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Updated: May 5, 2025
The Plurality of Worlds was a contribution to the task of transforming thought and abolishing ancient error; but the History of Oracles which appeared in the following year was more characteristic. It was a free adaptation of an unreadable Latin treatise by a Dutchman, which in Fontenelle's skilful hands becomes a vehicle for applying Cartesian solvents to theological authority.
The divergences from his predecessors, however, especially the extension of mechanism to mental phenomena and the denial of the freedom of the will, inseparable from this, result simply from the more consistent application of Cartesian principles.
This combines the Baconian ideal of the extension of knowledge with the Cartesian ideal of certainty in knowledge. It is synthetic judgments alone which extend knowledge, while analytic judgments are explicative merely.
But this rational soul is a very needless appendage to either the Cartesian or the Huxleian system, wherein, if its post be not a literal sinecure, there is, at any rate, little or nothing for it to do which might not quite as well be done without it.
Thus intrenched, as the Cartesian system was, in the strongholds of the human mind, and fortified by its most obstinate prejudices, it was not to be wondered at that the pure and sublime doctrines of the Principia, were distrustfully received and perseveringly resisted.
And they proceed to seek to establish the substantiality of the soul, hypostatizing the states of consciousness, and they begin by saying that this substance must be simple that is, by opposing thought to extension, after the manner of the Cartesian dualism.
The next phase of his development gave him a direct knowledge of Cartesian writings, and of other modern books beside, such as those of the atomist Gassendi. He was delighted with what he read, because of its fertility in the field of physics and mathematics; and for a short time he was an enthusiastic modern. But presently he became dissatisfied.
The Cartesian school, as a whole, however, exhibits a tendency toward mysticism, which was concealed to a greater or less extent by the rationalistic need for clear concepts, but never entirely suppressed.
The further we penetrate into the knowledge of natural phenomena, the clearer and the more developed becomes the bold Cartesian conception regarding the mechanism of the universe. There is nothing in the physical world but matter and movement."
By and by this was merged into a discussion some recent book. They seemed to get deeply interested in a dispute as to whether Spinoza was or was not at any time in his life a Cartesian.
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