to science at some points than that of Gassendi, was both directly and
indirectly making for the activity of reason. In virtue of its formal
"spiritualism," it found access where any clearly materialistic
doctrine would have been tabooed; so that we find the Cartesian
ecclesiastic Régis not only eagerly listened to and acclaimed at
Toulouse in 1665, but offered a civic pension by the magistrates
[592]--this within two years of the placing of Descartes's works on
the Index. After arousing a similar enthusiasm at Montpellier and
at Paris, Régis was silenced by the Archbishop, whereupon he set
himself to develop the Cartesian philosophy in his study. The result
was that he ultimately went beyond his master, openly rejecting the
idea of creation out of nothing, [593] and finally following Locke
in rejecting the innate ideas which Descartes had affirmed. [594]
Another young Churchman, Desgabets, developing from Descartes and his
pupil Malebranche, combined with their "spiritist" doctrine much of
the virtual materialism of Gassendi, arriving at a kind of pantheism,
and at a courageous pantheistic ethic, wherein God is recognized as
the author alike of good and evil [595]--a doctrine which we find even
getting a hearing in general society, and noticed in the correspondence
of Madame de Sévigné in 1677. [596]
Malebranche's treatise De la Recherche de la Vérité (1674) was in fact
a development of Descartes which on the one hand sought to connect
his doctrine of innate ideas with his God-idea, and on the other hand
headed the whole system towards pantheism. The tendency had arisen
before him in the congregation of the Oratory, to which he belonged,
and in which the Cartesian philosophy had so spread that when, in
1678, the alarmed superiors proposed to eradicate it, they were told
by the members that, "If Cartesianism is a plague, there are two
hundred of us who are infected." [597] But if Cartesianism alarmed
the official orthodox, Malebranche wrought a deeper disintegration
of the faith. In his old age his young disciple De Mairan, who had
deeply studied Spinoza, pressed him fatally hard on the virtual
coincidence of his philosophy with that of the more thoroughgoing
pantheist; and Malebranche indignantly repudiated all agreement with
"the miserable Spinoza," [598] "the atheist," [599] whose system he
pronounced "a frightful and ridiculous chimera." [600] "Nevertheless,
it was towards this chimera that Malebranche tended." [601] On all
hands the new development set up new strife; and Malebranche, who
disliked controversy, found himself embroiled alike with Jansenists
and Jesuits, with orthodox and with innovating Cartesians, and with his
own Spinozistic disciples. The Jansenist Arnauld attacked his book in
a long and stringent treatise, Des vrayes at des fausses idées (1683),
[602] accumulating denials and contradictions with a cold tenacity
of ratiocination which never lapsed into passion, and was all the
more destructive. For the Jansenists Malebranche was a danger to the
faith in the ratio of his exaltation of it, inasmuch as reference of
the most ordinary beliefs back to "faith" left them no ground upon
which to argue up to faith. [603] This seems to have been a common
feeling among his readers. For the same reason he made no appeal to
men of science. He would have no recognition of secondary causes,
the acceptance of which he declared to be a dangerous relapse into
paganism. [604] There was thus no scientific principle in the new
doctrine which could enable it to solve the problems or absorb the
systems of other schools. Locke was as little moved by it as were the
Jansenists. Malebranche won readers everywhere by his charm of style;
[605] but he was as much of a disturber as of a reconciler. The very
controversies which he set up made for disintegration; and Fénelon
found it necessary to "refute" Malebranche as well as Spinoza, and
did his censure with as great severity as Arnauld's. [606] The mere
fact that Malebranche put aside miracles in the name of divine law
was fatal from the point of view of orthodoxy.