"Cartesianism" (Dissecting the false philosophy of Rene Descartes, BQR for July, 1874)

Cartesianism: Descartes’s System of Philosophy

Rene Descartes, who has had so great an influence on modern philosophical speculation and at one time had a numerous following, was born in the year 1596 at La Haye in Touraine, and studied philosophy in a college directed by the Jesuit fathers. In the twenty-first year of his age he became a soldier, and served in the wars with the Dutch, the Bavarians, and the Imperialists. He travelled much, and spent a considerable time in Paris. He left his native land in the year 1629 and went to Holland, where he devoted himself to philosophical studies. Having been invited by Christina, Queen of Sweden, he visited Stockholm in 1649, where he died in the year following 1650.

His philosophy may be briefly stated as follows: His method is “Universal Doubt;” his point of departure, Thought, considered as a mere subjective fact; and his principle, “Whatever is clearly contained in the idea of anything may be affirmed of it.” To establish philosophy as a science he began by doubting everything; but not being able to doubt the fact of his doubt, for to doubt a doubt is still a doubt, he took doubt as a certain fact. In doubt he saw thought, and in thought existence; whence his famous Cogito, ergo sum!

From these facts he deduced his principle namely, Whatever is contained in the idea of anything may be affirmed of it. Descartes’s universal doubt is to be taken either as real or as methodical; if real, it is universal skepticism, but universal skepticism gives us a very sorry method for establishing a sound philosophy. If I really doubt everything, I can have no point of departure. To erect philosophy upon universal doubt is as vain as to endeavor to build a castle in the air; it is the same as if a man, intending to build a house, were to weary himself in endeavoring to annihilate all the materials necessary for its construction. I can be no surer of the existence of my doubt after than before doubting it. If I am not certain of the existence of my first doubt, neither am I certain of my second doubt, by which I doubted the first, and if I really doubted the first, I must also really doubt the second, and so on ad infinitum. My conclusions can never be more certain than my premises, and if the former be doubted, so must the latter.

If his universal doubt is to be taken as methodical, then all his conclusions, in fact his whole system, must remain methodically doubtful, and hence it is uselessly assumed. To doubt that I doubt makes me no more certain of the existence of my knowledge. To know is just as much knowing as to know that I know, and if simply to know be not real knowing, then neither is it to know that I know. It is true, that in proving certain propositions we may for a certain moment speculatively doubt them until proved, yet the truth, by which such propositions are proved, cannot be doubted, otherwise the whole demonstration would remain doubtful.

A proof is a deduction of a less known from a known truth. Take away from man all certainty, give him universal doubt, and you take away from him the possibility of proving anything, you leave him nothing to stand on or to start from. Descartes’s famous Cogito, ergo sum, is and can be no proof of his existence. To prove or demonstrate is to is to deduce an unknown or a less known from a known truth. I can be no more certain of my thought than of my existence, and if I doubt my existence, I am bound to doubt the existence of my thought or my doubt, since what does not exist, cannot think or doubt.

Descartes tells me, I think, therefore I exist. If I deny that he exists, how will he prove his Cogito, or that he thinks? It is true, where there is thought there must be existence, since the non-existent cannot think, but this connection between the two terms does not at all imply that the one is more known than the other. Let me doubt my existence, and I must doubt the existence of my thought or of my doubt.

Descartes, moreover, never could arrive at any objective reality from a mere subjective fact. He is supposed to have acquired that principle of his, namely, “Whatever is clearly contained in the idea of anything may be affirmed of it, from the fact of seeing his existence contained in the thought; but suppose him deprived of this principle, how could he then affirm the one as contained in the other? To say that existence is contained in thought is to announce a simple fact, but to say, “Whatever is contained in the idea of anything may be affirmed of it,” is a general truth which he never could have derived from the particular fact. If he knows not already that general truth, how will he be able to assert with certainty the particular fact itself? It was not, then, from the fact that he derived the principle (if it be admitted as principle), but rather by the principle that he judged of the fact. A fact is a particular, a principle is general; a general truth is always more extensive than a particular fact, and to suppose that a general truth may be drawn from a particular fact is to suppose that conclusions may be more extensive than the premises; in other words, that conclusions may contain what is not in the premises. Let Descartes doubt the very first principle of philosophy, which says, It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time (“an objective truth which he must doubt according to his method”), and what will become of his Cogito, ergo sum? Yet this principle is an objective truth that existed long before either he or his thought existed, and still he imagined that he gained the certainty of his existence from his thought as a mere fact of consciousness, as he calls it; whereas without the principle of contradiction, which is an objective truth, he could never have asserted his thought to be a thought, nor existence to be existence.

