Till: /;/:/. /'.!> 7 ADDRESS. 



iin\ 4. In the seventeenth century Bacon and 

 philosophy* appeared iii slices- 



sion. Differently educated and endowed, their philosophic 

 tciide: re dilTeivnt. Bacon held fast to 1 nductioii, 



believing tirinly ii . 6 "f an external world, and 



making coilec lie basis of all know 



The mathematical studies of |)e>eartes gave him a bias 

 toward deduction; and his fundamental principle was 

 much the same a> tiiai of I'rotagoras, who made the indi- 

 vidual man the measure of all things. " 1 think, therefore 

 1 am." said 1 . Only his own identity was si 



him; and the full development of this system would ha\e 

 led to an idealism, in which the outer world would have 

 .veil into a mere phenomenon of consciousness, 

 (jassendi, one of Descartes* contemporaries, of whom we 

 shall hear more presently, quickly pointed out that the 

 fact of personal existence would he proved as well by refer- 

 ence to any other act, as to the act of thinking. I eat, 

 therefore 1 am. or I love, therefore I am, would be quite as 

 conclusive. Lichtenberg, indeed,, showed that the very 

 thing to be proved was inevitably postulated in the first 

 two words, "1 think;" and it is plain that no inference 

 from the postulate could, by any possibility, be stronger 

 than the postulate itself. 



Hut Descartes deviated strangely from the idealism im- 

 plied in his fundamental principle, lie was the first to 

 reduce, in a manner eminently capable of bearing the test 

 of mental presentation, vital phenomena to purely mechan- 

 ical principles. Through fear or love, Descartes was a 

 -ood churchman; he accordingly rejected the notion of an 

 ause it was absurd to suppose that (lod, if ll< K 

 <>uld not divide an atom; he puts in the place of 

 the atoms small round part ides, and light splinters, out of 

 which he builds the or^ani>m. He sketches with marvel- 

 li\>ical insight a machine, with water for its motive 

 , which shall illustrate vital actions. He has made 

 clear to his mind that such a machine would be competent 

 r\ en iiie processes of digestion, nutrition, growth, 

 respiration, and the heating of the heart. It would be 

 competent to ace.-j.t i m pi essions f rooi the external sense, 

 to store them up in imagination and memory, to go through 

 the internal movement 1 passions, and 



the external movement.^ of the limbs. He deduce.- 



