This theory in regard to the mechanical complexion f vital movements afiected the ethics of Des Cartes, 'he chief details of his treatise on the Passions were erived from Aristotle, but his own views of mind and natter, and his own studies and experiments in anat- •my and kindred sciences, modified his explanation of he peripatetic doctrines. He made his Moral Philos- ophy in great measure an exposition of the physical )benomena which accompany emotion ; he employed argely the device of vital spirits, which reappear so labitually in Locke ; he regards them very much as f they were fluids in a hydraulic engine ; and thus ie becomes the legitimate precursor of Condillac and Cabanis, of Bain, Moleschott, and Herbert Spencer, rhe positions of Des Cartes, whether they be sober or fantastical, ftimish suggestion or stimulation, and of- ten direction, to the most various branches and types of subsequent speculation.
Des Cartes has left behind him a treatise on Man, to which a singular contrast is offered by the nearly contemporaneous essay of Hobbes, De Bomine. Man
is the union of the intellectual and material universe-^ the point where both meet — the synthesis of opposites —the microcosm — the complex organism, whose ex- planation demands the theory of mind and of matter alike. He thus furnishes a passage from met«4)hysical to physical inquiries, and vice versa.
If the metaphysics of Des Cartes be founded upon the observation of the supposed &cts of consciousness, his physical theory of the universe is purely fiwciful — a romance, as it was designated by himself. In de- veloping the grand conception of a complete exposi- tion of the order of creation, for which due credit should be given to Des Cartes, it was necessary to explain the phenomena of continual movement on principles exclusively material, without admitting distinct space, or permitting any unoccupied interstices between the constituent particles of the mighty whole. In order that there might be an unlimited tenuity of matter, to allow the f^ee circulation of bodies of diverse density, the atoms of the Ionic school must be rejected, and the infinite divisibility of matter maintained. These pK- requisites were secured by the hypothesis of an end- less circulatory volubility of matter, which might ex- plain at the same time the motions of the planetary bodies. Another advantage was attained by this fan- cy. The Copemican system, which had been appar- ently repudiated by the papacy in the recent condem- nation of Galileo, was not asserted, and other theolog* ical objections were anticipated by obscuring the dis- tinction between absolute and relative motton. The very statement of his system of the universe as an hy- pothesis was a concession made by the timidity of Des Cartes to the pretensions of ecclesiastical dogmatism ; and it was in response to this and subordinate Carte- sian hypotheses that Newton uttered his celebrated maxim, " hypotheses non fingo.''
The .Cartesian theory of the world turns on the cel- ebrated doctrine of the Vortices. Matter originally exists, if such be the will of God, in a stete of incal- culable divisibility and of unimaginable attenuation. In this condition of instability motion commences, be- cause there can be no equilibrium between dissimilar and disconnected particles. This motion becomes cir- cular, or irregularly spiral, from the greater or less violent tendency of the particles pressing against each other towards the line of an undetermined axis. As the process advances the revolution becomes more de- cided, the axis of revolution more definite, and a de- terminate vortex is established. By the continuance of these gyrations, the more compact particles of mat- ter are forced inwards, and are further condensed, while the more rarefied are thrown off towards the ex- tremities of the ring. But the more solid portions are still interpenetrated by the thinner and more fluid, and the whole vertiginous movement endures, and carries along both the sensible and impalpable materials of the universe^. Different centres and diffierent axes of revolution constitute themselves, and thus multitudi- nous systems of planetary bodies, each in its own vor- tex, spring into existence. New vortices may orig- inate in the bosom of larger vortices, or vortices may come in contact with each other, and coalesce in a joint action, in which none lose their primitive move- ment; or larger vortices may seize, encompass, and hurry along with them the weaker spirals which they enclose. All the heavenly movemeilte are provided for by this complex scheme, but, though simple in principle and consistent in development, it is more complicated in action and in exposition than the ** cy- cles on epicycles rolled" of the Ptolemaic mechanism of the heavens. These are the Cartesian Physics which were exploded by Sir Isaac Newton, and which have lain so dead and dormant since the Newtonian Prin- cipia that they are scarcely mentioned except as the objecte of scientific scorn.
But some apology may be made for this splendid hallucination. It is not for the present generation of
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men of science to sneer at the Cartesian Vortices. Founded aa they were upon the magnetical researches of Gilbert, they funush a prelude for the cosmical mag- netism of the present day, for the whole nebular hy- pothesis, for the system of evolution of Spencer. As a part of his exposition, Des Cartes asserts the correbu tion and conservation of forces, and the indestructi- bility of matter, which have so startling and modem an air in the speculations of Mayer, Helmholtz, Grove, Faraday, etc. If the theory of Des Cartes is intrin- sically absurd, its absurdity is strangely analogous to the most recent generalizations of science.