Note 381 — THE CONCLUSION: COMPREHENDING A RETROSPECT OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE,

The words between inverted commas, in the above paragraph, are quoted from Rittenhouse’s Oration.

Notwithstanding the fanciful theories introduced into physics by Descartes, concerning his materia subtilis and vortices, and his doctrine of a plenum, which were prostrated by the general adoption of the Newtonian system, the improvements that had been made in the mathematical sciences and some other branches of physics, by the Cartesian system, produced a great revolution in the species of philosophy which till then prevailed. The philosophy of Descartes, erroneous and defective as, in some particulars, it was found to be, triumphed, by its superior energy, over the crude and feeble systems of the schools. The peripatetic doctrines which had revived in Europe, after she emerged from the barbarism and gloom that succeeded the final declension of the Roman empire, continued from that period to be the prevailing philosophy; and tinctured, also, the whole mass of the scholastic theology: but the systems of Descartes first dissipated most of the useless subtleties of the schoolmen; while the truths brought to light by the philosophy of Newton, still further exposed their absurdities. According to Dr. Reid (in his Essays on the intellectual and active powers of Man,) even the most useful and intelligible parts of the writings of Aristotle himself had, among them, become neglected; and philosophy was reduced to an art of speaking learnedly and disputing subtilely, without producing any invention of utility in the affairs of human life. “It was,” to use the language of Dr. Reid, “fruitful“fruitful in words, but barren of works; and admirably contrived for drawing a veil over human ignorance, and putting a stop to the progress of knowledge, by filling men with a conceit that they knew every thing. It was very fruitful also in controversies; but, for the most part, they were controversies about words, or things above the reach of the human faculties.”