Continuous Creation, Continuous Time: A Refutation of the

Alleged Discontinuity of Cartesian Time

Richard Arthur

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 26, Number 3, July 1988, pp.
349-375 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.1988.0061

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/226577/summary

Access provided at 23 Jul 2019 23:33 GMT from SUNY College @ Buffalo
 Continuous Creation,
Continuous Time:
A Refutation of the Alleged
Discontinuity of Cartesian Time
RICHARD T. W. ARTHUR

1. INTRODUCTION

ACCORDING to Y v o n Belaval, ~ " e v e r y o n e k n o w s t h a t t i m e is d i s c o n t i n u o u s " i n

D e s c a r t e s ' p h i l o s o p h y , a n d as a n a s s e s s m e n t o f r e c e i v e d o p i n i o n o n t h e s u b -
ject, this s t a t e m e n t c a n h a r d l y b e f a u l t e d . F o r all c o m m e n t a t o r s o n Descartes
this c e n t u r y h a v e f o l l o w e d K e m p S m i t h , Vigier, a n d W a h l i n a s s e r t i n g t h e
d i s c o n t i n u i t y o f C a r t e s i a n t i m e , ' with t h e sole e x c e p t i o n s o f L a p o r t e a n d ,
f o l l o w i n g h i m , Beyssade.3 A n d L a p o r t e ' s d i s s e n t i n g view has b e e n d e a l t with

I should like to thank several people for their encouragement and for helpful comments on
previous drafts: Howard Woodhouse, Victor Nuovo, John Nicholas, William Harper, Tom Len-
non, Brian Baigrie, and especially Michael Stack.
' Yvon Belaval, Leibniz: critique de Descartes, (Paris: Libraire Gallimard, 196o), 149: "sait com-
ment Descartes a li~ indissolublemententre d'intuition elles les trois notions de v&it~, d'instant et
d'intuition.., l'instant mesure rintuition, l'actuel mesure l'instant, c'est/~ dire que le temps est
discontinu. . . . "
' Norman Kemp Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy (19o2, rpt. New York: Russell &
Russell Inc., 1962), 131. Hereafter cited as Studies. Vigier, "Les id&s de temps, de dur~e et
d'~ternit~ chez Descartes," Revue Philosophique (192o). Jean Wahl, Du role de l'id~e de l'instant dam la
philosophic de Descartes (Paris: Libraire F~lix Aican, 192o).
s Jean Laporte laid out his objections to the standard interpretation promoted by Vigier and
Wahl in his/2 Rationalisme de Descartes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 195o), especially
158-6o. Jean-Marie Beyssade's work, La Philosophie Premil,re de Descartes (Paris: Flammarion,
1979), is a re-valuation of some traditional Cartesian doctrines premised on the continuity of time
in his philosophy. See especially vii, 16-x7, 1~9-42, 346-35o. When this article was in proofs
Professor Daniel Garber drew my attention to a recent paper of his in which he arrives at much
the same conclusion (although in less detail) concerning the continuity of Cartesian time as I do
here: 'How God Causes Motion: Descartes, Divine Substance and Occasionalism," Journal of
Philosophy (October 1987): 566-80.

[349]
35 ~ JOURNAL or THE HISTORY OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2 6 : 3 JULY 1988
at length by Martial G u e r o u l t , who in his Descartes selon l'ordre des raisons4
vigorously d e f e n d s the s t a n d a r d i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f Descartes' time as
discontinuous---the "classic thesis," as it is called in the s t a n d a r d edition o f
Descartes' works.5
Nevertheless, I shall a r g u e h e r e that the classic thesis is incorrect, a n d that
t h e r e is no convincing evidence that Descartes denied the continuity o f time,
a n d no convincing evidence either for the usual p r e s e n t a t i o n o f Descartes'
doctrine o f c o n t i n u o u s creation as asserting a discontinuous succession o f dis-
crete acts o f divine creation, as o p p o s e d to o n e continuous act.
I should i m m e d i a t e l y clarify these r e m a r k s , for I do not m e a n to suggest
that Descartes h a d a n y well e l a b o r a t e d t h e o r y o f what constitutes a c o n t i n u o u s
duration. H e a p p e a r s to r e g a r d time as analyzable into an infinity o f neighbor-
ing m o m e n t s , yet he d o e s n o t a t t e m p t to solve what Leibniz refers to as "the
p r o b l e m o f the c o m p o s i t i o n o f the c o n t i n u u m , " the p r o b l e m o f how (in this
case) a d u r a t i o n could be c o m p o s e d o f an infinity o f durationless instants or
m o m e n t s . I n fact Descartes does not even believe, I shall argue, that t h e r e is a
p r o b l e m h e r e that should o r could be solved by a finite mind. M u c h less does
he advocate that, in the case o f d u r a t i o n , t h e r e is a definite limit to its divisibil-
ity, so that an a p p a r e n t l y c o n t i n u o u s d u r a t i o n is in fact c o m p o s e d o f really
discrete indivisibles: yet this latter view is precisely the view n o r m a l l y attrib-
u t e d to him, the "classic thesis," which I shall e n d e a v o r to refute.
But b e f o r e I b e g i n m y a r g u m e n t , let m e first try to clarify what would
constitute a discontinuist t h e o r y o f time in the s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y context,
a n d what would c o u n t as evidence f o r it. T h e s e are questions that m u s t be
m o o t e d now if we are to avoid considerable confusion later.
Let m e b e g i n with two caveats. First, we m u s t beware o f a n a c h r o n i s m : we
c a n n o t a p p l y t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y criteria o f continuity to decide w h e t h e r Des-
cartes' time is continuous. For e x a m p l e , the fact that Descartes talks o f "neigh-
b o r i n g m o m e n t s ''6 means, f r o m a m o d e r n perspective, that these m o m e n t s

4 Martial Gueroult, Descartes selon l'ordre des raisons, vol. 1, l'dme et Dieu. (Paris: Aubier, 1953).
The translations given are my own, although there is now a good translation by Roger Ariew:
Descartes" Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons, Voi. l, The Soul and God (Minneapo-
lis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). From now on I shall cite references to this work in the
form: Guer ~731193. The second page number refers to Ariew's translation.
5 Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J.
Vrin, 1964-76), "Table analytique des matii~res," Tome 1:388 (hereafter cited as ATA with
volume and page number.
Descartes refers to "neighboring moments" in his controversy with Gassendi (AT.7:37o)
which I shall discuss in section 4 below, and also refers to "next moments" in a letter to Arnauid of
4June, 1648 (AT.5:193).
 CON~TINUOUS C R E A T I O N , C O N T I N U O U S TIME 351

cannot form a continuous sequence. This is because every continuous se-

quence (such as that of the real numbers) is dense, which means that between
any two of its terms there is always another. Thus there can be no next instant
in a properly continuous time. Yet clearly this does not count as evidence that
Descartes himself conceived the sequence of instants as discontinuous.
Secondly, it is often supposed that the discontinuist thesis would be estab-
lished if it could be shown that Descartes spoke of indivisibles in time. Again,
this is not so. Descartes does of course allow indivisibles in t i m e - - i n s t a n t s -
.just as he allows that there are points in space. But this does not prove that
he thought time to be composed of instants, or that he denied the continuity
of time, any more than his acknowledgement of indivisible points proves that
he thought space discontinuous, which of course he did not. That is, he
might have regarded instants as mere endpoints of intervals of time. T h e n
any interval, being itself indefinitely divisible, would contain an indefinite
number of conceivable instants; but it would not necessarily be composed of
them.
So what more would we need in order to firmly identify Descartes' time
as discontinuous? Minimally, the indivisibles would have to be parts out of
which time is composed, not mere endpoints. But even granting this, there
are several distinct possibilities for a discontinuous time in the seventeenth-
century context. In the first place, there are two distinct ways in which the
parts of something could be held to be discontinuous, a strong sense and a
weak sense. In the strong sense of discontinuity, the parts could be separated
by gaps; for want of a better term, I shall call this "gap discontinuity." In the
weaker sense, the parts could be really separate yet touching, that is they
could be contiguous to each other.7 Now in each case the parts themselves
could be conceived as either extended or point-like, although in the case of
point-like parts it is not clear that we would have to call the resulting time
discontinuous, unless they were explicitly stated to be separated by gaps.
Extended indivisibles, finally, could be either finite or actually infinitely
small. The latter, actually infinitely small yet extended indivisibles, are the
geometric indivisibles used by Descartes' contemporaries: Fermat, Roberval,
Cavalieri, and others.
Thus we have a matrix of six main possibilities for a discontinuous and

7 Leibniz distinguishes exactly these two kinds of discontinuity in his early work. For in-
stance, in his letter to Jacob Thomasius of April 1669, he says "discontinuity can be introduced
into a formerly continuous mass in two ways: first, in such a way that contiguity is at the same time
destroyed, when the parts are so pulled apart from each other that a vacuum is left; or in such a
way that contiguity remains." G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, edited and translated
by Leroy E. Loemker, 2d edition (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976), 96.
352 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 26:3 J U L Y 1988

discrete Cartesian time. s It is either gap-discontinuous or merely contiguous,

and its parts are either finite, actually infinitely small, or point-like.
In what follows, a l t h o u g h I shall mainly be following the logic o f the
a r g u m e n t s o f the p r o p o n e n t s o f the classic thesis, I shall use the above matrix
o f possibilities as a f r a m e w o r k for clarifying exactly what model o f time is
being attributed to Descartes. In terms o f this framework, we shall see that the
gap-discontinuous models are inadmissible given Descartes' concrete interpre-
tation o f time, thus eliminating three o f the six alternatives. We shall also see
that the traditional distinction between contiguous and continuous elements
cannot be a real distinction for Descartes; and that it is in any case inapplicable
to durationless instants. Finally, the idea that Descartes c o u n t e n a n c e d ex-
t e n d e d time indivisibles, w h e t h e r finite or actually infinitely small, is also ruled
out by his general principles; and, contrary to general belief, receives no
s u p p o r t f r o m either his advocation o f discontinuous changes o f motion or his
analysis o f motion into instantaneous states.
But this is quite e n o u g h preview. Let me now t u r n to a consideration o f the
standard interpretation o f Cartesian time.

