DESCARTES AND RICHELIEU.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

IN the following century, the seventeenth, came Descartes, the greatest intellect France had yet produced. In the variety of his genius he wonderfully resembled Lord Bacon. He was of noble family, and first entered the army, which he abandoned in 1620. He then travelled widely, and returned to Holland to write.

Knowing that all the knowledge of his day was borrowed from the ancient world, and convinced that it was often superficial and erroneous, he resolved to overthrow it and construct a new edifice of science founded on solid proofs.

His books descanting on every known topic electrified Europe. In Mathematics, he applied a new algebraic notation to Geometry, and solved problems before declared insoluble. In Physics, he discovered the true law of the refraction of light, and gave a simple explanation of the rainbow, till then a mystery. In Astronomy and Cosmology, he invented admirable theories of planetary attraction, far beyond any then known. He sustained Galileo's assertion that "the earth moves," which the Papacy pronounced rank blasphemy. Descartes, also, wrote ably on Physiology and Anatomy. He adopted the important discoveries of two of his contemporaries; that of Harvey, who

made known the circulation of the blood, and that of Aselli, who detected the lacteal vessels.

The great object of Descartes in his scientific labors was to prove that the learning of his epoch was greater than that of the ancients, and so destroy all reverence for antiquity. He knew the authority of the Church reposed on the Scholastic Philosophy that had prevailed from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. This Scholastic Philosophy simply meant such knowledge as the Church thought it safe to allow, and therefore all knowledge up to the time of Descartes vindicated Theology, that is, the Dogmas of the Church. No one could speak or write to the contrary without incurring the penalty of heresy. To make the Scholastic Philosophy more imposing, the Church had endorsed it with the great name of Aristotle-an outrage upon the Heathen Philosopher. To diminish, then, the respect of France for the Scholastic Philosophy, and thus sap the foundations of the Church's power, Descartes proved by his great discoveries how far the knowledge of his time exceeded that of the ancient world, even including Aristotle.

Antiquity was thus shattered at a blow. The intellect of France arose from its prostration of centuries before the graven image of the Scholastic Philosophy set up by the Church, and began a struggle for emancipation that overwhelmed all opposition. The moment the intellectual basis of the Papacy was thus impaired, its spiritual supremacy was in danger. Descartes had aroused the spirit of doubt, and before it the blind belief that had enveloped the minds of men, as in swaddling clothes, began gradually to fall.

Descartes, however, threw another bomb into the

entrenched camp of the Papacy. He wrote several metaphysical books which founded a New Philosophy. Their purport was simply to establish the supremacy of the Intellect over the traditions and prejudices that had hitherto crushed it. He declared that man was a thinking animal, the incarnation of thought, "For that which constitutes the man is not his bones, nor his flesh, nor his blood. These are the accidents, the incumbrances of his nature. The man himself is the thought. Je pense, donc je suis- I think, therefore I exist.'”

With such bold and novel phrases he sought to build up a pedestal for human Reason, which would rescue it from the ground where it had so long grovelled. After such homage as this to the supremacy of the Intellect, he drew his conclusions. Their design may be seen in the following quotation:-" Hence our religion should not be acquired by the teaching of others, but should be worked out by ourselves; it is not to be borrowed from antiquity, but it is to be discovered by each man's mind. It is not traditional, but personal."

"The mischief," says Buckle," which these principles must have done to the old theology"-that is, the Papacy" is very obvious; they were fatal to many of the common dogmas, such as transubstantiation, &c." Of course, it is obvious enough, as that was the aim of Descartes in founding a philosophy which " rejected all authority but the human reason." He was the logical successor of Luther. "He completed what the great German reformer had left undone. He bore to the old systems of philosophy the same relation that Luther bore to the old systems of religion." Yes; these two men, above all others, jointly demolished the intellectual

and religious organization of Europe as it had existed for 700 years, from the ninth to the sixteenth century.

The philosophy of Descartes was founded on "Innate Ideas," and was superseded in France fifty years later by the philosophy of Locke, 1690, who, rejecting the theory of Innate Ideas, said the mind was a blank at its birth, and received all its ideas by two channels, "sensation and reflection." It mattered little if Descartes' theory was sound or not. His purpose was to arouse the intellect of his age, and undermine the spiritual despotism of the Papacy, and he succeeded.

All authorities agree that the illustrious Richelieu was in politics what Descartes was in philosophy. Whilst the latter was writing, the bold Cardinal was acting. As chief Minister of Louis XIII., 1624, he did more to weaken the Papacy and humble the French Clergy than all who had preceded him. It astonished all Europe that France should be governed by a Priest who diminished the power of the Ecclesiastics, and who made the interests of the Church subordinate to those of the State.

Richelieu gave many striking proofs that this was his object. It was the clerical law of Europe up to this time that the Clergy could only be taxed by themselves. Consequently the great wealth of the French Clergy never benefited the State. Richelieu said the "State was the first consideration ;" and on one occasion he convoked an Assembly of the Clergy at Nantes, and demanded a supply of six millions of francs. There was a cry of sacrilege on the part of some of the dignitaries of the Church, but this he suppressed by banishing four Bishops and two Archbishops. The

money was then given. In 1632, in Languedoc, he deprived three Bishops of their places, and seized the temporalities of others. The Papacy was thunderstruck at these outrages from a son of the Church. Richelieu, however, cared more for the glory of France than the satisfaction of the Papacy, and mocked at the thunders of the Vatican.

It is therefore clear that it was by the joint exertions of Descartes and Richelieu that the absolute power of the Papacy was demolished in France.

A rally was made in the reign of Louis XIV. The wonderful eloquence of Bossuet and Massillon shed a temporary lustre over the Roman Church; and the King revoked the Edict of Nantes, 1685, which led to a general emigration of the Huguenots from dread of persecution. In the following reign, that of Louis XV., the Church lost ground rapidly. In 1762, the Order of the Jesuits, which had long been the terror of Europe, was suppressed. In 1787, Louis XVI. issued a new Edict of Toleration, but in 1789 the Revolution swept away the Church itself, and appropriated all its revenues, estimated at two thousand millions of francs.