generalisation or in-
duction from particular instances supplied in sense-
experience. They have their source in the under-
standing alone, and do not require for their
establishment anything beyond the intelligible ideas
between which they hold.^ But since Leibniz's

^ Cf. Nouveaux Essais, liv. ii. chap. i. sec. 2 : Gerhard t, v.
pp. 100-1 : " NihU est in intellectu, quod non fiterit in senm,
excipe : nisi ipse intellectus. Now the soul contains being,
substance, unity, identity, cause, perception, reasoning, and many
other notions, which the senses cannot give." Leibniz here
practically asserts that all those ideas which Locke ascribes to
reflection are innate. Such reflection extends, however, on
Leibniz's view, not only to the operations of the mind, but also
to the mind itself. This is a view of innate ideas which Kant
overthrows, one of the most important results of his philosophy
being that we know objects directly, and the self only indirectly
through objective experience.

2 Though Locke cannot possibly, from his sensationalistic
principles, account for such necessary intuitive knowledge, he
shows himself in the fourth book of the Essay quite ready to

174 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

argument, that these necessary truths are therefore
innate, implies, as he himself admits, that the ideas
between which they hold are likewise innate, his in-
terpretation of the innateness of knowledge depends
upon his mode of regarding ideas.

Now Leibniz retains the Cartesian view of ideas as
mental existences, the objects and not the acts of
thought. "If the idea were the form of thought, it
would spring up and cease with the actual thoughts
which correspond to it ; but being the object, it must
be before and after the thoughts."^ Each idea,
further, is to be regarded as in itself perfectly distinct.
Since experience is confused perception, and the con-
fused presupposes distinct elements as its constituents,
all our sense-perceptions must be composed of distinct,
prior-existing, that is to say, innate, ideas;^ Hence,
though Leibniz himself suggests, as we shall see im-

accept Leibniz's contention that necessary truths carry their
proof in themselves, and are not formed like general truths by
induction from experience. Cf. below, chap. v. pp. 15 ff.

^ Nouveaux Esaaia, liv. ii. chap. i. sec. 1 : Gerhard t, v. p. 99.
Cf. IV. p. 451. As Mr. Russell {The Philosophy of Leibniz, p.
165) expresses Leibniz's view. "An idea, though it is in the
mind, is neither knowledge nor desire ; it is not a thought, but
what a thought thinks about." The above references are given
by Mr. Russell.

*Cf. Boutroux in his preface to the Nouveaicx Essais, p. 94
(Paris, 1886).

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 175

mediately, a still higher and truer view of the nature
of the innate ideas, he is in the end forced by his
principles to adopt a view that is in essentials identical
with that of Descartes. " In every soul there exist
from all eternity the distinct ideas of all things. . . ,
The sum of these ideas constitutes reason which, in
this way, is innate in us." ^

When Leibniz is thus strictly interpreted, his most
important advance upon Descartes consists in the
introduction of the fruitful conception of the uncon-
scious. Descartes had never faced the difl&culty, how
if, as he asserts, the essence of mind consists in self-
consciousness, there can yet be innate in it ideas of
which it is not at every moment conscious. It is this

^ Boutroux, ibid. p. 82. As Leibniz thus retains Descartes'
view of ideas as the objects, not the acts, of thought, the
doctrine of representative perception also remains an integral
part of his system. Indeed, it fits in perfectly with his .view of
the self as an isolated monad, reproducing in picture within
itself ati independently existing world. Yet while thus retain-
ing the doctrine, he was not concerned to discuss either its
grounds or its implications. Though he refers to Berkeley's
philosophy as an absurd paradox, he has himself no better
reason to offer for his own belief in an external world than the
general principle that since being is preferable to not-being, the
more existence there is the better. (Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, i.
Appendix, at the end.) Spinoza takes up, as regards the nature
of ideas and their relation to the real, a position so peculiarly
his own that we have considered it needless for us to enter upon it.

176 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

unsolved diflBculty which gives Locke's objections to
his teaching what little force they may have.^ By the
assumption of unconscious mental states Leibniz meets
these objections, and again mediates between Descartes
and Locke.

But though Leibniz thus usually ascribes indepen-
dent existence to the different innate ideas, and regards
them, in a mechanical fashion, as constituting the
mind, there is cdso suggested in the Nouveaux JSssais a
third view, one that approximates more closely to the
Kantian position. For occasionally Leibniz speaks
of the ideas, not as separate entities, but as " habi-
tudes and dispositions " of the mind.^ " The general
principles enter into our thoughts, of which they are
the soul and organising bonds {Vdrm et la liaison).
They are necessary to our thinking as muscles and
tendons are for walking, though we do not think upon

^This is one of the problems dwelt upon by Augustine.
Of. above, chap. i. pp. 9-10. When Descartes touches t>n this
problem, he solves it in an unsatisfactory manner by ascribing
to the mind a power or faculty of producing ideas. (Of.
B^ponses aux Troisihnes Objections, i. pp. 492-3.) Against all
such faculties Leibniz, like Spinoza, carries on a vigorous polemic.
A faculty must, he insists, if it is anything real, be continously
in action in some form and degree — qtiod non agit, non earistiU

2 Of. Preface to the Nouveaux Essaia, Gerhardt, v. p. 45,
Latta's trans, p. 367 ; also, in the first book, chap. i. sec. 26 ;
chap. III. sec. 20 ; Gerhardt, v. pp. 79, 97.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 177

them. The mind supports itself upon these principles
at every moment."^ Knowledge of the concrete
and contingent precedes, as Locke rightly asserts,
knowledge of the universal and necessary; and yet,
as Descartes holds, it is the latter which renders
sense-experience possible.^ The mind rejects the self-
contradictory, even though it has never formulated to
itself the law of non-contradiction. Principles rule
and govern the mind long before it acquires definite
consciousness of them. Since Leibniz, however, believes
that all necessary truths are analytic, and are justified
by the law of identity, he could not really develop
this Kantian theory of the innateness of the connec-
tions binding the parts of our experience to one
another. By his assertion that the predicate must
always be involved in the subject, he virtually reduces
the judgment to the concept ; whereas Kant's teaching
has the contrary effect of transforming the concept
into the judgment. The judgment is the fundamental
act of mind, and being essentially an act of synthesis
involves synthetic connecting principles.* This higher

^ Nouveaux Esmisy liv. i. chap. i. sec. 20, Boutroux's text, p.
190. This passage is omitted in Gerhardt's edition.

2 This twofold truth Leibniz certainly states much more
clearly and emphatically than does Descartes.

^ Also when an idea is interpreted as a judgment, it can no

178 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

view of the innateness of knowledge is therefore, like
so many other of Leibniz's views, a suggestion merely,
and for its development would involve the rejection of
those Cartesian principles with which alone we are
here concerned, and upon which, as we have tried to
show, his monadism is based. Only the first two
views are consistent with Leibniz's principles; and
since when he develops the second view, that all ideas
are innate, his ascription of innateness to those ideas
which are implied in the idea of the self ceases to have
special significance, we are justified in interpreting his
doctrine in that second way as in essentials identical
with the teaching of Descartes.^

From this theory of the innateness of knowledge
Leibniz has obvious diflBculty in accounting for sense-
experience. As in the explanation of our apprehension
of space, he assumes that the innate ideas in coming
to consciousness appear first of all in a confused form.
So appearing, they give rise, he asserts, not only to
space but also to the secondary qualities, through which

longer be regarded in the Cartesian manner as a separate
existence, the object and not the act of mind.

1 It depends on which of the three interpretations of Leibniz's
doctrines we adopt, what value we assign to his famous reply to
Locke — nihU est in intellectu, quod non fuerit prtris in sensUj
nisi ipse intellect%Ls, Only on the last interpretation, which is
no more than suggested in Leibniz, is it an anticipation of Kaut.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LEIBNIZ 179

space is apprehended. What are the causes of this con-
fusion in our perceptions, and in what exactly it
consists, Leibniz does not, however, satisfactorily
explain. It must be assumed, he seems to say,
because only by its means can either the finitude
or the variety of the monads be established.^ If all
the innate ideas came to consciousness at once, each
monad would be as God, and all monads identical.
Though two explanations of such confused perception
are indicated in his writings, neither can be accepted.
Sometimes he speaks as if the confusion were due to
the finitude of the monads, but as it is it alone that
constitutes their finitude, the argument assumes all
that it pretends to prove. His second mode of
explanation is by the assumption of * minute * percep-
tions. Confused perceptions result, he says, from the
massing together of perceptions that separately are too
minute to affect consciousness; the roar of the sea,
for instance, is composed of the noises made by the
separate waves. This explanation is, however, equally

^ The variety of the monads is also due, according to Leibniz,
to differences in their points of view. Each represents clearly
that which is near at hand, and confusedly that which is distant.
This difference, however, seems to depend, as Mr. Eussell points
out (The Philoiophy of Leibniz^ chap, x.), on the surreptitious
reintroduction of that spatial relation whose validity Leibniz
denies.

180 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

unsatisfactory. For though differences of intensity
may be ascribed to sensations and feelings, they can
hardly be ascribed to the innate ideas, all ot which
are intelligible.^

No explanation, indeed, consistent with Leibniz's
principles can possibly be devised of confused percep-
tion. It is postulated by Leibniz simply as a
plausible means of reconciling an inadequate theory
of knowledge with the admitted facts. Just as spirit
is regarded as the source of all activity and change, so
likewise obscurity in its perceptions is made to
account for the secondary qualities of bodies, for space,
for the finitude of the monads, and for their variety.
Spirit is in the system of Leibniz, as in that of
Descartes, the devs ex machina that solves all the
irresolvable difficulties caused by a rationalism that
is based on the scholastic doctrine of essence. If
Leibniz's spiritualism is to be maintained, it must be
upon principles fundamentally different from those
which he inherits from Descartes.

1 Cf. Russell : The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 159.

CHAPTER V.

THE CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOOKE.1

Though the English development is one of grow-
ing empiricism, it remained to the end under the
predominant influence of the Cartesian philosophy ;
and Locke, the first of the school, is on the whole 1/
more rationalist than empiric. His empiricism all-
important, and alone emphasised, at the start of
the Essay, but dwindling in extent and in importance
as the Essay proceeds, is fixed by the attitude which
he takes up towards the originals of our knowledge.
They consist, he says, of sensations which as simple
are all isolated and atomic, and between which

1 We shall treat Locke at greater length than we have treated
Spinoza and Leibniz, partly because the connection between
his philosophy and that of Descartes has been less dwelt upon
by commentators, and also because a fuller statement of his
philosophy is necessary in order to enable us to understand the
point of view adopted by Hume in his criticism of the Cartesian
principles.

182 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

therefore, no necessary relations can ever be perceived
by us. That assertion is obviously true, so long as
we have in view the secondary qualities of bodies.
As we have found Malebranche also insisting,^
between the different sensations of the different
senses, and even between sensations of the same
sense, no relation can be discovered. But it is
not at all obvious why Locke should attempt to
/ interpret our whole experience in the light of the
secondary qualities.^ Why does he ignore the
spatial and causal relations whereby our sensations
are united to one another? They are equally
evident, and were alone emphasised in the Cartesian
philosophy from which he starts, and yet are quite
inconsistent with such a view. Two reasons may
be suggested. First, the influence of Bacon with
his teaching that the inductive method, starting
from the particular facts and cautiously advancing
to the more and more general, is the only fruitful
one. Such a method was much more congenial to
the English matter-of-fact temperament of Locke
than the adventurous a ^priori mathematical method

^ Cf . above, chap. iii. p. 95.

2 That Locke does so appears very clearly in the section in
which he defines the nature of simple ideas (ii. ii. 1).

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLBS IN LOCKE 183

of Descartes. Locke's ignpranco of mathematics and
interest in the purely empirical sciences of medicine
and politics, and also the predominantly empirical
tendency of scientific study in the England of his
day, would all strengthen this influence. Still more
important, however, is the physiological attitude

which, Locke adopt ed in the explanation of _ the

origin of knowledge, £m(l .which is the natural
complement, of a_...belief in the empirical method.
All knowledge, however ^bs tract or general, must
be traced back to that sense-experience which is

HiTpp1]pfi tn i^fl 1TI t.hp. pnnf-pnf-. of rlpt.flp.hpfl sensatlOn*

mrn^pg at fliffp.fftrif-. moments of time through the
different. 3Yenues,.i)L sense. To admit any other
source of knowledge is surely, Locke held, illegitimate,
unless it can be shown (and the burden of proof
he not unfairly regarded as resting on his opponents)
that this, the one undoubted, and sole obvious, source
of experience is incapable of accounting for it.
Indeed so convinced is he of the correctness of this
attitude, that he applies it also in the explanation
of the mind's knowledge of its own states and
activities, holding that the mind's so-called 'power
of reflection' is due to an inner sense corresponding
to, and to be explained on the analogy of, the outer

■V

y' 184 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

senses.^ Now that physiological attitude naturally
leads Locke to his atomistic view of sensations. If
sensations come to us one by one, in detached
moments of time, and through different senses, then
each (such we may believe is the unformulated but
implied reasoning) must be capable of existing and
being known separately, and being thus a completed
existence cannot be essentially related to any other.
If that is a true interpretation of the movement of
Locke's mind, he would thereby be brought to hold
that what is true of the unbridgeable qualitative differ-
ences between the secondary qualities must be true of
all sensations regarded as complete mental states.^

Locke takes .directly., nypj from T)ft5!ff>.^r tfts his
view of the world according to. j shich particular
minds exist on the one side^ ._and— an — extended
, ^ material world exists independently on the_ otWj
and therefore also adopts the doctrine of r^jresenta-^
tive perception. For the most part he follows

iCf. below, note 3 to p. 189. 4

^The conflict between Locke's attitude in the second book
of the Es%ay and that which he takes up in the fourth, is due
almost entirely to the fact that while he considers only the
secondary qualities in formulating his theory of the materials
of knowledge, in advancing to the examination of scientific
knowledge in the fourth book he finds that the only existing
sciences are those rendered possible by the primary qualities.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 185

Descartes in the interpretation which he makes ol^^
that doctrine. Bringing within the mind itself
the distinction between subject knowing and object I '
known, he assumes that over against ideas there
exists a mind that knows them directly in some
unexplained way, the assertion that only ideas can
be objects of mind being grounded in certain un-
formulated assumptions of a naive realism. Locke,
however, at times seems to interpret the doctrine
in another and very different way, basing it on
what he takes to be a self-evident postulate, that
knowledge is only possible mediately by way of
ideas, or, in other words, that the mind must
always have an idea of the object known. Now
that postulate may be correct, everything depending
on the meaning given to the terms used, only it
cannot on any interpretation be reconciled with
Locke's other and more usual view that only ideas
are known, and that they are known as the (Ejects
of mind. For if the postulate be granted, we can
never know any object directly, not even an idea ;
and the two views combined would therefore result
in the position that all knowledge is indirect and
inferential, which is absurd, involving as it does
an. infinite regress. Some immediate knowledge must

186 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

be postulated in order to make indirect representa-
tive knowledge possible. We may therefore ignore
thia^ second view, and interpret Locke solely in
accordance with the first. ''[Idea] being that term
which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever
is the object of the understanding when a man
thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant
by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which
the mind can be employed about in thinking."^
Ideas are thus given a certain independent existence,
at once illuminating the mind and being illumined
by it. The mind, as Malebranche says,^ is not
' lumUre illuminante ' but * lumUre iUumin4e * ; and
. that far from luminous distinction does full justice
to what is carefully kept in the half-light of a
conscious indefiniteness by both Descartes and Locke.
Since all those occult qualities, powers, and activities,
that are driven by Descartes out of the material
world, have gone to harbour in this inner world of
the mind, it is a region in which no precise thinking
need be expected till the coming of Hume. What
is alone definite in Locke is that he is no sensationa-

^i. I. 8.

