Stages on a Cartesian Road to Immaterialism

Charles J. McCracken

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 24, Number 1, January 1986,

pp. 19-40 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.1986.0021

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/226804/summary

Access provided at 23 Dec 2019 20:30 GMT from UMass Amherst Libraries
 Stages o n a Cartesian R o a d to
Immaterialism
CHARLES J. McCRACKEN

DESCARTES RAISED A DOUBT about the existence o f the external world a n d

p r o c e e d e d to allay it by way o f what H u m e later called "a very u n e x p e c t e d
circuit": God's veracity. But the d o u b t Descartes raised p r o v e d h a r d e r to
dispel t h a n h e t h o u g h t it would be. His earliest critics (those whose objec-
tions, along with Descartes' replies, were a p p e n d e d to the first edition o f the
Meditations) did not, it is true, m u c h trouble themselves about his p r o o f o f a
material w o r l d ? T h e i r attention was riveted e l s e w h e r e - - o n the ego existo, the
p r o o f o f God's existence, the a r g u m e n t s for dualism, and so forth. O f the
p r o o f o f a material world, they limited, themselves mainly to r e m a r k i n g that
it is not evident that a p e r f e c t being m i g h t not on occasion deceive us, e i t h e r
to benefit us (as a p a r e n t may on occasion deceive a child for the child's own
sake) o r to p u n i s h us for o u r sins.'
In time, however, a succession o f thinkers who were deeply in Descartes'
debt e x p r e s s e d m o u n t i n g d o u b t a b o u t his p r o o f o f the external world. T h i s
d o u b t was at first o f a m o d e r a t e hue: Descartes, said several thinkers close to
Cartesianism (Regius, C o r d e m o y , Malebranche), has i n d e e d shown it probable
that the material world exists, but only divine revelation makes it certain that
it does. B u t gradually this d o u b t d e e p e n e d : the Cartesian a r g u m e n t does
little m o r e t h a n show the existence o f m a t t e r possible, t h o u g h t L a n i o n a n d
Fardella; revelation is n e e d e d to assure us that it is actual. Pierre Bayle

i While "external world" and "material world" were not always used as precise synonyms by
seventeenth-century writers ("external world" sometimes including both bodies and other
minds), they were often used interchangeably, and I shall so use them in this paper.
Philosophical Works of Descartes (hereafter cited as "Haldane-Ross'), trans. E. S. Haldane
and G. R. T. Ross (New York, 1955), vol. 2, Objections II (27), Objections III (77-78) and
Objections VI (~36). Regius, Leibniz, and Malebranche later made the same point. Cf. H.
Regius, Philosophia Naturalis (Amsterdam, t654), 349; Leibniz, Animadversiones in ParteraGenera-
lem Principiorura Cartesianorura, in Philosophische Schriften, edited by C. Gerhardt (Berlin, x88o),
vol. 4:366-67 • For Malebranche, see note 33 below.

[19]
20 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:1 JANUARY 198~

reproduced some o f these thinkers' arguments in his Dictionary and addec

others that he t h o u g h t would force reason--did faith not stay its doubts---tq
deny even the possibility o f matter's existence. (In the sixth Meditation, Descarte
had argued, first, that it is possible that matter exists; second, that it is probabl
that it does; third, that it is certain that it does. In effect, Regius, Cordemoy, ant
Malebranche accepted the first and second of these arguments but rejected thq
third. Lanion and Fardella were confident only of the first and were sceptical o
the second and third, and Bayle rejected all three.) Finally, Norris and Collier-
both deeply influenced by Descartes and Malebranche--pushed this line o
thought to the end it seemed to be tending to---Norris, by arguing that not evm
divine revelation can make us completely certain that the material world exists
and Collier, by actually denying that it does exist. This paper traces these stage
on the Cartesian road to immaterialism.
Descartes had argued that--as God, on the one hand, "has given me n~
faculty" by which to discover that my sensations are not caused by extende¢
things, but on the other hand has given me "a very great inclination u
believe that they are sent to me or that they are conveyed to me by corporea
objects"wI must conclude that corporeal things exist, for otherwise Goc
would deceive me. 3 His a r g u m e n t here turned on two conditions neither o
which was by itself sufficient to prove that matter exists, viz. (1) our stron t
natural inclination to believe that bodies cause our sensations, and (2) ou~
lack of a faculty that would reveal to us the falsity o f that belief, were it false
That Descartes supposed neither of these conditions sufficient by itself u
prove that bodies exist is clear, for he granted that we are sometimes in
dined by nature to believe something false (thus people with dropsy arc
naturally inclined falsely to believe that their bodies are in need of drink),
and at the same time he allowed that, because our "nature is extremel]
feeble and limited," there is "an infinitude of matters" that we lack facultie:
to discover the truth about, s Only if we have both a strong natural inclinatior
to believe something and no way to discover that belief false, can we con
clude that--as God is no deceivermthat belief cannot be false.
This criterion for avoiding error, however, seemed a departure from tha
given in the fourth Meditation. There Descartes appealed neither to oul
natural inclination to believe something nor to our inability to determim
whether such beliefs are false, nor to the conjunction of these, as the crite
rion o f certitude. Rather, he held that all we need do to avoid error i,.
suspend our j u d g m e n t about anything we do not clearly and distinctly per
ceive to be the case. T h e clarity and distinctness o f our conception of some
s H a l d a n e - R o s s , l: 191.
4 Ibid., 1: 1 9 4 - 9 5 .
5 Ibid., 1: 173.
 CARTESIAN ROAD TO IMMATERIALISM 21

thing, not o u r natural inclination to believe something, was t h e r e the crucial

matter. 6 But in his p r o o f o f the material world, it was not to a clear and
distinct idea that Descartes a p p e a l e d - - f o r o u r clear and distinct idea o f
extension is only o f a possible thing, an essence that (in contrast, say, to o u r
idea o f God's nature) in no way entails that something having that essence
exits. Since it is clear we can s u s p e n d o u r belief that there are c o r p o r e a l
things (had not Descartes himself d o n e so t h r o u g h the first five Meditations?),
it would seem that G o d would not be guilty o f deceiving us were we to assent
to the belief that bodies exist w h e n they did not.
T h e first o f Descartes' a d m i r e r s explicitly to reject his p r o o f o f a material
world seems to have b e e n H e n r i c u s Regius, p r o f e s s o r o f medicine at Utrecht,
whose enthusiastic lectures in d e f e n s e o f Cartesianism led the Senate o f the
University, in 164~, to pass a resolution c o n d e m n i n g the teaching o f "the new
philosophy b e c a u s e . . , it contradicts the old and subverts its principles. ''7
Descartes himself said that he had at o n e time felt such c o n f i d e n c e in Regius
"that I did not believe him to have any opinion which I should not gladly have
avowed as my own. ''s B u t in time, Regius--while c o n t i n u i n g to espouse m u c h
that was Cartesian in physics----came to reject m u c h o f the metaphysical un-
d e r p i n n i n g that Descartes t h o u g h t physics required.° Regius's s u m m a r y o f his
objections to Descartes was p r i n t e d in a handbill in 1647, p r o v o k i n g f r o m
Descartes the Notae m Programma Quoddam.'°
In this handbill, Regius d e c l a r e d (section ix) that the study o f n a t u r e
leaves it in d o u b t w h e t h e r or not t h e r e are material t h i n g s - - a doubt, how-
ever, that "is banished by divine revelation in Holy Writ, w h e r e b y it is be-
y o n d all d o u b t that G o d created h e a v e n and earth, and all that in t h e m is. '''l
T h e only reason Regius h e r e gave f o r this d o u b t was that the " m i n d can be
affected in equal d e g r e e by things imaginary and by things r e a r ' - - a refer-
ence, presumably, to the oft-alleged qualitative indistinguishability o f sense
perceptions and the things we seem to sense in d r e a m s and hallucinations.
(Descartes himself h a d said to B u r m a n that the d i f f e r e n c e between the "im-
ages" o f sense a n d o f imagination is in their cause, not in their intrinsic
properties.) '~ In reply, Descartes g r a n t e d that we might not distinguish wak-

