iv DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD 181 



Descartes saw that the discoveries of Galileo 

 meant that the remotest parts of the universe 

 were governed by mechanical laws ; while those 

 of Harvey meant that the same laws presided over 

 the operations of that portion of the world which 

 is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily frame. 

 And crossing the interval between the centre and 

 its vast circumference by one of the great strides 

 of genius, Descartes sought to resolve all the 

 phenomena of the universe into matter and 

 motion, or forces operating according to law. 1 

 This grand conception, which is sketched in the 

 "Discours," and more fully developed in the 

 * Principes " and in the " Traite de 1'Homme," he 

 worked out with extraordinary power and know- 

 ledge ; and with the effect of arriving, in the last- 

 named essay, at that purely mechanical view of 

 vital phsenomena towards which modern phy- 

 siology is striving. 



Let us try to understand how Descartes got 

 into this path, and why it led him where it did. 

 The mechanism of the circulation of the blood had 

 evidently taken a great hold of his mind, as he 

 describes it several times, at much length. After 

 giving a full account of it in the " Discourse," and 



1 Au milieu de toutes ses erreurs, il ne faut pas meconnaitro 

 une grande idee, qui consiste a avoir tente pour la premiere fois 

 de ramener tons les phenomenes naturels a n'etre qu'un simple 

 develloppement des lois de la mecanique," is the weighty judg- 

 ment of Biot, cited by Bouillier (Histoire de la, Philosophic 

 Cartesiennc, t. i. p. 196). 



