Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/493

No. 4.]  in the character of English speculative thought, as shown in the philosophy of Bacon, of Hartley, and of Spencer. The formation of the French nation was very different. The tendency here is to absorb all the old elements and form from them something wholly new. In Paris, which is ever rejuvenated by rural blood, the whole life of France is taken up and reconstituted. In philosophy Descartes pulls to pieces all old beliefs to build them up again on the basis of his Cogito, ergo sum. Voltaire tears down all religion with a laugh; all has to be made over again. The Gallic genius is a protest against continuity; it destroys and creates with equal facility. In ancient countries the political life was restricted to small cities and limited castes. Each city and each dominant caste regarded itself as born to rule all others. Christianity brought in more universal notions, yet even here the limit is that of the Church. As the Greek could not conceive of the slave having rights, neither could the churchman grant them to the heretic. At the time of the Renaissance, the force of the Church being exhausted in political intrigues, a new spirit of inquiry was manifested. The artists and scientists were new men, who studied in their own way in defiance of the rules of the schools. Great men are always markedly individual, while yet they exhibit the peculiar character of the nation from which they spring.

In this article D. examines certain fundamental problems by the light of his theory. Are living beings finite or infinite in number? To say that they are potentially infinite does not avoid the difficulty, for such infinitude can be applied only to ideal objects, and living beings do not depend for their existence on our mental operations. On the other hand, it is inconceivable to regard them as actually limitless. The truth is, they can form neither infinite nor finite number, the category of number being altogether inapplicable to them. Every organism is unique and irreducible, absolutely different from all others. All together, these living beings form among themselves a series, a continuous gradation. D. accepts Leibniz's law of indiscernibles. The next question deals with the finitude or infinitude of the universe in time and space. However we may reason concerning empirical, i.e. homogeneous time and space in this connection, absurdities must follow. Empirical time and space are not true time and space. Since metaphysical time and space have neither duration nor extension, they cannot be characterized as finite or infinite. These terms are not categories of existence itself, but of represented existence. Another problem