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Selections from the Principles of Philosophy - René Descartes · Philosophy Book Collection

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  Speaker 1: Preface to Selections from the Principles of Philosophy. This is
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  Speaker 1: the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by phone Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by
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  Speaker 1: Reneedi Kart, translated by John Vitch. Letter of the author
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  Speaker 1: to the French translator of The Principles of Philosophy serving
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  Speaker 1: for a preface, Sir, the version of my principles which
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  Speaker 1: you have been at pains to make, is so elegant
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  Speaker 1: and finished as to lead me to expect that the
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  Speaker 1: work will be more generally read in French than a Latin,
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  Speaker 1: and better understood. The only apprehension I entertain is lest
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  Speaker 1: the title should deter some who have not been brought
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  Speaker 1: up to letters, or with whom philosophy is in bad repute,
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  Speaker 1: because the kind they were taught has proved unsatisfactory. And
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  Speaker 1: this makes me think that it will be useful to
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  Speaker 1: add a preface to it for the purpose of showing
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  Speaker 1: what the matter of the work is, what end I
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  Speaker 1: had in view in writing it, and what utility may
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  Speaker 1: be derived from it. But although it might be my
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  Speaker 1: part to write a preface of this nature. Seeing I
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  Speaker 1: ought to know these particulars better than any other person,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot nevertheless prevail upon myself to do anything more
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  Speaker 1: than merely to give a summary of the chief points
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  Speaker 1: that fall as I think to be discussed in it,
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  Speaker 1: and I leave it to your discretion to present to
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  Speaker 1: the public such part of them as you shall judge
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  Speaker 1: proper I should have desired in the first place to
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  Speaker 1: explain in it what philosophy is by commencing with the
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  Speaker 1: most common matters, as for example, that the word philosophy
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  Speaker 1: signifies the study of wisdom, and that by wisdom is
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  Speaker 1: to be understood not merely prudence in the management of affairs,
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  Speaker 1: but the perfect knowledge of all that man can know,
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  Speaker 1: as well for the conduct of his life, as for
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  Speaker 1: the preservation of his health, and the discovery of all
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  Speaker 1: the arts. And that knowledge to subserve these ends must
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  Speaker 1: necessarily be reduced from first causes, so that in order
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  Speaker 1: to study the acquisition of it, which is properly called philosophizing,
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  Speaker 1: we must commence with the investigation of those first causes,
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  Speaker 1: which are called principles. Now, these principles must possess two conditions.
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  Speaker 1: In the first place, they must be so clear and
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  Speaker 1: evident that the human mind, when it attentively considers them,
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  Speaker 1: cannot doubt of their truth. In the second place, the
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of other things must be so dependent on them,
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  Speaker 1: as that, though the principles themselves may indeed be known
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  Speaker 1: apart from what depends on them, the latter cannot nevertheless
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  Speaker 1: be known apart from the former. It will accordingly be
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  Speaker 1: necessary thereafter to endeavor so to deduce from those principles
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge of the things that depend on them, as
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  Speaker 1: that there may be nothing in the whole series of
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  Speaker 1: deductions which is not perfectly manifest. God is, in truth,
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  Speaker 1: the only being who is absolutely wise, that is, who
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  Speaker 1: possesses a perfect knowledge of all things. But we may
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  Speaker 1: say that men are more or less wise, as their
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the most important truths is greater or less.
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  Speaker 1: And I am confident that there is nothing in what
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  Speaker 1: I have now said in which all the learned do
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  Speaker 1: not concur I should, in the next place, have proposed
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  Speaker 1: to consider the utility of philosophy, and at the same
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  Speaker 1: time have shown that, since it embraces all that the
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  Speaker 1: human mind can know, we also believe that it is
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  Speaker 1: by it we are distinguished from savages and barbarians, And
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  Speaker 1: that the civilization and culture of a nation is regulated
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  Speaker 1: by the degree in which true philosophy nourishes in it,
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  Speaker 1: and accordingly that to contain true philosophers is the highest
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  Speaker 1: privilege a state can enjoy. Besides this, I should have
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  Speaker 1: shown that, as regards individuals, it is not only useful
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  Speaker 1: for each man to have intercourse with those who implied
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  Speaker 1: themselves to the study, but that it is incomparably better
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  Speaker 1: he should himself direct his attention to it. Just as
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  Speaker 1: it is doubtless to be preferred that any man should
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  Speaker 1: make use of his own eyes to direct his steps,
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  Speaker 1: and enjoy, by means of the same the beauties of
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  Speaker 1: color and light, and that he should blindly follow the
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  Speaker 1: guidance of another. Though the latter course is certainly better
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  Speaker 1: than to have the eyes closed with no guide except oneself.
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  Speaker 1: But to live without philosophizing is in truth the same
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  Speaker 1: as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.
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  Speaker 1: And the pleasure of seeing all that side discloses is
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  Speaker 1: not to be compared with the satisfaction afforded by the
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  Speaker 1: discoveries of philosophy. And finally, the study is more imperatively
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  Speaker 1: requisite for the regulation of our manners and for conducting
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  Speaker 1: us through life, than is the use of our eyes
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  Speaker 1: for directing our steps. The brutes, which have only their
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  Speaker 1: bodies to conserve, are continually occupied in seeking sources of nourishment.
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  Speaker 1: But men of whom the chief part is the mind,
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  Speaker 1: ought to make the search after wisdom. Their principal care
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  Speaker 1: for wisdom is the true nourishment of the mind. And
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  Speaker 1: they feel assured moreover that there are very many who
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  Speaker 1: would not fail in the search if they would, but
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  Speaker 1: hope for success in it, and new the degree of
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  Speaker 1: their capabilities for it. There is no mind, how ignoble,
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  Speaker 1: soever it be, which remains so firmly bound up in
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  Speaker 1: the objects of the senses, as not some time or
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  Speaker 1: other to turn itself away from them in the aspiration
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  Speaker 1: after some higher good, although not knowing frequently wherein that
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  Speaker 1: good consists. The greatest favorites of fortune, those who have health, honors,
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  Speaker 1: and riches in abundance are not more exempt from aspirations
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  Speaker 1: of this nature than others. Nay, I am persuaded that
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  Speaker 1: these are the persons who side the most deeply after
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  Speaker 1: another good, greater and more perfect still than any they
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  Speaker 1: already possess. But the supreme good, considered by natural reason
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  Speaker 1: without the light of fate, is nothing more than the
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of truth through its first causes. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: the wisdom of which philosophy is the study. And as
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  Speaker 1: all these particulars are indisputably true, all that it is
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  Speaker 1: required to gain the sense to their truth is that
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  Speaker 1: they be well stated. But as one is restrained from
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  Speaker 1: assenting to these doctrines by experience, which shows that they
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  Speaker 1: who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and
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  Speaker 1: reasonable than others who never applied themselves to the study,
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  Speaker 1: I should have here shortly explained wherein consists all the
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  Speaker 1: science we now possess, and what are the degrees of
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  Speaker 1: wisdom at which we have arrived. The first degree contains
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  Speaker 1: only notions so clear of themselves that they can be
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  Speaker 1: acquired without meditation. The second comprehends all that the experience
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  Speaker 1: of the senses dictates. The third that which the conversation
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  Speaker 1: of other men teaches us, to which may be added
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  Speaker 1: as the fourth. The reading not of all books, but
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  Speaker 1: especially of such as have been written by persons capable
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  Speaker 1: of conveying proper instruction. For it is a species of
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  Speaker 1: conversation we hold with their authors. And it seems to
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  Speaker 1: me that all the wisdom we in ordinary possess is
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  Speaker 1: acquired only in these four ways. For I do not
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  Speaker 1: class divine revelation among them, because it does not conduct
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  Speaker 1: us by degrees, but elevates us at once to an
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  Speaker 1: infallible faith. There have been, indeed, in all ages, great
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  Speaker 1: minds who endeavor to find the fifth road to wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: incomparably more sure and elevated than the other four. The
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  Speaker 1: path they essayed was the search of first causes and
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  Speaker 1: true principles, for which might be deduced the reasons of
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  Speaker 1: all that can be known by man. And it is
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  Speaker 1: to them the appellation of philosophers has been more especially accorded.
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  Speaker 1: I am not aware that there is any one of
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  Speaker 1: them up to the present who has succeeded in this enterprise.
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  Speaker 1: The first in chief whose writings we possess are Plato
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  Speaker 1: and Aristotle, between whom there was no difference, except that
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  Speaker 1: the former, following in the footsteps of his master, Socrates,
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  Speaker 1: ingeniously confessed that he had never yet been able to
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  Speaker 1: find anything certain, and that he was contented to write
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  Speaker 1: what seemed to him probable imagining for this end certain
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  Speaker 1: principles by which he endeavored to account for the other things. Aristotle,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, characterized by less candor, although for
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  Speaker 1: twenty years the disciple of Plato, and with no principle
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  Speaker 1: beyond those of its master, completely reversed this mode of
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  Speaker 1: putting them, and proposed as true and certain, whether it
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  Speaker 1: is probable, he himself never esteemed as such. But these
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  Speaker 1: two men had acquired much judgment and wisdom by the
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  Speaker 1: fore preceding means, qualities which race their authority very high,
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  Speaker 1: so much so that those who succeeded them were willing
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  Speaker 1: rather to acquiesce in their opinions than to seek better
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  Speaker 1: for themselves. The chief question among their disciples, however, was
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  Speaker 1: as to whether we ought to doubt of all things
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  Speaker 1: or hold some as certain, a dispute which led to
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  Speaker 1: him on both sides into extravagant errors. For a part
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  Speaker 1: of those who were for doubt extended it even to
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  Speaker 1: the actions of life, to the neglect of the most
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  Speaker 1: ordinary rules required for its conduct. Those on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: who maintain the doctrine of certainty, supposing that it must
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  Speaker 1: depend upon the senses trusted entirely to them, to such
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  Speaker 1: an extent was discarried by Epicurus, that it is said
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  Speaker 1: he ventured to affirm, contrary to all the reasonings of
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  Speaker 1: the astronomers, that the sun is no larger than it appears.
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  Speaker 1: It is a fault. We may remark in most disputes
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  Speaker 1: that as truth is the mean between the two opinions
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  Speaker 1: that are upheld, each disputant departs from it in proportion
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  Speaker 1: to the degree in which he possesses the spirit of contradiction.
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  Speaker 1: But the error of those who lend too much to
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  Speaker 1: the side of doubt was not followed for any length
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  Speaker 1: of time, and that of the opposite party has been
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  Speaker 1: to some extent corrected by the doctrine that the senses
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  Speaker 1: are deceitful in many instances. Nevertheless, I do not know
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  Speaker 1: that this error was wholly removed by showing that certitude
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  Speaker 1: is not in the senses, but in the understanding alone,
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  Speaker 1: when it has clear perceptions, and that while we only
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  Speaker 1: possess the knowledge which is acquired in the first forlurce
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  Speaker 1: or grades of wisdom, we ought not to doubt of
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  Speaker 1: the things that appear to be true in what regards
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  Speaker 1: the conduct of life, nor esteem them as so certain
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  Speaker 1: that we cannot change our opinions regarding them, even though
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  Speaker 1: constrained by the evidence of reason. From ignorance of this truth,
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  Speaker 1: or if there was any one to whom it was known,
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  Speaker 1: from neglect of it. The majority of those who in
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  Speaker 1: these later ages aspire to be philosophers blindly followed Aristotle,
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  Speaker 1: so that they frequently corrupted the sense of his writings
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  Speaker 1: and attributed to him various opinions which he would not
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  Speaker 1: recognize as his own, were he now to return to
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  Speaker 1: the world, and those who did not follow him, among
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  Speaker 1: whom are to be found many of the greatest minds
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  Speaker 1: did yet not escape being imbued with his opinions in
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  Speaker 1: their youth, as these form the staple of instruction in
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  Speaker 1: the schools, and thus their minds were so preoccupied that
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  Speaker 1: they could not rise to the knowledge of true principles.
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  Speaker 1: And though I hold all the philosophers in esteem and
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  Speaker 1: am unwilling to incur odium by my censure, I can
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  Speaker 1: adduce the proof of my assertion, which I do not
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  Speaker 1: think any of them will gainsay, which is that they
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  Speaker 1: all lay down as a principle what they did not
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  Speaker 1: perfectly know. For example, I know none of them who
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  Speaker 1: did not suppose that there was gravity in terrestrial bodies.
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  Speaker 1: But although experience shows us very clearly that bodies we
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  Speaker 1: call heavy descend toward the center of the earth, we
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  Speaker 1: do not therefore know the nature of gravity, that is
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  Speaker 1: the cause or principle in virtue of which bodies descent,
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  Speaker 1: and we must derive or knowledge of it from some
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  Speaker 1: other source. The same may be said of a vacuum,
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  Speaker 1: and atoms, of heat and cold, of dryness and humidity,
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  Speaker 1: and of salt, sulfur, and mercury, and the other things
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  Speaker 1: of this sort, which some have adopted as their principles.
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  Speaker 1: But no conclusion deduced from a principle which is not
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  Speaker 1: clear can be evident, even although the deduction be formally valid.
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  Speaker 1: And hence it follows that no reasonings based on such
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  Speaker 1: principles could lead them to the certain knowledge of any
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  Speaker 1: one thing, nor consequently advanced them one step in the
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  Speaker 1: search after wisdom, And if they did discover any truth,
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  Speaker 1: this was due to one or other of the four
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  Speaker 1: means above mentioned. Notwithstanding this, I am no degree desirous
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  Speaker 1: to lessen to honor which each of them can just declaim.
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  Speaker 1: I am only constrained to say, for the consolation of
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  Speaker 1: those who have not given their attention to study that.
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  Speaker 1: Just as in traveling, when we turn our back upon
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  Speaker 1: the place to which we were going, we received the
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  Speaker 1: farther from it in proportion as we proceed in the
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  Speaker 1: new direction for a greater length of time and with
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  Speaker 1: greater speed, so that though we may be afterwards brought
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  Speaker 1: back to the right way, we cannot nevertheless arrive at
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  Speaker 1: the destined place as soon as if we had not
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  Speaker 1: moved backwards at all. So in philosophy, when we make
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  Speaker 1: use of false principles, we depart the farther from the
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of truth and wisdom exactly in proportion to the
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  Speaker 1: care with which we cultivate them, and apply ourselves to
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  Speaker 1: the deduction of diverse consequences from them. Thinking that we
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  Speaker 1: are philosophizing well, while we are only departing the farther
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  Speaker 1: from the truth from which it must be inferred that
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  Speaker 1: they who have learned the least of all that has
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  Speaker 1: been hitherto distinguished by the name of philosophy are the
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  Speaker 1: most fitted for the apprehension of truth. After making those
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  Speaker 1: matters clear, I should, in the next place have desired
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  Speaker 1: to set forth the grounds for holding that the true
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  Speaker 1: principles by which you may reach that highest degree of wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: wherein consists the sovereign good of human life, or those
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  Speaker 1: I have proposed in this work. And two considerations alone
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  Speaker 1: are sufficient to establish this, the first of which is
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  Speaker 1: that these principles are very clear, and the second that
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  Speaker 1: we can reduce all other truths from them. For it
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  Speaker 1: is only these two conditions that are required in true principles.
