248 THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 



"Would that the rest of the phenomena of 

 nature could be deduced by a like kind of reason- 

 ing from mechanical principles. For many cir- 

 cumstances lead me to suspect that all these 

 phenomena may depend upon certain forces, in 

 virtue of which the particles of bodies, by causes 

 not yet known, are either mutually impelled 

 against one another and cohere into regular 

 figures, or repel and recede from one another; 

 which forces being unknown, philosophers have as 

 yet explored nature in vain. But I hope that, 

 either by this method of philosophizing, or by 

 some other and better, the principles here laid 

 down may throw some light upon the matter." * 



extra-natural a something divinely created and added to 

 the anthropoid mechanism. He thus provided their favour- 

 ite resting-place for the supra-naturalistic evolutionists of 

 our day. 



Descartes' denial of sensation to the lower animals is a 

 necessary consequence of his hypothesis concerning the na- 

 ture and origin of the soul. He was too logical a thinker 

 not to be aware that, if he admitted even the most elemen- 

 tary form of consciousness to be a product or a necessary 

 concomitant, of material mechanism, the assumption of the 

 existence of a thinking substance, apart from matter, would 

 become superfluous. [18941. 



* "Utinam caetera naturae phenomena ex principiis 

 mechanicis, eodem argumentandi genere, derivare licet. 

 Nam multa me movent, ut nonnihil suspicer ea omnia ex 

 viribus quibusdam pendere posse, quibus corporum particu- 

 lae, per causas nondum cognitas, vel in se mutuo impellun- 

 tur et secundum figuras regulares cohaerent vel ab invicem 

 fugantur et recedunt; quibus viribus ignotis, Philosophi 

 hactenus Naturam frustra tentarunt. Spero autem quod 

 rel huic philosophandi modo, vel verion, alicui, principia 

 hie posita lueem aliquam praebebunt." Preface to First 

 Edition of Principia, May 8, 1686. 