^ M^itations GkrMenneSy i. p. 15. The phrase is quoted by
Malebranche from Augustine.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 187

list, if that means one who regards the mind as
consisting of its sensations. He is, like Descartes
before him, and like Berkeley after him, a spiritualist
in that he assumes the existence of an abiding self
that observes and compares its everchanging ideas.^

1 It is from this spiritualism and not from his sensationalism,
that Locke gains an explanation of our consciousness of relations,
including those of space and time. As there is a self behind
ideas that observes them, any relations of resemblance or of
sequence that hold between them must, he believed, be visible
to this self, immediately they are by it set side by side and
compared. As regards consciousness of space Locke is very
indefinite in his utterances. Of his description of the idea
of space as simple, much the same criticism must be
made as was passed upon Descartes' corresponding assertion.
There is an ambiguity involved. Certainly the idea of space
cannot be resolved into simpler ideas ; but that does not prove
space itself to be simple in the sense in which the term ^simple
is applied to the sensations of the special senses, namely that
each is a completed existence and involves no complex of
relations within its content. This difiiculty in the way of
describing the idea of space as simple is practically admitted by
Locke (II. XV. 9). In both Berkeley and Hume the dependence
of our knowledge of space on a self behind ideas observing
them, becomes quite explicit. Such knowledge is due, they
assert, to the mind's consideration of the distribution and
arrangement of visual and tactual points. This explanation
by reference to a self behind ideas does not, however, account so
plausibly for consciousness of space as for consciousness of time.
It is impossible to hold that a variety of visual or tactual points
can lie within a * simple' sensation, and equally impossible to
conceive how the mind should apprehend the different coexistent
simple sensations (minima) of sight or touch, as forming a single

188 ' THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

In mfi^od- Locke, is .alsQ the disciple of Jlfiscartes,
both of them seeking by an analysis ^f the
materials at. the disposal of the mind to determine
the extent and limits of knowledge. There are,
however, important differences in their standpoints.
While Descartes seeks the simple conceptions from
which all other knowledge may be deduced, Locke
as an empiricist seeks to classify the simple sen-
sations through the mechanical .combination of which
all complex ideas are formed. And that difference
of aim explains the greater emphasis which Locke
lays on the observation by the individual of his
own mind and what goes on there. Whereas the
conceptions which Descartes analyses are common
property, and capable of definition, sensations- can
only be known to each individual through his
immediate personal experience of them. All know-
ledge must start from observation of the facts to
be accounted for, and in this sphere each must
observe the facts for himself.^

continuous field. The sensationalist theory, being formulated
in the light only of the secondary qualities, is as incapable
as the Cartesian rationalism of accounting for the essentially
relational nature of space.

^ Tlie same emphasis was inevitably laid upon inner observa-
tion by Malebranche when he set himself to analyse the concrete
sense-experience that Descartes had very insufficiently treated.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 189

What Locke first discovers in looking into his
own mind is the truth of the cogito ergo sum. He
does not, however, like Descartes, regard it as a
self-evident truth of reason, but simply as a fact
revealed and guaranteed by introspection. "Every
man being conscious to himself, that he thinks, and
that which' his mind is applied about, whilst
thinking, being the ideas that are there, it is past
doubt that men have in their mind several ideas,
such as are those expressed by the words 'white-
ness, loudness, sweetness, motion, man, elephant,
army, drunkenness,' and others."^ And as Locke
assumes that ideas imply a self that has them,
the existence of the self he takes as likewise in-
dubitable. ^

Locke's answer to the question — how we acquire
these ideas ? — is that they come into the mind
from outside through two avenues, sensation and
reflection. In sensation we get ideas of external
sensible objects, and from reflection ideas of the
mind's own operations and passions.^ The mind

* II. I. at the beginning. ^Cf. iv. ix. 3.

3 There are many ambiguities and difficulties in Locke's view
of reflection. It is by no means clear whether reflection is to
be taken purely as an inner sense, corresponding to outer sense,
or as a kind of self -consciousness that includes both inner and

190 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

' cannot create for itself a single new simple idea.
All that it can do is to unite the ideas, given
through these two sources, so as to form out of
them complex ideas. ^

outer experience. The first view is prominent in his treatment
of simple ideas. There he is concerned to show that all our
simple ideas are passively received by the mind ; and there also
he seeks to get behind them, so as to give a mechanical explana-
tion of their origin. According to this theory, just as external
objects by affecting outer sense cause sensations, so too our
mental operations by affecting inner sense give rise to another
and independent series of impressions. What this * inner
sense* is, Locke, it need hardly be said, is no more able to
explain than he is able to explain what ^ outer sense'
is, and how different from the mind, nor does he pretend
to. On the second view, * reflection ' is identified with
self-consciousness. "We can surely, Locke says, reflect on
what goes on in the mind, and so have knowledge of
the mind's operations. To think without being conscious that
we think is as impossible as that a body should be extended
without having parts (ii. i. 19). Thus identified with self-
consciousness, reflection must be regarded as an ultimate fact,
and the previous mechanical explanation as but a preliminary
metaphorical expression of what is now seen to constitute the
very essence of mind. And that involves, it may be noted, the
giving up of the doctrine of representative perception as regards
knowledge both of ideas and of the mind's operations upon
them. They are known directly, and not, like material bodies,
mediately by way of intervening ideas. Also, on this second
view, the separation of ideas of reflection from ideas of sensa-
tion becomes impossible. Reflection is coextensive with all
knowledge, revealing not only the operations of mind, but also
all the ideas upon which it operates.

^In describing the mind as being, prior to all experience, a

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 191

Locke fails, however, to maintain that position.
As an example of his failure, and also for other
reasons that will appear immediately, we may
consider his account of the origin of the idea of
substance. It is, he says, due to the fact that we
perceive sensations to exist together in clusters (an
orange, for instance, consists of the different but
coexistent sensations of yellowness, roundness, soft-
ness, sweetness or bitterness, etc.), and being unable
to conceive how these different sensations can sub-
sist by themselves, or in one another, "we accustom
ourselves to suppose some substratum, wherein they
do subsist, and from which they do result ; which,
therefore, we call 'substance.'"^ The idea of sub-
stance Locke thus traces back to an ultimate fact
of consciousness, to a thought-necessity, which in-
capacitates the mind from conceiving the contents
of sensation as other than qualities, as existing

tabula rasa — a metaphor which we find also in Aristotle and in
Descartes : cf. Aristotle, Be Anima, iii. 4, 4296 30 ; Descartes,
Beg. XII. (xi. pp. 265, 267), Recherche de la V4rit4'par les lumi^res
naturelles (xi. p. 345) — Locke does not mean to deny that the
mind has a nature of its own, and ways of acting peculiar to
itself. All that he implies is that the mind (and Descartes also
agrees thereto) cannot invent a single new simple idea, and
therefore must be passive in the reception of all 'simple
natures.'
Mi, xxiii. 1.

192 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

otherwise than in a something else. Sensations, he
practically says, are but the occasion whereupon
the mind is necessitated to produce the category of
substance and quality out of itself. There is here
revealed the existence of an original conception that
is only ei^plicable as having been created by the
mind.^

This analysis of the conception of substance, in-
consistent though it be with his general theory of
knowledgie, is in itself most valuable, and frees him at
least partially from the false rationalism of Descartes.
If the analysis be correct, our idea of material sub-
stance is, spite of all that Descartes may assert,
neither simple, nor clear and distinct. It is a com-
plex idea, consisting of the sum of the sensible
qualities belonging to it plus the obscure and con-

^ That Locke also speaks of the idea of substance as consist-
ing, in so far as it has any positive content, of the very abstract
idea of 'a something' plus the empirical notion of its acting as
a bearer or support, does not destroy the fact that its formation
and application is traced by him to a necessity of thought.
The formal necessity only gains concrete expression through, it
does not originate from, such empirical notions.

The explanation which Locke derives from his spiritualism
(cf. note to p. 187) of our consciousness of relations (including
those of space and time) is another example of his failure to
develop his sensationalistic principles. These ideas of relation
are additional, as Locke himself admits (it. xxv. 1), to the ideas
compared.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 193

fused idea of the unknown substrate which is their
bearer. We are as completely ignorant of what
constitutes the substance of a thing as the Indian
philosopher was of what the world rested on ; and our
explanation is no better than his tortoise,^ if we think
that by talking of a substance we have explained
anything. Since the idea of substance is an idea
which arises from the necessitated regress of the
mind beyond any and all known qualities out into
the void, we are simply concealing our ignorance by
means of a word.^

It is the same exactly with the idea of the self.
It also is a complex idea, consisting of the sum of the
mental states of which alone we are conscious plus the
obscure and confused idea of the unknown self that
is their bearer. "He that considers how hardly
sensation is, in our thoughts, reconcileable to extended

1 II. XIII. 19. Cf. XXIII. 2.

2 This distinction between substance and the primary qualities
is the cause of much confusion in the Essay, If substance be
unknown and unknowable, the primary qualities cannot be
regarded as copying the external object. On this second view
they are effects of substance acting on our minds, and, as sub-
stance is unknowable, must be entirely different from their cause.
The same consequence follows from Locke's doctrine of repre-
sentative perception. Inasmuch as we know only ideas, any
assertion that they resemble their unknown cause must be

arbitrary and dogmatic.

194 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

matter, or existence to anything that hath no exten-
sion at all, will confess that he is very far from
certainly knowing what his soul is."^ And this
ignorance " conceals from us, in an impenetrable
obscurity, almost the whole intellectual world ; a
greater, certainly, and more beautiful world than the
material/' ^

This discovery of our ignorance, though it limits
the sphere of our knowledge, extends the bounds of
imagination, for it establishes the possibility (which
Malebranche accepted against Descartes as regards
mind^) of conceiving the qualities of things as un-
limited in number and variety. Beyond the simple
ideas that come to us 'in this little canton, this
system of our sun,' through the ' few and narrow
inlets ' of sensation and reflection, " what other
simple ideas it is possible the creatures in other
parts of the universe may have by the assistance of
senses and faculties more or perfecter than we have,
or different from ours, it is not for us to determine."
" Only this, I think, I may confidently say of it,
that the intellectual and sensible worlds are in this
perfectly alike — that that part which we see of
either of them holds no proportion with what we see
1 IV. III. 6. 2 IV, HI. 27, 3 Cf. above, chap. iii. note 2 to p. 103.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 195

not ; and whatsoever we can reach with our eyes or
our thoughts of either of them, is but a point, almost
nothing, in comparison of the rest." ^

Here, then, is " the horizon found which sets the
bounds between the enlightened and the dark parts
of things." 2 Experience, like an electric spark, is the
small circle of light caused by the interaction of two
unknowns. Eadiating out from the double but co-
incident poles of the here and the now,^ it enables
us to establish the existence of a self and of a not-
self, but not to discover the nature of either or their
connection. This setting of the light of our know-
ledge against a background of darkness gives Locke's
system that appearance of solidity and depth which is
so markedly absent from the unreal transparencies of
the Cartesian conceptualism.

How far Locke is from regarding the metaphor of
impression as a suflBcient explanation of the rise of
sensations in the mind appears very clearly from a
tract* which he wrote in 1693 (that is, three years
after the publication of the Essay). If, he there
says, it be demanded, what are the causes and manner

1 IV. III. 23. Cf. II. II. 3. 2 1, I, 7^ 3cf. II. XV. 12.

* Remarks upon some of Mr. Norri^s Boohs, wherein he asserts
P. Malehranch^s Opinion of our Seeing all Things in God, vol. x.
of the 180J edition, p. 248.

196 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

of production of ideas in the mind, "I answer, no
man can tell ; for which I not only appeal to experi-
ence, which were enough, but shall add this reason,
viz., because no man can give any account of any
alteration made in any simple substance whatsoever;
all the alteration we can conceive, being only of the
alteration of compounded substances; and that only
by a transposition of parts." Malebranche asserts*
that the marigold we perceive exists as a divine idea
in the understanding of God, and the ignorant assert
that it exists in the garden, but " either supposition,
as to this matter, is all one ... for wherein [the
alteration of the mind, we call perceiving], consists, is,
for aught I see, unknown to one side as well as the
other." Later on in the same tract Locke seems to
say that our sole certainty is that the production of
sensations is in some way conditioned by our having
sense-organs. The blind man has no sensations of
sight Only in what way the sense organs aid in
the producing of knowledge, that we do not know.^

It must be noted that Lo«ke does not base this
incomprehensibility of the production of ideas in
mind, as does Descartes, on a dualism between soul

^ Cf. Locke's other tract, An Examination of P, Malebranche's
Opinion of Seeing all Things in Oody vol. ix. pp. 214-7.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 197

and body which renders interaction inconceivable,
but on the much deeper ground that all interaction
is incomprehensible. "For in the communication of
^ motion by impulse, wherein as much motion is lost

to one body as is got to the other, which is the
ordinariest case, we can have- no other conception
but of the passing of motion out of one body into
another; which, I think, is as obscure and incon-
ceivable as how our minds move or stop our bodies
by thought, which we every moment find they
do. . . . The communication of motion by thought,
which we attribute to spirit, is as evident as that
by impulse which we ascribe to body. Constant
experience makes us sensible of both of these,

though our narrow understandings can comprehend
neither. For when the mind would look beyond
those original ideas we have from sensation or re-
flection, and penetrate into their cause and manner
of production, we find it still discovers nothing but
its own shortsightedness."^ We are tempted to
ascribe the position, which Locke here takes up,
largely to the influence of Malebranche, for the
passage above quoted occurs immediately after a
lengthy section in which Locke criticises Male-

^ II. XXIII. 28.

198 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

branche's acute theory of the cause of cohesion of
the solid parts in bodies.^ But, at the same time,
it must by no means be overlooked that Locke's
departure from Descartes' purely dualistic argument
is also a necessary consequence of his own doctrine
of substance. Since we know not^- the substance
either of matter or of mind, to assert (and Male-
branche asserts it still more emphatically than
Descartes) their absolute diversity of nature, and
consequent incapability of union, is illegitimate. As
Locke says in this same section, "it may be con-
jectured that created spirits are not totally separated
from matter," or as he puts it elsewhere,^ it is, "in
respect of our notions, not much more remote from
our comprehension to conceive that God can, if He
pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking,
than that He should superadd to it another sub-
stance with a faculty of thinking." These sections

^ Cf . Recherche de la V4rit4^ liv. vi. pt. ii. chap. ix. Professor
Fraser asserts that in these sections Locke is criticising the
theory propounded by James Bernoulli. We are not aware
that there is any positive evidence that Locke was acquainted
with Bernoulli's De Gravitate Aetheria^ and in any case Bernoulli
in the preface to that work points out that his theory is
identical with that stated by Malebranche in the Recherche,
And with the Recherche Locke was, of course, acquainted.

^iv. III. 6.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 199

are valuable, both as showing how Locke has broken
with the rationalistic dualism of Descartes, and also
as preparing the way for the empirical phenomen-
alism of Hume.^ For the most part, however, Locke
expresses himself as personally of the belief that
the self is an immaterial spirit, and frequently, in
his inconsistent way, he even speaks as if we had
immediate certainty of the existence of such an im-
material substance.^

Though Locke does not point it out,^ his analysis
of the conception of substance has also a direct
bearing upon Descartes' proofs of (rod's existence.
When Descartes speaks of an absolutely perfect
being, he does not use the term perfect with any
definite meaning, but solely, like the term infinite,
as a synonym for absoluteness. Now the impossibility
of defining ultimate reality is what (if this analysis
of the conception of substance be granted to be

^ Of. also in same chapter of Essay^ section 32.

*Cf. in the same chapter, from which the above quotations
are taken, section 15 at the end. To the objections of the
materialists as to the obscurity and incomprehensibility of the
notion of spirit, he has the counter -argument that as great
difficulties are involved in the notion of matter. Cf. sections
31 and 32.

