cardinal doctrines in the systems of Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibnitz.
1. From the Cartesian dogma, that God has accorded to created Substance no principle of subsistence, and that the existence of each substance, from moment to moment, is due to the renewal in each moment of the creative act of Deity,[1] the further doctrine, that God likewise determines the phænomena, or actual state of each substance, is but slightly removed: and this latter doctrine is precisely that of Occasional Causes, or the doctrine which makes Deity the sole and immediate cause of each change that takes place in the creature; and this is the fundamental dogma in the Philosophy of Malebranche.
2. Again, the doctrine that Deity is the sole and immediate cause of every change in the universe, taken in conjunction with the identification by Descartes, whether merely seeming or real, of substance with its fundamental attribute,[2] and thereby, the virtual negation of substance, leads obviously to the doctrine that there is, in truth, but a single substance and a single cause, of which all things are but the passing modes and changing effects. This dogma is the fundamental position of Pantheism; and thus it is that the philosophy of Descartes had the effect of paving the way for Spinozism.
3. The philosophies of Malebranche and Spinoza gave rise, in the way of corrective, to that of