2 . T H E A R G U M E N T FROM C O N T I N U O U S C R E A T I O N

Except in Gueroult's case, and to a lesser extent K e m p Smith's, the a r g u m e n t

for the classic thesis is seldom stated explicitly. This is because it is generally
supposed that only a discontinuous time would he compatible with Descartes'
version o f the doctrine o f Continuous Creation. So let us begin by first examin-
ing the implicit a r g u m e n t that the classic thesis is entailed by this doctrine.
According to Descartes, the world, created by God with a certain force in
the first m o m e n t o f time, requires the same force and action to keep it in
existence at any subsequent m o m e n t o f its existence, since there is no principle
i n h e r e n t in any substance by which its existence at a later time might follow
f r o m its existence at an earlier time. This is Descartes' version o f the tradi-
tional Scholastic doctrine o f Continuous Creation.9 It is stated clearly by him

s Of course, time could be discontinuous without being discrete. Leibniz, for example, held
that every interval of time is actually infinitely divided into contiguous finite parts, so that for him
no interval or part of time is actually infinitely small or indivisible. (See my "Leibniz on Continu-
ity," PSA 111986]: lo7-115, for a short account of Leibniz'stheory of continuity. I hope to publish
a fuller treatment in a forthcoming book, The Labyrinth of the Continuum.) But since no one has
attributed s u c h a discontinuous-but-not-discrete conception of time to Descartes, I shall not
consider it further here.
9 See l~tienne Gilson's Commentary on Descartes'Discoursde la M~thode (Paris:J. Vrin, 1925),
34o-42, for a discussion of the precise similarities and differences between Descartes' version of
this doctrine and that of St. Thomas Aquinas.
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 353
in several places, b u t it is t h e c e l e b r a t e d passage o n c o n t i n u o u s c r e a t i o n in the
t h i r d M e d i t a t i o n t h a t is usually cited as entailing a n atomistic c o n c e p t i o n o f
time. I n m y translation, the latter r u n s as follows:

For since my whole lifetime can be divided into innumerable parts, each of which in no
way depends on the rest, it does not follow from my having existed a short while ago
that I must exist now, unless there is some cause which creates me as it were again at
this moment, that is, conserves me. For it is quite clear to anyone who attentively
considers the nature o f time that the same force and action is plainly needed to
conserve any thing at each moment it endures as would be needed to create it anew if it
did not yet exist. Thus the fact that there is only a conceptual difference between
conservation and creation is another o f those things which are manifested by the
natural light.'~

T h e s t a n d a r d i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f this passage is as follows. Descartes a r g u e s t h a t

a time---which h e r e is a c o n c r e t e time o r d u r a t i o n , the time f o r w h i c h s o m e
p a r t i c u l a r t h i n g exists---is c o m p o s e d o f i n n u m e r a b l e m u t u a l l y i n d e p e n d e n t
parts, o r m o m e n t s . Since existence at each o f these m o m e n t s is wholly c o n t i n -
gent, a n d d o e s n o t at all follow f r o m existence at a p r i o r m o m e n t , it is neces-
sary f o r G o d to r e c r e a t e e v e r y t h i n g in each s e p a r a t e m o m e n t at w h i c h it
e n d u r e s . T h u s t h e w o r l d is c r e a t e d in a d i s c o n t i n u o u s succession o f discrete
acts, a n d its d u r a t i o n , c o r r e s p o n d i n g l y , is a d i s c o n t i n u o u s s e q u e n c e o f discrete
moments.
T o be explicit, t h e r e a r e t h r e e key a s s u m p t i o n s in this line o f a r g u m e n t .
First, it is a s s u m e d t h a t Descartes r e g a r d e d time as c o m p o s e d o f m o m e n t s , as
his m e n t i o n o f m o m e n t s a l m o s t in t h e s a m e b r e a t h as "the i n n u m e r a b l e parts
o f time" a p p e a r s to s u g g e s t . " Secondly, the fact t h a t these parts are d e s c r i b e d
as m u t u a l l y i n d e p e n d e n t is t h e n t a k e n to m e a n that the m o m e n t s c o m p o s i n g
time a r e " s e p a r a t e a n d distinct" f r o m e a c h o t h e r , in the w o r d s o f K e m p S m i t h
(Studies, 131), so t h a t t h e y f o r m a discrete r a t h e r t h a n a c o n t i n u o u s whole.
A n d thirdly, it is s u p p o s e d t h a t this i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f Descartes' time as dis-

,o Meditations 3: AT, 7:48-49, my translation. The Latin text is: "Quoniam enim omne
tempus vitae in partes innumeras dividi potest, quarum singulae a reliquis nullo modo depen-
dent, ex co qu/)d paulo ante fuerim, non sequitur me nunc debere esse, nisi aliqua causa me quasi
rursus creet ad hoe momentum, hoe est me conservet. Perspicuum enim est attendenti ad
temporis naturam, e~ldem plane vi & actione opus esse ad rein quam libet singulis momentis
quibus durat conservandam, quit opus esset ad eandem de novo creandem, si nondum existeret;
adeo ut conservationem sol~t ratione /~ creatione differre, sit etiam unum ex iis quae lumine
naturali manifesta sunt".
~' Cf. Norman Kemp Smith: "As Descartes frankly recognised, he is here committing himself
to yet another thesis, viz. that time is composed of durationless instants." New Studies in the
Philosophy of Descartes (London: MacMillan, 1952), 2o2. Hereafter cited as New Studies.
354 JOURNAL OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 26:3 JULY a988
crete is supported by the doctrine of continuous creation, in xhat God creates
the world anew at each separate moment. For unless the world actually ceased
to exist at the end of each moment, this recreation would not strictly be
necessary. Hence, according to Kemp Smith, the doctrine of continuous cre-
ation entails the discreteness of time, and with it a conception of existence as
being "like a line composed of dots, a repeated alternation between the state of
being and the state of non-being" (Studies, 13~).
But all three of these key assumptions are questionable. In the first place,
Descartes does not explicitly equate moments with the innumerable parts of
time in the above passage. On an equally plausible reading of the passage, the
moments could be simply the endpoints of the innumerable parts (or finite
intervals) into which any concrete time may be divided. Nor does Descartes
ever say anywhere else that time is composed of moments. Certainly he writes
of time as indefinitely divisible, and also as containing "minimal points" or
moments. But he never explicitly claims that this indefinite division reaches a
limit, or that moments are the resulting indivisible parts of such a limited
division. At the least this should prompt us to ask: What independent evi-
dence is there that Descartes conceived time as composed of indivisible mo-
ments? And could he really have proposed temporal indivisibles after having
so scathingly dismissed the possibility of indivisibles in space? I shall return to
these points in detail in the following sections.
Secondly there is the logical slippage, ably pointed out by Laporte and
Beyssade, between the claim that the parts of time are separable, independent,
and contingent, and the claim that they are actually separated, and thus dis-
crete. The separability or independence of the parts of time becomes "par un
premier glissement," in Beyssade's apposite turn of phrase, "the indepen-
dence of disjoint, separated, discontinuous instants" (Beyssade, 17). Gueroult,
on the other hand, who seems to equate separability with separation, claims
that discontinuity is "precisely defined" by these three characteristics, to wit
contingency, separability, and mutual independence (Guer., 273/a93). I do
not think this is at all obvious. But again I shall postpone discussion of this
point till a later section.
There is a third weakness in the traditional argument, again pointed out by
Laporte, that is perhaps even more striking. "Isn't it contrary to language as
well as good sense," he asks, "to derive the discontinuity of time from the fact
that a finite being is in need of continuous creation? '''~ That this is a strain on

'" "Sur cette contingence Descartes fonde le besoin qu'a l'~tre fini d'une "cr6ation con-
tinu6e": n'est-il pas contraire ~t la langue comme au bon sense d'en tirer la "discontinuit6 du
temps"?" Laporte, 158-59.
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 355

the normal usage o f words is, I think, beyond question. It is attested by the
various slips and slides in terminology that one finds in people's discussions o f
continuous creation, which becomes continual creation,,a or continual re-
creation,,4 in o r d e r to fit the standard conception of creation as a continual
repetition o f a discrete original creative act. But Descartes himself is careful
never to assert that there is an actual repeated production. He always qualifies
his descriptions with a 'quasi' or a 'veluti': "unless there is some cause which
creates me as it were again at this moment",5; "unless there is some cause
which effects me as it were again at every single moment"'6; "unless some
cause, namely the same one that produced us in the first place, continuously
so to speak reproduces us, that is, conserves us. ''17 This practice is even fol-
lowed in the French translation of the Replies, where Descartes' reference to
"continual reproduction" is again carefully qualified by a "so to speak. '''8 In
fact for Descartes there is, from the point of view o f God, only one indivisible
act of creation of the universe, as Gueroult admits.~9
T h e problem here is this. According to Descartes, any thing has duration
or exists only as long as it is being created or produced by God. T h e r e f o r e if

