Six metaphysical meditations /

by René Descartes

This day therefore I conveniently released my mind from all cares, I procured to my self a Time Quiet, and free from all Business, I retired my self Alone; and now at length will I freely and seriously apply my self to the General overthrow of all my former Opinions.

To the Accomplishment of Which, it will not be necessary for me to prove them all false (for that perhaps I shall never atcheive) But because my reason perswades me, that I must withdraw my assent no less from those opinions which seem not so very certain and undoubted, then I should from those that are Apparently false, it will be sufficient if I reject all those wherein I find any Occasion of doubt.

Neither to effect this is it necessary, that they all should be run over particularly (which would be an endles trouble) but because the Foundation being once undermin’d, whatever is built thereon will of its own accord come to the ground, I shall therefore immediately assault the very principle, on which whatever I have believed was grounded. Viz.

Whatever I have hitherto admitted as most true, that I received either from, or by my Senses; but these I have often found to deceive me, and ’tis prudence never certainly to trust those that I have (tho but once) deceived us.

1 Doubt. But tho sometimes the senses deceive us being exercised about remote or small objects, yet there are many other things of which we cannot doubt tho we know them only by the senses? as that at present I am in this place, that I am sitting by a fire, that I have a Winter gown on me, that I feel this Paper with my hands; But how can it be denied that these hands or this body is mine? Unless I should compare my self to those mad men, whose brains are disturbed by such a disorderly melancholick vapour, that makes them continually profess themselves to be Kings, tho they are very poor, or fancy themselves cloathed in Purple Robes, tho they are naked, or that their heads are made of Clay as a bottle, or of glass, &c. But these are mad men, and I should be as mad as they in following their example by fancying these things as they do.

1 Solution. This truly would seem very clear to those that never sleep, and suffer the same things (and sometimes more unlikely) in their repose, then these mad men do whilst they are awake; for how often am I perswaded in a Dream of these usual occurrences, that I am in this place, that I have a Gown on me, that I am sitting by a fire, &c. Tho all the while I am lying naked between the Sheets.

But now I am certain that I am awake and look upon this Paper, neither is this head which I shake asleep, I knowingly and willingly stretch out this hand, and am sensible that things so distinct could not happen to one that sleeps. As if I could not remember my self to have been deceived formerly in my sleep by the like thoughts; which while I consider more attentively I am so far convinced of the difficulty of distinguishing sleep from waking that I am amazed, and this very amazement almost perswades me that I am asleep.

2 Doubt. Wherefore let us suppose our selves asleep, and that these things are not true, viz. that we open our eyes, move our heads, stretch our hands, and perhaps that we have no such things as hands or a body. Yet we must confess, that what we see in a Dream is (as it were) a painted Picture, which cannot be devised but after the likeness of some real thing; and that therefore these Generals at least, viz. eyes, head, hands, and the whole body are things really existent and not imaginary; For Painters themselves, (even then when they design Mermaids and Satyrs in the most unusual shapes) do not give them natures altogether new, but only add the divers Parts of different Animals together; And if by chance they invent any thing so new that nothing was ever seen like it, for that ’tis wholy fictitious and false, yet the colours at least of which, they make it must be true Colours; so upon the same account, tho these General things as eyes, head, hands, &c. may be imaginary; yet nevertheless we must of necessity confess the more simple and universal things to be True, of which (as of true Colours) these Images of things (whether true or false) which are in our minds are made; such as are the nature of a body in General, and its Extension, also the shape of things extended, with the quantity or bigness of them; their number also, and place wherein they are, the time in which they continue, and the like, and therefore from hence we make no bad conclusion, that Physick, both Natural, and Medicinal, Astronomy, and all other sciences, which depend on the consideration of compound things, are Doubtful. But that Arithmetick, Geometry, and the like (which treat only of the most simple, and General things not regarding whether they really are or not) have in them something certain and undoubted; for whether I sleep or wake, two and three added make five; a square has no more sides than four &c. neither seems it possible what such plain truths can be doubted off.

2 Solution. But all this While there is rooted in my mind a certain old opinion of the being of an Omnipotent God, by whom I am created in the state I am in; and how know I but he caused that there should be no Earth, no Heaven, no Body, no Figure, no Magnitude, no Place, and yet that all these things should seem to me to be as now they are? And as I very often judge others to Erre about those things which they think they Throughly understand, so why may not I be deceived, whenever I add two and three, or count the sides of a Square, or whatever other easy Matter can be thought of?