Delphi Collected Works of René Descartes

by René Descartes

  CCIV. That, touching the things which our senses do not perceive, it is sufficient to explain how they can be, [and that this is all that Aristotle has essayed].

  But here some one will perhaps reply, that although I have supposed causes which could produce all natural objects, we ought not on this account to conclude that they were produced by these causes; for, just as the same artisan can make two clocks, which, though they both equally well indicate the time, and are not different in outward appearance, have nevertheless nothing resembling in the composition of their wheels; so doubtless the Supreme Maker of things has an infinity of diverse means at his disposal, by each of which he could have made all the things of this world to appear as we see them, without it being possible for the human mind to know which of all these means he chose to employ. I most freely concede this; and I believe that I have done all that was required, if the causes I have assigned are such that their effects accurately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without determining whether it is by these or by others that they are actually produced. And it will be sufficient for the use of life to know the causes thus imagined, for medicine, mechanics, and in general all the arts to which the knowledge of physics is of service, have for their end only those effects that are sensible, and that are accordingly to be reckoned among the phenomena of nature. [Footnote: “have for their end only to apply certain sensible bodies to each other in such a way that, in the course of natural causes, certain sensible effects may be produced; and we will be able to accomplish this quite as well by considering the series of certain causes thus imagined, although false, as if they were the true, since this series is supposed similar as far as regards sensible effects.”-French.]

  And lest it should be supposed that Aristotle did, or professed to do, anything more than this, it ought to be remembered that he himself expressly says, at the commencement of the seventh chapter of the first book of the Meteorologies, that, with regard to things which are not manifest to the senses, he thinks to adduce sufficient reasons and demonstrations of them, if he only shows that they may be such as he explains them. [Footnote: words in Greek]

  CCV. That nevertheless there is a moral certainty that all the things of this world are such as has been here shown they may be.

  But nevertheless, that I may not wrong the truth by supposing it less certain than it is, I will here distinguish two kinds of certitude. The first is called moral, that is, a certainty sufficient for the conduct of life, though, if we look to the absolute power of God, what is morally certain may be false. [Thus, those who never visited Rome do not doubt that it is a city of Italy, though it might be that all from whom they got their information were deceived]. Again, if any one, wishing to decipher a letter written in Latin characters that are not placed in regular order, bethinks himself of reading a B wherever an A is found, and a C wherever there is a B, and thus of substituting in place of each letter the one which follows it in the order of the alphabet, and if by this means he finds that there are certain Latin words composed of these, he will not doubt that the true meaning of the writing is contained in these words, although he may discover this only by conjecture, and although it is possible that the writer of it did not arrange the letters on this principle of alphabetical order, but on some other, and thus concealed another meaning in it: for this is so improbable [especially when the cipher contains a number of words] as to seem incredible. But they who observe how many things regarding the magnet, fire, and the fabric of the whole world, are here deduced from a very small number of principles, though they deemed that I had taken them up at random and without grounds, will yet perhaps acknowledge that it could hardly happen that so many things should cohere if these principles were false.

  CCVI. That we possess even more than a moral certainty of it.

  Besides, there are some, even among natural, things which we judge to be absolutely certain. [Absolute certainty arises when we judge that it is impossible a thing can be otherwise than as we think it]. This certainty is founded on the metaphysical ground, that, as God is supremely good and the source of all truth, the faculty of distinguishing truth from error which he gave us, cannot be fallacious so long as we use it aright, and distinctly perceive anything by it. Of this character are the demonstrations of mathematics, the knowledge that material things exist, and the clear reasonings that are formed regarding them. The results I have given in this treatise will perhaps be admitted to a place in the class of truths that are absolutely certain, if it be considered that they are deduced in a continuous series from the first and most elementary principles of human knowledge; especially if it be sufficiently understood that we can perceive no external objects unless some local motion be caused by them in our nerves, and that such motion cannot be caused by the fixed stars, owing to their great distance from us, unless a motion be also produced in them and in the whole heavens lying between them and us: for these points being admitted, all the others, at least the more general doctrines which I have advanced regarding the world or earth [e. g., the fluidity of the heavens, Part III., Section XLVI.], will appear to be almost the only possible explanations of the phenomena they present.

  CCVII. That, however, I submit all my opinions to the authority of the church.

  Nevertheless, lest I should presume too far, I affirm nothing, but submit all these my opinions to the authority of the church and the judgment of the more sage; and I desire no one to believe anything I may have said, unless he is constrained to admit it by the force and evidence of reason.