6 Ibid., l: 178.
The Senate's decree is reprinted in S. V. Keeling, Descartes (Oxford, 1968), 27.
s Haldane-Ross, a: 214.
9 On the gradual divergence of Regius's and Descartes' views, see Genevit~veRodis-Lewis's
introduction to her edition of Descartes:Lettres ~ Regius (Paris, 1959).
'° The Notae were published at Amsterdam at the beginning of 1648; after 166o they were
appended in many Latin editions of the Meditations to the Objectionsand Replies.
" Haldane-Ross, 1: 433.
" Cf. "L'Entretien entre Descartes et Burman," in Descartes, Oeuvres, edited by C. Adam
and P. Tannery (Paris, 1964-75 ), 5: 162-63-
92 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF P H I L O S O P H Y 24:~ JANUARY 1986
ing a n d d r e a m i n g "images" were we only to perceive t h e m without being
able rationally to inspect them. An animal (were it a conscious thing) might
be unable to distinguish its veridical perceptions f r o m its dreams. '~ But
h u m a n beings, e n d o w e d with reason, can tell one f r o m the other (thus, in
the Meditations, Descartes h a d a r g u e d that we can easily tell o u r dreams f r o m
o u r waking experience "inasmuch as o u r m e m o r y can never connect o u r
dreams one with the other, or with the whole course o f o u r lives, as it unites
events which h a p p e n to us while we arc awake"). '4
In the 1654 edition o f his Philosophia Naturalis, Regius explained his think-
ing on this m a t t e r in m o r e detail. He g r a n t e d that the evidence o f the senses
makes it likely that material things exist; he only d e n i e d that (unaided by
divine revelation) we can be certain that they exist. Suppose G o d caused us to
perceive certain appearances (apparentiae) that were such as to make it seem
probable that bodies were their cause. But suppose f u r t h e r that there were no
bodies. W o u l d God deceive us? Not at all, argued Regius. W e r e we p r u d e n t ,
we would j u d g e only (1) that there are these appearances; (2) that we are
perceiving them; and (3) that, given their nature, it is likely that bodies are
their cause. T h e r e is n o t h i n g here that is false, argued Regius, a n d so n o t h i n g
that God could be accused o f deceiving us about. Suppose I r a n d o m l y pick a
chip f r o m a barrel c o n t a i n i n g lo,ooo chips, each with a d i f f e r e n t n u m b e r on
it. It is highly probable that the chip I pick will not be the one n u m b e r e d
"one." That would be true, even if, in fact, the chip I pick/s the one n u m b e r e d
"one. '''5 So also, we could truly j u d g e , f r o m the evidence o f o u r sense percep-
tions, that bodies are probably their cause, even if in fact they are not. O f
course, were we to j u d g e , on the basis o f appearances, that bodies certainly
exist, t h e n - - w e r e there no bodies--we would indeed err; but in that case "it
certainly would not be G o d who deceived men, but m e n who would abuse
themselves by their faulty use o f their own j u d g m e n t . . , for it would be
possible for t h e m only to j u d g e that things are probably thus, while suspend-
ing or omitting the j u d g m e n t that they are certainly thus, thereby avoiding
error." As to why, if bodies d i d n ' t exist, God would cause in o u r minds sensa-
tions that would incline us to think it likely that they did exist, Regius re-
m a r k e d only that such "would be perfectly in accordance with God's veracity
and would manifest his o m n i p o t e n c e by directing m e n by means o f appear-
ances that he himself p r o d u c e d for them." He a d d e d that we can be certain
that bodies exist only because Scripture reveals this to us? 6

,s Haldane-Ross, 1: 441.
,4 Ibid., t: 199.
,5 H. Regius, Philosophia Naturalis, second edition (Amsterdam, 1654), 35o. (The example is
not Regius's.)
'~ Ibid., 351.
 C A R T E S I A N ROAD TO I M M A T E R I A L I S M 23

A d e c a d e later, G 6 r a u d d e C o r d e m o y , a t h i n k e r deeply u n d e r Descartes'

influence despite his acceptance o f atomism, also concluded that we cannot,
apart f r o m divine revelation, be sure that m a t t e r exists. In Le Discernement du
corps et de l'~me (1666), C o r d e m o y contrasted o u r knowledge o f b o d y and o f
soul. T h e Cogito assures us that the soul exists. But for the body's existence we
have at best the p r o b a b l e evidence o f the senses---evidence n o t d i f f e r e n t in
kind, says C o r d e m o y , f r o m that p r o v i d e d by d r e a m s for the existence o f
things d r e a m t o f ? 7 Like Regius, C o r d e m o y d i d n ' t reply to Descartes' claim
that we can tell d r e a m i n g f r o m waking states by the greater c o h e r e n c e and
interconnectedness o f the latter; instead he rested his case o n the putative
qualitative indistinguishability o f waking and d r e a m i n g experience. A n d (un-
like Regius) he m a d e no a t t e m p t to answer Descartes' claim that G o d would be
a deceiver if material objects were not the cause o f o u r sensations. Faith alone
rescued C o r d e m o y f r o m u n c e r t a i n t y about the existence o f material things. "I
will h e n c e f o r t h say that I have a soul, for that I have one is evident both by the
light o f n a t u r e a n d because faith assures me o f it; as for the bodyl I'll say that I
have one, even t h o u g h that is not evident to the natural light, because faith
suffices to p r e v e n t m e f r o m d o u b t i n g that I do. ''s
Nicolas Malebranche, a t h i n k e r m u c h influenced by C o r d e m o y , p r o d u c e d
a fuller critique o f Descartes' a r g u m e n t than had either C o r d e m o y o r
Regius. '9 In the first v o l u m e o f the Recherche de la v~rit~ (a674), M a l e b r a n c h e
said little a b o u t o u r belief in the existence o f bodies, t h o u g h he c o u n t e d that
belief a m o n g the '~jugements naturels" that arise spontaneously in us because
o f o u r sense experience. At this time he limited himself to the r e m a r k that,
t h o u g h o u r senses o f t e n mislead us about the extension, size, shape, a n d
motion o f bodies, these p r o p e r t i e s (in contrast to the "sensible," i.e., secon-
dary, qualities) "are real, a n d we are not mistaken in believing that they have
real existence, i n d e p e n d e n t o f o u r mind, t h o u g h this is very difficult to
prove conclusively. '''° T h i s r e m a r k p r o v o k e d a sharp r e t o r t f r o m Male-
branche's first critic, Simon F o u c h e r . How could one imagine that a proof
could be given o f the objectivity o f the p r i m a r y qualities, d e m a n d e d
Foucher, once o n e had r e c o g n i z e d (as Malebranche had) that those qualities

'~ G. de Cordemoy, Le Discernement du corps et de l'~me (Paris, 1666), 141--42.

