First Writing Assignment
For this assignment I want you to compose a detailed outline in preparation for a full paper. You will not
have to write this paper. As such, the emphasis is on the “detailed” of “detailed outline”. I want to see
you include in the outline every point, idea, argument, and observation you would plan on including in
the paper. This assignment, in short, is to do all the intellectual work behind the writing of the paper.
Length is a subjective matter for this assignment, but I don’t imagine that you can do an adequate job in
under two pages. You’re going to have to identify (even if you don’t fully explain) the ideas you plan on
including, and it should be clear to me what are the claims you plan to make in the paper and how you
will defend them. Remember again that philosophical writing is and should be denser then much other
academic writing. I’m not going to be too formal about my evaluation here, I just want to see you
making an authentic effort to get into the exploration of your chosen topic.
Grading for this assignment will concern almost entirely the conceptual depth and density with which
you compose your outline. A thesis with a couple throw-away defenses will not cut it. If you follow the
attached procedure, you should find yourself with more than enough to build a detailed, complex
discussion of your topic. Clarity and organization will also factor into your grade for this assignment, so
even though this is only an outline, it may still be a good idea to do some revisions!
Pick a narrow topic, but don’t limit it by contextualizing it to just your experience or into some restricted
conditions. Approach whatever issue you pick as if it was part of a discussion that would not be limited
to a specific cultural or other circumstantial background. Finally, as I have tried to articulate in class, I
want you to really dive into whatever question or issue you want to explore – don’t just poke at the
issue from afar, speaking to what others have or would say on the issue. Try to get inside the question;
imagine it from the vantage point of someone who has to make a decision on how to answer that
question and what things you think they should be considering. I think the philosophers we’ve already
read may give you a good idea of what this kind of engagement looks like, but if you are having any
further trouble with picking out a topic or in figuring out how I want you to approach it, please contact
me so we can talk about it. Consider me available for assistance throughout the week up to the day the
assignment is due.
The attached summary of my lecture may also be of assistance. Please take a look:
These steps do not necessarily need to follow rigidly in the order they are presented in, but they are all
covering facets of the overall process that are good to keep in mind.
#1: Picking a topic
There are 2 general categories of motivations philosophers have in picking topics to discuss:
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Sometimes a philosopher already has an answer to some question that we wonder about and so
they start with the knowledge of where they want to go (their conclusion) and the process
becomes a matter of giving a defense of this answer/position. Maybe you already have an
opinion on some matter that you would like to work with to see what can be said for it.
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Other times (many times!), a philosopher just starts with a question they are curious about and
wants to explore more. In this case they may not have an immediate answer, or even a starting
guess, and the process becomes exploring the question and what things will be considerations
we will have to weigh. Perhaps you are in this boat where you’ve wondered about something
but are not yet confident or comfortable claiming that a particular answer to that question is the
right one. This is totally ok! You don’t have to have all the answers before you start out on the
journey of writing a philosophy paper.
Whatever your motivation is, you want the paper to end up engaging with a matter of some substance
and significance. You don’t want a paper that ends up defending an uncontroversial answer to a
question that no one finds perplexing. Don’t be afraid to try to tackle something you are not 100%
confident about. The philosophical process is an ongoing one where we sort out the various
considerations together, rather than accepting answers based on the authority of the author.
Also be looking for potential opponents. This will be easy if you are approaching things from the first
direction mentioned above, but even if you are starting with the second, you should end up making a
claim by the end of the process and being aware of the other possible answers out there that will be in
disagreement is good. If you can find a strong opponent to your conclusion, that is a good sign you have
a substantial topic.
In balance with all of this is making sure that you are able to accomplish (more or less) what you set out
to defend. If your topic is too broad it will be impossible to give a satisfactory defense of what you are
trying to claim. Too narrow, and you run the risk of it being insubstantial. This is a hard balancing act
that mostly requires experience to judge, but a sensitivity to this possibility even for new students of
philosophy is a good thing in my opinion.
#2: Identifying a thesis
Your thesis is your conclusion that you will be spending the paper trying to defend. Every philosophy
paper needs a claim like this. Even if you are starting out just exploring a question, by the end of things
you need to adopt some position on that question and make whatever case you can. Again, don’t feel
like you have to be dogmatic about your opinion before you can set about defending it. You can even
say as much in your paper! You can say something like, “I’m not completely confident this is the right
answer because of x, y, z (reasons that may be in tension with your conclusion), but reasons a, b, c (or
however many you have) seem to make a good case for my conclusion”. Such modesty is totally
appropriate when the situation calls for it (i.e. there must be some reasons x, y, z available!), but also
don’t make the mistake of being overly modest when you have in fact presented strong support for your
conclusion!
Finally, I want to emphasize that while defining a thesis may happen at the start of this process it also
may not. In either case, most theses will get modified and adjusted as you go about the work of putting
together the paper. You may find that the arguments you come up with are able to justify a stronger
thesis then what you originally had in mind, or you may find it is too hard to defend your original thesis
and you’ll have to weaken it. Be open to this possibility as you go to work.
Two variables are particularly important when defining a thesis:
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Scope: this is similar to the suggestions I’ve been making regarding the journals. Don’t make
your topic to broad – find a manageable topic that you’ll be able to give a good treatment to in
the space you have available. Since you are only doing an outline, you may feel you can be more
ambitious, but just keep in mind that the bigger the topic, the more you’ll have to say to support
any conclusions you draw about it.
o Example:
▪ We never know anything (too broad)
▪ The subjectivity of perception undermines our claims to know things on the
basis of our experience (much more manageable)
Strength: this is parallel to scope in that the stronger the thesis, the more defense is required in
support. Let’s look at a couple of examples to explain:
▪ The subjectivity of perception undermines our claims to know things on the
basis of our experience
• (this is still a strong claim since it rules out a number of ways we may try
to justify knowledge based on experience, AND because inferring from
our experience is a commonly accepted basis for knowledge)
▪ The subjectivity of perception threatens to undermine our claims to know things
on the basis of our experience
• This is weaker since “threatens” does not yet assert that the threat is
successful. All that would be required for this thesis is to provide
reasonable support to the existence of a concern that is in tension with
our claims to knowledge based on experience.
o In this example, the first is stronger not only because if true it rules out more
opponents, but also because it controversially denies something we usually take to be
uncontroversial. The more controversial the claim, the stronger it is and the more
defense it requires
o Strength also concerns the force in which a claim is asserted:
▪ Example:
• We possibly don’t know
• We plausibly don’t know
• We don’t know
• We certainly don’t know
• We necessarily can’t know
▪ These proceed in increasing strength
o Watch strength because it is tempting to assert our claims more forcefully in order to
express confidence, but confidence doesn’t always come with enough supporting
reasons to justify it! Philosophers are never (ideally) convinced of something only on the
basis of the conviction of the one arguing – conviction is not a substitute for giving good
reasons in support.
Finally, when deciding on a thesis, it can be useful to get straight on the following two things:
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What is the precise question my thesis is supposed to be an answer to?
What are my motivations behind defending this thesis and not another?
These should help you get starting identifying what kinds of reasons and considerations you want to be
bringing up in the course of the paper and what stuff is actually off track. It also helps make sure you are
defending only what you need/want to, without leaving out anything OR adding claims you really might
not need to in order to get your point across.
#3: the first pass
The next step is to make a (revisable) list of the points, observations, arguments etc that first strike you
as you approach the question, topic, or position that is your chosen subject. Most of the papers I’ve
gotten in the past from students only make it this far. And while this is a crucial step in the process of
writing a paper, it is not the end of the road.
If you are starting with a question: listing the various significant considerations related to answering the
question should give you an idea of what answer you want to pick up and run with. After this step might
be a good time to go back to #2 and work out defining a thesis.
If you are starting with an answer: First look to why you are at this point convinced of your position.
What has maybe been in the “back of your head” when you’ve formed this opinion in the past. Once
you’ve got down what has led you to this position up to this point, spend time seeing if you can’t
brainstorm some new reasons for the position that you may not have considered before but which
provide additional support.
#4: the second pass: filling gaps
This stage is for looking over your list of considerations and seeing if anything needs to be added in
order to just make your story sensible. Perhaps you make a leap in logic that could be filled in so that
your reader can follow what’s going on. It is easy to make assumptions as far as how your audience will
understand what you are trying to say, and this stage is just to take a step back to see how much you
may be taking for granted and fixing that.
#5: the third pass: validity/sufficiency
This time going through your list you should be looking for ways in which a reader could agree to all your
points while still disagreeing with your thesis. See if what you’ve said is really enough to convince
anyone who doesn’t take issue with your arguments.
Example:
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Today is a Monday, so you should give me $5.
o Someone can agree with the truth of the premise (that today is Monday) without
agreeing that the conclusion (you should give me $5) follows from this point.
A less silly example:
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We need an America with strong values, and I haven’t ever broken the law (unlike my opponent
who has held 3 parking violations in his life), so you should vote for me.
o Again, the premises may be true, and they may even provide SOME support for the
conclusion, but maybe not ENOUGH support – like I hope is clear in this case!
If you find that someone could take a (sensible) stance that agrees with you on your premises but not
your conclusion, then see if you can’t fix this by providing more support or including more premises that
forge a tighter link between your conclusion and the premises. Sometimes the answer is to weaken the
conclusion too!
#6: the fourth pass: soundness
Here you should now look for ways the truth of your points could be called into question. Perhaps there
is some controversy over your claims in support of your conclusion. Get clear on how such objections
might go and find ways to address them (or avoid them by adjusting the claims in your argument).
