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བ་ཉན ་༣`ན་
FROM THE LIBRARY
OF
ROBERT MARK WENLEY
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
1896
1929
GIFT OF HIS CHILDREN
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THM Bicknell del at se
1935
B
1837
V43
1879
DESCARTES
THE METHOD, MEDITATIONS, AND
SELECTIONS FROM THE PRINCIPLES
OF
René DESCARTES
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXTS
SIXTH EDITION
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, HISTORICAL
AND CRITICAL
BY
JOHN VEITCH, LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF GLASGOW
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXIX
1879
B
1837
V43
1879
*
3-31
PREFACE,
INTRODUCTION:
CONTENTS.
PAGE
V
I. DESCARTES-HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS,
ix
II. PHILOSOPHY PRECEDING DESCARTES IN THE
XV
- FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES,
III. THE COGITO ERGO SUM ITS NATURE AND
MEANING,
xxi
IV. COGITO ERGO SUM
OBJECTIONS ΤΟ THE
PRINCIPLE,
xxxiii
V. THE GUARANTEE OF THE PRINCIPLE,
xl
VI. THE CRITERION OF TRUTH,.
lv
VII. THE EGO AND THE MATERIAL WORLD,.
lxv
VIII. INNATE IDEAS,
lxxv
IX. MALEBRANCHE,
lxxvii
X. SPINOZA-RELATIONS TO DESCARTES,
XI. DEVELOPMENT OF CARTESIANISM IN THE LINE
lxxxix
OF SPINOZA
NEGATIO,
OMNIS DETERMINATIO EST
cxii
XII. HEGELIAN CRITICISM THE EGO AND THE
INFINITE,
cxxxiv
ކ
iv
CONTENTS.
L
٢
٢
DISCOURSE ON METHOD,
1
MEDITATIONS ON THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY,
77
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY,
171
•
APPENDIX:
L-
ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD,
267
NOTES:
I. TO PERCEIVE-PERCEPTION,
II. IDEA,
III. OBJECTIVE REALITY,
•
IV. FROM OR THROUGH THE SENSES,
V. THOUGHT,
VI. INNATE IDEAS, ·
VII. FORMALLY AND EMINENTLY,
274
276
285
286
286
•
287
289
VIII. PURE INTELLECTION,
290
•
•
IX. MOTION,
290
X. SECOND ELEMENT,
291
PREFAC E.
THE present volume consists of Translations of the
Discourse on Method, the Meditations on the First
Philosophy, and the greater portion of the Prin-
ciples of Philosophy of Descartes. The first of
these appeared originally in 1850; the two latter
in 1853. They were subsequently published to-
gether in one volume. This work, in part and in
its collected form, has gone through five editions.
The volume is designed to represent all that
is of essential importance in the speculative philo-
sophy of Descartes, and to serve as a manual for
students of his doctrines.
The first or French edition of the Method
(1637) has been taken as the basis of the trans-
lation. It has been minutely compared through-
out with the later Latin edition; and as this is
declared by Descartes to have been carefully re-
vised by himself, and to contain amendments on
the original from his own hand, the preference
has been accorded to it in all cases in which the
meaning has appeared to be more clearly given.
vi
PREFACE.
The Meditations are translated in whole. The
Preface and the First Part of the Principles are
given, along with selections from the Second, Third,
and Fourth Parts of the same work. The extracts
from the Principles correspond to what is found in
the edition of Garnier. An Appendix is added
containing the author's Demonstrations of the
Existence of Deity, as these are put by him in
their strictest form. The Notes at the end of
the volume may be found useful in explanation
of certain terms which are of frequent occurrence
and important bearing in the writings of Descartes.
The Meditations and the Principles were origin-
ally written in Latin, the former in 1641, the
latter in 1644. As both works were translated
into French during the author's lifetime, and re-
vised by himself, the French text may be con-
sidered as at least of equal authority with the
other. While, therefore, the Latin or original
text is that from which the present translation is
made, the additions and variations of the French
are also given-the former in the text in square
brackets, the latter in footnotes. The French
translation of the Meditations was made by the
Duc de Luynes, and was first published in 1647;
that of the Principles, which appeared in the same
year, was made by Picot.
Previously to the present translations, the Method
had appeared in English-London, 1649. There
was also an English version of the Meditations, by
W. Molyneux-London, 1680.
These are now
rarely to be met with.
PREFACE.
vii
The translator has substituted for the Intro-
duction originally prefixed to the Method a longer
and fuller discussion on the Philosophy of Des-
cartes, especially with reference to its main his-
torical developments.
THE LOANING, PEEBLES,
September 1879.
NOTE.
THE references in the Introduction to the Translations of the Method
Meditations, and Principles, are to the paging of the former editions
The following Table shows the correspondence with the new paging o
the present edition :-
Introduction.
Page xxiii
"
XXX
ly
lxii
"
lxvii
lxxvii
Former Editions.
•
Page 29
Present Edition.
·
Page 109.
34.
||
212.
136.
11
276.
278, 279, 287.
76 .
"}
132.
56.
196.
198, 199, 207
•
lxxxix
76 & p. 187
11
xcix
188.
"
cxliii
11
45.
134 & p. 267.
11
268.
125.
INTRODUCTION.
I. DESCARTES-HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS.
THE life of Descartes is best read in his writings,
especially in that choice and pleasing fragment of
mental autobiography, the Discours de la Méthode.
But it is desirable to give the leading facts and dates
of a career as unostentatious and barren of current and
popular interest, as it was significant and eventful for
the future of modern thought.
René Descartes was born on the 31st March 1596.
His birthplace was La Haye, a small town in the pro-
vince of Touraine, now the department of the Indre
et Loire. His family, on both sides, belonged to the
landed gentry of the province of Poitou, and was of old
standing. The ancestral estates lay in the neighbour-
hood of Châtelleraut, in the plain watered by the Vienne,
as it flows northward, amid fields fertile in corn and
vines, to the Loire. The manor, called Les Cartes, from
which the family derived its name, is about a league
from La Haye. It is now embraced in the commune of
Ormes-Saint-Martin, in the department of Vienne, which
represents the old province of Poitou.
The mother of the philosopher was Jeanne Brochard,
and his father was Joachim Descartes, a lawyer by pro-
fession, and a counsellor in the Parliament of Bretagne.
This assembly was held in the town of Rennes, the old
capital of the province, and there the family usually
a 2
X
INTRODUCTION.
resided during the session. René was the third child of
the marriage. The title of Seigneur du Perron, some-
times attached to his name, came to him from inheriting
a small estate through his mother. His elder brother
followed the father's profession, and became in his
turn a counsellor of the Parliament of Bretagne. He
seems to have been a proper type of the conventional
gentleman of the time. So far from regarding it as
an honour to be connected with the philosopher, he
thought it derogatory to the family that his brother
René should write books. This elder brother was the
first of the family to settle in Bretagne, so that it is
a mistake to represent Descartes as a Breton. He was.
really descended from Poitou ancestry.
In 1604, at the age of eight, he was sent to the
recently-instituted Jesuit College of La Flèche. The
studies of the place were of the usual scholastic type.
He mastered these, but he seems to have taken chiefly
to mathematics. Here he remained eight years, leav-
ing the college in 1612. After a stay in Paris of
four years, the greater part of the time being spent
in seclusion and quiet study, at the age of twenty-
one he entered the army, joining the troops of Prince
Maurice of Nassau in Holland. He afterwards took
service with the Duke of Bavaria, then made a cam-
paign in Hungary under the Count de Bucquoy.
His insatiable desire of seeing men and the world,
which had been the principal motive for his joining
the army, now urged him to travel. Moravia, Silesia,
the shores of the Baltic, Holstein, and Friesland, were
all visited by him at this time. Somewhat later, in
1623, he set out from Paris for Italy, traversed the
Alps and visited the Grisons, the Valteline, the Tyrol,
and then went by Innsbruck to Venice and Rome. In
the winter of 1619-20, when, after close thinking,
some fundamental point in his philosophy dawned on
his mind, he had a remarkable dream, and thereupon he
vowed to make a pilgrimage to Loretto. There can be
INTRODUCTION.
xi
little doubt that he actually fulfilled his vow on the occa-
sion of this visit to Italy, walking on foot from Venice
to Loretto. He finally settled to the reflective work of
his life in 1629, at the age of thirty-three, choosing
Amsterdam for his residence. Holland was then the
land of freedom-civil and literary-and this no doubt
influenced his decision. But he also, as he tells us,
preferred the cooler atmosphere of the Low Lands to the
heat of Italy and France. In the former he could think
with cool head, in the latter he could only produce
phantasies of the brain.
Here, professing and acting on the principle, Bene vixit
bene qui latuit, he meditated and wrote for twenty years,
with a patience, force, and fruitfulness of genius which
has been seldom equalled in the history of the world.
His works appeared in the following order: Discours
de la Méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la
vérité dans les sciences; plus la Dioptrique, les Météores
et la Géométrie, qui sont des Essais de cette Méthode.
Leyden: 1637. This was published anonymously.
Etienne de Courcelles translated the Method, Dioptrics,
and Meteors into Latin. This was revised by Descartes,
and published at Amsterdam in 1644. The Geometry
was translated into Latin, with commentary, by Francis
von Schooten, and published at Leyden, 1649. The
Meditations were first published in Paris in 1641. The
title was Meditationes de prima Philosophia, in qua Dei
existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstrantur. In the
second edition, published under the superintendence of
the author himself at Amsterdam in 1642, the title was
as follows: Renati Descartes Meditationes de prima Philo-
sophia, in quibus Dei existentia et animæ a corpore dis-
tinctio demonstrantur. His adjunctæ sunt variæ objectiones
doctorum virorum ad istas de Deo et animæ demonstra-
tiones cum responsionibus auctoris. The Meditations
were translated into French by the Duc de Luynes in
1647. The Principia Philosophia appeared at Amster-
dam in 1644. The Abbé Picot translated it into French,
xii
INTRODUCTION.
1647, Paris. The Traité des Passions de l'âme appeared
at Amsterdam in 1649.¹
Regarding the Method of Descartes, Saisset has very
well said: "It ought not to be forgotten that in pub-
lishing the Method, Descartes joined to it, as a sup-
plement, the Dioptrics, the Geometry, and the Meteors.
Thus at one stroke he founded, on the basis of a new
method, two sciences hitherto almost unknown and of
infinite importance-Mathematical Physics and the
application of Algebra to Geometry; and at the same
time he gave the prelude to the Meditations and the
Principles-that is to say, to an original Metaphysic,
and the mechanical theory of the universe."2
The appearance of the Discours de la Méthode marked
an epoch not only in philosophy, but in the French
language itself, as a means especially of philosophical
expression. Peter Ramus, in his violent crusade against
Aristotle, had published a Dialectic in French,³ but it
was the Discours de la Méthode of Descartes which first
truly revealed the clearness, precision, and natural
force of his native language in philosophical literature.
The use, too, of a vernacular tongue, immensely aided
the diffusion and appreciation of the first great move-
ment of modern thought.
Descartes, though a self-contained and self-inspired
man, of marked individuality and a spirit of speculation
wonderful for its comprehensiveness, had not the out-
1 Among the posthumous works of Descartes are: L'Homme de René
Descartes, avec les remarques de Louis de la Forge, et un Traité de la
formation du fœtus-Paris, 1664. Le Monde, ou Traité de la lumière,
edited by Clerselier-Paris, 1677. Lettres de René Descartes-Paris,
1667; 3 vols. Renati Descartes opuscula posthuma physica et mathe-
matica-Amsterdam, 1701. Cousin has given a complete edition
of the works of Descartes, 11 volumes, from 1824 to 1826. Garnier
has an edition of the Euvres Philosophiques in 4 volumes - Paris,
1835. For these and other bibliographical details, see Garnier, I. 89,
and Bouillier, Histoire de la Phil. Cartesienne, pp. 39, 40.
Method was translated into English in 1649: London.
2 Descartes, pp. 84, 85.
The
3 Dialectique de Pierre de la Ramée à Charles de Lorraine, cardinal,
son Mécène à Paris: 1555.
INTRODUCTION.
xiii
spoken boldness which we are accustomed to associate
with great reformers. He was not one, indeed, who
cared to encounter the powerful opposition of the
Church, to which by education he belonged. This is
obvious from many things in his writings. He avoided,
as far as possible, the appearance of an innovator, while
he was so in the truest sense of the word. When he
attacked an old dogma, it was not by a daring march
up to the face of it, but rather by a quiet process of
sapping the foundations. He got rid also of traditional
principles not so much by direct attack as by substi-
tuting for them new proofs and grounds of reasoning,
and thus silently ignoring them.
One little incident of his life shows at once the char-
acter of the man and of the times in which he lived,
and the difficulties peculiar to the position of an original
thinker in those days. He had completed the manu-
script of a treatise De Mundo, and was about to send
it to his old college friend Mersenne in Paris, with a
view to arrange for its printing. In it he had main-
tained the doctrine of the motion of the earth. Mean-
while (November 1633) he heard of the censure and
condemnation of Galileo. This led him not only to
stay the publication of the book, but even to talk of
burning the manuscript, which he seems to have done
in part. Descartes might no doubt have taken gener-
ally a more pronounced course in the statement of his
opinions; but, looking to the jealous antagonism be-
tween the modern spirit represented by philosophy and
literature on the one hand, and the old represented by
theology on the other, during the immediately preced-
ing period of the Renaissance and in his own time, it
is doubtful whether such a line of action would have
been equally successful in gaining acceptance for his
new views, and promoting the interests of truth. An
original thinker, with the recent fates of Ramus, Bruno,
and Vanini before his eyes, to say nothing of the loath-
some dungeon of Campanella, may be excused for being
xiv
INTRODUCTION.
somewhat over-prudent. At any rate, it is not for us
in these days to cast stones at a man of his character
and circumstances. In these times singularity of opin-
ion, whether it imply originality and judgment or not,
is quite as much a passport to reputation with one set
of people as the most pronounced orthodoxy is with
another.
Even in Holland, however, he was not destined to
find the absolute repose and freedom from annoyance
which he sought and valued so highly. The publication
of the Method brought down on him the unreasoning
violence of the well-known Voët (Voëtius), Protestant
clergyman at Utrecht, and afterwards rector of the
university there. With the characteristic blindness of
the man of theological traditions, he accused Descartes
of atheism. Vöet allied himself with Schook (Schookius),
of Groningen. The two sought the help of the magis-
trates. Descartes replied to the latter, who, in a big
book, had accused him of scepticism, atheism, and mad-
ness.1 The influence of Voet was such that he got
the magistrates to prepare a secret process against the
philosopher. "Their intention," says Saisset, "was to
condemn him as atheist and calumniator: as atheist,
apparently because he had given new proofs of the
existence of God; as calumniator, because he had re-
pelled the calumnies of his enemies." 2 The ambas-
sador of France, with the help of the Prince of Orange,
stopped the proceedings. Descartes is not the only,
nor even the most recent instance, in which men hold-
ing truths traditionally cannot distinguish their friends
from their foes.
Queen Christina of Sweden, daughter of the great
Gustavus Adolphus, had come under the influence of the
writings of Descartes. She began a correspondence with
him on philosophical points, and finally prevailed upon
him to leave Holland, and come to reside in Stockholm.
1 Philosophia Cartesiana, Utrecht, 1643. Descartes, p. 103.
2 Ibib., p. 104.
INTRODUCTION.
XV
He reached that capital in October 1649. The winter
proved hard and severe, and the queen insisted on hav-
ing her lecture in philosophy at five in the morning. The
constitution of the philosopher, never robust, succumbed
to the climate. He died of inflammation of the lungs, on
the 11th February 1650, at the age of fifty-four. In
1666 his remains were brought to France and interred
in Paris, in the church of Sainte-Geneviève.
"On the
24th June 1667," says Saisset, "a solemn and magnifi-
cent service was performed in his honour. The funeral
oration should have been pronounced after the service;
but there came an order from the Court [in the midst of
the ceremony] which prohibited its delivery. History
ought to say that the man who solicited and obtained
that order was the Father Le Tellier." 1 A finer illus-
tration of contemporary narrowness before the breadth
and power of genius could not well be found.
In 1796, the decree made by the Convention three
years before, that the honours of the Pantheon should be
accorded to Descartes, was presented by the Directory to
the Council of the Cinq-Cents, by whom it was rejected.
It was thus that the national philosopher of France was
treated by ecclesiastic and revolutionist alike.
In 1819, the remains of Descartes were removed from
the Court of the Louvre, whither they had been trans-
ferred from Sainte-Geneviève, to Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
There Descartes now lies between Montfaucon and Ma-
billon.2
II. PHILOSOPHY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH
CENTURIES PRECEDING DESCARTES.
The first step in the continuous progress to the prin-
ciple of free inquiry, whose influence we now feel, was
taken in the fifteenth century. This epoch presented for
the first time in modern history the curious spectacle of
the supreme authority in matters of thought and faith
1 Descartes, p. 110.
Bouillier, Phil. Cart., p 69.
xvi
INTRODUCTION.
turned against itself. The principle of authority had
been consecrated by scholasticism. During its continu-
ance, intellectual activity was confined to methodising
and demonstrating the truths or dogmas furnished to the
mind by the Church. No medieval philosopher thought
of questioning the truth of a religious dogma, even when
he found it philosophically false or indemonstrable. The
highest court of philosophical appeal in scholasticism
was Aristotle; and the received interpretations of "the
philosopher" had become identified with the dogmas
sanctioned by the Church, and therefore with its credit
and authority. But events occurred in the middle of
the fifteenth century which tended to disparage the
Aristotle of the Schools. Hitherto the writings of Aris-
totle had been known in Europe only through Latin
translations, often badly and incompetently made from
the Arabic and Hebrew. The emigration of learned
Greeks from the empire of the East under the pressure
of Turkish invasion, and finally the fall of Constantin-
ople in 1453, led to the distribution of the originals of
Aristotle over Italy, and the spread of the Greek lan-
guage in Western Europe. With the knowledge thus
acquired at first hand, Pomponatius (1462-1524 or 1526)
disputed the dogmas of the Aristotle of the Schools
and the Church. Henceforward the Aristotelians were
divided into two Schools,—the Averroists or traditional
interpreters, and the followers of "the Commentator,"
Alexander of Aphrodisias. Pomponatius was the head of
the latter party. While still recognising his authority
as the highest, Pomponatius denied that the Aristotle
which the Church accepted was the true one. The real
Aristotle, according to his view, denied a divine pro-
vidence, the immortality of the soul, and a beginning
of the world; or, as he sometimes put it, Aristotle did
not give adequate proof on those points. The philo-
sopher and the Church were therefore in contradiction.
This led to ardent discussion,-the opening of men's
minds to the deepest questions, the beginning, in

INTRODUCTION.
xvii
a word, of free thought. And there was also the
practical result, that the fifteenth-century philosopher
denied what he as a Churchman professed to believe, or
rather did not dare to disavow. It was obvious that
the course of thinking could not rest here. It must
pass beyond this, urged alike by the demands of reason
and the interests of conscience.
But the inner spirit of scholasticism had pretty well
worked itself out. It was a body of thought remark-
able for its order and symmetry, well knit and squared,
solid and massive, like a medieval fortress. But it was
inadequate as a representation and expression of the
free life that was working in the literature, and even
in the outside nascent philosophy, of the time.
It was
formed for conservation and defence, not for progress.
New weapons were being forged which must inevitably
prevail against it, just as the discovery of gunpowder
had been quietly superseding the heavy panoply of the
knight. Several thoughtful men were already dis-
satisfied alike with the Aristotle of the Schoolmen and
the manuscripts. Opportunely enough, the circum-
stances which led to the discovery of the original Aris-
totle led also to the revelation of the original Plato.
Some thinkers fell back on the earlier philosopher,
stimulated to enthusiasm by the elevation of his tran-
scendent dialectic. Notably among these were Pletho
(born about 1390, and dead about 1490); his pupil,
Bessarion (1395 or 1389-1472); Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (the nephew of Francisco, born 1463, died.
1494); Ficino, tutor to Lorenzo de Medici (1433-1499);
Patrizi 1529-1597). Influenced a good deal by the spirit
of medieval mysticism, these thinkers for the most part
clothed their Plato in the garb of Plotinus and the
Neo-Platonists. Others were led to the still earlier
Greek philosophers. The newly- awakened spirit of
experience in Telesio (1508-1588) and in Berigard
(1578-1667) found fitting nourishment in the Ionian
physicists; and, later in the same line, Gassendi (1592-

xviii
INTRODUCTION.
1655) revived Epicurus. All this implied the indi-
vidual right of selecting the authority entitled to
credence, and was a protest against scholasticism, and
a step towards free inquiry.
The men of letters also helped to swell the tide
rising strong against scholasticism. The abstract and
often barbarous language of the Schools appeared taste-
less and repulsive alongside the rhythmic diction of
Cicero, and the polished antitheses of Seneca. The
spirit of imagination and literary grace had been re-
pressed to the utmost in the Schools. It now asserted
itself with the intensity peculiar to a strong reaction.
And in the knowledge and study of the forms of the
classical languages, the mind is far beyond the sphere
of mere deduction. It is but one remove from the
activity of thought itself.
Mysticism, always operative in the middle ages, and
indeed involved in the Neo-Platonism already spoken
of, came to its height in the period of the Renaissance
-especially under Paracelsus (1493-1541) and Cardan
(1501-1576), and then under Boehm (1575-1624) and
the Van Helmonts (father, 1577-1644, and son, 1618-
1699). The principle of transcendent vision by in-
tuition was in direct antagonism with the reasoned
authority of scholasticism. Boehm's philosophy on its
speculative side was an absolutism which anticipated.
Schelling, and Hegel himself. The self-diremption of
consciousness is Boehm's favourite and fundamental
point. The superstition which lay at the heart of the
mysticism of the time, and which showed itself practi-
cally in alchemy, led men by the way of experiment to
natural science, especially chemistry.
At length in the sixteenth century, and, as if to show
the extreme force of reaction, in Italy itself before the
throne of the Pope and the power of the Inquisition,
there arose in succession Bruno (b. about 1550, d. 1600),
Vanini (1581 or 85-1619), and Campanella (1568-1639),
--all deeply inspired by the spirit of revolt against au-

INTRODUCTION.
xix
thority, and a freedom of thought that reached even a
ntastic licence. Bruno in the spirit of the Eleatics and
lotinus, proclaimed the absolute unity of all things in
he indeterminable substance, which is God;
Vanini car-
ed empiricism to atheism and materialism; and Cam-
anella united the extremes of high churchman and
ensationalist, mystical metaphysician and astrologist.
The thoughts of this period, from the fifteenth to well
on in the sixteenth century, have been described as
66 the
pturnings of a volcano." The time was indeed the vol-
canic epoch in European thought. The principal figures
ve can discern in it seem to move amid smoke and tur-
moil, and to pass away in flame. The tragic fate of Bruno
in the fire at Rome, and that of Vanini in the fire at
Toulouse-both done to death at the instance of the
vulgar unintelligence of the Catholicism of the time-
form two of the darkest and coarsest crimes ever perpe-
trated in the name of a Church. The Church, which claims
to represent the truth of God, dare not touch with a violent
hand speculative opinion. It is then false to itself.
In France, and in the university of Paris, the strong-
hold of Peripateticism, Ramus (1515-1572) attacked
Aristotle in the most violent manner. In Ramus was
concentred the spirit of philosophical and literary an-
tagonism to the Schoolmen. It was wholly unmodified
by judgment or discrimination, and it did not proceed
on a thorough or even adequate acquaintance with the
object of its assault. Ramus is remarkable chiefly for
he extreme freedom which he asserted in oratorically
lenouncing what he considered to be the principles of
Aristotle; but he made no real advance either in the
rinciples of logical method which he professed, or in
hilosophy itself. At the same time, the rude intensity
ad the passionate earnestness of his life were not un-
orthily sealed by his bloody death on the Eve of St
artholomew. The death of Ramus, though attributed
rectly to personal enmity, was really a blow struck alike
at Protestantism and the freedom of modern thought.

XX
INTRODUCTION.
Bruno, Vanini, Campanella, and Ramus foreshadowed
Descartes and the modern spirit, only in the emphat
assertion of the freedom, individuality, and suprema
of thought. What in thought is firm, assured, and un
versal, they have not pointed out. They were actuate
mainly by an implicit sense of inadequacy in the curre
principles and doctrines of the time. It was not given
any of them to find a new and strong foundation whered
to build with clear, consistent, and reasonable evidence
Campanella said of himself not inaptly: "I am but th
bell (campanella) which sounds the hour of a new
dawn."
Alongside of those more purely speculative tender
cies, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Bacon represented
the new spirit and theory of observation applied to
nature. The formalism of the Schools had abstracted
almost entirely from the natural world. It was a "dream
land of intellectualism." And now there came an in
tense reaction, out of which has arisen modern science,
Bacon had given to the world the Novum Organum ir
1620, seventeen years before the Method of Descartes
but his precept was as yet only slightly felt, and he
had but little in common with Descartes, except an
appeal to reality on a different side from that of the
Continental philosopher. Descartes had not seen the
Organum previously to his thinking out the Method
He makes but three or four references to Bacon in al
his writings.
If to these influences we add the spirit of religiou
reformation, the debates regarding the relative author
ity of the Scriptures and the Church, and mainly a
a consequence of the chaos and conflict of thought i
the age, the course of philosophical scepticism initiate
by Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), and made fashio
able especially by Montaigne (1533-1592), and continu
by Charron (1541-1603), with its self-satisfied worl
liness and its low and conventional ethic, we sha
understand the age in which the youth of Descartes
INTRODUCTION.
xxi
was passed, and the influences under which he was led
to speculation. We shall be able especially to see how
he, a man of penetrating and comprehensive intelli-
gence, yet with a strong conservative instinct for what
was elevating in morals and theology, was led to seek for
an ultimate ground of certainty, if that were possible,
not in tradition or dogma of philosopher or churchman,
but in what commended itself to him as self-verifying
and therefore ultimate in knowledge-in other words,
a limit to doubt, a criterion of certainty, and a point of
departure for a constructive philosophy.
III. THE COGITO ERGO SUM-ITS NATURE AND MEANING.
The man in modern times, or indeed in any time, who
first based philosophy on consciousness, and sketched a
philosophical method within the limits of consciousness,
was Descartes; and since his time, during these two
hundred and fifty years, no one has shown a more accu-
rate view of the ultimate problem of philosophy, or of
the conditions under which it must be dealt with.
question with him is-Is there an ultimate in knowledge
which can guarantee itself to me as true and certain?
and, consequently upon this, can I obtain as it were
from this supposing it found a criterion of truth
and certainty?
The
In the settlement of these questions, the organon of
Descartes is doubt. This with him means an exam-
ination by reflection of the facts and possibilities of
consciousness. Of what and how far can I doubt? I
can doubt, Descartes would say, whether it be true, as
my senses testify or seem to testify, that a material
world really exists. I am not here by any neces-
sity of thought shut within belief. I can doubt, he
even says, of mathematical truths at least when
the evidence is not directly present to my mind. At
what point then do I find that a reflective doubt sets
b
xxii
INTRODUCTION.
limits to itself? This limit he finds in self-conscious-
ness, implying or being self-existence. It will be found
that this method makes the least possible postulate or
assumption. It starts simply from the fact of a conscious
questioning; it proceeds to exhaust the sphere of the
doubtable; and it reaches that truth or principle which
is its own guarantee. If we cannot find a principle or
principles of this sort in knowledge, within the limits
of consciousness, we shall not be able to find either
ultimate truth or principle at all. Philosophy is im-
possible.
But the process must be accurately observed. There
is the consciousness-that is, this or that act or state
of consciousness-even when I doubt. This cannot
be sublated, except by another act of consciousness.
To doubt whether there is consciousness at a given
moment, is to be conscious of the doubt in that given
moment; to believe that the testimony of consciousness.
at a given time is false, is still to be conscious-con-
scious of the belief. This, therefore, a definite act of
consciousness, is the necessary implicate of any act of
knowledge. The impossibility of the sublation of the
act of consciousness, consistently with the reality of
knowledge at all, is the first and fundamental point of
Descartes. This it is very important to note, for every
other point in his philosophy that is at all legitimately
established depends on this: and particularly the fact
of the "I" or self of consciousness. The reality of the
"I" or "Ego" of Descartes is inseparably bound up
with the fact of the definite act of consciousness. But,
be it observed, he does not prove or deduce the "Ego
from the act of consciousness; he finds it or realises it
as a matter of fact in and along with this act. The
act and the Ego are the two inseparable factors of the
same fact or experience in a definite time. But as the
consciousness is absolutely superior to sublation, so is
that which is its essential element or co-factor-in
other words, the whole fact of experience—the con-
""
INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
}
scious act and the conscious "I" or actor are placed
on the same level of the absolutely indubitable.
By “I think” or by "thinking" Descartes thus does
not mean thought or consciousness in the abstract.
It is not cogitatio ergo ens, or entitas, but cogito ergo
sum; that is, the concrete fact of me thinking. That
this is so, can be established from numerous statements.
"Under thought I embrace all that which is in us, so that
we are immediately conscious of it."1 "A thing which
thinks is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives,]
affirms, denies, which wills, refuses, imagines also, and
perceives."2 Here thinking is as wide as conscious-
ness; but it is not consciousness in the abstract; it is
consciousness viewed in each of its actual or definite
forms. From this it follows that the principle does not
tell us what consciousness is; it knows nothing of an
abstract consciousness, far less of a point above con-
sciousness; but it is the knowledge and assertion of
consciousness in one or other of its modes—or rather it
is an expression of consciousness only as I have experi-
ence of it-in this or that definite form.
Arnauld and Mersenne in their criticism of Descartes
were the first to point out the resemblance of the cogito
ergo sum to statements of St Augustin. Descartes him-
self had not previously been aware of these. The truth
is, he belonged to the school of the non-reading philoso-
phers. He cared very little for what had been thought
or said before him. The passage from Augustin which
has been referred to as closest to the statement of
Descartes is from the De Civitate Dei, 1. xi., c. 26. It
closes as follows: "Sine ulla phantasiarum vel phan-
tasmatum imaginatione ludificatoria, mihi esse me, idque
nosse et amare certissimum est. Nulla in his veris
Academicorum argumenta formido dicentium: Quid, si
falleris? Si enim fallor, sum. Nam qui non est, utique
nec falli potest: ac per hoc sum, si fallor.
Quia ergo
1 Definitiones, Resp. ad Sec. Obj., p. 85 (1670).
2 Meditations, ii. p. 23.
i
xxiv
INTRODUCTION.
sum, qui fallor, quomodo esse me fallor, quando certum
est me esse si fallor"?1 On this passage Descartes
himself very properly remarks, that while the principle
may be identical with his own, the consequences which
he deduces from it, and its position as the ground of
a philosophical system, make the characteristic differ-
ence between Augustin and himself. The specialty of
Descartes is that he reached this principle of self-con-
sciousness as the last limit of doubt, and made it tnen
the starting-point of his system. There is all the differ-
ence in his case, between the man who by chance stum-
bles on a fact, and leaves it isolated as he found it, and
the man who reaches it by method-and, with a full
consciousness of its importance, develops it through the
ramifications of a philosophical system. To him the fact
when found is a significant truth as the limit of restless
thought; it is not less significant and impulsive as a
new point of departure in the line of higher truth.
But what precisely is the relation between the cogito
and the sum? Is it, first of all, a syllogistic or an im-
mediate inference? Is the cogito ergo sum an enthy-
meme or a proposition?
There can be no doubt that Descartes himself re-
garded it as a form of proposition, an intuition, not a
syllogism. In reply to Gassendi,2 who objected that
cogito ergo sum implies qui cogitat, est,-a pre-judgment,
Descartes says: "The term pre-judgment is here
abused. Pre-judgment there is none, when the cogito
ergo sum is duly considered, because it then appears so
evident to the mind that it cannot keep itself from be-
lieving it, the moment even it begins to think of it. But
the principal mistake here is this, that the objector
supposes that the cognition of particular propositions is
always deduced from universals, according to the order
of the syllogisms of logic. He thus shows that he is
ignorant of the way in which truth is to be sought. For
1 Tomus vi. Bened. ed., Migne, p. 339.
2 Objectiones Quinta, p. 143 (1670).
The
INTRODUCTION.
XXV
it is settled among philosophers, that in order to find it a
beginning must always be made from particular notions,
`that afterwards the universal may be reached; although
also reciprocally, universals being found, other particu-
lars may thence be deduced." Again he says:
"When
we apprehend that we are thinking things, this is a first
notion which is not drawn from any syllogism; and when
some one says, I think, hence I am, or I exist, he does
not conclude his existence from his thought as by force
of some syllogism, but as a thing known of itself; he
sees it by a simple intuition of the mind, as appears
from this, that if he deduced it from a syllogism, he
must beforehand have known this major, All that which
thinks is or exists. Whereas, on the contrary, this is
rather taught him, from the fact that he experiences in
himself that it cannot be that he thinks if he does not
exist. For it is the property of our mind to form gen-
eral propositions from the knowledge of particulars.” 1
This is a clear statement of the non-syllogistic nature
of the principle, and a distinct assertion of its intuitive
character. It also points to the guarantee of the prin-
ciple-the experiment of not being able to suppose con-
sciousness apart from existence-or unless as implying it.
This and other passages might have saved both Reid and
Kant from the mistake of supposing that Descartes in-
ferred self-existence from self-consciousness syllogisti-
cally or through a major.2
It is said that in the Principles Descartes represents
the cogito ergo sum as the conclusion of a reasoning;
the major premiss being that "to nothing no affections--
or qualities belong." "Accordingly where we observe
certain affections, there a thing or substance to which
these pertain, is necessarily found."3 Again, "sub-
1 Meditatio de Prima Philosophia. Resp. ad Sec. Objectiones, p. 74
(ed. 1670). This reference was given in the first edition of the trans-
lation of the Method, 1850, Introduction, p. xxii.
2 Kritik, Hartenstein, p. 309. Reid, Inquiry, p. 100 (Hamilton's
Edition).

3 Part I., s. 11. Compare s. 52.
B
P
4
xxvi
INTRODUCTION.
stance cannot be first discovered merely from its being
a thing which exists independently, for existence by
itself is not observed by us. We easily, however, dis-
cover substance itself from any attribute of it, by this
common notion, that of nothing there are no attributes,
properties, or qualities." It seems to me that there is
nothing in these statements, when carefully considered,
to justify this assertion. In fact, the second statement
that substance or being is not cognisable per se, disposes
of any apparent ground for the syllogistic character of
the inference. For this implies that the so-called major,
as by itself incognisable, is not a major at all. What
Descartes points to here, and very properly, is the ori-
ginal synthesis of the relation of quality and substance.
"The common notion" is the reflective way of stating
what is involved in the original primitive intuition ;
and is as much based on this intuition, as this intui-
tion implies it. He here approximates very nearly to
a distinct statement of the important doctrine that in
regard to fundamental principles of knowing, the par-
ticular and the universal are from the first implicitly
given, and only wait philosophical analysis to bring
them to light.
But misrepresentation of the true nature of the cogito
ergo sum still continues to be made.
"The 'therefore,'" says Professor Huxley,1 "has no
business there. The 'I am' is assumed in the 'I
think,' which is simply another way of saying 'I am
thinking.' And, in the second place, 'I think,' is not
one simple proposition, but three distinct assertions
rolled into one. The first of these is 'something called I.
exists,' the second is 'something called thought exists,' and
the third is the thought is the result of the action of the
I. The only one of these propositions which can stand
the Cartesian test of certainty is the second. It can-
not be doubted, for the very doubt is an existent
thought. But the first and third, whether true or not,
1 Lay Sermons, Descartes, p. 328.
1
INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
may be doubted, and have been doubted; for the as-
sertor may be asked, How do you know that thought
is not self-existent, or that a given thought is not the
effect of its antecedent thought or of some external
power?"
The "therefore" has business there, as seems to me,
Iuntil it is shown that immediate inference is no inferbrea
ence. The "I am" is not assumed in the "I think,"
but implied in it, and explicitly evolved from it. Then
the "I think," though capable of being evolved into a
variety of expressions, even different statements of fact,
is not dependent on them for its reality or meaning, but
they are dependent upon it. There are not three dis-
tinct assertions first, which have been rolled into one.
On the contrary, the meaning and possibility of any
assertion whatever are supplied by the "I think" it-
self. "Something called I exists," is not known to
me before I am conscious, but only as I am con-
scious. It is not a distinct proposition. "Something
called thought exists," is not any more a distinct pro-
position, for the thought which exists is inseparably
my thought, and my thought is more than the mere ab-
straction "thought." "The thought is the result of the
action of the I" is not a fair statement of the relation
between the "I" and thought, for there is no I known first
or distinct from thought, to whose action I can ascribe
thought. The thought is me thinking. And the exist-
ence of thought could never be absolutely indubitable to
me, unless it were my thought, for if it be but thought,
this is an abstraction with which "I" have and can have
no relation. "How do you know that thought is not self-
existent?” that is, divorced from a me or thinker; for
this reason simply, that such a thought could never be
mine, or aught to me, or my knowledge. Thought, di-
vorced from me or a thinker, would be not so much an
absurdity as a nullity. "How do you know that a
given thought is not the effect of its antecedent thought
or of some external power?" Because as yet I have

xxviii
INTRODUCTION.
no knowledge of any antecedent thought, and if I had,
I must know the thought and its antecedent thought
through the identity of my consciousness; and thus re-
late both to the "I," conscious, existing, and identi-
cal. And as to some external power, I must wait for
the proof of it, and if I ever get it, it must be because
I am there to think the proof, and distinguish it from
myself as an external power. And further, this external
power can only be known, in so far as I am conscious of it.
Its known existence depends on my consciousness, as
one factor in it, and therefore my consciousness could
never be absolutely caused by it.
The cogito ergo sum is thus properly regarded by
Descartes as a proposition. It is, in fact, what we should
now call a proposition of immediate inference,-such,
that the predicate is necessarily implied in the subject.
The requirements of the case preclude it from being
advanced as a syllogism or mediate inference. For in
that case it would not be the first principle of know
ledge, or the first stage of certainty after doubt. The
first principle would be the major—all_that thinks is, or
thinking is existing. To begin with, this is to reverse
the true order of knowledge; to suppose that the uni-
versal is known before the particular. It is to suppose
also, erroneously, a purely abstract beginning; for if
I am able to say, I am conscious that all thinking is
existing, the guarantee even of this major or universal
is the particular affirmation of my being conscious of
its truth in a given time; if I am not able to say this,
then I cannot assert that all or any thinking is exist-
ing, or indeed assert anything at all. In other words,
I can connect no truth with my being conscious. I can-
not know at all.
But what precisely is the character of the immediate
implication? What is implied? There are four pos-
sible meanings of the phrase.
1. My being or existence is the effect or product of

INTRODUCTION.
xxix
давали навитом
my being conscious.
produces my being.
My being conscious creates or
Here my consciousness is first
in order of existence.
2. My being conscious implies that I am and was,
before and in order to be conscious.
Here my,
My
3. My being conscious is the means of my knowing
what my existence is, or what it means.
consciousness is identical with my existence.
consciousness and my being are convertible phrases.
4. My being conscious informs me that I exist, or
through my being conscious I know for the first time
that I exist. Here my being conscious is first in order
of knowledge.
With regard to the first of these interpretations, it is
obviously not in accordance with the formula. Implica-
tion is not production or creation. But, further, it does
not interpret the sum in consistency with the cogito. If
I am first of all supposed to be conscious, I am supposed
to be and to exercise a function or to be modified in a
particular form. It could hardly, consistently with this,
be said that "I conscious" produce or create myself,
seeing that I am already in being, and doing. This
interpretation may be taken as a forecast of the abso-
lute ego of Fichte, out of which come the ego and the
non-ego of consciousness. There is no appearance of
this having been the meaning of Descartes himself.
And, indeed, it is not vindicable on any ground either
of experience or reason.
With regard to the second interpretation, nothing
could be further from the meaning of Descartes. I
am conscious; therefore, I must be before I am con-
scious, or I must conceive myself to be before I am
conscious. The inference in this case would be to my
existence from my present or actual consciousness, as
its ground and pre-requisite, as either before the con-
sciousness in time, or to be necessarily conceived by me
as grounding the consciousness. There are passages
XXX
INTRODUCTION.
which seem to countenance this interpretation—e. g.,
"In order to think, it is necessary to exist.” 1 But
in another passage he says, that all that thinks exists
can only be known by experimenting in oneself and
finding it impossible that one should be conscious
unless he exist.2 This rather points to the view that
the I am of the formula is simply another aspect of the
I am conscious-not really independently preceding it
in time or in thought, but found inseparable from it in
reality, though distinguishable in thought. That my
existence preceded my consciousness, Descartes would
be the last to maintain; that I was before I was con-
scious, he would have scouted as an absurdity. That
another Ego-viz., Deity-might have been, even was, he
makes a matter of inference from my being, revealed to
me even by my being. But existence in the abstract, or
existence per se as preceding me in any real sense, either
as a power of creation or self-determination—whether
in time and thought, or in thought only-he would have
probably looked on as the simple vagary of speculation.
He was opposed to the absolute ego as a beginning—
the starting-point of Fichte-which as above conscious-
ness is above meaning. He was opposed equally to
abstract or qualityless existence as a starting-point,
which is that of the Logic of Hegel, whatever attempts
may be made to substitute for it a more concrete basis
-viz., consciousness. But for the intuitional know-
ledge of myself revealed in a definite act, it is ob-
viously the doctrine of Descartes, and of truth, that I
could not even propose to myself the question as to
whether there is either knowledge or being; and any
universal in knowledge is as yet to me simply mean-
ingless.
With regard to the third interpretation, it seems
to me not to be adequate to the meaning of Des-
cartes, or the requirements of the case. It either
does not say so much as Descartes means, or it says
1 Method, p. 76.
2 See supra, p. xxv., and infra, p. xliv.
INTRODUCTION.
xxxi
more than it professes to say. If it be intended to
say my consciousness means my existence in the proper
sense of these words,—¿. e., in a purely explicative
or logical sense-we have advanced not one step
in the way of asserting my existence. We have but
compared two expressions, and said that the one is
convertible with the other. But we may do this whe-
ther the expressions denote objects of experience or
not. This is a mere comparison of notions; and Des-
cartes certainly intended not to find a simple relation of
convertibility between two notions but to reach cer-
tainty as to a matter of experience or fact-viz., the
reality of my existence. This interpretation, therefore,
does not say so much as Descartes intends. But fur-
ther, if instead of a statement of identity or convert-
ibility between two notions it says that the one no-
tion-viz., my being conscious-is found or realised
as a fact, this is to go beyond the mere conception of
relationship between it and another notion or element,
and to allege the reality of my being conscious in the
first instance, and secondly, its convertibility with my
being. But in that case the formula of Descartes does
not simply say my consciousness means my being.
interpretation might be stated in the form of a hypo-
thetical proposition. If I am conscious, I am existing.
But Descartes certainly went further than this. He
made a direct categorical assertion of my existence.
The decision of the question as to what my existence
is may be involved in the assertion that it is, but this is
secondary, and, it may be, immediately inferential, but
still inferential.
This
We are thus shut up to the fourth interpretation
which, with certain qualifications, is, it seems to me,
the true one.
My being conscious is the means of revealing, my-
self as existing. In the order of knowledge, my being
conscious is first; it is the beginning of knowledge, in
time and logically. But it is not a single-sided fact;

xxxii
INTRODUCTION.
it is twofold at least. No sooner is the my being con-
scious realised than the my being is realised. In so far
at least as I am conscious, I am. This is an immediate
implication. But it should be observed that this does not
imply either the absolute identity of my existence with
my momentary consciousness, or the convertibility of
my existence with that consciousness. For the “I con-
scious or my being conscious, is realised by me only
in a definite moment of time; and thus if my being
were precisely identical and convertible with my being
conscious in a single moment of time, the permanency
of my being through the conscious moments would be
impossible. "I" should simply be as a gleam of light,
which no sooner appeared than it passed away, and as
various as the play of sunshine on the landscape. All,
therefore, that can be said, or need be inferred, is that
my existence, or the me I know myself to be, is revealed
in the consciousness of a definite moment; but I am
not entitled to say from that alone that the being of me
is restricted to that moment, or identified absolutely
with the content of that moment. Nay, I may find
that the identity and continuity of the momentary ego
are actually implied in the fact that this experience of
its existence is not possible except as part of a series
of moments or successive states. In this case, there
would be added to the mere existence of the ego its
identity or continued existence through variety or suc-
cession in time. Thus understood, the cogito ergo sum
of Descartes is the true basis of all knowledge and
all philosophy. It is a real basis, the basis of ulti-
mate fact; it provides for the reality of my conscious.
life as something more than a disconnected series of
consciousnesses or a play of words; it opens up to me
infinite possibilities of knowledge; the reality of man
and God can now be grasped by me in the form of the
permanency of self-consciousness.

INTRODUCTION.
xxxiii
IV. COGITO ERGO SUM—OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLE.
Ir has been objected to the formula of Descartes, that
it does not say what the sum or existo means; and
further, that existence per se is a vague, even meaning-
less expression, and that to become a notion at all,
existence must be cognised in, or translated into, some
particular attribute, to which the term existence adds
no further meaning than the attribute already pos-
sesses.1 This twofold objection seems to me to be

unfounded.
When it is said I am, it is not meant that I am inde-
finitely anything, but that I am this or that, at a given
time. In consciously asserting that I am, I am con-
sciously energising in this or that mode. I am knowing,
or I am feeling and knowing, or I am knowing and will-
ing. This is a positive form of being. I am not called
upon to vindicate the reality of existence as an abstract
notion or notion per se, or even in its full extension.
I merely affirm that in being conscious, I am revealed
or appear as an existence or being,—a perfectly definite
reality, but not all reality,-all possible or imaginable
reality, though participating in a being which is or
may be wider than my being.
Nor are the attempts that have been made to
find the express form of existence, which Descartes
is held necessarily to mean, more successful than the
general criticism.-"I exist is meaningless," it is said,
"unless it be convertible with, or translated into some
positive attribute." "I think, therefore I live”—this
would be intelligible. But Descartes' answer to this
would be very much what he said in reply to Gassendi,
who, following precisely the same line of thought,
suggested ambulo ergo sum. Unless the living or the
walking be a fact of my consciousness, it is nothing to
me, and is no part of my existence or being. Life is
1 Mr Matthew Arnold, and Professor Bain.
B 2
xxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
་
wider than consciousness,-at least if it is to be in any
form identical with my being, it must be conscious
life, just as it must be conscious walking.
But the second suggested interpretation is still
worse. "I think, therefore, I am something" (i. e.,
either subject or object, I do not know which). Noth-
ing could be further from the meaning of Descartes
than this, as is indeed admitted, or from the truth
of the matter. I am not something, that is, a wholly
indefinite. I am as I think myself to be, as I am
conscious in this or that definite mode, as I feel,
apprehend, desire, or will. Being thus definitely con-
scious, I am not a mere indeterminate something. I
am something simply because in the first place I know
myself to be definitely this thing-myself. And as I
know myself to be cognisant, I know myself to be
definitely the knower, or, if you will, the subject. But
the only object necessary to my knowledge in this case
is a subject-object, or one of my own passing states.
I require nothing further in the form of a not-self, in
order to limit and render clear my self-knowledge. A
mere sensation or state of feeling apprehended by
as mine is enough to constitute me a definite
something.
ул.
3
me
Besides the alleged vagueness or emptiness of the
term sum in the formula, there is a twofold objection,
Fone that it is not a real inference; the other that it
is not a real proposition. It seems odd that it can be
supposed possible for the same person to object to it
on both of these grounds. It may be criticised as a
syllogism, and it may be criticised as a proposition;
but surely it cannot be held to admit of both these
characters. If it can be proved to be not a real pro-
position to begin with, it is superfluous to seek to prove
it an unreal inference. First, it is interpreted thus:
“I think, therefore I am mind,—I am not the opposite
of mind, I am a definite or precise something." It is
alleged there is no real inference here, for "the meaning
INTRODUCTION.
XXXV
of think contains the meaning of mind." "I think "
only contains "mind" if it be interpreted as meaning
consciousness and all its contents—if it means all the
acts of consciousness and the ego of consciousness. In:
this case the "I think, I am mind" would be no syllo-
gistic or mediate inference. But the statement would
neither be tautological nor useless; it would be a
proposition of immediate certainty, in which the subject
explicated involved a definite being as another aspect of
itself. And this meets the objection to the formula as
a proposition. It is said to be not a real proposition,
seeing that the predicate adds nothing to the subject.
This, in the first place, is not the test of a real pro-
position, or of what is essential to a proposition. A
proposition may be simply analytic, and yet truly a
proposition. All that is necessary to constitute a pro-
position is that it should imply inclusion or exclusion,
attribution or non-attribution. When I explicate four
into the equivalent of 1 1 1 1, I have not added to the
meaning of the subject, but I have identified a whole
and its parts by a true propositional form. I have
analysed no doubt merely, but truly and necessarily,
and the result appears in a valid proposition. So start-
ing from "thinking" in the sense of consciousness, I
analyse it also into act and me, and permanent me, and
I thus do a very proper and necessary work. But I do
more, for I assert definitude of being in the thinking
or consciousness, and this, though inseparable from
it in reality, is at least distinguishable in thought.
This constitutes a real predicate, and a very important
predicate, which excludes on the one hand a mere act
or state, mere "thinking" as apart from a self or me,
and an absolute me or self, apart from an act of
thought. It excludes, in fact, Hume on the one hand,
and Fichte on the other.
But waiving this, it is alleged that to say "I think,"
is mere redundancy, seeing that "I" already means
"thinking," which is a function, among others, of man.

xxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
The proposition is therefore merely verbal or analytic.
But how do I know that "I" already means "thinking,"
or that thinking is implied in "I"? By some test or
other-by some form of experience. And what can
this be but by the "I" being conscious of itself as
thinking? And what is this but falling back upon
the principle of the cogito ergo sum as the ultimate in
knowledge?
It seems further to be imagined that a real inference
could be got if the formula of Descartes were inter-
preted as meaning "I think, therefore I feel, and also
will," for experience shows that these facts are asso-
ciated. This would give the formula importance and
validity. Surely there is a misconception here of what
Descartes aimed at, or ought to have aimed at. Before
I can associate experience, "I feel" and "I will" with
"I think," I must have the "I think" in some definite
form. This must guarantee itself to me in some way;
that is the question which must be settled first; that is
the question regarding the condition of the knowledge
alike of feeling and willing. It was nothing to the
aim of Descartes what was associated in experience ;
he sought the ultimate form, or fact, if you choose, in
experience itself, and his principle must be met, not by
saying that it only gives certain real inferences through
subsequent association and experience, but by a direct
challenge of the guarantee of the principle itself-a
challenge which indeed is incompatible with its being
the basis of any real inference.
To the cogito ergo sum of Descartes it was readily
and early objected, that if it identified my being and
my consciousness, then I must either always be con-
scious, or, if consciousness ceases, I must cease to be.
Descartes chose the former alternative, and maintained
a continuity of consciousness through waking and sleep-
ing. As a thinking substance, the soul is always
conscious. Through feebleness of cerebral impression,
it does not always remember. What wonder is it, he
INTRODUCTION.
xxxvii
asks, that we do not always remember the thoughts of
our sleep or lethargy, when we often do not remember
the thoughts of our waking hours? Traces on the
brain are needed, to which the soul may turn, and it is
not wonderful that they are awanting in the brain of a
child or in sleep.¹ That the soul always thinks, was his
thesis; and it was to this point that the polemic of
Locke was directed. Whether consciousness be absolutely
continuous or not-whether suspension of consciousness
in time be merely apparent,-is a mixed psychological
and physiological question. But it is hardly necessary
to consider it in this connection; and Descartes probably
went too far in his affirmative statement, and certainly
in allowing it as the only counter-alternative. For con-
sciousness must not be interpreted in the narrow sense
of the conscious act merely, or of all conscious acts put
together. That would be an abstract and artificial
interpretation of consciousness. That is but one side
of it; and we must take into account the other element
through which this conscious act is possible, and which
is distinguishable but inseparable from it. This is the
"I" or "Ego" itself. When we seek to analyse my being,
or my being conscious, we must keep in mind the coequal
reality or necessary implication of self and the conscious
act, and keep hold of all that is embodied in the asser-
tion of the self by itself. This we shall find to be
existence in time in this or that definite act or mode,
and a continuous and identical existence through all
the varying and successive modes of consciousness in
time. The variation and succession of the modes of
consciousness do not affect this identical reality, and
no more need the suspension do, even though the sus-
pension of the mode were proved to be absolute, and
not simply such a reduction of degree as merely to
be below memory.
In our experience we find that after at least an
apparent absolute suspension of consciousness, the I,
1 Resp. ad Quint. Obj., Garnier, ii. p. 294.
Xxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
or self, on the recovery of consciousness, asserts itself
to be identical with the I, or self, of the consciousness
that preceded the suspension. There is more than a
logical or generic identity. It is not that there is an
"I" in consciousness before the suspension and an “I”
also after it; but these are held by us to be one and
the same. The temporary state of unconsciousness is
even attributed to this identical "I." It is supposed
to have passed through it. It is quite clear, accord-
ingly, that the being of the "I," or self, is somehow
not obliterated by the state of unconsciousness through
which it passes.
It is here that psychology and physiology touch.
The bodily organism, living and sentient, is the con-
dition and instrument of consciousness. The tempo-
rary manifestation of consciousness is dependent on
physical conditions. Consciousness may be said to
animate the body; and the body may be said to permit
the manifestation of consciousness. But there is the
deeper element of the Ego or self which is the ground
of the whole manifestations, however conditioned.
Through a non-fulfilment of the physical requirements,
these manifestations may be absolutely suspended, or
at least they may sink so low in degree, as to appear
to be so; they may subside to such an extent as not
to be the matter of subsequent memory; but the Ego
may still survive, potentially if not actually existent;
capable of again manifesting similar acts of conscious-
ness, continuous and powerful enough to assert its
existence and individuality, in varying even conflicting
conscious states, and to triumph over the suspension
of consciousness itself.
The deductive solution which has been given of this
question does not meet the point at issue. It is said
that though I am not always conscious of any special
act or state, I am yet always conscious: for, except
in consciousness, there is no Ego or self, and where
there is consciousness there is always an Ego. This
INTRODUCTION.
xxxix
self, therefore, exists only as it thinks, and it thinks
always. To say that the Ego does not exist except
in consciousness, and to say that it exists always, is to
say either that consciousness always exists, or to say
that when consciousness does not exist, the Ego yet
exists, which is a simple contradiction, or to say that
consciousness being non-existent, the Ego neither exists
nor does not exist, which is equally incompatible with its
existing always. In fact, the two statements are irre-
concilable. If the Ego does not exist except in con-
sciousness, it can only exist when consciousness exists;
and unless the continued existence of consciousness is
guaranteed to us somehow, the Ego cannot be said to
exist always. If the statement is meant as a definition
of an Ego, the conclusion from it is tolerably evident:
in fact, it thus becomes an identical proposition. An
Ego means a conscious Ego; therefore there is no Ego
except a conscious one. Still, it does not follow that
there is always a conscious Ego, or that an Ego always
exists. The existence of the Ego in time at all is still
purely hypothetical, much more its continuous exist-
ence. Such a definition no more guarantees the reality
of the Ego, than the definition of a triangle calls it into
actual existence.
But what is the warrant of this definition? Is it
a description of the actual Ego of my consciousness?
Or is it a formula simply imposed upon actual con-
sciousness? It cannot be accepted as the former, for
the reason that it is a mere begging of the question
raised by reflection regarding the character of the actual
Ego of consciousness. The question is-Is it true or
not, as a matter of fact, that the Ego which I am and
know now or at a given time survives a suspension of
consciousness? It seems at least to do so, and not to
be merely an Ego which reappears after the suspension.
To define the actual Ego as only a conscious ego is to
beg and foreclose the conclusion to be discussed. The
definition thus assumes the character of a formula
xl
INTRODUCTION.
imposed, and arbitrarily imposed, upon our actual con-
sciousness.
Let it be further observed that this doctrine does
not even guarantee the continuous identity of the Ego,
through varying successive states of consciousness. It
cannot tell me that the Ego of a given act of conscious-
ness is the one identical me of a succeeding act of
consciousness. All that it truly implies is that in
terms of the definition an Ego is correlative with a
consciousness; but it does not guarantee to me that
the Ego of this definite time is the Ego of the second
definite time. It might be construed as saying no to
this, and implying that logical identity is really all.
But it does not, in fact, touch the reality of time at all.
This is an abstract definition of an Ego, and a hypo-
thetical one. The Ego of our actual consciousness
may possess an identity of a totally different sort from
that contemplated in this definition; and therefore,
as applied to consciousness in time, it either settles
nothing, or it begs the point at issue.
In fact, it is impossible to dispense with the intui-
tions of self-existence and continuous self-existence
in time, whatever formula we state. Our existence is
greatly wider than consciousness, or than phænomenal
reality; we are and we persist amid the varieties, sus-
pensions, and depressions of consciousness-a mys-
terious power of selfhood and unity, which, while it
does not transcend itself, transcends at least its own
states of being.
V. THE GUARANTEE OF THE PRINCIPLE.
Now, the question arises, What precisely is the guaran-
tee of this position, the cogito ergo sum? It may be
said simply individual reflection, individual test, trial,
or experiment, on the processes of knowledge-analytic
reflection carried to its utmost limit. But it may be
INTRODUCTION.
xli
urged this is wholly an individual experience, and it
cannot ground a general rule or law for all human
knowledge, far less for knowledge in general. It is
true that this experiment of Descartes is an individual
effort, and all true philosophy is such. This is essential
to speculation in any form. The individual thinker
must realise each truth as his own and by his own
effort. But it is possible for the individual proceed-
ing by single effort to find, and to unite himself
with, universal truth. Thus only, indeed, can he so
unite himself. It is the quickened intellect in living
quest which makes the conquest.
Doctrine held in
any other way, even when it is truth, is a sapless
verbalism. Now, what is the law or ground of the con-
viction that my being conscious is impossible unless as
I am? Simply the principles of identity and non-con-
tradiction, evidencing themselves in a definite form and
application — asserting their strength, but as yet to
Descartes only in a hidden way-implicitly, not ex-
plicitly. My being conscious is my being-my being for
the moment. If I try to think my being conscious
without also thinking my being, I cannot.
And as
these are thus in the moment of time identical, it
would be a contradiction to suppose me being con-
scious without me being. Thus is my momentary
existence secured or preserved for thought.
Whether I can go beyond this and predicate the
identity of my being or of me as being all through suc-
cessive moments, is of course not at once settled by
this position. But it is not foreclosed by it, and it is
open to adduce the proper proof of the continuous
identity, if this can be found.
This, as seems to me, is what is implied as the
guarantee of the first principle of Descartes. He has
not himself, however, developed it in this way, for the
reason chiefly that he did not recognise the principle of
Non-Contradiction as regulating immediate inference.
There is a little noticed but significant passage in

xlii
INTRODUCTION.
which he touches on this law, in a letter to Clerselier.
Referring to that which we ought to take for the first
principle, he says: "The word principle may be taken in
diverse senses, and it is one thing to seek a common
notion which is so clear and so general that it may
serve as a principle to prove the existence of all beings,
the entia which one will afterwards know; and it is
another thing to seek a being, the existence of which
is more known to us than that of any others, so that it
may serve us as principle for knowing them. In the
first sense it may be said that it is impossible for the
same thing at once to be and not to be is a principle, and
that it may serve generally, not properly to make known
the existence of anything, but only to cause that when one
knows it one confirms the truth of it by such a reason-
ing,—It is impossible that what is should not be; but I
know that such a thing is; hence I know that it is impos-
sible it should not be. This is of little importance, and
does not make us wiser. In the other sense, the first
principle is that our soul exists, because there is nothing.
the existence of which is more known to us. I add
also that it is not a condition which we ought to re-
quire of the first principle, that of being such that all
other propositions may be reduced to and proved by it;
it is enough that it serve to discover several of them,
and that there is no other upon which it depends, or
which we can find before it. For it may be that there
is not any principle in the world to which alone all
things can be reduced; and the way in which people
reduce other propositions to this,—impossibile est idem
simul esse et non esse,—is superfluous and of no use;
whereas it is with very great utility that one com-
mences to be assured of the existence of God, and after-
wards of that of all creatures, by the consideration of
his own proper existence.”1
This shows, on the whole, that Descartes had not
fully thought out his own position. He had most cer-
1 Lettre LI., to Clerselier-Garnier, Euvres, iv. p. 160.
INTRODUCTION.
xliii
tainly well appreciated the true scope of the principle
of non-contradiction, as incapable of yielding a single
fact or new notion. In this he showed himself greatly
in advance of many nineteenth-century philosophers.
And he showed also his thorough apprehension of the
fact that the true principle of a constructive philosophy
lies not in mere identity, or in the preservation of the
consistency of a thought with itself, but in its affording
the ground of new truths. His view is, that ere the
principle of non-contradiction can come into exercise at
all, something must be known. And any one who really
puts meaning into words cannot suppose for a moment
anything else. All this should be fully and generously
recognised as evidence of a thoroughly far-seeing phil-
osophical vision. At the same time, he does not see
the negative or preservative value of the principle—
and the need of it as a guard for the fact of self-
consciousness as being self-existence for the moment,
which he finds in experience. It is this principle.
alone which, supervening on the intuition, makes it
definite or limited a positive, shut out from the
very possibility of being identified with any opposite
or negative, although this may be implied in its very
conception.
The first truth of Descartes-being conscious, I am'
is thus not properly described as, in the first instance,
a universal in knowledge. It is a definite particular
or individual fact, guaranteed by its necessity, by the
impossibility of transcending definite limits, and in this
necessity, or through the consciousness of it, is the
universality connected with the fact revealed. But for
the conscious necessity, I could never either know the
universality, or guarantee to myself this universality,
for I have as yet but knowledge of one actual case, what-
ever extension my conception may assume in and
through it; and but for the necessity, I could never
assert the universality-Being conscious, I am; being
conscious, each is.
xliv
INTRODUCTION.
Descartes expressly anticipated this misapprehen-
sion, and strove to correct it.¹ Nothing can be more
explicit than his view that the necessity is first, and
that this is, as it can only be, the guarantee of the
universality. If a universal, it must be a mere abstract
universal to begin with, in which case it can be applied
neither to my existence nor to my existence at a given
time. It must be a universal too, surreptitiously
obtained, for it is a universal of thought and being
which I have never known or consciously realised in
any individual case. And if I have not done this, I
cannot know it to be applicable to any case, far less to
all cases. It is thus an empty and illegitimate abstrac-
tion, which can tell me nothing, because it wholly
transcends any consciousness.
Further, the conviction which we get of the necessary
connection between self-consciousness and self-existence
is not due to the knowledge of the general formulæ
of identity and non-contradiction-viz., A is A, and
A = not-A=0. But, on the other hand, the necessity
of those formulæ is realised by us in the definite instance
itself. This is as true and certain to us as is the general
formula or law which it exemplifies. Nay, we can only
in the instance find for ourselves or test the necessity
of the formula itself. We do not thus add to the
certainty of our conviction of the truth in the particular
instance by stating the general formula; we only draw
out, as it were, of the particular case, and then describe
that most general form on which reflection shows us
this already perfect conviction rests. It is, therefore,
idle to talk of evolving the particular truth from the
universal formula; for the latter is nothing to us until
it is found exemplified in the particular instance. Nor
is it of any greater relevancy to say that self-conscious-
ness is deduced from consciousness in general or the
idea of consciousness; for, on exactly the same princi-
ple, we know nothing of such a general consciousness
1 See supra, p. xxiv.
INTRODUCTION.
xlv
unless as exemplified in this primary self-consciousness.
This is as early in thought and in time as the idea of
consciousness in general, or of the Ego in general, or
an infinite self-consciousness, whatever such an ambig-
uous phrase may, according to the requirements of an
argument, be twisted to mean.
And this consideration should be fatal to the view or
representation that there is here "a determination ” by
the thinker, or by "thought" which, by the way, seems
capable of dispensing with a thinker altogether. "To
determine” is a very definite logical phrase, which
has and can have but one clear meaning. The mind
determines an object when it classifies the materials
of sense and inward experience; and when, descending
from higher genera, it evolves species and individuals,
through knowledge of differences extraneous to the gen-
era themselves. Whatever be implied in these proces-
ses, it is clear at least that "determination" is a thor-
oughly conscious process; and it is further a secondary
or reflective process. When we refer any given object
to a class, and thus fix or determine it for what it is,
we suppose the possession by us of a prior knowledge,
knowledge of a class constituted and represented by
objects and knowledge too of this or that object of
thought, which we now refer to the class. In this
sense it is quite clear that Descartes could not be sup-
posed “to determine ” his experience, either as to the
conscious act, or as to the limits under which it was
conceivable by him, for his procedure was initiative,
and he is not gratuitously to be supposed in conscious.
possession of knowledge before the single conscious
act in which knowledge is for the first time realised.
Besides, determination implies a consciousness of gen-
erality—in this case even universality—of law and
limit of which he could not possibly be conscious,
until he became aware of them in the very act of his
experimental reflection. Even the most general form
of determination-that of regarding an object as such
:

xlvi
INTRODUCTION.
-can arise into consciousness only reflectively through
the first experience of this or that object in which
the notion of object is at once revealed and empha-
sised. Nay, if, according to a possible but disputable
interpretation of Kant, perception being "blind" and
conception "empty," the former is not a species of
knowledge at all, and has no separate object: and if
conception be equally void of object, and yet always
needed to make even an object of knowledge, deter-
mination is an absurdity; for the understanding or mind
as exercising this function must in this case be sup-
posed able to determine or clothe in category that which
is as yet not an object of consciousness at all. It must
be able to act, though it is assumed as entirely empty
and incapable of filling itself with content. There are
but two alternatives here—either the so-called “mani-
fold of sensation" is not matter of consciousness, or it
is. If the former, then the empty and uninformed un-
derstanding can make an object of what is not in any
way supplied to it-it can combine into unity what is
beyond consciousness itself; or if this "manifold” be
in consciousness by itself, it can be so without being
known,—consciousness of the manifold may exist with-
out knowledge of the manifold—that is, without know-
ledge of its object. We have thus a complexus of
absurdity. The understanding can make a synthesis
of a
"manifold" which is never within its ken; and it
can be conscious of a universal which, as the co-factor
of the unconstituted object, is not yet in knowledge.
Nothing need be said of the absurdity of describing
"the manifold" of perception when perception has no
distinctive object at all, but receives its object from
conception. And the "manifold" of perception, while
it supposes always a unity and a series of points at
least, is about the most inapplicable expression which
it is possible to apply to the sensations of taste, odour,
sound, and tactual feeling. In these, as sensations,
there is no manifold; each is an indivisible attribute or
INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
unity. These may, no doubt, constitute a manifold
through time and succession; but they can do so only
on condition of being separately apprehended in time
as objects or points. The manifold of sense even
cannot be a manifold of non-entities or unconscious
elements. But the problem of analysing object or thing
is an impossible one from the first. Of what is ulti-
mately an object for consciousness, we cannot state the
elements, without being conscious of each element as
an object. If we are not conscious of each element as
an object by itself, as distinguished from each other
element which enters into the object, we cannot know
what the elements are which make up any object of con-
sciousness. We have not even consciousness or know-
ledge at all. We cannot specify either the mutual
If
"}
relations or the mutual functions of the elements.
we are conscious of each element by itself and of its
functions, we have an object of knowledge, prior to the
constitution of the object of knowledge-the only object
supposed possible. "Thing" or "object" or "being
is ultimately unanalysable by us, seeing that our in-
strument of analysis is itself only possible by cognising
thing or being in some form, by bringing it to the
analysis. What things are we can tell,-what sorts of
things as they stand in different relations to each other,
and to us; but the ground of the possibility of this is
thing or object itself, given in inseparable correlation
with the act of consciousness.
The truth is that this theory of determination pro-
ceeds on the confusion of two kinds of judgments
which are wholly distinct in character, the logical and
the pyschological. The logical judgment always sup~~~
poses two ideas of objects known by us. It comes
into play only after apprehension of qualities, and is
simply an application of classification or attribution.
The subject of the judgment is thus determined as
belonging to a class, or as possessing an attribute; but
subject, class, and attribute are already in the mind or
xlviii
INTRODUCTION.
ence.
consciousness; only they are as yet neither joined nor
disjoined. This kind of judgment is a secondary and
derivative process, and has nothing to do with the
primitive acts of knowledge. The psychological or
metaphysical judgment, if the name be retained, with
which knowledge begins, and without which the logical
judgment is impossible-does not suppose a previous
knowledge of the terms to be united. It is manifested
in self-consciousness and in perception. In it know-
ledge and affirmation of the present and momentary
reality are identical. As I am conscious of feeling, so
I am affirming the reality of my consciousness or exist-
As I touch extension, so I affirm the reality of
the object touched. In no other way can I reach the
reality either of self or not-self. To suppose that I
reach it by comparing the notions of self and existence,
or of extension and existence-is to suppose an abso-
lutely abstract or general knowledge of me and being,
in the first instance, that I may know, in the second
instance, whether I can join them together, and they
therefore exist. But this supposes that I can have this
abstract knowledge by itself, apart from individual re-
alisation. It supposes also that I can have this before
I know its embodiment in the concrete at all, and
finally it fails to give me the knowledge I seek—for it
only, at the utmost, could tell me that the ideas of me
and existence are not incongruous or contradictory—
whereas what I wish to know is whether I actually am.
On such a doctrine my existing must mean merely an
ideal compatibility.
In a word, determination of things by thought, as it is
called, supposes a system of thought or consciousness.
It supposes the thinker to be in possession of notions
and principles, and to be consciously in possession of
them. Otherwise it is a blind and unconscious deter-
mination done for the thinker, and not by him, and the
thinker does not know at all. But if the thinker is·
already in possession of such a knowledge, we have not


INTRODUCTION.
xlix
explained the origin of knowledge or experience; we
have only referred it to a pre-existing system of know-
ledge in consciousness. If, therefore, we are to show
how knowledge rises up for the first time, we must look
to what is before even this system. But before the
general or generalised-as an abstraction-we have
only the concrete individual instance,—the act of con-
sciousness in this or that case. Either, therefore, we
beg a system of knowledge, or we do not know at all,
or we know the individual as embodying the general
or universal for the first time.
The intuition of self and its modes no doubt involves
a great many elements or notions, not obvious at first
sight. It involves unity, individuality, substance, rela-
tion; it involves identity, and difference or discrimina-
tion of subject and object, of self and state. These
"notions or elements analytical reflection will explicitly
evolve from the fact, as its essential factors. Some
are disposed to call these presuppositions. I have no
desire to quarrel with the word. They are presupposi
tions in the sense of logical concomitance, or correlation.
The fact or reality embodies them; they are realised in
the fact. The fact is, if you choose, reason realised.
But they are not presuppositions, in the sense of
grounds of evolution of the fact in which we find
them. They are in it, and elements of it; but the
fact is as necessary to their realisation and known
existence as they are to it. You cannot take these
by themselves, abstract them, set them apart, and
evolve this or that individuality out of them. You
cannot deduce the reality or individuality of an Ego
from them-the Ego I find in experience or conscious-
ness-because this very reality is necessary to their
realisation or being in thought at all. There is no
relation or subordination here. It is co-ordination, or
better, the correlation of fact and form,—of being and
law of being.
We can thus also detect how much, or rather how



C
1
INTRODUCTION.
ག་ང་་!
4 {"ཐ、L"{' h
little, truth there is in current Hegelian representations
of the first principle and position of Descartes in philo-
sophy, when we are told that "Descartes is the founder
of a new epoch in philosophy because he enunciated the
postulate of an entire removal of presupposition. This
absolute protest maintained by Descartes against the
acceptance of anything for true, because it is so given
to us, or so found by us, and not something determined
and established by thought, becomes thenceforward the
fundamental principle of the moderns.”1 "An entire re-
moval of presupposition," if by that be meant of postu-
late, is not possible on any system of philosophy. No
presuppositionless system can be stated in this sense,
without glaring inconsistency. It is ab initio suicidal.
I must be there to think, that is, I must be conscious
where there is the possibility of either truth or error;
and the intelligible system developed must have an un-
deduced basis in my consciousness, guaranteed by that
consciousness. And in regard to the Hegelian or most
pretentious attempt of this sort, it could readily be
shown that the method or dialectic is in no way con-
tained in the basis,—or is even the native law of the
deduction. As such it is borrowed, not deduced. Def-
inite thought is always necessarily postulated; other-
wise there is neither affirmation nor negation. This
Descartes accepted; and on this necessary assumption,
in no way arbitrary, but self-guaranteeing, his philosophy
was based.
As to the phrase, "something determined and estab-
lished by thought," this is as inappropriate an expression
as could well be imagined. What is the "thought"
which determines or establishes things for us? Is it
1 Schwegler, History of Philosophy, p. 163, 5th ed. Comp. p. 156,
and Hegel, Werke, xv. p. 312. Speaking of the position of Descartes,
he says:
"Philosophy has again won its proper ground, that thought
proceeds from thought, as one thing in itself certain, not from some-
thing external, not from something given, but absolutely from this
freedom which is contained in 'I think.'
979
INTRODUCTION.
li
Is it
"thought" divorced from any consciousness?
thought realised by me in and through my consciousness?
It is apparently not what is found or given, but what
determines or establishes. But is this a thing by
itself, this thought, - is it a power in the universe
working alone and by itself? Apparently so. If
thought determines and establishes things it is a very
definite and practical power. But then do I, or can I,
know this thought which is obviously superior to me
and the first act of self-consciousness? How can I
speak of thought at all as a determining power for me,
when as yet I am neither conscious nor existent? If
there were a system of knowledge above knowledge,
known to me—or a system of thought above my
thought, thought by me-or a consciousness above my
consciousness, of which, or in which, I was conscious
before my consciousness,-then I could accept the de-
termination by thought of all truth for me. But as it is,
until I can reconcile to the ordinary conditions of intel-
ligibility this fallacy of doubling thought or knowledge,
I must give up the experiment as a violation of good
sense and reason. Determination by thought, either
means that I am already in conscious possession of
knowledge (in which case I presuppose knowledge to
account for knowledge), or it means that something
called thought, which is not yet either me or my con-
sciousness, or even consciousness at all, determines me
and my consciousness, in which case I cannot know
anything of this process of determination, for ex hypo-
thesi I neither am nor am conscious until I am deter-
mined to be so. To know or be consciously determined
by this thought, I must be in it actually and consciously
from the first, in which case I know before I know, and
I am before I am, or I must be in it potentially from
the first-that is, unconsciously, in which case I am
able to keep up all through the process of determination
a continuity of being between unconsciousness and con-
sciousness, and to retain a memory of that which I


Lif
INTRODUCTION.
never consciously knew. To connect myself and my
consciousness in this way with such a determining
thought, or something, is a simple impossibility.
The fallacy in all this lies in the suggestion of the
phrase "to determine." This is ambiguous, or rather
it has a connotation which is fallacious, or helps fal-
lacious thought. To determine is ultimately to con-
ceive, or limit by conception-i. e., to attach a predi-
cate to a subject. But to determine may easily be
2taken to mean fixing as existent not merely as a
possible object of experience, but as a real or actual
object. And in this sense it is constantly used-espe-
cially at a pinch when it is necessary to identify the
ideal possibility of an object of thought with its reality.
To assert existence of a subject, and to enclose it in a
predicate, are totally different operations. As to object
we can ideally construct an object of knowledge with
all the determinations and relations necessary. We
can think it in time and space, and under category—as
quality, or effect, but this does not give us existence.
This, considered in relation to the notion, is a synthetic
attribute; and the so-called constitution of the object, all
its necessary conditions being fulfilled in thought, gives
us no more than a purely ideal object. Existence we
get and can get only through intuition. The subject is
some thing—some being—ere we determine it by predi-
If it is ever to be real, it is already real No
subsequent predication can make it so. The truth is,
that being is not a proper predicate at all. It is but the
subject—perceived or conceived-and is thus, as real
or ideal, the prerequisite of all predication. The School-
men were right in making being transcendent—that is,
something not included in the predicaments at all, but
the condition of predication itself. This, too, is virtually
the view of Kant, as shown in his dealing with the
Ontological argument.


cates.
To say that I determine knowledge by means of
;
INTRODUCTION.
liii
forms of intuition,-as space and time, and by cate-
gory, or by both, is thus to reverse the order of know-
ledge. Besides, it is utterly impossible logically to de-
fend this doctrine without maintaining that category,
or the universal in thought, or thought per se, is truly
knowledge, a doctrine which in words is denied by the
upholders of a priori determination, but in reality con-
stantly proceeded upon by them. But the spontaneous
and intuitive act of knowledge necessarily precedes the
reflective and formulating. Direct apprehension is the
ground of self-evidence; testing by reflection proves
space, time, and category to be necessary; and, if
necessary, universal in our knowledge.
Self-evidencing reality, guarded by the principles of
identity and non-contradiction, is thus the ultimate re-
sult of the Cartesian method, and the starting-point of
speculative philosophy. The basis proved a narrow
one; and the deductive system of propositions which he
grounded on it did not attain throughout even a logical
consistency, far less a real truth. But this does not
affect the value of his method, which is twofold-the
intuition of the reality of self as given in conscious-
ness, and the limit set to doubt by the principle of
non-contradiction.
The most essential and perhaps the most valuable
feature in the philosophy of Descartes is thus seen to be
the affirmation involved in the cogito ergo sum of the spon-
taneity of the primary act of knowledge. I am conscious
is to me the first-the beginning alike of knowledge and
being; and I can go no higher, in the way of primary di-
rect act. Whatever I may subsequently know depends on
this-the world, other conscious beings, or God himself.
This is to me the revelation of being, and the ground
of knowledge. This was to found knowledge on its true
basis-conscious experience, and conscious experience
as in this or that definite form,—of feeling, perceiving,
imagining, willing. Even though Descartes had gone


liv
INTRODUCTION.
no further than this, he inaugurated a method, an orga-
non of philosophy, which, if it be abandoned by the spec-
ulative thinker, must leave him open to the vagaries of
abstraction, to the mythical creations of "pure thought,"
((
i. e., of reasoning divorced from experience. The
least evil of this process is that it is a travesty of reason-
ing itself—that conclusions are attached to premisses,
and not drawn from them,—and the whole process is an
illegitimate personification of abstractions. Descartes
properly laid down the principle that knowledge springs
out of a definite act of a conscious being, self revealed
in the conscious act. He did not stop to analyse
the whole elements of this act, or to set forth the
conditions of its possibility, or to analyse the condi-
tions of the thing or object" of which the self-con-
scious being takes cognisance, or to consider how the
conscious act has arisen,-whether out of the inde-
terminate, or out of determinate conditions. He had
neither full analysis nor hypothesis on these points; and
as to the last, he was right, for he saw clearly that con-
scious experience in a given mode must be, ere any of
these questions can even be conceived or determined.
And had some of those who have since followed out
these lines of inquiry, fully appreciated and truly kept
in view the Cartesian position of a positive experiential
act as the necessary basis of all knowledge by us, they
would have kept their analysis of its conditions closer to
the facts, and they would have seen also that no start-
ing-point in a so-called "universal," or in thought above
this conscious experience, is at all possible; that know-
ledge by "determination" is a mere dream and an illegit-
imate doubling of knowledge or consciousness; that at
the utmost, in this respect, knowledge never can rise
beyond mere correlation of particular and universal; and
that, both in philosophy and in science, knowledge
grows and is consolidated, not through "re-thinking
or "reasoning out" of experience, but through a patient
study of the conditions of experience itself, in succession
""
エス
​INTRODUCTION.
lv
and coexistence,-a study in which the individuality of
human life and effort matches itself in but a feeble, yet
not unsuccessful way, against the infinity of time and
space. This, too, would have prevented the mistake of
supposing that the only critical, analytic, and reflective,
in a word, philosophical, thought is that which accepts
or finds a formula, within which our experience must
be compressed or discarded as unreal, with the risk,
actually incurred, of sacrificing what is most vital in
that experience.
V
VI. THE CRITERION OF TRUTH.

Descartes sought to evolve a criterion of truth from
the first indubitable position. This was the clearness
and distinctness of knowledge. He has defined this
test in the following words: "I call that clear which
is present and manifest to the mind giving attention to
it, just as we are said clearly to see objects when, being
present to the eye looking on, they stimulate it with
sufficient force, and it is disposed to regard them; but
the distinct is that which is so precise and different
from all other objects as to comprehend in itself only
what is clear." 1
This test is evidently derived from reflection on in-
tuitional knowledge. It is involved in his first truth,
but it is not the sole guarantee of that truth; for this,
as we have seen, is ultimately non-contradiction. His
first truth could hardly be taken as affording the strict
conditions of all truth, for in this case truth would need
to be both direct and necessary. Certain principles
might be so, but even in respect of them, it would
exclude the idea of derivation and subordination, and
lead to the idea of independent reality and guarantee.
And the test would exclude all derivative knowledge,
1 Principles, Part I., s. 45, p. 132.
lvi
INTRODUCTION.
even when it was hypothetically necessary. Further,
if it were set up as the absolute standard of truth, con-
tingent or probable truth would be altogether excluded
from the name. Descartes thus contented himself with
the general statement of clearness and distinctness;
and his first truth is accepted in its fulness as simply
the basis of deduction,-as the ground whence he may
proceed to build up a philosophy of God and the mate-
rial non-Ego.
The criterion is, however, ambiguous in its applica-
tions. When it is said that whatever we clearly and
distinctly conceive is true, we may mean that it is pos-
sible—i. e., an ideal possibility; or we may mean that
it is real-i. e., a matter of fact or existence. And
Descartes has not always carefully distinguished those
senses of the word true-as, for example, in his proof
of the being of Deity from the notion. If we take the
formula in the latter sense, we are led to identify truth
with notional reality and its relations-thought with
being.
The best criticism of the Cartesian criterion is un-
questionably that given by Leibnitz in his famous
paper-Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate, et Ideis.¹ He
indicates with singular felicity the various grades of
our conceptual knowledge. Cognition is obscure, when
the object is not distinguished from other objects or the
objects around it. Here the object is a mere some-
thing,—not nothing; but what it precisely is, either
in its own class of things or as contrasted with other
things, we do not apprehend. Cognition, again, is
clear, when we are able definitely to comprehend the
object as in contradistinction from others. Clear cogni-
tion is further divided into Confused and Distinct. It
is confused when we are unable to enumerate the marks
or characters by which the object is discriminated from
other objects, while it yet possesses such marks. Thus
we can distinguish colours, odours, tastes, from each
¹ Erdmann, p. 79.

INTRODUCTION.
lvii
other; yet we cannot specify the marks by which we
do so.
the same time such marks must exist, seeing
the objects are resolvable into their respective causes.
Our knowledge, again, is distinct when we can specify
the discriminating marks, as the assayers in dealing
with gold; and as we can do in the case of number,
magnitude, figure. But distinct knowledge may still
further be Inadequate or Adequate. It is inadequate
when the discriminating marks are not analysed or re-
solved into more elementary notions, being sometimes
clearly and sometimes confusedly thought, as, for ex-
ample, the weight and colour of gold. Knowledge, again,
is adequate when the marks in our distinct cognition
are themselves distinctly thought—that is, carried back
by analysis to an end or termination. Whether any
perfect example of this exists is, in the view of Leibnitz,
doubtful. Number is the nearest approach to it. Then
there is the distinction of the Blind or Symbolical and
the Intuitive in cognition,—the former being the poten-
tiality of conception which lies in terms; the latter being
the clear and distinct or individual picture of each mark
so lying undeveloped. When cognition is at once ade-
quate and intuitive, it is Perfect. But Leibnitz here at
least hesitates to say whether such can be realised. To
distinct cognition there attaches Nominal Definition.
This is simply the evolution of the distinct knowledge,
-the drawing out of the marks which enable us to dis-
tinguish an object from other objects. But deeper than
this lies Real Definition. This makes it manifest that
the thing conceived or alleged to be conceived is pos-
sible. The test of the possible is the absence of con-
tradiction in the object thought; the proof of the im
possible is its presence. Possibility is either a priori or
a posteriori,—the former, when we resolve a notion into
other notions of known possibility; the latter, when we
have experience of the actual existence of the object;
for what actually exists is possible. Adequate know-
ledge involves cognition through means of a priori pos-



C 2
lviii
INTRODUCTION.
sibility. It involves analysis carried through to its
end. But Leibnitz hesitates to say that adequate cog-
nition is within our reach. "Whether such a perfect
analysis of notions can ever be accomplished by man
-whether he can lead back his thoughts to first pos-
sibles (prima possibilia) and irresolvable notions, or,
what comes to the same thing, to the absolute attributes
of God themselves, viz., the first causes,-I do not now
dare to determine." 1
Leibnitz properly applies his distinction of nominal
and real definition to the Cartesian proof of the reality
of Deity from the notion of the most perfect being.
This he says is defective as a proof in the hands of
Descartes. It would be correct to say that God neces-
sarily exists, if only He is first of all posited as possible.
So long as this is not done, the argument for His exis-
tence does not amount to more than a presumption.
But Descartes has either relied on a fallacious proof of
the possibility of the Divine existence, or he has en-
deavoured to evade the necessity of proving it. That
this proof can be supplied Leibnitz believes, and with
this preliminary requisite fulfilled, he accepts the Car-
tesian argument.²
It is obvious that the proper position of the criterion
of Leibnitz as given in the real definition is at the very
beginning of a system of knowledge. Possibility, or
the absence of contradiction, underlies, in fact, clear-
ness and distinctness. It is essential to the unity of
any object of thought. The furthest point in abstrac-
tion to which we can go back is some being or some
object, something as opposed to nothing or non-being.
But even this something must be at least definitely
thought or distinguished from its contradictory opposite
non-being or nothing. If it were not, the knowledge
would be impossible. Its reality as a positive notion
depends on this. Nay, even the negation, non-being or
1 Erdmann, p. 80.
2 Erdmann, p. 80. Compare Ep. de Cart. Dem., p. 78.

INTRODUCTION.
lix
It
nothing, depends for any meaning it possesses on the
positive being an object of knowledge, The correlation
here is not between two definite elements; one known
as positive, the other as negative; there is correlation,
but there is no correality. The negative side is satis-
fied by mere negation, as in the parallel case of one and
none. And no reconciling medium is conceivable-
none is possible to thought. If so, let it be named.
To galvanise the negative into a positive in such a
case, and call it synthetic thought, is simply to baptise
the absurd. This solid advance on Descartes is virtually
due to the acute and accurate mind of Leibnitz.
is our main safeguard against fantastic speculation.
The most liberal, and probably the fairest interpreta-
tion of the criterion of Descartes is, that it is the asser-
tion of the need of evidence, whatever be its kind, as
the ground of the acceptance of a statement or proposi-
tion. As such, it is the expression of the spirit of the
philosophy of Descartes, and of the spirit also of modern
research. As evidence must make its appeal to the
individual mind, it may be supposed that this principle
leads to individualism in opinion. This is certainly a
possible result, but it is not essential to the principle.
Evidence may be, nay, is, at once individual and uni-
versal. The individual consciousness may realise for
itself what is common to all; and indeed has not
reached ultimate evidence until it has done so. And,
however important may be the place of history, lan-
guage, and social institutions in the way of a true and
complete knowledge of mind or man, even these must
appeal in the last resort to the conscious laws and pro-
cesses of evidence, as embodied in the individual mind.
From his virtually making truth lie in a definite and
high degree of conscious activity, Descartes was natu-
rally led to regard error as more or less a negation, or
rather privation. This idea he connects with Deity.
Error is a mere negation, in respect of the Divine action;
it is a privation in respect of my own action, inasmuch

lx
INTRODUCTION.
1
#
as I deprive myself by it of something which I ought
to have and might have.
He thus develops his doctrine of Error.
1. When I doubt, I am conscious of myself as an
incomplete and dependent being; along with this
consciousness, or, as we would now say, correlatively
with it, I have the idea of a complete and independent
Being that is, God. This idea being in my conscious-
ness, and I existing, the object of it—God—exists.
2. The faculty of judging, which I possess as the gift
of a perfect being, cannot lead me into error, if I use
it aright. Yet it is true that I frequently err, or am
deceived. How is this consistent with my faculty of
judging being the gift of a perfect God?

