Descartes

MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY

in which the existence of god

and the distinction of the

human soul from the body

are demonstrated

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LETTER To these wisest and most distinguished men,

the Dean and Doctors of the holy Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris

I have such good reason for offering this work to you, and I trust that you will have such good reason for taking it under your protec- tion, once you understand my intention in writing it, that I could recommend it here in no better way than by saying briefly what my aim was.

I have always thought that the two issues of God and the soul were the most important of those that should be resolved by philo- sophical rather than theological means. For although it is sufficient for us Christians to believe by faith that the human soul does not perish with the body and that God exists, yet it seems certain that unbelievers cannot be convinced of the truth of religion, and scarcely even of any moral values, unless these first two truths are proved to them by natural reason. And since often in this life there are greater rewards for the vices than for the virtues, few will prefer what is right to what is useful, if they neither fear God nor expect an afterlife. And although it is completely true that we should believe in the existence of God because it is taught in the holy scriptures, and by the same token that we should believe the holy scriptures because we have them from God—since, faith being a gift of God, he who gives us the grace to believe the rest of religion can also give us the grace to believe he exists—there is no point in asserting this to unbelievers, because they would call it arguing in a circle. And indeed I have observed that not only do you and all other theologians affirm that God’s existence can be proved by natural reason, but that also the holy scriptures imply that the knowledge of him is much easier to attain than that of many created things: so easy, in fact, that those who lack it do so by their own fault. This is clear from this passage of Wisdom 13: ‘They have no excuse. For if they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they been so slow to find its Master?’* And in Romans 1: [20] they are said to ‘have no excuse’. In the same chapter [1: 19], the words ‘What can be known about God is perfectly plain in them,’*

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seem to be pointing out that all that can be known of God can be shown by reasons derived from no other source than our own mind. How this comes to be true, and by what means God may be known more easily and with more certainty than the things of this world, I thought it would be appropriate to investigate.

And as regards the soul, even though many authors have judged that it is very difficult to discover its nature, and some have even dared to say that human reasoning convinces us that it perishes along with the body, and that we believe the contrary by faith alone, nonetheless because the Council of the Lateran* held in the reign of Leo X condemns these people (session 8), and explicitly enjoins Christian philosophers to refute their arguments, and to make every effort to prove the truth, I did not hesitate to tackle this issue as well. Besides, I know that most of the impious refuse to believe that God exists and that the human mind is distinct from the body, for no other reason than that they say that these two points have never been proved by anybody up to now. I do not agree with them at all in this: on the contrary, I think that nearly all the reasons adduced by great thinkers in this debate, when they are sufficiently grasped, have the status of demonstrations;* and I can scarcely persuade myself that any proofs might be found that have not been already discovered by someone else. Nonetheless I think that I could achieve nothing more useful in philosophy than to perform a careful search, once and for all, for the best arguments put forward by anyone, and to arrange them in so clear and precise an order* that from now on everyone will accept them as having the status of demonstrations. And finally, since there are several people who know that I have developed a particular method for resolving all difficulties in the sciences—not indeed a new one, for nothing is older than truth, but one they have seen me use with some success in other areas—they have insistently urged me to do this; and therefore I decided it was my duty to make an effort in this area as well.

Whatever I have been able to achieve is all in this treatise. It is not that I have sought in it to bring together all the different arguments that can be adduced to prove these two points, since this does not seem worth while, except where there is no argument considered sufficiently certain. But I have gone into the primary and most important arguments in such a way that I now dare to offer them as demonstrations that are as certain and evident as possible. I will add

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that they are such, that I do not think there is any path open to human intelligence along which better ones can ever be found: for the importance of the issues and the glory of God, for the sake of which this whole book was written, compel me here to speak a little more freely about my own work than is my custom. Yet, however certain and evident I think them, I do not for that reason convince myself that they are capable of being grasped by all. In geometry there are many arguments by Archimedes, Apollonius, Pappus, and others that are regarded as evident and also as certain by everyone, because everything they contain, considered separately, is very easy to know, and the later sections are fully coherent with the earlier ones; yet because they are on the long side and demand a very atten- tive reader, they are grasped by very few people indeed. In the same way, although I think the arguments I use here are no less certain and evident than the geometrical ones, indeed more so, I am afraid that many people will not be able to grasp them sufficiently clearly, both because they too are on the long side, and one part depends on another, and above all because they require a mind completely free of prejudices, and which can readily withdraw itself from the company of the senses. And it is certain that the capacity for metaphysics is not more widespread than that for geometry. And there is another difference between the two. In geometry everyone is convinced that nothing is written down, as a rule, without a rigorous demonstration, and so the unskilful more often err in approving what is false, since they want to be thought to understand it, than in challenging what is true. On the other hand, in philosophy, since it is believed that one can argue on both sides of any question,* few search for the truth, and many more seek a reputation for intelligence on account of their daring to challenge the soundest views.