Sincerely going through this step will probably help you find much more to say in your paper if you were
originally worried you might not have enough to say. Remember charity! (try to make your opponents
look as strong as possible so that you give them a fair presentation and so that when you argue against
them you are accomplishing more)
#7: the fifth pass: perspective
Now step REALLY back and look for ways in which your topic may be approached in alternative ways.
Compare and contrast, but first just do this for yourself (don’t necessarily include it in the paper) as a
way of exploring the ideas related to the issue. The similarities and differences between your
perspective and others may possibly not contribute to the discussion of what answers we have the best
reasons for. If such similarities/differences DO contribute, then they may be a good addition, but don’t
just put them in automatically (this is the biggest source of “space filling” which I will not appreciate so
much - remember how I talked about how I want you to get “into” the issue of giving an answer and not
just talking about different ways people COULD answer).
This step can take the longest and demand the most imagination on your part (in addition to holding a
lot of things up in the air at the same time), but many times it is where things are the most dynamic in
terms of getting straight on your own view and the best way to go about defending it.
(if you didn’t start with a thesis, but instead with a question, you should probably do this step alongside
step #3)
#8: Organization
Another CRUCIAL step. This is where you decide what order to place your content in. Many things can
inform this including:
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Argumentative structure: generally keep claims and the arguments they support together
o This is probably already obvious. If you have a chain of reasoning, don’t split it up with
other points that are not relevant to that chain.
Uncontroversial -> controversial
o Start with the more uncontroversial and move to the controversial
Simple -> complex
Common -> uncommon
Direct -> indirect connection to the “source” material (this being wherever the discussion
begins)
o Along with this is: significant -> less significant to your core position
o The idea here is to start with the stuff that matters more to your discussion and leave
the curiosities toward the end. If there’s one point or set of points that you think are the
most important reasons for your conclusion, don’t save them all for the very end unless
this contradicts all the other variables listed here
In general, you also want to be clear in alerting your reader to 1) where you’re going and 2) how you are
planning to get there. Philosophical papers should not be like leading us blinding through a bunch of
points to a surprise answer. This virtue of philosophical writing becomes more important at the draft
stage of paper composition (as opposed to the outline stage), but it is still good to mention now.
A final note on Audience
Identifying an audience is important when defining a thesis, but most of the time it won’t be necessary
to imagine any substantial philosophical views on their part. For example, Jackson may be imagining
certain philosophical beliefs of his readers in his paper on Mary (this is why he puts in the 3 clarifications
in order to head off possible objections) since he is arguing against a certain common view (physicalism).
But his paper is a very focused addition to an ongoing conversation. Your papers will probably not have
so specific a purpose, so don’t worry too much about such things.
My advice if you are going to imagine an audience is to imagine someone who is open, curious, but
critical (in a non-antagonistic sort of way). They will listen to whatever you want to say, but they won’t
just accept your arguments rolling over, unless you really do provide good reasons in defense of your
position. I, for some reason, always imagine Morgan Freeman, but go for whatever works for you. Think
of an audience that will be a part of that whole co-operative truth seeking thing with you.
Hope this helps!!!!
FIRST MEDITATION
17
of those things that may be called into doubt
It is some years now since I realized how many false opinions I had
accepted as true from childhood onwards,* and that, whatever I had
since built on such shaky foundations, could only be highly doubtful.
Hence I saw that at some stage in my life the whole structure would
have to be utterly demolished, and that I should have to begin again
from the bottom up if I wished to construct something lasting and
unshakeable in the sciences. But this seemed to be a massive task, and
so I postponed it until I had reached the age when one is as fit as one
will ever be to master the various disciplines. Hence I have delayed
so long that now I should be at fault if I used up in deliberating the
time that is left for acting. The moment has come, and so today I have
discharged my mind from all its cares, and have carved out a space of
untroubled leisure. I have withdrawn into seclusion and shall at last
be able to devote myself seriously and without encumbrance to the
task of destroying all my former opinions.
To this end, however, it will not be necessary to prove them all
false—a thing I should perhaps never be able to achieve. But since
reason already persuades me that I should no less scrupulously
withhold my assent from what is not fully certain and indubitable
than from what is blatantly false, then, in order to reject them all, it
will be sufficient to find some reason for doubting each one. Nor shall
I therefore have to go through them each individually, which would
be an endless task: but since, once the foundations are undermined,
the building will collapse of its own accord, I shall straight away
attack the very principles that form the basis of all my former beliefs.
Certainly, up to now whatever I have accepted as fully true I have
learned either from or by means of the senses: but I have discovered
that they sometimes deceive us, and prudence dictates that we
should never fully trust those who have deceived us even once.
But perhaps, although they sometimes deceive us about things
that are little, or rather a long way away, there are plenty of other
things of which there is clearly no doubt, although it was from the
senses that we learned them: for instance, that I am now here, sitting
by the fire, wrapped in a warm winter gown, handling this paper,
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First Meditation
and suchlike. Indeed, that these hands themselves, and this whole
body are mine—what reason could there be for doubting this? Unless
perhaps I were to compare myself to one of those madmen, whose
little brains have been so befuddled by a pestilential vapour arising
from the black bile,* that they swear blind that they are kings, though
they are beggars, or that they are clad in purple, when they are
naked, or that their head is made of clay, or that their whole body is
a jug, or made entirely of glass. But they are lunatics, and I should
seem no less of a madman myself if I should follow their example in
any way.
This is all very well, to be sure. But am I not a human being, and
therefore in the habit of sleeping at night, when in my dreams I have
all the same experiences as these madmen do when they are awake—
or sometimes even stranger ones? How often my sleep at night has
convinced me of all these familiar things—that I was here, wrapped
in my gown, sitting by the fire—when in fact I was lying naked
under the bedclothes.—All the same, I am now perceiving this paper
with eyes that are certainly awake; the head I am nodding is not
drowsy; I stretch out my hand and feel it knowingly and deliberately;
a sleeper would not have these experiences so distinctly.—But have
I then forgotten those other occasions on which I have been deceived
by similar thoughts in my dreams? When I think this over more carefully I see so clearly that waking can never be distinguished from
sleep by any conclusive indications that I am stupefied; and this very
stupor comes close to persuading me that I am asleep after all.
Let us then suppose* that we are dreaming, and that these particular things (that we have our eyes open, are moving our head, stretching out our hands) are not true; and that perhaps we do not even have
hands or the rest of a body like what we see. It must nonetheless be
admitted that the things we see in sleep are, so to speak, painted
images, which could not be formed except on the basis of a resemblance with real things; and that for this reason these general things
at least (such as eyes, head, hands, and the rest of the body) are not
imaginary things, but real and existing. For the fact is that when
painters desire to represent sirens and little satyrs with utterly unfamiliar shapes, they cannot devise altogether new natures for them, but
simply combine parts from different animals; or if perhaps they do
think up something so new that nothing at all like it has ever been
seen, which is thus altogether fictitious and false, it is certain that at
First Meditation
15
least the colours which they combine to form images must be real. By
the same token, even though these general things—eyes, head, hands,
and so forth—might be imaginary, it must necessarily be admitted
that at least some other still more simple and universal realities must
exist, from which (as the painter’s image is produced from real
colours) all these images of things—be they true or false—that
occur in our thoughts are produced.
In this category it seems we should include bodily nature in general, and its extension; likewise the shape of extended things and
their quantity (magnitude and number); likewise the place in which
they exist, the time during which they exist, and suchlike.
From all this, perhaps, we may safely conclude that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all the other disciplines which involve the study of
composite things are indeed doubtful; but that arithmetic, geometry,
and other disciplines of the same kind, which deal only with the very
simplest and most general things, and care little whether they exist in
nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable. For whether
I am waking or sleeping, two plus three equals five, and a square has
no more than four sides; nor does it seem possible that such obvious
truths could be affected by any suspicion that they are false.
However, there is a certain opinion long fixed in my mind, that
there is a God who is all-powerful, and by whom I was created such
as I am now. Now how do I know that he has not brought it about
that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended things, no shape,
no magnitude, no place—and yet that all these things appear to me
to exist just as they do now?* Or even—just as I judge now and again
that other people are mistaken about things they believe they know
with the greatest certitude—that I too should be similarly deceived
whenever I add two and three, or count the sides of a square, or make
a judgement about something even simpler, if anything simpler can
be imagined?
But perhaps God has not willed that I should be so cheated, for he
is said to be supremely good.—But if it were incompatible with his
goodness to have created me such that I am perpetually deceived, it
would seem equally inconsistent with that quality to permit me to be
sometimes deceived. Nonetheless, I cannot doubt that he does permit it.
Perhaps, indeed, there might be some people who would prefer to
deny the existence of any God so powerful, rather than believing that
all other things are uncertain. But let us not quarrel with them, and
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First Meditation
let us grant that all this we have said of God is only a fiction; and let
them suppose that it is by fate or chance or a continuous sequence of
things that I have come to be what I am. Since, though, to be
deceived and to err appear to be some kind of imperfection, the less
powerful the source they invoke to explain my being, the more probable it will be that I am so imperfect that I am perpetually deceived.
