'^^ument is much more legitimately employed by Ar-
istotle than by Des Cartes as an evideaeeof ^ existences, not of existence in genersL It y d been indicated tiiat the Cartesian eothjnKBc^sq from the tacit assumption of the nu^ prbk. ] reasoning really proceeds in a drde. neMetja of the dogma assured him of his own sxhob furnished no evidence of the ezisteuct «f icrs else, nor did it explain the origin or the prema of his own existence. The finite existence k^ must repose upon something more stable asdsM ble than the fleeting, fitful life of wfaidi kisaaa ness assured him. He concludes, tfaere6R,at3 own and all other existence must depeed fcria iv ning and maintenance upon a more perfect, i^ and illimitable JOeing — upon some grest "I is.' i discovers in his own mind the notion of NcbaiK — of God. It could not have been inveatedkv 3 seUI for it transcends his finite capsotiw. Its have been im^danted by God himself; ssd^i presence of the notion attests the existeace nt represents. This is a concise statemeatoftbe'j^ sian argument it priori for the Being of Goi Ui predecessor, it is not originaL It is fwad f'-ji veloped in the Prodogium of St. Anselm. It ve \ sailed by GaunUo, a oontemporuy, b tbeZ^^i a^iemte^ and refitted a century and a bslf kter^i Thomas Aquinas in his Snmma Tkahg'm, n»ej ment proceeds upon the actual or vinnsl ^b»a innate ideas, and is accompanied bj the reee^ another postidate, that innate ideas are neeewTiifsi because, as they are implanted by God, tfacy ^ ot the divine veracity, and God can neitiiir iss nor be deceived. Both innate ideas and the nf bility of divine deception have been denied. L-i- ideas, in their Cartesian form, were eipW--' Locke ; and the impossibUity of divme t^iff^ had been questioned three centuries esiiierfef&v^ Arminiensu, general of the Augnrtinisw, sod w knowledged by Des Cartes to be liabk to biet^ ceptions. But, as Bayle remariu, a Boimviiau) obnoxious to exceptions furnishes no fesnifao^ ^ certainty, and confirms rather than endiots *^ cism.
Another argument for the being of Ged is vi' times by Des Cartes, and appears mvch wet 00 and tenable. It proceeds from the adnuasas^'^' Cause (Des Cartes rejects final causes), aflnfe^ the corrections and modificatkms of StTbow-^ nas, who deduces the argument, not froa fr@«^ causation, but from the continuous sappoft tf cn£ ! The Argument from a First Cause simplx is cm'^ with either Stoic Fatalism or Epicuresa Cbence. M argument frt)m perpetual preservation aaBtm^'l ing Providence and a sustaining Onstflr. T^ leads easily to Pantheism, the other to the m^ of Revelation. _^
Having established his own existaioe,^e^ of God, and the verity of innate idess, how we?* ideas to be recognised and distinguislied? R^ ^ hi the Cartesian criterion of truth, which «J***n f^irther than simply to the determmstioo «f M ideas. Ideas (the term is as much tdstj^ ^.^^ Cartes as by Locke) which are desr sad distifirfag be received as ipw/ado true ; and if they •» f"^ pie, they may be regarded as innate. Tb« ^'^'^ evidently arbitrary and delusive. Whst leaw ^ distinct, and simple to one mind, may be <***^ tricate, and complex to another, ^^x^^*^ any strong conviction, any engrosdng hilbcff^ may present the credentials of truth. It i». *'**'' not aurprising that so many vagaries ihoaH ^ ^ bodied in the dogmatic exposition of AeCa<^ philosophy. But the aocepUnoe of thb pnw^* deames?, distinctness, and shnpUdty hsd s po(^ ^ felicitoos influence upon the literature o^ ^^*||^ Cartes was himself a model of grsce snd li»^ expression, and his criterion of truth, proool^^
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dAvm of the age of Louis XIY, and illustrated in position by himself and by Pascal, contributed oly to produce the characteristic excellences of the Lch classic style.
iich aa they are, these are the constitoent princi- of the phUoeophy of Des Cartes. They are nei- valid nor original. Both Bayle and Leibnitz :tion the enrolment of this philosopher among the iber of those who pretend to invent what they bor- — ^^gloriaroque adeptos, tamquam repererint que iperant." It is impossible to proceed far in eitiier metaphysics or the physics of Des Cartes without ting the dreams of Leucippus, Democritus, Epicu- and other philosophers of Greece, and being con> lally reminded of the sonorous yerses and luminous ositions of Lucretius.
. definition of existences was suggested to Des Car- by his demonstration of existence. Mind, or spir- il existence, is thinking substance ; body, or mate- existence, is substance without thought. But as le positive characteristic is required for the discrim- tion of matter, extension, which is its most familiar perty, was assumed as its specific difierence, and tter was defined to be extended substanoe. This hesitated the identification of space and matter, or negation of space as a separate entity. Hence 6e the doctrine of the plenumj and the maxim that tare abhors a void. The thesis of Lucretius, *^ est rebus inane,'' and his argumentation on the thesis, iUce that there was no real novelty in these doc- nes. But in Des Cartes the two forms of existence ) presented as opposite, irreconcilable, and recipro- ly incommonicable. In consequence, beasts can ssess no capacity of reason. They are purely me- anical — ^raere machines. This is one of the boldest, )st paradoxical, and most dangerous of the Cartesian lets ; but it appears to be a necessity of his phUoso- y , though he is accused of having taken it — a worth- » appropriation — from the Antoniana Margarita of ^mez Pereira, 1554. Certain it is that the accept- ice of the Cartesian definitions of mind and matter ost result in the declaration that beasts are -mere achines. But, if they are such, how are they set in otion, and how do they perform actions apparently )luntary and deliberate? Moreover, if beasts are achines, man must also be a machine, so far as his }dy is concerned, for mind and matter cannot operate pon one another. An attempt was made to solve lese enigmas by the peculiar Cartesian doctrine of ssifitancy, or of divine co-operation in determining 11 the material actions of animate bodies. In Male- ranche this doctrine unfolded itself into the scheme f Occasional Causes ; in Leibnitz, into the splendid intasy of the Pre-established Harmony ; in Spinoza, ito the most abstract, complete, and systematic Pan- lieism.