CHAPTER I. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Descartes. Cartesianism.
DESCARTES.—The seventeenth century, which was the greatest philosophic century of modern times and perhaps of any time, began with René Descartes. Descartes, born at La Haye in Touraine in 1596, of noble family (his real name was des Quartes), was educated by the Jesuits of the college of La Flèche, followed the military profession for several years, then gave himself up to mathematics and became one of the greatest mathematicians of Europe, traveled all over Europe for his own amusement and instruction, wrote scientific and philosophical works, of which the most famous are the Discourse on METHOD, the Meditations, and the Rules for the Control of the Mind, resided sometimes in Paris, sometimes in Holland, and finally, at fifty-four years of age, unhappily attracted by the flattering invitations of Queen Christina of Sweden, proceeded to Stockholm, where he succumbed in four months to the severity of the climate. He died in February, 1650.
THE SYSTEM OF DESCARTES.—In the works of Descartes there are a general system of philosophy, a psychology, and a method. This order is here adopted because of the three, in Descartes; it is the third which is the most important, and which has left the most profound traces. The foundation of the system of Descartes is belief in God and in the goodness of God. I say the foundation and not the starting-point. The starting-point is another matter; but it will be clearly seen that the foundation is what has just been stated. The starting-point is this: I do not believe, provisionally, in anything, not wishing to take into account what I have been taught. I doubt everything. Is there anything I cannot doubt? It seems to me there is: I cannot doubt that I doubt. Now if I doubt, I think; if I think, I am. There is one certainty, I am.
And having arrived there, Descartes is at a dead stop, for from the certitude of one's own existence nothing can be deduced save the certitude of one's existence. For instance, shall I believe in the existence of everything that is not myself? There is no reason why I should believe in it. The world may be a dream. But if I believe in God and in a God of perfect goodness, I can then believe in something outside of myself, for God not being able to deceive Himself or me, if He permits me to see the external world, it is because this external world exists. There are already, therefore, three things in which I believe: my own existence, that of God, and that of the universe. Which of these beliefs is the fundamental one? Evidently, the one not demonstrated; the axiom is that upon which one rests to demonstrate everything except itself. Now of the three things in which Descartes believed, his own existence is demonstrated by the impossibility of thinking or feeling, without feeling his own existence; the other is demonstrated by the existence of a good God; the existence of a good God is demonstrated by nothing. It is believed. Hence belief in a good God is Descartes' foundation. This has not been introduced in order that he may escape from the I am at which he came to a stop; that belief certainly existed previously, and if he had recourse to it, it was because it existed first. Without that, he had too much intellectual honesty to invent it for a particular need. He had it, and he found it as it were in reserve when he asked himself if he could go beyond I am. Here was his foundation; all the rest would complete the proof.
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.—Although Descartes rests on God as being his first principle, he does not fail to prove His existence, and that is begging the question, something proved by what has to be proved. For if Descartes believed only in something outside himself because of a good God, that Being outside himself, God, he can prove only because of the existence of a good God, who cannot deceive us, and thus is God proved by the belief in Him. That is begging the question. Descartes does not fail to prove the existence of God by superabundance as it were; and this, too, in itself indicates clearly that faith in God is the very foundation of the philosophy of Descartes. After having taken it as the basis of reasoning, he takes it as the goal of reasoning, which indicates that the idea of God, so to speak, encircled his mind and that he found it at every ultimate point of thought.
He proves it, therefore, first by an argument analogous to that of St. Anselm, which is this: we, imperfect and finite, have the idea of a perfect and infinite Being; we are not capable of this idea. Therefore it must have come to us from a Being really perfect and infinite, and hence this perfect Being exists.
Another proof, that of God regarded as cause. First: I exist. Who made me? Was it myself? No, if it had been myself I should have endowed myself with all the perfections of which I can conceive and in which I am singularly deficient. Therefore it must be some other being who created me. It was my parents. No doubt, but who created my parents and the parents of my parents? One cannot go back indefinitely from cause to cause, and there must have been a first one.