To all these arguments, indeed, I have no answer, but at length I am
forced to admit that there is nothing of all those things I once
thought true, of which it is not legitimate to doubt—and not out of
any thoughtlessness or irresponsibility, but for sound and wellweighed reasons; and therefore that, from these things as well, no
less than from what is blatantly false, I must now carefully withhold
my assent if I wish to discover any thing that is certain.*
But it is not enough to have realized all this, I must take care to
remember it: for my accustomed opinions continually creep back
into my mind, and take possession of my belief, which has, so to
speak, been enslaved to them by long experience and familiarity, for
the most part against my will. Nor shall I ever break the habit of
assenting to them and relying on them, as long as I go on supposing
them to be such as they are in truth, that is to say, doubtful indeed
in some respect, as has been shown just now, and yet nonetheless
highly probable, so that it is much more rational to believe than to
deny them. Hence, it seems to me, I shall not be acting unwisely if,
willing myself to believe the contrary, I deceive myself, and make
believe, for some considerable time, that they are altogether false and
imaginary, until, once the prior judgements on each side have been
evenly balanced in the scales, no evil custom can any longer twist my
judgement away from the correct perception of things. For I know
for sure that no danger or error will ensue as a result of this, and that
there is no risk that I shall be giving too free a rein to my distrustfulness, since my concern at the moment is not with action but only
with the attainment of knowledge.*
I will therefore suppose that, not God, who is perfectly good and
the source of truth, but some evil spirit, supremely powerful and
cunning, has devoted all his efforts to deceiving me.* I will think that
the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external
things are no different from the illusions of our dreams, and that they
are traps he has laid for my credulity; I will consider myself as having
no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, and no senses, but yet as falsely
Second Meditation
17
believing that I have all these;* I will obstinately cling to these
thoughts, and in this way, if indeed it is not in my power to discover
any truth,* yet certainly to the best of my ability and determination
I will take care not to give my assent to anything false, or to allow this
deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, to impose upon
me in any way.
But to carry out this plan requires great effort, and there is a kind of
indolence that drags me back to my customary way of life. Just as a prisoner, who was perhaps enjoying an imaginary freedom in his dreams,
when he then begins to suspect that he is asleep is afraid of being woken
up, and lets himself sink back into his soothing illusions; so I of my
own accord slip back into my former opinions, and am scared to awake,
for fear that tranquil sleep will give way to laborious hours of waking,
which from now on I shall have to spend not in any kind of light, but in
the unrelenting darkness of the difficulties just stirred up.
SECOND MEDITATION
of the nature of the human mind; that it is
more easily known than the body
Yesterday’s meditation has plunged me into so many doubts that
I still cannot put them out of my mind, nor, on the other hand, can
I see any way to resolve them; but, as if I had suddenly slipped into
a deep whirlpool, I am in such difficulties that I can neither touch
bottom with my foot nor swim back to the surface. Yet I will struggle on, and I will try the same path again as the one I set out on yesterday, that is to say, eliminating everything in which there is the
smallest element of doubt, exactly as if I had found it to be false
through and through; and I shall pursue my way until I discover
something certain; or, failing that, discover that it is certain only that
nothing is certain. Archimedes* claimed, that if only he had a point
that was firm and immovable, he would move the whole earth; and
great things are likewise to be hoped, if I can find just one little thing
that is certain and unshakeable.
I therefore suppose that all I see is false; I believe that none of
those things represented by my deceitful memory has ever existed; in
fact I have no senses at all; body, shape, extension in space, motion,
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Second Meditation
and place itself are all illusions. What truth then is left? Perhaps this
alone, that nothing is certain.
But how do I know that there is not something different from all
those things I have just listed, about which there is not the slightest
room for doubt? Is there not, after all, some God, or whatever he
should be called, that puts these thoughts into my mind? But why
should I think that, when perhaps I myself could be the source of
these thoughts? But am I at least not something, after all? But I have
already denied that I have any senses or any body. Now I am at a loss,
because what follows from this? Am I so bound up with my body
and senses that I cannot exist without them? But I convinced myself
that there was nothing at all in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds,
no bodies. Did I therefore not also convince myself that I did not
exist either? No: certainly I did exist, if I convinced myself of
something.—But there is some deceiver or other, supremely powerful and cunning, who is deliberately deceiving me all the time.—
Beyond doubt then, I also exist, if he is deceiving me; and he can
deceive me all he likes, but he will never bring it about that I should
be nothing as long as I think I am something. So that, having weighed
all these considerations sufficiently and more than sufficiently, I can
finally decide* that this proposition, ‘I am, I exist’, whenever it is
uttered by me, or conceived in the mind, is necessarily true.
But indeed I do not yet sufficiently understand what in fact this ‘I’
is that now necessarily exists;* so that from now on I must take care
in case I should happen imprudently to take something else to be me
that is not me, and thus go astray in the very knowledge [cognitione]
that I claim to be the most certain and evident of all. Hence I shall
now meditate afresh on what I once believed myself to be, before
I fell into this train of thought. From this I shall then subtract
whatever it has been possible to cast doubt on, even in the slightest
degree, by the reasons put forward above, so that in the end there
shall remain exactly and only that which is certain and unshakeable.
So what in fact did I think I was before all this? A human being, of
course. But what is a human being? Shall I say, ‘a rational animal’?*
No, for then I should have to examine what exactly an animal is, and
what ‘rational’ is, and hence, starting with one question, I should
stumble into more and more difficult ones. Nor do I now have so
much leisure that I can afford to fritter it away on subtleties of this
kind. But here I shall rather direct my attention to the thoughts that
Second Meditation
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spontaneously and by nature’s prompting came to my mind beforehand, whenever I considered what I was. The first was that I have a
face, hands, arms, and this whole mechanism of limbs, such as we see
even in corpses; this I referred to as the body. Next, that I took nourishment, moved, perceived with my senses, and thought: these
actions indeed I attributed to the soul.* What this soul was, however,
either I never considered, or I imagined it as something very rarefied
and subtle, like a wind, or fire, or thin air, infused into my coarser
parts. But about the body itself, on the other hand, I had no doubts,
but I thought I distinctly knew its nature, which, if I had attempted
to describe how I conceived it in my mind, I would have explained as
follows: by body I mean everything that is capable of being bounded
by some shape, of existing in a definite place, of filling a space in such
a way as to exclude the presence of any other body within it; of being
perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell, and also of being
moved in various ways, not indeed by itself, but by some other thing
by which it is touched; for to have the power of moving itself, and
also of perceiving by the senses or thinking, I judged could in no way
belong to the nature of body; rather, I was puzzled by the fact that
such capacities were found in certain bodies.
But what about now, when I am supposing that some deceiver,
who is supremely powerful and, if I may venture to say so, evil, has
been exerting all his efforts to delude me in every way? Can I affirm
that I possess the slightest thing of all those that I have just said
belong to the nature of body? I consider, I think, I go over it all in my
mind: nothing comes up. It would be a waste of effort to go through
the list again. But what about the attributes I used to ascribe to the
soul? What about taking nourishment or moving? But since I now
have no body, these also are nothing but illusions. What about senseperception? But certainly this does not take place without a body,
and I have seemed to perceive very many things when asleep that
I later realized I had not perceived. What about thinking? Here I do
find something: it is thought; this alone cannot be stripped from me.
I am, I exist, this is certain. But for how long? Certainly only for as
long as I am thinking; for perhaps if I were to cease from all thinking
it might also come to pass that I might immediately cease altogether
to exist. I am now admitting nothing except what is necessarily true:
I am therefore, speaking precisely, only a thinking thing, that is,
a mind, or a soul, or an intellect, or a reason—words the meaning of
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which was previously unknown to me. I am therefore a true thing,
and one that truly exists; but what kind of thing? I have said it
already: one that thinks.
What comes next? I will imagine: I am not that framework of limbs
that is called a human body; I am not some thin air infused into these
limbs, or a wind, or a fire, or a vapour, or a breath, or whatever I can
picture myself as: for I have supposed that these things do not exist.
But even if I keep to this supposition, nonetheless I am still something.*—But all the same, it is perhaps still the case that these very
things I am supposing to be nothing, are nevertheless not distinct
from this ‘me’ that I know* [novi].—Perhaps: I don’t know. But this
is not the point at issue at present. I can pass judgement only on
those things that are known to me. I know [novi] that I exist; I am
trying to find out what this ‘I’ is, whom I know [novi]. It is absolutely
certain that this knowledge [notitia], in the precise sense in question
here, does not depend on things of which I do not yet know [novi]
whether they exist; and therefore it depends on none of those things
I picture in my imagination. This very word ‘imagination’ shows
where I am going wrong. For I should certainly be ‘imagining things’
if I imagined myself to be anything, since imagining is nothing other
than contemplating the shape or image of a bodily thing. Now, however, I know [scio] for certain that I exist; and that, at the same time,
it could be the case that all these images, and in general everything
that pertains to the nature of body, are nothing but illusions. Now
this is clear to me, it would seem as foolish of me to say: ‘I shall use
my imagination, in order to recognize more clearly what I am’, as
it would be to say: ‘Now I am awake, and I see something true; but
because I cannot yet see it clearly enough, I shall do my best to get
back to sleep again so that my dreams can show it to me more truly
and more clearly.’ And so I realize [cognosco] that nothing that I can
grasp by means of the imagination has to do with this knowledge
[notitiam] I have of myself, and that I need to withdraw my mind
from such things as thoroughly as possible, if it is to perceive its own
nature as distinctly as possible.
But what therefore am I? A thinking thing. What is that? I mean a
thing that doubts, that understands, that affirms, that denies, that
wishes to do this and does not wish to do that, and also that imagines
and perceives by the senses.
