Cornell University Library BioOi .L66 of modern philosophy in France, olin 3 1924 031 008 927 OLIN UE^ASY^ CIRCULATION DATE DUE MAg,^ las. r AUGJLi yoocc* ■^^j^ynnm m^ ij#f0 ^tetejIiL- «S7 1 OAVLORD Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031008927 History of Modern Philosophy in France RENfi DESCARTES. [1596-1650.) After the painting by Frans Hah. History of Modern Philosophy in France LUCIEN L£VY-BRUHL mAStre de conferences in the sorbonne, professor in the ecole libre des sciences foutiqueb WITH PORTRAITS OF THE IiEADING FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS , - .\>W:' W- y'\'' ■.-■ CHICAGO THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY London: Kegah Paul, Trench, TrUbner & Co., Ltd. 1899 H :k > V J A.lLf-OS-'=|t COPVBIGHT BY The Open Court Publishing Co. chicago, u. s. a. 1899 AH rights reserved. %^oko^ PREFACE A book ought to speak for itself, and the brief- est prefaces are the best. Accordingly, I shall restrict myself to the few words indispensable to the purpose of indicating the object and the char- acter of this work. Given the intention of writing a History of Modern Philosophy in France, it was natural to begin it with Descartes, since by general consent Descartes opened a period in the history of philo- sophic thought, and this not simply for France, but for the world at large. This History does not claim to be complete — that is to say, it does not consider all who have treated philosophical subjects in France from the beginning of the seventeenth century down to our days. Frequently, philosophers of lower rank and only moderate originality are not mentioned in it at all. The author did not wish to burden his book, already large enough, with a mass of neces- sarily dry and uninteresting information regarding philosophers who are little known, and deservedly so. And above all, he did not intend to write a vi PREFACE. work of erudition, but a history. Now, philos- ophers without marked originality — those, for instance, who were simply disciples of the masters — have indeed their value in the eyes of that erudi- tion which wishes to know all there is to be known of a certain epoch. But their value is slight in the eyes of the historian. For he does not propose merely to perpetuate facts and dates; such infor- mation is but the raw material for his work, which consists chiefly in grasping the connection of facts, and in deducing the laws of the development of ideas and doctrines. This is why he must concen- trate his attention upon the really representative men, and upon works which "have had a posterity." While we have neglected the philosophical writ- ers whose influence has been slight in the evolution of French thought, there are others, on the con- trary, to whom we have given much space, although they are not usually grouped with the philosophers "by profession," Such are, for example, Pascal, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Renan, etc. We have had very strong reasons for this. Is it not too narrow a conception of the history of philosophy to see in it exclusively the logical evolution of successive sys- tems? Doubtless this is one way of looking at it; but we can understand, also, that philosophic thought, even while having its especial and clearly PREFACE. vn limited object, is closely involved in the life of each civilisation, and even in the national life of every people. In every age it acts upon the spirit of the times, which in turn reacts upon it. In its develop- ment it is solidary with the simultaneous devel- opment of the other series of social and intellectual phenomena, of positive science, of art, of religion, of literature, of political ai>d economic life; in a word, the philosophy of a people is a function of its history. For instance, philosophic thought in France for the past two centuries bears almost alto- gether, though indirectly, upon the French Revolu- tion. In the eighteenth century it is preparing and announcing it; in the nineteenth it is trying in part to check and in part to deduce the conse- quences of it. It is proper, therefore, to introduce into our his- tory of modern philosophy in France, along with the authors of systems distinctly recognised as such, those who have tried under a somewhat different form to synthesise the ideas of their time, and who have modified their direction, sometimes profoundly. Would that be a faithful history of philosophic thought in France which should exclude, apart from the names cited above, those of Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, and Joseph de Maistre? The question is not, as it seems to me, whether they Vlli PREFACE. should have a place, but what that place shall be? The reader will see that we have not been satisfied to take half steps, and the question has been settled in this volume in the most liberal spirit. In closing, there remains the agreeable duty of expressing my best thanks, first of all, to the Open Court Publishing Company which offered a most kind and generous hospitality to this foreign work, then to Miss G. Coblence, the translator, and to Professor W. H. Carruth, of the University of Kansas, for his thorough revision of the translation. Paris, August, 1899. L, L.