Descartes

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 imagin- ations, 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 per- ceived 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 every- thing 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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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 thor- oughly convinced by them, that I cannot help exclaiming: ‘Let who- ever 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,

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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 some- thing 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 accord- ance with some things existing outside me. For certainly, if I con- ceived 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 sen- sations derive from things existing outside myself. Finally, sirens, hippogriffs, and suchlike creatures are inventions of my own imagin- ation. 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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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 dis- tinct 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.

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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 inclin- ation, 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 con- tain, 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 real- ity 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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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 real- ity of some one of my ideas is so great that I am certain that that real- ity 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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God, others bodily and inanimate things, others angels, others ani- mals, 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 mag- nitude, 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 nonethe- less 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 noth- ing 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 con- sider 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 rec- ognize 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 con- trary, 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 com- prehend 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 for- mally 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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it obtain all the other perfections of God; nor finally why the poten- tiality 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 actu- ality, 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, per- haps, 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 any- thing 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 sub- stance, 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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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 consid- ers the nature of time, that the same power and action is required to conserve any thing, whatever it may be, in being during the individ- ual 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 think- ing 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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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 simultan- eously 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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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 cred- ible 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 aspir- ation 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 actual- ity 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 think- ing, 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 under- standing, 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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