Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his bodyDescartes, René
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body
Descartes, René
Descartes, René, 1596-1650; First philosophy; God -- Proof, Ontological; Knowledge, Theory of; Metaphysics; Methodology
But When I was exercised about any single and easie Proposition in
Arithmetick or Geometry, as that two and three added make five, Did not
I Perceive them _Clearly_ enough to make me affirm them True? Truly
concerning these I had no other Reason afterwards to _Doubt_, but That I
thought Perhaps there may be a _God_ who might have so created me, that
I should be _Deceived_ even in those things which seem’d most _Clear_ to
me. And as often as this Pre-conceived opinion of _Gods great Power_
comes into my Mind, I cannot but Confess that he may easily cause me to
Err even in those things which I Think I perceive most _Evidently_ with
my Mind; yet as often as I Consider the Things themselves, which I Judge
my self to perceive so _Clearly_, I am so fully Perswaded by them, that I
easily Break out into these Expressions, Let Who can Deceive Me, yet he
shall never Cause me _Not to Be_ whilst _I think that I Am_, or that it
shall ever be True, _that I never was_, Whilst at Present ’tis True _that
I am_, or Perhaps, that Two and Three added make More or Less then Five;
for in These things I Percieve a Manifest Repugnancy; And truely seeing
I have no reason to Think any _God_ a _Deceiver_, Nor as yet fully know
Whether there Be _any God_, or _Not_, ’Tis but a slight and (as I may
say) Metaphysical Reason of Doubt, which depends only on that opinion of
which I am not yet Perswaded.
Wherefore That this Hindrance may be taken away, When I have time I ought
to Enquire, Whether there _Be a God_, And if there be One, Whether he can
be a _Deceiver_, For whilst I am _Ignorant_ of this, I cannot possibly
be fully _Certain_ of any Other thing.
But now Method seems to Require Me to Rank all My Thoughts under certain
Heads, and to search in Which of them _Truth_ or _Falshood_ properly
Consists. Some of them are (as it were) the _Images_ of Things, and to
these alone the Name of an _Idea_ properly belongs, as When I think upon
a Man, A Chimera or Monster, Heaven, an Angel, or _God_. But there are
others of them, that have _superadded Forms_ to them, as when I Will,
when I Fear, when I Affirm, when I Deny. I know I have alwayes (when ever
I think) some certain Thing as the _subject_ or _object_ of my Thought,
but in this last sort of thoughts there is something _more_ which I Think
upon then Barely the likeness of the Thing. And of these Thoughts some
are called _Wills_ and _Affections_, and Others of them _Judgments_.
Now as touching _Ideas_, if they be Consider’d alone as they are in
themselves, without _Respect_ to any other Things, they cannot Properly
be _false_; for Whether I _Imagine_ a Goat or a Chimera, ’tis as
_Certain_ that I _Imagine_ one as t’other. Also in the _Will_ and
_Affections_ I need not Fear any _Falshood_, For tho I should _Wish_ for
_evil Things_, or Things that are Not, it is not therefore _Not true_
that I Wish for them.
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