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164, p. 105.

After the pains taken by Descartes to ascertain the seat of the soul, it is surprising to find one of the most learned English divines of the seventeenth century (Dr Henry More) accusing him as an abettor of the dangerous heresy of nullibism. Of this heresy Dr More represents Descartes as the chief author; and, at the same time, speaks of it as so completely extravagant, that he is at a loss whether to treat it as the serious opinion of a philosopher, or as the jest of a buffoon. “The chief author and leader of the Nullibists,” he tells us, “seems to have been that pleasant wit, Renatus Descartes, who, by his jocular metaphysical meditations, has luxated and distorted the rational faculties of some otherwise sober and quick-witted persons.” To those who are at all acquainted with the philosophy of Descartes, it is unnecessary to observe, that, so far from being a Nullibist, he valued himself not a little on having fixed the precise ubi of the soul, with a degree of accuracy unthought of by any of his predecessors. As he held, however, that the soul was unextended, and as More happened to conceive that nothing which was unextended could have any reference to place, he seems to have thought himself entitled to impute to Descartes, in direct opposition to his own words, the latter of these opinions as well as the former. “The true notion of a spirit,” according to More, “is that of an extended penetrable substance, logically and intellectually divisible, but not physically discernible into parts.”

Whoever has the curiosity to look into the works of this once admired, and, in truth, very able logician, will easily discover that his alarm at the philosophy of Descartes was really occasioned, not by the scheme of nullibism, but by the Cartesian doctrine of the non-extension of mind, which More thought inconsistent with a fundamental article in his own creed—the existence of witches and apparitions. To hint at any doubt about either, or even to hold any opinion that seemed to weaken their credibility, appeared to this excellent person quite a sufficient proof of complete atheism.

The observations of More on “the true notion of a spirit” (extracted from his Enchiridion Ethicum) were afterwards republished in Glanville’s book upon witchcraft;—a work (as I before mentioned) proceeding from the same pen with the Scepsis Scientifica, one of the most acute and original productions of which English philosophy had then to boast.

If some of the foregoing particulars should, at first sight, appear unworthy of attention in a historical sketch of the progress of science, I must beg leave to remind my readers, that they belong to a history of still higher importance and dignity—that of the progress of Reason, and of the Human Mind.

, p. 107.

For an interesting sketch of the chief events in the life of Descartes, See the Notes annexed to his Eloge by Thomas; where also is to be found a very pleasing and lively portrait of his moral qualities. As for the distinguishing merits of the Cartesian philosophy, and more particularly of the Cartesian metaphysics, it was a subject peculiarly ill adapted to the pen of this amiable and eloquent, but verbose and declamatory academician.

I am doubtful, too, if Thomas has not gone too far, in the following passage, on a subject of which he was much more competent to judge than of some others which he has ventured to discuss: “L’imagination brillante de Descartes se décèle partout dans ses ouvrages; et s’il n’avoit voulu être ni géométre ni philosophe, il n’auroit tenu qu’à lui d’être le plus bel esprit de son temps.” Whatever opinion may be formed on this last assertion, it will not be disputed by those who have studied Descartes, that his philosophical style is remarkably dry, concise, and severe. Its great merit lies in its singular precision and perspicuity;—a perspicuity, however, which does not dispense with a moment’s relaxation in the reader’s attention; the author seldom repeating his remarks, and hardly ever attempting to il- 4