CHAPTER III. THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF CARTESIANISM IN THE NETHERLANDS AND IN FRANCE.* I. Occasionalism : Geulincx. The propagation and defense of a system of thought soon give occasion to its adherents to purify, complete, and transform it. Obscurities and contradictions are dis- covered, which the master has overlooked or allowed to remain, and the disciple exerts himself to remove them, while retaining the fundamental doctrines. In the system of Descartes there were two closely connected points which demanded clarification and correction, viz., his double dual- ism (i) between extended substance and thinking substance, (2) between created substance and the divine substance. In contrast with each other matter and mind are sub- stances or independent beings, for the clear conception of body contains naught of consciousness, thought, repres- entation, and that of mind nothing of extension, matter, motion. In comparison with God they are not so ; apart from the creator they can neither exist nor be conceived. In every case where the attempt is made to distinguish between intrinsic and general (as here, between substance in the stricter and wider senses), an indecision betrays itself which is not permanently endured. The substantiality of the material and spiritual worlds maintained by Descartes finds an excellent counterpart in his (entirely modern) tendency to push the concursus dei as far as possible into the background, to limit it to the pro- duction of the original condition of things, to give over mo- tion, once created, to its own laws, and ideas implanted in the mind to its own independent activity ; but it is hard
- C£. G. Moachamp. Histoire du Cart^sianisme en £elgiqiu,'Rviasti, i886.
