s latent in the
semi-barbarous Latin, and putting a new meaning into them. Unlike
ancient philosophy, it has been unaffected by impressions derived from
outward nature: it arose within the limits of the mind itself. From the
time of Descartes to Hume and Kant it has had little or nothing to do
with facts of science. On the other hand, the ancient and mediaeval
logic retained a continuous influence over it, and a form like that
of mathematics was easily impressed upon it; the principle of ancient
philosophy which is most apparent in it is scepticism; we must doubt
nearly every traditional or received notion, that we may hold fast one
or two. The being of God in a personal or impersonal form was a mental
necessity to the first thinkers of modern times: from this alone all
other ideas could be deduced. There had been an obscure presentiment of
'cognito, ergo sum' more than 2000 years previously. The Eleatic notion
that being and thought were the same was revived in a new form by
Descartes. But now it gave birth to consciousness and self-reflection:
it awakened the 'ego' in human nature. The mind naked and abstract has
no other certainty but the conviction of its own existence. 'I think,
therefore I am;' and this thought is God thinking in me, who has also
communicated to the reason of man his own attributes of thought and
extension--these are truly imparted to him because God is true (compare
Republic). It has been often remarked that Descartes, having begun by
dismissing all presuppositions, introduces several: he passes almost
at once from scepticism to dogmatism. It is more important for the
illustration of Plato to observe that he, like Plato, insists that God
is true and incapable of deception (Republic)--that he proceeds from
general ideas, that many elements of mathematics may be found in him. A
certain influence of mathematics both on the form and substance of their
philosophy is discernible in both of them. After making the greatest
opposition between thought and extension, Descartes, like Plato,
supposes them to be reunited for a time, not in their own nature but by
a special divine act (compare Phaedrus), and he also supposes all
the parts of the human body to meet in the pineal gland, that alone
affording a principle of unity in the material frame of man. It is
characteristic of the first period of modern philosophy, that having
begun (like the Presocratics) with a few general notions, Descartes
first falls abso