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  Speaker 1: But I easily prove that they are very clear, firstly
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  Speaker 1: by a reference to the manner in which I found them, namely,
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  Speaker 1: by rejecting all propositions that were in the least doubtful.
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  Speaker 1: For it is certain that such as could not be
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  Speaker 1: rejected by this test when they were attentively considered, or
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  Speaker 1: the most evident and clear which the human mind can know. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: by considering that he who strives the doubt of all
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  Speaker 1: is enable nevertheless the doubt that he is while he doubts,
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  Speaker 1: and that what reasons does in not being able to
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  Speaker 1: doubt of itself in doubting nevertheless, of everything else, is
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  Speaker 1: not that which we call our body, with what we
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  Speaker 1: name our mind or thought. I have taken the existence
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  Speaker 1: of this thought for the first principle from which are
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  Speaker 1: very clearly deduced the following truths, namely, that there is
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  Speaker 1: a God who is the author of all that is
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  Speaker 1: in the world, and who, being the source of all truth,
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  Speaker 1: cannot have created our understanding of such a nature as
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  Speaker 1: to be deceived in the judgments it forms of the
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  Speaker 1: things of which it possesses a very clear and distinct perception.
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  Speaker 1: Those are all the principles of which I avail myself
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  Speaker 1: touching immaterial or metaphysical objects, from which I most clearly
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  Speaker 1: deduce these other principles of physical and corporeal things, namely
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  Speaker 1: that there are bodies extended in length, breath and death,
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  Speaker 1: which are of diverse figures and are moved in a
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  Speaker 1: variety of ways. Such are in some the principles from
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  Speaker 1: which I deduce all other truths. The second circumstance that
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  Speaker 1: proves the clearness of these principles is that they have
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  Speaker 1: been known in all ages, and even received as true
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  Speaker 1: and indubitable by all men, with the exception only of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the existence of God, which has been doubted by some
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  Speaker 1: because they attributed too much to the perceptions of the senses.
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  Speaker 1: And God God can neither be seen nor touched. But
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  Speaker 1: though all the truth which I cast among my principles,
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  Speaker 1: were known at all times and by all men. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: there has been no one up to the present who,
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  Speaker 1: so far as I know, has adopted them as principles
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  Speaker 1: of philosophy, in other words, as such that we can
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  Speaker 1: reduce from them the knowledge of whatever else is in
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  Speaker 1: the world. It accordingly now remains for me to prove
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  Speaker 1: that they are such, And it appears to me that
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  Speaker 1: I cannot better establish this than by the test of experience,
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  Speaker 1: in other words, by inviting readers to peruse the following work.
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  Speaker 1: For though I have not treated in it of all
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  Speaker 1: matters that being impossible, I think I have so explained
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  Speaker 1: all of which I had occasion to treat, that they
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: who read it attentively will have grant for the persuasion
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  Speaker 1: that it is unnecessary to seek for any other principles
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  Speaker 1: than those I have given in order to arrive at
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  Speaker 1: the most exalted knowledge of which the mind of man
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  Speaker 1: is capable. Especially if after the perusal of my writings
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  Speaker 1: they take the trouble to consider how many diverse questions
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  Speaker 1: are therein discussed and explained, and refer try into the
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  Speaker 1: writings of others they see how little probability there is
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  Speaker 1: in the reasons that are adduced in explaining of the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: same questions by principles different from mine, and that they
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  Speaker 1: may the more easily undertake this. I might have said
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  Speaker 1: that those imbued with my doctrines have much less difficulty
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  Speaker 1: in comprehending the writings of others and estimating their true
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  Speaker 1: value than those who have not been so imbued. And
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  Speaker 1: this is precisely the opposite of what I before said
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  Speaker 1: of such as commenced with the ancient philosophy, namely, that
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  Speaker 1: the more they have studied it, the less fit are
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  Speaker 1: they for rightly apprehending the truth. I should also have
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  Speaker 1: added a word of advice regarding the manner of reading
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  Speaker 1: this work, which is that I should wish the reader
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  Speaker 1: at first to go over the whole of it as
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  Speaker 1: I would a romance, without greatly straining his attention or
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  Speaker 1: tarrying at the difficulties he may perhaps meet with in it,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: with a view simply of knowing in general the matters
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  Speaker 1: of which I treat, and that afterwards, if they seem
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  Speaker 1: to him to merit a more careful examination, and he
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  Speaker 1: feel a desire to know their causes, he may read
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  Speaker 1: it the second time in order to observe the connection
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  Speaker 1: of my reasonings, but that he must not then give
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  Speaker 1: it up in despair. Although he may not everywhere sufficiently
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  Speaker 1: discover the connection of the proof or understand all the reasonings,
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  Speaker 1: it being only necessary to mark with a pen the
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  Speaker 1: places where their difficulties occur, and continue to read without
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  Speaker 1: interruption to the end. Then, if he does not grudge
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  Speaker 1: to take up the book a third time, I am
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  Speaker 1: confident he will find in a fresh perusal the solution
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  Speaker 1: of most of the difficulties he will have marked before,
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  Speaker 1: and that if any still remain, their solution will in
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  Speaker 1: the end be found in another reading. I have observed,
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  Speaker 1: on examining the natural constitutions of different minds, that there
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  Speaker 1: are hardly any so dull or slow of understanding as
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  Speaker 1: to be incapable of apprehending good opinions, or even of
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  Speaker 1: acquiring all the highest sciences, if they be but conducted
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: along the right road. And this can also be proved
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: by reason, for as the principles are clear, and has
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: nothing ought to be reduced from them unless most manifest inferences,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: no one is so devoid of intelligence as to be
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: unable to comprehend the conclusions that flow from them, but
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: besides the entire of prejudices from which no one is
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: entirely exempt. Although it is they who have been the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: most ardent students of the false sciences that receive the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: greatest deferment from them, it happens very generally that people
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of ordinary capacity neglect his study from a conviction that
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: they want ability, and that others who are more ardent
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: press on too rapidly, whence it comes to pass that
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: they frequently admit principles far from evident, and all doubtful
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: inferences from them. For this reason, I should wish to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: assure those who are too distrustful of their own ability,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that there is nothing in my writings which they may
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: not entirely understand if they only take the trouble to
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: examine them. And I should wish at the same time
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to warn those of an opposite tendency that even the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: most superior minds will have need of much time and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: attention to remark all I designed to embrace their in
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: after this, that I might lead men to understand the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: real design I had in publishing them. I should have
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: wished here to explain the order which seems to me
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: one ought to follow with the view of instructing himself.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: In the first place, a man who has mere the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: vulgar and imperfect knowledge which can be acquired by the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: four means above explained, ought before all else to endeavor
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: to form for himself a code of morals sufficient to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: regulate the actions of his life. As well, for the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: reason that this does not admit of delay, as because
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it ought to be our first care to live well.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: In the next place, he ought to study logic, not
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: that of the schools. For it is only properly speaking,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a dialectic which teaches the mode of expounding to others
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: what we already know, or even of speaking much without
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: judgment of what we do not know, by which means
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it corrupts rather than increases, good sense. But the logic
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: which teaches the right conduct of the reason, with the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: view of discovering the truth of which we are ignorant.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And because it greatly depends on usage, it is desirable
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he should exercise himself for a length of time in
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: practicing its rules on easy and simple questions as those
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of the mathematics. Then, when he has acquired some skill
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in discovering the truth in these questions, he should commence
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to apply himself in earnest to true philosophy, of which
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the first part is metaphysics, containing the principles of knowledge,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: among which it is the explication of the principle attributes
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of God, of the immateriality of the soul, and of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: all the clear and simple notions that are in us.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: The second is physics, in which, after finding the true
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: principles of material things, we examine in general how the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: whole universe has been framed. In the next place, we
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: consider in particular the nature of the earth, and of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: all the bodies that are most generally found upon it,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: as air, water, fire, the lodestone, and other minerals. In
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the next place, it is necessary also to examine singly
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the nature of plants, of animals, and above all of man,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in order that we may thereafter be able to discover
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the other sciences that are useful to us. Thus, all
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: philosophy is like a tree, of which metaphysics is the root,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the branches
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: that grow out of this trunk, which are reduced to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: three principles, namely medicine, mechanics, and ethics. By the science
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of morals I understand the highen and most perfect, which,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: last degree of wisdom. But as it is not from
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the roots or the trunk of trees that we gather
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the fruit, but only from the extremities of their branches,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: so the principal utility of philosophy depends on the separate
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: uses of its parts, which we can only learn last
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: of all. But though I am ignorant of almost all these,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the zelle, I have always felt an endeavoring to be
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of service to the public. Was the reason why I published,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: some ten or twelve years ago certain essays on the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: doctrines I thought I had acquired. The first part of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: these essays was a discourse on the method of rightly
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: conducting the reason and seeking truth in the sciences, in
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: which I gave a summary of the principal rules of logic,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and also of an imperfect ethic, which a person may
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: follow provisionally so long as he does not know any better.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: The other parts were three treatises, the first of dioptrics,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the second of meteors, and the third of geometry. In
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the dioptrics, I designed to show that you might proceed
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: far not in philosophy as to arrive by its means
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: at the knowledge of the arts that are useful to life.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Because the invention of the telescope, of which I there
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: gave an explanation, is one of the most difficult that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: has ever been made. In the treaties of meteors, I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: desire to exhibit a difference that subsists between the philosophy
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I cultivate and that taught in the schools in which
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the same matters are usually discussed in fine in the geometry,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I profess to demonstrate that I had discovered many things
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: that were before unknown, and thus afford ground for believing
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that we may still discover many others, with the view
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: of thus stimulating all to the investigation of truth. Since
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that period, Anticipating the difficulty which many would experience in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: apprehending the foundations of the metaphysics, I endeavor to explain
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the chief points of them in a book of meditations,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: which is not in itself large, but the size of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: which has been increased, and the matter greatly illustrated by
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the objections which several very learned persons sent to me
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: on occasion of it, and by the replies which I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: made to them at length. After it appeared to me
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that those preceding treatises had sufficiently prepared the minds of
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: my readers for the principles of philosophy, I also published it,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and I have divided this work into four parts, the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: first of which contains the principles of human knowledge, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: which may be called the first philosophy or metaphysics. That
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: this part, accordingly may be properly understood, it will be
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: necessary to read beforehand the Book of Meditations I wrote
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: on the same subject. The other three parts contain all
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that is most general in physics, namely, the explication of
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the first laws or principles of nature, and the way
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in which the heavens, the fixed stars, the planets, comets,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and generally the whole universe were composed. In the next place,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the explication, in particular of the nature of this Earth,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the air, water, fire, the magnet, which are the bodies
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: we most commonly find everywhere around it, and of all
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the qualities we observe in those bodies, as light, heat, gravity,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and the like. In this way, it seems to me
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I have commenced the orderly explanation of the whole of philosophy,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: without omitting any of the matters that ought to precede
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the last which I discussed. But to bring this undertaking
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to its conclusion, I ought hereafter to explain in the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: same manner the nature of the other more particular bodies
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that are on the earth, namely minerals, plants, animals, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: especially man. Finally to treat thereafter with accuracy of medicine, ethics,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and mechanics. I should require to do this in order
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to give the world a complete body of philosophy. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I do not yet feel myself so old. I do
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: not much distrust my strengths, nor do I find myself
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: so far removed from the knowledge of what remains as
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that I should not dare to undertake to complete this design,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: provided I were in a position to make all the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: experiments which I should require for the basis and verification
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of my reasonings. But seeing that would demand a great
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: expenditure to which the resources of a private individual like
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: myself would not be adequate unless aided by the public.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And as I have no ground to expect this aid,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I believe that I ought for the future to content
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: myself with studying for my own instruction, and posterity will
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: excuse me if I fail hereafter to labor for them. Meanwhile,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that it may be seen wherein I think I have
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: already promoted the general good, I will here mention the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: fruits that may be gathered from my principles. The first
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: is the satisfaction which to mindful experience of finding in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the work many truths before unknown. For although frequently truth
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: does not so greatly affect our imagination as falsity and fiction,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: because it seems less wonderful and is more simple, yet
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the gratification of the force is always more durable and solid.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: The second fruit is that in studying these principles we
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: will become accustomed, by degrees to judge better of all
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the things become in contact with, and thus be made wiser.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: In which respect the effect will be quite the opposite
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of the common philosophy, For we may easily remark in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: those we call pedants that it renders them less capable
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of rightly exercising their reason than they would have been
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: if they had never known it. The third is that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the truths which they can chain, being highly clear and certain,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: will take away all ground of dispute, and thus dispose
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: men's minds to gentleness and concord, whereas the contrary is
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the effect of the controversies of the schools, which, as
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: they insensibly render those who are exercised in them more
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: wrangling and opinionative, are perhaps the prime cause of the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: heresies and dissensions that now harass the world. The last
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and chief fruit of these principles is that one will
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: be able, by cultivating them, to discover many truths I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: myself have not unfolded, and thus, passing by the grace
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: from one to another, to acquire, in course of time,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a perfect knowledge of the whole of philosophy, and to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: rise to the highest degree of wisdom. For just as
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: all the arts, though in the beginnings they are rude
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and imperfect, are yet gradually perfected by practice, from their
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: containing at first something true and whose effect experience evinces,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: so in philosophy. When we have true principles, we cannot
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: fail by following them to meet sometimes with other truths.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And we could not better prove the falsity of those
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of Aristotle than by saying that men made no progress
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in knowledge by their means during the way many ages
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: they prosecuted them. I well know that there are some
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: men so precipitate and accustomed to use so little circumspection
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: in what they do, that even with the most solid foundations,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: they could not rear affirmed superstructure. And as it is
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: usually those who are the readiest to make books, they
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: would in a short time mar all that I have
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: done and introduce uncertainty in doubt into my manner of philosophizing,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: from which I have carefully endeavored to banish them, if
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: people were to receive their writings as mine or as
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: representing my opinions. I had not long ago some experience
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of this, and one of those who were believed desirous
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of following me the most closely, and one too, of
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: whom I had somewhere, said that I had such confidence
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: in his genius as to believe that he adhered to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: no opinions which I should not be ready to avow
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: as mine. For he last year published a book entitled
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Fundamental Physics, which, although he seems to have written nothing
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: on the subject of physics and medicine, which he did
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: not take from my writings, as well as from those
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I have published as from another still imperfect on the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: nature of an animals which fell into his hands. Nevertheless,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: because he has copied them badly and changed the order,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and denied certain metaphysical truths upon which all physics ought
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to be based, I am obliged wholly to disavoil his work,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and here to request readers not to attribute to me
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: any opinion unless they find it expressly stated in my
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: own writings, and to receive no opinion as true, whether
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in my writings or elsewhere, unless they see that it
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: is very clearly deduced from true principles. I well know
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: likewise that many ages may elapse ere that all the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: truths deducible from these principles are evolved out of them.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: As well, because the greater number of such as remain
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: to be discovered depend on certain particular experiments that never
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: occur by chance, but which require to be investigated with
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: care and expense by men of the highest intelligence, as
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: because it will hardly happen that the same persons who
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: have the sagacity to make the right use of them
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: will possess also the means of making them. And also
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: because the majority of the best minds have formed so
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: low an estimate of philosophy in general from the imperfections
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: they are remarked in the kind of vogue up to
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the present time, that they cannot apply themselves to the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: search after truth. But in conclusion, if the difference discernible
