xiv.j ON DESCARTES' "DISCOURSE." 331 



As a ship, which having lain becalmed with every 

 stitch of canvas set, hounds away before the breeze 

 which springs up astern, so the mind of Descartes, poised 

 in equilibrium of doubt, not only yielded to the full force 

 of the impulse towards physical science and physical 

 ways of thought, given by his great contemporaries, 

 Galileo and Harvey, but shot beyond them ; and antici- 

 pated, by bold speculation, the conclusions, which could 

 only be placed upon a secure foundation by the labours 

 of generations of workers. 



Descartes saw that the discoveries of Galileo meant 

 that the remotest parts of the universe were governed by 

 mechanical laws ; while those of Harvey meant that the 

 same laws presided over the operations of that portion of 

 the world which is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily 

 frame. And crossing the interval between the centre 

 and its vast circumference by one of the great strides of 

 genius, Descartes sought to resolve all the phenomena of 

 the universe into matter and motion, or forces operating 

 according to law. 1 This grand conception, which is 

 sketched in the "Discours," and more fully developed 

 in the "Principes" and in the "Traite de rliomme," he 

 worked out with extraordinary power and knowledge ; 

 and with the effect of arriving, in the last-named essay, 

 at that purely mechanical view of vital phenomena 

 towards which modern physiology is striving. 



Let us try to understand how Descartes got into this 

 path, and why it led him where it did. The mechanism 

 of the circulation of the blood had evidently taken a 

 great hold of his mind, as he describes it several times, 

 at much length. After giving a full account of it in the 



i l ' Au milieu de toutes ses erreurs, il lie faut pas micormaitre une grande 

 idee, qui consiste a avoir tente pour la premiere fois de ramener tous les 

 phenomenes naturcls a n'utre qu'un simple devclloppement des lois de la 

 mecamque," is the weighty judgment of Jiiot, cited by Bouillier (Histoire da 

 la Fhilosopliie Cartesienne, t. L p. 100). 



