It would hence follow, that each monad, for example the human soul, draws every thing from itself, and in nowise receives the influence of this aggregation of monads called the body, and that the body in nowise submits to the influence of the soul. There would not be between the body and the soul reciprocity of action, there would be simple correspondence: they would be like two watches wound up at the same hour, which correspond exactly, but whose interior movements are perfectly distinct. But to deny the action of the body over the soul and that of the soul over the body, is, at the outset, to deny an evident fact which we may every moment prove both in the phenomenon of sensa tion and in the phenomenon of effort; then if it is not openly denying the existence of exterior objects, it is condemning the soul to ignorance of them, for it is condemning it not to go forth from itself, and reducing it to mere consciousness; it is then engaging philosophy in the way of idealism. Thus, after having some time suspended the struggle of systems, Leibnitz has therein fallen himself; after having tried to arrest the progress of exclusive schools, he has facilitated and hastened it: for it is Leibnitzism which has sown everywhere throughout Germany those seeds of idealism which at a later period bore their fruits. You conceive that empiricism is not destroyed by the hypothesis of pre-established harmony: it is a general rule that one exaggeration is never corrected by another; the greatest strength of our enemies lies in our own faults, and that which injures all schools is their exaggerated pretensions. You conceive, then, that the partisans of Locke, far from being arrested by the idealistic hypotheses of Malebranche and of Leibnitz, are, on the contrary, authorized by manifest vices, and, we may say, by the ridiculousness of these hypotheses, to plunge farther and farther into sensualism, and to push their principles even to the most deplorable consequences. In England, the friend and pupil of Locke, Collins,* denies positively the liberty of man. Locke *Born in 1676, died in 1729. had insinuated that it was not impossible that matter might think; Dodwell* changes this doubt into certitude, and undertakes to demonstrate the materiality of the soul, which greatly reduces the chances of immortality. In fine, Mandeville,† finding in Locke the theory of the useful as the only basis of virtue, concludes that there is no essential difference between virtue and vice, and thinks that too much evil has been said of vice, that after all, vice is not so much to be despised in the social state, that it is the source of a great number of precious advantages, of professions, of arts, of talents, of virtues which, without it, would be impossible. Behold the extravagances of the empiric shool: and what has it thereby accomplished? It has raised against itself new adversaries. Newton § and his disciple, Samuel Clark,|| contended against the irreligious consequences of the empiric school; Shaftesbury combated its moral and political tendency. Finally, Arthur Collier** and G. Berkeley,ft in order to put an end to materialism, denied the existence of matter. Berkeley, setting out with this scholastic theory preserved by Locke, that we conceive exterior objects only by the intervention and the image of sensible ideas, destroys the hypothesis of ideas, which should * Born at Dublin in 1642, died in 1711. ↑ A Hollander of French origin, a physician at London; born at Dordrecht in 1670, died in 1735. Fable of the Bees, London, 1706, 1714, 1728, translated into French, 4 vol. in-12, 1750. Helvetius has drawn much from it. § See his quarrel with Locke in the following volume, Lecture 15. Born in 1675, died in 1729. See his controversy with Collins and Dodwell, his sermons on the existence of God and his attributes, and his correspondence with Leibnitz. Complete Works, London, 4 vol., 1738–1742. ¶ On Shaftesbury and his opinion of Locke, 1st Series, Vol. 4, Lecture 11, p. 4-7. ** London, in-8. Clavis Universalis, 1713. We are acquainted only with the recent reprint made by Doctor Parr: Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1837. + An Irishman, born in 1684, bishop of Cloyne in 1734, died in 1755. Complete Works, 2 vol. in-4, 1784, and in-8, 8 vol., 1820. His two most celebrated works are the Alcyphron and the Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, both translated in French. On Berkeley, see 1st Series, Vol. 1st, Lectures 8 and 9. represent bodies, and hence, thinks that he has taken away the foundation of the belief in the material world, which he regards as an illusion of philosophy to which the human race has never given any credit. * From England, turn your eyes to France, you there find the same struggle between the school of Descartes and that of Gassendi. In Germany, if Wolf, the professor par excellence,† spreads Leibnitzism everywhere, do not forget the resistance, the persecutions even which he encountered; do not forget that there was more than one pupil of Locke among his adversaries. The struggle was more unequal in Italy. Fardella, at Padua, was an Augustinian and an idealist like Malebranche; at Naples, Vico, while violently combating the very unjust contempt. which Descartes had shown for the authority of history and languages, does not the less adopt his general philosophy, and he belongs to that noble idealistic