Des Cartes has, from the vagueness of some of his statements, subjected himself to the charge of asserting the existence of innate ideas, and the following quotations will speak for themselves on the subject:—"When I said that the idea of God is innate in us, I never meant more than this, that Nature has endowed us with a faculty by which we may know God; but I have never either said or thought that such ideas had an actual existence, or even that they were a species distinct from the faculty of thinking.... Although the idea of God is so imprinted on our minds, that every person has within him the faculty of knowing him, it does not follow that there may not have been various individuals who have passed through life without ever making this idea a distinct object of apprehension; and, in truth, they who think they have an idea of a plurality of Gods, have no idea of God whatever." This seems explicit as negativing the charge of holding the doctrine of innate ideas; but in the Edinburgh Review several passages are given, amongst which is the following:—"By the word idea I understand all that can be in our thoughts; and I distinguish three sorts of ideas—adventitious, like the common idea of the sun, framed by the mind, such as that which astronomical reasoning gives of the sun; and innate, as the idea of God, mind, body, a triangle, and generally all those which represent true, immutable, and eternal essences." With regard to these rather opposite statements, Lewes says, "If Des Cartes, when pressed by objections, gave different explanations, we must only set it down to a want of a steady conception of the vital importance of innate ideas to his system. The fact remains that innate ideas form the necessary groundwork of the Cartesian doctrine.... The radical error of all ontological speculation lies in the assumption that we have ideas independent of experience; because experience can only tell us of ourselves or of phenomena; of noumena it can tell us nothing.... The fundamental question, then, of modern philosophy is this—Have we any ideas independent of experience?"
Des Cartes's disciples are of two classes, the "mathematical cultivators of physic," and the "deductive cultivators of philosophy." The first class of disciples are far in advance of their chief, and can only be considered as having received an impulse in a true direction. The second class unhesitatingly accepted his principles, and continued his thinking, although they developed his system in a different manner, and arrived at stronger conclusions than Des Cartes's courage would have supported. Some of the physical speculations of Des Cartes have been much ridiculed by subsequent writers; but many reasons may be urged, not only against that ridicule, but also against the more moderate censure which several able critics have dealt out against the intellectual character of Des Cartes. It should be remembered that the theories of all his predecessors were mere conjectural speculations respecting the places and paths of celestial bodies, etc. Innumerable hypotheses had been formed and found useless; and we ought rather to look to what Des Cartes did accomplish under the many difficulties of his position, in respect to the then, state of scientific knowledge, than to judge harshly of those speculations, which, though attended with no beneficial result to humanity at large, were doubtless well intended by their author. He was the first man who brought optical science under the command of mathematics, by the discovery of the law of refraction of the ordinary ray through diaphanous bodies; and probably there is scarcely a name on record, the bearer of which has given a greater impulse to mathematical and philosophical inquiry than Des Cartes. Although, as a mathematician, he published but little, yet in every subject which he has treated he has opened, not only a new field lor investigation, but also a new road for the investigators to proceed by. His discovery of the simple application of the notation of indices to algebraical powers, has totally remodelled the whole science of algebra. His conception of expressing the fundamental property of curve lines and curve surfaces by equations between the co-ordinates has led to an almost total supersedence of the geometry of the ancients. Contemporary with Galileo, and with a knowledge of the persecution to which that father of physics was being subjected by the Church, we are tempted to express our surprise that Des Cartes did not extend the right hand of fellowship, help, and sympathy to his brother philosopher; but it is, nevertheless, the fact, that either jealous of the fame of Galileo (as some have alleged.) or from a fear of being involved in the same persecutions, Des Cartes abstained from visiting the astronomer, although travelling for some time near his place of abode in Italy. Lewes, in his "Life of Des Cartes," says, "Des Cartes was a great thinker; but having said this we have almost exhausted the praise we can bestow on him as a man. In disposition he was timid to servility. While promulgating the proofs of the existence of the Deity, he was in evident alarm lest the Church should see something objectionable in them. He had also written an astronomical treatise; but hearing of the fate of Galileo he refrained from publishing, and always used some chicanery in speaking of the world's movement. He was not a brave man; he was also not an affectionate one. There was in him a deficiency of all finer feelings. But he was even-tempered, and studious of not giving offence."
We are tempted, after a careful perusal of the life and writings of Des Cartes and his contemporaries, to be of opinion that he was a man who wished to be considered the chief thinker of his day, and who shunned and rejected the offers of friendship from other philosophers, lest they, by being associated with him, should jointly wear laurels which he was cultivating solely to form a crown for himself. Despite all, his brow still bears a crown, and his fame has a freshness that we might all be justly proud of, if appertaining to ourselves.