And therefore, whatever my reasons are worth, because they deal with philosophical issues, I do not think they will have a great impact, unless you help me with your patronage. But since everyone holds your faculty in such high and deep-rooted esteem, and since the name of the Sorbonne has such authority that not only in matters of faith there is no group of men, after the holy councils, that has greater influence than yours, but also in human philosophy no one can think of anywhere where there is greater perspicacity and ser- iousness, and a greater integrity and wisdom in passing judgement, than among yourselves, I do not doubt that if you deign to take an

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interest in this work—first, by correcting it (for mindful of my own humanity and above all of my own ignorance, I do not claim that it contains no errors); secondly, where there are gaps, or imperfections, or parts that need further explanation, by adding to it, improving it, and clarifying it, or at least, pointing out these defects to me so that I can undertake the task; and finally, once the arguments contained in it, by which the existence of God and the distinction between mind and body are proved, have been brought to the degree of clar- ity to which I trust they can be brought, so that they can be consid- ered as absolutely rigorous demonstrations, by agreeing to declare this and bear public witness to it—I do not doubt, I say, that if this takes place, all the erroneous views that have ever been held on these questions will swiftly be erased from people’s minds. For the truth itself will readily bring other intelligent and learned men to subscribe to your judgement; and your authority will bring atheists, who are generally pretenders to knowledge rather than genuinely intelligent and learned, to lay aside their urge to contradict, and perhaps even to give their support to reasons that they know are regarded as demon- strative by all people of intelligence, in case they might seem incap- able of understanding them. And finally everyone else will readily believe so many testimonies, and there will be no one else in the world who dares to question the existence of God or the real distinc- tion between the human soul and the body. How useful this would be, you yourselves, with your outstanding wisdom, will judge better than anybody; nor would it be seemly for me to recommend the cause of God and religion any further to you, who have always been the staunchest support of the Catholic Church.

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PREFACE TO THE READER

I have already touched on questions concerning God and the human mind a few years ago in the Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking for Truth in the Sciences, pub- lished in French in 1637. But I was not intending to treat such mat- ters thoroughly there, but merely offering a foretaste of them, so that I could learn from readers’ responses how they should subsequently be properly dealt with. For they seemed to me of such importance that I judged I should deal with them more than once; and I follow a path in their investigation that is so untrodden, and so remote from common experience, that I thought it would not be useful to expound it more fully in a work written in French for all to read, in case those of rather feeble intellect should think that they too should set out on that path.

Although, however, I had requested in that text that everyone who found something deserving of criticism in my writings should be so kind as to point it out to me,* no objection worthy of note was put forward with regard to my discussion of these matters, except for two, to which I shall briefly reply here, before embarking on a more thorough explanation of the same issues.

The first is that although the human mind, when it turns in on itself, does not perceive itself to be anything apart from a thinking thing, it does not follow that its nature or ‘essence’ consists purely in its being a thinking thing, ‘purely’, that is, in a sense that would exclude everything else that might perhaps be said to belong to its nature. To this objection I reply that at this point I did not wish to exclude these other things from the point of view of the actual truth of the matter (with which in fact I was not then concerned), but solely from the point of view of my own perception, so that my mean- ing was that I was aware of nothing at all that I knew to belong to my essence, except the fact that I was a thinking thing, or a thing pos- sessing the faculty of thinking. However, in the present work I shall show how, from the fact that I know nothing else as belonging to my essence, it follows that nothing else in fact belongs to it.

The second objection is, that it does not follow from the fact that I have in myself the idea of a more perfect thing than myself, that the

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idea itself is more perfect than me. Still less does it follow that the thing represented by this idea exists. I answer that the term ‘idea’ here is ambiguous. It can be taken either in the material sense, as an operation of the understanding, in which case it cannot be said to be more perfect than myself, or objectively, for the thing represented by this operation; and this thing, even if it is not supposed to exist out- side my understanding, can nonetheless be more perfect than me in virtue of its essence. How in fact it follows, from the mere fact that the idea of a more perfect thing is within me, that the thing itself actually exists, I shall show at length in the present work.

