1852.

Question on his Plagiarisms.

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authorities, that Descartes had never perused the writings of Bacon; and Stewart, while combating the improbability of the assertion, himself shows that either he had not read the Letters or had forgotten Descartes' mention of Bacon in them; "a solitary' mention of him, as some say: but, in fact, there are two references at least. *

Both of the letters containing them are to Father Mersenne. From these it is evident that Descartes was acquainted with the philosophical writings of Bacon, and in neither reference does there appear anything of the spirit of depreciation. The former is, indeed, complimentary. In reply to his correspondent's wish to be told 'modum aliquem faciendi experimenta utilia,' Descartes says, - Ad quod, nihil est quod dicam post Verulamium qui hac de re scripsit, nisi,' &c. Still, acquitting him of all jealousy in this instance, and further acknowledging that the vast interval between Bacon's system and his own (of which by and by) diminished the chances of frequent references, it is impossible not to feel that such a mind as that of Descartes could not peruse such a writer as Bacon without being deeply impressed with the amplitude of his stupendous genius, and that the scanty and meagre references to him are inadequate and ungraceful expressions of admiration. Something more ardent would assuredly have broken from a more frank and genial nature. How nobly cordial is the tone in which another great French philosopher, D'Alembert, speaks of Bacon,

"When one considers,' says he, the sound and enlarged views of this great man, 'the multitude of the objects to which his mind was turned and 'the boldness of his style, which unites the most sublime images 'with the most rigorous precision, one is disposed to regard him as the greatest, the most universal, and the most eloquent of 'philosophers.'

As Hallam has remarked, it is a formidable list of plagiarisms with which Leibnitz has taxed Descartes. The above critic has cited a part of the passage. The whole may be found in Leibnitzii Opera, tom. v. pp. 393-394. He sums up the long enumeration with the somewhat too severe remark, Descartes, as was long ago observed by learned men, and 'as is but too evident from his epistles, was an immoderate despiser of others, and, in his thirst for fame, did not abstain 'from artifices which it is impossible to regard as generous.' But it is an ungrateful subject, and we care not to dwell on it. In Hallamt, the reader will find a characteristically calm

* Epist. tom. ii. Nos. 65. 67.

† Vol. iii. pp. 266-269.; and vol. iv. pp. 16-20.

and equitable statement of the imputed delinquencies. Mackintosh, too, has in an early volume of this Journal* touched on this subject in that comprehensive spirit of humanity which may well entitle him to be called the Melancthon of philosophical critics. Descartes,' says he, was among the unreading philosophers, who avoided books, lest they might stand between them and nature.' Nor must we in justice forget that when one asked Descartes, while pursuing his anatomical studies, where was his library? the philosopher contented himself with showing the querist a calf under dissection. It is also true, that when coincidences were pointed out between himself and others, he sometimes frankly acknowledged them. Thus he says to one of his correspondents, I am particularly obliged to you for those passages of Augustine, which serve to sustain my opinions by his authority. Some of my friends have 'pointed them out before, and I exceedingly rejoice that my thoughts should coincide with those of so pious and so eminent a man. For I am a stranger to the dispositions of those who are anxious that their opinions should seem new. Few readers of Descartes, however, will agree in this last estimate of his character, or doubt that that great ethical text, Know thyself,' might still have been profitable pondered by him.

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The style of Descartes has an indescribable charm; its perspicuity, whether he wrote in French or Latin, is even wonderful. His mastery of his native language, at least for philosophical purposes, the netteté of his style (the more remarkable as Pascal had not yet fully developed the resources of the French tongue and consecrated it to the uses of literature), render his compositions even now very agreeable reading. But the great charm, unquestionably, whether of his Latin or his French, is its inimitable clearness; and that is the effect of the clearness with which he usually thought. Not that we can deny (paradoxical though it may seem) that there is, as was the case with Locke, frequent unsteadiness in the use of particular terms at different times, and discrepant statements in different parts of his writings; and hence the disputes as to what was his precise theory of innate ideas,' as well as in relation to other subjects. This oscillation seems in part due to the fact that in the successive efforts to illustrate and explain his views, he sometimes modified them, without always having the magnanimity to say so; in part to his natural anxiety to diminish as much as possible the apparent interval between himself and his various critics - a disposition which often carries him further than perfect ingenuousness will

* Vol. xxvii. p. 227.

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1852.

His admirably lucid Style.

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warrant; and in part to that more deliberate and culpable spirit of compromise which his timidity dictated, and on which we have already animadverted. Still, for the most part, taking any single statement, all is lucid; the medium of expression is, as it ought to be, of most pure transparency. However deep down the thoughts may lie, the reader sees them as at the bottom of a clear stream. However abstract the subject, there is none of that haze and vagueness which we find in so many metaphysicians, especially of modern date; and which continually compel the reader to doubt whether he has got the author's meaning or not; or, what is even worse, partially to superinduce, as he reads on, a meaning of his own on the mysterious symbols. This last process soon involves the mind in an impenetrable cloud; it being impossible to compound a clear sense out of a book to which we contribute only a half-meaning of our own, and the author scarcely any meaning at all. One meets with no obstacle of this kind in Descartes; he does not give the unhappy reader eggs to hatch, or rather, egg-shaped stones, which the wretch is to sit upon in hopes of successful incubation. We often do not agree with him; we often doubt whether he agrees with himself; but whether we agree with him or not, we at least know in each single case what he means. However fallacious may be his criterion that whatever is clearly and distinctly conceived must be true,' it is evident that the reflex operation of this maxim on his own mind-the constant attempt to attain definiteness of conception-gave correspondent sharpness of outline to his expression; and to this, conjoined no doubt with the eminently mathematical character and habits of his intellect, must we attribute the admirable lucidity of his style. It shows us what can be done even for the development of the most abstruse thoughts; and he who would be a great metaphysical writer would do well to revolve frequently the writings of Descartes.* D'Alembert's description of the highest merit of philo

