Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/829

 DESCARTES

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DESCARTES

111x3^' obj.; R^p. aux S^^ ojjj.; Pnnc, 1'^ partie). iJot only is this freedom a primordial and undeni- ible datum of consciousness: it is, in a way, infinite ike God, "'since there is no object to which it cannot urn ". (4" Med. ; Princ, V partie.) It docs not creep ound in a sort of semi-ignorance, as St. Thomas Vquinas holds, but it grows as the influencing mo- ives become clearer; indifference is but its lowest tage (letter to Mersenne, 20 May, 1630). The )art it plays in our lives is considerable: it entei-s nto each of our judgments, and it is the formal auso of all our errors. It makes iiself felt in every )art of our organism, and through this it influences he external world. Nevertheless, the sum total of notion in the world is always roiisl:iiit; fiu while 'Ur wills may change the lirection of movement hey do not affect its quan- ity. (Letter to Regius.) 'onfronting the soul is he external world : but the oul does not see it a.s it eally is. Heat, odour, aste, light, sound, resist- nce, weight are qualities i'hich we attribute to lodics but which are really a ourselves, since we only onceive them in relation o ourselves. In reality here is nothing in the )hysical world but motion ,nd extension. Motion niitates as far as possible he immutability of God vho is its first cause; lence its principal laws, 'iz. that the sum of mo- ion in the world Is always oust ant; that a body will ontinue in its actual state mless disturbed by some ither body outside itself; hat "once a body is in notion we have no reason or thinking its present 'elocity will ever cease )rovided it impinges on loother body which would lacken or destroy its mo- ion". All movement is )rimarily rectilinear (on this point Aristotle was nistaken). When two bodies moving in different hrections collide, a change takes place in their dircc- ions, but "such change is always the least possible". Vhen two moving bodies impinge on each other, one annot transmit any motion to the other without los- ng what it transmits (Princ, 2'' partie). Extension 3 not infinite in duration but it is infinite in space. ' It seems to me that one cannot prove or even con- eive that there are limits to the matter of which the rorld is composed, for I find it is composed of nothing )ut extension in length, breadth, and depth. So that fhatever posscs.ses these three dimensions is a portion if such matter": and however far back in imagination re push the limits of space we still find these three liniensions; they are boimded by no limits (letter to !;hanut; letter to Marus). Exten.sion is therefore •ne block, continuous from end to end; and this )roves at the same time that there is no such thing .as i vacuum, either in bodies or between them. More- )ver, extension is divisible ad infinitum, since the iividcvi particles, however smafl, are still extended. It is everj'where homogeneous, since it is made up of ipatial dimen.sions only, and the.se of themselves give iai- to no qualitative difi'erences. And this brilliant dea suggested to Descartes many hypotheses that

were to prove fruitful. In his view the matter of the earth and of the stai-s was the same; and spectrum analysis subsequently proved that he was correct. He held that tlio |)rlMKirili:il .stntc of the sun and planets wa.s nebulous, lliat under the inllueiicc of a cooling process the heavenly bothe.s foruKHl their crusts, and to changes in these crusts is due the variation in bril- liance of the stars and the emergence of the conti- nents on our earth, (t'f. Traits du Monde; Princ, 3' aiul 4" p.) It does not follow that the world is self- suliicient ; but the finality, of which so much is said, leads to nothing. God gave matter a first impulse ind the rest follo^^ed in the course of natin-c's laws. "E\en if the chaos of the poets be granted, one could

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to the laws of nature, thia confusion would eventu- ally work itself out to our present order"; the laws of nature being such that "matter is constrained to pass through all the forms of which it is capable".

The older Descartes grew, the more he busied himself with morals, and his aim was to end up with a treatise on ethics. Asa matter of fact, we have his treatise on the passions, and a few brief disquisi- tions scattered among his letters to Chanut and to the Princess Elizabeth. The passions are percep- tions generated and nur- tured in the soul "through the medium of the nerves" (Passions, l^^ partie, art. 3-22). The nerves are bimdles of fine threads: these threads contain the animal spirits which are the subtlest parts of the blood: and they all meet at the pineal gland which is the seat of the soul. By means of this mechan- ism the thinking subject receives impressions from III the world wit hout, per-

ceives them, and trans- forms them mto passions (Pass., l^® p., art. 31). And though our orgamsm thus contains the cause of our passions, it is not their subject either entirely or pai^ tially; on this pointalso Aristotle was mistaken. There are "perceptions arising from the body and localizing themselves in one or other portion of it — such as hun- ger, thirst, pain — but the passions are different. They originate in the body, but belong to the soul alone ; they are purely psychological facts (Pjissions, f" p., art. 25). There are as many passions as there are ways in which objects capable of affecting our senses may be hurtful or profitable to us. The primary passions to which all others may be reduced are the six following: ad- miration or surprise, produced by an object as to which we are as yet ignorant whether it is useful or hurtful; love and hate, caused by the impression pro- duced on our organs of sense by objects which are already know^l to us as beneficial or harmful; desire, whichis but the love or the hate we bear an object considered as future; joy and sadness, which result from the presence of an object that is loved or hated (Passions, 2" partie, art. 52). Perhaps on the whole St. Thomjis and Bossuet will be found to have sur- passed Descartes, by reducing all the passions to love. In the Cartesian teaching the pxssions are good in themselves, but they must be kept in subjection to the