-B. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Descartes - - - - - • • i CHAPTER 11 Cartesianism. — Malebranchb - . . 38 CHAPTER HI Pascal - - - - - , - yy CHAPTER IV BaYLB. — FONTEKELLB - - - . , IO7 CHAPTER V Montesquieu ------ 13^ CHAPTER VI Voltaire ------. 169 CHAPTER VII The Encyclopedists - - . . . 207 CHAPTER VIII Rousseau ------ 236 CHAPTER IX Condillac - - - - - - -271 CHAPTER X CONDORCET _..-.. 288 CHAPTER XI The Ideologists — The Traditionalists - - 303 X TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XII Maine de Biran.— Cousin and Eclecticism - 321 CHAPTER XIII The Social; Reformers.— Auguste Comte - - 352 CHAPTER XIV Renan. — ^Taine - - - - - - 397 CHAPTER XV The Contemporary Movement in French Philosophy 436 CHAPTER XVI Conclusion ------ 468 Bibliography ...... 483 Index - - - • - - - 495 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Descartes . _ _ . - Frontispiece MaLEBRANCHE - . - . - Facing Page 45 Pascal ------- yy Bayle --_---, loy fontenelle - - - - - - i 2 5 Montesquieu _ - - . ^ - 139 Voltaire ------- 169 D*Alembert - - - - - - - 211 Diderot ------- 219 HELvfiTius ------- 227 Rousseau ------- 237 CoNDiLLAC ------- 271 BUFFON ------- 289 condorcet ------- 295 Cabanis ------- 303 De Maistre ------- 313 Maine de Biran ----- 321 Cousin - - - - - - -331 jouffroy - - - - - - "319 Fourier - - , - - - - - 357 CoMTE ------- 375 Renan ------- 397 Taine ----..- 421 -y^f'ili m ■;■■' "I- CHAPTER I. DESCARTES. With Descartes a new period of modern philos- ophy begins.,, It is not, indeed, a beginning in a literal sense : there is no such thing in the history of ideas, nor elsewhere. Descartes, who came after the great scientific and philosophical illumination of the sixteenth century, had profited largely by it. He owed much to the Italian Renaissance, and not less to the Renaissance in France and in England. He was acquainted with the discoveries of contem- porary men of science, such as Galileo, Torricelli, and Harvey. Even scholastic philosophy, which he was to combat, left a lasting impression upon his mind. However, after we have considered all the influ- ences, both of the past and of the present, which were exercised upon him, the originality of Descartes shines out all the more conspicuously, and we see the more clearly that he initiated a new philosophic method. Hegel called him a hero, and this hyper- bole may in a certain sense be justified. Descartes had, indeed, no vocation for martyrdom. But nature had endowed him with that higher sort of courage which is love of truth and devotion to sci- ence; and if the name of hero is due the men whose 2 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. exertions have laid open new paths for human thought, Descartes is undoubtedly entitled to the name. The attitude of Descartes toward the philos- ophers who preceded him is remarkable, — he delib- erately ignores them. Although well acquainted with their works, he builds his own system as if he knew nothing of them. He wishes to depend solely on his own method and reason. Not that he per- sonally holds in contempt either the ancient or the modern philosophers. He is not so presumptuous as to believe that his mind is superior to theirs. He even acknowledges that many truths had been dis- covered before he created his method, but these truths he does not wish to accept on tradition. He is determined to discover them' for himself. By means of his method he proposes to obtain these truths, no longer mixed pell-mell with the mass of doubtful or erroneous opinions, but set in their right places, and accompanied with their proofs. Thus only do they become valuable and useful. For a truth, when isolated, sporadic, and floating and un- connected with the truths that have gone before it, and consequently powerless to develop those that are to come after it, is of slight interest in itself. To acquire such a truth is not worth the trouble we must take in order to understand ancient books, and the time we lose in learning the ancient languages. All this time were better employed in training our reason to grasp the necessary concatenation of truths as deducible one from another. DESCARTES. 