,s Ibid., 144-45.
,9 That Cordemoy had a marked influence on Malebranche can be seen by comparing the
arguments for Occasionalism in the XV Edaircissemem of the Recherchede la v~rit~ with Corde-
moy's in Le Discernement du corps et de l'~me. Malebranche commended the latter work to his
readers in the same breath with St. Augustine's De Trinitate and Descartes' Meditatior~--high
praise indeed, given Malebranche's view of Augustine and Descartes. (See Recherchede la v~ri~,
bk. I, chap. lo, sec. 1.)
•o N. Malebranche, The Search after Truth, trans, by T. M. Lennon and P. J. Olscamp
(Columbus, Ohio, 198o), bk. I, chap. ao, 48.
24 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 4 : 1 J A N U A R Y i986
vary just as much in the appearance they make to our senses as do the
secondary qualities? For if primary and secondary qualities alike vary rela-
tive to the position and condition of the perceiver--something Malebranche
himself had insisted on in the first book of the Recherche--must it not be
granted that they are nothing but modifications of the soul ("plusieurs
fa~ons-d'~tre dont notre ~me est capable")? And from this surely "it would
be necessary to conclude "that extension and figures are not less in our souls
than light and colors. ''~' How then can Malebranche, even while granting
that it is hard to prove that bodies exist, continue to make belief in the
objective existence of extension one o f the main axioms of his philosophy?~
In the second volume of the Recherche de la v~rit~ (1675), Malebranche
tried to clarify his position. He did not assume, as Foucher took him to, that
belief in extended things is an essential premise of natural philosophy. To
the contrary, he thought it no more necessary for the physicist to prove that
bodies exist than for the geometer to prove that chiliagons do: "It is not
absolutely necessary to examine whether there are actually beings external to
us corresponding to these ideas, as we do not reason on the basis of these
beings but on their ideas. We should only be careful that the reasonings we
make about the properties of things are in agreement with our sensations of
them, i. e., that what we think is in perfect agreement with experience,
because i n physics we try to discover the order and connection of effects
with their causes, either in bodies, if there are any, or in our sensations, if
[bodies] do not exist. '''3
At this time, one might have supposed that Malebranche's disagreement
with Descartes was not so much about whether a demonstration of the exter-
nal world is possible, as about whether or not it is necessary, if science is to
have a solid foundation. When the third edition of the Recherche appeared
(x677-78), Malebranche added to it a volume of kclaircissements, in which he
explained more fully several doctrines of the Recherche that had provoked
objections from readers. Here, nettled by Foucher's complaints that he
hadn't given a proof of the external world, and couldn't have given one if he
had tried, as well as by the rather uncomprehending defense that Dom
~' S. Foucher, Critique de la Recherche de la vkrit~ (Paris, x675), 79. Foucher had not in fact
understood Malebranche's position here: He supposed that Malebranche took our ideas of
extension to be "modes" of our own mind, just as he took sensations of color or odor to be. In
fact, it was essential to Malebranche's complex epistemology to distinguish sensations, which are
"mental modes," from ideas of extension, which are not.
" Ibid., 62ff.
,s Malebranche, Search after Truth, bk. VI, pt. II, chap. 6, 484- In this chapter Malebranche
discussed which of Descartes' metaphysical truths were really indispensable to science. H e
agreed with Descartes that the existence of the mind and of God are "first truths," but rejected
the claim that it is essential for science that we know either the nature of mind or whether
matter exists.
 CARTESIAN ROAD TO IMMATERIALISM 25

Desgabets had made of him, 24 Malebranche set out at greater length his
thoughts about the whole matter. In doing so, he revealed that he in fact
agreed with Foucher that no demonstration of matter's existence can be
given (never charitable to his critics, however, he refrained from saying that
he thought Foucher had been right on this point).
In this bclaircisseraent, Malebranche argued that neither the senses nor
reason can prove that bodies exist. T h e senses cannot, for there is no neces-
sary connection between the occurrence of sensations and the existence of
bodies corresponding to them. T h a t is clear, he thought, from the fact that
in hallucinations and dreams, people have experiences qualitatively indistin-
guishable from those they have when awake, though the things "seen" in
dream and hallucination may not exist at all. Furthermore, the senses are
often misleading not only about the secondary qualities of extension, but
even about its primary qualities. How then can we be sure that they don't
mislead us about its existence, too?
Reason, like the senses, is powerless to prove that bodies exist. Reason can
prove the existence only of what is necessary; but if bodies exist, it is not from
necessity, but only because God has freely willed to create them. To be sure, if
we knew that God willed that bodies exist, then we could be sure that they do,
for necessarily the will of the infinite being is efficacious. But what proof can
we give that God has in fact willed that bodies exist? "Since only God knows
His volitions (which produce all beings) by Himself, we can know only from
Him whether there really is a material world external to us like the one we
perceive, because the material world is neither perceptible nor intelligible by
itself. Thus, in order to be fully convinced that there are bodies, we must have
demonstrated for us not only that there is a God and that He is no deceiver,
but also that He has assured us that He has really created such a world, which
proof I have not found in the works o f Descartes. ''2s
For Malebranche, the central rule for avoiding error is this: "We should
never give complete consent except to propositions which seem so evidently
true that we cannot refuse it of them without feeling an inward pain and the
secret reproaches of reason." Accordingly he urges us "to make as much use
of [our freedom] as we can, that is, never to consent to anything until we are
forced to do so, as it were, by the inward reproaches of our reason. ''~6 While

•4 Robert Desgabets, Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la vbrit~ (Paris, 1675). Desgabets

saw no n e e d for a p r o o f o f the external world, for our ideas, he held, are simply o u r direct
awareness o f external objects, Io4--14.
•5 Malebranche, Search after TT~th, Elucidation VI, 573.
•6 Ibid., bk. I, chap. 2, secs. 3 - 4 . Cf. Mkditations chr~tiennes, III, 6: "La r~gle que tu dois
observer d a n s la r e c h e r c h e des connoissances naturelles, c'est d e faire un usage continuel d e ta
libertY; c'est d e retenir t o n c o n s e n t e m e n t , jusques h ce que t u n e puisses plus le r e f u s e r
r~vidence d e la v6rit(~."
26 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 9 4 : 1 J A N U A R Y 1986
he was n e v e r as clear as o n e would have liked about what counts as "the
inward r e p r o a c h e s o f reason," he in effect i n t e r p r e t e d the Cartesian crite-
rion for avoiding e r r o r thus: we should assent completely only to what we
clearly a n d distinctly conceive to be the case, and what we clearly a n d dis-
tinctly conceive to be the case we c a n n o t refrain f r o m assenting to; hence,
w h e n e v e r we can withhold o u r complete assent f r o m a proposition, we should
d o so. Now we can withhold o u r complete assent f r o m the proposition that
bodies exist, notwithstanding o u r natural propensity to believe that they do,
for this "propensity, as natural as it is, does not constrain o u r belief t h r o u g h
evidence; it m e r e l y inclines us toward belief t h r o u g h impression. Now, o u r
free j u d g m e n t s should follow light and evidence; and if we let ourselves be
led by sense impressions, we shall l x mistaken almost always . . . . What evi-
d e n c e d o you have that an impression that is deceptive not only with r e g a r d
to sense [i.e., secondary] qualities but also with r e g a r d to the size, figure, and
motion o f bodies, is not so with r e g a r d to the actual existence o f these same
bodies?"'7
Descartes would n o d o u b t reply that we have means to correct o u r ten-
dency e r r o n e o u s l y to believe that bodies have the secondary qualities they
seem to us to have, o r that they are o f exactly the size and shape they a p p e a r
to Ix; but we have no faculty that would let us correct o u r natural t e n d e n c y
to believe that bodies exist, should that be wrong. Malebranche a g r e e d that
these considerations suffice to make it highly probable that bodies exist; he
only d e n i e d that they a m o u n t to a demonstration: "what [demonstrative] evi-
dence o f this have you, f o r I agree that you have no lack o f probabilities?"
Descartes' c o n t e n t i o n that we should "follow o u r natural j u d g m e n t w h e n we
c a n n o t positively c o r r e c t i t . . . is p e r h a p s s o u n d e n o u g h . Nevertheless, it
must be a g r e e d that it should not be taken as a necessary d e m o n s t r a t i o n o f
the existence o f bodies, for G o d does not invincibly u r g e us to yield to it. I f
we consent to it, we d o so f r e e l y - - w e are able not to consent to it. '''s I f G o d
were to incline us (or allow us to be inclined) irresistibly to believe that bodies
exist, t h e n h e would, o f course, deceive us, were t h e r e no bodies. But he
does not d o so; we are f r e e to suspend o u r belief that m a t t e r exists. H e n c e ,
G o d could not I x accused o f deceiving us, should bodies not exist, even"
t h o u g h it is t r u e that we are strongly inclined by n a t u r e to believe that they
do. " F o r in philosophical matters, we must not believe a n y t h i n g till evidence
obliges us to d o so. We must m a k e as m u c h use o f o u r f r e e d o m as possible;
o u r j u d g m e n t s should have n o g r e a t e r e x t e n t than o u r perceptions. T h u s ,
when we perceive bodies, let us j u d g e only that we perceive t h e m and that

"7 Ibid., 573.