Second Meditation
21
Well, indeed, there is quite a lot there, if all these things really do
belong to me. But why should they not belong to me? Is it not me
who currently doubts virtually everything, who nonetheless understands something, who affirms this alone to be true, and denies the
rest, who wishes to know more, and wishes not to be deceived, who
imagines many things, even against his will, and is aware of many
things that appear to come via the senses? Is there any of these things
that is not equally true as the fact that I exist—even if I am always
asleep, and even if my creator is deceiving me to the best of his ability? Is there any of them that can be distinguished from my thinking?
Is there any that can be said to be separate from me? For that it is I
that am doubting, understanding, wishing, is so obvious that nothing
further is needed in order to explain it more clearly. But indeed it is
also this same I that is imagining; for although it might be the case,
as I have been supposing, that none of these imagined things is true,
yet the actual power of imagining certainly does exist, and is part of
my thinking. And finally it is the same I that perceives by means of
the senses, or who is aware of corporeal things as if by means of the
senses: for example, I am seeing a light, hearing a noise, feeling heat.—
But these things are false, since I am asleep!—But certainly I seem to
be seeing, hearing, getting hot. This cannot be false. This is what is
properly meant by speaking of myself as having sensations; and,
understood in this precise sense, it is nothing other than thinking.
From all of this, I am indeed beginning to know [nosse] rather
better what I in fact am. But it still seems (and I cannot help thinking this) that the bodily things of which the images are formed in our
thought, and which the senses themselves investigate, are much
more distinctly recognized than that part of myself, whatever it is,
that cannot be represented by the imagination. Although, indeed, it
is strange that things that I realize are doubtful, unknown, unrelated
to me should be more distinctly grasped by me than what is true and
what is known—more distinctly grasped even than myself. But I see
what is happening. My mind enjoys wandering off the track, and will
not yet allow itself to be confined within the boundaries of truth. Very
well, then: let us, once again, slacken its reins as far as possible—
then, before too long, a tug on them at the right moment will bring
it more easily back to obedience.*
Let us consider those things which are commonly thought to be
more distinctly grasped than anything else: I mean the bodies we
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touch and see; but not bodies in general, for these general perceptions are usually considerably more confused, but one body in particular. Let us, for example, take this wax: it has only just been
removed from the honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the flavour of its
honey; it retains some of the scent of the flowers among which it was
gathered; its colour, shape, and size are clearly visible; it is hard,
cold, easy to touch, and if you tap it with your knuckle, it makes a
sound. In short, it has all the properties that seem to be required for
a given body to be known as distinctly as possible. But wait—while
I am speaking, it is brought close to the fire. The remains of its
flavour evaporate; the smell fades; the colour is changed, the shape is
taken away, it grows in size, becomes liquid, becomes warm, it can
hardly be touched, and now, if you strike it, it will give off no sound.
Does the same wax still remain? We must admit it does remain: no
one would say or think it does not. So what was there in it that was
so distinctly grasped? Certainly, none of those qualities I apprehended by the senses: for whatever came under taste, or smell, or
sight, or touch, or hearing, has now changed: but the wax remains.
Perhaps the truth of the matter was what I now think it is: namely,
that the wax itself was not in fact this sweetness of the honey, or the
fragrance of the flowers, or the whiteness, shape, or sonority, but the
body which not long ago appeared to me as perceptible in these
modes,* but now appears in others. But what exactly is this that I am
imagining in this way? Let us consider the matter, and, thinking
away those things that do not belong to the wax, let us see what
remains. Something extended, flexible, mutable: certainly, that is all.
But in what do this flexibility and mutability consist? Is it in the fact
that I can imagine this wax being changed in shape, from a circle to
a square, and from a square into a triangle? That cannot be right: for
I understand that it is capable of innumerable changes of this sort,
yet I cannot keep track of all these by using my imagination. Therefore
my understanding of these properties is not achieved by using the
faculty of imagination. What about ‘extended’? Surely I know something about the nature of its extension. For it is greater when the wax
is melting, greater still when it is boiling, and greater still when the
heat is further increased. And I would not be correctly judging
what the wax is if I failed to see that it is capable of receiving
more varieties, as regards extension, than I have ever grasped in my
imagination. So I am left with no alternative, but to accept that I am
Second Meditation
23
not at all imagining what this wax is, I am perceiving it with my mind
alone: I say ‘this wax’ in particular, for the point is even clearer about
wax in general. So then, what is this wax, which is only perceived by
the mind? Certainly it is the same wax I see, touch, and imagine, and
in short it is the same wax I judged it to be from the beginning. But
yet—and this is important—the perception of it is not sight, touch,
or imagination, and never was, although it seemed to be so at first: it
is an inspection by the mind alone, which can be either imperfect and
confused, as it was before in this case, or clear and distinct, as it now
is, depending on the greater or lesser degree of attention I pay to
what it consists of.
But in the meantime I am amazed by the proneness of my mind to
error. For although I am considering all this in myself silently and
without speech, yet I am still ensnared by words themselves, and all
but deceived by the very ways in which we usually put things. For
we say that we ‘see’ the wax itself, if it is present, not that we judge
it to be there on the basis of its colour or shape. From this I would
have immediately concluded that I therefore knew the wax by the
sight of my eyes, not by the inspection of the mind alone—if I had
not happened to glance out of the window at people walking along
the street. Using the customary expression, I say that I ‘see’ them,
just as I ‘see’ the wax. But what do I actually see other than hats and
coats, which could be covering automata?* But I judge that they are
people. And therefore what I thought I saw with my eyes, I in fact
grasp only by the faculty of judging that is in my mind.
But one who desires to know more than the common herd might
be ashamed to have gone to the speech of the common herd to find a
reason for doubting. Let us then go on where we left off by considering whether I perceived more perfectly and more evidently what
the wax was, when I first encountered it, and believed that I knew
[cognoscere] it by these external senses, or at least by what they call the
‘common sense’,* that is, the imaginative power; or whether I perceive
it better now, after I have more carefully investigated both what it is
and how it is known [cognoscatur]. Certainly it would be foolish to
doubt that I have a much better grasp of it now. For what, if anything, was distinct in my original perception? What was there, if anything, that seemed to go beyond the perception of the lowest animals?*
But on the other hand, when I distinguish the wax from its external
forms, and, as if I had stripped off its garments, consider it in all its
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nakedness, then, indeed, although there may still be error in my judgements, I cannot perceive it in this way except by the human mind.
But what, then, shall I say about this mind, or about myself? For
I do not yet accept that there is anything in me but a mind. What,
I say, am I who seem to perceive this wax so distinctly? Do I not
know [cognosco] myself not only much more truly, much more certainly, but also much more distinctly and evidently than the wax?
For, if I judge that the wax exists, for the reason that I see it, it is certainly much more evident that I myself also exist, from the very fact
that I am seeing it. For it could be the case that what I am seeing is
not really wax; it could be the case that I do not even have eyes with
which to see anything; but it certainly cannot be the case, when I see
something, or when I think I am seeing something (the difference is
irrelevant for the moment), that I myself who think should not be
something. By the same token, if I judge that the wax exists, for the
reason that I am touching it, the same consequence follows: namely,
that I exist. If I judge it exists, for the reason I am imagining it, or for
any other reason, again, the same certainly applies. But what I have
realized in the case of the wax, I can apply to anything that exists outside myself. Moreover, if the perception of the wax appeared more
distinct after it became known to me from many sources, and not
from sight or touch alone, how much more distinctly—it must be
admitted—I now know [cognosci] myself. For there are no reasons
that can enhance the perception either of the wax or of any other
body at all that do not at the same time prove better to me the nature
of my own mind. But there are so many things besides in the mind
itself that can serve to make the knowledge [notitia] of it more distinct, that there seems scarcely any point in listing all the perceptions
that flow into it from the body.
But I see now that, without realizing it, I have ended up back
where I wanted to be. For since I have now learned that bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking, by the senses or by the
imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone, and that they are not
perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they
are understood, I clearly realize [cognosco] that nothing can be perceived by me more easily or more clearly than my own mind. But
since a long-held opinion is a habit that cannot so readily be laid
aside, I intend to stop here for a while, in order to fix this newly
acquired knowledge more deeply in my memory by long meditation.
THIRD MEDITATION
of god, that he exists
I shall now close my eyes, I shall block up my ears, I shall divert all
my senses, and I shall even delete all bodily images from my thought
or, since this is virtually impossible to achieve, at least count them as
empty and worthless; and I shall try, by conversing only with myself
and looking deep within myself, to make myself gradually better
known and more familiar to myself. I am a thinking thing, that is, one
that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of
many others, wills this and not that, and also imagines and perceives
by the senses; for as I have already remarked, although the things
I perceive or imagine outside myself do not perhaps exist, yet I am
certain that the modes of thinking that I call sensations and imaginations, considered purely and simply as modes of thinking, do exist
inside me.
And this, short as it is, is a complete list of what I truly know [scio],
or at least of what, up to now, I have realized that I know. Now I shall
examine more carefully whether perhaps there are any further items
of knowledge in my possession to which I have not yet paid attention.
I am certain that I am a thinking thing. But do I not therefore also
know what is required in order for me to be certain of something?
For in this first act of knowledge [cognitione] there is nothing other
than a clear and distinct perception of what I affirm to be the case;
and this certainly would be insufficient to make me certain of the
truth of the matter, if it could ever come to pass that something I perceived so clearly and distinctly was false. And therefore I seem already
to be able to lay down, as a general rule, that everything I very clearly
and distinctly perceive is true.
