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Updated: July 9, 2025
But the significance of his speculation and that of Malebranche lies in the fact that the old theories of degeneration are definitely abandoned. Outside the circle of systematic thinkers the prevalent theory of degeneration was being challenged early in the seventeenth century.
Admitting the obvious truth that the world exhibits many imperfections, and allowing that the Creator could have produced a better result if he had employed other means, Malebranche argued that, in judging the world, we must take into account not only the result but the methods by which it has been produced.
The vanity of the man was too great for this; and he fell a sacrifice to the impetuosity of Irish youth, combined with his own absurd obstinacy. Leibnitz, being every way superior to Malebranche, one might, a fortiori, have counted on his being murdered; which, however, was not the case.
I was blind to all else, but how could I suppose that the ardour for thought which I heard praised in Malebranche and so many other saintly and illustrious men was blameworthy in me, and was fated to bring about a result which I should have repudiated with indignation if it had been foreshadowed to me.
How does the human intellect rise above modal limitations to become capable and worthy of the mystical union with God? 3. %Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle.% Returning from Holland to France, we find a combination of Cartesianism and mysticism similar to that which we have noticed in the former country.
"I am acquainted with thy Malebranche," said he; "he had something of the Friend in him, but was not enough so." These are the most considerable particulars I learnt concerning the doctrine of the Quakers. In my next letter I shall acquaint you with their history, which you will find more singular than their opinions.
The same fallacy led Leibnitz to his pre-established harmony, and Malebranche to his occasional causes. So, Cicero argues that mental pleasures, if arising from the bodily, could not, as they do, exceed their cause; and Descartes, that the Efficient Cause must have all the perfections of the effect.
The sword which malice puts in the assailant's hand would be powerless, if sophistry did not break the shield upon the arm of the assailed; and it is with good reason that Malebranche has inscribed at the opening of his book, "Error is the cause of human misery." See how it comes to pass. Ambitious hypocrites will have some sinister purpose; for example, sowing national hatred in the public mind.
Cooks have ever been a genus irritabile; authors still more so: Malebranche was both: a dispute arose; the old father, warm already, became warmer; culinary and metaphysical irritations united to derange his liver: he took to his bed, and died. Such is the common version of the story: "So the whole ear of Denmark is abused."
Condillac, who was Locke's immediate pupil and French interpreter, lost no time in turning the Lockeian sensationalism upon the metaphysics of the seventeenth century. He contended that the French had rightly spurned the latter as a clumsy product of the imagination and theological prejudice. He published a refutation of the systems of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Malebranche.
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