,s Cf. Wahl, 23: "Dire que ies choses durent, c'est dire qu'elles sont cr(~es continu-
ellement"; Kemp Smith, Studies, 132: "This assumption of the discreteness of time Descartes
partly conceals by speaking of God as continually conserving us."; and Gueroult; 285/2o2: "con-
tinuation is not synonymous with continuity, for it can be accomplished by a repetition of the
discontinuous. The sole act of c r e a t i o n . . , is present at each instant of creation as the continual
renewal of existence . . . . "
~4 Cf. Alan Gabbey, "Force and Inertia," in Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: Philosophy, Mathe-
matics andPhysics (New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 198o ), 3o2 n. 4 o. As he acknowledges, Gabbey is
simply following the interpretation of Descartes' Continuous Creation given by Gilson in his
commentary on Descartes' Discourse (cited above in note 9), 3 4 ~ ~.
~5 Meditations, 3: AT, 7:49: "nisi aliqua causa me quasi rursus creet ad hoc momentum." Since
I wrote the first draft of this essay an excellent new translation of many of Descartes' important
writings has been produced by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch: The
Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). From now on I
shall append references to this translation as "CSM" after each original language citation. For
instance, this quotation from the Meditations would be cited as AT, 7:49; CSM.2:33.
,6 First Replies, AT, 7:1o9; CSM, 2:79: "nisi aliqua causa me quasi rursus efficiat singulis
momentis."
,7 Principles, 1, w AT, 8:13; CSM, a:~oo: "nisi aliqua causa, nempe eadem illa quae nos
primum produxit, continub veluti reproducat, hoc est, consetwet."
,s First Replies, AT: 9:87: "unless there were in it some real and positive power, which, so to
speak, reproduced it continually [sice n'est qu'il y ait en lui quelque puissance r6elle et positive,
iaquelle, pour ainsi dire, le reproduira continuellement]." This corresponds to the Latin: "nisi
aliqua potentia in eo sit ipsum continuo veluti reproducens" (AT, 7: l IO; CSM, 2:79)"
,9 "And certainly, the various creations are really only one, since the creative act of God is in
itself one, and since it would be inconceivable for them to be separated by intervals of dme"
(Guer., 28o/a99 ).
356 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 6 : 3 J U L Y 1 9 8 8

God's creation or production is continuous, '~ then the duration of each cre-
ated thing must likewise be continuous.
This creates a dilemma for those holding the discontinuist view, on one
of whose horns some authors have quite clearly become impaled. Jean Wahl,
for instance, proposes that "creation is continuous because duration is not"
(Wahl, 18). This makes no sense at all in Descartes' philosophy, where things
endure precisely as long as they are created. Wahl tries to extricate himself
by arguing that continuous creation "is not properly speaking a veritable
continuous creation, for then there would have to be a continuous destruc-
tion. '''~ But this idea that a continuous creation would entail a continuous
destruction is precisely wrong! If creation is truly continuous it will not be
interrupted at all. To say that it is continuous means that at any instant you
pick, you will find the world being created. It is only when conservation is
misunderstood as consisting in a continual reproduction, as the "repeated
alternation of being and non-being" posited by Kemp Smith and Wahl, that
there would be any destruction.
In fact, we may here draw one preliminary conclusion which firmly refutes
the interpretation of Wahl and Kemp Smith. This is that since duration is only
a mode of the existence of the universe for Descartes, it follows that there can
be no duration devoid of existence in his philosophy: there can be no tempo-
ral gaps, and thus no "alternation of states of being and non-being." Descartes
is quite explicit on this point in his exchange with More: "I think it would
imply a contradiction for us to conceive of some duration between the destruc-
tion of a former world and the creation of a new one. For, if we were to refer
this duration of yours to the succession of divine thoughts or something simi-
lar, this would be an error of the intellect, not a true perception of any

,o Gueroult denies that continuous creation means continuous production: "Continuous cre-
ation is not a continual production: Seipsura non comervare, sumendo creationem pro continua produc-
tione." Fourth Replies (AT, 7:~43, 1.5" (Guer., ~8o/316n. 111). But this Latin text is misquoted
(creat/onem should read conservationem) and also quoted out of context. Descartes is not denying
that creation is continuous production; he is merely agreeing with the author of the Fourth
Objectiom (Arnauld) that God cannot be said to conserve himself in the same sense in which he
conserves things: "God does not in fact conserve himself, if we take conservation to be the
continuous production of the thing" (AT, 7:243; CSM, 2:169), since God could not produce
himself. As he makes clear in the First Replies, Descartes understands God's conservation of
himself "not as what happens as a result of any positive influence of an efficient cause, but as
consisting solely in the fact that the essence of God is such that it is impossible for him not to exist
always [non intelligi conservationem quae fiat per positivum ullum causae efficientis influxum,
sed tant~m qubd Dei essentia sit talis, ut non possit non semper existere]" (First Replies: AT, 7:1o9,
I I. 17-2o; CSM, e:79).
9~ Wahl, 18: "Ce n'est pas une perp~tuelle reproduction, ce n'est pas ~ proprement parler
une v*ritable creation continu~e, car il faudrait alors qu'il y ait une destruction continue."
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 357
thing."~* Descartes' argument for this is the exact correlate of his rejection of
voids in space. Just as the identification of matter and (concrete) extension
rules out the possibility of a void space, so the identification of the (concrete)
duration of each thing "as a mere mode under which we conceive this thing
insofar as it stays in existence",3 precludes the possibility of an interval of time
devoid of existence. As Gueroult himself declares, "In fact, since existence is
what constitutes duration, intervals without existence would be intervals with-
out duration; so there cannot be intervals with a void duration" (Guer., 98o/
199). Thus it follows immediately that any conception of Cartesian time as
containing gaps is untenable. This unambiguously rules out three of the six
alternatives open to Descartes for a time composed of indivisibles, the three
"gap-discontinuous" models that we considered in the first section of the
paper. For Descartes there cannot be an alternation of existence and non-
existence in time; there cannot be any gaps in time.~4
But the further fact that existence depends on God's continuous produc-
tion makes any discontinuist model of Cartesian time" difficult to uphold. If
existence is a continuous effect, then so is the resultant duration of the things
created.
Connected with this is the exegetical problem of why Descartes would intro-
duce the hypothesis of the discontinuity of time in order to explain the equiva-
lence of creation and conservation. Surely if creation is really discontinuous,
then it cannot be equivalent to conservation: repeated creation is, one would
think, the very opposite of conservation. (Suppose for instance that we could
recreate mammoths by cloning cells of their frozen remains, and that we did so
every time the species became extinct. To call this a "conservation" program
would surely be regarded as an abuse of language of Orwellian proportions.)
On the other hand, if creation is truly continuous (i.e., God exerts the same
force continuously), then creation and conservation really do amount to the
same thing, and the distinction between them is solely one of reason.

22 Descartes to More, 15 April 1649, AT, 5:343, 11. 1-7: "Puto implicare contradictionem, ut
concipiamus aliquam durationem intercedere inter destructione prioris mundi & novi cre-
ationem. Nam, si durationem istam ad successionem cogitationum divinarum vel quid simile
referamus, erit error intellectfls, non vera ullius rei perceptio." Note the almost identical form of
this wording to that of Descartes' objection to atoms in his earlier letter to More, 5th February,
1649: AT, 5:~,73, quoted below on 367 .
,s Principles, I, w AT, 8:26; CSM, 1:211.
24 Wahl realizes that his interpretation contradicts Descartes' assertion of the self-
contradictoriness of an empty time, but never properly resolves the difficulty. Thus on 24 we
again find him asserting that "Duration is the fact that the thing which endures ceases to be at
every moment" (7:37o). Wahl's reference here is to Descartes' controversy with Gassendi. As we
shall see below, Descartes only argues there that it is possible for a thing to cease to exist at any
moment.
358 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 2 6 : 3 JULY 1988
T h u s we see that far f r o m s u p p o r t i n g the idea o f a discretctime, Descartes'
interpretation o f c o n t i n u o u s creation actually u n d e r m i n e s it.

3. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE INDIVISIBILITY OF THE CREATIVE ACT

A m o r e promising d e f e n c e o f the classic thesis is that o f Gueroult. H e argues

that the creative acts o f G o d are necessarily indivisible, and that consequently
so must be the m o m e n t s o f the d u r a t i o n o f each thing he creates.
The act of creation is the act of putting into duration or into existence . . . . This act is
the means by which something, on being promoted into duration and existence, arises
out of non-being in an instant which is not a fragment of the enduring created thing,
but the moment of the free and indivisible decision which establishes the thing in its
duration . . . . In this indivisible act is found the principle of the radical and essential
indivisibility of temporal instants, of their discontinuity, which is identical to their
contingency and founded on it. (Guer., ~74/194)
But again t h e r e is some logical slippage here. Descartes does not say that the
act o f creation is temporally indivisible. It will o f course be indivisible with
respect to its own n a t u r e , j u s t as G o d himself is. But this is not the same thing,
as Descartes makes clear in his Conversation with Burman. For in the context o f
discussing the instantaneity o f thought, B u r m a n attempts to trap Descartes
with the same logic as Gueroult.,5 Since t h o u g h t is indivisible, he reasons, it
must be instantaneous; for if it is not instantaneous, but continuous, it will be
divisible to infinity. This is exactly parallel to G u e r o u h ' s a r g u m e n t f r o m the
indivisibility o f God's creative act to its instantaneity, so Descartes' replies will
be particularly instructive.
B u r m a n begins his a r g u m e n t with an attempt to d e m o n s t r a t e a circularity
in Descartes' second p r o o f o f the existence o f God in the T h i r d Meditation,
pointing out that one could not pay attention to all the axioms o f the p r o o f at
once, since "every t h o u g h t occurs instantaneously, and there are m a n y
thoughts that c o m e to mind in the p r o o f " (CWB, 11: 6, 11. 12-13; AT, 5:148).
T o this Descartes replies: "it is false that t h o u g h t occurs instantaneously; for
all my acts take place in time, and I can be said to be continuing and carrying
on with the same t h o u g h t for some time" (ibid). Now I suggest that exactly the
same is t r u e o f God's act o f creation. Although he is creating the world at each
instant, just as I am thinking at each instant, the act o f creation itself is continu-
ous over time.
But G u e r o u l t c a n n o t accept this. R e m i n d i n g us that "the properties o f the
creature are not necessarily the same as the properties o f the Creator" (Guer.,

