With reference to the Cartesian Synthesis, it is at the same time deserving of notice, that however inapplicable such procedure, when allowed to predominate, may be in the real sciences, it is yet of strict and legitimate application in the formal, to the full extent of its employment by Descartes. Thus Logic is, in its last details, but the evolution of what is given in a fixed number of ungeneralized universal laws; and, as a formal science, is wholly superior to generalization.
Thus far of the Cartesian Method, and of such of the results of the Method as serve to illustrate its nature and application.
In order, however, adequately to determine the place of Descartes in the History of Speculation, we must know not only his Method, but the results of his Method, that is, his Philosophy. As a statement and criticism of the philosophical system of Descartes is for the present impossible, it may be proper, in room of this, to give, in conclusion, a faint outline of the course and character of the philosophical activity which Cartesianism has elicited.[1]
To the philosophy of Descartes are due the
- ↑ For the results of the Method of Descartes, the Meditations especially should be consulted—a work which M. Cousin pronounces "one of the most beautiful and solid monuments of philosophical genius." [A translation of the Meditations, and part of the Principles of Philosophy, uniform with the Method, is now published.]
See Method, p. 79. On the Arguments of Descartes for the Existence of Deity, consult Cousin's Lectures on Kant. Lec. VI., Log. Transcendentale.