And yet there are many things that I once accepted as completely
certain and obvious, that I have since realized were doubtful. What
kind of things were these? The earth, the sky, the stars, and everything else I became aware of through the senses. But what did
I clearly perceive here? Certainly, that the ideas or thoughts of such
things were present to my mind. And even now I do not deny that
these ideas exist in me. But there was something else that I was
affirming, and that, because I was used to believing it, I thought
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Third Meditation
I perceived clearly, although in fact I was not really perceiving it;
namely, that there were certain things existing outside me from
which these ideas derived and that the ideas perfectly resembled.
This was my mistake; or at least, if I was after all right in thinking
this, the rightness was not due to my perception.
But when in arithmetic or geometry I considered something very
simple and easy—for instance, two plus three equals five—surely
I intuited this kind of thing at least clearly enough to declare it true?
In fact, when I later judged that such things should be doubted, this
was only because the thought had come to me, that perhaps some
God might have endowed me with such a nature that I could be
deceived even about those things that appeared supremely obvious.
But whenever this preconceived opinion of God’s supreme power
occurs to me, I cannot help admitting, that, if indeed he wishes to, he
can easily bring it about that I should be mistaken, even about
matters that I think I intuit with the eye of the mind as evidently as
possible. On the other hand, whenever I turn my attention to the
things themselves that I think I perceive very clearly, I am so thoroughly convinced by them, that I cannot help exclaiming: ‘Let whoever can, deceive me as much as he likes: still he can never bring it
about that I am nothing, as long as I think I am something; or that
one day it will be true that I have never existed, when it is true now
that I exist; or that perhaps two plus three added together are more
or less than five; or that other such things should be true in which
I recognize an obvious contradiction.’ And certainly, since I have no
grounds for thinking that any deceitful God exists—in fact, I do not
yet sufficiently know whether there is any God at all—then a reason
for doubting that depends wholly on the belief in a deceitful God is
very slight, and, so to speak, metaphysical. In order to remove it,
then, at the first opportunity, I must examine whether there is a God,
and, if there is, whether he can be a deceiver; since, as long as
I remain ignorant of this matter, I seem unable ever to be certain of
any other at all.*
But now it seems that, to proceed in an orderly fashion, I should
first divide up all my thoughts into definite categories, and examine
to which of these truth and falsity can properly be said to pertain.
Some of these thoughts are apparently images of things,* and to
these alone the name ‘idea’ is properly applied: for instance, when
I think of a human being, or a chimera, or the heavens, or an angel,
Third Meditation
27
or God. But others have certain other forms as well; thus, when I
will, or fear, or affirm, or deny, I am always in fact apprehending
some thing as the subject of this thought,* but I am including something further within the thought than the mere likeness of the thing;
and of thoughts of this kind some are called volitions, or affects,
whereas others are called judgements.
Now, as far as ideas are concerned, if they are considered purely
in themselves, and if I do not connect them with anything outside
themselves, they cannot, strictly speaking, be false; for whether I am
imagining a goat or a chimera, it is no less true that I am imagining
one than that I am imagining the other. Again, there is no fear of
falsehood in the will itself, or in the affects: for although I can desire
something wicked, and even something that does not exist at all, this
does not mean that it is not true that I desire it. This leaves only
judgements: in these alone I must take care not to be deceived. The
most glaring and widespread error that can be found in them consists
in my judging that the ideas that are in me are similar to or in accordance with some things existing outside me. For certainly, if I conceived the ideas themselves purely and simply as modifications of my
thinking, and did not connect them with anything else, they could
scarcely give me any occasion to err.
Of these ideas, some seem to me to be innate, others adventitious,*
others produced by myself. For understanding what a thing is, what
truth is, what thought is, is something I seem to possess purely in
virtue of my nature itself. But if I am now hearing a noise, seeing the
sun, feeling the heat of a fire,* up to now I have judged that such sensations derive from things existing outside myself. Finally, sirens,
hippogriffs, and suchlike creatures are inventions of my own imagination. But perhaps I can think that all my ideas are adventitious, or
all innate, or all produced by me: for I have not yet clearly discovered
their true source.
About those ideas that I consider as proceeding from things
existing outside myself, the key question to ask here is: What reason
do I have for thinking the ideas are like the things? Well, certainly,
nature itself seems to teach me to think so. Besides, experience shows
me that they do not depend on my own will, and therefore do not
depend on myself. For they often intrude upon me against my will.
Now, for instance, I am feeling heat, whether I want to or not, and
this is why I think that this sensation, or idea, of heat is coming to me
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Third Meditation
from a thing distinct from myself, in this case from the heat of the
fire by which I am sitting. And by far the most obvious judgement to
make is that what the thing is transmitting to me is its own likeness
rather than anything else.
But I shall now see whether these reasons are sufficiently solid.
When I say here that ‘I am taught by nature’ to think so, I mean only
that I am prompted to believe this by some spontaneous inclination,
not that it is shown to me to be true by some natural light.* The two
things are very different: for whatever is shown to me by the natural
light (for instance, that, from the fact that I am doubting, it follows
that I exist, and suchlike) can in no way be doubtful, because there
can be no other faculty that I could trust as much as this light, and
that could teach me that such things are not, after all, true. But when
it comes to natural inclinations, I have before now often judged in the
past that I have been led by these in the wrong direction, when it was
a matter of choosing the good,* nor do I see why I should trust them
more in any other domain.
Then again, although these ideas do not depend on my own will,
it does not necessarily follow that they derive from things existing
outside me. For just as those inclinations of which I was speaking a
moment ago, although they are inside me, seem, however, to be distinct from my will, so perhaps there is some other faculty within me,
as yet insufficiently known to me, that produces such ideas—just as
up to now it has always seemed to me that they form themselves in
me while I am asleep without any assistance from external things.*
And finally, even if they did derive from things distinct from
myself, it does not follow that they have to be like those things. Indeed,
in many of them I seem to have discovered major discrepancies
between the idea and the object. For instance, I find within me two
different ideas of the sun. One appears to be derived from the senses,
and it would absolutely have to be placed in the category of ideas
I class as ‘adventitious’. This idea represents the sun as very small.
The other, however, derives from astronomical reasoning—that is to
say, it is derived from some notions innate within me, or has been
produced by me in some other way. This idea represents the sun as
several times larger than the earth. But certainly, both cannot be like
one and the same sun existing outside me; and reason persuades me
that the one that seems to have flowed directly from the sun itself* is
in fact the one that is most unlike it.
Third Meditation
29
All these considerations are sufficient proof that, up to now, it is as
a result not of a certain judgement, but only of some blind inclination, that I have believed in the existence of various things distinct
from myself, and conveying ideas or images of themselves to me
through the sense-organs or in some other manner.
But there is yet another way that occurs to me by which I could
investigate whether any of those things of which the ideas are in me
exist outside me. Certainly, in so far as these ideas are only various
modifications of my thinking, I acknowledge that they are all on the
same footing, and they all seem to derive from me in the same way.
But, in so far as one represents one thing, another another, it is plain
that they differ widely among themselves. For beyond doubt those
ideas that represent substances to me are something greater, and contain, if I may use the term, more ‘objective reality’ in themselves,
than those that represent merely modes or accidents. And by the
same token, the idea by which I conceive a supreme God, eternal,
infinite, omniscient, all-powerful, and the creator of all things that
exist beside himself, certainly has more objective reality in itself than
those by which finite substances are represented.
But now it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at
least as much reality in the total and efficient cause as in its effect.
For, I ask, from where could the effect derive its reality, if not from
the cause? And how could the cause give it reality, if it did not
also possess it? Hence it follows, both that nothing can come from
nothing, and that what is more perfect (that is, what contains more
reality within itself ) cannot derive from what is less perfect. And this
is not only plainly true of those effects whose reality is actual or formal,
but also of ideas, in which only the objective reality is considered.
For instance, a stone that did not previously exist, cannot now begin
to be, unless it is produced by some thing in which everything exists,
either formally or eminently,* that enters into the composition of the
stone. Nor can heat be brought about in a subject that was not hot
before, unless by a thing that belongs to at least the same order of
perfection as heat; and the same is true elsewhere. But, by the same
token, the idea of heat, or of the stone, cannot exist in me, unless it is
produced in me by some cause in which there is at least as much reality as I conceive to be in the heat or in the stone. For although this
cause transmits none of its actual or formal reality to my idea, we
must not therefore think that it (the cause) must be less real; rather,
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Third Meditation
the nature of the idea itself is such that it requires no other formal
reality outside itself,* except what it borrows from my thought, of
which it is a mode. But the fact that this idea contains this or that
objective reality, and not some other kind—this must certainly be
due to some other cause, in which there is at least as much formal
reality as the idea contains objective reality. For if we suppose that
something is found in the idea that is not in its cause, it would have
this something from nothing; and however imperfect the kind of
being by which a thing exists objectively in the understanding in the
form of an idea, it is certainly not nothing, and therefore cannot come
from nothing.
Nor should I suppose that since the reality I am considering in my
ideas is purely objective, there is no need for the same reality to exist
formally in the causes of these ideas, but that it is enough for it also
to exist in them objectively. For just as this objective mode of being
pertains to ideas from their very nature, so the formal mode of being
pertains to the causes of the ideas—at least the first and dominant
causes—from their nature also. And although perhaps one idea can
be born from another, we cannot here have an infinite regress, but in
the end we have to arrive at some first idea, the cause of which takes
the form of an archetype, which formally contains all the reality that
is only objectively in the idea. So that it is clear to me by the natural
light that the ideas in me are of the nature of images, which can easily
fall short of the perfection of the things from which they derive, but
cannot, however, contain anything greater or more perfect.