,8 Ibid., 573-74.
 C A R T E S I A N ROAD T O I M M A T E R I A L I S M 27

these perceptible or intelligible bodies actually exist; but why should we

judge positively that there is an external material world like the intelligible
world we perceive? '''9 In the end, "only faith can persuade us that there
really are bodies."
Antoine Arnauld hastened to the defense of the Cartesian argument for
the existence of the external world. In his first work against Malebranche,
Arnauld adduced eight proofs that God would indeed be a deceiver if there
were no such world. Most o f these arguments were really proofs that God
would deceive me if no finite minds existed save my own; they were argu-
ments that a nonsolipsistic immaterialist like Berkeley could easily have
answered. His other arguments were that God would have no reason to
make me feel pain, hunger, or thirst, nor to give me sensations clearly
related to the condition and location of my body, if I had no body. s° Male-
branche replied that these were indeed "good proofs but bad demonstra-
tions. ''s' When he denied that one could demonstrate the existence of bodies,
said Malebranche, he used that word "dans toute la rigueur et l'exactitude
gtometrique." This distinction between "demonstration" and "proof," com-
plained Arnauld in reply, was merely a verbal subterfuge--though in fact
Arnauld gave no reason for rejecting Malebranche's view that we should
distinguish between arguments that produce a conclusion that is probable
("proofs") and those that produce a conclusion that is certain
Cdemonstrations"). s' Malebranche himself, after all, had conceded--indeed
insisted--that the supposition of a material world best explains both our
sense experience and our natural propensity to believe that bodies exist, and
so is highly probable; but can we be absolutely sure, he asked, that God
might not permit us to have a strong propensity to believe in bodies, even if
no bodies existed, in order to punish us for our sins?ss To the last query,
Arnauld made the just response that to suppose that God might let us be
deceived in a way we could not detect, as a punishment for our sins, would
undermine the whole Cartesian project of grounding science and would
open the door to total scepticism) 4
Arnauld struck an especially telling blow by pointing out that when Male-
branche tried to g r o u n d our certainty that bodies exist on the testimony of
Scripture, he only succeeded in arguing in a circle. Malebranche had urged

•9 Ibid., 5 7 ' .
30 Antoine Arnauld, Oeuvres (Paris, 178o), 38: 354-58.
s, Malebranche, Oeuvres comp~tes, edited by Andr¢~ Robinet (Paris, 1966), 6 : ] 8 3 . Male-
branche himself in time came to believe that we can be sure, even apart from faith, that other
minds exist. See his Oeuvres complktes, 19:865.
s' Arnauld, Oeuvres 38: 635ff.
33 Malebranche, Oeuvres complktes, 6 : 1 8 5 .
34 Arnauld, Oeuvres 38: 653-54.
28 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 4 : 1 J A N U A R Y ~986

that even if we at first--when still unsure whether there are any b o d i e s - -

supposed the Scriptures to be mere appearances (des apparences), they would
still suffice, qua appearances, to teach us such truths as that God had created
the heavens and the earth, that the Word had been made flesh, etc.: truths
that clearly imply the existence o f bodies. We could thus learn even from a
merely "phenomenal" Scripture that matter exists.S~ But, pointed out Ar-
nauld, we would have just as good reason to suppose that God causes the
"appearance" o f the Koran, as to suppose that he causes that of the Bible,
and since he is no deceiver, what possible reason could we give for accepting
the teachings o f the Bible, while rejecting those of the Koran? ~6 T o this,
Malebranche replied piously, "By faith I receive the witness of the Bible and
reject that o f the Koran." H e would have done well to have stopped there,
leaving his faith solely a work o f divine grace, but he went on to speak as if
there were better "motifs de cr~dibilit6" to be found in the "appearance" o f
the Bible than in that o f the Koran. ~7 About what those better motives o f
credibility were, Malebranche was vague, which led Maupertuis to say o f
him, "ce ne fut que parce qu'il lisoit la Bible qu'il crut qu'il y avoit des
livres. ''ss Malebranche's old Cartesian foe, Pierre-Sylvain Regis, had made
the same point, s9 In his Entretiens sur la m~taphysique (~688), Malebranche
wisely made even his belief that the Bible is divine revelation simply a matter
o f faith: "It is faith that teaches me that God created heaven and earth. It
teaches me that the Bible is a divinely revealed book. And that book, or its
appearance, tells me clearly and positively that there are thousands upon
thousands of created beings. "4°
In ~678, the same year that the Eclaircissements to the Recherche de la v~ritk
appeared, the Abb6 Lanion anonymously published his M~ditations sur la
ra~taphysique, a work that went well beyond Malebranche in this matter. Lan-
ion's Mkditations followed the same order as Descartes', but they had about
them the strong o d o r o f Malebranche~so much so that some took them to
be from the Oratorian's pen. But Lanion pushed Malebranche's criticism o f
Descartes much farther than Malebranche himself had done. Whence might
come any assurance that bodies exist? he asked. Not from our clear idea o f
~5 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 575.
~ Arnauld, Oeuvres, 38: 359-6o.
s7 Malebranche, Oeuvres completes, 6: ~86.
ss p. L. Maupertuis, Lettres (Berlin, ~753), 23.
~9 "En voulant re'assurer de l'existence de l'~tendue par la foy, je tombois n~cessairement
dans un cercle, qui faisoit que je prouvois rexistence de l'~tendue par la roy, et queje prouvois
la foy par l'existence de l'~tendue, ne la pouvant fonder que sur la t~moignage des hornraes, qui
suppose la parole, et la parole suppose l'~tendue." P.-S. Regis, Syst~,ne de philosophie (Paris, ~69o),
~: 75. For a spirited defense of Malebranche against this charge of circularity, see J. Vidgrain,
I~ Christianisme clans la philosophie de Malebranche (Paris, ~9~3), ~4~-54 .
~o Malebranche, Entretiens sur la m~taphysique, VI, 8.
 CARTESIAN ROAD TO IMMATERIALISM 29

extension, for that is an idea only o f a possible thing and does not entail that
such a thing exists. A n d not f r o m o u r sense-experience, f o r we c a n n o t so
m u c h as conceive how a b o d y could p r o d u c e a sensation in o u r minds,
whereas we can easily conceive that God, who is o m n i p o t e n t , can do so. 41 As
for Descartes' a r g u m e n t f r o m divine veracity, Lanion f o u n d it no m o r e
convincing than had Malebranche. "Since the immediate object o f o u r
awareness must be s o m e t h i n g i n t e l l i g i b l e . . . I am obliged to believe that
everything I see is the sort o f thing it appears to b e - - n a m e l y , an intelligible
thing which belongs to the substance o f G o d himself." But were I to j u d g e
that material things existed w h e n they didn't, "instead o f calling G o d a
deceiver because h e causes in me the ideas o f all things, I should instead
accuse myself o f the e r r o r o f having j u d g e d too precipitately that t h e r e
existed outside me some being o t h e r t h a n God. ''4"
T h u s far Lanion h a d said n o m o r e t h a n Malebranche. But now he went
b e y o n d Malebranche in two ways. First, by a r g u i n g that, as G o d acts always
by the simplest ways a n d h e h i m s e l f can directly cause m y sensations, it
would really seem c o n t r a r y t o the divine e c o n o m y for him to create bodies as
the "occasional causes" o f my sensations.
When I consider that everything I see must be intelligible, or rather that I can see
only the substance of God himself insofar as he is representative of things, and that
God using only a very few decrees must always act by the simplest ways, and that
moreover he directly causes in me all my thoughts, all my ideas, and all my sensa-
tions, I find so little relation between the way in which it seems to me God must act
and the long detour he would have to take were he to create extension in order to
make me see things, that I should accuse myself of imprudence in formerly judging
that anything exists outside myself save God, and of obstinacy in now finding it so
hard to persuade myself that there are no bodies, if faith which is above reason didn't
require me to believe that there are. 43