3 Locke indeed refuses to express an opinion as to the validity
of the ontological argument.

200 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

adequate) is here established by Locke. Since God
is thought as substance and so as absolutely real,
necessarily His very conception involves existence.
The absolutely real must be real — true, but altogether
trivial The important question is as to what is
the nature of absolute reality, and towards the
answering of that question Descartes' proofs can
yield no aid.^ Spiritualism and materialism — such
must be Locke's final conclusion — ^alike pretend td
knowledge where none is possible.

When we turn to Locke's account of scientific
knowledge in the fourth book of the Essay, we at
once discover how overwhelmingly strong was the
influence exercised upon his thinking by the ration-
alism of Descartes. He holds, with Descartes, that
knowledge is of two kinds, intuitive and demonstrative.
We perceive intuitively that white is not black, that
a circle is not a triangle, that three are more than
two, and equal to one and two. Such truths are
given together with the ideas compared, and im-
mediately on the presentation of the two ideas the
mind cannot but intuitively perceive the relation
between them. "This part of knowledge is irresis-
tible, and like bright sunshine forces itself immediately

^ Cf . above, note to p. 58.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 201

to be perceived as soon as ever the mind turns its
view that way."^ Demonstrative knowledge is formed
of an unbroken series of such original intuitions,
whereby the mind is led on from one intuitive truth
to another. Since we cannot perceive directly the
relation of equality between the three angles of a
triangle and two right angles, we must "find out
some other angles, to which the three angles of a
triangle have an equality; and finding these equal
to two right ones, come to know their equality to
two right ones."^

But though thus adopting Descartes* views as to
the nature of rational science, Locke yet considers the
demand that all truth be discovered by a deductive
method to be impossible of realisation. A twofold
method is necessitated by the difference between
our knowledge of modes and our knowledge of
substances.^ Take the abstract conception of a

*IV. II. 1.

2 IV. II. 2. Obviously Locke in this illustration regards
mathematical knowledge as gained not from abstract con-
ceptions, but from the construction of them in perception, the
intermediate links being added as required. How this reconciles
with his view of mathematical knowledge as purely conceptual,
dealing with abstract ideas, it never occurred to Locke, any
more than to Descartes, to inquire.

3 Modes are those complex ideas which, however compounded,
contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by them-

202 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

triangle as a figure formed by the interseiction of
three straight lines in space. The mind, Locke holds,
needs not to call in experience, nor to go beyond
the idea with which it starts, in order to discover
innumerable new properties belonging to it. To
the attentive mind it develops out spontaneously
according to an inner logical necessity. That view
of our knowledge of modes is the explanation of
those statements in the Essay which sound so
strangely in the mouth of Locke, the sensationalist.
( "It is the contemplation of our own abstract ideas
that alone is able to afford us general knowledge."^
"The true method of advancing knowledge is
by considering our abstract ideas." ^ Quite other-
wise is it with the conception of a substance, say
of gold. As the simple ideas which make up this
complex conception bear no relation to one another,
it is barren and unproductive: the yellow colour,
for instance, has nothing to do with its coldness to
the touch, and no connection is visible between either

selves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of,
substances, e.g. the mathematical conception triangle,' and
the ethical conception * gratitude.' The ideas of substances are
such combinations of simple ideas as are taken to represent
distinct particular things subsisting by themselves.

^iv. II. 16. '^iv. XII. 7.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 203

of these qualities and its malleability. Whereas the
conception of the triangle is an organic conception, all
its properties presupposing one another, the complex
idea of gold is but a cluster of disconnected sensations.
This diflerence Locke further unfolds by his dis-
tinction between nominal and real essence. While
the nominal essence of a thing consists only of the
sum of the external characteristics, whereby we
identify it, the real essence contains the primary and
fundamental qualities from which all the others
result. Now in the case of modes the nominal and
the real essence are always the same. From the
conception of a triangle, as a space enclosed by three
straight lines, all its other properties can be directly
deduced. As a real essence the conception is the
cause and ground of each and every one of them.
In exactly the same way Locke conceives substance.
He did not hold as we do now that each substance
is in its peculiar nature constituted by the relations in
which it stands to other substances. Influenced by
that same doctrine of essence that clung, as we have
seen, to the thinking of Descartes, the fundamental
category through which Locke regards nature is* not
that of causality, but that of substance. Locke asks,
not for a cause of becoming, but for a cause of being,

204 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

the unchanging ground of the unchanging nature of
the thing. Each material substance is regarded as
having a real essence quite as much as any mathe-
matical construction.^ Did we know the real essence
of gold "it would be no more necessary that gold
should exist, and that we should make experiments
upon it than it is necessary for the knowing the
properties of a triangle, that a triangle should
exist in any matter; the idea in our minds
would serve for the one as well as the other." ^

^ It is true that no one could be more emphatic than Locke
himself in stating the objections to such a view. " Put a piece
of gold anywhere by itself, separate from the reach and
influence of all other bodies, it will immediately lose all colour
and weight, and perhaps malleableness too : which, for
aught I know, would be changed into a perfect friability.
Water, in which to us fluidity is an essential quality, left to
itself, would cease to be fluid" (iv. vi. 11). Yet these facts
do not lead him to discard the view of things as separate
substances each with an essence peculiar to it, but only to
reinforce in his mind the hopelessness of ever getting to know
the real essences upon which the purely intrinsic qualities as
well as these powers of producing effects on neighbouring
bodies depend. For he concludes in the immediately following
paragraph : " If this be so it is not to be wondered that we
have very imperfect ideas of substances ; and that the real
essences on which depend their properties knd operations are
unknown to us." Cf. iii. vi. 6: — " [The real essence is] that
particular constitution which everything has within itself,
without any relation to anything without it."

2lV. VI. 11.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 205

It is because we are ignorant of this inner essence
that we are incapable of discovering the necessary
connection which exists between the different sensible
qualities, or of deducing from them any quality
that we have not experienced to coexist with
them.

The same distinction Locke expresses in yet
another way, which brings out the difference in
the universality of the knowledge which each yields.
The idea of the triangle is not only a real essence,
revealing necessary connection between its different
properties, but also an archetype formed by the
mind for its own use, and hence yields an unfailing
test of the universality of ideal judgments. It
enables us to distinguish in any concrete image
between the properties that follow from the par-
ticular length of its sides and the size of its
angles, and those which, as involved in, and follow-
ing from, the archetype of all triangles, hold with
complete universality. Of substances, on the other
hand, the archetype exists without us, and is un-
known, and hence in their case we can have no
such criterion whereby to distinguish accidental from
real connection. It is with our knowledge of
substances as it would be with our mathematical

206 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

knowledge, if the mind possessed only particular
concrete images and not also the conception of the
ideal which is but imperfectly realised in any one
of them. Each proposition would hold of the
particular triangle from which it was taken, but no
further. In the case of substances we are reduced
for increase of knowledge to induction, and to an
induction that is always precarious and uncertain.

Thus, then, while in mathematical science all
knowledge develops from within, from contempla-
tion of our abstract ideas, in physical science all
knowledge develops from without, through the senses.
In the one our method is purely deductive ; in the
other purely inductive.

The criticism to be made of this position is that
when Locke asks the all-important question — Wherein
lies the cause of this difiference between our know-
ledge of modes and our knowledge of substances ? —
he has no other answer to give than the fanciful
rationalistic one, that there must be real essences
in the case of substances as well as of modes, and
that the discovery of these would render all know-
ledge equally certain and equally rational. Had
Locke been able to free himself from this false
rationalism, and instead of interpreting the facts

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 207

through a fanciful theory, asked how any real
essence can have this strange power of yielding
new and certain knowledge, he would have found
that this peculiar characteristic of our ideas of
modes ^ depends on the nature of space and time,
and a thorough analysis of space and time is the
proof of the incompleteness of his theory of sensa-
tions as all simple and relationless. That theory
is true to the facts so long as we have in view
solely the unbridgeable qualitative differences between
our special sensations, but it ignores, and leaves
unaccounted for, the spatial and temporal connec-
tions, as well as the categories of substance and
attribute, cause and effect, whereby they are all
bound together in organic connection one with
another. Locke's Cartesian theory of mathematical
reasoning as purely conceptual and deductive is
false, while his Baconian theory of physical reasoning
as purely inductive is incomplete. Still, though
Locke's theory of both is thus unsatisfactory, and
though he misinterprets both in the light of an
inherited rationalism, it is his merit that he so
dwelt on the difference between them, as to force

^ Locke adds moral conceptions to the number of the modes,
but the discussion of that addition lies outside our inquiry. .

208 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

the problem of their relation on the attention of
his successors.

If we now follow him in his further analysis
of our empirical knowledge we shall see how his
empiricism strangely dwindles, until it almost dis-
appears. To the question, — Can experience afiford
us universal propositions such as this, that *all
gold is malleable ' ? — Locke is forced to reply in the
negative. All that experience shows is that in
the particular bits of gold, which we examine,
malleability goes along with the other properties
by which we identify gold; but as it reveals no
necessary connection between malleability and the
other properties, it can give us no ground whatsoever
for asserting that they will coexist in all other
bits of gold which we may care to examine in the
future. "General certainty is never to be found
but in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek it
elsewhere in experiment or observations without
us, our knowledge goes not beyond particulars. It
is the contemplation of our own abstract ideas that
alone is able to afiford us general knowledge."^

Locke's position here is open to misunderstanding.
It will be objected that it is nonsense to say that-

1 Essayy iv. vi. 16.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 209

it is only probable that all men will die or that
the sun will rise to-morrow. Gold always does
act in the same way, and therefore the possibility
of its not doing so in the future is not worth
attending to. But that is not the point. Locke
is not doubtful as to the practical certainty of many
generalisations from experience. The distinction,
which he wishes to make, lies not between cer-
tainty and probability, but between demonstrative
certainty and empirical certainty, the difiference in
kind between empirical and conceptual knowledge.
In the case of connections between ideas it is im-
possible to conceive the opposite ; the nature of

each idea related involves within itself its relation

•

to the other, and to change the relation would be
to change the nature of the ideas related. In
the case of matters of fact no connection can
be perceived between subject and predicate save
only that of cle facto conjunction in our experience,
and the opposite is quite conceivable. Hence the
defect in our empirical knowledge is not that we
cannot tell whether the connection asserted will
remain the same in all future cases, but that we
can never discover by experience, however extensive,
any connection at all between them.

210 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Yet Locke remains so much under Descartes'
influence that he goes to the extreme of holding
that this empirical knowledge is not entitled to the
name of knowledge at all, and that sense-experience
can perform no function in scientific knowledge.
The only hope for natural science lies in its assimi-
lation to mathematics by discovery of .the real
essences of substances. This hankering after a
knowledge of the real essences of bodies comes out
again and again in the Essay. "The essence of a
triangle lies in a very little compass, consists in a
very few ideas; three lines, including a space, make
up that essence. ... So I imagine it is in sub-
stances, their real essences lie in a little compass,
though the properties flowing from that internal
constitution are endless."^ "In the knowledge of
bodies, we must be content to glean what we can
from particular experiments ; since we cannot, from
a discovery of their real essences, grasp at a time
whole sheaves, and in bundles comprehend the nature
and the properties of whole species together."^

Here the ambiguity in Locke's doctrine of sub-
stance, according to which at one time substance is

1 II. XXXII. 24.

2 IV. XII. 12. Cf. IV. VI. 11, already quoted on p. 204.

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 211

identified with the primary qualities, and at another
taken as something wholly unknown behind them,
is again apparent. For the most part, throughout
the fourth book of the Essay y substance is identified
with the primary qualities, and by knowledge of
the real essence of body, he means knowledge of
those modifications in the primary qualities upon
which the secondary qualities and powers depend.
Thereby the qualitative element in experience would
be subjected to the mathematical method, and all
the various facts of experience could be deduced
from the ultimate constitution of bodies.

But that is impossible, Locke finds, for three
reasons. First, because we do not know that con-
stitution of the minute parts on which all the other
qualities depend : and secondly, because even if we
did, we would not be able to perceive any connection
between it and the sensations which the body pro-
duces in us. Primary and secondary qualities are
not related as substance to its properties, but as
cause to effect, the two being quite heterogeneous.
Also, thirdly, we cannot even assert, Locke admits,
that the secondary qualities do depend upon the
primary: the real essence may lie deeper in "some-
thing yet more remote from our comprehension."

212 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

According to his doctrine of substance in the second
book of the Essay, he ought to have said, not that
they may, but that they do depend upon something
more remote than the primary qualities. The primary
qualities are themselves effects, and therefore may
not at all resemble their causes.

For these three reasons, therefore, anyone of
which is by itself sufficient, we cannot apply the
mathematical method in natural science ; and hence
Locke 'suspects* that a science of nature is not
possible. Falling himself into the error of Descartes,
he seeks entirely to exclude the empirical element,
and to make science purely rational and deductive.
For Locke, as for Descartes, mathematical reasoning,
falsely interpreted, remains the ideal of knowledge.
Empirical knowledge when compared with this ideal
is condemned in every respect.

Considering now, in conclusion, Locke's philosophy
as a whole, we see how his theory of mathematical
knowledge is borrowed from Descartes and incor-
porated practically without change into his sensa-
tionalism. He was of course forced by his
sensationalistic starting-point to assert that ultimately
all our mathematical conceptions are derived from
experience, but how that is possible he nowhere

CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES IN LOCKE 213

explains in any satisfactory way, his treatment of
space and time being among the least consistent parts
of a very inconsistent system. Yet we are not
justified in regarding Locke's theory of mathematical
reasoning as brought externally, as an altogether
foreign element, into his system. Good grounds can be
given for taking up exactly the opposite attitude and
regarding Locke as a rationalist, and his sensationalism
as but externally tagged on to his rationalism. These
grounds are his spiritualistic view of mind as an
active agent combining and comparing ideas ; his
belief in the absolute certainty and intuitive evidence
of mathematical truths ; his use of mathematical
knowledge throughout the Essay as the ideal of
all scientific knowledge, and the standard whereby
empirical knowledge is condemned and found wanting;
and, lastly, his suggestion that by a conceivable, though
not practicable, extension of our knowledge (by the
discovery of the real essences of substances) our
sensations would cease to be all relationless, and would
appear as necessarily bound up one with another, and
so as capable of rational deduction from one another.
In that last position Locke shows himself to be
a more complete rationalist than even Descartes, who
despaired of the possibility of thus rationalising the

214 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

sensible. But as all that is really fruitful in Locke
is due to his empiricism, and as nearly all these
rationalistic elements are survivals weak in their
falsity, it is perhaps more charitable still to call
him a sensationalist.

CHAPTER VI.

HUME'S CRITICISM OF THE CAETESIAN

PRINCIPLES. ^

Hume's achievement is, we shall try to show, two-
fold. In the first place, by his analysis of the causal
relation he refutes the fundamental assumption
involved in the Cartesian rationalism, viz., its identifi-
cation of causation with explanation. And, in the
second place, by his complementary analysis of mental
activity he demonstrates the illusoriness of that
spiritualism by which Descartes and his successors
seek to conceal the radical defects in their teaching.

^ How much of the Cartesian system remains when its

spiritualism and its rationalism are thus excised, and
what effect these remaining doctrines have on Hume's

j own thinking, we shall then decide.

kit.

f We shall best lead up to Hume's criticism by first

'^ considering the position of Berkeley. Berkeley's

216 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY ^

endeavour is to reconcile the teaching of philosophers,
that the only possible object of mind is an idea, with
the belief of the vulgar, that the mind immediately
perceives the real things. " I do not pretend to be
a setter-up of new notions. My endeavours tend only
to unite and place in a clearer light that truth which
was before shared between the vulgar and the
philosophers . . . the former being of opinion that
those things they immediately 'perceive are the real things^
and the latter that the things immediately perceived
are ideas which eodst only in the mind. Which two
notions put together do, in effect, constitute the
substance of what I advance."^ This reconciliation
Berkeley claims to have achieved by his assertion that
perceived ideas are the real. Nothing exists but
minds and their ideas.