=
3. "I have in my consciousness not only a real and
positive idea of God, but a certain negative idea of
nothing-in other words, of that which is at an infinite
distance from every sort of perfection; and a conception
that I am, as it were, a mean between God and nothing,
or placed in such a way between absolute existence and
non-existence, that there is in truth nothing in me to lead
me into error, in so far as an absolute being is my crea-
tor. On the other hand, as I thus likewise participate
in some degree of nothing or of non-being-in other
words, as I am not myself the Supreme Being, and as
I am wanting in every perfection, it is not surprising
I should fall into error. And I hence discern that
error, so far as error, is not something real, which de-
pends for its existence on God, but is simply defect.
Yet "
error is not a pure negation [in other
words, it is not the simple deficiency or want of some
knowledge which is not due] but the privation and
want of what it would seem I ought to possess.
Assuredly God could have created me such that I
should never be deceived.
Is it better, then,
that I should be capable of being deceived than that
I should not?"
4. The answer to this is twofold. First, I, as finite,
:
INTRODUCTION.
Ixi
am incapable of comprehending always the reasons of
the Divine action; and, secondly, what appears to be
imperfection in a creature regarded as alone in the
world, may not really be so, if the creature be considered
as occupying a place in the relation of a part to the
great whole of His creatures." What precisely that
relation is, Descartes does not undertake to specify.
This solution of the difficulty is, therefore, only pro-
blematical.
5. As a matter of observation, error depends on the
concurrence of two causes, to wit-Knowledge and Will.
By the Understanding alone, I neither affirm nor deny ;
but merely apprehend or conceive ideas. It is Judg
ment which affirms or denies. And here we must dis-
tinguish between non-possession and privation. There
may be, and are, innumerable objects in the universe
of which I possess no ideas. But this is simple non-
possession; it arises from my finitude. It is not priva-
tion, for it cannot be shown to be the keeping or taking
away from me of what I ought to have. The form or
essence of error lies not in non-possession, but in priva-
tion. So far as Deity is concerned, this non-possession
on my part of certain ideas is properly negation, not
privation; for it is not properly a thing or existence.
It is merely that Deity, in determining my knowledge,
has allowed that knowledge a definite sphere of possi-
bility, and restricted it from objects beyond. But as I
never had, or can be shown to have had, any a priori
right to more than I have actually got, there never was
in respect of me any privation.
6. Again, there are objects which are not clearly and
distinctly apprehended by the Understanding. This may
be a mere temporary state of mind, which is capable of
being removed by clear and distinct knowledge. These
two facts, then, that in some quarters there is no know-
ledge, and that knowledge is in some cases not clear or
distinct, render érror possible. For the power of will,
which is wider than the understanding-in fact, abso-

lxii
INTRODUCTION.
lutely unlimited, unlike the other faculties-may force
on a judgment either in the absence of knowledge, or
with imperfect knowledge. Hence error; and hence
also, in the case of good and evil, sin; for error and
sin are both ultimately products of free will. Descartes
holds very strongly and definitely in regard to will that
it is a faculty" which I experience to be so great, that
I am unable to conceive the idea of another that shall
be more ample and extended; so that it is chiefly my
will which leads me to discern that I bear a certain
image and similitude of Deity." The will consists
only of a single and indivisible element; hence nothing
can be taken from it without destroying it. Its power
lies in this, that we are able to do or not to do the same
thing; or rather, that in affirming or denying, pursuing
or shunning, what is proposed to us by the under-
standing, we so act that we are not conscious of being
determined to a particular action by any external force.
Its essence is not, however, in indifference in respect to
the same thing; this is the lowest grade of liberty.
On the contrary, the greater degree of knowledge the
mind possesses as to one of the alternatives, and the
consequently greater inclination of the will to adopt.
that alternative, the more freedom there is; freedom
consisting ultimately in a consciousness of not being
determined to a particular action by any external force.
It is, in a word, great clearness of the understanding,
followed by strong inclination in the will.¹ As, how-
ever, we do not always wait for this condition, but
determine affirmatively or negatively, or pursue and
shun, without it, we fall into error or sin.
Error is thus no direct consequence of finitude; only
the possibility of it is so. It is properly to be re-
garded as the result of privation, and this is my own
wilful act. It should, however, be observed here, that
Descartes' positions regarding the will do not appear
to be consistent. The two definitions of liberty which
1 Meditation, iv. p. 56 et seq.
INTRODUCTION.
lxiii
he gives are exclusive of each other. We cannot be
conceived absolutely free in respect of two given alter-
natives, and yet free when the inclination of the will
follows the greater clearness of the Understanding.
The former is the liberty of indifference; the latter is
simply that of spontaneity, — the spontaneity being
relative to a previous or conditioning state of the
consciousness.
It is further clear from the statements now quoted,
that Descartes did not regard the Ego of consciousness
as either a negation, non-entity, or illusion, as is repre-
sented, but a very definite and real positive-a mean,
as he puts it, between absolute existence on the one
side, and non-existence on the other. He certainly did
not hold that the finite consciousness, so far as finite,
is either an error or an illusion. On the contrary, it
is with him the basis of the very possibility of know-
ledge, and the type and warrant of a higher conscious-
ness. And what other ground is possible? If the
finite by itself be regarded as an illusion, and the in-
finite by itself be regarded as the same, it is curious
to find that the two together make up reality. In this
case, the relation between infinite and finite may be
assumed as the true reality. So long as we hold the
relation in consciousness, infinite and finite are known,
and therefore real. But ere we can make this out, we
must vindicate the possibility of a conscious relation
between two terms, in themselves incognisable, non-
existent, or illusory. Being must thus mean a ground-
less relation suspended in vacuo.
Nor is there anything special to his doctrine of Error
which logically compels him to hold those conclusions.
Principles of inference entirely foreign to his system.
and habit of thought may be assumed, and conclusions
of this sort thus forced on his premises. It may, for
example, be said, with Spinoza, that "determination is
negation," and that the finite, as finite, is a mere ne-
gation or non-entity; because it is a negation of the
lxiv
INTRODUCTION.
absolute substance, or of an Infinite Ego, or Infinite Self-
consciousness—whatever ambiguity such phrases may
be supposed tc cover. But this may be said of any
doctrine whatever which recognises the Ego of con-
sciousness as simply a fact or reality. And the
principle of every determination being a negation is
neither unambiguous nor self-evident; in several senses,
it is rather self-condemned. It stands in need, at least,
of thorough and precise vindication ere it is of use in
any process of inference. In this application, at any
rate, it will be hard to show its consistency. We must
have the proof, in the first instance, of the Absolute
Substance or Infinite Ego which the being of the finite
Ego negates. Is it said that the Infinite Ego is the
necessary correlate of the finite Ego? What then?
Does this correlation imply that the correlate or Infinite
Ego is real in the sense in which the Ego of conscious-
ness is real? Or rather even, as it seems to be inferred,
does it necessarily imply that the Ego of consciousness.
discovers itself not to be what it at first is conscious
that it is, and is really only a mode of this truly exist-
ing Infinite Ego? These are points in the logic of the
process which ought not to be passed over without no-
tice or vindication. And even if we get somehow the
length or the height of the so-called Infinite, we must
then ask whether the Infinite Ego means merely the
abstract notion of an Ego, or whether it means a self-
conscious Ego that actually pervades all being. If the
former, the so-called determination is but an instance
of the contemporary realisation of the individual fact
and the general notion. If the latter, it is impossible
that there can be a finite Ego at all. It is not possible
even in correlation. But, secondly, the result is not
either possible or consistent. If the definite Ego of
consciousness loses hold of its determination or limita-
tion, it loses hold of itself—it no longer is; if it re-
tains its limit or determination, it is not the Infinite
Ego; if it commits the absurdity of losing hold of it and

་་་
INTRODUCTION.
lxv
yet retaining it, it loses hold of itself, but does not
become the Infinite Ego; in plain words, the “I” of
our consciousness cannot be both man and God. That
the finite consciousness is the infinite or divine con-
sciousness is asserted on such a principle; it is as far
from proof as ever it was.
VII. THE EGO AND THE MATERIAL WORLD.
On this point the doctrine of Descartes may be sum
marily stated.
We have, in the first place, an assured world of con-
sciousness with the Ego as its centre, the centre of
thoughts and ideas. But Descartes recognises, as he
must, the knowledge of extension or an extended
object, of a thing filling space. This knowledge is in
the consciousness. How is it got? From the senses
somehow. But what precisely is the knowledge the
senses give us of the material non-Ego? Have we as
direct a knowledge of it as we have of consciousness
and its modes? In the view of Descartes certainly
not. The extended does not guarantee its own exis-
tence, as the consciousness does. We are not at once
involved in self-contradiction, in denying its reality, as
we are in the case of our consciousness. The extended
is known through idea or representation; and it is the
problem of Cartesianism to vindicate the reality on the
ground of the idea, to show that outside of conscious-
ness, as it were, there is an object corresponding to idea
in the circle of consciousness itself.
Herein lies the so-called dualism of Descartes; but, in
point of fact, it is but one form of his dualism, for there
is with him the contrast between the finite Ego and
God, and this is as much a dualism as the contrast be-
tween consciousness and extension. But the position
of Descartes in relation to mind and matter is that, on
the one hand, there is consciousness; on the other, there
lxvi
INTRODUCTION.
is extension, implying or rendering possible figure and
motion. Accepting these as the only possible qualities
of matter, Descartes sought to show how all the pheno-
mena of the material universe might be produced, and
according to the notional method of his philosophy at
once inferred that they actually were so produced. This
of course resulted in a mere ignoring alike of facts and
laws, especially of the great Newtonian principle of
gravitation, which could have no place in such a physi-
cal philosophy as that of Descartes.
But consciousness being set on one side, and extension
or body on the other, the question arose in the mind of
Descartes as to whether, or rather how, there could pos-
sibly be between these the relation of knowledge. If
he had simply asked whether there was such a relation,
the problem was not of difficult solution; but when he
asked how such a relation was possible, he raised a
totally different and probably illegitimate question. But
be this as it may, Descartes held that there could be no
immediate consciousness of extension or an extended
object on the part of the mind. The process of Per-
ception, according to Descartes, may be stated as fol-
lows: There is the occurrence of organic impressions
on organ, nerve, and brain. The last of these reaches
the central point of the nervous organisation,-by him
regarded as the pineal gland, these organic move-
ments are not in consciousness at all; even the last of
them is not apprehended or known in the process of our
sensitive consciousness. Yet the apprehension of the
extra-organic object is impossible without these as con-
ditions of our knowledge. On occasion of the last of
the organic movements, an idea of the extra - organic
object is generated in the consciousness. This is the
single object of consciousness. It is representative of
the outward object,—of the external or extra-organic
object. Through and on the ground of this representa-
tive idea we know and believe in a world of outward
- objects. Descartes uses idea both for those organic
INTRODUCTION.
lxvii
movements,—the traces on the brain, and for the con-
scious representation; but nothing can be clearer than
that he held the former to lie wholly beyond conscious-
ness during the time of their occurrence, and to be merely
the occasions on which the mental idea rose into con-
sciousness.¹ Here he virtually supposes supernatural
action to excite the idea; and he makes an appeal to
the veracity of Deity to guarantee the inference of
outward reality from it.
Descartes' treatment of this point cannot be said to
be satisfactory. Indeed no satisfactory dealing with
the problem is possible, as its terms were put by
Descartes. His position in substance is, that as God is
veracious, we may trust that the idea really and ade-
quately represents the material non-Ego. But of course
there is the prior question as to how the idea came
into the consciousness, and then as to the right we
have to suppose it representative. The veracity of
Deity, even if adequately and logically vindicated for
the system, would guarantee nothing to us beyond
what our consciousness or idea might actually testify.
And if the idea be not properly got, be not a real idea,
and if the conditions under which it is supposed to be
got render its representative character logically impos-
sible, the veracity of Deity could not help us to give
an untrue reality or character to the idea. We should
then be merely calling in the veracity of Deity to en-
able us to assert as real and true what was simply a
matter of our own fancy and fiction; to give to a thing,
a reality and character which it had not, and not merely
to obviate objections or satisfy doubt regarding the
reality and the character which it proclaimed itself to
have. God's veracity can never be pledged for any-
thing more than the facts of consciousness are, or the
deliverance of consciousness declares. And to ascertain
this in the first place is the task of philosophical method
and reflective analysis.
1 See Appendix, Note II., p. 196 et seq.

lxviii
INTRODUCTION.
With respect to the first question, as to how we
know the extended reality in which we believe,
whether by intuition or indirectly, there are passages
in Descartes which point to the acknowledgment of
direct or intuitive knowledge. But he gives this up,
and, through force of old presumption, restricts percep-
tion to ideas or states of consciousness.
1
“ን
Obviously, if intuition cannot be made out in some
form or other, a material non-Ego must be given up;
and certainly the hypothesis of the representative idea,
as is now well acknowledged, will not help us. To
think out the notion of a material non-Ego, from the
requisites of mere self-consciousness, is impossible.
Nothing can be weaker than Kant's vacillating attempts
at the proof of a world in space and time from self-con-
sciousness. This could be done only as the requisite of
the difference of the self from the not-self; but this is
satisfied by the mere modes of consciousness themselves
varying in time. Self, apart from these, is unknowable
and unthinkable, but not apart from a material non-
Ego. Again, a representative idea is impossible apart
from repeated intuitive acts. The points and details
must be successively apprehended ere they can be cog-
nised in representation. And we must apprehend these
as the condition of our recognition of the correct repre-
sentation.
But Descartes seems to have had difficulties, as
is usual, as to the possibility of direct knowledge
by consciousness of extension. These were part of
the general alleged difficulties as to how two things
so different in nature as consciousness and extension
could have communion or intercourse-how mind could
know matter, or influence it in anything-how matter
could act upon or affect mind. As to the general
fact of the intuition of extension, or any material
quality, he did not see that in so dealing with the
question he was illogically putting the question of
1 See De Passionibus, Art. xxiii.

INTRODUCTION.
lxix
possibility before the question of fact. This order
could only be fairly followed on a system which pro-
fessed to demonstrate a priori, or by pure thought, the
possibility of knowledge, and through this possibility
to determine the facts, or at least to make the con-
ception of the facts square with the ideal possibility.
This need not at present be discussed; for although
Descartes was in a sense demonstrative, this was not
the kind of demonstration he contemplated; and it
is one which, as might be anticipated, is exceedingly
likely to mutilate the integrity alike of truth and phil-
osophy. But Descartes had no idea of demonstrating
either the possibility of knowledge or the contents of
knowledge. His demonstration was so far a legitimate
one.
He sought or assumed facts of experience or con-
sciousness, and endeavoured to show their logical con-
nections and relations. The method, when carried out
in its integrity, is primarily one of observation and
reflective analysis. And in order to the faithful applica-
tion of it, we must scrutinise carefully and fully every
form of our conscious life, and every, even apparent,
deliverance of our intelligence. This at least is the first
thing to be done, whatever theory we may afterwards
form of the origin or genesis of those forms of our con-
scious life, or even, if that be possible, of our conscious-
ness itself. Of all things the most unwarrantable, is
to adopt, whether on so-called grounds of reason or on
tradition, which comes to very much the same thing,
certain general assumptions regarding what is possible
or impossible in knowledge, and by means of these
assumptions to override, mutilate, or reject the positive
deliverances of our intelligence—especially on the side
of intuition. But this is precisely what Descartes seems
to have done; it is what has been done repeatedly
since his time; it is done now; and until philosophical
method is freed from this unfaithfulness, philosophy
can make no real progress, and will continue to fall
short of the breadth of experience and reality.
lxx
INTRODUCTION.
So far as the knowledge of a material non-Ego is
concerned, the question is simply one of analysis of
our consciousness. We cannot beforehand say, it is
impossible I can know aught of extension or resistance,
or any other form of reality, because I can know only
my own states of consciousness, or because I cannot
know anything distinct from myself. This is to sup-
pose that you have a philosophy ere you set about seek-
ing it. Where has this superior philosophy been got,
and what is its guarantee? Only in that consciousness
the fulness of whose deliverances it is adduced to dis-
credit. For a consciousness to me above my conscious-
ness is an absurdity and contradiction in terms.
If we look for a moment at some of the supposed
difficulties alleged against the intuition of a material
non-Ego, we shall see both how assumptive and how
trifling they are.
It seems that the mind or consciousness, in order to
apprehend extension, or in apprehending extension,,
must become extended—that is, must cease to be mind.
Or the mind being indivisible, if it apprehends exten-
sion, must become divisible and so on. Why must
this be? Simply from an abuse of words and a false
analogy. Extension apprehended is said to be within
consciousness; consciousnesss is therefore necessarily
extended; it has parts beyond parts like extension.
A sufficient answer to this would be—when I am con-
scious of extension, as a series of coexisting points, I
do not cease to be conscious of mind-I do not become
extended or divisible—nay, I should not know what
extension or divisibility meant at all, if I had not in
myself the co-apprehension of the non-extended and
indivisible. I know or apprehend only through contrast
and correlation; and if all in knowledge be one, say
the extended, I do not know the extended at all. It
is really nothing for me or my knowledge. Conscious-
ness as I experience it, and as I can conceive it, is an
antithesis-a varying contrast-through an identity,
INTRODUCTION.
lxxi
of acts or states and me, of objects of these acts
and me, of the successive and the one, of the divisible
and the indivisible, the extended and the non-extended:
and because I am or am supposed to be percipient
of an object made up of parts beyond parts, I no more
become such, or cease to be the one indivisible knower,
than I cease to be one because I am conscious in
succession of various thoughts or feelings. The ex-
pression, within consciousness, indicates simply a false
analogy based on the previous assumption that con-
sciousness is an extended thing, which, like the object
perceived, is capable of a within and a without—that is,
it is a mere begging of the point at issue.
The truth is, that so far as this point is concerned, so
far from knowledge implying an identity between the
subject knowing and the object known, it rather pos-
tulates a difference; for we always and must always
distinguish subject and object in the act. But it should
be kept in mind that in order to constitute this differ-
ence we do not require an object such as extension or
resistance; we require only a mode of consciousness
whatever that may be, feeling or desire. This enables
us to discriminate self and mode, or self and object, as
well as extension or resistance. The extended, and to
us insentient, is the true test, not of self and its modes,
but of self and its modes on the one hand, and the
material non-Ego on the other. Self might be realised
in the fulness of its being through the moments of
time; its conception of reality is amplified by the
apprehension of the points of space; but this does not
make it to be or to know more truly what it is. The
living spirit knows itself to be in the very movements
which reveal its life. If this be so, the material non-
Ego is not the necessary diverse correlate of the Ego;
the Ego is not subverted by its subversion, but the
field is left open, apart from all a priori assumption as
to its powers of apprehension and compass; and a basis
is laid for the requirements of a faithful and sound
lxxii
INTRODUCTION.
psychology. The whole, too, of the speculation sub-
sequent to Descartes regarding Occasional Causes,
Vision in Deity, and Pre-established Harmony, originat-
ing in the groundless difficulty which he felt about
the knowledge of the material non-Ego, is superseded
as being devised merely to overcome an imaginary
difficulty.
But the whole of the current doctrine of subjectivity
is based on an assumption or an imperfect analysis
of the matter of fact. The phrases, "state of conscious-
ness" and "
our knowledge being confined to states of
consciousness,” are about as ambiguous as can well be
imagined. They confound the knowledge by the con-
scious self of its modes with the knowledge by the
conscious self of qualities of a wholly different order.
The first is a self-guaranteeing knowledge, as we have
seen; the other is a knowledge, but it is not self-guar-
anteeing, at least on the principle of non-contradiction.
I am conscious of purely subjective states; I am further
conscious of a sentient extended organism, which I call
my body, and at the same time I am conscious of an ex-
tension, which is no part of my sentient organism, cor-
responding to the surface of contact. This is as clear and
distinct a deliverance of consciousness as can be found
in experience. Even supposing it to be shown that we
have no consciousness of external qualities until the
sensorium is reached by the ordinary organic impres-
sions, this by no means proves that the perceptive fac-
ulty, as conscious, does not reach the utmost bound of
the bodily organism, the moment the stimulus is com-
pleted. None of these preceding organic impressions
is an object of consciousness at all; and what we may
perceive, though following upon these, is by no means
limited by them. The scope of consciousness must,
in a word, be tested by what consciousness actually
declares. The sentiency we experience and feel is all
through the bodily organism; for, as Mr Lewes has
shown, the brain is not exclusively the organ of sensa-
{
INTRODUCTION.
lxxiii
tion. But there is a limit to this sentiency-beyond
which it cannot go, and which it does not transcend.
This is found at the point of contact between the bodily
surface and what we are thus entitled to call the exter-
nal object. As this quality or object is not felt or known
by us to be sentient or part of our sentiency as our
bodily organism is, we regard it as a non-Ego, or as not
identical with any mode of our consciousness. This is
for us the material or truly external non-Ego. The out-
ward material world is for us the insentient, extended,
and resisting. Our test of this as an independent exist-
ence, as something more than a mere state of sentiency
or consciousness is, that it is not necessary to the exist-
ence or to the fact of our consciousness. I am conscious
does not imply an outward material non-Ego; it implies
merely a distinction in the consciousness itself between
the Ego and the mode, and between the Ego and the
successive modes. Withdraw either of those, and my
consciousness perishes. But it is not so with the qual
ities of extension and resistance correlative to my liv-
ing and moving organism. Consciousness is not sub-
verted by taking those away; and the conclusion,
therefore, is irresistible that I am, whether they sub-
sist or not—that they are not identical with my being
-that, in a word, there is a mutual independence and
correality between me, the conscious subject, and those
qualities or objects of consciousness, at least during the
act of perception. This, as appears to me, is the last
point in the analysis of perception which we can reach.
It is for us an ultimate and irreconcilable antithesis of
being. It is given us, too, by that consciousness which,
in its ultimate and fully analysed primary data, is the
supreme source of knowledge for us. That there is
some transcendent ultimate unity, from which both the
Ego and the non-Ego flow, is a plausible hypothesis.
but it is only a hypothesis-one more or less probable,
but incapable by us of absolute proof. Any process
of the development of the Ego and non-Ego from an

D
lxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
absolute, yet given by speculative philosophy, turns
out, on examination, to be a mere piece of verbalism—a
formula of abstraction which leaves out the differences,
and thus eviscerates the problem to be solved, or which,
confounding affirmation and negation, abolishes know-
ledge. And as for a scientific solution of the problem,
we may say this at least with safety, that none has as
yet been given.
Even the lower position of a mechanical equivalent
of each state of consciousness is not likely to fare
better, if we may judge from a recent attempt at a
statement of the question made by a physicist of note.¹
It is, first of all, broadly laid down that all we can know
of the universe is a state of consciousness. Applying
this particularly to what we speak of as the material
universe, the phænomena of nature are simply states
of consciousness. At the same time, it is maintained
that there is, and will ultimately be found, "a mechani-
cal equivalent” of each state of consciousness. There
is “a correlation of all the phænomena of the universe
with matter and motion." This language obviously
points to a dualism. What precisely is "the mechani-
cal equivalent of consciousness" here referred to? It
is something in correlation with the state of conscious-
ness; it is its mechanical equivalent, as there is a
mechanical equivalent of heat. But in the same
breath we are told that our knowledge is entirely re-
stricted to states of consciousness. Is this mechanical
equivalent known to us? In that case, it can be but
a state of consciousness. Indeed we are expressly
told that "matter" and "force," so far as known to us,
and, in other words, so far as they are anything to us,
are simply states of consciousness. Then what sort
of mechanical equivalent or correlation have we here?
Not two things at all,-not the mechanical force and
the state of consciousness, but simply two states of
consciousness, the one which we call, viz., feeling,-
1 Professor Huxley, Lay Sermons- Descartes,' p. 339.
1
INTRODUCTION.
lxxv
the other which we name its mechanical equivalent—
perhaps a pound weight falling through a foot. We
have not, therefore, explained the state of consciousness,
or resolved it into anything different from itself. We
have simply said that one state of consciousness, which
we call a mechanical equivalent, is followed by another,
which we call feeling or volition. This is not to
explain the state of consciousness by anything in mere
correlation with it; it is merely to say that there is a
certain or regulated succession in the states of conscious-
ness themselves. But each state is as far from being
resolved into a correlative mechanical equivalent as
ever it was; nay, more, we have given up the whole
hypothesis of dualism, while we retain its language,
and think we have effected a reconciliation of material-
ism and spiritualism. In saying that all we know
or can know is a state of consciousness, we preclude
ourselves from asserting anything that is not a state
of consciousness, and any mere hypothetical matter
or force or motion which we postulate as in correlation,
is illegitimately assumed as a fact-nay, illegitimately
even conceived as an idea.
VIII. INNATE IDEAS.
The predicate "innate" has been a source of great
debate in connection with the philosophy of Descartes.
But any one who intelligently apprehends its first prin-
ciples, will readily see both what it means and what
is the extent of its application in his philosophy. It
will be found to amount to this, that there is no mental
modification whatever in our consciousness, which, ac-
cording to Descartes, is not innate. But it is innate not
in the sense of being actually developed, or an actual
modification of consciousness; innate only in the sense
of being a potentiality capable of development into a
form of consciousness, yet waiting certain conditions
lxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
ere this takes place. In this sense, every idea of per-
ception, and every state of sensation is innate. The
supposed outward world, and the organic impressions
which precede perception and sensation lie wholly
beyond consciousness. Yet, but for their action in the
view of Descartes, neither perception nor sensation
would occur. At the same time, their influence ceases
at the threshold of consciousness; and when their
action is completed, there originate in the mind out
of its own nature the conscious idea of extension, and
the conscious sensation of colour or sound. These ideas
and sensations are wholly innate, in the sense that they
are evolutions of the consciousness alone; that they
are not transmitted to the mind by the action of out-
ward objects or by the organic impressions. They are
the forms of a new and independent power, which
arise simply on occasion of external stimuli, but which
these stimuli serve in no way to create. Perceptions
are innate, due to the independency of the mind, on
the theory of Descartes, hardly less than they are
innate on the doctrine of the spontaneous monadic
development of Leibnitz.
((
But there is another class of mental modifications
with Descartes. These are not perceptions or sensa-
tions. They are "truths," or common notions," or
universal principles, such as the law of substance and
quality and of non-contradiction. These too are innate,
-especially innate. They are innate potentialities,
over and above mere perceptions or sensations. They
too become actual in experience-but, unlike sensation,
they are not immediately preceded by organic impres-
sions. The moment the doctrine of Descartes is thus
correctly apprehended, the whole polemic of Locke
against "Innate Ideas" is seen to be irrelevant. If
the doctrine is to be validly assailed, it must be on
wholly other grounds than those stated by Locke.¹
1 All that is stated here will be found proved and illustrated in the
Appendix to the present volume, Notes I. II. and VI. See especially
INTRODUCTION.
lxxvii
IX. MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715).¹
In accordance with the usual Hegelian formula as
applied to history, an attempt is made to show that the
system of Descartes is part of the evolution of what is
called "thought." It is assumed, accordingly, that there
is but a single conception at the root of the philosophy
of Descartes,—that this runs all through his thinking,
—and that it is carried to its necessary development by
the force of "the immanent dialectic," through Male-
branche and Spinoza. One of the worst features of the
Hegelian mode of looking at the history of speculation
comes out here. Assuming that speculative thought
develops necessarily through a series of specified mo-
ments, it must either find the single moment in a
given system or reject the system as unspeculative.
The result of this method is, on the one hand, an attempt
to make a system express one of the moments; or, on
the other, arrogantly to pass by the system as of no
account. We have thus frequently instead of "pure
thought" pure phantasy in dealing with a system of
philsophy, and a wilful blindness to the facts of history
and experience. In the case of Descartes the Hegelian
mistake it twofold. It is wrongly assumed that the
philosophy of Descartes represents a single thought, or
a single moment of thought, and it either incorrectly

pp. 198, 199, 207. These are now reproduced exactly as they appeared
in the Appendix to the Translation of The Meditations, published in
1853. The information therein contained, and the relative passages,
have since been generally utilised by writers on Descartes and Carte-
sianism; and not unfrequently the quotations are credited to those who
thus make use of them as introduced for the first time into our Car-
tesian literature.
1 His writings appeared from 1674 to 1715. Spinoza lived from
1632-1677. His writings appeared from 1663 to 1677. Malebranche,
as in some respects nearer in doctrine to Descartes, is first con-
sidered.
lxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
or inadequately describes the main thought which ani-
mates his philosophy.
With Descartes, according to Hegel, we have to re-
nounce every prejudgment in order to gain a pure be-
ginning. The spirit of the philosophy of Descartes is
consciousness as the unity of thought and being.1 The
"I" in the philosophy of Descartes has the meaning
of thought, not the individuality (Einzelnheit) of self-
consciousness.2 Descartes appeals to consciousness.
for his first principle; but he only naïvely gets at the
consequences of it, or at least at the propositions of
philosophy. He does not at first properly state the
principle out of which the whole content (Inhalt) of
philosophy is to be derived. The identity of being
and thought,-altogether the most interesting idea of
modern times,-Descartes has not farther proved, but
for it has singly and alone appealed to consciousness,
and provisionally placed it in the front. For with
Descartes the necessity is not in any way present to
develop difference out of the "I think." Fichte first
proceeded to this, and out of this point of absolute
certainty to derive all determinations.³ Then of course
we must expect to find that Descartes takes being in
its wholly positive sense, and has no conception that it
is the negative of self-consciousness.4 Then there is
constant talk of the pure consciousness contained in
the concrete "I." And Descartes is criticised in respect
that the certainty of self-consciousness does not pro-
perly pass over to truth, or the determined. This
passing over is done "externally" and reflectively only.
Consciousness does not determine itself.5
In plain language, the whole basis and method of
Descartes are criticised from an assumption that human
knowledge is possible from a mere universal or abstract
1 Werke, xv. p. 305.--Gesch. d. Phil. Descartes.

2 Ibid., p. 308.
4 Ibid.
3 Ibid., xv. p. 310.
5 Ibid., p. 313.
INTRODUCTION.
lxxix
+
something called pure thought, or the pure conscious-
ness of the "I,”—above altogether, in the first place
at least, ordinary consciousness or knowledge. This
system is not only unvindicable in itself and its prin-
ciples, but it has really no connection, logical or his-
torical, with the true system of Descartes. Nothing,
for example, can be more out of place historically than
to connect Descartes with Fichte, or to suppose that
the system of the latter is any way a fair logical evolu-
tion from that of the former. It is even ludicrous to
set up this so-called Hegelian development of "reason,
and by virtue of the gathered power of a word, whose
connotation is altogether different from the Hegelian, to
ask us to renounce the experiential method of Descartes
and nearly the whole of subsequent modern philosophy.
It is a complete mistake historically to assume that the
moment of Cartesianism is consciousness,-spoken of
in the vague generality with which Hegel deals with
it. The consciousness of Descartes is a self-guaran-
teeing principle,-which is a great deal more than Hegel
has vindicated or can vindicate for his Pure Being.
In truth, the first principle of Descartes is not con-
sciousness properly speaking, but self-consciousness,
-tested experimentally and found self-guaranteeing.
Self-consciousness was never more truly or fully ap-
preciated than in the system of Descartes. It is, ift.
anything is, his most vitalising thought. And if the
system of Descartes be one thoroughly of self-con-
sciousness, neither that of Kant nor that of Fichte can
be so described. The basis of Fichte's system is an
absolute Ego, of which the Ego of consciousness is
at best phænomenal; and the real Ego of Kant is
wholly noumenal, not in phænomenal consciousness at
all, while his phænomenal Ego has but a generic or
logical identity.
Nor do later attempts to find the one thought of Des-
cartes fare better. To say absolutely that Descartes
lxxx
INTRODUCTION.
stated a thought which was legitimately developed by
Malebranche and Spinoza is thoroughly misleading.
There are points in Descartes which were fairly enough
developed by these later thinkers; there are others
which were not. There are important points in the
philosophy of Descartes which were not touched by
either. Descartes thought was manifold; and so must
be its developments.
The aim of Descartes was, no doubt, to find abso-
lutely ultimate truth and certainty, as guaranteed by the
reflective analysis of consciousness-to obtain therein
a criterion of truth and falsehood—and, if possible, to
develop by demonstration from the single ultimate fact,
the truth about the world and God,—and thus to sub-
ordinate and correlate the truths of philosophy. But
the peculiarity of Descartes was not, as we have seen,
so much this aim which is the common one of specula-
tive systems—as his method of seeking it, in an exam-
ination of consciousness, and finding it in the principle
of limit to conscious thought. It is this point of limit
which, in a speculative view, is the peculiarity of Car-
tesianism; and it is this exactly which, in the so-called
evolution of his thought, Malebranche partially and
unconsciously, and Spinoza wholly and consciously,
sought to reverse. If the reversal of a position, and,
I should add, the illegitimate reversal, is a develop-
ment, we have the highest reach of Cartesianism in
Spinoza. Spinoza developed Descartes by amending
the formula cogito ergo sum, into cogito ergo non sum.
The truth is, that both Malebranche and Spinoza
seized on those subordinate points in the philosophy of
Descartes which tended to lower human activity and
personality, and in different ways sought to ascribe all
real efficacy or causality to a Power above and outside
of man. Malebranche certainly kept up the conception
of a Personal Deity as the Supreme Cause, though
inconsistently with his conception of Deity as mere
indeterminate or unrestricted being. Spinoza held

INTRODUCTION.
lxxxi
by an Indeterminate Substance. It is doubtful, how-
ever, whether Malebranche, in virtually annihilating
human personality in experience, had any right there-
after to speak of a Divine Personality; and certainly
Spinoza precluded himself even from the conception of
a Finite Personality by placing at the source of the
universe of Being mere indeterminate Substance. There
would be an inconsistency on the doctrine of either
in making this Divine or Substantial Power all, and at
the same time holding Man to be something-either a
spontaneous agent, a responsible power, or even a being
in any way resembling the living reality of human con-
sciousness.
On one cardinal point of Descartes-the knowledge
of mind in consciousness, and the corollary that the
soul is better and more clearly known than body-
Malebranche entirely differs from him. Malebranche
maintains that we have no idea of the mind, and
therefore no clear knowledge of it. We know it only
through internal sentiment—that is, consciousness; but
we have no proper idea of it. Our knowledge of body or
extension, on the other hand, is by means of idea; and
hence it is a clearer knowledge than that of the soul.
As if, forsooth, in the consciousness of extension, the ex-
tension or object were clearer than the conscious act of
apprehension. We know, however, by this inner feeling
or consciousness, that the soul is; but we do not know
what it is. His practical test of the superior clearness
of our knowledge of extension is, that extension being
in idea, we can evolve or deduce from the idea of it
alone all its numerous properties and relations: whereas
from the so-called idea of the soul we can deduce none
of its properties-either pleasure, pain, or any other.¹
Malebranche thus, instead of advancing on Descartes
in a legitimate and necessary manner, simply deviated
wholly from the spirit and procedure of the Method.
1 Recherche de la Vérité, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. vii., with the relative
Éclaircissement.
1
D 2
lxxxii
INTRODUCTION.
He regarded a method of deduction and demonstra-
tion as the only truly philosophical. He was wholly
misled by the analogy of mathematics, as Descartes
himself partly was, and sought to deal with the range
of knowledge, as a geometer may deal with the pro-
perties of space which he borrows and defines. But
there is no true analogy. Given space, we can evolve
its properties, for we need not proceed beyond itself,
save by way of limit, and limit of space is itself space.
Given an abstract Ego, it must always remain such.
Given a conscious Ego, it is me-conscious, and con-
scious in one definite way. And let this be know-
ledge of an object, we cannot proceed merely from
this to evolve either desire or volition, or any property
specifically distinct from knowledge. We must wait
the development of consciousness itself, for our know-
ledge, even conception, of those new modes. We
can no more do this than the physical philosopher
can, from the sight of a definite kind and quantity of
motion, predict its passage into light or heat, before he
has any experience of such a transition. The light or
heat are sensations of a specifically different kind from
the modes of motion regarded as objects of vision.
And these, therefore, it is impossible a priori to predict
-impossible even a priori to conceive. Malebranche
shows himself distinctly aware of this in relation to
mind. "The soul knows not that it is capable of this
or that sensation by any view it takes of itself, but by
experience; on the other hand, it knows that extension
is capable of an infinite number of figures by the idea.
representative of extension. . . . We cannot give a
definition which shall explain the modifications of the
soul. . . . It is evident that if a man had never seen
colour nor felt heat, he could not be made to understand
those sensations by any definition.” 1 But while thus
speaking, Malebranche discredited entirely the philo-
sophical method, the spirit of reflection and the analysis
1 Recherche, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. vii.
INTRODUCTION.
lxxxiii
of consciousness on which Descartes relied for the
foundations of his philosophy, and which were des-
tined to bring men face to face with the real facts of
mental life. Malebranche, in so doing, left himself no
basis for his own deduction, and no guaranteed law or
method of deduction.
The alleged advance on Descartes, or carrying out
of Cartesian principles by Malebranche, is simple,
and in many respects irrelevant enough. Descartes'
dualism of thought and extension was his preliminary
difficulty and puzzle. How can these disparate sub-
stances be connected in knowledge? Instead of re-
cognising the artificial nature of the difficulty, he
admitted it as real, and sought to solve it. The soul
can but perceive that which is immediately united
with it.¹ Things that are corporeal cannot be imme-
diately perceived. Everybody, it seems, admits this.
And what is the solution? Sense and imagination give
us one set of modes of consciousness or thoughts about
this extended world. These are sentiments—in a word,
sensations—such as light, colour, heat, pleasure, and
pain. These are not in body; they tell us nothing
of its nature; they are relative simply to our bodily
organisation. They have a reality only in us, yet
we do not produce them. They are caused in us by
God Himself; He is the only and the efficient cause
of our sensations. Because, according to the view of
Malebranche, God is the only real and efficient cause
in the universe.



འས་
De la Forge, Cordemoy, and Geulincx, had more or
less anticipated the doctrine of Occasional Causes. They
all felt, as Malebranche himself did, that invariable
sequence or correspondence is no true causality. It is
a proof simply that causality is in operation; but it
is not the causality itself. They had applied this
doctrine to the connection between mind and body. It
was reserved for Malebranche to apply it universally to
1 Recherche, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. i. sect. 1.
lxxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
the relations of all created things or phænomena of the
universe. No finite being, according to Malebranche,
be it mind or body or extra-organic object, can act on
any other with a true efficiency. There is harmony
or correspondence in their manifestations, but that is
all. God alone is the efficient cause at work in the
world. Things are occasions; their manifestations are
subject to definite laws or decrees; the Divine Power
is the only sufficient agency in the world,-whether it
relate to the production of perceptions, or the realisa-
tion of volitions. Mind is purely passive, whether
there be organic change in the body, or whether even
there be resolution. The nervous action, on which the
realisation of volition depends, is wholly unknown to
We have thus no power over it; no more power
than we have over the organic impressions which are
the occasion of sensation. God is all in all,-operating
efficiently in and through all. A bad psychology, or
rather an unwarrantable deduction, had thus destroyed
the activity of knowledge and the reality of freedom
and the force of personality.
us.
66 In
But we have more than sensations; we have ideas.
These are in the sphere of the Pure Understanding.
They are the immediate objects of the act of perception;
and they are distinct from bodies. Extension, figure,
motion—these are not sensations; they are ideas.
perceiving anything of a sensible nature, two things
occur in our perception,-Sensation and Pure Idea.
The sensation is a modification of our soul, and God
causes it in us. The idea, which is joined to the
sensation, is in God; and we see it, because it pleases
Him to reveal it to us. God connects the sensation
with the idea, when the objects are present." 1
whence come ideas? Malebranche exhausts the pos-
sibilities of their origin by a comprehensive statement.
The possible explanations are as follow: (1.) Ideas
come from bodies. (2.) The soul has the power of
1 Recherche, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. vi.
But
}
INTRODUCTION.
lxxxv
1
producing them. (3.) God produces them in the soul
at its creation. (4.) God produces them whenever
we think an object. (5.) The soul has or sees in
itself all the perfections of bodies. (6.) The soul is
united to an all-perfect being who embraces the ideas
or perfections of created things. He concludes by
adopting the last solution that the soul is united to a
supremely Perfect Being, who contains the ideas of
all created beings. It therefore sees all ideas in God.
The finite is in the bosom of the infinite. He is the
place of spirits, as space is the place of bodies; and we
are immediately conscious of the ideas of the qualities
of body in God Himself.²
3
Yet we have a higher assurance of the reality of the
idea than of the quality or body which the idea repre-
sents. The idea is external to us, yet it is surely
known in God; but the world of material reality which
the ideas represent is only a probable inference from
the reality of the ideas themselves. "It is not neces-
sary that there should be anything without like to the
idea." The only reality which is the object of percep-
tion—that is, of which we are immediately cognisant
and certain-is the idea itself. And we must not sup-
pose that these ideas are identical with the Divine sub-
stance or essence; they, express only certain of His...
relations to His creatures. The consciousness, accord-
ingly, of me, the finite, in apprehending those ideas,
would be inaccurately described as identical with the
Divine consciousness. In knowing those ideas, I am as
far from the real inner essence of the Divine conscious-
ness, as I am from the reality of the thing represented.
He says, “it is not properly to see God, to see the
creatures in Him. It is not to see His essence to see
the essences of creatures in His substance.” 4 All that

1 Recherche, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. i. sect. 2.
2 Ibid., lib. iii. chap. i. and vi.
3 Ibid., lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. i. sect. 1.
4 Éclaircissement, on Vision in God.
lxxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
But
can be alleged is, that I the percipient and Deity have
a common object of knowledge in the idea.
So far we can attach a meaning to this system.
the question arises, What does this vision of all things
in God precisely mean? Does it refer to the perception
of the qualities of body, however numerous, passing,
contingent these may be, in time and space? Are the
ideas perceived in God as numerous as the actual
qualities or things of experience? Then, what becomes
of the unity and indivisibility of Deity? What is He
in this case but another name for the sum of our experi-
ence? What is He but peopled space and time? Or
does the vision in Deity refer merely to the laws and
types of things under which perception and thought are
possible? Malebranche vacillates on this point.
But
he was finally driven to the latter conception. His idea
in God came to mean the essence or type of the thing;
and he names it intelligible extension. It is this idea
which is in God, and which we see in God. Along
with it God determines in us certain passing sensations
-such as colour, sound, heat, or cold. These are in
our consciousness, though confused; the idea is in
God. It is the permanent essence. But what is
this intelligible extension? Is it extension-that is,
space, without limit or figure-conceived as infinite?
Is this identical with the ideas of our perception? If
so, how? Is this the world we are supposed to per-
ceive in the representative idea? The idea of the
figured, definite, limited? Again, what is the connec-
tion between this ideal and the real extension? Between
space conceived as empty, and space perceived as filled
with matter? The truth is, that such a position cannot
be vindicated consistently with the facts of the intui-
tional consciousness. It means simply abstract or void
space, and this is as far from the reality of the world,
as possibility is from actuality, or absolute monotony
from the variety of experience.
As to the nature of our knowledge of God, Malebranche
INTRODUCTION.
lxxxvii

1
differed in one important respect from Descartes; though
whether it was an advance or the reverse is matter of
question. Descartes distinguished the idea from the
reality of the supremely perfect, and made the reality s
an inference from the idea. But just as Malebranche
held that the soul is not known through idea, he held
that Deity, or the Being of Beings, the supremely
Perfect, is not known by us through idea. It is not
conceivable that anything created can represent the
infinite; that being without restriction, the immense
"being, can be perceived by an idea, that is, by a parti-
cular being and a being different from the universal
and infinite being. One might suppose that in this
case our knowledge of the supremely Perfect would be
obscure, like our knowledge of the soul itself. But no.
The soul is immediately united with the substance of
God Himself; we thus know Him as He is in Himself.
On occasion of every apprehension of sensation even, or
of bodily movement, we know the infinite. "If I think
the infinite, the infinite is." This is the sole demon-
stration of Malebranche. Yet even while he seems to
unite the finite consciousness to the divine substance,
in order that, as more than finite, it may know this
substance or itself, it turns out that it does not wholly
know the substance; our apprehension is not infinite;
we are, therefore, less than the infinite is.
This, then, is another and higher vision in God.
The soul is now immediately cognisant of God in his
essence; and, though only in a limited way, we thus
see the infinite perfections of Deity and their relations.
We see ideas, principles eternal and immutable; we per-
ceive also truths—that is, the relations of those ideas.
This is Reason-which is absolutely impersonal-com-
mon to all intelligences, human and divine. It is
manifested in the form of speculative or metaphysical
laws, and in that of practical or moral laws. The former
are modifications of the idea of quantity, subsisting be-
1. Recherche, lib. iii. pt. ii. chap. vii.



lxxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
tween ideas of the same nature; the latter of perfection
or graduated order among beings of different natures.
Malebranche here made an advance beyond Descartes.
The latter had founded the distinctions of true and
false, right and wrong, beautiful and deformed, on the
mere will of God. Malebranche very properly depart-
ed from this position, and founded those distinctions
on the intelligence of Deity itself. The one supreme.
thing in the universe is the sovereignty of the Reason.
It bends to the will neither of man nor of God. But
there is nothing to show that he connects the doctrine
of the Impersonal Reason with the hypothesis-the
identity of the human consciousness with the divine
substance or consciousness. This is not at all neces-
sary to his doctrine, and it is not legitimately involved
in it. On the contrary, our knowledge of the infinite
is with him never coextensive with the reality. The
fair issue of the doctrine of Malebranche regarding the
infinite, which, to be intelligible, means the principle
of universal truths, is that there is a common knowledge
between man and God. But to say that the conscious-
ness I am and experience, is the consciousness of God,
or God's consciousness of Himself, is to assume this
convertibility, and it is either to abolish me altogether,
or to abolish God; for it gives me a God convertible
with all the conditions and limitations in essence and
in time of a temporal consciousness.
The utmost identity predicable in such a case is a
merely logical or generic identity. The human and
the divine possess common laws of knowledge. This
no more proves the identity of the human and divine
intelligence, as existences, than the community of the
laws of knowledge among human intelligents destroys
the individuality and variety of the selfhood of each.
The whole question as to the relation of me, the being
in time, to an Eternal Being, stands just where it was.
INTRODUCTION.
lxxxix
X. SPINOZA (1632-1677)—RELATIONS TO DESCARTES.
Leibnitz, speaking of the philosophy of Descartes,
said it was the antechamber of the truth.1 At another
time, he tells us that Spinozism is an exaggerated
Cartesianism (le Spinozisme est un Cartesianisme outré).2
Again, he says, "Spinoza has cultivated only certain
seeds of the philosophy of Descartes." There can, I
think, be no doubt that Spinoza was stimulated to
speculation by Descartes; and also that he found in
Descartes' writings certain points which, when exclu-
sively considered, tended to suggest his own doctrines
as a complement or development. But that he truly
interpreted the main and characteristic features of the
philosophy of Descartes, or carried out its proper ten-
dency, or logically added to it certain results, I emphat-
ically deny.
In the first place, Descartes' philosophy is by method
distinctly one of intuition and experience. No one can
read the Method without feeling that the writer is seek-
ing relief from scholasticism, and that you have done
with the schoolmen-with their abstractions and their
deductions. The healthy breath of modern experimental
thought is there. You feel it in the cogito ergo sum—
in the criterion of clearness and distinctness of ideas—
and particularly in his first proof of the existence of God,
founded on the fact of the personal existence and yet
imperfection of being revealed in human consciousness.4
But Spinoza absolutely disdains experience and observa-
tion. To him a conviction or fact of consciousness, how-
ever deeply or thoroughly tested, by analytic reflection
is nothing. He no doubt speaks of his philosophical
method as reason founded on immediate intuition; but
1 Lettre à un ami sur le Cartesianisme, 1695, Erd., p. 123.
2 Theodicée, Part III.
3 Lettre à M. L'Abbé Nicaise, 1697, Erd., p. 139.
4 See the Method, p. 76, and a summary statement in Appendix,
p. 187 et seq.
XC
INTRODUCTION.
when we come to examine his intuition, it turns out to
be merely definition-and arbitrary definition. There is
no analysis of consciousness whatever-no founding on
intuition or fact. It is the method of Pure Reason all
through—a return, disguise it as you may, to the method
of scholastic abstraction and deduction. Spinoza pro-
fesses to deduce the facts of consciousness, and con-
sciousness itself, from the infinite substance and its
attributes. And he holds, with Malebranche, that know-
ledge through consciousness and of the facts of con-
sciousness is obscure and confused. Descartes no
doubt aimed at deduction, but it was a deduction
professedly founded on facts of consciousness as the
clearest sphere of human knowledge. At the same
time, he exaggerated the importance and the use of
it; and there is an obvious tendency, especially in
the Principles, to supersede his original or intuitive
method by the demonstrative or deductive,-to fall away,
in fact, from the investigation of the real into the
shadowy sphere of the abstract. At the same time,
the order of the Principles may fairly enough be re-
garded as merely a synthetic way of putting the results
of a foregone analysis. If Spinozism be regarded as
in method a development of Descartes, it was not of
his original and fruitful method, but of his later unfaith-
fulness in the use of that method.
Descartes' alienation from his original method of con-
scious verification arose mainly from his assuming that
whatever is clearly and distinctly conceived in the idea
of an object may be predicated as really true of that
object. This, with all its obvious fallacy and confusion,
was adopted by Spinoza, and carried to exaggeration by
him, with a thorough indifference to the psychological
method of Descartes, the only means of giving the idea
truth, or relevancy to fact. With such a postulate, it
is easy to see how Spinoza proceeded. We have only
to get the preliminary idea of all things as clear and
distinct, and then from this we can readily evolve all

INTRODUCTION.
xci

subsequent ideas or conceptions.
The universe will-
then be comprehended by us not in its parts merely
but as a whole. The beginning of
The beginning of all will be grasped,
and each part of the whole will be apprehended in its
relation to the preceding part, and thus to the first of
things. It will, accordingly, be known truly for what
it is, because it will be known in all its actual relations
to preceding facts, and in all its possible relations to
succeeding developments. This is, no doubt, a very fine
conception of the aim of human knowledge. Whether
it is merely a dream or a reality is, of course, a matter
of argument. If we could reach a knowledge of the
absolute totality of being, or of the universe at any
given point in its development, we should gain a
knowledge which is absolutely convertible with all pos-
sible knowledge in each given stage; and if we could
thus follow the evolutions, we should make our know-
ledge convertible with, or representative of, the whole of
actual and possible being. But such an ideal of know-
ledge is impossible, unless on the assumption that the
totality of being can be first grasped by definition, as
figure in mathematics, and its various possible com-
binations therefrom evolved. And this is merely to
assume in method or premisses what requires to be
proved in result or conclusion. What would be our
test of the completeness or adequacy of our definition 2
What, then, would be the guarantee of the totality of our
knowledge in any given stage? The assumption of a
causal relation between the stages does not help us, for
we have to ascertain in the first stage the totality of the
cause.
And here, even on Spinoza's own admission,
the doctrine must be held to break down. For while
the first substance possesses an infinity of attributes,
of these we know only two-extension and thought
It is thus utterly impossible for us, through the grasp
of these partial forms of being, to conceive all being,
and follow the evolutions of its totality. This would be
merely an illogical identification of the part with the
would
know
quis.


xcii
INTRODUCTION.
whole,—reasoning, in fact, from the finitude of our
knowledge to the infinitude of things.
Of course Spinoza grandly distinguishes this demon-
strative method of knowledge from that of vulgar opinion
and belief. This is partial and abstract, and worth
nothing. It does not see the connections of things,
and thus fails of their truth. It proceeds without ex-
amination or reflection. It accepts common opinions.
Spinoza's whole writing of this sort has been relegated
long ago to the limbo of misconception, and should have
been left there. It has been stated over and over again
by the opponents of a demonstrative system of philo-
sophy, that the alternative alone conceived by Spinoza,
and alone contemplated by those who virtually accept
his method, is a simple caricature of the method which
they follow. It has been shown repeatedly that the
common opinions of mankind (or the common-sense of
mankind, as it is called), form simply the materials
of philosophical analysis and criticism. Hamilton, for
example, tells us most explicitly that philosophy is
not to be constituted by "an appeal to the undeveloped
beliefs of the unreflective man," but "through a critical
analysis of those beliefs."1 We may therefore set aside
as utterly beside the point, as, in fact, due either to
ignorance or perversion, the misrepresentations of the
method of the psychological school constantly made by
followers of Spinoza and Hegel. The question as to
whether we can grasp the universe as a whole of de-
velopment cannot even be fairly approached, until the
upholders of the affirmative position show that they
understand the nature of the psychological method.
What gives a somewhat ludicrous aspect to this mis-
representation of the psychological method, is the fact
that when we come to examine closely certain points in
the deductive systems, we find that, while despising
pyschology, they have really nothing to give us except
this very common - sense of mankind which they so
1 Reid's Works, p. 752. See especially Note A, § iii.

INTRODUCTION.
xciii
haughtily reject. Spinoza, for example, the ideal of the
man who had a contempt for common-sense and all its
accessories, is found after all to be dependent on it for
his selection of the fundamental notions of his system.
It appears that in his review of the notions current
among mankind there are some which are inadequate
and confused; others which are clear and distinct.
Among the former class are Being, Something, Freedom,
Final Cause; while among the clear and distinct are
Cause, Substance, God, or the Infinite Substance.
When we seek for some sort of test of this apparently
arbitrary selection, we find that the former are rele-
gated to unreality and untruthfulness, because they
are notiones universales merely meaning, possibly,
generalisations. But the others, such as Substance and
Cause, are held to be clear and true, because they are
notiones communes; and when we ask what the meaning
of this is, we find that they are something common to
all minds and all things.¹ What is this but an appeal
to the common-sense of mankind, and in its unscientific
and irreflective form? If, moreover, we apply the test
of community in things to the relegated notions of
Being or Something, it will certainly occur to us that
the distinction is one rather of caprice and petulance
than of logical or consistent thought. Freedom and
Final Cause stood rather in the way of his deduction;
by all means, therefore, let them be set aside as obscure
and confused. The truth is, that any deductive system
is nothing more than a mere hypothesis, or has no basis
higher than unsifted data, so long as it is not grounded
on direct and complete psychological analysis of the facts.
But even this misrepresentation is comparatively of
little moment when we look on the deductive systems
-such as that of Spinoza-in relation to the full con-
tents of the human consciousness. It is here the prin-
ciple of their method reduces itself to an absolute con-
1 Ethica, II. props. xxxvii. xxxviii. Compare Lewes, History of
Philosophy, ii. pp. 220, 221.
xciv
INTRODUCTION.
tradiction. The data which the method assumes, and
from which it proceeds to develop the universe of being,
have no higher guarantee than those very facts of
human consciousness relating to Personality, Freedom,
and Morality, which they undoubtedly subvert. It is
here that the common experience of mankind, when
psychologically tested as fact, comes into collision with
the conclusions of the deductive system; and ere the
facts of common experience are swept away, it must be
shown that the so-called ideas of Substance and Cause
have any higher or other guarantee in our consciousness
than these other ideas, and are entitled to override them.
What guarantee can any philosophy give for the idea of
Substance, for example, or even Pure Being or Pure
Thought, which cannot be equally, even more, given for
Personality and Freedom? I do not mean the Spinozistic
or Hegelian caricatures of those ideas, but the concep-
tions of them actually given or implied in consciousness.
A deductive system which sweeps away these con-
ceptions must, in its spirit of superior wisdom, show how
mankind, in their whole history and highest purposes.
and actions, have been deluded into believing themselves
as more than the mere necessitarian movements with
consciousness which Spinoza and Hegel allow them
to be. But even if it can show this, it must do it at the
expense of allowing the principles of moral action and
of true speculative thought, to be, as a matter of fact,
in diametrical contradiction. When the contest takes
this form, we know which side must speedily go to the
wall.
But take the method of Spinoza as a whole. What
is the assumption on which it proceeds? Entirely the
geometric method of conception, borrowed no doubt
from things both latent and expressed in the writings.
of Descartes. This means postulates, definitions, and
axioms. The geometrical definitions refer to one uniform
idea, manifesting itself in various forms, but never tran-
scending itself. This conception is the idea of extension,
INTRODUCTION.
XCV
coexistent points, or magnitude. It begins with the
elementary perception of point, or the minimum visibile;
it goes on to the generation of line, and then of surface,
or what we know ordinarily as extension. Now we
need not consider either the source of the conceptions
of point, line, and surface, or the guarantee of them.
It is sufficient for our purpose at present to note that
these are capable of definition, and that the knowledge
which admits of being deduced from them, or the notion
at the root of them, never passes beyond the initial con-
ception. It is extension of line and surface at first; it
is this and its relations all through. In fact, we are
here dealing with abstractions. The definitions are
abstractions, or, if you choose, constructions from data,
elementary data of sense. These data are unchange-
able, irreversible by us, and hence they and their rela-
tions may be said to be necessary. Given certain de-
finitions, we may, by means of postulate and axiom, work
out the consequent truths or deductions to their utmost
result as ideal combinations. This is the geometrical
method. But is such a method at all possible either in
Physics or in Metaphysics? Here, confessedly, we deal
with the real or concrete. We have to look at the con-
tents of experience—of space and time; at what we call
the phænomenal world; and we have to consider the
relations of the parts of this world to the preceding
parts, and to each other, as it were, all around. We
have to look at it in time and space. This is the phy-
sical point of view. Metaphysically, we must still keep
in view this concrete world. But the metaphysical
questions relate to the nature of its reality, its origin,
order, development. What it is, whence it is, how it
has become, whither it is tending, these questions can-
not be discussed without dealing in the same way with
the world of consciousness-with the nature, origin, and
destiny of the Self or Ego in consciousness-as far as
this may be competent and consistent with the condi-
tions of intelligibility. Without doubt those contents


xcvi
INTRODUCTION.
are in time, or in time and space. They are the mate-
rials which we have to examine-if possible, to deduce
in their order. We have to show, in fact, on such a
method, the causal relations of the whole terms of
reality; we have to show also the necessary connection
of every idea-certainly of every universal idea, be it
form of perception or of thought proper-in the human
consciousness. We must, in a word, deduce from some
primary conception—some primary possibility, clearly
and distinctly conceived, the typical idea, at least in
every physical generalisation, the universal law or con-
dition which is in every act of human cognition.
66
Now the question is, Is the method of Spinoza-is,
in fact, any deductive method whatever-able to do
this? Let us look at the physical problem as under-
taken by the deductive method. "Real and physical
things," Spinoza tells us, cannot be understood so
long as their essence is unknown. If we leave essences
out of view, the necessary connection of ideas which
should reproduce the necessary connection of objects is
destroyed." 1
Now we shall not ask the method to condescend to
the contingent facts of time and space-to the passing
individuals of the moment. We shall test it simply
by general ideas. We shall ask it to show that one
form of concrete being can be the ground of the anti-
cipation or prediction of another, which we have not
yet experienced as following from it, or in connec-
tion with it. Would the clear and distinct knowledge
of the constituent elements of a body enable us in any
case beforehand to predict its sensible effect, provided
this effect is specifically different in its appearance
to the senses from the original body or cause? In
the case, for example, of two given chemical elements,
could any analysis of these enable us even to conceive
or to anticipate, far less determine necessarily-apart
from experience of the actual sequence-the character
1 De Intellectus Emendatione, s. 95.
INTRODUCTION.
xcvii
of the new resultant body? Even suppose there were
the most perfect mathematical knowledge of the pron
portions of the elements, would it be possible to pass.
from this numerical knowledge to the new object-say
from two gases to the fluid we call water? No scien-
tific inquirer would maintain such a position, and he
would be wholly right.
But the case is much stronger when we have a sen-
sible body appreciable by one sense the effect of which
is an impression or quality apprehensible only by
another sense. Suppose we have a complete appre-
hension of the particular molecular motion which
precedes the sensation of heat, should we be able
simply from this knowledge to predict, even conceive,
the wholly new sensation absolutely apart from any
given sequence in which it occurred? The thing is im-
possible. Motion is an object of one sense, heat of an-
other. In other words, there must be an appeal to a
new form of organic susceptibility. The same is true
of the vibration preceding sound; of the molecular
motion issuing in light or colour; of the pain or plea-
sure we feel from sensational stimuli; of every effect, of
food, or poison, on the human organisation; indeed, of
the whole sphere of physical causality. The truth is,
that if this method of deduction were possible in a
single instance, there would be no logical barrier to
our deduction of the whole ideas embodied in the laws
of the physical universe out of the primordial atoms.
And if the impossibility of anticipation hold in one
case, it will hold in all. Hence the conclusion is
obvious, that even if we knew the actual state of the
totality of phænomena in the world at any given time,
we should be utterly unable to predict through this its
actual state in the subsequent moment. But an abso-
lutely demonstrative physics is about the vainest of
dreams. Physical sequences cannot even be anticipated
after this fashion; far less can they be necessarily de-
termined.
E
xcviii
INTRODUCTION.
But does this method fare any better in Metaphysics
in the hands of Spinoza ?
1. Its first requirement is clear and distinct ideas of
what are assumed as ultimate metaphysical conceptions,
-the prima possibilia of Leibnitz. This knowledge is
given in the form of definitions,-eight in number.
We have definitions, among others, of Cause (self-cause),
Substance, Attribute, Mode, God, Eternity. Of these
the primary idea, as shown in the propositions which
follow, is Substance. God is defined " as the being abso-
lutely infinite—¿.e., the substance consisting of infinite
attributes, each of which expresses an infinite and eter-
nal essence." And we are told that "that which is
absolutely infinite includes in its essence everything
which implies essence and involves no negation."
2. It is assumed that what is involved in these def-
initions, and capable of being evolved out of them,
according to a process of reasoning or manipulation of
the terms, constitutes our knowledge of the whole called
the Universe of Being.
3. It is assumed, further, that we can gain by this
process new and explicit conceptions of the variety of
the contents of the Universe: can, in fact, determine
what they are, can only be, and must be. This knowledge
comprises both material and spiritual reality; both the
spheres of extension and thought or consciousness.
Now, first, looking at these definitions, will it be
said that we have anything like a clear and distinct
knowledge of the meaning even implied in the terms in
which they are couched? Take, for example, the def-
inition of substance, which is really at the root of the
whole matter. Spinoza tells us that by substance he
understands "that which exists in itself and is con-
ceived per se; ;" in other words, "that the conception of
which can be formed without need of the conception of
anything else.” 2 As thus stated, there can of course
be but one substance. Have we even any such con-
1 Ethica, P. I. De Deo. Def. vi.
2 Ethica, Def. iii.
INTRODUCTION.
xcix
ception as this? Is this expression more than a mere
form of words? Is there anything in experience or
consciousness into which these terms can be trans-
lated? Consciousness, which is all-embracing, implies
discrimination of thinker and thought or object,—a rela-
tion between knower and known. Can an object cor-
responding to the terms of a substance existing in
itself, and conceived per se, appear or be in my con-
sciousness? There can be nothing before it; there
can be nothing else along with it; it must be at once
thinker and thought. It must be the simple indiffer-
ence of subject and object, absolutely beyond every form
of predication. Is the realisation of such an object in
our consciousness compatible with the conditions of
intelligibility or meaning? Yet it is of this we are said
to have a clear and distinct idea :—and it is from this
that we are able to deduce the Universe of Being.
Now, let us compare this conception of Substance with
the same notion in the system of Descartes. "By Sub-
stance we can conceive nothing else than a thing which
exists in such a way as to stand in need of nothing
beyond itself in order to its existence. And in truth
there can be conceived but one Substance which is
absolutely independent, and that is God. We perceive
that all other things can exist only by help of the con-
course of God. And accordingly, the term Substance
does not apply to God and the creatures univocally."
Again, he says: "By the name God, I understand a
Substance which is infinite [eternal, immutable], all-
knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and
everything that exists, if any such there be, was
created.¹ He tells us that "Substance cannot be first
discovered merely from its being a thing which exists
independently, for existence by itself is not apprehended
by us. We easily, however, discover substance itself
from any attribute of it, by this common notion, that of
nothing there can be no attributes, properties, or quali-
1 Ethica, Deb. III., p. 45; compare Appendix, p. 188.
C
INTRODUCTION.
ties; for, from perceiving that some attribute is present,
we infer that some existing thing or substance to which
it may be attributed is also of necessity present." This
is obviously a totally different conception from that of
Spinoza. Descartes denies entirely the apprehension
or conception of being per se. Even his infinite Sub-
stance implies predication and relation. And the notion
Substance implies experience to begin with, and a re-
lation involved in experience. Here, at least, the con-
ditions of intelligibility are not violated. We can put a
meaning into the words without intellectual felo de se.
And yet we are told that Spinoza simply carried out the
principles of Descartes. If to reverse the principles of
a system as a starting-point is to carry them out to their
logical results, Spinoza has that merit. What he did
really was to take one element of a complete experience,
or implicate of experience, and to set up, as a first or
starting point, the abstraction which he illegitimately
severed from the intelligible conditions recognised by
Descartes.
But what of the relation of those ideas to experience
or reality? Are they adequate conceptions of what is?
They are conceptions or definitions, no doubt, framed by
the mind; and by help of postulates and axioms all their
implied relations can be evolved out of them. But what
then? Do they or their relations touch experience at all ?
Supposing we get the primary conception of all things,
the question arises, What is the relation of the concep-
tions following this and flowing from it to the order of
things? Now here we have the gross incongruity of
the Spinozistic method. One might have expected that,
if clear and distinct conceptions are to be set at the head
of reality, that clear and distinct conceptions following
them in necessary order would have been all that is
necessary, or at least all that we could legitimately get
from such a hypothesis. But no. It seems that those
ideas are essentially representative of things. The def-
1 Principles, P. I., s 51, 52.
INTRODUCTION.
ci
;
initions or hypotheses set at the head of the system
express the essence, the inner nature of things-other-
wise they are useless. There is a dualism, therefore
there is an order of things as well as of thoughts; and
there is a complete correspondence, or, as he expresses it,
identity between the order of ideas and the order of
things.¹ And thus "id quod in intellectu objective con-
tinetur debet necessario in natura dari.”2 Here we are
back again at subjective and objective. There is the
subjective idea the clear and distinct idea corresponding
to the objective reality. But what guarantee have we,
on the system, of an objective reality or order of things
at all? How do we pass from clear and distinct idea of
Substance or Cause to what lies entirely beyond the
order of ideas? What legitimate deduction can be made
from clear and distinct idea, except only another clear
and distinct idea? And can this be regarded as repre-
senting something called nature, which, in the first in-
stance, it never directly knew? From the primary,
clear, and distinct idea, if you can get it, you may also
get its sequences; but these will only be ideas following
on ideas. The conception that they are representative
of an order of things beyond them, or that there is such
an order at all, is a mere hypothesis, and one wholly
illegitimate.

66
But Spinoza grounds the notion that there is a corre-
spondence between thought and extension, so strict that
the former is the mirror of the latter, on their super-
sensible identity in the same substance. He says that
mind and body are unum et idem individuum, quod
jam sub cogitationis sub extensionis attributo concipi-
Extension and Thought are thus said to be two
fundamental attributes of the same substance, there-
fore really the same, differing only in appearance or
phænomenally. Bodies are modes of the former; finite

tur." 3
1 Ethica, P. II., prop. 7.
2 Representatively, in the Cartesian sense.
3 Ethica, II., 21.-Schol.
cii
INTRODUCTION.
"" 1
thought or souls are modes of the latter. Hence the
representative order of ideas corresponds to the formal
order of nature. As an expositor has expressed it,
"Soul and body are the same thing, but expressed in
the one case only as conscious thought, in the other as
material existence. They differ only in form, so far as
the nature and life of the body-so far, that is, as the
various corporeal impressions, movements, functions,
which obey wholly and solely the laws of the material
organism, spontaneously coalesce in the soul to the
unity of consciousness, conception, and thought. It
is needless to criticise language of this sort, though
commonly enough to be met with. It has neither co-
herency nor intelligibility. It slurs over the real diffi-
culty of the whole problem, as to whether the uncon-
scious nerve-action can pass or be transmuted into any
form of consciousness: it does not even touch the ques-
tion of proof, but takes refuge in mere assumptive
verbalism. Nor is it of the slightest moment to the
argument to say that extension and thought are related
as common attributes to the one substance. This,
even if established, means simply that they are super-
sensibly one; whereas the question before us is as to
their correspondence or identity in our experience.
But is this conception of Substance, or God, truly
convertible with the Reality? Can we at any one time,
in any one act, or in any one category of thought, em-
brace Being in its all-comprehending totality? This
is the real pretension of Spinozism. We can have a
thought-viz., that of Substance within which lies the
whole content of Being, only waiting development.
The assumption here is that Notional Reality, called
sometimes Thought, is identical with Being, and that
in its evolutions and relations we find the true Universe.
But such a conception is an impossibility from the first.
Bare or mere being, mere is or isness, is all which such
a conception contains. Extensively this embraces every-
1 Schwegler, History of Philosophy, p. 172, 2d edition.
INTRODUCTION.
ciii
thing actual and possible; but it is not, in the first in-
stance, even conceivable per se, any more than the
isolated singular of sensation is; and, in the second
place, it has of itself no comprehension or content. It
is incapable of passing into anything beyond itself.
Hegel would object to Spinoza's position here, by saying
that while he was on the right line he made his sub-
stance "a pure affirmation," incapable thus of develop-
ment. When Spinoza made it that, he made it too
much,―more than the indeterminate or unconditioned
was entitled to. And when it is sought to be added
that "pure affirmation" must be held to imply "nega-
tion," we are simply glossing over the difficulty by
applying to so-called notions of what is above experi
ence, conceptions and laws which have a meaning only
in the sphere of objects in definite consciousness.
Moreover, a notion which issues necessarily in nega-
tion, which goes "out of itself," in the metaphorical
fashion of the dialectic, and so returns enriched—with
its negation absorbed is quite entitled to be relegated
to the sphere of the very "purest Reason."
Spinoza's demonstration is, in short, the grossest form
of petitory assumption. It is not even attempted to
be proved that the definitions of substance and attribute
and mode, with which he starts, have objects corre-
sponding to them in experience. All that is alleged as
a ground of this is the clearness and distinctness of the
ideas. Nay, it is the boast of the system that objects
are deduced from them, and set in their necessary rela-
tions. But the definitions are merely postulates. All
that can be claimed for them is this character: Let
the term substance stand for so-and-so; let the terms
attribute and mode do the same,-and here are the
necessary consequences. But this cannot give more
than a hypothetical system of formal abstractions; and
what is more, it can yield only petitory conclusions.
Before the system becomes real and typical of experi-
ence, it must be shown that the definitions correspond
civ
INTRODUCTION.
to objects of experience. This, however, cannot be
done; in fact, they are assumptions, which transcend
experience from the first; and if it could be done, it
would be fatal to the system as one of pure reason.
Nay, it cannot even be shown that the method has a
right to the use of the terms Substance, Attribute,
and Mode at all. These are simply stolen from the
language of experience. And as to the definition of
substance itself, it is essentially empty; for, as has
been remarked, the substance defined is neither clearly
conceived as the subject of inherence nor as the cause
of dependence.
The contrast is not the less if we look at the results
of the two methods. The analytic observation of Des-
cartes yields a personal conscious being—and a personal
conscious Deity, with definite attributes given to him
on the analogy of our experience. The deduction of
Spinoza, starting from a purely indeterminate abstrac-
tion called substance, gives us, as the only reality of
the Ego, a mode of thought, or a collection of the
modes of thought. Thought and Extension are the
two attributes of this indeterminate substance, which,
as such, is neither, and yet both. Of these attributes,
again, there are modes; and the modes of thought are
ideas, and the soul is one of those ideas, or rather an
assemblage of them. This is man,-it is simply an
anticipation of David Hume's "bundle of impressions."
This we may substitute for the personal Ego of
Descartes.
If we look a little more closely into the matter, we
shall find that the vaunted idealism of Spinoza is really,
when brought to the test, the merest vulgar empiricism.
Something he calls idea is the root or ground of the
human soul. But we are immediately told that idea
means nothing apart from object or ideatum. But what
is the ideatum? It turns out to be body. The body
makes the idea adequate or complete. We have con-
stant asseveration of this point. The whole system of

INTRODUCTION.
CV
Spinoza is a roundabout way of coming to say that
finite thought is an act dependent on object for its
reality, and this object is body. Now we may here
fairly set aside the big talk of the system about sub-
stance and conceptions. It turns out that the only
thought we really know is dependent on body or organ-
isation. We had substance to begin with,—the pure
idea; yet when we come to our own consciousness, this
does not come down in the line of thought from the in-
finite substance. This is dependent, as with Hobbes
or Gassendi, on a bodily organisation, begged in know-
ledge for the sake of giving reality to finite thought!
What, when tested in experience, does all this come to,
except the very vulgarest form of empiricism? If idea
-the movement of finite thought-be impossible unless
as cognisant of bodily object, and object be essential to
its reality,—what is it but a reflex of organisation? Of
course I may be told that extension is an attribute of
Deity, and that, in knowing it, I know God. But I am
afraid that, if every act of knowledge even in sense is
constituted by the object or ideatum called body, I must
be limited to that object and its sphere. And as any
hypothesis about substance and its attributes must be
regarded by me as a mere form of doubtful imagining,
Spinoza is merely the precursor of those specious high
forms of idealism, which in their essence coincide actual-
ly with the lowest forms of empiricism and negation.
Like empirical systems, they really abolish difference,
and thus may be expressed equally in the language of
the lowest sensationalism and the highest idealism.
But what adds to the marvel of the whole matter is
that this idea, which we venture to call self or self-
consciousness, is really the reflex of certain bodily
movements. These are forms of extension, no doubt;
yet their reflection is what we must take for the unity
of mind. In other words, the sum of movements in the
body, becoming object of the idea, gives rise to the con-
ception of the unity of self. The idea has nothing ex-
E 2
cvi
INTRODUCTION.
cept what it gets from the ideatum. This is a series or
assemblage of bodily movements; and these, mysteri-
ously reflected, form in consciousness the hallucination
of self and self-identity. Should we not be thankful
for demonstration in metaphysics!
ནམ་རྒྱུ
We have seen what kind of Deity Descartes found
and represented. What is the Deity of Spinoza ? It is
this Substance, if you choose. But taken in itself, it is
wholly indeterminate; it has no attribute. Yet it neces-
sarily clothes itself in two Attributes, which we chance
to know—viz., Thought and Extension. But Divine
or Infinite thought is not conscious of itself, is not con-
sciousness at all. It knows neither itself nor its end
yet it works out through all the fulness of space and
time. It is the blind unconscious immanent in all
things,-in what we call souls, and in what we call
bodies-in consciousness and extension. Deity in him-
self thus, as natura naturans, is utterly void of intelli-
gence: he is at the best a possibility of development
into attributes and modes; though how he is so much,
being wholly indeterminate to begin with, it is hard to
see. Such a Deity is incapable of purpose or conscious
end. He is an order of necessary development without
foresight; he knows not what he is about to do; it
is doubtful whether he even knows or cares for what
he has done. He has neither intelligence to conceive,
nor will to realise a final cause. He is impersonal,
heartless, remorseless. Submit to him you may; nay,
must. Love him you cannot. His perfection is the
sum simply of what is, and must be. Call it good
or evil, it is really neither, but the neutrum of fate.
This Deity of Spinoza was neither identical with the
Deity of Descartes, nor is it a logical development of
his principles. It is a Deity simply at once pantheistic
and fatal. And this is not a necessary or logical con-
ception following from the free and intelligent creator
of Cartesianism. It is in the end but another name for
the sum and the laws of things; and throwing out in-
INTRODUCTION.
cvii
telligence from the substance at starting, it illogically
credits it with ideas in the shape of modes in the end.
The Deity of Descartes was an expansion of a personal
consciousness; not, as this is, and is necessarily, a
simple negation alike of intelligence and morality.
The lowering, almost effacing, of individuality in the
system of Descartes, is no doubt the great blot, and
that which most readily led to Spinozism. When me
conscious as a fact is resolved into thought as the
essence of my being-and when the external world is
stript of every quality save extension, and is thus re-
duced to absolute passivity,—we are wholly in the line
of abstract thought. We are now dealing with notions
idealised, not realities, or notions realised. The res
cogitans and the res extensa are essentially abstractions.
The life we feel in consciousness, the living forms we
know in nature, are no more. We are on the way to
the modes of Spinoza, but we are by no means called
upon to accept either his identification of those enti-
ties,-thought or extension-or to embrace the inco-
herent verbalism of the indeterminate substance and its
attributes.
The indistinctness with which Descartes lays down
the position of the conservation of the finite is a point
which no doubt suggested a kind of Spinozistic solu-
tion. He makes conservation as much a divine act as
creation. There is nothing, he holds, in the creature
itself, or in the moments of its duration, which accounts
for its continued existence. Divine power is as much
needed through time for this continuity of life, as
divine creation was needed at the first. This doctrine
might conceivably be regarded as implying that the
actual power or being of the creature is at each mo-
ment a direct effect from God, or, as a pantheist would
put it, a manifestation of the substance immanent in all
things. This latter was of course the Spinozistic solu-
tion of the problem. But the idea of dynamic force of
Leibnitz, the self-contained and self-developing power

cviii
INTRODUCTION.
"
of the monad-going back to the one primitive unity, or
original monad of all, and yet preserving a certain tem-
poral individuality,—was a more logical solution and
supplement than the immanent substance of Spinoza.
God acted once and for all. He delegated His power to
finite substances. Though these could not act on each
other, they could spontaneously act. The true disciple
of Descartes is thus not driven necessarily to the
Spinozistic solution, even if we throw out of account
Geulincx's doctrine of Occasional Causes. The logi-
cal successor of Descartes was certainly Leibnitz, not
Spinoza. It was Leibnitz who caught the true spirit
and the essential features of the system, and in many
ways carried it on to a broader and fuller development.
Spinoza's was a retrograde movement into the antiquated
verbalistic thought.
Not satisfied, apparently, with contradicting the con-
sciousness of man in personal experience and in his-
tory regarding himself and his nature, Spinoza ends by
contradicting his own speculative system, in setting up
a theory of morals. First of all, man, the subject of
moral obligation, is a temporary necessary mode of the
Infinite attribute,-unconscious thought; and all his
poor thoughts and volitions, are equally necessary de-
velopments. Yet he is to be held as capable of moral
action and subject to moral law. Surely such a con-
ception should in proper Spinozistic fashion be rigor-
ously put down as a mere illusion, on the part of the
mode of consciousness which conceits itself to be, and
to be free, when the only reality is the Infinite, and
there is nothing in time or space which is but as
it must be, or rather nothing save necessary appear-
ance.
Spinoza was logically right when he said that there
is no good or bad with God; that repentance is a weak-
ness unworthy of a man of true knowledge. But an
ethic after that is an impossibility.
But it may be said, and it is attempted to be made.
INTRODUCTION.
cix
out, that the finite or differenced reality is a necessary
part of the Infinite—is developed from it as a part of
moment,—that this is a manifestation of the Infinite—
that it is as necessary to the Infinite as the Infinite
is to it. Without meanwhile questioning the assump-
tions here involved, I have to ask, How far does such
a doctrine lead us? The finite or thing differenced from
the Infinite has various forms. What reality can there
be in finite knowledge? Difference and distinction are
merely in appearance. The yes and the no, the true
and the false, the good and the bad, the veracious and
the unveracious, are merely in seeming or appearance.
Each is an abstract view: the real behind all this show
is the identity of their difference; it is the Infinite out
of which they come, and into which they are to be with-
drawn. This Infinite is an identity of all thoughts and
things. In this case, is not the whole of finite know-
ledge and belief a simple illusion—a deceit played out
upon me the conscious thinker? In fact, it subsists
by difference-yes and no are finite determinations, and
they are differences. Are these equally manifestations
of the Infinite in every given notion? In that case
everything I assert as true is also false, and the false is
just as much a manifestation of the Infinite as the true is.
I oppose justice and injustice-veracity and non-verac-
ity these are different-opposite.
Their very reality
:
consists in the difference between them being and being
permanent. But if each is a manifestation, and a neces-
sary manifestation, of the same transcendent being or
infinite, if this infinite is in them equally, and they in
it equally, then they are really the same; and as the
Infinite goes on developing itself, we may well expect
their final absorption or identification. This doctrine of
a necessary manifestation of the Infinite in every finite
form of thought, in every general idea, is, if possible,
worse as a moral and theological theory than even the
vague indefinite of Spinoza. But such an Infinite is
really empty phraseology. It is the mere abstraction.
CX
INTRODUCTION.
of being, without difference or distinction, subsisting
equally in all that is. To say that it is the ultimate
truth of all is merely to say that all the differenced is;
hence all the differenced is the same.
A philosophy whose logical result is the abolition
of the distinction between good and evil, or the rep-
resentation of it as only a temporal delusion, which
scorns repentance and humility, and the love of God to
creatures, as irrational weaknesses, may be fairly
questioned in its first principles. It may call itself the
highest form of reason, if it chooses, but it is certain
to be repudiated, and properly so, by the common con-
sciousness of mankind. It is an instance, also, of the
injury to moral interests which is inseparable from the
assumption involved in a purely deductive or reasoned-
out system of philosophy, that knowledge must be
evolved from a single principle, possibly a purely in-
tellectual one,-whereas the body of our knowledge,
speculative and ethical, reposes on a series of co-or-
dinate principles, which are mutually limitative, yet
harmonious.
It is claimed for Spinoza as a superlative philosophical
virtue, that he was entirely free from superstition,-had
a hearty and proper abhorrence of what is called com-
mon-sense, held ordinary opinion as misleading, being
abstract and imaginative. He was thus the proper me-
dium for the passage of the immanent dialectic, a proper
recipient of the rays of the "pure reason."
This en-
abled him to see things in their true relations,—their
relations to each other, and the whole which they consti-
tute,—and to see also that things are not to be judged
by the relation which they may appear to have to man.
The truth on this point is, that he was a man of extreme
narrowness, and incapable from his constitution of ap-
preciating the power and the breadth of reality, and shut
out nearly from the whole circle of true and wholesome
human feeling. His freedom from superstition, as seen
in the light of his critical exegesis, means a total ignor-
INTRODUCTION.
cxi
ing of the supernatural or divine element in revelation.
Miracle is in his eyes impossible, to begin with, and
prophecy is only an ecstatic imagination. His contempt
for common-sense and common opinion is so extrava-
gant, that he wholly misses the germ of fact which
gives life and force to these, and which a careful
analyst of human nature cannot afford to despise.
From this bias he failed entirely to appreciate psycho-
logical facts, and properly to analyse them. This an-
alysis, carried as far back as you choose, shows that
personality, free - will, responsibility, are immediate
internal convictions which lie at the very root of our
moral life. But these, however well guaranteed by
consciousness, are to be mutilated or wholly set aside
in the interest of a narrow deduction. The conviction
of free-will is a delusion. We have only forgot the neces-
sary determinations. Will and intelligence, two of the
most obviously and most vitally distinct factors in our
mental life, are submitted to no proper analysis. They
are simply identified. Spinoza was wholly destitute
of imagination; he decries it; and it is deemed sufficient
to put it aside from philosophy as subject to no other
conditions than those of space and time. But imagina-
tion, of its appropriate kind, is as necessary to the phil-
osopher as to the historian or the poet. It is the means
of keeping his abstract thought vital,—of helping to
realise its true meaning, individualising it and saving
it from verbalism. In a philosophy which professes to
represent the universe in its absolute totality, why
should the function of imagination be mutilated or
ignored? This leanness of spirit in Spinoza is not
atoned for by the force of his reasoning. It only be-
comes painfully apparent in the series of statements
said to be demonstrated, and in the arrogant spirit
with which he treats both Aristotle¹ and Bacon.
truth is, that his demonstration has no true coherency.