And the longer and more carefully I examine all these things, the
more clearly and distinctly I realize [cognosco] they are true. But what
conclusion am I to draw from them? Certainly, if the objective reality of some one of my ideas is so great that I am certain that that reality does not exist in me either formally or eminently, and therefore
that I myself cannot be the cause of this idea, it necessarily follows
that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing also
exists that is the cause of this idea. But if in fact no such idea is found
in me, I shall certainly have no argument that can convince me with
certainty of the existence of any thing distinct from myself; for I have
examined all these things very closely, and up to now I have found
no other such argument.
Of these ideas I have—apart from the one that represents me to
myself, about which there can be no difficulty here*— one represents
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31
God, others bodily and inanimate things, others angels, others animals, and others, finally, other human beings like myself.
As regards the ideas that represent other human beings, or
animals, or angels, I can easily see that they might have been put
together from the ideas I have of myself, and bodily things, and God,
even if there were no other human beings, or animals, or angels in the
world.
As regards ideas of bodily things, they contain nothing that is so
great that it cannot apparently derive from myself: for if I inspect
them more closely, and examine them one by one in the same way as
I yesterday examined the idea of the wax, I realize that there is very
little in them that I clearly and distinctly perceive: there is only magnitude, or extension in length, breadth, and depth; shape, which
results from the limitation of this extension; place, the situation
differently shaped bodies occupy relative to one another; and motion,
that is, change of place. To these substance, duration, and number
can be added. But the rest, such as light and colours, sounds, smells,
tastes, heat and cold, and the other tactile qualities are thought by me
only in very confused and obscure fashion—so much so that I do not
even know whether they are true or false, that is, whether the ideas
I have concerning them, are ideas of actual things or of non-things.
For although I remarked not long ago that falsity in the proper
(‘formal’) sense can be found only in judgements, there is nonetheless certainly another (‘material’) kind of falsity in ideas, when they
represent what is nothing as if it were something. For example, the
ideas I have of heat and cold are so unclear and so indistinct that
I cannot tell from them whether cold is nothing but a privation of
heat, or heat a privation of cold, or whether both are real qualities, or
neither. But there can be no ideas that do not seem to represent
something to us. And therefore, if indeed it is true that cold is nothing other than the privation of heat, the idea that represents it to me
as something real and positive can very properly be called false. The
same applies to all other such ideas.
Certainly, I do not need to ascribe any author to these ideas apart
from myself. For if indeed they are false—that is, if there is nothing
they actually represent—it is known to me by the natural light that
they derive from nothing: that is, they exist in me purely on account
of some shortcoming in my nature, which indeed is far from perfect.
But if, on the other hand, they are true, the degree of reality they
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represent to me is so scanty that I cannot even distinguish between it
and unreality; and therefore I cannot see why they might not derive
from myself.*
But of the clear and distinct elements in my ideas of bodily things,
there are some that it seems possible I borrowed from the idea of
myself, namely substance, duration, number, and any other things
there may be of that sort. For when I think that a stone is a substance,
that is to say, a thing capable of existing by itself, and likewise that
I am myself a substance, then although I conceive myself to be a
thinking and not an extended thing, and the stone, on the other
hand, to be an extended and not a thinking thing, so that there is a
very great difference between the two concepts, they seem, however,
to have this in common: they both represent a substance. Again,
when I perceive that I exist now, and also remember that I existed at
some time before now, and when I have various thoughts of which
I know the number, I acquire the ideas of duration and number,
which then I can transfer to other things, of whatever kind they are.
On the other hand, all the other elements from which the ideas of
bodily things are put together, namely extension, shape, place, and
motion, are not contained formally in myself, since I am nothing
other than a thinking thing. But because they are only various modes
of substance, and I moreover am a substance, it seems they could be
contained in me eminently.
And so there remains only the idea of God, in which I must consider whether there is anything that could not derive from myself. By
the name ‘God’ I understand an infinite, independent, supremely
intelligent, supremely powerful substance, by which I myself and
whatever else exists (if anything else does exist) was created. But
certainly, all these properties are such that, the more carefully
I consider them, the less it seems possible that they can be derived
from me alone.* And so I must conclude that it necessarily follows
from all that has been said up to now that God exists.
For indeed, even if the idea of substance is in me as a result of the
very fact that I am a substance, the idea of an infinite substance
would not therefore be in me, since I am finite, unless it derived from
some substance that is really infinite.
Nor should I think that I perceive the infinite not by a true idea
but only by negation of the finite, as I perceive rest and darkness by
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the negation of motion and light; for on the contrary, I manifestly
understand that there is more reality in infinite than in finite substance,
and that therefore the perception of the infinite in me must be in
some way prior to that of the finite: the perception of God, in other
words, prior to that of myself. For how could I possibly understand
that I doubt, and that I desire, that is, that there is something lacking
in me, and that I am not completely perfect, if there were no idea in
me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I could recognize my own shortcomings?*
Nor can it be said that perhaps this idea of God is materially false,
and could therefore derive from nothing, as I remarked not long ago
apropos of the ideas of heat and cold and suchlike. For on the contrary, since it is supremely clear and distinct, and contains more
objective reality than any other, there is no idea that is truer in itself
and in which less suspicion of falsity can be found. This idea of a
supremely perfect and infinite being is, I say, supremely true; for
although it perhaps might be imagined that no such being actually
exists, it cannot be imagined that the idea of it represents nothing
real to me, as I previously said of the idea of cold. It is also supremely
clear and distinct; for whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive that
is real and true and that contains some perfection is all included
within it. And this remains no less true even though I do not comprehend the infinite, or even if there are innumerable other attributes
in God that I can neither comprehend, nor even perhaps apprehend*
in the slightest by my thought; for it is of the nature of the infinite
that it should be incomprehensible to me, who am finite. Provided
that I understand this and judge that everything I clearly perceive,
and that I know [scio] to involve some perfection, as well, perhaps, as
innumerable other attributes I do not know, exists in God either formally or eminently, the idea I have of him will be the truest and most
clear and distinct of all my ideas.
And yet perhaps I am something greater than I understand myself
to be, and all the perfections I attribute to God, are in some sense in
me potentially, even if they have not yet revealed themselves, or been
brought into actuality.* For I am already experiencing a gradual
increase in my knowledge [cognitio]; and I cannot see any reason why
it should not be increased in this way further and further to infinity;
nor why, if my knowledge were so increased, I could not by means of
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Third Meditation
it obtain all the other perfections of God; nor finally why the potentiality of these perfections, if it exists in me already, should not be
enough actually to produce the idea of them.
But none of this can be true. For, first of all, even granting it to be
true that my knowledge [cognitio] is gradually increasing and that
there are many things in me in potentiality that are not yet so in actuality, nothing of this is relevant to the idea of God, in which indeed
there is absolutely no potentiality: for this very fact of gradual
increase is an infallible index of imperfection. Besides, even if my
knowledge did continually increase, nonetheless I understand that it
would still never be actually infinite, since it will never get to the
point of being incapable of further increase; but I judge God to be
infinite in actuality in such a way that nothing can be added to his
perfection. And finally I perceive that the objective being of an idea
cannot be produced from purely potential being, which properly
speaking is nothing, but only from actual or formal being.
And indeed there is nothing in all this that is not manifest by the
natural light to one who considers it carefully; but because, when my
attention wavers, and the images of sensible things blind the eye of
the mind, I do not remember so easily why the idea of a being more
perfect than myself necessarily proceeds from some being that is
truly perfect, I wish to investigate further whether I, who have this
idea, could exist if no such being existed.*
From what indeed could I derive my being? From myself, perhaps, or from my parents, or from some other beings less perfect than
God: for nothing more perfect than him, or even equally perfect, can
be conceived or imagined.
But if I existed of myself, I would not doubt, or wish, or lack anything at all: for I would have given myself all the perfections of which
there is some idea in me, and thus I should myself be God. Nor
should I suppose that what is lacking in me is perhaps more difficult
to acquire than what is already in me, since on the contrary, it is plain
that it was far more difficult for me, that is, a thinking thing or substance, to emerge from nothing than to acquire knowledge of the
many things I do not know, since such knowledge is only an accident
of this substance. But certainly, if I had this greater thing [existence]
from myself, I should not have denied myself at least the things that
can more easily be obtained; what is more, I should not have denied
myself any of those things I perceive to be contained in the idea of
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35
God; for indeed none of them seems to me more difficult to achieve.
But if any were in fact more difficult to achieve, certainly they would
appear to me to be so, if I did indeed derive my other properties from
myself, since I would experience the limits of my power with respect
to them.
