a mere machine. As for the lower animals, they are
no more than automata.

Descartes' _Principia_ and his _Meditationes_ were written in Latin.
The _Discours de la Methode_ (1637) and the later _Traite des
Passions_ showed how the French language could be adapted to the
purposes of the reason. Such eloquence as is found in Descartes is
that of thought illuminating style. The theory of the passions
anticipates some of the tendencies of modern psychology in its
physical investigations. No one, however, affirmed more absolutely
than Descartes the freedom of the will--unless, indeed, we regard
it as determined by God: it cannot directly control the passions,
but it can indirectly modify them with the aid of imagination; it
is the supreme mistress of action, however the passions may oppose
its fiat. Spiritualist as he was, Descartes was not disposed to be
the martyr of thought. Warned by the example of Galileo, he did not
desire to expose himself to the dangers attending heretical opinions.
He separated the province of faith from that of reason: "I revere
our theology," he said; but he held that theology demanded other
lights than those of the unaided powers of man. In its own province,
he made the reason his absolute guide, and with results which
theologians might regard as dangerous.

The spirit of Descartes' work was in harmony with that of his time,
and reacted upon literature. He sought for general truths by the light
of reason; he made clearness a criterion of truth; he proclaimed man
a spirit; he asserted the freedom of the will. The art of the classical
period sought also for general truths, and subordinated imagination
to reason. It turned away from ingenuities, obscurities, mysteries;
it was essentially spiritualist; it represented the crises and heroic
victories of the will.

Descartes' opponent, Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), epicurean in his
physics, an empiricist, though an inconsistent one, in philosophy,
chose the Latin language as the vehicle for his ideas. A group of
writers whose tendencies were towards sensualism or scepticism,
viewed him as their master. Chapelle in verse, La Mothe le Vayer in
prose, may serve as representatives of art surrendering itself to
vulgar pleasures, and thought doubting even its doubts, and finding
repose in indifference.

The true successor of Descartes in French philosophy, eminent in the
second half of the century, was NICOLAS DE MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715).
Soul and body, D