Descartes’s philosophy was proscribed by the Holy See, chiefly, it would seem, on account of its universal doubt. He has, indeed, produced great uncertainty and confusion in philosophy, and had a disastrous influence on the intellectual world. By placing every objective truth in doubt, divesting himself of all certainty and centering himself within the Ego, or subject, he broke loose from the past and from every principle of knowledge, and proclaimed the absolute independence and sufficiency of the subject for itself. Man, however, is no more self-sufficient in knowing than he is in existing. His existence depends on God, and in some sense on creatures; so also, and even more so, does his knowledge.

Victor Cousin bestows great praise on that independent method of philosophizing inaugurated by Descartes, and insinuates that science was held captive by the Scholastics, and owes its deliverance and freedom to the author of the theory of Innate ideas.

There can however be no such thing as independence of method in philosophy. A method that does not depend on truth, or is not determined by principles which necessarily precede method, is no method at all. Method is the way or order which the intellect follows in setting forth, explaining, verifying, and combining in a scientific system, or in their apprehension. The intellect must then reproduce in science the same order that exists in reality, and this it cannot do unless it is guided by the order of reality which is founded on objective principles, and hence principles must determine method and not method principles. What becomes then of Descartes’s methodical independence or independence of method?

If I begin by doubting the existence of all certainty, and go in search of it by a method, how shall I ever be able to find it? How can I be certain of the method which I follow? For aught I know that method itself may be wrong. I must either doubt the method or hold it as certain; if I doubt it my case is hopeless, if I hold it as certain; the charm of universal doubt is broken and it was uselessly assumed. But then there arises the question, how do I know, or rather what rendered me certain of the correctness of my method? As has been said, principles must produce the method; if, then, I am certain of my method, I must be certain of those truths, and principles that make it correct. How absurd, then, to go in search of certitude with either a certain or an uncertain method. With a certain method I need not seek certainty, for I have it already; with an uncertain one I can do nothing, can never arrive at certainty.

Descartes must hold his method either as certain or as not certain. Is he certain of the correctness of his method? He must answer either yes or no, between which there can be no medium, since the terms are contradictory. If he answer in the affirmative, of what use was his doubt and his searching after certainty, since the certainty he has of his method presupposes already a considerable amount of science? If he answer in the negative, then the sooner he lays aside his uncertain method the better; let him rather study the principles, if he be guided by them, cannot fail to produce a correct or true method.

We said that the intellect must reproduce in science the order and method existing in reality. But is there any such order, method, or relation among truths? And what is the method and order of reality? If there were no order, relation, and mutual dependence, there would be as many independent, and consequently as many eternal beings as there are distinct substances, or distinct truths. This is absurd. Then there must be a real order or method. But what method? Is it analytic or synthetic? All created existences, and hence all finite truths (for truth is that which is), depend on God who created them, and who is the first truth in the order of reality. All creatures depend on God, not by the nexus of inherence as roundness inheres in a circle, to know which we need but analyze the idea of a circle, but by the nexus of causality, which makes the effect, though inseparable, yet distinct from the cause. Taking then God and creatures as a whole, the two terms in their true relation in which there can be nothing knowable, it follows, that the analytic method, if it begin with God must end with God, and on the other hand, if it begin with creatures must end with creatures, and hence the analytic method of philosophizing made use of by Descartes can produce no sound philosophy. Since the method of reality is synthetic, that of science must also be synthetic. When Descartes by his method doubted all objective reality, and centered himself with the prison of his own subjective consciousness, he could never by any imaginable logical process extricate himself and reach any reality beyond the subject itself, and what is more, he could not even so much as become conscious of the subject, for the subject, or the soul, is not intelligible per se, in itself and by itself alone. The cognoscibility of a thing is identical with the existence of a thing. So far as the existence goes, so far goes also the cognoscibility, and vice versa; when the one increases or decreases so does the other. The distinction is only logical, not real. Existence is truth, or rather a true fact, and truth alone is cognoscible, and nothing is cognoscible that has no cognoscibility. Hence the cognoscibility of a thing is the truth of a thing, and the truth of a thing is the thing true or the thing itself. What we then predicate of the existence of anything we must predicate of its cognoscibility.