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: between the principles and questions in those of every other system,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and the great array of truths deducible from them, lead
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: him to discern the importance of containing the search after
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: these truths, and to observe the degree of wisdom, the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: perfection and felicity of life to which they are fitted
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: to conduct us. I venture to believe that there will
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: not be found one who is not ready to labor
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: hard in so profitable a study, or at least the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: favor and aid with all his might those who shall
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: devote themselves to it with success. The height of my
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: wishes is that posterity may sometimes behold the happy issue
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: of it, et cetera. End of preface, Section one of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: selections from the Principles of Philosophy. This is a librifox recording.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: All liber Fox recordings are in the public domain. For
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: more information or to volunteer, please visit librifox dot org.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Recording by phone Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: reneed De Karte, translated by John Vitch. Part one of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the principles of human knowledge one that in order to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: As we were at one time children, and as we
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: formed various judgments regarding the objects presented to our senses,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: when as yet we had not the entire use of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: our reason, numerous prejudices stand in the way of our
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: arriving at the knowledge of truth. And of these it
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: seems impossible for us to rid ourselves unless we undertake,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: once in our lifetime to doubt with all those things
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: in which we may discover even the smallest suspicion of uncertainty.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Two that we ought also to consider as false all
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that is doubtful. Moreover, it will be useful likewise to
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: esteem as false the things of which we shall be
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: able to doubt, that we may, with greater clearness discover
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: what possesses most certainty and is the easiest to know.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Three that we ought not meanwhile to make use of
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: doubt in the conduct of life. In the meantime, it
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: is to be observed that we are to avail ourselves
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of this general doubt only well engaged in the contemplation
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: of truth. For as far as concerns the conduct of life,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: we are very frequently obliged to follow opinions mere probable,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: or even sometimes though, of two courses of action, we
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: may not perceive more probability in the one than in
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: the other, to choose one or other, seeing the opportunity
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of acting would not unfrequently pass away before we could
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: free ourselves from our doubts. Four why we made out
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: of sensible things? Accordingly, since we now only design to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: apply ourselves to the investigation of truth, we will doubt
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: first whether of all the things that have ever fallen
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: under our senses, or which we have ever imagined, any
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: one really exist in the first place, because we know
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: by experience that the senses sometimes err, and it would
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: be imprudent to trust too much to what has even
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: once deceived us. Secondly, because in dreams we perpetually seem
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to perceive or imagine innumerable objects which have no existence.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And to one who has thus resolved upon a general doubt,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: there appear no marks by which we can with certainty
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: distinguish sleep from the waking state.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Five.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: While we may also doubt of mathematical demonstrations, we will
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: also doubt of the other things we have before held
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: as most certain, even of the demonstrations of mathematics and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of their principles, which we have hitherto deemed self evident
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: in the first place, because we have sometimes seen men
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: fall into error in such matters and admit as absolutely
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: certain and self evident what to us appear at false.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: But chiefly because we have learned that God, who created us,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: is all powerful, for we do not yet know whether
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: perhaps it was his will to create us, so that
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: we are always deceived even in the things we think
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: we know best, since this does not appear more impossible
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: than our being occasionally deceived, which, however, as observation teaches us,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: is the case. And if we suppose then all powerful
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: God is not the author of our being, and that
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: we exist of ourselves by some other means, still, the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: less powerful we suppose our author to be. The greater
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: reason will we have for believing that we are not
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: so perfect as that we may not be continually deceived. Six,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that we possess a free will by which we can
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: withhold our assent from what is doubtful, and thus avoid error.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But meanwhile, whoever, in the end may be the author
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of our being, and however powerful and deceitful he may be,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: we are nevertheless conscious of a freedom by which we
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: can refrain from admitting to a place in our belief
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: ought that is not manifestly certain and undoubted, and thus
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: scarred against ever being deceived. Seven That we cannot doubt
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: of our existence while we doubt, and that this is
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the first knowledge we acquire when we feel possiphies in order.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: While we thus reject all of which we can entertain
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is false.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: We easily indeed suppose that there is neither God, nor sky,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: nor bodies, and that we ourselves even have neither hands,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: nor feet, nor finally a body. But we cannot, in
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the same way suppose that we are not well we
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: doubt of the truth of these things, For there is
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a repugnance in conceiving that what things does not exist
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: at the very time when the thinks accordingly, the knowledge
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I think, therefore I am, is the first and most
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly. Eight That
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we hence discover the distinction between the mind and the body,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: or between a thinking and corporeal thing. And this is
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the best mode of discovering the nature of the mind
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and its distinctness from the body. For examining that we
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: are while supposing, as we now do, that there is
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: nothing really existing apart from our thought. We clearly perceive
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: that neither extension, nor figure, nor local motion, nor anything
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: similar that can be attributed to body pertains to our nature,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and nothing save thought alone, And consequently that the notion
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: we have of our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and is more certain seeing we still doubt whether there
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: is any body in existence, while we already perceive that
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: we think. Nine what thought cogitacio is by the word thought,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I understand all that which so takes place in us,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that we of ourselves are immediately conscious of it. And accordingly,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: not only to understand intelligire and tendre to will vele,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: to imagine imaginary, but even to perceive centire centil are
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: here the same as to think cogitare penzil. For if
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I say I see or I walk, therefore I am.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And if I understand by vision or walking the act
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: of my eyes or of my limbs, which the work
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of the body. The conclusion is not absolutely certain, because,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: as is often the case in dreams, I may think
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: that I see or walk although I do not open
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: my eyes or move from my place, and even perhaps
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: although I have no body. But if I mean the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: sensation itself or consciousness of seeing or walking, the knowledge
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: is manifestly certain, because it is then referred to the mind,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: which alone perceives or is conscious that it sees or walks.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Ten that the notions which are simplest and self evident
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: are obscured by logical definitions, and that such are not
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: to be reckoned among the cognitions acquired by study. But
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: as born with us, I do not here explain several
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: other terms which I have used or designed to use
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: in the sequel, because their meaning seems to me sufficiently
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: self evident. And I frequently remark that philosophers erred in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: attempting to explain by logical definitions such truths as are
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: most simple and self evident, for they thus only render
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: them more obscure. And when I said that the proposition,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I think therefore I am is, of all others, the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: first and most certain, which occurs to one philosophizing orderly,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I did not therefore deny that it was necessary to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: know what thought, existence, and certitude are, and the truth
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that in order to think it is necessary to be,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: and the like. But because these are the most simple notions,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: and such as of themselves, the fourth and knowledge of
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: nothing existing, I did not judge it proper there to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: enumerate them. Eleven, How we can know our mind more
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: clearly than our body. But now that it may be discerned,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: how the knowledge we have of the mind not only
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: proceeds and as greater certainty, but is even clearer than
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: that we have of the body. It must be remarked
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: as a matter that is highly manifest by the natural light,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that to nothing, no affections or qualities belong. And accordingly,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that where we observe certain affections there are a thing
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: or substance to which these pertain is necessarily found. The
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: same light also shows us that we know a thing
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: or substance more clearly in proportion, as we discover in
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: it a greater number of qualities. Now it is manifest
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that we remark a greater number of qualities in our
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: mind than in any other thing, For there is no
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: occasion on which we know anything whatever, when we are not,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: at the same time led with much greater certainty to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: the knowledge of our own mind. For example, if I
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: judge that there is an earth, because I touch or
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: see it on the same ground, and with still greater reason,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I must be persuaded that my mind exists. For it
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: may be perhaps that I think I touch the earth
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: while there is one in existence. But it is not
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: possible that I should so judge, and my mind, which
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: thus judges, not exist, and the same holds good of
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: whatever object is presented to our mind. Twelve. How it
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: happens that everyone does not come equally to notice those
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: who have not philosophized in order have had other opinions
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: on this subject, because they never distinguished with sufficient care
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the mind from the body. For although they had no
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: difficulty in believing that they themselves existed, and that they
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: had a higher assurance of this than any other thing, nevertheless,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: as they did not observe that by themselves, they ought
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: here to understand their minds alone when the question related
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: to metaphysical certainty, And since, on the contrary, they rather
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: meant their bodies, which saw with their eyes, touched with
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: their hands, and to which they erroneously attributed the faculty
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of perception, they were prevented from distinctly apprehending the nature
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: of the mind. Thirteen In what sense the knowledge of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: other things depends upon the knowledge of God. But when
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the mind, which thus knows itself but is still in
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: doubt as to all other things, looks around on all
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: sides with a view to the further extension of its knowledge,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: it first of all discovers within itself the ideas of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: many things. And while it simply contemplates them, and neither
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: affirms nor denies that there is anything beyond itself corresponding
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to them, it is in no danger of erring. The
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: mind also discovers certain common notions, out of which it
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: frames various demonstrations that carry conviction to such a degree
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: as the render doubt of their truth impossible so long
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: as we give attention to them. For example, the mind
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: has within it self ideas of numbers and figures, and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: it has likewise among its common notions, the principle that
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: if equals be added to equals, the wholes will be equal,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and the like, from which it is easy to demonstrate
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: that the three angles of a triangle are equal to
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: two right angles, et cetera. Now, so long as we
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: attend to the premises from which this conclusion and other
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: similar to it were deduced, we feel assured of their truth.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: But as the mind cannot always think of these with attention,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: When it has the remembrance of a conclusion without recollecting
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: the order of its deduction, and is uncertain whether the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: author of its being has created it of a nature
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that is liable to be deceived, even in what appears
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: most evident, it perceives that there is just ground to
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: distrust the truth of such conclusions, and that it cannot
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: possess any certain knowledge until it has discovered its author Fourteen,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that we may validly infer the existence of God from
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: necessary existence, being comprised in the concept we have of him.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: When the mind afterwards reviews the different ideas that are
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in it, it discovers what is by far the chief
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: among them, that of a being omniscient, all powerful, and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: absolutely perfect. And it observes that in this idea there
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: is contained not only possible and contingent existence, as in
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the ideas of all other things which it clearly perceives,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: but existence absolutely necessary and eternal and just as because,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: for example, the equality of its three angles to two
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: right angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: The mind is firmly persuaded that the three angles of
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: a triangle are equal to two right angles. So from
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the idea which it has of an all perfect being,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: it what manifestly to conclude that this all perfect being exists. Fifteen,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that necessary existence is not in the same way comprised
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in the notions which we have of other things, but
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: merely contingent existence. The mind will be still more certain
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: of the truth of this conclusion if it considers that
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: it has no idea of any other thing in which
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: it can discover that necessary existence is contained, For from
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: this circumstance alone, it will discern that the idea of
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: an all perfect being has not been framed by itself,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and that it does not represent a chimera, but a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: true and immutable nature which must exist, since it can
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: only be conceived as necessarily existing. End of Section.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: One, Section two of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: by Reneedi Kart, translated by John Vitch.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox, according is in the public domain of the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: prince of human knowledge. Sixteen that prejudices hinder many from
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: clearly knowing the necessity of the existence of God. Our
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: mind would have no difficulty in assenting to this truth
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: if it were, first of all, wholly free from prejudices.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: But as we have been accustomed to distinguish in all
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: other things essence from existence, and to imagine at will
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: many ideas of things which neither are nor have been,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: it easily happens when we do not steadily fix our
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: thoughts on the contemplation of the all perfect Being, that
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: it doubt arises as to whether the idea we have
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: of Him is not one of those which we frame
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: it pleasure, or at least of that class to whose
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: essence existence does not pertain. Seventeen That the greater objective
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: representative perfection there is in our idea of a thing,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the greater also must be the perfection of its cause.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: When we further reflect on the various ideas that are
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: in us, it is easy to perceive that there is
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: not much difference among them when we consider them simply
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: a certain mode of thinking, but that they are widely
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: different considered in reference to the objects they represent, and
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: that their causes must be so much the more perfect
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: according to the degree of objective perfection contained in them.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: For there is no difference between this and the case
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of a person who has the idea of a machine
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: in the construction of which great skills displayed, in which
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: circumstances we have a right to inquire how he came
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: by this idea, whether, for example, he somewhere saw such
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a machine constructed by another, or whether he was so
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: accurately taught to mechanical sciences, or is endowed with such
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: force of genius that he was able of himself to
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: invent it without having elsewhere seen anything like it. For all,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the ingenuity which is contained in the idea objectively only,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: or as it were, in a picture, must exist at
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: least in its first and chief cause, whatever that may be,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: not only objectively or representatively, but in truth, formally, or eminently.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Eighteen That the exists of God may be again inferred
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: from the above. Thus, because we discover in our minds
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the idea of God or of an all perfect being,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: we have a right to inquire into the source. Whence
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: we derive it and we will discover that the perfections
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: that represents are so immense as to render it quite
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: certain that we could only derive it from an all
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: perfect being, that is, from a God really existing. For
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: it is not only manifest by the natural light that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: nothing cannot be the cause of anything whatever, and that
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, so
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: as to be thereby produced as by its efficient and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: total cause. But also that it is impossible we can
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: have the idea or representation of anything whatever unless there
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: be somewhere, either in us or out of us, an
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: original which comprises in reality all the perfections that are
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: thus represented to us. But as we do not in
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: any way find in ourselves those absolute perfections of which
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: we have the idea, we must conclude that they exist
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: in some nature different from ours, that is, in God,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: or at least that they were once in Him, and
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it most manifestly follows from their infinity that they are
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: still there. Nineteen that although we may not comprehend the
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: nature of God, there is yet nothing which we know
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: so clearly as is perfections. This will appear sufficiently certain
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and manifested. Those who have been accustomed to contemplate the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: idea of God, and to turn their thoughts to his
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: infinite perfections. For although we may not comprehend them, because
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: it is of the nature of the infinite not to
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: be comprehended by what is finite, we nevertheless conceive them
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: more clearly and distinctly than material objects, for this reason, that,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: being simple and unobscure by limits, they occupied our mind
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: more fully. Twenty that we are not a cause of ourselves,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: but that this is God, and consequently that there is
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: a God. But because everyone has not observed this, and
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: because when we have an idea of any machine in
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: which great skill is displayed, we usually know with sufficient
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: accuracy the manner in which we obtained it. And as
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: we cannot even recollect when the idea we have of
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a God was communicated to us by him, seeing it
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: was always in our minds, it is still necessary that
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: we should continue our review and make inquiry after our author,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: possessing as we do, the idea of the infinite perfections
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of a God. For it is in the highest degree
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: evident by the natural light, that that which knows something
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: more perfect than itself is not the source of its
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: own being, since it would thus have given to itself
