210

DES CARTES' METHOD.

uphold the doctrines which he received on the Church's authority. This complacency towards the Church is by some regarded as only a polite method of keeping clear of the Ecclesiastical Doctors and the Inquisition; but modern Catholics take Des Cartes seriously and represent him as a philosopher whose great object was to refute, on Protestant grounds, that is, on principles of reason, the heresies of the Reformation.

Aristotle and the Church being thus put aside, the first enquiry was for a ground of certitude. Does anything exist? It does not prove that anything is, because some one has said that it is. Nor are the senses sufficient to testify to the existence of anything, for they may be deceived. So too with our reasonings, even those of mathematics are not to be relied on, for perhaps the human mind cannot receive truth. There is left nothing but doubt. We must posit everything as uncertain; and yet this cannot be; for the I which thus posits must be a true existence. He who thus doubts of all things; he who thus enquires after truth must himself be. So reasoned Des Cartes, I doubt then must there be a subject doubting; I think, therefore, I exist; or, more accurately, I think, and that is equivalent to saying, I am a 'thinking something.'

The clearness of this idea of self-existence evinces its truth, and from this Des Cartes drew the principle that whatever the mind perceives clearly and distinctly is true. Now we have a clear and distinct idea of a Being infinite, eternal, omnipotent, and omnipresent. There must then be such a Being-necessary existence is contained in the idea. If it were possible for that Being not to be, that very possibility would be an imperfection, and cannot therefore belong to what is perfect. None but the perfect Being could give us this idea of infinite perfection, and since we live, having this idea in us, the Being who put it in us, must Himself be. We are the imperfect. We are the finite. We are the caused. There must be One who is the complement of our being, the infinity of our finitude, the perfection of our imperfection; a mind which gives us that which we have not from ourselves. Des Cartes eliminated from the idea of the Divine Being everything which implied imperfection. He was careful to distinguish between God and His creation. He left the finite standing over against the Infinite-the creature absolutely distinct in substance and essence from the Creator. He did not take the step which annihilated the one to make room for the other, and yet he suggested it. Unconsciously, and even in spite of himself, he is carried on towards conclusions from

CARTESIAN THEOLOGY.

211

which he shrinks, and to which he refuses to go forward. 'When I come to consider the particular views of Des Cartes,' says M. Saisset, "upon the perfection of God and the relations of the Creator with the world and with men ; when I endeavour to link his thoughts, and to follows out their consequences, I find that they do not form a homogeneous whole, I believe that I can detect the conflict of contrary thoughts and tendencies.' Des Cartes had got on the track of Parmenides, but like Plato and 8. Anselm he refused to advance. He preferred a theology not logically consistent to the theology of the Eleatics.

There are but two starting points of knowledge. Either we begin with matter, and assuming the reality of the visible world, we go on to the proof of other existences, but in this way we can never demonstrate the existence of mind by itself: or we begin with mind, and assuming it as the first certain existence, we go on to the proof of others, but in this way we never legitimately reach the proof of the existence of matter by itself. The exist ence of mind was, to Des Cartes, an undoubted existence, I think is a present consciousness, and the existence of an infinite mind was a lawful conclusion from the fact of the existence of a finite mind; but since the senses were distrusted how was Des Cartes ever to prove the existence of matter? Only by means of the mind. We have no knowledge of the corporeal, but through the mental; that we have a body is not a self-evident truth, but that we have a mind, is. Yet Des Cartes wanted to have an external world, and as he could not prove its existence he took it on trust as other men do. As he had taken the existence of the mind independently of the body, why should not body exist independently of mind? Even on the principle of clear ideas we have some knowledge of matter, for the thinking substance is different from that which is the immediate subject of extension and the accidents of extension, such as figure, place, and motion.

Des Cartes was satisfied to have proved the existence of God, of mind, and of matter. The first is the uncreated substance, self-existent and eternal; the other two are created substances whose existence is derived from God. Their creation was no necessary act of Deity; their existence in no way flowed necessarily from His existence-but in the exercise of His own free will He created them. Mind is a something which thinks, and matter a something which is extended. God, too, thinks. He is incorporeal, yet we must not deny Him the attribute of extension, so far as that attribute can be separated from any

212

GOD IMMANENT IN CREATION.

idea of imperfection. Extension being pre-eminently an attribute of matter, the transference of it to Deity in any form seems to betray a concealed conjecture in Des Cartes' mind, of some ultimate connection between the spiritual and the material. He had denied it, he had fought against the conclusion to which his method led him, but in spite of his protestation, the tendency is manifest at every step he takes. The attribute of matter has been transferred to God, and now consciously, but with no thought of the result, the attributes of God are transferred to the material world. Des Cartes contemplates the universe, and he is overwhelmed with thoughts of infinity and eternity. Is not the universe infinite? It is at least indefinite, but this word is used only that the other word may be reserved for Deity. The universe is infinite. There can be no void beyond immensity. Illimitable extension is one of our necessary thoughts. It impinges on our idea of infinity, if it is not one with it. But if the universe is infinite, why not eternal? If unlimited in space, why limited in time? Des Cartes having placed the origin of the universe in the free will of God, was compelled to give it a beginning, but the question was urgent;— why should it have a beginning? If it is necessary to constitute infinite space, why is it not also necessary to constitute infinite time? The necessity for a beginning deprives it of the existence of eternity past; but we may without danger, thought Des Cartes, allow it eternity to come. We have thus an infinite Being, and an infinite universe. At some point or other these two infinites must be only one. Creation is indeed a work, but unlike a human work it cannot exist without the continual presence of the Worker.* It requires for its existence a continual repetition of the Creator's act. God is not at a distance from His universe. He is immanent therein-the Executor of all laws, the Doer of all works, the ever present Agency that pervades and upholds the infinite All.

