THBIS'M AND E VOL UTION. 301 



Occasionalism. 



The Evolution, however, of Augustine and 

 Aquinas, I must here remark, excludes the Occasion- 

 alism of Geulincx and Malebranche as much as it 

 does the specific creation of the older philosophers. 

 In the opinion of the Cartesians, just mentioned, 

 there are no second causes ; God is the sole Cause in 

 the universe. The operations of nature, far from 

 being the result of second causes, as the Angelic 

 Doctor teaches, are due " exclusively to the action 

 of God, who takes occasion of the due presence of 

 what we should call .secondary causes, with the sub- 

 jects of operation, to produce, Himself, all natural 

 effects ;" Who, for instance, " takes an act of the 

 will as the occasion of producing a corresponding 

 movement of the body, and a state of the body as 

 the occasion of producing a corresponding mental 

 state." According to the doctrine of occasional 

 causes, " body and mind are like two clocks which act 

 together, because at each instant they are adjusted 

 by God." Not only is God the cause of the con- 

 comitance of bodily and mental facts; He is the 

 cause of their existence, their sequence and their 

 coexistence as well. The efficient causality is elim- 

 inated entirely from the scheme of creation and de- 

 velopment, and God acts directly and immediately, 

 not indirectly and mediately, in all the phenomena, 

 and in all the countless and inconceivable minutiae 

 of the universe. 1 The refutation of this opinion 



1 A view similar to, if not identical with Occasionalism, is 

 held by Mr. John Fiske. The doctrine of secondary causes, as 

 above explained, he calls " the lower, or Augusttnian Theism," 



