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Rh sies, and so remarkably contrasted with the constitutional irritability of Descartes. Even the faith of Gassendi in his own favourite master, Epicurus, does not seem to have been very strong or dogmatical, if it be true that he was accustomed to allege, as the chief ground of his preferring the Epicurean physics to the theory of the Vortices, “that chimera for chimera, he could not help feeling some partiality for that which was two thousand years older than the other.”

About twenty years after the death of Gassendi (who did not long survive Descartes), Malebranche entered upon his philosophical career. The earlier part of his life had, by the advice of some of his preceptors, been devoted to the study of ecclesiastical history, and of the learned languages; for neither of which pursuits does he seem to have felt that marked predilection which afforded any promise of future eminence. At length, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he accidentally met with Descartes’ Treatise on Man, which opened to him at once a new world, and awakened him to a consciousness of powers, till then unsuspected either by himself or by others. Fontenelle has given a lively picture of the enthusiastic ardour with which Malebranche first read this performance; and describes its effects on his nervous system as sometimes so great, that he was forced to lay aside the book till the palpitation of his heart had subsided.

It was only ten years after this occurrence when he published The Search after Truth; a work which, whatever judgement may now be passed on its philosophical merits, will always form an interesting study to readers of taste, and a useful one to students of human nature. Few books can he mentioned, combining, in so great a degree, the utmost depth and abstraction of thought, with the most pleasing sallies of imagination and eloquence; and none, where they who delight in the observation of intellectual character may find more ample illustrations, both of the strength and weakness of the human understanding. It is a singular feature in the history of Malebranche, that, notwithstanding the poetical colouring which adds so much animation and grace to his style, he never could read, without disgust, a page of the finest verses; and that, although Imagination was manifestly the predominant ingredient in the composition of his own genius, the most elaborate passages in his works are those where he inveighs against this treacherous faculty, as the prolific parent of our most fatal delusions.

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