The
1 He speaks of "a certain Greek philosopher named Aristotle "
(Tractatus, c. vii. p. 147); and Bacon is "a little confused."
cxii
INTRODUCTION.
It is faulty in its most vital point, the connection be-
tween the indeterminate or Substance, and the attributes
of Thought and Extension, or indeed any attribute what-
ever. It was an attempt to reduce the universe to a
necessary order of development. But this necessary
order is wholly incompatible with an indeterminate
basis. Such a necessity of development is itself a de-
termination or attribute, and one that begs the whole
possibility of anything flowing from such a basis. The
attribute of Thought, moreover, given to Substance,—i.e.,
Divine or Infinite Thought,—is wholly void even of con-
sciousness; and yet this is ultimately to develop into
the modes of consciousness known as human souls.
This involves the absurdity of supposing that the un-
intelligent Substance as virtually a cause or ground,
ultimately issues in intelligence. A demonstration of
this sort is the merest incoherent verbalism.
XI. DEVELOPMENT OF CARTESIANISM IN THE LINE OF
SPINOZA OMNIS DETERMINATIO EST NEGATIO.
According to Spinoza's interpretation of Descartes,
the latter is represented as holding the finite-whether
self-consciousness or extension-to be mere negation.
The real is the infinite substance which grounds these.
Even if this interpretation of Descartes were shown to
be erroneous, which it is, Spinoza would yet force this
meaning on the principles of Descartes-especially by
means of the principle, or at least the assumption, in-
volved in it-Omnis determinatio est negatio. This prin-
ciple, though only incidentally stated by Spinoza, is,
we are told, the whole of him.' It certainly has been
most profusely used by those who have followed him in
the same line, and it is accepted by Hegel as virtually

1 Letter L (in Willis, p. 361), Opera I. 644; Schwegler, History of
Philosophy, p. 170 (5th ed.)
INTRODUCTION.
cxiii
It is necessary,
the principle of his own dialectic.¹
therefore, somewhat fully to examine it in itself and its
bearings. A precise analysis of its real meaning should
help to settle the validity of a good many important
applications of it. The Spinozistic line in relation to
Descartes is mainly this,—that self-consciousness and
extension as definite or positive attributes-as, in fact,
implying limit-are necessarily negative of what is
above and beyond themselves. In fact, they do not im-
ply the presence of the real by being positive or defi-
nitely self-consciousness and extension. They, in this
respect, rather imply the absence of the real. And it is
only when limit or definiteness is removed from them
that they become truly real. The true real is the in-
finite substance-rather, perhaps, the indeterminate.
Accordingly, neither the self-conscious Ego nor the
reality extension have any proper existence as individ-
ual substances or things. Whatever reality they may
have is only a mode of that which has absolutely no
limit, or more correctly, of that to which no limit has
been assigned-the indeterminate.
1. The principle expressed in the phrase, Omnis deter-
minatio est negatio is, as employed by Spinoza, identical
with that of abstraction from limit. For the limit of
the individual requires to be removed at each step of
progress to the only true reality, the indeterminate
substance. But before I examine this meaning of the
phrase, it is necessary to consider it in its general
signification, and to see especially how, since Hegel
gave it its full development, it has been accepted by
him and by writers of his school.
This principle of determination is explicitly stated in
the Logic of Hegel (I quote from the Logic of the Ency-
clopædie), as far on as § 91, where, under Quality, he tells
us that "the foundation of all determinateness is nega-
1 Encyclopædie, Logik, § 91; Werke, vi. p. 180. Compare also
Werke, xv. p. 318, Phil. d. Descartes, where it is broadly stated that
every determinate thing is a negation.
•
cxiv
INTRODUCTION.
tion (as Spinoza says), Omnis determinatio est negatio."
Hegel has got by this time to Quality,-There and Then
Being as a stage in the deduction from Pure Being.
It is necessary, therefore, to look back for a moment at
the previous stages of the dialectical process, and to see
how this principle is now stated for the first time. We
have previously the pre-suppositionless stage of Pure
Being, with its necessary implicate Nought or Non-
Being, and the resumption of the two moments in
Becoming. We have the whole pretension of the dia-
lectic laid bare. We have the pre-suppositionless Pure
Being; we have its necessary self-movement into its
opposite, and the inter-connection of the moments
summed up in Becoming; the pretension that those
self-evolved determinations are the predicates of Being.
Out of Becoming, as a fresh starting-point, we have
the moment of Quality (Daseyn), determinate Being in
Space, and Time, Something (Etwas). This may be
regarded as the first step of the dialectic in the region.
of definite cognisable reality. I do not at present pro-
pose to discuss those positions fully. If I did, the
first question I should ask would be whether there is
here an absolute pre - suppositionless beginning. I
should certainly challenge the statement that pure
Being as a thought is pre-suppositionless. Such a
thought or concept is only intelligible in my conscious-
ness; and the process, at least, must take place there as
the abstraction from, and therefore the correlative of
the concrete being which I already know, from a source
different from pure thought. Hegel's pure Being is just
as much a shot out of a pistol as Schelling's intuition
of the absolute, which he so characterises. The truth
is, that pure Being as a simple abstraction from the
eonditions of apprehended Being supposes an abstractor
an Ego, or thinker, whose thought also is a correla-
tive condition of its possibility, and who, therefore, ist
at the beginning as much as the pure Being is. Take
the basis of the system as pure Being, or as a concrete
INTRODUCTION.
CXV
Some-being of consciousness, how is either of these
guaranteed to us? We have seen what is the guarantee
of Descartes. It is intuition regulated by non-contra-
diction. But what is the guarantee of Hegel's basis?
Mere is, or being, is an abstraction from immediate
consciousness. What guarantees this consciousness ?
What grasps this abstraction? Nothing whatever in
his system. There is nothing to give the one; there
is nothing to guarantee the other. He has thrown
away the possibility of even holding the pure being as
an abstraction; for it is an abstraction from subject and
attribute from self-consciousness and its act. The
isness of pure Being is ex hypothesi, not deduced; it is
as little guaranteed. It is the merest meaningless ab-
straction. On the other hand, reinstate self-conscious-
ness and its act of abstraction: this act is a process of
consciousness, as much as the act of doubt is; and the
basis now is not mere Being, or pure thought; it is
the very definite one of a self-conscious thinker, who
is the ground of the abstraction and of the whole process
of development, instead of being a stage or moment
merely in the development. This self-consciousness is
not deduced at least; and no guarantee can be found for
it save intuition and non-contradiction.
2. I should deny, further, the thought of pure Being
per se, as a beginning; or a point from which any move-
ment of thought is possible. How can pure Being be
supposed capable of movement, or of passing into Noth-
ing, and thence gathering itself up into the unity called
Becoming? Can the abstraction pure Being or mere
Being, as conceived by my intelligence, pass into any-
thing to be otherwise named, or worthy of being so
named, because of a difference between the two? This
notion can pass into another notion, ex hypothesi, only
from itself,—of its own power of motion. We are told
that it does so pass, and it must so pass. How?
Because it has in itself an inherent negation, it must
negate itself,—place against itself its simple opposite
cxvi
INTRODUCTION.
or contradiction.
It is not meanwhile explicitly said
which of the two. Now I say in reply that the con-
cept of pure Being-mere quality less, indeterminate
Being, is utterly inconsistent with the concept of any
inherent necessity of negation or movement whatever.
Movement and necessity of movement are determina-
tions-qualities or predicates which are wholly incom-
patible with a purely indeterminate concept as a be-
ginning. Pure Being is the mere Dead Sea of thought,
and once in it there is no possibility from anything
it contains of anything whatever different from itself,
or worthy of being named as different, being evolved
out of it. And if it is said that the mere concept
of pure Being involves the concept of its opposite,
non-Being, I say, in reply, in that case, the beginning
was not from pure Being, but from the correlation of
Being and non-Being, and there never was any move-
ment or dialectical passage in the matter. When thus
it is said, for example, that "pure thought" must issue
in a world of space and time, that it cannot rest in
itself, we have a virtual confession of the impossibility
of conceiving "pure thought" per se, and therefore, of
any progress or movement from it as a starting-point.
The world of time, at least the singular or concrete,
is necessary even to its existence as a consciousness at
all from the very first. It means, in fact, that the uni-
versal side of knowledge cannot be realised or conceived
per se, and as such cannot be the ground of any evolu-
tion. To tell us that "pure thought" is synthetic, is
simply a form of words which covers the begging of the
two points at issue,—first, whether there is pure thought
to begin with, and whether pure thought can be quali
fied as synthetic or anything else. The real meaning
of synthetic here is, that it expresses a relation already
assumed between the universal and particular, while it
is meant to suggest evolution or development of the
latter out of the former.
3. Besides, to say this—that these two contradictories
INTRODUCTION.
cxvii
:
are involved in a concept-is to give up the professed
problem of deducing the one from the other—that is,
of solving the contradiction; it is to assume simply that
the contradiction already exists, and that the concept
embodying it is thinkable. The truth is, that so far
as pure thought or pure Being is concerned, there is
and can be no movement. The Becoming which is
conjured up to express its completion is not a product
of pure thought at all; and it might further be readily
shown that this concept which is said to unite the
opposites does not really do so. It has no unity for
absolute Being and absolute non-Being. Nothing must
always be less than Being. Becoming, moreover, is
a concept which has meaning in relation to a defi-
nite experience, where a determinate germ or form of
being rises to its own completeness or totality, as the
seed to the tree. But it is wholly inapplicable as a
notion to the abstractions Being and Not-Being-the
falling of one abstraction into another, or the stating the
same qualityless abstraction in different words, and de-
luding one's self that one has got different concepts even
as moments.
4. But the pretension of the dialectic is, that there
is here from the first an application of the movement
of negation. Negation is the impulse of the whole
dialectic; it is the means by which pure thought moves
from its mere in-itselfness to the successive assertions
or determinations of thought and being, to quality,
quantity, substance, and so on. Now I challenge the
dialectic in the first place with a double use, and an
abuse of the principle of negation. It is applied equally
to the indeterminate and the determinate. It is, first
of all, applied to the mere pure qualityless abstract of
being. This is not even something, not an Etwas, it is
not in this or that space or time-it is, to begin with,
above relation and category of any sort, it is not com-
passable by the intuition of experience, or by the con-
cept of the understanding. The question is, Can you
cxviii
INTRODUCTION.
apply to this the laws of identity and non-contradiction?
Can you have either affirmation or negation in any
proper meaning of those words? Can it be said that
the mere indeterminate, call it Being or Thought, is
identical with itself or different from another? Or can
an opposite of any sort be put against it? The laws of
identity and non-contradiction are well known as to their
nature and essence. The nature of opposition, especi-
ally contradictory opposition, in any form, implies a defi-
nite or determinate to begin with. Something is at least
cognised; nay, besides quality in general, even definite
attribute or class, ere the negation can have a definite ap-
plication or real meaning at all. But how can the laws
of identity and non-contradiction apply, when the alleged
starting-point is wholly indeterminate, not even fixed
as this or that? There is only the mere abstract is or
isness; but this is in everything that is. It is thus im-
possible to negate except by the mere abstract is-not.
And as the former is not yet applied to anything def-
inite or determinate, not even to something, there is
only a possible negation, or rather an abstract terminal
formula, which we know cannot be applied to two def-
inite concepts at once, but which is as yet applied to
neither. This is a purely hypothetical formula; there
is as yet no actual negation, for there is as yet not even
this or that to which such a formula can be applied.
The purely indeterminate cannot be actually negated,
for the reason that the negation is as much the inde-
terminate as the so-called positive is; and, therefore,
there is nothing to oppose it either as contrary or con-
tradictory.
The delusion thus propagated by the Hegelian logic is,
that this vague notion of being,—this mere indefinitude
—in fact, even mere qualityless being, has in itself a
power of development. It has really nothing of the
sort. We rise out of it through a definite and accumu-
lating experience—not through a logical or rational
development. This indefinite is mere extension—mere
INTRODUCTION.
cxix
generalised empty width, and unless experience of
differences or differenced things come to our aid, it will
remain the same vague indefinite for ever to us. The
facts or details of our experience or knowledge cannot
be filled up by any deduction from mere is or isness,-
even from knowing that something is. It is predicable
of those different facts or details; but they cannot be
evolved from it. In other words, the things or kinds
of things in the universe must be known quite otherwise
than by mere inference from our first knowledge. This
source of knowledge is simply a successive and varying
experience, having nothing in common with the is or
isness of the starting-point, except that such an element
is involved in each new experience. And even though
is gave the thought of difference, the is-not, this
would imply no real being or possibility of advance.
This is but a mere ideal negation, which a bad logic
galvanises into a positive or reality.
5. But it may be supposed that the dialectic reaches
stronger ground when it comes down to Quality or De-
terminate Being. Here it is emphatically proclaimed.
that Omnis determinatio est negatio,-that every deter-
mination not only implies but is literally negation.
Let us hear how Hegel himself states the point :-
"Quality, as existing determinateness in contrast to
the negation which is contained in it, but is distin-
guished from it, is Reality. Negation, which is no
longer an abstract nothing, but a There Being and
Something, is only form in this;—it is other Being.
Quality, since this other Being is its proper determina-
tion, yet, in the first instance, distinct from it, is Being
for another, a width of Determinate Being, of Some-
what. The Being of Quality as such, contrasted with
this reference connecting it with another, is Being-in-
itself." "The foundation," he adds, "of all determi-
nateness is negation (as Spinoza says Omnis determinatio
est negatio)."
Again: "Being firmly held as distinct from determi-
CXX
INTRODUCTION.
nateness, the In-itself Being, were only the empty
abstraction of Being. In There-Being, determinateness
is one with its Being, which at the same time, posited
as negation, is bound, limit. Accordingly Other-being
is not an equal or fellow external to being, but is its
own proper moment. Something is, through its quality,
first finite, second alterable, so that finitude and alter-
ableness belong to its being.'
༥-
"" 1
6. Now we know two kinds of negation, and if Hegel
ianism knows a third, let it vindicate it articulately. In
the first case, we have pure or simple logical negation.
We can deny what a concept holds or affirms absolutely
or merely, without putting anything whatever in its
place. We can negate A by not-A, one by none,—
some by none,—and the result is zero. We can negate,
on the other hand, by a positive concept which yet is
opposed to the positive concept with which we start,
and which we place in negative relation to it. We can
negate pleasure by pain,-green by red,—and so on.
This is real as compared with formal negation. Now,
which is used by the Hegelian dialectic? Obviously
not the former,—not the purely logical negation; and
therefore, the progress of the dialectic is not of pure
thought at all in even a subordinate sense of that term.
Absolute logical negation leaves nothing in its place.
The Something-the Etwas,-being negated, leaves no
positive in the shape of Other. It leaves merely the
ideal concept not anything-or nothing, if you choose.
The something is thus a positive against a mere nega-
tion; but by a trick of language it is sought to contrast
this is, or something, with an Other or positive being.
This is unwarrantable. Other or Another is not the
proper negative of Something or Somewhat; this nega-
tive is none, or not-any. This is mere negation, not
position at all. That the opposite of Somewhat is more
than a mere negation is simply an assumption of the
point at issue.
"Limit in so far as negation of some-
¹ Logik, Encyclopædie, §§ 91, 92.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxi
thing is not abstract non-being in general, but a non-
being which is, or that which we call Other."1 The
questions for the dialectic here are the possibility of move-
ment from Some to Other, and the nature of the Other
as compared with the Some or Something. This pass-
age is operated wholly by negation,-by the negation
of the immanent, ever pressing on movement of the
conditioning thought or concept passing into negation.
And every determination is negation. But the is-not is
no development of is; there is no motion or progress
from the one to the other; there is simple paralysis of
all motion; and there is as little possibility of any
medium either between or above them. As David
Hume pointed out, this is the true or absolute contra-
diction. The dialectic at the earliest stage, and espe-
cially later in the case of Quality, assumes what it ought
to prove,―nay, what is unprovable,—that the negation
of a positive is always and necessarily itself a positive.
Thought is thus baptised synthetic; and this is deemed
a sufficient basis for the construction of the universe.
But let us take the other form of negation,—that of
mere opposition or contrariety. This we know well.
Here we negate one affirmative concept by another
affirmative concept. We negate the Somewhat by Some
Other. We negate red by green,-black by white,—
square by round,—and so on. Now we have got be-
yond the formalism of the something and the opposite,-
the position and the mere negation. We are now deal-
ing with definite concepts of something and other thing.
But how do we get the some other, or positive, which
in this relation we set in opposition to our original posi-
tive? Can we get it by pure negation? This has been
shown to be impossible. All that negation implies is
the relative assertion of non-existence or non-reality.
This implies nothing positive. If, therefore, we set
positive against positive as in real or contrary opposi-
tion, we oppose one concept to the first, which does not
¹ Logik, Encyclopædie, §§ 91, 92.
F
cxxii
INTRODUCTION.
flow from that first by negation. In fact, we are now
dealing with species under a genus,-with the results.
of intuition, experience, and classification,-results only
possible, in the first instance, through the negative
regulation of the logical laws of identity and non-con-
tradiction; and we are setting positive concept against
positive concept, of which pure thought knows nothing
and can say nothing. We are now really in the sphere
of space and time. Here if we negate one member of
the constituted class by another equally positive we
know both members independently. But we can negate
even under contraries when we are ignorant of the pre-
cise positive opposite. It is enough if the positive con-
cept be opposed to some one of its possible opposites,
-for I may quite well say, the thing spoken of is not
this particular species under the genus; it is some one
of them, yet I do not know which. The sum is either
10, or 12, or 15, or 20. I know it is not lower than the
first, nor higher than the last; which I cannot say. A
definite opposite goes quite beyond pure negation; it is
a simple matter of experience, and experience alone.
So that, strictly considered, even real or contrary oppo-
sition does not of itself imply a definite contrary con-
cept; the negation of a positive concept, when already
subsumed under a class, implies only the possibility of
its being found in some concept or other under the
sphere of that class.
From this we may gather the following as the rules
of determination :
a. Determination is the condition of negation; there
is no actual negation unless in relation to actual deter-
mination. Negation, therefore, as a moment of progress
or movement, cannot follow the purely indeterminate.
The formula is and is-not, here, is but a terminal ab-
stract, and indicates only the possible or hypothetical
application of the relation to content not yet supplied.
The so-called movement on the principle of negation of
Pure Being into Pure Nothing is meaningless.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxiii
b. A determination does not imply a greater negation
than is requisite to preserve its reality as an affirmation.
This applies both to contradictories and to contraries
-e. g., Contradictory, as one and none; contrary, as
veracity and untruthfulness, or the ideal exclusion of
the violation of the law of truth-speaking. This obvi-
ously holds in relation to contraries, where there is a
limitation to certain possible members of a class. Hence
it is erroneous to maintain that every (indeed any)
negation is necessarily as positive as the affirmation or
determination.
7. The doctrine thus maintained by Hegel, under the
category of quality, that every determinate being or
object of thought leads directly to that which is the
other, or negation of itself, is erroneous. But it is
not less a mistake to maintain that every determinate
object of experience is what it is, only because it is not
something else. This doctrine is not correct because
a determinate object of space and time —say hardness
or resistance-is not what it is mainly or only because
it is not its opposite, contradictory or contrary. On
the contrary, the opposite, whether contradictory or
contrary, is merely a limitative concept in respect of
its positive reality, and lies necessarily in a different
sphere, or one negatively related to it. The reality
of the object does not depend on its not being in the
other sphere; but the existence of this sphere is rela-
tive to the previously determinate character of the
object. This determinate character it has obtained as
the definite effect of a definite cause. Otherwise, we
should have the absurdity that the whole contents of
space and time could be determined, not by science or
inductive research, but by the negation successively of
determinate objects; and as in the case of real opposi-
tion, this negation might be many and various, we
might have the most conflicting results vaunted as
equally the results of necessary deduction. Nay, in
every case the determinate would be explained by what
cxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
is the very opposite of its nature, as resistance by non-
resistance, and sentiency by insentiency. The fallacy
here consists in assuming that mutually exclusive con-
cepts are, as correlative, identical, whereas they are
simply limitative. This fallacy pervades nearly the
whole logic of Hegel. It comes out transparently in
his doctrine of Essence,¹ and in the deduction of Dif-
ference from Identity.²
It is, further, assumed in this doctrine that a con-
cept, as possessed of definite qualities, is not an object
even of thought or meaning, unless in so far as the con-
cept of the negation of those qualities gives them reality
in thought; whereas the reverse is true,—the negative
conception is conditioned by the positive, and has itself
no meaning unless in relation to that positive. The
negation subsists through the positive; not the positive
through it. In the case particularly of contrary oppo-
sition, while the positive concept is one and definite,
there may be many negations of it.—e. g., green may
be equally negated by red, black, or blue. But its
reality as a concept does not depend on our knowledge
of which of these is its counterposed negative.
8. Closely connected with this is another sense of the
principle Omnis determinatio est negatio. And it is this
sense in which it is brought especially to bear on the
first principle of Descartes. It is assumed as the char-
acter of determination itself that it is a negation,—a
negation of something or some concept preceding it,
really or logically. This meaning of the principle seems
to be common alike to Spinoza and Hegel; and it is
necessary to enable them to force on Descartes the
meaning which it is averred his system truly bears—
viz., that the real is not to be found in the determinate
of our experience, but in that higher sphere of which
it is simply a negation. Spinoza illustrates the prin-
ciple by reference to Body. But the results can hardly
1 Encyclopædie, Logik, § 112 et seq.
2 Ibid., § 116 et seq.
3
3 See the 50th Letter.
INTRODUCTION.
CXXV
But
be said to justify us in carrying it further. To know
matter as it really is, we must abstract from any limit
which it possesses. It is figured, for example; but
Spinoza tells us that this is a mere negation. It must
therefore be got rid of. Matter viewed infinitely or in-
definitely can have no limit; limit belongs only to
finite or determinate bodies—that is, they are defective
in possessing limit at all. They are not truly matter.
Matter is the non-figured. The fallacy here is not far
to seek. Matter in space is seen by me only as it exists,
a coloured and extended surface, limited by coadjacent
colour and extension. Difference of colour is necessary
to our apprehension of figure in material bodies, and of
difference of figures. If I could suppose that there is no
colour in bodies, there would of course be no difference
of colour, so therefore no difference of figure.
with the absence of figure, would matter remain matter
to our vision? or with the entire absence of extended
limit, or limit to touch, would matter remain matter to
touch? Does the taking away of the limit or amount
of extension which a body possesses, leave or render
that body indefinite or infinite in extension? Does the
taking away this limit in succession from all the bodies
of my experience leave or render these indefinitely or
infinitely extended? There cannot be greater miscon-
ception than in supposing this. The true residuum in
such a case is not body infinitely extended, it is simply
the non-extended; for with the extinction of the limit
to the extension of the body, —say a red line with be-
ginning and end-there is extinction absolutely of the
extension which I perceive or can know in the circum-
stances; that is, there is the extinction in every case
of the given body altogether. The residuum is a mere
blank indeterminate for thought.
But take this principle generally. Let us see its
issue. We have to abstract from the limits of the finite,
and the residuum is the real-the infinite. It is indeed
the only reality; the finite is only apparent or illusory.
cxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
Now, what is the residuum on such a process? The
mere vague indeterminate of thought, and nothing more
or else the so-called substance, in fact, of Spinoza.
Let the finite thing be my self-consciousness. I am con-
scious of an act of volition, at a given time. To know
the reality, I have to abstract from the limits of this act.
Volition is a limit; so is self, and so equally is con-
sciousness; so also is my being at a given time: all
these must be discarded, and what remains? No object
of thought whatever. There is, if you choose, the vague
possibility of thought. Because I cannot actually de-
prive myself of consciousness, but must always be sup-
posed conscious of some process of thought even in
abstracting from the limits of thought itself, this vague
possibility of determination remains to me. But nothing
actually is as an object of thought; for if all limits be
supposed taken away, nothing can be predicated. I
cannot now even say that the residuum is, for that
would be a limit. I have now reached an absolutely
vague form of the suspense of thought and knowledge
itself. This may be called the infinite—it is simply
the absence of thought and predication. It may be
called reality, and the only reality—it would be better
to call it nonsense.
9. To the Hegelian the substance of Spinoza is a pure
indeterminate. The negation of the finite or of finite
determination is held to be allowable and just, and with
it the abolition of the distinctive character of the mind
and body of our experience. But Spinoza's defect is,
that he does not reach a proper first or whole. With
him it is the absence of quality rather than the pres-
ence of Spirit. It is pure affirmation without negation ;
whereas it should be affirmation that necessarily negates
itself by affirming the finite. It is a simple indetermi-
nate or absence of determination; it ought to be that
which is self-determining, the living individual whole
or spirit, which manifests itself in all that is. But I
maintain that this absolutely indeterminate is the true
1
1
INTRODUCTION.
cxxvii
and logical residuum of the abstraction from all limit.
This process will not yield a positive in any form.
Finite self and consciousness being abstracted from,
there can remain no infinite self and consciousness.
For we are not here saying that the degree of the
quality is increased, as when we say that there is
intelligence higher than our intelligence; but we are
seeking to throw off limit and quality altogether.
The very limit is a negation,—a negation of the un-
limited. The void indeterminate cannot be filled up
by the Infinite Spirit. Nor can we properly be said
to have reached the knowledge of a whole which in-
cludes our self-consciousness as a part—whatever that
may mean. This were simply to take up the discarded
limits, the definite predicates of self and consciousness
-and baptise them infinite self and consciousness. The
abstraction must be done in good faith. Self, without
or apart from limit, is to me no-self; and consciousness,
unless as a definite consciousness, as a conscious act at
a given time, is no consciousness. Self and conscious-
ness may indeed be regarded as logical concepts. Self
and consciousness are capable of being thought by me as
notions or as names for classes of things. But as such
they have their limits or attributes; they are what they
are, though determination and attribution, like other
notions; and they are realisable by me only in connec-
tion with individual instances of them. This is a totally
different position from the abstraction from their limits;
in fact, it is impossible under such an abstraction. The
residuum, accordingly, of this abstraction is not an
infinite self or self-consciousness; it is simply a vague
indeterminate, which is neither thought nor being, and
which is possible at all or conceivable only because
while abstracting from all limits I surreptitiously retain
the limits of self-consciousness and thought. To call
this a whole in which I am included as a part, is to
apply an illegitimate analogy. Whole and part imply
limitation as much as finite self-consciousness does; and
cxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
we are not entitled to seek to express the absolute ab-
straction from all limits by correlation or limitation.
It may, of course, be said that abstraction from the
limits of the Ego of consciousness gives us the notion
of an Ego in general. The Ego of my consciousness is
an individual embodiment of the notion of a universal
Ego. By abstracting from limits-that is, considering
me as but an Ego—or one of the Egos, I get to the uni-
versal notion-Ego, the Ego. "I" is predicable of me;
it is predicable of others, it is predicable of God. But
what then becomes of the individuality which is attri
buted to the infinite Ego, or infinite self-consciousness?
How can "I" the individual, be in any sense a part or
manifestation of this infinite Ego, if "I" and "He"
are but exemplifications of a common notion?
10. There is a sense, no doubt, in which we must sup-
pose that finite self-consciousness is related to some-
thing beyond itself. As a reality in time, it has rela-
tions to other points of being in time; and we must go
back to a ground of it, either in or above temporal con-
ditions. But the question at present is not whether this
be so or not; or whether we can reach a solution of this
problem; but whether in the way indicated we do or
can connect or identify our finite self-consciousness with
what is here called an, or the, Infinite self-consciousness.
The main objection to this view has been antici-
pated in the criticism of the principle of determina-
tion involving negation. If in affirming my self-con-
sciousness, I necessarily and knowingly negate an
infinite self-consciousness by imposing a limit upon it,
I must be first of all conscious of this infinite self-con-
scious being. He is necessarily first in the order of my
knowledge. Negation means previous, at least con-
ditioning, affirmation. Conscious limitation means a
previous consciousness of the absence of limit.
I can
only consciously impose limit on that which had no
limit, by knowing first of all the unlimited.
Now this reduces the whole process to absurdity and


INTRODUCTION.
cxxix
self-contradiction. If I know this infinite self-conscious-
ness which I negate in asserting myself, I must know
both before I know and before I am. My knowledge
no longer begins with me being conscious, but with me
being conscious not of, but as, an infinite self-conscious-
ness, and that when as yet I am not distinguished from
it as either existent or conscious. Or do I distinguish
myself from this infinite self-consciousness when I know
it? Then what becomes of its infinity? And how then
am I a mere negation of it or a moment of it? Am I
identified with the primary consciousness of it? Then
what becomes of me and my knowledge? And how can
I be said to negate this infinite self-consciousness which
I am in order that I may be?
But the truth is, that if every determination is a
negation of a previous determination, there never was
any determination at all to begin with. Knowledge
or determination never could have a beginning; for as
any given determination is only a negation of another
determination, and dependent on this other, every de-
termination is a negation. But the negation, at the
same time, needs a determination as a condition of its
existence—that is, it needs what, by the very conditions
of the problem, is impossible. Such a statement im-
plies not only the non-commencement of knowledge
-it implies the very subversion of the conception of
knowledge for it ends in identifying affirmation and
negation-i.e., in pure non-determination.
11. But what, it may be asked, is the moral bearing
of such a doctrine? In order to get the truly real, the
first limit that must disappear here is our own indi-
viduality; we are no longer truly one; we are not
really distinguished from the infinite substance as
individuals; we have no independent existence or
reality. But take away the notion with which we
delude ourselves that we have an existence in any
way distinct from the substance of all, and a good
deal else must go.
Good and evil, freedom, respon-
F 2
CXXX
INTRODUCTION.
-
sibility, — all these must disappear with our person-
ality. It is because we think ourselves as distinct
from the substance which is identified with God, that
we are conscious of doing the right or the wrong,
have merit or demerit. But we may give up these
thoughts altogether; they have no reality; we need.
not trouble ourselves either about good or evil, pity or
repentance, pride or humility. They are all the same
in reality. Personality as a limitation is a mere nega-
tion, is unreal; the only true reality is the unlimited
substance. To it all personality is indifferent; to it
also necessarily is all good and evil; these are mere
temporary limitations of its development. Regarded
from the finite point of view, good and evil are delu-
sively distinguished; but these seeming differences dis-
appear the moment they are contemplated from the
point of view of the infinite substance. All that is, is
alike to it; all is equally what it is; there is really
ultimately no difference of right or wrong in the one
-that is, in the universe.
As for the abolition of the temporal distinction of
good and evil, and their identification in the absolute
one or substance, all that need be said is, that what-
ever be the ultimate solution of the mystery of good
and evil-whether absorption or sublimation, or eleva-
tion of moral will in the universe this Spinozistic
solution is obviously none. It is the mere audacity of
reckless assertion to say that there is neither good nor
evil in time—that neither temporally is real; it is a mis-
conception, moreover, to suppose that abstraction of the
differences between good and evil really identifies them :
the result is not identification, but the destruction of each
in thought; for the difference being abstracted, neither
remains to be identified with the other. And that they
are the same in or to the eternal substance, is only
vindicable on the supposition that this substance is
neither intelligent nor moral, but a name for the sus-
pension of both functions.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxxi
II. But it may be worth while, in closing this section,
to look for a moment at the correction and supplement
of Spinoza, as put by Hegel himself. "Germany," as
Trendelenburg tells us, "knows the formula by heart
that Hegel's great merit is that he defines God as a
subject, in contradistinction to Spinozism, which defines
Him as a substance." 1 "Substance," says Hegel, “is the
principle of the philosophy of Spinoza. But this prin-
ciple is incomplete. Substance is doubtless an essential
moment of the development of the idea; but it is never-
theless not the idea itself; it is the idea under the
limited form of necessity. God is without doubt neces-
sity or the absolute thing, but He is also a person, and
to this Spinoza has not risen. Spinoza was a Jew, and
he placed himself at the oriental point of view, accord-
ing to which all that which is finite only appears as
transitory and passing. The defect of his system is
the absence of the Western principle of individual-
ity which first appeared in a philosophical form, con-
temporaneously with Spinoza, in the monadology of
Leibnitz.” 2
The points of the deduction are these :—
1. The tie which connects things, which causes a
thing to enter into actuality as soon as its conditions
are fulfilled, is Necessity.
2. This Necessity, considered in itself, is Substance
-the point of view of Spinoza.
3. But substance, as absolute power, is determined
in relation to Accident. It thus operates—becomes
Causality.
4. Substance is thus Cause, inasmuch as, passing
into accident, it is reflected upon itself, and thus be-
comes the original thing (ursprüngliche Sache—i. e.,
thing presupposed in the effect).
5. The effect is distinguished from the cause; but
1 Die logische Frage in Hegels System, 1843. Cf. Journal of Specu-
lative Philosophy, vi. p. 350.
2 Encyclopædie, Logik, §§ 150, 151.
cxxxii
INTRODUCTION.
this distinction, as immediate or posited, is to be abol
ished. Because the cause operates, there is another
substance the effect-upon which the action happens.
This, as substance, acts in opposition, or reacts on the
first substance. There is action and reaction. Causal-
ity passes into the relation of Reciprocity of action.
6. The self-dependence of the substance thus issues
in several self-dependents, and thus the generated, like
the generating, is substance; and because causes and
effects act and react, these are self-balancing. Effects
are causes. The substance thus remains in this change-
relation identical with itself. And herein lies the truth,
—the conciliation of Necessity and Freedom.¹
In other words, substance regarded simply in relation
to its attributes or accidents is a necessary or fatal re-
lation; regarded as cause operating effect, it is free or
attains to freedom, because what it produces necessarily
is from itself and identical with itself, is itself cause,
and thus remains "with itself." Substance in relation
to accidents is out of itself, or in relation to what is out
of itself; but substance as cause in relation to its effect
is as thus cause identical with itself, and yet combines
self-identity with development.
There is hardly a statement in this series, or a link
of connection, which might not be properly challenged.
What does the whole amount to but an identification of
the relation of substance and accident with that of cause
and effect? But apart from this, what is the identity
introduced? Simply the identity or rather proportional
energy of substance as cause with effect as determined
result. Is this identity of substantial cause with itself?
Will any one maintain that this is so in relation to
physical transmutation, or in relation to mental mani-
festation? Is it so in any act of volition? Then what
is the sense, if there is any coherent meaning at all, in
the position that accident or effect is cause in respect of
the substance or cause by which it is produced? Does
1 Logik, §§ 152, 153, 154.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxxiii
the reflection or so-called reaction of an effect on its
cause constitute it a cause in respect of its own cause?
Substances may generate other substances, and causes
other causes; but these are so not in respect of their
own substances or causes, but in respect of the acci-
dents or effects which in their turn follow from them.
This is simply a specimen of the common Hegelian
fallacy that correlatives, as mutually reflecting upon or
implying each other, are identical. This, though really
the vital point of the whole Logic, referring as it does to
the development of Spirit, is about the worst and weak-
est specimen of so-called deduction in the system.
This process is brought forward as the true genera-
tive or creative process of the universe of God and Man.
The theory has advanced on Spinoza; it has introduced
negation, superseded his pure affirmation, and solved
the problems of the infinite and the finite,-of Liberty
and Necessity. Substance has now become subject or
spirit; it is on the eve of passing into, or rather has in
it the power of, the Concept (Begriff), which posits in
itself differences which return to unity with itself.
The process, moreover, is not only the way in which
we may best think of God, but it is God-God passing
before us in the creation of Himself and the universe.
He is thus far on His way to His true being, in the
complete realisation of the process, in which, starting
from the primeval nothing, He creates Himself and the
universe by a series of nots by which He is sustained
and enriched.
He is Substance developed into Cause, and thus into
Concept and so regarded as conscious subject or spirit.
He operates, and in the operation remains identical with
Himself. But how is either consciousness, freedom, or
purpose provided for here? Substance is under a ne-
cessity of passing into cause, and cause again into effect,
which is counter-cause. What is there here beyond fatal
evolution? If substance merely produces substance.
and cause cause, what provision is there here for consci-
cxxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
ousness or purpose? Have we yet come to subject or
spirit? Have we yet come to, or made the least ap-
proach to, a unity of self-consciousness which is identical
with itself, or have we the slightest provision for con-
scious end or purpose in the development? What sort
of freedom, moreover, is that which is compatible with
fatal emanation, provided only the spring or source of
that emanation be either substance or cause itself, and
the process of emanation necessary? Is this the highest
kind of freedom, or the freedom which we are to attri-
bute to Deity? It is infinitely short of the notion of
freedom in our own experience. "In necessary eman-
ation all is virtually predetermined, and freedom, though
proclaimed the essence of spirit, is necessity for the
individual." It is the freedom of which the material
mass would be conscious, if it were conscious at all,
when let loose from the tie which bound it to the
height it descended to the earth. Or, as Trendelenburg
has well put it: "Freedom, a grand word, has thus in
this relation no other content than this comfort of the sub-
stance, that the upspringing are still substances, and the
effects as working against are again causes.
This rela-
tion is the most abstract reflection everywhere applicable,
where anything moves. Who ever called it Freedom?
Then were necessity even freedom, if the master strikes
the slave; for therein are they identical that both are
substances; and the slave who gives up his back is
operating in this opposite action, as the master in the
first cause.
"1
XII.- -HEGELIAN CRITICISM-THE EGO AND THE INFINITE.
The attempt to Hegelianise Descartes seeks to correct
him in what he said, and to bring out what he meant to
say, or at least ought to have said. It refers, of course,
particularly in the first instance, to his Cogito ergo sum.
That has to get a new meaning, or at least aspect, be-
1 Log. Unt., p. 63 (ed. 1870).
INTRODUCTION.
CXXXV
fore it can be accepted as final or sufficient. Let us see
how the thing is to be managed. The scope, sense, and
guarantee of the first principle have already been ex-
plained. What is the Hegelian view?
We are told, in Hegelian language, that the Cogito ergo
sum is not a sufficiently deep or primary basis of philo-
sophy. A mere certainty is not enough. The certainty
must be primary, nothing actually, but all things poten-
tially. The certainty which it gives does not lie at the
root of things. It implies a dualism of thought and
being; we must therefore go beyond it to something
more fundamental. Philosophy "must penetrate to a
stage where thought and being are one-to the absolute
unity of both, which precedes their disruption into the
several worlds of Nature and Mind. It must show us
the very beginning of thought, before it has come to the
full consciousness of itself." 1
Now whence is this must, this necessity of penetration
to an absolute unity,-whatever that may mean? How
is it that, when we are supposed to be seeking a begin-
ning of philosophy, we are able dogmatically to lay down
its prerequisites in this fashion? Have we already a
philosophy of what a philosophy ought to be? In that
case, how can we be supposed to be seeking the begin-
ning of any philosophy? Surely it is more in accord-
ance with all rules of sound scientific and philosophical
procedure to see whether we can go backwards or up-
wards to this unity, after we have studied the facts and
the conceptions which they involve, than to assume
that there must be such an absolute unity for philo-
sophy; and further, that we must be able to know it,
and to demonstrate all forms of reality from it as a com-
mon basis.
What is this but to assume, at the outset,
a particular solution of the great problem of philosophy,
while a more modest and circumspect method would ex-
pect such a solution, whatever its nature might be only
at the end, and after careful inquiry?
1 Wallace's Logic of Hegel, pp. 126, 127.
cxxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
い
​1. One is anxious to know precisely the points of the
proof for this Hegelian representation of the imperfection
of Descartes' doctrine and the necessity of its own.
There seem to be two main grounds of proof. These
are two statements or principles, which are given in a
somewhat dogmatic fashion, as apparently self-evident.
For it is a characteristic of this pre-suppositionless phi-
losophy that it more than any other makes assumptions
without proffering either proof or warrant of them. The
one alleged principle is that, "to be conscious of a limit is
to transcend it." Or, more particularly, we are to identify
"the consciousness of self as thinking with transcend-
ing the limits of its own particular being, and so with
the consciousness or idea of God." Self-consciousness
has a negative element in it, that is, something definite,
and therefore limited." This is a statement of the prin-
ciple, and also a hint of its immediate application. The
other principle is the well-known Spinozistic aphorism
that determination is negation,-Omnis determinatio est
negatio.
The two principles now mentioned very closely coin-
cide. The negation refers to the qualities of individual
objects; the abstraction from limits refers to things as
in space and time, or to things as bounded. As quality
is itself a determination, it is a limit. In order to get
at what is truly real, we have to abstract from the actual
limits of individuals,-nay, we have ultimately to ab-
stract from all limit whatever and we shall find the only
true reality in what is then called the Infinite. Hegel
is credited with bringing out explicitly the principles
which governed the thought of Spinoza.
2. The so-called principle Omnis determinatio est negatio
has already been sufficiently exposed.¹ Let us look now
at the other generality which is vaunted as a principle,
and the ground of advanced philosophy. It is thus
Hegel himself states the principle:-
"The knowledge which we have of a limit, shows.
1 See supra, p. cxii et seq.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxxvii
that we already overleap the limit; it shows our infinity.
The things of nature are finite by this even, that limit
does not exist for them, but only for us who compare
them with each other. We are finite when we receive
a contrary into consciousness. But we overleap this
limit in the knowledge even which we have of that con-
trary (other). It is only the unconscious being (der
Unwissende) that is finite, for it is ignorant of its limit.
On the other hand, every being which knows limit knows
the limit as not a limit of its knowledge, but as an ele-
ment of which it has consciousness, as an element that
belongs to the sphere of its knowledge. It is only the
being unknown (or of which there is no consciousness)
that could constitute a limit of knowledge; whilst that
known limit is by no means a limit of knowing. Con-
sequently, to know one's own limit is to know one's own
illimitability. Meanwhile, when we conceive spirit as
unlimited, as truly infinite, we ought not to conclude
that the limit is in no way in the spirit, but rather to
recognise that spirit ought to determine itself, and
therefore to limit itself and place itself in the sphere
of the finite. Only the understanding is deceived
when it considers this finitude as insurmountable, and
the difference of limit and infinity as absolutely irrecon-
cilable, and when, conformably to this conception, it pre-
tends that spirit is finite or infinite. Finitude, seized
in its reality is, as we have just said, in infinity. The
limit is in the unlimited; and consequently spirit is
not infinite or finite, but as well the one as the other.
The spirit remains infinite in its finitude, for it sup-
presses its finitude. In it nothing has an existence
fixed and isolated, but all is found idealised, all passes
and is absorbed in its unity. It is thus that God, be-
cause He is Spirit, must determine Himself, posit in Him
finitude (otherwise He would be only a void and dead
abstraction); but as the reality which He gives Himself
in determining Himself is a reality which is completely
adequate to Him, God, in determining Himself, becomes
cxxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
in no way a finite Being. Limit is not then in God and
in the Spirit, but it is placed (posited) by the Spirit in
order that it may be suppressed. It is only as moment
that finitude can appear in the Spirit and remain there;
for by its ideal nature the Spirit raises itself above it,
and knows that limit is in no way a limit insuperable
for it. This is why it overpasses it, and frees itself
from it. And this deliverance is not as the understand-
ing represents it,—a deliverance that is never accom-
plished, an indefinite effort towards the infinite,-but a
deliverance in which the Spirit frees itself from this
indefinite progress, completely effaces its limit or its
contrary, and raises itself to its absolute individuality
and its true infinity."
"" 1
Again: "To be annulled by and in its contrary,
there is the dialectic which makes the finitude of pre-
ceding spheres. But it is the Spirit, the notion, the
eternal in itself which effaces this image (simulacrum)
of existence, in order to accomplish within itself the
annihilation of the appearance.'
""
11 2
We
We find the principle of this passage repeated in
Hegelian literature as apparently not requiring proof.
We are told that "to know a limit as such is to be in
some sense beyond it;' "the consciousness of a limit
implies the consciousness of something beyond it;” and
as applied to reality, it is said to follow that "the dual-
ism of mind and matter is not absolute, and thought
transcends the distinction while it recognises it."
find it asserted that "if the individual is to find in his
self-consciousness the principle of all knowledge, there
must be something in it which transcends the distinc-
tion of self and not-self, which carries him beyond the
limit of his own individuality." Subjective conscious-
ness passes into objective in the consciousness of God.
"It is because we find God in our own minds that we
find anything else." Finally, the result of the doctrine
1 Philosophie des Geistes, sect. 387, Zusatz. Compare Logik, sect. 94.
2 Ibid., sect. 387.
INTRODUCTION.
cxxxix
of the transcending of limit is that " our consciousness
of God is but a part of God's consciousness of Himself,
our consciousness of self and other things is but God's
consciousness of them, and there is no existence either of
ourselves or other beings except in this consciousness."
3. As applied to the Cartesian position, the correction
it yields may be summed up as follows:
The being conscious, or the finite, is an illusion or pure
negation, if me-being or me-conscious is viewed as a being
or reality in itself, and having an existence distinct from,
or even in opposition to, a not-self in the form either
of God or Matter-extension. I conscious do not exist
apart from my being consciously God Himself—an infi-
nite self-consciousness—or at least a part of Him, or an
individual included under Him as a part of His con-
sciousness in which I partake. It does not seem to be
affirmed that I, the individual conscious Being, am really
God, in the sense of being convertible absolutely with
His Being or consciousness. He passes in me and over
me, if He does not trample me out. I am affirmed, how-
ever, to be a part or a moment in His consciousness,
whatever that may mean; so that I cannot be conscious
of myself without being conscious that, so far as I am
conscious, I am God, or His consciousness is my con-
sciousness, or my consciousness is His; only my being
conscious does not exhaust His consciousness. The
moment, however, that I conceit myself as anything
but an indissoluble part of the consciousness of God,
I deceive myself, raise illusion to the rank of reality.
The only reality is the Infinite; and I am in His devel-
opment. That is all I can lay claim to. This is true
also of all the individual consciousnesses of the universe;
they are not really individual consciousness in the sense
of being consciousnesses separate from the Divine con-
sciousness; they are simply moments in His conscious-
ness: His consciousness is theirs, and theirs is His.
The Divine wave of consciousness flows through all
humanity-indeed through all the universe; for the
cxl
INTRODUCTION.
different ascending stages of being are but moments in
the Divine consciousness as it moves upwards and on-
wards from its dim unconscious potentiality to self-consci-
ousness in man, and to the transcending of things in the
absolute Spirit, which, in knowing itself to be all, is all.
Several questions thus at once arise. The first of
these is the historical one as to whether it is the doc-
trine of Descartes. This comes very much to inquiring
as to whether his statements, collateral with his main
principle, give reasonable hints of it.
I. There can, I think, be little doubt that this identi-
fication of finite self-consciousness and an infinite self-
consciousness, or consciousness of Deity, is a totally dif
ferent conception from that of Descartes. He no doubt
holds, that alongside the finite self-consciousness there
is an idea of the Infinite—an idea which is positive,
which possesses more reality than the idea of the finite.
This idea is suggested to us, or it arises into actual
consciousness, through the conception of our own fini-
tude, limitation, or imperfection. It is, in fact, the cor-
relate of the intuition of self and its limitations; but
it is not, in Descartes' view, an intuition of being, as
our self-consciousness is; it is not, properly speaking,
a consciousness of being at all; it is not, as it has been
improperly regarded, the consciousness of God on the
same level with the consciousness of self-it is simply
an objective or representative idea in the consciousness.
of the finite being. The idea and the reality of God
are so far from being identical, that the principle of
Causality is called in by Descartes to infer the Being
from the Idea. There is no identification here of the
finite self-consciousness as an intuition with the idea
even, far less with that which is totally separate from
the idea the Being or consciousness of Deity. We could
not properly, on the Cartesian doctrine, even speak of
the consciousness of God, as we can of the consciousness
of ourself; for, in the latter case, we are the reality—
in the former we are not even face to face with it.
INTRODUCTION.
cxli
1. But Descartes makes a further statement on this
point. He tells us that the idea of the Infinite is not
only positive, but "in some sense prior" to the con-
sciousness of the finite-to my self-consciousness. This,
of course, would be contradictory of his main doctrine,
that self-consciousness is the first principle of know-
ledge, if we did not remember that the priority "in
some sense" of which he here speaks, is the priority,
not of actual consciousness, but of latency. He is giv-
ing, in fact, an instance of his doctrine of Innate Ideas.
These, according to him, mean not ideas actually elicited
into consciousness, but ideas somehow prior to and
conditioning our actual consciousness, while appearing
in it. And the idea of the Infinite had, according to
Descartes, a special claim to be regarded as innate, be-
cause, unlike the ideas of sense, it was not dependent
for its actuality on physical conditions. This was not,
however, a priority of knowledge, but of potentiality
or latency. This statement cannot, therefore, be rele-
vantly adduced as proving actual knowledge before
finite or self-conscious knowledge.
2. We fortunately have a perfectly precise explanation
of the matter by Descartes himself: "I say,” he tells us
in explanation, "that the notion which I have of the
infinite is in me before that of the finite; for this reason,
that from this alone, that I conceive being or that which
is, without thinking whether it is finite or infinite, it is
infinite being which I conceive; but in order that I may
be able to conceive a finite being, it is necessary that I
retrench something from this general notion of being,
which consequently ought to precede."1
Two things are clear from this: a. That Descartes
confused the mere indeterminate of thought,—what is as
yet not laid down as either infinite or finite,—with the
true conception of infinity. b. That he cannot be cited
as having consequently countenanced the doctrine that
the finite is a mere negation of the infinite; for the
¹ Lettre LII. à M. Clerselier; Garnier, iv. p. 162.
cxlii
INTRODUCTION.
simple reason that he was not speaking of the true
infinite, or of what he in other places described as
such. The finite might, as a determinate notion, be a
step further than the mere state of non-predication ; but
it cannot be represented as in any proper sense of the
term a negation, far less a negation of the infinite.
And certainly it is ludicrous to say, in such a case, that
the so-called infinite or indeterminate has more reality
than the finite or determinate. It is truly void of any
attribute or predicate whatever.
3. But if we look at the matter closely, we shall see
that there is no true contradiction in the two positions
of Descartes, that knowledge begins with the Cogito
ergo sum, and that in a sense the idea of God is in us
prior to the intuition of the Ego cogitans. For he quite
distinctly regards the knowledge of self and the know-
ledge of God as of two different orders. In the one
case we have an intuition,-the reality is in conscious-
ness, in a sense the reality is the consciousness. The
knowing and the known are for the time convertible.
In the other case, we are distinct from the reality; we
know it only representatively or by idea; the exist-
ence of the object is not the idea of it; the idea even
is not commensurate with the reality. And whatever
be the mode in which we may reach a guarantee of
the reality itself, this is not by direct knowledge or
intuition of it, as in the case of the Ego cogitans. The
direct knowledge of the conscious ego is actually the
first.
4. It ought to be observed that while Descartes holds
the idea of the infinite to be true, real, or positive, and
to be "clear and distinct," he does not hold it to be
adequate or commensurate with the reality. He holds,
in fact, along with these positions, that the infinite is
incomprehensible by us. Nothing can be more explicit
than his statement on this point :-
“The idea of a being supremely perfect and infinite
is in the highest degree true; for although, perhaps, we
INTRODUCTION.
cxliii
may imagine that such a being does not exist, we cannot,
nevertheless, suppose that his idea represents nothing
real, as I have already said of the idea of cold. It is
likewise clear and distinct in the highest degree, since,
whatever the mind clearly and distinctly conceives as
real and true, and as implying any perfection, is con-
tained entire in this idea. And this is true, neverthe-
less, although I do not comprehend the infinite, and
although there may be in God an infinity of things which
I cannot comprehend, nor perhaps even compass by
thought in any way; for it is of the nature of the
infinite that it should not be comprehended by the
finite; and it is enough that I rightly understand this,
and judge that all which I clearly perceive, and in
which I know there is some perfection, and perhaps
also an infinity of properties of which I am ignorant,
are FORMALLY or EMINENTLY in God, in order that the
idea I have of Him may become the most true, clear, and
distinct of all the ideas in my mind."
Our knowledge thus is so far from being identical
with the being of God or the Infinite that it is not even
adequate to the reality of that being. The being of the
Infinite may be a consciousness, but it is not our con-
sciousness, nor is ours related to it as the part to the
whole, or in any way necessary to it. God is to Descartes
"a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent,
all-knowing, all-powerful, by which I myself, and every
other thing that exists, if any such there be, were cre-
ated." But our knowledge of Him is not adequate to
His-actual infinity or reality; it is, in fact, but an ana-
logical knowledge, which does not contain all that He
is or may be, and which can at the best grasp His
perfections not formally but eminently.
So far, then, as the doctrine of Descartes itself is con-
cerned, there is no proof that he in any way identified
the finite and infinite consciousness. At the very time
that he says there is greater reality in the idea of the
1 Med., iii. p. 45.
cxliv
INTRODUCTION.
Infinite than in that of the Finite, and that the former is
in some sense prior to the latter, he distinctly infers an
actual Infinite, who is the cause of the Idea in the finite,
and thus makes as complete a dualism as if he had laid
down the material non-ego as an object of direct per-
ception. The true dualism of Descartes is that between
the finite and infinite, the imperfect and the perfect; and
this is as repugnant to Hegelianism as a dualism be-
tween thought and extension.
II. But the question arises-Can such a doctrine as
this be made self-consistent? Is it coherent, or even
intelligible?
1. Being is consciousness—these are convertible. My
consciousness is, and it is not. It is not while I think
it as mine; but when I conceive it as also the conscious-
ness, infinite consciousness, of God, it is. The infinite
consciousness or consciousness of God is, and it is not.
It is not apart from my consciousness; it is when I am
conscious. Infinite consciousness and finite conscious-
ness thus exist only as they exist in each other. They
are not co-factors-for neither is real by itself; but each
is real in relation to the other. In fact, reality is in
neither of the co-factors; each taken by itself is an
illusion; but let the infinite go out into the finite, or let
the finite rise to the infinite, and both become real.
There is just one slight difficulty about this doctrine,
and it is this-that it gives up too much, and can get
too little for its requirements. If the infinite conscious-
ness is by itself an illusion, and the finite consciousness
is by itself an illusion—a mere non-entity-how does
the illusory infinite consciousness pass into or add on to
itself the finite? and how does the illusory finite con-
sciousness rise to the infinite? We must either sup-
pose that the co-factors—the infinite and finite conscious-
ness-had each an independent existence before they
became one, in which case their reality does not lie in
their unity; or we must suppose that what was simply
unreal and illusory had the power of becoming what is
INTRODUCTION.
cxlv
both real and true: or we must hold that there was some-
thing beyond them which constrained them to unite, or
rather created them in union-in which case, however,
there was being beyond consciousness.
2. Infinite self-consciousness is not (does not conceive
itself to be), unless it is (or conceives itself to be)
finite self-consciousness; finite self-consciousness is not,
unless it is (or conceives itself to be) infinite self-con-
sciousness. In bare formula, A is not, unless it is not-A
(or B); not-A (or B) is not, unless it is A. Strictly
taken, neither the one nor the other is; only if either
is, the other is: if one is conceived, the other is con-
ceived. Neither is by itself; both are, if they are at
all. Up to this point, no statement is made except that
of a hypothetically necessary relationship. Exception
even might be taken to the validity of the alleged neces-
sary relation. But waiving this meanwhile, the question
now is Can this hypothetical relationship be realised
or fulfilled? Do the terms of it not preclude the possi-
bility of its absolute assertion? I hold that they do, and
that the problem as put is ab initio null. We have merely
a hypothetical see-saw. The one term-viz., finite self-
consciousness—is not, unless it is the other term, infinite
self-consciousness. There is, therefore, no starting-point
for determination. If the one is not, until or unless it
is the other, I can never say that either the one or the
other is, or that they both are. If I had before me two
exclusive alternatives, or even correlates, equally co-
existent, I could absolutely say, This is, therefore the
other is not; or, This is, therefore that is also. If it had
been said infinite self-consciousness and finite self-con-
sciousness are necessary correlatives, I could have con-
cluded that, when I got the one I had the other. But
if I say, as this formula does, the one is not unless it is
the other, I can determine nothing. For my finite self-
consciousness is not, until that infinite self-consciousness
which is said to be inseparably it, is also; and so the
infinite self-consciousness is not, until my finite self-
G
cxlvi
INTRODUCTION.
consciousness which is inseparably it, is also. I must,
therefore, always beg the very thing which I am called
upon absolutely to establish, before I can assert or infer
it. I shut myself up in an absolute petitio principi.
I do not exist only in the consciousness of God; and
God does not exist only in my consciousness, and in
the consciousness of other minds. I have not merely
a universal existence; and God has not merely a dis-
tributive existence. At least these are propositions I
am never able to affirm, for the reason that I can never,
ex hypothesi, even be until I am not myself, but God;
and God can never be until He is not Himself, but me.
Or I can never be conscious until I am conscious as
God; and God can never be conscious until He is con-
scious as me. I therefore can never know God's con-
sciousness; and He can never know mine. As con-
sciousness and being are identical, for the same reason
neither God nor I can ever be.
3. But what precisely is the extent of the statement
that my consciousness is God's consciousness, and God's
consciousness is mine? Is this the human conscious-
ness in all its modes or moods, thoughts, feelings,
desires, volitions—in all their limitations and imperfec-
tions-in all their purity and impurity, their foulness
and their fairness? Is this God's consciousness, at
least temporally? Is it His consciousness passing
through man? Then what sort of Divine conscious-
ness is this? What of injustice, falsehood, and slan-
der? Is this the Divine consciousness in man? At any
rate, we need not deal much with its ethical results.
These are tolerably apparent. Had we not better take
refuge in Dualism? Or is it only that my conscious-
ness is God's consciousness in the sense of logical or
generic identity?-in the sense, that is, of the two
consciousnesses being the same in essential character
and feature? So that we know at least, as Ferrier put
it, what God is, if we do not know that He is. In
this case, we have no real identity or identity except in
INTRODUCTION.
cxlvii
thought. We have the same identity which we have in
any classification. But this implies a duality of per-
ception or intuition. And we have not yet reduced all
consciousness-i.e., all being-to one.
4. Although Hegelianism seeks to make the prin-
ciple of non-contradiction of very little effect in its sys-
tem of doctrine, we are at least, in the first instance,
entitled to try any doctrine it advances by this prin-
ciple. For I presume even Hegelianism, in establish-
ing its own positions by proof, must in the first place
assume these positions to be what they are alleged
to be, and distinguish them from their contradictory
opposites. Self-consistency, accordingly, must be
postulated for any series of doctrines which even it
may lay down. Otherwise perfectly opposite conclu-
sions might be drawn from the same principle, and
thus all reasoning and all consistency of thought
abolished. Now, applying this test merely, we have
the me-being conscious, or the individual self-conscious-
ness which we suppose we find by reflection in our
experience pronounced to be ultimately only an illusion.
It seems to us to be real. There is self with an attri-
bute or series of attributes, which is distinguished by
us from any infinite self-consciousness which we may
chance to apprehend or know in any way, as it is dis-
tinguished from other individual self-consciousness,
which we may find or conceive. If it be only individual
or independent in appearance or seeming to itself, how
can this seemingly illusory entity afford a process of
proof or ground of reason for detecting the true reality,
which it, considered as independent, is not? If my
consciousness be in the first instance illusory, fortified
as it is by the law of non-contradiction, regarding the
nature and reality of my own being,-how can it be
trustworthy, in the second place, regarding the true or
ultimate reality of my own being and of this infinite
self-consciousness? Let it be observed, consciousness
is the only reality; there are not both consciousness and
cxlviii
INTRODUCTION.
being in separation. These are one and the same.
Well, the only consciousness I as yet know is my own;
it asserts itself as such, and it is impossible for me to
doubt it. It asserts, as is admitted, its own independent
individuality, as opposed alike to the Infinite self-con-
sciousness, to other individual finite self-consciousnesses;
but in doing so, it deceives itself. Can it any longer,
after that, be accepted as a reasonable trustworthy ground
for determining the true reality? Can the illusory
consciousness be trusted to rise to the true infinite
abiding self-consciousness? Such a deceitful conscious-
ness is obviously too rotten a foundation on which to
build either philosophy or theology.
5. But it may be said the Idea here comes to our aid,—
the idea in the march of "the immanent dialectic." This
comes in to correct the ordinary consciousness, which
is irreflective and superficial. It seems clear that the
consciousness of individuality, of which we here speak,
though common, has been dealt with by Descartes and
others in neither an irreflective nor a superficial way.
It has been tested and analysed as far back as analysis
within the limits of human intelligence will go. It has
been found to assert itself under pain of self-annihila-
tion,—of the annihilation of thought or consciousness
itself. I suspect no other philosophy can give another
or at least a deeper guarantee for its first principle. At
least one would like to see it produced. But this imma-
nent dialectic of the idea, wherein does it appear?
How does it make itself known or felt? I presume in
consciousness, and within my consciousness,-within
some individual consciousness; otherwise it is not and
cannot be anything to me or to any one conscious.
But then my consciousness, my individual consciousness,
is pronounced and confessed to be illusory. It is deceitful
in its very root; in holding itself to be what it most
intimately believes itself to be,—in what it is absolutely
constrained to think itself. How, then, does the imma-
nent dialectic of the idea, as at least in the first instance,
INTRODUCTION.
cxlix
and as in knowledge, a form of consciousness, escape the
taint of this illusory consciousness in which it appears?
How can I trust it when I cannot trust the deliverance
of the same consciousness regarding my own individu-
ality? This dialectic may be called necessary, a
necessary evolution of the idea, and looked up to as
the march of omnipotence. But not less necessary and
indisputable is the self-assertion of consciousness, and
yet it is but illusion. Why may the necessity of the
immanent dialectic not be an illusion of the same con-
sciousness? How, in fact, on such a principle, can we
think it to be anything else? If the spring of know-
ledge be poisoned at its fountain, what can purify its
waters? Or if our intelligence be a faulty and illusory
prism, how can we expect it to transmit or reflect the
pure light of truth?
III. After what has been said of the inherent incon-
sistency of the theory, it is hardly necessary to inquire
whether such a doctrine can be admitted as the neces-
sary and logical supplement of the view of Descartes.
But it may be well to examine the alleged ground of
its proof. This touches on a question regarding the
nature of consciousness, which has important general
bearings.¹
We have, in the passage quoted from Hegel, one state-
ment which is tangible enough to be grasped and ex-
amined, and it is the principle of the whole. It seems
that the consciousness of a limit overleaps or transcends
the limit,-in plain words, that when conscious of a
limit, say an opposite, contrary or contradictory, I neces-
sarily transcend that limit, and apparently take it up into
myself as a part of me-abolish it by absorption. The
reason of this which is given seems to be that, as an
object of consciousness, it is within my knowledge or
consciousness; and whatever is so, ceases to be a limit
or contrary to me. It is fused with me in the unity of
knowledge, and loses its character as an opposite or
1 See above, p. cxxxvi et seq.
cl
INTRODUCTION.
:
contrary. I, the conscious thinker, become both myself
and the limit which restricts me to myself-being.
1. The first thing to be said about this principle is that,
if simply because a limit known is in consciousness, it is
necessarily transcended or abolished then there never
can be a limit at all. For it is useless and nonsensical
to say that it is only the being of which there is no
consciousness, or which is unknown, that could consti-
tute a limit of knowledge. What is unknown is for us
undetermined to any alternative, or in respect of any
predicate-either as this or that; and so long as it is
unknown, could be neither limit nor the reverse to us.
If, therefore, limit be to us at all, it must be a conscious
limit, or a limit known in consciousness; but how can it
even be known as such if, the moment I am conscious of
it, it disappears? The very possibility of the existence of
limit is first of all taken away by saying that a conscious
limit is not a limit at all; and yet it is immediately
asserted that there is a limit in consciousness to be
taken away.
2. But let us look at this principle in its main ap-
plication, and we shall see how very vague the state-
ment is, and how thoroughly misleading it frequently is.
Hegel speaks of consciousness; but it is truly the
conscious act which must transcend the limit, if it be
transcended at all. We cannot deal with consciousness
in general, for we know it as a reality only in this or
that special act. Now let us look at the main classes
of those acts, and test the alleged principle. Let us
take Sense-Perception. I apprehend, for example, a
certain amount, and therefore limit, of space—say, as
far as the horizon. I am conscious at the same time
that there is space beyond what I actually see.
I can
imagine space beyond the visible space, and I can go
on doing this indefinitely. Here I transcend the limit
of vision. But have I in any way abolished the visible
limit? In no sense whatever. The bounds within
which my vision is exercised remain to me as much
INTRODUCTION.
cli
bounds as ever,-—as definite and unimpassable by vision
as before. I cannot see beyond the horizon. All that I
have done is, that I have ideally added to the amount of
space lying within the limits of vision. In so doing I
in no way affect the limit of my original perception. I
transcend it in imagination; but I neither abolish it,
nor do I absorb it in the consciousness which I have of
it, or of the imaginative ideal which I join to it. And
what is more, if I place the act of imagination on the
same level with the act of vision, because both are in
consciousness, I make an assumption which I have
not attempted to vindicate, and which is not vindi-
cable. For the act of vision is primary and intuitive,
and conversant with an object of a totally different
character from the secondary and ideal object of imagi-
nation.
3. Let us try the principle by reference to the limit ex-
perienced in Desire, a favourite Hegelian illustration.
To transcend the limit here, obviously means in thought.
When we are conscious of desiring a particular object,
we are conscious of the object desired, that we have it
not in possession, and we can conceive ourselves as
possessing it. That is "transcending" the "limit" im-
plied in the desire. Nobody need dispute this. It is
stating the fact of desire and what is essential to it
in explicit words. But what then? Is it transcending
the limit in any real or positive sense? Does this con-
ception of what I seek put me, the seeker, in possession
of the object? In other words, is my consciousness of
what I am or have added to by the conception merely
of what I want? In that case, to desire must mean
that we have the thing desired. The transcending
the limit in the sense of being conscious of what the
limit is, and reaching the limit in consciousness, are so
wholly different things, that only a man inspired with the
belief that his consciousness even of a possibility is the
only actuality can accept such a conclusion. Nothing
could more clearly show that we are here dealing with


clii
INTRODUCTION.
a new notionalism, related to reality merely as the
shadow to the thing.
4. But let us take logical limit. Here, if anywhere, the
doctrine ought to hold good, that the consciousness of
a limit transcends the limit.
In the constitution of a notion we have limit; limit is
essential to the existence of a notion. In one point
of view a notion is an attribute or set of attributes
named; in another, it is the (ideal) sum of objects in
which the attribute or attributes are embodied. Here
distinction, difference, therefore limit is essential. The
attribute of life, e. g., marks off the thing possessing
it from others which do not. Organisation does the
same; and but for the distinction, and therefore limit,
implied in the notions, there would be no conception,
knowledge, or thought at all. It may be said that
because I am conscious of the attribute life and there-
fore of its opposite or negative, I have transcended the
particular attribute. If to know what a thing is not, is
to transcend the knowledge of what it is, I have. This
can hardly seriously be regarded as either a novel or
important discovery. But this is not all that is meant
or implied in the transcending, and we must inquire
whether there is abolition of the limit here, or absorp-
tion of it in the mere consciousness of it. There is
neither such abolition nor absorption. If the limit be
abolished by my being conscious of it, there never was
a limit to begin with, for there was no limit of which I
was not conscious. And if the limit be abolished at all,
then the attribute itself is abolished, its very reality as
an object of thought is subverted, and there is the blank
of knowledge. As to absorption in a third notion which
embraces or is identical alike with life and its contradic-
tory opposite or even contrary opposite-we must wait
until this third is produced. It is a mere confusion of
thought to suppose that because I know opposites in
one and the same act-grasp them in a unity of know-
ledge-the opposites themselves are necessarily identi-

INTRODUCTION.
cliii
fied or absorbed. Both are in consciousness; and in
this way the contrary may be said to be "the other” of
the given attribute, but their real difference subsists all
the same-subsists in the consciousness itself, on pain
of the very abolition of knowledge. Correlation even
excludes identity; and the moment correlatives are
identified the correlation ceases.
5. Let us look at the principle in its application to
the Dualism of Mind and Matter.
Because we are conscious of mind and matter as two
realities, we know (are conscious) of something beyond
the dualism or limit.
Thought is conscious, and conscious not only of it-
self, but of extension. It transcends, therefore, the ab-
solute distinction between itself and the other attributes.
What is this transcendent something now known?
a. Is it a unity in which the dualism disappears? Of
this, what proof is there? Are we actually conscious of
any such unity-conscious as we are of the dualism?
b. Is the something the idea or conception of the pos-
sibility of such a unity? How does this destroy the
dualism or limit? If we are conscious, or rather think,
of such a possibility, must we not always, to make this
even intelligible, confront it with the dualism or limit
of which we are actually conscious?
In this case, the consciousness of something beyond
is a harmless hypothesis, waiting proof of its reality. And
the statement of it is simply a confusion of consciousness
as intuition, and consciousness as embracing the possi-
bilities of thought. The ideal conception of a limit
transcended is not the actual transcending of the limit;
and it ought not to be put on the same level with an act
of intuitional consciousness. This is to put possibility
against fact or reality-the conception of the conditions.
under which a thing is possible against actual definite
thought.
c. But let the object of knowledge gained in this
transcendent act be supposed to be actually either the
G 2
cliv
INTRODUCTION.
indifference or the identity of the subject and object of
consciousness. In either case the relation of contrast
or opposition between the two disappears. We have a
knowledge above relation and difference, and, therefore,
above consciousness. This statement is a simple con-
tradiction in terms. The words knowledge and con-
sciousness cease to apply to these barren formulæ. The
absolute identity of subject and object in any form of con-
sciousness we can reach, is no more to us than a square
circle. And to rest the assertion of such knowledge or
consciousness on the simple statement that conscious-
ness, in apprehending a dualism, transcends itself, is to
leave out the only point demanding attention and proof.
6. But the statement may be looked at in its highest
generality as referring, not to this or that definite act of
consciousness, but to consciousness in general — con-
sciousness regarded as aware of limit in general in
knowledge. It may be said—nay, must be said—logi-
cally, consciousness ultimately transcends itself - it
passes into something beyond itself. What is the
meaning of this? The ultimate limit of consciousness is
that which separates it from unconsciousness. When
it passes into something beyond itself, does it pass into
this opposite the unconscious? In this case, tran-
scending itself is simply ceasing to be or to know. Our
consciousness seems to be under the necessity of a logi-
cal suicide.
7. We have a good deal of talk in these days of limit in
thought as self-imposed, and therefore superable,—such
as we not only may but must overpass. In what sense
is any limit in thought self-imposed? Is thought, then,
complete—totus, teres, atque rotundus,—and does it thus
impose a limit on itself a limit, say, of identity and non-
contradiction? This is absurd; for if thought already
be, it is independent of anything-be it limit or other
—which it may impose on itself, it is thought com-
plete. It need not be guilty of anything so foolish and
arbitrary as this. But self-imposed limit is really an
INTRODUCTION.
clv
absurdity. The limit in thought, or of thought, is the
limit in or as which thought exists-under which it is
possible. We think an object; in doing so, we think it
as identical with itself,—that is one limit: we think it
as contradistinguished from what is not itself, that is
another limit: and our thought as thought, as existing
or real, is a consciousness of those limits. It does not
impose them, for the simple reason that it is not in ex-
istence before them, is in and through them, and cannot
exist apart from them. The truth is, that consciousness
itself is impossible apart from limit-apart from the
consciousness of self and not self, the affirmation of this
and that. And if consciousness always and necessarily
transcends the limit, it always and necessarily trans-
cends its own reality, which, in plain English, means,
it ceases to be. But the whole point lies in this, that
while each opposite or contradictory is in consciousness,
each is an opposite or contradictory still, notwithstand-
ing that they possess the common element of being in
consciousness. The fallacy lies in making the common
element of consciousness in each convertible with the
difference of the opposites of which there is conscious-
ness. There is, in fact, the usual Hegelian disregard
of difference, because of a common element.
8. Those who seem to hold this doctrine talk constantly
of the doctrine to which it is opposed as implying that
knowledge is represented as limiting, and that all
beyond this is the vague unlimited, or unqualified.
Now I certainly deny that this is a fair statement of
the position. Knowledge is not to be described as
merely a limit—that would be to define it by negation.
Knowledge, relative, or under limit, is a positive thing,
the only positive thing we can have, and it is distinc-
tion or distinctiveness which guards it as such for us.
It is the content of our knowledge which makes it real
for us, not the bare limit. The limit or law enables us
to hold the content definitely and distinctively; and if
there be no fixity in that, there is simply chaos for us.
clvi
INTRODUCTION.
It is in the content, too, of our knowledge, that its variety
lies, and its possibility of increase or development. It
is in this, too, that change is possible, transmutation
becoming development; but this itself is impossible if
every form of consciousness is superable. For what
would be the course of human life and human know-
ledge if this were so? If everything must pass over
into its contrary-if we can never hold anything as
fixed or won for thought, then the aim of thought
and life is not to reach the perfection of a type, as
we generally imagine, but it is to go on in endless.
unrest. Mere mutation, whether in an endless line or
in the Hegelian circle, is a low aim; it is not true free-
dom, it is fate, and it is not worth living for. There
must be an ultimate type to which life and thought
aspire; and such a conception is utterly incompatible
with the doctrine that the content and the form of
thought are equally unfixed.
9. One would expect cogent proof of such a theory
as the foregoing. But really such is far to seek.
Finite self-consciousness, it is said, implies infinite
self-consciousness, as finite spaces presuppose infinite
space. Is there any true analogy here? Is finite self-
consciousness related to any infinite self-consciousness,
as the known points of space are to the imagined,
whether indefinite and infinite? In the case of space
we repeat similars,-coexisting similars; we have as
clear an idea of space from the smallest portion of it as
from the greatest imaginable. It is at its full extent
but a repetition of points. Is this the case with regard
to the relation between finite self-consciousness and
infinite self-consciousness? Is the infinite self-con-
sciousness simply the endless repetition of finite self-
consciousnesses? In this case, we should have an
infinite series of finites, but this would not make one
infinite self-consciousness. We are as far-nay, farther
--from unity than when we started. Is the infinite self-
consciousness presupposed a self-consciousness which is
INTRODUCTION.
clvii
entirely above limit and predication of any sort, except
the general statement that it is a self-consciousness
absolutely without limit? This statement is really
suicidal, —if not positively meaningless. The term
self cannot be applied under such conditions; and no
more can the term consciousness. At any rate, such a
self is not the self of consciousness which we know, and
has no more logical or other connection with it than it
has with non-entity, or the blank of indefiniteness.
10. The infinite self-consciousness and the finite self-
consciousness are two phrases which are bandied about
as if they were equally grasped by us, and this infinite
self-consciousness were as patent to our knowledge as
our own self-consciousness is. But the truth is, that
while we have a perfectly definite knowledge of our
own self-consciousness, personality, and individuality,—
as a matter of fact or fact in time, we have no such
knowledge of an infinite conscious personality. We may
be Ted to infer it from our own consciousness or from
other facts of our experience, or we may try to conceive
it. This even we shall find an exceedingly difficult
task,-for a conscious personality above time and limit,
yet divided into an infinity of personalities in time—a
me that is every me, and yet itself above every me—is
a conception the elements of which are by us positively
irreconcilable. At any rate, this we do not find or ap-
prehend, as we do our own self-conscious reality. And
to speak of the consciousness of God as on the same
level of apprehension and evidence as our own self-
consciousness, without even offering explicit proof, is
as bad a presupposition as can well be imagined.
We might ask a question as to what an infinite self-
consciousness really means. It is an exceedingly am-
biguous phrase,-a phrase into which it is hardly pos-
sible to put a consistent meaning. The only rational
analogy through which we can conceive any meaning
in it is that of extending our self-consciousness to the
universe. We know that we are conscious all through
clviii
INTRODUCTION.
the bodily organism until we meet with a limit to the
sphere of our sentiency. This is the true and ultimate
distinction between the finite Ego and the material non-
Ego. We may carry this analogy with us, and suppose
that there is an Ego who is conscious of himself all
through the universe of being, as we are conscious all
through our sentient bodily organism. But this is as
yet to us nothing more than a conception or ideal. We
have no warrant, simply because we are self-conscious
within a certain sphere or limit, to suppose that there
is an all-pervading consciousness which appropriates
to itself as its own sphere of sentiency both all finite
minds and all matter. Yet what else does an infinite
self-consciousness properly mean? And will it be
maintained that we have an equal intuition of a being
of this character with that of our own individual exist-
ence within the sphere of sentiency? Is it not the
height of unreason to maintain further that we can make
this conception reconcilable with the individuality of
finite minds? or that in this case the so-called reality
of finite minds can be construed by us as anything but
a mere dream? The self-conscious being who conceits
himself as real, is merely a thing to which the infinite
all-pervading consciousness permits a passing moment
of self-illusion.
But what are the terms in which the Infinite or in-
finite being, is represented? It appears that we con-
ceive of the Infinite Being by the very fact that we
conceive of being without thinking whether it be finite or
no. We may take this as an explicit statement of what
is meant when there is talk of the infinite being. But
what truly does this mean? Would any one acquainted
with the discussions on this point accept such a state-
ment as a correct description of what we suppose we
mean when we speak of the infinite being? To be con-
scious of being, without thinking whether it be finite
or no-this is thinking being infinite. Then, in that
case, simply because we reach the indeterminate in
INTRODUCTION.
clix
thought—neither finite nor the reverse,—we have got
the infinite! We do not predicate of the notion being,
therefore our notion of it is infinite! The cessation of
predication is the infinite! Well, such an infinite is
not worth the paper it is written on. But is this con-
sistent with other statements that the infinite is an
infinite self-consciousness-that it is spirit, and so on?
Certainly not. This so-called infinite is the mere vague
indeterminate of thought. It is worse as a terminal
description of the infinite than even the indefinite of
Mill. The true infinite, if there be a positive infinite
at all, in knowledge, is that of being in one or other
of its forms—that is, intelligible being raised to such
a height of conception that we are able on grounds of
evidence to say that it is an entity absolutely without
bounds. This abstinence from thinking the object as
either finite or not, is not a conception or statement,
even in terms, of infinity or the infinite; it is a mere
indeterminate possibility of thought.
IV. But let us look for a moment at the bearings of
this doctrine on Finite Reality, especially the Person-
ality and Individuality of man. What is its fair logical
consequence? Is it consistent with the facts of our
experience?
1. Individual realities, if the expression be allowable,
are the most vain and passing things in the world.
They have no true reality; they are, but they are only
as passing forms of the outpour of the infinite sub-
stance. They are as rain-drops to vapour; the partial
manifestations of the ultimate reality—again, perhaps,
to return to vapour. All that can be said is, that this
infinite substance individualises itself only again to
take the individual, perhaps, up into itself, or to let it
pass into other individuals; but the idea of anything
more than some necessary individualisation need not
be admitted. The whole sphere, therefore, of human
individuality and personality, is swept away, so far
as any distinctiveness or permanency is concerned.


clx
INTRODUCTION.
Each individual is I, Thou, He, at a particular point
of time; but these Egos, or Selves, or Personalities
have little or no meaning or concern in the Universe.
These are simply forms in which the infinite sub-
stance must individualise itself. But that is all. Any
other ego or self besides me and thee and him will
do equally well, provided simply it is an ego. We
pass away from time, and other egos come in our place
-equally emanations of the infinite substance—and
thus the evolution or issue of this infinite substance is
fulfilled. As to why and how I am here, except that
the infinite necessarily evolves itself, I know not and
need not care. As to where I am going, and whether I
am going anywhere, this is equally left unaccounted
for, except that probably I shall return into that infinite
or indefinite being that neutrum of Personality and
Impersonality from which I came. It might seem
necessary here even to call in the common experience
or consciousness of mankind, and to ask whether this is
an adequate representation of reality as we find it in
experience, or as we find it suggested in experience.
A philosophy of this sort does not meet, it shirks
essentially the questions of highest and most pressing
interest to human life. Some development in things,—
a development even of a particular sort, and according
to particular laws-it being indifferent all the while
what are, whence are, and whither go the individualities,
the conscious personal existences of the universe-
except as accidentally filling up the scheme of things
which alone subsists in the Eternal Substance or
Reason, this is a system which can satisfy only when
faith and hope have fled from the breasts of men, and
they are convinced that existence blossoms and comes
to highest fruit only in the passing aggregate of human
self-consciousnesses.
2. But consciousness by a man of his being merely a
relative in the correlation of finite and infinite, really
makes him to be-constitutes his being.
No man,
INTRODUCTION.
clxi
therefore, who does not attain to this consciousness,
ever is.
Who among men in the past have attained
to this consciousness? Who of the actors, the speak-
ers, even the thinkers, of the world? Who in history
have really ever realised this within their own con-
sciousness? I say none-not one-none until Hegel
himself, if he did this-in formulating certain phrase-
ology. It follows, therefore, that all men before his
time, believing, as they did, in their independent indi-
viduality, have really never existed. They were not;
they were a mere illusion to themselves. They never
rose to the speculative consciousness; they never, there-
fore, rose to mere being. Their lives are to be set aside
as merely side-waters, having nothing to do with the
main stream of life. They cannot even be said to be
moments of the eternal being; for they were never con-
scious of their true relationship to it, and therefore never
existed even as moments of it. Hegel could thus quite
consistently, yet inhumanly, say that justice and vir-
tue, injustice, violence, and vice, talents and their deeds,
passions small and great, guilt and innocence, the
grandeur of individual and of national life, the indepen-
dence and the fortunes of states and individuals, have
their meaning in the sphere of conscious reality, but
that with these the universal or world-history has no
concern. It looks only to the necessary moment of →
the idea of the world-spirit.¹
3. To represent the world of human thought, feeling,
and volition as in itself a mere negation; to do the
same regarding the world of extension, resistance,
colour, sound, and all the manifold variety of sensible
experience; to hold all this as a negation of an infinite
something, which has never itself truly come within
our consciousness at all,—is not to elevate but to de-
grade our view both of man and the world. These are
the most positive objects we know; and if aught else
be positive or real, it is because these are positive and
1 Phil. d. Rechts, § 345; Werke, viii. 424.
clxii
INTRODUCTION.
real, and we know them to be such. So far from there
being an infinite which is the only reality, there can
be no infinite which is a reality at all, if these be not
in themselves, as we experience them, what our con-
sciousness testifies they are, distinctive existences.
Man's spirit, so far as it is a negation, is a negation of
the non-existent and the unconscious; and the world, so
far as it is a negation, is a negation of infinite vacuity
in time and space. These are the notions negated, if
we are to talk of man and the world as negatives. The
negation is of the previous absence of being, by the
position of being-of consciousness and material real-
ity. The true correlation is between the definite of
time and space and the indefinite of both or either.
But this is an unequal correlation; it is not the subor-
dination of man and the world to a higher reality; it is
not the negation of a higher reality; it is not the evo-
lution of these from it: it is simply the statement of the
real as opposed to the unreal,-which must be the limit
and condition to us of any conception of reality at all.
4. Hegel himself no doubt imagines that he harmonises
the reality of the finite with the infinite, as he thinks
that he conciliates realism and idealism. The ordinary
view of the reality of God and man is, according to him,
this: "God is, and we are also.” ((
This," he says, “is a
bad synthetic combination. It is the way of the Represen-
tation that each side is as substantial as the other. God
has worship and is on this side, but so also finite things
have being (Seyn). Reason, however, cannot allow this
equipollence to stand. The philosophical need is there-
fore to grasp the unity of this difference, so that the
difference is not lost but proceeds eternally out of the
substance, without becoming petrified in dualism."1
Again: "Phænomenon is a continual manifestation of
substance by form. Reality is neither essence or the
thing in itself, nor phænomenon; it is neither the ideal
world nor the phænomenal world,—it is their unity,
1 Gesch. d. Philosophie, Werke, xv. 350.
INTRODUCTION.
clxiii
their identity, the unity of force and its manifestation,
essence, and existence."
11
The conciliation of infinite and finite thus given is
simply to substitute for both a process, an ongoing or
outcoming of the infinite, or indeterminate, called at
a certain stage substance and spirit. Reality is thus
simply movement-movement in the phænomenal world.
This phænomenal movement, for there is here really no
phænomenal world,-is all that is either of the material
world or of finite spirit. It is represented as an eternal
process of creation and absorption. It is a creation
which creates only that it may destroy; a creation
which simulates a dualism which never really is at
any point of time or space. A dualism which never
exists in time is no dualism; a dualism which exists
in thought only to be abolished or trampled out by that
in which it exists, is a mere passing illusion. This is
not a conciliation of realism and idealism; it is the an-
nihilation of everything corresponding to reality, either
in the material or the mental world. It is the resolu-
tion of both into a shadowy pageantry of a process in
which nothing proceeds. There is not the slightest
ground for representing dualism as an absolute oppo-
sition; and not the slightest approach is made to a con-
ciliation of the finite and infinite by fusing both into a
process or relation between terms the distinctive reality
of each of which is denied. The pantheism which
openly identifies God with the sum of all phænomena
may be false; it is not an absolute or inherent violation
of the laws of intelligibility.
5. But why speak of the phænomenal or of actual real-
ity at all on such a system? The finite mind is simply
in the process; it is the process. In that case to what
or whom is there a phænomenal,-an apparent? How
has it any meaning unless there be a distinct finite
intelligence who apprehends it? Again, is it phæno-
menal to the Infinite Spirit? This, however, is as
much in the process, or the process itself, as the finite

clxiv
INTRODUCTION.
spirit is. And if it were phænomenal to an infinite
spirit, how is the phænomenal to it known to be iden-
tical with the phænomenal of experience? The truth
is, that the Hegelian reality may perfectly fairly be
translated by the serial impressions of Hume, which,
having substratum neither in God nor in man, are the
merest passing illusion of reality.
6. The fallacy of the whole logic, and the main result
of the system, in its bearing on reality, may be summed
up in a few sentences:-
"Thought" is used in two diametrically opposite
meanings—unconscious and conscious thought; while
the former is so far spoken of in terms of the latter.
First of all, it is thought without consciousness; and
yet it is spoken of as in itself,―i.e., it is credited with
self-hood, and also with power of movement into what
is called its opposite, and then with the power of gather-
ing up itself and its opposite in a third,-which is it-
self enriched. In other words, terms and phrases en-
tirely without meaning, unless as found in conscious
thought, are applied to this unconscious thought; it is
made, in short, to act as if it were conscious thought.
Secondly, at a later stage of its begged development,
it becomes conscious thought,-a self-conscious ego,-
which goes through several stages, turnings, and wind-
ings, until it becomes a self-consciousness above the
finite consciousness and all finite reality: for it is both
infinite consciousness and finite consciousness; it is
neither the one nor the other, but the fusing of both.
That the unconscious passes into consciousness is
assumed, not proved: the way in which it does this is
sought to be shown by clothing the unconscious in
consciousness or its terms; and thus the disputed fact
is established only by a petitio principii. The ground
of the whole process is a form of vulgar realism which
identifies the unconscious with being; and the result
of the whole is a nihilism of contradiction in which both
positive thought and positive being disappear. The

INTRODUCTION.
clxv
so-called idealism is truly a veiled form of irreflective
realism; the so-called concrete, or positive result of the
system is merely nihilism, or at the utmost phænome-
nalism.
V. Let us look for a moment at the Theological bear-
ings of the doctrine. It is adduced as a corrective
of prevailing views regarding the Divine Reality and
Nature. There are some positions regarding Deity
which this advanced thought thinks itself competent to
interpret in its own way, and to correct.
It is said,
first, that if the world or the finite material universe
be regarded as originating in the free-will of Deity,:
called arbitrary, its connection with Him is to be re-
garded as "external," "accidental," and as having no
proper or necessary relationship to Him. It is said,
secondly, that in order to give a reasonable char-
acter to this relationship, the finite world must be re-
garded as somehow emanating from Him by a necessary
connection, which stands clear out in the light of rea-
son. This, when fully examined, is found to mean, not
only that there is such a necessary connection, but
that it is deducible from the very notion of Deity itself,
regarded as the Infinite; and further, that this is dedu-
cible by us as a process of thought or consciousness.
·
1. Now, with regard to the first point, it is incorrect
and unfair to represent origination or creation by free-
will as an arbitrary act. It is to be regarded as an
arbitrary act only in the sense in which any act of
free resolution is an arbitrary act, this and nothing.
short of it. And we need not go into the question
of free will to know that will, the highest and best
form of resolution conceivable by us, is that regulated
by a conception of what is most fitting and best in
the circumstances, or, if you choose to employ a
vague phrase, by reason. To say that resolution is
necessarily arbitrary, is itself a mere arbitrary state-
ment. So far from creation which depends on an act
of free will, regulated by thought, evidencing only
བ་་་་ས་
n
clxvi
INTRODUCTION.
!
an external or accidental relationship, it is in fact
analogous to the very closest, most intimate of all the
relationships of our own consciousness. For the closest
tie which we know in our inward experience is just that
which subsists between me willing and the resolution
which I form. I relate resolution to myself in a way in
which I relate no other mode of consciousness,-neither
feeling, desire, nor thought itself. It is mine in the
sense of being truly my own creation; and it is to me
the most fitting of all analogies for the mysterious fact
of Divine origination itself. The finite as thus related
to the Infinite is truly the passage of the Divine power
into actuality or realisation. It is only a purely verbal
logic, founding on verbal assumptions, which can regard
it as
"external" or "accidental." If it is to be compre-
hended at all by us, it must be in some such way as this,
and by some such analogy. Will, the expression of per-
sonality, both as originating resolutions, and as mould-
ing existing material into form, is the nearest approach
in thought which we can make to Divine creation.
2. With regard to the second point, the so-called
essential or necessary relationship of reason,—the first
thing to be noted is, that the finite material or mental
world, which arises in this way, is and must be the only
possible world. If the Infinite is under a necessity of
development, He will develop in one definite way, and
in no other; and if He has developed in time, that de-
velopment is the one possible, and no other. Are we
prepared to take this consequence? Do the facts of
experience warrant it? Does the physical or moral
quality of the world warrant it? Can we ascribe to
the finite material world which we find in experience
more than a purely hypothetical necessity? No one,
I think, will venture rationally to do more than this.
Mechanical and chemical laws depend ultimately on
atomic existence, proportion, combination, and colloca-
tion. Organisation and life are somehow also connected
with those circumstances. But is it not conceivable that

INTRODUCTION.
clxvii
those ultimate material constituents of the universe might
have been different in various points of constitution and
adjustment? Will it be maintained that the actual
order which we know has arisen is the only possible
order, the single necessary and essential development
of the Infinite Power at the root of things? Further,
does not the element of evil in the world imply a con-
tingency which is entirely incompatible with the sup-
position of a single possible best evolution from an
absolutely perfect Infinite? At any rate, can we with
our lights prove this to be the absolutely best even in
the long-run ?
The theology resulting from these principles may be
summed up, in these words of Leibnitz, in two propo-
sitions "What does not happen is impossible; what
happens is necessary."1
3. But let us first take this necessary development
of the Infinite or Absolute. Is it speculatively self-
consistent? The finite comes from it necessarily—nay,
it is, as it originates the finite, material and spiritual.
Its reality is, therefore, dependent on its necessary
development and relation to the finite: the finite is
as necessary to it as it is to the finite. Yet this prior
term of a mere relation is an absolute an infinite,
self-sufficient, as such needing nothing but itself for
its existence! The term absolute or infinite has no
longer the slightest application. The prior term here
is a relative-pure and simple,-a mere relative, de-
pendent for its meaning-nay, its reality—on a develop-
ment which it can no more control than the body which
gravitates can regulate or reverse its own movement.
A god who is only as he must be, producing the con-
tents of space and time—who is only a means to these
contents, is about the lowest form of mechanical
agency ever set up for man to worship. But further,
if an infinite or absolute cause is necessarily at work,
must not the effect be an infinite or absolute one? If
1 Lettre à M. L'Abbé Nicaise, Erd. p. 139.

clxviii
INTRODUCTION.
the cause works necessarily, without let or control,
must not its whole power pass into act in the single
given operation or moment of action? Then, what
have we here? Not a finite result, surely, but a result
infinitely or absolutely great, and, therefore, coequal
with the infinite or absolute power at work. But what
an absurdity does this land us in? Either the absolute
perishes in the act of necessary development, and we
have a new absolute in its effect-Deity has perished
in creation, or we have two absolutes-an absolute
cause and an absolute effect coexisting in the uni-
verse. This is an inherent absurdity; and further,
what then becomes of our absolute monism?
4. But have we considered the full effect of the state-
ment that the finite is as necessary to the infinite as
the latter is to the former? I am quite willing to take
the finite here spoken of as the finite in some form—
not the actual finite of space and time. Let it be any
finite form of being whatever. Deity, in order to be,
must produce this actual finite. His reality is depend-
ent on it. What kind of Deity is this? A Deity wait-
ing for his reality on the finite thing which he cannot
but produce? The cause dependent for its reality on
the effect? We are accustomed to think of Deity as
possessing existence in himself necessary and self-
sufficient; and if he have not this, he has no more or
other reality than any finite thing which arises in the
succession of causality. But here, forsooth, he waits
on necessary production for his reality! Is this con-
ception at all adequate or worthy of God? Is not the
self-conscious I, with its free power of will, higher than
this?—a better and more elevating way of conceiving of
God? Is it not a higher perfection than this to be able to
say I will, or I do not will-yet I retain my individuality :
I am the centre and the possessor of powers which I
can use, or not use, as intelligence directs me, and as
moral interests require? Is not this a higher grade of
being than a something which depends on the neces
at y

INTRODUCTION.
clxix
}
sary production of a given effect for its reality, and
which, further, must also depend for the continuance of
its being on the continuance of the given effect? For
this is the logical result of the doctrine, even granting
it the most favourable terms. For unless the effect
continues, which is not provided for by the theory, the
producing power might quite well be supposed to pass
away with its own necessary effort. And this is to be
our advanced conception of Deity!
5. But, further, finite being as an evolution of in-
finite being is certainly variable as to content. We
need not again point out the absurdities of the neces-
sary development of infinite being. Is the finite being
or development not variable in content at the will-the
reasonable or righteous will, it may be-of the Infinite
one? Then what becomes of his infinity? Can we
conceive a Being as infinite who is restricted to a
single development of finite being? But if he is not
so restricted, but may evolve several forms of finitude,
how can it be said that the finite as a given form is
equally necessary to the infinite, as the infinite is to
the finite? If a conscious personality is possessed of
free-will, how can it be said that a given resolution
which he forms is as necessary to his power of free-
determination as free-determination with all its possi-
bilities is to it? Such a position can be maintained
only on the suicidal basis that a given finite is as neces-
sary to the infinite, as the infinite with all its inherent
possibilities is to it.
6. Then, further, there is the point to be established
that we have any conception, thought, or notion of the
Infinite which is at all adequate or truly distinguishable
from what is strictly an analogical notion,—whether,
in fact, the Infinite, in any form, is so comprehensible by
us as to be the basis of a necessary evolution of thought.
For even although it be admitted that finite and infinite
are as thoughts correlative, it has yet to be shown that
they are of the same nature, positive content or reality.