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: all the perfections which it knows, and that consequently it
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: could draw its origin from no other being than from
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: him who possesses in himself all those perfections, that is,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: from God. Twenty One that the duration alone of our
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: life is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God. This
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: truth of this demonstration will clearly appear provided we consider
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the nature of time or the duration of things. For
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: this is of such a kind that its parts are
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: not mutually dependent and never coexistent. And accordingly, from the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: fact that we now are, it does not necessarily follow
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: that we shall be a moment afterwards, unless some cause
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: is that which first produced us, shall, as it were,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: continually reproduce us, that is, conserve us. For we easily
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: understand that there is no power in us by which
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: we can conserve ourselves, and that the being who has
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: so much power as to conserve us out of himself,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: must also, by so much the greater reason, conserve himself,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: or rather stand in need of being conserved by knowing
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: whatever and in fine be God. Two that in knowing
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the existence of God in the manner here explained, we
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: likewise know all his attributes, as far as he can
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: be known by the natural light alone. There is the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: great advantage in proving the existence of God in this way,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that is, by his idea, that we at the same
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: time know what He is, as far as the weakness
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of our names allows. For reflecting on the idea we
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: have of Him, which is born with us, we perceive
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: that He is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, the source of all
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: goodness and truth, creator of all things, and that in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: fine he has in himself all that in which we
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: can clearly discover any infinite perfection or good that is
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: not limited by any imperfection. Twenty three. That God is
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: not corporeal, and does not perceive by means of senses,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: as we do or will, the evil of sin. For
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: there are indeed many things in the world that are
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to a certain extent imperfect or limited, though possessing also
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: some perfection, and it is accordingly impossible that any such
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: can be God. Thus looking to corporeal nature, since the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: visibility is included in local extension, and this indicates imperfection,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: it is certain that God is not body. And although
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: in men it is to some degree a perfection to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: be capable of perceiving by means of the senses. Nevertheless,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: since in every sense there is passivity, which indicates dependency,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: we must conclude that God is in no manner possessed
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: of senses, and that He only understands and wills, not, however,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: like us, by acts in any way distinct, but always
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: by an act that is one identical and the simplest possible, understands,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: wills and operates all that is, all things that in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: reality exist. For he does not will the evil of sin.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Seeing this is but the negation of being. Twenty four
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: that in passing from the knowledge of God to the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the creatures, it is necessary to remember that
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: our understanding is finite, and the power of God infinite.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: But as we know that God alone is the true
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: cause of all that is or can be, we will
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: doubtless follow the best way of philosophizing. If from the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: knowledge we have of God himself, he passed through the
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: explication of the things which He has created, an essay
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to reduce it from the notions that are naturally in
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: our minds, for we will thus obtain the most perfect science,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: that is the knowledge of effects through their causes. But
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: that we may be able to make this attempt with
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: sufficient security from error. We must use the precaution to
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: bear in mind as much as possible, that God, who
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: is the author of things, is infinite, while we are
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: wholly finite. Twenty five That we must believe all that
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: God has revealed, although it may surpass the reach of
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: our faculties. Thus, if perhaps God revealed to us or
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: others matters concerning himself which surpass the natural powers of
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: our mind, such as the mysteries of the incarnation and
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: of eu trinity, we will not refuse to believe them,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: although we may not clearly understand them, Nor will we
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: be in any way surprise to find in the immensity
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: of His nature, or even in what He has created,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: many things that exceed our comprehension. Twenty six That it
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: is not needful to enter into disputes regarding the infinite,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: but merely to hold all that in which we can
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: find no limits as indefinite, such as the extension of
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the world, the divisibility of the parts of matter, the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: number of the stars, et cetera. We will thus never
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: embarrass ourselves by disputes about the infinite, seeing it would
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: be absurd for us, who are finite, to undertake to
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: determine anything regarding it, and thus, as it were to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: limit it by endeavoring to comprehend it, We will accordingly
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: give ourselves no concern to reply to those who demand
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: whether the half of an infinite line is also infinite,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and whether an infinite number is even or odd, and
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the like, because it is only such as imagine their
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: minds to be infinite, who seem bound to entertain questions
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: of this sort. And for our part, looking to all
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: those things in which, in certain senses we discover no limits,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: we will not therefore affirm that they are infinite, but
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: will regard them simply as indefinite. Thus, because we cannot
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: imagine extensions so great that we cannot still conceive greater,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: we will say that the macitude of possible things is indefinite.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: And because the body cannot be divided into parts so
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: small that each of these may not be conceived as
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: again divided into others still smaller, let us regard quantity
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: as divisible into parts whose number is indefinite. And as
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: we cannot imagine so many stars that it would seem
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: impossible for God to create more, let us suppose that
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: their number is indefinite, And so in other instances twenty
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: seven what difference there is between the indefinite and the infinite,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: and we will call those things indefinite rather than infinite,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: with the view of reserving to God alone the appellation
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: of infinite. In the first place, because not only do
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: we discover in Him alone no limits on any side,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: but also because we positively conceive that he admits of none,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: and in the second place, because we do not, in
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: the same way positively conceive that other things are in
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: every part unlimited, but merely negatively admit that their limits,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: if they have any, can not be discovered by us
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Twenty eight. That we must examine not the final but
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the efficient causes of created things. Likewise, finally, we will
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: not seek reasons of natural things from the end which
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: God or Nature proposed to himself in their creation, that is,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: final causes. For we ought not to presume so far
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: as the thing that we are sharers in the councils
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: of Deity. But considering Him as the efficient cause of
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: all things, let us endeavor to discover by the natural
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: light which He has bluntt in us apply to those
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: of his attributes of which he has been willing. We
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: should have some knowledge, what must be concluded regarding those
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: effects we perceive by our senses. Bearing in mind, however,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: what has already been said, that we must only confide
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: in this natural light, so long as nothing contrary to
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: its dictates is revealed by God himself twenty nine That
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: God is not the cause of our errors. The first
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: attribute of God which here falls to be considered, is
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: that he is absolutely voracious and the source of all light,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: so that it is plainly repugnant for him to deceive us,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: or to be properly and positively the cause of the
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: errors to which we are consciously subject. For although they addressed,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: to deceive seems to be some mark of subtlety of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: mind among men, Yet without doubt, the will to deceive
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: only proceeds from malice, or from fear and weakness, and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: consequently cannot be attributed to God. Thirty That consequently, all
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: which we clearly perceive is true, and that we are
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: thus delivered from the doubts above proposed. Whence it follows
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: that the light of nature, or faculty of knowledge given
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: us by God can never compass any object which is
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: not true, in as far as it attains to a
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: knowledge of it. That is, in as far as the
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: object is clearly and distinctly apprehended. For God would have
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: merited the appellation of a deceiver if he had given
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: us this faculty perverted, and such as might lead us
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: to take falsity for truth when we use it aright.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Thus the highest doubt is removed, which arose from our
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: ignorance on the point as to whether perhaps our nature
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: was such that we might be deceived even in those
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: things that appear to us most evident. The same principle
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: ought also to be of favail against all the other
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: grants of doubting that have already been enumerated. For mathematical
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: truths ought now to be above suspicion, since these are
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: of the clearest, And if we perceive anything by our senses,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: whether while awake or asleep, we will easily discover the truth,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: provided we separate what there is of clear and distinct
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: in the knowledge from what is obscure and confused. There
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: is no need that I should hear say more on
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: this subject, since it has already received ample treatment in
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the metaphysical meditations, and what follows will serve to explain
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: it still more accurately. End of section two, Section three
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: of selections from the Principle of Philosophy by Vernetic Art,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: translated by John Vitch. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: public domain of the principles of human knowledge. Thirty one.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: That our errors are in respect of God merely negations,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: but in respect of ourselves privations. But as it happens
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that we frequently fall into error, although God is no deceiver.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: If we desire to inquire into the origin and cause
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: of our errors with a view to guard against them,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: it is necessary to observe that they depend less on
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: our understanding than on our will, and that they have
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: no need of the actual concourse of God in order
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: to their production, so that when considered in reference to God,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: they are merely negations, but in reference to ourselves privations.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Thirty two. That there are only two modes of thinking
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: in us, that is, the perception of the understanding and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the action of the will. For all the modes of
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: thinking of which we are conscious may be referred to
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: two general classes, the one of which is the perception
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: or operation of the understanding, and the other the volition
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: or operation of the will. Thus, to perceive by the
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: senses sentire to imagine and to conceive things purely intelligible
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: are only different modes of perceiving percipiendi, but to desire
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to be averse from to affirm, to deny, to doubt,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: or different modes of willing. Thirty three. That we never
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: error unless when we judge of something which we do
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: not sufficiently apprehend. When we apprehend anything, we are in
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: no danger of error. If we refrain from judging of
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: it in any way, and even when we have formed
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: a judgment regarding it, we would never fall into error,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: provided we gave our assent only to what we clearly
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and distinctly perceived. But the reason why we are usually
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: deceived is that we judge without possessing an exact knowledge
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: of that of which we judge. Thirty four That the will,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: as well as the understanding, is requied tired for judging.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I admit that the understanding is necessary for judging, there
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: being no room to suppose that we can judge of
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: that which we in no way apprehend. But the will
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: also is required in order to are assenting to what
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: we have in any degree perceived. It is not necessary, however,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: at least, to form any judgment whatever that we have
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: an entire and perfect apprehension of a thing, for we
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: may assent to many things of which we have only
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: a very obscure and confused knowledge. Thirty five that the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: will is of greater extension than the understanding, and is
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: thus the source of our errors. Further, the perception of
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the intellect extends only to the few things that are
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: presented to it, and is always very limited. The will,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, may in a certain sense, be
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: said to be infinite, because we observe nothing that can
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: be the object of the will of any other, even
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: of the unlimited will of God, to which ours cannot
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: also extend, so that we easily carry it beyond the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: objects we clearly perceive. And when we do this, it
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: is not wonderful that we happen to be deceived. Thirty
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: six that our errors cannot be imputed to God. But
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: although God has not given us an omniscient understanding, he
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: is not on this account to be considered in any
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: wise the author of our errors. For it is of
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: the nature of created intellect to be finite, and of
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: finite intellect not to embrace all things. Thirty seven That
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the chief perfection of man is his being able to
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: act freely or by will, and that it is this
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: which renders him worthy of praise or blame. That the
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: will should be the more extensive, is in harmony with
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: its nature. And it is a high perfection in man
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to be able to act by means of it, that is, freely,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: and thus in a peculiar way, to be the master
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: of his own actions a merit praise or blame for
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: self acting. Machines are not commended because they perform with
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: exactness all the movements for which they were adapted, seeing
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: their motions are carried unnecessarily, but the maker of them
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: is praised on account of the exactness with which they
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: were framed, because he did not act of necessity but freely.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: And on the same principle we must attribute to ourselves
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: something more. On this account, that when we embrace truth,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: we do so not of necessity but freely. Thirty eight.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: That error is a defect in our mode of acting,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: not in our nature, and that to faults of their
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: subjects may be frequently attributed to other masters, but never
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to God. It is true that as often as we err,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: there is some defect in our mode of action or
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: in the use of our liberty, but not in our nature,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: because this is always the same, whether our judgments be
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: true or false. And although God could have given to
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: us such perspicacity of intellect that we should never have erred,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: we have notwithstanding, no right to demand this of him.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: For although with us, he who was able to prevent
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: evil and did not, is held guilty of it, God
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: is not in the same way to be reckoned responsible
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: for our errors, because He had the power to prevent him.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Inasmuch as the dominion which some men possess over others
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: has been instituted for the purpose of enabling them to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: hinder those under them from doing evil, whereas the dominion
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: which God exercises over the universe is perfectly absolute and free.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: For this reason, we ought to thank Him for the
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: goods he has given us, and not complain that He
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: has not blessed us with all which we know it
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: was in his power to Impart thirty nine, that the
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: liberty of our will is self evident. Finally, it is
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: so manifest that we possess a free will, capable of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: giving or withholding its assent, that this truth must be reckoned.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Among the first and most common notions which are born
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: with us. This indeed has already very clearly appeared, For
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: when essaying to doubt of all things, we went so
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: far as to suppose even that He who created us
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: employed his limitless power in deceiving us. In every way.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: We were conscious, nevertheless, of being free to abstain from believing,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: but was not in every respect certain and undoubt. But
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: that of which we are unable to doubt at such
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: a time is as self evident and clear as anything
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: we can ever know. Forty that it is likewise certain
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: that God has foreordained all things. But because what we
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: have already discovered of God gives us the assurance that
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: his power is so immense that we would sin in
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: thinking ourselves capable of ever doing anything which He had
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: not ordained beforehand, we should soon be embarrassed in great
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: difficulties if we undertook to harmonize the preordination of God
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: with the freedom of our will, and endeavor to comprehend
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: both truths at once. Forty one, how the freedom of
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: our will may be reconciled with the divine preordination. But
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: in place of this we will be free from these
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: embarrassments if we recollect that our mind is limited, while
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: the power of God, by which he not only knew
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: from all eternity what is or can be, but also
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: willed and preordained it is infinite. It does happens that
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: we possess sufficient intelligence to know clearly and distinctly that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: this power is in God, but not enough to comprehend
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: how he leaves the free action of men indeterminate. And
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, we have such consciousness of the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: liberty and indifference which exists in ourselves that there is
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: nothing we more clearly or perfectly comprehend, so that the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: omnipotence of God ought not to keep us from believing it.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: For it will be absurd to doubt of that of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: which we are fully conscious and which we experience as
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: existing in ourselves, because we do not comprehend another matter
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: which from its very nature we know to be incomprehensible.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Forty two how although we never will to err, it
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: is nevertheless by our will that we do err. But now,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: since we know that all our errors depend upon our will,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and as no one wishes to deceive himself, it may
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: seem wonderful that there is any error in our judgments
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: at all. It is necessary to remark, however, that there
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: is a great difference between willing to be the same
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: and willing to yield assent to opinions in which it
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: happens that error is found. For though there is no
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: one who expressly wishes to fall into error, we will
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: yet hardly find anyone who is not ready to assent
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: to things in which, unknown to himself, error lurks. And
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: it even frequently happens that it is the desire itself
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: of following after truth that leads those not fully aware
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: of the order in which it ought to be sought for,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to pass judgmental matters of which they have no adequate knowledge,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: and thus fall into error. Forty three. That we shall
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: never error if we give our assent only to what
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: we clearly and distinctly perceive. But it is certain we
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: will never admit falsity for truth, so long as we
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: judge only of that which we clearly and distinctly perceive.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Because as God is no deceiver, the faculty of knowledge
