s
based on the greater or less mobility of their parts.

The leading principle in the special part of the Cartesian physics,--we
can only briefly sketch it,--which embraces, first, celestial, and, then,
terrestial phenomena, is the axiom that we cannot estimate God's power and
goodness too highly, nor ourselves too meanly. It is presumptuous to seek
to comprehend the purposes of God in creation, to consider ourselves
participants in his plans, to imagine that things exist simply for our
sake--there are many things which no man sees and which are of advantage
to none. Nothing is to be interpreted teleologically, but all must be
interpreted from clearly known attributes, hence purely mechanically.
After treating of the distances of the various heavenly bodies, of the
independent light of the sun and the fixed stars and the reflected light of
the planets, among which the earth belongs, Descartes discusses the motion
of the heavenly bodies. In reference to the motion of the earth he seeks a
middle course between the theories of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. He agrees
with Copernicus in the main point, but, in reliance on his definition
of motion, maintains that the earth is at rest, viz., in respect to its
immediate surroundings. It is clear that the harmony of his views with
those of the Church (though it was only a verbal agreement) was not
unwelcome to him. According to his hypothesis,--as he suggests, perhaps an
erroneous hypothesis,--the fluid matter which fills the heavenly spaces,
and which may be compared to a vortex or whirlpool, circles about the sun
and carries the planets along with it. Thus the planets move in relation to
the sun, but are at rest in relation to the adjacent portions of the matter
of the heavens. In view of the biblical doctrine, according to which the
world and all that therein is was created at a stroke, he apologetically
describes his attempt to explain the origin of the world from chaos under
the laws of motion as a scientific fiction, intended merely to make the
process more comprehensible. It is more easily conceivable, if we think
of the things in the world as though they had been gradually formed from
elements, as the plant develops from the seed. We now pass to the Cartesian
anthropology, with its three chief objects: the body, the soul, and the
union of the two.

3. %Man.%

The human body, like all organic bodies, is a machine. Artificial automata
and natural bodies are distinguished