And I cannot elude the force of these reasons by supposing that
perhaps I have always been as I now am, as if it followed from that
that there is no need to seek an author of my existence. For since all
the time of a life can be divided into innumerable parts, of which
each particular one in no way depends on the rest, it does not follow
from the fact that I existed not long ago that I have to exist now,
unless some cause, so to speak, creates me again at this moment, or
in other words, conserves me in being. For it is clear, if one considers the nature of time, that the same power and action is required to
conserve any thing, whatever it may be, in being during the individual moments in which it continues to exist, as would be needed to
create the same thing from the start if it did not yet exist. So clear
is this in fact that we may add to the list of things manifest by the
natural light that the distinction between conservation and creation
exists purely in our thought.*
So therefore I need now to inquire of myself, whether I have some
power, by means of which I can bring it to pass that this ‘I’* that now
exists shall still exist at some time in the near future. For since I am
nothing other than a thinking thing, or at least, to speak precisely,
since I am now dealing only with that part of myself that is a thinking thing, if any power of this sort were in me, I should beyond doubt
be conscious of it. But I can find no such power, and from this I very
clearly realize [cognosco] that I depend upon some being distinct from
myself.
But perhaps this being is not God, and I was and am produced
either by my parents or by some other causes less perfect than God,
whatever they might be. No: for, as I have already said, it is plain that
there must be at least as much in the cause as there is in the effect;
and therefore, since I am a thinking thing, and one that has the idea
of God in myself, it must be admitted that whatever cause is finally
assigned to me must also itself be a thinking thing and one that has
the idea of all the perfections I ascribe to God. And then of this thing
too we can ask whether it exists of itself or by virtue of some other
thing. For if it exists of itself, it is clear from the above that it must
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Third Meditation
itself be God, because since it has from itself the power to exist, it
undoubtedly has the power to possess in reality all the perfections of
which it has the idea in itself, that is, all the perfections I conceive to
be in God. But if, on the other hand, it exists in virtue of some other
thing, then we shall ask whether this thing too exists of itself, or in
virtue of some other thing, until finally we come to an ultimate cause:
and this will be God.
For it is sufficiently plain that here there is no possibility of an
infinite regress,* especially because I am not dealing so much with
the cause that produced me at some time in the past, as, above all,
with the one that conserves me in the present time.
Nor can it be imagined that perhaps many partial causes have
come together to produce me, and that from one of them I received
the idea of one of the perfections I attribute to God, and from
another the idea of another perfection, so that all these perfections
are found, indeed, somewhere in the universe, but not all combined
together in any one being that would be God. For on the contrary,
the unity, simplicity, or inseparability of all those things that are in
God is one of the principal perfections that I understand to inhere in
him. Nor, certainly, could the idea of this unity of all his perfections
have been implanted in me by any cause from which I did not also
derive the ideas of the other perfections: for such a cause could not
have brought it about that I should understand them as simultaneously combined and inseparable, unless it had at the same time
enabled me to know what they all were.
Finally, as far as my parents are concerned, even if everything is
true of them that I have ever thought to be so, certainly they do not
conserve me in being, nor did they in any way produce me insofar as
I am a thinking thing; they only implanted certain dispositions in the
matter that I judged myself (that is, my mind, which for the moment
I take to be identical with my self ) to inhabit. And so there can be no
difficulty here about them; but we must necessarily conclude that,
from the bare fact that I exist, and that in me there is an idea of a
supremely perfect being, that is, God, it is proved beyond question
that God also exists.
It remains for me only to examine in what manner I received this
idea from God. For I did not derive it from the senses, nor did it
ever thrust itself spontaneously on my attention, as do the ideas of
sensible things, when the things themselves make an impression on
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37
the external sense-organs (or appear to do so). Nor is it a fiction,
a creation of my own, for I cannot subtract anything from it, or add
anything at all to it. It must therefore be that the idea is innate within
me, in the same way as the idea of myself is innate within me.
And certainly it is no wonder if God, when he created me,
inscribed this idea within me, to serve, so to speak, as the mark by
which the craftsman makes himself known in his handiwork. This
mark does not have to be something distinct from the object itself.
But, given this one basic fact that God created me, it is highly credible that I was in some way created in his image and likeness,* and
that the likeness, in which the idea of God is contained, is perceived
by me by the same faculty by which I myself am perceived by myself.
That is, when I turn the eye of my mind on myself, I do not
only understand myself to be an entity that is incomplete and that
depends on another, and that is endowed with an indefinite aspiration to greater and greater or better things; but at the same time
I understand that the being on whom I depend possesses all these
greater things not only indefinitely and in potentiality but in actuality and infinitely, and is thus God. The whole force of the argument
comes down to this, that I recognize that it cannot be that I should
exist, with the nature I possess (that is, having the idea of God within
myself), unless in reality God also exists—the same God whose idea
is within me, that is, the one who possesses all the perfections that
I cannot comprehend but can to some extent apprehend in my thinking, and who is subject to no kind of deficiency. From this it is
sufficiently clear that he cannot be a deceiver: for all cunning and
deception presuppose some shortcoming, as is plain by the natural
light.
But before I go more thoroughly into this, and at the same time
investigate the other truths that can be deduced from it, I wish to
remain here for some time in the contemplation of God himself,
to ponder on his attributes, and to gaze on, wonder at, and worship
the beauty of this immense light, as much as the eye of my understanding, shrouded as it is in darkness, is capable of doing. For, just
as we believe by faith that the supreme happiness of the other life
consists purely in the contemplation of the divine greatness, so
we find also by experience that this contemplation, though far less
perfect, affords us the greatest pleasure of which we are capable in
this life.
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45
by the intellect, it certainly cannot come about that I should make a
mistake; since every clear and distinct perception is something, and
therefore cannot come from nothing, but necessarily derives from
God—God, the supremely perfect being, whose nature is incompatible with deception. It is therefore undoubtedly true. And I have
learned today not only what I should avoid in order not to be deceived,
but at the same time what I must do in order to attain truth; for I certainly shall attain it, provided I pay sufficient attention to everything
I perfectly understand, and keep it quite separate from everything
else that I apprehend more confusedly and obscurely. And I shall
take particular care to do this in future.
FIFTH MEDITATION
63
of the essence of material things; and again
of god, that he exists
There remain many attributes of God, and many aspects of the
nature of myself, or my mind, for me to investigate. But perhaps I
shall return to these another time, and for the moment nothing
appears more urgent (now that I have realized what to avoid and
what to do in order to attain truth) than to attempt to extricate myself
from the doubts I have fallen into during these past days, and to see
whether any certainty is possible with respect to material things.
And indeed, before investigating whether any such things exist
outside me, I should first consider the ideas of them, in so far as these
ideas exist in my thought, and see which of them are distinct, and
which confused.
I can certainly distinctly imagine the quantity that philosophers
commonly call ‘continuous’: that is, the extension of this quantity (or
rather, of the thing to which the quantity is attributed) in length,
breadth, and depth. I can count various parts within it. To each of
these parts I ascribe various magnitudes, shapes, positions, and local
motions, and to the motions I ascribe various durations.
Not only are these things, considered in these general terms,
clearly known and grasped by me: I also, if I pay close attention, perceive innumerable particular facts involving shape, number, motion,
and suchlike—facts so plainly true, and so much in conformity with
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my nature, that when I first discover them I do not seem to be learning anything new, but rather to be remembering something I knew
before, or to be noticing for the first time something that was in me
already, although I had not previously turned the gaze of my mind in
its direction.
And what I think particularly needs to be considered here is this:
that I find in myself innumerable ideas of certain things, that, even
if, perhaps, they do not exist anywhere outside me, cannot yet be
said to be nothing. And although, in a sense, whether I think of them
or not is up to me, yet they are not inventions of my own mind, but
they have true and immutable natures of their own. For instance,
when I imagine a triangle, even if perhaps such a figure does not
exist, and has never existed, anywhere at all outside my thought, it
nonetheless certainly has a determinate nature, or essence, or form,
that is immutable and eternal, which was not invented by me, and
does not depend on my mind. This is clear from the fact that it
is possible to demonstrate various properties of the triangle (for
instance, that its three angles are equal to two right angles, and that
the hypotenuse subtends the greatest angle, and so forth) which,
whether I like it or not, I now clearly recognize to hold good, even if
up to now I have never thought of them in any way when imagining
a triangle. And therefore these properties were not invented by me.
It would make no difference if I were to say that perhaps this
idea of a triangle has come to me from things outside myself via the
sense-organs, because, that is, I have occasionally seen bodies of a
triangular shape. For I can think up innumerable other shapes that it
is impossible to suspect ever reached me via the senses; and yet
I can demonstrate several of their properties, just as I can with the
triangle. And all of these properties are certainly true, since they are
clearly known [cognoscuntur] by me, and therefore they are something, and not a pure nothing. For it is clear that everything that is
true, is something; and I have already abundantly demonstrated that
everything I clearly know [cognosco], is true. And even if I had not
demonstrated this, the nature of my mind is such that I cannot in any
case help assenting to the things I clearly perceive, at least, for as long
as I clearly* perceive them; and I remember that even in past times,
when I was as closely attached to the objects of the senses as it is
possible to be, I always considered that truths of this kind that I
clearly recognized, concerning shapes, or numbers, or other matters
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Fifth Meditation
adduced that would easily (were I ignorant of God) shake me out of
my opinion. And thus I should never have true and certain knowledge [scientia] of anything, but only vague and shifting opinions.
Thus, for example, when I am considering the nature of a triangle, it
certainly appears utterly evident to me (being, as I am, well versed in
the principles of geometry) that its three angles are equal to two right
angles; and I cannot not believe this is true, as long as I am concentrating on the proof; but, as soon as I have turned the eye of the mind
in a different direction, then however well I remember that I grasped
the proof very clearly, I can still easily find myself doubting its truth,
if I am ignorant of God. For I can persuade myself that I was so made
by nature that I am sometimes deceived in matters which I think
I perceive entirely clearly, especially since I remember counting many
things as true and certain that later, when guided by other reasons,
I judged to be false.