That position is specially significant for us as being
the outcome of a consistent development of Descartes'
principles. Descartes* three fundamental principles,
viz., his doctrine of representative perception, his
spiritualism, and his rationalistic view of causation, all
combine to compel its acceptance. An immediate
consequence of the doctrine of representative per-

^The Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous : at
an end.

HUME*S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 217

ception, recognised by Descartes himself, is that
though the whole material world were annihilated,
provided sensations were still produced in our minds
in the same orderly manner as now, we should never
suspect that such an important event had taken place.
The doctrine of representative perception detaches the
mind from the material world. Though we may infer,
we can never perceive its existence.

Secondly, if by a cause we mean that from which the
efiect can be deduced, and through which it can be ren-
dered comprehensible, material bodies must be admitted
to be €U3 inefficacious as they are invisible. Just as
they cannot be perceived, so neither can they cause
perceptions. If the material world exists, it is an
addition to the sum of creation that, so far as man is
concerned, is altogether superfluous. It can fulfil no
function that will justify its existence. It uselessly
mirrors in shadowy projection, without the bright
variety of sensuous appearance, what takes place quite
independently in the minds of men. As incapable of
ordering itself as of producing sensations, it demands
continuous divine intervention for the transmission of
motion, and so serves only to increase twofold the
labours of God. By abolishing this superfluous
material world Berkeley simplifies and develops the

218 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

occasionalist theory. As spirit is the sole conceivable
cause, so also it is the sole possible form of existence ;
and ideas are its states.

Like the occasionalists, Berkeley bases his system
upon the principle of causality, assumed to be a self-
evident truth. That principle he interprets as
meaning that every idea is produced by a will.^ The
only intelligible causation is creation.^ God produces
in our minds from moment to moment the various
sensations that constitute for us the real world in
space. And creation out of nothing is the prerogative
of finite as well as of infinite spirit.^ When we call
up this or that idea we recreate it, painting it anew,
as Locke says, upon the mind. It is no more than
a fiat of the will, and it is done. Similarly the finite
spirit is capable of creating its own desires, and upon
these desires God produces new sensations in it and
other minds.

From this conception of spirit Berkeley also gains
an explanation of our knowledge of relations.* Ee-

^ Commonplace Book (Fraser's edition), p. 462.

2 Which is also the central principle of the metaphysics of
Geulincx.

3 Commonplace Book, loc. cit.

* " All relations including an act of the miud, we cannot so
properly be said to have an idea, but rather a notion of the
relations and habitudes between things,'' PHnciples^ sec. 142.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 219

cognising the very obvious fact that relations cannot
exist between ideas that, following Locke, he has
described as all simple and relatiojiless, he regards
them as superinduced upon the ideas by the activities
of the occult mind behind them. The impossible
thus being made possible, they are apprehended
(though not known) through * notions/ ^

Berkeley's system is thus the most absolute
spiritualism and occasionalism conceivable. An
occult self, supposed to lie behind our ideas, observ-
ing and comparing them, is brought in to solve the
difficulties arising from his atomistic sensationalism,
and an infinite mind to solve all the difficulties that
remain.^

That Berkeley took little trouble to establish the
reality or to define the nature of spiritual substance
need not be found surprising, since this spiritualism

^Berkeley also uses the term * notion' to signify the conscious-
ness, distinct from knowledge proper, through which we appre-
hend the self as an active agent. In this way, by what is on his
principles a quite unmeaning term, he was able to keep out of
sight the fact that the self is a hypothetical existence, assumed
in order to account for what would otherwise be unaccountable
in our experience, and that it is therefore on the same basis
as material substance, requiring for its conception all those
abstract notions that he has denounced as unintelligible.

2 Just as spirit is introduced by Descartes and Leibniz to
solve the difficulties of their atomistic conceptualism.

220 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

existed complete, though latent, in Descartes and
Locke. After Berkeley's negative criticism of them,
it simply remains as his one valuable inheritance
from their philosophies. Now, however, that it has
thus in Berkeley shown itself in its true colours, it
is clamant for the criticism of Hume. Certainly, if
we suppose spirit to be capable from its very nature
of doing all the things demanded of it by Berkeley,
capable when infinite of creating sensations, and
when finite of creating images, the effects will be
explained, but it will be the illusory explanation by
the occult.

Just because of that false view of spirit Berkeley's
attitude towards the ' external ' world is also quite
untenable.^ So long as the self is regarded as a
particular finite existence, distinct from all other
selves, the bringing of reality within it is impossible,
and is really the direct opposite of the position of
ordinary consciousness. For it is by no chance that
Berkeley calls the known objects ideas. He may
insist that they are also the realities which all
people believe in ; they are yet ' realities ' that exist

^ With the most valuable parts of Berkeley's teaching, viz.,
his analysis of sense-perception and development of empiricism,
we are not here concerned.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 221

separately, numerically and existentially distinct, in
the mind of each person perceiving them.i They
are created anew by God in the mind of each
observer, and pass into nothingness when that
individual ceases to observe them. Also, though
Berkeley insists that mind knowing and ideas known
are inseparable in their antithesis, practically all the
reality is given to mind. It is not the sensations
that constitute the real, but infinite spirit, on the
one hand, that creates them from moment to
moment, and the finite spirits, on the other, in
which they are thus given a momentary existence.
He adopts the extreme occasionalist position. There
are as many different worlds as there are minds, and
the only connection between these completely isolated
minds is through the external agency of a miraculously
acting Deity .2

^Berkeley's frequently attempted denial of this is nothing
better than a mystification of his readers. Cf. Dialogues, iii.
(Fraser's edition), i. pp. 343-4.

^The real problem is not whether, when ideas are con-
ceived as the objects of mind, a second kind of objects is also
necessary — in his answer to that question^ Berkeley may be in
the right — but whether such subjective ideas have any reality.
That Berkeley never thought of asking that last' question is the
proof that he has not been able to free himself from the physio-
logical point of view which he attacks. For only the assumption
of the truth of that point of view (cf. below, note 3 to p. 249) could

222 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

We may now pass to Hume's criticism of the
Cartesian principles. In attacking the Cartesian
identification of causation with explanation, Hume
throughout emphasises the time-aspect of the causal
relation.^ As there is no necessary connection or
inseparability (and this must be admitted by all)

have driven his predecessors to the conclusion, which he shares
with them, that knowledge is a purely subjective process in the
mind of the individual. The physiological point of view may,
or may not, be an impossible one for the explanation of know-
ledge, but there is no question that it cannot be overthrown by
arguments that tacitly assume its truth. In a word, Berkeley's
idealism can offer good grounds for itself, if we grant the doctrine
of representative perception. That doctrine, however, Berkeley
does not prove, but assumes ; and it rests on those very grounds
which Berkeley rejects.

* Berkeley had already denounced the Cartesian doctrine of
essence, " the current opinion that everything includes within
itself the cause of its properties ; or that there is in each object
an inward essence which is the source whence its discernible
qualities flow, and whereon they depend ." Of the existence of
such substances we have no proof, and of their nature we can
form no conception. The only conceivable objects of mind are
disconnected sensations, each of which (such as in an orange,
the colour yellow, or the sensation sweet) is a unit complete in
itself. The separate sensations are not qualities of, but units
constituting, the clusters or * things' to which they belong.
And the relation of substance and quality being thus eliminated
by Berkeley, the category of causality became all-important
both in his own and in Hume's system. Berkeley also prepared
the way for Hume's view of causation by his contention that
sensations can never be necessary causes, but only arbitrary
signs one of another.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 223

between the idea of an event as something happening
in time and the idea of a cause, Descartes' assertion
that the principle of causality is a self-evident truth
of reason must be categorically denied. Since what
we call cause and effect are always distinct events,
each of which is known separately in a single
impression, they can always be thought apart without
contradiction.^ Hume's contention is implicitly re-
cognised by those philosophers who have offered
demonstrations of the principle — demonstrations which,
as Hume found, are all fallacious and sophistical.
Hobbes argues that ,as all the points of time and
space, in which we can suppose any object to exist,
are in themselves equal, unless there be some* cause,
which is peculiar to one time and to one place, and
which by that means determines and fixes the
existence, it must remain in eternal suspense ; and
can never begin to be for want of something to fix
its beginning. To which argument Hume has the
unanswerable reply : " Is there any more difficulty in

^We may note, in passing, that the final value of Hume's
analysis of the causal relation is seriously affected by the
dogmatic psychological atomism upon which it is made to rest.
In describing causal connection as merely sequence, even though
it be invariable sequence, he ignores — to mention only one
factor — the continuity of time.

224 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

supposing the time and place to be fixed without a
cause, than to suppose the existence to be determined
in that manner? ... If the removal of a cause
be intuitively absurd in the one case, it must be so
in the other: and if that absurdity be not clear
without a proof in the one case, it will equally require
one in the other. The absurdity, then, of the one
supposition can never be a proof of that of the other ;
since they are both , upon the same footing, and must
stand or fall by the same reasoning." ^

The argument of Clarke is that if , anything
wanted a cause, it would produce itself \ that is,
exist before it existed ; which is impossible. And
in a similar fashion Locke argues that if anything
is produced without a cause, it is produced by
nothing, or, in other words, has nothing for its
cause, which is absurd, since nothing can never be
a cause, any more than it can be something or
equal to two right angles. Now both these argu-
ments are, Hume holds, plainly inconclusive, and,
like that of Hobbes, assume the principle which
they pretend to establish. " When we exclude all
causes we really do exclude them, and neither
suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the

1 Treatise, i. in. in. pp. 381-2.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 225

causes of the existence ; and consequently can draw
no argument from the absurdity of these supposi-
tions to prove the absurdity of that exclusion."*

The remaining argument, that every effect must
have a cause, because that is implied in the very
idea of effect, is merely verbal. "Every effect
necessarily presupposes a cause ; effect being a
relative term, of which cause is the correlative.
But this does not prove that every being must be
preceded by a cause; no more than it follows,
because every husband must have a wife, that
therefore every man must be married." ^

The universal principle is, then, not demonstrable
by reason. That the mind instinctively frames its
demands in accordance with it, and that until these
demands are fulfilled, the mind remains intellec-
tually dissatisfied, Hume is not concerned to deny.^
He maintains only that if the principle is thus
neither self-evident nor demonstrable by reason, such
dissatisfaction, even though inspired by the principle,
cannot be regarded as proving its validity.

^ Treatise^ loc, cit. p. 383. ^Ibid.

^ Hume himself traces this instinctive demand to the ultimate
constitution of our human nature. Expressing only the practical
demands of our human nature, it affords no knowledge of reality
either within or without the limits of experience.

226 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Beason as little avails to prove the necessity of
the causal connection between particular events.
Dwelling on what Malebranche, Locke, and Berkeley
had already made clear, Hume shows how never in
a single case can we by a priori reasoning discover
in our idea of a cause any capacity to produce a
particular effect.^ Every efifect, without exception,
is a distinct event from its cause, and hence can
never by reason be discovered in it^ But if
reason here comes short, so also does sense-experi-
ence, since from it we can never extract one jot of
evidence in support of our belief in necessary con-
nection. Though that was admitted of all material
processes by Locke and Berkeley, they had yet

*Cf. Enqmry, sec. iv. pt. i. pp. 26-6 : "We fancy that were
we brought on a sudden into this world we could at first have
inferred that one billiard ball would communicate motion to
another upon impulse ; and that we needed not to have waited
for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty upon it.
Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it
not only covers our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself,
and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the
highest degree."

^Here again Hume's atomistic sensationalism affects the
statement of his argument. Whereas Locke had rightly limited
himself to the assertion that /or tis, owing to the incompleteness of
our knowledge^ the connection between cause and effect is in-
comprehensible, Hume frequently seems to imply that the
actual relation of causation consists of nothing but mere
sequence, and i« therefore in itself necesasLrily incomprehensible.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 227

held that we are conscious of internal power,^
when by the simple command of our will we move
our limbs, or call up an idea. Apprehending in
that way what causal agency is, we are able, they
believed, to infer to it elsewhere. Now certainly
the motion of our limbs follows upon the command
of our will. Of that we are every moment conscious.
But of the means by which it is effected, of the
energy by which the will performs so extraordinary
an operation, we are very far from being conscious,
and must indeed admit the causal agency to be
here, even more than elsewhere, unknown and in-
conceivable. The connection between the volition
in the mind and the movement in the body,
instead of being the key to all other causal con-
nections, is what most calls for explanation. "Were
we empowered by a secret wish to remove moun-
tains or control the planets in their orbit, this
extensive authority would not be more extraordinary
nor more beyond our comprehension."^

* Cf. Locke's Essay, ii. xxi. sees. 4 and 5.

2 Enquiry, sec. vii. pt. i. p. 54 : Geuliucx {Ethica, Tract i.
chap. II, sec. ii. § 14) similarly asserts that it is no less
miraculous that upon the command of my will, when I seek to
pronounce the word earth, the tongue in my mouth should
tremble, than if the whole earth had thereupon trembled. Cf .
Malebranche : MMUations, ix. pp. 111-3.

228 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Nor can we pretend to be acquainted with any
power in the soul by which it is able to produce
an idea at will. That would be "a real creation, a
production of something out of nothing."^ " So far
from being conscious of this energy in the will, it
requires as certain experience, as that of which we
are possessed, to convince us, that such extraordinary
effects do ever result from a simple act of volition."^
As Malebranche points out, such creation is not
even conceivable. "I deny that my will produces
in me my ideas; for I cannot even conceive how
it could produce them, since my will, not being
able to act or will without knowledge, presupposes
my ideas and does not make them."* "Is there
not here," Hume asks, "either in a spiritual or
material substance, or both, some secret mechanism
or structure of parts, upon which the effect depends,
and which, being entirely unknown to us, renders
the power or energy of the will equally unknown
and incomprehensible ? "* Or as Hume in accord-
ance with his theory of association might have gone

* Enquiry, loc, ctt. p. 56. ^ Enquiry, loc. cit. p. 57.

^ Eclaircissemeiit sur chap. in. pt. ii. liv, vt. de la Recherche.
As Malebranche adds, the mind does not even * create' its
desires.

* Enquiry, loc, cit p. 57.

HUME*S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 229

on to explain, the mind produces no ideas; it is
the ideas in consciousness that by virtue of their
mysterious associative quality, themselves attract
others into consciousness; and as this associative
quality is as unknown in its workings, and as in-
comprehensible, as the force of gravity between
material particles, we must admit that causal agency
is not known in the mental any more than in the
material world.

It has frequently been asserted that Hume in
his theory of causation in no way advanced beyond
the occasionalists, or at least not beyond Malebranche
and Berkeley. The falsity of such a view is suf-
ficiently indicated by the criticisms which Hume,
in accordance with his new views, is compelled to
make of the occasionalist system.^ It is the
occasionalists, he shows, who are the most flagrant
of all offenders in making use of the idea of
causation as if it represented something positive and
conceivable. Eesorting on all occasions to a creative
intelligence, they use it unrestrainedly to explain
anything and everything, as in its occult indefinite-
ness it is only too well fitted to do. They assume
that we gain in immediate experience knowledge of

^ We shall have more to say on this point. Cf. below, pp. 241-5.

230 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

the self as an active agent, and conceiving God on
the analogy of the self, they ascribe to Him all
those effects of which the self is found to be in-
capable. They differ among themselves only in the
division they make of power between the self and
God. Berkeley regards the self as creative with
regard to its images, God as creative in all else;
whereas Malebranche goes so far as to deny eflScacy
to any of our volitions, and regards God as the
cause of our ideas, as well as of our sensations and
of the motions of our limbs. And if we try to
estimate which is the more unsatisfactory position
of the two, it is hard to decide. Malebranche has
the virtue of siding with Hume and the facts in
his denial of all creative power to the self; but
since knowledge of spirit as endowed with creative
power is only to be derived from the self, he just
thereby renders his theology the weaker.^ Descartes
applied the principle of causality to connect the uncon-
nectable soul and body, and also to connect God with
the self and with the world. The first application of
the principle easily yielded to criticism, but it was
Hume who first saw that exactly the same criticism
holds with still greater force against the asserted relation

^Cf. below, note 2 to p. 241.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 231

of God to the self and to the world. We only
deceive ourselves when we pretend to explain any-
thing, not to speak of everything, by a God that
is a magnified projection of an occult self.