  NOTES DIRECTED AGAINST A CERTAIN PROGRAMME

  Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross

  CONTENTS

  PREFATORY NOTE TO THE NOTAE IN PROGRAMMA.

  RENÉ DESCARTES: NOTES DIRECTED AGAINST A CERTAIN PROGRAMME PUBLISHED IN BELGIUM AT THE END OF THE YEAR 1647 UNDER THIS TITLE

  PREFATORY NOTE TO THE NOTAE IN PROGRAMMA.

  THE former friend and now opponent of Descartes, Regius or Le Roy, had issued from Utrecht in anonymous form a sort of poster or manifesto on the nature of the human mind. Descartes undertook a refutation written in Latin which is here translated. It was printed, apparently without his knowledge, in December 1647, and was accompanied by Verses and a Preface which had not his approbation. Neither the Verses nor the Preface are reproduced here. This is the last writing on Descartes’ part which concerns the relationship between him and his former disciple at Utrecht. The latter, however, did not confess himself defeated but returned later to the charge.

  E. S. H.

  RENÉ DESCARTES: NOTES DIRECTED AGAINST A CERTAIN PROGRAMME PUBLISHED IN BELGIUM AT THE END OF THE YEAR 1647 UNDER THIS TITLE

  An Explanation of the Human Mind or Rational Soul: What it is and what it may be.

  A few days ago I received two pamphlets attacking me, one openly and directly, the other only covertly and by implication. Of the first I make no account; indeed I am indebted to the author, for by the very fact that with all his inordinate labour he has succeeded in collecting nothing but groundless revilings and calumnies that none could credit, he has borne me witness that he could find nothing in my writings to which he could reasonably take exception, and thus has corroborated their truth better than he would have done by praising them, and moreover has effected this at the expense of his own reputation. The other pamphlet troubles me more, though I am not mentioned openly in the discussion, and it is published without the name of author or printer; for it contains opinions which I deem pernicious and erroneous and is issued in the shape of a Programme which may be affixed to Church doors, and exposed to the view of any chance reader. It is said, however, that it was previously printed in another form, with the name appended (purporting to be the author’s), of one whose doctrine is believed by many to be identical with my own. I am constrained to expose his errors, lest, perchance, they be attributed to me myself by those who happen to come across these papers, and have not read my writings.

  The following is the Programme in the form in whic
h it finally saw the light: —

  AN EXPLANATION of the Human Mind or Rational Soul: What it is, and what it may be.

  I. The Human Mind is that wherein the processes of thought are first accomplished by man; and it consists of the faculty of thinking alone, and the inward principle.

  II. So far as the laws of nature are concerned, they seem to allow that the mind may be either a substance, or a mode of a corporeal substance, or, if we follow some other philosophers who state that extension and thought are attributes inherent in certain substances, as in subjects, then, as these attributes are not mutually opposed but diverse, there is no reason why mind should not be an attribute co-existing in the same subject with extension, though the one attribute is not comprised in the concept of the other. Whatever we can conceive can exist. But mind can be conceived, so that it can be any one of the aforesaid, for none of them involves a contradiction. Therefore it may be any one of these things.

  III. Hence they are in error who assert that we conceive the human mind clearly and distinctly, as though it were necessarily and really distinct from the body.

  IV. The fact that mind is in truth nothing other than a substance, or an entity really distinct from body, in actuality separable from it, and capable of existing apart and independently, is revealed to us in Holy Scripture, in many places. And thus what in the view of some, the study of nature leaves doubtful is already placed beyond all doubt for us through divine revelation in Scripture.

  V. Nor is it any objection that we may have doubts about the body, but in nowise about the mind. For this only proves that, so long as we doubt about body, we cannot say that mind is a mode of body.

  VI. The human mind, though it is a substance really distinct from body, is nevertheless, so long as it is in the body, organic in all its activities. And therefore as there are diverse dispositions of the body, so there are correspondingly diverse processes of the mind.

  VII. As mind is of a nature diverse from body, and from the disposition of body, and cannot arise from this disposition, therefore it is incorruptible.

  VIII. As it has no parts and no extension in its concept, it is idle to speculate whether it exists as a whole in the whole, and is present as a whole in each individual part.

  IX. As mind can be affected in equal degree by things imaginary and by things real, hence the study of Nature leaves us doubtful whether any material things are really perceived by us. But even this doubt is banished by divine revelation in Holy Writ, whereby it is beyond all doubt that God created heaven and earth, and all that in them is, and even now conserves them.

  X. The bond which maintains body and sold in union is the law of the unchangeableness of Nature whereby every individual thing persists in the state in which it is, until it is thrown out of that state by some other thing.

