bases moral goodness on the clearness
of ideas and _vice versa_, does not exist. We must distinguish between a
theoretical and a practical stadium in the will; it is true of the latter
that it depends on knowledge of the right, of the former that the knowledge
of the right is dependent on it. In order to the possibility of moral
_action_ the will must conform to clear judgment; in order to the
production of the latter the will must _be_ moral. It is the unit-soul,
which first, by freely avoiding overhasty judgment, cognizes the truth, to
exemplify it later in moral conduct.

CHAPTER III.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF CARTESIANISM IN THE NETHERLANDS AND
IN FRANCE.[1]

[Footnote 1: Cf. G. Monchamp, _Histoire du Cartesianisme en Belgique_,
Brussels, 1886.]

%1. 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 discovered, 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 dualism (1) between extended substance and thinking substance,
(2) between created substance and the divine substance. In contrast with
each other matter and mind are substances or independent beings, for
the clear conception of body contains naught of consciousness, thought,
representation, 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 production of the original condition of things, to give
over motion, once created, to its own laws, and ideas implanted in the mind
to its own independent activity; but it is hard to reconcile with it the
view, popular in the Middle Ages, that the preservation of the world is a
perpetual creation. In t