This idea has been beautifully expressed by an eminent preacher: :-'A human mechanist may leave the machine he has constructed to work without his further personal superintendence, because when he leaves it, God's laws take it up, and by their aid the materials of which the machine is made retain their solidity, the steel continues elastic, the vapour keeps its expansive power. But when God has constructed His machine of the universe, He cannot so leave it, or any the minutest part of it, in its immensity and intricacy of movement, to itself; for, if He retire, there is no second God to take care of this machine. Not from a single atom of matter can He who made it for a moment withdraw His superintendence and support. Each successive moment, all over the world, the act of creation must be repeated.'-Sermon on Spiritual Influence by the Rev. John Caird.

SPINOZA. Des Cartes died a Catholic, receiving in his last hours the sacraments of the Church. Though in his life-time persecuted for an Atheist, his memory is now revered throughout Christendom. Not so with Des Cartes' disciple, Benedict Spinoza. The Germans indeed have done something to rescue his memory from the reproaches of nearly two centuries, but the time has not yet come for either Catholic or Protestant theologians to judge him impartially.

Herder and Schleiermacher have wished to claim Spinoza as indeed a Christian, but their claims are rejected not only by the Churches but by the open enemies of Christianity. Whatever may be said of his opinions, all agree to represent him as a Christian in heart and life; an example of patient endurance; a man full of faith in the Divine Goodness, preferring to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, to bearing the bitter apples of wrath and malice, strife and discord, by which the professed Christians of his day were distinguished.* It would be no great error to accord to Spinoza the name of Christian. He certainly was no enemy to rational Christianity. Nothing but ignorance could ever have classed him with the French Encyclopedists; and that is only a more culpable ignorance which classes him with any sect of materialists.

Of Spinoza's system, Bayle says that 'but few have studied it, and of those who have studied it but few have understood it, and most are discouraged by the difficulties, and impenetrable abstractions which attend it.' Voltaire says 'that the reason why so few people understand Spinoza is because Spinoza did not understand himself.' It is now presumed that Spinoza may be understood, and notwithstanding the great authority of Voltaire it is more than probable that he understood himself. Spinoza was avowedly a teacher of Cartesianism. His first writings were expository of Des Cartes' philosophy. To these he added appendices, explaining wherein he differed from that philosopher. In truth, Spinoza was consistent, and went resolutely to the conclusion before which Des Cartes stood appalled. His doctrines were purely Cartesian. Some who would save the master and sacrifice the disciple will deny this. It has been maintained that he owed to Des Cartes only the form, and that his principles were derived from other sources. The Cabbala has

* Yes, I repeat with S. John, that it is justice and charity which are the most certain signs, the only signs of the true Catholic faith; justice, charity, these are the true fruits of the Holy Spirit. Wherever these are, there is Christ, and, where these are not, there Christ cannot be.-Letter to Albert Burgh.

214

SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE CARTESIAN.

been named as a probable source, and the influence of Averroes on Maimonides and the Jews of the middle ages, has been brought forward as another.* That Spinoza had learned all the philosophies of the Rabbis before he was excommunicated from the synagogue of the Jews is probable; but there is no need to seek the origin of Spinozism in any other system, but that in which it had its natural growth; the philosophy of Des Cartes. Spinoza's doctrines are indigenous to the the soil of Idealism.‡

* Article by Emile Saisset in the 'Revue des deux Mondes', 1862.

To understand Spinoza it is absolutely necessary to attend to his DEFINITIONS. The following are those of the first book of the Ethica. The subject of the first book is God.

I. I understand, by cause of itself, that whose essence implies existence, or that the nature of which can be conceived as existing.

II. A thing is called finite in its kind when it can be limited by something else of the same nature. For instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive one greater; so also a thought is limited by another thought; but the body is not limited by thought, nor thought by the body.

III. I understand, by substance, that which is in itself, and conceived by itself, that is to say, that of which the concept can be formed without having need of the concept of anything else.

IV. I understand by attribute that which the reason conceives in the substance as constituting its essence.

V. I understand by mode the affections of substance, or that which is in another thing, and is conceived by that thing.

VI. I understand by God a Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, a substance constituted by an infinity of attributes, of which each expresses an eternal and infinite essence.

EXPLANATION, I say absolutely infinite, and not infinite in its kind; for everything which is infinite only in its kind can be denied an infinity of attributes; but as to being absolutely infinite, all that which expresses an essence, and does not include any negation, belongs to its essence.

VII. A thing is free when it exists by the sole necessity of its nature, and is determined to action only by itself; a thing is necessary, or rather constrained, when it is determined by another thing to exist and to act according to a certain determined law.

VIII. By eternity I understand existence itself, in so far as it is conceived as resulting necessarily from the sole definition of the eternal thing.

EXPLANATION.-Such an existence in fact is conceived as the essence itself of the thing which is considered, and cor.sequently it cannot be extended into time or duration, even though duration be conceived as having neither beginning nor end.

The following are AXIOMS :

I. Everything which is, is in itself or in something else.

II. A thing which cannot be conceived by another, must be conceived by itself.

III. A definite cause being given, the effect follows necessarily; and on the contrary if any definite cause is not given, it is impossible that the effect follows.

IV. The knowledge of the effect depends on the knowledge of the cause, and implies it.

V. Things which have between them nothing in common cannot be con