We trust that in these few pages we have succeeded in presenting Des Cartes, to such of our readers who were unacquainted with his writings, sufficiently well to enable them to appreciate him, and to induce them to search further; and at the same time we hope that those better acquainted with him will not blame as for the omission of much which they may consider more important than the matter which appears in this little tract. We have endeavored to picture Des Cartes as the founder of the deductive method, as having the foundation-stone of all his reasoning in his consciousness.
M. DE VOLTAIRE.
François Marie Arouet, better known by the name of Voltaire, was born at Chatenay, on the 20th of February, 1694. By assuming the name of Voltaire, young Arouet followed the custom, at that time generally practiced by the rich citizens and younger sons, who, leaving the family name to the heir, assumed that of a fief, or perhaps of a country house. The father of M. de Voltaire was treasurer to the Chamber of Accounts, and his mother, Margaret d'Aumart, was of a noble family of Poitou. The fortune which the father enjoyed, enabled him to bestow a first-class education upon the young Arouet, who was sent to the Jesuits' College, where the sons of the nobility received their education. While at school, Voltaire began to write poetry, and gave signs of a remarkable genius. His tutors, Fathers Poree and Jay, from the boldness and independence of his mind predicted that he would become the apostle of Deism in France. This prediction he fulfilled. "Voltaire was," says Lord Brougham, "through his whole life, a sincere believer in the existence and attributes of the Deity. He was a firm and decided, and an openly declared unbeliever in Christianity; but he was, without any hesitation or any intermission, a Theist." His open declaration of disbelief in the inspiration of the Bible, and his total rejection of the dogmas of Christianity, laid him open to the malignant attacks and misrepresentations of the priesthood and the bigots of Europe; and so strong were they, that his life was continually in danger. Lord Brougham, in his "Men of Letters of the Time of George III.." says:—"Voltaire's name is so intimately connected in the minds of all men with Infidelity, in the minds of most men with irreligion, and, in the minds of all who are not well-informed, with these qualities alone, that whoever undertakes to write his life and examine his claims to the vast reputation which all the hostile feelings excited by him against himself have never been able to destroy, or even materially to impair, has to labor under a great load of prejudice, and can hardly expect, by any detail of particulars, to obtain for his subject even common justice at the hands of the general reader."
Voltaire was born in a corrupt age, and in a capital where it was fashionable to be immoral. When he left College, he was introduced by his own godfather, the Abbe de Chateauneuf, to the notorious Ninon de l'Enclos, who, at her death, left him by will two thousand livres to purchase books. In estimating the character of Voltaire, a due consideration must be had for the period in which he lived, and of the nature of the society amidst which he was reared. He lived twenty, years under the reign of Louis XIV., and during the whole of the reign of the infamous Louis XV., when kings, courtiers, and priests set the example of the grossest immorality. It was then, as Voltaire said, "that to make the smallest fortune, it was better to say four words to the mistress of a king, than to write a hundred volumes."
Voltaire's life, from his youth upwards, was a stormy one. After he left College, his father, finding him persist in writing poetry, and living at large, forbade him his house. He insisted upon his son binding himself to an attorney. But his restless disposition quite unfitted him for regular employment, and he soon quitted the profession. He early made the acquaintance of the most celebrated men of his time, but his genius, his wit, and his sarcasm, soon raised up numerous enemies. At the age of twenty-two, he was accused of having written a satire upon Louis XIV., who was just dead, and was thrown into the Bastile. But he was not cast down. It was here that he sketched his poem of the "League," corrected his tragedy of "Oedipus," and wrote some merry verses on the misfortune, of being a prisoner. The Regent, Duke of Orleans, being informed of his innocence, restored him to freedom, and granted him a recompense. "I thank your royal highness," said Voltaire, "for having provided me with food; but I hope you will not hereafter trouble yourself concerning my lodging."
Voltaire, with his activity of mind, and living to so great an age, must necessarily produce many works. They are voluminous, consisting of history, poetry, and philosophy. His dramatic pieces are numerous, many of which are considered second only to Shakespeare's. "Oedipus," "Zadig," "Ingénu," "Zaire," "Henri-ade," "Irene," "Tancred," "Mahomet," "Merope," "Saul," "Alzire," "Le Fanatisme," "Mariamne," "Gaston de Foix," "Enfant Prodigue," "Pucelle d'Orléans," an essay on "Fire," the "Elements," "History of Charles XII.," "Lectures on Man," "Letters on England," "Memoirs," "Voyage of Sacramentado," "Micromegas," "Maid of Orleans," "Brutus," "Adelaide," "Death of Cæsar," "Temple of Taste," "Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations," "An Examination of the Holy Scriptures," and the "Philosophical Dictionary," are works that emanated from the active brain of this wit, poet, satirist, and philosopher.