(A few years later M a l e b r a n c h e h i m s e l f a d o p t e d this very line in his dispute

with Arnauld, telling the latter that o n e might even say "that G o d does
nothing useless a n d that it is useless to create bodies, since bodies n e v e r act
on the mind and, p r o p e r l y speaking, the mind n e v e r sees bodies. T M But
Malebranche did not see, as did Lanion, how m u c h this a r g u m e n t w e a k e n e d
his own putative probable p r o o f o f matter.) Further, w h e r e it had s e e m e d to
Malebranche h a r d to explain why G o d gives us sensations if we d o n ' t sup-
pose ourselves to have a body whose care we are c h a r g e d with, Lanion held
that it would be easy to see why G o d might give us sensations even if we had
no body: H e might give t h e m to us so tJaat we would have a chance freely to
4, Pierre Lanion, M~ditations sur la mktaphysique (Paris, 1678), 4 0 - 5 0 .
4, Ibid., 4 9 - 5 o.
4s Ibid., 63-65.
44 Malebranche, Oeuvres complktes, 6:184.
 30 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 24:1 JANUARY 198(

transcend our love for them and, instead, to love him145 While Lanion dk
not totally reject the probable argument for the existence of matter, h,
insisted that, if faith did not instruct us otherwise, "it would seem to be toq
long a detour for the infinitely wise being to create extension in order tq
give us sensations, when extension could not even cause these sensations.
This, joined to his belief that we can explain why God might give us sensa
tions even if there were no bodies, carried him much further along the roa(
to immaterialism than Malebranche had traveled? 6
Like Lanion, the Italian Malebranchist Michelangelo Fardella, who taugh
philosophy at Padua and was later court theologian to the Archduke o
Barcelona, thought the probable argument for matter's existence mucl
weaker than it had seemed to Malebranche. How bodies might cause sensa
tions in our minds is completely incomprehensible, said Fardella, whereas i
is clear that the almighty God can do so: how then can our sensations !~
probable evidence o f the existence of bodies? he asked. Nor have we an,
reasons to suppose God u n d e r some obligation to make known to u:
whether or not he has created a world of bodies corresponding to ou~
sensations. T h e senses, it is true, lead people to believe that bodies exist; bu
Descartes himself showed that the testimony of the senses is often fals~
regarding the qualities o f bodies. Why then should we trust their witnes:
about the existence of bodies? T h e existence of the material world, concludec
Fardella, should be counted among the truths of faith, not of philosophy?
To Pierre Bayle it seemed that the Abb~ Lanion had drawn the logica
conclusion from Malebranche's oft-repeated dictum: "God acts always in the
simplest ways." Bayle reprinted Lanion's M~ditations in his Recueil de quelque
pikces curieuses concernant la philosophie de M. Descartes 0684), and commende(
it as "a pr6cis o f the finest metaphysics and all that is most excellent in the
Meditations o f Descartes, with the advantage that here everything is bette~
digested, briefer, pithier, and takes us well beyond Descartes. ''~8 In his arti
cle on Zeno o f Elea, in the Dictionary, Bayle used Lanion's argument fron

45 Lanion, M~ditations, 66-67.

46 Ibid., 5 0 - 5 2 , 57. Some have conjectured that Lanion may be the thinker intended when
in a review of Berkeley's Principles, the M~moires de Trkvoux described a Parisian Malebranchis
who had gone even farther than Berkeley, denying not only the existence of bodies but of othe
minds. For a summary of the literature discussing the identity of this Parisian "Malebranchiste,
see H. M. Bracken, The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism: x 71o-J 73 3 (The Hague, 19651
18, note ~.
4~ M. Fardella, Universae Philosophiae Systema (Venice, 169]), appendix 2. (Berkeley refers t,
Fardeila in his notebooks [Philosophical Commentaries, entry 79], but Fardella's work was rare am
it is likely Berkeley knew of it only from Bayle's references to it.)
48 Recueil de quelques pi~ces curieu~es concernant la philosophic de M. Descartes, ed. P. Bayl
(Amsterdam, ]684), Avis au lecteur. (Bayle refers to Lanion as "Guillaume Wander," his nom d
plume.)
 C A R T E S I A N ROAD TO I M M A T E R I A L I S M 31

divine economy to show that those who accepted the view that God acts
always by the simplest ways could dispense altogether with belief in bodies.
Consider these axioms: (1) nature does nothing in vain, and (~) it is useless
to do by several means what can be done by fewer with equal ease. "By these
two axioms the Cartesians I am speaking of can maintain that no bodies
exist; for whether they exist or not, God is equally able to communicate to us
all the thoughts that we have. ''49 For if God achieves his ends by the simplest
means, then we should suppose that he directly causes our sensations (as the
"Cartesians" Bayle is speaking of--thinkers like Malebranche, Fardella, and
Lanion--all in fact hold that God does, since all are occasionalists) without
bothering to create a whole world of bodies to serve as "occasional causes" of
our sensations, s°
Bayle also urged, as Foucher, Malebranche, Lanion, and Fardella had
before him, that by admitting that our senses mislead us about such sensible
qualities as color, odor, and taste, the Cartesians made the existence of
extension itself problematic. "The 'new' philosophers, although they are not
skeptics, have so well understood the bases of suspension of j u d g m e n t with
regard to sounds, smells, heat, cold, hardness, softness, heaviness and light-
ness, tastes, colors, and the like, that they teach that all these qualities are
perceptions of our soul and that they do not exist at all in the objects of our
senses. Why should we not say the same thing about extension? ''s~ Bayle did
not at this point address himself to Descartes' insistence that there is a crucial
difference here, via. that we can discover that bodies are not literally sweet,
yellow, etc., but have no way of discovering that they are not extended. But
in "Pyrrho" he remarked that a peasant has no more power to discover that
snow is not white than a Cartesian has to discover that bodies are not ex-
t e n d e d m y e t the Cartesian will not say that God deceives the peasant. "That
is why, if we deceive ourselves in affirming the existence of extension, God
would not be the cause, since you grant that he is not the cause of the
peasant's errors. ''s' Descartes might have replied that the peasant could, in

49 p. Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary, abridged and translated by R. H. Popkin (India-
napolis, 1965), under "Zeno of Elea," note H (373).
50 Many others were to make this same observation, among them Mary Astell in her corre-
spondence with John Norris about Malebranche, see Astell's letter of Sept. 21, 1694, in J.
Norris, Letters concerning the Love of God (London, 1695); James Lowde, Moral Essays: Wherein
Some of Mr. Lock's and Mona. Malbranch's Opinions are Briefly Compared(London 1699 ), 175; John
Locke, An Examination of P~re Malebranche's Opinion of Seeing All Things in God, sec. 2o; and G.
Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 53- Leibniz defended Malebranche on this point,
remarking that we should not suppose that God's only purpose in creating material things is so
that we can have sensations. Leibniz, Philosophical Works, ed. G. M. Duncan (New Haven, 189o),
186.
51 Bayle, Dictionary, "Zeno of Elea," note G (364-65).
~' Ibid., "Pyrrho," note B (199).
32 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 24:1 JANUARY 198
principle, discover that the sensible qualities are not in bodies, e.g., if th
peasant made a study of physics. But if special studies are necessary to avoiq
deception, Descartes' claim that God enables us by the simple suspension c
our assent to avoid error would be greatly compromised. If, on the othe
hand, Descartes were to respond that even peasants could suspend thei
belief that colors exist outside the mind, then he would clearly open himsel
to Malebranche's objection that anyone can suspend belief that extension ex
ists outside the mind.
In "Zeno," Bayle summarized Malebranche's arguments against Descarte~
claim to have demonstrated the existence of the external world. "Father Male
branche's arguments are doubdess very strong," he concluded, but there is~
stronger a r g u m e n t than any given by Malebranche--a demonstration that th,
existence o f matter is (or must at least seem to our reason to be) impossible. I
extension exists, he argued, it must be composed either of extensionles
points, or of extended atoms, or of matter that is infinitely divisible. But eacl
of these leads to absurdity. It is absurd to suppose that any addition of exten
sionless points together could ever produce anything extended. And it i
equally absurd to suppose that a true atom could be extended, for if extende(
it would have a right side and a left side, and so would be composed of distinc
bodies, for its right and left sides would be in different places. But it i:
obvious, said Bayle, that one and the same body cannot be in two places a
once. Finally, it would be absurd to suppose matter infinitely divisible, fo]
then each bit of matter would contain an actual infinity of parts---but "ai
infinite n u m b e r o f parts o f extension, each o f which is extended and distinc
from all others, both with regard to its being and to the place that it occupies
cannot be contained in a space one h u n d r e d million times smaller than th(
hundred-thousandth part of a grain of barley." To avoid these absurdities
Bayle concluded, "we must acknowledge with respect to bodies what math.
ematicians acknowledge with respect to lines and surfaces . . . . They can exis
only in our minds. T h e y can exist only ideally. ''53
Regius and Malebranche thought that reason makes the existence of mat.
ter probable, but faith alone makes it certain. Lanion and Fardella though1
that reason shows the existence of matter to be possible, but faith alon~
assures us that it is actual. But Bayle concluded that to reason, matter'.,
existence appears impossible ("that is, according to the light of philosophy, il
might seem that it contained contradictions and impossibilities") and thw
only by overthrowing reason can faith assure us that bodies exist.
It is useful to know that a Father of the Oratory, as illustrious for his piety as for hi~
philosophical knowledge, maintained that faith alone can truly convince us of th(