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: which he has given us cannot be fallacious, nor for
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: the same reason, the faculty of will when we do
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: not extend it beyond the objects we clearly know. And
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: though this truth could not be established by reasoning the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: minds of all have been so impressed by nature as
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: spontaneously to assent to whatever is clearly perceived, and to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: experience an impossibility to doubt of its truth. Forty four
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: That we uniformly judge improperly when we assent to what
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: we do not clearly perceive, although our judgment may chance
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: to be true, and that it is frequently our memory
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: which deceives us by leading us to believe that certain
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: things were formerly sufficiently understood by us. It is likewise
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: certain that when we approve of any reason which we
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: do not apprehend, we are either deceived, or if we
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: stumble on the truth, it is only by chance, and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: thus we can never possess the assurance that we are
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: not in error. I confess it seldom happens that we
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: judge of a thing when we have observed we do
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: not apprehend it, because it is a dictate of the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: natural light, never to judge of what we do not know.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: But we most frequently err in this that we presume
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: upon the past knowledge of much to which we can
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: give our assent, as to something treasured up in the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: memory and perfectly known to us, whereas in truth, we
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: have no such knowledge. Forty five What constitutes clear and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: distinct perception? There are indeed a great many persons who,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: through their whole lifetime never perceive anything in a way
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: necessary for judging of it properly. For the knowledge upon
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: which we can establish a certain and indubitable judgment must
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: be not only clear, but also distinct. I call that
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: clear which is present and manifest to the mind giving
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: attention to it, just as we are said clearly to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: see objects when being present to the eye looking on,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: they stimulated with sufficient force, and it is disposed to
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: regard them. But the distinct is that which is so
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: precise and different from all other objects as to comprehend
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: in itself only what is clear. End of section three,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: Section five four of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: by Reneedi Kart, translated by John Vitch. This libripox according
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain of the Principles of Human Knowledge.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Forty six. It is shown from the example of pain
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: that a perception may be clear without being distinct, but
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: that it cannot be distinct unless it is clear. For example,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: when anyone feels intense pain, the knowledge which he has
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: of this pain is very clear, but it is not
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: always distinct, for men usually confounded, but the obscure judgment
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: deformed regarding its nature. And think that there is in
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the suffering part something similar to the sensation of pain,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of which they are alone conscious. And thus perception may
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: be clear without being distinct, but it can never be
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: distinct without likewise being clear. Forty seven That to correct
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: the prejudices of our early years, we must consider what
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: is clear in each of our simple notions. And indeed,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: in our early years the mind was so immersed in
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: the body that although it perceived many things with sufficient clearness,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: it yet knew nothing distinctly. And since even at that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: time we exercise our judgment in many matters, numerous prejudices
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: were thus contracted, which by the majority are never afterwards
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: laid aside. But that we may now be in a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: position to get rid of these, and will here briefly
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: enumerate all the simple notions of which our thoughts are composed,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: and distinguish in each what is clear from what is
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: obscure or fitted to lead into error. Forty eight That
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: all the objects of our knowledge are to be regarded
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: either one as things or the affection of things, or
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: two as eternal truths with the enumeration of things. Whenever
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: objects fall under our knowledge, we consider either as things
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: or the affections of things, or as eternal truths, possessing
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: no existence beyond their thought. Of the first class the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: most general or substance, duration, order, number, and perhaps also
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: some others, which notions apply to all the kinds of things.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: I do not, however, recognize more than two highest kinds
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: suma genera of things. The first of intellectual things are
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: such as have the power of thinking, including mind or
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: thinking substance and its properties. The second of material things,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: embracing extended substance or body and its properties. Perception, volition,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: and all modes as well of knowing, as of willing,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: are related to thinking substance. On the other hand, to
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: extend the substance, we refer magnitude or extension in length,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: breadth and depth, figure, motion, situation, the visibility of parts themselves,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: and the like. There are, however, beside these certain things
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: of which we have an internal experience that ought not
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: to be referred either to the mind of itself or
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: to the body alone, but to the close and intimate
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: union between them. As will hereafter be shown in its place.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Of this class are the appetites of hunger and thirst,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And also the emotions or passions of the mind,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: which are not exclusively mental affections, as the emotions of anger,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: joy sadness, love, et cetera. And finally all the sensations
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: as of pain, titillation, light, and colors, sounds, smells, tastes, heat, hardness,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and the other tactile qualities. Forty nine. That the external
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: truths cannot be thus enumerated, but that this is not necessary.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: When I have already enumerated we are to regard as
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: things or the qualities or modes of things. We now
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: come to speak of eternal truths. When we apprehend that
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: it is impossible a thing can arise from nothing. This
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: proposition ex nihilo nihil fit, is not considered as somewhat
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: existing or as the mode of a thing, but as
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: an eternal truth having its seat in our mind, and
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: is called a common notion or axiom of this class
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: or the following. It is impossible the same thing can
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: at once be and not be. What is done cannot
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: be undone. He who thinks must exist, while he thinks
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: and innumerable others, the whole of which it is indeed
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: difficult to enumerate. But this is not necessary, since if
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: blinded by no prejudices, we cannot fail to know them
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: when the occasion of thinking them occurs. Fifty That these
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: truths are clearly perceived, but not equally by all men
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: on account of prejudices. And indeed, with regard to these
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: common notions, it is not to be doubted that they
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: can be clearly and distinctly known, for otherwise they would
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: not merit this appellation. As in truth, some of them
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: are not, with respect to all men, equally deserving of
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: their name, because they are not equally admitted by all.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Not however, from this reason, as I think that the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: faculty of knowledge, if one man, extends farther than that
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: of another, but rather because these common notions are opposed
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: to the prejudices of some, who, on this account are
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: not able readily to embrace them, even although others, who
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: are free from those prejudices, apprehend them with the greatest clearness.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Fifty One what substance is, and that the term is
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: not applicable to God and the creatures in the same sense,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: but with regard to what we consider as things, or
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: the modes of things, it is worthwhile to examine each
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: of them by itself. By substance, we can conceive nothing
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: else than a thing which exists in such a way
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: as to stand in need of nothing beyond itself in
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: order to its existence. And in truth, there can be
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: conceived but one substance which is absolutely independent, and that
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: is God. We perceive that all other things can exist
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: only by help of the concourse of God. And accordingly,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: the term substance does not apply to God and the
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: creatures univocally. To adopt the term familiar in the schools,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: that is, no signification of this word can be distinctly understood,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: which is common to God and them. Fifty two that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: the term is applicable univocally to the mind in the body,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: and how substance itself is known. Created substances, however, whether
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: corporeal or thinking, may be cons under this common concept,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: For these are things which, in order to their existence,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: stand in need of nothing but the concourse of God.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: But yet substance cannot be first discovered merely from its
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: being a thing which exists independently, for existence by itself
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: is not observed by us. We easily, however, discover substance
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: itself from any attribute of it by this common notion
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: that of nothing there are no attributes, properties, or qualities.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: For from perceiving that some attribute is present, we infer
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: that some existing thing or substance to which it may
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: be attributed is also of necessity present. Fifty three that
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: of every substance there is one principal attribute, as thinking
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: of the mind extension of the body. But although any
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: attribute is sufficient to lead us to the knowledge of substance,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: there is, however, one principal property of every substance, which
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: constitutes its nature or essence, and upon which all the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: others depend. Thus extension in length, breath and death constitute
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: the nature of corporeal substance, and thought the nature of
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: thinking substance. For every other thing that can be attributed
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: to body presupposes extension, and is only some mode of
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: an extended thing, as all the properties we discover in
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: the mind are only diverse modes of thinking. Thus, for example,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: we cannot conceive figure unless in something extended, nor motion
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: unless in extended space, nor imagination, sensation or will unless
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: in a thinking thing. But on the other hand, we
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: can conceive extension without figure or motion, and thought without
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: imagination or sensation, and so of the others, as is
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: clear to anyone who attends to these matters. Fifty four.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: How we may have clear and distinct notions of the
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: substance which thinks of that which is corporeal and of God.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: And thus we may easily have two clear and distinct
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: notions or ideas, the one of created substance which thinks,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the other of a corporeal substance. Provided we carefully distinguish
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: all the attributes of thought from those of extension, we
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: may also have a clear and distinct idea of an
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: uncreated and independent thinking substance that is of God. Provided
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: we do not suppose that this idea adequately represents to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: us all that is in God, and do not mix
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: up with it anything fictitious, but attend simply to the
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: characters that are comprised in the notion we have of Him,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: and which we clearly know to belong to the nature
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: of an absolutely perfect being. For no one can deny
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: that there is in us such an idea of God
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: without groundlessly supposing that there is no knowledge of God
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: at all in the human mind. Fifty five, how duration, order,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and number may be also distinctly conceived, We will also
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: have the most distinct conceptions of duration, order, and number, if,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: in place of mixing up with our notions of them,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: that which properly belongs to the concept of substance, we
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: merely think that the duration of a thing is a
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: mode under which we conceive this thing in so far
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: as it continues to exist, And in like manner that
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: order and number are not in reality different from things
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: disposed in order and numbered, but only modes under which
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: we diversely consider these things. Fifty six What are modes, qualities, attributes?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: And indeed we here understand by modes the same with
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: what we elsewhere designate attributes or qualities. But when we
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: consider substance as affected or varied by them, we use
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: the term modes. When from this variation it may be
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: denominated of such a kind, we adopt the term qualities
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: to designate the different modes which cause it to be
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: so named. And finally, when we simply regard these modes
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: as in the substance, we call them attributes. Accordingly, since
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: God must be conceived as superior to change, it is
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: not proper to say that there are modes or qualities
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: in him, but simply attributes, And even in created things,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: that which is found in them always in the same
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: mode as existence and duration in the thing which exists
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: and endures, ought to be called attribute and not mode
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: or quality. Fifty seven. That some attributes exist in the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: things to which they are attributed, and others only in
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: our thought. And what duration and time are of these
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: attributes or modes? There are some which exist in the
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: things themselves, and others that have only in existence in
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: our thought. Thus, for example, time, which we distinguish from duration,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: taken in its generality and called the measure of motion,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: is only a certain mode under which we think duration itself.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: For we do not conceive the duration of things that
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: are moved to be different from the duration of things
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: that are not moved, As is evident from this that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: if two bodies are in motion for an hour, the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: one moving quickly and the other slowly, we do not
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: reckon more time in the one than in the other,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: although there may be much more motion in the one
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: of the bodies than in the other. But that we
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: may comprehend the duration of all things under a common measure,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: we compare their duration with that of the greatest and
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: most regular motions that give rise to years and days,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: and which we call time. Hence, what is so designated
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: is nothing super added to the chicken in its generality,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: but a mode of thinking. Fifty eight That number and
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: all universals are only modes of thought in the same way. Number,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: when it is not considered as in created things, but
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: merely in the abstract or in general, is only a
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: mode of thinking. And the same is true of all
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: those general ideas we call universals. Fifty nine. How universals
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: are formed, and what are the five common? That is, genus, species, difference, property,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: and accident. Universals arise merely from our making use of
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: one and the same idea in thinking of all individual
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: objects between which there subsists a certain lightness. And when
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: we comprehend all the objects represented by this idea under
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: one name, this term likewise becomes universal. For example, when
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: we see two stones and do not regard their nature
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: farther than to remark that there are two of them,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: we form the idea of a certain number, which we
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: call the binary. And when we afterwards see two birds
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: or two trees and merely take notice of them, so
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: far as to observe that there are two of them,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: we again take up the same idea as before, which
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: is accordingly universal, and we likewise give to this number
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: the same universal appellation of binary. In the same way,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: when we consider a figure of three sides, we form
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: a certain idea, which we call the idea of a triangle,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and we afterwards make use of it as the universal
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: to represent to our mind all other figures of three sides.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: But when we remark more particularly that the figures of
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: three sides some have a right angle and others not,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: we form the universal idea of a right angle triangle, which,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: being related to the proceeding as more general, may be
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: called species, and the right angle the universal difference by
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: which right angle triangles are distinguished from all others. And further,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: because the square of the side which sustains the right
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: angle is equal to the squares of the other two sides,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: and because this property belongs only to this species of triangles,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: we may call it the universal property of the species. Finally,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: if we suppose that of these triangles some are moved
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and others not, this will be their universal accident. And
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: accordingly we commonly reckon five universals, that is, genus, species, difference, property, accident,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: sixty of distinctions, and first of the real. But number
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: in things themselves arises from the distinction there is between them,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: and distinction is threefold. That is, real, modal, and of reason.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: The real properly subsists between two or more substances. And
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: it is sufficient to assure us that two substances are
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: really mutually distinct, if only we are able clearly and
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: distinctly to conceive the one of them without the other.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: For the knowledge we have of Gone renders it certain
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: that he can affect all that of which we have
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: a distinct idea. Wherefore, since we have now, for example,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: the idea of an extended and corporeal substance, though we
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: as yet do not know with certainty whether any such
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: thing is really existent, Nevertheless, merely because we have the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: idea of it, we may be assured that such may exist,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: and if it really exists, that every part which we
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: can determine by thought, must be really distinct from the
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: other parts of the same substance. In the same way,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: since everyone is conscious that he thinks, and that he
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: in thought can exclude from himself every other substance, whether
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: thinking or extended. It is certain that each of us,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: thus considered, is really distinct from every other thinking and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: corporeal substance. And although we suppose that God united a
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: body to his soul so closely that it was impossible
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: to form a more intimate union, and thus made a
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: composite whole, the two substances would remain really distinct notwithstanding
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: this union, For with whatever tie God connected them, he
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: was not able to rid himself of the power he
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: possessed of separating them, or of conserving the one part
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: from the other. And the things which God can separate
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: or conserve separately are really distinct. End of section four
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Section five of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: RENEEDEI Kart, translated by John Vitch. This librifox recording is
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: in the public domain of the Principles of Human Knowledge,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: sixty one of the modal distinction. There are two kinds
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: of modal distinctions. That is, that between the mode properly
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: so called and the substance of which it is a mode,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: and that between two modes of the same substance of
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the former. We have an example in this that we
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: can clearly apprehend substance apart from the mode which we
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: say differs from it, while on the other hand, we
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: cannot conceive this mode without conceiving the substance itself. There is,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: for example, a modal distinction between figure or motion and
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: corporeal substance, in which both exist. There is a similar
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: distinction between affirmation or recollection and the mind of the
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: latter kind. We have an illustration in our ability to