But no finite thing exists in itself and by itself independent of God, therefore no finite thing is knowable in and by itself independent of God; hence Descartes, by his independent method and universal doubt of all objective truth, renders the subject itself unintelligible. How, then, from an unintelligible subject can he deduce the science of philosophy?

Hence follows the invalidity of Descartes’s method, and how very unjustly Victor Cousin praises him for the independence of his method. We maintain that principles must precede, determine, and direct method.

Balmes, in his excellent work on European Civilization, says something very much to our purpose. In the fifth chapter on instinct of faith in the sciences he writes: “Woe to man and to society, if the philosophic mania of wishing to submit all matters to a rigorous examination were to become general in the world; and woe to science, if this rigorous, scrupulous, and independent scrutiny were extended to everything. I admire the genius of Descartes, and acknowledge the signal services which he has rendered to science; but I have more than once thought that, if his method of doubting became general for any time, society would be destroyed.” In confirmation of this I will quote a few sentences from an article on “The Authority of the Scholastic Philosophy,” which appeared in the Dublin Review for July, 1869. The Review says, “The foundation by Descartes of what is called the modern philosophy may fairly be accounted the severest intellectual calamity which ever befell the Church. However much she suffered in other ways from the various heresies of successive centuries, intellectually she gained by them. For she was led in each case to investigate more profoundly, to analyze more carefully, to express more precisely, the dogma assailed, while its assailants were expelled from her territory, and had no power therefore to taint her atmosphere. But Descartes was no heretic (?) and therefore the result of his career is that for a very considerable period there has been mutual internecine war among Catholics, as to the very fundamentals of philosophy.” These extracts show plainly that Balmes and the author of the article in the Dublin Review saw the tendency and harm of Descartes’s method.

Descartes made a fearful blunder when he doubted of the existence of certitude. The question, whether we possess certitude, can have no place in sound philosophy. We may indeed inquire into the nature of certitude, may define it, and examine on what principles it rests, what are its conditions, what are its motives and objects; but to ask, “Have we or have we not certitude?” is a question that can never be logically solved, though treated and supposed to be demonstrated in numerous philosophical works. As soon as it is supposed to be a valid question that needs demonstration, so soon is all philosophy, all science, at an end. He who seriously asks whether there can be certainty must doubt its existence, and he who so doubts it can never prove it. Because to prove it, he should make use of arguments; but these arguments, by which he intends to prove the existence of certitude, must be to him uncertain, for if they were certain, he could not have made the inquiry. I do not ask if this or that is so, if I am certain that it is so; hence if I ask, Is there certitude? My question supposes that I have it not; and if I have it not, I cannot prove that I have it, for to prove that I have it, I should be certain of something by which to prove it. Besides, what is not, cannot be proved to be, and if I am supposed not to have certainty, and yet try to prove it, I try to prove that I have what I have not, which is sheer nonsense. As well might I try to make a poor man rich, by endeavoring to prove to him that he has plenty of gold, which he has not. Hence, to argue with a universal skeptic (if there ever was one) is a vain and useless task, because he cannot consistently admit anything I might advance against him. Fr. Rothenflue shows very well the utter impossibility of universal skepticism, the evils resulting therefrom to religion and society, to Church and state, tries very seriously to refute the skeptic by way of evolution as he calls it, showing that he must admit implicitly at least, facts and principles subversive of skepticism, but all these tremendous efforts can be of no avail to a skeptic, or to one who commences with universal doubt, as did Descartes, though they may do very well for one who admits the existence of certainty. To one who is not a skeptic, we may very well prove the impossibility, the absurdity, and the evils of skepticism, but to try and prove it to the skeptic himself, amounts to about the same as trying to prove it to cats and dogs. What is said of the universal skeptic, must, for the same reason, be said of one who seriously questions it, doubts it, and he who doubts it, denies, by his very doubt, that he has it, as does the universal skeptic; therefore Descartes’s method, which supposes doubt or question regarding the existence of certitude legitimate, must necessarily end in skepticism.