5s Ibid., 359-63.
 CARTESIAN ROAD TO IMMATERIALISM 33
existence of bodies. Neither the Sorbonne, nor any other tribunal, gave him the least
trouble on that account. The Italian inquisitors did not disturb Fardella, who main-
tained the same thing in a printed work. This ought to show my readers that they
must not find it strange that I sometimes point out that, concerning the most mysteri-
ous matters in the Gospel, reason gets us nowhere, and thus we ought to be com-
pletely satisfied with the light of faith, s4

In 17ol, the English Malebranchist, J o h n Norris, m o v e d the discussion

one step n e a r e r to immaterialism. T h u s far, those who held that reason is to
one d e g r e e o r a n o t h e r u n c e r t a i n a b o u t matter's existence had a g r e e d that
divine revelation suffices to assure us that t h e r e are material substances.
Now while Norris believed that we have good reason to think it probable
that m a t t e r exists, he rejected the claim o f his predecessors that revelation
makes certain what must be for r e a s o n only probable. For what grounds,
asked Norris, have we for believing in revelation save o u r own senses? It is,
after all, only by sense that o n e sees and hears a p r o p h e t , o r reads the
p r o p h e t ' s dicta in Scripture. "All I now inquire is w h e t h e r I must not be
b e h o l d e n to m y Sense to i n f o r m m e w h e t h e r de facto t h e r e be any such
Revelation e x t a n t or no? A n d I think it c a n n o t be d e n i e d but that I must.
For I have no o t h e r certainty o f the Existence o f my Bible wherein it is
contain'd. A n d t h e n again I have n o o t h e r certainty o f the Existence o f my
Bible, or o f such and such C h a r a c t e r s in it, t h a n I have o f o t h e r Bodies or o f
any o f those Figures w h e r e b y they are modified. ''ss Since we only know o f
b o d i e s - - i n c l u d i n g the S c r i p t u r e s - - f r o m o u r senses, a.nd since the evidence
o f sense is at best probable, the highest assurance we can h o p e for a b o u t the
existence o f m a t t e r is p r o b a b l e belief. (Norris recognized that this m a d e it
only probable that S c r i p t u r e / s divine r e v e l a t i o n - - a conclusion he accepted
and d e f e n d e d . ) 56
A r n a u l d and Regis, as we have noted, had already recognized that to
g r o u n d belief in m a t t e r o n Scripture involved o n e in a circularity (Norris
may i n d e e d have first met this point in them, for his works contain refer-
ences b o t h to A r n a u l d ' s Des vraies et des fausses idles and to Regis's Syst~me de
philosophie). But what distinguished Norris f r o m them, on this issue, was that
he accepted Malebr~inche's claim that n e i t h e r sense n o r reason can establish
with certainty o u r belief that m a t t e r exists. T h u s , by rejecting revelation as a
sure f o u n d a t i o n o f this belief, Norris was led to conclude that we have no
way to be completely sure that m a t t e r exists--we must m a k e do with a belief
in m a t t e r that is only highly probable.
Norris also u n d e r m i n e d the d e f e n s e o f m a t t e r in a n o t h e r way. Male-

Ibid., 377 and note 1o2.

5~ j. Norris, The Theoryof the Ideal or IntelligibleWorld (London, 1701), l: 189--90.
56 Ibid., 1:217-23.
34 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 4 : X J A N U A R Y 1 9 8 6

b r a n c h e h a d b e e n u n a b l e to o f f e r any explanation o f why we have sensations

o t h e r t h a n that they serve to signify to the m i n d the states a n d needs o f the
body. T h i s left M a l e b r a n c h e with no answer to Arnauld's insistence that G o d
would have n o r e a s o n to p r o d u c e sensations in o u r minds if we had no body,
save the very lame reply that G o d might give us these misleading sensations
to punish us for o u r past sins. Norris, however, held that sensations have an
intrinsic value. H e c o n t r a s t e d the bleakness o f the material world with the
rich beauty o f the sensible world:
But they [material things], poor Creatures, have none of those Finenesses, Excellen-
cies, or Beauties (Figure only excepted) which we think we see in them, and for
which we admire them, but are, as it were, a mere Caput Mortuum or Terra Damnata,
in the Language of the Sons of Hermes, utterly void and destitute of all those
agreeable Prettinesses, those charming Graces, which the poetical imagination of
Philosophers, like the Passion of Lovers, has confer'd upon them . . . . For in short,
the Perfections of material Beings are the mere Creatures of his Fancie; those
Beauties which he thinks he perceives without, are really in himself, and he carries
about him the World that he admires. 57
By implication Norris h e r e g r a n t e d that sensations would have intrinsic
aesthetic w o r t h even if t h e r e were no bodies at all, u r g i n g his r e a d e r to
reflect o n "what a d e a d unactive thing Matter is, and withal, how p o o r a n d
e m p t y the Material is in c o m p a r i s o n with the Intellectual World." O n e has
now c o m e perilously close to immaterialism: if n e i t h e r sense n o r reason n o r
revelation proves a material world, if o u r sensations or ideas have an intrin-
sic worth even if ttiere is n o matter, if m a t t e r is a dead, inactive, useless
thing, t h e n m i g h t a r e a d e r not be t e m p t e d to w o n d e r why we should conti-
n u e to suppose it to exist at all?
It was just this t h o u g h t that g r i p p e d Norris's y o u n g a d m i r e r , A r t h u r
Collier. Collier a n d N o r r i s w e r e rectors o f n e i g h b o r i n g parishes (Norris at
B e m e r t o n , Collier at L a n g f o r d Magna, fewer than ten miles away), and were
almost certainly a c q u a i n t e d (Collier spoke o f Norris as "my late ingenious
neighbor"). Collier h e l d N o r r i s in very high regard, c o u n t i n g him, with
Descartes a n d M a l e b r a n c h e , o n e o f the t h r e e masters o f the "new philoso-
phy." A n d t h o u g h Collier, in Clavis Universalis 0 7 1 3 ) , d e f e n d e d the same
central thesis that Berkeley had, it was to Norris, not Berkeley, that Collier
was chiefly indebted. I n d e e d , if Collier is to be taken at his word, his views
were f o r m e d wholly i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f Berkeley's, for in Clavis Universalis h e
said he had held the view h e t h e r e d e f e n d e d since about 17o 3, and in his
Specimen of True Philosophy ( ~73o), he spoke o f Berkeley's Three Dialogues--a