school which has never been destroyed in the country of Saint Thomas and of Bruno. Nevertheless, Genovesi arose. Such, in 1750, was the state of empiric dogmatism and of idealistic dogmatism in Europe. You have seen that neither of these two systems escaped the consequences resulting from their principles; a struggle of an entire century presented conspicuously * Born at Breslau in 1679, privat Docent at Jena from 1708 to 1707, professor at Halle until 1728, driven away, afterwards reinstated, and died at Halle in 1754. His Latin and German works compose a whole library. + Vol. 1st, Lecture 12. Professor at Padua, died in 1718. His greatest work is entitled: "Anima humana natura ab Augustino detecta exponente Michaele Angelo Fardella, Drapanensi, sacræ theologiæ doctore, et in Patavino lycæo astronomiæ et meteorum professore... Opus potissimum elaboratum að incorpoream et immortalem animæ humanæ indolem, adversus, Epicureos et Lucretii sectatores, ratione prælucente, demonstrandam." Venetiis, 1698, in-fol. Born at Naples in 1668, died in 1744. On Vico, see the preceding volume, Lecture 11. The great work of Vico is: Principi di Scienza Nuova d'intorno alle Commune Natura delle Nazioni, Naples, 1725. The last edition which he himself published is the 3d, in-8, 1744. In 1712, died in 1788. all the vices attached to both. Hence should have arisen, and in fact soon enough did arise, a skepticism in proportion to the dogmatism which engendered it. As far, generally, as the extravagances of dogmatism are pushed, so far the boldness of skepticism will go; always, however, on two conditions: 1st, it is necessary that we should be in a century of liberty and independence, where alone, the extravagances of dogmatism bear their best fruits; we dare neither to doubt nor to appear to doubt, and terror stifles skepticism in the thought itself or therein retains it; 2d, it is not enough to be independent, it is necessary moreover to be accustomed to recur to self, to examine different principles, the different processes of systems, and to gather together their consequences and their principles; it is necessary, in fine, that the spirit of criticism should have acquired some strength. Now, call to mind that we are in the century of Bacon and of Descartes, in the century which established philosophy on the double basis of independence and of method. Skepticism, too, was not wanting in the seventeenth century; it was, as it must have been, in proportion to the vast and rich dogmatism, whose distinct momenta and principal representatives I have pointed out to you. In casting my eyes over the long list of skeptic philosophers which have appeared in the first age of modern philosophy, I cannot forbear dividing them at first into two classes, the true and the false. And here is presented a phenomenon of which I have already spoken to you,* and which we shall hereafter see reproduced, but which must be pointed out at its origin. Call to mind the necessary order of the development of the human mind, such as we have seen it by the rapid history which I have presented to you: we have everywhere seen philosophy spring from the midst of theology. Having sprung from it, it was at first divided into two dogmatisms, which have often resulted in the maddest consequences. It was impossible that the *See Lecture 4. ology should patiently behold an independent philosophy rise up beside it; and theology must have been so much the more afflicted to see the human mind escape it, as it saw it make a feeble trial of its strength. So, with very good intention, theology undertook (and this was its right and its duty) to recall the human mind to the sentiment of its weakness. It was thereby of great service; for it is of the utmost importance to remind dogmatism continually, that its basis is human reason, and that human reason has its limits. But if theology is still serviceable to the human spirit by reminding it of its weakness, this service is not entirely disinterested, and the secret or avowed, but very natural aim of theology, is to bring back the human spirit through the sentiment of its weakness, by exaggerating this sentiment somewhat, to the ancient faith, to the ancient authority from which philosophy set out. In fact, scarcely had independent philosophy, in the seventeenth century, produced a few attempts at idealistic and empiric dogmatism, when theology, gaining credit by the errors into which philosophy had fallen, hastened to place before it the picture of its faults in order to disgust it with its independence, and bring it back to faith. This artifice must have been often practised in Europe, for its secret was soon known. In 1692 this disguised skepticism was unmasked and combated, in a book whose title is very remarkable, Pyrrhonismus pontificus.* Nothing is more clear than the aim of Huet: he is dogmatical and theological. Bishop of Avranches, employed in the education of the youth of France, celebrated besides as a learned man, Huet, the warm adversary of Descartes and the friend of the Jesuits, after having written his famous Censure of the Cartesian Philosophy, left a Treatise on the Weakness of the Human Mind, the last conclusion of which is, that it is necessary to return to faith and adhere to it. This pretended skeptic is the author of the Evangelical Demonstration. But to whom is this demon * By Fr. Turretini, of Geneva; printed at Leyden. |