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
There are yet remaining many Things concerning _Gods Attributes_, and
many things concerning the _nature_ of _my self_ or of my _Mind_, which
ought to be searched into: but these perhaps I shall set upon at some
other Opportunity. And at Present nothing seems to me more requisite
(feeling I have discover’d what I must _avoid_, and what I must _Do_ for
the _Attaining_ of _Truth_) then that I imploy my Endeavours to free my
self from those doubts into which I have lately fallen, and that I try
whether I can have any certainty of Material Things.
But before I enquire whether there be any such things _Really Existent
without_ Me, I ought to consider the _Ideas_ of those things, as they are
in my Thoughts and try which of them are _Distinct_, which _confused_.
In which search I find that I _distinctly imagine Quantity_, that which
Philosophers commonly call _continued_, that is to say, the _Extension_
of that _Quantity_ or thing _continued_ into _Length_, _Breadth_, and
_Thickness_, I can _count_ in it divers Parts, to which parts I can
assign _Bigness_, _Figure_, _Position_, and _Local Motion_, to which
_Local Motion_ I can assign _Duration_. Neither are only these _Generals_
plainly discover’d and known by Me, but also by attentive Consideration,
I perceive Innumerable _particulars_ concerning the _Shapes_, _Number_,
and _Motion_ of These Bodies; The _Truth_ whereof is so _evident_, and
_agreeable_ to my _Nature_, that when I first discover’d them, I seemed
not so much to have _Learnt_ any thing that is _new_, as to have only
_remembred_ what I have known _before_, or only to have thought on those
things which were in me _before_, tho this be the first time that I have
examin’d them so _diligently_.