57 I b i d . , 2: ~54-55. Malebranche himself, of course, had insisted that much that we take to
be nature's beauty really exists only in us as qualities of our sense perception. See M~ditatiom
chr~tiennes, XI, ~7.
 C A R T E S I A N ROAD TO I M M A T E R I A L I S M 35

work that first appeared several months after Chzvis Universals--as the only
other book he had ever heard of that denied the existence of matter, ss If this
is true, then even in 1730, Collier had not come upon Berkeley's Principles.
This would be surprising, but not impossible: Collier was a country cleric
who gives no evidence o f familiarity with the great intellectual currents of
his own land and time (thus, he shows no sign of having read Locke), taking
instead as his point o f departure the work of a neighboring cleric, Norris,
and those thinkers, Descartes and Malebranche, who were Norris's own chief
guides. Indeed, though Collier's central claim--that matter doesn't exist--
was the s a m e as Berkeley's, his arguments for the most part are not (and
where they are, it is almost always the case that Berkeley himself was follow-
ing either Malebranche's Recherche or Bayle's "Zeno of Elea," an article Col-
lier gives a number o f signs of knowing). 59
Clavis Universalis is a work o f two parts: in the first, Collier tried to prove
that the world we perceive ("the visible world") cannot be identified with the
material world, even if the latter exists; in the second, he argued that the
material world does not exist. In the first part, he argued that we cannot
conclude merely from the seeming "externeity" of the visible world that it is
in fact external: Descartes, Malebranche, and Norris, he thinks, have amply
proven that something (e.g., the "sensible qualities") can be internal to con-
sciousness, even when appearing external to it. 6° Further, two considerations
prove that the visible world is not external: first, not just sensible qualities
like color or warmth, but equally such characteristics of visible objects as size,
shape, and speed change as the condition or position o f the perceiver
changes; and second, we can only perceive what is "immediately present" to
our minds and, so, objects removed from us in space (as material things, if
they exist, must be) cannot be the objects we sense. 6' Both of these argu-
ments had been much insisted on by Malebranche and Norris, who thought
that the relativity o f all perceived qualities, primary and secondary, showed
ss A. Collier, Clavis Universalis, ed. E. Bowman (Chicago, 19o9), i 18; and A Specimen of True
Philosophy, reprinted in Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, ed. S.
Parr (London, 1837), 114.
59 For a defense of the view that Collier d/d know Berkeley's Principles, see G. A. Johnston,
The Development of Berkeley's Philosophy (London, 19a3), appendix I. J o h n s t o n acknowledged that
Norris was Collier's chief source and that Collier's views and probably even his book were fully
formed before he discovered Berkeley, but J o h n s t o n thought Collier then came on the Principles
and modified a half dozen passages in the Clavis in consequence of reading it. I think that really
the only passage cited by J o h n s t o n that does not have its antecedents in Malebranche, Norris, or
Bayle is the parenthetical paragraph in Clavis Universalis, 36---and even this, while certainly
reminiscent of Berkeley's claim that "esse" means "percipi," is not used by Collier as a p r o o f that
matter doesn't exist, hut only to prove that the visible world and the material world cannot be
identical.
6o Collier, C/avis, ~ .
61 Ibid., 34-35.
36 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 4 : 1 JANUARY 1 9 8 6
that the senses c a n n o t be relied o n to show us things as they are, a n d who
used the a r g u m e n t that we c a n n o t immediately perceive things at some
r e m o v e f r o m us in space to p r o v e that what we see are ideal r a t h e r than
material things. 6~
Having satisfied h i m s e l f that even if t h e r e is a material world, it c a n n o t be
identical with the visible world, Collier p r o c e e d e d in the C/av/s's second p a r t
to o f f e r nine a r g u m e n t s to p r o v e that t h e r e is no material world. His first
a r g u m e n t is that we d e p e n d , f o r knowledge, o n either the senses o r o n
reason, but n e i t h e r can p r o v e the existence o f matter: not the senses, for
they assure us only o f the reality o f the visible o r sensible world, a n d that
cannot (as the first p a r t o f the Clavis p u r p o r t s to have shown) be identified
with the material world; a n d not reason, f o r it can p r o v e the existence only
o f what is necessary, whereas matter, if it exists, does not exist necessarily
but only because G o d freely elected to create it. 6a This a r g u m e n t , t h o u g h
reminiscent o f section 18 o f Berkeley's Principles, was taken with little altera-
tion f r o m Norris a n d ultimately f r o m Malebranche. 64 But w h e r e Male-
b r a n c h e a n d Norris h a d b e e n c o n t e n t to draw f r o m it only the c o n t u s i o n
that we have no demonstrative p r o o f that m a t t e r exists, Collier, hewing m o r e
resolutely to a Cartesian s t a n d a r d , u r g e d that we o u g h t to reason only a b o u t
what we clearly perceive to be t r u e and c o n c l u d e d that "an external world, as
being u n k n o w n , o u g h t to have as little place in o u r reasonings as if we knew
for certain that t h e r e was n o such world. ''6s
Collier's second a r g u m e n t was that G o d can himself directly cause all o u r
sensations a n d hence, as h e acts always by the simplest means, G o d would
have no reason to create a material world to serve as the occasional cause o f
o u r sensations. 66 T h i s a r g u m e n t , we have seen, had b e e n i n t r o d u c e d by the
Abb~ L a n i o n a n d used by M a l e b r a n c h e himself in his controversy with Ar-
nauld. While Berkeley too m a d e fleeting use o f it in the Principles, sec. ~9, it
was Bayle who placed the greatest weight o n it, saying that f r o m the "axi-
oms" that n a t u r e does n o t h i n g in vain and that it is useless to d o by several
means what can be d o n e by f e w e r with equal ease, "the Cartesians" (by which
he really m e a n t the Occasionalists) could d e n y that bodies exist, since G o d
can direcdy p r o d u c e o u r sensations w h e t h e r t h e r e are any bodies or not. As
Collier's a r g u m e n t s against m a t t e r at several crucial points resemble those in
"Zeno o f Elea" in Bayle's Dictionary, it seems that that w o r k m a l r e a d y well
6, On the relativity of perceived qualities, see Malebranche, The Search after Truth bk. I,
chaps. 6-~o, and Norris, Theory, pt. II, chaps. 6-7. On the argument from immediacy, see
Malebranche, bk. III, pt. II, chap. ~, and Norris, vol. a: 443. Cf. also Bayle, D/ct/0nary364-65.
6~ Collier, C/av/~, pt. II, chap. ~.
64 Norris, Theory,vol. I: 189-ao8, and Malebranche, Search after Truth, 568-76.
6~ Collier, C/a~/s, 56.
~ Ibid., pt. II, chap. ~.
 CARTESIAN ROAD TO IMMATERIALISM 37
known by the time Collier was forming his views--may well have been a
source o f this argument.
Collier had thus far argued that even if matter does exist, we cannot
know that it does; and that even if it is possible for matter to exist, God has
no reason to create it. But what clinched the matter, in his eyes, was his
conviction that it is not possible for matter to exist. This conviction rested
upon three suppositions: first, that by "matter" we are to understand, with
Descartes, something that is in essence extended; second, that if matter
existed, it would be because God created it; and third, that whatever God
creates is finite. From these suppositions (which he made no attempt to
defend) Collier drew the conclusion that matter c a n n o t exist. For, he
argued, matter, being extended, would consist of partes extra partes, and as
such would have to be infinite both in extent (for what could lie beyond any
boundary in extension save more extension?) and in the number o f its parts
(for the parts of extended things would themselves be extended, but what is
extended has magnitude, and what has magnitude is always divisible into
smaller parts). And yet, as a created thing, matter could not be infinite.
Hence, were matter to exist, it would have to be and not to be infinite, both
in extent and in the number o f its parts. Since what is contradictory in
nature is impossible, matter cannot exist. 67
Collier made little effort to flesh out this argument, saying, "I need not
deduce these things to any farther length, since no philosopher I have ever
met with has ever doubted o f this matter, it being universally agreed that
there is an invincible demonstration on both sides of this question. ''ts Here,
no doubt, Collier reflected Norris's strong conviction that equally good argu-
ments can be given on either side o f the debates about the infinite extent
and infinite divisibility o f matter. Norris attributed this state of affairs to the
weakness of the h u m a n mind: " 'tis most certain that only one can be true,
they being two opposite parts o f a contradiction, but which is so, is beyond
the Capacity of H u m a n Understanding to determine. ''69 To this, Collier
responded that, instead of attributing these paradoxes to the feebleness of
our minds, we should reject resolutely the supposition that first gave rise to
them: that matter exists.
When we do so--when we affirm only the reality o f the visible world--
these paradoxes evaporate, for it would be absurd to inquire o f the visible
world "whether it be extended farther than it is seen to be extended, or