Since Hume by his analysis of that spiritualism
whose influence we have traced in Malebranche,
Leibniz, Locke, and Berkeley, reveals the ungrounded
nature of Descartes' view of the self as a substance
distinct from its experiences, and of the comple-
mentary view of God as a separate existence, the
cause and creator of all else, we may proceed to
consider his arguments in detail. The self is only
to be found in the organised unity of its concrete
experiences, and not in a substance behind them.-^

^ The self is not simple and indestructible, but infinitely com-
plex and continuously changing. It is in order to emphasise
against Descartes and his followers this fact of the complexity
and changeableness of the self that Hume asserts that it is
"nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and
are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn
in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought
is still more variable than our sight ; and all our other senses
and faculties contribute to this change, nor is there any single
power of the soul, which remaius unalterably the same, perhaps
for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several
perceptions successively make their appearance ; pass, re-pass,
glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and
situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time.

232 THE CABTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

" I cannot compare the soul more properly to any-
thing than to a republic or commonwealth, in which
the several members are united by the reciprocal
ties of government and subordination, and give rise
to other persons, who propagate the same republic
in the incessant changes of its parts. And as the
same individual republic may not only change its
members, but also its laws and constitutions ; in like
manner the same person may vary his character
and disposition, as well as his impressions and ideas,
without losing his identity. Whatever changes he
endures, his several parts are still connected by the
relation of causation.^ And in this view our identity
with regard to the passions serves to corroborate

nor xdcTUity in different ; whatever natural propension we have
to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the
theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive per-
ceptions only that constitute the mind ; nor have we the most
distant notion of the place, where these scenes are represented,
or of the materials of which it is composed" {Treatue, i. iv. vi.
pp. 534-5). Hume's analysis of the self has often been very
unfairly treated by being considered only in relation to the
later views of Kant. It ought rather to be interpreted in the
light of his opposition to the views of his predecessors and
contemporaries. When Hume's arguments are so regarded, it
must be admitted that, whatever error his own views contain,
he is altogether in the right against Descartes, and is really
working towards the position of Kant.

^ It must be borne in mind that Hume maintains his right to
speak of events as ' causally ' connected. Cf . below, pp. 242-3.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 233

that with regard to the imagination, by the making
our distant perceptions influence each other, and by
giving us a present concern for our past or future
pains or pleasures."^ The theory, that ideas may
be explained as the modes of a simple substance,
refutes itself, as explanation by the occult always
does, when more universally applied. There are,
Hume points out,^ two systems of things, the real
and the ideal, that demand explanation. In the
real world there exist the sun, moon, and stars ;
the earth, seas, plants, animals, men, ships, houses,
etc. These, Spinoza asserts, must all be regarded
as only modifications inhering in a simple, uncom-
pounded, and indivisible substance.^ Similarly, Hume
proceeds, in the ideal world, viz., the universe of
my mind, I observe another sun, moon, and stars, an
earth, seas, towns, houses, etc. ; and in short every-
thing that I can discover or conceive in the first
system. These, according to the theologians (among
whom must be counted Descartes and his followers),
are also modifications, and modifications of one

* Treatise^ i. iv. vi. p. 542. ^Ihid, i. iv. v. p. 525 flf.

^This statement, it need hardly be pointed out, is not quite
fair to Spinoza. That, however, does not really aflfect Hume's
argument. The Cartesians certainly take an abstract, not a
concrete, view of the unity and simplicity of the self.

234 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

simple, uncompounded, indivisible substance. Now
is it possible to discover any absurdity in the one
hypothesis that is not common to both ; and if the
Spinozistic hypothesis fails to advance our compre-
hension of the material a single step, must not the
same admission be made as regards the spiritualistic
interpretation of knowledge ?

If instead of calling thought a modification we
give it * the more antient and yet more modish
name of an action ' nothing whatsoever is gained
by the change. As we know only ideas, and have
no conception either of a mind that is distinct from
them, or of action in any form, to call the ideas
actions of the mind is both meaningless and useless.
Also, since the theologians cannot pretend to make
a monopoly of the word action, the 'atheists' may
"likewise take possession of it, and aflSrm that
plants, animals, men, etc., are nothing but particular
actions of one simple universal substance, which
exerts itself from a blind and absolute necessity.
This you'll say is utterly absurd. I own 'tis un-
intelligible ; but at the same time assert, according
to the principles above-explained, that 'tis impossible
to discover any absurdity in the supposition, that
all the various objects in nature are actions of one

HUME*S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 235

simple substance, which absurdity will not be
applicable to a like supposition concerning impressions
and ideas." ^ And that being so, it goes without
sajdng that the explanation of our knowledge of
relations as due to the activity of a self that takes
the different ideas out of their externality, and
holding them together in its own indivisible unity
observes their relations, must equally be rejected.
We have no knowledge of any such abiding self
behind our ideas, capable of observing them, nor
can we form any conception of those activities that
are here ascribed to it.

Hume further analyses the notion of mental
agency in his criticism of the argument from
design.^ That argument rests, he points out, on
the assumption that material bodies cannot give
order and arrangement to themselves, and that in
mind or reason alone is an organising principle to
be found. Experience is appealed to. "Throw

* Treatise, i. iv. v. pp. 528-9.

2 It is the only general proof of God's existence unnoticed
hy Descartes, and that for the obvious reason that it is
irreconcilable with his elimination of all final causes from
his physics. It became prominent in Leibniz. Spinoza's
arguments against final causes are in many respects curiously
analogous to those of Hume. Of. below, chap. iv. p. 140 and
pp. 149-50.

236 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

several pieces of steel together, without shape or
form; thej will never arrange themselves so as to
compose a watch ; stone, and mortar, and wood,
without an architect, never erect a house. But
the ideas in a human mind, we see, hj an un-
known, inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so
as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience,
therefore, proves, that there is an original principle
of order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects
we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means
to ends is alike in the universe as in a machine
of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must
be resembling.'*^ Admirable conclusion ! — ^until we
reflect. No principle of order in matter ? What
about the forces of attraction and repulsion, which
we daily observe at work ? No organising principle
save mind ? " In this little comer of the world
alone, there are four principles, Reason, Instinct,

^ Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, pt. ii. p. 395. These
dialogues have been strangely neglected by Hume's com-
mentators. And yet they represent the maturest results of
Hume's thinking. They were repeatedly elaborated by him
throughout a period of twenty-seven years. "The work,
penned in the full vigour of his faculties, comes to us with
the sanction of his mature years, and his approval when he
was within sight of the grave " (Burton's Life of Hunie,
I. p. 326).

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 237

OcTieration, Vegetation^ which are similar to each
other, and are the causes of similar effects. What
a number of other principles may we naturally
suppose in the immense extent, and variety of the
universe, could we travel from planet to planet
and from system to system, in order to examine
each part of this mighty fabric?"^ A tree bestows
order and organisation on that tree, which springs
from it, an animal on its oflTspring, a bird on its
nest.

To say, Hume further urges, that this order
in animals and vegetables proceeds ultimately from
design, is begging the question, unless it can be
proved by a priori arguments, that order is in-
separably attached to thought, and can never of
itself belong to matter. Neither of these positions
can, however, be established.^ The order into which
our ideas fall ' of themselves ' is no more an ultimate
fact than is the organisation of an animal or plant.^
The order in all three cases depends upon an
inconceivably complex variety of causes. "Nothing
seems more delicate with regard to its causes
than thought. ... A difference of age, of the

^ Dialogues^ pt. vii. pp. 422-3. ^ Ibid. p. 423.

5 Cf . Dialogues, pt. viii. p. 430, quoted below in note to p. 239.

238 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

disposition of his body, of weather, of food, of
company, of books, of passions ; any of these
particulars, or others more minute, are sufficient to
alter the curious machinery of thought, and com-
municate to it very difierent movements and
operations. As far as we can judge, vegetables
and animal bodies are not more delicate in their
motionis, nor depend upon a greater variety or
more curious adjustment of springs and principles."^
And just as we have experience of order alike in
mind and in matter, so have we also of disorder
in both, of madness in the one, and of corruption
in the other. Why then should we think that order
is more essential to the one than to the other ? So
far as we can pretend to penetrate into the nature
of mind, ideas tend to fall into order because they
obey the laws of association, which correspond to
the law of gravity between material particles. " But
reason, in its internal fabric and structure, is really
as little known to us as instinct or vegetation ;
and perhaps even that vague, indeterminate word,
Nature, to which the vulgar refer everything, is not
at the bottom more inexplicable."^

The argument from design therefore assumes
^Dialogues, pt. iv. p. 408. ^ Ibid. pt. vii. p. 423,

HUME*S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 239

everything in asserting that intelligence is known
as a principle, and the sole principle, of order ; and
when that assumption is detected, it becomes obvious
that to explain the world as created is merely to
push the problem further back, and that it is every
whit as reasonable to * explain ' the world as having
been generated, or as having grown from a seed.
The Creator, in order to work intelligently and with
design, must first have created a plan, but in order
to create that plan intelligently, he must plan it
also, and so on in infinitum.^ If it means any-

* Hume's argument is an interesting inversion of the Platonic
argument, used to prove the reality of an ideal archetypal
world. Cf. Norris's Theory of the Ideal Worlds pt. i. pp. 27-9 :
"Tho*, considering the power of its Almighty Author,
[the world] was made out of nothing^ yet, considering his
wisdom, it must be made according to something^ and he that
raised this stately fabric without any praeexistent matter^ could
not yet be conceived to do it without any praeexistent form or
idea. For as he could not make it without forethinking of it)
so neither could he think of it without having something to
terminate that thought, which must be the nature or essence of
the thing that was to be made. . . . Hence the sensible must be
made according to some other prae-existent nature that was so
essentially exhibitive and representative of it, as to be after
the manner of an original pattern or model of it, as having all
that intelligibly which itself has sensibly, which is no other
than that ideal world we are contending for." Hume here shows
how this argument cuts both ways. The real cause of its
failure is that we can form no conception of ideas as archetypes

240 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

thing to say that the dififerent ideas which compose
the reason of the Supreme Being fall into order of
themselves and by their own nature, why is it not
as good sense to say that the parts of the material
world faU into order of themselves, and by their
own nature ? Can the one opinion be unintelligible
when the other is not so ? It is, of course, replied
. that what produces the order in the ideas of Ood
"is a rational faculty, and that such is the nature
of the Deity. But why a similar answer will not
be equally satisfactory in accounting for the order
of the world, without having recourse to any such
intelligent creator, as you insist on, may be difficult
to determine. It is only to say, that sv^ih is the
nature of material objects, and they are all originally
possessed of a faculty of order and proportion.
These are only more learned and elaborate ways
of confessing our ignorance; nor has the one

preceding reality. The order of our ideas depends on experience ;
and the assumed Creator, as there is nothing outside his mind,
can have no such experience. Cf. Hume's Dialogues^ pt. viii. p.
430 : " In all instances which we have ever seen, ideas are
copied from real objects, and are ectypal not archetypal, to
express myself in learned terms. You reverse this order, and
give thought the precedence. In all instances which we
have ever seen, thought has no influence over matter, except
where the matter is so conjoined with it, so as to have an equal
reciprocal influence upon it."

HUME*S CRITICISM OP CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 241

hypothesis any real advantage above the other, except
in its greater conformity to vulgar prejudices."^

With Hume's destruction of. the occult self, that
is the ultimate source of all occult qualities, the
occasionalist system of Descartes collapses like a house
of cards. "I cannot perceive any force in the
arguments on which this theory is founded. We
are ignorant, it is true, of the manner in which
bodies operate on each other : their force or energy
is entirely incomprehensible. But are we not
equally ignorant of the manner or force by which
a mind, even the supreme mind, operates either
on itself or on body ? . . . Is it more difl&cult to
conceive that motion may arise from impulse than
that it may arise from volition ? All we know is
our profound ignorance in both cases." ^ A causal

1 Dialogues^ pt. iv. pp. 409-10.

^Enquiry, sec. viii. pt. i. pp. 59-60. Cf. Malebranch^,
MSditationSy ix. p. Ill : " How stupid and ridiculous are the
philosophers I TLey imagine that creation is impossible because
they cannot conceive how the power of God can be sufficiently
great to create something out of nothing. But can they
conceive how God is capable of stirring a straw? If they
attend thereto, they will find that they cannot comprehend the
one more clearly than the other, since they have no clear idea
of eflScacy or of power ; so that if they follow out their false
principle, they should conclude that God is not even sufficiently
powerful to give motion to matter. But this false conclusion

242 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

explanation of things as due either to matter or to
a divine infinite mind is equally illusory. We
have no idea of what a sufl&cient cause would be
like: certainly mind is as little as matter known
to be the sufl&cient cause of anything. If, on the
other hand, we are content to regard a cause merely
as that which always precedes an eflPect, and never
accounts for it, then, so far as our experience goes,
only a mind that is united to a body can cause
anything; and in this union matter has as much
influence on mind, as mind on matter.^ Such causal
interaction of soul and body is as conclusively proved
by experience as any causal connection can be,
and the denial of it is an instance to what arbitrary
denial of the most evident facts the pretence of
comprehending causal connection will lead philo-
sophers. Matter and motion, it is argued, however
varied, are still matter and motion, and can cause
nothing but change in the position and situation of
bodies; it is absurd to imagine that motion of

would land them in opinions so foolish and so impious, that
they would become an object of scorn and of indignation even
to the most ignorant." Yet Malebranche declares God to be
unknowable and incomprehensible alike in His nature and in all
His ways, and so is himself in the end forced to the agnostic
conclusion of Hume.

^Cf. Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, pt. viii. p. 430.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 243

brain particles in one direction should be a passion,
and in another direction should be a moral reflection.^
Irresistible as that argument may seem, we have
only to recall the preceding reasoning to be reminded
that so far as our insight goes anything may
produce anything, and that though there appear
no manner of connection between motion and thought,
the case is the same with all other causes and
effects. The connections, which Berkeley dogmatically
names arbitrary, are in fact only incomprehensible.
Locke was altogether in the right in asserting that
incomprehensibility is no ground for denying the
causal connection in either case. "This communica-
tion of motion by thought ... is as evident as
that by impulse. . . . Constant experience makes
us sensible of both of these, though our narrow
understandings can comprehend neither."^

For Descartes an effect is that which can be
deduced with logical necessity from the notion of
the cause. Like all the other Cartesians (and the
occasionalists are not exceptions to the rule), he failed
to see that since by an effect we mean that which
follows in time upon its cause, or in other words that

1 Treatise, i. iv. v. pp. 529-30.

^ Essay, ii. xxiii. 28. Of. chap, on Locke, pp. 196-9.

244 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHT

since the principle of causality is the law of change,
such logical relation cannot possibly express its nature.
As the logical relation is timeless, not only is it wrong
to assert that where it is not to be found causal
relation must be absent, we can on the contrary
affirm that where it does hold the relation cannot be
that which is properly denoted by the term ' causal.' ^
The first to perceive this was Hume; and from the
conclusions which he thereby established far-reaching
consequences follow. If causation, which is the bond
connecting the phenomena of our time-experience,
cannot be rationalised, the Cartesian rationalism, and
therewith its spiritualism, must fall to the ground.

An entirely new set of problems is, indeed, raised
by Hume. If the principle of causality is neither
self-evident nor demonstrable by reason, with what
right does the mind interpret experience in the light
of it ? Also if the mind can never form any concep-
tion of what would be a cause adequate to produce an
effect, how can it decide in particular cases that
phenomena are so related ? By the former question
Hume inspired Kant in the establishment of a
rationalism that, unlike the scholastic rationalism of
Descartes, is reconcilable with the facts of our time-

^ Cf. above, chap. iv. note 2, to p. 147.

