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This forms the advance of the last beyond Descartes, who either naïvely maintains that, in spite of the contrariety of material and mental substances, an exchange of effects takes place between them as an empirical fact, or, when he realizes the difficulty of the anthropological problem, how is the union of the two substances in man possible, ascribes the interaction of body and mind, together with the union of the two, to the power of God, and by this abandonment of the attempt at a natural explanation, opens up the occasionalistic way of escape.
If the quantity of motion is declared to be invariable and a change in its direction is attributed to mechanical causes alone, we must not ascribe to the soul the power to move the pineal gland, even in the gentlest way, nor to control the direction of the animal spirits. These inconsistencies also are removed by the occasionalistic thesis.
The occasionalistic theory certainly constitutes the preliminary step to the Leibnitzian; but an essential difference separates the two. With Geulincx mind and body act on each other, but not by their own power; with Leibnitz the monads do not act on one another, but they act by their own power. Geulincx's services to noëtics have been duly recognized by Ed.
In view of the rarity of these volumes, and the importance of the philosopher, it is welcome news that J.P.N. Land has undertaken an edition of the collected works, in three volumes, of which the first two have already appeared. The Hague, 1891-92. Geulincx bases the occasionalistic position on the principle, quod nescis, quomodo fiat, id non facis.
With reference to the importance, nay, to the indispensability, of linguistic signs in the use of the understanding, the science of the forms of thought is briefly termed grammar. The principle ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis, forms the connection between the occasionalistic metaphysics and ethics, the latter deducing the practical consequences of the former.
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