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: recognize the one of two modes apart from the other,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: as figure apart from motion, and motion apart from figure,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: though we cannot think of either the one or the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: other without thinking of the common substance in which they adhere. If,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: for example, a stone is moved and is withal square,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: we can indeed conceive its square figure without its motion,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: and reciprocally is motion without its square figure. But we
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: can conceive neither this motion nor this figure apart from
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: the substance of the stone. As for the distinction according
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: to which the mode of one substance is different from
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: another substance or from the mode of another substance, as
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: the motion of one body is different from another body
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: or from the mind, or motion is different from doubt.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: It seems to me that it should be called real
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: rather than modal, because these modes cannot be clearly conceived
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: apart from the really distinct substances of which they are
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: the modes sixty two of the distinction of reason logical distinction. Finally,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: the distinction of reason is at between a substance and
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: some of its attributes, without which it is impossible. However,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: we can have a distinct conception of the substance itself,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: or between two such attributes of a common substance, the
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: one of which we essay to think without the other.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: This distinction is manifest from our inability to form a
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: clear and distinct idea of such substance if we separate
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: from it such attribute, or to have a clear perception
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: of the one of two such attributes if we separate
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: it from the other. For example, because any substance which
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: ceases to endure ceases also to exist. Duration is not
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: distinct from substance except in thought at Zion, and in general,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: all the modes of thinking which we consider as in
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: objects differ only in thought as well from the objects
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: of which they are thoughts as from each other. In
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: a common object, it occurs indeed to me that I
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: have elsewhere classed this kind of distinction with the model,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: that is, towards the end of the reply to the
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: first Objections to the Meditations on the First Philosophy. But
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: there it was unlynecessary to treat of these distinctions generally,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and it was efficient for my purpose at that time
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: simply to distinguish both of them from the will sixty three.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: How thought and extension may be distinctly known as constituting
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: the one the nature of the mind, the other that
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: of body. Thought and extension may be regarded as constituting
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: the natures of intelligent and corporeal substance. And then they
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: must not be otherwise conceived than as the thinking and
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: extended substance themselves, that is, as mind and body, which
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: in this way are conceived with the greatest clearness and distinctness. Moreover,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: we more easily conceive extended or thinking substance than substance
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: by itself, or with the emission of its thinking or extension.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: For there is some difficulty in abstracting the notion of
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: substance from the notions of thinking and extension, which in truth,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: are only diverse in thought itself. That is logically different,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: and the concept is not more distinct because it comprehends
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: fewer properties, but because we accurately distinguish what is comprehended
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: in it from all other notions. Sixty four. How these
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: may likewise be distinctly conceived as modes of substance. Thought
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: and extension may be also considered as modes of substance
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: inas far, namely as the same mind may have different thoughts,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: and the same body, with its size unchanged, may be
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: extended in several diverse ways, at one time more in
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: length and less in breath or depth, and at another
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: time more in breadth and less in length. And then
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: they are motally distinguished from substance, and can be conceived
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: not less clearly and distinctly, provided they be not regarded
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: as substances or things separated from others, but simply as
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: modes of things. For by regarding them as in the
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: substances of which they are the modes, we distinguish them
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: from these substances and take them for what in truth
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: they are. Whereas, on the other hand, if we wish
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: to consider them apart from the substances in which they are,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: we should by this itself, regard them as self subsisting things,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: and thus confound the ideas of mode and substance. Sixty five.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: How we may likewise know their modes in the same
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: way we will best apprehend the diverse modes of thought
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: as intellect, imagination, recollection, volition, et cetera. And also the
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: diverse modes of extension, or those that belong to extension,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: as all figures, the situation of parts and their motions,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: provided we consider them simply as modes of the things
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: in which they are, and motion, as far as it
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: is concerned, provided we think merely of locomotion, without seeking
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: to know the force that produces it, and which nevertheless
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: I will essay to explain in its own place. Sixty six.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: How our sensations, affections, and appetites may be clearly known,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: although we are frequently wrong in our judgments regarding them,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: There remain are sensations, affections, and appetites of which we
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: may also have a clear knowledge, if we take care
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: to comprehend in the judgments we form of them, only
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: that which is precisely contained in our perception of them,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: and of which we are immediately conscious. There is, however,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: great difficulty in observing this, at least in respect of sensations,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: because we have, all, without exception, from our youth, judged
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: that all the things we perceived by our senses had
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: in existence beyond their thought, and that they were entirely
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: similar to the sensations, that is, perceptions we had of them. Thus,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: when for example, we saw a certain color, we thought
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: we saw something occupying a place out of us, and
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: which was entirely similar to that idea of color we
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: were then conscious of, and from the habit of judging
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: in this way, we seem to see this so clearly
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: and distinctly that we esteemed it, that is, the externality
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: of the color certain and indubitable. Sixty seven that we
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: are frequently deceived in our judgments regarding pain itself, The
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: same prejudice has placed in all our other sensations, even
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: in those of titillation and pain. For though we are
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: not in the habit of believing that there exist out
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: of us objects that resemble titillation and pain, we do
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: not nevertheless consider these sensations as in the mind alone,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: or in our perception, but as in the hand, or foot,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: or some other part of the body. There is no reason, however,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: to constrain us to believe that the pain, for example,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: which we feel as it were in the foot, is
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: something out of the mind existing in the foot, or
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: that the light which we see as it were in
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: the sun exists in the sun as it is in us.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Both of these beliefs are prejudices of our early years,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: as will clearly appear in the sequel sixty eight. How
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: in these things what we clearly conceive is to be
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: distinguished from that in which we may be deceived, But
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: that we may distinguish what is clear in our sensations
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: from what is obscure. We ought most carefully to observe
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: that we possess a clear and distinct knowledge of pain, color,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: and other things of this sort when we consider then
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: simply as sensations or thought, but that when they are
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: judged to be certain things subsisting beyond our mind, we
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: are wholly unable to form any conception of them. Indeed,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: when any one tells us that he sees color in
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: a body, or feels pain in one of his limbs,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: this is exactly the same as if he said that
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: he dareesaw or felt something of the nature of which
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: he was entirely ignorant, or that he did not know
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: what he saw or felt. For although when less attentively
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: examining his thoughts, a person may easily persuade himself that
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: he has some knowledge of it, since he supposes that
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: there is something resembling that sensation of color or of
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: pain of which he is conscious. Yet if he reflects
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: somewhat the sensation of color or pain represents to him
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: as existing in a colored body or in a wounded member,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: he will find that of such he has absolutely no knowledge.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: Sixty nine that magnitude, figure, et cetera are known far
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: differently from color, pain, et cetera. What we have said
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: above will be more manifest, especially if we consider that
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: size in the body perceived figure motion at least local.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: For philosophers, by fancying other kinds of motion, have rendered
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: its nature less intelligible to themselves. The situation of parts, duration, number,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: and those other properties which, as we have already said,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: we clearly perceive in all bodies, are known by us
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: in a way altogether different from that in which we
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: know what color is in the same body, or pain, smell, taste,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: or any other of those properties which I have said
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: above must be referred to the senses. For although when
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: we see a body we are not less assured of
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: its existence from its appearing figured down from its appearing colored,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: we yet know with far greater clearness its property of
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: figure than its color. Seventy that we may judge of
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: sensible things in two ways, by the one of which
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: we avoid error, by the other fall into it. It
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: is thus manifest that to say we perceive colors and
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: objects is in reality equivalent to saying we perceive something
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: in objects, and are yet ignorant of what it is,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: except as that which determines in us a certain, highly
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: vivid and clear sensation, which we call the sensation of color.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: There is, however, very great diversity in the manner of judging.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: For so long as we simply judge that there is
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: an unknown something in objects, that is, in things such
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: as they are, from which the sensation reached us, so
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: far are we falling into error. That, on the contrary,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: we thus rather provide against it, For we are less
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: apt to judge rashly of a thing which we observe
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: we do not know. But when we think we perceive
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: colors in objects, although we are in reality ignorant of
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: what we then denominate color, and are unable to conceive
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: any resemblance between the color we supposed to be in
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: objects and that of which we are conscious and sensation. Yet,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: because we do not observe this, or because there are
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: in objects several properties as size, figure, number, etc. Which,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: as we clearly know, exist or may exist in them
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: as they are perceived by our senses or conceived by
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: our understanding, we easily glide into the error of holding
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: that what is called color in objects is something entirely
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: resembling the color we perceive, and thereafter of supposing that
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: we have a clear perception of what is in no
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: way perceived by us. Seventy one that the chief cause
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: of our errors is to be found in the prejudices
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: of our childhood. And here we may notice the first
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: and chief cause of our errors. In early life, the
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: mind was so closely bound to the body that it
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: attended to nothing beyond the thoughts by which it perceived
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: the objects that made impression on the body. Nor as yet,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: did it refer these thoughts to anything existing beyond itself,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: but simply felt pain when the body was hurt, or
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: pleasure when anything beneficial to the body occurred, or if
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: the body was so highly affected that it was neither
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: greatly benefited nor hurt. The mind experienced the sensations we
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: call tastes, smells, sounds, heat, cold, light, colors, and the like,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: which in truth are representative of nothing existing out of
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: our mind, and which vary according to the diversities of
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: the parts and mode in which the body is affected.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: The mind, at the same time also press the magnitudes, figures, motions,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: and the like, which were not presented to it as sensitions,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: but as things or the modes of things existing or
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: at least capable of existing, out of thought, although it
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: did not yet observe this difference between these two kinds
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: of perceptions. And afterwards, when the machine of the body,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: which has been so fabricated by nature that it can,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: of its own inherent power move itself in various ways
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: by turning itself at random on every side, followed after
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: what was useful and avoided what was detrimental. The mind,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: which was closely connected with it, reflecting on the objects
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: it pursued or avoided, remarked for the first time that
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: they existed out of itself, and not only attributed to
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: them magnitudes, figures, motions, and the like, which it apprehended
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: either as things or the modes of things, but in
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: addition attributed to them tastes, odors, and the other ideas
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: of that sort, the sensations of which were caused by itself.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: And as it only considered other objects in so far
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: as they were useful to the body in which it
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: was immersed, it judged the there was greater or less
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: reality in each object, according as the impressions it caused
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: on the body were more or less powerful. Hence arose
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: to believe that there was more substance our body in
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: rocks and metal than in air or water, because the
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: mind perceived in them more heartness and weight. Moreover, the
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: air was not to be merely nothing, so long as
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: we experienced no agitation of it by the wind or
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: did not feel it hot or cold. And because the
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: stars gave hardly more light than the slender flames of candles,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: we supposed that each star was but of this size. Again,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: since the mind did not observe that the earth moved
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: on its axis, or that its superfacies was curved like
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: that of a globe, it was on that account more
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: ready to judge the earth immovable and its surface flat.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: And our mind has been imbued from our infancy with
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: a thousand other prejudices of the same sort, which afterwards,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: in our youth we forgot, we had accepted without sufficient examination,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: and admitted as possessed of the highest truth and clearness,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: as if they had been known by means of our senses,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: or implanted in us by nature seventy two. That the
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: second cause of our errors is that we cannot forget
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: these prejudices. And although now in our mature years, when
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: the mind, being no longer wholly subject to the body,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: it is not in the habit of referring all things
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: to it, but also seeks to discover the truth of
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: things considered in themselves. We observe the falsehood of a
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: great many of the judgment we have before formed. Yet
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: we experience the difficulty in expunging them from our memory,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: and so long as they remain there, they give rise
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: to various errors. Thus, for example, since from our earliest
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: years we imagine the stars to be of very small size,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: we find it highly difficult to rid ourselves of this imagination,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: although assured by plain astronomical reasons that they are of
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: the greatest, so prevailing is the power of preconceived opinion
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: seventy three. The third cause is that we become fatigued
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: by attending to those objects which are not present to
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: the senses, and that we are thus accustomed to judge
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: of these not from present percent, but from preconceived opinion. Besides,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: our mind cannot attend to any object without at length
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: experiencing some pain and fatigue. And of all objects it
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: has the greatest difficulty in attending to those which are
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: present neither to the senses nor to the imagination, whether
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: for the reason that this is natural to it from
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: its union with the body, or because in our early years,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: being occupied merely with perceptions and imaginations, it has become
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: more familiar with and acquired greater facility in thinking in
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: those modes than in any other. Hence, it also happens
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: that many are unable to conceive any substance except what
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: is imaginable and corporeal, and even sensible, for they are
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: ignorant of the circumstance that those objects alone are imaginable,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: which consist in extension, motion, and figure, while there are
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: many others beside these that are intelligible, and they persuade
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: themselves that nothing can subsist but body, and finally, that
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: there is no body which is not sensible. And since
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: in truth we perceive no objects such as it is
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: by sense alone, but only by our reason exercised upon
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: sensible objects, as will hereafter be clearly shown, it thus
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: happens that the majority during life perceived nothing, unless in
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: a confused way. Seventy four. The fourth source of our
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: errors is that we attach our thoughts to words which
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: do not express them with accuracy. Finally, since for the
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: use of speech, we attach all our conceptions to words
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: by which you express them, and commit to memory or
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: thoughts in connection with these terms, and as we afterwards
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: find it more easy to recall the words than the
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: things signified by them, we can scarcely conceive anything with
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: such distinctness as to separate entirely what we can see
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: from the words that were selected to express it. On
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: this account, the majority attend to words rather than to things,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: and thus very frequently ascend to terms without attaching to
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: them any meaning, either because they think they once understood them,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: or imagine they received them from others by whom they
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: were correctly understood. This, however, is not the place the
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: trait of this matter in detail, seeing the nature of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: the human body has not yet been expounded, nor the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: existence even of body established. Enough. Nevertheless, appears to have
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: been said to enable one to distinguish such of our
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: conceptions as are clear and distinct from those that are
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: obscure and confused. Seventy five Summary of what must be
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: observed in order to philosophize correctly. Wherefore, if we would
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: philosophize it in earnest and give ourselves to the surge
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: after all the truths we are capable of knowing, we must,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: in the first place, lay aside our prejudices. In other words,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: we must take care scrupulously to withhold our assent from
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: the opinions we have formerly admitted, until upon new examination
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: we discover that they are true. We must, in the
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: next place, make an orderly review of the notions we
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: have in our minds, and hold us through all and
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: only those which we will clearly and distinctly apprehend. In
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: this way, we will observe first of all that we
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: exist in so far as it is our nature to think,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: and at the same time that there is a God
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: upon whom we depend, and after considering his attributes, we
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: will be able to investigate the truth of all other things,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: since God is the cause of them. Besides the notions
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: we have of God and of our mind, we will
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: likewise find that we possess the knowledge of many propositions
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: which are eternally true, as for example, that nothing cannot
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: be the cause of anything, et cetera, and also of