Hume's criticism of cartesian principles 245

experience; and by the latter question became the
founder, in a much truer sense than Bacon, of the
modem theory of induction. In both he transcends
the rationalism of Descartes.

Hume is here, we may say, introducing into meta-
physics the point of view of physical science. The
Cartesian identification of causal connection with
logical dependence inevitably involves its further
identification with the relation of substance and
quality. The efiect, regarded as a logical consequence,
must be a permanent quality of the substance that is
its ground. And being thus dominated by the
category of substance, Cartesian thinking results, as
we have seen, either in an atomism or in an empty
pantheism. Through Hume's analysis, however, the
relative position of the two categories is inverted.
Throughout modern thinking all qualities tend to be
regarded as effects due to causal interaction between
substances that apart from such relation are granted
to be inconceivable. The centre of gravity is shifted
from the separate things to the organised system in
and through which they exist. This is the real
meaning, or at least (thanks to Kant) the final out-
come, of Hume*s analysis of causation and of spirit.

So far we have merely been stating Hume's

246 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

position, and may now pass to criticism of it He
adopts Locke's view of the materials of knowledge
as consisting of isolated atomic impressions ; but as
he denies that we can form any conception of a self
that might take such ideas out of their externality,
and holding them together, thereupon perceive
relations between them, he has to admit that he is
incapable of accounting even for our consciousness of
time. " All my hopes vanish, when I come to explain
the principles, that unite our successive perceptions
in our thought or consciousness. 'I cannot discover
any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head." ^
That admission must not, however, be taken as justi-
fying the Cartesian view of the self. Bather we may
hold that such a view of experience disproves itself
in demanding as its indispensable complement the
assumption of an occult self.^ Hume's false view of

^ This confession occurs in the Appendix to vol. iii. of the
original edition of the Treatise (i. p. 569 of the edition of Green
and Grose).

2 Though Kant was unacquainted with Hume's examination in
the Treatise and in the Dialogues of the Cartesian spiritualism,
he in the end developed, under the pressure of his own prin-
ciples, views very similar to those of Hume. At first, however,
his adoption of Hume's view of the materials of sense forced
him to maintain the Cartesian view of the self as a separate
existence, preceding knowledge and rendering it possible. Cf.
b«low, chap. VII. pp. 260-2.

HUME'S CRITICISM OF CAKTESIAN PRINCIPLES 247

experience, as consisting of atomic impressions,
itself results from what was the really serious
limitation to his thinking, namely his reten-
tion of the fundamental Cartesian doctrine that
knowledge is a purely subjective process, and that
all we can ever know are our own subjective
states. That that position is inconsistent with his
general principles and with many of his explicit
utterances, only shows how deep-rooted it was in his
mind, and how completely unconscious he was of
therein making assumptions. He starts oflf excellently.
Though he retains from his predecessors the terms,
impression, perception, and idea, to denote the objects
known by us, they are, he insists, to be regarded as
perfectly neutral terms. By ' ideas ' he does not
mean, like Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley, the objects
or modes of mind. As we can form no conception of
a mind or subject, we cannot so view them. Nor are
they ideas of objects, for that implies that there
exist ideas and. objects, and such a duality of existence
Hume demonstrates to rest on an illusion, and to be
the error that gives rise to all the contradictions of the
Cartesian dualism. Hence, instead of Hume's con-
tention being that we know nothing but purely
subjective states, it is rather that nothing subjective

248 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

as distinguished from objective is conceivable by wL
His true position, if only he had been able to maintain
it, is, like that of Kant, phenomenalism, and not
subjective idealism.

Such an objective view of knowledge appears in
the following passage. "As every perception is dis- ^^
tinguishable from another, and may be considered
as separately existent ; it evidently follows, that Dhere
is no absurdity in separating any particular percep-
tion from the mind; that is, in breaking off sU its
relations, with that connected mass of perceptions,
which constitute a thinking being. The same reason-
ing affords us an answer to the second question. If
the name of perception renders not this separation from
a mind absurd and contradictory, the name of object,
standing for the very same thing, can never render
their conjunction impossible. External objects are
seen, and felt, and become present to the mind ; that
is, they acquire such a relation to a connected heap of
perceptions, as to influence them very considerably in
augmenting their number by present reflections and
passions, and in storing the memory with ideas. The
same continued and uninterrupted Being may, there-
fore, be sometimes present to the mind, and sometimes
absent from it, without any real or essential change in

HUME'S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 249

the Being itself." ^ That view is, however, only
stated in order to be refuted, and proofs, that prove
nothing of the kind, are given to show that percep-
tions have no continuous existence, but are "dependent
on our organs, and the disposition of our nerves and
animal spirits." ^ " All impressions are internal and
perishing existences and appear as such." ^ *' Let us

* Treatiaey i. iv. ii. pp. 495-6. ^ Loc. cU. p. 498.

^Loc. cit pp. 483-4 In Descartes and Locke, we have seen,
as before them in Augustine (cf. above, chap. i. pp. 4-6, 13-14),
the problem of knowledge is pushed further back without being
in any way solved. They adopt the physiological point of view
in the explanation of knowledge, and as a consequence of that
point of view formulate the doctrine of representative perception.
The elementary facts of physics and physiology seem to make
the assumption of the truth of that doctrine unavoidable (cf.
above, p. 116). If the mind knows by means of the brain, and
if (as these sciences prove) the brain is only stimulated indirectly
by the vibrations transmitted to it from distant objects, the
objects themselves can only be indirectly known through the
mental states they thus cause. Reasoning in this way^ Descartes
and Locke feel compelled to bring the external objects within
the mind in the form of images, and to assume that it is by
looking at these mental images that it acquires knowledge of
the real objects they represent. What the nature of these
images can be, which allows of their copying material extended
bodies, and yet at the same time of their appearing in an
immaterial unextended . mind, they never explain, save by
asserting that they are ideas and therefore naturally capable of
existing in mind. Similarly they as little explain what mind
is, or how it knows these mental images ; here again the de-
scription of mind, as that which knows, is supposed to suffice.

250 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible :
Let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the
utmost limits of the universe ; we never really advance
a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of
existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared
in that narrow compass." ^ Spite, then, of Hume's
assertion to the contrary, he still holds to the Cartesian
trinity of mind, ideas, and matter, and is therefore still
within the Cartesian system, still at the point of view
of naive realism and physiology. In all essentials he
takes up the position of Locke, that all we can know
of human nature are certain of its qualities, propensi-
ties, or instincts, and that we can never penetrate into
the nature of bodies or know them otherwise than by
those external properties which discover themselves to
the senses.

Now it is really that belief in the subjectivity of
knowledge, with the retention of the physiological

The only diflBculty, however, that is removed thereby, even in
appearance, is that of local difference between mind knowing
and objects known. All other difficulties remain as unsolved
in this dualism of mind knowing and ideas known, as they were
in the previous dualism which it is assumed in order to explain,
of mind knowing and external objects known. Hume, like
Berkeley, in admitting the subjectivity of knowledge, assumes
the truth of Descartes' dualism even while attacking it.
^ Treatise, i. ii. vi. p. 371.

HUME'S CRITICISM OF CARTESIAN PRINCIPLES 251

•

point of view which it implies, that has prevented
Hume from discarding Locke's definition of the
materials of knowledge. Like Locke and Berkeley,
he believes that in the distinction between the
different senses he has supplied to him a means for
the analysis of our concrete experience, and for the
classification of its ultimate elements. The different
sensations supplied to the mind one by one through
the different senses constitute experience, and hence
any idea that cannot be regarded as capable of
transmission into the mind through one or other
of these distinguishable avenues must be denied.
And it is by taking Hume's own point of view
(and purely physiological it undoubtedly is), that
we shall most fitly reply to him. Is the brain, we
may ask, that reacts upon peripheral stimuli, to
count for nothing? If the single, central brain, in
reacting upon stimuli, transforms them, what be-
comes of the supposed isolation and unrelatedness
of the given sensations ?

Owing to this oscillation between phenomenalism
and subjective idealism, Hume's thinking frequently
becomes very confused. Invariably he distinguishes
between mental and physical laws, comparing as-
sociation to the force of gravity, and yet obviously

252 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

•

if perceptions alone are known, the only known
'causal' laws are those of association. Especially
does confusion appear in his views as to the inter-
action of soul and body. Mentally connected our
sensations and our perceptions of our bodily states
undoubtedly are, but this connection between per-
ceptions Hume tacitly interprets as a connection
between mental states and bodily antecedents.

Hume is thus only half-emancipated from the
Cartesian system that he attacks. His conception
of knowledge is still that of a process which takes
place separately in each individual, and which, if
perfect, would recreate the external world in picture
within each individual mind. "We never really
advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive
any kind of existence but those perceptions which
have appeared in that narrow compass." So long
as that fundamental tenet of the Cartesian philosophy
has not been called in question, its dualism of mind
and matter, of internal and external, cannot be over-
thrown. It was left to Kant to explode the theory
which Hume had undermined.

CHAPTER VIL

THE TEANSITION TO KANT.

KA.NT, like Hume,^ regards all systems previous to
his own as being either dogmatic in their principles,
or else purely negative and therefore self-contradictory
in their scepticism. But, Kant further adds, both
schools have certain presuppositions in common, pre-
suppositions in which Hume also shares. Dogmatists
and sceptics alike believe that it is the function of
knowledge to reproduce an external world in picture
within each individual mind; and when they find
it impossible to account for such knowledge from
the nature and constitution of the external world,
they either fall back on a pre-established harmony,
the most shallow of all explanations in Kant's opinion,
or, ignorant of their own ineradicable dogmatism,
triumph in their self-caused failure. Kant was the

^ Treatise^ i. iv. i. pp. 474-5.

254 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

first to call in question this assumption, that the
function of knowledge is to reduplicate an inde-
pendent reality.^ May it not be, he asks, that the
world we construct in thought is* altogether different
from the real outside us? And if so, is it to be
condemned on that account? May not the material
world exist only for us, and yet be a very real
world with a nature and structure of its own, which
it will be the work of our human science to deter-
mine ? That is what Kant calls his Copernican
idea. Since the history of philosophy has demon-
strated that it is impossible to make cognition
conform to objects, we must reverse the supposition,
and suppose objects to conform to our ways of
knowing. On that hypothesis we may hope to ex-
plain better the facts of knowledge. Locke and
Hume, as they admit the nature of the self to be
unknowable, have no fight to follow Descartes in
his assertion that it is unoriginative in the pro-
duction of knowledge; and immediately their naive
realism is rejected, the opposite is seen to be the
more natural view. If the self, in relation to which

^Even though Hume holds that the function of our actual
knowledge is purely practical, he still preserves, as we have
seen, the Cartesian ideal of knowledge as a subjective repro-
duction of an external world.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 255

experience exists, has a nature of its own, it will
like everything else have its own peculiar organisa-
tion and modes Of activity, to which objects, if they
are to be known at all, must conform. Nothing
can enter into the mind, save by conforming to the
laws of mind.

The complement of that new view of the nature
of knowledge was a fresh theory of philosophical
method. As early as 1764 we find Kant strongly con-
demning the mathematical method. "Nothing has
been more injurious to philosophy than mathematics;
that is, than the imitation of its method in a sphere
where it is. impossible of application."/ While
mathematics starts from conceptions (such as that
of a triangle or a square), which, as arbitrarily
constructed by the mind, are known exhaustively ;
philosophy deals with given conceptions (such as
those of space, time, and spirit), that in their
obscure complexity resist complete analysis.^ Such

^ Untersuchung iiber die Deutlichheit der Orundsatze der natiir-
lichen Theologie und der Moral, WerJce (Hartenstein), ii. p. 291.

2 Though in mathematics a few such irresolvable conceptions
(those of magnitude, unity, space, etc.) are also involved, they
are presupposed by it, not its objects, and therefore do not
require to be mathematically defined. It is just where mathe-
matical definition becomes impossible, that philosophy has to
begin.

256 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

conceptions are known, but known only as problems.
" As Augustine has said, ' I know well what time
is, but if anyone asks me, I cannot tell.' " ^ We
have the conception of spirit, but whether the
object of that conception is or is not distinct from
matter, we cannot from the mere examination of it
decide.^ Philosophy must start from the obscurely
apprehended actual, not from the conceptually
necessary. Kant names his own method the ' trans-
cendental,' which outlandish title need not conceal
from us that it is simply the hypothetical method
of physical science applied in the explanation of
knowledge. Taking our actual knowledge as the
fact to be accounted for, we must discover what are
the conditions that can alone render it possible.

The most characteristic feature in Kant's treat-
ment of knowledge has still, however, to be
mentioned, namely, that he takes as the fact to
be explained not experience in all its multiplicity,

^Quoted by Kant, Werke, ir. p. 292.

*Cf. Trdume eines Oeist&riehera (1766), Werhe^ ii. pp. 327 ff.
359, 378. Much of Hume's criticism of the Cartesian spiritual-
ism (that criticism being of course developed quite independently
by Kant) is to be found in this treatise. Kant repeats it in a
more systematic and extended form in the Critique of Pure
Reason, as his criticism of rational psychology and of rational
theology.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 257

as revealed by introspection, but the simplest act of
knowledge, that which is involved in all knowledge
whatsoever, developed and undeveloped, simple and
complex, viz., consciousness of time.^ That we
possess such consciousness, has never been denied
by any philosopher, and is, therefore, the really
indubitable fact, by the analysis of which Descartes
ought to have started. By its actuality it will
substantiate the reality of all that can be proved
to be its indispensable conditions. This method,
which may be regarded as a deepening and correcting
of the analytical method of Descartes, is the
reverse of Hume's ; for instead of setting out, like
Hume, from a theory of the ultimate constituents
of experience to construct experience, Kant starts
from our actual consciousness to discover its condi-
tions. Hume's method is a priori and dogmatic, and
Kant's alone the truly empirical.

As an illustration of Kant's method we may briefly
consider his reply to Hume. Much of Hume's criticism
Kant is quite prepared to accept. Thfi gp.n eral prin-

^ This is made specially clear in the Principles of the Under-
standing which form the central part of the Analytic Con-
sciousness of time is there taken as the ultimate fact, as
conditions of which the objective validity of space and the

categories can be established.

258 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

I ciple of causality is, he agrees, neither intuitively
I certain nor demonstrable by general reasoning. Like

1^ all other synthetic judgments a priori, it can only
l/oe proved by reference to the contingent fact of our
^ actual experience. Also we can never by analysis of
a particular effect discover any reason why it must
necessarily be preceded by one particular cause. The
nature and possibility of causal connection — the
explanation, that is, how one event, the cause, should
be able to give rise to another and different event, the
effect — ^is in all cases beyond our powers of compre-
hension.^ Tet while admitting the incomprehensibility

^Cf. Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grossen in die
WdtweUheit eimufukren (1763): Werke, ii. pp. 104-6:— "I
very well understand how a logical consequent flows from its
antecedent by the law of identity : an analysis of the antecedent
shows it to contain the consequent. . . . But how something
follows from something else, and not in virtue of the law of
identity, is what I should like to see explained. . . . The
former species of ground 1 term the logical, the latter the real,
antecedent. . . . My conclusion is : that the connection
between a real antecedent and something which is thereby
created or annihilated can never be expressed by a judgment,
but only by a conception. No doubt this conception may by
analysis be reduced to simpler conceptions of real antecedents :
still, after all, our knowledge of this connection always cul-
minates in simple and irreducible conceptions of real antecedents,
of which the relation to their consequents can never be made
clear/* (The above is the translation given by Wallace in his
Kant^ pp. 127 ff.) Cf. Trdume eines Oeistersehers : Werke,
II. p. 378.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 259

of causal connection, or, in other words, that it can
never be rationalised, Kant establishes against Hume
our right to postulate its existence. Conafiim iflnpaH nf

timp is invnlvftd in all mnflfiinnsnftafl whatsoftvpr And

since consciousness of time can be proved to involve,
as the condition of its possibility, the consciousness of
objects as being all causally connected in space, the
principle of causality must have universal validity
within our experience. This principle does not, how-
ever, carry us very far. Though it justifies us in
postulating that for each event a cause must exist
among the events immediately preceding, in order
to discover what that cause is, we are entirely
dependent upon sense-experience.^ Hume is in the
right against the occasionalists. Experience being the
sole test of what connections are or are not causal,
we must, if experience seems so to indicate, accept
any two events, however different, as standing in that
relation.^

The rationalism of Kant is thus a rationalism of
very modest pretensions. It by no means attempts,

^The assertiou that one particular preceding event is the
cause must rest on empirical grounds (such as that it is the only
preceding condition which is known to be invariable), and ig
therefore always liable to be overturned by further experience.