What private interpretation of the Bible independent of the authority of the Church, is in religion, is Descartes’s independent method in philosophy. He who in religion rejects all authoritative teaching, is not only incapable of interpreting with certainty all that the Bible contains, but cannot even prove or be certain that what he calls the Bible is the Bible; for this can be known only by authoritative tradition. So also was Descartes, according to his method, not only incapable of deducing every truth from a subjective fact, or fact of consciousness, but he could not even assert the subject to be subject, nor thought to be thought, for neither can be asserted without the authority of objective principles. Darras, who seems anxious to defend Descartes, says in his Church History, “The dangers of the Cartesian system were equal to its advantages.” He concedes that Cartesianism is as dangerous as it is advantageous. That it is dangerous no one can for a moment doubt, for an erroneous philosophical system is always dangerous, and that it is erroneous in its method and point of departure is, I think, sufficiently proved and generally admitted. The great Bossuet foresaw the dangers. “I see,” he exclaims, “a great struggle preparing against the Church, under the name of Cartesian philosophy.” It is easy to see, as Darras and Bossuet saw, the dangers of the Cartesian philosophy, but it is very difficult to see the advantages which Bossuet, Darras, and others thought they saw in it, since it clearly cannot establish science. Error is in itself always dangerous, but is it in itself ever advantageous? It may sometimes be an occasion that the dogmas assailed have been more profoundly investigated and more precisely expressed. In this sense the Cartesian method may have been advantageous to philosophy, but then it must not be forgotten, that in the same sense, heresies have been advantageous to theology.

Thus far we have discussed the method and point of departure, or principle of the Cartesian philosophy, without entering into details. We think it, however, not entirely useless to present to the minds of our readers its framework or schema, together with a few critical remarks.

Descartes, having started from a fact of consciousness, and imagining that by this means he had arrived at the knowledge of himself, thus proceeds: “1^st The soul knows itself subject to doubt, as limited and imperfect, therefore it has the idea of an absolutely perfect being; but this idea could not have been produced by the mind, since the mind (pensée) is an imperfect substance; therefore this idea must be innate, and as it can be innate in the mind only by means of a being absolutely perfect, it follows that an absolutely perfect being necessarily exists.

Secondly. An absolutely perfect being excludes all limits and imperfections, but bodies which we perceive, are limited, divisible, and imperfect, therefore God, who is absolute and perfect being, cannot be body, but must be an infinite spirit, whose imperfect image is the human soul.

Thirdly. God is the sufficient reason of all things and the principle of all truth; human cognition becomes absolutely certain only through God, who, by reason of his veracity and immutability, cannot deceive man, nor allow an evil spirit to do so, therefore the universe and all those truths of which we are certain exist.

Fourthly. The soul subsists per se and acts in feeling, knowing, thinking, and willing; to think actively is to will, and passively, to represent; but as representation is partly in the soul and partly in the body, and since matter cannot immediately act upon spirit, nor spirit upon matter, no other cause for these representations can be assigned than the immediate assistance of God.

Fifthly. The essence of the soul consists in actual thought, but the ideas of the mind, in reference to their origin, are of three kinds, namely, innate ideas, which are engraven within us; adventitious, which come from external objects, and factitious, which the mind combines from the adventitious ideas.

From this schema it would appear that Descartes intended to follow the method of the geometricians, by deducing succeeding propositions from proceeding ones, till he should have constructed the whole science of philosophy concerning God and the universe. Thus he imagined that he deduced his existence from his thought, his own imperfection from his subjection to doubt, the perfect from the imperfect, the existence of God from a subjective innate idea of God, and the certainty of all human cognitions from the veracity of God. Taking these propositions in their supposed connection and as results of what Descartes imagined to be analytical demonstration, we cannot fail to perceive what appears to us most glaring faults against the very first principles and rules of logic. We have already discussed his famous proposition, “I think, therefore I am,” Cogito, ergo sum, from which he supposed that he deduced by analysis all his other propositions. He next deduces the idea of a perfect being from the idea of an imperfect being.

