Six metaphysical meditations /

by René Descartes

And last of all, tho they should proceed from things which are different from me, it does not therefore follow that they must be like those things. For often times I have found the thing and the Idea differing much. As for example, I find in my self two divers Ideas of the Sun, one as received by my senses (and which cheifly I reckon among those I call adventitious) by which it appears to me very smal, [*] another as taken from the arguments of Astronomers (that is to say, consequentially collected, or some other ways made by me from certain natural notions) by which ’tis rendred something bigger then the Globe of the Earth. Certainly both of these cannot be like that sun which is without me, and my reason perswades me, that that Idea is most unlike the Sun, which seems to proceed Immediately from it self.

All which things sufficiently prove, that I have hitherto (not from a true judgement, but from a blind impulse) beleived that there are certain things different from my self, and which have sent their Ideas or Images into me by the Organs of my senses, or some other way.

But I have yet an other Way of inquiring, whether any of those Things (whose Ideas I have within Me) are Really Existent without Me; And that is Thus: As those Ideas are only Modes of Thinking, I acknowledge no Inequality between them, and they all proceed from me in the same Manner. But as one Represents one thing, an other, an other Thing, ’tis Evident there is a Great difference between them. [*] For without doubt, Those of them which Represent Substances are something More, or (as I may say) have More of Objective Reallity in them, then those that Represent only Modes or Accidents; and again, That by Which I understand a Mighty God, Eternal, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creatour of all things besides himself, has certainly in it more Objective Reallity, then Those Ideas by which Finite Substances are Exhibited.

But Now, it is evident by the Light of Nature that there must be as much at least in the Total efficient Cause, as there is in the Effect of that Cause; For from Whence can the effect have its Reallity, but from the Cause? and how can the Cause give it that Reallity, unless it self have it?

And from hence it follows, that neither a Thing can be made out of Nothing, Neither a Thing which is more Perfect (that is, Which has in it self more Reallity) proceed from That Which is Less Perfect.

And this is Clearly True, not only in those Effects whose Actual or Formal Reallity is Consider’d, But in Those Ideas also, Whose Objective Reallity is only Respected; That is to say, for Example of Illustration, it is not only impossible that a stone, Which was not, should now begin to Be, unless it were produced by something, in Which, Whatever goes to the Making a Stone, is either Formally or Virtually; neither can heat be Produced in any Thing, which before was not hot, but by a Thing which is at least of as equal a degree of Perfection as heat is; But also ’tis Impossible that I should have an Idea of Heat, or of a Stone, unless it were put into me by some Cause, in which there is at Least as much Reallity, as I Conceive there is in heat or a Stone. For tho that Cause transfers none of its own Actual or Formal Reality into my Idea, I must not from thence conclude that ’tis less real; but I may think that the nature of the Idea it self is such, that of it self it requires no other formal reality, but what it has from my thought, of which ’tis a mode. But that this Idea has this or that objective reallity, rather then any other, proceeds clearly from some cause, in which there ought to be at least as much formal reallity, as there is of objective reallity in the Idea it self. For if we suppose any thing in the Idea, which was not in its cause, it must of necessity have this from nothing; but (tho it be a most Imperfect manner of existing, by which the thing is objectively in the Intellect by an Idea, yet) it is not altogether nothing, and therefore cannot proceed from nothing.

Neither ought I to doubt, seeing the reallity which I perceive in my Ideas is only an objective reallity, that therefore it must of necessity follow, that the same reallity should be in the causes of these Ideas formally. But I may conclude, that ’tis sufficient that this reallity be in the very causes only objectively. For as that objective manner of being appertains to the very nature of an Idea, so that formal manner of being appertains to the very nature of a cause of Ideas, at least to the first and chiefest causes of them; For tho perhaps one Idea may receive its birth from an other, yet we cannot proceed in Infinitum, but at last we must arrive at some first Idea, whose cause is (as it were) an Original copy, in which all the objective reallity of the Idea is formally contain’d. So that I plainly discover by the light of nature, that the Ideas, which are in me, are (as it were) Pictures, which may easily come short of the perfection of those things from whence they are taken, but cannot contain any thing greater or more perfect then them: And the longer and more diligently I pry into these things, so much the more clearly and distinctly do I discover them to be true.

But what shall I conclude from hence? Thus, that if the objective reallity of any of my Ideas be such, that it cannot be in me either formally or eminently, and that therefore I cannot be the cause of that Idea, from hence it necessarily Follows, that I alone do not only exist, but that some other thing, which is cause of that Idea, does exist also.

But if I can find no such Idea in me, I have no argument to perswade me of the existence of any thing besides my self for I have diligently enquired, and hitherto I could discover no other perswasive.

Some of these Ideas there are (besides that which represents my self to my self, of which in this place I cannot doubt) which represent to me, one of them a God, others of them Corporeal and Inanimate things, some of them Angels, others Animals, and lastly some of them which exhibite to me men like my self.