have been dislocated, and systems after systems of ponderous pretension have gone the way of all absurdities; yet, the re-appearance of them, age after age, has proved, either that they did not know they were dead or that they really survived because they contained an amount of truth which their opponents have determinately ignored.

It may be considered late in the day to be raking from their long resting-place the silent ashes of Descartes; it may be said, that we are not now bound to declare ourselves Cartesians or anti-Cartesians, any more than we are to range ourselves under the old banners of Nominalist and Realist, or to contend that we are not Eleatics, Peripatetics, or Platonists; yet it seems to us that the great controversies to which the writings of Descartes gave a new birth, are being forced again on our attention, and that we are beginning to feel once more the recoil which every previous philosophical era has exhibited from the dogmatism of the sceptic.

Jules Simon, the able editor of one of the volumes whose titles are prefixed to this article, tells us that Cartesianism is as living and powerful as ever. It would seem that refuge is taken from many of the dreams of German constructors of the universe, not in the baseless hypotheses of Descartes, but in the veritable psychological method, in the strong common sense-the clear-headed and generally perspicuous style, and the healthy, devout, and inspiring assurances of his Discourse on Method,' his Meditations,' and Principia.'

The influence of Descartes may be seen in this fact that from 1637, the date of the "Discourse on Method," to the end of that century, no philosophical work, of any importance, made its appearance, which was not for, against, or on Descartes.'t This great man, the founder of modern philosophy, did for metaphysics that which Francis Bacon accomplished for natural science, when he established its first principles and developed the method of its successful treatment. If we would see the true source of modern idealism-if we would trace the Pantheism of modern schools to its philosophical origin-if we would whet our swords for the long conflict which awaits us with this great enemy of God and man-if we would understand the writings of the great French, English, Scotch, and German Schools of philosophy for the last two hundred years-if we would unravel the pedigree of many opinions and much phraseology—we must

Le Cartesianisme est aujourd'hui aussi vivant et aussi puissant que jamais. Introduction, note, p. 2.

+ Fragments de Philosophie Cartésienne. Par V. Cousin.

be familiar with the historical position and philosophical claims of René Descartes.

Descartes has scarcely received from Englishmen the respect or attention which his influence upon them should have commanded. Cyclopædias and the histories of philosophy that are current among us have not, indeed, forgotten him; but we have no translation of his works, with the exception of the tractate mentioned at the head of this article. Whether a natural enmity to Frenchmen is the cause of this neglect, or the intense nationality which makes us stickle for the superiority of his great opponents, Bacon and Locke, has deafened the ears of Englishmen to his claims, we hope that some of our enterprising publishers will not allow this disgrace to cling much longer to our nation in general, or to themselves in particular.

Descartes was certainly not the first who innovated upon the established modes of thinking which scholasticism had introduced into the mind of Europe; but, in metaphysical science, he was the first who so innovated as to create a great and permanent alteration.

There had existed, from the period of the introduction of Aristotelian logic into the teaching of the Church, the most extraordinary combination of freedom of discussion with servile deference to authority; and hence the wire-drawing and distinctions were introduced, which threatened to split into infinitesimal fractions the truth that had not already evaporated in the voluminous productions of this learned father, or that angelical doctor.

Some new light had shone during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and, strange to say, Italy was its birthplace. The veritable ghost of Aristotle was summoned from his grave; the bag of bones that had often passed for the Stagyrite, was ground to powder and scattered to the winds by Pomponatus and by Vanini, who had studied his writings for themselves, and had declared themselves his true disciples; while the revival of Greek literature, the discovery of Plato's Dialogues, the magnificent results of the Copernican theory of the heavens, the immortal ridicule of Erasmus, Rabelais and Montaigne, compelled scholasticism to hide its wizened head.

Marsilius Ficinus, the philosophical chief of the Neo-Platonist school, chosen by the Medici family to preside at Florence over an academy formed for the study of Plato, together with his Latin translations of Plato, Proclus, and Plotinus, executed in a style that has given them European fame ;-the Platonic furor

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, &c. Translated from the French. Sutherland and Knox.

of Patrizzi, which led him to impute atrocious crimes to Aristotle, to impugn the authenticity of his works, to blacken his memory and tarnish his philosophical fame ;-the learning and eloquence of Ramus, who comprehended the absurdity of reasoning from given premises to a given conclusion, who stripped theology of its dry and abstract form, and whose tragic death, amid other massacres of St. Bartholomew, has so often been lamented; combined with the influences of other great and erratic minds to prepare the way for the daring steps of Descartes. Wherever the chains were fairly snapped, loud was the indignation of cowled priests, fiercely glared the torture-chamber of the Holy Inquisition, and not a few expiated their love of novelty and freedom by their blood.

Among others, Jordano Bruno, who was Eleatic in his tendencies, passed over Platonism in his recoil from Aristotelianism, and became the great type of the poetic scepticism of later times. He was, as Cousin has remarked, the poet of the system of which Spinoza was the geometer; and, of course, became obnoxious to the vehement hatred and persecution of his contemporaries. Schoffe, in a letter to Ritterhausen, said of him, 'Il n'est pas une erreur des philosophes païens et de nos hérétiques anciens ou modernes qu'il n'ait soutenue.' The man who could boldly defy the Holy Fathers, when they pronounced their sentence on him with the words, Majori forsan tum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam'-was not likely long to have eluded their bigoted vengeance.

