ciousness and expression many of the tendencies that were
latent and undeveloped in the philosophy of Descartes. To use a chemical
metaphor, the Christian Platonism of the church father was a medium in
which Cartesianism could precipitate the product of its elements. Yet
the medium was, as we shall see, not a perfect one, and hence the
product was not quite pure. Without metaphor, Malebranche, by his
previous habits of thought, was well fitted to detect and develop the
pantheistic and ascetic elements of his master's philosophy. But he was
not well fitted to penetrate through the veil of popular language under
which the discordance of that philosophy with orthodox Christianity was
hidden. On the contrary, the whole training of the Catholic priest, and
especially his practical spirit, with that tendency to compromise which
a practical spirit always brings with it, enabled him to conceal from
himself as well as from others the logical result of his principles. And
we do not wonder even when we find him treating as a "miserable" the
philosopher who tore away the veil.

Malebranche saw "_all things in God._" In other words, he taught that
knowledge is possible only in so far as thought is the expression, not
of the nature of the individual subject as such, but of a universal life
in which he and all other rational beings partake. "No one can feel my
individual pain; every one can see the truth which I contemplate--why is
it so? The reason is that my pain is a modification of my substance, but
truth is the common good of all spirits."[16] This idea is ever present
to Malebranche, and is repeated by him in an endless variety of forms of
expression. Thus, like Descartes, but with more decision, he tells us
that the idea of the infinite is prior to the idea of the finite. "We
conceive of the infinite being by the very fact that we conceive of
being without thinking whether it be finite or no. But in order that we
may think of a finite being, we must necessarily cut off or deduct
something from the general notion of being, which consequently we must
previously possess. Thus the mind does not apprehend anything whatever,
except in and through the idea that it has of the infinite; and so far
is it from being the case that this idea is formed by the confused
assemblage of all the ideas of particular things as the philosophers
maintain, that, on the contrary, all these particular ideas are only
participations in the general idea of t