Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body — Descartes — John Shaqi
Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body
Descartes · en
Neither can it be supposed that many _partial Causes_ have _concurred_
to the making Me, and that I received the _Idea_ of one of _Gods
perfections_ from _One_ of them, and from an _other_ of them the _Idea_
of an _other_; and that therefore all these Perfections are to be
found _scattered_ in the World, but not all of them _Joyn’d_ in any
one which may Be _God_. For on the contrary, _Unity_, _Simplicity_,
or the _inseparability_ of All Gods Attributes is one of the _chief
Perfections_ which I conceive in Him; and certainly the _Idea_ of the
_Unity_ of the _Divine Perfections_ could not be _created_ in me by any
other _cause_, then by _That_, from whence I have received the _Ideas_ of
his other _perfections_; For ’tis Impossible to make me conceive these
_perfections_, _conjunct_ and _inseparable_, unless he should also make
me know what _perfections_ these _are_.
Lastly as touching my _having_ my _Being_ from my _Parents_. Tho whatever
Thoughts I have heretofore harbour’d of Them were _True_, yet certainly
they _contribute_ nothing to my _conservation_, neither proceed I from
them as _I am_ a _Thing_ that _Thinks_, for they have onely _predisposed_
that _material Thing_, wherein _I_, that is, _my mind_ (_which_ only
at present I take for _my self_) _Inhabits_. Wherefore I cannot _now_
Question that I am sprung from them. But I must of necessity conclude
that because _I am_, and because I have an _Idea_ of a _Being most
perfect_, that is, of _God_, it evidently follows that _there is a God_.
* Now it only remains for me to examine, how I have received this _Idea_
of _God_. For I have neither received it by _means_ of _my Senses_,
neither comes it to me _without_ my _Forethought_, as the _Ideas_ of
_sensible_ things use to do, when such things _Work_ on the Organs of my
_Sense_, or at least _seem_ so to work; Neither is this _Idea_ framed
by _my self_, for I can neither _detract from_, nor _add_ any thing
_thereto_. Wherefore I have only to conclude that it is _Innate_, even as
the _Idea_ of me _my self_ is _Natural_ to my self.