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FORE:To understand Descartes aright, we must provisionally disregard the account given in his work on Method of the process by which he arrived at a new theory of the world; for, in truth, there was nothing new about it except the pro388portion in which fragments taken from older systems were selected and recombined. As we have already noticed, there is no such thing as spinning philosophies out of ones own head; and, in the case of Descartes, even the belief that he was so doing came to him from Plato; for, along with Aristotles dogmatic errors, his sound teaching with regard to the derivation of knowledge had fallen into oblivion. The initial doubt of the Discourse on Method and the Meditations is also Platonic; only it is manifested under an individual and subjective, instead of a universal and objective form. But to find the real starting-point of Descartes enquiries we must look for it in his mathematical studies. A geometrician naturally conceives the visible world under the aspect of figured extension; and if he thinks the figures away, nothing will remain but extension as the ultimate material out of which all determinate bodies are shaped. Such was the result reached by Plato in his Timaeus. He identified matter with space, viewing this as the receptacle for his eternal and self-existent Ideas, or rather the plastic medium on which their images are impressed. The simplest spatial elements are triangles; accordingly it is with these that he constructs his solid bodies. The theory of triangular elements was probably suggested by Atomism; it is, in fact, a compromise between the purely mathematical and the materialistic methods. Like all Platos fancies, this theory of matter was attacked with such convincing arguments by Aristotle that, so long as his physics remained in the ascendent, it did not find a single supporter; although, as we saw in the last chapter, Plotinus very nearly worked his way back to it from the Peripatetic definition. Even now, at the moment of Aristotles fall, it might have failed to attract attention, had not the conditions under which it first arose been almost exactly repeated. Geometrical demonstration had again become the type of all reasoning; there was again a sceptical spirit abroad, forcing men to fall back on the most elementary and universal con389ceptions; an atomistic materialism again threatened to claim at least the whole field of physical enquiry for its own. That Descartes followed the Timaeus in identifying matter with extension cannot be doubted; especially when we see that he adopts Platos analysis of body into elementary triangles; but the theory agreed so well with his intellectual predispositions that he may easily have imagined it to be a necessary deduction from his own priori ideas. Moreover, after the first two steps, he parts company with Plato, and gives himself up, so far as his rejection of a vacuum will permit, to the mechanical physics of Democritus. Much praise has recently been bestowed on his attempt to interpret all physical phenomena in terms of matter and motion, and to deduce them from the unaided operation of natural causes; but this is no more than had been done by the early Greek thinkers, from whom, we may observe, his hypothesis of an initial vortex was also derived. His cosmogony is better than theirs, only in so far as it is adapted to scientific discoveries in astronomy and physiology not made by Descartes himself; for where his conjectures go beyond these they are entirely at fault.This process was conceived by Aeschylus as a conflict between two generations of gods, ending with their complete reconciliation. In the Prometheus Bound we have the commencement of the conflict, in the Eumenides its close. Our sympathies are apparently at first intended to be enlisted on behalf of the older divinities, but at last are claimed exclusively by the younger. As opposed to Prometheus, Zeus is evidently in the wrong, and seeks to make up for his deficiencies by arbitrary violence. In the Oresteia he is the champion of justice against iniquity, and through his interpreter, Apollo, he enforces a revised moral code against the antiquated claims of the Erinyes; these latter, however, ultimately consenting to become guardians of the new social70 order. The Aeschylean drama shows us Greek religion at the highest level it could reach, unaided by philosophical reflection. With Sophocles a perceptible decline has already begun. We are loth to say anything that may sound like disparagement of so noble a poet. We yield to none in admiration for one who has combined the two highest qualities of artsweetness and strengthmore completely than any other singer, Homer alone excepted, and who has given the primordial affections their definitive expression for all time. But we cannot help perceiving an element of superstition in his dramas, which, so far, distinguishes them unfavourably from those of his Titanic predecessor. With Sophocles, when the gods interfere, it is to punish disrespect towards themselves, not to enforce justice between man and man. Ajax perishes by his own hand because he has neglected to ask for divine assistance in battle. Laius and Jocast come to a tragic end through disobedience to a perfectly arbitrary oracle; and as a part of the same divine purpose Oedipus encounters the most frightful calamities by no fault of his own. The gods are, moreover, exclusively objects of fear; their sole business is to enforce the fulfilment of enigmatic prophecies; they give no assistance to the pious and virtuous characters. Antigon is allowed to perish for having performed the last duties to her brothers corpse. Neoptolemus receives no aid in that struggle between ambition on the one hand with truthfulness and pity on the other which makes his character one of the most interesting in all imaginative literature. When Athn bids Odysseus exult over the degradation of Ajax, the generous Ithacan refuses to her face, and falls back on the consciousness of a common humanity uniting him in sympathy with his prostrate foe.
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