3 This is already a first motive, and a quite suffi- cient one, for Descartes to dispense with erudition and to take no account of traditional doctrine. But he has another and more weighty one. He seeks not what i^ probable, but what is true. Now the first requisite in finding what is true he takes to be the casting aside of the philosophy taught in his time, which contented itself with, probability and gave no satisfactory demonstrations. Therefore, though he occasionally retiains the vocabulary of scholasticism (for instance in the greater part of his MMitatiom)y though he even borrows some of his matter from it (for instance, in the ontological argument, in the theory of continuous creation), nevertheless Descartes broke distinctly and com- pletely with the method and spirit of the philos- ophy which had been handed down from antiquity through the vicissitudes of the Middle Ages and the struggles of the Renaissance. Even what he seems to borrow from it, he really transforms. Cartesian- ism not only has a positive meaning, which we shall presently study, but it has to begin with a critical function, and proposes first of all to do away with a philosophical system which, appealing to substan- tial forms and occult causes, claimed to explain everything and could demonstrate nothing. There is accordingly something more in his atti^ tude to his predecessors than a mere protest against the authoritative method^ — a protest which had already been raised by eloquent voices in the six- teenth century and even earlier. We have in it, in 4 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. fact, a set determination to consider the generally- accepted philosophy as null and void, and to replace it with another which shall owe nothing to the former. A bold undertaking, not merely of a reformative but of a revolutionary nature. In Eng- land, Bacon, while combating the Scholastic Phi- losophy in the matter of experimental method, nevertheless derived from it his conception of phys- ical reality. Hobbes, however much he may have freed himself from traditional metaphysics, is never- theless the heir of the later great English scholastics. In Germany likewise, the genius of Leibniz is one of conservatism as well as of innovation. He openly disapproves of Descartes* s excessive severity to- ward scholasticism, of which, for his part, he pre- serves a great deal, in his doctrine as well as in his terminology. Therefore we see his successor Wolf restoring, so to speak, a new scholastic system, based on the philosophy of Leibniz. It was this philos- ophy that Kant imbibed; and later on, after Kant's Kriiik, a kind of new scholasticism appeared (in the school of Hegel for instance), indisputably related to that of the Middle Ages. Thus, in Germany, the thread of philosophical tradition was never entirely broken. In France, owing to Descartes, the case was altogether different. The Cartesian philosophy aimed at nothing less than the utter destruction of its rival- It prevailed ; and, as early as the latter part of the seventeenth century, the victory was com- plete. This was both favorable and unfavorable to DESCARTES. S the progress of French philosophy. Of course, it was no small advantage for the latter to free itself from the prestige of antiquity, from the tyranny of scholasticism, to regain its full independence, and to draw its inspiration freely from the spirit of the matheniatical and physical sciences, the increasing power of which was a genuinely new element in the life of mankind. To this the success of Cartesian- ism, and the fact that its method persisted, even after the doctrine was discarded, bear sufficient testimony. But on the other hand, certain dis- pleasing characteristics of French philosophy in the eighteenth century may, at least in some measure, have originated in this breaking with tradition. A taste for abstract and too simple solutions, a con- viction that it is sufficient to argue soundly upon evident principles in order to discover the truth, even in the most complex problems of social life — in short, a lack of historical spirit, with which the French philosophy of that period has been re- proached — all these faults are owing in some meas- ure to the spirit of Cartesianism. Certain it is that Descartes and his followers, in their contest with tradition, failed to appreciate its value and necessary function. * Nothing is so significant in this respect as the way in which these writers speak of history. As it is not a science, it cannot possibly be the basis of a school. It may entertain us, but it cannot really teach us. It is even liable to beget false ideas, and to be an encouragement to extravagant undertak- 6 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE, ings. And, logically speaking, whatever rests on historical claims only is insufficiently justified. This last maxim may, in practice, have most serious con- sequences. Descartes foresaw the attempt that would be made to extend its application to political and social problems. He therefore openly disclaims beforehand this application, which he personally refuses to make. Yet if he wishes us to abstain from criticising existing institutions, it is in his case, as in Montaigne's, for reasons of utility alone. One can easily imagine circumstances in which considera- tions of utility would favor