CHAPTER V THE RATIONALISM OF THE NATURAL SCIENCE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE The Position of Rationalism. Bacon and Hobbes lived in a country where their personal safety was fairly secure ; and furthermore, they took pains to avoid direct theological issues. Bacon had disguised his position by the use of large words, and Hobbes was unmolested because he accepted the religion of his sovereign. With the Continental Rationalists the situation was different. They developed a philosophy guided by one factor of Galileo's method - mathematical deduction; and this naturally led to an open challenge of scholasticism. It was the challenge of mathematics to Aristotle. The same human reason, which had challenged and overthrown the medieval science, now was led to take up arms against mediæval dogma. The Rationalists were interested in science, but they were more interested in the metaphysical problems that science aroused. If physics can be reconstructed by mathematics, why cannot metaphysics? The leaders of this school were Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and the Occasionalists— Malebranche and Geulincx. The Rationalists advanced a new conception not only of nature, but of God; new theories not only of the human body, but of the soul. Their task was the dangerous one of bravely invading the hitherto impregnable realms of the spirit. Moreover, not only was the task of the Rationalists fraught with personal danger, but also the metaphysi cal problem itself was a new and large one. For the first time in history philosophy had to face a clear-cut and positive dualism. For the first time the inner and outer worlds had been completely sundered. Galileo and the Renaissance scientists had reconstructed the old "world of nature” into a mechanical universe. As such it was absolutely irreconcilable to the mediæval "world of grace." From the revolution of the planets to the circulation of the blood the movements of nature are under the law of mechanical causation, which can be mathematically measured. The brute, inevitable, and scientific facts stood in fundamental antagonism with the spiritual facts embodied in the Church dogma. The problem of reconciling the "world of nature" with the "world of grace" had been apparently solved by St. Thomas Aquinas in medieval times. Now science had so reconstituted the "world of nature" that the whole question was reopened. The problem for these Rationalists was to reconcile the mechanical conception of the universe with the conception of God as an omnipotent being and with conception of the soul as free. The struggle of the Renaissance with the Middle Ages can be studied better in the history of Rationalism than by reading these two periods side by side. Rationalism was a new science and a new theology. Moreover, its theology was merely a new scholastic philosophy; for while the Rationalists thought that they were giving the death-blow to mediæval philosophy, they were instead only replacing it with another scholasticism. In their attempt, by means of the mechanical 1 The history of this growth of dualism was a long one, and to it the Greek Sophist, the Stoic, and the Christian had each contributed his share. theory, to get an absolute system of knowledge upon which thought can rest, the Rationalists were acting in the spirit of the schoolmen. In fact, no schoolman ever showed more vigor or more dogmatic confidence in his philosophy. To the mathematical eye of the Rationalist there was absolutely nothing mysterious in the physical universe or in the spiritual realm. All things in heaven and earth could be made clear,1 The France of Descartes. The religious reformation moved in quite different social channels in France from those which it had taken in Germany. In Germany, Protestantism was a bone of contention between the rulers of the several States into which the country was divided, and the result was the Thirty Years' War. In France, whose national power was gradually becoming centralized in the king, the Protestant movement never controlled the court, although it often was a serviceable instrument to rival court parties for political ends.2 The Swiss and German Reformations reached only the religious middle classes, which had in part responded quickly to the appeal of Zwingli and Calvin. The official circles in France were Catholic; the middle classes were divided. Both in the court and the middle class a well-bred skepticism had prevailed in France since the time of 1 This declaration of the Rationalists was the call of freedom, but it was as hazardous as it was ambitious; and the Church with its assured revelations always stood opposed to the realization of freedom. So we shall find Descartes spending his whole life trying to trim his sails that he may not offend the Inquisition; Spinoza saving himself from both the Jews and the Christians by living in obscurity and publishing nothing; Leibnitz constructing philosophy with the avowed purpose of reconciling science and religion. 2 The notable example of this is the use which Henry IV made of Protestantism. The Protestant body occupied a not important place in the social and political life of France. Montaigne (1533-1592). This was a skepticism of all empirical knowledge grasping the truth. It dominated higher French society until the Revolution. Among the Catholic and Protestant middle classes, however, this skepticism was supplemented by the mystic Augustinian element in the systems of Zwingli and Calvin when these reformations reached France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Augustine, therefore, had become a commanding figure in French thought at the time of Descartes. Descartes shows in himself how influential were the Augustinian and skeptical factors. His method has skepticism for its first stage. His theory of self-consciousness as the only ground of knowledge, and his blending of self-consciousness with knowledge of God, is nearly the same as Augustine's teaching. Other examples of the return of the French to Augustine are the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, and the Jansenists of Port Royal. Malebranche, who made the development of Cartesianism possible in France, expressed the attitude of the Oratory, when he transformed Descartes' doctrine into a religious mysticism, like Augustine's teaching. The skepticism which pervaded the French upper class and the skeptical-Augustinianism which pervaded the middle class would naturally exclude free scientific investigation. French intellectual life was centered at the court; and in the glare of the court scientific earnestness had vanished. French culture was surfeited with scholastic subtleties and got its enjoyment in the rhetorical fireworks of Pierre de la Ramée. But there is one important exception to the above sweeping statement. Mathematics obtained a remark - able development in France at this time. While the pervading skepticism, that declared all sense knowledge is illusory, could not tolerate empirical science, mathematics could appeal to the intuitive French race and furnish opportunity for clearness of expression. In mathematics was certainty and demonstrable truth, which could be obtained without plodding investigation. In mathematics as a science there was little danger of conflict with Church dogma. Therefore, when Descartes left his school at La Flèche, he entered a circle of mathematicians at Paris, which had already become notable and of which he was to become a distinguished member. Three elements, therefore, in different combinations made up French culture when Descartes entered upon his career: (1) The skepticism which pervaded all French life and was the very atmosphere of the higher French society; (2) Augustinianism, which was prominent in religious circles both Catholic and Protestant; (3) mathematics, which was centered in the celebrated circle in Paris and had already had many fruitful results. In such a society did Descartes arise the most distinguished philosopher who has honored France. The Mental Conflict in Descartes. The strife between the spirit of the Middle Ages and that of the Renaissance appears in Descartes more strikingly than in any other thinker of this time. He shows, on the one hand, all the conservatism of a churchman of mediæval time in his respect for institutional authority; on the other hand, his intellectual activity places him among the leading scientists of the Renaissance. In no other thinker does the conflict between the Old and the New appear so unsettling; in none does the antagonism between the scholastic world of spiritual things and the |