95 Descartes' ConversationwithBurman, translated with introduction and commentary by John

Cottingham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), comment number 11, page 6. Hereafter cited as
"CWB" with page number.
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 359
285/2OI--2), he u r g e s us to accept that t h e r e are for Descartes two f u n d a m e n -
tally d i f f e r e n t ways o f considering time. T h e r e is "the point o f view o f created
things, o r o f the abstract" ( 2 8 o - 8 1 / 1 9 8 - 9 9 ) , w h e r e o n e says that all t h o u g h t
a n d m o t i o n occupy a c o n t i n u o u s time ( 2 7 5 h 9 5 & ff); and, on the o t h e r hand,
there is "the point o f view o f creation a n d o f the concrete," where, on the
contrary, t i m e is conceived as a "repetition o f indivisible a n d discontinuous
creative instants" (275/195), a n d all t e m p o r a l motion arises f r o m "the repeti-
tion o f instants o f m o t i o n " (2 81 / 199).26
But Descartes relies on no such distinction between the points o f view o f
created a n d creation in his e x c h a n g e with B u r m a n . For w h e n B u r m a n now
c o n f r o n t s him with the objection that if t h o u g h t is not instantaneous, but
c o n t i n u o u s t h r o u g h time, t h e n "[it] will be e x t e n d e d a n d divisible," he replies:
" N o t at all. T h o u g h t will i n d e e d be e x t e n d e d a n d divisible with respect to its
duration, since its d u r a t i o n can be divided into parts. But it is not e x t e n d e d
and divisible with respect to its own nature, since its n a t u r e remains unex-
tended. It is the s a m e way with God: we can divide his d u r a t i o n into an infinity
o f parts, e v e n t h o u g h G o d h i m s e l f is not t h e r e f o r e divisible" (CWB, i 1: 6; A T ,
5: I48).
T h u s , far f r o m contrasting the point o f view o f the c r e a t o r with that o f the
created, Descartes explicitly posits their analogy. His distinction h e r e is r a t h e r
between c o n s i d e r i n g s o m e t h i n g - - a thought, an act, or even G o d himself in
respect o f its own n a t u r e , w h e n it is necessarily o n e thing, indivisible; a n d
considering the s a m e thing in respect o f its duration, in which respect it can be
r e g a r d e d as continuous, a n d thus indefinitely divisible. T h e r e is t h e r e f o r e no
reason why the s a m e analysis should not a p p l y also to God's act o f creation:
t h e r e is only o n e such act, which a l t h o u g h u n e x t e n d e d a n d indivisible with
respect to its own n a t u r e , is nonetheless e x t e n d e d and divisible with respect to
its duration, which is c o n t i n u o u s (continuous creation). This m e a n s that at any
instant we pick, t h e r e is creation, as evidenced by the instantaneous activity o f
c o r p o r e a l things.27

96 This distinction of Gueroult's between the two "points of view" is derived from Henri
Bergson's influential interpretation of Descartes in his Creative Evolution, transl. Arthur Mitchell
(New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911). According to Bergson, the abstract world of modern
mathematical physics "is a world that dies and is reborn at every instant--the world which Des-
cartes was thinking of when he spoke of continued creation" (22). But this cinematographical
conception of time is complemented in Descartes' thought by "a time in which there is invention,
creation, true succession" (Bergson's real duration), which is supported by "a God who is unceas-
ingly renewing the creative act" (345)- Had Descartes followed out this point of view, "creation
would have appeared not simply as continued, but also as continuous" (346).
,7 Gueroult quotes Descartes' "instantaneous activity signifies creation", from his Olympian
Matters, AT, lo:218; CSM, 1:5, in the belief that it supports his claim that acts of creation are
instantaneous and discontinuous. But this confuses the instantaneous activity of bodies with the
360 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 6 : 3 J U L Y 1988
So far, then, my argument supports Laporte over Gueroult. Ironically,
though, these same considerations concerning the indivisibility of creation are
equally fatal to Laporte's argument for the continuity of time. For having
argued against the accepted view that time is discontinuous, composed of
indivisible moments, Laporte rebounds to the other extreme: he claims that
Descartes' moments are themselves extended and indefinitely divisible. This
opens up his whole position to refutation, which Gueroult duly provides with
some devastating criticisms based on Descartes' physics. Before examining
these, however, it is worth noting that Laporte's main argument for the divisi-
bility of moments contains much the same error as Gueroult's argument for
their indivisibility.
His reasoning is as follows. Descartes explicitly says (in CWB cited above)
that all thought occupies an extended duration, so the indivisible intuitus,
previously thought to be instantaneous, must be understood as taking place
over a moment which is itself extended: "So let us no longer speak of instants
in the atomic sense of the term. '',s
This argument founders on the same reef as Guerouh's, namely the failure
to pay heed to Descartes' distinction between the indivisibility of the intuitus
with respect to its own nature, and its divisibility and extendedness in dura-
tion. One thought can take place over an extended time without being divisi-
ble qua thought. The fact that one can be in the act of thinking the thought at
any given instant does not imply that that instant is extended.

4" C O N C R E T E D U R A T I O N VS. A B S T R A C T T I M E
At this point we should look a little more closely at Descartes' distinction
between concrete and abstract time, as presented by him in his reply to
Gassendi's criticisms of the Meditations. For a major source of the error under-
lying Gueroult's argument for the discreteness of time stems, in my view, from
the peculiar way in which he depicts this distinction between concrete and
abstract time as corresponding to a distinction between the points of view of
"creator" and "created." As I see it, the distinction is far less fanciful. Descartes

creative activity of God that this signifies; and, more importantly, it also confuses activity with act.
For whilst the activity of substances (the conatus of bodies and the thinking of souls) may be said
to be instantaneous, in that the substances are acting at every instant, the acts themselves (motion,
thought) take place over a period of continuous time. So Guerouh is quite wrong to say that "Like
light, thought is instantaneous" (Guer., 281/199).
,s "Ne parlons donc plus d'instants au sens atomique du terme, ni de pens6e instantan6e.
Toute pens~e, dit express6ment Descartes, a'fieu dans le temps, et elle occupe du temps. Et
partant, le pr6sent de la pens~e ne peut d 6 s i g n e r . . , qu'un segment tr6s court de dur6e.
L'intuitus, qui est I'acte de pens6e correspondant ~t la praesens ev/dent/a, enveloppe quelque dur6e
dans son unit6" (Laporte, 159 ).
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 361

does not actually use the term 'concrete'. But what he opposes to abstract time
is the duration of the enduring thing. Thus a concrete duration is simply the
specific duration of some enduring substance, as opposed to the idea of ge-
neric time or duration-in-general. The latter is an ideal concept, formed by
abstraction from the durations of all particular substances, just as space or
extension-in-general is an abstract concept formed by abstracting from all the
particular extensions of pieces of existing extended matter.~9
Thus in Descartes' philosophy an abstract thing, far from being a created
thing as Gueroult would have it, is not something which can exist by itself in
the world; it is something incomplete, like a number conceived apart from
things numbered, or a substance conceived apart from its attributes.3o Corre-
spondingly, the term 'concrete' would signify an actually existing thing and
the attributes associated with it, a thing kept in existence by God's creative
power. Thus, it is true, there is some connection with Gueroult's "creation of
existence." But a concretum is nevertheless the created thing, not the thing
from the point of view of the creator. Gueroult's distinction between the "two
points of view" owes much to Bergson, but little to Descartes.
Nevertheless, even commentators who would find little objectionable in my
rendering of the abstract/concrete distinction have seen the wording of Des-
cartes' reply to Gassendi as supporting the classic thesis.3' So let us look a little
more closely at Descartes' appeal to this distinction in his controversy with
Gassendi.
Gassendi objected to the passage in the Third Meditation quoted above on
three counts: first, that the parts of time, far from being mutually indepen-
dent or separable, form an "inviolable series and connection," with the poste-
rior parts depending on the prior.a2 Secondly, since the parts of time are
"external, successive and not active," their dependence or independence on

99 Descartes also acknowledges that time may be "distinguished from duration taken in the
general sense" (Principles, 1, w AT, 8:27; CSM, 1:212); this is time in the sense of "the measure
of motion," a measure which we abstract from the durations of certain privileged motions, such as
the day or the year. But, as he makes clear, in distinguishing this time from duration-in-general,
"nothing is thereby added to duration in its general sense except for a mode of thought" (ibid.).
This is still, even as a mathematical quantity, an ideal concept abstracted from enduring sub-
stances. It is not a "universal frame," as Beyssade calls it (Beyssade, 13~). One can not say, as he
does, that Descartes' time "is a form, empty as such, and that the durations are the different
contents that come to fill it" (ibid.). This is the "container" time of Gassendi and Newton.
so Cf. Kemp Smith's discussion, New Studies, 312--13; and Descartes' letter to Clerselier,
January 12, 1646, AT, 9:i.216.
3, Cf. Kemp Smith, New Studies, on the "merely abstract," 31 ~-13; and ~o3-o4: "It [the thesis
that Descartes upholds an atomic view of time] finds support in the wording of Descartes' reply to
the writer of the Fifth Objections."
~" Pierre Gassendi, Fifth Objections, AT, 7:3ol; CSM, ~:2o 9.
36~ JOURNAL OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y ~ 6 : 3 JULY 1 9 8 8

each o t h e r is no m o r e relevant to the p r o d u c t i o n or r e p r o d u c t i o n o f things in

time "than the production or reproduction o f some rock is affected by the
flow or passage o f the parts o f a river which flows past it" (AT, 7:3ol;
CSM.II.2o9-1o ). Thirdly, your existence is contingent from one moment to
another "not because a cause is required to create you anew, but because there
is no guarantee that there is not some cause present which might destroy you,
or that you do not have some infirmity within you which would finally result in
your demise" (ibid.).
This last objection contains the kernel o f Gassendi's difference o f opinion
with Descartes. T h e gist o f it is that whilst Gassendi regards it as necessary for
every existent to have a cause which brings it into existence, he does not see it
as needing any cause to keep it in existence. Once a substance is created, then
(to use Gassendi's metaphor) the waters o f time flow past it until some further
cause takes it out o f existence. T o this Descartes replies:
When you deny that we continually need the influence [influxus]3~ of the first cause for our
conservation, you are denying a thing which all the Metaphysicians affirm as manifest,
but which the u n l e a r n e d often fail to think of, because they attend only to causes of
coming to be [secundum fieri], but not to those of being [secundum esse]. . . . God is the
cause of created things, not only secundum fieri, but also secundum esse, and so he must
always influence [influere] the effect in the same way in order for it to be conserved.
And this is clearly demonstrated by what I explained about the independence of
the parts of time, which you try in vain to evade by proposing the necessity of the sequence
which exists between the parts of time considered in the abstract. It is not this that is at issue
here, but rather the time or duration of the e n d u r i n g thing, and you will not deny that
the individual moments of this time could be separated from those next to them, that
is, that the e n d u r i n g thing could at any single m o m e n t cease to exist.34

