should suppose that
intelligence increased _ad infinitum_, we need not fear that our own
would be lessened. And the same is true of all other attributes which
we ascribe to God, even of his power, provided only that we do not
suppose that the power in us is not subjected to God's will. In all
points, therefore, he is infinite without any exclusion of created
things."[7] The truth of this view we need not dispute; the question
is as to its consistency with Cartesian principles. It may be a higher
idea of God to conceive him as revealing himself in and to finite
creatures; but it is a different idea from that which is implied in
Descartes's explanations of error. It is an inconsistency that brings
Descartes nearer to Christianity, and nearer, it may also be said, to
a true metaphysic; but it is not the less an inconsistency with his
fundamental principles, which necessarily disappears in their
subsequent development. To conceive the finite as constituted not
merely by the absence of some of the positive elements of the
infinite, but as in necessary unity with the infinite; to conceive the
infinite as not merely that which has no limits or determinations, but
as that which is self-determined and self-manifesting, which through
all finitude and manifestation returns upon itself, may not be
erroneous. But it would not be difficult to show that the adoption of
such a conception involves the rejection or modification of almost
every doctrine of the Cartesian system.

Mind and matter.

In connexion with this inconsistency we may notice the very different
relations in which Descartes conceives mind on the one side and matter
on the other, to stand towards God, who yet is the cause of both, and
must therefore, by the principle of causality, contain in himself all
that is in both. Matter and mind are to Descartes absolute opposites.
Whatever can be asserted of mind can be denied of matter, whatever can
be asserted of matter can be denied of mind. Matter is passive, mind
is active; matter is extended, and therefore divisible _ad infinitum_;
mind is an indivisible unity. In fact, though of this Descartes is
not conscious, the determination of the one is mediated by its
opposition to the other; the ideas of object and subject, the self and
not-self, are terms of a relation distinguishable but inseparable. But
in the idea of God we must find a unity which tr