I have in fact also seen two quite long writings* in which, however, it is not so much my proofs as my conclusions that are attacked, by arguments borrowed from the stock of atheists’ commonplaces. And since arguments of this kind can have no credibility for those who understand my proofs, and, besides, the judgements of many people are so perverse and feeble that they are convinced more readily by the opinions they first encounter, however false and repugnant to reason these are, than by a true and unshakeable refutation of these opinions that they encounter subsequently, I have no intention of responding to them here, since I should first have to set them out. I shall only remark in general that all the common objections to the existence of God that atheists so smugly put forward, always depend on one of two things: either they imagine human emotions in God, or they claim so much power and wisdom for our own minds, that we should try to decide and understand whatever God can or ought to do. So much is this the case that, as long as we simply remember that our minds have to be considered as finite, and God as incomprehens- ible and infinite, these arguments will never cause us any difficulty.

But now, since I have once and for all made trial of people’s responses, I will again tackle these same questions about God and the human mind, and at the same time deal with the foundations of the whole of first philosophy. But I shall do so in such a way that I must expect no popular approval, and no great crowds of readers. Indeed, I shall go so far as to say that I seek to be read by none, except those who will be able and willing to meditate seriously alongside me, and to withdraw their minds from the senses, and at the same time from all their preconceptions. Of these I well know already that there are very few. But as for those who do not trouble to grasp the chain and connection of my arguments, and who busy themselves in quibbling

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over isolated propositions (and there are many people whose habit this is), they will derive very little benefit from reading this work; and although perhaps they will find frequent opportunities to carp, it is unlikely that they will be able to put forward any objection that causes real difficulty or deserves a reply.

But because I do not promise even the other kind of readers that I will satisfy them throughout on first reading, nor am I so arrogant as to be sure that I can foresee everything that will seem difficult to anybody, I shall first explain in these Meditations the particular thought-processes by the help of which I think I have attained the certain and evident knowledge of truth, so that I may test whether, perhaps, I can convince other people by the same arguments as I have convinced myself. Afterwards, however, I shall reply to the objections of several people outstanding for their intelligence and learning to whom these Meditations were sent for examination before publication. Their objections are so many and so various that I dare to hope that it will be difficult for anyone else to think of anything (anything significant, at least) that they have not already put forward. Hence I would very strongly urge my readers not to pass judgement upon these Meditations before they have taken the trouble to read through all these objections and my replies to them.

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SYNOPSIS OF THE FOLLOWING SIX MEDITATIONS

In the First Meditation the reasons are set out why we can doubt of all things, especially material things: that is, as long as we have no foundations for the sciences other than those we have had up to now. Now, although the benefits of such far-reaching doubt do not appear at first sight, it has this very great benefit, that it liberates us from all prejudices, and opens up a very easy pathway to the withdrawal of our mind from the senses. Finally, it means that we can doubt no further of whatever we subsequently discover to be true.

In the Second, the mind that, using its own freedom, supposes that all the things of the existence of which it can entertain even the slight- est doubt, do not exist, becomes aware that this cannot happen unless it itself exists at the same time. This also is very useful, since by this means the mind can easily distinguish what belongs to it, that is, to an intellectual nature, and what to the body. But because some people will perhaps expect some proofs of the soul’s immortality here, I think I should warn them right away that I have tried to put nothing in this treatise that I do not rigorously demonstrate. Therefore I could follow no other order than the one geometers use, that is, I deal with every- thing on which the proposition we are investigating depends, before drawing any conclusion about the proposition itself. The first and most important prerequisite to discovering the soul’s immortality is to form a concept of the soul that is as clear as possible, and entirely dis- tinct from any concept of the body. This I have done here. But further, we also need to know that whatever we clearly and distinctly under- stand is true, in the way in which we understand it. This could not have been proved before the Fourth Meditation. We also need to have a distinct concept of bodily nature, which is formed partly in this Second Meditation, partly in the Fifth and Sixth. From these points we must conclude that all things we clearly and distinctly conceive as different substances, as mind and body are conceived, are indeed sub- stances really distinct from each other; and I drew this conclusion in the Sixth Meditation. The same point is proved there from the fact that we can understand no body except as divisible, but on the other hand no mind except as indivisible: for we cannot conceive a half of