^Cf. below, note to p. 260.

260 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

like that of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, to make
reality transparent to the mind. As the principles
which it establishes are quite formal, though they may
suffice to simplify and arrange, they cannot serve
either to construct, or to explain, even the simplest
phenomena of sense. Also, since those principles are
proved only as conditions of our actual experience, and
as we can conceive other kinds of experience than that
which we possess, besides being limited in their
powers of explaining experience, they are further
limited to experience. They must never be used (and
here again Kant is in agreement with Hume) as
instruments for the metaphysical explanation of our
experience.^

But Kant did not at once manage to fulfil the
demands of his own method, and his first position,
which is also in great part his last, is itself dogmatic.
He adopts the sensationalistic view of the materials of
knowledge as consisting of atomic sensations, and
recognising the impossibility of deriving space, time,

*The physiological explanation of the origin of knowledge
must therefore be rejected. Causal connections between mental
states and brain-states must, on Kant's principles just as on
those of Hume, be accepted as actual ; but such connections
between particular elements within our experience yield no
proof of the existence of conditions outside experience determin-
ing it to be what it is.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 261

and the categories, from such data, he asserts, as the
sole remaining alternative, that they are supplied by
the mind — the mind being conceived in the Cartesian
manner as a separate entity, preceding knowledge and
rendering it possible. This position, crude though it
be, is (thanks to Hume) at least free from the worst
defects of the Cartesian rationalism. The innate ideas
that on Descartes' view are the God-given means of
knowledge of ultimate reality, are for Kant empty
forms, of use only for application to the matter of
sense. Since the distinction between sense and
thought is not a distinction between two kinds of
knowledge, but between two elements involved in all
knowledge, there can be no purely conceptual think-
ing. The empiricism of Hume and the rationalism of
Leibniz must be regarded as supplementing and limit-
ing one another. In all other respects, however, Kant's
position closely resembles the subjective idealism of
Locke and Berkeley. Each individual constructs out
of given sensations according to inborn laws a subjec-
tive world, the objectively real being that which under
the same circumstances appears the same to all minds
similarly constituted. The understanding, Kant
says, creates nature; and each individual creates it

anew, he might have added, in his own individual

262 THE CAEO^ESIAN PHILOSOPHY

mind.^ " All objects without exception with which we
busy ourselves are in me — ^that is, are determinations
or modes of my identical self." ^

Now, though not explicitly withdrawing from that
position, Kant yet points the way in the ' Objective
Deduction ' of the categories to a much deeper one,

1 Knowledge is explained as resulting from the superinduction
upon relationless impressions of the rational forms of thought,
the superinduction being due to an active self, whose existence
is supposed to be * transcendentally ' proved by its indispensable-
ness for this impossible function. In so far as that is Ei^nt's
position we must regard it as a step backward into pre-Humian
illusions and not by any means an advance. As the self which
Kant here postulates is the occult Cartesian self, he is making
use of means that Hume saw clearly to be illegitimate. All that
Kant really establishes is the necessity of * synthesis,' that is, of
that unity in experience which is required to render conscious-
ness of time, with all that it involves, possible. But how such
synthesis is brought about (if indeed it requires to be brought
about), we cannot by general metaphysical reasoning decide.
Should synthesis according to the categories be proved not to
be due to the direct activity of a iioumenal self, but to be the
outcome of complex associative processes, such proof would in
no wise nullify Kant's conclusions. The self may be, for all
that Kant shows to the contrary, not a prior-existing agent that
constructs its own experience, but, as Hume urges, the resultant
of a preceding complexity of conditions. That, indeed, Kant
virtually proves, as we shall see immediately, when he shows
that only in and through a complex objective experience is self-
consciousness possible.

2 Werke^ iii. p. 585. This passage was omitted in the second
edition of the Critique.

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 263

that is inconsistent with it. Passing from the
problem, how consciousness of objects distinct from
the self is possible, to the question how self-
consciousness is possible, he discovers that this
objective experience, which the self is supposed to
create, conditions the very existence of the self.
Since the self can only exist as a conscious being,
and as all consciousness involves consciousness of
objects, it is as true to assert that nature makes
the self possible, as that the understanding creates
nature. Self and not-self presupposing one another,
neither can precede the other, so as to render it
possible. Experience in its totality, as the unity
of self and not-self, is undoubtedly conditioned by
the non-phenomenal ; but since the manifold of
sense and the forms of thought are elements that
involve one another, and that cannot even be
conceived apart, there is no sufficient reason for
the assumption of a noumenal self and of a nou-
menal not-self as their separate sources. The
materialistic and the spiritualistic explanations of
knowledge, even when thus combined, are alike
illusory.

In the end, therefore, the only attitude which
Kant justifies towards experience is the purely

264 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

analytical one, which results in a higher em-
piricism. Without making any assumptions, we
must start from an analysis of actual experience,
and when we do so we find, Kant shows, that it
is made up of qualitatively distinct elements in
necessary interconnection in the homogeneous forms
of space and time ; that however far back we
may trace it, both these elements of content and
form are found mutually to involve one another ;
and that no explanation can be given how this
experience came into existence, or what are the
conditions beyond it, determining it to be what it
is. Sense-experience, thus constituted, is the whole
sphere of knowledge, and of those realities of
which we have no sense-experience nothing can
be discovered. As all ' necessary * connections are
synthetic, and so de facto in their necessity,^ where

^Cf. Kritih der reinen Vemunft: Werke, iii. pp. 150-3.
Mathematical knowledge rests on intuition or sense-per-
ception, and it is because such intuition takes place within a
datum that is from its very nature constant and uniform for all
possible experience (homogeneity and continuity being the
fundamental characteristics of space and of time), that though
the connections which it reveals are, like all other real
connections, synthetic, they can yet be asserted to hold with
universal validity. Kant still claims that some truths
are purely analytic, and therefore are justified by the law
of identity. Such teaching, however, is merely a survival of

THE TRANSITION TO KANT 265

sense fails to yield reality, thought must cease to
yield triith.^

Such are Kant's final conclusions in the Critique^
and by them the transition is at last made quite
out beyond one and all of the Cartesian assumptions.
Since consciousness of time involves consciousness
of objects interconnected in space, so far is it from
being true that we can only be conscious of sub-
jective states, that on the contrary, we can never be
conscious of anything purely subjective. The distinc-
tion between self and not-self, between inner and
outer, is not a distinction between our experience
and what lies outside it, but a purely relative
distinction within the unity of our objective ex-
perience. Our knowledge of external objects is as

his earlier views, and being inconsistent with his fundamental
principles may be ignored.

^In the Prolegomena Ei.nt formulates the fundamental
principle of his philosophy in a way that brings out in a
striking manner his agreement with Hume in opposition to
Descartes. " The principle of all genuine Idealists, from the
Eleatic school to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this formula :
* All knowledge by sense and experience is nothing but mere
appearance, and truth is to be found only in the ideas of pure
understanding and reason.' The principle which throughout
governs and determines my Idealism is : * All knowledge of
things from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing
but mere appearance, and truth is to be found only in
experience'" : Werke, iv. p. 121.

266 THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

certain and immediate as that of our own thoughts.
From these results, in the light of which Kant's
own philosophy requires to be almost as radically
transformed as does that of Hume, modem philosophy
makes a fresh start

INDEX.

Abstract ideas^ Cartesian tendency
to hypostasise, 38 ff. , 133-5 : con-
demned by Berkeley, 135 : con-
demned by Spinoza, 138 ff. :
Spinoza himself hypostasises
abstract ideas, 142 ff.

Activity, see Will.

Arithmetical science perceptive
not conceptual, 45-6.

Aristotle, 1-2, 191.

Amauld, 115-7, 96 note 3, 135,
165 note.

Association of ideas, Spinoza on,
151 note, 152 note 1 : Hume's
account of, 228-9, 251-2.

Attribute, Descartes' use of the
term, 120, 127 : Descartes fails
to analyse the category of sub-
stance and attribute, 67 : Spin-
oza's doctrine of the divine
attributes, 148 ff.

Augustine, his treatment of the
problem of knowledge, 3 ff. : on
doctrine of representative per-
ception, 5-6 : exercised no direct
influence on Descartes, 10 note :
his problems reappear, 96 note

3, 105 note, 176 note 1 : quoted
by Kant, 256.

Axioms, Descartes on the function
of the, 31, 37 note.

Bacon, Francis, on method, 27-8 :
his influence on Locke, 182.

Bernoulli, James, 198 note.

Body, see Matter, Soul.

Boutroux, ;^mile, 174, 175.

Boutroux, Pierre, 45 note.

Brain and pineal gland, 79 note
2, 83 note 2 : imagination de-
pendent on the brain, 126 note
2.

Causation and explanation prac-
tically identified by Descartes,
71-2 : mechanical causation in-
explicable on Descartes' prin-
ciples, 73 ff. : Malebranche asserts
God to be the sole Mover, 85-7 :
views of Descartes' immediate
successors, 87 note 2 : Spinoza
escapes Descartes' difficulty, 137,
152-3 : Spinoza's identification
of causation with explanation,
143 ff. : Spinoza gives no account
of mechanical causation or of

268

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

association, 151 note, 152 : rela-
tion of cause and reason, 147
note 2 : Leibniz's identification
of causation with explanation^
164 note : Locke asserts all
interaction to be incomprehen-
sible, 196-7 : Berkeley's view of
causation, 216-8 : Hume's criti-
cism, 222 ff.: Hume shows that
the general principle of causality
is not a self-evident truth,
223-5 : the causal relation can-
not be rationalised 243-4 : the
relative position of the two cate-
gories of substance and causality
inverted by Hume, 245 : Kant
on causation, 257-9.

Clauberg, 83 note 2, 87 note 2,
129 ff.

Cogito ergo sum, a consequence of
the doctrine of representative
perception, 5-6, 14, 51-2 : inter-
preted by Descartes in two
ways, 49 ff. : its relation to the
criterion of truth, 50-1 : exag-
gerated importance ascribed to
it by Descartes, 51 : Leibniz's
view of, 52 note 2 : Malebranche
and Leibniz assert self s exist-
ence not known but only felt, 97
note : Locke's view of, 189.

Conception, its relation to imagina-
tion, see Thought, Imagination.

Conceptualism, Atomic, of Des-
cartes, 46, 60-4 : of Leibniz, 63
note, 161-2, 170 note, 177.

Consciousness, Descartes' two views
of, 89 ff. : a third view, 133-5 :

a fourth view, 135-6 : De la
Forge and Malebranche on the
nature of consciousness, 133-5:
problem of relation of contents
of mind to consciousness, 4-7, 9,
14, 90 ff., 175-6: contrast be-
tween Descartes' and Kant's
views of consciousness, 91 note
3 : Spinoza's view of conscious-
ness, 133, 154, 158. See Mind,
Thought.

Consciousness of extension, see
Extension.

Cordemoy, 87 note 2.

Creation and persistence in exist-
ence, 72-3, 128 ff.

Criterion of truth and the cogito
ergo sum, 50-1, 52 ff. : the cri-
terion is interpreted by Descartes
in the light of the scholastic
doctrine of essence, 60-3.

Deduction, its relation to intuition,
32-3 : Descartes' method though
deductive not syllogistic, 28 ff. :
Spinoza's view of, 145, 153 ff. :
Leibniz's view of, 160 ff. : Locke's
view of, 200 ff.

De la Forge, on motion, 76-7 : his
occasionalism, 87 note 2 : on the
nature of God, 128 : his views
of consciousness, 133-6.

Design, Hume's criticism of argu-
ment from, 235 ff. See Final
causes.

Dualism of mind and matter forms
Descartes' problem, 13 : conceals
a purely relative trinity, 70 :
necessitates doctrine of repre-

INDEX

269

sentative perception, 5, 13-4,
51-2, 116, 249 note 3.

Emotions, Descartes' treatise on
the; 84 note 2. See Feelings.

Empiricism of Locke, 181 ff., 208
ff. : of Kant, 259, 261, 263-5.

Error, Descartes' theory of, 110
note : Spinoza's criticism of
Descartes' theory, 139 note.

Essence, Scholastic doctrine of, its
influence on Descartes, 60-4 :
on Spinoza, 155-6 : on Leibniz,
161-2 : Locke's doctrine of nomi-
nal and real essence, 203-4 :
Locke's belief that each sub-
stance has an essence peculiar
to it, 210 : Cartesian doctrine of
essence denounced by Berkeley,
222 note.

Eternity, see Time.

Explanation identified with Causa-
tion, see Causation.

Extension constitutes the essence
of matter, 120-2, 65-7 : its rela-
tion to figure, 68 note 2 : know-
ledge of extension, Augustine's
view, 4-7 : extension not known
as a state or modification of the
self, 92-6 : Malebranche's view
that we know space by partici-
pation in God's knowledge of it,
and Regis' reply, 96 note 3 :
from our knowledge of extension
Malebranche derives all know-
ledge of mind, 105 note : Locke's
failure to account for our con-
sciousness of space and time
from his sensational! stic prin-

ciples, 187 note, 207 : conscious-
ness of space Kant asserts to be
involved in consciousness of
time, 257, 259, 265, 71.

Feelings and passions are the real
proof of our dual natur^ 83-4 :
are the only known modes of
mind, 92 note, 94-5, 127 note:
their nature is not known, 102
and note.

Final causes, Spinoza's condemna-
tion of, 140-1, 150: Hume's
criticism of the argument from
design, 235 ff.

Freedom of the will, see Will.

GaUleo, 11, 47, 69.

Gassendi, 96 note 2, 105 note, 124
note.

Geometrical science perceptive not
conceptual, 43 fiP., 264 note.

GenUncx developed occasionalism
into a system, 87 note 2 : de-
fends Descartes' identification of
matter and extension, 66 :
ascribes intrinsic reality to the
secondary qualities, 102 note :
on action of mind on body, 227
note 2.

God, Descartes' proofs of His
existence, 54 ff. : ontological
proof, 57-8 : proof from duration
of our lives, 73 note: the real
ground for Descartes' assump-
tion of God's existence, 63-4, 74,
88-9, 96, 128-32: thought and
will in God, 113-4: perfection
and simplicity of God's nature,
128, 132 : Spinoza's view of God,

270

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

137-8, 146, 149, 153, 157:
Spinoza's condemnation of final
causes, 140-1, 150 : Locke's doc-
trine of substance and Descartes'
proofs, 58 note, 199: Hume's
criticism of the argument from
design, 235 fif.

Ideas are regarded by Descartes
as the objects not the acts of
mind, 14, 17, 91, 94 note, 108-9 ;
innate ideas are characterised
by an inner power of growth,
41-2, 108-9: are innumerable,
42 : cannot be isolated units, 46 :
Descartes admits sensations to
be innate, 81, 34: Malebranche's
criticism of Descartes' doctrine
of innate ideas, 109 note 2 :
Descartes at times approximates
to Malebranche's position, 109
note 2 : Spinoza on the nature
of ideas, 133, 151, 164, 158:
three views in Leibniz of innate
ideas, 172 fif. : Leibniz retains
Descartes' view of ideas as the
objects of mind, 174-6 : Leibniz
suggests at times a different
view, 176 : Locke on the nature
of ideas, 185-7 : Locke and Ber-
keley ascribe to the self the
power of creating ideas, 218 :
the criticism made by Hume
and Malebranche of that view,
228-9.