I n this r e p l y D e s c a r t e s d o e s n o t assert t h a t e v e r y m o m e n t o f c o n c r e t e d u r a t i o n
("the d u r a t i o n o f t h e e n d u r i n g t h i n g " ) is actually s e p a r a t e d f r o m t h e n e x t , as

ss The term influxus literally means 'inflow', and is echoed later in this passage by the verb
influere, 'to flow into'. According to Alan Gabbey, in an erudite discussion in his "Force and
Inertia" (3Ol-3O2 nn. 3 l, 38) Descartes' puzzling introduction of this term into his paraphrase of
Gassendi's objection evokes not only the influxus divinus of Aquinas and Thomist theologians, but
possibly also the influxus astrorum of the astrologers. Gabbey concludes that no English term is rich
enough to convey all these senses. But in the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 'spiritual influx'
and 'power of producing an effect' are both given as senses of the word 'influence', along with the
astrological sense, so I have translated it accordingly.
s4 AT, 7:369-7 o, reading definiri for AT's impossible definere in the last phrase. Note that my
translation differs in many respects from Cottingham's here. In particular, I demur from his
translation ofpartes as "divisions," of conservare as "keeps in existence" (thus masking the origin of
the conservation laws of modern physics in Descartes' philosophy), and of influxus as "continual
action" (CSM, 2:254-5). Ariew's translation of Gueroult's rendering of this passage likewise needs
amending here: his "could not deny that the movements cannot be separated" should read "could
not deny that the moments could be separated" (Guer., chap. 6, p. 316 n. lO5). "Movements"
should also be corrected to "moments" in the corresponding text (Guer., 279/198).
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 363
G u e r o u l t alleges.as T h e e m p h a s i s is r a t h e r o n the c o n t i n g e n c y o f their c o n n e c -
tion, o n the fact t h a t t h e y c o u l d be s e p a r a t e d , that the e n d u r i n g t h i n g c o u l d at
a n y m o m e n t cease to exist. E v e n in the f u r t h e r q u o t a t i o n G u e r o u l t cites in
s u p p o r t o f his claim, Descartes' e m p h a s i s is o n the possibility o f s e p a r a t i o n o f
the parts o f time: "I c o n s i d e r the parts o f time to be separable f r o m o n e
another."a~ F o r w h a t Descartes is c o n c e r n e d to r e f u t e is n o t that the d u r a t i o n s
o f t h i n g s a r e c o n t i n u o u s , b u t t h e idea that their c o n t i n u o u s existence does not
r e q u i r e a cause.a7 It is a g r e e d t h a t an e n d u r i n g t h i n g has a definite existence at
a n y given m o m e n t o f its d u r a t i o n . Yet since this existence d e p e n d s o n G o d ' s
c o n t i n u o u s action, a n d a t h i n g has d u r a t i o n o n l y as l o n g as it exists, t h e r e is n o
m o m e n t t h a t is n o t c o n t i n g e n t : w i t h o u t G o d ' s action t h e r e w o u l d be n o link be-
t w e e n o n e m o m e n t a n d t h o s e that follow it. B u t p r o v i d e d G o d acts c o n t i n u -
ously o v e r a n e x t e n d e d time, a b o d y will have a c o n t i n u o u s d u r a t i o n . I n the
w o r d s o f Beyssade, " T h e c o n t i n u i t y o f an u n d i v i d e d part, e i t h e r o f b o d y o r
d u r a t i o n , always d e p e n d s o n a f r e e act o f G o d ; to c o n t i n u o u s c r e a t i o n t h e r e
c o r r e s p o n d s the act by w h i c h G o d k e e p s u n i t e d really distinct parts that he
c o u l d divide."aa

5. CONTIGUITY

W e h a v e seen t h a t n o n e o f the s t a n d a r d a r g u m e n t s f o r the classic thesis

succeeds in p r o v i n g C a r t e s i a n time d i s c o n t i n u o u s . But m i g h t it n o t still be so,
n o n e t h e l e s s ? I f it is, t h e n given the untenability o f the g a p - d i s c o n t i n u o u s
m o d e l s discussed above, t h e o n l y r e m a i n i n g m o d e l s f o r a d i s c o n t i n u o u s time
are t h o s e i n v o l v i n g c o n t i g u o u s indivisibles, these indivisibles b e i n g e i t h e r fi-

35 "The creative moment of each enduring thing is... enclosed within itself, radically sepa-
rated from all others [Le moment cr6ateur de chaque chose durante est.., enferm~ en lui m&ne,
radicalement s~par6 de tousles autres]" (Guer., ~74h94).
36 "Considero temporis partes a se mutuo sejungi posse," Reply to the First Objections, AT,
7:1o 9, 11.9- t o; CSM, 2: 78; cited by Guerouit on 274/315, n. 81.
37 This is no idle bone of contention. It reflects a deep difference in theological doctrine, and
a corresponding deep difference in physics. The key issue is whether created things need God's
action on them continuously, as a matter of course, or whether his action on them need only be
intermittent. In this context Descartes would be keen to prove that God's action is necessary at any
single moment of time; but not that his action is really discontinuous. But since in the seventeenth
century causes were always closely associated with forces, this also makes for a crucial difference
in the resultant physics of the two rival metaphysical viewpoints. Descartes believed that a force
was always necessary to conserve a given thing in existence, and in this Leibniz endorsed him
fully; whereas Newton, following Barrow and Gassendi in maintaining the independence of
duration from existence, rejected the idea of a causa secundum esse, especially in its Leibnizian
manifestation as vis viva or action cr~atrice.
38 Beyssade, 35o: "La continuit6 d'une partie indivise, corps ou dur6e, d6pend toujours d'un
acte libre de Dieu, ~t la cr6ation continu& correspond l'acte par lequel Dieu, maintient unies des
parties r&llement distinctes qu'il pourrait diviser."
364 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 26:3 J U L Y 1988
nite or actually infinitely small, or perhaps points. In this section I want to
discuss whether a model based on such a contiguity/continuity distinction is a
real option for Descartes. T h e n in the following sections I shall turn to the
question of time atoms, and whether there exists any additional textual evi-
dence for Descartes' having countenanced them.
According to the traditional Aristotelian distinction, two parts of a whole
are contiguous if their extremities are "together," but continuous if they have
an extremity in common. That is, the parts of a continuous whole are the parts
into which it could be divided (i.e., merely potential parts), whilst the parts of
an aggregate of contiguous indivisibles would be these indivisibles themselves,
the actual parts into which it is divided. A time divided into such contiguous
indivisible parts appears to be what Guerouh has in mind when he writes of
discontinuity being synonymous with the characteristics of separateness, con-
tingency, and mutual independence.
Might Cartesian time be discontinuous in this sense? I shall argue that this
is most unlikely. In the first place, Descartes had little patience with the tradi-
tional distinction between contiguity and continuity--and for good reason, as
we shall see, since the distinction is not even applicable in its Aristotelian form,
given Descartes' equation of matter with space, and time with concrete dura-
tion. But secondly, even supposing some sort of distinction between contigu-
ous Cartesian durations and continuous ones could be made, it would be
inapplicable to point-like indivisibles, since these have no endpoints. The im-
portance of this is that these are the only type of indivisibles countenanced by
Descartes, as I shall argue in the next section.
Descartes nowhere explicitly discusses contiguity in connection with time.
But he does allude to bodies being contiguous in the sixth of the Replies, and in
the Conversation with Burman. Burman uses this text to initiate a discussion of
Descartes' attitude to the traditional distinction.
In the text in question (Sixth Reply, AT, 7:433), Descartes claims that when
one body contains another in such a way that they possess a surface in com-
mon, this surface can equally well be regarded as the extremity of one body as
the other "in the sense in which those bodies are said to be contiguous whose
extremities are together." Burman rightly criticizes him on this claim, pointing
out that calling the containing and contained contiguous "is in accordance
with the common way of talking, where in the Schools they call bodies contigu-
ous if their extremities are together," but "not with the truth of the matter at
hand, for in this case there is only one extremity common to both."s9 Thus
according to the Aristotelian distinction, Descartes' two bodies, the containing