  XI. As mind is a substance and in being born is brought for the first time into existence, the most accurate opinion seems to be that of those who hold that the rational soul was brought forth by God, by generation and by an immediate act of creation.

  XII. The mind has no need of innate ideas, or notions, or axioms, but of itself the faculty of thinking suffices for the accomplishment of its processes.

  XIII. Therefore all common notions, engraven on the mind, owe their origin to the observation of things or to tradition.

  XIV. In fact the very idea of God which is implanted in the mind, is the outcome of divine revelation, or of tradition, or of observation.

  XV. Our concept of God, or the idea of God which exists in our mind, is not an argument strong enough to prove the existence of God, since all things do not exist of which concepts are observed within us; and this idea, as conceived by us, and that imperfectly, does not, more than the concept of any other thing, transcend our proper powers of thought.

  XVI. The thought of the mind is twofold: intellect and will.

  XVII. Intellect is perception and judgment.

  XVIII. Perception is sense, memory, and imagination.

  XIX. All sensation is the perception of some corporeal movement, which requires no intentional images and it is effected, not in the outward channels of sense, but in the brain alone.

  XX. The will is free, and inclines indifferently to opposites in nature, as our self-consciousness bears us witness.

  XXI. Will is self-determined, and is to be termed blind no more than vision is to be termed deaf.

  ‘No men more easily attain a great reputation for piety than the superstitious and the hypocrites.’

  The following is an examination of the programme.

  Notes to the Title.

  I observe in the title a promise is made, not of bare assertions regarding the rational soul, but of an explanation of it, so that we must needs believe that in this programme are contained all, or at least, the principal arguments, which the author had, not only for proving his propositions, but also for unfolding them, and that no other arguments are to be expected from him. In that he terms the rational soul ‘the human mind,’ he has my approbation, for thus he avoids the ambiguity of the word soul and in this point follows me.

  Notes to the Individual Articles.

  In the first article he seems to aim at a definition of the rational soul, with imperfect success, for he omits the genus (i.e. that it is a substance, or a mode, or something else) and he expounds only the differentia, which he has borrowed from me, for no one before me, so far as I know, asserted that mind consisted in one thing alone, namely the faculty of thinking and the inward source (sc of thinking).

  In the second article he begins to speculate about its genus, and says that the laws of nature seem to allow that the human mind may he either a substance, or a mode of a corporeal substance This assertion involves a contradiction, no less than if he had said, ‘The laws of nature allow that a mountain can exist with or without a valley. For a distinction must be drawn between things which from their nature can change, like the facts that I am at present either writing or not writing, that one man is prudent, another imprudent; and things which never change, such as are all the things that pertain to the essence of anything, as is generally acknowledged by philosophers. Of course there is no doubt that it can be said of contingent things that the laws of nature permit these things to be either one way or another — for instance, the fact that I am at present either writing or not writing. But when the point at issue is the essence of something, it is manifestly foolish and contradictory to say that the laws of nature allow that it may be after any fashion save the fashion after which it really is. Nor does it more pertain to the nature of a mountain that it cannot exist without a valley, than to the nature of the human mind that it is what it is, namely, that it is a substance, if substance it be, or, indeed, that it is a mode of a corporeal substance, if in truth it be such a mode. Of this our friend endeavours at this point to convince us, and to prove it throws in these words, ‘or if we are to follow some other philosophers etc.,’ while by ‘other philosophers’ he obviously means myself, for I was the first to consider thought the predominant attribute of immaterial substance, and extension the predominant attribute of material substance. But I did not say that these attributes were inherent in the substances, as in subjects diverse from themselves. Here we must beware of understanding by the word ‘attribute’ nothing other than ‘mode.’ Whenever we see a quality assigned to anything by nature, whether it be a mode that can suffer change, or the very essence of that thing, manifestly unchangeable, we term that quality its attribute. Thus in God there are many attributes, but no modes. Thus too one of the attributes of any substance is this, that it exists per se. Thus the extension of any body can, within itself, admit diverse modes, for it is one mode of its extension, if that body be spherical, another if it be square; but extension itself, which is the subject of these modes, is not in itself a mode of material substance, but an attribute, because it constitutes the essence and nature of material substance. Thus, finally, the modes of thought are diverse, for affirmation is a different mode of th
ought from negation, and so on; but thought itself, being the inward source from which these modes arise, and in which they are inherent, is not conceived as a mode, but as an attribute which constitutes the nature of a substance. Whether thought be material, or immaterial, is the question at present before us.