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
From all which, I perceive that neither the _Power_ of _Willing
precisely_ so taken, which I have from _God_, is the _Cause_ of my
_Errors_, it being most _full_ and _perfect_ in its kind; Neither also
the _Power_ of _Understanding_, for whatever I _Understand_ (since ’tis
from God that I _Understand_ it) I _understand aright_, nor can I be
therein _Deceived_.
From _Whence_ therefore proceed all my _Errors_? To which, I answer,
that they proceed from _hence_ only, that seeing the _Will_ expatiates
it self _farther_ then the _Understanding_, I keep it not within the
_same bounds_ with my _Understanding_, but often extend it to those
things which I _Understand not_, to which things it being _Indifferent_,
it easily Declines from what is _True_ and _Good_; and consequently
I am _Deceived_ and _Commit sin_. * Thus, for example, when lately I
felt my self to enquire, Whether any thing doth _Exist_, and found
that from my setting _my self_ to Examine such a thing, it evidently
follows that I _my self Exist_, I could not but _Judge_, what I so
_clearly Understood_, to be _true_, not that I was _forced_ thereto by
any _outward impulse_, but because a _strong Propension_ in my _Will_
did follow this _Great Light_ in my _Understanding_, so that I believed
it so much the more _freely_ and _willingly_, by how much the less
_indifferent_ I was thereto. But now I understand, not only, that I
_Exist_ as I am a _Thing_ that _Thinks_, but I also meet with a certain
_Idea_ of a _Corporeal Nature_, and it so happens that I _doubt_,
whether that _Thinking Nature_ that is in me be _Different_ from that
_Corporeal Nature_, or Whether they are _both the same_: but in this
_I_ suppose that _I_ have found no Argument to _incline_ me _either
ways_, and therefore _I_ am _Indifferent_ to _affirm_ or _deny either_,
or to _Judge nothing_ of _either_; But this _indifferency_ extends it
self not only to those things of which I am _clearly ignorant_, but
generally to all those things which are _not_ so very _evidently known_
to me at the Time when my _Will Deliberates_ of them; for tho never so
probable _Guesses incline_ me to _one_ side, yet the Knowing that they
are only _Conjectures_, and not indubitable _reasons_, is enough to Draw
my _Assent_ to the _Contrary_ Part. Which Lately _I_ have sufficiently
experienced, when _I_ supposed all those things (which formerly _I_
assented to as most _True_) as very _False_, for this _Reason_ only that
_I_ found my self _able_ to doubt of them in some manner.
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