But how can the idea of a perfect being be deduced from the idea of an imperfect being, when the imperfect does not include within itself or imply, though it may connote, the perfect? Ig my premises have only the imperfect, how can my conclusions contain the perfect? He may say the imperfect supposes the perfect, therefore I may conclude the one from the other. Be it so; but how does he know that the imperfect supposes the perfect, if he has not previously in his premises the perfect supposed? Before I can say this supposes that, I must have an idea of that, for if I have no idea of that I can have no idea that it is implied or rather that it is supposed in anything. How can he have even the idea of the imperfect, if he have not in his premises the idea of the perfect? To say this is imperfect, is to say that it is not perfect, and how can he say it is not perfect, if the perfect does not enter into his premises? Does he mean that the imperfect is inconceivable without the perfect, and that therefore from the imperfect the perfect may be concluded? But then how can anything be concluded from that which is in itself inconceivable? The totally inconceivable is to the mind equal to nothing, and from nothing, nothing can be concluded; hence from anything inconceivable, as long as it remains inconceivable, nothing can be concluded. I may indeed from the absurdity of one proposition conclude the truth of its contradictory, but this is done, not from the mere absurdity, but from the well-known principle which says: Between two contradictory propositions there can be no medium. If, then, the imperfect if rendered conceivable only by the perfect, the perfect must already be contained in the premises together with the imperfect, in which case no new truth is reached, but only a truth contained in the premises is evolved from the premises, which stood in a certain relation to, and had connection with the mind, inasmuch as the premises themselves in which that truth is contained were connected with the mind. Give me a truth wholly unconnected with any other truth, and I can no more raise myself to the knowledge and contemplation of any other truth by means of it than I can raise myself into the air by pulling at the hair of my head. Hence to conclude any one truth from some given truth, the connection of the two truths must enter into the premises; but as the connection is impossible in itself, and is inconceivable without the two terms connected together with the middle term that connects them, it follows, that the truth concluded, together with the truth from which it is concluded, must be in the premises, and the mind connected with the premises, and by that very fact already be connected with the truth concluded. How then could Descartes from the imperfect conclude the perfect, the existence of God from his own existence, the object from the subject, without the aid fo objective truth, or without having the truths thus deduced contained in the premises?

Descartes tells us, that from an innate idea of God, he proves the existence of God, because that idea can only come from God. But how does he know that it can come only from God? How does he know that there is a God at all? If he knows not that there is a God, he cannot prove that the innate idea comes from God. He proves the existence of God from the innate idea of God, and the certainty of the idea from the veracity of God, for he tells us, that all human cognitions become certain only through God’s veracity, therefore he can be certain of the innate idea only by supposing that God exists! How is Descartes certain of the existence and truth of the innate idea? Because God, who cannot deceive, has given it to him. How does he know that there is a God; he answers, I knew it by the innate idea. He thus always supposes the very thing to be proved, which is a manifest paralogism, a petitio principii, or vicious circle. If the veracity of God alone makes all human knowledge certain, what then becomes of all those arguments by which he endeavored to prove God’s existence and veracity? They must all remain uncertain, and if uncertain, they prove nothing; and proving nothing, he cannot be certain of either God’s existence or his veracity; and not being certain of God’s existence and veracity, he cannot bring forward the veracity of God as a proof of his innate idea; and not being able to adduce the veracity of God in proof of the innate idea, he cannot be certain even of the existence of that idea itself, according to his own principles.

