CHAPTER X. THE FIRST CRITICAL TEST. — OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. I. OBJECTIONS. 1. Stand-points and Tendencies of their Authors. WE E have expounded the philosophy of Descartes in the connection of its essential parts, and now turn to examine it. And here we meet at once those objections to the "Meditations," objections which the philosopher himself invited, and to which he replied, and which he published along with his replies. It was the first test which the new system had to stand before its author and the world. Descartes wished to put his doctrine to such a test in its very first appearance before the world, and as the one who was best acquainted with it, to be also its first interpreter and defender. These critical discussions are therefore historically notable.1 If the objections are mingled with the exposition of the doctrine, and arbitrarily scattered in different places, as usually happens, their impression, as a whole, is completely lost, while that of the system is unnecessarily interrupted. There is no source from which we can better learn the first effect of the new doctrine on the philosophical minds of the time than these objections validly made from such different points of view by critics with and without reputation while the impression of the work, as yet in manuscript, was still fresh in their minds. We find here together the prevailing tendencies of the philosophical consciousness of the time, 1 See book i. chap. v. pp. 245-247. some of them in their most renowned representatives. It is, therefore, worth while to carefully consider this group of Descartes' first critics. Not taking into account the reports of objections collected by Mersenne in the second and sixth places, Descartes received, and replied to, the objections of Caterus, Hobbes, Arnauld, Gassendi, and Bourdin, in the order in which we have just mentioned their authors. The later ones, which we may call the eighth and ninth, and which it was impossible to include in the edition of the "Meditations," were discussed by letters. To these belong the objections under the name of Hyperaspistes, and those of the English philosopher, Henry More. The former are scarcely worthy of notice, since they repeat what had already been said: the latter again attacked Descartes from the theosophical standpoint, disputing the mere materiality of extension, and maintaining an immaterial space, valid for spiritual being, and explaining the presence of God in the world as well as that of the soul in the body.1 The second and sixth objections, which express the doubts of different philosophers, and in which Mersenne indeed also found a place for his own, are in the manner of dilettantes. They are not, therefore, contemptible; for in an age as active in philosophy as Descartes', the desultory co-operation of dilettantes is no unimportant power. Caterus' objections relate only to the concept of God, particularly to the ontological proof, and, therefore, do not touch the fundamental principle and trend of the new doctrine. To understand the chief objections, we must bring before our minds the fundamental thoughts on which the whole Cartesian system rests. The methodical knowledge of things in the natural light of reason or of thought was the problem. and the universal theme of Descartes. So far as the light of knowledge is, and must be, natural (les lumières naturelles), 1 The letters between H. More and Descartes were written from December, 1648, to October, 1649. Euvres, t. x. pp. 178-196. his system is naturalistic. So far as this natural light is, and requires to be, reason, or pure (clear and distinct) thought, this naturalism is rationalistic. Method consists in the mode in which that light is discovered, and so produced in thought that it illuminates things. These are the fundamental thoughts. He who attacks these, attacks the foundations of the new doctrine. This fundamental attack can be made. in three points. We can defend the natural light of knowl edge, but deny that it arises and shines in thought, holding that it must be sought not in reason, but in the senses. Such a view denies not the naturalism, but the rationalism, of Descartes; not the philosophical (natural), but the metaphysical (rational), knowledge of things: this view is empiricism or sensualism. This sensualism is as ancient as the atomic mode of thought, and as modern as the Baconian philosophy. The Renaissance had again animated the old doctrine of Democritus, which Epicurus, and after him Lucretius, had revived, even in antiquity. Gassendi, whom we can regard as a late product of the Renaissance, took this position against Descartes, being a disciple of Epicurus. From the revival of philosophy by Bacon, who had founded empiricism, a sensualistic school necessarily resulted, and this already involved materialism. Hobbes opposed Descartes from this point of view. We have before us that antithesis which, at the first glance at the course of the development of modern philosophy, we saw arising within it. It is the first of the indicated oppositions. But even the natural light of knowledge does not remain undisputed. The supernatural light of faith and of revela tion, which illuminates the kingdom of grace and the Church, is the adversary of naturalism: theology and, more particu larly, Augustinianism, which the Reformation had revived against the Romish Church, and which Jansenism sought to support within Catholicism-Jansenism, which appeared at the same time with the doctrine of Descartes, and can be re 1 See introduction, chap. vii. pp. 159-162. garded as the most powerful expression of the religious consciousness of the time. Arnauld, who was imbued with Augustinianism, and was one of the most important theologians then living in France, and afterwards the leader of the Jansenists, opposed the new philosophy from this point of view. There is an ecclesiastical rationalism which Scholasticism had developed, and whose problem was not to discover new truths, but to prove those dogmatically asserted. There can be no greater opposition than between the methods of Cartesianism and Scholasticism; between thought, making no presuppositions and purified by doubt, and thought trained in and bound by dogmatism; between synthetic deduction and the unfruitful doctrine of the syllogism, parading its "barbara" and "celarent." The Jesuits, the neo-scholastics of the time, were adepts in the dialectic arts of the schools; and through them, Descartes had become acquainted with this method at an early age, and thoroughly despised it. The Jesuit Bourdin, the author of the objections in the seventh place, concentrated his attack upon Descartes' method, seeking therewith to overthrow the new doctrine itself. That this method was attacked by a Jesuit, and the mode of his attack, were as characteristic as his polemic was unimportant. 2. Points of Agreement and Disagreement. — Among the tendencies of thought which found themselves in conflict with the doctrine of Descartes, there is no greater contrast than that between the Augustinian theology and the sensualistic (materialistic) philosophy, - Arnauld and Hobbes! Both attacked the new system—namely, the rational knowledge of God and of things—at the same time. They attacked from opposite sides, the metaphysical foundations of the system, the principles, which claim to be discovered by methodi cal thought, and to be not merely more certain than any of those hitherto accepted, but absolutely certain and indubitable. Theology rejects these principles, because it acknowl 442 edges none but the facts of religion and revelation; sensualism, because it concedes to human knowledge no other foundation than the facts of the sensible world and experience. These attacks upon the doctrine of Descartes were unavoidable. They turn a blaze of light upon the fundamental features of the entire system in its naturalistic and rationalistic character. And, therefore, we may regard the objections of Hobbes, Gassendi, and Arnauld as the most worthy of notice and instructive. Hobbes, although abler and more modern than Gassendi, treated the matter somewhat superficially, and was less accurate and searching in his criticisms than Gassendi. Descartes, therefore, broke off the controversy with the former, while he carried it to the end with the latter. For this reason we may regard Arnauld and Gassendi, both countrymen of the philosopher, as the most important opponents against whom he attempted to defend his doctrine. Not less significant than the points of disagreement are the points of agreement between the philosophy of Descartes and the Augustinian theology, between Cartesianism and the materialistic sensualism. As soon as we turn away from the metaphysical (rational) basis of the system, the resemblances on both sides are perfectly evident. The sensualistic philosophy is, from its entire foundation and nature, inclined to a materialistic and mechanical explanation of nature. Descartes also gave this explanation: it could not be stricter. Hobbes, who at first noted only this phase of the new doctrine, thought that it completely coincided with his own. But the Cartesian explanation of nature is a necessary consequence of those dualistic principles with which we are now acquainted: its purely materialistic and mechanical tendency proceeds from an entirely different stand-point from that of the sensualistic philosophers. They thought that because nature is material, the mind is also. Because nature can be explained only by mechanical laws, the activities of the mind are also to be explained in the same manner. Descartes' |