iv DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD 179 



the limits of knowledge when he declared that 

 a substance of matter does not exist ; and of illogi- 

 cality, for not seeing that the arguments which he 

 supposed demolished the existence of matter were 

 equally destructive to the existence of soul. And 

 it refuses to listen to the jargon of more recent 

 days about the " Absolute " and all the other hy- 

 postatised adjectives, the initial letters of the 

 names of which are generally printed in capital 

 letters ; just as you give a Grenadier a bearskin 

 cap, to make him look more formidable than he is 

 by nature. 



I repeat, the path indicated and followed by 

 Descartes, which we have hitherto been treading, 

 leads through doubt to that critical Idealism 

 which lies at the heart of modern metaphysical 

 thought. But the " Discourse " shows us another, 

 and apparently very different, path, which leads, 

 quite as definitely, to that correlation of all the 

 phenomena of the universe with matter and 

 motion, which lies at the heart of modern physical 

 thought, and which most people call Materialism. 



The early part of the seventeenth century, when 

 Descartes reached manhood, is one of the great 

 epochs of the intellectual life of mankind. At that 

 time, physical science suddenly strode into the 

 arena of public and familiar thought, and openly 

 challenged not only Philosophy and the Church, 

 but that common ignorance which often passes by 

 the name of Common Sense. The assertion of the 



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