Imagination, Descartes on, 122 ff.,
40-1, 45 note, 89 ff. : imagination
quite distinct from understand-
ing, 124-6, 45 note : imagination

dependent on the brain, 126
note 2 : Spinoza's treatment of
imagination, 151 note: Locke
and Berkeley ascribe to the
mind the power of creating
images, 218.

Inference, Impossibility of making
a false, 25-6, 34.
, Innate ideas, see Ideas.

Introspection, Locke's emphasis
on, 188-9.

Intuition, Descartes' view of, 31
ff. : intuition and the syllogism,
28-31 : intuition and deduction,
32-3 : intuition is the source of
all our knowledge, 33-4 : intui-
tion perceptive not conceptual,
44 ff. : Locke adopts the views
of Descartes, 200 ff.

Limits of knowledge, Descartes
raises the problem of the, 23-4,
35-6, 47 : Descartes' answer to
the problem, 64 ff., 61-3, 114:
no mean for Descartes between
complete knowledge and ab-
solute ignorance, 62-3 : the
problem in Locke, 188 : Locke's
answer, 192 ff. , 226 note 2 :
Hume's answer to the problem,
226, 227-9, 236, 238 ff., 250:
Kant's answer, 268-60, 263-5.

Magnetism is unknowable if a
qualitatively distinct force, 47.

Malebranche, on the doctrine of
representative perception, 5
note, 51 note, 116 note 2 : on
the mind's ignorance of itself,
14 note : on the fruitful nature

INDEX

271

of extension, 36 note : his inter-
pretation of the CogitOf 50 note :
his proofs that the nature of the
self is not known, 97 ff. : even
the self's existence not known
but only felt, 97 note : that the
essences of things are indivisible,
everything either a substance or
the modification of a substance,
61 note : on perception of figure
and on the relation of figure to
extension, 68 note 2 : on the
laws of motion, 74 note 2 : his
views on mechanical causation
and his occasionalism, 85-7,
197-8, 226-31, 241 note 2, 111
note : his criticism of Descartei^'
view of mind and of its relation
to intelligible space, 92 S. :
secondary qualities all relation-
less, 94-5, 182: that we know
space by participation in God's
knowledge of it, 96 note 3: asserts
the possibility of a rational de-
ductive science of mind, 101-7 :
is one of the founders of em-
pirical psychology, 103 note 1,
188 : asserts the possible modes
of mind to be unlimited in
number, 103 note 2, 194 : from
our knowledge of extension
derives all knowledge of mind,
105 note : his objections to Des-
cartes' doctrine of innate ideas,
109 note 2 : that will is not
essential to mind, 111 note :
that consciousness of being is
prior to consciousness of any par-

ticular form of being, 134-5 : his
influence on Locke, 197-8 : his
views on the causal relation
developed by Hume, 226-31 :
his spiritualism criticised by
Hume, 231 ff. : on creation and
causation, his agnostic con-
clusion, 241 note 2.

Matter, Descartes' theory of , 65 ffl ,
117 ff. : criticisms of his theory,
65-8 : his view of matter raises
new problems as to sense-percep-
tion, 15 ff.

Mechanical causation is inexplic-
able on Cartesian principles,
71-2. See Causation.

Method, according to Descartes
there is one universal method,
22 : why the problem of method
is so important for Descartes,
23-6 : his method in its relation
to the analytical method of the
Greeks, 24 : the characteristics
of the mathematical method, 27 ;
Descartes' criticism of the
empirical method of Bacon, 27-8:
Descartes' method not syllo-
gistic, 28 ff. : he seeks to make
science purely conceptual,
39 ff. ; contrast between Des-
cartes' method in science and in
metaphysics, 39 ff. : Spinoza's
doctrine of method, 144 ff. :
Spinoza fails to carry out his
method, 153 ff. : Locke's intro-
spective method, 188 : Locke
asserts a two-fold method to be
necessary, 201 ff. : Kant's criti-

272

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

cism of the mathematical
method, 255-6: Kant's own
method, 256 ff.

Mind, its essence consists in pure
thought, 126-7, 89 fP. : is better
known than matter, 90 ; why
on Descartes' view there is no
science of mind, 98 : belief in
the possibility of a rational
science of mind is the natural
extension of the rationalism of
Descartes, 101-7 : Malebranche's
criticism of Descartes' view of
mind, 92 ff. : no actual direct
knowledge of mind, 97 ff. : Male-
branche and Norris assert the
possible modes of mind to be
unlimited in number, 103 note
2 : Descartes' view that thought
forms the whole essence of mind
contradicted by his theory of the
will, 111-4. See Consciousness,
Thought, Self.

Modes are the crux of Descartes'
philosophy, 68 note 2, 89-108 :
and of Spinoza's, 153 ff.

Monadism, Leibniz's argument for
it derived from his rationalism,
160 ff.

More, Henry, 77.

Motion, its all-important role in
modern science, 11-2: it is on
Descartes' view equally sub-
stantial with matter, 70 : yet in
his metaphysics is asserted
to be a mode of extension,
120-2, 68, 71 : motion is really
regarded in two ways by Des-

cartes, 75 ff. : Descartes and
Malebranche on the laws of
motion, 74 note 2: Spinoza's
treatment of motion and its re-
lation to extension, 154, 158-9 :
Leibniz on the laws of motion,
171.

Motion, its causes. See Causa-
tion.

Natorp, Paul, 45 note.

Nature, Influence of modem view
of, on Descartes, 10 ff. See
Matter.

Norris, John, 91 note 2 : in what
the process of thinking consists
is not known, 99-100 : follows
Malebranche in asserting the
possibility of a rational science
of mind, 102 note, 103 note 2,
105 note : more senses are pos-
sible than those which we
possess, 103 note 2 : his criti-
cism of Descartes' view of the
relation of thought and will in
God, 114 : his argument for the
reality of an ideal world criti-
cised by Hume, 239 note.

Occasionalism of Descartes, 63-4,
71-4, 77-9, 81-2, 95-6, 109
note 2, 126 note 2, 128 ff. :
attempts to escape it, 79 ff. :
occasionalist denial of transient
action due to the identification
of causation with explanation,
72 note 2 : the occasionalism of
Malebranche, 85-7 : the occa-
sionalism of Descartes' im-
mediate successors, 87 note 2 :

INDEX

273

occasionalism developed and
simplified . by Berkeley 217-8,
221 : occasionalism criticised by
Hume, 229-30, 241-5: Kant's
attitude towards occasionalism,
259.

Ontological argument, 57-8, 199.

Pantheism of Spinoza, 148.

Pascal, 21 note 3.

Perception, Descartes' theory of,
117 ff. : Descartes' view of
matter raises new problems as
to sense-perception, 15 ff. : in-
teraction of soul and body in
perception, see Soul : Leibniz's
account of sense-perception,
172, 174, 178-80.

Perception, Representative. See
Representative perception.

Phenomenalism, not subjective
idealism, the true position of
Hume, 247 ff. : and of Kant,
261-6.

Physiological standpoint of Augus-
tine, 6-7 : of Descartes, 13-4,
116 : of Locke, 183-4, 195-6 : of
Berkeley, 221 note 2 ; of Hume,
249 ff., 249 note 3 ; the attitude
of Kant, 260 note, 263.

Pineal gland, 79 note 2, 83 note 2,
126 note 2.

Pre-established harmony, Leib-
niz's theory of, 163.

Qualities, primary and secondary,

* Descartes' views of, 117 ff., 121-
2, 100 : resistance is not a
primary quality, 65-6: secondary
qualities usually regarded by

the Cartesians as illusions, 102
note, 157 note, 172, 180 ; Male-
branche shows the secondary
qualities to be all relationless,
94-5 : Locke bases on this fact
his atomic sensationalism, 182 :
Malebranche and Norris assert
the possible secondary qualities
of bodies to be unlimited in
number, 103 note 2 : Locke does
so likewise, 194.
Rationalism of Descartes is based
on the scholastic doctrine of
essence, 60-4 : Descartes seeks
to make science purely concep-
tual, 39 ff. : Descartes practi*
cally identifies causation with
explanation, 71-2 : Malebranche
asserts the possibility of a
rational science of mind, 101 ff. :
this is the natural extension
of the rationalism of Descartes,
106-7 : Descartes' answer to the
question why there exists no
science of mind corresponding
to the mathematical sciences, 98
note 1 : Descartes' rationalism
undermined by his doctrine of
the will, 111 ff. : the rationalism
of Spinoza, 142-3: Spinoza's
identification of causation with
explanation, and its conse-
quences, 143 ff. ; the rationalism
of Leibniz yields the basal argu-
ment for his monadism, 160-5 :
Leibniz identifies causation with
explanation, 164 note : the
rationalism of Leibniz is modi-

274

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

fied by his spiritaalism, 169,
180: the rationalism o( Locke,
106, 200 ff., 213 ; Locke par-
tially frees himself from the
rationalism of Descartes, 192 ff. ;
Hume overthrows the Cartesian
rationalism, 244 : Kant's ration-
alism is of very modest preten-
sions, 259-61, 263-5.

Reason and cause, see Causation.

Reflection, Locke's doctrine of,
183, 189 note 3 : Leibniz's view
of reflection, 173 note 1.

Regis on the Cogito, 50 note 2 : he
asserts that all substances with
the exception of God are equally
perfect, 56 note : that the
essences of things are indi-
visible, 61 note : his occasion-
alism, 87 note 2 : his replies to
Malebranche's criticisms of
Descartes, 96 note 3, 105 note :
on finite existence in time,
130-1.

Reid on Arnauld, 117.

Renascence philosophers, 11.

Representative perception. Doc-
trine of, 5-6, 13-4, 51-2 : is one
of the three fundamental tenets
of Descartes' philosophy, 115;
Malebranche regards it as a self-
evident truth, 51 note : the
doctrine is denied by Arnauld,
1 15-7 : the doctrine is retained
by Leibniz, 175 note : and by
Locke, 184-6, 189 note 3 : the
influence of the doctrine on
Berkeley's philosophy, 216-7,

221 note 2: and on Hmne's
philosophy, 247 ff., 249 note 3 :
the doctrine is called in ques-
tion by Kant, 253-4, 265-6 : yet
traces of it remain in Kant's
philosophy, 261-2.
/Russell, Bertram, 165 note, 171
note 2, 174 note 1, 179 note, 180
note.

Secondary qualities, see Qualities.

Self, its nature is not known, 9-10,
97 ff. : nor its existence, 97 note :
the Cogito does not prove the
existence of the self as a
spiritual substance, 49 ff. : •
Descartes regards the self as
active. 111: dependence of the
self on God, 73 note, 129 ff. :
the occult nature of the Car-
tesian conception of self or
spirit, 14, 52, 112, 115, 128-32,
180, 186, 187 note, 218-21, 228
ff., 241, 246 note 2, 249 note 3,
256 note 2, 262 note 1 : Hume
on the nature of the self, 231 ff.
See Soul, Mind.

Sensationalism, Atomic, of Locke,
181-4, 187 note : of Hume, 246
ff. : of Kant, 260-1.

Sense-experience, Descartes'failure
to account for, 80-2, 106-7 : Des-
cartes asserts all sensations to
be innate, 81 : the sensations,
feelings, and emotions are the
only known modes of mind, 92
note, 94-5, 127 note : the nature
of sensations and feelings is not
known, 102 and note : Spinoza's

INDEX

275

view of sense, 157 note ; Leib-
niz asserts sense to be confused
thought, 172, 174-5, 178-80:
Locke on the nature of sensa-
tions, 180 ff. The relation of
sense to thought, see Thought.

Senses other than those which we
possess may be possible, 103
note 2, 194.

Simple and complex, Cartesian
interchange of, 41-2, 107 note,
134, 146-7.

Simple natures, see Innate ideas.

Soul and body, The relation be-
tween, is one of the problems
of Augustine, 7-8 : Descartes on
their relation in sense-percep-
tion, 10, 15-6, 80-2: in voluntary
action, 82-3, 83 note 2 : the feel-
ings and emotions prove soul and
body to be * fused,' 83-4 : the
views of Descartes' immediate
successors, 87 note 2 : Spinoza's
treatment of the problem, 149-
50 : Locke on the interaction of
soul and body, 195-9 : the views
of Hume, 227, 241-3 : Geulincx
on the action of mind on body,
227 note 2. See Occasionalism.

Space, see Extension.

Spiritualism of Descartes, 115,
128-132: of Spinoza, 156: of
Leibniz, 167 ff., 167 note, 180:
of Locke, 186-7, 187 note: pf
Berkeley, 218 ff. : Hume's criti-
cism of the Cartesian spiritual-
ism, 228 ff. : Kant at first adopts
the Cartesian view of spirit,

260-1 : Kant's criticism of it,
246 note 2, 256 and note 2,
262-3,265-6. See Occasionalism.

Stein, Ludwig, 77 note 1, 87 note
2.

Substance, essence, and conception
are all identical for Descartes,
61 : the Cartesian position that
everything is either a substance
or the modification of a sub-
stance, 61 note : consequences of
Descartes' conception of sub-
stance, 62-3, 63 note, 68 note

1, 170 note : Descartes fails to
analyse the category of substance
and attribute, 67 : it is more
difficult to create substance than
any of the attributes of sub-
stance, 56, 130 : Locke's ex-
planation of the origin of the
idea of substance, 191-2 : Locke
on the relation of substance and
the primary qualities, 193 note

2, 210-2 : the fundamental cate-
gory in Locke's philosophy is
substance, not causality, 203-4 :
Locke holds that the difference
between our knowledge of modes
and our knowledge of substances
renders a twofold method neces-
sary, 201 ff. : Berkeley on the
relation of substance and quality,
222 note : the relative position
of the categories of substance
and causality is inverted by
Hume, 245.

Sufficient reason. The principle
of, in Leibniz, 166-7.

276

THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY

Syllogism, Descartes' criticism of
the, 28 ff.

Tabula ram, 190 note, 195 ff.

Thought, its relation to sense and
imagination, 89 ff., 122 ff., 45
note : Descartes' daalism of
sense and thought, 17-8, 80-2
the only escape from it, 106-7
thought is passive, 108 ff.
thought and will are quite dis-
tinct, 112 ff. ; the relation of
thought to its modes, 126-7, 127
note, 92 ff : Malebranche's criti-
cism of Descartes' view of the
relation of thought to its con-
tents, 92 ff. : Spinoza on the
relation of thought and sense,
157 note : Leibniz's view of the
relation of thought and sense,
172, 174-5, 178-80 : Kant on the
relation of thought and sense,
260-1, 263-5. See Conscious-
ness.

Time, Descartes' view of, 72-3,
128 ff., 170 note : the duration
of our life suffices to demonstrate
God's existence, 73 note : the
scholastic distinction between
time and eternity, 128-9 : the
explanation given by Locke and

Berkeley of our consciousness of
time and space, 187 note :
Hume's failure to account for
consciousness of time, 246 :. con-
sciousness of time is the ulti-
mate datum for Kant, 256-7 :
consciousness of time involves
consciousness of space, 257, 259,
265, 71 note 2.

Unconscious, The notion of the,
introduced by Leibniz, 175-6 :
the problem is raised by Augus-
tine, 9-10 : Descartes' attitude
towards the problem, 176
note 1.

Understanding, see Thought.

Will, as it appears in bodily move-
ment, 82-3 : is quite distinct
from thought, 112 : is the only
faculty which we possess in per-
fection, 110 note, 113 note 1 :
thought and will in God, 113-4 :
Malebranche on the will. 111
note, 228-30: Spinoza's criti-
cism of Descartes, 138-9, 139
note : Spinoza's denial of the
freedom of the will, 138-9, 141
note 2 : Hume on the will,
226 ff. , 235 ff.

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