But once I have perceived that God exists, then because I grasped
at the same time that everything else depends on him, and that he is
no deceiver, and from this deduced that everything I clearly and
distinctly perceive is necessarily true, then, even if I am no longer
concentrating on the reasons why I judged this to be true, provided
I remember that I did see it clearly and distinctly, no contrary reason
can be adduced that can induce me to doubt it; and thus I have true
and certain knowledge [scientia] of it. And not only of it, but of all the
other propositions I remember demonstrating at some stage, such as
the truths of geometry and others of the same kind. For what objections can now be raised against me? That I am so constituted as often
to be deceived? But I know now [scio] that in matters I clearly understand, I cannot be deceived. That I once counted many things as true
and certain that I later realized to be false? But I had perceived none
of these clearly and distinctly, but, unaware as I was of this criterion
of truth, perhaps I believed them for other reasons, which I later discovered to be less sound than I had thought. So what further objection can be raised? Perhaps (an objection I put to myself not long ago)
I am sleeping, or all the things I am now thinking are no more true
than the thoughts that occur to one who is asleep. But this makes no
difference. For certainly, even if I were sleeping, if something is evident to my understanding, then it is altogether true.
And so I plainly see that the certitude and truth of all
knowledge [scientiae] depends on the knowledge [cognitione] of the
Sixth Meditation
51
true God alone: so much so, that before I had discovered this knowledge, I could have no perfect knowledge [scire] of anything else at all.
But now innumerable truths, concerning both, on the one hand, God
himself and other intellectual things and, on the other, the whole of
this bodily nature which is the object of pure mathematics,* can be
plainly known to me with certainty.
SIXTH MEDITATION
of the existence of material things, and the
real distinction between mind and body
It remains for me to examine whether material things exist. And
indeed, I now know [scio] at least that, in so far as they are the object
of pure mathematics, they can exist, since I perceive them clearly and
distinctly. For there is no doubt that God is capable of producing
everything I am capable of perceiving in this way; and I have never
judged that anything was impossible for him to do, except when, in
attempting to perceive it distinctly, I ran up against a contradiction.
Besides, it seems to follow from the existence of the imaginative
faculty, of which I experience myself as making use when dealing
with these material things, that they exist. For if I consider more
closely what kind of thing the imagination is, it appears to be nothing other than a certain application of the knowing faculty to a body
intimately present to that faculty, and therefore existing.
To make this plain, I shall first examine the difference that
exists between imagination and pure intellection. For example, when
I imagine a triangle, not only do I understand it to be a shape
enclosed by three lines, but at the same time, with the eye of the
mind, I contemplate the three lines as present, and this is what I call
imagining. But if, on the other hand, I wish to think of a chiliogon,
I do indeed understand that this is a shape consisting of a thousand
sides, no less clearly than I understand that the triangle consists of
three: but I do not imagine the thousand sides in the same way, that
is, contemplate them as present. And although at the time, because
I am accustomed always to imagine something whenever I am thinking of bodily things, I may perhaps picture some figure to myself
in a confused fashion, it is quite clear that this is not a chiliogon,
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Sixth Meditation
because it is not at all different from the picture I would also form
in my mind if I were thinking about a myriogon,* or some other
many-sided figure. Nor is it of any assistance in recognizing the
properties by which the chiliogon differs from other polygons. But if
I am dealing with a pentagon, I can certainly understand its shape,
like that of the chiliogon, without the help of the imagination: but
I can also imagine it, that is, by applying the eye of the mind to its
five sides, and at the same time to the area contained within them;
and here I observe very plainly that I need to make a particular
mental effort in order to imagine, that I do not make when understanding. This further effort of the mind clearly indicates the
difference between imagination and pure intellection.
At this point, I consider that this power of imagining I possess, in
so far as it differs from the power of understanding, is not integral to
my essence, that is, to the essence of my mind; for even if I lacked it,
I should nonetheless certainly remain the same person as I now am.
From this it seems to follow that the imagination depends on something distinct from me.* And I can easily understand that if some
body exists to which the mind is so closely joined that it may, whenever it chooses, apply itself, so to speak, to looking into it, it could
be the case that this is exactly how I imagine corporeal things. So that
this mode of thinking would differ from pure intellection in the
following respect alone: that the mind, while it understands, turns
itself in some way towards itself, and gazes on one of the ideas that
are contained within itself; but, while it imagines, it turns itself
towards the body, and considers something in it that corresponds
either to an idea it understands itself * or to an idea perceived by
the senses. I can readily understand, I say, how the imagination
may function in this way, provided, that is, the body exists. And
because no other equally convenient way of explaining it occurs to
me, I therefore conclude with great probability that the body exists.
But this is only a probability, and although I am investigating the
whole matter with great care, I do not yet see that, from this distinct
idea of bodily nature that I find in my imagination, any argument can
be derived that will lead necessarily to the conclusion that some body
exists.
But I am accustomed to imagining many other things, besides this
bodily nature that is the object of pure mathematics,* such as colours,
sounds, pain, and suchlike: but none of these with equal distinctness.
Sixth Meditation
53
And because I perceive these things better by the senses, from which
they seem to have made their way, with the help of memory, to the
imagination, in order to examine them more conveniently, I should
examine sensation at the same time, and see whether, from those
things that are perceived by the form of thinking I call ‘sensation’,
I can derive some decisive argument in favour of the existence of
bodily things.
And first of all, I will here go over in my memory what those
things were that I previously thought were true, because they were
perceived by the senses, and the reasons I had for thinking this. Then
I shall weigh the reasons for which I later called these things into
question. Finally, I shall consider what view I should now take.
First of all, then, I had the sensation of having a head, hands, feet,
and all the other parts comprising this body I used to consider as part
of myself, or perhaps even as the whole of myself. Then I had the sensation of this body as situated among many other bodies by which it
could be affected—harmed or benefited: and I measured the benefits
by a certain feeling of pleasure and the harm by a feeling of pain. And
besides pain and pleasure, I also had the sensation of hunger, thirst,
and other such appetites in myself, not to mention various bodily
propensities, to joy, to sadness, to anger, and other such passions.
Outside myself, besides the extension, shapes, and motions of bodies,
I had sensations of hardness, heat, and other tactile qualities in them;
light, as well, and colours, and smells, and tastes, and sounds, the
variety of which enabled me to distinguish the sky, the earth, the sea,
and other bodies one from another. And surely it was not without
reason that, on account of the ideas of all these qualities that presented
themselves to my thought, and of which alone I had personal and
immediate sensations, I believed I was sensing certain things quite
distinct from my thought, that is to say, bodies from which these ideas
proceeded. For I experienced these ideas as coming to me without any
consent of mine: so much so, that neither could I have a sensation of
any object, however much I wanted to, unless the object itself were
present to a sense-organ, nor could I help having the sensation of it
when it was present. And since the ideas perceived by the senses were
much more vivid and emphatic,* and in their own way more distinct,
than any of the ideas that I deliberately and knowingly formed* by
myself in my meditations, or that I found engraved upon my memory,
it seemed impossible that they should proceed from myself.* And so
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it had to be the case that they derived from some other things. But
since I had no knowledge of these other things except from these ideas
themselves, I could only suppose that the things were like the ideas.
And also because I remembered that I had made use of my senses
before I made use of my reason, and saw, as well, that the ideas I formed
myself were not as emphatic as those I perceived by the senses, and
were mostly put together from those ideas, I readily convinced myself
that I had nothing at all in the intellect, that I had not previously had
in the senses.* Nor was it without reason that I judged that the particular body I seemed specially entitled to call my own belonged more
closely to me than any other body. For I could not ever be separated
from it, as I could from the other bodies; I felt all my appetites and
passions in it and for it; and finally I was aware of pain and pleasure
in parts of it, but not in any other body existing outside it. But why
this mysterious feeling of pain is followed by a feeling of sadness in
the soul, and why the awareness of pleasure is followed by joy, or why
the mysterious pangs in the stomach I call hunger prompt me to take
food, while a dryness in the throat prompts me to drink, and so on,
I certainly could not explain except by saying that nature teaches me
that it is so. For there is plainly no affinity (at least, none that I understand) between the pangs in the stomach and the will to eat, or
between the sensation of a thing that is causing pain and a thought of
sadness arising from this feeling. And all the other things I judged
concerning the objects of the senses, I thought I had also learned from
nature. For I had persuaded myself that this was the way things were
before I had considered any reasons by which this could be proved.
But afterwards many experiences gradually undermined all the
faith I had placed in the senses. For sometimes towers that from a
distance had seemed round appeared from close up as square;* and
giant statues perched on the top of those towers did not look particularly large to one gazing up from below; and by innumerable other
such experiences I came to realize that in matters of the external
senses our judgements are at fault. Not only the internal senses,
moreover; the internal ones as well. For what can be more intimate
than pain? Yet I had often heard from people whose arm or leg had
been amputated, that they still occasionally seemed to feel pain in the
part of the body they were missing; and therefore even in myself it
did not seem to be wholly certain that one of my limbs was hurting,
even though I was feeling pain in it. To these points I recently added
Sixth Meditation
55
two very general reasons for doubting. The first was that everything
I have ever believed I was having a sensation of while awake, I can
sometimes think I am having a sensation of while asleep; and since
I do not believe that what I seem to see when asleep comes from anything existing outside me, I...
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