H
clxx
INTRODUCTION.
Unless this character can be vindicated to the Infinite
as a notion, it cannot be made the basis of a necessary
evolution in thought-of the actual finite, or anything
with positive attribute.
7. Then this evolution, even if compassable by our
thought, is but a process of thought. It would be
the ideal mode in which the Divine Power was sup-
posed to work; but it would fall far short of any ac-
tual realisation of the ideal in time. It is, after all,
but a process of reasoning, in which the Infinite is
assumed as major notion, and in which, accordingly, we
have but a hypothetical conclusion. But we have really
no guarantee that the process either represents or is
identical with anything in time, or that it is adequate
to or convertible with the evolution of that finite world
which we know in experience. The mode or ideal of
Divine Power, however distinctly conceived, leaves us
wholly in the dark as to whether the Power was ever
exercised or not. This can only be guaranteed on the
assumption that the process of necessary consciousness
through which we proceed is identical with Divine action,
—that, in fact, our thinking, sublimated to the imper-
sonal form of thought, is God's act in Creation. This is
but a part of the larger assumption that the real is the
rational,—or rather, that reality means certain´so-called
necessary processes in the human consciousness, call it
reason or by what name you choose. This assumption,
as unproved as it is unprovable, is contradicted by the
fact that the whole concrete world of the sciences of
nature and of mind is utterly untouched by it. It is in-
capable of yielding a single fact or general law of nature
or of mind as manifested in consciousness. Hegel's
Philosophy of Nature and his Philosophy of Spirit have
been long ago generally given up as utter failures in
point of consecutive thinking or fair evolution. They
are the mere manipulations of a harlequin logic, which
borrows in the premisses under one guise of words
what it brings out in the conclusion under another.
INTRODUCTION.
clxxi
8. But what, on such a philosophy, is Deity? Or
rather, where is the place of Deity at all? If we look
at the first stage of the development, He is the most
abstract conception possible,—the Idea in itself,—what
may be identified with nothing, yet credited with the
power of motion. This first moment is not even real.
The Idea becomes real or actual only in the develop-
ment, in the process. But this, again, is not absolute
reality. We find this the highest stage only in the
Idea when it becomes absolute Subject or Ego, and
contemplates itself as everything that is. In other
words, the unconscious abstraction called thought, not
at first God, not God even in the process, becomes ab-
solute self-consciousness in the end. He is dependent.
even for this consciousness, that is, for his reality,-on
retracing the steps which he has somehow taken into
the realm of nature, where he was "out of himself," and
so in the end finding himself in his own supreme con-
scious identity. This result may be translated into in-
telligible language by saying that Deity is ultimately
the highest point which human consciousness can reach
in the way of evolution or development. He is the most
which I can think Him-nay, he is I when I have in
consciousness transcended myself, and identified myself
with Him. Of course it will be said I, the individual
ego of this or that conscious moment, am not God.
But then I, the individual ego, am necessary to His
existence,—as He, the infinite ego, is necessary to
mine. His reality lies in the conscious relation which
I, the individual, think as connecting me and Him.
This relation is matter of my thought or consciousness.
It is not, unless in the consciousness of some one.
Deity, therefore, at the best or highest, is a process of
my consciousness. As I think, God is; and what I
think, God is. The step from this to the degradation
of Deity to the actual sum or the generic conception of
human consciousness is easily, and has been properly,
taken. The Hegelian Deity is really man himself—
clxxii
INTRODUCTION.
regarded as the subject of a certain conscious relation-
ship.
9. Deity, as standing in necessary relation to man, is
dependent on man for his reality; man, as standing in
necessary relation to Deity, is dependent on Deity for his
reality. The reality in either case is equal: Deity has
the reality which man has; man has the reality which
Deity possesses. They are two terms of one relation,
and they exist only in the relation. If the reality of
Deity be interpreted as necessary existence, so must
the reality of man; Deity has no advantage in this
respect over man. If the reality of man be interpreted
as a contingent reality, dependent on the constitution
of a relation in consciousness, so must the reality of
Deity be construed. Either thus existence, necessary
and self-sufficient, applies equally to God and man, or
existence, contingent and precarious, applies equally to
man and God. In the former case, man is God—he is
God developed; in the latter case, God is man—He is
man developed. In a word, we have Pantheism on the
one hand-we have what may be called Phænomenalism
on the other. God sinks to the level of a manifestation
of human consciousness, reaching reality only when the
speculative reason chances, in the course of things, to
develop into his notion.
"A theory," says Trendelenburg, "that the thinking
human mind is what makes the hitherto unconscious
god conscious of himself, could have arisen only under
the influence of a logical view, according to which com-
prehensive thought conceives the content from itself,
receives no rational ready-made content from without,
but produces the determinations of being from itself.
It could have arisen only under the influence of a logic,
at whose foundation lies the entire presupposition that
human thought, when man thinks purely, is as creative
as divine thought, and in so far is the divine thought
itself. Yet we do not, indeed, understand what the
conception of God at all means, and what God signifies
INTRODUCTION.
clxxiii
to man, since it is only man that makes him conscious
of himself, and since God, though not like an idol, the
work of hands, before which the same hands that made
it are folded in adoration, is after all a product of
thought, which can hardly be adored and worshipped by
the same thought which woke it from its sleep, and ena-
bled it to pass from blind inertness to consciousness."l
10. As to Christ, he is nothing more than any man in
whom the speculative consciousness is developed. He
can but be God, by being God consciously-as he can
be man but by being man conscious of himself as God.
This any man can be for the speculative reason is, if
not a universal property, at least a universal possibility;
and consequently the incarnation has no special sig-
nificance. Any man can be God incarnate; every man
is God, if only he knew it. The complete abolition here.
not only of all theological, but of all moral distinctions
between man and God need not be emphasised. Strauss
and Feuerbach are the true consequent Hegelians.
VI. Hegel no doubt talks frequently of Religion, religi-
ous ideas, and Christianity. He professes indeed to com-
prise them in his system. His system is the essence,-
the true reality,—of which religious and Christian ideas
are merely the symbols. He has revealed the reality;
all else is mere representation. The truth is, there is
not a single term either in Natural Theology or in Chris-
tianity which is not perverted by Hegel from its proper
sense. The whole burden of his effort is, so far as
Christianity is concerned, to convert what is of moral
import in Christian ideas into purely metaphysical rela-
tions,—and these of the most shadowy and unsubstantial
kind.
1. The aspiration after moral union with God is at the
root of all true ethical life, as it is of all religious life.
This means the harmony of the will of the individual
with the divine will. But the Hegelian conception of
1 Die logische Frage in Hegels System; cf. Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, v. p. 351.
H 2
clxxiv
INTRODUCTION.
ness.
this relation has nothing moral in it at all. For a moral
harmony he substitutes an identity of being or essence,
an identity of the human and the divine conscious-
The dualism implied in a God distinct from man
and the world is with him a mere superstition.¹ This
metaphysical identity may be a solid doctrine, or it may
be repugnant to every principle of reflective thought. It
is certainly not a moral union; and it is not Christianity.
It is a doctrine, moreover, incompatible with any proper
conception either of Sin, of Righteousness, or of Wor-
ship. It is of a piece with the translation of the Atone-
ment into a consciousness of identity with God, and the
consequent freedom from fear and terror; 2 and with the
doctrine that in getting rid of our subjective individu-
ality in Deity we get rid of the "old Adam.”
2. There were two points in particular on which, we
are told, Hegel was always reticent in public-viz., the
Personality of God and the Immortality of the Soul.
In this he showed that good ordinary common-sense
which he ignorantly mistook for the organon of philoso-
phy professed by some; for he knew shrewdly enough
the only view on these points possible on his philoso-
phy. It is on these points especially, as well as the
historic character of Christianity, on which the schisms
of his followers or clientèle have taken place. We have
three sections at least, all more or less holding by his
method and phraseology. These have been called the
Right, the Centre, and the Left. The Right retains but
the phraseology of the master. We have the Centre
party, represented, perhaps, best by Michelet of Berlin.
This is the party of conciliation and compromise.
The most opposite dogmas on the ultimate questions
of metaphysics and theology are held together. True to
the principle of the identity of contradictories, we have.
pantheism and theism. The unconscious and impersonal
Deity necessarily produces the world; and He becomes
1 Geschichte d. Philosophie, iii. 295.
2 Encyclopædie, i. 366.
INTRODUCTION.
clxxv
conscious in man. A common or collective immortality
of man is necessary; because the Infinite must to eter-
nity develop itself. But an immortality of each man
or of the individual is by no means guaranteed; it is not
necessary. As it has been put by Michelet, "the soul
is immortal in God only, and God is personal in man.”
Christianity is true and perfect; yet its real truth is
only in the Hegelian philosophy. Therein its true
essence is to be found. We have seen what that
essence is.
How much of the essence of Christianity
remains, we find in Feuerbach's formula, "Let the will
of man be done!”
Contradictory dogmas held in this fashion must in
the end prove too strong for the slender thread of iden-
tity with which they are sought to be bound. And so
history has shown. Even the unconscious absurdity of
the logic must ultimately lead men to choose one or
other side; and we can readily see which alone is pos-
sible on the principles of the system. Hence there
very soon arose a left party in the school, and an ex-
treme left. As to Deity, the shadowy distinction be-
tween the Spinozistic and the Hegelian original of things
—substance and subject-readily became obscured and
obliterated.
"An absolute personality," Strauss tells us, "is sim-
ply a piece of non-sense, an absurdity." What of the
Infinite Ego after this? And why? "Because person-
ality is an Ego concentred in itself by opposition to
another; the absolute, on the contrary, is the infinite
which embraces and contains all, which excludes no
thing." So far he is quite right; we cannot literally
conceive of an absolute personality, as our own is a
personality. Such a conception is utterly incompatible
with even one finite personality,—to say nothing of
the totality of finite personalities. But what then?
Does his solution help us, or must we take it? "God
is not a person beside and above other persons; but He
is the eternal movement of the universal making itself
clxxvi
INTRODUCTION.
subject to itself; He only realises Himself and becomes
objective in the subject. The personality of God ought
not then to be conceived as individual; but as a total,
universal personality, and instead of personifying the
absolute, it is necessary to learn to conceive it as per-
sonifying itself to infinity."1
Now what really does this mean? God is the eternal
movement of the universal making itself subject to
itself! What may the universal be? one might ask.
But apart from this, He or the universal is not a per-
sonality, to begin with; yet he becomes one and many
personalities. He is a process, a movement; but what
of its origin, law, progress, or term? What is this but
a simple abstract statement that God means the on-
going of things, and that the only personality he is or
reaches is that in collective humanity? Can we pro-
perly retain the name of God after this? Are we to
bow the knee to a juggle of words?
3. We speak of the attributes of God in ordinary lan-
guage. We even believe in them.
We even believe in them. How do we now
stand? Can an everlasting process have attributes? It
is something working up to personality in finite beings.
Has it attributes? The very name is meaningless.
The groping process to have goodness, wisdom, and
love! It has not yet even self-consciousness. Yet I
am asked to call it God! That I cannot do. The Ego
which or in which the process becomes self-conscious is
alone God. It never possessed an attribute till now; it
was formerly simply a creature of necessary generation
-though how it should be so much, nobody can tell.
4. Strauss, in the Leben Jesu (1835-6), had for his aim
to exhibit the essence of Christianity,—to deliver it from
its external, accidental, and temporary forms. This
was a true Hegelian conception. But it was clear that
the historical character of the books and actors could
not logically remain on the principles he assumed. Not
only the historical character, but the distinctive doc-
1 Die Christl. Glaubenslehre, iii. 505-524.
INTRODUCTION.
clxxvii
trines, rapidly disappeared in the development of the
school, in the writings of Ludwig Feuerbach,¹ Bruno
Bauer,2 and Arnold Ruge.³
The movement was entirely in the line of diminish-
ing,-in fact abolishing the supernatural or divine, and
equally the matter of fact or historical. The shadow of
being in itself and pure thought to which the Divine
had already been virtually reduced, naturally gave
place to a deification of humanity-not merely an anthro-
pomorphic god. Humanity itself having no true divine
substratum, lost both the knowledge of its origin and
the hope of immortality. The movement which began
on the height of the loftiest idealism thus issued, as
might have been anticipated, in a hopeless naturalism,
-in the simple identification of all things with God,-
and ethically in an intellectual arrogance which conceits
itself as the depository of the secret of the universe,—
while it is too narrow to know even the facts.
VII. The representation of the doctrine of Dual-
ism made by Hegel and his followers is thoroughly
incorrect. Dualism is, of course, the great bugbear,
whether it relate to the finite realities of consciousness
and extension, or to the contrast of the finite and in-
finite realities. The predicates in these cases are said
to be held as fixed and insuperable by the ordinary
doctrine of dualism, whereas Hegelianism introduces.
identity, even the identity of contradictories.
particular it is insisted on (1), that on the ordinary
dualistic presupposition, as it is called, there is an
absolute opposition between the infinite and the finite;
and (2), that this is unphilosophical, for the finite in this
case must be regarded either as something independent
of the infinite-and this involves an obvious contradic-
In
1 See especially Das Wesen des Christenthums, 1841: 2d ed., 1843.
Mensch oder Christ, 1845.
2 In his philosophical writings from 1836. See also Kritik der evan-
gelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker, 1841-2.
3 Chiefly in the Jahrbücher.
clxxviii
INTRODUCTION.
tion—or it must be regarded as absolutely a non-entity.
Statements of this sort abound in Hegelian writings.
-+
One preliminary point to be noted here is, that the
doctrine of the absolute opposition of finite and infinite
is to be set down as unphilosophical, because it would
involve a transparent contradiction. As contradiction
is a legitimate moment in the Hegelian dialectic, the
opposition must so far be right enough; and even if
the opposition be absolute, the absurdity is not greater
than the alleged identity of the two terms, by which
it is sought to solve it. The consistent coexistence in
thought of finite and infinite is certainly not a greater
absurdity than a supposed concept in which the two
become identical. Contradiction, according to criticism.
of this sort, must be absurd when it is regarded as
fixed, and rational when it is regarded as superable.
In the latter case, the only mistake is that there was
no contradiction to begin with. But is this a true
representation of the position of a dualistic philosophy
in the matter? Is a dualist shut up to hold either the
absolute independence of the finite or its non-entity?
Why, what is the opposition between the infinite and
finite which the dualist really alleges? It is not an
absolute opposition in the nature of things. It is an
opposition merely in the act of knowledge. And the
dualist is entitled to say this with a view to vindicate
the position, until it is proved that all the opposition
we think is identical with all the opposition which
exists, or that these are convertible. For the Hegelian
to assume this is to miss the whole point at issue
between him and the dualist. The dualist does not
accept the convertibility of knowledge and existence,
and it is only on this assumption that he can be shut
up, and then only on his own principles of logic, to the
alternative of a contradiction between finite and infinite,
or of the non-entity of the former,—or for that matter,
of the latter also. But no reasonably intelligent up-
holder of dualism, or, which is the same thing, the

INTRODUCTION.
clxxix
relativity of knowledge, would allow that the opposi-
tion which he finds in consciousness between finite and
infinite is an absolute opposition, or one implying a
fixity or absoluteness in the nature of things. In fact,
the very phrases, limit of knowledge or relativity of
knowledge, imply that the fixity or invariableness of
the limit is in the thought or consciousness. When
we speak of a limit to the understanding, we speak of
the extent of our power of conceiving things; but we
do not necessarily imply that the things conceived are
really permanently and invariably fixed or determined
by, or as is the capacity of, our thought. It is said, for
example, the thought of finite existence,-say myself,
-renders it impossible for us to think or conceive as
coexisting with it an infinite self or being. For the
sphere of being the finite self occupies, the sum of
our being, is excluded from that sphere or sum
possessed by the infinite self whom we attempt to
conceive, and he is thus conceived as limited. But in
doing so we do not affirm that a conciliation of this
inconceivable is impossible, or that in the nature of
things, the finite and infinite reality which we vainly
attempt to conceive together are really incompatible.
It is, therefore, nothing to the point to talk of the
predicates of the understanding being regarded as
fixed, permanent, or invariable, in the doctrine of
the limitation of knowledge; for this is, after all, but
a subjective limitation which is maintained, and is in
no way inconsistent with the possibility of being,
transcending conception. We say merely that we
cannot conceive the compatibility of an infinite being
with our own finite existence. We do not say or allow
that what we conceive is necessarily convertible with
what is, or with the possibilities of being. We are not,
therefore, shut up to maintain the absolute opposition,
and consequently the absolute contradiction in reality,
of infinite and finite. Nor are we therefore compelled
to regard the finite as a non-entity in the interest of
clxxx
INTRODUCTION.
}-
the infinite, nor the infinite as a non-entity in the
interest of the finite. For despite the limitation of
our knowledge, in some way unknown to us as to
process or ground, the co-reality of finite and infinite
is, after all, compatible. Nay, in a transcendent sense,
all being may be one. It is not even necessarily
maintained on the doctrine of limitation that the
finite is more than temporally distinct from the infinite.
Evidence to decide those points must be sought for
outside the theory of limitation. The real question
at issue between absolutism and the theory of limita-
tion is not as to the possibility of being out of and
beyond limit, or being that surmounts limit — for
the former is constantly loudly proclaiming this, and
proclaiming it even as the only real being, but as
to the possibility of our knowing such being, and
connecting it conceivably and rationally with the being
we know in consciousness. Relativist as well as ab-
solutist maintains being above limit; they differ simply
as to whether this can come within consciousness,
in a sense in which it is to be regarded as truly
and properly knowledge,—and as to whether we can
so relate the definite knowledge and being we have in
consciousness with this transcendent something called
knowledge and being. If what has been already said
be at all well founded, we can rise above the temporal
contrast of finite and infinite in thought only by sacri-
ficing knowledge,-by becoming the absolute identity
of the two we are supposed to know. In this region
we may expatiate at will among the "domos vacuas et
inania regna” of verbalism; but we shall not gather
from it either what is fitted to increase the reverence
of the heart, or what may help us to read more intelli-
gently the lessons of the past, or guide us better in the
conduct of life.
All that the doctrine of limitation requires to make
it consistent and valuable is, that whatever happens in
the future of the universe, nothing shall occur in abso-

INTRODUCTION.
clxxxi
*
lute contradiction of what we now rationally know and
believe. Our present consciousness may be, probably
will be, modified-in some sense, perhaps, transcended.
But it must not be contradicted. Our analogical know-
ledge of God, even if raised to the stage of intuition,
will receive greater compass, directness, and certainty;
but this will not be at the expense or the reversal of a
single thoroughly-tested intellectual or moral conviction.
1
DISCOURSE
ON THE
METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON
AND SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES
BY
DESCARTES
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH AND COLLATED
WITH THE LATIN
[PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.]
If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once,
it
may
be divided into six parts: and, in the first, will
be found various considerations touching the Sciences;
in the second, the principal rules of the Method which
the Author has discovered; in the third, certain of the
rules of Morals which he has deduced from this Method;
in the fourth, the reasonings by which he establishes
the existence of God and of the Human Soul, which are
the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the
order of the Physical questions which he has investi-
gated, and, in particular, the explication of the motion
of the heart and of some other difficulties pertaining
to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of
man and that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the
Author believes to be required in order to greater ad-
vancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet
been made, with the reasons that have induced him to
write.
DISCOURSE ON METHOD.
PART I.
GOOD SENSE is, of all things among men, the most
equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so
abundantly provided with it, that those even who are
the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not
usually desire a larger measure of this quality than
they already possess. And in this it is not likely that
`all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held
as testifying that the power of judging aright and
of distinguishing Truth from Error, which is properly
what is called Good Sense or Reason, is by nature equal
in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, con-
sequently, does not arise from some being endowed with
a larger share of Reason than others, but solely from
this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways,
and do not fix our attention on the same objects.
to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the
prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest
minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies,
are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those
For
4
DISCOURSE
who travel very slowly may yet make far greater pro-
gress, provided they keep always to the straight road,
than those who, while they run, forsake it.
For myself, I have never fancied my mind to be in
any respect more perfect than those of the generality;
on the contrary, I have often wished that I were equal_
to some others in promptitude of thought, or in clear-
ness and distinctness of imagination, or in fulness and
readiness of memory. And besides these, I know of
no other qualities that contribute to the perfection of
the mind; for as to the Reason or Sense, inasmuch as
it is that alone which constitutes us men, and distin-
guishes us from the brutes, I am disposed to believe that
it is to be found complete in each individual; and on
this point to adopt the common opinion of philosophers,
who say that the difference of greater and less holds
only among the accidents, and not among the forms or
natures of individuals of the same species.
I will not hesitate, however, to avow my belief that
it has been my singular good fortune to have very early
in life fallen in with certain tracks which have con-
ducted me to considerations and maxims, of which I
have formed a Method that gives me the means, as I
think, of gradually augmenting my knowledge, and of
raising it by little and little to the highest point which
the mediocrity of my talents and the brief duration of
my life will permit me to reach. For I have already
reaped from it such fruits that, although I have been
accustomed to think lowly enough of myself, and al-
though when I look with the eye of a philosopher at
the varied courses and pursuits of mankind at large, I
find scarcely one which does not appear vain and use-
less, I nevertheless derive the highest satisfaction from
the progress I conceive myself to have already made
ON METHOD.
5
10
in the search after truth, and cannot help entertaining
such expectations of the future as to believe that if,
among the occupations of men as men, there is any one
really excellent and important, it is that which I have
chosen.
After all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is
but a little copper and glass, perhaps, that I take for
gold and diamonds. I know how very liable we are
to delusion in what relates to ourselves, and also how
much the judgments of our friends are to be suspected
when given in our favour. But I shall endeavour in
this Discourse to describe the paths I have followed, and
to delineate my life as in a picture, in order that each
one may be able to judge of them for himself, and that
in the general opinion entertained of them, as gathered
from current report, I myself may have a new help
towards instruction to be added to those I have been
in the habit of employing,
My present design, then, is not to teach the Method
which each ought to follow for the right conduct of his
Reason, but solely to describe the way in which I have
endeavoured to conduct my own. They who set
themselves to give precepts must of course regard
themselves as possessed of greater skill than those to
whom they prescribe; and if they err in the slightest
particular, they subject themselves to censure.
But as
this Tract is put forth merely as a history, or, if you
will, as a tale, in which, amid some examples worthy of
imitation, there will be found, perhaps, as many more
which it were advisable not to follow, I hope it will
prove useful to some without being hurtful to any, and
that my openness will find some favour with all.
From my childhood, I have been familiar with let-
ters; and as I was given to believe that by their help
6
DISCOURSE
a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in
life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of in-
struction. But as soon as I had finished the entire
course of study, at the close of which it is customary to
be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely
changed my opinion. For I found myself involved
in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I
had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning,
than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance.
And yet I was studying in one of the most celebrated
Schools in Europe, in which I thought there must be
learned men, if such were anywhere to be found. I
had been taught all that others learned there; and not
contented with the sciences actually taught us, I had,
in addition, read all the books that had fallen into my
hands, treating of such branches as are esteemed the
most curious and rare. I knew the judgment which
others had formed of me; and I did not find that I
was considered inferior to my fellows, although there
were among them some who were already marked out
to fill the places of our instructors. And, in fine, our
age appeared to me as flourishing, and as fertile in
powerful minds as any preceding one. I was thus led
to take the liberty of judging of all other men by my..
self, and of concluding that there was no science in
existence that was of such a nature as I had previously
been given to believe.
I still continued, however, to hold in esteem the
studies of the Schools. I was aware that the Languages
taught in them are necessary to the understanding of the
writings of the ancients; that the grace of Fable stirs the
mind; that the memorable deeds of History elevate it ;
and, if read with discretion, aid in forming the judgment;
that the perusal of all excellent books is, as it were, to