6

Campanella is the name of another cultivated and poetic soul, who, spurning the yoke of mental tyranny forged by scholasticism, and imposed by spiritual despotism on the neck of a sluggish age, incurred the vindictive wrath of the Church. His Platonism was more subtle than that of Bruno, and his mysticism was more refined. His tragic life was, at least, a flash of aurora in the midnight.

Again, there was born near Naples, towards the close of the sixteenth century, Julius Cæsar Vanini.* Like Bruno, he travelled through Europe, drawing enthusiasm in with every breath, and inhaling within the pale of the Church some of the air of liberty, that had swept, as a reviving breeze, from Wittemberg across the world.

This man wrote two celebrated works at the beginning of the seventeenth century, under the following pompous titles: the first- The Amphitheatre of Eternal Providence, DivinoMagical, Physico-Christian, Astrologico-Catholic, in opposi

Lucilius was his baptismal name, which he changed in the title-pages of his works into that of Julius Cæsar.

tion to the Ancient Philosophers, Atheists, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Stoics;' the second, 'On the Wondrous Secrets of Nature, the Queen and Goddess of Mortals.' The first of these works contains, unquestionably, a formal à priori argument for the existence of God; but it is for the existence of a god that can neither be known nor loved; and his pompous proof is a bare recognition of the imposing conception of a personal god. Disappointed in the success of his metaphysical method, he fell back upon the authority of the Church, in every great question which affected man's moral position or destiny; and, if we were to judge him by the Amphitheatre' alone, we should pronounce him a believer in a personal god, every attribute of whom was to be communicated by the revelation of the Bible, and by the Church. But in the second work, which appears, from his letters, to have contained his true opinions, he proclaims himself the philosophical atheist, and the ill-concealed hater of Christianity.

Led by his evil genius, after having wandered over Europe, he settled in Toulouse, where the secret tribunal of the Inquisition was in active operation. The novelty of his opinions excited the attention of the holy office to his spiritual crimes, he was delivered over to the secular arm, and on the 9th of February, 1619, was burnt alive as a heretic.* There was in this man an extraordinary combination of mental forces. He was by turns pusillanimous and bold, the hypocrite and the hero: to-day masking his opinions in deference to the opinions of others; to-morrow, baring the depths of his perturbed and sceptical spirit. As long as there was hope, he cringed before inquisitors, and professed implicit deference both to Theism and to Christianity: as soon as hope had fled, he drew up the visor, and died as he had lived. Thus there were many forces opposed to philosophy. It could not act freely in its search after truth; and no means were at its disposal, if it would not reason from principles that were stereotyped, and in a method that had almost the authority of inspiration. Natural philosophy and astronomy were gagged. The telescope, pointed to heaven, was fenced by the cheval-de-frise of ecclesiastical injunctions, and darkened by a medium which distorted the light of the stars. We owe it mainly to Bacon and Descartes that science has overstepped the narrow bounds which had been so long assigned it, and has occupied its legitimate field of inquiry. We owe it to the spirit of these men, that the tendency which exhibited itself in the tragic course of Bruno, Ramus, Campanella, and

Victor Cousin, Fragmens de Philosophie Cartesienne. La Philosophie avant Descartes. Schrammius de Vita et Scriptis J. C. Vanini, 1715.

Vanini, was neither strangled in its birth nor consummated in a heartless scepticism.

Bacon and Descartes differed widely in many respects; but there are many observable points of connexion between them. They were both laymen, and yet they dared to be the innovators in science and philosophy. They both propounded methods for its study, and each luxuriated in the facts of nature. But they differed, inasmuch as the one made metaphysical truth, and the other physical laws, the subject of his investigation. Bacon made facts his study, that he might arrive at principles; Descartes assumed principles, that he might understand facts. Bacon sought to arrive at the extreme generalizations of science -those ultimate laws which, being supposed, the universe might be constructed; Descartes examined his own consciousness, and there searched for principles which would legitimate and conditionate all knowledge.

The opening recommendations of the Novum Organon,' and those of the Discourse on Method,' are remarkably akin; but 'The Doubt' of Bacon was in order to clear his eyes for the observation of what was the Doubt' of Descartes was to prepare his consciousness for the assumption of what must have been. Bacon's great failure was his neglect of deduction; Cartesian misunderstandings arose from the neglect of induction.

On turning from the philosophy of Bacon to his life we recoil with shame and grief. Passing from his essays or his laboratory to his judgment-seat, we discover a man whose principles were lofty, but whose actions were mean; who said, that it was heaven upon earth to move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth,' but whose duplicity, selfishness, ingratitude, and avarice, cannot, to the honour of human nature, often find a parallel.

The life of Descartes furnishes no such contrast to his philosophy. Heavy charges of literary plagiarism have been brought against him, but they cannot be said to have been substantiated. There is an able résumé in the 'Biographie Universelle,' of the voluminous memoirs of him written by Baillet: but the true philosophical sketch of his history will be found in his own celebrated Discourse on Method.' A few particulars will here suffice. He was born in Tourraine, on the 31st of March, 1596, of noble Breton parentage. The Jesuit college at La Flêche had the honour of conducting his early education, of watching, if not of fanning, the flame of his early devotion to study. Here, he tells us, he was first addicted to the pursuit of literature, and was not a little exalted by his conscious equality with the illustrious youth who were there competing for the presidency of the age.