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: certain sensations that affect us, as of pain, colors, tastes,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: et cetera, although we do not yet know the cause
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: of our being so affected. And comparing what we have
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: now learned by examining those things in their order with
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: our former confused knowledge of them, we will acquire the
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: habit of forming clear and distinct conceptions of all the
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: objects we are capable of knowing. In these few precepts
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: seem to me to be comprised the most general and
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: important principles of human knowledge seventy six. That we ought
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: to prefer the divine authority to our perception, but that,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: apart from things revealed, we ought to assent to nothing
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: that we do not clearly apprehend. Above all, we must
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: impress on our memory the infallible rule that what God
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: has revealed is incomparably more certain than anything else, and
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: that we ought to submit our belief to the divine
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: authority rather than to our own judgment, even although perhaps
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: the light of reason should that the greatest clearness and
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: evidence appear to suggest to us something contrary to what
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: is revealed. But in things regarding which there is no revelation,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: it is by no means consistent with the character of
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: a philosopher to accept this true what he has not
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: ascertained to be such, and to trust more to the senses,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: in other words, to the inconsiderate judgment of childhood than
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: to the dictates of mature reason. End of section five,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: Section six of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy Berneedic
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Art translated by John Vitch. This lipropox recording is in
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: a public domain recording by phone. Part two of the
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: Principles of Material Things one the grounds on which the
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: existence of material things may be known with certainty. Although
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: we are all sufficiently persuaded of the existence of material things.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: Yet since this was before called in question by us,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: and since we reckon the persuasion of their existence, as
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: among the prejudices of our childhood, it is now necessary
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: for us to investigate the grounds on which this truth
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: may be known with certainty. In the first place, then
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: it cannot be doubted that every perception we have comes
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: to us from some object different from our mind, For
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: it is not in our power to cause ourselves to
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: experience one perception rather than another, the perception being entirely
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: dependent on the object which affects our senses. It may
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: indeed be a matter of inquiry whether that object be
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: God or something different from God. But because we perceive,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: or rather stimulated by sense, clearly and distinctly apprehend, certain
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: matter extends in lengths, breath, and thickness, the various parts
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: of which have different figures and motions, and give rise
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: to the sensation we have of colours, smells, pain, et cetera.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: God would without question deserve to be regarded as a
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: deceiver if he directly and of himself presented to our mind.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: The idea of this extended matter are merely caused it
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: to be presented to us by some object which possessed
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: neither extension, figure, nor motion. For we clearly conceive this
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: matter as entirely distinct from God and from ourselves or
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: our mind, and appear even clearly to discern that the
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: idea of it is formed in us on occasion of
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: objects existing out of our minds, to which it is
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: in every respect similar. But since God cannot deceive us,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: for this is repugnant to his nature, as has already
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: been remarked, we must unhesitatingly conclude that there exists a
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: certain object extended in lengths, breath, and thickness, and possessing
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: all those properties which we clearly apprehend to belong to
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: what is extended, And this extended substance is what we
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: call body or matter. Two, how we likewise know that
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: the human body is closely connected with the mind, we
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: ought also to conclude that a certain body is more
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: closely united to our mind than any other, because we
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: clearly observe that pain and other sensations affect us without
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: our foreseeing them, And these the mind is conscious, do
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: not arise from itself alone, nor pertain to it in
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: so far as it is a thing which thinks, but
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: only in so far as it is united to another thing,
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: extended and movable, which is called the human body. But
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: this is not the place to treat in detail of
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: this matter. Three, that the perceptions of the senses do
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: not teach us what is in reality in things, but
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: what is beneficial or hurtful to the composite whole of
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: mind and body. It will be sufficient to remark that
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: the perception of the senses are merely to be referred
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: to this intimate union of the human body and mind,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: and that they usually make us aware of what in
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: external objects may be useful or adverse to this union,
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: but do not present to us these objects as they
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: are in themselves, unless occasionally and by accident. For after
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: this observation, we will without difficulty lay aside the prejudices
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: of the senses, and will have recourse to our understanding
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: alone on this question, by reflecting carefully on the ideas
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: implanted in it by nature. Four, That the nature of
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: body consists not in weight, hardness, color, and the like,
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: but in extension alone. In this way we will discern
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: that the nature of matter or body considered in general,
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: does not consist in its being hard or ponderous, or colored,
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: or that which affects our senses in any other way,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: but simply in its being a substance extended in length, breath,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: and depth. For with respect to hardness. We know nothing
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: of it by sense farther than that the parts of
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: hard bodies resist the motion of our hands on coming
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: into contact with them. But if every time our hands
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: move towards any part, all the bodies in that place
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: preceded as quickly as our hands approached, we should never
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: feel hardness. And yet we have no reason to believe
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: that bodies which might thus precede would, on this account
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: lose that which makes them bodies. The nature of body
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: does not therefore consist in hardness. In the same way,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: it may be shown that weight, color, and all other
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: qualities of this sort which are perceived in corporeal matter
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: may be taken from it itself, meanwhile remaining entire. It
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: thus follows that the nature of body depends on none
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: of these five. That the truth regarding the nature of
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: body is obscured by the opinions respecting rarefaction and a
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: vacuum with which we are preoccupied, there still remain two
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: causes to prevent its being fully admitted that the true
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: nature of body consists in extension alone. The first is
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: the prevalent opinion that most bodies admit of being so
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: verified and condensed that when rarefied, they have greater extension
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: than when condensed, and some even have subtilized to such
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: a degree as to make a distinction between a substance
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: of body and its quantity, and between quantity itself and extension.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: The second cause is this, that when we conceive only
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: extension in length, breath, and death, we are not in
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: the habit of saying that body is there but only
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: space and further void space, which the generality believes to
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: be in mare negation six, in what way rare faction
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: takes place. But with regard to rare faction and condensation,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: whoever gives his attention to his own thoughts and admits
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: nothing of which he is not clearly conscious, will not
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: suppose that there is anything in those processes further than
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: a change of figure in the body rarefied or condensed.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: So that, in other words, rare bodies are those between
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: the parts of which there are numerous distances filled with
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: other bodies, and dense bodies, on the other hand, those
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: whose parts approaching each other either diminish these distances or
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: take them whole away, in the latter of which cases
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: the body is rendered absolutely dense. The body, however, when
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: condensed has not therefore less extension than when the parts
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: embrace a greater space, owing to their removal from each
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: other and their dispersion into branches. For we ought not
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: to attribute to it the extension of the pores or
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: distances which its parts do not occupied when it is rarefied,
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: but to the other bodies that fill these interstices. Just
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: as when we see sponge full of water or any
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: other liquid, we do not suppose that each part of
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: the sponge has on this account greater extension than when
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: compressed and dry, but only that its pores are wider,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: and therefore that the body is diffused over a larger space.
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: Seven That rare faction cannot be intelligibly explained unless in
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: the way here proposed, And indeed I am unable to
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: discover the force of the reasons which we have induced
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: some to say that rare faction is the result of
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: the augmentation of the quantity of body, rather than to
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: explain it on the principle exemplified in the case of
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: a sponge. For although when air or water is rarefied,
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: we do not see any of the pores that are
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: rendered large, or a new body that is added to
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: occupy them. It is yet less agreeable to reason to
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: suppose something that is unintelligible for the purpose of giving
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: a verbal and merely apparent explanation of the rare faction
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: of bodies, than to conclude, because of the rare faction,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: that there are pores or distances between the parts which
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: are increased in size and filled with some new body.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: Nor ought we to refrain from assenting to this explanation
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: because we perceive this new body by none of our senses.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: For there is no reason which obliges us to believe
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: that we should perceive by our senses or the body
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: in existence. And we see that it is very easy
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: to explain rarefaction in this manner, but impossible in any other.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: For in fine, there would be, as appears to me,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: a manifest contradiction in supposing that any body was increased
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: by a quantity or extension which is had not before,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: without the addition to it of a new extended substance,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: in other words, of another body. Because it is impossible
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: to conceive any addition of extension or quantity through a
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: thing without supposing the addition of a substance having quantity
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: or extension, as will more clearly appear from what follows eight,
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: that quantity and number differ only in thought, that sna
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: from that which has quantity and is numbered, for quantity
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: differs from extended substance, and number from what is numbered,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: not in reality, but merely in our thought, So that,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: for example, we may consider the whole nature of corporeal substance,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: which is comprised in a space of ten feet, although
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: we do not attend to this measure of ten feet
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: for the obvious reason that the thing conceived is of
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: the same nature in any part of that space, is
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: in the whole. And on the other hand, we can
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: conceive the number ten as also a continuous quantity of
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: ten feet without thinking of this determinis substance, because the
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: concept of the number ten is manifestly the same whether
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: we consider a number of ten feet or ten of
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: anything else. And we can conceive a continuous quantity of
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: ten feet without thinking of this or that determined substance,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: although we cannot conceive it without some extended substance of
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: which it is the quantity. It is, in reality, however,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: impossible that any even the least part of such quantity
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: or extension can be taken away without the retrenchment at
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: the same time of as much of the substance. Nor,
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, can we lessen the substance without
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: at the same time taking as much from the quantity
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: or extension. Nine That corporeal substance, when distinguished from its quantity,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: is confusedly conceived as something incorporeal. Although perhaps some express
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: themselves otherwise on this matter, I am nevertheless convinced that
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: they do not think differently from what I have now said,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: For when they distinguish corporeal substance from extension or quantity,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: they either mean nothing by the word corporeal substance, or
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: they form in their minds merely a confused idea of
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: incorporeal substance, which they falsely attribute to corporeal, and leave
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: to extension the true idea of this corporeal substance, which
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: extension they call an accident, but with such impropriety as
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: to make it easy to discover that their words are
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: not in harmony with their thoughts. Ten. What space or
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: internal place? Is space or internal place and a corporeal
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: substance which is comprised in it are not different in reality,
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: but merely in the mode in which they are wont
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: to be conceived by us. For in truth, the same
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: extension in length, breath, and death which constitutes space constitutes body,
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: and the difference between them lies only in this that
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: in body we consider extension as particular and conceive it
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: to change with the body, whereas in space we attribute
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: to extension and generic unity. So that after taking from
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: a certain space to the body which occupied it, we
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: do not suppose that we have at the same time
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: removed the extension of the space, because it appears to
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: us that the same extension remains there so long as
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: it is of the same magnitude and figure, and preserves
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: the same situation in respect to certain bodies around it
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: by means of which we determine this space. Eleven, how,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: space is not in reality different from corporeal substance, and indeed,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: it will be easy to discern that it is the
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: same extension which constitutes the nature of body as of space,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: and that these two things are mutually diverse, only as
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: the nature of the genus and species differs from that
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: of the individual. Provided we reflect on the idea we
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: have of any body, taking a stone, for example, and
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: reject all that is not essential to the nature of
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: body in the first place. Then hardness may be rejected,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: because if the stone were liquefied or reduced to powder,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: it would no longer possess hardness, and yet would not
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: cease to be a body. Color also may be thrown
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: out of account, because we have frequently seen stones so
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: transparent as to have no color. Again, we may reject weight,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: because we have the case of fire, which, though very light,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: is still a body. And finally, we may reject cold, heat,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: and all other qualities of this sort, either because they
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: are not considered as in the stone, or because with
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: the change of these qualities the stone is not supposed
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: to have lost in nature of body. After this examination
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: we will find that nothing remains in the idea of body,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: except that it is something extended in length, breadth, and depth.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: And this something is comprised in our of space, not
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: only if that which is full of body, but even
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: of what is called follid space. Twelve. How space differs
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: from body in our mode of conceiving it. There is, however,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: some difference between them in the mode of conception. For
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: if we remove a stone from the space or place
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: in which it was, we conceive that its extension also
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: is taken away, because we regard this as particular and
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: inseparable from the stone itself. But meanwhile, we suppose that
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: the same extension of place in which the stone was remains,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: although the place of the stone be occupied by wood, water, air,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: or by any other body, or we even supposed vacant,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: because we now consider extension in general and think that
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: the same is common to stones, wood, water, air, and
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: other bodies, and even to a vacuum itself. If there
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: is any such thing, provided it be of the same
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: magnitude and figure as before, and preserve the same situation
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: among the external bodies which determine this space. Thirteen What
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: external place is? The reason of which is that the
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: words place in space signify nothing really different from body
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: which is said to be in place, but merely designate
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: its magnitude, figure and situation among other bodies. For it
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: is necessary in order to determine the situation to regard
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: other bodies, which we consider as immovable. And according as
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: we look to different bodies, we may see that the
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: same thing at the same time does and does not
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: change place. For example, when a vessel is being carried
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: out to sea, a person sitting at the stern may
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: be said to remain always in one place if we
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: look to the parts of the vessel, since with respect
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: to these he preserves the same situation. And on the
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: other hand, if regard be had to the neighboring shores,
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: the same person will seem to be perpetually changing place,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: saying he is constantly receding from one shore and approaching another.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: And besides, if we suppose that the earth moves, and
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: that it makes precisely as much way from west to
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: east as the vessel from east to west, we will
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: again say that the person at the stern does not
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: change his place, because this place will be determined by
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: certain immovable points, which we imagine to be in the heavens.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: But if at length we are persuaded that there are
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: no points really immovable in the universe, as will hereafter
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: be shown to be probable, we will thence conclude that
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: nothing has a permanent place, unless in so far as
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: it is fixed by our thought. End of section six
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: Section seven of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: Rened de Kart, translated by John Vitch. This LibriVox recording
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain of the principles of material
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: things fourteen, where in place and space differ. The terms
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: place and space, however, differ in signification, because place more
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: expressly designates situation than magnitude or figure, while on the
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: other hand, we think of the latter when we speak
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: of space. For we frequently say that a thing succeeds
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: to the place of another, although it be not exactly
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: of the same magnitude or figure. But we do not
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: therefore admit that it occupies the same space as the other,
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: And when the situation is changed, we say that the
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: place is also changed, although they are the same magnitude
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: and figure as before. So that when we say that
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: a thing is in a particular place, we mean merely
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: that it is situated in a determinate way in respect
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: of certain other objects. And when we add that it
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: occupied by such a space or place, we understand besides,
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: that it is of such determined magnitude and figure as
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: exactly to fill this space. Fifteen. How external place is
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: rightly taken for the superfacies of the surrounding body, and
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: thus we never indeed distinguished space from extension in length, breadth,
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: and depth. We sometimes, however, consider place as in the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: thing placed, and at other times as out of it.