ON METHOD.
7
interview with the noblest men of past ages, who have
written them, and even a studied interview, in which
are discovered to us only their choicest thoughts; that
Eloquence has incomparable force and beauty; that
Poesy has its ravishing graces and delights; that in the
Mathematics there are many refined discoveries emi-
nently suited to gratify the inquisitive, as well as fur-
ther all the arts and lessen the labour of man; that
numerous highly useful precepts and exhortations to
virtue are contained in treatises on Morals; that Theo-
logy points out the path to heaven; that Philosophy
affords the means of discoursing with an appearance of
truth on all matters, and commands the admiration of
the more simple; that Jurisprudence, Medicine, and
the other Sciences, secure for their cultivators honours
and riches; and, in fine, that it is useful to bestow
some attention upon all, even upon those abounding
the most in superstition and error, that we may be in
a position to determine their real value, and guard
against being deceived.
But I believed that I had already given sufficient
time to Languages, and likewise to the reading of the
writings of the ancients, to their Histories and Fables.
For to hold converse with those of other ages and to
travel, are almost the same thing. It is useful to know
something of the manners of different nations, that we
may be enabled to form a more correct judgment re-
garding our own, and be prevented from thinking that
everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and
irrational,—a conclusion usually come to by those
whose experience has been limited to their own coun-
try. On the other hand, when too much time is occu-
pied in travelling, we become strangers to our native
country; and the over curious in the customs of the
8
DISCOURSE
past are generally ignorant of those of the present.
Besides, fictitious narratives lead us to imagine the
possibility of many events that are impossible; and
even the most faithful histories, if they do not wholly
misrepresent matters, or exaggerate their importance
to render the account of them more worthy of perusal,
omit, at least, almost always the meanest and least
striking of the attendant circumstances; hence it hap-
pens that the remainder does not represent the truth,
and that such as regulate their conduct by examples.
drawn from this source, are apt to fall into the extrava-
gances of the knight-errants of Romance, and to en-
tertain projects that exceed their powers.
I esteemed Eloquence highly, and was in raptures
with Poesy; but I thought that both were gifts of
nature rather than fruits of study. Those in whom
the faculty of Reason is predominant, and who most
skilfully dispose their thoughts with a view to ren-
der them clear and intelligible, are always the best
able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay
down, though they should speak only in the language
of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules
of Rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with
the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expres-
sion to them with the greatest embellishment and har-
mony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted
with the Art of Poetry.
I was especially delighted with the Mathematics, on
account of the certitude and evidence of their reason-
ings: but I had not as yet a precise knowledge of
their true use; and thinking that they but contributed
to the advancement of the mechanical arts, I was as-
tonished that foundations, so strong and solid, should
have had no loftier superstructure reared on them.
ON METHOD.
9
On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the
ancient Moralists to very towering and magnificent
palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud :
they laud the virtues very highly, and exhibit them as
estimable far above anything on earth; but they give
us no adequate criterion of virtue, and frequently that
which they designate with so fine a name is but apathy,
or pride, or despair, or parricide.
I revered our Theology, and aspired as much as any
one to reach heaven: but being given assuredly to
understand that the way is not less open to the most
ignorant than to the most learned, and that the re-
vealed truths which lead to heaven are above our
comprehension, I did not presume to subject them to
the impotency of my Reason; and I thought that in
order competently to undertake their examination,
there was need of some special help from heaven, and
of being more than man.
Of Philosophy I will say nothing, except that when
I saw that it had been cultivated for many ages by the
most distinguished men, and that yet there is not a
single matter within its sphere which is not still in
dispute, and nothing, therefore, which is above doubt,
I did not presume to anticipate that my success would
be greater in it than that of others; and further, when
I considered the number of conflicting opinions touch-
ing a single matter that may be upheld by learned
men, while there can be but one true, I reckoned as
well-nigh false all that was only probable.
As to the other Sciences, inasmuch as these borrow
their principles from Philosophy, I judged that no solid
superstructures could be reared on foundations so in-
firm; and neither the honour nor the gain held out by
them was sufficient to determine me to their cultiva-
I 2
10
DISCOURSE
tion: for I was not, thank Heaven, in a condition
which compelled me to make merchandise of Science
for the bettering of my fortune; and though I might
not profess to scorn glory as a Cynic, I yet made very
slight account of that honour which I hoped to acquire
only through fictitious titles. And, in fine, of false
Sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to
escape being deceived by the professions of an alche-
mist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of
a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of
those who profess to know things of which they are
ignorant.
For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me
to pass from under the control of my instructors, I en-
tirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no
longer to seek any other science than the knowledge
of myself, or of the great book of the world. I spent
the remainder of my youth in travelling, in visiting
courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of
different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied
experience, in proving myself in the different situa-
tions into which fortune threw me, and, above all, in
making such reflection on the matter of my experi-
ence as to secure my improvement. For it occurred
to me that I should find much more truth in the rea-
sonings of each individual with reference to the affairs
in which he is personally interested, and the issue of
which must presently punish him if he has judged
amiss, than in those conducted by a man of letters in
his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no
practical moment, and followed by no consequences to
himself, farther, perhaps, than that they foster his
vanity the better the more remote they are from com-
mon sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the
ON METHOD.
11
exercise of greater ingenuity and art to render them
probable. In addition, I had always a most earnest
desire to know how to distinguish the true from the
false, in order that I might be able clearly to discrimi-
nate the right path in life, and proceed in it with con-
fidence.
It is true that, while busied only in considering the
manners of other men, I found here, too, scarce any
ground for settled conviction, and remarked hardly
less contradiction among them than in the opinions of
the philosophers. So that the greatest advantage I
derived from the study consisted in this, that, observ-
ing many things which, however extravagant and
ridiculous to our apprehension, are yet by common
consent received and approved by other great nations,
I learned to entertain too decided a belief in regard to
nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded
merely by example and custom : and thus I gradually
extricated myself from many errors powerful enough
to darken our Natural Intelligence, and incapacitate us
in great measure from listening to Reason. But after
I had been occupied several years in thus studying the
book of the world, and in essaying to gather some ex-
perience, I at length resolved to make myself an object
of study, and to employ all the powers of my mind in
choosing the paths I ought to follow; an undertaking
which was accompanied with greater success than it
would have been had I never quitted my country or
my books.
12
DISCOURSE
PART II.
I was then in Germany, attracted thither by the
wars in that country, which have not yet been brought
to a termination; and as I was returning to the army
from the coronation of the Emperor, the setting in of
winter arrested me in a locality where, as I found no
society to interest me, and was besides fortunately un-
disturbed by any cares or passions, I remained the
whole day in seclusion,* with full opportunity to occupy
my attention with my own thoughts. Of these one of
the very first that occurred to me was, that there is
seldom so much perfection in works composed of many
separate parts, upon which different hands have been
employed, as in those completed by a single master.
Thus it is observable that the buildings which a single
architect has planned and executed, are generally more
elegant and commodious than those which several have
attempted to improve, by making old walls serve for
purposes for which they were not originally built.
Thus also, those ancient cities which, from being at
first only villages, have become, in course of time, large
towns, are usually but ill laid out compared with the
regularly constructed towns which a professional archi-
tect has freely planned on an open plain; so that al-
• Literally, in a room heated by means of a stove.—Tr.
ON METHOD.
13
though the several buildings of the former may often
equal or surpass in beauty those of the latter, yet when
one observes their indiscriminate juxtaposition, there
a large one and here a small, and the consequent crook-
edness and irregularity of the streets, one is disposed to
allege that chance rather than any human will guided
by reason, must have led to such an arrangement. And
if we consider that nevertheless there have been at all
times certain officers whose duty it was to see that
private buildings contributed to public ornament, the
difficulty of reaching high perfection with but the ma-
terials of others to operate on, will be readily acknow-
ledged. In the same way I fancied that those nations
which, starting from a semi-barbarous state and ad-
vancing to civilisation by slow degrees, have had their,
laws successively determined, and, as it were, forced upon
them simply by experience of the hurtfulness of par-
ticular crimes and disputes, would by this process come
to be possessed of less perfect institutions than those
which, from the commencement of their association as
communities, have followed the appointments of some.
wise legislator. It is thus quite certain that the consti-
tution of the true religion, the ordinances of which are
derived from God, must be incomparably superior to
that of every other. And, to speak of human affairs,
I believe that the past pre-eminence of Sparta was due
not to the goodness of each of its laws in particular,
for many of these were very strange, and even opposed
to good morals, but to the circumstance that, originated
by a single individual, they all tended to a single end.
In the same way I thought that the sciences contained
in books, (such of them at least as are made up of pro-
bable reasonings, without demonstrations,) composed
as they are of the opinions of many different individuals
14
DISCOURSE
massed together, are farther removed from truth than
the simple inferences which a man of good sense using
his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respect-
ing the matters of his experience. And because we
have all to pass through a state of infancy to manhood,
and have been of necessity, for a length of time, go-
verned by our desires and preceptors, (whose dictates
were frequently conflicting, while neither perhaps al-
ways counselled us for the best,) I`farther concluded
that it is almost impossible that our judgments can be
so correct or solid as they would have been, had our
Reason been mature from the moment of our birth, and
had we always been guided by it alone.
It is true, however, that it is not customary to pull
down all the houses of a town with the single design of
rebuilding them differently, and thereby rendering the
streets more handsome; but it often happens that a
private individual takes down his own with the view of
erecting it anew, and that people are even sometimes
constrained to this when their houses are in danger of
falling from age, or when the foundations are insecure.
With this before me by way of example, I was per-
suaded that it would indeed be preposterous for a pri-
vate individual to think of reforming a state by funda-
mentally changing it throughout, and overturning it
in order to set it up amended; and the same I thought
was true of any similar project for reforming the body
of the Sciences, or the order of teaching them estab-
lished in the Schools: but as for the opinions which up
to that time I had embraced, I thought that I could
not do better than resolve at once to sweep them wholly
away, that I might afterwards be in a position to admit
either others more correct, or even perhaps the same
when they had undergone the scrutiny of Reason. I
་
ON METHOD.
15
firmly believed that in this way I should much better-
succeed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only
upon old foundations, and leant upon principles which,
in my youth, I had taken upon trust. For although I
recognised various difficulties in this undertaking, these
were not, however, without remedy, nor once to be
compared with such as attend the slightest reformation
in public affairs. Large bodies, if once overthrown,
are with great difficulty set up again, or even kept erect ·
when once seriously shaken, and the fall of such is al-
ways disastrous. Then if there are any imperfections
in the constitutions of states, (and that many such exist
the diversity of constitutions is alone sufficient to assure
us,) custom has without doubt materially sinoothed their
inconveniencies, and has even managed to steer alto-
gether clear of, or insensibly corrected a number which
sagacity could not have provided against with equal;
effect; and, in fine, the defects are almost always more
tolerable than the change necessary for their removal;
in the same manner that highways which wind among
mountains, by being much frequented, become gradu-
ally so smooth and commodious, that it is much better
to follow them than to seek a straighter path by climb-
ing over the tops of rocks and descending to the bot-
toms of precipices.
Hence it is that I cannot in any degree approve of -
those restless and busy meddlers who, called neither
by birth nor fortune to take part in the management
of public affairs, are yet always projecting reforms;
and if I thought that this Tract contained aught which
might justify the suspicion that I was a victim of such
folly, I would by no means permit its publication. I
have never contemplated anything higher than the re-
formation of my own opinions, and basing them on a
16
DISCOURSE
foundation wholly my own. And although my own
satisfaction with my work has led me to present here a
draft of it, I do not by any means therefore recommend
to every one else to make a similar attempt. Those
whom God has endowed with a larger measure of
genius will entertain, perhaps, designs still more ex-
alted; but for the many I am much afraid lest even
the present undertaking be more than they can safely
venture to imitate. The single design to strip one's self
of all past beliefs is one that ought not to be taken by
every one. The majority of men is composed of two
classes, for neither of which would this be at all a be-
fitting resolution: in the first place, of those who with
more than a due confidence in their own powers, are
precipitate in their judgments and want the patience
requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking; whence
it happens, that if men of this class once take the liberty
to doubt of their accustomed opinions, and quit the
beaten highway, they will never be able to thread the
byeway that would lead them by a shorter course, and
will lose themselves and continue to wander for life;
in the second place, of those who, possessed of sufficient
sense or modesty to determine that there are others
who excel them in the power of discriminating between
truth and error, and by whom they may be instructed,
ought rather to content themselves with the opinions
of such than trust for more correct to their own Reason.
For my own part, I should doubtless have belonged
to the latter class, had I received instruction from but
one master, or had I never known the diversities of
opinion that from time immemorial have prevailed
among men of the greatest learning. But I had be-
come aware, even so early as during my college life,
that no opinion, however absurd and incredible, can
ON METHOD.
17
be imagined, which has not been maintained by some
one of the philosophers; and afterwards in the course
of my travels I remarked that all those whose opinions
are decidedly repugnant to ours are not on that account
barbarians and savages, but on the contrary that many
of these nations make an equally good, if not a better,
use of their Reason than we do. I took into account
also the very different character which a person brought
up from infancy in France or Germany exhibits, from
that which, with the same mind originally, this indi-
vidual would have possessed had he lived always among
the Chinese or with savages, and the circumstance
that in dress itself the fashion which pleased us ten
years ago, and which may again, perhaps, be received
into favour before ten years have gone, appears to us
at this moment extravagant and ridiculous. I was thus
led to infer that the ground of our opinions is far more
custom and example than any certain knowledge. And,
finally, although such be the ground of our opinions, I
remarked that a plurality of suffrages is no guarantee
of truth where it is at all of difficult discovery, as in
such cases it is much more likely that it will be found
by one than by many. I could, however, select from
the crowd no one whose opinions seemed worthy of
preference, and thus I found myself constrained, as it
were, to use my own Reason in the conduct of my life.
But like one walking alone and in the dark, I re-
solved to proceed so slowly and with such circumspec-
tion, that if I did not advance far, I would at least guard
against falling. I did not even choose to dismiss sum-
marily any of the opinions that had crept into my be-
lief without having been introduced by Reason, but first
of all took sufficient time carefully to satisfy myself of
the general nature of the task I was setting myself, and
18
DISCOURSE
ascertain the true Method by which to arrive at the
knowledge of whatever lay within the compass of my
powers.
Among the branches of Philosophy, I had, at an ear-
lier period, given some attention to Logic, and among
those of the Mathematics to Geometrical Analysis and
Algebra,-three Arts or Sciences which ought, as I con-
ceived, to contribute something to my design. But, on
examination, I found that, as for Logic, its syllogisms.
and the majority of its other precepts are of avail rather
in the communication of what we already know, or
even as the Art of Lully, in speaking without judgment
of things of which we are ignorant, than in the inves-
tigation of the unknown; and although this Science
contains indeed a number of correct and very excellent
precepts, there are, nevertheless, so many others, and
these either injurious or superfluous, mingled with the
former, that it is almost quite as difficult to effect a
severance of the true from the false as it is to extract
a Diana or a Minerva from a rough block of marble.
Then as to the Analysis of the ancients and the Algebra
of the moderns, besides that they embrace only matters
highly abstract, and, to appearance, of no use, the for-
mer is so exclusively restricted to the consideration of
figures, that it can exercise the Understanding only on
condition of greatly fatiguing the Imagination; and, in
the latter, there is so complete a subjection to certain
rules and formulas, that there results an art full of con-
fusion and obscurity calculated to embarrass, instead of
a science fitted to cultivate the mind. By these con-
siderations I was induced to seek some other Method
which would comprise the advantages of the three and
*
* The Imagination must here be taken as equivalent simply to the
Representative Faculty.—Tr.
ON METHOD.
19
1
#
}
be exempt from their defects. And as a multitude of
laws often only hampers justice, so that a state is best
governed when, with few laws, these are rigidly ad-
ministered; in like manner, instead of the great num-
ber of precepts of which Logic is composed, I believed
that the four following would prove perfectly sufficient
for me, provided I took the firm and unwavering resolu-
tion never in a single instance to fail in observing them.
The first was never to accept anything for true
which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to
say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and
to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what
was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as
to exclude all ground of doubt.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under
examination into as many parts as possible, and as
might be necessary for its adequate solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that,
by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest
to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it
were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more
complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to
those objects which in their own nature do not stand
in a relation of antecedence and sequence.
And the last, in every case to make enumerations so
complete, and reviews so general, that I might be as-
sured that nothing was omitted.
The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by
means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the
conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations, had
led me to imagine that all things, to the knowledge
of which man is competent, are mutually connected in
the same way, and that there is nothing so far removed
from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that
20
DISCOURSE
we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from
accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in
our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction of
one truth from another. And I had little difficulty in
determining the objects with which it was necessary to
commence, for I was already persuaded that it must be
with the simplest and easiest to know, and, considering
that of all those who have hitherto sought truth in the
Sciences, the mathematicians alone have been able to
find any demonstrations, that is, any certain and evi-
dent reasons, I did not doubt but that such must have
been the rule of their investigations. I resolved to
commence, therefore, with the examination of the sim-
plest objects, not anticipating, however, from this any
other advantage than that to be found in accustoming
my mind to the love and nourishment of truth, and to
a distaste for all such reasonings as were unsound. But
I had no intention on that account of attempting to
master all the particular Sciences commonly denomi-
nated Mathematics: but observing that, however different
their objects, they all agree in considering only the
various relations or proportions subsisting among those
objects, I thought it best for my purpose to consider
these proportions in the most general form possible,
without referring them to any objects in particular,
except such as would most facilitate the knowledge of
them, and without by any means restricting them to
these, that afterwards I might thus be the better able to
apply them to every other class of objects to which they
are legitimately applicable. Perceiving further, that
in order to understand these relations I should some-
times have to consider them one by one, and sometimes
only to bear them in mind, or embrace them in the
aggregate, I thought that, in order the better to con-
ON METHOD.
21
sider them individually, I should view them as subsist-
ing between straight lines, than which I could find no
objects more simple, or capable of being more distinctly
represented to my imagination and senses; and on the
other hand, that in order to retain them in the memory,
or embrace an aggregate of many, I should express
them by certain characters the briefest possible. In
this way I believed that I could borrow all that was
best both in Geometrical Analysis and in Algebra, and
correct all the defects of the one by help of the other.
And, in point of fact, the accurate observance of
these few precepts gave me, I take the liberty of say-
ing, such ease in unravelling all the questions embraced
in these two sciences, that in the two or three months
I devoted to their examination, not only did I reach
solutions of questions I had formerly deemed exceed-
ingly difficult, but even as regards questions of the so-
lution of which I continued ignorant, I was enabled,
as it appeared to me, to determine the means whereby,
and the extent to which, a solution was possible; re-
sults attributable to the circumstance that I commenced
with the simplest and most general truths, and that
thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the
discovery of subsequent ones. Nor in this perhaps shall
I appear too vain, if it be considered that, as the truth
on any particular point is one, whoever apprehends the
truth, knows all that on that point can be known. The
child, for example, who has been instructed in the ele-
ments of Arithmetic, and has made a particular addition,
according to rule, may be assured that he has found,
with respect to the sum of the numbers before him, all
that in this instance is within the reach of human
genius. Now, in conclusion, the Method which teaches
adherence to the true order, and an exact enumeration
22
DISCOURSE
of all the conditions of the thing sought includes all
that gives certitude to the rules of Arithmetic.
But the chief ground of my satisfaction with this
Method, was the assurance I had of thereby exercising
my reason in all matters, if not with absolute perfec-
tion, at least with the greatest attainable by me: be-
sides, I was conscious that by its use my mind was
becoming gradually habituated to clearer and more
distinct conceptions of its objects; and I hoped also,
from not having restricted this Method to any particular
matter, to apply it to the difficulties of the other Sciences,
with not less success than to those of Algebra. I should
not, however, on this account have ventured at once
on the examination of all the difficulties of the Sciences
which presented themselves to me, for this would have
been contrary to the order prescribed in the Method,
but observing that the knowledge of such is dependent
on principles borrowed from Philosophy, in which I
found nothing certain, I thought it necessary first of
all to endeavour to establish its principles. And be-
cause I observed, besides, that an inquiry of this kind was
of all others of the greatest moment, and one in which
precipitancy and anticipation in judgment were most
to be dreaded, I thought that I ought not to approach
it till I had reached a more mature age, (being at that
time but twenty-three,) and had first of all employed
much of my time in preparation for the work, as well
by eradicating from my mind all the erroneous opinions
I had up to that moment accepted, as by amassing
variety of experience to afford materials for my rea-
sonings, and by continually exercising myself in my
chosen Method with a view to increased skill in its
application.
ON METHOD.
23
ر
PART IIL
AND, finally, as it is not enough, before commencing
to rebuild the house in which we live, that it be pulled
down, and materials and builders provided, or that we
engage in the work ourselves, according to a plan which
we have beforehand carefully drawn out, but as it is
likewise necessary that we be furnished with some other
house in which we may live commodiously during the
operations, so that I might not remain irresolute in
my actions, while my Reason compelled me to suspend
my judgment, and that I might not be prevented from
living thenceforward in the greatest possible felicity, I
formed a provisory code of Morals, composed of three
or four maxims, with which I am desirous to make
you acquainted.
The first was to obey the laws and customs of my
country, adhering firmly to the Faith in which, by the
grace of God, I had been educated from my childhood,
and regulating my conduct in every other matter ac-
cording to the most moderate opinions, and the farthest
removed from extremes, which should happen to be
adopted in practice with general consent of the most
judicious of those among whom I might be living. For,
as I had from that time begun to hold my own opinions
for nought because I wished to subject them all to ex-
24
DISCOURSE
amination, I was convinced that I could not do better
than follow in the meantime the opinions of the most
judicious; and although there are some perhaps among
the Persians and Chinese as judicious as among our-
selves, expediency seemed to dictate that I should re-
gulate my practice conformably to the opinions of those
with whom I should have to live; and it appeared to
me that, in order to ascertain the real opinions of such,
I ought rather to take cognizance of what they prac-
tised than of what they said, not only because, in the
corruption of our manners, there are few disposed to
speak exactly as they believe, but also because very
many are not aware of what it is that they really
believe; for, as the act of mind by which a thing is
believed is different from that by which we know that
we believe it, the one act is often found without the
other. Also, amid many opinions held in equal repute, I
chose always the most moderate, as much for the reason
that these are always the most convenient for prac-
tice, and probably the best, (for all excess is generally
vicious,) as that, in the event of my falling into error,
I might be at less distance from the truth than if, hav-
ing chosen one of the extremes, it should turn out to
be the other which I ought to have adopted. And I
placed in the class of extremes especially all promises
by which somewhat of our freedom is abridged; not
that I disapproved of the laws which, to provide against
the instability of men of feeble resolution, when what
is sought to be accomplished is some good, permit en-
gagements by vows and contracts binding the parties
to persevere in it, or even, for the security of com-
merce, sanction similar engagements where the purpose
sought to be realized is indifferent: but because I did
not find anything on earth which was wholly superior
ON METHOD.
25
?
to change, and because, for myself in particular, I
hoped gradually to perfect my judgments, and not to
suffer them to deteriorate, I would have deemed it a
grave sin against good sense, if, for the reason that I
approved of something at a particular time, I therefore
bound myself to hold it for good at a subsequent time,
when perhaps it had ceased to be so, or I had ceased
to esteem it such.
My second maxim was to be as firm and resolute
in my actions as I was able, and not to adhere less
steadfastly to the most doubtful opinions, when once
adopted, than if they had been highly certain; imitat-
ing in this the example of travellers who, when they
have lost their way in a forest, ought not to wander
from side to side, far less remain in one place, but
proceed constantly towards the same side in as straight
a line as possible, without changing their direction for
slight reasons, although perhaps it might be chance
alone which at first determined the selection; for in
this way, if they do not exactly reach the point they
desire, they will come at least in the end to some place
that will probably be preferable to the middle of a
forest. In the same way, since in action it frequently
happens that no delay is permissible, it is very certain
that, when it is not in our power to determine what is
true, we ought to act according to what is most pro-
bable;
and even although we should not remark a
greater probability in one opinion than in another, we
ought notwithstanding to choose one or the other, and
afterwards consider it, in so far as it relates to practice,
as no longer dubious, but manifestly true and certain,
since the reason by which our choice has been deter-
mined is itself possessed of these qualities. This prin-
ciple was sufficient thenceforward to rid me of all those
K
26
DISCOURSE
}
repentings and pangs of remorse that usually disturb
the consciences of such feeble and uncertain minds as,
destitute of any clear and determinate principle of
choice, allow themselves one day to adopt a course of
action as the best, which they abandon the next, as
the opposite.
My third maxim was to endeavour always to con-
quer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires
rather than the order of the world, and in general,
accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own
thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power; so
that when we have done our best in respect of things
external to us, all wherein we fail of success is to be
held, as regards us, absolutely impossible: and this
single principle seemed to me sufficient to prevent me
from desiring for the future anything which I could
not obtain, and thus render me contented; for since
our will naturally seeks those objects alone which the
understanding represents as in some way possible of
attainment, it is plain, that if we consider all external
goods as equally beyond our power, we shall no more
regret the absence of such goods as seem due to our
birth, when deprived of them without any fault of ours,
than our not possessing the kingdoms of China or
Mexico; and thus making, so to speak, a virtue of
necessity, we shall no more desire health in disease,
or freedom in imprisonment, than we now do bodies
incorruptible as diamonds, or the wings of birds to fly
with. But I confess there is need of prolonged dis-
cipline and frequently repeated meditation to accustom
the mind to view all objects in this light; and I believe
that in this chiefly consisted the secret of the power of
such philosophers as in former times were enabled to
rise superior to the influence of fortune, and, amid suf
!
ON METHOD.
27
fering and poverty, enjoy a happiness which their gods
might have envied. For, occupied incessantly with
the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power
by nature, they became so entirely convinced that no-
thing was at their disposal except their own thoughts,
that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent
their entertaining any desire of other objects; and
over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute,
that they had some ground on this account for esteem-
ing themselves more rich and more powerful, more free
and more happy, than other men who, whatever be
the favours heaped on them by nature and fortune, if
destitute of this philosophy, can never command the
realization of all their desires.
In fine, to conclude this code of Morals, I thought of
reviewing the different occupations of men in this life,
with the view of making choice of the best. And,
without wishing to offer any remarks on the employ-
ments of others, I may state that it was my conviction
that I could not do better than continue in that in
which I was engaged, viz., in devoting my whole life
to the culture of my Reason, and in making the greatest
progress I was able in the knowledge of truth, on the
principles of the Method which I had prescribed to
myself. This Method, from the time I had begun to
apply it, had been to me the source of satisfaction so
intense as to lead me to believe that more perfect or
more innocent could not be enjoyed in this life; and
as by its means I daily discovered truths that ap-
peared to me of some importance, and of which other
men were generally ignorant, the gratification thence
arising so occupied my mind that I was wholly indif-
ferent to every other object. Besides, the three pre-
ceding maxims were founded singly on the design of
28
DISCOURSE
*
continuing the work of self-instruction. For since God
has endowed each of us with some Light of Reason by
which to distinguish truth from error, I could not have
believed that I ought for a single moment to rest satisfied
with the opinions of another, unless I had resolved to
exercise my own judgment in examining these when-
ever I should be duly qualified for the task. Nor could
I have proceeded on such opinions without scruple, had
I supposed that I should thereby forfeit any advantage
for attaining still more accurate, should such exist.
And, in fine, I could not have restrained my desires,
nor remained satisfied, had I not followed a path in
which I thought myself certain of attaining all the
knowledge to the acquisition of which I was competent,
as well as the largest amount of what is truly good
which I could ever hope to secure. Inasmuch as we
neither seek nor shun any object except in so far as
our understanding represents it as good or bad, all that
is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to
the best action the most correct judgment,—that is, to
the acquisition of all the virtues with all else that is
truly valuable and within our reach; and the assur-
ance of such an acquisition cannot fail to render us con-
tented.
Having thus provided myself with these maxims,
and having placed them in reserve along with the
truths of Faith, which have ever occupied the first
place in my belief, I came to the conclusion that I
might with freedom set about ridding myself of what
remained of my opinions. And, inasmuch as I hoped
to be better able successfully to accomplish this work by
holding intercourse with mankind, than by remaining
longer shut up in the retirement where these thoughts
had occurred to me, I betook me again to travelling
ON METHOD.
29
ترکی
before the winter was well ended. And, during the
nine subsequent years, I did nothing but roam from
one place to another, desirous of being a spectator ra-
ther than an actor in the plays exibited on the theatre
of the world; and, as I made it my business in each
matter to reflect particularly upon what might fairly
be doubted and prove a source of error, I gradually
rooted out from my mind all the errors which had
hitherto crept into it. Not that in this I imitated the
Sceptics who doubt only that they may doubt, and seek
nothing beyond uncertainty itself; for, on the contrary,
my design was singly to find ground of assurance, and
cast aside the loose earth and sand, that I might reach
the rock or the clay. In this, as appears to me, I was
successful enough; for, since I endeavoured to discover
the falsehood or incertitude of the propositions I exa-
mined, not by feeble conjectures, but by clear and cer-
tain reasonings, I met with nothing so doubtful as not
to yield some conclusion of adequate certainty, although
this were merely the inference, that the matter in ques-
tion contained nothing certain. And, just as in pulling
down an old house, we usually reserve the ruins to
contribute towards the erection, so, in destroying such
of my opinions as I judged to be ill-founded, I made a
variety of observations and acquired an amount of ex-
perience of which I availed myself in the establishment
of more certain. And further, I continued to exercise
myself in the Method I had prescribed; for, besides
taking care in general to conduct all my thoughts ac-
cording to its rules, I reserved some hours from time
to time which I expressly devoted to the employment
of the Method in the solution of Mathematical diffi-
culties, or even in the solution likewise of some ques-
tions belonging to other Sciences, but which, by my
30
DISCOURSE
having detached them from such principles of these
Sciences as were of inadequate certainty, were rendered
almost Mathematical: the truth of this will be mani-
fest from the numerous examples contained in this
volume.* And thus, without in appearance living other-
wise than those who, with no other occupation than
that of spending their lives agreeably and innocently,
study to sever pleasure from vice, and who, that they
may enjoy their leisure without ennui, have recourse
to such pursuits as are honourable, I was nevertheless
prosecuting my design, and making greater progress in
the knowledge of truth, than I might, perhaps, have
made had I been engaged in the perusal of books mere-
ly, or in holding converse with men of letters.
These nine years passed away, however, before I had
come to any determinate judgment respecting the diffi-
culties which form matter of dispute among the learned,
or had commenced to seek the principles of any Philo-
sophy more certain than the vulgar. And the examples
of many men of the highest genius, who had, in former
times, engaged in this inquiry, but, as appeared to me,
without success, led me to imagine it to be a work of so
much difficulty, that I would not perhaps have ventured
on it so soon had I not heard it currently rumoured that
I had already completed the inquiry. I know not what
were the grounds of this opinion; and, if my conversa-
tion contributed in any measure to its rise, this must have
happened rather from my having confessed my ignorance
with greater freedom than those are accustomed to do
who have studied a little, and expounded, perhaps, the
reasons that led me to doubt of many of those things
* The Discourse on Method was originally published along with
the Dioptrics, the Meteorics, and the Geometry. See the Introduc-
tion, p. xi.—Tr.
ON METHOD.
31
that by others are esteemed certain, than from my
having boasted of any system of Philosophy. But, as
I am of a disposition that makes me unwilling to be
esteemed different from what I really am, I thought it
necessary to endeavour by all means to render myself
worthy of the reputation accorded to me; and it is
now exactly eight years since this desire constrained
me to remove from all those places where interruption
from any of my acquaintances was possible, and betake
myself to this country,* in which the long duration of
the war has led to the establishment of such discipline,
that the armies maintained seem to be of use only in
enabling the inhabitants to enjoy more securely the
blessings of peace; and where, in the midst of a great
crowd actively engaged in business, and more careful
of their own affairs than curious about those of others,
I have been enabled to live without being deprived of
any of the conveniences to be had in the most populous
cities, and yet as solitary and as retired as in the midst
of the most remote deserts.
* Holland; to which country he withdrew in 1629.—Tr.
32
DISCOURSE
PART IV.
I AM in doubt as to the propriety of making my first
meditations in the place above mentioned matter of dis-
course; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncom-
mon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to every one.
And yet, that it may be determined whether the foun-
dations that I have laid are sufficiently secure, I find
myself in a measure constrained to advert to them. I
had long before remarked that, in relation to practice,
it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt,
opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, ast
has been already said; but as I then desired to give
my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought
that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for,
and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opi-
nions in regard to which I could suppose the least
ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after
that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly
indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses some-
times deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there
existed nothing really such as they presented to us;
and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into
paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of Geometry,
I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other,
rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto
ON METHOD.
33
taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I con-
sidered that the very same thoughts (presentations)
which we experience when awake may also be expe-
rienced when we are asleep, while there is at that
time not one of them true, I supposed that all the ob-
jects (presentations) that had ever entered into my
mind when awake, had in them no more truth than
the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon
this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think
that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I,
who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I ob-
served that this truth, I think, hence I am, was so certain
and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt, how-
ever extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics
capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, with-
out scruple, accept it as the first principle of the
Philosophy of which I was in search.
In the next place, I attentively examined what I
was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had
no body, and that there was no world nor any place
in which I might be; but that I could not therefore
suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary,
from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt of
the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly
followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I
had only ceased to think, although all the other ob-
jects which I had ever imagined had been in reality
existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I
existed; I thence concluded that I was a substance
whose whole essence or nature consists only in think-
ing, and which, that it may exist, has need of no
place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that
"I," that is to say, the mind by which I am what I
am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more
K 2
34
DISCOURSE
easily known than the latter, and is such, that although
the latter were not, it would still continue to be all
that it is.
After this I inquired in general into what is essen-
tial to the truth and certainty of a proposition; for
since I had discovered one which I knew to be true, I
thought that I must likewise be able to discover the
ground of this certitude. And as I observed that in
the words I think, hence I am, there is nothing at all
which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this,
that I see very clearly that in order to think it is
necessary to exist, I concluded that I might take, as
a general rule, the principle, that all the things which
we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true, only
observing, however, that there is some difficulty in
rightly determining the objects which we distinctly
conceive.
In the next place, from reflecting on the circum-
stance that I doubted, and that consequently my being
was not wholly perfect, (for I clearly saw that it was
a greater perfection to know than to doubt,) I was led
to inquire whence I had learned to think of something
more perfect than myself; and I clearly recognised
that I must hold this notion from some Nature which
in reality was more perfect. As for the thoughts of
many other objects external to me, as of the sky, the
earth, light, heat, and a thousand more, I was less at
a loss to know whence these came; for since I re-
marked in them nothing which seemed to render them
superior to myself, I could believe that, if these were
true, they were dependencies on my own nature, in so
far as it possessed a certain perfection, and, if they
were false, that I held them from nothing, that is to
say, that they were in me because of a certain imper-
ON METHOD.
35
#
1
fection of my nature. But this could not be the case
with the idea of a Nature more perfect than myself;
for to receive it from nothing was a thing manifestly 4
impossible; and, because it is not less repugnant that
the more perfect should be an effect of, and dependence
on the less perfect, than that something should proceed
from nothing, it was equally impossible that I could.
hold it from myself: accordingly, it but remained that
it had been placed in me by a Nature which was in
reality more perfect than mine, and which even pos-
sessed within itself all the perfections of which I could
form any idea; that is to say, in a single word, which
was God. And to this I added that, since I knew
some perfections which I did not possess, I was not
the only being in existence, (I will here, with your
permission, freely use the terms of the schools); but,
on the contrary, that there was of necessity some
other more perfect Being upon whom I was dependent,
and from whom I had received all that I possessed;
for if I had existed alone, and independently of every
other being, so as to have had from myself all the per-
fection, however little, which I actually possessed, I
should have been able, for the same reason, to have
had from myself the whole remainder of perfection, of
the want of which I was conscious, and thus could of
myself have become infinite, eternal, immutable, omni-
scient, all-powerful, and, in fine, have possessed all the
perfections which I could recognise in God. For in
order to know the nature of God, (whose existence
has been established by the preceding reasonings,) as
far as my own nature permitted, I had only to con-
sider in reference to all the properties of which I found
in my mind some idea, whether their possession was a
mark of perfection; and I was assured that no one
36
DISCOURSE
which indicated any imperfection was in him, and that
none of the rest was awanting. Thus I perceived
that doubt, inconstancy, sadness, and such like, could
not be found in God, since I myself would have been
happy to be free from them. Besides, I had ideas of
many sensible and corporeal things; for although I
might suppose that I was dreaming, and that all which
I saw or imagined was false, I could not, nevertheless,
deny that the ideas were in reality in my thoughts.
But, because I had already very clearly recognised in
myself that the intelligent nature is distinct from the
corporeal, and as I observed that all composition is an
evidence of dependency, and that a state of dependency
is manifestly a state of imperfection, I therefore deter-
mined that it could not be a perfection in God to be
compounded of these two natures, and that consequently
he was not so compounded; but that if there were any
bodies in the world, or even any intelligences, or other
natures that were not wholly perfect, their existence
depended on his power in such a way that they could
not subsist without him for a single moment.
I was disposed straightway to search for other truths;
and when I had represented to myself the object of the
geometers, which I conceived to be a continuous body,
or a space indefinitely extended in length, breadth, and
height or depth, divisible into divers parts which ad-
mit of different figures and sizes, and of being moved
or transposed in all manner of ways, (for all this the
geometers suppose to be in the object they contem-
plate,) I went over some of their simplest demonstra-
tions. And, in the first place, I observed, that the great
certitude which by common consent is accorded to these
demonstrations, is founded solely upon this, that they
are clearly conceived in accordance with the rules I
ON METHOD.
37
have already laid down. In the next place, I perceived
that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations
which could assure me of the existence of their object :
thus, for example, supposing a triangle to be given, I
distinctly perceived that its three angles were neces-
sarily equal to two right angles, but I did not on that
account perceive anything which could assure me that
any triangle existed: while, on the contrary, recurring
to the examination of the idea of a Perfect Being, I
found that the existence of the Being was comprised in
the idea in the same way that the equality of its
three angles to two right angles is comprised in the
idea of a triangle, or as in the idea of a sphere, the
equidistance of all points on its surface from the centre,
or even still more clearly; and that consequently it is
at least as certain that God, who is this Perfect Being,
is, or exists, as any demonstration of Geometry can be.
But the reason which leads many to persuade them-
selves that there is a difficulty in knowing this truth,
and even also in knowing what their mind really is,
is that they never raise their thoughts above sensible
objects, and are so accustomed to consider nothing
except by way of imagination, which is a mode of
thinking limited to material objects, that all that is not
imaginable seems to them not intelligible. The truth
of this is sufficiently manifest from the single circum-
stance, that the philosophers of the Schools accept as
a maxim that there is nothing in the Understanding
which was not previously in the Senses, in which how-
ever it is certain that the ideas of God and of the soul
have never been; and it appears to me that they who
make use of their imagination to comprehend these
ideas do exactly the same thing as if, in order to hear
sounds or smell odours, they strove to avail themselves
38
DISCOURSE
of their eyes; unless indeed that there is this difference,
that the sense of sight does not afford us an inferior
assurance to those of smell or hearing; in place of
which, neither our imagination nor our senses can give
us assurance of anything unless our Understanding in-
tervene.
Finally, if there be still persons who are not suffi-
ciently persuaded of the existence of God and of the
soul, by the reasons I have adduced, I am desirous
that they should know that all the other propositions,
of the truth of which they deem themselves perhaps
more assured, as that we have a body, and that there
exist stars and an earth, and such like, are less certain;
for, although we have a moral assurance of these things,
which is so strong that there is an appearance of ex-
travagance in doubting of their existence, yet at the
same time no one, unless his intellect is impaired, can
deny, when the question relates to a metaphysical cer-
titude, that there is sufficient reason to exclude entire
assurance, in the observation that when asleep we can
in the same way imagine ourselves possessed of another
body and that we see other stars and another earth,
when there is nothing of the kind. For how do we
know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are
false rather than those other which we experience when
awake, since the former are often not less vivid and
distinct than the latter? And though men of the
highest genius study this question as long as they
please, I do not believe that they will be able to give
any reason which can be sufficient to remove this
doubt, unless they presuppose the existence of God.
For, in the first place, even the principle which I have
already taken as a rule, viz., that all the things which
we clearly and distinctly conceive are true, is certain
1
1
اسر
ON METHOD.
39
:
only because God is or exists, and because he is a Per-
fect Being, and because all that we possess is derived
from him whence it follows that our ideas or notions,
which to the extent of their clearness and distinctness
are real, and proceed from God, must to that extent be
true. Accordingly, whereas we not unfrequently have
ideas or notions in which some falsity is contained, this
can only be the case with such as are to some extent
confused and obscure, and in this proceed from nothing,
(participate of negation,) that is, exist in us thus con-
fused because we are not wholly perfect. And it is
evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or im-
perfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should pro-
ceed from God, than that truth or perfection should
proceed from nothing. But if we did not know that
all which we possess of real and true proceeds from a
Perfect and Infinite Being, however clear and distinct
our ideas might be, we should have no ground on that
account for the assurance that they possessed the per-
fection of being true..
But after the knowledge of God and of the soul has
rendered us certain of this rule, we can easily under-
stand that the truth of the thoughts we experience
when awake, ought not in the slightest degree to
be called in question on account of the illusions of
our dreams. For if it happened that an individual,
even when asleep, had some very distinct idea, as, for
example, if a geometer should discover some new de-
monstration, the circumstance of his being asleep would
not militate against its truth; and as for the most or-
dinary error of our dreams, which consists in their
representing to us various objects in the same way
as our external senses, this is not prejudicial, since it
leads us very properly to suspect the truth of the ideas
40
DISCOURSE
of sense; for we are not unfrequently deceived in the
same manner when awake; as when persons in the
jaundice see all objects yellow, or when the stars or
bodies at a great distance appear to us much smaller
than they are. For, in fine, whether awake or asleep,
we ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of
the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our
Reason. And it must be noted that I say of our Reason,
and not of our imagination or of our senses: thus, for
example, although we very clearly see the sun, we
ought not therefore to determine that it is only of the
size which our sense of sight presents; and we may
very distinctly imagine the head of a lion joined to the
body of a goat, without being therefore shut up to the
conclusion that a chimæra exists; for it is not a dictate
of Reason that what we thus see or imagine is in reality
existent; but it plainly tells us that all our ideas or
notions contain in them some truth; for otherwise it
could not be that God, who is wholly perfect and vera-
cious, should have placed them in us. And because
our reasonings are never so clear or so complete during
sleep as when we are awake, although sometimes the
acts of our imagination are then as lively and distinct,
if not more so than in our waking moments, Reason
further dictates that, since all our thoughts cannot be
true because of our partial imperfection, those pos-
sessing truth must infallibly be found in the experience
of our waking moments rather than in that of our
dreams.
}
ON METHOD.
41
..
PART V.
I WOULD here willingly have proceeded to exhibit
the whole chain of truths which I deduced from
these primary; but as with a view to this it would
have been necessary now to treat of many questions in
dispute among the learned, with whom I do not wish
to be embroiled, I believe that it will be better for me
to refrain from this exposition, and only mention in
general what these truths are, that the more judicious
may be able to determine whether a more special ac-
count of them would conduce to the public advantage.
I have ever remained firm in my original resolution to
suppose no other principle than that of which I have
recently availed myself in demonstrating the existence
of God and of the soul, and to accept as true nothing that
did not appear to me more clear and certain than the de-
monstrations of the geometers had formerly appeared;
and yet I venture to state that not only have I found
means to satisfy myself in a short time on all the principal
difficulties which are usually treated of in Philosophy,
but I have also observed certain laws established in
nature by God in such a manner, and of which he has
impressed on our minds such notions, that after we
have reflected sufficiently upon these, we cannot doubt
that they are accurately observed in all that exists or
42
DISCOURSE
takes place in the world: and farther, by considering
the concatenation of these laws, it appears to me that
I have discovered many truths more useful and more
important than all I had before learned, or even had
expected to learn.
But because I have essayed to expound the chief of
these discoveries in a Treatise which certain considera-
tions prevent me from publishing, I cannot make the
results known more conveniently than by here giving a
summary of the contents of this Treatise. It was my
design to comprise in it all that, before I set myself to
write it, I thought I knew of the nature of material
objects. But like the painters who, finding themselves
unable to represent equally well on a plain surface all
the different faces of a solid body, select one of the
chief, on which alone they make the light fall, and
throwing the rest into the shade, allow them to appear
only in so far as they can be seen while looking at the
principal one; so, fearing lest I should not be able to
comprise in my discourse all that was in my mind, I
resolved to expound singly, though at considerable
length, my opinions regarding light; then to take the
opportunity of adding something on the sun and the
fixed stars, since light almost wholly proceeds from
them; on the heavens since they transmit it; on the
planets, comets, and earth, since they reflect it; and
particularly on all the bodies that are upon the earth,
since they are either coloured, or transparent, or lumi-
nous; and finally on man, since he is the spectator of
these objects. Further, to enable me to cast this
variety of subjects somewhat into the shade, and to
express my judgment regarding them with greater
freedom, without being necessitated to adopt or refute
the opinions of the learned, I resolved to leave all the
ON METHOD.
43
people here to their disputes, and to speak only of what
would happen in a new world, if God were now to
create somewhere in the imaginary spaces matter suffi-
cient to compose one, and were to agitate variously and
confusedly the different parts of this matter, so that
there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever
feigned, and after that did nothing more than lend his
ordinary concurrence to nature, and allow her to act
in accordance with the laws which he had established.
On this supposition, I, in the first place, described this
matter, and essayed to represent it in such a manner
that to my mind there can be nothing clearer and more
intelligible, except what has been recently said regard-
ing God and the soul; for I even expressly supposed
that it possessed none of those forms or qualities which
are so debated in the Schools, nor in general anything
the knowledge of which is not so natural to our minds
that no one can so much as imagine himself ignorant
of it. Besides, I have pointed out what are the laws
of nature; and, with no other principle upon which to
found my reasonings except the infinite perfection of
God, I endeavoured to demonstrate all those about
which there could be any room for doubt, and to prove
that they are such, that even if God had created more
worlds, there could have been none in which these laws
were not observed. Thereafter, I showed how the
greatest part of the matter of this chaos must, in ac-
cordance with these laws, dispose and arrange itself in
such a way as to present the appearance of heavens;
how in the meantime some of its parts must compose
an earth and some planets and comets, and others a
sun and fixed stars. And, making a digression at this
stage on the subject of light, I expounded at consi-
derable length what the nature of that light must be
44
DISCOURSE
which is found in the sun and the stars, and how thence
in an instant of time it traverses the immense spaces
of the heavens, and how from the planets and comets
it is reflected towards the earth. To this I likewise
added much respecting the substance, the situation, the
motions, and all the different qualities of these heavens
and stars; so that I thought I had said enough respect-
ing them to show that there is nothing observable in
the heavens or stars of our system that must not, or at
least may not appear precisely alike in those of the
system which I described. I came next to speak of
the earth in particular, and to show how, even though
I had expressly supposed that God had given no weight
to the matter of which it is composed, this should not
prevent all its parts from tending exactly to its centre;
how with water and air on its surface, the disposition
of the heavens and heavenly bodies, more especially of
the moon, must cause a flow and ebb, like in all its
circumstances to that observed in our seas, as also a
certain current both of water and air from east to west,
such as is likewise observed between the tropics; how
the mountains, seas, fountains, and rivers might natu-
rally be formed in it, and the metals produced in the
mines, and the plants grow in the fields; and in gene-
ral, how all the bodies which are commonly denomi-
nated mixed or composite might be generated: and,
among other things in the discoveries alluded to, inas-
much as besides the stars, I knew nothing except fire
which produces light, I spared no pains to set forth all
that pertains to its nature,—the manner of its produc-
tion and support, and to explain how heat is sometimes
found without light, and light without heat; to show
how it can induce various colours upon different bodies
and other diverse qualities; how it reduces some to a
ON METHOD.
45
liquid state and hardens others; how it can consume
almost all bodies, or convert them into ashes and smoke;
and finally, how from these ashes, by the mere inten-
sity of its action, it forms glass: for as this transmuta-
tion of ashes into glass appeared to me as wonderful as
any other in nature, I took a special pleasure in de-
scribing it.
I was not, however, disposed, from these circum-
stances, to conclude that this world had been created
in the manner I described; for it is much more likely
that God made it at the first such as it was to be. But
this is certain, and an opinion commonly received
among theologians, that the action by which he now
sustains it is the same with that by which he originally
created it; so that even although he had from the be-
ginning given it no other form than that of chaos, pro-
vided only he had established certain laws of nature,
and had lent it his concurrence to enable it to act as
it is wont to do, it may be believed, without discre-
dit to the miracle of creation, that, in this way alone,
things purely material might, in course of time, have
become such as we observe them at present; and their
nature is much more easily conceived when they are
beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence,
than when they are only considered as produced at once
in a finished and perfect state.
But
From the description of inanimate bodies and plants,
I passed to animals, and particularly to man.
since I had not as yet sufficient knowledge to enable
me to treat of these in the same manner as of the rest,
that is to say, by deducing effects from their causes,
and by showing from what elements and in what man-
ner Nature must produce them, I remained satisfied
with the supposition that God formed the body of man
46
DISCOURSE
wholly like to one of ours, as well in the external
shape of the members as in the internal conformation
of the organs, of the same matter with that I had de-
scribed, and at first placed in it no Rational Soul, nor
any other principle, in room of the Vegetative or Sen-
sitive Soul, beyond kindling in the heart one of those
fires without light, such as I had already described, and
which I thought was not different from the heat in
hay that has been heaped together before it is dry, or
that which causes fermentation in new wines before
they are run clear of the fruit. For, when I examined
the kind of functions which might, as consequences of
this supposition, exist in this body, I found precisely
all those which may exist in us independently of all
power of thinking, and consequently without being in
any measure owing to the soul; in other words, to that
part of us which is distinct from the body, and of
which it has been said above that the nature distinc-
tively consists in thinking,-functions in which the
animals void of Reason may be said wholly to resemble
us; but among which I could not discover any of those
that, as dependent on thought alone, belong to us as
men, while, on the other hand, I did afterwards dis-
cover these as soon as I supposed God to have created
a Rational Soul, and to have annexed it to this body in
a particular manner which I described.
But, in order to show how I there handled this mat-
ter, I mean here to give the explication of the motion
of the heart and arteries, which, as the first and most
general motion observed in animals, will afford the
means of readily determining what should be thought
of all the rest. And that there may be less difficulty
in understanding what I am about to say on this sub-
ject, I advise those who are not versed in Anatomy,
ON METHOD.
47
·
before they commence the perusal of these observations,
to take the trouble of getting dissected in their presence
the heart of some large animal possessed of lungs, (for
this is throughout sufficiently like the human,) and to
have shewn to them its two ventricles or cavities: in
the first place, that in the right side, with which cor-
respond two very ample tubes, viz., the hollow vein,
(vena cava,) which is the principal receptacle of the
blood, and the trunk of the tree, as it were, of which
all the other veins in the body are branches; and the
arterial vein, (vena arteriosa,) inappropriately so deno-
minated, since it is in truth only an artery, which,
taking its rise in the heart, is divided, after passing out
from it, into many branches which presently disperse
themselves all over the lungs; in the second place, the
cavity in the left side, with which correspond in the
same manner two canals in size equal to or larger than
the preceding, viz., the venous artery, (arteria venosa,)
likewise inappropriately thus designated, because it is
simply a vein which comes from the lungs, where it is
divided into many branches, interlaced with those of
the arterial vein, and those of the tube called the
windpipe, through which the air we breathe enters;
and the great artery which, issuing from the heart,
sends its branches all over the body. I should wish
also that such persons were carefully shewn the eleven
pellicles which, like so many small valves, open and
shut the four orifices that are in these two cavities,
viz., three at the entrance of the hollow vein, where
they are disposed in such a manner as by no means to
prevent the blood which it contains from flowing into
the right ventricle of the heart, and yet exactly to
prevent its flowing out; three at the entrance to the
arterial vein, which, arranged in a manner exactly the
48
DISCOURSE
opposite of the former, readily permit the blood con-
tained in this cavity to pass into the lungs, but hinder
that contained in the lungs from returning to this
cavity; and, in like manner, two others at the mouth
of the venous artery, which allow the blood from the
lungs to flow into the left cavity of the heart, but pre-
clude its return; and three at the mouth of the great
artery, which suffer the blood to flow from the heart,
but prevent its reflux. Nor do we need to seek any
other reason for the number of these pellicles beyond
this that the orifice of the venous artery being of an
oval shape from the nature of its situation, can be ade-
quately closed with two, whereas the others being
round are more conveniently closed with three. Be-
sides, I wish such persons to observe that the grand
artery and the arterial vein are of much harder and
firmer texture than the venous artery and the hollow
vein; and that the two last expand before entering the
heart, and there form, as it were, two pouches deno-
minated the auricles of the heart, which are composed
of a substance similar to that of the heart itself; and
that there is always more warmth in the heart than in
any other part of the body; and, finally, that this heat
is capable of causing any drop of blood that passes
into the cavities rapidly to expand and dilate, just as
all liquors do when allowed to fall drop by drop into
a highly heated vessel.
For, after these things, it is not necessary for me to
say anything more with a view to explain the motion
of the heart, except that when its cavities are not full of
blood, into these the blood of necessity flows,—from the
hollow vein into the right, and from the venous artery
into the left; because these two vessels are always full
of blood, and their orifices, which are turned towards
ON METHOD.
49
the heart, cannot then be closed. But as soon as two
drops of blood have thus passed, one into each of the
cavities, these drops which cannot but be very large,
because the orifices through which they pass are wide,
and the vessels from which they come full of blood,
are immediately rarefied, and dilated by the heat they
meet with. In this way they cause the whole heart to
expand, and at the same time press home and shut the
five small valves that are at the entrances of the two
vessels from which they flow, and thus prevent any
more blood from coming down into the heart, and be-
coming more and more rarefied, they push open the
six small valves that are in the orifices of the other two
vessels, through which they pass out, causing in this
way all the branches of the arterial vein and of the
grand artery to expand almost simultaneously with the
heart-which immediately thereafter begins to contract,
as do also the arteries, because the blood that has
entered them has cooled, and the six small valves close,
and the five of the hollow vein and of the venous
artery open anew and allow a passage to other two
drops of blood, which cause the heart and the arteries
again to expand as before. And, because the blood
which thus enters into the heart passes through these
two pouches called auricles, it thence happens that their
motion is the contrary of that of the heart, and that
when it expands they contract. But lest those who are
ignorant of the force of mathematical demonstrations,
and who are not accustomed to distinguish true reasons
from mere verisimilitudes, should venture, without ex-
amination, to deny what has been said, I wish it to be
considered that the motion which I have now explained
follows as necessarily from the very arrangement of
the parts, which may be observed in the heart by the
L
50
DISCOURSE
eye alone, and from the heat which may be felt with
the fingers, and from the nature of the blood as learned
from experience, as does the motion of a clock from
the power, the situation, and shape of its counter-
weights and wheels.
But if it be asked how it happens that the blood in
the veins, flowing in this way continually into the
heart, is not exhausted, and why the arteries do not
become too full, since all the blood which passes
through the heart flows into them, I need only men-
tion in reply what has been written by a physician*
of England, who has the honour of having broken the
ice on this subject, and of having been the first to teach
that there are many small passages at the extremities of
the arteries, through which the blood received by them
from the heart passes into the small branches of the
veins, whence it again returns to the heart; so that its
course amounts precisely to a perpetual circulation.
Of this we have abundant proof in the ordinary experi-
ence of surgeons, who, by binding the arm with a tie
of moderate straitness above the part where they open
the vein, cause the blood to flow more copiously than
it would have done without any ligature; whereas
quite the contrary would happen were they to bind it
below; that is, between the hand and the opening, or
were to make the ligature above the opening very
tight. For it is manifest that the tie, moderately
straitened, while adequate to hinder the blood already
in the arm from returning towards the heart by the
veins, cannot on that account prevent new blood from
coming forward through the arteries, because these are
situated below the veins, and their coverings, from
their greater consistency, are more difficult to com-
* Harvey-Lat. Tr.
ON METHOD.
51
press; and also that the blood which comes from the
heart tends to pass through them to the hand with
greater force than it does to return from the hand to
the heart through the veins. And since the latter
current escapes from the arm by the opening made in
one of the veins, there must of necessity be certain
passages below the ligature, that is, towards the ex-
tremities of the arm through which it can come thither
from the arteries. This physician likewise abundantly
establishes what he has advanced respecting the motion
of the blood, from the existence of certain pellicles, so
disposed in various places along the course of the veins,
in the manner of small valves, as not to permit the
blood to pass from the middle of the body towards the
extremities, but only to return from the extremities to
the heart; and farther, from experience which shows
that all the blood which is in the body may flow out
of it in a very short time through a single artery that
has been cut, even although this had been closely tied
in the immediate neighbourhood of the heart, and cut
between the heart and the ligature, so as to prevent
the supposition that the blood flowing out of it could
come from any other quarter than the heart.
But there are many other circumstances which evince
that what I have alleged is the true cause of the motion
of the blood: thus, in the first place, the difference
that is observed between the blood which flows from
the veins, and that from the arteries, can only arise
from this, that being rarefied, and, as it were, dis-
tilled by passing through the heart, it is thinner, and
more vivid, and warmer immediately after leaving the
heart, in other words, when in the arteries, than it
was a short time before passing into either, in other
words, when it was in the veins; and if attention be
52
DISCOURSE
given, it will be found that this difference is very
marked only in the neighbourhood of the heart; and
is not so evident in parts more remote from it. In the
next place, the consistency of the coats of which the
arterial vein and the great artery are composed, suffi-
ciently shows that the blood is impelled against them
with more force than against the veins. And why
should the left cavity of the heart and the great artery
be wider and larger than the right cavity and the
arterial vein, were it not that the blood of the venous
artery, having only been in the lungs after it has passed
through the heart, is thinner, and rarefies more readily,
and in a higher degree, than the blood which proceeds
immediately from the hollow vein? And what can
physicians conjecture from feeling the pulse unless
they know that according as the blood changes its
nature it can be rarefied by the warmth of the heart,
in a higher or lower degree, and more or less quickly
than before? And if it be inquired how this heat is
communicated to the other members, must it not be
admitted that this is effected by means of the blood,
which, passing through the heart, is there heated anew,
and thence diffused over all the body? Whence it
happens, that if the blood be withdrawn from any
part, the heat is likewise withdrawn by the same
means; and although the heart were as hot as glowing
iron, it would not be capable of warming the feet and
hands as at present, unless it continually sent thither
new blood. We likewise perceive from this, that the
true use of respiration is to bring sufficient fresh air
into the lungs, to cause the blood which flows into
them from the right ventricle of the heart, where it
has been rarefied and, as it were, changed into vapours,
to become thick, and to convert it anew into blood,
ON METHOD.
53
before it flows into the left cavity, without which pro-
cess it would be unfit for the nourishment of the fire
that is there. This receives confirmation from the cir-
cumstance, that it is observed of animals destitute of
lungs that they have also but one cavity in the heart,
and that in children who cannot use them while in
the womb, there is a hole through which the blood
flows from the hollow vein into the left cavity of the
heart, and a tube through which it passes from the
arterial vein into the grand artery without passing
through the lung. In the next place, how could diges-
tion be carried on in the stomach unless the heart
communicated heat to it through the arteries, and
along with this certain of the more fluid parts of the
blood, which assist in the dissolution of the food that
has been taken in? Is not also the operation which
converts the juice of food into blood easily compre-
hended, when it is considered that it is distilled by
passing and repassing through the heart perhaps more
than one or two hundred times in a day? And what
more need be adduced to explain nutrition, and the
production of the different humours of the body, be-
yond saying, that the force with which the blood, in
being rarefied, passes from the heart towards the ex-
tremities of the arteries, causes certain of its parts to
remain in the members at which they arrive, and there
occupy the place of some others expelled by them;
and that according to the situation, shape, or smallness.
of the pores with which they meet, some rather than
others flow into certain parts, in the same way that
some sieves are observed to act, which, by being vari-
ously perforated, serve to separate different species of
grain? And, in the last place, what above all is
here worthy of observation, is the generation of the
/
54
DISCOURSE
animal spirits, which are like a very subtle wind, or
rather a very pure and vivid flame which, continu-
ally ascending in great abundance from the heart to
the brain, thence penetrates through the nerves into
the muscles, and gives motion to all the members; so
that to account for other parts of the blood which, as
most agitated and penetrating, are the fittest to com-
pose these spirits, proceeding towards the brain, it is
not necessary to suppose any other cause, than simply,
that the arteries which carry them thither proceed
from the heart in the most direct lines, and that, ac-
cording to the rules of Mechanics, which are the same
with those of Nature, when many objects tend at once
to the same point where there is not sufficient room
for all, (as is the case with the parts of the blood which
flow forth from the left cavity of the heart and tend
towards the brain,) the weaker and less agitated parts
must necessarily be driven aside from that point by the
stronger which alone in this way reach it.
I had expounded all these matters with sufficient
minuteness in the Treatise which I formerly thought of
publishing. And after these, I had shewn what must
be the fabric of the nerves and muscles of the human
body to give the animal spirits contained in it the power
to move the members, as when we see heads shortly
after they have been struck off still move and bite the
earth, although no longer animated; what changes
must take place in the brain to produce waking, sleep,
and dreams; how light, sounds, odours, tastes, heat,
and all the other qualities of external objects impress
it with different ideas by means of the senses; how
hunger, thirst, and the other internal affections can
likewise impress upon it divers ideas; what must be
understood by the common sense (sensus communis) in
ON METHOD,
55
which these ideas are received, by the memory which
retains them, by the fantasy which can change them
in various ways, and out of them compose new ideas,
and which, by the same means, distributing the animal
spirits through the muscles, can cause the members of
such a body to move in as many different ways, and in
a manner as suited, whether to the objects that are
presented to its senses or to its internal affections, as
can take place in our own case apart from the guid-
ance of the will. Nor will this appear at all strange
to those who are acquainted with the variety of move-
ments performed by the different automata, or moving
machines fabricated by human industry, and that with
help of but few pieces compared with the great mul-
titude of bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and
other parts that are found in the body of each animal.
Such persons will look upon this body as a machine
made by the hands of God, which is incomparably
better arranged, and adequate to movements more
admirable than is any machine of human invention.
And here I specially stayed to show that, were there
such machines exactly resembling in organs and out-
ward form an ape or any other irrational animal, we
could have no means of knowing that they were in any
respect of a different nature from these animals; but
if there were machines bearing the image of our bodies,
and capable of imitating our actions as far as it is
morally possible, there would still remain two most
certain tests whereby to know that they were not there-
fore really men. Of these the first is that they could/
never use words or other signs arranged in such a
manner as is competent to us in order to declare our
thoughts to others: for we may easily conceive a ma-
chine to be so constructed that it emits vocables, and
56
DISCOURSE
even that it emits some correspondent to the action
upon it of external objects which cause a change in its
organs; for example, if touched in a particular place it
may demand what we wish to say to it; if in another
it may cry out that it is hurt, and such like; but not
that it should arrange them variously so as appositely
to reply to what is said in its presence, as men of the
lowest grade of intellect can do. The second test is,
that although such machines might execute many things
with equal or perhaps greater perfection than any of
us, they would, without doubt, fail in certain others
from which it could be discovered that they did not act
from knowledge, but solely from the disposition of their
organs for while Reason is an universal instrument
that is alike available on every occasion, these organs,
on the contrary, need a particular arrangement for each
particular action; whence it must be morally impos-
sible that there should exist in any machine a diversity
of organs sufficient to enable it to act in all the occur-
rences of life, in the way in which our reason enables
us to act. Again, by means of these two tests we may
likewise know the difference between men and brutes.
For it is highly deserving of remark, that there are no
men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be in-
capable of joining together different words, and thereby
constructing a declaration by which to make their
thoughts understood; and that on the other hand, there
is no other animal, however perfect or happily circum-
stanced which can do the like. Nor does this inability
arise from want of organs: for we observe that mag-
pies and parrots can utter words like ourselves, and are
yet unable to speak as we do, that is, so as to show
that they understand what they say; in place of which
men born deaf and dumb, and thus not less, but rather
ON METHOD.
57
more than the brutes, destitute of the organs which
others use in speaking, are in the habit of spontaneously
inventing certain signs by which they discover their
thoughts to those who, being usually in their company,
have leisure to learn their language. And this proves
not only that the brutes have less Reason than man,
but that they have none at all: for we see that very
little is required to enable a person to speak; and since
a certain inequality of capacity is observable among
animals of the same species, as well as among men,
and since some are more capable of being instructed
than others, it is incredible that the most perfect ape
or parrot of its species, should not in this be equal to
the most stupid infant of its kind, or at least to one that
was crack-brained, unless the soul of brutes were of a
nature wholly different from ours. And we ought not
to confound speech with the natural movements which
indicate the passions, and can be imitated by machines
as well as manifested by animals; nor must it be
thought with certain of the ancients, that the brutes
speak, although we do not understand their language.
For if such were the case, since they are endowed with
many organs analogous to ours, they could as easily
communicate their thoughts to us as to their fellows.
It is also very worthy of remark, that, though there are
many animals which manifest more industry than we
in certain of their actions, the same animals are yet
observed to show none at all in many others: so that
the circumstance that they do better than we does not
prove that they are endowed with mind, for it would
thence follow that they possessed greater Reason than
any of us, and could surpass us in all things; on the
contrary, it rather proves that they are destitute of
Reason, and that it is Nature which acts in them accord-
L 2
58
DISCOURSE
1
ing to the disposition of their organs: thus it is seen,
that a clock composed only of wheels and weights can
number the hours and measure time more exactly than
we with all our skill.
I had after this described the Reasonable Soul, and
shewn that it could by no means be educed from
the power of matter, as the other things of which I had
spoken, but that it must be expressly created; and that
it is not sufficient that it be lodged in the human body
exactly like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move
its members, but that it is necessary for it to be joined
and united more closely to the body, in order to have
sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus con-
stitute a real man. I here entered, in conclusion,
upon the subject of the soul at considerable length, be-
cause it is of the greatest moment: for after the error
of those who deny the existence of God, an error which
I think I have already sufficiently refuted, there is
none that is more powerful in leading feeble minds
astray from the straight path of virtue than the suppo-
sition that the soul of the brutes is of the same nature
with our own; and consequently that after this life we
have nothing to hope for or fear, more than flies and
ants; in place of which, when we know how far they
differ we much better comprehend the reasons which
establish that the soul is of a nature wholly indepen-
dent of the body, and that consequently it is not liable
to die with the latter; and, finally, because no other
causes are observed capable of destroying it, we are
naturally led thence to judge that it is immortal.
ON METHOD.
59
PART VI.
THREE years have now elapsed since I finished the
Treatise containing all these matters; and I was be-
ginning to revise it, with the view to put it into the
hands of a printer, when I learned that persons to whom
I greatly defer, and whose authority over my actions
is hardly less influential than is my own Reason over
my thoughts, had condemned a certain doctrine in
Physics, published a short time previously by another
individual,* to which I will not say that I adhered,
but only that, previously to their censure, I had ob-
served in it nothing which I could imagine to be pre-
judicial either to religion or to the state, and nothing
therefore which would have prevented me from giving
expression to it in writing, if Reason had persuaded
me of its truth; and this led me to fear lest among my
own doctrines likewise some one might be found in
which I had departed from the truth, notwithstanding
the great care I have always taken not to accord belief
to new opinions of which I had not the most certain,
demonstrations, and not to give expression to aught that
might tend to the hurt of any one. This has been
sufficient to make me alter my purpose of publishing
them; for although the reasons by which I had been
• Galileo.-Tr.
60
DISCOURSE
induced to take this resolution were very strong, yet
my inclination, which has always been hostile to writ-
ing books, enabled me immediately to discover other
considerations sufficient to excuse me for not under-
taking the task. And these reasons, on one side and
the other, are such, that not only is it in some measure
my interest here to state them, but that of the public,
perhaps, to know them.
I have never made much account of what has pro-
ceeded from my own mind; and so long as I gathered
no other advantage from the Method I employ beyond
satisfying myself on some difficulties belonging to the
speculative sciences, or endeavouring to regulate my
actions according to the principles it taught me, I never
thought myself bound to publish anything respecting
it. For in what regards manners, every one is so full of
his own wisdom, that there might be found as many re-
formers as heads, if any were allowed to take upon them-
selves the task of mending them, except those whom
God has constituted the supreme rulers of his people,
or to whom he has given sufficient grace and zeal to
be prophets; and although my speculations greatly
pleased myself, I believed that others had theirs, which
perhaps pleased them still more. But as soon as I had
acquired some general notions respecting Physics, and
beginning to make trial of them in various particular
difficulties, had observed how far they can carry us,
and how much they differ from the principles that have
been employed up to the present time, I believed that
I could not keep them concealed without sinning griev-
ously against the law by which we are bound to pro-
mote, as far as in us lies, the general good of mankind.
For by them I perceived it to be possible to arrive at
knowledge highly useful in life; and in room of the
ON METHOD.
61
Speculative Philosophy usually taught in the Schools,
to discover a Practical, by means of which, know-
ing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars,
the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us,
as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our
artizans, we might also apply them in the same way
to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus
render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature.
And this is a result to be desired, not only in order to
the invention of an infinity of arts, by which we might
be enabled to enjoy without any trouble the fruits of
the earth, and all its comforts, but also and especially
for the preservation of health, which is without doubt,
of all the blessings of this life, the first and fundamental
one; for the mind is so intimately dependent upon the
condition and relation of the organs of the body, that
if any means can ever be found to render men wiser
and more ingenious than hitherto, I believe that it is in
Medicine they must be sought for. It is true that the
science of Medicine, as it now exists, contains few things
whose utility is very remarkable: but without any wish
to depreciate it, I am confident that there is no one,
even among those whose profession it is, who does not
admit that all at present known in it is almost nothing
in comparison of what remains to be discovered; and
that we could free ourselves from an infinity of mala-
dies of body as well as of mind, and perhaps also even
from the debility of age, if we had sufficiently ample
knowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies pro-
vided for us by Nature. But since I designed to employ
my whole life in the search after so necessary a Science,
and since I had fallen in with a path which seems to
me such, that if any one follow it he must inevitably
reach the end desired, unless he be hindered either by
62
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!
the shortness of life or the want of experiments, I
judged that there could be no more effectual provision
against these two impediments than if I were faithfully
to communicate to the public all the little I might
myself have found, and incite men of superior genius
to strive to proceed farther, by contributing, each ac-
cording to his inclination and ability, to the experiments
which it would be necessary to make, and also by in-
forming the public of all they might discover, so that,
by the last beginning where those before them had
left off, and thus connecting the lives and labours of
many, we might collectively proceed much farther than
each by himself could do.
I remarked, moreover, with respect to experiments,
that they become always more necessary the more one
is advanced in knowledge; for, at the commencement,
it is better to make use only of what is spontaneously
presented to our senses, and of which we cannot remain
ignorant, provided we bestow on it any reflection, how-
ever slight, than to concern ourselves about more un-
common and recondite phænomena: the reason of which
is, that the more uncommon often only mislead us so
long as the causes of the more ordinary are still un-
known; and the circumstances upon which they depend
are almost always so special and minute as to be highly
difficult to detect. But in this I have adopted the fol-
lowing order: first, I have essayed to find in general
the principles, or first causes of all that is or can be
in the world, without taking into consideration for this
end anything but God himself who has created it, and
without educing them from any other source than from
certain germs of truths naturally existing in our
minds. In the second place, I examined what were
the first and most ordinary effects that could be deduced
ON METHOD.
63
from these causes; and it appears to me that, in this
way, I have found heavens, stars, an earth, and even on
the earth, water, air, fire, minerals, and some other
things of this kind, which of all others are the most
common and simple, and hence the easiest to know.
Afterwards, when I wished to descend to the more par-
ticular, so many diverse objects presented themselves
to me, that I believed it to be impossible for the human
mind to distinguish the forms or species of bodies that
are upon the earth, from an infinity of others which
might have been, if it had pleased God to place them
there, or consequently to apply them to our use, unless
we rise to causes through their effects, and avail our-
selves of many particular experiments. Thereupon,
turning over in my mind all the objects that had ever
been presented to my senses, I freely venture to state
that I have never observed any which I could not satis-
factorily explain by the principles I had discovered.
But it is necessary also to confess that the power of
nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so
simple and general, that I have hardly observed a
single particular effect which I cannot at once recognise
as capable of being deduced in many different modes
from the principles, and that my greatest difficulty
usually is to discover in which of these modes the effect
is dependent upon them; for out of this difficulty I
cannot otherwise extricate myself than by again seek-
ing certain experiments, which may be such that their
result is not the same, if it is in the one of these modes
that we must explain it, as it would be if it were to be
explained in the other. As to what remains, I am now
in a position to discern, as I think, with sufficient clear-
ness what course must be taken to make the majority
of those experiments which may conduce to this end:
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г
but I perceive likewise that they are such and so
numerous, that neither my hands nor my income,
though it were a thousand times larger than it is,
would be sufficient for them all; so that, according as
henceforward I shall have the means of making more
or fewer experiments, I shall in the same proportion.
make greater or less progress in the knowledge of
nature. This was what I had hoped to make known
by the Treatise I had written, and so clearly to exhibit
the advantage that would thence accrue to the public,
as to induce all who have the common good of man at
heart, that is, all who are virtuous in truth, and not
merely in appearance, or according to opinion, as well
to communicate to me the experiments they had al-
ready made, as to assist me in those that remain to be
made.
But since that time other reasons have occurred to
me, by which I have been led to change my opinion,
and to think that I ought indeed to go on committing
to writing all the results which I deemed of any mo-
ment, as soon as I should have tested their truth, and
to bestow the same care upon them as I would have
done had it been my design to publish them. This
course commended itself to me, as well because I thus
afforded myself more ample inducement to examine
them thoroughly, for doubtless that is always more
narrowly scrutinized which we believe will be read
by many, than that which is written merely for our
private use, (and frequently what has seemed to me
true when I first conceived it, has appeared false when
I have set about committing it to writing;) as because
I thus lost no opportunity of advancing the interests of
the public, as far as in me lay, and since thus likewise,
if my writings possess any value, those into whose
ON METHOD.
65
لذا
hands they may fall after my death may be able to
put them to what use they deem proper. But I resolved
by no means to consent to their publication during my
lifetime, lest either the oppositions or the controversies
to which they might give rise, or even the reputation,
such as it might be, which they would acquire for me,
should be any occasion of my losing the time that I
had set apart for my own improvement.
For though
it be true that every one is bound to promote to the
extent of his ability the good of others, and that to be
useful to no one is really to be worthless, yet it is like-
wise true that our cares ought to extend beyond the
present; and it is good to omit doing what might per-
haps bring some profit to the living, when we have in
view the accomplishment of other ends that will be of
much greater advantage to posterity. And in truth,
I am quite willing it should be known that the little I
have hitherto learned is almost nothing in comparison
with that of which I am ignorant, and to the knowledge
of which I do not despair of being able to attain; for
it is much the same with those who gradually discover
truth in the Sciences, as with those who when growing
rich find less difficulty in making great acquisitions,
than they formerly experienced when poor in making
acquisitions of much smaller amount. Or they may
be compared to the commanders of armies, whose forces
usually increase in proportion to their victories, and
who need greater prudence to keep together the residue
of their troops after a defeat than after a victory to
take towns and provinces. For he truly engages in
battle who endeavours to surmount all the difficulties
and errors which prevent him from reaching the know-
ledge of truth, and he is overcome in fight who admits
a false opinion touching a matter of any generality and
}
66
DISCOURSE
importance, and he requires thereafter much more skill
to recover his former position than to make great ad-
vances when once in possession of thoroughly ascertain-
ed principles. As for myself, if I have succeeded in
discovering any truths in the Sciences, (and I trust that
what is contained in this volume * will show that I
have found some,) I can declare that they are but the
consequences and results of five or six principal diffi-
culties which I have surmounted, and my encounters
with which I reckoned as battles in which victory de-
clared for me. I will not hesitate even to avow my
belief that nothing further is wanting to enable me
fully to realize my designs than to gain two or three
similar victories; and that I am not so far advanced
in years but that, according to the ordinary course of
nature, I may still have sufficient leisure for this end.
But I conceive myself the more bound to husband the
time that remains the greater my expectation of being
able to employ it aright, and I should doubtless have
much to rob me of it, were I to publish the principles
of my Physics: for although they are almost all so
evident that to assent to them no more is needed than
simply to understand them, and although there is not
one of them of which I do not expect to be able to give
demonstration, yet, as it is impossible that they can be
in accordance with all the diverse opinions of others, I
foresee that I should frequently be turned aside from
my grand design, on occasion of the opposition which
they would be sure to awaken.
It may be said, that these oppositions would be useful
both in making me aware of my errors, and, if my
speculations contain anything of value, in bringing
others to a fuller understanding of it; and still farther.
* See pp. xi, 30.
ON METHOD.
67
as many can see better than one, in leading others who
are now beginning to avail themselves of my principles,
to assist me in turn with their discoveries. But though
I recognise my extreme liability to error, and scarce
ever trust to the first thoughts which occur to me, yet
the experience I have had of possible objections to my
views prevents me from anticipating any profit from
them. For I have already had frequent proof of the
judgments, as well of those I esteemed friends, as of
some others to whom I thought I was an object of in-
difference, and even of some whose malignity and envy
would, I knew, determine them to endeavour to disco-
ver what partiality concealed from the eyes of my
friends. But it has rarely happened that anything has
been objected to me which I had myself altogether
overlooked, unless it were something far removed from
the subject: so that I have never met with a single
critic of my opinions who did not appear to me either
less rigorous or less equitable than myself. And fur-
ther, I have never observed that any truth before un-
known has been brought to light by the disputations
that are practised in the Schools; for while each strives
for the victory, each is much more occupied in making
the best of mere verisimilitude, than in weighing the
reasons on both sides of the question; and those who
have been long good advocates are not afterwards on
that account the better judges.
As for the advantage that others would derive from
the communication of my thoughts, it could not be
very great; because I have not yet so far prosecuted
them as that much does not remain to be added before
they can be applied to practice. And I think I may
say without vanity, that if there is any one who can
carry them out that length, it must be myself rather
68
DISCOURSE
:
than another not that there may not be in the world
many minds incomparably superior to mine, but be-
cause one cannot so well seize a thing and make it
one's own, when it has been learned from another, as
when one has himself discovered it. And so true is this
of the present subject that, though I have often ex-
plained some of my opinions to persons of much acute-
ness, who, whilst I was speaking, appeared to under-
stand them very distinctly, yet, when they repeated
them, I have observed that they almost always changed
them to such an extent that I could no longer acknow-
ledge them as mine. I am glad, by the way, to take
this opportunity of requesting posterity never to believe
on hearsay that anything has proceeded from me which
has not been published by myself; and I am not at all
astonished at the extravagances attributed to those
ancient philosophers whose own writings we do not
possess; whose thoughts, however, I do not on that
account suppose to have been really absurd, seeing
they were among the ablest men of their times, but
only that these have been falsely represented to us.
It is observable, accordingly, that scarcely in a single
instance has any one of their disciples surpassed them;
and I am quite sure that the most devoted of the pre-
sent followers of Aristotle would think themselves
happy if they had as much knowledge of nature as he
possessed, were it even under the condition that they
should never afterwards attain to higher. In this respect
they are like the ivy which never strives to rise above the
tree that sustains it, and which frequently even returns
downwards when it has reached the top; for it seems
to me that they also sink, in other words, render them-
selves less wise than they would be if they gave up
study, who, not contented with knowing all that is in-
ON METHOD.
69
telligibly explained in their author, desire in addition
to find in him the solution of many difficulties of which
he says not a word, and never perhaps so much as
thought. Their fashion of philosophizing, however, is
well suited to persons whose abilities fall below medio-
crity; for the obscurity of the distinctions and prin-
ciples of which they make use enables them to speak
of all things with as much confidence as if they really
knew them, and to defend all that they say on any
subject against the most subtle and skilful, without its
being possible for any one to convict them of error.
In this they seem to me to be like a blind man, who,
in order to fight on equal terms with a person that
sees, should have made him descend to the bottom of
an intensely dark cave: and I may say that such per-
sons have an interest in my refraining from publishing
the principles of the Philosophy of which I make use;
for, since these are of a kind the simplest and most
evident, I should, by publishing them, do much the
same as if I were to throw open the windows, and allow
the light of day to enter the cave into which the com-
batants had descended. But even superior men have
no reason for any great anxiety to know these prin-
ciples, for if what they desire is to be able to speak of
all things, and to acquire a reputation for learning,
they will gain their end more easily by remaining
satisfied with the appearance of truth, which can be
found without much difficulty in all sorts of matters,
than by seeking the truth itself which unfolds itself
but slowly and that only in some departments, while
it obliges us, when we have to speak of others, freely
to confess our ignorance. If, however, they prefer
the knowledge of some few truths to the vanity of
appearing ignorant of none, as such knowledge is
70
DISCOURSE
undoubtedly much to be preferred, and, if they choose
to follow a course similar to mine, they do not re-
quire for this that I should say anything more than
I have already said in this Discourse. For if they are
capable of making greater advancement than I have
made, they will much more be able of themselves to
discover all that I believe myself to have found; since
as I have never examined aught except in order, it is
certain that what yet remains to be discovered is in it-
self more difficult and recondite, than that which I have
already been enabled to find, and the gratification
would be much less in learning it from me than in dis-
covering it for themselves. Besides this, the habit
which they will acquire, by seeking first what is easy,
and then passing onward slowly and step by step to
the more difficult, will benefit them more than all my
instructions. Thus, in my own case, I am persuaded
that if I had been taught from my youth all the truths
of which I have since sought out demonstrations, and
had thus learned them without labour, I should never,
perhaps, have known any beyond these; at least, I
should never have acquired the habit and the facility
which I think I possess in always discovering new
truths in proportion as I give myself to the search.
And, in a single word, if there is any work in the
world which cannot be so well finished by another as
by him who has commenced it, it is that at which I
labour.
It is true, indeed, as regards the experiments
which may conduce to this end, that one man is not
equal to the task of making them all; but yet he can
advantageously avail himself, in this work, of no
hands besides his own, unless those of artisans, or
parties of the same kind, whom he could pay, and
ON METHOD.
71
whom the hope of gain (a means of great efficacy)
might stimulate to accuracy in the performance of
what was prescribed to them. For as to those who,
through curiosity or a desire of learning, of their own
accord, perhaps, offer him their services, besides that
in general their promises exceed their performance,
and that they sketch out fine designs of which not one
is ever realized, they will, without doubt, expect to be
compensated for their trouble by the explication of
some difficulties, or, at least, by compliments and use-
less speeches, in which he cannot spend any portion of
his time without loss to himself. And as for the ex-
periments that others have already made, even al-
though these parties should be willing of themselves to
communicate them to him, (which is what those who
esteem them secrets will never do,) the experiments
are, for the most part, accompanied with so many
circumstances and superfluous elements, as to make it
exceedingly difficult to disentangle the truth from its
adjuncts; besides, he will find almost all of them so ill
described, or even so false, (because those who made
them have wished to see in them only such facts as
they deemed conformable to their principles,) that, if
in the entire number there should be some of a nature
suited to his purpose, still their value could not com-
pensate for the time that would be necessary to make
the selection. So that if there existed any one whom
we assuredly knew to be capable of making discoveries
of the highest kind, and of the greatest possible utility
to the public; and if all other men were therefore
eager by all means to assist him in successfully pro-
secuting his designs, I do not see that they could
do aught else for him beyond contributing to defray
the expenses of the experiments that might be neces-
72
DISCOURSE
one.
sary; and for the rest, prevent his being deprived of
his leisure by the unseasonable interruptions of any
But besides that I neither have so high an
opinion of myself as to be willing to make promise of
anything extraordinary, nor feed on imaginations so
vain as to fancy that the public must be much inte-
rested in my designs; I do not, on the other hand,
own a soul so mean as to be capable of accepting from
any one a favour of which it could be supposed that I
was unworthy.
These considerations taken together were the rea-
son why, for the last three years, I have been unwilling
to publish the Treatise I had on hand, and why I even
resolved to give publicity during my life to no other
that was so general, or by which the principles of my
Physics might be understood. But since then, two
other reasons have come into operation that have de-
termined me here to subjoin some particular specimens,
and give the public some account of my doings and
designs. Of these considerations, the first is, that if I
failed to do so, many who were cognizant of my pre-
vious intention to publish some writings, might have
· imagined that the reasons which induced me to refrain
from so doing, were less to my credit than they really
are; for although I am not immoderately desirous of
glory, or even, if I may venture so to say, although I
am averse from it in so far as I deem it hostile to re-
pose which I hold in greater account than aught else,
yet, at the same time, I have never sought to conceal
my actions as if they were crimes, nor made use of
many precautions that I might remain unknown; and
this partly because I should have thought such a course
of conduct a wrong against myself, and partly because
it would have occasioned me some sort of uneasiness
ON METHOD.
73
which would again have been contrary to the perfect
mental tranquillity which I court. And forasmuch as,
while thus indifferent to the thought alike of fame or
of forgetfulness, I have yet been unable to prevent
myself from acquiring some sort of reputation, I have
thought it incumbent on me to do my best to save my-
self at least from being ill-spoken of. The other rea-
son that has determined me to commit to writing these
specimens of philosophy is, that I am becoming daily
more and more alive to the delay which my design of
self-instruction suffers, for want of the infinity of ex-
periments I require, and which it is impossible for me
to make without the assistance of others: and, without
flattering myself so much as to expect the public to
take a large share in my interests, I am yet unwilling
to be found so far wanting in the duty I owe to myself,
as to give occasion to those who shall survive me to
make it matter of reproach against me some day, that
I might have left them many things in a much more
perfect state than I have done, had I not too much
neglected to make them aware of the ways in which
they could have promoted the accomplishment of my
designs.
And I thought that it was easy for me to select some
matters which should neither be obnoxious to much
controversy, nor should compel me to expound more
of my principles than I desired, and which should yet
be sufficient clearly to exhibit what I can or cannot
accomplish in the Sciences. Whether or not I have
succeeded in this it is not for me to say; and I do not
wish to forestall the judgments of others by speaking
myself of my writings; but it will gratify me if they
be examined, and, to afford the greater inducement to
this, I request all who may have any objections to
M
74
DISCOURSE
}
make to them, to take the trouble of forwarding these
to my publisher, who will give me notice of them, that
I may endeavour to subjoin at the same time my reply;
and in this way readers seeing both at once will more
easily determine where the truth lies; for I do not
engage in any case to make prolix replies, but only
with perfect frankness to avow my errors if I am con-
vinced of them, or if I cannot perceive them, simply
to state what I think is required for defence of the
matters I have written, adding thereto no explication of
any new matter that it may not be necessary to pass
without end from one thing to another.
If some of the matters of which I have spoken in
the beginning of the Dioptrics and Meteorics should
offend at first sight, because I call them hypotheses and
seem indifferent about giving proof of them, I request
a patient and attentive reading of the whole, from
which I hope those hesitating will derive satisfaction;
for it appears to me that the reasonings are so mutually
connected in these Treatises, that, as the last are de-
monstrated by the first which are their causes, the first
are in their turn demonstrated by the last which are
their effects. Nor must it be imagined that I here
commit the fallacy which the logicians call a circle;
for since experience renders the majority of these effects
most certain, the causes from which I deduce them do
not serve so much to establish their reality as to ex-
plain their existence; but on the contrary, the reality
of the causes is established by the reality of the effects.
Nor have I called them hypotheses with any other end
in view except that it may be known that I think I am
able to deduce them from those first truths which I
have already expounded; and yet that I have expressly
determined not to do so, to prevent a certain class of
ON METHOD.
75
minds from thence taking occasion to build some ex-
travagant Philosophy upon what they may take to be
my principles, and my being blamed for it. I refer to
those who imagine that they can master in a day all
that another has taken twenty years to think out, as
soon as he has spoken two or three words to them on
the subject; or who are the more liable to error and
the less capable of perceiving truth in very proportion
as they are more subtle and lively. As to the opinions
which are truly and wholly mine, I offer no apology
for them as new,-persuaded as I am that if their rea-
sons be well considered they will be found to be so
simple and so conformed to common sense as to appear
less extraordinary and less paradoxical than any others
which can be held on the same subjects; nor do I even
boast of being the earliest discoverer of any of them, but
only of having adopted them, neither because they had
nor because they had not been held by others, but solely
because Reason has convinced me of their truth.
Though artisans may not be able at once to execute
the invention which is explained in the Dioptrics, I do
not think that any one on that account is entitled to
condemn it; for since address and practice are required
in order so to make and adjust the machines described
by me as not to overlook the smallest particular, I
should not be less astonished if they succeeded on the
first attempt than if a person were in one day to be-
come an accomplished performer on the guitar, by
merely having excellent sheets of music set up before
him. And if I write in French, which is the language
of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of
my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who
make use of their unprejudiced natural Reason will be
better judges of my opinions than those who give heed
76
DISCOURSE ON METHOD.
to the writings of the ancients only; and as for those
who unite good sense with habits of study, whom alone
I desire for judges, they will not, I feel assured, be so
partial to Latin as to refuse to listen to my reasonings
merely because I expound them in the vulgar Tongue.
In conclusion, I am unwilling here to say anything
very specific of the progress which I expect to make
for the future in the Sciences, or to bind myself to the
public by any promise which I am not certain of being
able to fulfil; but this only will I say, that I have
resolved to devote what time I may still have to live
to no other occupation than that of endeavouring to
acquire some knowledge of Nature, which shall be of
such a kind as to enable us therefrom to deduce rules
in Medicine of greater certainty than those at present
in use; and that my inclination is so much opposed to
all other pursuits, especially to such as cannot be use-
ful to some without being hurtful to others, that if, by
any circumstances, I had been constrained to engage
in such, I do not believe that I should have been able
to succeed. Of this I here make a public declaration,
though well aware that it cannot serve to procure for
me any consideration in the world, which, however, I
do not in the least affect; and I shall always hold
myself more obliged to those through whose favour I
am permitted to enjoy my retirement without interrup-
tion than to any who might offer me the highest earthly
preferments.
THE MEDITATIONS
OF
DESCARTES
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN AND COLLATED
WITH THE FRENCII
CONTENTS.
I.—THE MEDITATIONS.
Page
DEDICATION,
81
PREFACE,
87
SYNOPSIS OF THE MEDITATIONS, .
91
MEDITATION I.
Of the Things of which we may Doubt,
97
MEDITATION II.
Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and that it is more
easily known than the Body,
104
MEDITATION III.
Of God that he exists,
115
MEDITATION IV.
Of Truth and Error,
133
MEDITATION V.
Of the Essence of Material Things; and, again, of God:
that he exists,
MEDITATION VI.
Of the Existence of Material Things, and of the Real
Distinction between the Mind and Body of Man, .
143
151
80
CONTENTS.
II.—THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
PREFACE,
DEDICATION,
173
189
PART I.
Of the Principles of Human Knowledge,
193
PART II.
Of the Principles of Material Things. Sects. i. to xxv.,
232
PART III.
Of the Visible World. Sects. i. to iii.,
247
PART IV.
Of the Earth. Sects. clxxxviii. to ccvii.,
249
TO
THE VERY SAGE AND ILLUSTRIOUS
THE
DEAN AND DOCTORS OF THE SACRED FACULTY OF
THEOLOGY OF PARIS.
GENTLEMEN,
The motive which impels me to present this Treatise to
you is so reasonable, and, when you shall learn its design,
I am confident that you also will consider that there is
ground so valid for your taking it under your protection,
that I can in no way better recommend it to you than by
briefly stating the end which I proposed to myself in it.
I have always been of opinion that the two questions
respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that
ought to be determined by help of Philosophy rather than
of Theology; for although to us, the faithful, it be sufficient
to hold as matters of faith, that the human soul does not
perish with the body, and that God exists, it yet assuredly
seems impossible ever to persuade infidels of the reality
of any religion, or almost even any moral virtue, unless,
first of all, those two things be proved to them by natural
And since in this life there are frequently greater
rewards held out to vice than to virtue, few would
prefer the right to the useful, if they were restrained
neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of another
reason.
M 2
82
DEDICATION.
life; and although it is quite true that the existence
of God is to be believed since it is taught in the sacred
Scriptures, and that, on the other hand, the sacred Scrip-
tures are to be believed because they come from God (for
since faith is a gift of God, the same Being who bestows
grace to enable us to believe other things, can likewise
impart of it to enable us to believe his own existence),
nevertheless, this cannot be submitted to infidels, who
would consider that the reasoning proceeded in a circle.
And, indeed, I have observed that you, with all the other
theologians, not only affirmed the sufficiency of natural
reason for the proof of the existence of God, but also, that
it may be inferred from sacred Scripture, that the know-
ledge of God is much clearer than of many created things,
and that it is really so easy of acquisition as to leave those
who do not possess it blame-worthy. This is manifest
from these words of the Book of Wisdom, chap. xiii.,
where it is said, Howbeit they are not to be excused; for if
their understanding was so great that they could discern the
world and the creatures, why did they not rather find out the
Lord thereof? And in Romans, chap. i., it is said that
they are without excuse; and again, in the same place, by
these words,―That which may be known of God is manifest in
them-we seem to be admonished that all which can be
known of God may be made manifest by reasons obtained
from no other source than the inspection of our own
minds. I have, therefore, thought that it would not be
unbecoming in me to inquire how and by what way,
without going out of ourselves, God may be more easily
and certainly known than the things of the world.
And as regards the Soul, although many have judged
that its nature could not be easily discovered, and some
have even ventured to say that human reason led to the
conclusion that it perished with the body, and that the
contrary opinion could be held through faith alone; never-
theless, since the Lateran Council, held under Leo X. (in
DEDICATION.
83
session viii.), condemns these, and expressly enjoins Chris-
tian philosophers to refute their arguments, and establish
the truth according to their ability, I have ventured to
attempt it in this work. Moreover, I am aware that most
of the irreligious deny the existence of God, and the
distinctness of the human soul from the body, for no other
reason than because these points, as they allege, have never
as yet been demonstrated. Now, although I am by no
means of their opinion, but, on the contrary, hold that
almost all the proofs which have been adduced on these
questions by great men, possess, when rightly understood,
the force of demonstrations, and that it is next to im-
possible to discover new, yet there is, I apprehend, no
more useful service to be performed in Philosophy, than if
some one were, once for all, carefully to seek out the best
of these reasons, and expound them so accurately and
clearly that, for the future, it might be manifest to all that
they are real demonstrations. And finally, since many
persons were greatly desirous of this, who knew that I had
cultivated a certain Method of resolving all kinds of dif-
ficulties in the sciences, which is not indeed new (there
being nothing older than truth), but of which they were
aware I had made successful use in other instances, I
judged it to be my duty to make trial of it also on the
present matter.
Now the sum of what I have been able to accomplish on
the subject is contained in this treatise. Not that I
here essayed to collect all the diverse reasons which might
be adduced as proofs on this subject, for this does not seem
to be necessary, unless on matters where no one proof of
adequate certainty is to be had; but I treated the first
and chief alone in such a manner that I should venture
now to propose them as demonstrations of the highest
certainty and evidence. And I will also add that they are
such as to lead me to think that there is no way open to the
mind of man by which proofs superior to them can ever
1
84
DEDICATION.
be discovered; for the importance of the subject, and the
glory of God, to which all this relates, constrain me to
speak here somewhat more freely of myself than I have
been accustomed to do. Nevertheless, whatever certitude
and evidence I may find in these demonstrations, I cannot
therefore persuade myself that they are level to the com-
prehension of all.
But just as in geometry there are many
of the demonstrations of Archimedes, Apollonius, Pappus,
and others, which, though received by all as evident even
and certain (because indeed they manifestly contain nothing
which, considered by itself, it is not very easy to under-
stand, and no consequents that are inaccurately related to
their antecedents), are nevertheless understood by a very
limited number, because they are somewhat long, and de-
mand the whole attention of the reader: so in the same
way, although I consider the demonstrations of which I
here make use, to be equal or even superior to the geo-
metrical in certitude and evidence, I am afraid, nevertheless,
that they will not be adequately understood by many, as
well because they also are somewhat long and involved, as
chiefly because they require the mind to be entirely free
from prejudice, and able with ease to detach itself from the
commerce of the senses. And, to speak the truth, the
ability for metaphysical studies is less general than for
those of geometry. And, besides, there is still this differ-
ence that, as in geometry, all are persuaded that nothing is
usually advanced of which there is not a certain demon-
stration, those but partially versed in it err more frequently
in assenting to what is false, from a desire of seeming to
understand it, than in denying what is true. In philosophy,
on the other hand, where it is believed that all is doubtful,
few sincerely give themselves to the search after truth, and
by far the greater number seek the reputation of bold
thinkers by audaciously impugning such truths as are of
the greatest moment.
Hence it is that, whatever force my reasonings may pos-
DEDICATION.
85
sess, yet because they belong to philosophy, I do not expect
they will have much effect on the minds of men, unless you
extend to them your patronage and approval. But since
your Faculty is held in so great esteem by all, and since
the name of SORBONNE is of such authority, that not only in
matters of faith, but even also in what regards human philo-
sophy, has the judgment of no other society, after the Sacred
Councils, received so great deference, it being the universal
conviction that it is impossible elsewhere to find greater
perspicacity and solidity, or greater wisdom and integrity
in giving judgment, I doubt not,—if you but condescend
to pay so much regard to this Treatise as to be willing, in
the first place, to correct it (for, mindful not only of my
humanity, but chiefly also of my ignorance, I do not
affirm that it is free from errors); in the second place,
to supply what is wanting in it, to perfect what is in-
complete, and to give more ample illustration where it
is demanded, or at least to indicate these defects to myself
that I may endeavour to remedy them; and, finally, when
the reasonings contained in it, by which the existence of
God and the distinction of the human soul from the body
are established, shall have been brought to such degree of
perspicuity as to be esteemed exact demonstrations, of
which I am assured they admit, if you condescend to
accord them the authority of your approbation, and render
a public testimony of their truth and certainty,-I doubt
not, I say, but that henceforward all the errors which
have ever been entertained on these questions will very
soon be effaced from the minds of men. For truth itself
will readily lead the remainder of the ingenious and the
learned to subscribe to your judgment; and your authority
will cause the atheists, who are in general sciolists rather
than ingenious or learned, to lay aside the spirit of con-
tradiction, and lead them, perhaps, to do battle in their
own persons for reasonings which they find considered
demonstrations by all men of genius, lest they should seem
86
DEDICATION.
not to understand them; and, finally, the rest of mankind
will readily trust to so many testimonies, and there will no
longer be any one who will venture to doubt either the
existence of God or the real distinction of mind and body.
It is for you, in your singular wisdom, to judge of the im-
portance of the establishment of such beliefs, [who are
cognisant of the disorders which doubt of these truths
produces].* But it would not here become me to com-
mend at greater length the cause of God and of religion to
you, who have always proved the strongest support of the
Catholic Church.
* The square brackets, here and throughout the volume, are used to
mark additions to the original of the revised French translation.
PREFACE TO THE READER.
I HAVE already slightly touched upon the questions re-
specting the existence of God and the nature of the human
soul, in the "Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting
the Reason, and seeking truth in the Sciences," published
in French in the year 1637; not, however, with the design
of there treating of them fully, but only, as it were, in
passing, that I might learn from the judgments of my
readers in what way I should afterwards handle them:
for these questions appeared to me to be of such moment as
to be worthy of being considered more than once, and the
path which I follow in discussing them is so little trodden,
and so remote from the ordinary route, that I thought it
would not be expedient to illustrate it at greater length in
French, and in a discourse that might be read by all, lest
even the more feeble minds should believe that this path
might be entered upon by them.
But, as in the Discourse on Method, I had requested
all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings,
to do me the favour of pointing it out to me, I may state
that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged
against what I then said on these questions, except two,
to which I will here briefly reply, before undertaking their
more detailed discussion.
The first objection is that though, while the human mind
reflects on itself, it does not perceive¹* that it is any
* See Note I. The numbers refer to the Notes, in which will be
found some notices of the various terms throughout the volume that
appeared to require a word of comment.
88
PREFACE TO THE READER.
other than a thinking thing, it does not follow that its
nature or essence consists only in its being a thing which
thinks; so that the word only shall exclude all other
things which might also perhaps be said to pertain to the
nature of the mind.
To this objection I reply, that it was not my intention
in that place to exclude these according to the order of
truth in the matter (of which I did not then treat), but
only according to the order of thought (perception); so
that my meaning was, that I clearly apprehended nothing,
so far as I was conscious, as belonging to my essence,
except that I was a thinking thing, or a thing possessing
in itself the faculty of thinking. But I will show hereafter
how, from the consciousness that nothing besides thinking.
belongs to the essence of the mind, it follows that nothing
else does in truth belong to it.
The second objection is that it does not follow, from my
possessing the idea of a thing more perfect than I am,
that the idea itself is more perfect than myself, and much
less that what is represented by the idea exists.
But I reply that in the term idea² there is here some-
thing equivocal; for it may be taken either materially for
an act of the understanding, and in this sense it cannot be
said to be more perfect than I, or objectively, for the thing
represented by that act, which, although it be not supposed
to exist out of my understanding, may, nevertheless, be
more perfect than myself, by reason of its essence. But, in
the sequel of this treatise I will show more amply how,
from my possessing the idea of a thing more perfect than
myself, it follows that this thing really exists.
Besides these two objections, I have seen, indeed, two
treatises of sufficient length relating to the present matter.
In these, however, my conclusions, much more than my
premises, were impugned, and that by arguments borrowed
from the common places of the atheists. But, as argu-
ments of this sort can make no impression on the minds of
PREFACE TO THE READER.
89
those who shall rightly understand my reasonings, and
as the judgments of many are so irrational and weak that
they are persuaded rather by the opinions on a subject
that are first presented to them, however false and opposed
to reason they may be, than by a true and solid, but
subsequently received, refutation of them, I am unwilling
here to reply to these strictures from a dread of being, in
the first instance, obliged to state them.
I will only say, in general, that all which the atheists
commonly allege in favour of the non-existence of God,
arises continually from one or other of these two things,
namely, either the ascription of human affections to Deity,
or the undue attribution to our minds of so much vigour
and wisdom that we may essay to determine and compre-
hend both what God can and ought to do; hence all that
is alleged by them will occasion us no difficulty, provided
only we keep in remembrance that our minds must be
considered finite, while Deity is incomprehensible and
infinite.
Now that I have once, in some measure, made proof of
the opinions of men regarding my work, I again undertake
to treat of God and the human soul, and at the same time
to discuss the principles of the entire First Philosophy,
without, however, expecting any commendation from the
crowd for my endeavours, or a wide circle of readers. On
the contrary, I would advise none to read this work, unless
such as are able and willing to meditate with me in earnest,
to detach their minds from commerce with the senses, and
likewise to deliver themselves from all prejudice; and
individuals of this character are, I well know, remarkably
rare. But with regard to those who, without caring to
comprehend the order and connection of the reasonings,
shall study only detached clauses for the purpose of small
but noisy criticism, as is the custom with many, I may say
that such persons will not profit greatly by the reading of
this treatise; and although perhaps they may find oppor-
90
PREFACE TO THE READER.
tunity for cavilling in several places, they will yet hardly
start any pressing objections, or such as shall be deserving
of reply.
But since, indeed, I do not promise to satisfy others on
all these subjects at first sight, nor arrogate so much to
myself as to believe that I have been able to foresee all
that may be the source of difficulty to each one, I shall
expound, first of all, in the Meditations, those considerations
by which I feel persuaded that I have arrived at a certain
and evident knowledge of truth, in order that I may
ascertain whether the reasonings which have prevailed
with myself will also be effectual in convincing others. I
will then reply to the objections of some men, illustrious
for their genius and learning, to whom these Meditations
were sent for criticism before they were committed to the
press; for these objections are so numerous and varied
that I venture to anticipate that nothing, at least nothing
of any moment, will readily occur to any mind which has
not been touched upon in them.
Hence it is that I earnestly entreat my readers not to
come to any judgment on the questions raised in the
Meditations until they have taken care to read the whole
of the Objections, with the relative Replies.
SYNOPSIS
OF THE
SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS.
In the First Meditation I expound the grounds on which
we may doubt in general of all things, and especially of
material objects, so long, at least, as we have no other
foundations for the sciences than those we have hitherto
possessed. Now, although the utility of a doubt so general
may not be manifest at first sight, it is nevertheless of the
greatest, since it delivers us from all prejudice, and affords
the easiest pathway by which the mind may withdraw
itself from the senses; and, finally, makes it impossible
for us to doubt wherever we afterwards discover truth.
In the Second, the mind which, in the exercise of the
freedom peculiar to itself, supposes that no object is, of
the existence of which it has even the slightest doubt, finds
that, meanwhile, it must itself exist. And this point is
likewise of the highest moment, for the mind is thus enabled
easily to distinguish what pertains to itself, that is, to the
intellectual nature, from what is to be referred to the body.
But since some, perhaps, will expect, at this stage of our
progress, a statement of the reasons which establish the doc-
trine of the immortality of the soul, I think it proper here
to make such aware, that it was my aim to write nothing
of which I could not give exact demonstration, and that I
therefore felt myself obliged to adopt an order similar to
that in use among the geometers, viz., to premise all
92 SYNOPSIS OF THE SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS.
upon which the proposition in question depends, before
coming to any conclusion respecting it. Now, the first
and chief pre-requisite for the knowledge of the immor-
tality of the soul is our being able to form the clearest
possible conception (conceptus-concept) of the soul itself,
and such as shall be absolutely distinct from all our notions
of body; and how this is to be accomplished is there shown.
There is required, besides this, the assurance that all
objects which we clearly and distinctly think are true
(really exist) in that very mode in which we think them;
and this could not be established previously to the Fourth
Meditation. Farther, it is necessary, for the same purpose,
that we possess a distinct conception of corporeal nature,
which is given partly in the Second and partly in the Fifth
and Sixth Meditations. And, finally, on these grounds,
we are necessitated to conclude, that all those objects
which are clearly and distinctly conceived to be diverse
substances, as mind and body, are substances really re-
ciprocally distinct; and this inference is made in the Sixth
Meditation. The absolute distinction of mind and body is,
besides, confirmed in this Second Meditation, by showing
that we cannot conceive body unless as divisible; while,
on the other hand, mind cannot be conceived unless as
indivisible. For we are not able to conceive the half of
a mind, as we can of any body, however small, so that
the natures of these two substances are to be held, not
only as diverse, but even in some measure as contraries.
I have not, however, pursued this discussion further in
the present treatise, as well for the reason that these
considerations are sufficient to show that the destruction of
the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body,
and thus to afford to men the hope of a future life, as also
because the premises from which it is competent for us
to infer the immortality of the soul, involve an explication
of the whole principles of Physics: in order to establish,
in the first place, that generally all substances, that is,
SYNOPSIS OF THE SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS. 93
all things which can exist only in consequence of having
been created by God, are in their own nature incorruptible,
and can never cease to be, unless God himself, by refusing
his concurrence to them, reduce them to nothing; and,
in the second place, that body, taken generally, is a
substance, and therefore can never perish, but that the
human body, in as far as it differs from other bodies, is
constituted only by a certain configuration of members,
and by other accidents of this sort, while the human mind
is not made up of accidents, but is a pure substance.
For although all the accidents of the mind be changed―
although, for example, it think certain things, will others,
and perceive others, the mind itself does not vary with
these changes; while, on the contrary, the human body
is no longer the same if a change take place in the form
of any of its parts: from which it follows that the body
may, indeed, without difficulty perish, but that the mind
is in its own nature immortal.
In the Third Meditation, I have unfolded at sufficient
length, as appears to me, my chief argument for the
existence of God. But yet, since I was there desirous to
avoid the use of comparisons taken from material objects,
that I might withdraw, as far as possible, the minds of
my readers from the senses, numerous obscurities perhaps
remain, which, however, will, I trust, be afterwards entirely
removed in the Replies to the Objections: thus, among
other things, it may be difficult to understand how the idea
of a being absolutely perfect, which is found in our minds,
possesses so much objective reality [i. e., participates by
representation in so many degrees of being and perfection]
that it must be held to arise from a cause absolutely perfect.
This is illustrated in the Replies by the comparison of a
highly perfect machine, the idea of which exists in the mind
of some workman; for as the objective (i. e., representative)
perfection of this idea must have some cause, viz., either
the science of the workman, or of some other person from
3
94
SYNOPSIS OF THE SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS.
whom he has received the idea, in the same way the idea
of God, which is found in us, demands God himself for its
cause.
In the Fourth, it is shown that all which we clearly and
distinctly perceive (apprehend) is true; and, at the same
time, is explained wherein consists the nature of error;
points that require to be known as well for confirming
the preceding truths, as for the better understanding of
those that are to follow. But, meanwhile, it must be
observed, that I do not at all there treat of Sin, that
is, of error committed in the pursuit of good and evil, but
of that sort alone which arises in the determination of the
true and the false. Nor do I refer to matters of faith,
or to the conduct of life, but only to what regards specu-
lative truths, and such as are known by means of the
natural light alone.
In the Fifth, besides the illustration of corporeal nature,
taken generically, a new demonstration is given of the
existence of God, not free, perhaps, any more than the
former, from certain difficulties, but of these the solution
will be found in the Replies to the Objections. I further
show, in what sense it is true that the certitude of geo-
metrical demonstrations themselves is dependent on the
knowledge of God.
Finally, in the Sixth, the act of the understanding
(intellectio) is distinguished from that of the imagination
(imaginatio); the marks of this distinction are described;
the human mind is shown to be really distinct from the
body, and, nevertheless, to be so closely conjoined there-
with, as together to form, as it were, a unity. The whole
of the errors which arise from the senses are brought
under review, while the means of avoiding them are
pointed out; and, finally, all the grounds are adduced from
which the existence of material objects may be inferred;
not, however, because I deemed them of great utility in
establishing what they prove, viz., that there is in reality
SYNOPSIS OF THE SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS.
95
a world, that men are possessed of bodies, and the like,
the truth of which no one of sound mind ever seriously
doubted; but because, from a close consideration of them,
it is perceived that they are neither so strong nor clear as
the reasonings which conduct us to the knowledge of our
mind and of God; so that the latter are, of all which come
under human knowledge, the most certain and manifest-
a conclusion which it was my single aim in these Medi-
tations to establish; on which account I here omit mention
of the various other questions which, in the course of the
discussion, I had occasion likewise to consider.
MEDITATIONS
ON
THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY,
IN WHICH
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND THE REAL DISTINCTION
OF MIND AND BODY, ARE DEMONSTRATED.
MEDITATION 1.
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.
SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became
aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many
false opinions for true, and that consequently what I after-
wards based on such principles was highly doubtful; and
from that time I was convinced of the necessity of under-
taking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions
I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of
building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a
firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences. But as
this enterprise appeared to me to be one of great magni-
tude, I waited until I had attained an age so mature as to.
leave me no hope that at any stage of life more advanced
I should be better able to execute my design. On this
account, I have delayed so long that I should henceforth
consider I was doing wrong were I still to consume in
Ν
་
98
MEDITATION 1.
✓
deliberation any of the time that now remains for action.
To-day, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind
from all cares, [and am happily disturbed by no passions],
and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a
peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself ear-
nestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former
opinions. But, to this end, it will not be necessary for
me to show that the whole of these are false—a point,
perhaps, which I shall never reach; but as even now
my reason convinces me that I ought not the less carefully
to withhold belief from what is not entirely certain and
indubitable, than from what is manifestly false, it will be
sufficient to justify the rejection of the whole if I shall find
in each some ground for doubt. Nor for this purpose will
it be necessary even to deal with each belief individually,
which would be truly an endless labour; but, as the re-
moval from below of the foundation necessarily involves
the downfall of the whole edifice, I will at once approach
the criticism of the principles on which all my former
beliefs rested.
All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed
of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from
or through the senses.¹ I observed, however, that these
sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not
to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even
once been deceived.
But it may be said, perhaps, that, although the senses
occasionally mislead us respecting minute objects, and such
as are so far removed from us as to be beyond the reach
of close observation, there are yet many other of their
informations (presentations), of the truth of which it is
manifestly impossible to doubt; as for example, that I am
in this place, seated by the fire, clothed in a winter dress-
ing-gown, that I hold in my hands this piece of paper, with
other intimations of the same nature. But how could
I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.
99
withal escape being classed with persons in a state of in-
sanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark
bilious vapours as to cause them pertinaciously to assert
that they are monarchs when they are in the greatest
poverty; or clothed [in gold] and purple when destitute of
any covering; or that their head is made of clay, their
body of glass, or that they are gourds? I should certainly
be not less insane than they, were I to regulate my pro-
cedure according to examples so extravagant.
Though this be true, I must nevertheless here con-
sider that I am a man, and that, consequently, I am in the
habit of sleeping, and representing to myself in dreams
those same things, or even sometimes others less probable,
which the insane think are presented to them in their
waking moments. How often have I dreamt that I was
in these familiar circumstances,-that I was dressed, and
occupied this place by the fire, when I was lying undressed
in bed? At the present moment, however, I certainly
look upon this paper with eyes wide awake; the head
which I now move is not asleep; I extend this hand con-
sciously and with express purpose, and I perceive it; the
occurrences in sleep are not so distinct as all this. But
I cannot forget that, at other times, I have been deceived
in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering
those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain
marks by which the state of waking can ever be distin-
guished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and
in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now
dreaming.
Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all
these particulars-namely, the opening of the eyes, the
motion of the head, the forth-putting of the hands-are
merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither
an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless,
it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear
to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations
100
MEDITATION I.
L
which could not have been formed unless in the likenes
of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at
all events,—namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire
body-are not simply imaginary, but really existent.
For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study
to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic
and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures abso-
lutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the
members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine
something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever
been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious
and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colours
of which this is composed are real.
And on the same principle, although these general
objects, viz. [a body], eyes, a head, hands, and the like,
be imaginary, we are nevertheless absolutely necessitated
to admit the reality at least of some other objects still
more simple and universal than these, of which, just as
certain real colours, all those images of things, whether
true and real, or false and fantastic, that are found in
our consciousness (cogitatio),5 are formed.
To this class of objects seem to belong corporeal nature
in general and its extension; the figure of extended things,
their quantity or magnitude, and their number, as also the
place in, and the time during, which they exist, and other
things of the same sort. We will not, therefore, perhaps
reason illegitimately if we conclude from this that Physics,
Astronomy, Medicine, and all the other sciences that have
for their end the consideration of composite objects, are
indeed of a doubtful character; but that Arithmetic, Geo-
metry, and the other sciences of the same class, which
regard merely the simplest and most general objects, and
scarcely inquire whether or not these are really existent,
contain somewhat that is certain and indubitable: for
whether I am awake or dreaming, it remains true that
two and three make five, and that a square has but four
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.
101
sides; nor does it seem possible that truths so apparent
can ever fall under a suspicion of falsity [or incertitude].
Nevertheless, the belief that there is a God who is all-
powerful, and who created me, such as I am, has, for a
long time, obtained steady possession of my mind. How,
then, do I know that he has not arranged that there
should be neither earth, nor sky, nor any extended thing,
nor figure, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at the
same time, however, for [the rise in me of the perceptions
of all these objects, and] the persuasion that these do not
exist otherwise than as I perceive them? And further, as
I sometimes think that others are in error respecting mat-
ters of which they believe themselves to possess a perfect
knowledge, how do I know that I am not also deceived
each time I add together two and three, or number the
sides of a square, or form some judgment still more
simple, if more simple indeed can be imagined? But
perhaps Deity has not been willing that I should be thus
deceived, for He is said to be supremely good. If, how-
ever, it were repugnant to the goodness of Deity to have
created me subject to constant deception, it would seem
likewise to be contrary to his goodness to allow me to
be occasionally deceived; and yet it is clear that this is
permitted. Some, indeed, might perhaps be found who
would be disposed rather to deny the existence of a Being so
powerful than to believe that there is nothing certain. But
let us for the present refrain from opposing this opinion, and
grant that all which is here said of a Deity is fabulous:
nevertheless, in whatever way it be supposed that I reached
the state in which I exist, whether by fate, or chance, or
by an endless series of antecedents and consequents, or
by any other means, it is clear (since to be deceived and.
to err is a certain defect) that the probability of my being
so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception,
will be increased exactly in proportion as the power
possessed by the cause, to which they assign my origin,
102
MEDITATION 1.
is lessened. To these reasonings I have assuredly nothing
to reply, but am constrained at last to avow that there is
nothing of all that I formerly believed to be true of which
it is impossible to doubt, and that not through thoughtless-
ness or levity, but from cogent and maturely considered
reasons; so that henceforward, if I desire to discover
anything certain, I ought not the less carefully to refrain
from assenting to those same opinions than to what might
be shown to be manifestly false.
But it is not sufficient to have made these observations;
care must be taken likewise to keep them in remembrance.
For those old and customary opinions perpetually recur—
long and familiar usage giving them the right of occupying
my mind, even almost against my will, and subduing my
belief; nor will I lose the habit of deferring to them and
confiding in them so long as I shall consider them to be what
in truth they are, viz., opinions to some extent doubtful, as I
have already shown, but still highly probable, and such as
it is much more reasonable to believe than deny. It is
for this reason I am persuaded that I shall not be doing
wrong, if, taking an opposite judgment of deliberate design,
I become my own deceiver, by supposing, for a time, that
all those opinions are entirely false and imaginary, until at
length, having thus balanced my old by my new prejudices,
my judgment shall no longer be turned aside by perverted
usage from the path that may conduct to the perception of
truth. For I am assured that, meanwhile, there will arise
neither peril nor error from this course, and that I cannot
for the present yield too much to distrust, since the end I
now seek is not action but knowledge.
I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly
good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant
demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful,
has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose
that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, figures, sounds,
and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.
103
of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares
for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands,
eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely
believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue
resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means
it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth,
I shall at least do what is in my power, viz., [suspend my
judgment], and guard with settled purpose against giving
my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by
this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice.
But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence
insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life;
and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his
dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect
that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires
with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be
prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train
of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my
slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would
succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of
day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that
will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised.
104
MEDITATION IL
MEDITATION II.
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS
MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY.
THE Meditation of yesterday has filled my mind with so
many doubts, that it is no longer in my power to forget
them. Nor do I see, meanwhile, any principle on which
they can be resolved; and, just as if I had fallen all of a
sudden into very deep water, I am so greatly disconcerted
as to be unable either to plant my feet firmly on the
bottom or sustain myself by swimming on the surface. I
will, nevertheless, make an effort, and try anew the same
path on which I had entered yesterday, that is, proceed
by casting aside all that admits of the slightest doubt, not
less than if I had discovered it to be absolutely false; and
I will continue always in this track until I shall find
something that is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing
more, until I shall know with certainty that there is
nothing certain. Archimedes, that he might transport the
entire globe from the place it occupied to another, de-
manded only a point that was firm and immoveable; so also,
I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if
I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is
certain and indubitable.
I suppose, accordingly, that all the things which I see
are false (fictitious); I believe that none of those objects
which my fallacious memory represents ever existed; I
suppose that I possess no senses; I believe that body,
figure, extension, motion, and place are merely fictions of
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
105
my mind. What is there, then, that can be esteemed
true? Perhaps this only, that there is absolutely nothing
certain.
But how do I know that there is not something different
altogether from the objects I have now enumerated, of
which it is impossible to entertain the slightest doubt?
Is there not a God, or some being, by whatever name I
may designate him, who causes these thoughts to arise in
my mind? But why suppose such a being, for it may
be I myself am capable of producing them?
Am I,
then, at least not something? But I before denied that I
possessed senses or a body; I hesitate, however, for what
follows from that? Am I so dependent on the body and
the senses that without these I cannot exist? But I had
the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the
world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds
nor bodies; was I not, therefore, at the same time, per-
suaded that I did not exist? Far from it; I assuredly
But there is I know not
existed, since I was persuaded.
what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power
and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all
his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist,
since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may,
he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as
I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must,
in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and care-
fully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum) I ✓
am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed
by me, or conceived in my mind.
But I do not yet know with sufficient clearness what I
am, though assured that I am; and hence, in the next
place, I must take care, lest perchance I inconsiderately
substitute some other object in room of what is properly
myself, and thus wander from truth, even in that know-
ledge (cognition) which I hold to be of all others the most
certain and evident. For this reason, I will now consider
N 2
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MEDITATION II.
anew what I formerly believed myself to be, before I
entered on the present train of thought; and of my previous
opinion I will retrench all that can in the least be invali-
dated by the grounds of doubt I have adduced, in order that
there may at length remain nothing but what is certain
and indubitable. What then did I formerly think I was?
Undoubtedly I judged that I was a man. But what is a
Assuredly not;
man? Shall I say a rational animal?
for it would be necessary forthwith to inquire into what
is meant by animal, and what by rational, and thus, from
a single question, I should insensibly glide into others, and
these more difficult than the first; nor do I now possess
enough of leisure to warrant me in wasting my time amid
subtleties of this sort. I prefer here to attend to the
thoughts that sprung up of themselves in my mind, and
were inspired by my own nature alone, when I applied
myself to the consideration of what I was. In the first
place, then, I thought that I possessed a countenance,
hands, arms, and all the fabric of members that appears
in a corpse, and which I called by the name of body. It
further occurred to me that I was nourished, that I
walked, perceived, and thought, and all those actions I
referred to the soul; but what the soul itself was I either
did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was
something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame,
or ether, spread through my grosser parts. As regarded
the body, I did not even doubt of its nature, but thought
I distinctly knew it, and if I had wished to describe it
according to the notions I then entertained, I should have
explained myself in this manner: By body I understand
all that can be terminated by a certain figure; that can
be comprised in a certain place, and so fill a certain space
as therefrom to exclude every other body; that can be
perceived either by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell;
that can be moved in different ways, not indeed of itself,
but by something foreign to it by which it is touched [and
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
107
from which it receives the impression]; for the power of
self-motion, as likewise that of perceiving and thinking, I
held as by no means pertaining to the nature of body; on
the contrary, I was somewhat astonished to find such
faculties existing in some bodies.
But [as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since
I suppose there exists an extremely powerful, and, if I may
so speak, malignant being, whose whole endeavours are
directed towards deceiving me? Can I affirm that I pos-
sess any one of all those attributes of which I have lately
spoken as belonging to the nature of body? After atten-
tively considering them in my own mind, I find none of
them that can properly be said to belong to myself. To
recount them were idle and tedious. Let us pass, then, to
the attributes of the soul. The first mentioned were the
powers of nutrition and walking; but, if it be true that I
have no body, it is true likewise that I am capable neither
of walking nor of being nourished. Perception is another
attribute of the soul; but perception too is impossible with-
out the body: besides, I have frequently, during sleep,
believed that I perceived objects which I afterwards
observed I did not in reality perceive. Thinking is
another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what
properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable
from me.
I am-I exist: this is certain; but how often?
As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen,
if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the
same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing
that is not necessarily true: I am therefore, precisely
speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind (mens sive
animus), understanding, or reason,-terms whose significa-
tion was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real
thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer
was, a thinking thing. The question now arises, am I
aught besides? I will stimulate my imagination with a
view to discover whether I am not still something more
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MEDITATION II.
than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not the
assemblage of members called the human body; I am not
a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these mem-
bers, or wind, or flame, or vapour, or breath, or any of all
the things I can imagine; for I supposed that all these
were not, and, without changing the supposition, I find
that I still feel assured of my existence.
But it is true, perhaps, that those very things which I
suppose to be non-existent, because they are unknown
to me, are not in truth different from myself whom I
know. This is a point I cannot determine, and do
not now enter into any dispute regarding it. I can only
judge of things that are known to me: I am conscious
that I exist, and I who know that I exist inquire into
what I am. It is, however, perfectly certain that the
knowledge of my existence, thus precisely taken, is not
dependent on things, the existence of which is as yet
unknown to me: and consequently it is not dependent
on any of the things I can feign in imagination. Moreover,
the phrase itself, I frame an image (effingo), reminds me
of my error; for I should in truth frame one if I were
to imagine myself to be anything, since to imagine is
nothing more than to contemplate the figure or image of
a corporeal thing; but I already know that I exist, and
that it is possible at the same time that all those images,
and in general all that relates to the nature of body, are
merely dreams [or chimeras]. From this I discover that
it is not more reasonable to say, I will excite my imagi-
nation that I may know more distinctly what I am, than
to express myself as follows: I am now awake, and per-
ceive something real; but because my perception is not
sufficiently clear, I will of express purpose go to sleep that
my dreams may represent to me the object of my percep-
tion with more truth and clearness. And, therefore, I
know that nothing of all that I can embrace in imagina-
tion belongs to the knowledge which I have of myself, and
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
109
that there is need to recall with the utmost care the mind
from this mode of thinking, that it may be able to know
its own nature with perfect distinctness.
But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has been
said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that
doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills,
refuses, that imagines also, and perceives. Assuredly it is
not little, if all these properties belong to my nature.
But
why should they not belong to it? Am I not that very
being who now doubts of almost everything; who, for
all that, understands and conceives certain things; who
affirms one alone as true, and denies the others; who
desires to know more of them, and does not wish to be
deceived; who imagines many things, sometimes even
despite his will; and is likewise percipient of many, as if
through the medium of the senses. Is there nothing of
all this as true as that I am, even although I should be
always dreaming, and although he who gave me being
employed all his ingenuity to deceive me? Is there
also any one of these attributes that can be properly dis-
tinguished from my thought, or that can be said to be
separate from myself? For it is of itself so evident that
it is I who doubt, I who understand, and I who desire,
that it is here unnecessary to add anything by way of
rendering it more clear. And I am as certainly the same
being who imagines; for, although it may be (as I before
supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of
imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to
form part of my thought. In fine, I am the same being
who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects ast
by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a
noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these pre-
sentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be
So. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light,
hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this
is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which
>
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MEDITATION II.
is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know
what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinct-
ness than heretofore.
But, nevertheless, it still seems to me, and I cannot help
believing, that corporeal things, whose images are formed
by thought, [which fall under the senses], and are ex-
amined by the same, are known with much greater
distinctness than that, I know not what, part of myself,
which is not imaginable; although, in truth, it may seem
strange to say that I know and comprehend with greater
distinctness things whose existence appears to me doubtful,
that are unknown, and do not belong to me, than others of
whose reality I am persuaded, that are known to me, and
appertain to my proper nature; in a word, than myself.
But I see clearly what is the state of the case. My mind
is apt to wander, and will not yet submit to be restrained
within the limits of truth. Let us therefore leave the mind
to itself once more, and, according to it every kind of
liberty, [permit it to consider the objects that appear to
it from without], in order that, having afterwards with-
drawn it from these gently and opportunely, [and fixed it
on the consideration of its being and the properties it finds
in itself], it may then be the more easily controlled. //
Let us now accordingly consider the objects that are
commonly thought to be [the most easily, and likewise]
the most distinctly known, viz., the bodies we touch and
see; not, indeed, bodies in general, for these general notions
are usually somewhat more confused, but one body in
particular. Take, for example, this piece of wax; it is
quite fresh, having been but recently taken from the bee-
hive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it
contained; it still retains somewhat of the odour of the
flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, figure,
size, are apparent (to the sight); it is hard, cold, easily
handled; and sounds when struck upon with the finger.
In fine, all that contributes to make a body as distinctly
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
111
known as possible, is found in the one before us. But, while
I am speaking, let it be placed near the fire-what remained
of the taste exhales, the smell evaporates, the colour changes,
its figure is destroyed, its size increases, it becomes liquid,
it grows hot, it can hardly be handled, and, although
struck upon, it emits no sound. Does the same wax still
remain after this change? It must be admitted that it
does remain ; no one doubts it, or judges otherwise. What,
then, was it I knew with so much distinctness in the piece
of wax? Assuredly, it could be nothing of all that I ob-
served by means of the senses, since all the things that
fell under taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing are changed,
and yet the same wax remains. It was perhaps what I
now think, viz., that this wax was neither the sweetness
of honey, the pleasant odour of flowers, the whiteness, the
figure, nor the sound, but only a body that a little before
appeared to me conspicuous under these forms, and which
is now perceived under others. But, to speak precisely,
what is it that I imagine when I think of it in this way?
Let it be attentively considered, and, retrenching all that
does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. There
certainly remains nothing, except something extended,
flexible, and moveable. But what is meant by flexible
and moveable? Is it not that I imagine that the piece of
wax, being round, is capable of becoming square, or of
passing from a square into a triangular figure? As-
suredly such is not the case, because I conceive that it
admits of an infinity of similar changes; and I am, more-
over, unable to compass this infinity by imagination, and
consequently this conception which I have of the wax is not
the product of the faculty of imagination. But what now.
is this extension? Is it not also unknown? for it becomes
greater when the wax is melted, greater when it is boiled,
and greater still when the heat increases; and I should
not conceive [clearly and] according to truth, the wax as
it is, if I did not suppose that the piece we are considering
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MEDITATION II.
admitted even of a wider variety of extension than I ever
imagined. I must, therefore, admit that I cannot even
comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is, and
that it is the mind alone (mens, Lat., entendement, F.)
which perceives it. I speak of one piece in particular;
for, as to wax in general, this is still more evident. But
what is the piece of wax that can be perceived only by the
[understanding or] mind? It is certainly the same which
I see, touch, imagine; and, in fine, it is the same which,
from the beginning, I believed it to be. But (and this it is
of moment to observe) the perception of it is neither an act
of sight, of touch, nor of imagination, and never was either
of these, though it might formerly seem so, but is simply an
intuition (inspectio) of the mind, which may be imperfect
and confused, as it formerly was, or very clear and distinct,
as it is at present, according as the attention is more or less
directed to the elements which it contains, and of which it
is composed.
But, meanwhile, I feel greatly astonished when I ob-
serve [the weakness of my mind, and] its proneness to
error. For although, without at all giving expression
to what I think, I consider all this in my own mind, words
yet occasionally impede my progress, and I am almost
led into error by the terms of ordinary language. We
say, for example, that we see the same wax when it is
before us, and not that we judge it to be the same from its
retaining the same colour and figure: whence I should
forthwith be disposed to conclude that the wax is known
by the act of sight, and not by the intuition of the mind
alone, were it not for the analogous instance of human
beings passing on in the street below, as observed from a
window. In this case I do not fail to say that I see the men
themselves, just as I say that I see the wax ; and yet what
do I see from the window beyond hats and cloaks that
might cover artificial machines, whose motions might be
determined by springs? But I judge that there are human
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
113
beings from these appearances, and thus I comprehend, by
the faculty of judgment alone which is in the mind, what
I believed I saw with my eyes.
The man who makes it his aim to rise to knowledge
superior to the common, ought to be ashamed to seek
occasions of doubting from the vulgar forms of speech:
instead, therefore, of doing this, I shall proceed with the
matter in hand, and inquire whether I had a clearer and
more perfect perception of the piece of wax when I first
saw it, and when I thought I knew it by means of the
external sense itself, or, at all events, by the common sense
(sensus communis), as it is called, that is, by the imaginative
faculty; or whether I rather apprehend it more clearly at
present, after having examined with greater care, both
what it is, and in what way it can be known. It would
certainly be ridiculous to entertain any doubt on this point.
For what, in that first perception, was there distinct?
What did I perceive which any animal might not have
perceived? But when I distinguish the wax from its
exterior forms, and when, as if I had stripped it of its
vestments, I consider it quite naked, it is certain, although
some error may still be found in my judgment, that I
cannot, nevertheless, thus apprehend it without possessing
a human mind.
But, finally, what shall I say of the mind itself, that is,
of myself? for as yet I do not admit that I am anything
but mind. What, then! I who seem to possess so dis-
tinct an apprehension of the piece of wax,-do I not know
myself, both with greater truth and certitude, and also
much more distinctly and clearly? For if I judge that
the wax exists because I see it, it assuredly follows, much
more evidently, that I myself am or exist, for the same
reason for it is possible that what I see may not in truth.
be wax, and that I do not even possess eyes with which
to see anything; but it cannot be that when I see, or,
which comes to the same thing, when I think I see, I
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MEDITATION II.
myself who think am nothing. So likewise, if I judge
that the wax exists because I touch it, it will still also
follow that I am; and if I determine that my imagination,
or any other cause, whatever it be, persuades me of the
existence of the wax, I will still draw the same conclusion.
And what is here remarked of the piece of wax, is appli-
cable to all the other things that are external to me. And
further, if the [notion or] perception of wax appeared to
me more precise and distinct, after that not only sight and
touch, but many other causes besides, rendered it manifest
to my apprehension, with how much greater distinctness
must I now know myself, since all the reasons that con-
tribute to the knowledge of the nature of wax, or of any
body whatever, manifest still better the nature of my
mind? And there are besides so many other things in
the mind itself that contribute to the illustration of its
nature, that those dependent on the body, to which I have
here referred, scarcely merit to be taken into account.
But, in conclusion, I find I have insensibly reverted
to the point I desired; for, since it is now manifest to
me that bodies themselves are not properly perceived by
the senses nor by the faculty of imagination, but by the
intellect alone; and since they are not perceived because
they are seen and touched, but only because they are
understood [or rightly comprehended by thought], I
readily discover that there is nothing more easily or clearly
apprehended than my own mind. But because it
difficult to rid one's self so promptly of an opinion to
which one has been long accustomed, it will be desirable
to tarry for some time at this stage, that, by long continued
meditation, I may more deeply impress upon my memory
this new knowledge.
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
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MEDITATION III.
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
I WILL now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn
away my senses from their objects, I will even efface from
my consciousness all the images of corporeal things; or
at least, because this can hardly be accomplished, I will
consider them as empty and false; and thus, holding con-
verse only with myself, and closely examining my nature, I
will endeavour to obtain by degrees a more intimate and
familiar knowledge of myself. I am a thinking (conscious)
thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows
a few objects, and is ignorant of many,-[who loves, hates],
wills, refuses,-who imagines likewise, and perceives; for,
as I before remarked, although the things which I perceive
or imagine are perhaps nothing at all apart from me [and
in themselves], I am nevertheless assured that those modes
of consciousness which I call perceptions and imaginations,
in as far only as they are modes of consciousness, exist in
And in the little I have said I think I have summed
up all that I really know, or at least all that up to this
time I was aware I knew. Now, as I am endeavouring
to extend my knowledge more widely, I will use cir-
cumspection, and consider with care whether I can still
discover in myself anything further which I have not yet
hitherto observed. I am certain that I am a thinking
thing; but do I not therefore likewise know what is
required to render me certain of a truth? In this first
knowledge, doubtless, there is nothing that gives me
me.
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MEDITATION III.
assurance of its truth except the clear and distinct per
ception of what I affirm, which would not indeed be
sufficient to give me the assurance that what I say is true,
if it could ever happen that anything I thus clearly and
distinctly perceived should prove false; and accordingly it.
seems to me that I may now take as a general rule, that all
that is very clearly and distinctly apprehended (conceived)
is true.
Nevertheless I before received and admitted many things
as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterwards
found to be doubtful. What, then, were those? They
were the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other
objects which I was in the habit of perceiving by the
senses. But what was it that I clearly [and distinctly]
perceived in them? Nothing more than that the ideas
and the thoughts of those objects were presented to my
mind. And even now I do not deny that these ideas are
found in my mind. But there was yet another thing
which I affirmed, and which, from having been accustomed
to believe it, I thought I clearly perceived, although, in
truth, I did not perceive it at all; I mean the existence
of objects external to me, from which those ideas proceeded,
and to which they had a perfect resemblance; and it was
here I was mistaken, or if I judged correctly, this assuredly
was not to be traced to any knowledge I possessed (the
force of my perception, Lat.).
But when I considered any matter in arithmetic and
geometry, that was very simple and easy, as, for example,
that two and three added together make five, and things
of this sort, did I not view them with at least sufficient
clearness to warrant me in affirming their truth? Indeed,
if I afterwards judged that we ought to doubt of these
things, it was for no other reason than because it occurred to
me that a God might perhaps have given me such a nature
as that I should be deceived, even respecting the matters
that appeared to me the most evidently true. But as often
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
117
as this preconceived opinion of the sovereign power of a
God presents itself to my mind, I am constrained to admit
at it is easy for him, if he wishes it, to cause me to err,
ven in matters where I think I possess the highest evi-
dence; and, on the other hand, as often as I direct my
attention to things which I think I apprehend with great
clearness, I am so persuaded of their truth that I naturally
break out into expressions such as these: Deceive me who
may, no one will yet ever be able to bring it about that I
am not, so long as I shall be conscious that I am, or at any
future time cause it to be true that I have never been, it
being now true that I am, or make two and three more
or less than five, in supposing which, and other like ab-
surdities, I discover a manifest contradiction.
And in truth, as I have no ground for believing that
Deity is deceitful, and as, indeed, I have not even con-
sidered the reasons by which the existence of a Deity
of any kind is established, the ground of doubt that rests
only on this supposition is very slight, and, so to speak,
metaphysical. But, that I may be able wholly to remove
it, I must inquire whether there is a God, as soon as an
opportunity of doing so shall present itself; and if I find
that there is a God, I must examine likewise whether he
can be a deceiver; for, without the knowledge of these
two truths, I do not see that I can ever be certain of any-
thing. And that I may be enabled to examine this without
interrupting the order of meditation I have proposed to
myself [which is, to pass by degrees from the notions that
I shall find first in my mind to those I shall afterwards
discover in it], it is necessary at this stage to divide all my
thoughts into certain classes, and to consider in which of
these classes truth and error are, strictly speaking, to be
found.
Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things,
and to these alone properly belongs the name idea; as
when I think [represent to my mind] a man, a chimera,
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MEDITATION III.
1
the sky, an angel, or God. Others, again, have cer-
tain other forms; as when I will, fear, affirm, or deny,
I always, indeed, apprehend something as the object of
my thought, but I also embrace in thought something
more than the representation of the object; and of this
class of thoughts some are called volitions or affections,
and others judgments.
Now, with respect to ideas, if these are considered only
in themselves, and are not referred to any object beyond
them, they cannot, properly speaking, be false; for, whe-
ther I imagine a goat or a chimera, it is not less true that
I imagine the one than the other. Nor need we fear that
falsity may exist in the will or affections; for, although
I may desire objects that are wrong, and even that never
existed, it is still true that I desire them. There thus only
remain our judgments, in which we must take diligent
heed that we be not deceived. But the chief and most
ordinary error that arises in them consists in judging that
the ideas which are in us are like or conformed to the
things that are external to us; for assuredly, if we but
considered the ideas themselves as certain modes of our
thought (consciousness), without referring them to any-
thing beyond, they would hardly afford any occasion of
error.
6
But, among these ideas, some appear to me to be innate,
others adventitious, and others to be made by myself
(factitious); for, as I have the power of conceiving what
is called a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it seems to me
that I hold this power from no other source than my own
nature; but if I now hear a noise, if I see the sun, or if
I feel heat, I have all along judged that these sensations
proceeded from certain objects existing out of myself; and,
in fine, it appears to me that sirens, hippogryphs, and
the like, are inventions of my own mind. But I may even
perhaps come to be of opinion that all my ideas are of
the class which I call adventitious, or that they are all
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
119
innate, or that they are all factitious, for I have not yet
clearly discovered their true origin; and what I have
here principally to do is to consider, with reference to
those that appear to come from certain objects without
me, what grounds there are for thinking them like these
objects.
The first of these grounds is that it seems to me I
am so taught by nature; and the second that I am con-
scious that those ideas are not dependent on my will, and
therefore not on myself, for they are frequently presented
to me against my will,-as at present, whether I will or
not, I feel heat; and I am thus persuaded that this sen-
sation or idea (sensum vel ideam) of heat is produced in me
by something different from myself, viz., by the heat of
the fire by which I sit. And it is very reasonable to
suppose that this object impresses me with its own likeness
rather than any other thing.
But I must consider whether these reasons are sufficiently
strong and convincing. When I speak of being taught
by nature in this matter, I understand by the word nature
only a certain spontaneous impetus that impels me to
believe in a resemblance between ideas and their objects,
and not a natural light that affords a knowledge of its
truth. But these two things are widely different; for
what the natural light shows to be true can be in no degree
doubtful, as, for example, that I am because I doubt, and
other truths of the like kind: inasmuch as I possess no
other faculty whereby to distinguish truth from error,
which can teach me the falsity of what the natural light
declares to be true, and which is equally trust-worthy;
but with respect to [seemingly] natural impulses, I have
observed, when the question related to the choice of
right or wrong in action, that they frequently led me to
take the worse part; nor do I see that I have any better
ground for following them in what relates to truth and
error.
Then, with respect to the other reason, which is
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MEDITATION III.
that because these ideas do not depend on my will, they
must arise from objects existing without me, I do not find it
more convincing than the former; for, just as those natural
impulses, of which I have lately spoken, are found in me,
notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony with
my will, so likewise it may be that I possess some power
not sufficiently known to myself capable of producing ideas
without the aid of external objects, and, indeed, it has
always hitherto appeared to me that they are formed
during sleep, by some power of this nature, without the aid
of aught external. And, in fine, although I should grant
that they proceeded from those objects, it is not a necessary
consequence that they must be like them. On the contrary,
I have observed, in a number of instances, that there was
a great difference between the object and its idea. Thus,
for example, I find in my mind two wholly diverse ideas of
the sun; the one, by which it appears to me extremely
small, draws its origin from the senses, and should be
placed in the class of adventitious ideas; the other, by
which it seems to be many times larger than the whole
earth, is taken up on astronomical grounds, that is, elicited
from certain notions born with me, or is framed by myself
in some other manner. These two ideas cannot certainly
both resemble the same sun; and reason teaches me that
the one which seems to have immediately emanated from
it is the most unlike. And these things sufficiently prove
that hitherto it has not been from a certain and deliberate
judgment, but only from a sort of blind impulse, that I
believed in the existence of certain things different from
myself, which, by the organs of sense, or by whatever
other means it might be, conveyed their ideas or images
into my mind [and impressed it with their likenesses].
But there is still another way of inquiring whether, of
the objects whose ideas are in my mind, there are any that
exist out of me. If ideas are taken in so far only as they
are certain modes of consciousness, I do not remark any
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
121
difference or inequality among them, and all seem, in the
same manner, to proceed from myself; but, considering
them as images, of which one represents one thing and
another a different, it is evident that a great diversity
obtains among them. For, without doubt, those that
represent substances are something more, and contain in
themselves, so to speak, more objective reality [that is,
participate by representation in higher degrees of being
or perfection], than those that represent only modes or
accidents; and again, the idea by which I conceive a God
[sovereign], eternal, infinite, [immutable], all-knowing,
all-powerful, and the creator of all things that are out of
himself,—this, I say, has certainly in it more objective
reality than those ideas by which finite substances are
represented.
Now, it is manifest by the natural light that there must
at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause
as in its effect; for whence can the effect draw its reality
if not from its cause? and how could the cause communi-
cate to it this reality unless it possessed it in itself? And
hence it follows, not only that what is cannot be produced
by what is not, but likewise that the more perfect,—in
other words, that which contains in itself more reality,—
cannot be the effect of the less perfect: and this is not
only evidently true of those effects, whose reality is actual
or formal, but likewise of ideas, whose reality is only con-
sidered as objective. Thus, for example, the stone that
is not yet in existence, not only cannot now commence to
be, unless it be produced by that which possesses in itself,
formally or eminently, all that enters into its composition,
[in other words, by that which contains in itself the same
properties that are in the stone, or others superior to
them]; and heat can only be produced in a subject that
was before devoid of it, by a cause that is of an order,
[degree or kind], at least as perfect as heat; and so of the
others. But further, even the idea of the heat, or of the
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MEDITATION ÍII.
1
stone, cannot exist in me unless it be put there by a cause
that contains, at least, as much reality as I conceive
existent in the heat or in the stone: for, although that
cause may not transmit into my idea anything of its actual
or formal reality, we ought not on this account to imagine
that it is less real but we ought to consider that, [as
every idea is a work of the mind], its nature is such as of
itself to demand no other formal reality than that which it
borrows from our consciousness, of which it is but a mode,
[that is, a manner or way of thinking]. But in order that
an idea may contain this objective reality rather than that,
it must doubtless derive it from some cause in which is
found at least as much formal reality as the idea contains
of objective; for, if we suppose that there is found in an
idea anything which was not in its cause, it must of course
derive this from nothing. But, however imperfect may be
the mode of existence by which a thing is objectively [or
by representation] in the understanding by its idea, we
certainly cannot, for all that, allege that this mode of
existence is nothing, nor, consequently, that the idea owes
its origin to nothing. Nor must it be imagined that, since
the reality which is considered in these ideas is only objec-
tive, the same reality need not be formally (actually) in
the causes of these ideas, but only objectively: for, just as
the mode of existing objectively belongs to ideas by their
peculiar nature, so likewise the mode of existing formally
appertains to the causes of these ideas (at least to the first
and principal), by their peculiar nature. And although
an idea may give rise to another idea, this regress cannot,
nevertheless, be infinite; we must in the end reach a first
idea, the cause of which is, as it were, the archetype in
which all the reality [or perfection] that is found, objec-
tively [or by representation] in these ideas is contained
formally [and in act]. I am thus clearly taught by the
natural light that ideas exist in me as pictures or images,
which may in truth readily fall short of the perfection
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
123
of the objects from which they are taken, but can never
contain anything greater or more perfect.
And in proportion to the time and care with which 1
examine all those matters, the conviction of their truth
brightens and becomes distinct. But, to sum up, what
conclusion shall I draw from it all? It is this;-if the
objective reality [or perfection] of any one of my ideas be
such as clearly to convince me, that this same reality exists
in me neither formally nor eminently, and if, as follows
from this, I myself cannot be the cause of it, it is a neces-
sary consequence that I am not alone in the world, but
that there is besides myself some other being who exists
as the cause of that idea; while, on the contrary, if no
such idea be found in my mind, I shall have no sufficient
ground of assurance of the existence of any other being
besides myself; for, after a most careful search, I have, up
to this moment, been unable to discover any other ground.
But, among these my ideas, besides that which represents
myself, respecting which there can be here no difficulty,
there is one that represents a God; others that represent
corporeal and inanimate things; others angels; others ani-
mals; and, finally, there are some that represent men like
myself. But with respect to the ideas that represent other
men, or animals, or angels, I can easily suppose that they
were formed by the mingling and composition of the other
ideas which I have of myself, of corporeal things, and of
God, although there were, apart from myself, neither men,
animals, nor angels. And with regard to the ideas of
corporeal objects, I never discovered in them anything so
great or excellent which I myself did not appear capable of
originating; for, by considering these ideas closely and
scrutinising them individually, in the same way that I
yesterday examined the idea of wax, I find that there is
but little in them that is clearly and distinctly perceived.
As belonging to the class of things that are clearly
apprehended, I recognise the following, viz., magnitude
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MEDITATION III.
or extension in length, breadth, and depth; figure, which
results from the termination of extension; situation, which
bodies of diverse figures preserve with reference to each
other; and motion or the change of situation; to which
may be added substance, duration, and number. But with
regard to light, colours, sounds, odours, tastes, heat, cold,
and the other tactile qualities, they are thought with so much
obscurity and confusion, that I cannot determine even
whether they are true or false; in other words, whether
or not the ideas I have of these qualities are in truth
the ideas of real objects. For although I before remarked
that it is only in judgments that formal falsity, or falsity
properly so called, can be met with, there may nevertheless
be found in ideas a certain material falsity, which arises
when they represent what is nothing as if it were some-
thing. Thus, for example, the ideas I have of cold and
heat are so far from being clear and distinct, that I am
unable from them to discover whether cold is only the
privation of heat, or heat the privation of cold; or whether
they are or are not real qualities: and since, ideas being
as it were images, there can be none that does not seem
to us to represent some object, the idea which represents
cold as something real and positive will not improperly be
called false, if it be correct to say that cold is nothing but
a privation of heat; and so in other cases. To ideas of
this kind, indeed, it is not necessary that I should assign
any author besides myself: for if they are false, that is,
represent objects that are unreal, the natural light teaches
me that they proceed from nothing; in other words, that
they are in me only because something is wanting to the
perfection of my nature; but if these ideas are true, yet
because they exhibit to me so little reality that I cannot
even distinguish the object represented from non-being, I
do not see why I should not be the author of them.
With reference to those ideas of corporeal things that
are clear and distinct, there are some which, as appears
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
125
to me, might have been taken from the idea I have of
myself, as those of substance, duration, number, and the
like. For when I think that a stone is a substance, or a
thing capable of existing of itself, and that I am likewise
a substance, although I conceive that I am a thinking
and non-extended thing, and that the stone, on the con-
trary, is extended and unconscious, there being thus the
greatest diversity between the two concepts,—yet these
two ideas seem to have this in common that they both
represent substances. In the same way, when I think of
myself as now existing, and recollect besides that I existed
some time ago, and when I am conscious of various thoughts
whose number I know, I then acquire the ideas of dura-
tion and number, which I can afterwards transfer to as
many objects as I please. With respect to the other
qualities that go to make up the ideas of corporeal objects,
viz., extension, figure, situation, and motion, it is true
that they are not formally in me, since I am merely a
thinking being; but because they are only certain modes.
of substance, and because I myself am a substance, it
seems possible that they may be contained in me emi-
nently.
There only remains, therefore, the idea of God, in which
I must consider whether there is anything that cannot be
supposed to originate with myself. By the name God,
I understand a substance infinite, [eternal, immutable],
independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I
myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such
there be, were created. But these properties are so great
and excellent, that the more attentively I consider them the
less I feel persuaded that the idea I have of them owes its
origin to myself alone. And thus it is absolutely necessary
to conclude, from all that I have before said, that God
exists for though the idea of substance be in my mind
owing to this, that I myself am a substance, I should not,
however, have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing J
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MEDITATION III.
am a finite being, unless it were given me by some sub-
stance in reality infinite.
And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the
infinite by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite,
in the same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by
the negation of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I
clearly perceive that there is more reality in the infinite
substance than in the finite, and therefore that in some way
I possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that
of the finite, that is, the perception of God before that of
myself, for how could I know that I doubt, desire, or
That something is wanting to me, and that I am not
wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more.
perfect than myself, by comparison of which I knew the
deficiencies of my nature?
And it cannot be said that this idea of God is perhaps
materially false, and consequently that it may have arisen
from nothing, [in other words, that it may exist in me from
my imperfection], as I before said of the ideas of heat
and cold, and the like: for, on the contrary, as this idea
is very clear and distinct, and contains in itself more
objective reality than any other, there can be no one of
itself more true, or less open to the suspicion of falsity.
The idea, I say, of a being supremely perfect, and
infinite, is in the highest degree true; for although, per-
haps, we may imagine that such a being does not exist, we
cannot, nevertheless, suppose that his idea represents
nothing real, as. I have already said of the idea of cold.
It is likewise clear and distinct in the highest degree, since
whatever the mind clearly and distinctly conceives as
real or true, and as implying any perfection, is contained
entire in this idea. And this is true, nevertheless, although
I do not comprehend the infinite, and although there may
be in God an infinity of things that I cannot compre-
hend, nor perhaps even compass by thought in any way;
for it is of the nature of the infinite that it should not be
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
127
comprehended by the finite; and it is enough that I rightly
understand this, and judge that all which I clearly per-
ceive, and in which I know there is some perfection, and
perhaps also an infinity of properties of which I am ignor-
ant, are formally or eminently in God, in order that the
idea I have of him may become the most true, clear, and
distinct of all the ideas in my mind.
But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself
to be, and it may be that all those perfections which I
attribute to God, in some way exist potentially in me,
although they do not yet show themselves, and are not
reduced to act. Indeed, I am already conscious that my
knowledge is being increased [and perfected] by degrees;
and I see nothing to prevent it from thus gradually increas-
ing to infinity, nor any reason why, after such increase and
perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire all the
other perfections of the Divine nature; nor, in fine, why
the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it
really now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce
the ideas of them. Yet, on looking more closely into the
matter, I discover that this cannot be; for, in the first
place, although it were true that my knowledge daily
acquired new degrees of perfection, and although there
were potentially in my nature much that was not as yet
actually in it, still all these excellences make not the
slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom
there is no perfection merely potentially [but all actually]
existent; for it is even an unmistakeable token of imper-
fection in my knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees.
Further, although my knowledge increase more and
more, nevertheless I am not, therefore, induced to think
that it will ever be actually infinite, since it can never
reach that point beyond which it shall be incapable of
further increase. But I conceive God as actually infinite,
so that nothing can be added to his perfection. And, in
fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an
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MEDITATION III.
idea cannot be produced by a being that is merely
potentially existent, which, properly speaking, is nothing,
but only by a being existing formally or actually.
And, truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said
which it is not easy for any one, who shall carefully con-
sider it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow
my attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind
being obscured, and, as it were, blinded by the images of
sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why
the idea of a being more perfect than myself, must of
necessity have proceeded from a being in reality more
perfect. On this account I am here desirous to inquire
further, whether I, who possess this idea of God, could
exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from
whom could I, in that case, derive my existence? Per-
haps from myself, or from my parents, or from some other
causes less perfect than God; for anything more perfect,
or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined.
But if I [were independent of every other existence, and]
were myself the author of my being, I should doubt of
nothing, I should desire nothing, and, in fine, no perfection.
would be awanting to me; for I should have bestowed
upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea,
and I should thus be God. And it must not be imagined
that what is now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult
acquisition than that of which I am already possessed;
for, on the contrary, it is quite manifest that it was a
matter of much higher difficulty that I, a thinking being,
should arise from nothing, than it would be for me to
acquire the knowledge of many things of which I am
ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a thinking
substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the greater
perfection of which I have now spoken, [in other words, if
I were the author of my own existence], I would not at
least have denied to myself things that may be more easily
obtained, [as that infinite variety of knowledge of which
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
129
I was
I am at present destitute]. I could not, indeed, have de-
nied to myself any property which I perceive is contained
in the idea of God, because there is none of these that
seems to me to be more difficult to make or acquire; and
if there were any that should happen to be more difficult
to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me (sup-
posing that I myself were the source of the other things I
possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my
power. And though I were to suppose that I always was
as I now am, I should not, on this ground, escape the force
of these reasonings, since it would not follow, even on this
supposition, that no author of my existence needed to be
sought after. For the whole time of my life may be
divided into an infinity of parts, each of which is in no
way dependent on any other; and, accordingly, because
I was in existence a short time ago, it does not follow
tha I must now exist, unless in this moment some
cause create me anew as it were,—that is, conserve me.
In truth, it is perfectly clear and evident to all who
will attentively consider the nature of duration, that the
conservation of a substance, in each moment of its dura-
tion, requires the same power and act that would be
necessary to create it, supposing it were not yet in exist-
ence; so that it is manifestly a dictate of the natural light
that conservation and creation differ merely in respect of
our mode of thinking [and not in reality]. All that is
here required, therefore, is that I interrogate myself to
discover whether I possess any power by means of which
I can bring it about that I, who now am, shall exist a
moment afterwards: for, since I am merely a thinking
thing (or since, at least, the precise question, in the mean-
time, is only of that part of myself), if such a power re-
sided in me, I should, without doubt, be conscious of it;
but I am conscious of no such power, and thereby I
manifestly know that I am dependent upon some being
different from myself.
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MEDITATION III
But perhaps the being upon whom I am dependent, is
not God, and I have been produced either by my parents,
or by some causes less perfect than Deity. This cannot
be: for, as I before said, it is perfectly evident that
there must at least be as much reality in the cause as in
its effect; and accordingly, since I am a thinking thing,
and possess in myself an idea of God, whatever in the
end be the cause of my existence, it must of necessity be
admitted that it is likewise a thinking being, and that it
possesses in itself the idea and all the perfections I attri-
bute to Deity. Then it may again be inquired whether
this cause owes its origin and existence to itself, or to some
other cause. For if it be self-existent, it follows, from
what I have before laid down, that this cause is God; for,
since it possesses the perfection of self-existence, it must
likewise, without doubt, have the power of actually possess-
ing every perfection of which it has the idea,-in other
words, all the perfections I conceive to belong to God. But
if it owe its existence to another cause than itself, we de-
mand again, for a similar reason, whether this second cause
exists of itself or through some other, until, from stage to
stage, we at length arrive at an ultimate cause, which will be
God. And it is quite manifest that in this matter there can
be no infinite regress of causes, seeing that the question raised
respects not so much the cause which once produced me,
as that by which I am at this present moment conserved.
Nor can it be supposed that several causes concurred in
my production, and that from one I received the idea of
one of the perfections I attribute to Deity and from another
the idea of some other, and thus that all those perfections
are indeed found somewhere in the universe, but do not
all exist together in a single being who is God; for, on
the contrary, the unity, the simplicity or inseparability
of all the properties of Deity, is one of the chief perfections
I conceive him to possess; and the idea of this unity of
all the perfections of Deity could certainly not be put into
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
131
my mind by any cause from which I did not likewise
receive the ideas of all the other perfections; for no power
could enable me to embrace them in an inseparable unity,
without at the same time giving me the knowledge of what
they were [and of their existence in a particular mode].
Finally, with regard to my parents [from whom it appears
I sprung], although all that I believed respecting them be
true, it does not, nevertheless, follow that I am conserved
by them, or even that I was produced by them, in so far
as I am a thinking being. All that, at the most, they
contributed to my origin was the giving of certain dis-
positions (modifications) to the matter in which I have
hitherto judged that I or my mind, which is what alone I
now consider to be myself, is enclosed; and thus there can
here be no difficulty with respect to them, and it is absolutely
necessary to conclude from this alone that I am, and pos-
sess the idea of a being absolutely perfect, that is, of God,
that his existence is most clearly demonstrated.
There remains only the inquiry as to the way in which
I received this idea from God; for I have not drawn it
from the senses, nor is it even presented to me unexpectedly,
as is usual with the ideas of sensible objects, when these
are presented or appear to be presented to the external
organs of the senses; it is not even a pure production or
fiction of my mind, for it is not in my power to take from
or add to it; and consequently there but remains the alter-
native that it is innate, in the same way as is the idea of
myself. And, in truth, it is not to be wondered at that God,
at my creation, implanted this idea in me, that it might serve,
as it were, for the mark of the workman impressed on his
work; and it is not also necessary that the mark should
be something different from the work itself; but considering
only that God is my creator, it is highly probable that he
in some way fashioned me after his own image and like-
ness, and that I perceive this likeness, in which is contained
the idea of God, by the same faculty by which I apprehend
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MEDITATION III.
myself,-in other words, when I make myself the object
of reflection, I not only find that I am an incomplete,
[imperfect] and dependent being, and one who unceasingly
aspires after something better and greater than he is; but,
at the same time, I am assured likewise that he upon whom
I am dependent possesses in himself all the goods after
which I aspire, [and the ideas of which I find in my mind],
and that not merely indefinitely and potentially, but
infinitely and actually, and that he is thus God. And
the whole force of the argument of which I have here
availed myself to establish the existence of God, consists
in this, that I perceive I could not possibly be of such a
nature as I am, and yet have in my mind the idea of
a God, if God did not in reality exist,—this same God,
I say, whose idea is in my mind-that is, a being who
possesses all those lofty perfections, of which the mind
may have some slight conception, without, however, being
able fully to comprehend them, and who is wholly su-
perior to all defect, [and has nothing that marks imper-
fection]: whence it is sufficiently manifest that he cannot
be a deceiver, since it is a dictate of the natural light that
all fraud and deception spring from some defect.
But before I examine this with more attention, and pass
on to the consideration of other truths that may be evolved
out of it, I think it proper to remain here for some time in
the contemplation of God himself that I may ponder at
leisure his marvellous attributes-and behold, admire, and
adore the beauty of this light so unspeakably great, as far,
at least, as the strength of my mind, which is to some de-
gree dazzled by the sight, will permit. For just as we learn
by faith that the supreme felicity of another life consists
in the contemplation of the Divine majesty alone, so even
now we learn from experience that a like meditation,
though incomparably less perfect, is the source of the
highest satisfaction of which we are susceptible in this life.
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
133
MEDITATION IV.
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
I HAVE been habituated these bygone days to detach my
mind from the senses, and I have accurately observed that
there is exceedingly little which is known with certainty
respecting corporeal objects,-that we know much more
of the human mind, and still more of God himself. I am
thus able now without difficulty to abstract my mind from
the contemplation of [sensible or] imaginable objects, and
apply it to those which, as disengaged from all matter, are
purely intelligible. And certainly the idea I have of the
human mind in so far as it is a thinking thing, and not
extended in length, breadth, and depth, and partici-
pating in none of the properties of body, is incompar-
ably more distinct than the idea of any corporeal object;
and when I consider that I doubt, in other words, that I
am an incomplete and dependent being, the idea of a
complete and independent being, that is to say of God,
occurs to my mind with so much clearness and distinctness,
-and from the fact alone that this idea is found in me, or
that I who possess it exist, the conclusions that God exists,
and that my own existence, each moment of its continuance,
is absolutely dependent upon him, are so manifest,-as to
lead me to believe it impossible that the human mind can
know anything with more clearness and certitude. And
now I seem to discover a path that will conduct us from
the contemplation of the true God, in whom are contained
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MEDITATION IV.
all the treasures of science and wisdom, to the knowledge
of the other things in the universe.
For, in the first place, I discover that it is impossible
for him ever to deceive me, for in all fraud and deceit there
is a certain imperfection: and although it may seem that
the ability to deceive is a mark of subtlety or power, yet
the will testifies without doubt of malice and weakness;
and such, accordingly, cannot be found in God. In the
next place, I am conscious that I possess a certain faculty
of judging [or discerning truth from error], which I
doubtless received from God, along with whatever else is
mine; and since it is impossible that he should will to
deceive me, it is likewise certain that he has not given me
✓ a faculty that will ever lead me into error, provided I use
it aright.
And there would remain no doubt on this head, did it
not seem to follow from this, that I can never therefore be
deceived; for if all I possess be from God, and if he
planted in me no faculty that is deceitful, it seems to follow
that I can never fall into error. Accordingly, it is true
that when I think only of God (when I look upon myself as
coming from God, Fr.), and turn wholly to him, I discover
[in myself] no cause of error or falsity: but immediately
thereafter, recurring to myself, experience assures me that
I am nevertheless subject to innumerable errors. When I
come to inquire into the cause of these, I observe that there
is not only present to my consciousness a real and positive
idea of God, or of a being supremely perfect, but also, so
to speak, a certain negative idea of nothing,-in other
words, of that which is at an infinite distance from every
sort of perfection, and that I am, as it were, a mean be-
tween God and nothing, or placed in such a way between
absolute existence and non-existence, that there is in truth
nothing in me to lead me into error, in so far as an absolute
being is my creator; but that, on the other hand, as I thus
likewise participate in some degree of nothing or of non-
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
135
being, in other words, as I am not myself the supreme
Being, and as I am wanting in many perfections, it is not
surprising I should fall into error. And I hence discern
that error, so far as error is not something real, which
depends for its existence on God, but is simply defect;
and therefore that, in order to fall into it, it is not neces-
sary God should have given me a faculty expressly for this
end, but that my being deceived arises from the circumstance
that the power which God has given me of discerning truth
from error is not infinite.
Nevertheless this is not yet quite satisfactory; for error
is not a pure negation, [in other words, it is not the simple
deficiency or want of some knowledge which is not due],
but the privation or want of some knowledge which it
would seem I ought to possess. But, on considering the
nature of God, it seems impossible that he should have
planted in his creature any faculty not perfect in its kind,
that is, wanting in some perfection due to it: for if it be
true, that in proportion to the skill of the maker the per-
fection of his work is greater, what thing can have been
produced by the supreme Creator of the universe that is
not absolutely perfect in all its parts? And assuredly
there is no doubt that God could have created me such as
that I should never be deceived; it is certain, likewise, that
he always wills what is best: is it better, then, that I
should be capable of being deceived than that I should
not?
Considering this more attentiyely, the first thing that oc-
curs to me is the reflection that I must not be surprised if I
am not always capable of comprehending the reasons why
God acts as he does; nor must I doubt of his existence be-
cause I find, perhaps, that there are several other things
besides the present respecting which I understand neither
why nor how they were created by him; for, knowing al-
ready that my nature is extremely weak and limited, and that
the nature of God, on the other hand, is immense, incom-
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MEDITATION IV.
prehensible, and infinite, I have no longer any difficulty
in discerning that there is an infinity of things in his
power whose causes transcend the grasp of my mind: and
this consideration alone is sufficient to convince me, that
✓the whole class of final causes is of no avail in physical
[or natural] things; for it appears to me that I cannot,
without exposing myself to the charge of temerity, seek to
discover the [impenetrable] ends of Deity.
It further occurs to me that we must not consider only
one creature apart from the others, if we wish to determine
the perfection of the works of Deity, but generally all his
creatures together; for the same object that might perhaps,
with some show of reason, be deemed highly imperfect if
it were alone in the world, may for all that be the most
perfect possible, considered as forming part of the whole
universe and although, as it was my purpose to doubt
of everything, I only as yet know with certainty my
own existence and that of God, nevertheless, after
having remarked the infinite power of Deity, I cannot
deny that he may have produced many other objects, or
at least that he is able to produce them, so that I may
occupy a place in the relation of a part to the great whole
of his creatures.
Whereupon, regarding myself more closely, and con-
sidering what my errors are (which alone testify to the
existence of imperfection in me), I observe that these
depend on the concurrence of two causes, viz., the faculty
of cognition which I possess, and that of election or
the power of free choice,-in other words, the under-
standing and the will. For by the understanding alone,
I [neither affirm nor deny anything, but] merely ap-
prehend (percipio) the ideas regarding which I may
form a judgment; nor is any error, properly so called,
found in it thus accurately taken. And although there
are perhaps innumerable objects in the world of which
I have no idea in my understanding, it cannot, on that
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
137
account, be said that I am deprived of those ideas [as
of something that is due to my nature], but simply that I
do not possess them, because, in truth, there is no ground
to prove that Deity ought to have endowed me with a
larger faculty of cognition than he has actually bestowed
upon me; and however skilful a workman I suppose him
to be, I have no reason, on that account, to think that it
was obligatory on him to give to each of his works all the✓
perfections he is able to bestow upon some. Nor, moreover,
can I complain that God has not given me freedom of
choice, or a will sufficiently ample and perfect, since, in
truth, I am conscious of will so ample and extended as to be
superior to all limits. And what appears to me here to be
highly remarkable is that, of all the other properties I
possess, there is none so great and perfect as that I do not
clearly discern it could be still greater and more perfect.
For, to take an example, if I consider the faculty of under-
standing which I possess, I find that it is of
find that it is of very small
extent, and greatly limited, and at the same time I form
the idea of another faculty of the same nature, much
more ample and even infinite; and seeing that I can frame
the idea of it, I discover, from this circumstance alone,
that it pertains to the nature of God. In the same way,
if I examine the faculty of memory or imagination, or any
other faculty I possess, I find none that is not small and
circumscribed, and in God immense [and infinite]. It
is the faculty of will only, or freedom of choice, which I
experience to be so great that I am unable to conceive the
idea of another that shall be more ample and extended;
so that it is chiefly my will which leads me to discern that ✔
I bear a certain image and similitude of Deity. For al-
though the faculty of will is incomparably greater in God
than in myself, as well in respect of the knowledge and
power that are conjoined with it, and that render it stronger
and more efficacious, as in respect of the object, since in
him it extends to a greater number of things, it does not,
138
MEDITATION IV.
nevertheless, appear to me greater, considered in itself
formally and precisely for the power of will consists only
in this, that we are able to do or not to do the same thing
(that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or shun it), or rather
in this alone, that in affirming or denying, pursuing or shun-
ning, what is proposed to us by the understanding, we so
act that we are not conscious of being determined to a par-
Vticular action by any external force. For, to the possession
of freedom, it is not necessary that I be alike indifferent
towards each of two contraries; but, on the contrary, the
more I am inclined towards the one, whether because I
clearly know that in it there is the reason of truth and
goodness, or because God thus internally disposes my
thought, the more freely do I choose and embrace it; and
assuredly divine grace and natural knowledge, very far from
diminishing liberty, rather augment and fortify it. But the
indifference of which I am conscious when I am not im-
pelled to one side rather than to another for want of a reason,
is the lowest grade of liberty, and manifests defect or nega-
tion of knowledge rather than perfection of will; for if I
always clearly knew what was true and good, I should never
have any difficulty in determining what judgment I ought
to come to, and what choice I ought to make, and I should
thus be entirely free without ever being indifferent.
From all this I discover, however, that neither the
power of willing, which I have received from God, is of
itself the source of my errors, for it is exceedingly ample
and perfect in its kind; nor even the power of under-
standing, for as I conceive no object unless by means of
the faculty that God bestowed upon me, all that I conceive
is doubtless rightly conceived by me, and it is impossible
for me to be deceived in it.
Whence, then, spring my errors? They arise from this
\cause alone, that I do not restrain the will, which is of
much wider range than the understanding, within the same
limits, but extend it even to things I do not understand,
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
139
and as the will is of itself indifferent to such, it readily falls
into error and sin by choosing the false in room of the true,
and evil instead of good.
For example, when I lately considered whether aught really
existed in the world, and found that because I considered this
question, it very manifestly followed that I myself existed,
I could not but judge that what I so clearly conceived was
true, not that I was forced to this judgment by any external
cause, but simply because great clearness of the understand-
ing was succeeded by strong inclination in the will; and I
believed this the more freely and spontaneously in propor-
tion as I was less indifferent with respect to it. But now I
not only know that I exist, in so far as I am a thinking being,
but there is likewise presented to my mind a certain idea
of corporeal nature; hence I am in doubt as to whether the
thinking nature which is in me, or rather which I myself
am, is different from that corporeal nature, or whether both
are merely one and the same thing, and I here suppose
that I am as yet ignorant of any reason that would deter-
mine me to adopt the one belief in preference to the other :
whence it happens that it is a matter of perfect indif-
ference to me which of the two suppositions I affirm or
deny, or whether I form any judgment at all in the matter.
This indifference, moreover, extends not only to things
of which the understanding has no knowledge at all, but
in general also to all those which it does not discover with
perfect clearness at the moment the will is deliberating
upon them; for, however probable the conjectures may be
that dispose me to form a judgment in a particular matter,
the simple knowledge that these are merely conjectures, and
not certain and indubitable reasons, is sufficient to lead
me to form one that is directly the opposite. Of this
I lately had abundant experience, when I laid aside as
false all that I had before held for true, on the single
ground that I could in some degree doubt of it. But if
I abstain from judging of a thing when I do not conceive
140
MEDITATION IV.
it with sufficient clearness and distinctness, it is plain that
I act rightly, and am not deceived; but if I resolve to deny
or affirm, I then do not make a right use of my free will;
and if I affirm what is false, it is evident that I am deceived :
moreover, even although I judge according to truth, I
stumble upon it by chance, and do not therefore escape the
imputation of a wrong use of my freedom; for it is a
dictate of the natural light, that the knowledge of the
understanding ought always to precede the determination
of the will.
And it is this wrong use of the freedom of the will
in which is found the privation that constitutes the form
of error. Privation, I say, is found in the act, in so far
as it proceeds from myself, but it does not exist in the
faculty which I received from God, nor even in the act, in
so far as it depends on him; for I have assuredly no reason
to complain that God has not given me a greater power of
intelligence or more perfect natural light than he has
actually bestowed, since it is of the nature of a finite
understanding not to comprehend many things, and of the
nature of a created understanding to be finite; on the con-
trary, I have every reason to render thanks to God, who
owed me nothing, for having given me all the perfections
possess, and I should be far from thinking that he has
unjustly deprived me of, or kept back, the other perfections.
which he has not bestowed upon me.
I have no reason, moreover, to complain because he has
given me a will more ample than my understanding, since,
as the will consists only of a single element, and that indi-
visible, it would appear that this faculty is of such a nature
that nothing could be taken from it [without destroying it];
and certainly, the more extensive it is, the more cause I have
to thank the goodness of him who bestowed it upon me.
And, finally, I ought not also to complain that God
concurs with me in forming the acts of this will, or the
judgments in which I am deceived, because those acts are
OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
141
j
wholly true and good, in so far as they depend on God;
and the ability to form them is a higher degree of perfection
in my nature than the want of it would be. With regard
to privation, in which alone consists the formal reason of
error and sin, this does not require the concurrence of
Deity, because it is not a thing [or existence], and if it
be referred to God as to its cause, it ought not to be called
privation, but negation, [according to the signification of
these words in the schools.] For in truth it is no imper-
fection in Deity that he has accorded to me the power of
giving or withholding my assent from certain things of
which he has not put a clear and distinct knowledge in my
understanding; but it is doubtless an imperfection in me
that I do not use my freedom aright, and readily give my
judgment on matters which I only obscurely and confusedly
conceive.
I perceive, nevertheless, that it was easy for Deity so to
have constituted me as that I should never be deceived,
although I still remained free and possessed of a limited
knowledge, viz., by implanting in my understanding a clear
and distinct knowledge of all the objects respecting which I
should ever have to deliberate; or simply by so deeply en-
graving on my memory the resolution to judge of nothing
without previously possessing a clear and distinct conception.
of it, that I should never forget it. And I easily understand
that, in so far as I consider myself as a single whole, without
reference to any other being in the universe, I should have
been much more perfect than I now am, had Deity created
me superior to error; but I cannot therefore deny that it
is not somehow a greater perfection in the universe, that
certain of its parts are not exempt from defect, as others
are, than if they were all perfectly alike.
And I have no right to complain because God, who
placed me in the world, was not willing that I should sustain
that character which of all others is the chief and most
perfect; I have even good reason to remain satisfied on
142
MEDITATION IV.
the ground that, if he has not given me the perfection of
being superior to error by the first means I have pointed
out above, which depends on a clear and evident know-
ledge of all the matters regarding which I can deliberate,
he has at least left in my power the other means, which is,
(firmly to retain the resolution never to judge where the
truth is not clearly known to me: for, although I am con-
scious of the weakness of not being able to keep my mind
continually fixed on the same thought, I can nevertheless,
by attentive and oft-repeated meditation, impress it so
strongly on my memory that I shall never fail to recollect
it as often as I require it, and I can acquire in this way the
habitude of not erring; and since it is in being superior
to error that the highest and chief perfection of man con-
sists, I deem that I have not gained little by this day's
meditation, in having discovered the source of error and
falsity.
And certainly this can be no other than what I have now
explained for as often as I so restrain my will within the
limits of my knowledge, that it forms no judgment except
regarding objects which are clearly and distinctly repre-
sented to it by the understanding, I can never be deceived ;
because every clear and distinct conception is doubtless
something, and as such cannot owe its origin to nothing,
but must of necessity have God for its author-God, I say,
who, as supremely perfect, cannot, without a contradiction,
be the cause of any error; and consequently it is necessary
to conclude that every such conception [or judgment] is
Nor have I merely learned to-day what I must
avoid to escape error, but also what I must do to arrive at
the knowledge of truth; for I will assuredly reach truth if
I only fix my attention sufficiently on all the things I
conceive perfectly, and separate these from others which I
conceive more confusedly and obscurely: to which for the
future I shall give diligent heed.
V true.
OF THE ESSENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS.
143
MEDITATION V.
OF THE ESSENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS; AND, AGAIN, OF
GOD; THAT HE EXISTS.
I
SEVERAL other questions remain for consideration respect-
ing the attributes of God and my own nature or mind.
will, however, on some other occasion perhaps resume the
investigation of these. Meanwhile, as I have discovered
what must be done and what avoided to arrive at the
knowledge of truth, what I have chiefly to do is to essay
to emerge from the state of doubt in which I have for some
time been, and to discover whether anything can be known
with certainty regarding material objects. But before
considering whether such objects as I conceive exist with-
out me, I must examine their ideas in so far as these are
to be found in my consciousness, and discover which of
them are distinct and which confused.
In the first place, I distinctly imagine that quantity
which the philosophers commonly call continuous, or the
extension in length, breadth, and depth that is in this
quantity, or rather in the object to which it is attributed.
Further, I can enumerate in it many diverse parts, and at-
tribute to each of these all sorts of sizes, figures, situations,
and local motions; and, in fine, I can assign to each of these
motions all degrees of duration. And I not only distinctly
know these things when I thus consider them in general;
but besides, by a little attention, I discover innumerable
particulars respecting figures, numbers, motion, and the
like, which are so evidently true, and so accordant with
144
MEDITATION V.
my nature, that when I now discover them I do not so
much appear to learn anything new, as to call to remem-
brance what I before knew, or for the first time to remark
what was before in my mind, but to which I had not
hitherto directed my attention. And what I here find of
most importance is, that I discover in my mind innumer-
able ideas of certain objects, which cannot be esteemed
pure negations, although perhaps they possess no reality
beyond my thought, and which are not framed by me
though it may be in my power to think, or not to think
them, but possess true and immutable natures of their own.
As, for example, when I imagine a triangle, although there
is not perhaps and never was in any place in the universe
apart from my thought one such figure, it remains true
nevertheless that this figure possesses a certain determinate
nature, form, or essence, which is immutable and eternal,
and not framed by me, nor in any degree dependent on my
thought; as appears from the circumstance, that diverse
properties of the triangle may be demonstrated, viz., that
its three angles are equal to two right, that its greatest side
is subtended by its greatest angle, and the like, which,
whether I will or not, I now clearly discern to belong to it,
although before I did not at all think of them, when, for the
first time, I imagined a triangle, and which accordingly
cannot be said to have been invented by me. Nor is it
a valid objection to allege, that perhaps this idea of a
triangle came into my mind by the medium of the senses,
through my having seen bodies of a triangular figure; for
I am able to form in thought an innumerable variety of
figures with regard to which it cannot be supposed that
they were ever objects of sense, and I can nevertheless
demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no less than
of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since I
clearly conceive them: and they are therefore something,
and not mere negations; for it is highly evident that all that
is true is something, [truth being identical with existence] :
OF GOD; THAT HE EXISTS.
145
and I have already fully shown the truth of the principle,
that whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true.
And although this had not been demonstrated, yet the
nature of my mind is such as to compel me to assent to
what I clearly conceive while I so conceive it; and I re-
collect that even when I still strongly adhered to the objects
of sense, I reckoned among the number of the most certain
truths those I clearly conceived relating to figures, numbers,
and other matters that pertain to arithmetic and geometry,
and in general to the pure mathematics.
But now if because I can draw from my thought the
idea of an object, it follows that all I clearly and distinctly
apprehend to pertain to this object, does in truth belong to
it, may I not from this derive an argument for the exist-
ence of God? It is certain that I no less find the idea of
a God in my consciousness, that is, the idea of a being
supremely perfect, than that of any figure or number
whatever: and I know with not less clearness and dis-
tinctness that an [actual and] eternal existence pertains
to his nature than that all which is demonstrable of
any figure or number really belongs to the nature of that
figure or number; and, therefore, although all the conclu-
sions of the preceding Meditations were false, the existence
of God would pass with me for a truth at least as cer-
tain as I ever judged any truth of mathematics to be,
although indeed such a doctrine may at first sight appear
to contain more sophistry than truth. For, as I have been
accustomed in every other matter to distinguish between
existence and essence, I easily believe that the existence
can be separated from the essence of God, and that thus
God may be conceived as not actually existing. But,
nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it appears
that the existence can no more be separated from the
essence of God, than the idea of a mountain from that of
a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right.
angles, from the essence of a [rectilineal] triangle; so that
P
کا
146
MEDITATION V.
it is not less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being
supremely perfect, to whom existence is awanting, or who
is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive a moun-
tain without a valley.
But though, in truth, I cannot conceive a God unless as
existing, any more than I can a mountain without a valley,
yet, just as it does not follow that there is any mountain in
the world merely because I conceive a mountain with a
valley, so likewise, though I conceive God as existing, it
does not seem to follow on that account that God exists;
for my thought imposes no necessity on things; and as
I may imagine a winged horse, though there be none
such, so I could perhaps attribute existence to God, though
no God existed. But the cases are not analogous, and a
fallacy lurks under the semblance of this objection: for
because I cannot conceive a mountain without a valley, it
does not follow that there is any mountain or valley in
existence, but simply that the mountain or valley, whether
they do or do not exist, are inseparable from each other;
whereas, on the other hand, because I cannot conceive
God unless as existing, it follows that existence is insepar-
able from him, and therefore that he really exists: not
that this is brought about by my thought, or that it im-
poses any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the
necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity
of the existence of God, determines me to think in this
way for it is not in my power to conceive a God without
existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid
of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse
with or without wings.
Nor must it be alleged here as an objection, that it is in
truth necessary to admit that God exists, after having
supposed him to possess all perfections, since existence is
one of them, but that my original supposition was not
necessary; just as it is not necessary to think that all
quadrilateral figures can be inscribed in the circle, since,
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
147
if I supposed this, I should be constrained to admit that
the rhombus, being a figure of four sides, can be therein
inscribed, which, however, is manifestly false. This ob-
jection is, I say, incompetent; for although it may not be
necessary that I shall at any time entertain the notion of
Deity, yet each time I happen to think of a first and
sovereign being, and to draw, so to speak, the idea of him
from the store-house of the mind, I am necessitated to attri-
bute to him all kinds of perfections, though I may not then
enumerate them all, nor think of each of them in particular.
And this necessity is sufficient, as soon as I discover that
existence is a perfection, to cause me to infer the existence
of this first and sovereign being: just as it is not necessary
that I should ever imagine any triangle, but whenever I
am desirous of considering a rectilineal figure composed of
only three angles, it is absolutely necessary to attribute
those properties to it from which it is correctly inferred
that its three angles are not greater than two right angles,
although perhaps I may not then advert to this relation
in particular. But when I consider what figures are
capable of being inscribed in the circle, it is by no means
necessary to hold that all quadrilateral figures are of this
number ; on the contrary, I cannot even imagine such to
be the case, so long as I shall be unwilling to accept in
thought aught that I do not clearly and distinctly con-
ceive and consequently there is a vast difference between
false suppositions, as is the one in question, and the true
ideas that were born with me, the first and chief of which is
the idea of God. For indeed I discern on many grounds that
this idea is not factitious, depending simply on my thought,
but that it is the representation of a true and immutable
nature: in the first place, because I can conceive no other
being, except God, to whose essence existence [necessarily]
pertains; in the second, because it is impossible to con-
ceive two or more gods of this kind; and it being sup-
posed that one such God exists, I clearly see that he must
148
MEDITATION V.
}
have existed from all eternity, and will exist to all eternity;
and finally, because I apprehend many other properties in
God, none of which I can either diminish or change.
But, indeed, whatever mode of probation I in the end
adopt, it always returns to this, that it is only the things I
clearly and distinctly conceive which have the power of
completely persuading me. And although, of the objects
I conceive in this manner, some, indeed, are obvious
to every one, while others are only discovered after
close and careful investigation; nevertheless, after they
are once discovered, the latter are not esteemed less cer-
tain than the former. Thus, for example, to take the
case of a right-angled triangle, although it is not so mani-
fest at first that the square of the base is equal to the
squares of the other two sides, as that the base is opposite
to the greatest angle; nevertheless, after it is once appre-
hended, we are as firmly persuaded of the truth of the
former as of the latter. And, with respect to God, if I
were not pre-occupied by prejudices, and my thought
beset on all sides by the continual presence of the images
of sensible objects, I should know nothing sooner or more
easily than the fact of his being. For is there any truth
more clear than the existence of a Supreme Being, or of
God, seeing it is to his essence alone that [necessary and
eternal] existence pertains? And although the right con-
ception, of this truth has cost me much close thinking,
nevertheless at present I feel not only as assured of it as
of what I deem most certain, but I remark further that
the certitude of all other truths is so absolutely dependent
on it, that without this knowledge it is impossible ever to
know anything perfectly.
For although I am of such a nature as to be unable,
while I possess a very clear and distinct apprehension of
a matter, to resist the conviction of its truth, yet because
my constitution is also such as to incapacitate me from
keeping my mind continually fixed on the same object,
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS.
149
and as I frequently recollect a past judgment without at
the same time being able to recall the grounds of it, it may
happen meanwhile that other reasons are presented to me
which would readily cause me to change my opinion, if I
did not know that God existed; and thus I should possess
no true and certain knowledge, but merely vague and
vacillating opinions. Thus, for example, when I consider
the nature of the [rectilineal] triangle, it most clearly
appears to me, who have been instructed in the principles
of geometry, that its three angles are equal to two right.
angles, and I find it impossible to believe otherwise, while
I apply my mind to the demonstration; but as soon as I
cease from attending to the process of proof, although I
still remember that I had a clear comprehension of it, yet
may readily come to doubt of the truth demonstrated, if
I do not know that there is a God: for I may persuade
myself that I have been so constituted by nature as to
be sometimes deceived, even in matters which I think I
apprehend with the greatest evidence and certitude, espe-
cially when I recollect that I frequently considered many
things to be true and certain which other reasons after-
wards constrained me to reckon as wholly false.
I
But after I have discovered that God exists, seeing I also
at the same time observed that all things depend on him,
and that he is no deceiver, and thence inferred that all
which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true :
although I no longer attend to the grounds of a judgment,
no opposite reason can be alleged sufficient to lead me to
doubt of its truth, provided only I remember that I once
possessed a clear and distinct comprehension of it. My
knowledge of it thus becomes true and certain. And this
same knowledge extends likewise to whatever I remember
to have formerly demonstrated, as the truths of geometry
and the like: for what can be alleged against them to lead
me to doubt of them? Will it be that my nature is such
that I may be frequently deceived? But I already know
L
150
MEDITATION V.
}
that I cannot be deceived in judgments of the grounds of
which I possess a clear knowledge. Will it be that I for-
merly deemed things to be true and certain which I after-
wards discovered to be false? But I had no clear and
distinct knowledge of any of those things, and, being as
yet ignorant of the rule by which I am assured of the
truth of a judgment, I was led to give my assent to them
on grounds which I afterwards discovered were less strong
than at the time I imagined them to be. What further
objection, then, is there? Will it be said that perhaps I
am dreaming (an objection I lately myself raised), or that
all the thoughts of which I am now conscious have no
more truth than the reveries of my dreams? But although,
in truth, I should be dreaming, the rule still holds that all
which is clearly presented to my intellect is indisputably
true.
And thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth
of all science depends on the knowledge alone of the
true God, insomuch that, before I knew him, I could have
no perfect knowledge of any other thing. And now that
I know him, I possess the means of acquiring a perfect
knowledge respecting innumerable matters, as well relative
to God himself and other intellectual objects as to cor-
poreal nature, in so far as it is the object of pure mathe-
matics [which do not consider whether it exists or not].
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS.
151
MEDITATION VI.
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, AND OF THE REAL
DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE MIND AND BODY OF MAN.
THERE now only remains the inquiry as to whether
material things exist. With regard to this question, I at
least know with certainty that such things may exist, in
as far as they constitute the object of the pure mathe-
matics, since, regarding them in this aspect, I can
conceive them clearly and distinctly. For there can be
no doubt that God possesses the power of producing all
the objects I am able distinctly to conceive, and I never
considered anything impossible to him, unless when I
experienced a contradiction in the attempt to conceive it
aright. Further, the faculty of imagination which I pos-
sess, and of which I am conscious that I make use when
I apply myself to the consideration of material things, is
sufficient to persuade me of their existence: for, when I
attentively consider what imagination is, I find that it
is simply a certain application of the cognitive faculty
(facultas cognoscitiva) to a body which is immediately pre-
sent to it, and which therefore exists.
And to render this quite clear, I remark, in the first
place, the difference that subsists between imagination and
pure intellection [or conception]. For example, when I
imagine a triangle I not only conceive (intelligo) that it is
a figure comprehended by three lines, but at the same
time also I look upon (intueor) these three lines as present
by the power and internal application of my mind (acie
152
MEDITATION VI.
mentis), and this is what I call imagining. But if I desire
to think of a chiliogon, I indeed rightly conceive that it
is a figure composed of a thousand sides, as easily as I con-
ceive that a triangle is a figure composed of only three sides;
but I cannot imagine the thousand sides of a chiliogon as
I do the three sides of a triangle, nor, so to speak, view
them as present [with the eyes of my mind]. And al-
though, in accordance with the habit I have of always
imagining something when I think of corporeal things, it
may happen that, in conceiving a chiliogon, I confusedly
represent some figure to myself, yet it is quite evident that
this is not a chiliogon, since it in no wise differs from that
which I would represent to myself, if I were to think of a
myriogon, or any other figure of many sides; nor would
this representation be of any use in discovering and
unfolding the properties that constitute the difference
between a chiliogon and other polygons. But if the
question turns on a pentagon, it is quite true that I can
conceive its figure, as well as that of a chiliogon, with-
out the aid of imagination; but I can likewise imagine
it by applying the attention of my mind to its five
sides, and at the same time to the area which they
contain. Thus I observe that a special effort of mind
is necessary to the act of imagination, which is not
required to conceiving or understanding (ad intelligendum);
and this special exertion of mind clearly shows the
difference between imagination and pure intellection
(imaginatio et intellectio pura) I remark, besides, that
this power of imagination which I possess, in as far as it
differs from the power of conceiving, is in no way neces-
sary to my [nature or] essence, that is, to the essence
of my mind; for although I did not possess it, I should
still remain the same that I now am, from which it seems
we may conclude that it depends on something different
from the mind. And I easily understand that, if some
body exists, with which my mind is so conjoined and
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC.
153
united as to be able, as it were, to consider it when it
chooses, it may thus imagine corporeal objects; so that this
mode of thinking differs from pure intellection only in this
respect, that the mind in conceiving turns in some way upon
itself, and considers some one of the ideas it possesses within
itself; but in imagining it turns towards the body, and
contemplates in it some object conformed to the idea which
it either of itself conceived or apprehended by sense. I
easily understand, I say, that imagination may be thus
formed, if it is true that there are bodies; and because I
find no other obvious mode of explaining it, I thence, with
probability, conjecture that they exist, but only with prob-
ability; and although I carefully examine all things,
nevertheless I do not find that, from the distinct idea of
corporeal nature I have in my imagination, I can neces-
sarily infer the existence of any body.
But I am accustomed to imagine many other objects
besides that corporeal nature which is the object of the
pure mathematics, as, for example, colours, sounds, tastes,
pain, and the like, although with less distinctness; and,
inasmuch as I perceive these objects much better by the
senses, through the medium of which and of memory,
they seem to have reached the imagination, I believe that,
in order the more advantageously to examine them, it is
proper I should at the same time examine what sense-
perception is, and inquire whether from those ideas that
are apprehended by this mode of thinking (consciousness),
I cannot obtain a certain proof of the existence of corporeal
objects.
And, in the first place, I will recall to my mind the
things I have hitherto held as true, because perceived by the
senses, and the foundations upon which my belief in their
truth rested; I will, in the second place, examine the rea-
sons that afterwards constrained me to doubt of them;
and, finally, I will consider what of them I ought now to
believe.
{
1
P 2
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}
Firstly, then, I perceived that I had a head, hands, feet,
and other members composing that body which I con-
sidered as part, or perhaps even as the whole, of myself.
I perceived further, that that body was placed among many
others, by which it was capable of being affected in diverse
ways, both beneficial and hurtful; and what was beneficial
I remarked by a certain sensation of pleasure, and what
was hurtful by a sensation of pain. And, besides this plea-
sure and pain, I was likewise conscious of hunger, thirst,
and other appetites, as well as certain corporeal inclinations
towards joy, sadness, anger, and similar passions. And,
out of myself, besides the extension, figure, and motions or
bodies, I likewise perceived in them hardness, heat, and
the other tactile qualities, and, in addition, light, colours,
odours, tastes, and sounds, the variety of which gave me
the means of distinguishing the sky, the earth, the sea,
and generally all the other bodies, from one another. And
certainly, considering the ideas of all these qualities, which
were presented to my mind, and which alone I properly
and immediately perceived, it was not without reason that
I thought I perceived certain objects wholly different from
my thought, namely, bodies from which those ideas pro-
ceeded; for I was conscious that the ideas were presented
to me without my consent being required, so that I could
not perceive any object, however desirous I might be,
unless it were present to the organ of sense; and it was
wholly out of my power not to perceive it when it was
thus present. And because the ideas I perceived by the
senses were much more lively and clear, and even, in their
own way, more distinct than any of those I could of myself
frame by meditation, or which I found impressed on my
memory, it seemed that they could not have proceeded
from myself, and must therefore have been caused in me by
some other objects: and as of those objects I had no
knowledge beyond what the ideas themselves gave me,
nothing was so likely to occur to my mind as the supposi-
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 155
tion that the objects were similar to the ideas which they
caused. And because I recollected also that I had formerly
trusted to the senses, rather than to reason, and that the
ideas which I myself formed were not so clear as those I
perceived by sense, and that they were even for the most
part composed of parts of the latter, I was readily per-
suaded that I had no idea in my intellect which had not
formerly passed through the senses. Nor was I altogether
wrong in likewise believing that that body which, by a
special right, I called my own, pertained to me more pro-
perly and strictly than any of the others; for in truth, I
could never be separated from it as from other bodies: I
felt in it and on account of it all my appetites and affections,
and in fine I was affected in its parts by pain and the
titillation of pleasure, and not in the parts of the other
bodies that were separated from it. But when I inquired
into the reason why, from this I know not what sensation
of pain, sadness of mind should follow, and why from the
sensation of pleasure joy should arise, or why this inde-
scribable twitching of the stomach, which I call hunger,
should put me in mind of taking food, and the parchedness
of the throat of drink, and so in other cases, I was unable
to give any explanation, unless that I was so taught by
nature; for there is assuredly no affinity, at least none that
I am able to comprehend, between this irritation of the
stomach and the desire of food, any more than between the
perception of an object that causes pain and the conscious-
ness of sadness which springs from the perception. And
in the same way it seemed to me that all the other judg-
ments I had formed regarding the objects of sense, were
dictates of nature; because I remarked that those judgments
were formed in me, before I had leisure to weigh and
consider the reasons that might constrain me to form
them.
But, afterwards, a wide experience by degrees sapped
the faith I had reposed in my senses; for I frequently
شد
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MEDITATION VI.
observed that towers, which at a distance seemed round,
appeared square when more closely viewed, and that
colossal figures, raised on the summits of these towers,
looked like small statues, when viewed from the bottom of
them; and, in other instances without number, I also dis-
covered error in judgments founded on the external senses;
and not only in those founded on the external, but even
in those that rested on the internal senses; for is there
aught more internal than pain? and yet I have sometimes
been informed by parties whose arm or leg had been am-
putated, that they still occasionally seemed to feel pain in
that part of the body which they had lost,-a circumstance
that led me to think that I could not be quite certain even
that any one of my members was affected when I felt pain
in it. And to these grounds of doubt I shortly afterwards
also added two others of very wide generality: the first of
them was that I believed I never perceived anything when
awake which I could not occasionally think I also per-
ceived when asleep, and as I do not believe that the ideas
I seem to perceive in my sleep proceed from objects ex-
ternal to me, I did not any more observe any ground for
believing this of such as I seem to perceive when awake;
the second was that since I was as yet ignorant of the
author of my being, or at least supposed myself to be so,
I saw nothing to prevent my having been so constituted
by nature as that I should be deceived even in matters
that appeared to me to possess the greatest truth. And,
with respect to the grounds on which I had before been
persuaded of the existence of sensible objects, I had no
great difficulty in finding suitable answers to them; for as
nature seemed to incline me to many things from which
reason made me averse, I thought that I ought not to con-
fide much in its teachings. And although the perceptions
of the senses were not dependent on my will, I did not
think that I ought on that ground to conclude that they
proceeded from things different from myself, since perhaps.
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC.
157
there might be found in me some faculty, though hitherto
unknown to me, which produced them.
But now that I begin to know myself better, and to
discover more clearly the author of my being, I do not,
indeed, think that I ought rashly to admit all which the
senses seem to teach, nor, on the other hand, is it my con-
viction that I ought to doubt in general of their teachings.
And, firstly, because I know that all which I clearly
and distinctly conceive can be produced by God exactly as
I conceive it, it is sufficient that I am able clearly and
distinctly to conceive one thing apart from another, in
order to be certain that the one is different from the other,
seeing they may at least be made to exist separately, by
the omnipotence of God; and it matters not by what
power this separation is made, in order to be compelled
to judge them different; and, therefore, merely because I
know with certitude that I exist, and because, in the
meantime, I do not observe that aught necessarily belongs
to my nature or essence beyond my being a thinking thing,
I rightly conclude that my essence consists only in my
being a thinking thing, [or a substance whose whole
essence or nature is merely thinking]. And although I
may, or rather, as I will shortly say, although I certainly
do possess a body with which I am very closely conjoined ;
nevertheless, because, on the one hand, I have a clear
and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a think-
ing and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I
possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an
extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that I, [that
is, my mind, by which I am what I am], is entirely and
truly distinct from my body, and may exist without it.
Moreover, I find in myself diverse faculties of thinking
that have each their special mode: for example, I find I
possess the faculties of imagining and perceiving, without
which I can indeed clearly and distinctly conceive myself
as entire, but I cannot reciprocally conceive them without
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MEDITATION VI.
conceiving myself, that is to say, without an intelligent
substance in which they reside, for [in the notion we have
of them, or to use the terms of the schools] in their formal
concept, they comprise some sort of intellection; whence
I perceive that they are distinct from myself as modes are
from things. I remark likewise certain other faculties, as
the power of changing place, of assuming diverse figures,
and the like, that cannot be conceived and cannot therefore
exist, any more than the preceding, apart from a substance
in which they inhere. It is very evident, however, that
these faculties, if they really exist, must belong to some.
corporeal or extended substance, since in their clear and
distinct concept there is contained some sort of extension,
but no intellection at all. Farther, I cannot doubt but
that there is in me a certain passive faculty of perception,
that is, of receiving and taking knowledge of the ideas of
sensible things; but this would be useless to me, if there
did not also exist in me, or in some other thing, another
active faculty capable of forming and producing those ideas.
But this active faculty cannot be in me [in as far as I am
but a thinking thing], seeing that it does not presuppose
thought, and also that those ideas are frequently pro-
duced in my mind without my contributing to it in any
way, and even frequently contrary to my will. This
faculty must therefore exist in some substance different
from me, in which all the objective reality of the ideas
that are produced by this faculty, is contained formally or
eminently, as I before remarked: and this substance is
either a body, that is to say, a corporeal nature in which
is contained formally [and in effect] all that is objectively
[and by representation] in those ideas; or it is God him-
self, or some other creature, of a rank superior to body, in
which the same is contained eminently. But as God is
no deceiver, it is manifest that he does not of himself and
immediately communicate those ideas to me, nor even by
the intervention of any creature in which their objective
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 159
reality is not formally, but only eminently, contained.
For as he has given me no faculty whereby I can discover
this to be the case, but, on the contrary, a very strong
inclination to believe that those ideas arise from corporeal
objects, I do not see how he could be vindicated from the
charge of deceit, if in truth they proceeded from any other
source, or were produced by other causes than corporeal
things and accordingly it must be concluded, that cor-
poreal objects exist. Nevertheless they are not perhaps
exactly such as we perceive by the senses, for their
comprehension by the senses is, in many instances, very
obscure and confused; but it is at least necessary to admit
that all which I clearly and distinctly conceive as in them,
that is, generally speaking, all that is comprehended in the
object of speculative geometry, really exists external to me.
But with respect to other things which are either only
particular, as, for example, that the sun is of such a size
and figure, etc., or are conceived with less clearness and
distinctness, as light, sound, pain, and the like, although
they are highly dubious and uncertain, nevertheless on the
ground alone that God is no deceiver, and that conse-
quently he has permitted no falsity in my opinions which
he has not likewise given me a faculty of correcting, I
think I may with safety conclude that I possess in myself
the means of arriving at the truth. And, in the first place,
it cannot be doubted that in each of the dictates of nature
there is some truth: for by nature, considered in general,
I now understand nothing more than God himself, or the
order and disposition established by God in created things;
and by my nature in particular I understand the assemblage
of all that God has given me.
But there is nothing which that nature teaches me more
expressly [or more sensibly] than that I have a body
which is ill affected when I feel pain, and stands in
need of food and drink when I experience the sensations
of hunger and thirst, etc. And therefore I ought not
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MEDITATION VI.
to doubt but that there is some truth in these informa-
tions.
Nature likewise teaches me by these sensations of pain,
hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body
as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately
conjoined, and as it were intermixed with it, that my
mind and body compose a certain unity. For if this were
not the case, I should not feel pain when my body is hurt,
seeing I am merely a thinking thing, but should perceive
the wound by the understanding alone, just as a pilot per-
ceives by sight when any part of his vessel is damaged; and
when my body has need of food or drink, I should have a
clear knowledge of this, and not be made aware of it by
the confused sensations of hunger and thirst: for, in truth,
all these sensations of hunger, thirst, pain, etc., are nothing
more than certain confused modes of thinking, arising from
the union and apparent fusion of mind and body.
the
Besides this, nature teaches me that my own body is
surrounded by many other bodies, some of which I have
to seek after, and others to shun. And indeed, as I per-
ceive different sorts of colours, sounds, odours, tastes, heat,
hardness, etc., I safely conclude that there are in the bodies.
from which the diverse perceptions of the senses proceed,
certain varieties corresponding to them, although, perhaps,
not in reality like them; and since, among these diverse
perceptions of the senses, some are agreeable, and others
disagreeable, there can be no doubt that my body, or
rather my entire self, in as far as I am composed of body
and mind, may be variously affected, both beneficially and
hurtfully, by surrounding bodies.
But there are many other beliefs which, though seem-
ingly the teaching of nature, are not in reality so, but
which obtained a place in my mind through a habit of
judging inconsiderately of things. It may thus easily
happen that such judgments shall contain error: thus,
for example, the opinion I have that all space in which.
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 161
I
there is nothing to affect [or make an impression on] my
senses is void; that in a hot body there is something in every
respect similar to the idea of heat in my mind; that in a
white or green body there is the same whiteness or green-
ness which I perceive; that in a bitter or sweet body there
is the same taste, and so in other instances; that the stars,
towers, and all distant bodies, are of the same size and
figure as they appear to our eyes, etc.
But that I may
avoid everything like indistinctness of conception, I must
accurately define what I properly understand by being
taught by nature. For nature is here taken in a narrower
sense than when it signifies the sum of all the things which
God has given me; seeing that in that meaning the notion
comprehends much that belongs only to the mind [to which
I am not here to be understood as referring when I use the
term nature]; as, for example, the notion I have of the
truth, that what is done cannot be undone, and all the
other truths I discern by the natural light [without the
aid of the body]; and seeing that it comprehends likewise
much besides that belongs only to body, and is not here any
more contained under the name nature, as the quality of
heaviness, and the like, of which I do not speak,—the
term being reserved exclusively to designate the things
which God has given to me as a being composed of mind
and body. But nature, taking the term in the sense ex-
plained, teaches me to shun what causes in me the sensation
of pain, and to pursue what affords me the sensation of
pleasure, and other things of this sort; but I do not dis-
cover that it teaches me, in addition to this, from these
diverse perceptions of the senses, to draw any conclusions
respecting external objects without a previous [careful and
mature] consideration of them by the mind: for it is, as
appears to me, the office of the mind alone, and not of the
composite whole of mind and body, to discern the truth in
those matters. Thus, although the impression a star makes
on my eye is not larger than that from the flame of a
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MEDITATION VI.
candle, I do not, nevertheless, experience any real or posi-
tive impulse determining me to believe that the star is not
greater than the flame; the true account of the matter
being merely that I have so judged from my youth without
any rational ground. And, though on approaching the
fire I feel heat, and even pain on approaching it too closely,
I have, however, from this no ground for holding that
something resembling the heat I feel is in the fire, any
more than that there is something similar to the pain; all
that I have ground for believing is, that there is something
in it, whatever it may be, which excites in me those sen-
sations of heat or pain. So also, although there are spaces
in which I find nothing to excite and affect my senses, I
must not therefore conclude that those spaces contain in
them no body; for I see that in this, as in many other
similar matters, I have been accustomed to pervert the
order of nature, because these perceptions of the senses,
although given me by nature merely to signify to my mind
what things are beneficial and hurtful to the composite
whole of which it is a part, and being sufficiently clear
and distinct for that purpose, are nevertheless used by me
as infallible rules by which to determine immediately the
essence of the bodies that exist out of me, of which they
can of course afford me only the most obscure and con-
fused knowledge.
But I have already sufficiently considered how it hap-
pens that, notwithstanding the supreme goodness of God,
there is falsity in my judgments. A difficulty, however,
here presents itself, respecting the things which I am
taught by nature must be pursued or avoided, and also
respecting the internal sensations in which I seem to
have occasionally detected error, [and thus to be di-
rectly deceived by nature]: thus, for example, I may
be so deceived by the agreeable taste of some viand
with which poison has been mixed, as to be induced to
take the poison. In this case, however, nature may be

OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 163
excused, for it simply leads me to desire the viand for its
agreeable taste, and not the poison, which is unknown to
it; and thus we can infer nothing from this circumstance
beyond that our nature is not omniscient; at which there
is assuredly no ground for surprise, since, man being of a
finite nature, his knowledge must likewise be of limited per-
fection. But we also not unfrequently err in that to which
we are directly impelled by nature, as is the case with in-
valids who desire drink or food that would be hurtful to
them. It will here, perhaps, be alleged that the reason why
such persons are deceived is that their nature is corrupted;
but this leaves the difficulty untouched, for a sick man is not
less really the creature of God than a man who is in full
health; and therefore it is as repugnant to the goodness of
God that the nature of the former should be deceitful as it
is for that of the latter to be so. And, as a clock, com-
posed of wheels and counter weights, observes not the less
accurately all the laws of nature when it is ill made, and
points out the hours incorrectly, than when it satisfies the
desire of the maker in every respect; so likewise if the
body of man be considered as a kind of machine, so made
up and composed of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood,
and skin, that although there were in it no mind, it would
still exhibit the same motions which it at present manifests
involuntarily, and therefore without the aid of the mind,
[and simply by the dispositions of its organs], I easily
discern that it would also be as natural for such a body,
supposing it dropsical, for example, to experience the
parchedness of the throat that is usually accompanied in
the mind by the sensation of thirst, and to be disposed by
this parchedness to move its nerves and its other parts in
the way required for drinking, and thus increase its malady
and do itself harm, as it is natural for it, when it is not
indisposed to be stimulated to drink for its good by a simi-
lar cause; and although looking to the use for which a
clock was destined by its maker, I may say that it is
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MEDITATION VI.
deflected from its proper nature when it incorrectly indicates
the hours, and on the same principle, considering the ma-
chine of the human body as having been formed by God for
the sake of the motions which it usually manifests, although
I may likewise have ground for thinking that it does not
follow the order of its nature when the throat is parched
and drink does not tend to its preservation, nevertheless
I yet plainly discern that this latter acceptation of the term
nature is very different from the other; for this is nothing
more than a certain denomination, depending entirely on
my thought, and hence called extrinsic, by which I compare
a sick man and an imperfectly constructed clock with the
idea I have of a man in good health and a well made clock;
while by the other acceptation of nature is understood
something which is truly found in things, and therefore
possessed of some truth.
But certainly, although in respect of a dropsical body, it
is only by way of exterior denomination that we say its
nature is corrupted, when, without requiring drink, the
throat is parched; yet, in respect of the composite whole,
that is, of the mind in its union with the body, it is not a
pure denomination, but really an error of nature, for it to
feel thirst when drink would be hurtful to it : and, accord-
ingly, it still remains to be considered why it is that the
goodness of God does not prevent the nature of man thus
taken from being fallacious.
To commence this examination accordingly, I here
remark, in the first place, that there is a vast difference
between mind and body, in respect that body, from its
nature, is always divisible, and that mind is entirely
indivisible. For in truth, when I consider the mind, that
is, when I consider myself in so far only as I am a thinking
thing, I can distinguish in myself no parts, but I very
clearly discern that I am somewhat absolutely one and
entire ;
and although the whole mind seems to be united
to the whole body, yet, when a foot, an arm, or any other
✓
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 165
part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken
from my mind; nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving,
conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the
same mind that is exercised [all entire] in willing, in
perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But quite the opposite.
holds in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot
imagine any one of them [how small soever it may be],
which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which,
therefore, I do not know to be divisible. This would be
sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is
entirely different from the body, if I had not already been
apprised of it on other grounds.
I remark, in the next place, that the mind does not
immediately receive the impression from all the parts of
the body, but only from the brain, or perhaps even from
one small part of it, viz., that in which the common sense
(sensus communis) is said to be, which as often as it is
affected in the same way, gives rise to the same perception
in the mind, although meanwhile the other parts of the
body may be diversely disposed, as is proved by innu-
merable experiments, which it is unnecessary here to
enumerate.
I remark, besides, that the nature of body is such that
none of its parts can be moved by another part a little
removed from the other, which cannot likewise be moved
in the same way by any one of the parts that lie between
those two, although the most remote part does not act at
all. As, for example, in the cord A, B, C, D, [which is in
tension], if its last part D, be pulled, the first part A, will
not be moved in a different way than it would be were
one of the intermediate parts B or C to be pulled, and the
last part D meanwhile to remain fixed. And in the same
way, when I feel pain in the foot, the science of physics
teaches me that this sensation is experienced by means of
the nerves dispersed over the foot, which, extending like
cords from it to the brain, when they are contracted in the
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MEDITATION VI.
foot, contract at the same time the inmost parts of the brain
in which they have their origin, and excite in these parts
a certain motion appointed by nature to cause in the mind
a sensation of pain, as if existing in the foot: but as
these nerves must pass through the tibia, the leg, the loins,
the back, and neck, in order to reach the brain, it may
happen that although their extremities in the foot are not
affected, but only certain of their parts that pass through
the loins or neck, the same movements, nevertheless, are
excited in the brain by this motion as would have been
caused there by a hurt received in the foot, and hence the
mind will necessarily feel pain in the foot, just as if it had
been hurt; and the same is true of all the other perceptions
of our senses.
I remark, finally, that as each of the movements that
are made in the part of the brain by which the mind is
immediately affected, impresses it with but a single sensa-
tion, the most likely supposition in the circumstances is,
that this movement causes the mind to experience, among
all the sensations which it is capable of impressing upon
it, that one which is the best fitted, and generally the most
useful for the preservation of the human body when it is
in full health. But experience shows us that all the per-
ceptions which nature has given us are of such a kind as
I have mentioned; and accordingly, there is nothing found
in them that does not manifest the power and goodness of
God. Thus, for example, when the nerves of the foot are
violently or more than usually shaken, the motion passing
through the medulla of the spine to the innermost parts of
the brain affords a sign to the mind on which it expe-
riences a sensation, viz., of pain, as if it were in the foot,
by which the mind is admonished and excited to do its
utmost to remove the cause of it as dangerous and hurtful
to the foot. It is true that God could have so constituted
the nature of man as that the same motion in the brain
would have informed the mind of something altogether
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, ETC. 167
different: the motion might, for example, have been the
occasion on which the mind became conscious of itself, in
so far as it is in the brain, or in so far as it is in some
place intermediate between the foot and the brain, or,
finally, the occasion on which it perceived some other
object quite different, whatever that might be; but nothing
of all this would have so well contributed to the preserva-
tion of the body as that which the mind actually feels. In
the same way, when we stand in need of drink, there
arises from this want a certain parchedness in the throat
that moves its nerves, and by means of them the internal
parts of the brain; and this movement affects the mind
with the sensation of thirst, because there is nothing on
that occasion which is more useful for us than to be made
aware that we have need of drink for the preservation of
our health; and so in other instances.
Whence it is quite manifest that, notwithstanding the
sovereign goodness of God, the nature of man, in so far as
it is composed of mind and body, cannot but be sometimes
fallacious. For, if there is any cause which excites, not
in the foot, but in some one of the parts of the nerves that
stretch from the foot to the brain, or even in the brain
itself, the same movement that is ordinarily created when
the foot is ill affected, pain will be felt, as it were, in the
foot, and the sense will thus be naturally deceived; for as
the same movement in the brain can but impress the mind
with the same sensation, and as this sensation is much
more frequently excited by a cause which hurts the foot
than by one acting in a different quarter, it is reasonable
that it should lead the mind to feel pain in the foot rather
than in any other part of the body. And if it sometimes
happens that the parchedness of the throat does not arise,
as is usual, from drink being necessary for the health of
the body, but from quite the opposite cause, as is the case
with the dropsical, yet it is much better that it should
be deceitful in that instance, than if, on the contrary, it
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MEDITATION VI.
were continually fallacious when the body is well-disposed;
and the same holds true in other cases.
And certainly this consideration is of great service, not
only in enabling me to recognise the errors to which my
nature is liable, but likewise in rendering it more easy to
avoid or correct them: for, knowing that all my senses
more usually indicate to me what is true than what is
false, in matters relating to the advantage of the body, and
being able almost always to make use of more than a single
sense in examining the same object, and besides this, being
able to use my memory in connecting present with past
knowledge, and my understanding which has already dis-
covered all the causes of my errors, I ought no longer to
fear that falsity may be met with in what is daily presented
to me by the senses. And I ought to reject all the doubts
of those bygone days, as hyperbolical and ridiculous,
especially the general uncertainty respecting sleep, which
I could not distinguish from the waking state: for I now
find a very marked difference between the two states, in
respect that our memory can never connect our dreams
with each other and with the course of life, in the way it
is in the habit of doing with events that occur when we
are awake. And, in truth, if some one, when I am awake,
appeared to me all of a sudden and as suddenly disappeared,
as do the images I see in sleep, so that I could not observe
either whence he came or whither he went, I should not
without reason esteem it either a spectre or phantom formed
in my brain, rather than a real man. But when I perceive
objects with regard to which I can distinctly determine both
the place whence they come, and that in which they are, and
the time at which they appear to me, and when, without
interruption, I can connect the perception I have of them
with the whole of the other parts of my life, I am perfectly
sure that what I thus perceive occurs while I am awake
and not during sleep. And I ought not in the least degree
to doubt of the truth of those presentations, if, after having
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS.
169
called together all my senses, my memory, and my under-
standing for the purpose of examining them, no deliverance
is given by any one of these faculties which is repugnant
to that of any other: for since God is no deceiver, it ne-
cessarily follows that I am not herein deceived. But
because the necessities of action frequently oblige us to
come to a determination before we have had leisure for so
careful an examination, it must be confessed that the life
of man is frequently obnoxious to error with respect to
individual objects; and we must, in conclusion, acknow-
ledge the weakness of our nature.
SELECTIONS
FROM
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY
OF
DESCARTES
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN AND COLLATED
WITH THE FRENCH
LETTER OF THE AUTHOR
TO THE
FRENCH TRANSLATOR OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY,
SERVING FOR A PREFACE.
SIR,―The version of my Principles which you have been
at pains to make, is so elegant and finished as to lead me
to expect that the work will be more generally read in
French than in Latin, and better understood. The only
apprehension I entertain is lest the title should deter some
who have not been brought up to letters, or with whom
philosophy is in bad repute, because the kind they were
taught has proved unsatisfactory; and this makes me think
that it will be useful to add a preface to it for the purpose
of showing what the matter of the work is, what end I had
in view in writing it, and what utility may be derived from
it. But although it might be my part to write a preface
of this nature, seeing I ought to know those particulars.
better than any other person, I cannot nevertheless pre-
vail upon myself to do anything more than merely to give
a summary of the chief points that fall, as I think, to
be discussed in it: and I leave it to your discretion to
present to the public such part of them as you shall judge
proper.
I should have desired, in the first place, to explain in it
what philosophy is, by commencing with the most common
matters, as, for example, that the word philosophy signifies
the study of wisdom, and that by wisdom is to be under-
174
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
stood not merely prudence in the management of affairs,
but a perfect knowledge of all that man can know/as
well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation
of his health and the discovery of all the arts, and that
knowledge to subserve these ends must necessarily be
deduced from first causes; so that in order to study the
acquisition of it (which is properly called philosophizing),
we must commence with the investigation of those first
causes which are called Principles. Now these principles
must possess two conditions: in the first place, they must
be so clear and evident that the human mind, when it
attentively considers them, cannot doubt of their truth;
in the second place, the knowledge of other things must
be so dependent on them as that though the principles
themselves may indeed be known apart from what depends
on them, the latter cannot nevertheless be known apart
from the former. It will accordingly be necessary there-
after to endeavour so to deduce from those principles the
knowledge of the things that depend on them, as that
there may be nothing in the whole series of deductions
which is not perfectly manifest. God is in truth the only
being who is absolutely wise, that is, who possesses a
perfect knowledge of all things; but we may say that men
are more or less wise as their knowledge of the most
important truths is greater or less. And I am confident
that there is nothing, in what I have now said, in which
all the learned do not concur.
I should, in the next place, have proposed to consider
the utility of philosophy, and at the same time have
shown that, since it embraces all that the human mind
can know, we ought to believe that it is by it we are.
distinguished from savages and barbarians, and that the
civilisation and culture of a nation is regulated by the
degree in which true philosophy flourishes in it, and, accord-
ingly, that to contain true philosophers is the highest
privilege a state can enjoy. Besides this, I should have
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
175
shown that, as regards individuals, it is not only useful
for each man to have intercourse with those who apply
themselves to this study, but that it is incomparably better
he should himself direct his attention to it; just as it is
doubtless to be preferred that a man should make use of
his own eyes to direct his steps, and enjoy by means of
the same the beauties of colour and light, than that he
should blindly follow the guidance of another; though
the latter course is certainly better than to have the eyes
closed with no guide except one's self. But to live with-
out philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the
eyes closed without attempting to open them; and the
pleasure of seeing all that sight discloses is not to be
compared with the satisfaction afforded by the discoveries
of philosophy. And, finally, this study is more im-
peratively requisite for the regulation of our manners,
and for conducting us through life, than is the use of our
eyes for directing our steps. The brutes, which have
only their bodies to conserve, are continually occupied
in seeking sources of nourishment; but men, of whom
the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after
wisdom their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourish-
ment of the mind; and I feel assured, moreover, that there
are very many who would not fail in the search, if they
would but hope for success in it, and knew the degree of
their capabilities for it. There is no mind, how ignoble
soever it be, which remains so firmly bound up in the
objects of the senses, as not sometime or other to turn
itself away from them in the aspiration after some higher
good, although not knowing frequently wherein that good
consists. The greatest favourites of fortune-those who
have health, honours, and riches in abundance-are not
more exempt from aspirations of this nature than others;
nay, I am persuaded that these are the persons who sigh
the most deeply after another good greater and more
perfect still than any they already possess. But the supreme
176
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
good, considered by natural reason without the light of
faith, is nothing more than the knowledge of truth through
its first causes, in other words, the wisdom of which
philosophy is the study. And, as all these particulars are
indisputably true, all that is required to gain assent to their
truth is that they be well stated.
But as one is restrained from assenting to these doctrines
by experience, which shows that they who make pretensions
to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than
others who never applied themselves to the study, I should
have here shortly explained wherein consists all the science
we now possess, and what are the degrees of wisdom at
which we have arrived. The first degree contains only
notions so clear of themselves that they can be acquired
without meditation; the second comprehends all that the
experience of the senses dictates; the third, that which
the conversation of other men teaches us; to which may
be added as the fourth, the reading, not of all books, but
especially of such as have been written by persons capable
of conveying proper instruction, for it is a species of con-
versation we hold with their authors. And it seems to me
that all the wisdom we in ordinary possess is acquired
only in these four ways; for I do not class divine revela-
tion among them, because it does not conduct us by degrees,
but elevates us at once to an infallible faith.
There have been, indeed, in all ages great minds who
endeavoured to find a fifth road to wisdom, incomparably
more sure and elevated than the other four. The path
they essayed was the search of first causes and true prin-
ciples, from which might be deduced the reasons of all that
can be known by man; and it is to them the appellation
of philosophers has been more especially accorded. I am
not aware that there is any one of them up to the present
who has succeeded in this enterprise. The first and chief
whose writings we possess, are Plato and Aristotle, between
whom there was no difference, except that the former,
•
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
177
following in the footsteps of his master, Socrates, ingenu-
ously confessed that he had never yet been able to find
anything certain, and that he was contented to write what
seemed to him probable, imagining, for this end, certain
principles by which he endeavoured to account for the other
things. Aristotle, on the other hand, characterised by less
candour, although for twenty years the disciple of Plato,
and with no principles beyond those of his master, com-
pletely reversed his mode of putting them, and proposed
as true and certain what it is probable he himself never
esteemed as such. But these two men had acquired much
judgment and wisdom by the four preceding means,
qualities which raised their authority very high, so much
so that those who succeeded them were willing rather to
acquiesce in their opinions, than to seek better for them-
selves. The chief question among their disciples, however,
was as to whether we ought to doubt of all things or hold
some as certain,—a dispute which led them on both sides
into extravagant errors; for a part of those who were
for doubt, extended it even to the actions of life, to the
neglect of the most ordinary rules required for its conduct;
those, on the other hand, who maintained the doctrine of
certainty, supposing that it must depend upon the senses,
trusted entirely to them. To such an extent was this
carried by Epicurus, that it is said he ventured to
affirm, contrary to all the reasonings of the astronomers,
that the sun is no larger than it appears.
It is a fault we may remark in most disputes, that, as
truth is the mean between the two opinions that are
upheld, each disputant departs from it in proportion to the
degree in which he possesses the spirit of contradiction.
But the error of those who leant too much to the side of
doubt, was not followed for any length of time, and that
of the opposite party has been to some extent corrected by
the doctrine that the senses are deceitful in many instances.
Nevertheless, I do not know that this error was wholly
Q 2
178
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
removed by showing that certitude is not in the senses,
but in the understanding alone when it has clear percep-
tions; and that while we only possess the knowledge
which is acquired in the first four grades of wisdom, we
ought not to doubt of the things that appear to be true
in what regards the conduct of life, nor esteem them as so
certain that we cannot change our opinions regarding
them, even though constrained by the evidence of reason.
From ignorance of this truth, or, if there was any one
to whom it was known, from neglect of it, the majority
of those who in these later ages aspired to be philosophers,
blindly followed Aristotle, so that they frequently cor-
rupted the sense of his writings, and attributed to him
various opinions which he would not recognise as his own
were he now to return to the world; and those who did
not follow him, among whom are to be found many of the
greatest minds, did yet not escape being imbued with his
opinions in their youth, as these form the staple of instruc-
tion in the schools; and thus their minds were so pre-
occupied that they could not rise to the knowledge of true
principles. And though I hold all the philosophers in esteem,
and am unwilling to incur odium by my censure, I can
adduce a proof of my assertion, which I do not think any of
them will gainsay, which is, that they all laid down as a
principle what they did not perfectly know. For example,
I know none of them who did not suppose that there was
gravity in terrestrial bodies; but although experience
shows us very clearly that bodies we call heavy descend
towards the centre of the earth, we do not, therefore, know
the nature of gravity, that is, the cause or principle in
virtue of which bodies descend, and we must derive our
knowledge of it from some other source. The same may
be said of a vacuum and atoms, of heat and cold, of dryness
and humidity, and of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and the
other things of this sort which some have adopted as their
principles. But no conclusion deduced from a principle
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
179
which is not clear can be evident, even although the
deduction be formally valid; and hence it follows that no
reasonings based on such principles could lead them to the
certain knowledge of any one thing, nor consequently ad-
vance them one step in the search after wisdom. And if
they did discover any truth, this was due to one or other
of the four means above mentioned. Notwithstanding this, I
am in no degree desirous to lessen the honour which each
of them can justly claim; I am only constrained to say, for
the consolation of those who have not given their attention
to study, that just as in travelling, when we turn our back
upon the place to which we were going, we recede the
farther from it in proportion as we proceed in the new
direction for a greater length of time and with greater
speed, so that, though we may be afterwards brought back
to the right way, we cannot nevertheless arrive at the des-
tined place as soon as if we had not moved backwards at
all; so in philosophy, when we make use of false princi-
ples, we depart the farther from the knowledge of truth
and wisdom exactly in proportion to the care with which
we cultivate them, and apply ourselves to the deduction of
diverse consequences from them, thinking that we are
philosophizing well, while we are only departing the far-
ther from the truth; from which it must be inferred that
they who have learned the least of all that has been
hitherto distinguished by the name of philosophy are the
most fitted for the apprehension of truth.
After making those matters clear, I should, in the next
place, have desired to set forth the grounds for holding that
the true principles by which we may reach that highest
degree of wisdom wherein consists the sovereign good of
human life, are those I have proposed in this work; and two
considerations alone are sufficient to establish this—the first
of which is, that these principles are very clear, and the
second, that we can deduce all other truths from them ;
for it is only these two conditions that are required in
180
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
true principles. But I easily prove that they are very clear;
firstly, by a reference to the manner in which I found
them, namely, by rejecting all propositions that were in
the least doubtful, for it is certain that such as could not be
rejected by this test when they were attentively considered,
are the most evident and clear which the human mind can
know. Thus by considering that he who strives to doubt
of all is unable nevertheless to doubt that he is while he
doubts, and that what reasons thus, in not being able to
doubt of itself and doubting nevertheless of everything else,
is not that which we call our body, but what we name our
mind or thought, I have taken the existence of this thought
for the first principle, from which I very clearly deduced
the following truths, namely, that there is a God who is
the author of all that is in the world, and who, being the
source of all truth, cannot have created our understanding
of such a nature as to be deceived in the judgments it
forms of the things of which it possesses a very clear and
distinct perception. Those are all the principles of which
I avail myself touching immaterial or metaphysical objects,
from which I most clearly deduce these other prin-
ciples of physical or corporeal things, namely, that there
are bodies extended in length, breadth, and depth, which
are of diverse figures and are moved in a variety of ways.
Such are in sum the principles from which I deduce all
other truths. The second circumstance that proves the
clearness of these principles is, that they have been known
in all ages, and even received as true and indubitable by
all men, with the exception only of the existence of God,
which has been doubted by some, because they attributed
too much to the perceptions of the senses, and God can
neither be seen nor touched.
But, though all the truths which I class among my
principles were known at all times, and by all men, never-
theless, there has been no one up to the present, who, so
far as I know, has adopted them as principles of philoso-
1
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
181
:
phy in other words, as such that we can deduce from
them the knowledge of whatever else is in the world. It
accordingly now remains for me to prove that they are
such; and it appears to me that I cannot better establish
this than by the test of experience: in other words, by
inviting readers to peruse the following work. For, though
I have not treated in it of all matters-that being impos-
sible-I think I have so explained all of which I had
occasion to treat, that they who read it attentively will
have ground for the persuasion that it is unnecessary
to seek for any other principles than those I have given,
in order to arrive at the most exalted knowledge of which
the mind of man is capable; especially if, after the perusal
of my writings, they take the trouble to consider how
many diverse questions are therein discussed and explained,
and, referring to the writings of others, they see how little
probability there is in the reasons that are adduced in ex-
planation of the same questions by principles different from
mine. And that they may the more easily undertake this,
I might have said that those imbued with my doctrines
have much less difficulty in comprehending the writings of
others, and estimating their true value, than those who
have not been so imbued; and this is precisely the oppo-
site of what I before said of such as commenced with the
ancient philosophy, namely, that the more they have studied
it the less fit are they for rightly apprehending the truth.
I should also have added a word of advice regarding the
manner of reading this work, which is, that I should wish
the reader at first to go over the whole of it, as he would
a romance, without greatly straining his attention, or
tarrying at the difficulties he may perhaps meet with in
it, with the view simply of knowing in general the matters.
of which I treat; and that afterwards, if they seem to him to
merit a more careful examination, and he feel a desire to
know their causes, he may read it a second time, in order
to observe the connection of my reasonings; but that he
182
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
must not then give it up in despair, although he may not
everywhere sufficiently discover the connection of the
proof, or understand all the reasonings-it being only
necessary to mark with a pen the places where the
difficulties occur, and continue to read without inter-
ruption to the end; then, if he does not grudge to take up
the book a third time, I am confident he will find in a
fresh perusal the solution of most of the difficulties he will
have marked before; and that, if any still remain, their
solution will in the end be found in another reading.
And
I have observed, on examining the natural constitutions
of different minds, that there are hardly any so dull or
slow of understanding as to be incapable of apprehending
good opinions, or even of acquiring all the highest sciences,
if they be but conducted along the right road.
this can also be proved by reason; for, as the principles
are clear, and as nothing ought to be deduced from them,
unless most manifest inferences, no one is so devoid of
intelligence as to be unable to comprehend the conclusions
that flow from them. But, besides the entanglement of
prejudices, from which no one is entirely exempt, although
it is they who have been the most ardent students of the
false sciences that receive the greatest detriment from
them, it happens very generally that people of ordinary
capacity neglect to study from a conviction that they
want ability, and that others, who are more ardent, press
on too rapidly: whence it comes to pass that they frequently
admit principles far from evident, and draw doubtful infer-
ences from them. For this reason, I should wish to assure
those who are too distrustful of their own ability that
there is nothing in my writings which they may not
entirely understand, if they only take the trouble to exa-
mine them; and I should wish, at the same time, to warn
those of an opposite tendency that even the most superior
minds will have need of much time and attention to remark
all I designed to embrace therein.
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
183
•
After this, that I might lead men to understand the real
design I had in publishing them, I should have wished here
to explain the order which it seems to me one ought to fol-
low with the view of instructing himself. In the first place,
a man who has merely the vulgar and imperfect knowledge
which can be acquired by the four means above explained,
ought, before all else, to endeavour to form for himself a
code of morals sufficient to regulate the actions of his life,
as well for the reason that this does not admit of delay as
because it ought to be our first care to live well. In the
next place, he ought to study Logic, not that of the schools,
for it is only, properly speaking, a dialectic which teaches
the mode of expounding to others what we already know,
or even of speaking much, without judgment, of what we
do not know, by which means it corrupts rather than in-
creases good sense—but the logic which teaches the right
conduct of the reason with the view of discovering the
truths of which we are ignorant; and, because it greatly
depends on usage, it is desirable he should exercise him-
self for a length of time in practising its rules on easy and
simple questions, as those of the mathematics. Then, when
he has acquired some skill in discovering the truth in these
questions, he should commence to apply himself in earnest
to true philosophy, of which the first part is Metaphysics,
containing the principles of knowledge, among which is
the explication of the principal attributes of God, of the
immateriality of the soul, and of all the clear and simple
notions that are in us; the second is Physics, in which,
after finding the true principles of material things, we
examine, in general, how the whole universe has been
framed; in the next place, we consider, in particular, the
nature of the earth, and of all the bodies that are most
generally found upon it, as air, water, fire, the loadstone
and other minerals. In the next place, it is necessary also
to examine singly the nature of plants, of animals, and
above all of man, in order that we may thereafter be able
184
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
to discover the other sciences that are useful to us. Thus,
all Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the
root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the
branches that grow out of this trunk, which are reduced
to three principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and
Ethics. By the science of Morals, I understand the highest
and most perfect which, presupposing an entire knowledge
of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom.
But as it is not from the roots or the trunks of trees
that we gather the fruit, but only from the extremities of
their branches, so the principal utility of philosophy de-
pends on the separate uses of its parts, which we can only
learn last of all. But, though I am ignorant of almost all
these, the zeal I have always felt in endeavouring to be of
service to the public, was the reason why I published,
some ten or twelve years ago, certain Essays on the doc-
trines I thought I had acquired. The first part of these
Essays was a "Discourse on the Method of rightly conduct-
ing the Reason, and seeking Truth in the Sciences," in
which I gave a summary of the principal rules of logic,
and also of an imperfect ethic, which a person may follow
provisionally so long as he does not know any better.
The other parts were three treatises: the first of Dioptrics,
the second of Meteors, and the third of Geometry. In the
Dioptrics, I designed to show that we might proceed far
enough in philosophy as to arrive, by its means, at the know-
ledge of the arts that are useful to life, because the inven-
tion of the telescope, of which I there gave an explanation,
is one of the most difficult that has ever been made. In
the treatise of Meteors, I desired to exhibit the difference
that subsists between the philosophy I cultivate and that
taught in the schools, in which the same matters are usually
discussed. In fine, in the Geometry, I professed to demon-
strate that I had discovered many things that were before
unknown, and thus afford ground for believing that we
may still discover many others, with the view of thus
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
185
stimulating all to the investigation of truth. Since that
period, anticipating the difficulty which many would ex-
perience in apprehending the foundations of the Meta-
physics, I endeavoured to explain the chief points of them
in a book of Meditations, which is not in itself large, but
the size of which has been increased, and the matter greatly
illustrated, by the Objections which several very learned
persons sent to me on occasion of it, and by the Replies
which I made to them. At length, after it appeared to me
that those preceding treatises had sufficiently prepared
the minds of my readers for the Principles of Philosophy,
I also published it; and I have divided this work into four
parts, the first of which contains the principles of human
knowledge, and which may be called the First Philosophy,
or Metaphysics. That this part, accordingly, may be pro-
perly understood, it will be necessary to read beforehand
the book of Meditations I wrote on the same subject. The
other three parts contain all that is most general in Physics,
namely, the explication of the first laws or principles of
nature, and the way in which the heavens, the fixed stars,
the planets, comets, and generally the whole universe,
were composed; in the next place, the explication, in parti-
cular, of the nature of this earth, the air, water, fire, the
magnet, which are the bodies we most commonly find
everywhere around it, and of all the qualities we observe
in these bodies, as light, heat, gravity, and the like.
this way, it seems to me, I have commenced the orderly
explanation of the whole of philosophy, without omitting
any of the matters that ought to precede the last which I
discussed.
In
But to bring this undertaking to its conclusion, I ought
hereafter to explain, in the same manner, the nature of the
other more particular bodies that are on the earth, namely,
minerals, plants, animals, and especially man; finally,
to treat thereafter with accuracy of Medicine, Ethics, and
Mechanics. I should require to do this in order to give to
186
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
the world a complete body of philosophy; and I do not yet
feel myself so old,—I do not so much distrust my strength,
nor do I find myself so far removed from the knowledge
of what remains, as that I should not dare to undertake to
complete this design, provided I were in a position to make
all the experiments which I should require for the basis
and verification of my reasonings. But seeing that would
demand a great expenditure, to which the resources of a
private individual like myself would not be adequate,
unless aided by the public, and as I have no ground to
expect this aid, I believe that I ought for the future to
content myself with studying for my own instruction, and
posterity will excuse me if I fail hereafter to labour for
them.
Meanwhile, that it may be seen wherein I think I have
already promoted the general good, I will here mention the.
fruits that may be gathered from my Principles. The first is
the satisfaction which the mind will experience on finding
in the work many truths before unknown; for although
frequently truth does not so greatly affect our imagination
as falsity and fiction, because it seems less wonderful and
is more simple, yet the gratification it affords is always
more durable and solid. The second fruit is, that in
studying these principles we will become accustomed by
degrees to judge better of all the things we come in con-
tact with, and thus be made wiser, in which respect the
effect will be quite the opposite of the common philosophy,
for we may easily remark in those we call pedants that it
renders them less capable of rightly exercising their reason
than they would have been if they had never known it.
The third is, that the truths which they contain, being
highly clear and certain, will take away all ground of dis-
pute, and thus dispose men's minds to gentleness and
concord; whereas the contrary is the effect of the contro-
versies of the schools, which, as they insensibly render
those who are exercised in them more wrangling and
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
187
opinionative, are perhaps the prime cause of the heresies
and dissensions that now harass the world. The last and
chief fruit of these Principles is, that one will be able, by
cultivating them, to discover many truths I myself have
not unfolded, and thus passing by degrees from one to
another, to acquire in course of time a perfect knowledge
of the whole of philosophy, and to rise to the highest
degree of wisdom. For just as all the arts, though in their
beginnings they are rude and imperfect, are yet gradually
perfected by practice, from their containing at first some-
thing true, and whose effect experience evinces; so in
philosophy, when we have true principles, we cannot fail
by following them to meet sometimes with other truths; and
we could not better prove the falsity of those of Aristotle,
than by saying that men made no progress in knowledge
by their means during the many ages they prosecuted them.
I well know that there are some men so precipitate and
accustomed to use so little circumspection in what they do,
that, even with the most solid foundations, they could not
rear a firm superstructure; and as it is usually those who
are the readiest to make books, they would in a short time
mar all that I have done, and introduce uncertainty and
doubt into my manner of philosophizing, from which I
have carefully endeavoured to banish them, if people were
to receive their writings as mine, or as representing my
opinions. I had, not long ago, some experience of this in
one of those who were believed desirous of following me the
most closely,* and one too of whom I had somewhere said
that I had such confidence in his genius as to believe that
he adhered to no opinions which I should not be ready to
avow as mine; for he last year published a book entitled
"Fundamenta Physicæ," in which, although he seems to
have written nothing on the subject of Physics and Medi-
cine which he did not take from my writings, as well from
*Regius; see La Vie de M. Descartes, réduite en abregé (Baillet)
Liv. vii., chap. vii.-T.
188
PREFACE TO THE PRINCIPLES.
those I have published as from another still imperfect on
the nature of animals, which fell into his hands; never-
theless, because he has copied them badly, and changed
the order, and denied certain metaphysical truths upon
which all Physics ought to be based, I am obliged wholly
to disavow his work, and here to request readers not to
attribute to me any opinion unless they find it expressly
stated in my own writings, and to receive no opinion as
true, whether in my writings or elsewhere, unless they see
that it is very clearly deduced from true principles.
I well know, likewise, that many ages may elapse ere
all the truths deducible from these principles are evolved
out of them, as well because the greater number of such
as remain to be discovered depend on certain particular
experiments that never occur by chance, but which require
to be investigated with care and expense by men of the
highest intelligence, as because it will hardly happen that
the same persons who have the sagacity to make a right use
of them, will possess also the means of making them, and
also because the majority of the best minds have formed
so low an estimate of philosophy in general, from the im-
perfections they have remarked in the kind in vogue up to
the present time, that they cannot apply themselves to the
search after truth.
But, in conclusion, if the difference discernible between
the principles in question and those of every other system,
and the great array of truths deducible from them, lead
them to discern the importance of continuing the search
after these truths, and to observe the degree of wisdom, the
perfection and felicity of life, to which they are fitted to
conduct us, I venture to believe that there will not be
found one who is not ready to labour hard in so profitable
a study, or at least to favour and aid with all his might
those who shall devote themselves to it with success.
The height of my wishes is, that posterity may some-
time behold the happy issue of it, etc.
DEDICATION.
189
TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCESS,
ELISABETH,
ELDEST DAUGHTER OF FREDERICK, KING OF BOHEMIA,
COUNT PALATINE, AND ELECTOR OF THE
SACRED ROMAN EMPIRE.
MADAM,-The greatest advantage I have derived from the
writings which I have already published, has arisen from
my having, through means of them, become known to
your Highness, and thus been privileged to hold occasional
converse with one in whom so many rare and estimable
qualities are united, as to lead me to believe I should do
service to the public by proposing them as an example to
posterity. It would ill become me to flatter, or to give
expression to anything of which I had no certain know-
ledge, especially in the first pages of a work in which I
aim at laying down the principles of truth. And the
generous modesty that is conspicuous in all your actions,
assures me that the frank and simple judgment of a man
who only writes what he believes will be more agreeable
to you than the ornate laudations of those who have studied
the art of compliment. For this reason, I will give in-
sertion to nothing in this letter for which I have not the
certainty both of experience and reason; and in the ex-
ordium, as in the rest of the work, I will write only as
becomes a philosopher. There is a vast difference between
real and apparent virtues; and there is also a great dis-
crepancy between those real virtues that proceed from an
2
190
DEDICATION.
accurate knowledge of the truth, and such as are accom-
panied with ignorance or error. The virtues I call appa-
rent are only, properly speaking, vices, which, as they are
less frequent than the vices that are opposed to them, and
are farther removed from them than the intermediate
virtues, are usually held in higher esteem than those
virtues. Thus, because those who fear dangers too much
are more numerous than they who fear them too little,
temerity is frequently opposed to the vice of timidity, and
taken for a virtue, and is commonly more highly esteemed
than true fortitude. Thus, also, the prodigal are in ordi-
nary more praised than the liberal; and none more easily
acquire a great reputation for piety than the superstitious
and hypocritical. With regard to true virtues, these do
not all proceed from true knowledge, for there are some
that likewise spring from defect or error: thus, simplicity
is frequently the source of goodness, fear of devotion, and
despair of courage. The virtues that are thus accompanied
with some imperfections differ from each other, and have
received diverse appellations. But those pure and perfect
virtues that arise from the knowledge of good alone, are
all of the same nature, and may be comprised under the
single term wisdom. For, whoever owns the firm and
constant resolution of always using his reason as well as
lies in his power, and in all his actions of doing what he
judges to be best, is truly wise, as far as his nature per-
mits; and by this alone he is just, courageous, temperate,
and possesses all the other virtues, but so well balanced
as that none of them appears more prominent than an-
other: and for this reason, although they are much more
perfect than the virtues that blaze forth through the mix-
ture of some defect, yet, because the crowd thus observes
them less, they are not usually extolled so highly. Be-
sides, of the two things that are requisite for the wisdom
thus described, namely, the perception of the understand-
ing and the disposition of the will, it is only that which
DEDICATION.
191
lies in the will which all men can possess equally, inas-
much as the understanding of some is inferior to that of
others. But although those who have only an inferior un-
derstanding may be as perfectly wise as their nature per-
mits, and may render themselves highly acceptable to God
by their virtue, provided they preserve always a firm and
constant resolution to do all that they shall judge to be
right, and to omit nothing that may lead them to the know-
ledge of the duties of which they are ignorant; neverthe-
less, those who preserve a constant resolution of performing
the right, and are especially careful in instructing them-
selves, and who possess also a highly perspicacious intellect,
arrive doubtless at a higher degree of wisdom than others;
and I see that these three particulars are found in great
perfection in your Highness. For, in the first place, your
desire of self-instruction is manifest, from the circumstance
that neither the amusements of the court, nor the accus-
tomed mode of educating ladies, which ordinarily con-
demns them to ignorance, have been sufficient to prevent
you from studying with much care all that is best in
the arts and sciences; and the incomparable perspicacity
of your intellect is evinced by this, that you penetrated the
secrets of the sciences and acquired an accurate knowledge
of them in a very short period. But of the vigour of your
intellect I have a still stronger proof, and one peculiar to
myself, in that I have never yet met any one who under-
stood so generally and so well as yourself all that is con-
tained in my writings. For there are several, even among
men of the highest intellect and learning, who find them
very obscure. And I remark, in almost all those who
are versant in Metaphysics, that they are wholly disinclined.
from Geometry; and, on the other hand, that the cul-
tivators of Geometry have no ability for the investigations.
of the First Philosophy: insomuch that I can say with
truth I know but one mind, and that is your own, to
which both studies are alike congenial, and which I
192
DEDICATION.
therefore, with propriety, designate incomparable. But
what most of all enhances my admiration is, that so ac-
curate and varied an acquaintance with the whole circle
of the sciences is not found in some aged doctor who has
employed many years in contemplation, but in a Princess
still young, and whose countenance and years would more
fitly represent one of the Graces than a Muse or the sage
Minerva. In conclusion, I not only remark in your High-
ness all that is requisite on the part of the mind to perfect
and sublime wisdom, but also all that can be required on
the part of the will or the manners, in which benignity
and gentleness are so conjoined with majesty that, though
fortune has attacked you with continued injustice, it has
failed either to irritate or crush you. And this constrains
me to such veneration that I not only think this work due
to you, since it treats of philosophy which is the study of
wisdom, but likewise feel not more zeal for my reputation
as a philosopher than pleasure in subscribing myself,-
Of your most Serene Highness,
The most devoted servant,
DESCARTES.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
PART I.
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.
I. THAT in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the
course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
As we were at one time children, and as we formed
various judgments regarding the objects presented to our
senses, when as yet we had not the entire use of our rea-
son, numerous prejudices stand in the way of our arriving
at the knowledge of truth; and of these it seems impossible
for us to rid ourselves, unless we undertake, once in our
lifetime, to doubt of all those things in which we may
discover even the smallest suspicion of uncertainty.
II. That we ought also to consider as false all that is
doubtful.
Moreover, it will be useful likewise to esteem as false
the things of which we shall be able to doubt, that we may
with greater clearness discover what possesses most cer-
tainty and is the easiest to know.
III. That we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt
in the conduct of life.
In the meantime, it is to be observed that we are to avail
ourselves of this general doubt only while engaged in the
contemplation of truth. For, as far as concerns the con-
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194
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY,
duct of life, we are very frequently obliged to follow
opinions merely probable, or even sometimes, though of two
courses of action we may not perceive more probability in
the one than in the other, to choose one or other, seeing
the opportunity of acting would not unfrequently pass away
before we could free ourselves from our doubts.
IV. Why we may doubt of sensible things.
Accordingly, since we now only design to apply ourselves
to the investigation of truth, we will doubt, first, whether
of all the things that have ever fallen under our senses, or
which we have ever imagined, any one really exist; in the
first place, because we know by experience that the senses
sometimes err, and it would be imprudent to trust too
much to what has even once deceived us; secondly,
because in dreams we perpetually seem to perceive or
imagine innumerable objects which have no existence.
And to one who has thus resolved upon a general doubt,
there appear no marks by which he can with certainty
distinguish sleep from the waking state.
V. Why we may also doubt of mathematical demon-
strations.
We will also doubt of the other things we have before
held as most certain, even of the demonstrations of mathe-
matics, and of their principles which we have hitherto
deemed self-evident; in the first place, because we have
sometimes seen men fall into error in such matters, and
admit as absolutely certain and self evident what to us
appeared false, but chiefly because we have learnt that
God who created us is all-powerful; for we do not yet
know whether perhaps it was his will to create us so that
we are always deceived, even in the things we think we
know best: since this does not appear more impossible
than our being occasionally deceived, which, however, as
observation teaches us, is the case.
And if we suppose
that an all-powerful God is not the author of our being,
and that we exist of ourselves or by some other means,
PART I.
195
still, the less powerful we suppose our author to be, the
greater reason will we have for believing that we are not
so perfect as that we may not be continually deceived.
VI. That we possess a free-will, by which we can with-
hold our assent from what is doubtful, and thus avoid error.
But meanwhile, whoever in the end may be the author
of our being, and however powerful and deceitful he may
be, we are nevertheless conscious of a freedom, by which
we can refrain from admitting to a place in our belief
aught that is not manifestly certain and undoubted, and
thus guard against ever being deceived.
VII. That we cannot doubt of our existence while we
doubt, and that this is the first knowledge we acquire when
we philosophize in order.
While we thus reject all of which we can entertain the
smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is false, we easily
indeed suppose that there is neither God, nor sky, nor
bodies, and that we ourselves even have neither hands
nor feet, nor, finally, a body; but we cannot in the same
way suppose that we are not while we doubt of the truth
of these things; for there is a repugnance in conceiving
that what thinks does not exist at the very time when it
thinks. Accordingly, the knowledge, I think, therefore
I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who
philosophizes orderly.
VIII. That we hence discover the distinction between
the mind and the body, or between a thinking and corpo-
real thing.
And this is the best mode of discovering the nature of
the mind, and its distinctness from the body: for examining
what we are, while supposing, as we now do, that there is
nothing really existing apart from our thought, we clearly
perceive that neither extension, nor figure, nor local
motion,* nor anything similar that can be attributed to
* Instead of "local motion," the French has "existence in any place."
196
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
body, pertains to our nature, and nothing save thought
alone; and, consequently, that the notion we have of
our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing, and is
more certain, seeing we still doubt whether there is
any body in existence, while we already perceive that we
think.
IX. What thought (cogitatio) is.
By the word thought, I understand all that which so
takes place in us that we of ourselves are immediately con-
scious of it; and, accordingly, not only to understand
(intelligere, entendre), to will (velle), to imagine (imaginari),
but even to perceive (sentire, sentir), are here the same as to
think (cogitare, penser). For if I say, I see, or, I walk,
therefore I am; and if I understand by vision or walking
the act of my eyes or of my limbs, which is the work of
the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain, because,
as is often the case in dreams, I may think that I see or
walk, although I do not open my eyes or move from my
place, and even, perhaps, although I have no body: but,
if I mean the sensation itself, or consciousness of seeing or
walking, the knowledge is manifestly certain, because it is
then referred to the mind, which alone perceives or is con-
scious that it sees or walks.*
X. That the notions which are simplest and self-evident,
are obscured by logical definitions; and that such are not
to be reckoned among the cognitions acquired by study,
[but as born with us].
I do not here explain several other terms which I have
used, or design to use in the sequel, because their meaning
seems to me sufficiently self-evident. And I frequently
remarked that philosophers erred in attempting to explain,
by logical definitions, such truths as are most simple and
self-evident; for they thus only rendered them more ob-
scure. And when I said that the proposition, I think,
* In the French, "which alone has the power of perceiving, or of
being conscious in any other way whatever."
PART I.
197
therefore I am, is of all others the first and most certain
which occurs to one philosophizing orderly, I did not there-
fore deny that it was necessary to know what thought,
existence, and certitude are, and the truth that, in order to
think it is necessary to be, and the like; but, because these
are the most simple notions, and such as of themselves
afford the knowledge of nothing existing, I did not judge.
it proper there to enumerate them.
XI. How we can know our mind more clearly than our
body.
But now that it may be discerned how the knowledge
we have of the mind not only precedes, and has greater
certainty, but is even clearer, than that we have of the
body, it must be remarked, as a matter that is highly
manifest by the natural light, that to nothing no affections
or qualities belong; and, accordingly, that where we ob-
serve certain affections, there a thing or substance to which
these pertain, is necessarily found. The same light also
shows us that we know a thing or substance more clearly
in proportion as we discover in it a greater number of
qualities. Now, it is manifest that we remark a greater
number of qualities in our mind than in any other thing;
for there is no occasion on which we know anything what-
ever when we are not at the same time led with much
greater certainty to the knowledge of our own mind. For
example, if I judge that there is an earth because I touch
or see it, on the same ground, and with still greater reason,
I must be persuaded that my mind exists; for it may be,
perhaps, that I think I touch the earth while there is none
in existence; but it is not possible that I should so
judge, and my mind which thus judges not exist; and the
same holds good of whatever object is presented to our
mind.
XII. How it happens that every one does not come
equally to know this.
Those who have not philosophized in order have had
198
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
other opinions on this subject, because they never distin-
guished with sufficient care the mind from the body. For,
although they had no difficulty in believing that they
themselves existed, and that they had a higher assurance
of this than of any other thing, nevertheless, as they did
not observe that by themselves, they ought here to under-
stand their minds alone [when the question related to me-
taphysical certainty]; and since, on the contrary, they
rather meant their bodies which they saw with their
eyes, touched with their hands, and to which they
erroneously attributed the faculty of perception, they were
prevented from distinctly apprehending the nature of the
mind.
XIII. In what sense the knowledge of other things de-
pends upon the knowledge of God.
But when the mind, which thus knows itself but is still
in doubt as to all other things, looks around on all sides,
with a view to the farther extension of its knowledge, it
first of all discovers within itself the ideas of many things;
and while it simply contemplates them, and neither af-
firms nor denies that there is anything beyond itself cor-
responding to them, it is in no danger of erring. The mind
also discovers certain common notions out of which it
frames various demonstrations that carry conviction to such
a degree as to render doubt of their truth impossible, so
long as we give attention to them. For example, the
mind has within itself ideas of numbers and figures, and
it has likewise among its common notions the principle
that if equals be added to equals the wholes will be equal, and
the like; from which it is easy to demonstrate that the
three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles,
etc. Now, so long as we attend to the premises from
which this conclusion and others similar to it were deduced,
we feel assured of their truth; but, as the mind cannot
always think of these with attention, when it has the re-
membrance of a conclusion without recollecting the order
PART I.
199
of its deduction, and is uncertain whether the author of
its being has created it of a nature that is liable to be
deceived, even in what appears most evident, it perceives
that there is just ground to distrust the truth of such con-
clusions, and that it cannot possess any certain knowledge
until it has discovered its author.
XIV. That we may validly infer the existence of God
from necessary existence being comprised in the concept
we have of him.
When the mind afterwards reviews the different ideas that
are in it, it discovers what is by far the chief among them
-that of a Being omniscient, all-powerful, and absolutely
perfect; and it observes that in this idea there is contained
not only possible and contingent existence, as in the ideas.
of all other things which it clearly perceives, but existence
absolutely necessary and eternal. And just as because,
for example, the equality of its three angles to two right
angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle,
the mind is firmly persuaded that the three angles of a tri-
angle are equal to two right angles; so, from its perceiving
necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the idea
which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to
conclude that this all-perfect Being exists.
XV. That necessary existence is not in the same way
comprised in the notions which we have of other things,
but merely contingent existence.
The mind will be still more certain of the truth of this
conclusion, if it consider that it has no idea of any other
thing in which it can discover that necessary existence is
contained; for, from this circumstance alone, it will discern
that the idea of an all-perfect Being has not been framed
by itself, and that it does not represent a chimera, but a
true and immutable nature, which must exist since it can
only be conceived as necessarily existing.
XVI. That prejudices hinder many from clearly know-
ing the necessity of the existence of God.
200
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
Our mind would have no difficulty in assenting to this
truth, if it were, first of all, wholly free from prejudices;
but as we have been accustomed to distinguish, in all other
things, essence from existence, and to imagine at will many
ideas of things which neither are nor have been, it easily
happens, when we do not steadily fix our thoughts on the
contemplation of the all-perfect Being, that a doubt arises
as to whether the idea we have of him is not one of those
which we frame at pleasure, or at least of that class to
whose essence existence does not pertain.
XVII. That the greater objective (representative) per-
fection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater also
must be the perfection of its cause.
When we further reflect on the various ideas that are in
us, it is easy to perceive that there is not much difference
among them, when we consider them simply as certain
modes of thinking, but that they are widely different, con-
sidered in reference to the objects they represent; and
that their causes must be so much the more perfect accord-
ing to the degree of objective perfection contained in them.*
For there is no difference between this and the case of a
person who has the idea of a machine, in the construction
of which great skill is displayed, in which circumstances we
have a right to inquire how he came by this idea, whether,
for example, he somewhere saw such a machine constructed
by another, or whether he was so accurately taught the
mechanical sciences, or is endowed with such force of
genius, that he was able of himself to invent it, without
having elsewhere seen anything like it; for all the
ingenuity which is contained in the idea objectively
only, or as it were in a picture, must exist at least in
its first and chief cause, whatever that may be, not only
objectively or representatively, but in truth formally or
eminently.
as what they represent of their object has more perfection.”—French.
PART I.
201
XVIII. That the existence of God may be again in-
ferred from the above.
Thus, because we discover in our minds the idea of God,
or of an all-perfect Being, we have a right to inquire into
the source whence we derive it; and we will discover that
the perfections it represents are so immense as to render it
quite certain that we could only derive it from an all-
perfect Being; that is, from a God really existing. For
it is not only manifest by the natural light that nothing
cannot be the cause of anything whatever, and that the
more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, so as to be
thereby produced as by its efficient and total cause, but
also that it is impossible we can have the idea or repre-
sentation of anything whatever, unless there be somewhere,
either in us or out of us, an original which comprises, in
reality, all the perfections that are thus represented to us;
but, as we do not in any way find in ourselves those abso-
lute perfections of which we have the idea, we must con-
clude that they exist in some nature different from ours,
that is, in God, or at least that they were once in him; and
it most manifestly follows [from their infinity] that they
are still there.
XIX. That, although we may not comprehend the
nature of God, there is yet nothing which we know so
clearly as his perfections.
This will appear sufficiently certain and manifest to
those who have been accustomed to contemplate the idea
of God, and to turn their thoughts to his infinite perfec-
tions; for, although we may not comprehend them, because
it is of the nature of the infinite not to be comprehended by
what is finite, we nevertheless conceive them more clearly
and distinctly than material objects, for this reason, that,
being simple, and unobscured by limits, they occupy
our mind more fully.
*
* After limits, "what of them we do conceive is much less confused.
There is, besides, no speculation more calculated to aid in perfecting
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202
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
XX. That we are not the cause of ourselves, but that
this is God, and consequently that there is a God.
But, because every one has not observed this, and be-
cause, when we have an idea of any machine in which
great skill is displayed, we usually know with sufficient
accuracy the manner in which we obtained it, and as we
cannot even recollect when the idea we have of a God
was communicated to us by him, seeing it was always in
our minds, it is still necessary that we should continue our
review, and make inquiry after our author, possessing, as
we do, the idea of the infinite perfections of a God: for it is
in the highest degree evident by the natural light, that that
which knows something more perfect than itself, is not the
source of its own being, since it would thus have given to
itself all the perfections which it knows; and that, conse-
quently, it could draw its origin from no other being than
from him who possesses in himself all those perfections,
that is, from God.
XXI. That the duration alone of our life is sufficient to
demonstrate the existence of God.
The truth of this demonstration will clearly appear,
provided we consider the nature of time, or the duration
of things; for this is of such a kind that its parts are not
mutually dependent, and never co-existent; and, accord-
ingly, from the fact that we now are, it does not necessarily
follow that we shall be a moment afterwards, unless some
cause, viz., that which first produced us, shall, as it were,
continually reproduce us, that is, conserve us. For we easily
understand that there is no power in us by which we can
conserve ourselves, and that the being who has so much
power as to conserve us out of himself, must also by so much
the greater reason conserve himself, or rather stand in need
of being conserved by no one whatever, and, in fine, be God.
our understanding, and which is more important than this, inasmuch as
the consideration of an object that has no limits to its perfections, fills
us with satisfaction and assurance."-French.
PART I.
203
XXII. That in knowing the existence of God, in the
manner here explained, we likewise know all his attributes,
as far as they can be known by the natural light alone.
There is the great advantage in proving the existence of
God in this way, viz., by his idea, that we at the same time
know what he is, as far as the weakness of our nature
allows; for, reflecting on the idea we have of him which
is born with us, we perceive that he is eternal, omniscient,
omnipotent, the source of all goodness and truth, creator
of all things, and that, in fine, he has in himself all that in
which we can clearly discover any infinite perfection or
good that is not limited by any imperfection.
XXIII. That God is not corporeal, and does not
perceive by means of senses as we do, or will the evil
of sin.
For there are indeed many things in the world that are
to a certain extent imperfect or limited, though possess-
ing also some perfection; and it is accordingly impossible
that any such can be in God. Thus, looking to corporeal
nature,* since divisibility is included in local extension,
and this indicates imperfection, it is certain that God is
not body. And although in men it is to some degree a
perfection to be capable of perceiving by means of the
senses, nevertheless since in every sense there is passivity†
which indicates dependency, we must conclude that, God
is in no manner possessed of senses, and that he only
understands and wills, not, however, like us, by acts in
any way distinct, but always by an act that is one, identi-
cal, and the simplest possible, understands, wills, and oper-
ates all, that is, all things that in reality exist; for he
does not will the evil of sin, seeing this is but the negation
of being.'
XXIV. That in passing from the knowledge of God to the
* In the French, "since extension constitutes the nature of body.”
+ In the French, "because our perceptions arise from impressions
made upon us from another source," i. e., than ourselves.
204
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
knowledge of the creatures, it is necessary to remember
that our understanding is finite, and the power of God
infinite.
But as we know that God alone is the true cause of all
that is or can be, we will doubtless follow the best way of
philosophizing, if, from the knowledge we have of God.
himself, we pass to the explication of the things which he
has created, and essay to deduce it from the notions that
are naturally in our minds, for we will thus obtain the most
perfect science, that is, the knowledge of effects through
their causes. But that we may be able to make this
attempt with sufficient security from error, we must use the
precaution to bear in mind as much as possible that God, who
is the author of things, is infinite, while we are wholly finite.
XXV. That we must believe all that God has revealed,
although it may surpass the reach of our faculties.
Thus, if perhaps God reveal to us or others, matters
concerning himself which surpass the natural powers of
our mind, such as the mysteries of the incarnation and of
the trinity, we will not refuse to believe them, although we
may not clearly understand them; nor will we be in any
way surprised to find in the immensity of his nature, or
even in what he has created, many things that exceed our
comprehension.
XXVI. That it is not needful to enter into disputes*
regarding the infinite, but merely to hold all that in which
we can find no limits as indefinite, such as the extension
of the world, the divisibility of the parts of matter, the
number of the stars, etc.
We will thus never embarrass ourselves by disputes
about the infinite, seeing it would be absurd for us who are
finite to undertake to determine anything regarding it, and
thus as it were to limit it by endeavouring to comprehend
it. We will accordingly give ourselves no concern to
"to essay to comprehend the infinite."-French.
PART I.
205
reply to those who demand whether the half of an infinite
line is also infinite, and whether an infinite number is even
or odd, and the like, because it is only such as imagine
their minds to be infinite who seem bound to entertain
questions of this sort. And, for our part, looking to all those
things in which in certain senses, we discover no limits,
we will not, therefore, affirm that they are infinite, but will
regard them simply as indefinite. Thus, because we can-
not imagine extension so great that we cannot still conceive
greater, we will say that the magnitude of possible things
is indefinite, and because a body cannot be divided into
parts so small that each of these may not be conceived as
again divided into others still smaller, let us regard quan-
tity as divisible into parts whose number is indefinite; and
as we cannot imagine so many stars that it would seem
impossible for God to create more, let us suppose that their
number is indefinite, and so in other instances.
XXVII. What difference there is between the indefinite
and the infinite.
And we will call those things indefinite rather than infi-
nite, with the view of reserving to God alone the appellation
of infinite; in the first place, because not only do we discover
in him alone no limits on any side, but also because we
positively conceive that he admits of none; and in the
second place, because we do not in the same way positively
conceive that other things are in every part unlimited, but
merely negatively admit that their limits, if they have
cannot be discovered by us.
any,
XXVIII. That we must examine, not the final, but the
efficient, causes of created things.
Likewise, finally, we will not seek reasons of natural
things from the end which God or nature proposed to him-
self in their creation (i. e., final causes),* for we ought not
* "We will not stop to consider the ends which God proposed to him-
self in the creation of the world, and we will entirely reject from our
philosophy the search of final causes."-French.
206
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
to presume so far as to think that we are sharers in the
counsels of Deity, but, considering him as the efficient
cause of all things, let us endeavour to discover by the
natural light* which he has planted in us, applied to those
of his attributes of which he has been willing we should
have some knowledge, what must be concluded regarding
those effects we perceive by our senses; bearing in mind,
however, what has been already said, that we must only
confide in this natural light so long as nothing contrary to
its dictates is revealed by God himself.†
XXIX. That God is not the cause of our errors.
The first attribute of God which here falls to be con-
sidered, is that he is absolutely veracious and the source
of all light, so that it is plainly repugnant for him to
deceive us, or to be properly and positively the cause of
the errors to which we are consciously subject; for al-
though the address to deceive seems to be some mark of
subtlety of mind among men, yet without doubt the will
to deceive only proceeds from malice or from fear and
weakness, and consequently cannot be attributed to God.
XXX. That consequently all which we clearly perceive
is true, and that we are thus delivered from the doubts
above proposed.
Whence it follows, that the light of nature, or faculty of
knowledge given us by God, can never compass any object
which is not true, in as far as it attains to a knowledge of
it, that is, in as far as the object is clearly and distinctly ap-
prehended. For God would have merited the appellation
of a deceiver if he had given us this faculty perverted, and
such as might lead us to take falsity for truth [when we
used it aright]. Thus the highest doubt is removed, which
arose from our ignorance on the point as to whether per-
haps our nature was such that we might be deceived even