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It is much to the credit of the French that they seem fully disposed to do justice to the writings of this-perhaps the greatest of their philosophers. The writings of Descartes have lately inspired or rather recovered a vivid interest, partly a cause, partly an effect of the salutary reaction from the long and deplorable ascendancy of the sensational philosophy: a happy omen! Within the last thirty years some of his most important works, namely, his 'Method' and his 'Meditations,' have been repeatedly reprinted. A neat little edition of the former, with a biographical preface, was published in 1824, and of the latter in 1825. Lately has appeared a cheap but handsome reprint of the Method' and the 'Meditations,' together with the "Objections' and 'Réponses' elicited by the latter, with an able in

sophical style exactly applies to that of Descartes: Le premier 'devoir de la philosophie est d'instruire, et ce n'est qu'en in'struisant qu'elle peut plaire; son éloquence est la précision.'

But we must hasten to give some brief account of the correlation and concatenation of the chief principles of Descartes' philosophical system. In constructing that system he resolved, as we have seen, to begin absolutely de novo; and not merely to doubt, but to consider pro tempore as false, every thing except that of which it was not possible that he should even doubt whether he ever could doubt-namely, his own consciousness. Hence his celebrated Cogito, ergo sum;' 'je pense, donc je 'suis;' not an enthymeme, as he truly replied to Gassendi, of which the suppressed premise was 'every thing that thinks, exists ;' but merely a statement of the fact of the consciousness of his existence as involved in the consciousness of his thinking. Of this fact it is impossible to doubt, for even to doubt is to think; and to doubt that we think is still only to think that perhaps we do not think. Therefore it still remains true; Je pense, 'donc je suis;' or as Augustin puts it, not less epigramatically than Descartes, in a passage often cited by his critics, Si enim fallor, sum; nam qui non est, utique nec falli potest; ac per 'hoc, sum, si fallor.'

And even if it be supposed (as Descartes says), that there is no such thing as an external world; no such things as our bodies and their organs; that when we flatter ourselves we are awake, we think so with as little reason as when, in sleep, we fancy that we are, and thus imagine the illusory, yet often as vivid, pheno

troduction by M. J. Simon; and as far as the metaphysical works of Descartes are concerned, he who possesses these may be said to possess all. Of him as well as of many of the voluminous philosophers of that age, it may be said that a large portion of their 'opera omnia' consists of little else than a repetition of the same thoughts. Thus, in Descartes' 'Letters' we perpetually find the same matter as in his 'Method' and the Meditations,' the latter being itself little more than an expansion of the former. The Method' was written originally in French, the 'Meditations' in Latin.

But for those who would wish to possess the entire writings of this celebrated philosopher, the admirable edition of M. Cousin, in eleven vols. 8vo. leaves nothing to be desired. There, all that Descartes wrote is presented in the vernacular; his Latin treatises are admirably translated; indeed the most important of these were executed under the eye and with the corrections of Descartes himself. This edition is a worthy monument of respect from one distinguished philosopher to the memory of another.

1852.

Cogito, ergò sum.

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mena, to be really external to us; still these thoughts, these dreams are real at all events; and that is real which is conscious of them. Thus then the philosopher, after much toil and profound meditation, has arrived at the conclusion that he is, for he thinks. Cogito, ergò sum;' a doughty achievement and worthy of philosophy; though men, not metaphysicians, will suspect that they had already arrived at the same conclusion without any philosophy at all. It is Descartes' TÔυ σTÔ, the starting point of all his philosophy.

But though this was solid ground, it was, it must be confessed, a narrow space of certainty on which to erect a philosophy. Of all else that he had believed, he deliberately resolved that he might not only doubt, but that all was to be held false till strictly proved; an excess of paradox with which Gassendi does not fail to twit him, since it was sufficient to regard previous opinions as uncertain till proved: to regard them as false rather than true was, instead of laying aside all prejudices, to exchange an old prejudice for a new one.

For our own parts we doubt whether it was possible for Descartes to reduce himself even to a state of genuine doubt as to his previous conceptions; or regard a material universe, external objects, all other beings like himself, his own body, and its organs, as possible illusions, and the God he had from childhood believed in, as possibly a malignant deceiver. However, Descartes thinks otherwise, and resolves pro tempore that he will doubt of all these; clandestinely retaining, it must be remembered, a provisional code of maxims, by which, during his sojourn in the interlunar' cave of his scepticism, he is resolved to act as all the rest of the world acted; a fact which may well lead one to suspect, with Gassendi, that the doubt was not so sincere as he supposed. He would have done well to include among his doubts, a doubt as to whether he thoroughly doubted. It may be said perhaps, that he resolved only to place himself in the exact situation of one who did doubt; but it is wonderful that a philosopher who so distinctly saw and has so well expressed (in fact as vividly as Bacon) the inextricable nature of that web of mental convictions and impressions which our whole life-from periods long anterior to the dawn of reflection has been weaving for us, did not doubt whether a man could thus denude himself of his past beliefs, and coolly act as if he still doubted. That Descartes never doubted that he could, if he so pleased, be sure that he doubted of every thing except his own existence, and then construct his system in a condition of self-induced scepticism, was itself a proof of confidence and dogmatism far more striking than were the alleged doubts