LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



The infinity of forms under which 

 matter appears was not imposed upon it 

 by an external artificer; by its own 

 intrinsic force and virtue it brings these 

 forms forth. Matter is not the mere 

 naked empty capacity which philosophers 

 have pictured her to be, but the universal 

 mother, who brings forth all things as 

 the fruit of her own womb. 



This outspoken man was originally a 

 Dominican monk. He was accused of 

 heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in 

 Geneva, Paris, England, and Germany. 

 In 1592 he fell into the hands of the 

 Inquisition at Venice. He was im- 

 prisoned for many years, tried, degraded, 

 excommunicated, and handed over to 

 the civil power, with the request that he 

 should be treated gently, and "without 

 the shedding of blood." This meant 

 that he was to be burnt ; and burnt 

 accordingly he was, on February i6th, 

 1 600. To escape a similar fate Galileo, 

 thirty-three years afterwards, abjured 

 upon his knees, with his hands upon the 

 holy Gospels, the heliocentric doctrine, 

 which he knew to be true. After Galileo 

 came Kepler, who from his German 

 home defied the ultramontane power. He 

 traced out from pre-existing observations 

 the laws of planetary motion. Materials 

 were thus prepared for Newton, who 

 bound those empirical laws together by 

 the principle of gravitation. 



IN the seventeenth century Bacon and 

 Descartes, the restorers of philosophy, 

 appeared in succession. Differently edu- 

 cated and endowed, their philosophic 

 tendencies were different. Bacon held 

 fast to Induction, believing firmly in the 

 existence of an external world, and 

 making collected experiences the basis 

 of all knowledge. The mathematical 

 studies of Descartes gave him a bias 

 towards Deduction ; and his fundamental 

 principle was much the same as that of 

 Protagoras, who made the individual man 

 the measure of all things. " I think, 

 therefore I am," said Descartes. Only 



his own identity was sure to him ; and 

 the full development of this system 

 would have led to an idealism, in which 

 the outer world would have been re- 

 solved into a mere phenomenon of con- 

 sciousness. Gassendi, one of Descartes's 

 contemporaries, of whom we shall hear 

 more presently, quickly pointed out that 

 the fact of personal existence would be 

 proved as well by reference to any other 

 act as to the act of thinking. I eat, 

 therefore I am, or I love, therefore I am, 

 would be quite as conclusive. Lichten- 

 berg, indeed, showed that the very thing 

 to be proved was inevitably postulated in 

 the first two words, " I think "; and it is 

 plain that no inference from the postulate 

 could, by any possibility, be stronger 

 than the postulate itself. 



But Descartes deviated strangely from 

 the idealism implied in his fundamental 

 principle. He was the first to reduce, 

 in a manner eminently capable of bearing 

 the test of mental presentation, vital 

 phenomena to purely mechanical prin- 

 ciples. Through fear or love, Descartes 

 was a good Churchman ; he accordingly 

 rejected the notion of an atom, because 

 it was absurd to suppose that God, if He 

 so pleased, could not divide an atom ; he 

 puts in the place of the atoms small 

 round particles, and light splinters, out 

 of which he builds the organism. He 

 sketches with marvellous physical insight 

 a machine, with water for its motive 

 power, which shall illustrate vital actions. 

 He has made clear to his mind that such 

 a machine would be competent to carry 

 on the processes of digestion, nutrition, 

 growth, respiration, and the beating of 

 the heart. It would be competent to 

 accept impressions from the external 

 sense, to store them up in imagination 

 and memory, to go through the internal 

 movements of the appetites and passions, 

 and the external movements of the limbs. 

 He deduces these functions of his 

 machine from the mere arrangement of 

 its organs, as the movement of a clock, 

 or other automaton, is deduced from its 

 weights and wheels. " As far as these 

 functions are concerned," he says, " it is 