Descartes, then, in proving, or rather in endeavoring to prove the innate idea by the veracity of God and the veracity of God by the innate idea, moves in a circle, from which he can by no logical process extricate himself. There are two fundamental errors in his arguments, one of which is the maintaining that the veracity of God is the primary principle and the sole motive of certitude; the other, that the idea of God is innate. That the veracity of God is a real and infallible motive of certitude in matters pertaining to faith, no one can deny. God is most perfect being; veracity is a perfection, therefore it must be in God; the very idea of God as most perfect being implies this. He knows all things, and can neither deceive nor be deceived, and hence, as soon as it is known that God exists and has spoken, His authority is a sufficient motive for believing whatsoever he has spoken and revealed. Human authority rests for its validity on the knowledge and veracity of the witness in so far as they are known to us; but as they cannot become known to us from the idea of man individually considered, inasmuch as he is an imperfect being who may deceive or be deceived, it follows, that circumstantial proofs must aid us in verifying the testimony of man. Not so with the testimony of God, whose authority, ipso facto, that it comes from Him, is a sufficient motive of certitude in matters of faith. No one, then, who believes in the existence of God can doubt his testimony without falling into contradiction. Thus far we agree with Descartes. Descartes failed, not I maintaining the veracity of God to be a motive of certitude in matters of faith, but in assuming it to be a first principle in matters of science; and that he does so assume it is evident from what he tells us, namely, that all human cognitions are rendered certain only through the veracity of God. This doctrine builds science on faith, and in fact, makes faith itself impossible, because it takes away the subject of faith, or at least renders it incapable of becoming the recipient thereof. Before I can make an act of faith in what God has revealed, I must know that God is, that God has spoken, and that the authority, communicating to me and explaining the revelation with its contents, can be relied upon. There are matters within the sphere of reason, and if reason be pronounced fallible in these, there will be no room left for faith, because reason it prerequired for faith, and hence reason is what St. Thomas calls the preamble, praeambula, of faith; hence, the Holy See has required of all to accept the following propositions, namely: That reason can prove with certainty the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will. Our act of faith in what God has revealed is by no means a blind and unreasonable act; on the contrary, it is an intelligent and a very reasonable act. It is intelligent and reasonable, because reason sees and can prove, that the motives of credibility are valid, and the validity of those motives once understood, faith in those matters that are above the comprehension of reason, but which it can prove to be true by proving the motives of credibility, is not only possible, but very reasonable. To withhold faith under such conditions would not only be faulty, but very unreasonable. Faith does not destroy and supplant reason, but aids and perfects it, as grace assists and perfects nature. To destroy reason in order to make room for faith, is as bad in philosophy, as it is in religion to destroy nature in order to make room for grace. The doctrine of total depravity makes religion an absurdity, an impossibility. A nature totally depraved can elicit no act that is either naturally or supernaturally good; it can elicit no natural good act, for then there would be no proportion between the cause and its effect; there would be some good in the effect which is denied to be in the cause; the effect, indeed, would surpass the ability the ability of the cause. Neither can it produce, even with the aid of grace, a supernatural act, for a supernatural and good or meritorious act can be produced only by the cooperation of nature with grace, but of such cooperation a totally depraved nature is wholly incapable. As a totally depraved nature is incapable of being perfected by grace, so also is a totally blind reason (which is in fact no reason at all) incapable of being enlightened by faith, or of receiving any certitude whatsoever. Descartes has therefore made science or philosophy impossible, by building it on the veracity of God as a first principle of certitude, which is the same as building it upon faith.

Comparing this doctrine with the doctrine Descartes started with, we see plainly that he not only errs without even logical consistency, but that he changes his very principles and contradicts himself. He started by placing a subjective fact of consciousness at the foundation of all certitude, now we find him setting the veracity of God in its place. At one time he thinks that he passes from the subject to the object by means of the subject, as in his famous Cogito, ergo sum, where he errs tremendously, and where he forgot that someone might have asked him what he thought, or whether he thought anything or nothing. And at another time he thinks of arriving at the subject from the object, namely, the veracity of God. Here he errs again, for there is and can be no such passage from the objective to the subjective nor vice versa - which this Review justly maintains and has so well proved. If we begin in the subject we must end in the subject; and on the other hand if we begin in the object to the exclusion of the subject, no possible analysis of either will bring us out of it. There can then be no passage from the one to the other, and hence pure psychologism or pure ontologism leads to nihilism or pantheism, which shows that the psychological and the and the ontological elements must be given simultaneously in their true relation, that is, in their real synthesis, or science is impossible. Thus far it has been sufficiently demonstrated, I think, that Descartes, in holding the veracity of God as sole and first principle of certitude, builds science upon faith, and thereby destroys faith no less than science. As well might a man try to make his blind neighbor see by holding a light before his face, or offer him a pair of spectacles in order to enable him to read, as to suppose him deprived of the first principles of reason and then offer to him the veracity of God in their stead.

