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principle. Its strong points were that it adhered to the Parmenidean distinction between the ideal and the real, and that, in spite of its childish theory of cognition, it accepted in practice the dicta of common sense. Descartes, as we have said, rejected or ignored the strong points of Scholasticism along with the weak. He not only cast aside its theory of cognition and its unattested doctrines, but he ignored the distinction between the ideal and the real, and called in question the deliverances of ordinary consciousness. Moreover, instead of developing the ground of the principle of contradiction, as recognized by St. Thomas, into a principle of all truth, and so placing cognition upon an irrefragable basis, he so far misunderstood the nature of such a principle that he set up, as the ground of all certainty, a mere fact, of which he had entire subjective persuasion, and which not only did not vouch for anything beyond itself, but could not even justify itself to intelligence. "Cogito" he began, and thought he had found the most certain and fundamental of all truths, forgetting that he had not made clear to himself the nature and grounds of certainty, and that "cogito" is a judgment, a mental operation very liable to error, and, therefore, requiring some certain universal principle to vouch for its correctness. He was, moreover, so ignorant of the complicated nature of judgment as not to see that all judgments, except those primitive synthetic ones in which being is predicated of feeling in order to form concepts, imply concepts previously formed and a faculty for holding them together and yet asunder, and that, in setting out with a judgment as the basis of certainty, he already assumed, without proof, many of those processes of intelligence about whose nature and validity we are least certain. All these defects become apparent as soon as Descartes began to use his one certain truth as the basis

for other truths. He found at once that it refused to act as the basis of anything. Accordingly, he first exchanged it for the other more extensive judgment "sum" (I am), thereby tacitly admitting the certainty of the concept of being, and falling into the Parmenidean error of identifying being with thought. Finding that, even after this change, he had advanced no farther than to be sure of his own existence, he next, in order to get beyond himself, assumed the whole content of thought, without attempting to explain how the existence of such a content had come about or was possible. But the validity of this content was the very thing towards which he had cherished systematic and principial doubt; therefore it could not be accepted without some ground. As the fact of his own existence furnished no such ground, he was obliged to lay down the general and arbitrary law, that whatever is as certain as the judgment "I am" is equally true, and, therefore, beyond doubt. In this way his metamorphosed first dictum, instead of being a principle of truth, became a measure of certainty. But, inasmuch as certainty, so long as it is not objectively defined, has no fixed limits, this standard remained utterly subjective, arbitrary, and vague. Descartes himself soon found out its defects, the chief of which was that it gave him only formal truths, and in no way vouched for the objective reality of phenomena. In order to reach this reality he was obliged to have recourse to the old rejected Scholastic paralogism of Anselm, refuted even in Anselm's own time by Gaunilo,* that the idea of God involves His real existence, and then to base his proof for the reality of phenomena on the justice and truthfulness of God.

That Cartesianism, in spite of its author's determination

*Cf. St. Thomas's refutation, Sum. contra Gent., lib. i. cap. xi. ; Sum. Theol., i. q. 2, art. 1, 2 m. Gaunilo's refutation occurs in his work Liber

pro Insipiente.

to accept nothing without rigorous proof and in spite of his far-famed method, is based upon a series of unreasoned facts, vague arbitrary rules, and subtle paralogisms, and that, as a philosophy, it is vastly inferior to Scholasticism, are facts which nowadays hardly require to be noted. Its good effects were almost purely of a revolutionary and negative kind,* while its evil effects were very positive. Of these latter the most momentous was, that it introduced into thought subjective persuasion, as the test and warrant of truth, thereby returning to the long-refuted position of Protagoras, that man is the measure of all things (Távτwv χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος). Most of Descartes other doctrines, after stirring up a brief enthusiasm in such men as Geulinx, Malebranche, and Spinoza, were consigned to the great limbo of departed error, into which men "look and pass on"; but this one has affected the whole of modern philosophy even to our own day.

Among the early students of Descartes was Locke, who replaced the doctrine that our warrant for the truth of cognition is the veracity of God, by a new theory of cognition, and thus saved Cartesianism from the early fate to which that doctrine would otherwise certainly have condemned it. According to this theory, the mind is a tabula vasa (γραμματεῖον ᾧ μηθὲν ὑπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γεγραμμένον), upon which all knowledge is written by experience, that is, by internal reflection on external sensation. It is needless to enter into the groundless assumptions, paralogisms, and absurdities of this superficial system. Suffice it to say that it abolished the distinction between the ideal and the real,†

*This remark does not, of course, apply to Descartes' mathematical and physical doctrines, some of which are of permanent value.

It is true that Locke continues to use the word idea, but with a new signification. Instead of meaning, as it did in ancient times, an object of thought, it means a notion, or term of sensitive perception.

thereby merged intelligence in sensation, and introduced impression as the explanation of the mode of cognition. Thus, through the united labours of Descartes and Locke, the ancient warrant for truth, viz., the principle of contradiction based upon the intuition of pure being, was replaced by subjective persuasion, and the ancient explanation of the mode of cognition, viz., the identity of subject and object, by the metaphor of an impression made on a wax tablet; while at the same time the distinction between ideality and reality, between intelligence and sense, was completely abolished. These changes or innovations explain the whole difference between ancient and modern philosophy, and amply account for all the achievements and failures of the latter, as compared with the former.

Modern philosophy set out with subjectivism and sensism, and its task has been to develop these to their ultimate consequences. And just as ancient philosophy, with its false doctrine of cognition and its undeveloped principle of truth, found its true expression in the inconsistent pantheistic materialism of Aristotle, so modern thought, with its subjectivism and sensism, found its actualization in the consistent scepticism of Hume. Moreover, just as ancient philosophy, instead of abandoning its first principles when it saw their consequences, eked out an existence in trying to avoid these consequences, by the introduction of mythical and poetic elements into thought, and thus continued to produce romantic systems like those of Plotinus and Jamblichos; so likewise modern thought, instead of turning its back on subjectivism and sensism, when Hume demonstrated their true nature, merely modified them a little by the introduction of common or innate mental forms, and thus made possible the factphilosophy of the Scotch school and the philosophic romances of Germany.

sense

When Hume, following upon the heels of Berkeley, had reduced the principles of Descartes and Locke to patent absurdity, philosophic thought in Northern Europe came for a moment to a sceptical standstill. Soon, however, it began to look about for some means which might enable it to move forward toward truth. In Scotland, Reid flattered himself that he had found such means in the data of common sense, but forgot that these data, being the very things which philosophy is intended to explain, must not be assumed. The acceptance of the data of common sense is always necessary in order to enable us to arrive at facts; but is always fatal to any attempt to reach truth as truth. In Germany, Kant imagined that he had found a way out of scepticism, by adopting, as his metaphor for mind, instead of a tabula rasa, a complicated mould, capable, in some unexplained way, of being rendered conscious of its own shape, and thereby also of the shape of what might be put into it. In these shapes Kant thought he had found a way to avoid at once the dogmatism of ancient thought and the scepticism of developed Cartesianism. But Kantianism, in spite of its good intentions, profound earnestness, and consequent permanent value, is in reality only systematized scepticism, a putting into positive form of the negative results arrived at by Hume. Instead of explaining the data of common sense, it merely makes an effort to explain them away, denying to man all knowledge of things as they are in themselves, that is, all knowledge of anything objective, and calling upon him to be content with the assurance that his subjective persuasions and imaginings hang consistently together.

Kant, although he did not see how cognition, whose forms he believed to be all subjective, could ever arrive at certainty of the existence of a world of reality (Dinge an sich) external to the mind, nevertheless did not venture

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