the other side. It is, then, a mere question of expediency. ■ This tendency to claim that reason alone ought to be the basis of opinion, because reason alone can demonstrate it to be true, and the consequent ten- dency to make free use of rational criticism, appear in the history which Descartes gives us of his mind. Of all that he learned at school, nothing satisfied him except mathematics. Hardly had he freed himself from the sway of his masters (the best, he says, there were then in Europe), when he deliberately set about forgetting their teaching. He speaks only with irony of the various sciences, or so-called sciences: medicine, law, philosophy, as they were taught in his day. He coolly turns his back on belles lettres, and holds history in contempt. Geom- etry alone found favor in his eyes; still he won- dered greatly at its being used only as an object of amusement for the curious, and that "on so firm a basis nothing more lofty had been established." DESCARTES. 7 The ground was now cleared ; Descartes could begin to build. According to some, Descartes is first of all a man of science, and secondly a philosopher. Ac- cording to others, the philosopher in him predomi- nates over the man of science. In point of fact, philosophy and science were not separated in Des- cartes's view. He seeks to establish the system of truths accessible to nian^a system which he con- ceived as unique, and which may be figured as an endless chain. And he seeks it in order to find the means of living as uprightly and happily as possible. Thus the end which Descartes has in view is a right- eous and happy life : wherein he agrees with the philosophers of his time, and, we may also say, of all times. In order to attain to this righteous and happy life, leaving out of account the teachings of religion, Descartes sees no sure way but the possession of truth or science. Now science, in its turn, rests on metaphysics, or primary philosophy, whence it derives its principles. Therefore Descartes proposes to be a metaphysician ; but this he will be for the sake of science itself. Metaphysics is to him a road, but indeed a road of paramount importance, since all the rest depends upon the principles discovered therein. Besides, mathematics, physics, and other theoretical sciences are also roads, the terminal point lying in the applied sciences, to which they lead. "The whole of philosophy," says Descartes, in the Pref- 8 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. ace to the Principes de la Philosophies "is like a tree, the roots of which are metaphysics; the trunk is the science of physics; and the branches shooting from that trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three main ones, viz., medicine, me- chanics, and ethics, by which last I mean the highest and most perfect ethics, which, since it presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences, is the supreme degree of wisdom." Thus if Descartes is careful to make a distinction between the sphere of action and that of knowledge, and if, before undertaking the long and difficult task of seeking after truth, he provides himself with a "provisional** ethics, which he unquestioningly accepts from authority and custom, he nevertheless proclaims the prin^ples of action to be dependent upon kng^sdedge. It is the business of reason not only to enlighten, but also to guide us. Descartes, believing in the future progress of mankind, consid- ers it to be dependent on the development of the sciences. We even observe, in several passages, that the progress of ethics appears to him subordinate to that of mechanics and of medicine. But these in their turn depend for their advancement upon the establishment of a sound and rigorously demon- strated physical science. Thus, although science is not its own end, the fundamental problem of philoso- phy according to Descartes is finally reduced to the problem of the establishment of science. Now there is no breach of continuity between metaphysics and physics ; on the contrary, there is DESCARTES. 9 a natural and necessary transition from the one to the other. Descartes attempted to build up a system by means of which one could proceed uninterruptedly from the first principles of cognition and of being, in a word, from God, down to the most specific scien- tific propositions of physiology or of ethics, without one link missing in the chain. A bold conception, which dominates the whole system and is inseparable from the famous method of Descartes. Up to this point mathematics alone appeared to Descartes worthy of being called a science. It differs from everything else he had learned in the perfect lucidity of its principles, in the rigorous dem- onstration of its propositions, and in the inevitable sequence of its truths. But to what does it owe these characteristics, if not to the method from which mathematicians make it a rule never to depart ? Therefore, in