inous appeal to
man's entire moral and intellectual nature.

A third principle is, that the material universe is necessarily reduced
in our thought ultimately to two forms, extension and local
movement--extension signifying matter, local movement signifying force.
There is no such thing as empty space; there are no ultimate indivisible
atoms; the universe is infinitely full of matter.

A fourth principle is, that the soul and matter are subsistences so
fundamentally and absolutely distinct that they cannot act in reciprocal
relations. This compelled Descartes to resort to his strained
supposition that all correspondence or synchronism between bodily
movements and mental or spiritual activities is merely reflex or
automatic, or else is produced directly by act of Deity. For relief from
this violent hypothesis, Leibnitz modified the Cartesian philosophy by
his famous theory of a pre-established harmony.

Descartes did a great work, but it was not an abiding reconstruction:
indeed, it was not construction so much as it was a dream--one of the
grandest and most suggestive in the history of thought. Its audacious
disparagement of the whole scholastic method startled Europe, upon the
dead air of whose philosophy it came as a refreshing breath of
transcendental thought. Its suggestions and inspirations are traceable
as a permanent enrichment, though its vast fabric swiftly dissolved. The
early enthusiasm for it in French literary circles and among professors
in the universities of Holland scarcely outlasted a generation. Within
a dozen years after the philosopher's death, the Cartesian philosophy
was prohibited by ecclesiastical authorities and excluded from the
schools. In the British Isles and in Germany the system has been usually
considered as an interesting curiosity in the cabinet of philosophies.
Yet the unity of all truth through relations vital, subtle, firm, and
universal, though seen only in a vision of the night, abides when the
night is gone.

With the impressive and noteworthy 'Discours de la Methode' (Leyden,
1637), were published three essays supporting it: 'La Dioptrique,' 'Les
Meteores,' 'La Geometrie.' Of his other works, the most important are
'Meditationes de Prima Philosophia' (Paris, 1641; Amsterdam, 1642), and
'Principia Philosophiae' (Amsterdam, 1644). A useful English translation
of his most important writings, with an introduction, is by John Veitch,
LL.D.,--'The Method, Meditations, and Selectio