OCCASIONALISM, or the doctrine of OCCASIONAL CAUSES (see CAUSE), is the name given to the philosophical system devised by Descartes and his school, for the purpose of explaining the action of mind upon matter, or, to speak more correctly, the combined, or at least the synchronous action of both. It is a palpable fact that certain actions or modifications of the body are accompanied by corresponding acts of mind, and rice 'COWL This fact, although it presents no difficulty to the popular conception, according to which each is supposed to act directly upon the other—body upon mind, and mind upon body —has long furnished an philtisophers a subject of muck Slieeulation. But on the other hand, it is difficult to conceive the possibility of any direct mutual interaction of sub stances so dissimilar, or rather so disparate. And more than one system has been devised for the explanation of the problem, as to the relations which subsist between the mind and the body. in reference to those operations, which are clearly attributable to them
both. According to Descartes and the Occasionalists, the action of the mind is not, and cannot be the cause of the corresponding action of the body. But they hold that when ever any action o-f the mind takes place, God directly produces, in connection with it, and by reason of it, a corresponding action of the body; and in like manner conversely, they explain the coincident or synchronous actions of the body and the mind. It was in opposition to this view that Leibnitz, believing the Cartesian system to be open to nearly equal difficulties with that of the direct action, devised his system of Pre-established Harmony. See LEIBNITZ. His real objection to the Occasionalist hypothesis is, that it supposed a perpetual action of God upon creatures, and, in fact, is but a modification of the system of " direct assistance."