order to establish the science or philos- ophy sought by Descartes, it was sufficient to find a method that should be to philosophy what the method of mathematical deduction is to arithmetic, algebra and geometry. To apply to that universal science conceived by Descartes the method so effectively employed in the above-mentioned sciences would evidently be the simplest solution of the problem proposed. But this solution is impracticable. The mathemat- ical method, as we see it practiced in "the analysis of the ancients and the algebra of the moderns" is a special method, limited to the study of figures in geometry, and confined in algebra to symbols and lO MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. rules which hamper the mind. How could one pass from these processes, which are especially adapted to particular sciences, to the general method required by general science or philosophy? Descartes would undoubtedly never have conceived such an audacious hope, had not a great discovery of his , set him on this track. He had invented analytical, geometry, or the method of expressing by means of equa- tions the properties of geometrical figures, or, inversely, of representing determinate equations by means of geometrical figures. In this way, Des- cartes substituted for the old methods, which were especially adapted to algebra and geometry as dis- tinct branches, a general method, applicable to what he called the ''universal mathematical science," viz., to the study of **the various ratios or, propor- tions to be found between the objects of the mathe- matical sciences, hitherto rqg3,rded as distinct." Not only did this discovery mark a decisive epoch in the history of mathematics, which it provided with an instrument of incomparable simplicity and power, but it furthermore gave Descartes a right to hope for the philosophical method he was seeking. Ought not a last generalization to be possible, by means of, which the method he had so happily dis- covered should become applicable,, not only to the "universal mathematical science,*', but also: to the systematic combination of all the truths which out finite minds may permit us to attain? Thus was formed in Descartes^s mind the method which he summed up in the Discours de la Mitkode, DESCARTES, 1 1 and which was destined in his plan to replace the useless and sterile ancient logic. It is inexpedient here to explain these rules minutely. We must^ however, observe that the first one, "Never to accept a thing as true which I do not clearly know to be such, * * is not,, properly speaking, a precept of method. Such precepts are set forth in a subse- quent set of rules, where Descartes successively pre- scribes analysis for dividing difficulties into parts, and synthesis for constructing and expounding sci- ence. But the first rule is quite, different. It does not lay down a process to be used in order to dis- cover truth. It concerns method only in so far as method is not separated from science itself (and such indeed was Descartes' s meaning); If such is the case, the first step of method — or of science — must be to determine accurately by what mark we can recognize what is to be regarded as true, and what is to be set aside as being only probable or dubious. This mark is what we call evidence. This first rule may have been suggested to Descartes, as the others were, by mathematics. Even as in his method he generalized the processes used for mathematical re- searches and demonstrations, so in this formula he laid down the regulating principle to which this sci- ence owes its perfection, and which was also to be- come the regulating principle of the new philosophy. ;.. Thus the famous rule of "evidence'* reaches far beypnd the scope of a mere principle of method. Both from what it excludes and what it implies, it may be looked upon as the motto of the Carte- 12 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. sian philosophy. It rejects, to begin with, any knowledge grounded upon authority alone (except- ing the truths of religion). Even though Aristotle and all his commentators were agreed on one opin- ion, this would be no proof of its being true ; and should it really chance to be so, the authority of Aristotle would count for nothing towards estab- lishing its standing in science. Nothing can be admitted in science but what is evident; i. e., nothing but what is so clear and plain as to kave no possible doubt, or is soundly deduced from prin- ciples which rest on such evidence. The whole sys- tem of scholasticism: metaphysics, logic, physics, thus stands irretrievably condemned in toto. The so-called moral sciences, which cannot attain to a de- gree of evidence comparable to that of mathematics, and which have to content themselves with more or less strong probability, are likewise rejected by the Cartesian formula; in fact, Descartes, as has already been observed, had but little esteem for history and erudition. But what makes this rule of paramount impor- tance is, that it establishes reason as supreme judge of what is false or true. Reason thus proclaims its own sovereign right to decide without appeal. What we are to think, to believe, and to do should be determined solely by evidence ; and of that evi- dence reason alone is judge (except in the case of urgency compelling us to immediate action). It is true, reason being identical in all men, that such truth as becomes evident to one of them becomes DESCARTES. 