39 CWB,47; AT, 5:164: "Haecnon dicuntur secundumrei veritatem,nam sic una solhmest
extremitas, quae utriusque est communis,sed secundhmvulgaremdicendimodum,quo in Sco|is
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 365
and the contained, would be continuous r a t h e r than contiguous, "since the
fact that two bodies have an identical extremity seems quite sufficient for
continuity" (ibid.). But in this case, B u r m a n asks, what are contiguous bodies
going to look like? Descartes' reply is curt, but to the point: "How o t h e r people
would define these things is all the same to me; I call two bodies continuous
when their surfaces are j o i n e d to each o t h e r so immediately that they both
move with one and the same motion or both come to rest together; and those
that behave otherwise are contiguous" (ibid.).
Implicit in this particular exchange is the realization by both men that the
Aristotelian distinction between contiguity and continuity is impossible to
maintain within the Cartesian framework. For this would require one to be
able to distinguish between the endpoints o f two bodies being together at the
same point in space, and their being the same point. But Descartes denies that
there is a real distinction between body and space: as he says in the Principles,
" T h e r e is no real d i f f e r e n c e between s p a c e . . , and the corporeal substance
contained in it, but only a d i f f e r e n c e in the way we are accustomed to conceive
o f them" (wlo; AT, 8:45 ). But this means that there is likewise only a concep-
tual d i f f e r e n c e between the extremity o f a body and the points o f space it
occupies. T h u s the Aristotelian distinction fails to represent a real difference:
the extension o f the whole universe is continuous, even if some bodies in it are
conceived as merely contiguous with one another.
But precisely analogous considerations apply to time, since just as space or
extension is only conceptually distinct f r o m e x t e n d e d substance, so time or
duration is only conceptually distinct f r o m e n d u r i n g substance (Principles, I,
w AT, 8A:u6). Consequently, there is no real distinction between the mo-
ments that b o u n d consecutive durations which are "together" (contiguity) and
their occurence at the same m o m e n t (continuity). T h u s it would a p p e a r most
unlikely that Descartes would equate contiguity with a discontinuity, as Leib-
niz did.
O f course, these considerations d o not make it any less useful to have a
conceptual distinction o f contiguity, which is why Descartes provides a crite-
rion for the contiguity o f bodies in response to Burman's prompting. So the
question arises w h e t h e r any such criterion can be f o u n d for contiguous dura-
tions, p e r h a p s one analogous to Descartes' one for bodies.
An a r g u m e n t along these lines might go as follows. According to Des-
cartes, two bodies are contiguous if they can move with i n d e p e n d e n t motions
while still touching, as in the case o f a ball rolling in a bowl. T h u s the criterion

ea dicuntur contigua, quorum extremitates sunt simul." Note that Cottingham's translation of the
second half of this sentence needs amending, since it does not convey the fact that Burman is
criticizing Descartes for an inappropriate appeal to the common, Aristotelian sense of contiguity.
366 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 2 6 : 3 JULY 1 9 8 8

for spatial contiguity depends on independent movability, a fact which makes

it hard to apply to time, since it is not obvious how durations could be said to
change their relative location in time. One suggestion, however, would be to
follow the implicit logic of Guerouh's position, and equate movability with
separability. For if all the moments of a given duration were continuous, then
one moment could not be "moved" in the sense of separated without its
neighbors being "moved" also. But this Descartes denies: all moments are
independent and separable. So they must be merely contiguous.
But this analogy is flawed. Separability cannot stand in for movability. This
can be seen by reference to the case of space. For the (arbitrarily taken) parts
of even a continuous material body are separable, since any extended body is
divisible. They are not for that reason merely contiguous. Similarly, the separa-
bility of all the parts of a duration certainly makes their connection contin-
gent, but it does not necessarily make them discontinuous.
So Gueroult's equation of discontinuity with separability is incorrect (al-
though this is obscured by his apparent failure to distinguish separability from
separation). If two Cartesian durations are to be contiguous and not continu-
ous, they must be actually separated, not just separable. An actual division
must occur between them. Now actual divisions in space are engendered by
the differing motions of the various parts of matter. But as Descartes makes
clear in his reply to Gassendi, actual divisions or separations in time are ef-
fected by substances ceasing to exist: for a moment to be actually divided from
or separated from succeeding ones is for the enduring thing to cease to exist at
that moment (AT, 7:37o). Thus given the equivalence of duration with the
continued existence of a substance, the moments of creation and extinction
seem to be the only extremities a duration could possess.
But just as the existence of contiguous wholes is not enough to make the
extension of the universe discontinuous, so the existence of isolated contigu-
ous durations--say the contiguous durations of my living body and my
corpse--is not sufficient for a discontinuity in the duration of all created
existence. The only way that this could happen would be if everything in the
universe were annihilated or created together. And the only way that such
discontinuities would comprise a discontinuous order would be if all sub-
stances were created for a certain duration, then annihilated, and a distinct set
of substances were immediately created in their place. But this takes us back to
the theory of repeated annihilation and creation we already rejected above as
incompatible with Descartes' doctrine of continuous creation.
Thus, in conclusion, there seems to be no basis in Descartes' philosophy for
a real distinction between continuity and contiguity. And the only basis for
conceptually distinguishing a merely contiguous temporal order would be if
the endpoints of consecutive durations were the moments of the destruction
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 367

and creation o f separate universes. T h e s e universes, moreover, would have to

e n d u r e long e n o u g h to have distinct endpoints. A succession o f instantaneous
universes could not even be distinguished conceptually f r o m a continuously
existing universe.
T h u s if the classic thesis is correct in supposing Cartesian time to be a
sequence o f discontinuous indivisible moments, these indivisibles must be ex-
t e n d e d time atoms. So let us now turn to the question o f what f u r t h e r evidence
there is for the idea that time is c o m p o s e d o f e x t e n d e d elements.

6 . M O M E N T S AND I N S T A N T A N E I T Y
In his Principles, Descartes on one occasion refers to the u n e x p e c t e d appear-
ance o f a star o c c u r r i n g "in an extremely short time, as if in a moment"4o; and
in his Replies to the First Objections, he speaks o f there being "no power within
any o n e o f us which would suffice to conserve him through even a m o m e n t o f
time."4, T h e s e locutions seem to s u p p o r t the idea that a m o m e n t or instant is
not after all a m e r e point in time, but a true part o f extremely short duration.
So could Descartes have c o u n t e n a n c e d temporal indivisibles, either finite ones
or ones whose quantity is n o n - z e r o but vanishingly small?
T h e answer to this question, I contend, is a firm "no." For even t h o u g h
Descartes n e v e r explicitly discusses time atoms, he explicitly rejects spatial
indivisibles, and, I maintain, his a r g u m e n t s against them should apply equally
well to time. O f spatial atoms he says: "I say that it would imply a contradiction
for there to be atoms which are conceived o f as e x t e n d e d and at the same time
indivisible, since a l t h o u g h G o d could have m a d e things which are such that
they are not divided by any created being, we certainly cannot u n d e r s t a n d him
as having been able to deprive himself o f his own faculty o f dividing them."4*
T h u s it is not the indefinite divisibility o f m a t t e r that rules out the existence o f
atoms, since t h e r e would be n o t h i n g contradictory about the existence o f
particles o f m a t t e r that had not in fact been divided. But it is contradictory to
suppose that such particles are indivisible in principle, for this would be to set
limits on God's creative o m n i p o t e n c e , and thus to limit the unlimitable.

40 Principles III, wa I 1 ; AT, 8:159, l 1. 14-15: "ideoque brevissimo tempore, ac tanquam in

momento."
4~ First Replies: AT, 7: x 11; CSM, ~ :80: "c/lmque nullam in se invenit potentiam, quae sufficiat
ad ipsum vel per m o m e n t u m temporis conservandum, merito concludit se esse ab alio" (my
emphasis).
4, Letter to More, 5th February 1649; AT, 5:u73: "Dico implicate contradictionem, ut
aliquae dentur atomi, quae concipiantur extensae ac simul indivisibiles; quia, quamvis Deus eas
tales efficere potuerit, ut ~ nulla creatur~ dividantur, cert~ non possumus intellegere ipsum se
facultate eas dividendi privare potuisse." Cf. the almost identical wording in his letter to Gibieuf,
19th January 164~, AT, 3:477, quoted by Laporte, u59, as well as the more ponderous passage in
the Principles, II, w AT, 8:51-5~; CSM, 1:u31-32.
368 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 26:3 JULY 1988
Here Gueroult thinks he sees a loophole. For, he argues, if it is not indefi-
nite indivisibility that forms the basis of Descartes' rejection of spatial indivisi-
bles, but the unlimitability of divine creative omnipotence, then this argument
against indivisibles "is evidently not valid for duration, since duration is not a
reality, a substance distinct from creative omnipotence, but is this omnipo-
tence itself insofar as it creates existence" (Guer., ~76/195 ). Consequently,
according to Gueroult, the "creative instant" can be, and in fact is, indivisible.
Its indivisibility derives from that of the creative act itself, and therefore "has
nothing in common with the indivisibility of the atom of extension" rejected
by Descartes (ibid.).
But this line of argument has already been undermined by our conclusions
in section 4 above where we saw that Gueroult's reading of the abstract/
concrete distinction as one between created and creative is untenable. Con-
crete duration is the duration of the created thing, just as concrete extension is
the extension of the created thing. Thus Gueroult's attempt to exempt in-
stants from Cartesian anti-atomism is unsuccessful. Although God could have
created things which, as a matter of contingent fact, always exist for some very
short duration ('moment'), we cannot understand him as having been able to
deprive himself of his own faculty of creating them for some lesser time, i.e.,
of being able to divide such moments into smaller parts. Therefore moments
cannot be extended indivisibles, no matter how small their extension.
But this still leaves us with the problem of how to account for the passages
quoted above, where Descartes writes of moments as if they were extended, as
in his talk of conservation through a moment of time, and so forth. Given the
untenability of time atoms, perhaps Laporte is right after all in his claim that
moments are true parts of time, extremely small but nonetheless divisible
durations? It would appear not. Such a reading is flatly contradicted by other
passages in the same works where Descartes speaks of the instant as a mere
point of time, totally devoid of duration. Thus a few pages before the above
quoted reference to a moment as brevissimum tempus in the Principia, Descartes
alludes to "a minimum point of time, which they call an instant" (minimum
temporispunctum, quod instans vocant; III, art. 63; AT, 8:115, 1.8-9). And in the
Regulae, discussing privations of positive qualities, Descartes says: "The cogni-
tion through which I intuit what nothing is, or an instant, or rest, is no less
true than that through which I understand what existence is, or duration, or
motion" (Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Rule 12, AT, lo:42o, U. ~-8; CSM,
45). Here again Descartes seems to regard an instant as a mere limit, a priva-
tion of duration.
How should we deal with these inconsistencies? An ingenious solution is
that offered by Beyssade. He proposes that there are two distinct technical
terms here: There is the moment, defined as brevissimum tempus, which is a
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 369
true divisible part o f duration, as L a p o r t e suggested. But we must clearly
distinguish this f r o m the t e r m instant (instans in the Latin), which, Beyssade
claims, Descartes "always u s e s . . , in the strict sense o f limit, for a privation or
negation o f duration, which excludes priority in time, which cannot be dimin-
ished."4a This distinction, according to Beyssade, is implicit in Descartes' usage
o f the Latin words momentum and instans, although it is not always followed in
the F r e n c h translations: "If a part contains nothing o t h e r than points, a point
is in all rigor n e v e r a part. Similarly for duration: the instant is its extremity,
the m o m e n t is a part . . . . O n e can thus speak o f conservation t h r o u g h a
m o m e n t o f time" (Discourse 4: AT, 6:36, 11. 2 - 3 , and Replies to First Objections,
AT, 7:111, 11. 1o - 1 1 , 9.88), o f n e i g h b o r i n g m o m e n t s (Replies to Fifth Objections,
AT, 7:37 o, 1.4), o r o f s u m m i n g m o m e n t s to compose the duration o f a motion
(Principles, III, 59: the translator has mixed the words instant and m o m e n t ,
the Latin only uses m o m e n t u m ; Beyssade, 349-5o).
This interpretation has the virtue o f neatness. It appears to resolve the
inconsistencies in Descartes' usage without conflicting with his opposition to
e x t e n d e d indivisibles, since it makes m o m e n t s e x t e n d e d but divisible, and
instants indivisible but u n e x t e n d e d .
Nevertheless, despite its ingenuity, Beyssade's interpretation is faced with
two major sets o f difficulties. T h e first is that it simply doesn't resolve the
textual inconsistencies. I f it did, Descartes would always write (in the Latin) o f
things being at instants, and e n d u r i n g t h r o u g h moments. Yet in the passage
involving the locution " m i n i m u m temporis punctum, q u o d instans vocant,"
Descartes writes o f e n d u r i n g t h r o u g h this instant;~4 and when he refers to
m o m e n t s in the Meditations, he speaks o f a substance's being conserved at (not
"through") every m o m e n t o f its duration. Worse, in the passage where he
allegedly "defines" a m o m e n t as brevissimum temporum, what he actually writes
is "and t h e r e f o r e it is diffused over the whole o f this surface in an extremely
short time, as if in a moment."45 This is hardly to define a m o m e n t as an
extremely short time. It would be m o r e plausible to interpret the "as if in a
m o m e n t " as m e a n i n g "as if in no time at all." T h u s it appears that Descartes'
usage is too inconstant to s u p p o r t Beyssade's interpretation.
Secondly, and m o r e damningly, this view is o p e n to the same objections