any mind, as we can with any body, however small it is. The upshot of this is that their natures are recognized not only as different, but also in a sense contrary. But I have treated no further of this matter in the present work. For one thing, because these points are sufficient to show that the corruption of the body does not cause the mind to perish, and thus that mortals may have hope of another life. For another, because the premises from which this immortality of the mind may be deduced depend on an explanation of the whole of physics, which would show, first, that all substances whatever—things, that is, that have to be cre- ated by God in order to exist—are of their own nature incorruptible, and can never cease to exist, unless they are reduced to nothing by the same God’s denying them his support; and, secondly, that body in a general sense is a substance, and never perishes; but that the human body, in so far as it differs from the rest of bodies, is constituted purely by a certain arrangement of parts and by other accidents of the same kind; whereas the mind is not composed of any accidents in this way, but is a pure substance. For even if all its accidents were to change, for instance, if it understood, or wished, or perceived via the senses a different set of things, it would still be the same mind. On the other hand, the human body becomes something different from the very fact that the shape of some of its parts is changed. From this it follows that the body can very easily perish, but that the mind is of its nature immortal.

In the Third Meditation I have explained my principal proof of the existence of God at, I think, considerable length. However, because, in order to withdraw my readers’ minds as far as possible from the senses, I decided to make use of no comparisons derived from bodily things, perhaps many obscurities have remained. These, I hope, will be fully cleared up later on, in my Replies to the Objections: for instance, how the idea we possess of a supremely perfect being has so much objective reality that it can derive only from a supremely per- fect cause. This is illustrated in the Replies by the comparison with a very perfect machine, the idea of which is in the mind of some artificer. For just as the objective artifice of this idea must have some cause, namely the knowledge of the artisan, or of someone else from whom he derived his knowledge, so the idea we possess of God can have only God as its cause.*

In the Fourth Meditation it is proved that all those things we clearly and distinctly perceive are true, and at the same time it is

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explained in what falsity consists. Both these points are necessary, in order to set the seal on what goes before, as well as for the under- standing of what comes after. (But I should point out that at this point I am not at all dealing with sin,* that is, the error that is com- mitted in the pursuit of good and evil, but only of error that affects the discernment of true from false.) Nor do I examine matters to do with faith or with the conduct of one’s life, but only speculative truths known by the help of the natural light.

In the Fifth, besides the explanation of the nature of bodies in gen- eral, the existence of God is also demonstrated by a new argument. In this, however, perhaps several difficulties will crop up again, which will be settled in the Reply to Objections. Finally, it will be shown how it comes to be true that the certainty of geometrical demonstrations themselves depends on the knowledge of God.

Finally, in the Sixth the distinction is made between intellection and imagination; the distinctive features of each are described; it is proved that the mind is really distinct from the body; and yet so closely conjoined to it that it forms a single entity with it; a full list is given of all the errors that typically arise from the senses and the means by which these may be avoided are explained. Finally, all the reasons are put forward that lead us to conclude in the existence of material things: not that I think these are very useful when it comes to proving what they do prove, namely that a world really exists, and that human beings have bodies, and so forth, things which no one in their right mind has ever seriously doubted; they are useful because, by considering them, we come to recognize that they are not as solid and clear as those by which we come to the knowledge of our mind and of God; indeed, those latter are the most certain and evident of all reasons that can be grasped by human intelligence. And this is all I was intending to prove in these Meditations. This is why I do not here mention several questions that are also treated incidentally in the course of the work.

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FIRST MEDITATION

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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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 care- fully 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 particu- lar things (that we have our eyes open, are moving our head, stretch- ing 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 resem- blance 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 unfamil- iar 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

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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 gen- eral, 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, astron- omy, 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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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 prob- able 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 well- weighed 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 distrustful- ness, 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

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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 pris- oner, 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 strug- gle on, and I will try the same path again as the one I set out on yes- terday, 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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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 power- ful 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

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spontaneously and by nature’s prompting came to my mind before- hand, 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 nour- ishment, 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 sense- perception? 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 some- thing.*—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, how- ever, 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.

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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 under- stands 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 abil- ity? 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 think- ing 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 percep- tions are usually considerably more confused, but one body in par- ticular. 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 appre- hended 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 some- thing 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

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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 consid- ering 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 any- thing, was distinct in my original perception? What was there, if any- thing, 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 judge- ments, 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 cer- tainly, 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 cer- tainly 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 out- side 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 dis- tinct, 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 them- selves 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 per- ceived 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.

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