1 3 SO to all other men likewise. Therefore the assent given to evidence by one mind is by implication equivalent to the universal consent of mankind ; so that the individual reason which distinguishes be- tween true and false is precisely the universal feature in every man. Nevertheless, Descartes felt the danger that lay in his formula. He foresaw the very serious mis- understandings to which it might give rise, and he endeavored to prevent these by taking multifarious precautions. First of all, the truths of religion are carefully set apart and withdrawn from the criticism of reason. They do not fall under its jurisdiction. It is not ours to examine them, but to believe them. According to Descartes, we must seek neither to adapt them to our reason, nor to adapt our reason to them. They belong to another domain. Then Descartes makes a distinction between the sphere of knowledge and that of conduct; he submits to provisional ethics, which is to be replaced by defini- tive ethics only when science is completed, that is to say, in a still remote future. Moreover, even in the province of speculative thought Descartes refrains from touching upon political and social questions. He censures ** those blundering and "restless humours" ever ready to propose unasked- for reforms. Thus, after moral and religious prob- lems, political problems in their turn are cautiously set aside. Where, then, shall the absolute sover- eignty of reason be exercised? In philosophy, in abstract sciences, in physics; in short, wherever 14 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. men generally have no other interest but that of pure truth. Well-meant precautions these were, no doubt, but vain precautions, too. Let reason rule supreme over this apparently limited province, and by de- grees it will invade the others. If we allow it, as a principle, the right to decide without appeal between falsehood and truth, it soon will admit of no restrictions but those it sets of its own accord through the works of a Kant or of an Auguste Comte. In fact, French philosophy in the eight- eenth century was in the main an endeavor to apply the spirit of the Cartesian method to the very objects: politics, ethics, religion, which Descartes had carefully set apart. By holding nothing as true until I have evidence of its being so, do I not in advance deprive all historical rights of the means of securing recognition ; do I not thereby summon all privileges, institutions, beliefs, and fortunes to produce their title deeds before the bar of reason? By solemnly paying homage to Descartes, the "As- sembl^e Constituante' ' proved that the spirit of the Revolution was conscious of one of its chief sources. Being now in possession of his method, did not Descartes have all that was necessary to construct his philosophic system with absolute mathematical certainty? No, for in mathematics the foundation principles : axioms and definitions, are so plain and evident that no reasonable mind will question them. But philosophy had until his time been wanting in DESCARTES. IS such principles, and the object which Descartes has in view is precisely to establish them. To attain this end, he first casts aside as false (at least provisionally) all the opinions which he has hitherto held as true, and which are only probable. In order to avoid tedious enumerations, he proposes to consider opinions from the point of view of their sources. "For instance,** says he, ''having some- times found my senses deceitful, I will distrust all that they teach me. As I have sometimes erred with regard to very simple reasoning, I will distrust the results of even the most positive sciences. Lastly, I may suppose that an evil genius, who is all-pow- erful, takes delight in making me err, even when I believe I see the truth most plainly. Therefore, by a voluntary effort, which is always possible since I am free, I will suspend my judgment even in cases where the evidence seems to me irresistible. , * * Is there any proposition which is not affected by this "hyperbolicar* doubt? There is one, and one only. Let my senses deceive me, let my rea- sonings be false, let an evil genius delude me con- cerning things which appear to me most certain ; if I am mistaken, it is because I am, — and this truth "I think, therefore I am,*' cogito, ergo sum, is so self-evident and so certain that the most