His next mistake is in maintaining that the idea of God is innate. By idea is generally understood the mental apprehension of an intelligible object. Every apprehension or perception supposes that which perceives and that which is apprehended or perceived. That which perceives is called the subject, and that which is perceived is called the object. These two must mutually concur in the formation or production of thought. If the object be wanting, there can be no perception or mental apprehension, since that which is not, is not perceptible or apprehensible. Nothing is the absence of something, and absence of something can never be understood without understanding something that is absent. To think nothing is simply not to think at all – is, in fact, a contradiction in terms. The idea of God supposes the apprehension or rather intuition of something objective, and how can such an intuition be innate? To call this innate is to make the object innate as well as the subject. An idea embraces both the object and subject; if, then, the idea be innate, the objective element becomes entirely subjective. What is innate is inborn, is part, and parcel of the subject, therefore entirely subjective. If then the idea of God be innate, as Descartes maintains, it must be entirely subjective, and how can he by any logical process reach the object by the subject alone? The subject cannot weave science out of itself as a spider weaves its web out of its own bowels; such a process would not be learning objective truth, but becoming conscious of self by emanation. Science, I suppose, is to be considered objectively true; if not, it is no science at all and deserves not the same. Science does not create the truth; on the contrary, objective truth makes science true. It is not the subjective act of the mind that creates the object, but the object must be prior to the thought, and concur, as has been said before, in the formation of the act of thought.

What, then, does Descartes mean by innate idea? Does he mean that it is impressed upon the mind as a figure is impressed upon wax in which it inheres? But the figure or form impressed upon wax is nothing in itself distinct from the wax, is only the mode or form of the wax itself; in like manner can his innate idea be nothing else than a mere subjective form inhering in the mind, as Kant held, and the question returns, how can he, from this subjective form, conclude as to the existence of God? Descartes says, because it can come only from God, he alone could have impressed it; therefore God is. But if Descartes knows beforehand that God impressed it, he did not derive the knowledge that God is from the impression, and if from it he concludes the existence of God, his conclusion is rather sudden. What reason, what foundation has he for such a conclusion? This is an important question, which demands his serious reflection. He either has, or he has not, a reason for this conclusion from the innate idea, that God is; if he has a reason, then it was not the innate idea but the reason he had, that enabled him to prove that God is. And what is that truth or reason? Is it the veracity of God? But the assertion that it is, will not do; it will only involve a vicious circle. Is it the innate idea itself? If so, we are brought back again into the subject, his starting-point, and have made no progress. This shows that his innate idea can do nothing; if it could do anything, it could at most do no more than make itself be felt, but feeling, no matter of what nature, is very far from being identical with knowing. The fact is, Descartes can never get beyond innate idea by innate idea itself. He can never prove that it comes from God, unless he first knows that it first must have a cause, and this he cannot know, unless he knows what cause is, and that everything which happens must have a cause, otherwise he could never assert that his innate idea had a cause; for if the principle of causality were not true, or were not known as certain, something, for aught we know, might happen without a cause, then the innate idea might have no cause, and then he cannot prove that God is its cause. All this cannot be contained in the innate idea itself, nor in the simple judgment, “God is.” The principle of causality can by no process of reasoning be obtained analytically from the principle of Being, as some philosophers suppose, among whom may be counted Fr. Rothenflue, who maintains that all the principles of reason are implicitly contained in the principle of contradiction which says: Being is Being, and cannot at the same time be not Being. Victor Cousin also identified cause with being, and asserted that being is being only by fact that it is cause. This doctrine contains the germ of pantheism, for, if being be identified with cause, it follows that wherever being is, there must be cause, and where there is necessary being, there must be necessary cause, and as God is necessary being, he must also be necessary cause, which makes creation and creatures necessary, and hence no creation or creatures at all in the proper sense of the terms.