67 Ibid., pt. II, chaps. 3-4.

68 Ibid., 69.
60 Norris, Reflec~ons upon the Conduct of Human Life, in Treatises upon Several Subjects (Lon-
don, 1698), ~24-25. (Locketoo held this; of. Essay concerningHuman Understanding, II. XXIII.
31.)
38 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY u4:1 JANUARY 1 9 8 6

divisible f a r t h e r t h a n it is seen to exist. ''7° B o t h in m a k i n g the p a r a d o x e s

a b o u t the infinite central to the case f o r immaterialism, a n d in a r g u i n g that
such p a r a d o x e s d o not arise a b o u t the world c o n s i d e r e d m e r e l y as some-
thing "ideal," Collier's position was like Bayle's in "Zeno o f Elea," a n d sug-
gests, I think, that he m a y have k n o w n that article. (Berkeley, by contrast,
m e r e l y cited the resolution o f the p a r a d o x a b o u t infinite divisibility as a
h a p p y b y - p r o d u c t o f immaterialism, b u t d i d n ' t m a k e its supposed insolubil-
ity an a r g u m e n t f o r immateriaiism.) 7' T o these a r g u m e n t s , Collier a d d e d
several o t h e r s that I will pass over; they all, I think, h a d their roots in
a r g u m e n t s o f M a l e b r a n c h e , Norris, o r Bayle. 7.
Collier's work c o n c l u d e d with an a t t e m p t to r e f u t e the defenses o f belief
in an e x t e r n a l world given by Descartes, Malebranche, a n d Norris. T o Des-
cartes' p r o o f f r o m divine veracity he m a d e the same reply that M a l e b r a n c h e
a n d Norris had: G o d does not invincibly incline us to believe that, in addi-
tion to the sensible world, t h e r e is a material world; hence, were we to e r r in
j u d g i n g that ~there is such a world, it would be a n e r r o r we freely m a d e , a n d
so o n e that G o d would n o t be responsible for. 7s T o Malebranche's conten-
tion that S c r i p t u r e reveals to us that m a t t e r exists, Collier replied that Scrip-
t u r e reveals that G o d c r e a t e d not m a t t e r but h e a v e n a n d earth, by which we
m a y u n d e r s t a n d the visible, tangible w o r l d - - a world we n e e d n o assurance
f r o m S c r i p t u r e to s u p p o r t o u r belief in, since we can see a n d feel it. TM T o
Norris, w h o h a d d e n i e d that e i t h e r sense, reason, o r revelation could n-take
us certain that the n a t u r a l world exists, yet who t h o u g h t it " e r r a n t scepti-
cism" to d o u b t its existence, Collier replied that if by the "natural world"
Norris m e a n t the visible world, t h e n it would i n d e e d be e r r a n t scepticism to
d o u b t its reality; b u t if by the " n a t u r a l world" he m e a n t an invisible realm o f
material substances, t h e n it was in fact "the great and excellent Mr. Norris"
himself w h o h a d b e e n able "to shew (as h e plainly does, a n d f o r which I
r e f e r my r e a d e r , to shew, I say) that n e i t h e r reason, n o r sense, n o r revela-

~° Collier, Clavis, 7,. Like Kant in the first and second antinomies, Collier here conflates
the question of what/s seen with that of what can be seen; it may be absurd to inquire whether
something is extended farther than it ever can be seen to be, but it surely isn't senseless to inquire
whether it is extended farther than it/s seen to be.
~' Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 85.
~" Thus compare the argument of Clavis Universalis, pt. ~, chap. 5, with Bayle, Dict/0nary
353-59; of Clavis, pt.2, chap. 6, with Malebranche, Search a f ~ Truth, bk. III, pt. II, chap. ~,
and Norris, Theory, vol. ~: 335-4o; of C/av/s, pt. II, chap. 7, with Malebranche's arguments
against autonomous Nature as a "pagan chimera," in Search, bk. VI, pt. II, chap. 3, and Eclair-
cissement XV; of C/av/s, pt. II, chap. 8, with the arguments against the vacuum in Bayle,
Dictionary, 379-8o; and of Clavis, pt. II, chap. 9, with Malebranche, Search, bk. Ill, pt. e, chap.
8, sec, ~.
~s Collier, C/av/s, 54 and ~o6-1o.
~4 Ibid., ~o,-6.
 C A R T E S I A N ROAD TO I M M A T E R I A L I S M 39

tion, is sufficient to assure us of the existence of any such things." Why then
should we not doubt their existence, if no proof of them can be given, or not
deny their existence, if reason shows that the very concept of an extended
thing involves contadictions? 7s
In Clavis Universalis, Collier's goal was negative: to undermine belief in
matter. In A Specimen of True Philosophy, he Set out his posidve doctrine: the
visible world exists in the mind, the mind exists in the Logos, the Logos
exists in God. All these beings---visible world, mind, Logos, and God---differ
in nature, and each member of this series depends for its existence on the
next m e m b e r of the series, God alone being self-subsistent. 76 The most fa-
mous chapter in the Recherche de la v~ritk had ended with the declaration:
"God is the place of minds, as the material world is the place of bodies."
Having eliminated the material world, Collier fittingly modified the doc-
trine: God is the place of minds, as mind is the place of bodies. 77
With Collier, the road we have been following reaches an end in a system
of complete immaterialism. That road has passed through several clear
stages: it began (l) in Descartes' confident claim that the existence of matter
can be proven beyond doubt, passed ~2) through the contention of Regius,
Cordemoy, and Malebranche that (faith aside) only highly probable evidence
can be given for it, thence (3) by way of the greatly diminished probabilism
of Lanion and Fardella, to (4) Bayle's claim that faith alone must ground our
belief in matter, then (5) through Norris's denial that even faith can assure
us of matter's existence, to (6) Collier's denial of matter. I want, in conclu-
sion, to stress two things about the history here recounted. First, it consists of
one interconnected chain: Malebranche was influenced by Cordemoy; Lan-
ion and Fardella were disciples of Malebranche; Bayle used some a r g u m e n t s
that came from Malebranche, from his critic, Foucher, and from Lanion and
Fardella; Norris was deeply indebted to Malebranche and probably knew
Arnauld's and Regis's view that to ground belief in matter on Scripture is
circular; and Collier was well versed both in Malebranche and in Norris and
appears to have known Bayle's "Zeno," too.
The other thing I would note about this story is that it is internal to
Cartesianism. That is, all its players either were, broadly speaking, Carte-
sians (Cordemoy, Malebranche, Arnauld, Regis, Lanion, Fardella, Norris) or

7s Ibid., 11o-17.
7~ This doctrine led Collier to heterodox views about the Trinity, since it entailed that God
and the Logos are not of the same nature and subsiance. His Christological views, which were
basically Apollinarian, are set out in his Logology or a Treatise on the Logos (London, 1739 ).
7~ Malebranche, Search after Truth, bk. III, pt. a, chap. 6 (235). Elsewhere Malebranche
wrote, "Both [minds and bodiesl are in God . . . . Minds, Aristes, are in the divine reason, and
bodies in [God's] immensity." But he hastened to add, "But they [mind and body] can't be in
each other." Entretiem sur la m~taphysique, VIII, 6.
40 J O U R N A L OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 4 : 1 JANUARY 1 9 8 6
wcrc seeking to b r i n g o u t what they took to bc implications o f Cartesian
doctrine (Regius, F o u c h e r , Bayle, Collier). T h e r e is, o f course, a m o r e famil-
iar road that leads to the denial o f material substance, one that passes
t h r o u g h Locke to Berkeley a n d H u m c ( t h o u g h cvcn there, Malcbranchc a n d
Baylc wcrc o f critical importance). 7s But it seems clear that immaterialism
would still h.ave a p p e a r e d early in the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y - - i f only in the
f o r m given it by A r t h u r Collier--as a result o f the internal dialectic o f
Cartesianism, cvcn in the absence o f those familiar d e v e l o p m e n t s in British
empiricism that arc usually t h o u g h t o f as the natural source o f the denial o f
material substanccY 9

Michigan State University

es On Malebranche's relation to Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, see my Malebranche and British
Philosophy (Oxford, ~983), chaps. 4, 6, and 7. On Bayle's relation to Berkeley and Hume, see
Richard H. Popkin, The High Road to Pyrrhonisra (San Diego, ~98o).
79 I am indebted to Katherine McCracken for many improvements in this paper that her
critical reading of it led me to make.