104 
traces not the faculty of reason, knows 
well enough that he both feels and lives. 
But this.is not all, The great impor- 
tance which attaches to this doctrine, 
arises not only from its truth, but fromits 
being fundamental. Bacon has proposed 
to us a Novum Organum, (New Organ) by 
the exercise of which to remodel the un- 
derstanding: Descartes has furnished 
the jirst principle of that very organ, 
whereby every one may adapt it to his 
own use. Locke has presented a sur- 
prising connexion of known and positive 
facts. Descartes declares that positive 
and original fact, whence all others take 
their rise ; and affords a law, by which, 
without error or confusion, we may 
enter on and execute a complete analy- 
sis and synthesis of this almost intermi- 
nable chain, In a word, Descartes not 
only has expressed the result of expe- 
rience, but he has founded an experi- 
mental school of philosophy ; for it is he 
who hath laid the foundation-stone of 
that great building—it is he who hath 
discovered the whi consistam, the wherein 
consisteth, of human science ; and were 
we to erect a temple, consecrated to sci- 
ence, and open to universal adoration, 
it would be sufficient to engrave upon 
the frontispiece, “I Tuink, THEN, I 
AM,” as pass-words into the fearful 
" Majesty of its sanctuary. 
But what is man? Even when en- 
dowed with genius the most rare, still he 
is always feeble, always fettered, always 
finite. The Hercules of our veneration 
vanishes; the formidable demi-god_be- 
comes a mere mortal, trembling thing. 
If the first discovery of meditative 
reason is, that “ we think,” and therefore 
that “ we exist”—the second, in the 
natural course of things, should induce 
us to examine what it is to think, and 
what are the conditions imposed upon 
our evistence. It is then that, from the 
former evidence of conscience, we arrive 
at further evidences of the same kind: 
it is then that science, revealing the un- 
known by mean of the known, gradually 
disengages itself from the imposing forms 
of previous entanglement, by the opera- 
tion of a series of evident and well-di- 
gestedtruths. But Descartes, with Bacon, 
has not sufficiently refiected that, far 
from its being necessary to add wings to 
the human understanding, it must rather 
be restrained in its speed by leaden 
weights. The -right way has been dis- 
covered, but'a calm and measured paceis 
not yet attained: that demands long 
and. patient devotement, and method, 
Philosophy of Descartes. 
[Sept. 1, 
quietly to unloose those shackles which 
rude and precipitate strength would 
burst! Seduced by the impetuosity of 
his genius, Descartes carelessly resigns 
himself to all the advantages of his first 
conceptions. His systematic doubts are 
hastily laid aside—he finishes by perfect 
dependance upon higher reasonings. At 
first, he said, “ He thought,” and ‘‘ he 
existed ;” now, he speaks of the imma-_, 
terial nature of the soul, and: of the in- 
finite essence of Almighty God. 
And who will dare to question these 
great truths ?—But, let us not wander 
from our subject; which is not here to 
raise or express doubts or certainty on 
these points. Our endeavour must be, 
to show whether or not these two ideas 
possess. an evidence so intuitive, so: 
universal, as to demand immediate place 
after that simple mction of our con- 
science, by which, .with unhesitating’ 
boldness, we may cry, I think, then, I 
am! Descartes aimed at no compila- 
tion of detached maxims: he wished to 
re-organize the laws of science. It was 
not enough for him, therefore, to de- 
clare truths; he wished to show them 
in intimate and inseparable union—to 
show that each truth, while it afforded 
a germ to that which followed, was itself 
originated by the preceding; while the 
one passes on from the other, as two 
follows one, three two, four three, and 
soon. But when I see this great man, 
scarcely persuaded_ that he exists—be- 
cause he thinks, rise at once to the con- 
sideration of the native principle of 
thought, without even inquiring what 
may be the cause or.action of thought ; 
when I see him endeavour, with more 
extraordinary audacity, to embody an 
idea of the Creator, without having, 
beforehand, conceived that of the crea- 
ture, which should have been a ladder 
by which to climb:the heights of scienee ; 
I have a right to conclude, that he over- 
steps his own rule—that he has lost the 
clue his brilliant genius had confided to 
him; that, instead ‘of a continued chain 
of truths, each exposing and explaining 
each, he shows only the broken links of , 
such chain, thrown hither and thither, 
in such utter confusion, that, wanting 
the intermediate links, they connexion 
seems impossible. For it,does not follow 
—that, an idea being true, it therefore 
must be simple, and may be arranged in. 
any casual order in the intellectual. 
chain. Thus, while it is true. that 
nothing simple and intuitive is known res 
specting God and the soul,—among the 
philosophers 