Thus far we have seen that Descartes by maintaining that the idea of God is innate, can never prove from it the existence of God. He, moreover, undermines the whole fabric of human knowledge by supposing that all universal, necessary, and immutable truths depend on the omnipotence of God; as if God by his omnipotence could make possible what is in itself impossible or contradictory.

We will quote a few sentences form his own writings, so that the reader may be able to judge for himself whether Descartes, who was considered the founder of a new philosophy and the heroic adversary of the Scholastics, really merits the name of philosopher. Whoever knows anything about logic and metaphysics knows also that there can be no science without universal, immutable, and necessary truths.

“De particularibus non datur scientia,” and “scientia non est nisi de universalibus” (necessariis), as says St. Thomas. Let us hear what Descartes has to say concerning necessary, and immutable truths.

In his Epistle p. 1, eps. 110, he says: You ask, in what manner of cause God disposed eternal truths? (which can only mean, In what manner do eternal truths depend upon God?) I answer, In the same manner as all created things; that is, He is their efficient and total cause…I know, certainly, that he is the author of all things, that these truths are something, and hence that he is the author of them…You ask, moreover, What compelled God to create these truths? I say, it was as free to him to appoint that the straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference of a circle should be unequal, as it was to create the world. Mathematical truths, which you call eternal, were made by God, and depend upon him, just as other creatures do…Fear not, I beseech you, to profess and everywhere to assert that these laws were ordained by God in nature, just as any king ordains laws in his realm, and they are implanted in our minds, just as any king would (if he would) engrave his laws in the hearts of his subjects.

Such is Descartes’s opinion in regard to necessary truths and principles of reason. It is, indeed, very certain that if there were no God, there could be none of these truths any more than creatures, but from this it by no means follows that the dependence of principles of reason, and of creatures upon God, is one and the same. I might as well say that the goodness, the eternity, and the immensity of God are creatures, because they depend on the Being of God, and would not exist if there were no God, as to say, that because principles of reason cannot exist without God, therefore God is their cause as He is the cause of creatures. Descartes always confounds what is to be distinguished; he confounds sufficient reason with efficient cause. God has the sufficient reason, but not the cause of His own existence in His essence, for He is necessary and eternal being, therefore uncaused. The relation of cause and effect is quite different from the relation of sufficient reason and rationatum. Take away this distinction, and either pantheism or nihilism inevitably results. An effect is outside of its cause, distinct from it, produced by an act ad extra, whereas the rationatum is the consequence of an immanent act, and is as such not really distinct from its sufficient reason. Sufficient reason (ratio sufficiens) and cause identified, the result can only be one, for, of two principles, of which the one is identified with and absorbed in the other, only one can remain. If the remaining principle be that of sufficient reason to the exclusion of the principle of causality, then there can be no cause, then no creator, then no creation, no creatures, and pantheism is the result. If on the other hand, the remaining principle be that of causality to the exclusion of sufficient reason, then God must be his own cause, then there can be no God, no creatures, and nihilism is the result.

Descartes, in implicitly identifying sufficient reason with efficient cause, must retain either the one or the other; if he retain only sufficient reason he is a pantheist; if he retain only cause, he is a complete skeptic. His explanation of necessary truths proves clearly that he understood very little of metaphysics; nor is this very strange, since he tells us that he lost mighty little time in reading philosophical works. He tells us that God might, if he wished, change necessary and mathematical truths; that he might make the lines drawn from the center to the circumference of a circle unequal, that is, God, might make a circle which in reality would be no circle; in other words, he might, if he wished, make a square circle! This puts me in mind of a number of little children who came to learn the first rudiments of their catechism, and who having been asked by the teacher whether God could make a stick without two ends on it, or a mountain without a valley, or a square circle, answered, with the exception of some few knowing ones: Yes, sir, because God is all-powerful and can do whatsoever he pleases.

If Descartes had been there he would undoubtedly have answered with the majority.

Cartesianism: Descartes’s System of Philosophy

If Descartes had been there he would undoubtedly have answered with the majority.