extrava- gant doubt of skeptics is unable to shake it. * ' Here then is the first principle of philosophy sought for by Descartes. And even as Archimedes asked only a standing-place to lift the world, so Descartes, having found a quid inconcussum, an indisputable 1 6 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. proposition, set to work to erect his whole system upon this foundation. However, if according to the custom of philos- ophers we distinguish the sphere of knowledge from that of existence, this proposition, or, as it is called, Descartes's cogito, is certainly first in the sphere of knowledge; for I may have doubts about whatever I may think, but about my thinking I can have no doubt, even in the very moment when I doubt. But in the sphere of existence the Absolute, that is, God, comes first, fllierefore Descartes, as soon as he had established the cogito^ turned to demonstrating the existence of God. He knows that he thinks, but he also knows that he doubts, and therefore that he is imperfect ; for not knowing instead of knowing is an imperfection. He therefore has an idea of perfection. Whence comes this idea ?/^ Descartes examines all the conjectures which may be made as to its origin ; he eliminates them one after another as inadequate until one only remains, viz., thatrthe idea of perfec- tion cannot have sprung from experience, that we could not have it if the all-perfect Being, that is, God, did not actually exist, and that therefore this idea is as "the stamp left by the workman upon his work,** Descartes was bound to demonstrate the exist- ence of God at the very outset. Otherwise, the sup- position of an evil genius, who was able to deceive him even when he conceived things with perfect clearness, would have cast suspicion upon all proposi- tions but the cogito; the doubt which he himself DESCARTES. 17 had raised would have paralyzed him. In order to do away with such a supposition, Descartes at once proceeds to demonstrate the existence of an all- perfect God, who cannot possibly wish to deceive us. But is not this a syllogistic circle? If the. plainest argument, in order to be accepted as valid, needs the guaranty of God, what will guarantee the argument intended to prove the existence of God ? A syllogistic circle indeed, had not Descartes escaped from it with the help of the following reasons: God's guaranty is necessary, not for the sake of the evidence, which is quite sufficient in itself so long as it lasts (whereof the cogito is a proof) ; but in order to assure me of the truth of propositions which I remember having admitted as evident without remembering for what reasons. It is necessary, in short, wherever memory inter- venes, but only in that case. Now if we have no need of memory to know that we think, neither do we need it to know that God exists. ■ In spite of the syllogistic form which Descartes gave to the proof of the existence of God, this proof is rather intuitive than grounded on formal reasoning. In the act of conceiving the idea of the All-perfect Being, I see at thesame time the impossibility of His ' not existing. The existence of aU other things is looked upon as only possible ; buV the existence of God appears as evidently necessary, being conir prised in the very n otion o f God. This is no argu- ment, but rather an immediate apprehension. It is, as Malebranche said shortly afterwards, a proof 1 8 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. "from mere vision." The syllogistic circle there- fore was only apparent. Descartes was right in establishing the existence of God immediately after the cogito. Henceforward he could in all confi- dence make use of the faculties given him by God, who never deceives. He only needed now to fol- low out his method carefully, and to link propo- sitions together in the requisite order, in order to arrive infallibly at the truth. Now, the requisite order is, to begfn with things which are most general, simple, and easy to grasp; that is, with the primary principles from which the other truths are to be deduced. Physics therefore is not to be studied until metaphysics is well grounded. Acting upon this precept, Descartes first established the existence of an absolute and perfect Being, that is, God; for the same reason he now proceeds to ascertain the essence of the soul and of the body. To reach this end, his starting point is again the cogito. I think, I am ; but what am I ? A creature that thinks; that is to say, judges, remembers, feels, imagines, and wills ; a being whose existence is not linked to any place, nor dependent upon any material thing. Descartes has just got out of his universal doubt by means of the cogito. The only thing the existence of which he can maintain at this point is his own thought. Now, the existence of his thought does not appear to him to be neces- sarily linked to that of his body and dependent upon the latter. On the