Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/240

224 for by experience must be regarded as external and contingent" (pp. 62, 63). In his controversy with More, Descartes explicitly adopts the Occasionalistic theory. "He has no liking, however, for the Occasionalism into which he is entrapped by his Rationalism," and in his published works continues to speak as if bodies transmit motion by impact, as if mind and body interact in sense-perception and in volition (pp. 77, 79).

The searching examination to which the system of Descartes is subjected in the first three chapters of the book enables the author to state in a concise and telling way the relation between the Cartesian philosophy and the systems of Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Berkeley. Mr. Smith's treatment of Locke's theory of knowledge is especially significant. He shows that Locke clings to the rationalistic view of knowledge, though his analysis of the conceptions of substance and essence force him to the conclusion that deductive knowledge is not possible where real existence is concerned. We do not know the substance or essence of things; we simply assume that there is something which supports the qualities revealed to us by experience, and the nature of that 'something' is entirely unknown to us. We can deduce nothing, therefore, in regard to the nature of particular substances; all that we know in reference to them comes from experience. "Yet Locke remains so much under Descartes' s influence that he goes to the extreme of holding that this empirical knowledge is not entitled to the name of knowledge at all, and that sense experience can perform no function in scientific knowledge "(p. 210). We have knowledge in the true sense of the word in the case of mathematics and morals alone, for here we are dealing with 'modes,' i.e., with objects made by the mind itself and therefore known through and through. There are, then, Mr. Smith concludes, good reasons for maintaining that Locke is a rationalist at heart, and that "his sensationalism is but externally tagged on to his rationalism."

It seems to me that there are good grounds for revising the conventional estimate of Locke ; but it is not so clear that we must necessarily regard his 'empiricism' as externally attached to his rationalism. His final position in the fourth book of the Essay is perfectly consistent and intelligible. It is quite proper for a rationalist to maintain that, while true knowledge is deductive, experience, as a matter of fact, is all that we have in most cases. The two statements taken together simply amount to a rationalistic determination of the limits of knowledge. Why should we not interpret the 'empirical' doctrine of the second book in the light of this final utterance? If we