4s Beyssade, 348: "Sauf erreur de notre part, Descartes prend toujours le mot, et son original
Latin instans, au sens stricte de iimite, pour une privation ou n~gation de dur~e, qui exclut toute
priorit~ de temps, qui ne saurait diminuer."
Principles, III, w AT, 8:115, i i. 5-9: "hoc non nisi per minimum temporis puoctum,
quod instans vocant, durare potest, & ide6 continuitatem earum morris non interrumpit."
4s Principles, I I I, w111: AT, 8:159, i I. 14-15: "idebque brevissimo tempore, ac tanquam in
momento, supra totam istam superficiem se diffundet."
37 ~ 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 6 : 3 JULY 1988
that G u e r o u l t already raised against L a p o r t e ' s p r o p o s a l that m o m e n t s are
e x t e n d e d . A r g u i n g that the question o f time's discontinuity c a n n o t in any case
be resolved m e r e l y by a p p e a l to scattered quotations, but only "by r e f e r e n c e to
the whole Cartesian c o n c e p t i o n o f motion" (2 74 / 194), G u e r o u l t points out that
the p r o p o s e d e x t e n d e d n e s s o f the Cartesian m o m e n t is in flat contradiction to
Descartes' analysis o f m o t i o n as a succession o f instantaneous states, as well as
to the instantaneity o f light. For Descartes always treats m o t i o n statically: he
analyzes it as consisting in a certain c o n a t u s - - a n e n d e a v o r , or t e n d e n c y to
m o v e - - a t any instant o f the motion. A n d h e r e Descartes is explicit that the
instants are u n e x t e n d e d , they are m e r e points o f time in which no real m o t i o n
can occur, but only a tangential tendency. T h i s is the basis o f his f a r - r e a c h i n g
conclusion that inertial m o t i o n m u s t be rectilinear, m o t i o n in a straight line:
" A n d a l t h o u g h it is t r u e that no m o t i o n occurs in an instant, it is h o w e v e r
obvious that e v e r y t h i n g that moves, in every single instant that can be speci-
fied while it is in motion, has a d e t e r m i n a t i o n to continue its m o t i o n in a given
direction in a straight line, but n e v e r in a c u r v e d line."46
Beyssade, o f course, acknowledges that t h e r e is no motion in an instant.
Yet he still a r g u e s that the conatus " a c c r u e d . . . in the minimal d u r a t i o n o f a
m o m e n t can be a t t r i b u t e d to the m o v i n g thing taken at an instant," w h e n it
becomes, a c c o r d i n g to him, the thing's d e t e r m i n a t i o n to move.47 But f r o m this
it follows that the conatus (as o p p o s e d to the m e r e d e t e r m i n a t i o n to move)
e n d u r e s for a m o m e n t , w h e r e a m o m e n t is a true p a r t o f duration. A n d since
light is identified by Descartes as a conatus, it is t h e r e f o r e still the case that, as
on L a p o r t e ' s view, the passage o f light would take a finite a m o u n t o f time: "it
would have a t e m p o r a l m o t i o n a n d a real speed" (Guer. 273 ). But as G u e r o u l t
observes, Descartes explicitly denies that the passage o f light is an actual
motion, that it takes time; it is, like all conatus, strictly instantaneous. T h u s the
alleged e x t e n d e d n e s s o f the m o m e n t contradicts Cartesian physics at its very
core.
Must we t h e n j u s t accept that Descartes was r a t h e r careless in his refer-
ences to m o m e n t s o r instants as if they were e x t e n d e d ? In trying to avoid this
conclusion, o n e t e m p t a t i o n is to r e a d his m o m e n t s a n d conatuses as elements
o f d u r a t i o n o r m o t i o n o f vanishing quantity, as infinitesimals. T h i s i n t e r p r e t a -

46 Principles, II, w AT, 8:64/CSM, 1:242: "Ac quamvis nullus motus fiat in instanti, mani-
festum tamen est omne id quod movetur, in singulis instantibus quae possum designari dum
movetur, determinatum esse ad motum suum continuandum versus aliquam partem, secund~m
lineam rectam, non autem unquam secundhm ullam lineam curvam."
47 Beyssade, 141 n. 5: "Mais le conatus, ainsi acquis et accru dans la dur6e, au moins dans la
dur~e minimale d'un moment, peut ~tre attribu6 au mobile pris ~ un instant de son mouvement et
en un point de sa trajectoire; il est alors sa d~termination ~ tel mouvement" (Principles, II, w AT,
8:64 , 11.4-5 & l~--13)-
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 371
tion has been examined at length by Gueroult, who I think rightly rejects it,
but his examination is worth a brief consideration.
Gueroult himself can account for the ambiguity of Descartes' phrasing in
terms of his abstract/concrete distinction. From "the abstract, created point of
view," he says, "instants no longer appear as rigorously indivisible, nothing-
nesses of duration, but as fragments of d u r a t i o n s . . , that are as small as
possible, b r e v i s s i m a t e m p o r a , . . . infinitely small actuals" (Guer., 275/195). But
since Descartes' physics "could not be constituted without being referred to a
concrete point of view, meaning to the absolute indivisibility of the instant"
(Guer., ~79/198), some union of the two points of view is necessary for the
physical explanation of change. Now these two points of view could be uni-
fied, and the concomitant inconsistencies resolved, if we were to regard Des-
cartes' instants as anticipations of Leibniz's differentials, as infinitely small yet
divisible actuals. But as Gueroult has stressed, however enticing an interpreta-
tion this may be, the fact remains that Descartes himself never does achieve
such a resolution. In fact it is flatly contradicted by his "theory of the instant of
light as absolute intemporality," and by his "reduction of motion to a succes-
sion of different states" (Guer., ~74/a94). Thus the Laportean "definition" of
an instant as an extremely short time "that could lead to the infinitesimal as a
vanishing minimum, does not actually lead to it and is only an imperfect
manner of speaking--the instant is essentially a radical negation of all dura-
tion" (Guer., ~74/194).
Quite so. But this conclusion militates equally against Gueroult's own idea
that there could be such Laportean moments even "from the abstract, created
point of view." Infinitely small, divisible moments are simply incompatible with
Cartesian physics, even at its most "abstract." For confirmation of this one need
only refer to Descartes' relentless hostility to the infinitesimal techniques in bur-
geoning use among his peers, especially Fermat and Roberval. We must there-
fore conclude with Gueroult that Descartes' references to moments as if they
are extremely short times is indeed "only an imperfect manner of speaking."