Faculty of reasoning."-French.
+ The last clause, beginning "bearing in mind," is omitted in the
Freuch.
PART I.
207
The
in those things that appear to us the most evident.
same principle ought also to be of avail against all the other
grounds of doubting that have been already enumerated.
For mathematical truths ought now to be above suspicion,
since these are of the clearest. And if we perceive any-
thing by our senses, whether while awake or asleep, we will
easily discover the truth, provided we separate what there is
of clear and distinct in the knowledge from what is obscure
and confused. There is no need that I should here say
more on this subject, since it has already received ample
treatment in the metaphysical Meditations; and what fol-
lows will serve to explain it still more accurately.
XXXI. That our errors are, in respect of God, merely
negations, but, in respect of ourselves, privations.
But as it happens that we frequently fall into error,
although God is no deceiver, if we desire to inquire into
the origin and cause of our errors, with a view to guard
against them, it is necessary to observe that they depend
less on our understanding than on our will, and that they
have no need of the actual concourse of God, in order to
their production; so that, when considered in reference to
God, they are merely negations, but in reference to our-
selves, privations.
XXXII. That there are only two modes of thinking in
us, viz., the perception of the understanding and the action
of the will.
For all the modes of thinking of which we are conscious
may be referred to two general classes, the one of which
is the perception or operation of the understanding, and
the other the volition or operation of the will. Thus, to
perceive by the senses (sentire), to imagine, and to con-
ceive things purely intelligible, are only different modes of
perceiving (percipiendi); but to desire, to be averse from, to
affirm, to deny, to doubt, are different modes of willing.
8
XXXIII. That we never err unless when we judge of
something which we do not sufficiently apprehend.
208
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
When we apprehend anything we are in no danger of
error, if we refrain from judging of it in any way; and
even when we have formed a judgment regarding it, we
would never fall into error, provided we gave our assent
only to what we clearly and distinctly perceived; but the
reason why we are usually deceived, is that we judge with-
out possessing an exact knowledge of that of which we
judge.
XXXIV. That the will as well as the understanding is
required for judging.
I admit that the understanding is necessary for judging,
there being no room to suppose that we can judge of that
which we in no way apprehend; but the will also is
required in order to our assenting to what we have in any
degree perceived. It is not necessary, however, at least
to form any judgment whatever, that we have an entire
and perfect apprehension of a thing; for we may assent to
many things of which we have only a very obscure and
confused knowledge.
XXXV. That the will is of greater extension than the
understanding, and is thus the source of our errors.
Further, the perception of the intellect extends only to
the few things that are presented to it, and is always very
limited the will, on the other hand, may, in a certain
sense, be said to be infinite, because we observe nothing
that can be the object of the will of any other, even of
the unlimited will of God, to which ours cannot also ex-
tend, so that we easily carry it beyond the objects we
clearly perceive; and when we do this, it is not wonderful
that we happen to be deceived.
XXXVI. That our errors cannot be imputed to God.
But although God has not given us an omniscient under-
standing, he is not on this account to be considered in any
wise the author of our errors, for it is of the nature of
created intellect to be finite, and of finite intellect not to
embrace all things.
PART I.
209
XXXVII. That the chief perfection of man is his being
able to act freely or by will, and that it is this which ren-
ders him worthy of praise or blame.
That the will should be the more extensive is in har-
mony with its nature; and it is a high perfection in man
to be able to act by means of it, that is, freely; and thus
in a peculiar way to be the master of his own actions, and
merit praise or blame. For self-acting machines are not
commended because they perform with exactness all the
movements for which they were adapted, seeing their mo-
tions are carried on necessarily; but the maker of them is
praised on account of the exactness with which they were
framed, because he did not act of necessity, but freely;
and, on the same principle, we must attribute to ourselves
something more on this account, that when we embrace
truth, we do so not of necessity, but freely.
XXXVIII. That error is a defect in our mode of act-
ing, not in our nature; and that the faults of their subjects
may be frequently attributed to other masters, but never
to God.
It is true, that as often as we err, there is some defect
in our mode of action or in the use of our liberty, but not
in our nature, because this is always the same, whether
our judgments be true or false. And although God could
have given to us such perspicacity of intellect that we
should never have erred, we have, notwithstanding, no
right to demand this of him; for, although with us he
who was able to prevent evil and did not is held guilty of
it, God is not in the same way to be reckoned responsible
for our errors because he had the power to prevent them,
inasmuch as the dominion which some men possess over
others has been instituted for the purpose of enabling them
to hinder those under them from doing evil, whereas the
dominion which God exercises over the universe is per-
fectly absolute and free. For this reason we ought to
thank him for the goods he has given us, and not complain
210
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
7
that he has not blessed us with all which we know it was
in his power to impart.
XXXIX. That the liberty of our will is self-evident.
Finally, it is so manifest that we possess a free will,
capable of giving or withholding its assent, that this truth
must be reckoned among the first and most common notions
which are born with us. This, indeed, has already very
clearly appeared, for when essaying to doubt of all things,
we went so far as to suppose even that he who created us
employed his limitless power in deceiving us in every way,
we were conscious nevertheless of being free to abstain
from believing what was not in every respect certain and
undoubted. But that of which we are unable to doubt at
such a time is as self-evident and clear as any thing we
can ever know.
XL. That it is likewise certain that God has fore-
ordained all things.
But because what we have already discovered of God,
gives us the assurance that his power is so immense that
we would sin in thinking ourselves capable of ever doing
anything which he had not ordained beforehand, we should
soon be embarrassed in great difficulties if we undertook
to harmonise the pre-ordination of God with the freedom
of our will, and endeavoured to comprehend both truths at
once.
XLI. How the freedom of our will may be reconciled
with the Divine pre-ordination.
But, in place of this, we will be free from these embar-
rassments if we recollect that our mind is limited, while the
power of God, by which he not only knew from all eternity
what is or can be, but also willed and pre-ordained it, is
infinite. It thus happens that we possess sufficient intelli-
gence to know clearly and distinctly that this power is in
God, but not enough to comprehend how he leaves the free
actions of men indeterminate; and, on the other hand, we
have such consciousness of the liberty and indifference
PART I.
211
which exists in ourselves, that there is nothing we more
clearly or perfectly comprehend: [so that the omnipotence
of God ought not to keep us from believing it]. For it
would be absurd to doubt of that of which we are fully
conscious, and which we experience as existing in ourselves,
because we do not comprehend another matter which, from
its very nature, we know to be incomprehensible.
XLII. How, although we never will to err, it is never-
theless by our will that we do err.
But now since we know that all our errors depend upon
our will, and as no one wishes to deceive himself, it may
seem wonderful that there is any error in our judgments
at all. It is necessary to remark, however, that there is a
great difference between willing to be deceived, and willing
to yield assent to opinions in which it happens that error
is found. For though there is no one who expressly
wishes to fall into error, we will yet hardly find any one
who is not ready to assent to things in which, unknown to
himself, error lurks; and it even frequently happens that
it is the desire itself of following after truth that leads those
not fully aware of the order in which it ought to be sought
for, to pass judgment on matters of which they have no
adequate knowledge, and thus to fall into error.
XLIII. That we shall never err if we give our assent
only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive.
But it is certain we will never admit falsity for truth,
so long as we judge only of that which we clearly and dis-
tinctly perceive; because, as God is no deceiver, the faculty
of knowledge which he has given us cannot be fallacious,
nor, for the same reason, the faculty of will, when we do
not extend it beyond the objects we clearly know. And
even although this truth could not be established by
reasoning, the minds of all have been so impressed by
nature as spontaneously to assent to whatever is clearly
perceived, and to experience an impossibility to doubt of
its truth.
212
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
XLIV. That we uniformly judge improperly when we
assent to what we do not clearly perceive, although our
judgment may chance to be true; and that it is frequently
our memory which deceives us by leading us to believe
that certain things were formerly sufficiently understood
by us.
It is likewise certain that, when we approve of any
reason which we do not apprehend, we are either deceived,
or, if we stumble on the truth, it is only by chance, and
thus we can never possess the assurance that we are not
in error. I confess it seldom happens that we judge of a
thing when we have observed we do not apprehend it,
because it is a dictate of the natural light never to judge
of what we do not know. But we most frequently err in
this, that we presume upon a past knowledge of much to
which we give our assent, as to something treasured up in
the memory, and perfectly known to us; whereas, in truth,
we have no such knowledge.
XLV. What constitutes clear and distinct perception.
There are indeed a great many persons who, through
their whole lifetime, never perceive anything in a way
necessary for judging of it properly; for the knowledge
upon which we can establish a certain and indubitable
judgment must be not only clear, but also distinct. I call
that clear which is present and manifest to the mind giv-
ing attention to it, just as we are said clearly to see objects
when, being present to the eye looking on, they stimulate
it with sufficient force, and it is disposed to regard them;
but the distinct is that which is so precise and different
from all other objects as to comprehend in itself only what
is clear.*
XLVI. It is shown, from the example of pain, that a
perception may be clear without being distinct, but that it
cannot be distinct unless it is clear.
* "what appears manifestly to him who considers it as he ought."—
French.
PART I.
213
For example, when any one feels intense pain, the
knowledge which he has of this pain is very clear, but it
is not always distinct; for men usually confound it with
the obscure judgment they form regarding its nature, and
think that there is in the suffering part something similar
to the sensation of pain of which they are alone conscious.
And thus perception may be clear without being distinct,
but it can never be distinct without likewise being clear.
XLVII. That, to correct the prejudices of our early
years, we must consider what is clear in each of our
simple notions.
*
And, indeed, in our early years, the mind was so im-
mersed in the body, that, although it perceived many
things with sufficient clearness, it yet knew nothing dis-
tinctly; and since even at that time we exercised our
judgment in many matters, numerous prejudices were thus
contracted, which, by the majority, are never afterwards
laid aside. But that we may now be in a position to get
rid of these, I will here briefly enumerate all the simple
notions of which our thoughts are composed, and distin-
guish in each what is clear from what is obscure, or fitted
to lead into error.
XLVIII. That all the objects of our knowledge are to
be regarded either (1) as things or the affections of things:
or (2) as eternal truths; with the enumeration of things.
Whatever objects fall under our knowledge we consider
either as things or the affections of things,† or as eternal
truths possessing no existence beyond our thought. Of
the first class the most general are substance, duration,
order, number, and perhaps also some others, which no-
tions apply to all the kinds of things. I do not, however,
recognise more than two highest kinds (summa genera) of
* "first."-French.
+ Things and the affections of things are (in the French) equivalent
to "what has some (i.e. a real) existence," as opposed to the class of
"eternal truths," which have merely an ideal existence.
214
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
things; the first of intellectual things, or such as have, the
power of thinking, including mind or thinking substance
and its properties; the second, of material things, embrac-
ing extended substance, or body and its properties. Per-
ception, volition, and all modes as well of knowing as of
willing, are related to thinking substance; on the other
hand, to extended substance we refer magnitude, or exten-
sion in length, breadth, and depth, figure, motion, situa-
tion, divisibility of parts themselves, and the like. There
are, however, besides these, certain things of which we
have an internal experience that ought not to be referred
either to the mind of itself, or to the body alone, but to
the close and intimate union between them, as will here-
after be shown in its place. Of this class are the appetites
of hunger and thirst, etc., and also the emotions or passions
of the mind which are not exclusively mental affections,
as the emotions of anger, joy, sadness, love, etc.; and,
finally, all the sensations, as of pain, titillation, light
and colours, sounds, smells, tastes, heat, hardness, and the
other tactile qualities.
XLIX. That the eternal truths cannot be thus enumer-
ated, but that this is not necessary.
What I have already enumerated we are to regard as
things, or the qualities or modes of things. We now come
to speak of eternal truths. When we apprehend that it is
impossible a thing can arise from nothing, this proposition,
ex nihilo nihil fit, is not considered as somewhat existing, or
as the mode of a thing, but as an eternal truth having
its seat in our mind, and is called a common notion or
axiom. Of this class are the following:-It is impossible
the same thing can at once be and not be; what is done
cannot be undone; he who thinks must exist while he
thinks; and innumerable others, the whole of which it is
indeed difficult to enumerate, but this is not necessary,
since, if blinded by no prejudices, we cannot fail to know
them when the occasion of thinking them occurs.
1
PART I.
215
L. That these truths are clearly perceived, but not
equally by all men, on account of prejudices.
And, indeed, with regard to these common notions, it is
not to be doubted that they can be clearly and distinctly
known, for otherwise they would not merit this appella-
tion: as, in truth, some of them are not, with respect to all
men, equally deserving of the name, because they are not
equally admitted by all: not, however, from this reason,
as I think, that the faculty of knowledge of one man ex-
tends farther than that of another, but rather because
these common notions are opposed to the prejudices
of some, who, on this account, are not able readily to
embrace them, even although others, who are free from
those prejudices, apprehend them with the greatest clear-
ness.
LI. What substance is, and that the term is not appli-
cable to God and the creatures in the same sense.
But with regard to what we consider as things or the
modes of things, it is worth while to examine each of them
by itself. By substance we can conceive nothing else
than a thing which exists in such a way as to stand in
need of nothing beyond itself in order to its existence.
And, in truth, there can be conceived but one substance
which is absolutely independent, and that is God. We
perceive that all other things can exist only by help of the
concourse of God. And, accordingly, the term substance
does not apply to God and the creatures univocally, to
adopt a term familiar in the schools; that is, no signification
of this word can be distinctly understood which is common
to God and them.
LII. That the term is applicable univocally to the mind
and the body, and how substance itself is known.
Created substances, however, whether corporeal or
thinking, may be conceived under this common concept;
for these are things which, in order to their existence,
stand in need of nothing but the concourse of God. But
216
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
•
yet substance cannot be first discovered merely from its
being a thing which exists independently, for existence by
itself is not observed by us. We easily, however, discover
substance itself from any attribute of it, by this common
notion, that of nothing there are no attributes, properties,
or qualities: for, from perceiving that some attribute is
present, we infer that some existing thing or substance to
which it may be attributed is also of necessity present.
LIII. That of every substance there is one principal
attribute, as thinking of the mind, extension of the
body.
But, although any attribute is sufficient to lead us to
the knowledge of substance, there is, however, one prin-
cipal property of every substance, which constitutes its
nature or essence, and upon which all the others depend.
Thus, extension in length, breadth, and depth, constitutes
the nature of corporeal substance; and thought the nature
of thinking substance. For every other thing that can be
attributed to body, presupposes extension, and is only some
mode of an extended thing; as all the properties we dis-
cover in the mind are only diverse modes of thinking.
Thus, for example, we cannot conceive figure unless in
something extended, nor motion unless in extended space,
nor imagination, sensation, or will, unless in a thinking
thing. But, on the other hand, we can conceive exten-
sion without figure or motion, and thought without imagi-
nation or sensation, and so of the others; as is clear to any
one who attends to these matters.
LIV. How we may have clear and distinct notions of
the substance which thinks, of that which is corporeal,
and of God.
And thus we may easily have two clear and distinct
notions or ideas, the one of created substance, which thinks,
the other of corporeal substance, provided we carefully
distinguish all the attributes of thought from those of
extension. We may also have a clear and distinct idea of
PART I.
217
an uncreated and independent thinking substance, that
is, of God, provided we do not suppose that this idea
adequately represents to us all that is in God, and do not
mix up with it anything fictitious, but attend simply to the
characters that are comprised in the notion we have of
him, and which we clearly know to belong to the nature
of an absolutely perfect Being. For no one can deny that
there is in us such an idea of God, without groundlessly
supposing that there is no knowledge of God at all in the
human mind.
LV. How duration, order, and number may be also
distinctly conceived.
We will also have most distinct conceptions of duration,
order, and number, if, in place of mixing up with our
notions of them that which properly belongs to the concept
of substance, we merely think that the duration of a thing
is a mode under which we conceive this thing, in so far as
it continues to exist; and, in like manner, that order and
number are not in reality different from things disposed in
order and numbered, but only modes under which we
diversely consider these things.
LVI. What are modes, qualities, attributes.
And, indeed, we here understand by modes the same
with what we elsewhere designate attributes or qualities.
But when we consider substance as affected or varied by
them, we use the term modes; when from this variation
it may be denominated of such a kind, we adopt the term
qualities [to designate the different modes which cause it
to be so named]; and, finally, when we simply regard
these modes as in the substance, we call them attributes.
Accordingly, since God must be conceived as superior to
change, it is not proper to say that there are modes or
qualities in him, but simply attributes; and even in created
things that which is found in them always in the same mode,
as existence and duration in the thing which exists and en-
dures, ought to be called attribute, and not mode or quality.
S
218
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
LVII. That some attributes exist in the things to which
they are attributed, and others only in our thought; and
what duration and time are.
Of these attributes or modes there are some which exist
in the things themselves, and others that have only an
existence in our thought; thus, for example, time, which
we distinguish from duration taken in its generality, and
call the measure of motion, is only a certain mode under
which we think duration itself, for we do not indeed con-
ceive the duration of things that are moved to be different
from the duration of things that are not moved: as is evi-
dent from this, that if two bodies are in motion for an hour,
the one moving quickly and the other slowly, we do not
reckon more time in the one than in the other, although there
may be much more motion in the one of the bodies than
in the other. But that we may comprehend the duration
of all things under a common measure, we compare their
duration with that of the greatest and most regular motions
that give rise to years and days, and which we call time;
hence what is so designated is nothing superadded to
duration, taken in its generality, but a mode of thinking.
LVIII. That number and all universals are only modes
of thought.
In the same way number, when it is not considered as
in created things, but merely in the abstract or in general,
is only a mode of thinking; and the same is true of all
those general ideas we call universals.
LIX. How universals are formed; and what are the
five common, viz., genus, species, difference, property, and
accident.
Universals arise merely from our making use of one and
the same idea in thinking of all individual objects between
which there subsists a certain likeness; and when we
comprehend all the objects represented by this idea under
one name, this term likewise becomes universal. For
example, when we see two stones, and do not regard their
PART I.
219
nature farther than to remark that there are two of them,
we form the idea of a certain number, which we call the
binary; and when we afterwards see two birds or two
trees, and merely take notice of them so far as to observe
that there are two of them, we again take up the same idea
as before, which is, accordingly, universal; and we like-
wise give to this number the same universal appellation of
binary. In the same way, when we consider a figure of
three sides, we form a certain idea, which we call the idea
of a triangle, and we afterwards make use of it as the uni-
versal to represent to our mind all other figures of three
sides. But when we remark more particularly that of
figures of three sides, some have a right angle and others
not, we form the universal idea of a right-angled triangle,
which being related to the preceding as more general, may
be called species; and the right angle the universal differ-
ence by which right-angled triangles are distinguished from
all others; and farther, because the square of the side
which sustains the right angle is equal to the squares of
the other two sides, and because this property belongs only
to this species of triangles, we may call it the universal
property of the species. Finally, if we suppose that of
these triangles some are moved and others not, this will
be their universal accident; and, accordingly, we com-
monly reckon five universals, viz., genus, species, differ-
ence, property, accident.
LX. Of distinctions; and first of the real.
But number in things themselves arises from the dis-
tinction there is between them: and distinction is three-
fold, viz., real, modal, and of reason. The real properly
subsists between two or more substances; and it is suffi-
cient to assure us that two substances are really mutually
distinct, if only we are able clearly and distinctly to con-
ceive the one of them without the other. For the know-
ledge we have of God renders it certain that he can effect
all that of which we have a distinct idea: wherefore, since
220
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
we have now, for example, the idea of an extended and
corporeal substance, though we as yet do not know with
certainty whether any such thing is really existent, never-
theless, merely because we have the idea of it, we may be
assured that such may exist; and, if it really exists, that
every part which we can determine by thought must be
really distinct from the other parts of the same substance.
In the same way, since every one is conscious that he
thinks, and that he in thought can exclude from himself
every other substance, whether thinking or extended, it is
certain that each of us thus considered is really distinct
from every other thinking and corporeal substance. And
although we suppose that God united a body to a soul so
closely that it was impossible to form a more intimate
union, and thus made a composite whole, the two sub-
stances would remain really distinct, notwithstanding this
union; for with whatever tie God connected them, he was
not able to rid himself of the power he possessed of sepa-
rating them, or of conserving the one apart from the other,
and the things which God can separate or conserve sepa-
rately are really distinct.
LXI. Of the modal distinction.
There are two kinds of modal distinctions, viz., that be-
tween the mode properly so-called and the substance of
which it is a mode, and that between two modes of the
same substance. Of the former we have an example in
this, that we can clearly apprehend substance apart from
the mode which we say differs from it; while, on the
other hand, we cannot conceive this mode without con-
ceiving the substance itself. There is, for example, a
modal distinction between figure or motion and corporeal
substance in which both exist; there is a similar distinc-
tion between affirmation or recollection and the mind.
Of the latter kind we have an illustration in our ability to
recognise the one of two modes apart from the other,
as figure apart from motion, and motion apart from figure;
PART I.
221
though we cannot think of either the one or the other
without thinking of the common substance in which they
adhere. If, for example, a stone is moved, and is withal
square, we can, indeed, conceive its square figure without
its motion, and reciprocally its motion without its square
figure; but we can conceive neither this motion nor this
figure apart from the substance of the stone. As for the
distinction according to which the mode of one substance
is different from another substance, or from the mode of
another substance, as the motion of one body is different
from another body or from the mind, or as motion is differ-
ent from doubt, it seems to me that it should be called
real rather than modal, because these modes cannot be
clearly conceived apart from the really distinct substances
of which they are the modes.
LXII. Of the distinction of reason (logical dis-
tinction).
Finally, the distinction of reason is that between a sub-
stance and some one of its attributes, without which it is
impossible, however, we can have a distinct conception of
the substance itself; or between two such attributes of a
common substance, the one of which we essay to think
without the other. This distinction is manifest from our
inability to form a clear and distinct idea of such substance,
if we separate from it such attribute; or to have a clear
perception of the one of two such attributes if we separate
it from the other. For example, because any substance
which ceases to endure ceases also to exist, duration is not
distinct from substance except in thought (ratione); and in
general all the modes of thinking which we consider as in
objects differ only in thought, as well from the objects of
which they are thought as from each other in a common
object.* It occurs, indeed, to me that I have elsewhere
* "and generally all the attributes that lead us to entertain different
thoughts of the same thing, such as, for example, the extension of body
and its property of divisibility, do not differ from the body which is to
222
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
و
classed this kind of distinction with the modal (viz.,
towards the end of the Reply to the First Objections to
the Meditations on the First Philosophy); but there it
was only necessary to treat of these distinctions generally,
and it was sufficient for my purpose at that time simply
to distinguish both of them from the real.
LXIII. How thought and extension may be distinctly
known, as constituting, the one the nature of mind, the
other that of body.
Thought and extension may be regarded as constituting
the natures of intelligent and corporeal substance; and
then they must not be otherwise conceived than as the
thinking and extended substances themselves, that is, as
mind and body, which in this way are conceived with the
greatest clearness and distinctness. Moreover, we more
easily conceive extended or thinking substance than sub-
stance by itself, or with the omission of its thinking or
extension. For there is some difficulty in abstracting the
notion of substance from the notions of thinking and ex-
tension, which, in truth, are only diverse in thought itself
(ie., logically different); and a concept is not more distinct.
because it comprehends fewer properties, but because we
accurately distinguish what is comprehended in it from all
other notions.
LXIV. How these may likewise be distinctly conceived
as modes of substance.
Thought and extension may be also considered as modes
of substance; in as far, namely, as the same mind may
have many different thoughts, and the same body, with its
size unchanged, may be extended in several diverse ways,
at one time more in length and less in breadth or depth,
and at another time more in breadth and less in length;
and then they are modally distinguished from substance,
us the object of them, or from each other, unless as we sometimes con-
fusedly think the one without thinking the other."-French.
PART I.
223
and can be conceived not less clearly and distinctly, pro-
vided they be not regarded as substances or things separ-
ated from others, but simply as modes of things. For by
regarding them as in the substances of which they are the
modes, we distinguish them from these substances, and
take them for what in truth they are: whereas, on the
other hand, if we wish to consider them apart from the
substances in which they are, we should by this itself
regard them as self-subsisting things, and thus confound
the ideas of mode and substance.
LXV. How we may likewise know their modes.
In the same way we will best apprehend the diverse
modes of thought, as intellection, imagination, recollection,
volition, etc., and also the diverse modes of extension,
or those that belong to extension, as all figures, the situa-
tion of parts and their motions, provided we consider them
simply as modes of the things in which they are; and
motion as far as it is concerned, provided we think merely
of locomotion, without seeking to know the force that
produces it, and which nevertheless I will essay to explain
in its own place.
LXVI. How our sensations, affections, and appetites
may be clearly known, although we are frequently wrong
in our judgments regarding them.
There remain our sensations, affections, and appetites,
of which we may also have a clear knowledge, if we take
care to comprehend in the judgments we form of them only
that which is precisely contained in our perception of
them, and of which we are immediately conscious. There
is, however, great difficulty in observing this, at least in
respect of sensations; because we have all, without excep-
tion, from our youth judged that all the things we perceived
by our senses had an existence beyond our thought, and
that they were entirely similar to the sensations, that is,
perceptions, we had of them. Thus when, for example,
we saw a certain colour, we thought we saw something
224
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
occupying a place out of us, and which was entirely simi-
lar to that idea of colour we were then conscious of; and
from the habit of judging in this way, we seemed to see
this so clearly and distinctly that we esteemed it (ie., the
externality of the colour) certain and indubitable.
LXVII. That we are frequently deceived in our judg-
ments regarding pain itself.
The same prejudice has place in all our other sensations,
even in those of titillation and pain. For though we are
not in the habit of believing that there exist out of us
objects that resemble titillation and pain, we do not never-
theless consider these sensations as in the mind alone, or
in our perception, but as in the hand, or foot, or some
other part of our body. There is no reason, however, to
constrain us to believe that the pain, for example, which
we feel, as it were, in the foot is something out of the mind
existing in the foot, or that the light which we see, as it
were, in the sun exists in the sun as it is in us. Both
these beliefs are prejudices of our early years, as will
clearly appear in the sequel.
LXVIII. How in these things what we clearly conceive
is to be distinguished from that in which we may be de-
ceived.
But that we may distinguish what is clear in our sensa-
tions from what is obscure, we ought most carefully to
observe that we possess a clear and distinct knowledge of
pain, colour, and other things of this sort, when we con-
sider them simply as sensations or thoughts; but that,
when they are judged to be certain things subsisting be-
yond our mind, we are wholly unable to form any con-
ception of them. Indeed, when any one tells us that he
sees colour in a body or feels pain in one of his limbs, this
is exactly the same as if he said that he there saw or felt
something of the nature of which he was entirely ignorant,
or that he did not know what he saw or felt. For although,
when less attentively examining his thoughts, a person
PART I.
225
may easily persuade himself that he has some knowledge
of it, since he supposes that there is something resembling
that sensation of colour or of pain of which he is conscious;
yet, if he reflects on what the sensation of colour or pain
represents to him as existing in a coloured body or in a
wounded member, he will find that of such he has abso-
lutely no knowledge.
LXIX. That magnitude, figure, etc., are known far
differently from colour, pain, etc.
What we have said above will be more manifest, espe-
cially if we consider that size in the body perceived, figure,
motion (at least local, for philosophers by fancying other
kinds of motion have rendered its nature less intelligible
to themselves), the situation of parts, duration, number,
and those other properties which, as we have already said,
we clearly perceive in all bodies, are known by us in a
way altogether different from that in which we know what
colour is in the same body, or pain, smell, taste, or any other
of those properties which I have said above must be referred
to the senses. For although when we see a body we are
not less assured of its existence from its appearing figured
than from its appearing coloured,* we yet know with far
greater clearness its property of figure than its colour.
LXX. That we may judge of sensible things in two
ways, by the one of which we avoid error, by the other
fall into it.
It is thus manifest that to say we perceive colours in
objects is in reality equivalent to saying we perceive some-
thing in objects and are yet ignorant of what it is, except as
that which determines in us a certain highly vivid and clear
sensation, which we call the sensation of colours. There is,
however, very great diversity in the manner of judging: for
so long as we simply judge that there is an unknown some-
thing in objects (that is, in things such as they are, from
* "by the colour we perceive on occasion of it."— French.
s 2
226
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
which the sensation reached us), so far are we from falling
into error that, on the contrary, we thus rather provide
against it, for we are less apt to judge rashly of a thing
which we observe we do not know. But when we think
we perceive colours in objects, although we are in reality
ignorant of what we then denominate colour, and are
unable to conceive any resemblance between the colour we
suppose to be in objects, and that of which we are con-
scious in sensation, yet because we do not observe this,
or because there are in objects several properties, as size,
figure, number, etc., which, as we clearly know, exist, or
may exist in them as they are perceived by our senses or
conceived by our understanding, we easily glide into the
error of holding that what is called colour in objects is
something entirely resembling the colour we perceive, and
thereafter of supposing that we have a clear perception of
what is in no way perceived by us.
LXXI. That the chief cause of our errors is to be found
in the prejudices of our childhood.
And here we may notice the first and chief cause of our
errors. In early life the mind was so closely bound to the
body that it attended to nothing beyond the thoughts by
which it perceived the objects that made impression on the
body nor as yet did it refer these thoughts to anything
existing beyond itself, but simply felt pain when the body
was hurt, or pleasure when anything beneficial to the body
occurred, or if the body was so slightly affected that it was
neither greatly benefited nor hurt, the mind experienced
the sensations we call tastes, smells, sounds, heat, cold, light,
colours, and the like, which in truth are representative of
nothing existing out of our mind, and which vary according
to the diversities of the parts and modes in which the body
is affected.* The mind at the same time also perceived
* "which vary according to the diversities of the movements that
pass from all parts of our body to the part of the brain to which it
(the mind) is closely joined and united.”—French.
PART I.
227
magnitudes, figures, motions, and the like, which were
not presented to it as sensations but as things of the modes
of things existing, or at least capable of existing out of
thought, although it did not yet observe this difference
between these two kinds of perceptions. And afterwards
when the machine of the body, which has been so fabri-
cated by nature that it can of its own inherent power move
itself in various ways, by turning itself at random on every
side, followed after what was useful and avoided what was
detrimental; the mind, which was closely connected with
it, reflecting on the objects it pursued or avoided, remarked,
for the first time, that they existed out of itself, and not
only attributed to them magnitudes, figures, motions, and
the like, which it apprehended either as things or as the
modes of things, but, in addition, attributed to them tastes,
odours, and the other ideas of that sort, the sensations of
which were caused by itself;* and as it only considered
other objects in so far as they were useful to the body, in
which it was immersed, it judged that there was greater or
less reality in each object, according as the impressions it
caused on the body were more or less powerful. Hence
arose the belief that there was more substance or body in
rocks and metals than in air or water, because the mind
perceived in them more hardness and weight. Moreover,
the air was thought to be merely nothing so long as we
experienced no agitation of it by the wind, or did not feel
it hot or cold. And because the stars gave hardly more
light than the slender flames of candles, we supposed that
each star was but of this size. Again, since the mind did
not observe that the earth moved on its axis, or that
its superficies was curved like that of a globe, it was on
that account more ready to judge the earth immoveable and
its surface flat. And our mind has been imbued from our
infancy with a thousand other prejudices of the same sort,
* "which it perceived on occasion of them" (i. e., of external objects).
-French.
228
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
which afterwards in our youth we forgot we had accepted
without sufficient examination, and admitted as possessed
of the highest truth and clearness, as if they had been
known by means of our senses, or implanted in us by
nature.
LXXII. That the second cause of our errors is that we
cannot forget these prejudices.
And although now in our mature years, when the mind,
being no longer wholly subject to the body, is not in the habit
of referring all things to it, but also seeks to discover the
truth of things considered in themselves, we observe the
falsehood of a great many of the judgments we had before
formed; yet we experience a difficulty in expunging them
from our memory, and, so long as they remain there, they
give rise to various errors. Thus, for example, since from
our earliest years we imagined the stars to be of very small
size, we find it highly difficult to rid ourselves of this
imagination, although assured by plain astronomical reasons
that they are of the greatest,—so prevailing is the power of
preconceived opinion.
LXXIII. The third cause is, that we become fatigued
by attending to those objects which are not present to the
senses; and that we are thus accustomed to judge of
these not from present perception but from pre-conceived
opinion.
Besides, our mind cannot attend to any object without
at length experiencing some pain and fatigue; and of all
objects it has the greatest difficulty in attending to those
which are present neither to the senses nor to the imagina-
tion: whether for the reason that this is natural to it from
its union with the body, or because in our early years,
being occupied merely with perceptions and imaginations,
it has become more familiar with, and acquired greater
facility in thinking in those modes than in any other. Hence
it also happens that many are unable to conceive any sub-
stance except what is imaginable and corporeal, and even
PART I.
229
sensible. For they are ignorant of the circumstance, that
those objects alone are imaginable which consist in exten-
sion, motion, and figure, while there are many others
besides these that are intelligible; and they persuade them-
selves that nothing can subsist but body, and, finally, that
there is no body which is not sensible. And since in truth
we perceive no object such as it is by sense alone [but only
by our reason exercised upon sensible objects], as will
hereafter be clearly shown, it thus happens that the
majority during life perceive nothing unless in a confused
way.
LXXIV. The fourth source of our errors is, that we
attach our thoughts to words which do not express them
with accuracy.
Finally, since for the use of speech we attach all our
conceptions to words by which to express them, and com-
mit to memory our thoughts in connection with these
terms, and as we afterwards find it more easy to recall the
words than the things signified by them, we can scarcely
conceive anything with such distinctness as to separate
entirely what we conceive from the words that were
selected to express it. On this account the majority attend
to words rather than to things; and thus very frequently
assent to terms without attaching to them any meaning,
either because they think they once understood them, or
imagine they received them from others by whom they
were correctly understood. This, however, is not the place
to treat of this matter in detail, seeing the nature of the
human body has not yet been expounded, nor the existence
even of body established; enough, nevertheless, appears to
have been said to enable one to distinguish such of our
conceptions as are clear and distinct from those that are
obscure and confused.
LXXV. Summary of what must be observed in order
to philosophize correctly.
Wherefore if we would philosophize in earnest, and give
230
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
ourselves to the search after all the truths we are capable of
knowing, we must, in the first place, lay aside our pre
judices; in other words, we must take care scrupulously to
withhold our assent from the opinions we have formerly
admitted, until upon new examination we discover that
they are true. We must, in the next place, make an
orderly review of the notions we have in our minds, and
hold as true all and only those which we will clearly and
distinctly apprehend. In this way we will observe, first
of all, that we exist in so far as it is our nature to think,
and at the same time that there is a God upon whom we
depend; and after considering his attributes we will be
able to investigate the truth of all other things, since God
is the cause of them. Besides the notions we have of God
and of our mind, we will likewise find that we possess the
knowledge of many propositions which are eternally true,
as, for example, that nothing cannot be the cause of any-
thing, etc. We will farther discover in our minds the
knowledge of a corporeal or extended nature that may be
moved, divided, etc., and also of certain sensations that
affect us, as of pain, colours, tastes, etc., although we do
not yet know the cause of our being so affected; and,
comparing what we have now learned, by examining
those things in their order, with our former confused
knowledge of them, we will acquire the habit of forming
clear and distinct conceptions of all the objects we are
capable of knowing. In these few precepts seem to me to
be comprised the most general and important principles of
human knowledge.
LXXVI. That we ought to prefer the Divine authority
to our perception:* but that, apart from things revealed,
we ought to assent to nothing that we do not clearly appre-
hend.
Above all, we must impress on our memory the infallible
* “reasonings.”—French.
PART I.
231
rule, that what God has revealed is incomparably more
certain than anything else; and that we ought to submit
our belief to the Divine authority rather than to our own
judgment, even although perhaps the light of reason should,
with the greatest clearness and evidence, appear to suggest
to us something contrary to what is revealed. But in
things regarding which there is no revelation, it is by no
means consistent with the character of a philosopher to
accept as true what he has not ascertained to be such, and
to trust more to the senses, in other words, to the incon-
siderate judgments of childhood than to the dictates of
mature reason.
232
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
PART II.
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MATERIAL THINGS.
I. THE grounds on which the existence of material things
may be known with certainty.
Although we are all sufficiently persuaded of the exist-
ence of material things, yet, since this was before called
in question by us, and since we reckoned the persuasion of
their existence as among the prejudices of our childhood,
it is now necessary for us to investigate the grounds on
which this truth may be known with certainty. In the
first place, then, it cannot be doubted that every percep-
tion we have comes to us from some object different from
our mind; for it is not in our power to cause ourselves to
experience one perception rather than another, the percep-
tion being entirely dependent on the object which affects.
our senses. It may, indeed, be matter of inquiry whether
that object be God, or something different from God; but
because we perceive, or rather, stimulated by sense, clearly
and distinctly apprehend, certain matter extended in length,
breadth, and thickness, the various parts of which have
different figures and motions, and give rise to the sensa-
tions we have of colours, smells, pain, etc., God would,
without question, deserve to be regarded as a deceiver, if
he directly and of himself presented to our mind the idea
of this extended matter, or merely caused it to be pre-
sented to us by some object which possessed neither
extension, figure, nor motion. For we clearly conceive
this matter as entirely distinct from God, and from our-
PART II,
233
selves, or our mind; and appear even clearly to discern
that the idea of it is formed in us on occasion of objects
existing out of our minds, to which it is in every respect
similar. But since God cannot deceive us, for this is
repugnant to his nature, as has been already remarked,
we must unhesitatingly conclude that there exists a certain
object extended in length, breadth, and thickness, and
possessing all those properties which we clearly apprehend
to belong to what is extended. And this extended sub-
stance is what we call body or matter.
II. How we likewise know that the human body is
closely connected with the mind.
We ought also to conclude that a certain body is more
closely united to our mind than any other, because we
clearly observe that pain and other sensations affect us
without our foreseeing them; and these, the mind is con-
scious, do not arise from itself alone, nor pertain to it, in
so far as it is a thing which thinks, but only in so far as
it is united to another thing extended and moveable, which
is called the human body. But this is not the place to
treat in detail of this matter.
III. That the perceptions of the senses do not teach us
what is in reality in things, but what is beneficial or hurt-
ful to the composite whole of mind and body.
It will be sufficient to remark that the perceptions of
the senses are merely to be referred to this intimate union
of the human body and mind, and that they usually make
us aware of what, in external objects, may be useful or
adverse to this union, but do not present to us these objects
as they are in themselves, unless occasionally and by acci-
dent. For, after this observation, we will without difficulty
lay aside the prejudices of the senses, and will have
recourse to our understanding alone on this question, by
reflecting carefully on the ideas implanted in it by nature.
IV. That the nature of body consists not in weight,
hardness, colour, and the like, but in extension alone.
234
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
In this way we will discern that the nature of matter or
body, considered in general, does not consist in its being
hard, or ponderous, or coloured, or that which affects our
senses in any other way, but simply in its being a substance
extended in length, breadth, and depth. For, with respect
to hardness, we know nothing of it by sense farther than
that the parts of hard bodies resist the motion of our hands
on coming into contact with them; but if every time our
hands moved towards any part, all the bodies in that place
receded as quickly as our hands approached, we should
never feel hardness; and yet we have no reason to believe
that bodies which might thus recede would on this account
lose that which makes them bodies. The nature of body
' does not, therefore, consist in hardness. In the same way,
it may be shown that weight, colour, and all the other
qualities of this sort, which are perceived in corporeal
matter, may be taken from it, itself meanwhile remaining
entire it thus follows that the nature of body depends on
none of these.
:
V. That the truth regarding the nature of body is
obscured by the opinions respecting rarefaction and a
vacuum with which we are pre-occupied.
There still remain two causes to prevent its being fully
admitted that the true nature of body consists in extension
alone. The first is the prevalent opinion, that most bodies
admit of being so rarefied and condensed that, when rare-
fied, they have greater extension than when condensed;
and some even have subtilized to such a degree as to make
a distinction between the substance of body and its quan-
tity, and between quantity itself and extension. The
second cause is this, that where we conceive only extension
in length, breadth, and depth, we are not in the habit of
saying that body is there, but only space and further void
space, which the generality believe to be a mere negation.
VI. In what way rarefaction takes place.
But with regard to rarefaction and condensation, who-
PART II.
235
ever gives his attention to his own thoughts, and admits
nothing of which he is not clearly conscious, will not
suppose that there is anything in those processes further
than a change of figure in the body rarefied or condensed:
so that, in other words, rare bodies are those between the
parts of which there are numerous distances filled with
other bodies; and dense bodies, on the other hand, those
whose parts approaching each other, either diminish these
distances or take them wholly away, in the latter of which
cases the body is rendered absolutely dense.
The body,
however, when condensed, has not, therefore, less exten-
sion than when the parts embrace a greater space, owing
to their removal from each other, and their dispersion into
branches. For we ought not to attribute to it the exten-
sion of the pores or distances which its parts do not occupy
when it is rarefied, but to the other bodies that fill these
interstices; just as when we see a sponge full of water or
any other liquid, we do not suppose that each part of the
sponge has on this account greater extension than when
compressed and dry, but only that its pores are wider, and
therefore that the body is diffused over a larger space.
VII. That rarefaction cannot be intelligibly explained
unless in the way here proposed.
And indeed I am unable to discover the force of the
reasons which have induced some to say that rarefaction is
the result of the augmentation of the quantity of body,
rather than to explain it on the principle exemplified in
the case of a sponge. For although when air or water
are rarefied we do not see any of the pores that are ren-
dered large, or the new body that is added to occupy them,
it is yet less agreeable to reason to suppose something that
is unintelligible for the purpose of giving a verbal and
merely apparent explanation of the rarefaction of bodies,
than to conclude, because of their rarefaction, that there
are pores or distances between the parts which are
increased in size, and filled with some new body. Nor
236
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
ought we to refrain from assenting to this explanation,
because we perceive this new body by none of our senses,
for there is no reason which obliges us to believe that we
should perceive by our senses all the bodies in existence.
And we see that it is very easy to explain rarefaction in
this manner, but impossible in any other; for, in fine,
there would be, as appears to me, a manifest contradiction
in supposing that any body was increased by a quantity or
extension which it had not before, without the addition to
it of a new extended substance, in other words, of another
body, because it is impossible to conceive any addition of
extension or quantity to a thing without supposing the
addition of a substance having quantity or extension, as
will more clearly appear from what follows.
VIII. That quantity and number differ only in thought
(ratione) from that which has quantity and is numbered.
For quantity differs from extended substance, and num-
ber from what is numbered, not in reality but merely in
our thought; so that, for example, we may consider the
whole nature of a corporeal substance which is comprised
in a space of ten feet, although we do not attend to this
measure of ten feet, for the obvious reason that the thing
conceived is of the same nature in any part of that space
as in the whole; and, on the other hand, we can conceive
the number ten, as also a continuous quantity of ten feet,
without thinking of this determinate substance, because the
concept of the number ten is manifestly the same whether
we consider a number of ten feet or ten of anything else;
and we can conceive a continuous quantity of ten feet
without thinking of this or that determinate substance,
although we cannot conceive it without some extended
substance of which it is the quantity. It is in reality,
however, impossible that any, even the least part, of such
quantity or extension, can be taken away, without the
retrenchment at the same time of as much of the substance,
nor, on the other hand, can we lessen the substance, with-
PART II.
237
out at the same time taking as much from the quantity
or extension.
IX. That corporeal substance, when distinguished from
its quantity, is confusedly conceived as something in-
corporeal.
Although perhaps some express themselves otherwise on
this matter, I am nevertheless convinced that they do not
think differently from what I have now said: for when
they distinguish (corporeal) substance from extension or
quantity, they either mean nothing by the word (corporeal)
substance, or they form in their minds merely a confused.
idea of incorporeal substance, which they falsely attribute
to corporeal, and leave to extension the true idea of this
corporeal substance; which extension they call an accident,
but with such impropriety as to make it easy to discover
that their words are not in harmony with their thoughts.
X. What space or internal place is.
Space or internal place, and the corporeal substance
which is comprised in it, are not different in reality, but
merely in the mode in which they are wont to be conceived
by us. For, in truth, the same extension in length,
breadth, and depth, which constitutes space, constitutes
body; and the difference between them lies only in this,
that in body we consider extension as particular, and con-
ceive it to change with the body; whereas in space we
attribute to extension a generic unity, so that after taking
from a certain space the body which occupied it, we do
not suppose that we have at the same time removed the
extension of the space, because it appears to us that the
same extension remains there so long as it is of the same
magnitude and figure, and preserves the same situation in
respect to certain bodies around it, by means of which we
determine this space.
XI. How space is not in reality different from corporeal
substance.
And indeed it will be easy to discern that it is the same
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THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
extension which constitutes the nature of body as of space,
and that these two things are mutually diverse only as the
nature of the genus and species differs from that of the
individual, provided we reflect on the idea we have of any
body, taking a stone for example, and reject all that is not
essential to the nature of body. In the first place, then,
hardness may be rejected, because if the stone were
liquefied or reduced to powder, it would no longer possess
hardness, and yet would not cease to be a body; colour
also may be thrown out of account, because we have fre-
quently seen stones so transparent as to have no colour;
again, we may reject weight, because we have the case of
fire, which, though very light, is still a body; and, finally,
we may reject cold, heat, and all the other qualities of this
sort, either because they are not considered as in the stone,
or because, with the change of these qualities, the stone is
not supposed to have lost the nature of body. After this
examination we will find that nothing remains in the idea
of body, except that it is something extended in length,
breadth, and depth; and this something is comprised in
our idea of space, not only of that which is full of body,
but even of what is called void space.
XII. How space differs from body in our mode of con-
ceiving it.
There is, however, some difference between them in the
mode of conception; for if we remove a stone from the
space or place in which it was, we conceive that its ex-
tension also is taken away, because we regard this as
particular, and inseparable from the stone itself: but mean-
while we suppose that the same extension of place in
which this stone was remains, although the place of the
stone be occupied by wood, water, air, or by any other body,
or be even supposed vacant, because we now consider
extension in general, and think that the same is common
to stones, wood, water, air, and other bodies, and even to
a vacuum itself, if there is any such thing, provided it be
PART II.
239
of the same magnitude and figure as before, and preserve
the same situation among the external bodies which deter-
mine this space.
XIII. What external place is.
The reason of which is, that the words place and space
signify nothing really different from body which is said to
be in place, but merely designate its magnitude, figure, and
situation among other bodies. For it is necessary, in order
to determine this situation, to regard certain other bodies
which we consider as immoveable; and, according as we
look to different bodies, we may see that the same thing
at the same time does and does not change place. For
example, when a vessel is being carried out to sea, a person
sitting at the stern may be said to remain always in one
place, if we look to the parts of the vessel, since with
respect to these he preserves the same situation; and on the
other hand, if regard be had to the neighbouring shores,
the same person will seem to be perpetually changing
place, seeing he is constantly receding from one shore and
approaching another. And besides, if we suppose that the
earth moves, and that it makes precisely as much way from
west to east as the vessel from east to west, we will again
say that the person at the stern does not change his place,
because this place will be determined by certain immove-
able points which we imagine to be in the heavens. But
if at length we are persuaded that there are no points really
immoveable in the universe, as will hereafter be shown to
be probable, we will thence conclude that nothing has a
permanent place unless in so far as it is fixed by our
thought.
XIV. Wherein place and space differ.
The terms place and space, however, differ in significa-
tion, because place more expressly designates situation than
magnitude or figure, while, on the other hand, we think of
the latter when we speak of space. For we frequently
say that a thing succeeds to the place of another, although
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THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
it be not exactly of the same magnitude or figure; but
we do not therefore admit that it occupies the same space
as the other; and when the situation is changed we say
that the place also is changed, although there are the same
magnitude and figure as before: so that when we say
that a thing is in a particular place, we mean merely that it
is situated in a determinate way in respect of certain other
objects; and when we add that it occupies such a space
or place, we understand besides that it is of such deter-
minate magnitude and figure as exactly to fill this space.
XV. How external place is rightly taken for the super-
ficies of the surrounding body.
And thus we never indeed distinguish space from ex-
tension in length, breadth, and depth; we sometimes,
however, consider place as in the thing placed, and at other
times as out of it. Internal place indeed differs in no way
from space; but external place may be taken for the
superficies that immediately surrounds the thing placed.
It ought to be remarked that by superficies we do not here
understand any part of the surrounding body, but only the
boundary between the surrounding and surrounded bodies,
which is nothing more than a mode; or at least that we
speak of superficies in general which is no part of one body
rather than another, but is always considered the same,
provided it retain the same magnitude and figure. For
although the whole surrounding body with its superficies
were changed, it would not be supposed that the body which
was surrounded by it had therefore changed its place, if it
meanwhile preserved the same situation with respect to the
other bodies that are regarded as immoveable. Thus, if
we suppose that a boat is carried in one direction by the
current of a stream, and impelled by the wind in the
opposite with an equal force, so that its situation with
respect to the banks is not changed, we will readily admit
that it remains in the same place, although the whole
superficies which surrounds it is incessantly changing.
PART II.
241
XVI. That a vacuum or space in which there is abso-
lutely no body is repugnant to reason.
With regard to a vacuum, in the philosophical sense of
the term, that is, a space in which there is no substance,
it is evident that such does not exist, seeing the extension
of space or internal place is not different from that of body.
For since from this alone, that a body has extension in
length, breadth, and depth, we have reason to conclude
that it is a substance, it being absolutely contradictory
that nothing should possess extension, we ought to form
a similar inference regarding the space which is supposed
void, viz., that since there is extension in it there is neces-
sarily also substance.
XVII. That a vacuum in the ordinary use of the term
does not exclude all body.
And, in truth, by the term vacuum in its common use,
we do not mean a place or space in which there is abso-
lutely nothing, but only a place in which there is none of
those things we presume ought to be there. Thus, because
a pitcher is made to hold water, it is said to be empty
when it is merely filled with air; or if there are no fish in
a fish-pond, we say there is nothing in it, although it be
full of water; thus a vessel is said to be empty, when, in
place of the merchandise which it was designed to carry,
it is loaded with sand only, to enable it to resist the
violence of the wind; and, finally, it is in the same sense
that we say space is void when it contains nothing sensible,
although it contain created and self-subsisting matter; for
we are not in the habit of considering the bodies near us,
unless in so far as they cause in our organs of sense im-
pressions strong enough to enable us to perceive them.
And if, in place of keeping in mind what ought to be
understood by these terms a vacuum and nothing, we
afterwards suppose that in the space we called a vacuum,
there is not only no sensible object, but no object at all,
we will fall into the same error as if, because a pitcher in
T
}
242
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
which there is nothing but air, is, in common speech, said
to be empty, we were therefore to judge that the air con-
tained in it is not a substance (res subsistens).
XVIII. How the prejudice of an absolute vacuum is to
be corrected.
We have almost all fallen into this error from the ear-
liest age, for, observing that there is no necessary connec-
tion between a vessel and the body it contains, we thought
that God at least could take from a vessel the body which
occupied it, without it being necessary that any other
should be put in the place of the one removed. But that
we may be able now to correct this false opinion, it is
necessary to remark that there is in truth no connection
between the vessel and the particular body which it con-
tains, but that there is an absolutely necessary connection
between the concave figure of the vessel and the extension
considered generally which must be comprised in this
cavity; so that it is not more contradictory to conceive a
mountain without a valley than such a cavity without the
extension it contains, or this extension apart from an
extended subtance, for, as we have often said, of nothing
there can be no extension. And accordingly, if it be
asked what would happen were God to remove from a
vessel all the body contained in it, without permitting
another body to occupy its place, the answer must be that
the sides of the vessel would thus come into proximity with
each other. For two bodies must touch each other when
there is nothing between them, and it is manifestly con-
tradictory for two bodies to be apart, in other words, that
there should be a distance between them, and this distance
yet be nothing; for all distance is a mode of extension, and
cannot therefore exist without an extended substance.
XIX. That this confirms what was said of rarefaction.
After we have thus remarked that the nature of corporeal
substance consists only in its being an extended thing, and
that its extension is not different from that which we attri-
PART II.
243
bute to space, however empty, it is easy to discover the
impossibility of any one of its parts in any way whatsoever
occupying more space at one time than at another, and
thus of being otherwise rarefied than in the way explained
above; and it is easy to perceive also that there cannot be
more matter or body in a vessel when it is filled with lead
or gold, or any other body however heavy and hard, than
when it but contains air and is supposed to be empty: for
the quantity of the parts of which a body is composed does
not depend on their weight or hardness, but only on the
extension, which is always equal in the same vase.
XX. That from this the non-existence of atoms may
likewise be demonstrated.
We likewise discover that there cannot exist any atoms
or parts of matter that are of their own nature indivisible.
For however small we suppose these parts to be, yet
because they are necessarily extended, we are always able
in thought to divide any one of them into two or more
smaller parts, and may accordingly admit their divisibility.
For there is nothing we can divide in thought which we
do not thereby recognise to be divisible; and, therefore,
were we to judge it indivisible our judgment would not
be in harmony with the knowledge we have of the thing;
and although we should even suppose that God had
reduced any particle of matter to a smallness so extreme
that it did not admit of being further divided, it would
nevertheless be improperly styled indivisible, for though
God had rendered the particle so small that it was not in
the power of any creature to divide it, he could not how-
ever deprive himself of the ability to do so, since it is
absolutely impossible for him to lessen his own omnipotence,
as was before observed. Wherefore, absolutely speaking,
the smallest extended particle is always divisible, since it
is such of its very nature.
XXI. It is thus also demonstrated that the extension of
the world is indefinite.
244
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
We further discover that this world or the whole
(universitas) of corporeal substance, is extended without
limit, for wherever we fix a limit, we still not only imagine
beyond it spaces indefinitely extended, but perceive these
to be truly imaginable, in other words, to be in reality such
as we imagine them; so that they contain in them cor-
poreal substance indefinitely extended, for, as has been
already shown at length, the idea of extension which we
conceive in any space whatever is plainly identical with
the idea of corporeal substance.
XXII. It also follows that the matter of the heavens
and earth is the same, and that there cannot be a plurality
of worlds.
And it may also be easily inferred from all this that the
earth and heavens are made of the same matter; and that
even although there were an infinity of worlds, they would
all be composed of this matter; from which it follows that
a plurality of worlds is impossible, because we clearly
conceive that the matter whose nature consists only in its
being an extended substance, already wholly occupies all
the imaginable spaces where these other worlds could alone
be, and we cannot find in ourselves the idea of any other
matter.
XXIII. That all the variety of matter, or the diversity
of its forms, depends on motion.
There is therefore but one kind of matter in the whole
universe, and this we know only by its being extended.
All the properties we distinctly perceive to belong to it are
reducible to its capacity of being divided and moved
according to its parts; and accordingly it is capable of all
those affections which we perceive can arise from the
motion of its parts. For the partition of matter in thought
makes no change in it; but all variation of it, or diversity
of form, depends on motion. The philosophers even seem
universally to have observed this, for they said that nature
was the principle of motion and rest, and by nature they
PART II.
245
understood that by which all corporeal things become such
as they are found in experience.
use.
XXIV. What motion is, taking the term in its common
But motion (viz., local, for I can conceive no other kind
of motion, and therefore I do not think we ought to suppose
there is any other in nature), in the ordinary sense of the
term, is nothing more than the action by which a body passes
from one place to another. And just as we have remarked
above that the same thing may be said to change and not
to change place at the same time, so also we may say that
the same thing is at the same time moved and not moved.
Thus, for example, a person seated in a vessel which is
setting sail, thinks he is in motion if he look to the shore
that he has left, and consider it as fixed; but not if he
regard the ship itself, among the parts of which he pre-
serves always the same situation. Moreover, because we
are accustomed to suppose that there is no motion without
action, and that in rest there is the cessation of action, the
person thus seated is more properly said to be at rest than
in motion, seeing he is not conscious of being in action.
XXV. What motion is properly so called.
But if, instead of occupying ourselves with that which
has no foundation, unless in ordinary usage, we desire to
know what ought to be understood by motion according
to the truth of the thing, we may say, in order to give it a
determinate nature, that it is the transporting of one part of
matter or of one body from the vicinity of those bodies that are
in immediate contact with it, or which we regard as at rest,⁹to
the vicinity of other bodies. By a body as a part of matter,
I understand all that which is transferred together, although
it be perhaps composed of several parts, which in them-
selves have other motions; and I say that it is the trans-
porting and not the force or action which transports, with
the view of showing that motion is always in the moveable
thing, not in that which moves; for it seems to me that
246
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
we are not accustomed to distinguish these two things with
sufficient accuracy. Farther, I understand that it is a
mode of the moveable thing, and not a substance, just as
figure is a property of the thing figured, and repose of that
which is at rest.
PART III.
247
PART III.
OF THE VISIBLE WORLD.
I. That we cannot think too highly of the works of
God.
Having now ascertained certain principles of material
things, which were sought, not by the prejudices of the
senses, but by the light of reason, and which thus possess
so great evidence that we cannot doubt of their truth, it
remains for us to consider whether from these alone we
can deduce the explication of all the phenomena of nature.
We will commence with those phenomena that are of the
greatest generality, and upon which the others depend, as,
for example, with the general structure of this whole visible
world. But in order to our philosophising aright re-
garding this, two things are first of all to be observed.
The first is, that we should ever bear in mind the infinity
of the power and goodness of God, that we may not fear
falling into error by imagining his works to be too great,
beautiful, and perfect, but that we may, on the contrary,
take care lest, by supposing limits to them of which we
have no certain knowledge, we appear to think less highly
than we ought of the power of God.
II. That we ought to beware lest, in our presumption,
we imagine that the ends which God proposed to himself
in the creation of the world are understood by us.
The second is, that we should beware of presuming too
highly of ourselves, as it seems we should do if we supposed
certain limits to the world, without being assured of their
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THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
existence either by natural reasons or by divine revelation,
as if the power of our thought extended beyond what God
has in reality made; but likewise still more if we persuaded
ourselves that all things were created by God for us only,
or if we merely supposed that we could comprehend by
the power of our intellect the ends which God proposed
to himself in creating the universe.
III. In what sense it may be said that all things were
created for the sake of man.
For although, as far as regards morals, it may be a pious.
thought to believe that God made all things for us, seeing
we may thus be incited to greater gratitude and love to-
ward him; and although it is even in some sense true,
because there is no created thing of which we cannot make
some use, if it be only that of exercising our mind in con-
sidering it, and honouring God on account of it, it is yet by
no means probable that all things were created for us in
this way that God had no other end in their creation; and
this supposition would be plainly ridiculous and inept in
physical reasoning, for we do not doubt but that many
things exist, or formerly existed and have now ceased to
be, which were never seen or known by man, and were
never of use to him.
PART IV.
249
PART IV.
OF THE EARTH,
CLXXXVIII. Of what is to be borrowed from disqui-
sitions on animals and man to advance the knowledge of
material objects.
I should add nothing farther to this the Fourth Part of
the Principles of Philosophy, did I purpose carrying out
my original design of writing a Fifth and Sixth Fart, the
one treating of things possessed of life, that is, animals and
plants, and the other of man. But because I have not yet
acquired sufficient knowledge of all the matters of which
I should desire to treat in these two last parts, and do not
know whether I ever shall have sufficient leisure to finish
them, I will here subjoin a few things regarding the objects
of our senses, that I may not, for the sake of the latter,
delay too long the publication of the former parts, or of
what may be desiderated in them, which I might have re-
served for explanation in those others: for I have hitherto
described this earth, and generally the whole visible world,
as if it were merely a machine in which there was nothing
at all to consider except the figures and motions of its
parts, whereas our senses present to us many other things,
for example colours, smells, sounds, and the like, of which,
if I did not speak at all, it would be thought I had omitted
the explication of the majority of the objects that are in
nature.
CLXXXIX. What perception (sensus) is, and how we
perceive.
We must know, therefore, that although the human soul
T2
250
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
is united to the whole body, it has, nevertheless, its principal
seat in the brain, where alone it not only understands and
imagines, but also perceives; and this by the medium of
the nerves, which are extended like threads from the brain
to all the other members, with which they are so connected
that we can hardly touch any one of them without moving
the extremities of some of the nerves spread over it; and
this motion passes to the other extremities of those nerves
which are collected in the brain round the seat of the
soul,* as I have already explained with sufficient minuteness
in the fourth chapter of the Dioptrics. But the move-
ments which are thus excited in the brain by the nerves,
variously affect the soul or mind, which is intimately con-
joined with the brain, according to the diversity of the
motions themselves. And the diverse affections of the
mind or thoughts that immediately arise from these
motions, are called perceptions of the senses (sensuum per-
ceptiones), or, as we commonly speak, sensations (sensus).
CXC. Of the distinction of the senses; and, first, of the
internal, that is, of the affections of the mind (passions),
and the natural appetites.
The varieties of these sensations depend, firstly, on the
diversity of the nerves themselves, and, secondly, of the
movements that are made in each nerve. We have not,
however, as many different senses as there are nerves.
We can distinguish but seven principal classes of nerves,
of which two belong to the internal, and the other five to
the external senses. The nerves which extend to the
stomach, the oesophagus, the fauces, and the other in-
ternal parts that are subservient to our natural wants,
constitute one of our internal senses. This is called the
natural appetite (appetitus naturalis). The other internal
sense, which embraces all the emotions (commotiones) of
the mind or passions, and affections, as joy, sadness, love,
* "common sense."-French.
PART IV.
251
hate, and the like, depends upon the nerves which extend
to the heart and the parts about the heart, and are ex-
ceedingly small; for, by way of example, when the blood
happens to be pure and well tempered, so that it dilates in
the heart more readily and strongly than usual, this so
enlarges and moves the small nerves scattered around the
orifices, that there is thence a corresponding movement in
the brain, which affects the mind with a certain natural
feeling of joy; and as often as these same nerves are moved
in the same way, although this is by other causes, they
excite in our mind the same feeling (sensus, sentiment).
Thus, the imagination of the enjoyment of a good does
not contain in itself the feeling of joy, but it causes the
animal spirits to pass from the brain to the muscles in
which these nerves are inserted; and thus dilating the
orifices of the heart, it also causes these small nerves to
move in the way appointed by nature to afford the sensa-
tion of joy. Thus, when we receive news, the mind first
of all judges of it, and if the news be good, it rejoices with
that intellectual joy (gaudium intellectuale) which is inde-
pendent of any emotion (commotio) of the body, and which
the Stoics did not deny to their wise man [although they
supposed him exempt from all passion]. But as soon as
this joy passes from the understanding to the imagination,
the spirits flow from the brain to the muscles that are
about the heart, and there excite the motion of the small
nerves, by means of which another motion is caused in the
brain, which affects the mind with the sensation of animal
joy (laetitia animalis). On the same principle, when the
blood is so thick that it flows but sparingly into the ven-
tricles of the heart, and is not there sufficiently dilated, it
excites in the same nerves a motion quite different from
the preceding, which, communicated to the brain, gives to
the mind the sensation of sadness, although the mind itself
is perhaps ignorant of the cause of its sadness. And all
the other causes which move these nerves in the same way
252
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
may also give to the mind the same sensation. But the
other movements of the same nerves produce other effects,
as the feelings of love, hate, fear, anger, etc., as far as
they are merely affections or passions of the mind; in
other words, as far as they are confused thoughts which the
mind has not from itself alone, but from its being closely
joined to the body, from which it receives impressions; for
there is the widest difference between these passions and the
distinct thoughts which we have of what ought to be loved,
or chosen, or shunned, etc., [although these are often
enough found together]. The natural appetites, as hunger,
thirst, and the others, are likewise sensations excited in the
mind by means of the nerves of the stomach, fauces, and
other parts, and are entirely different from the will which
we have to eat, drink, [and to do all that which we think
proper for the conservation of our body]; but, because
this will or appetition almost always accompanies them,
they are therefore named appetites.
CXCI. Of the external senses; and first of touch.
We commonly reckon the external senses five in number,
because there are as many different kinds of objects which
move the nerves and their organs, and an equal number of
kinds of confused thoughts excited in the soul by these motions.
In the first place, the nerves terminating in the skin of the
whole body can be touched through this medium by any
terrene objects whatever, and moved by these wholes, in one
way by their hardness, in another by their gravity, in a
third by their heat, in a fourth by their humidity, etc.-
and in as many diverse modes as they are either moved
or hindered from their ordinary motion, to that extent are
diverse sensations excited in the mind, from which a cor-
responding number of tactile qualities derive their appella-
tions. Besides this, when these nerves are moved a little
more powerfully than usual, but not nevertheless to the
degree by which our body is in any way hurt, there thus
arises a sensation of titillation, which is naturally agreeable
PART IV.
253
to the mind, because it testifies to it of the powers of the
body with which it is joined, [in that the latter can suffer
the action causing this titillation, without being hurt].
But if this action be strong enough to hurt our body in any
way, this gives to our mind the sensation of pain. And
we thus see why corporeal pleasure and pain, although
sensations of quite an opposite character, arise nevertheless
from causes nearly alike.
CXCII. Of taste.
In the second place, the other nerves scattered over the
tongue and the parts in its vicinity are diversely moved by
the particles of the same bodies, separated from each other
and floating in the saliva in the mouth, and thus cause
sensations of diverse tastes according to the diversity of
figure in these particles.*
CXCIII. Of smell.
*
Thirdly, two nerves also or appendages of the brain,
for they do not go beyond the limits of the skull, are moved
by the particles of terrestrial bodies, separated and flying
in the air, not indeed by all particles indifferently, but by
those only that are sufficiently subtle and penetrating to
enter the pores of the bone we call the spongy, when drawn
into the nostrils, and thus to reach the nerves. From the
different motions of these particles arise the sensations of
the different smells.
CXCIV. Of hearing.
Fourthly, there are two nerves within the ears, so attached
to three small bones that are mutually sustaining, and the
first of which rests on the small membrane that covers the
cavity we call the tympanum of the ear, that all the diverse
vibrations which the surrounding air communicates to this
membrane, are transmitted to the mind by these nerves,
and these vibrations give rise, according to their diversity,
to the sensations of the different sounds.
* In the French this section begins, "Taste, after touch the grossest
of the senses," etc.
254
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
CXCV. Of sight.
Finally, the extremities of the optic nerves, composing
the coat in the eyes called the retina, are not moved by
the air nor by any terrestrial object, but only by the glo-
bules of the second element,¹ºwhence we have the sense of
light and colours: as I havé already at sufficient length
explained in the Dioptrics and treatise of Meteors.*
CXCVI. That the soul perceives only in so far as it is
in the brain.
It is clearly established, however, that the soul does not
perceive in so far as it is in each member of the body, but
only in so far as it is in the brain, where the nerves by
their movements convey to it the diverse actions of the ex-
ternal objects that touch the parts of the body in which
they are inserted. For, in the first place, there are various
maladies, which, though they affect the brain alone, yet
bring disorder upon, or deprive us altogether of the use
of, our senses, just as sleep, which affects the brain only,
and yet takes from us daily during a great part of our time
the faculty of perception, which afterwards in our waking
state is restored to us. The second proof is, that though
there be no disease in the brain, [or in the members in
which the organs of the external senses are], it is never-
theless sufficient to take away sensation from the part of
the body where the nerves terminate, if only the movement
of one of the nerves that extend from the brain to these
members be obstructed in any part of the distance that is
between the two. And the last proof is, that we some-
times feel pain as if in certain of our members, the cause
of which, however, is not in these members where it is felt,
but somewhere nearer the brain, through which the nerves
pass that give to the mind the sensation of it. I could
establish this fact by innumerable experiments; I will
here, however, merely refer to one of them. A girl suf-
* In the French this section begins, "Finally, sight is the most subtle
of all the senses," etc.
PART IV
255
fering from a bad ulcer in the hand, had her eyes ban-
daged whenever the surgeon came to visit her, not being
able to bear the sight of the dressing of the sore; and, the
gangrene having spread, after the expiry of a few days the
arm was amputated from the elbow [without the girl's
knowledge]; linen cloths tied one above the other were
substituted in place of the part amputated, so that she re-
mained for some time without knowing that the operation
had been performed, and meanwhile she complained of
feeling various pains, sometimes in one finger of the hand
that was cut off, and sometimes in another. The only
explanation of this is, that the nerves which before stretched
downwards from the brain to the hand, and then termi-
nated in the arm close to the elbow, were there moved in
the same way as they required to be moved before in the
hand for the purpose of impressing on the mind residing
in the brain the sensation of pain in this or that finger.
[And this clearly shows that the pain of the hand is not
felt by the mind in so far as it is in the hand, but in so far
as it is in the brain].
CXCVII. That the nature of the mind is such that from
the motion alone of body the various sensations can be
excited in it.
In the next place, it can be proved that our mind is of
such a nature that the motions of the body alone are suffi-
cient to excite in it all sorts of thoughts, without it being
necessary that these should in any way resemble the
motions which give rise to them, and especially that
these motions can excite in it those confused thoughts
called sensations (sensus, sensationes). For we see that
words, whether uttered by the voice or merely written,
excite in our minds all kinds of thoughts and emo-
tions. On the same paper, with the same pen and ink, by
merely moving the point of the pen over the paper in a
particular way, we can trace letters that will raise in the
minds of our readers the thoughts of combats, tempests, or
256
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
the furies, and the passions of indignation and sorrow; in
place of which, if the pen be moved in another way hardly
different from the former, this slight change will cause
thoughts widely different from the above, such as those of
repose, peace, pleasantness, and the quite opposite passions
of love and joy. Some one will perhaps object that writ-
ing and speech do not immediately excite in the mind any
passions, or imaginations of things different from the letters
and sounds, but afford simply the knowledge of these, on
occasion of which the mind, understanding the significa-
tion of the words, afterwards excites in itself the imagina-
tions and passions that correspond to the words. But what
will be said of the sensations of pain and titillation? The
motion merely of a sword cutting a part of our skin
causes pain, [but does not on that account make us aware
of the motion or figure of the sword]. And it is certain that
this sensation of pain is not less different from the motion
that causes it, or from that of the part of our body which
the sword cuts, than are the sensations we have of colour,
sound, odour, or taste. On this ground we may conclude
that our mind is of such a nature that the motions alone
of certain bodies can also easily excite in it all the other
sensations, as the motion of a sword excites in it the sen-
sation of pain.
CXCVIII. That by our senses we know nothing of ex-
ternal objects beyond their figure [or situation], magnitude,
and motion.
Besides, we observe no such difference between the
nerves as to lead us to judge that one set of them convey
to the brain from the organs of the external senses any-
thing different from another, or that anything at all reaches
the brain besides the local motion of the nerves themselves.
And we see that local motion alone causes in us not only
the sensation of titillation and of pain, but also of light and
sounds. For if we receive a blow on the eye of sufficient
force to cause the vibration of the stroke to reach the
PART IV.
257
retina, we see numerous sparks of fire, which, nevertheless,
are not out of our eye; and when we stop our ear with
our finger, we hear a humming sound, the cause of which
can only proceed from the agitation of the air that is shut
up within it. Finally, we frequently observe that heat
[hardness, weight], and the other sensible qualities, as far
as they are in objects, and also the forms of those bodies
that are purely material, as, for example, the forms of fire,
are produced in them by the motion of certain other bodies,
and that these in their turn likewise produce other motions
in other bodies. And we can easily conceive how the
motion of one body may be caused by that of another, and
diversified by the size, figure, and situation of its parts,
but we are wholly unable to conceive how these same
things (viz., size, figure, and motion), can produce some-
thing else of a nature entirely different from themselves,
as, for example, those substantial forms and real qualities
which many philosophers suppose to be in bodies; nor
likewise can we conceive how these qualities or forms
possess force to cause motions in other bodies. But since
we know, from the nature of our soul, that the diverse mo-
tions of body are sufficient to produce in it all the sensa-
tions which it has, and since we learn from experience that
several of its sensations are in reality caused by such
motions, while we do not discover that anything besides
these motions ever passes from the organs of the external
senses to the brain, we have reason to conclude that we in no
way likewise apprehend that in external objects, which we
call light, colour, smell, taste, sound, heat or cold, and the
other tactile qualities, or that which we call their substantial
forms, unless as the various dispositions of these objects
which have the power of moving our nerves in various ways.*
CXCIX. That there is no phenomenon of nature whose
explanation has been omitted in this treatise.
'the diverse figures, situations, magnitudes, and motions of their
parts.”—French.
258
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
And thus it may be gathered, from an enumeration that
is easily made, that there is no phenomenon of nature
whose explanation has been omitted in this treatise; for
beyond what is perceived by the senses, there is nothing
that can be considered a phenomenon of nature. But leav-
ing out of account motion, magnitude, figure, [and the
situation of the parts of each body], which I have explained
as they exist in body, we perceive nothing out of us by
our senses except light, colours, smells, tastes, sounds, and
the tactile qualities; and these I have recently shown to
be nothing more, at least so far as they are known to us,
than certain dispositions of the objects, consisting in mag-
nitude, figure, and motion.
CC. That this treatise contains no principles which are
not universally received; and that this philosophy is not
new, but of all others the most ancient and common.
But I am desirous also that it should be observed that,
though I have here endeavoured to give an explanation of
the whole nature of material things, I have nevertheless
made use of no principle which was not received and ap-
proved by Aristotle, and by the other philosophers of all
ages; so that this philosophy, so far from being new, is of
all others the most ancient and common: for I have in
truth merely considered the figure, motion, and magnitude
of bodies, and examined what must follow from their
mutual concourse on the principles of mechanics, which
are confirmed by certain and daily experience. But no
one ever doubted that bodies are moved, and that they are
of various sizes and figures, according to the diversity of
which their motions also vary, and that from mutual colli-
sion those somewhat greater than others are divided into
many smaller, and thus change figure. We have experi-
ence of the truth of this, not merely by a single sense, but
by several, as touch, sight, and hearing: we also distinctly
imagine and understand it. This cannot be said of any
of the other things that fall under our senses, as colours,
PART IV.
259
sounds, and the like; for each of these affects but one of
our senses, and merely impresses upon our imagination a
confused image of itself, affording our understanding no
distinct knowledge of what it is.
CCI. That sensible bodies are composed of insensible
particles.
But I allow many particles in each body that are per-
ceived by none of our senses, and this will not perhaps be
approved of by those who take the senses for the measure
of the knowable. [We greatly wrong human reason,
however, as appears to me, if we suppose that it does not
go beyond the eye-sight]; for no one can doubt that there
are bodies so small as not to be perceptible by any of our
senses, provided he only consider what is each moment
added to those bodies that are being increased little by
little, and what is taken from those that are diminished in
the same way. A tree increases daily, and it is impossible
to conceive how it becomes greater than it was before,
unless we at the same time conceive that some body is
added to it. But who ever observed by the senses those
small bodies that are in one day added to a tree while
growing? Among the philosophers at least, those who
hold that quantity is indefinitely divisible, ought to admit
that in the division the parts may become so small as to
be wholly imperceptible. And indeed it ought not to be
a matter of surprise, that we are unable to perceive very
minute bodies; for the nerves that must be moved by
objects to cause perception are not themselves very minute,
but are like small cords, being composed of a quantity of
smaller fibres, and thus the most minute bodies are not
capable of moving them. Nor do I think that any one
who makes use of his reason will deny that we philosophize
with much greater truth when we judge of what takes
place in those small bodies which are imperceptible from
their minuteness only, after the analogy of what we see
occurring in those we do perceive, [and in this way explain
260
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
all that is in nature, as I have essayed to do in this treatise],
than when we give an explanation of the same things by
inventing I know not what novelties, that have no relation
to the things we actually perceive, [as first matter, sub-
stantial forms, and all that grand array of qualities which
many are in the habit of supposing, each of which it is
more difficult to comprehend than all that is professed to be
explained by means of them].
CCII. That the philosophy of Democritus is not less
different from ours than from the common.
*
But it may be said that Democritus also supposed cer-
tain corpuscles that were of various figures, sizes, and
motions, from the heaping together and mutual concourse of
which all sensible bodies arose; and, nevertheless, his mode
of philosophizing is commonly rejected by all. To this I reply
that the philosophy of Democritus was never rejected by
any one, because he allowed the existence of bodies smaller
than those we perceive, and attributed to them diverse
sizes, figures, and motions, for no one can doubt that there
are in reality such, as we have already shown; but it was
rejected, in the first place, because he supposed that these
corpuscles were indivisible, on which ground I also reject.
it; in the second place, because he imagined there was a
vacuum about them, which I show to be impossible;
thirdly, because he attributed gravity to these bodies, of
which I deny the existence in any body, in so far as a
body is considered by itself, because it is a quality that
depends on the relations of situation and motion which
several bodies bear to each other; and, finally, because he
has not explained in particular how all things arose from
the concourse of corpuscles alone, or, if he gave this ex-
planation with regard to a few of them, his whole reason-
ing was far from being coherent, [or such as would warrant
us in extending the same explanation to the whole of
* "that of Aristotle or the others."-French.
PART IV.
261
nature]. This, at least, is the verdict we must give re-
garding his philosophy, if we may judge of his opinions
from what has been handed down to us in writing. I
leave it to others to determine whether the philosophy I
profess possesses a valid coherency, [and whether on its
principles we can make the requisite number of deductions ;
and, inasmuch as the consideration of figure, magnitude,
and motion has been admitted by Aristotle and by all the
others, as well as by Democritus, and since I reject all
that the latter has supposed, with this single exception,
while I reject generally all that has been supposed by the
others, it is plain that this mode of philosophizing has no
more affinity with that of Democritus than of any other
particular sect].
CCIII. How we may arrive at the knowledge of the
figures, [magnitudes], and motions of the insensible particles
of bodies.
But, since I assign determinate figures, magnitudes, and
motions to the insensible particles of bodies, as if I had
seen them, whereas I admit that they do not fall under the
senses, some one will perhaps demand how I have come
by my knowledge of them. [To this I reply, that I first
considered in general all the clear and distinct notions of
material things that are to be found in our understanding,
and that, finding no others except those of figures, magni-
tudes, and motions, and of the rules according to which
these three things can be diversified by each other, which
rules are the principles of geometry and mechanics, I judged
that all the knowledge man can have of nature must of
necessity be drawn from this source; because all the other
notions we have of sensible things, as confused and ob-
scure, can be of no avail in affording us the knowledge
of anything out of ourselves, but must serve rather to im-
pede it]. Thereupon, taking as my ground of inference.
the simplest and best known of the principles that have
been implanted in our minds by nature, I considered the
262
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
chief differences that could possibly subsist between the
magnitudes, and figures, and situations of bodies insensible
on account of their smallness alone, and what sensible
effects could be produced by their various modes of coming
into contact; and afterwards, when I found like effects in
the bodies that we perceive by our senses, I judged that
they could have been thus produced, especially since no
other mode of explaining them could be devised. And in
this matter the example of several bodies made by art
was of great service to me: for I recognise no difference
between these and natural bodies beyond this, that the
effects of machines depend for the most part on the agency
of certain instruments, which, as they must bear some pro-
portion to the hands of those who make them, are always
so large that their figures and motions can be seen; in
place of which, the effects of natural bodies almost always
depend upon certain organs so minute as to escape our
senses. And it is certain that all the rules of mechanics
belong also to physics, of which it is a part or species, [so
that all that is artificial is withal natural]: for it is not
less natural for a clock, made of the requisite number of
wheels, to mark the hours, than for a tree, which has
sprung from this or that seed, to produce the fruit peculiar
to it. Accordingly, just as those who are familiar with
automata, when they are informed of the use of a machine,
and see some of its parts, easily infer from these the way
in which the others, that are not seen by them, are made;
so from considering the sensible effects and parts of natural
bodies, I have essayed to determine the character of their
causes and insensible parts.
CCIV. That, touching the things which our senses do
not perceive, it is sufficient to explain how they can be,
[and that this is all that Aristotle has essayed].
But here some one will perhaps reply, that although I
have supposed causes which could produce all natural ob-
jects, we ought not on this account to conclude that they
PART IV.
263
'
were produced by these causes; for, just as the same arti-
san can make two clocks, which, though they both equally
well indicate the time, and are not different in outward
appearance, have nevertheless nothing resembling in the
composition of their wheels; so doubtless the Supreme
Maker of things has an infinity of diverse means at his
disposal, by each of which he could have made all the
things of this world to appear as we see them, without it
being possible for the human mind to know which of
all these means he chose to employ. I most freely concede
this; and I believe that I have done all that was required, if
the causes I have assigned are such that their effects accu-
rately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without
determining whether it is by these or by others that they
are actually produced. And it will be sufficient for the
use of life to know the causes thus imagined, for medicine,
mechanics, and in general all the arts to which the know-
ledge of physics is of service, have for their end only those
effects that are sensible, and that are accordingly to be
reckoned among the phenomena of nature.* And lest it
should be supposed that Aristotle did, or professed to do,
anything more than this, it ought to be remembered that he
himself expressly says, at the commencement of the seventh
chapter of the first book of the Meteorologics, that, with
regard to things which are not manifest to the senses, he
thinks to adduce sufficient reasons and demonstrations of
them, if he only shows that they may be such as he ex-
plains them. †
* "have for their end only to apply certain sensible bodies to each
other in such a way that, in the course of natural causes, certain sen-
sible effects may be produced; and we will be able to accomplish this quite
as well by considering the series of certain causes thus imagined, al-
though false, as if they were the true, since this series is supposed simi-
lar as far as regards sensible effects."-French.
† Ἐπεὶ δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀφανῶν τῇ αἰσθήσει νομίζομεν ἱκανῶς ἀποδεδεῖχθαι
κατὰ τὸν λόγον, ἐὰν εἰς τὸ δυνατὸν ἀναγάγωμεν, ἔκ τε τῶν νῦν φαινομένων ὑπολάβοι
τις ἂν ὧδε περὶ τούτων μάλιστα συμβαίνειν. Μετεως α. 7.-Τ
·
264
THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY.
CCV. That nevertheless there is a moral certainty that
all the things of this world are such as has been here
shown they may be.
But nevertheless, that I may not wrong the truth by
supposing it less certain than it is, I will here distinguish
two kinds of certitude. The first is called moral, that is, a
certainty sufficient for the conduct of life, though, if we
look to the absolute power of God, what is morally certain
may be false. [Thus, those who never visited Rome do
not doubt that it is a city of Italy, though it might be that
all from whom they got their information were deceived].
Again, if any one, wishing to decipher a letter written in
Latin characters that are not placed in regular order, be-
thinks himself of reading a B wherever an A is found, and a
C wherever there is a B, and thus of substituting in place
of each letter the one which follows it in the order of the
alphabet, and if by this means he finds that there are cer-
tain Latin words composed of these, he will not doubt that
the true meaning of the writing is contained in these words,
although he may discover this only by conjecture, and al-
though it is possible that the writer of it did not arrange
the letters on this principle of alphabetical order, but on
some other, and thus concealed another meaning in it for
this is so improbable [especially when the cipher contains
a number of words] as to seem incredible. But they who
observe how many things regarding the magnet, fire, and
the fabric of the whole world, are here deduced from a
very small number of principles, though they deemed that
I had taken them up at random and without grounds,
will yet perhaps acknowledge that it could hardly hap-
pen that so many things should cohere if these principles
were false.
CCVI. That we possess even more than a moral cer-
tainty of it.
Besides, there are some, even among natural, things
which we judge to be absolutely certain. [Abso-
PART IV.
265
lute certainty arises when we judge that it is impossible
a thing can be otherwise than as we think it]. This
certainty is founded on the metaphysical ground, that, as
God is supremely good and the source of all truth, the
faculty of distinguishing truth from error which he gave
us, cannot be fallacious so long as we use it aright, and
distinctly perceive anything by it. Of this character are
the demonstrations of mathematics, the knowledge that
material things exist, and the clear reasonings that are
formed regarding them. The results I have given in this
treatise will perhaps be admitted to a place in the class of
truths that are absolutely certain, if it be considered that
they are deduced in a continuous series from the first and
most elementary principles of human knowledge; especially
if it be sufficiently understood that we can perceive no
external objects unless some local motion be caused by
them in our nerves, and that such motion cannot be caused
by the fixed stars, owing to their great distance from us,
unless a motion be also produced in them and in the whole
heavens lying between them and us: for these points being
admitted, all the others, at least the more general doctrines
which I have advanced regarding the world or earth [e. g.,
the fluidity of the heavens, Part III., §. XLVI.], will ap-
pear to be almost the only possible explanations of the
phenomena they present.
CCVII. That, however, I submit all my opinions to the
authority of the church.
Nevertheless, lest I should presume too far, I affirm no-
thing, but submit all these my opinions to the authority of the
church and the judgment of the more sage; and I desire
no one to believe anything I may have said, unless he is
constrained to admit it by the force and evidence of
reason.
U
APPENDIX.
(From the Reply to the Second Objections—Latin, 1670. pp. 85-91.
French, Garnier. Tom. II., pp. 74–84.)
REASONS WHICH ESTABLISH THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE MIND AND BODY OF MAN,
DISPOSED IN GEOMETRICAL ORDER.
DEFINITIONS.
I. By the term thought (cogitatio, pensée), I comprehend all that is in
us, so that we are immediately conscious of it. Thus, all the operations
of the will, intellect, imagination, and senses, are thoughts. But I have
used the word immediately expressly to exclude whatever follows or de-
pends upon our thoughts: for example, voluntary motion has, in truth,
thought for its source (principle), but yet it is not itself thought. [Thus
walking is not a thought, but the perception or knowledge we have of
our walking is.
II. By the word idea I understand that form of any thought, by the
immediate perception of which I am conscious of that same thought;
so that I can express nothing in words, when I understand what I say,
without making it certain, by this alone, that I possess the idea of the
thing that is signified by these words. And thus I give the appellation
idea not to the images alone that are depicted in the phantasy; on the
contrary, I do not here apply this name to them, in so far as they are in
the corporeal phantasy, that is to say, in so far as they are depicted in
certain parts of the brain, but only in so far as they inform the mind
itself, when turned towards that part of the brain.
III. By the objective reality of an idea I understand the entity or
being of the thing represented by the idea, in so far as this entity is in
the idea; and, in the same manner, it may be called either an objective
268
APPENDIX.
perfection, or objective artifice, etc. (artificium objectivum). For all that
we conceive to be in the objects of the ideas is objectively [or by reprc-
sentation] in the ideas themselves.
IV. The same things are said to be formally in the objects of the
ideas when they are in them such as we conceive them; and they are
said to be in the objects eminently when they are not indeed such as we
conceive them, but are so great that they can supply this defect by
their excellence.
V. Everything in which there immediately resides, as in a subject, or
by which there exists any object we perceive, that is, any property, or
quality, or attribute of which we have in us a real idea, is called sub-
stance. For we have no other idea of substance, accurately taken,
except that it is a thing in which exists formally or eminently this pro-
perty or quality which we perceive, or which is objectively in some one
of our ideas, since we are taught by the natural light that nothing can
have no real attribute.
VI. The substance in which thought immediately resides is here called
mind (mens, esprit). I here speak, however, of mens rather than of
anima, for the latter is equivocal, being frequently applied to denote a
corporeal object.
VII. The substance which is the immediate subject of local exten-
sion, and of the accidents that presuppose this extension, as figure,
situation, local motion, etc., is called body. But whether the substance
which is called mind be the same with that which is called body, or
whether they are two diverse substances, is a question to be hereafter
considered.
VIII. The substance which we understand to be supremely perfect,
and in which we conceive nothing that involves any defect, or limitation
of perfection, is called God.
IX. When we say that some attribute is contained in the nature or
concept of a thing, this is the same as if we said that the attribute is
true of the thing, or that it may be affirmed of the thing itself.
X. Two substances are said to be really distinct, when each of them
may exist without the other.
POSTULATES.
1st. I request that my readers consider how feeble are the reasons
that have hitherto led them to repose faith in their senses, and how
uncertain are all the judgments which they afterwards founded on
them; and that they will revolve this consideration in their mind so long
and so frequently, that, in fine, they may acquire the habit of no longer
trusting so confidently in their senses; for I hold that this is necessary
to render one capable of apprehending metaphysical truths.
2d. That they consider their own mind, and all those of its attributes
of which they shall find they cannot doubt, though they may have sup-
posed that all they ever received by the senses was entirely false, and
that they do not leave off considering it until they have acquired the
APPENDIX.
269
habit of conceiving it distinctly, and of believing that it is more easy to
know than any corporeal object.
3d. That they diligently examine such propositions as are self-evi-
dent, which they will find within themselves, as the following:-That
the same thing cannot at once be and not be; that nothing cannot be
the efficient cause of anything, and the like;-and thus exercise that
clearness of understanding that has been given them by nature, but
which the perceptions of the senses are wont greatly to disturb and
obscure-exercise it, I say, pure and delivered from the objects of
sense; for in this way the truth of the following axioms will appear very
evident to them.
4th. That they examine the ideas of those natures which contain in
them an assemblage of several attributes, such as the nature of the
triangle, that of the square, or of some other figure; as also the nature
of mind, the nature of body, and above all that of God, or of a
being supremely perfect. And I request them to observe that it may
with truth be affirmed that all these things are in objects, which we
clearly conceive to be contained in them: for example, because that, in
the nature of the rectilineal triangle, this property is found contained—
viz., that its three angles are equal to two right angles, and that in the
nature of body or of an extended thing, divisibility is comprised (for we
do not conceive any extended thing so small that we cannot divide it,
at least in thought)—it is true that the three angles of a rectilineal
triangle are equal to two right angles, and that all body is divisible.
5th. That they dwell much and long on the contemplation of the
supremely perfect Being, and, among other things, consider that in the
ideas of all other natures, possible existence is indeed contained, but
that in the idea of God is contained not only possible but absolutely
necessary existence. For, from this alone, and without any reasoning,
they will discover that God exists: and it will be no less evident in itself
than that two is an equal and three an unequal number, with other
truths of this sort. For there are certain truths that are thus manifest
to some without proof, which are not comprehended by others without
a process of reasoning.
6th. That carefully considering all the examples of clear and distinct
perception, and all of obscure and confused, of which I spoke in my
Meditations, they accustom themselves to distinguish things that are
clearly known from those that are obscure, for this is better learnt by
example than by rules; and I think that I have there opened up, or at
least in some degree touched upon, all examples of this kind.
7th. That readers adverting to the circumstance that they never
discovered any falsity in things which they clearly conceived, and that,
on the contrary, they never found, unless by chance, any truth in things
which they conceived but obscurely, consider it to be wholly irrational,
if, on account only of certain prejudices of the senses, or hypotheses
which contain what is unknown, they call in doubt what is clearly and
distinctly conceived by the pure understanding; for they will thus
270
APPENDIX.
readily admit the following axioms to be true and indubitable, though 1
confess that several of them might have been much better unfolded, and
ought rather to have been proposed as theorems than as axioms, if I
had desired to be more exact.
AXIOMS OR COMMON NOTIONS.
I. Nothing exists of which it cannot be inquired what is the cause of
its existing; for this can even be asked respecting God; not that there
is need of any cause in order to his existence, but because the very im-
mensity of his nature is the cause or reason why there is no need of
any cause of his existence.
II. The present time is not dependent on that which immediately
preceded it; for this reason, there is not need of a less cause for con-
serving a thing than for at first producing it.
III. Any thing or any perfection of a thing actually existent cannot
have nothing, or a thing non-existent, for the cause of its existence.
IV. All the reality or perfection which is in a thing is found formally
or eminently in its first and total cause.
V. Whence it follows likewise, that the objective reality of our ideas.
requires a cause in which this same reality is contained, not simply ob-
jectively, but formally or eminently. And it is to be observed that this
axiom must of necessity be admitted, as upon it alone depends the
knowledge of all things, whether sensible or insensible. For whence do
we know, for example, that the sky exists? Is it because we see it?
But this vision does not affect the mind unless in so far as it is an idea,
and an idea inhering in the mind itself, and not an image depicted on
the phantasy; and, by reason of this idea, we cannot judge that the sky
exists unless we suppose that every idea must have a cause of its objec-
tive reality which is really existent; and this cause we judge to be the
sky itself, and so in the other instances.
VI. There are diverse degrees of reality, that is, of entity [or perfec-
tion]: for substance has more reality than accident or mode, and infi-
nite substance than finite; it is for this reason also that there is more
objective reality in the idea of substance than in that of accident, and in
the idea of infinite than in the idea of finite substance.
VII. The will of a thinking being is carried voluntarily and freely,
for that is of the essence of will, but nevertheless infallibly, to the
good that is clearly known to it; and, therefore, if it discover any per-
fections which it does not possess, it will instantly confer them on
itself if they are in its power; [for it will perceive that to possess them
is a greater good than to want them.]
VIII. That which can accomplish the greater or more difficult, can
also accomplish the less or the more easy.
IX. It is a greater and more difficult thing to create or conserve a
substance than to create or conserve its attributes or properties; but
this creation of a thing is not greater or more difficult than its conser-'
vation, as has been already said.
APPENDIX.
271
X. In the idea or concept of a thing existence is contained, because
we are unable to conceive anything unless under the form of a thing
which exists; but with this difference that, in the concept of a limited
thing, possible or contingent existence is alone contained, and in the
concept of a being sovereignly perfect, perfect and necessary existence
is comprised.
PROPOSITION I.
The existence of God is known from the consideration of his nature
alone.
DEMONSTRATION.
To say that an attribute is contained in the nature or in the concept
of a thing, is the same as to say that this attribute is true of this thing,
and that it may be affirmed to be in it. (Definition IX.)
But necessary existence is contained in the nature or in the concept
of God (by Axiom X).
Hence it may with truth be said that necessary existence is in God,
or that God exists.
And this syllogism is the same as that of which I made use in my
reply to the sixth article of these objections; and its conclusion may be
known without proof by those who are free from all prejudice, as has
been said in Postulate V. But because it is not so easy to reach so
great perspicacity of mind, we shall essay to establish the same thing
by other modes.
PROPOSITION II.
The existence of God is demonstrated, à posteriori, from this alone,
that his idea is in us.
DEMONSTRATION.
The objective reality of each of our ideas requires a cause in which
this same reality is contained, not simply objectively, but formally or
eminently (by Axiom V).
But we have in us the idea of God (by Definitions II and VIII), and
of this idea the objective reality is not contained in us, either formally
or eminently (by Axiom VI), nor can it be contained in any other
except in God himself (by Definition VIII).
Therefore this idea of God which is in us demands God for its cause,
and consequently God exists (by Axiom III).
PROPOSITION III.
The existence of God is also demonstrated from this, that we our
selves, who possess the idea of him, exist.
272
APPENDIX.
DEMONSTRATION.
If I possessed the power of conserving myself, I should likewise have the
power of conferring, à fortiori, on myself, all the perfections that are
awanting to me (by Axioms VIII and IX), for these perfections are only
attributes of substance, whereas I myself am a substance.
But I have not the power of conferring myself on these perfections,
for otherwise I should already possess them (by Axiom VII).
Hence, I have not the power of self-conservation.
Further, I cannot exist without being conserved, so long as I exist,
either by myself, supposing I possess the power, or by another who has
this power (by Axioms I and II).
But I exist, and yet I have not the power of self-conservation, as I
have recently proved. Hence I am conserved by another.
Further, that by which I am conserved has in itself formally or emi-
nently all that is in me (by Axiom IV).
But I have in me the perception of many perfections that are awant-
ing to me,
and that also of the idea of God (by Definitions II and VIII).
Hence the perception of these same perfections is in him by whom I am
conserved.
Finally, that same being by whom I am conserved cannot have the
perception of any perfections that are awanting to him, that is to say,
which he has not in himself formally or eminently (by Axiom VII); for
having the power of conserving me, as has been recently said, he should
have, à fortiori, the power of conferring these perfections on himself, if
they were awanting to him (by Axioms VIII. and IX).
But he has the perception of all the perfections which I discover to
be wanting to me, and which I conceive can be in God alone, as I
recently proved:
Hence he has all these in himself, formally or eminently, and thus he
is God.
COROLLARY.
God has created the sky and the earth and all that is therein con-
tained; and besides this he can make all the things which we clearly
conceive in the manner in which we conceive them.
DEMONSTRATION.
All these things clearly follow from the preceding proposition. For
in it we have proved the existence of God, from its being necessary that
some one should exist in whom are contained formally or eminently
all the perfections of which there is in us any idea.
But we have in us the idea of a power so great, that by the being
alone in whom it resides, the sky and the earth, etc., must have been
created, and also that by the same being all the other things which we
conceive as possible can be produced.
Hence, in proving the existence of God, we have also proved with it
all these things.
APPENDIX.
273
PROPOSITION IV.
The mind and body are really distinct.
DEMONSTRATION.
All that we clearly conceive can be made by God in the manner in
which we conceive it (by foregoing Corollary).
But we clearly conceive mind, that is, a substance which thinks, without
body, that is to say, without an extended substance (by Postulate II);
and, on the other hand, we as clearly conceive body without mind (as
every one admits):
Hence, at least, by the omnipotence of God, the mind can exist with-
out the body, and the body without the mind.
Now, substances which can exist independently of each other, are
really distinct (by Definition X).
But the mind and the body are substances (by Definitions V, VI,
and VII), which can exist independently of each other, as I have re-
cently proved:
Hence the mind and the body are really distinct.
And it must be observed that I have here made use of the omnipo-
tence of God in order to found my proof on it, not that there is need of
any extraordinary power in order to separate the mind from the body,
but for this reason, that, as I have treated of God only in the foregoing
propositions, I could not draw my proof from any other source than from
him and it matters very little by what power two things are separated
in order to discover that they are really distinct.
U 2
NOTES.
I. TO PERCEIVE-PERCEPTION-P. 87.
THE term perception (perceptio) has a much wider signification in the
writings of Descartes and the Cartesians than in the literature of the
schools of philosophy in our times. Perception is, at present, used to
denote the immediate knowledge we obtain through sense, or even still
further restricted to the apprehension of what have been called the
primary qualities of matter; with the Cartesians, and the older philoso-
phers generally, the word is employed in the same sense in which we
use consciousness, to denote an act of mind by which we merely appre-
hend or take note of the object of thought or consciousness, considered
as distinguished from any affirmation or negation (judgment) regarding
it. Accordingly, in Cartesian literature perception is synonymous with
cognition, when, in the narrower sense of the term, it is said to consist in
the apprehension of a thing, or in the immediate consciousness of that
which is known, as opposed to judgment and reasoning. It thus in-
cludes both the representative knowledge of imagination (and with the
Cartesians, of sense), and the mediate or representative knowledge
given in a notion or concept; for we cannot, either in imagination or
conception, represent without being conscious of the representation,
¿.e., without perceiving or immediately apprehending it. Percipere in
Cartesian literature is thus, with greater or less propriety, considered
as equivalent to cognoscere, intelligere (in the narrower sense of these
terms), rem menti propositam concipere, intueri; cogitatione sibi represen-
tare; rerum ideas intueri; res per ideas videre; rem per intellectus ideam
intueri, cernere; rei ideam in intellectu habere. Perceptio is properly sy-
nonymous with perceptio simplex, apprehensio seu apprehensio simplex (q.
prehensio objecti ab intellectu) intellectio simplex, visio simplex, cognitio,
and less properly with conceptus, notio, idea rei. In logical language, the
character of perception is expressed by saying that the act has for its
object a thema simplex, i.e., in the language of Descartes, either substance
or attribute, as opposed to the thema conjunctum seu compositum, or
NOTES.
275
notionum complexio per affirmationem et negationem, i.e., enunciatio, or, in
the language of Descartes, a truth.-Prin. of Phil., P. I., § 48. Clau-
bergius, Op. P. I., pp. 334, 503. (Ed. 1691.) Flenderus, Log. Cont.
Claub. Ill. §§ 1.5. (4th Ed.)
To illustrate more particularly the nature and sphere of perception,
as the term is used in the Cartesian school, it is necessary to attend to
the division of the phænomena of consciousness, adopted by Descartes,
and current among his followers. Descartes divides all our thoughts
(cogitationes)—and with him thought is the general name for each mode
or phænomenon of consciousness-into two grand classes, viz., the Acti-
vities and Passivities of mind (actiones et passiones sive affectus animæ),
the distinguishing element of these two classes being, that in the former
case the mind of itself determines its own modification; in the latter it
is determined to it, by some action, to wit, foreign from the will. The
first class embraces all the acts of the Will, or the volitions, (volitiones
sive operationes voluntatis), inasmuch as all such modifications of mind
are considered by him as determinable, and actually determined, by the
power of free choice or will, i.e., by the mind itself; and under volition
(i. e., to use the language of his followers, latio quaedam animi tendens
ad objectum in idea propositum) he comprehends judgment and will pro-
per (velle et nolle), according as the object is regarded under the notions
of the true and the false, or of the good and the bad. To the second
class he refers all the Cognitive acts of the mind, considered merely
as apprehensive of their objects (perceptiones sive operationes intellectus),
inasmuch as our apprehensions are not made arbitrarily, or at the plea-
sure of our will, but determined by their objects, and are thus, in a sense,
passions or passivities. In this way all the acts, whether of sense,
memory, imagination, or the pure intellect, are but different modes of
perceiving; for in each we only know as we are conscious of, or appre-
hend, the object of the act. Further, as each mental modification has
a reality for us only in so far as we actually apprehend or are conscious
of it, it is plain that, in every actual mode of mind, there is involved
a consciousness, or, in the Cartesian language, a perception; and thus we
are said to perceive not only when in sense we apprehend by idea or
representation extension or figure-the qualities of somewhat lying be-
yond ourselves, or the representative object in imagination, but likewise
when we are conscious of the forth-putting of an act of will or of being
affected by joy or hope. More particularly as, according to the Car-
tesian doctrine, the consciousness of a modification of mind, a volition,
for example, is, though in thought (ratione) separable, not really dis-
tinct from this modification itself, all modes of mind whatsoever, as
participating of consciousness, are, in a sense, perceptions; for this im-
plies nothing more than that they exist in consciousness. In this
sense perception is not contrasted with, but comprehends volition,
though extending further. As some modifications of mind, how-
ever, though only manifesting themselves through knowledge, are
yet not apprehension simply or even knowledge, but to use his own
276
NOTES.
phrase, have other forms, as volition, we may consider them in refer-
ence to these other characters; and as, on the Cartesian doctrine, these
characters are negative of each other, we thus obtain classes not only
in opposition, but in fundamental contrast. These distinguishing
characteristics are, as we have seen, the qualities of activity and of pas-
sivity, which thus afford two grand divisions of the mental modifications,
called respectively volitions and perceptions.
That perception was only logically discriminated from its object on
the doctrine of Descartes, will be manifest from what follows:-
"I observe (he says) that whatever is done, or recently happens, is
generally called by the philosophers passion, in respect of the subject to
which it happens, and action in respect of that which causes it to take
place, so that, although agent and patient are often very diverse, action
and passion nevertheless remain one and the same thing, having these two
names by reason of the two different subjects to which it can be referred."
-De Pass. P. I. Art 1.
"Our perceptions are of two species: some have the mind for their
cause, and others the body. Those that have the mind for their cause
are the perceptions of our volitions, and of all our imaginations that
depend on it; for it is certain that we cannot will anything without per-
ceiving by the same means that we will it; and, although in respect of our
mind it may be an action to will a thing, we may say that it is also in it
a passion to perceive that it wills; nevertheless, because this perception
and volition are only in reality the same thing, the denomination is always
made from the more noble, and thus we are not accustomed to call it a
passion, but simply an action."-Ibid. Art. 19. Con. on the Note in
general. Art. 17. Prin. of Phil., P. I., § 32. Med. III., pp. 117, 118.
Ep., P. II., CXV., quoted below. Hamilton's Reid. Note D, pp. 876,
877. Compare note II. Idea.
Under the head of perception it may be necessary to remark farther
that the term perception (perceptio) is not used in reference to sense
without the adjunct sensus or sensuum-the terms in this relation being
sensus, sensatro, idea, and the verb sentire not percipere.
II. IDEA-p. 88.
The meaning attached to the term idea in the writings of Descartes
is by no means uniform or constant. The first grand distinction in
the signification of the word arises from its application by Descartes to
denote indifferently a material or a mental modification; and this in re-
lation to sense and imagination. Considered with respect to these fa-
culties, idea is sometimes applied to designate the impression on the
brain or matérial organism generally, to which the idea proper or
mental modification is attached, and at other times to mark the menta
modification itself, regarded as the object of the faculty. As in-
stances of the former application of the word, we may adduce the fol-
lowing passages :- "Ideam quam formant hi spiritus."-Tract. de Ho-
mine, § 84. "Glandula ideas objectorum, quae in aliorum sensuum
NOTES.
277
"Ideas quas
organa agunt, aeque facile recipere possit."-Ibid, § 85.
sensus externi in phantasiam mittunt."-Diopt. cap. iv. § 6. To obviate
the ambiguity incidental to this twofold and quite opposite use of the
term, De la Forge, an eminent Cartesian, denominated the movement in
the organism species, or corporeal species, reserving idea for the modi-
fication of the mind alone.—Traité de l'Esprit de l'Homme, chap. x. p.
99. Hamilton's Reid, p. 834.
Descartes himself, indeed, in the course of the controversies to which
his speculations gave rise, became aware of the necessity of distinguish-
ing in expression the material from the mental idea; and in order to
this he seems occasionally disposed to refuse the appellation idea to
the material modification, while he more frequently uses the term image
(imago), than idea in this relation. One of these passages I shall quote,
not only in proof of this, but also as establishing the fact of the reality
and distinctness of the material and mental modifications. "I do not
simply (he says) call by the name idea the images that are depicted
in the phantasy; on the contrary, I do not call them by this name in so
far as they are in the corporeal phantasy; but I designate generally
by the term idea all that is in our mind when we conceive a thing in
whatever manner we may conceive it.”—Lett. lxxv., Garnier, tom. iv.
p. 319.
It should be observed, however, that by idea in the sense of corpo-
real species, Descartes did not mean a picture, likeness, or image of the
object existing in the brain, but simply a certain organic movement, or
agitation of the nerves, determined by the object and communicated to
the brain, the seat of the sensus communis. This purely material modifica-
tion had, on the one hand, not necessarily any resemblance to the object
which was the cause of it, and therefore was not representative of it;
nor, on the other, should it be supposed that it in any way resembled,
far less was identical with, the (mental) idea connected with it, since not-
withstanding certain loose statements, there is sufficient ground to hold
that, on the doctrine of Descartes, the corporeal impression was no ob-
Ject of perception or consciousness at all. As these are points of essen-
tial importance towards a right comprehension of the philosophy of
Descartes, I may be allowed to enter somewhat into detail; and first of
all, I shall refer to the passages in which he has distinctly laid down the
doctrines here attributed to him.
"That the ideas which the external senses send into the phantasy,
are not images of the objects; or at least that there is no need of their
being like them.
"It must be observed, besides, that the mind does not stand in need of
images sent from objects to the brain in order to perceive (as is the ge-
nerally received opinion of the philosophers); or at least that the nature
of these images is to be conceived far otherwise than is commonly done.
For, as philosophers consider in them nothing beyond their resemblance
to the objects they represent, they are unable to show how these
images can be formed by the objects, and received into the organs of