contrary, he may sup- DESCARTES. I9 pose that his body does not exist, and that the perception of the external world and of his own members is an illusion^. He is even unable for the present to reject this supposition ; he cannot do so till later on, and even then with some difficulty. Nevertheless, since he thinks, he is certain he exists. But, conversely, let him for a moment suppose that he ceases to think; upon this suppo- sition he ceases to exist, although all external bodies and his own body should remain real. Therefore, the cognition of his own being, which is his thought, by no means depends on ma- terial things, the existence of which is still problem- atic. Therefore his whole nature is to think. ** You suppose, ** some opponent said to Descartes, "that your own body does not exist, and you say that nevertheless you continue to think. But should your supposition prove true, that is to say, should your body and your brain be dis- solved, can you affirm that even then you would continue to think?" To which Descartes answered : '*I do not assert this, — at least not now. My present object is not to demonstrate the immortal- ity of the soul. This is a metaphysical question I am not now able to solve, — for I know only one fact as yet, viz., that I think (and also that God exists). The whole question I am examining is merely : ' What am I ? ' Now it appears from what has been said, that my existence is known to me as that of a being endowed with thought and endowed only with thought; for, whilst I am as 20 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE, certain as possible of the existence of my thought, the existence of anything else is still wholly doubt- ful to me. The existence of this thought may pos- sibly be actually connected with that of the brain. I know nothing about that. I am not discussing that for the present. One thing is certain : I know myself as a thought, and I positively do not know myself as a brain." This is one of the leading features of the philos- ophy of Descartes, and one which may enable us to measure his influence, by comparing what had been thought before him with what was thought after him. The cogito of Descartes displaced, so to speak, the axis of philosophy. To the ancients and to the scholastics (theology excepted), the thinking mind appeared inseparable from the universe, re- garded as the object of its thought, just as the soul itself was conceived to be the "substantial form'* of the living body. According to Descartes, on the contrary, the existence of the thinking mind, far from being dependent on any other existing thing, is the essential condition of every other existence conceivable to us : for if I am certain of the ex- istence of anything but myself, with far better reason am I certain that I, who have that thought, am in existence. The only reality I cannot pos- sibly question is that of my own thought. Both the adversaries and the successors of Des- cartes started from this point. All the modern forms of idealism, so utterly different from the idealism of the ancients, have a common origin in DESCARTES. 21 the cogito. The tempered and prudent idealism of Locke, the Christian idealism of Malebranche, the skeptical idealism of Hume, the transcendental idealism of Kant, the absolute idealism of Fichte, and many other doctrines derived from these, which have appeared in our century, are all more or less closely related to the foundation principle of the Cartesian philosophy. Moreover, the conception of nature in modern science must also be connected with it. For, as we shall see farther on, when Des- cartes set thought, that is, the soul, so distinctly apart from everything extraneous to itself, in so doing he made necessary a new conception of force and life in the material world. Now, let us add to the Cartesian formula, "I am a thing which thinks," the following principle, "All that I conceive clearly and distinctly is true. * ' Then, since I conceive clearly and distinctly that the nature of the body and that of the soul have no attributes in common, therefore it is true that these two natures or substances are separated one from the other. Not only is there no need of my having any notion of the body in order to comprehend the soul, but also the soul has no need of the body in order to exist. Descartes, therefore, had a right to infer that "the soul is more easily known than the body." This does not mean that, according to his doctrine, psychology is an easier science than physics or physiology. Psychology as we conceive it has no place in the system of Descartes; there is at most 22 MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. a mere sketch of it in the Passions de VAme, But this maxim is metaphysical, not psychological. It means that there is no more evident knowledge than that which the soul has of itself, since there is none which it is more impossible to doubt; that