7. DISCONTINUITY AND MOTION

But before concluding, there is one further argument for the classic thesis I
feel obliged to consider, if only on account of its widespread influence. This is
the argument from discontinuous motion.
Simply stated, it runs as follows. As is well known, Descartes denied that a
decelerating body had to go through all the intermediate degrees of speed.
That is, he denied (in this sense, at least) the continuity of motion. Yet he
upheld the continuity of matter or extension. But, so the argument goes, if
motion is discontinuous and space is continuous, it follows that time must be
discontinuous.
372 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 26:3 J U L Y ~988
Gueroult gives what appears to be an inverted form of this argument:
"Whereas Galileo justifies the infinite diminishment of speed by the infinite
divisibility of time, which implies that of the instant itself, Descartes, consider-
ing that the instant cannot be diminished and is an indivisible in all rigor,
concludes from this that the elementary speed is also an absolute indivisible
and that real (temporal) motion is made up of the repetition of these indivisi-
bles" (Guer. 282/199 ).
Thus, for Gueroult, Descartes' "static" analysis of motion is evidence for a
radical temporal atomism. Motion is analyzed in terms of a succession of
discrete states because time is discontinuous. Therefore motion, like duration,
is composed of a discontinuous succession of actual indivisibles.
But despite appearances, and whichever way round it is proposed, this
argument is invalid. For it is perfectly possible for motion to be discontinuous
while space and time are both continuous. Such motion would be represented
on a graph of (continuous) space against (continuous) time by a discontinuous
line. But this kind of discontinuity has nothing to do with any composition out
of indivisibles. And far from deriving the discontinuity of motion from that of
time, as Gueroult suggests, Descartes was rather bound to assert it as a conse-
quence of his laws of collision. For his natural philosophy, unlike that of
Leibniz, could make no sense of the elasticity of matter; so colliding bodies
had to change their speed instantaneously, and thus discontinuously. It was of
course for the disharmonies attendant on these discontinuous changes of
motion that Leibniz took him to task,48 but not for any supposed discontinuity
in time. Indeed, nowhere in his writings does Leibniz attribute such a
discontinuous time to Descartes.49 The bottom line here is that a body under-
going a discontinuous change in its motion in a collision does not thereby
cease to exist at that time, but rather remains in existence continuously
throughout the process. It therefore has a continuous duration despite the
discontinuity of its motion.
To conclude, there is no doubt that Gueroult is right to draw attention to
the static character of motion in Cartesian physics, and with it the difficulty of
"deriving duration from an instant that denies it, motion from a state" (274/
193 ) . Descartes never comes to terms with time as an independent variable or
geometric quantity. And Gueroult and Koyr6 are certainly correct to see this

48 His critique is contained in his Critical Thoughts on the General Part of the Principles of Descartes
of 1692, G. 4:354-92, translated by Loemker in Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, 383-41 z.
49 In fact, Leibniz's objection to Descartes' measure of conserved force presupposes that
Cartesian time is continuous. According to Leibniz, if God exerts a force of mv at every single
instant as Descartes proposes, then, assuming time is continuous, the total force accruing would
be given by the time integral of mv, which is proportional to my'. See Leibniz's Specimen Dy-
namicum in Loemker, especially 451 n. 7, and references given there.
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 373

quasi-elimination of time as one of the chief defects of Cartesian physics, a

shortcoming that both Newton and Leibniz were soon to redress. But this is
not at all the same as his having advocated a conception of time as discontinu-
ous, as composed of indivisibles, as I hope my argument has shown. Rather, I
contend, this was simply the only way Descartes could find to give a consistent
analysis of continuous motion and duration without the concepts of the calcu-
lus: there must be a tendency to move at any point in time in order for the
motion to be truly continuous; correspondingly, there must be creation at any
instant in order for there to be continuous existence and duration.
This is in fact the sense of the passage concerning the "minimum point of
time" (minimum temporis puncture) alluded to above: "for since they are in per-
petual motion, although it can sometimes happen that they are arranged in
precisely the same way as the leaden balls depicted in the figure, this can only
last for the minimum point of time which they call an instant, and for this
reason does not interrupt the continuity of their motion."5o

CONCLUSION
I have argued that the "classic thesis" is a mistake, that an analysis of the
passages where Descartes purportedly argues for the discreteness of time re-
veals only arguments for the contingency of all the innumerable parts into
which time can be divided, the dependency of their connection on God's con-
tinuous action. I have argued that God's act of creation, although in itself
indivisible, is continuous and indefinitely divisible in respect of its duration, and
that only such a truly continuous creation would be equivalent to conservation.
And I have argued that Descartes' characteristic way of analyzing temporal
activity in' terms of instantaneous tendencies to act at each instant is perfectly
compatible with his holding that thoughts and motions are continuous in time,
despite his avowal of the existence of discontinuous changes of motion.
But I have not argued that Descartes presents us with a coherent or satisfac-
tory account of the continuity of time, of how a continuous duration could be
composed of an infinite or indefinite number of durationless instants. Nor
should I have, as I shall now argue, since Descartes does not regard the
provision of a theory of continuity as a legitimate endeavor.
To see this, one need only survey Descartes' reactions to Galileo's attempt
to provide such a theory in his Two New Sciences. Galileo had proposed that the
continuum, though infinitely divisible into "quantified parts" (the innumera-

50 Principles, III, w AT, 8A:115, al. 5-1o: "c/ira enim in perpetuo sint motu, quamvis
aliquando possit contingere, ut eodem plan~: modo tint dispositi ac giobi plumbei in hac figurh
depicti, hoc non nisi per minimum temporis punctum, quod instans vocant, durare potest, & ide6
continuitatem earum motOs non interrumpit."
374 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 26:3 JULY 1988
ble finite parts into which Descartes' life could be divided), was also divisible
into an infinity o f "unquantifiable parts" or indivisibles, themselves separated
by indivisible voids, which he supposed held matter together by suction. T h e s e
indivisibles t h e n became the basis for the pioneering work o f his pupils Cava-
lieri and Torricelli in the Integral Calculus (more accurately, the G e o m e t r y o f
Indivisibles), w h e r e a line was u n d e r s t o o d as composed out o f an infinity o f
indivisible points, a surface out o f an infinity o f indivisible lines, and so forth.
Descartes' reaction to all this is scathing, to say the least. T h e basis for this
hostility, as we should have expected f r o m his discussions in the Principia and
elsewhere, is that to give an account o f continuity involves reasoning about
infinity, and this is necessarily b e y o n d o u r resources as finite creatures. T h e fact
that Galileo acknowledges this and still goes ahead with his account o f continu-
ity, appears to Descartes as overwhelming hubris. In reply to Mersenne, who
sent him a copy o f Galileo's book for his comments, he writes: " H e is lacking in
everything he says about infinity, in that, notwithstanding his admission that
the h u m a n spirit, being finite, is not capable o f u n d e r s t a n d i n g infinity, he does
not stop discussing everything as if he u n d e r s t o o d it just the same."sx
As for the details o f Galileo's t r e a t m e n t o f the continuum, Descartes rejects
the t h e o r y o f indivisible but e x p a n d a b l e voids with the remark: " T h e whole o f
what he says about rarefaction and condensation is nothing but a sophism."~,
Similarly, Galileo's p r o o f that a straight line "is composed o f an infinity o f
actual points" is dismissed by him as "only an imagination, p u r e and simple."53
This j u d g m e n t alone, incidentally, seems to me sufficient to dispose o f
Gueroult's contention that Descartes conceived instants " f r o m the abstract and
imperfect point o f view o f created existence" as "infinitely small actual things"
(Guer., 275/195).
This dismissal o f Galileo's " p r o o f " that the line is composed o f actual
indivisibles as an imagination is itself significant in the light o f Descartes'
contrast between being able merely to imagine something, and being able to
properly u n d e r s t a n d it. T h u s , we may think (with Galileo) that we can imagine
a last element in an infinite division, an actual indivisible; but no matter how
small we imagine such indivisibles to be, we necessarily r e p r e s e n t t h e m in o u r
imagination as e x t e n d e d , and can thus clearly and distinctly conceive their
divisibility. T h u s o u r imagination deceives us: indivisibles and the actually
infinitely small are not distinctly conceivable.

5, Descartes to Mersenne, l 1 October 1638, Correspondance,CXLVI: 383: "II manque en tout

ce qu'il dit de l'infini, en ce que, nonobstant qu'il confesse que l'esprit humain, estant fini, n'est pas
capable de le comprendre, il ne laisse pas d'en discourir tout de mesme que s'il le comprenoit."
5, "Tout ce qu'il dit de la rarefaction & condensation n'est qu'vn sophisme" (ibid., 384).
53 "II fait considerer vne ligne droite, descrite par le mouuement d'vn cercle, pour prouuer
qu'eUe est compos~e d'vne infinit~ de poins actu, ce qu'il n'est qu'vne imagination toute pure"
(ibid., 384).
 CONTINUOUS CREATION, CONTINUOUS TIME 375

There is a similar failure of imagination with respect to infinite division,

which, as Beyssade observes (350), Descartes appeals to in his explanation of
the "catch" in Zeno's Achilles Paradox. The paradox, as Descartes himself
expounds it, is as follows: "a tortoise, which has ten leagues' start on a horse
going ten times as fast as it, can never be overtaken by the horse, because while
the horse covers ten leagues the tortoise covers one more, and while the horse
covers this league the tortoise advances another tenth of a league further, and
so on to infinity."~4 Descartes has already set up a correct solution to the
paradox, by showing how a geometrically decreasing infinite series of finite
parts, such as r + v%o + r + . . . nevertheless adds up to a finite whole, in
this case r This he does entirely geometrically, without recourse to the idea of
a limit, by an ingenious application of the Method of Exhaustion. He consid-
ers a line AB, and subtracts 88 from the left side, and SAoths from the right
side. He then subtracts a further iAoothfrom the left, and S/,oothsfrom the right,
and so on till the length of the line is exhausted "and one will have arrived
from both sides precisely at the point G" (446). But the ratio of 1:8 having
been preserved for all the lines subtracted, this must be the ratio of their
aggregata, AG:GB. So AG:AB = 1:9, and it follows that at the end of a ninth of
a league, the horse begins to overtake the tortoise. He then concludes: "And
the catch lies in that one imagines that this ninth part of a league is an infinite
quantity, because one divides it in one's imagination into an infinity of parts"
(ibid.). Thus the paradox arises through a limitation of the imagination. One
can imagine an infinite division only by picturing an infinite collection of parts
in one's mind. But this seems to entail an infinite quantity, hence the catch.
However, by applying the methods of geometry, and without any appeal to
what happens "at infinity," one may understand that when the division is
"done an actually infinite number of times" (ibid., 446), the aggregate of terms
will be '/9.
This example shows very nicely, I believe, how Descartes thought one
should tackle problems having to do with the actual infinite without subjecting
oneself in any way to the limitations of the imagination, or committing oneself
to the "last elements" of an actually infinite division.
Thus, in conclusion, I maintain that Descartes not only did not hold that
durations were composed of an infinity of really discrete actual indivisibles,
but this is a view he could not have held.

Middlebury College

Letter to Clerselier, June/July 1646, AT.4:445-47. Showing a nice touch of humor, Des-
cartes signs this letter "I am infinitely yours, Ren&"