Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/46

 33 DKSCARTES of intellectual development. It is also easy to, his doctrine of substance the pauthe- ..etilations .f Spino/a, Kirhte, and He- irel hi short, tlu- MhfllMf of Geulincx, Leib- folt, Kant, ami perhaps of Swcdenborg, an- all more >r K->s directly affiliated to the great leading idea- .f the French thinker. As u who!. B, it is not surprising that his produced an instant and vivid sensa- tion. The scholastics were astonished by an assault at once so radical and so vital; the a skepticism more searching than rising into the most solid religious faith ; while the 'independent men of science, who had Ion- been struggling against the methods of the old dialectics, received with joy a doc- trine which seemed to place their researches on an immovable foundation, and to promise to crown them with the richest fruits of prog- ress. For a while Descartes threatened to succeed to the place of absolute dictation and mastery which had been so long assigned to Ari>totle. His influence passed from the dorter and the study to popular literature ; all the great writers of the age of Louis XIV. were tinctured by it; but just as it appeared to have attained a universal acceptation, it began as rapidly to fade and shrink. The rea- sons of this decline are to be found partly in the growth of Locke's sensational philosophy; partly in the demonstrated impotence of Des- cartes's principles to resolve many of the high- er problems to which he aspired ; but chiefly in the discoveries of Newton and the progress of physics, which discredited his physical theories, and therefore brought his metaphys- ical conclusions into distrust. The theory of vortices, by which he endeavored to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies, gave place to the simpler theory of Newton as to a law of universal gravitation ; but science has not ceased to confess its obligations to Des-
 * r his important discoveries as to the

application of algebra to geometry, his contri- butions to dioptrics, to mechanics, and to hy- drostatics, and for that fearless spirit of inves- tigation which, if it led him into mistakes, en- al'led him also to anticipate many truths as- cribed to a later period. After the death of n addition to the works already mentioned, were published Le monde de Des- 1 ft it;- d,' l,i liimiere (12mo, Paris, 1664) ; Le traite de Vhomme et de la formation ", Paris, 1664) ; and Le* lettres de Dmart* CJ vols. 4to, 1657-'67). The principal complete editions of his writings are: Opera Omnia (8 vols., Amsterdam, 1670-'83); pletet de Descartes (9 vols., Paris, irr> n cniufdctes de Descartes, by Vic- i-in (11 vols., 1824-'6), which is per- haps the III.I.M peri'.-i-t edition; and (Euvre* //A/y'"* ,/, I>,*r,irt,* (is:{5), by Gar- ni-r, who added a life and a thorough analysis of all his writing-. The dissertations on his philosophy are almost without number, but -t useful or curious are comprised DESCENT in the following list : Eecueil de pieces curi- euses concernant la philosophic de Descartes, published by Bayle (Amsterdam, 1684) ; Mi- moires pour servir d Vhistoire du Cartesia- nisme, by Huet (Paris, 1693); Memoires sur la persecution du Cartesianisme, by Cousin (Paris, 1838) ; Histoire et critique de la revo- lution cartesienne, by M. Francisque Bouillier (2 vols., Paris, 1842); and Le Cartesianisme, ou la veritable renovation des sciences, by Bor- dau-Demoulin (2 vols., Paris, 1843). Of late years the study of Descartes has revived among the French philosophers. See Damiron's Essai sur Vhistoire de la philosophic en France au XIX e siecle (1828) and Essai sur Vhistoire de la philosophie au XVI* siecle (1846) ; Bouil- lier's Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne (2 vols., 1854; 2d ed., 1867) ; and Millet's Des- cartes, sa vie, &c. (1867). DESCENT, in law, the transmission of an estate in lands by operation of law, upon the decease of a proprietor, without any disposi- tion thereof having been made by him. The term is derived from a principle existing until very recently in the English law, that an in- heritance could never lineally ascend, yet upon failure of lineal descendants it could ascend collaterally. Thus the father could not be the heir of his son, but the uncle could inherit from the nephew. There was therefore an inaptness in the expression even as used in the common law doctrine of inheritance, and still greater incongruity in American law, .which allows a lineal ascent from the son to the father. Succession is the more appropriate phrase in the Koman law, and from that adopted in the French and other modern systems. Gibbon has well remarked that the Roman law of hereditary succession " deviated less from the equality of nature than the Jew- ish, Athenian, or English institutions." The oldest son of a Hebrew inherited a double por- tion. By the Athenian law the sons inherited jointly, but the daughters were wholly de- pendent upon what provision their brothers might choose to give them by way of marriage portion. The English law of primogeniture gives, not a larger portion, but the whole, to the eldest son ; and in various other respects which will be presently referred to, the natural order of equity is singularly disregarded in the law of descent. On the other hand, by the Roman law, when a man died intestate, all his children, both sons and daughters, inherited alike ; and in case of the decease of either, the descendants of the decedent would take such share as would have belonged to him or her. The distinction of agnates and cognates was indeed introduced at an early period, whereby the descendants of females, who were called cognates, were excluded ; but by imperial con- stitutions they were restored to the right of succession, with a diminution of a third in favor of the agnates, that is, descendants of males, and even this discrimination was abro- gated by Justinian. On failure of lineal de-