278
NOTES.
the external senses, and finally transmitted by the nerves to the brain.
And they had no ground to suppose there were such images, beyond
observing that our thought can be efficaciously excited by a picture to
conceive the object pictured; from which it appeared to them that the
mind must be, in the same way, excited to apprehend the objects which
affect the senses, by means of certain small images delineated in our
head. Whereas we ought to consider that there are many things be-
sides images that can excite our thoughts; as, for example, words and
signs which in no way resemble the things they signify. And if, that we
may depart as little as possible from the commonly received opinions,
we may be allowed to concede that the objects we perceive are really
depicted in the brain, we must at least remark that no image is ever
absolutely like to the object it represents; for in that case there would
be no distinction between the object and its image; but that a partial
likeness (rudem similitudinem) is sufficient, and that frequently even the
perfection of images consists in their not resembling the objects as far
as they might. Thus, we see that engravings formed merely by the
placing of ink here and there on paper, represent to us forests, cities,
men, and even battles and tempests; and yet of the innumerable quali-
ties of these objects which they exhibit to our thought, there is none
except the figure of which they really bear the likeness. And it is to
be remarked that even this likeness is very imperfect, since on a plane
surface they represent to us bodies variously rising and sinking; and
even that according to the rules of perspective, they frequently repre-
sent circles better by ovals than by other circles, and squares by rhombi
than by other squares, and so on in other instances; so that in order to
the absolute perfection of the image, and the accurate delineation of the
object, the former more frequently requires to be unlike the latter."--
Diopt. cap. iv. § 6. C. § 7. Prin. of Phil., p. iv. §§ 197, 198.
F
"Whoever has well comprised (says Descartes in contravention of
the doctrine of Regius, that all our common notions owe their origin to
observation and tradition), the extent and limits of our senses, and what
precisely by their means can reach our faculty of thinking, must admit
that no idea or objects are represented to us by them such as we form
them by thought; so that there is nothing in our ideas that is not.
natural to the mind or to the faculty of thinking which it possesses, if
we but except certain circumstances that pertain only to experience;
for example, it is experience alone that leads us to judge that such and
such ideas, which are now present to the mind, are related to certain
objects that are out of us; not in truth that those things transmitted them
into our mind by the organs of the senses such as we perceive them; but
because they transmitted something which gave occasion to our mind, by
the natural faculty it possesses, to form them at that time rather than at
another. For, as our author himself avers in article 19, in accordance
with the doctrine of my Principles, nothing can come from external
objects to our mind by the medium of the senses, except certain corpo-
real movements; but neither these movements themselves nor the figures
NOTES.
279
arising from them, are conceived by us such as they are in the organs of
sense, as I have amply explained in the Dioptrics: whence it follows that
even the ideas of motion and figures are naturally in us. And much
more the ideas of pain, colours, sounds, and of other similar things,
must be natural to us, to the end that our mind, on occasion of certain
corporeal movements, with which they have no resemblance, may be able to
represent them to itself.”—Remarks on the Programme of Regius, Ep.
P. i. xcix, (Ed. 1668), or tom. iv. Lett. xxxviii. of Garnier's Ed.
"Finally, I hold that all those (ideas) which involve no negation or
affirmation, are innate in us, for the organs of the senses convey nothing
to us of the same character as the idea which is formed on occasion of
them, and thus the idea must have been previously in us."-Ep. P. ii.
lv., or Garnier's Ed. tom. iv. Lett. lxix.
"Whence do we know that the sky exists? Is it because we see it?
But this vision does not affect the mind unless in so far as it is an idea,
and an idea inhering in the mind itself, and not an image depicted on the
phantasy.”—App. Ax. 5. p. 270.
"I hold that there is no other difference between the mind and its ideas
than between a piece of wax and the diverse figures of which it is capable.
And since the receiving diverse figures is not properly an action in the
wax, but a passion; so it seems to me to be also a passion in the mind
that it receives this or that idea; and I consider that except its voli-
tions it has no actions, but that its ideas are induced upon it, partly
by objects affecting the senses, partly by the impressions that are in the
brain, and partly also by the dispositions which have gone before in the
mind itself, and by the movements of its will."-Ep. P. i. cxv.
The mind always receives these (its perceptions) from the things re-
presented by them."-De Pass. Part i. Art. 17.
Among Cartesians, compare De la Forge, De l'Esprit de l'Homme,
cap. x.
Geulinx, Dictata in Prin. Phil. P. iv. § 189. Malebranche,
Recherche de la Vérité, Liv. ii.; De l'Imagination, chap. v. § 1; also
Liv. i. Des Sens, chap. x. § 5.
I am aware that some maintain that Descartes held the material im-
pression to be an object of consciousness, an opinion to which both
Reid and Stewart incline (see Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers;
Essay ii., chap. viii. ; Stewart's Dissertation, note N. p. 245; Elements,
Part i., chap. i., note, p. 45, ed. 1850). That such is not the doctrine
of Descartes, is manifest from the passages already cited. It may be
necessary, however, in order to a fuller consideration of the question,
to refer to those doubtful statements which at first sight appear to
give some countenance to the supposition.
I shall, first of all, quote and give references to what seem the
strongest of the ambiguous passages. "I easily understand," he says,
"that if some body exists with which my mind is so united as to be able,
as it were, to consider it when it chooses, it may thus imagine corporeal
objects, so that this mode of thinking differs from pure intellection
only in this respect, that the mind in conceiving, turns in some way
280
NOTES.
S
12
upon itself, and considers some one of the ideas it possesses within
itself; but, in imagining, it turns toward the body, and contemplates
in it some object conformed to the idea which it either conceived of
itself or apprehended by sense."-Med. vi., pp. 152, 153.
"The former, or corporeal species which must be in the brain in
order to imagination, are not thoughts; but the operation of the mind
imagining or turning towards these species, is a thought."-Ep. p. ii. liv.
(De Pass. p. i., art. 35. Appendix, Def. ii., p. 267).
These and similar passages might seem, at first sight, to countenance
the supposition, that Descartes admitted a knowledge of the cor-
poreal species or organic impression. Such an interpretation is,
however, rash and untenable, were there no other ground for rejecting
it, save the various contradictions of the principles of the philosophy
of which it is supposed to form a part, for these are so many and so mani-
fest, that we could hardly suppose such a thinker as Descartes to have
allowed them to escape his notice. Before showing that the passages
in themselves do not really warrant the interpretation here referred to,
I shall point out its general inconsistency, not only with the main prin-
ciple, but with certain particular doctrines of Cartesianism, and these
the most important and distinctive.
In the first place, then, had Descartes admitted a knowledge of the
material impression, either in sense or imagination, and, be it observed,
an immediate knowledge is the only supposable, he must have allowed
an immediate consciousness of matter, for the corporeal species is a
material object. But this would have been to contradict the funda-
mental principle of his philosophy, according to which, mind, on account
of its absolute diversity from body, is supposed to be able to hold no
immediate converse with matter, but only to be cognisant of it by means
of its own modifications, determined hyperphysically on occasion of
certain affections of the body with which it is conjoined. And thus, if
the mind be immediately cognisant of the corporeal species, what occu-
pies the prominent and distinctive place in Cartesianism,-viz., the
host of mental ideas representative of the outward object, becomes
forthwith the superfluity and excrescence of the system; for if the mind
can take immediate cognisance of the corporeal species, i. e. of matter,
why postulate a mental representation in order to the perception of
the outward object?
But in the second place, whether the material impression be an object
of consciousness or not, Descartes must still be held to allow the exist-
ence of a mental modification or idea. The species, therefore, on the
hypothesis that it is an object of consciousness, is either really identical
with the mental idea, or it is different from it. To take the former
supposition, or that of the identity of the material and mental modifica-
tions, it will follow that mind and matter are no longer distinguishable,
are no longer diverse substances, seeing their modifications coincide—a
tenet no less at variance. with the entire course of the speculations of
Descartes, than is the doctrine from which it flows with the numerous
NOTES.
281
explicit statements, in which he declares the total diversity of the
material and mental ideas, as modifications of substances in themselves
distinct. But the organic impression, if not identical with, must be
diverse from, the mental idea. Now as, on the hypothesis in question,
the material idea is perceived, and as the mental is likewise an object
of perception, there must be in each of the faculties of sense and imagina-
tion a two-fold object. For such a doctrine, there is not the shadow
of a ground in all the writings of Descartes.
But, in the third place, let it be supposed that Descartes did not allow
the existence of mental ideas at all, and therefore only a single object
in perception, and that the organic impression, even with this gratuitous
allowance a palpable contradiction in the doctrine of the philosopher
would arise. The organic impression, in order to constitute the re-
presentative idea of the object, must represent the object, not suggest
it or represent it materially (materialiter), as a natural sign, for
the object could not be simply suggested to the mind or thus re-
presented, without appearing in a mental modification or idea, which
is contrary to the hypothesis. But an object that is material, and at
the same time representative, must, if it represent by itself, represent
intentionally (intentionaliter); in other words, it must resemble the object
it represents, or be the image or likeness of it. It is the property of
mind alone to be capable of representing something different from itself,
or even quite opposed, in a modification not at all resembling the thing
represented; as, for example, an extended object in an unextended
modification. But the resemblance of the material idea to the outward
object, is a doctrine explicitly denied by Descartes.—(Vide Remarks on
Programme of Regius, quoted above, Prin. of Phil., p. iv., §§ 197, 198.)
But finally, the whole hypothesis makes Descartes contradict not
only his own doctrine of representation, but destroy the general condi-
tions of any representative doctrine whatever: for, as the only ground
on which a doctrine of representation can be supposed necessary, is
that the mind is not immediately percipient of the outward object, if
Descartes at the same time holds that the representation, itself material
and an object external to the mind, because existing in the brain, is
perceived, he must allow to the mind, at first hand, that power on the
denial of the existence of which the assertion of the need of a repre-
sentative object is founded.
These considerations are, I think, sufficient to show, that it is at least
highly improbable, that Descartes meant in the passages quoted to
allow to the mind a consciousness of the organic impression in sense
and imagination. To have done so, would have been to fill his philo-
sophy with anomalies and contradictions of the most palpable kind.
But let us attend shortly to the passages themselves, to discover
whether they render such an interpretation of them imperative. In the
passages quoted, the mind is said to turn itself towards the species, and
these again are said to inform (informare) the mind.
With regard to the first phrase, conversion towards the species, it will
282
NOTES.
be found, by a reference to the passages in which it occurs, that it is
always used as descriptive of the acts of sense and imagination, when
these are spoken of in contrast to the act of the pure intellect, or that
faculty whose exercise is independent of all organic impression; and
then the contrast indicated is in the origin or source of the ideas, or
objects of these faculties, those of sense and imagination having their
(remote) source in body,-those of intellect, their (immediate) origin in
the mind itself. In this way, all that conversion towards the species
indicates, is merely that the mind does not receive certain ideas directly
from itself, but is in some way dependent for at least their actual pre-
sence on certain conditions of the bodily organism. And this, it is
manifest, does not necessarily imply the consciousness by the mind of
the organic impression.
Again, the corporeal species may in its turn be said to inform the
mind (informare mentem), inasmuch as it is to it the mental modifica-
tion or idea, viewed apart from its hyperphysical origin, is immediately
attached, and on occasion of which it is revealed to consciousness;
and this on the law of the union of mind and body, as parts of the same
whole. In the same sense, Deity is said to inform the mind, in so con-
stituting it as that in the course of the development of its powers, the
knowledge of himself should naturally arise.
But, in the second place, the species may, in a litera sense, be said
to inform the mind, for the word, in its strict acceptation, merely de-
notes the giving a particular form or shape to a thing; and in the
Cartesian phraseology, the spiritual notions or mental ideas were but
the different forms of the mind in which its acts were clothed, limited,
and determined.-Vide Appendix, Def. ii. p. 187. De la Forge, De
l'Esprit, chap. x., p. 131 and passim. Claub. Op. p. ii., p. 606.
The doctrine of Descartes on this point seems to be well put by
Chauvin, when, after noticing the doctrines of certain of the Peripa-
tetics regarding species, he says:-" There are, however, among more
recent philosophers, not a few who retain the nomenclature of species
impressa and expressa. But with them the species impressa is nothing
more than a certain motion impressed either mediately or immediately,
by external objects, on the parts of the body, and thence by the nerves
transmitted to the brain, or a certain commotion of the fibres of the
brain, proceeding from the agitation of the animal spirits flowing in
the brain; which, as they have no resemblance to the objects of
nature, are esteemed representamens of these things, on no other account
than because the mind on occasion of them [i.e., the motions], makes the
things present to itself, and contemplates the same in its own ideas there-
from arising. * * * But the species expressa is nothing more
than that notion of the mind which is expressed on the presence of
the species impressa, and by attention to and inspection (intuitione) of
which the thing itself is known."-Lexicon Rationale, Species, (1692).
Con. Prin. of Phil., Part iv. §§ 189, 197, 198.
But lastly, the whole ambiguity is probably due to the extreme
NOTES.
283
timidity of the philosopher, and his anxious solicitude to bring the results
of his own independent reflection into an apparent harmony with the
opinions generally received in his time; which led him frequently to
clothe his really new doctrines in the current forms of expression.
There is thus, not even on the special ground of the ambiguous pas-
sages themselves, any reason to suppose that Descartes ever departed
from a doctrine essential to the cousistency of his philosophy, viz., the
non-consciousness of the organic impression. So much for idea as a
material or organic modification.
We must now, however, consider idea in reference to mind, i.e., as
an object of consciousness. In this relation the fundamental notion to
be attached to the term, as used by Descartes and the Cartesians, is that
of a representative thought, or an object of consciousness, in and by the
knowledge of which we become aware of something distinct from this ob-
ject itself. Idea, Descartes says, is to be taken "pro omni re cogitatâ
quatenus habet tantum esse objectivum in intellectu."-Diss. de Meth.
P. iv. note. "Idea est ipsa res cogitata quatenus est objective in intel-
lectu." Again, idea is “cogitatio tanquam rei imago.”—Con. Med. iii.
117, and Works passim. De La Forge, De l'Esprit, chap. x. pp. 128, 131.
It is necessary, however, with a view to an adequate understanding
of the Cartesian philosophy, to distinguish the two aspects under which
the same idea was viewed by Descartes and his followers. The mental
idea, while really one and indivisible, was considered in two logically
distinct relations, viz., both as an object and as a medium of know-
ledge, that is, in reference to the mind knowing and the object known.
This distinction is made by Descartes in several passages of the Medi-
tations. Thus, "If ideas are taken in so far only as they are certain
modes of consciousness, I do not remark any difference or inequality
among them, and all seem in the same manner to proceed from myself;
but considering them as images, of which one represents one thing and
another a different, it is evident that a great diversity obtains among
them."—Med. iii. p. 121. Preface of Med. p. 88.

ಕ
This distinction of idea as act and as representative object, pervades
the whole body of Cartesian literature. Thus, to take an example,
"Every concept or idea," says Clauberg, “has a twofold dependence: the
one from the conceiving and thinking intellect, in as far as it is an act ;
the other from the thing conceived or like, of which, to wit, it is the
representation or image, or whence it is struck out by imitation.”—Op.
P. ii. p. 607 (Ed. 1691). Con. De la Forge, De l'Esprit, chap. x. pp. 128,
131. Flenderus, Logica Contracta Claubergiana (4th ed.) § 5, p. 12.
Idea has thus with the Cartesians a twofold relation or dependence
(realitas, perfectio, esse, dependentia). In so far as it is an act or mode of
the mind (operatio mentis, intellectus), idea possesses a formal and
proper being (esse formale seu proprium); in so far as it is the representa-
tion of the object thought (imago rei cogitatæ), or in the place of that
object (in vice illus), it has an objective or vicarious being (esse objectivum
sive vicarium). Again, idea, as standing in this double relation or de-

284
NOTES.
pendence, is said to have a twofold cause, viz., an efficient and an exem-
plary. In so far as a mode of consciousness, the idea has its efficient
cause in intellect or in the mind itself (uti operans suce operationis
causa); in so far as representative, the object is the exemplary cause,
standing in relation to the idea as the archetype to the ectype, the
principal to the vicarious.
It is the discrimination of idea as a mental operation or representa-
tive object, which affords the logical distinction of perception and idea,
to be met with on all hands in Cartesian literature. "By the term
idea,” says Descartes himself, “I understand that form of any thought
by the immediate perception of which I am conscious of that same
thought.”—Appendix, Def. ii. p. 267.
"I have said,” says Arnauld, "that I take perception and idea for the
same thing. It should be observed, however, that this thing, although
one, has two relations: the one to the mind which it modifies, the other
to the thing perceived, in so far as it is objectively in the mind, and
that the word perception more distinctly marks the former relation, and
idea the latter. Thus, the perception of a square marks more directly
my mind as perceiving a square; and the idea of a square marks more
directly the square in so far as it is objectively in my mind."-Des
Vraies et des Fausses Idées, chap. v. Def. 6. Con. De la Forge, De
l'Esprit, chap. x. pp. 128, 140.
It should be observed, however, with regard to this distinction of
idea and perception, that with Descartes perception is sometimes
used where, in accordance with the propriety of language, we should
have expected idea. Thus he says, "The mind always receives these
(its perceptions) from the things represented by them." (De Pass.,
P. i. Art. 17.) On the other hand, we find idea where, in accordance
with his general nomenclature, we should have looked for perception.
"When I will and fear, because at the same time I perceive that I will
and fear, the volition itself and fear are reckoned by me among ideas."
-Ob. et Resp. Tertiæ, Ob. v. p. 98 (Ed. 1670).
Looking to ideas as the immediate objects of knowledge or percep-
tion, and considering them in relation to the faculties of which they
are the objects, they may be classed as ideas of sense, of imagination,
and of the pure intellect, in the exercise of each of which powers we
are said to be apprehensive or percipient of ideas. But, as the objects
of these powers, ideas differ both in their origin, and according to the
character of the objects they represent. In the first relation, ideas
arise either simply from the mind, as those of the pure intellect, or
from the mind on occasion of body, modified by the corporeal species,
as those of sense and imagination. Considered as to their origin, the
ideas of sense and imagination thus stand in contrast to those of the
pure intellect, for in sense and imagination there is always a physical
impression or corporeal species as the cause or occasion of the mental
idea; whereas the intellect, as deriving its ideas from the mind itself,
has no need of a material organ or of corporeal species. The ideas of
NOTES.
285
sense and imagination, while they agree in being the result, though
hyperphysically determined, of a physical antecedent in the form
of the corporeal species, and thus in both depending on the bodily
organism, nevertheless differ in this, that the species to which the idea
is attached is in the case of sense immediately dependent on the pre-
sence and action of external objects; while in imagination it depends
only remotely on external objects, and proximately on the will, the
memory, and the action of the animal spirits.
But the chief contrast of ideas arises from the character of the objects
they represent. In this relation, on the Cartesian doctrine, ideas fall
into two great classes. The first comprehends all ideas of the in-
dividual and picturable, in other words, all the objects of sense and
imagination; the second contains all our notions of the general, rela-
tive, or unpicturable-in other words, the ideas of the pure intellect.
(Con. Med. vi. pp. 151-153; Prin. of Phil. P. i. § 73. Lett. lxxv., vol.
iv. p. 318 of Garnier's ed., or vol. vi., L. lxii. duod. ed. De la Forge,
De l'Esprit, chap. xviii. pp. 298-302.)-Under sense it should be
observed that idea, in the writings of Descartes as well as of others
in the Cartesian school, denotes indifferently the, apprehension of the
primary and the sensations of the secondary qualities of matter. Thus,
Descartes speaks of the sensation or idea (sensus vel idea) of colour and
heat. Malebranche limited idea (idée) to the apprehension of the pri-
mary, reserving sentiment to designate the sensations of the secondary
qualities. As the secondary qualities on their subjective side were
held by the Cartesians to be merely modifications of the percipient
subject, and not to exist in nature as in consciousness, idea as applied
to them (which was,not generally the case out of the writings of Des-
cartes), was not representative. Vide Prin. of Phil. P. i. §§ 69, 70, 71.
-
III. OBJECTIVE REALITY—(realitas objectiva)—p. 93.
After what has been already said of the twofold relation of idea in the
philosophy of Descartes, it is unnecessary to add much by way of ex-
planation of the term objective reality. This, as we have said, denotes,
that aspect of a representative thought in which it is considered in
relation to the object represented; hence the object is said to possess
objective reality in so far as it exists by representation in thought
(quatenus objicitur intellectui). This use of the term objective, it will be
remarked, is precisely opposed to the more modern (Kantian) accepta-
tion of the same word, and corresponds, to a certain extent, with the
counter-term subjective; for objective reality (i.e., the reality of repre-
sentation) is in truth a subjective reality.
It may be of importance to note the two relations from which the re-
presentative reality of an idea is distinguished in Cartesian literature,
with their appropriate designations. In the first place, the representa-
tive perfection (being) of an idea, was distinguished from the object of
the idea in so far as it possessed an absolute existence, or exist-
ence independent of thought. In this relation the object was said
!
い
​286
NOTES.
J
to possess realitas actualis, formalis, as opposed to realitas objectiva.
(Con. Med. iii. pp. 121, 122; Med. vi. p. 158.) The object as it exists
in nature was by other philosophers, and among these by some of the
Cartesians, called ens principale, reale, fundamentale (quasi fundamentum
idea).
In the second place, the representative being of an idea was distin-
guished from its relation to the mind of which it is the act, and in this
aspect idea, so far as act, was said to possess esse reale, materiale, for-
male (q. forma quædam mentis, and this in contrast with objectivum),
proprium; in relation to the object represented, it was said to possess
esse intentionale, formale (and this in contrast with materiale), objectivum,
vicarium; these are the strictly contrasted appellations.
The esse
objectivum was also called representativum, cognitum, in mente, tanquam in
imagine, per imitationem. Con. Claub. Op. P. ii. pp. 607-617. Hamil-
ton's Reid, pp. 806, 807.
IV. FROM OR THROUGH THE SENSES—(vel à sensibus vel per
sensus)-p. 98.
"From the senses, that is, from sight, by which I first perceived light,
and then by its aid colours, figures, magnitudes, and all similar things;
through the senses, that is, through hearing, in apprehending the words
of men.”—Claubergius, in h. loc. Op. P. ii. p. 1182.
V. THOUGHT—(cogitatio, pensée; cogitare, penser)—p. 100.
Thought, (cogitatio, pensée), is, in the Cartesian phraseology, ap-
plied to designate all that takes place within us, of which we are im-
mediately conscious, i.e., all the modifications of the mind or thinking
principle. Thought is thus but another term for consciousness, and
embraces all the acts of the will, the intellect, the imagination, and
senses. Med iii. p. 117; Prin. of Phil. P. i. § 9; Resp. ad. Sec. Object.
Def. i. (Appendix p. 267.)
Thought," says De la Forge, "I take for that perception, con-
sciousness, or internal knowledge which each of us feels immediately
by himself when he perceives what he does or what passes in him.”—
De l'Esprit, chap. iii. p. 14, chap. vi. p. 54. Arnauld, Des Vraies et
des Fausses Idées, chap. v., def. i.
"Mens," says Claubergius, "si vult cogitat, si non vult cogitat, si amat
cogitat, si odit cogitat, si affirmat cogitat, si negat cogitat, si dubitat
cogitat, si demonstrat cogitat, somniando cogitat, vigilando cogitat,
sentiendo cogitat, imaginando cogitat, &c., atque ita in qualibet ejus
functione cogitatio involvitur.”—Op. P. ii. p. 600; P. i. p. 188; Log.
P. i. § 102.
Consciousness is thus, in the doctrine of the Cartesians, the general
condition of our mental modifications, and in no way really distinct
from the activities and passivities of which it is the condition. Though,
in a sense already explained (as opposed to volition), perception is said
to be contained under consciousness as its genus, they are yet nearly
NOTES.
287
convertible terms. The difference between the two forms of expres-
sion seems to be, that thought, while embracing all the modifications
of mind, whether volitions or perceptions, is not distinguished from
the former as a passivity, while perception is. Thought, as thus de-
noting a mental modification both in its active and passive relation,
marks the opposition and contrast of the modification to its negative,
the extended, i.e., matter, while viewed as a perception the phænomenon
is regarded mainly in reference to its simple existence in consciousness,
or as an apprehended property of mind. It seems to be in accordance
with this view that the mind is uniformly spoken of as res cogitans (not
percipiens) when opposed to its negative, the unthinking and extended.
VI. INNATE IDEAS-(ideæ innatœ)—p. 118.
By innate idea, Descartes meant merely a mental modification
which, existing in the mind antecedently to all experience, possesses,
however, only a potential existence, until, on occasion of experience, it
is called forth into actual consciousness.
It is worthy of remark, in connection with the question of innate
ideas, that the chief ground on which Descartes holds that certain
of our judgments are prior to experience and native to the mind, is
the impossibility of deriving them as universal from individual corporeal
movements, which, if efficient, could give rise to modifications merely
individual.
It will be seen, however, from the passages quoted below, and from a
comparison of them with the passage quoted at pp. 198, 199, of these
notes, that Descartes held a much wider doctrine of innate ideas than
the modern, and one the principle of which could not fail sooner or later
to result in the doctrine of Occasional Causes, to explain the con-
nection between the corporeal antecedent, which had no causal power,
and the rise of the mental modification into actual consciousness.
The following is the article (xi) in the Programme of Regius which
gave occasion to Descartes to make an explicit statement of his doc-
trine of innate ideas.
"Mens," says Regius, "non indiget ideis, vel notionibus, vel axiomati-
bus innatis: sed sola ejus facultas cogitandi, ipsi, ad actiones suas
peragendas, sufficit." On this Descartes remarks: "In this article he
(Regius) appears to differ from me merely in words; for when he says
that the mind has no need of ideas, or notions, or axioms that are in-
nate [or naturally impressed upon it], and meanwhile concedes to it a
faculty of thinking (that is, a faculty natural to it or innate), he
affirms my doctrine in effect, though denying it in word. For I have
never either said or thought that the mind has need of innate (natural)
ideas, which are anything different from its faculty of thinking; but
when I remarked that there were in me certain thoughts which did
not proceed from external objects, nor from the determination of my
will, but from the faculty of thinking alone which is in me, that I
might distinguish the notions or ideas, which are the forms of these
288
NOTES.
thoughts, from others adventitious or factitious, I called them innate
in the same sense in which we say that generosity is innate in certain
families, in others certain diseases, as gout or gravel, not that, there-
fore, the infants of those families labour under those diseases in the
womb of the mother, but because they are born with a certain disposi-
tion or faculty of contracting them."
Again, on Art. xiii., he says-" What supposition is more absurd
than that all the common notions which are in the mind arise from
these corporeal motions, and cannot exist without them? I should
wish our author to show me what that corporeal movement is which
can form any common notion in our mind; for example,-that the
things which are the same with a third are the same with each other,
or the like. For all those motions are particular; but these notions.
are universal, and possess no affinity with motions, nor any relation
to them."
"He (Regius) proceeds, in Article xiv., to affirm that the very idea
of God which is in us arises not from our faculty of thinking, in which
it is innate, but from divine revelation, or tradition, or the observation of
things. We shall easily discover the error of this assertion, if we con-
sider that a thing can be said to be from another, either because that
other is its proximate and primary cause, or because it is simply the
remote and accidental, which, in truth, gives occasion to the primary
to produce its own effect at one time rather than at another. Thus, all
workmen are the primary and proximate causes of their own works ;
but they who commission them, or offer payment for the execution of
the works, are the accidental and remote causes, because the works
would not perhaps have been done without the order. It cannot be
doubted but that tradition or the observation of things is the remote
cause, inviting us to attend to the idea of God which we possess, and to
exhibit it in presence to our thought. But that it is the proximate
cause (effectrix) of that idea can be alleged only by one who holds that
we can know nothing of God beyond the word God, or the corporeal
figure exhibited to us by painters in their representations of God. In-
asmuch as observation, if it be of sight, presents nothing of its own
proper power to the mind except pictures, and pictures whose whole
variety is determined solely by that of certain corporeal movements, as
our author himself teaches; if it be of hearing, observation presents
nothing but words and sounds; if of the other senses, it presents nothing
that can be related to God. And, indeed, it is manifest to every one
that sight properly and by itself presents nothing except pictures, and
hearing nothing but words or sounds; so that all which we think beyond
these words or pictures, as the significates of them, are represented to
us by ideas coming from no other source than our faculty of thinking,
and therefore natural to it; that is, always existing in us in power.
For to be in any faculty is not to be in act but in power only, because
the very word faculty designates nothing but power."-Lett. xxxviii.
Garnier's Ed. Tom. iv. Not. in Prog. Latin (1670), p. 175.
NOTES.
289
On the celebrated question (says De la Forge) as to whether the
ideas of the mind are born with it, or acquired, I reply that they are
both one and other. They are born with it, not only because it has
never received them from the senses, but also because it is created with
the faculty of thinking and forming them, which is the proximate and
principal cause of them; in the same way that we say gout or gravel is
natural to certain families, when the members of them bring with them
proximate dispositions to those maladies. But those ideas are acquired,
and not natural, if by natural we understand that they are in the sub-
stance of the soul as in a conservatory, in the manner in which pictures
are disposed in a gallery, that we may consider them as we please; for
there is none of them in particular that needs to be actually present to
our mind, which, being a thinking substance, can have nothing actually
present to it of which it has no knowledge. It is for this reason
they are contained in the mind only in power, and not in act.”—De
l'Esprit, chap. x., pp. 143, 144. Con. Clauberg. on Med. iii., Op.,
P. i., 391.
VII. FORMALLY AND EMINENTLY (formaliter, eminenter)—p.121.
Besides the application of the word formal already noticed, viz. (1),
in opposition to objective, to denote the object as it exists in nature;
and (2) as a synonyme for objective in contrast to material, to denote
the idea so far as it is a representation, there is still another use of the
term in the writings of Descartes and in the Cartesian literature. In
this third application, formal is opposed to eminent, and refers to the re-
lation of cause and effect. The contrast indicated by these terms in
this relation is in regard to the manner in which a cause is said to con-
tain its effect. A cause, as the sum of the perfection or reality of its
effect, may contain this reality in either of two ways, and must in one of
them. On the one hand, if the perfection of the effect be contained in
the cause in the same mode in which it exists in the effect, or, if the
cause be only possessed, in this respect, of equal perfection with the
effect, the reality of the effect is said to be in the cause formally (for-
maliter, q. d. secundum eandem formam et rationem). Thus, the print of
the foot has formally the quantity and figure of the foot, and is thus
formally in its cause. In the same way, any absolute perfection is for-
mally in God. On the other hand, if the effect be contained in the
cause, not as it is in itself, or according to its intrinsic form, essence, or
proper definition, but in a higher grade or mode of perfection (gradu,
modo eminentiori), it is said to be in its cause eminently. In this sense
the Divine intellect contains the human, since God knows, but without
the imperfections incident to the exercise of our faculties of cognition.
A cause containing eminently thus contains all the reality of the effect
more perfectly than the effect itself. This distinction, borrowed from
the schoolmen, has an important application, in the philosophy of
Descartes, to the question of the proof of the existence of God through
his idea.-Con. Med. iii., p. 121, etc. Appendix, def. iv., p. 268;
290
NOTES.
Ax. iv., p. 270. Spinoza, Prin. Phil. Cart., P. i., vol. i., p. 16
(Paulus.) Clauberg. Exercit. vi., p. 613, § 5, 6. (Ed. 1691.) Flen-
der. Log., § 50. Chauvin, Lex. Rat., voc. Continere.
(Anti-Cart.) Exercit. vi., § 4, pp. 55, 56. (Ed. 1695.)
De Vries,
VIII. PURE INTELLECTION (intellectio pura)—p. 207.
Intelligence, understanding (intellectus), is the general name in Carte-
sian literature of the powers of cognition in contrast to those of will;
and in this sense the term comprehends all the acts, whether of sense,
memory, imagination, or of intellect proper. But intelligence has,
besides its general, a special and restricted signification; and this
especially when the qualifying epithet pure is joined with it. Pure
intellection (intellectio pura) denotes not knowledge in general, but the
knowledge, whether individual or general, of the mental phænomena,
and generally of all those objects we are capable of thinking in the nar-
rower sense of the word, but cannot imagine, or hold up to our mind in
an image or picture. In a word, with the Cartesians the pure under-
standing is the faculty of the unpicturable, imagination of the pictur-
able. Whatever knowledge, therefore, we may be able to reach of mind
or of God, of body in its general relations, or in such of its properties
as are either too great or too minute for apprehension by sense,--of
those judgments which are native to the mind-falls within the province
of the pure intellect.
It should be observed that in this faculty, according to its applica ·
tion, there is knowledge either without or with ideas-in other words,
either an immediate or a mediate knowledge. It is by the pure intellect
alone that we take cognisance of our own mind in its phænomena, aud
these we can immediately, or without idea, apprehend. But of every-
thing distinct from ourselves which we know by the intellect, we can
have but a mediate knowledge, or a knowledge. by idea. The distinc-
tion of the ideas of the imagination and the intellect, is nearly similar
to the distinction of thoughts into those of the individual and general,
or of intuitions (in the older sense of the term), and notions or concepts.—
Con. Note ii., Idea. Med. iv. p. 134. Med. vi. pp. 151-153. Prin. of
Phil., § 73. Lett. lxxv., Garnier, tom. iv. p. 318 (or lxii. of vol. vi. Ed.
12mo.) Ep. P. i., xxx. Reg. ad Direct. Ing., R. xii. De la Forge,
De l'Esprit, chap. xviii, pp. 298-302. Hamilton's Reid, p. 291. Note.
IX. MOTION—p. 245.
The following section of the Principles is added to those given in the
text, from its bearing logically and historically on the doctrine of Occa-
sional Causes as arising out of Cartesianism :—
"That God is the primary cause of motion: and that he always pre-
serves the same quantity of motion in the universe.
"After having thus adverted to the nature of motion, it is necessary
to consider its cause, and that the twofold: firstly, the universal and
primary, which is the general cause of all the motions in the world;
NOTES.
291
and secondly, the particular, by which it happens that each of the parts
of matter acquires the motion which it had not before. And with
respect to the general cause, it seems manifest to me that it is none
other than God himself, who, in the beginning, created matter along
with motion and rest, and now by his ordinary concourse alone pre-
serves in the whole the same amount of motion and rest that he
then placed in it. For although motion is nothing in the matter
moved but its mode, it has yet a certain and determinate quantity,
which we easily understand may remain always the same in the whole
universe, although it changes in each of the parts of it. So that, in
truth, we may hold, when a part of matter is moved with double the
quickness of another, and that other is twice the size of the former, that
there is just precisely as much motion, but no more, in the less body as
in the greater; and that in proportion as the motion of any one part is
reduced, so is that of some other and equal portion accelerated. We also
know that there is perfection in God, not only because he is in himself
immutable, but because he operates in the most constant and immutable
manner possible: so that with the exception of those mutations which
manifest experience, or divine revelation renders certain, and which we
perceive or believe are brought about without any change in the Creator,
we ought to suppose no other in his works, lest there should thence arise
ground for concluding inconstancy in God himself. Whence it follows
as most consonant to reason, that merely because God diversely moved
the parts of matter when he first created them, and now preserves all
that matter, manifestly in the same mode and on the same principle on
which he first created it, he also always preserves the same quantity of
motion in the matter itself."-Part ii. § 36.
X. SECOND ELEMENT—p. 254.
"Thus we may reckon upon having already discovered two diverse
forms in matter, which may be taken for the forms of the first two ele-
ments of the visible world. The first is that of the scraping (raclure)
which must have been separated from the other parts of matter, when
they were rounded, and is moved with so much velocity that the force
alone of its agitation is sufficient to cause it, in its contact with other
bodies, to be broken and divided by them into an infinity of small parti-
cles that are of such a figure as always exactly to fill all the holes and
small interstices which they find around these bodies. The other is,
that of all the rest of the matter whose particles are spherical and very
small in comparison of the bodies we see on the earth, but neverthe-
less possess some determinate quantity, so that they can be divided into
others much smaller: and we will still find in addition a third form in
some parts of matter, to wit, in those which, on account of their size
and figure, can not be so easily moved as the preceding; and I will
endeavour to show that all the bodies of the visible world are composed
of these three forms, which are found in matter, as of three diverse ele-
ments, to wit, that the sun and the fixed stars have the form of the
292
NOTES.
first of these elements, the heavens that of the second, and the earth
with the planets and comets that of the third. For since the sun and
the fixed stars emit light, since the heavens transmit it, and since the
earth, the planets, and comets reflect it, it appears to me I have ground
for these three differences, [luminousness, transparency, and opacity
or obscurity, which are the chief we can relate to the sense of sight], in
order to distinguish the three elements of the visible world.”—Prin. of
Phil. Part iii., § 52. Con. Chauvin, Lex. Rat., Art. Elementum.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.


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