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: Internal place indeed differs in no way from space, but
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: external place may be taken for the superfacies that immediately
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: surrounds the thing placed. It ought to be remarked that
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: by superfacies we do not here understand any part of
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: the surrounding body, but only the boundary between the surrounding
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: and surrounded bodies, which is nothing more than a mode,
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: or at least that we speak of superfacies in general,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: which is no part of one body rather than another,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: but is always considered the same, provided it retained the
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: same magnitude and figure. For although the whole surrounding body,
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: with its superfacies, were changed, it would not be supposed
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: that the body which was surrounded by it had therefore
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: changed its place, if it meanwhile preserved the same situation
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: with respect to the other bodies that are regarded as immovable. Thus,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: if we suppose that a boat is carried in one
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: direction by the current of a stream and impelled by
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the wind in the opposite with an equal force, so
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: that its situation with respect to the banks is not changed,
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: we will readily admit that it remains in the same place,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: although the whole superfacies which surrounds it is incessantly changing.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: Sixteen That a vacuum or space in which there is
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: absolutely no body is repugnant to reason. With regard to
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: a vacuum in the philosophical sense of the term, that is,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: a space in which there is no substance, it is
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: evident that such does not exist, seeing the extension of
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: space or internal place is not different from that of body.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: For since from this alone that a body has extension
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: in length, breadth, and depth, we have reason to conclude
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: that it is a substance, it being absolutely contradicti that
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: nothing should possess extension. We ought to form a similar
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: inference regarding the space which is supposed foid, that is, that,
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: since there is extension in it, there is necessarily also substance.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: Seventeen That a vacuum in the ordinary use of the
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: term does not exclude all body, and in truth, by
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: the term vacuum in its common use, we do not
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: mean a place or space in which there is absolutely nothing,
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: but only a place in which there is none of
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: those things we presume ought to be there. Thus, because
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: a pitcher is made to hold water, it is said
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: to be empty when it is merely filled with air.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: Or if there are no fish in a fish pond,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: we say there is nothing in it, although it be
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: full of water. Thus a vessel is said to be
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: empty when in place of the merchandise which it was
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: designed to carry, it is loaded with sand, only to
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: enable it to resist the violence of the wind. And finally,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: it is in the same sense that we say space
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: is void when it contains nothing sensible, although it contained
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: created and self subsisting mane. For we are not in
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: the habit of considering the bodies near us, unless in
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: so far as they cause in our organs of sense
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: impressions strong enough to enable us to perceive them. And if,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: in place of keeping in mind it ought to be
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: understood by these terms a vacuum and nothing, we afterwards
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: suppose that in the space we call the vacuum there
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: is not only no sensible object, but no object at all.
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: We will fall into the same error as if, because
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: a picture in which there is nothing but air is
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: in common speech said to be empty, we were therefore
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: to judge that the air contained in it is not
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: a substance as subsistence eighteen. How the prejudice of an
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: absolute vacuum is to be correctioned. We have almost all
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: fallen into this error from the earliest age. For observing
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: that there is no necessary connection between a vessel and
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: the body it contains, we thought that God at least
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: could take from a vessel the body which occupied it,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: without it being necessary that any other should be put
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: in the place of the one removed. But that we
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: may be able now to correct this false opinion, it
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: is necessary to remark that there is in truth no
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: connection between the vessel and a particular body which it contains,
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: but that there is an absolutely necessary connection between the
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: concave figure of the vessel and the extension considered generally
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: which must be comprised in this cavity, so that it
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: is not more contradictory to conceive a mountain without a
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: valley than such a cavity without the extension it contains,
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: or this extension apart from an extended substance. For as
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: we have often said, of nothing, there can be no extension.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: And accordingly, if it be asked, what would happen were
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: God to remove from a vessel all the body contained
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: in it without permitting another body to occupy its place.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: The answer must be that the side of the vessel
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: would thus come into proximity with each other. For two
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: bodies must touch each other when there is nothing between them,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: and it is manifestly contradictory for two bodies to be apart,
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: in other words, that there should be a distance between them,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: and this distance yet be nothing. For all distance is
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: a mode of extension, and cannot therefore exist without an
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: extended substance. Nineteen that this confirms what was said of
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: rare affection. After we have thus remarked that the nature
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: of corporeal substance consists only in its being an extended thing,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: and that its extension is not different from that which
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: we attribute to space, however empty, it is easy to
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: discover the impossibility of any one of its parts, in
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: any way whatsoever, occupying more space at one time than
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: at another, and thus of being otherwise verified than in
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: the way explained above. And it is easy to perceive
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: also that there cannot be more matter or body in
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: a vessel when it is filled with lead or gold,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: or any other body, however heavy and hard, than when
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: it but contains air and is supposed to be empty.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: For the quantity of the parts of which a body
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: is composed does not depend on their weight or hardness,
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: but only on the extension, which is always equal in
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: the same vase. Twenty that from this the non existence
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: of atoms may likewise be done frustrated, We likewise discover
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: that there cannot exist any atoms or parts of matter
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: that are of their own nature indivisible. For however small
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: we suppose these parts to be, yet because they are
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: necessarily extended, we are always able in thought to divide
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: any one of them into two or more smaller parts,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: and may accordingly admit their divisibility. For there is nothing
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: we can divide in thought which we do not thereby
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: recognize to be divisible, And therefore, were we to judge
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: it indivisible, or judgment would not be in harmony with
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: the knowledge we have of the thing. And although we
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: should even suppose that God had produced any particle of
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: matter to a smallness so extreme that it did not
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: admit of being further divided, it would nevertheless be improperly
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: styled indivisible. For though God had rendered a particles so
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: small that it was not in the power of any
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: creature to divide it, he could not, however, deprive himself
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: of the ability to do so, since it is absolutely
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: impossible for him to lessen his own omnipotence, as was
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: before observed before, absolutely speaking, the smallest extended particle is
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: always divisible, since it is such of its very nature
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: twenty one. It is thus also demonstrated that the extension
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: of the world is indefinite. We further discover that this world,
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: or the whole universities of corporeal substance, is extended without limit.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: For wherever we fix a limit, we still not only
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: imagine beyond this space is indefinitely extended, but perceive these
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: to be truly imaginable, in other words, to be in reality,
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: such as we imagine them, so that they contain in
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: them corporeal substance indefinitely extended. For as has already been
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: shown at length, the idea of extension, which we conceive
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: in any space whatever, is plainly identical with the idea
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: of corporeal substance. Twenty two. It also follows that the
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: matter of the heavens and Earth is the same, and
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: that there cannot be a plurality of worlds. And it
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: may also be easily infirmed from all this, that the
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: Earth and heavens are made of same matter, and that
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: even although there were an infinity of worlds, they would
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: all be composed of this matter. From which it follows
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: that the plurality of worlds is impossible, because we clearly
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: conceive that the matter, whose nature consists only in its
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: being an extended substance, already wholly occupies all the imaginable
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: spaces where these other worlds could alone be, and we
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: cannot find in ourselves the idea of any other matter.
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: Twenty three. That all the variety of matter, or the
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: diversity of its forms depends on motion. There is therefore
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: but one kind of matter in the whole universe, and
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: this we know only by its being extended. All the
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: properties we distinctly perceive to belong to it are reducible
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: to its capacity of being divided and moved according to
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: its parts, And accordingly it is capable of all those
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: affections which we perceive can arise from the motion of
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: its parts. For the partition of matter in thought makes
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: no change in it, but all variation of it or
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: diversity of form, depends on motion. The philosophers even seem
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: universally to have observed this, for they said that nature
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: was the principle of motion and rest, and by nature
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: they understood that by which all corporeal things become such
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: as they are found in experience. Twenty four. What motion
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: is taking the term in is common use, but motion
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: that is local. For I can conceive no other kind
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: of motion, and therefore I do not think we ought
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: to suppose there is any other in nature. And the
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: ordinary sense of the term is nothing more than the
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: action in which a body passes from one place to another.
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: And just as we have remarked above that the same
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: thing may be said to change and not to change
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: place at the same time, so also we may say
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: that the same thing is at the same time moved
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: and not moved. Thus, for example, a person seated in
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: a vessel which is setting sail thinks he is in
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: motion if he looks to the shore that he has
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: left and consider it as fixed, but not if we
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: regard the ship itself, among the parts of which he preserves,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: always the same situation. Moreover, because we are customed to
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: suppose that there is no motion without action, and that
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: in rest there is the cessation of action, the person
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: thus seated is more properly said to be at rest
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: than emotion, seeing he is not conscious of being in action.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: Twenty five What motion is properly so called? But if,
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: instead of occupying ourselves with that which has no foundation,
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: unless in ordinary usage, we desire to know what ought
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: to be understood by motion, according to the truth of
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: the thing, we may say, in order to give it
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: a determinate nature, that it is the transporting of one
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: part of matter, or of one body, from the vicinity
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: of those bodies that are in immediate contact with it,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: or which we regard as addressed to the vicinity of
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: other bodies by a body as a part of matter.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: I understand all that which is transferred together, although it
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: be perhaps composed of several parts, which in themselves have
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: other motions. And I say that it is the transporting
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: and not the force or action which transports, with the
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: view of showing that motion is always in the immovable thing,
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: not in that which moves, For it seems to me
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: that we are not accustomed to distinguish these two things
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: with sufficient accuracy. Further, I understand that it is a
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: mode of the movable thing and not the substance, just
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: as figure is the property of the thing figured and
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: repose of that which is at rest end of section
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: seven Section eight of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: by Reneedi Kart, translated by John Vitch. This Liberfox recording
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Phone, Part three
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: of the Visible World. One that we cannot think too
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: highly of the works of God. Having now ascertained certain
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: principles of material things which were sought not by the
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: prejudices of the senses, but by the light of reason,
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: and which thus possess so great evidence that we cannot
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: doubt of their truth, it remains for us to consider
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: whether from these alone we can reduce the explication of
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: all the phenomena of nature. We will commence with those
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: phenomena that are of the greatest generality and upon which
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: the others depend, as for example, with the general structure
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: of this whole visible world. But in order to our
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: philosophizing aright regarding this, two things are first of all
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: to be observed. The first is that we should ever
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: bear in mind the infinity of the power and goodness
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: of God, that we may not fear falling into error
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: by imagining His works to be too great beautiful and perfect,
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: but that we may, on the contrary, take care less
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: by supposing limits to them of which we have no
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: certain knowledge. We appear to think less highly than we
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: ought of the power of God. Two, that we ought
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: to beware less in our presumption we imagine that the
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: ends which God proposed to him in the creation of
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: the world are understood by us. The second is that
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: we should be aware of presuming too highly of ourselves,
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: as it seems we should do if we suppose most
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: certain limits to the world without being assured of their existence,
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: either by natural reasons or by divine revelation, as if
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: the power of our thought extended beyond what God has
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: in reality made. But likewise, still more, if we persuaded
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: ourselves that all things were created by God for us only,
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: or if we merely suppose that we could comprehend by
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: the power of our intellect the ends which God proposed
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: to himself in creating the universe. Three, in what sense
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: it may be said that all things were created for
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: the sake of man? For although as far as regards morals,
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: it may be a pious thought to believe that God
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: made all things for us, seeing we may thus be
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: incited to greater gratitude and love toward Him. And although
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: it is even in some sense true, because there is
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: no created thing of which we cannot make some use,
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: if it be only that of exercising our mind in
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: considering it, and honoring God on account of it, it
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: is yet by no means probable that all things were
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: created for us in this way, that God had no
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: other end in their creation. And this supposition would be
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: plainly ridiculous in inapt in physical reasoning. For we do
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: not doubt but that many things exist, or formerly existed,
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: and have now ceased to be, which were never seen
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: or known by man, and were never of use to him.
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: End of Section eight, Section nine of Selections from the
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: Principles of Philosophy by Verneedic Kart, translated by John Pige
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: This libripox according is in the public domain according by
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: phone part four of the Earth one hundred and eighty
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: eight of what is to be borrowed from disquisitions on
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: animals and man to advance the knowledge of material objects.
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: I should add nothing further to this the fourth part
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: of the Principles of Philosophy that I purpose carrying out
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: my original design of writing a fifth and sixth part,
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: the one treating of things possessed of life, that is,
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: animals and plants, and the other of man. But because
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: I have not yet acquired sufficient knowledge of all the
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: matters of which I should desire to treat in these
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: two last parts, and do not know whether I shall
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: ever have sufficient leisure to finish them, I will here
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: subjoin a few things regarding the objects of our senses,
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: that I may not, for the sake of the latter,
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: delay too long the publication of the former parts, or
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: of what may be desiderated in them, which I might
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: have reserved for explanations in those others. For I have
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: hitherto described this earth, and generally the whole visible world,
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: as if it were merely a machine in which there
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: was nothing at all to consider except the figures and
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: motions of its parts, Whereas our senses present to us
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: many other things, for example, colors, smells, sounds, and the
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: like of which if I did not speak at all,
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: it would be thought I had omitted the explication of
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: the majority of the objects that are in nature one
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty nine. What perception senses is and how
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: we perceive, we must know, therefore, that although the human
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: soul is united to the whole body, it has nevertheless
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: its principal seat in the brain, where alone it not
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: only understands and imagines, but also perceives. And this by
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: the medium of the nerves, which are extended like threads
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: from the brain to all the other members, with which
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: they are so connected that we can hardly touch any
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: one of them without moving the extremities of some of
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: the nerves spread over it. And this motion passes to
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: the other extremities of those nerves which are collected in
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: the brain round the seed of the soul, as I
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: have already explained with sufficient manuteness in the fourth chapter
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: of the Dioptrics. But the movements which are thus excited
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: in the brain by their nerves variously affect the soul
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: or mind, which is intimately conjoined with the brain, according
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: to the diversity of the motions themselves, and the diverse
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: affections of the mind or thoughts that immediately arise from
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: these motions are called perceptions of the senses sensum perceptionis,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: or as we comonly speak, sensations senses one hundred ninety
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: of the distinction of the senses and first of the internal,
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: that is, of the affections of the mind, passions, and
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: the natural appetites. The varieties of these sensations depend firstly
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: on the diversity of the nerves themselves, and secondly of
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: the movements that are made in each nerve. We have, not, however,
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: as many different senses as there are nerves. We can
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: distinguish with seven principal classes of nerves, of which two
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: belong to the internal and the other five to the
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: external senses. The nerves which extend to the stomach, the esophagus,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: the fosses, and the other internal parts that are subservient
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: to our natural wants, constitute one of our internal senses.
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: This is called the natural appetite appetitius natillalis. The other
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: internal sense, which embraces all the emotions commotiones of the mind,
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: or passions and affections as joy sadness, love, hate, and
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: the like, depends upon the nerves, which extend to the
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: heart and the parts about the heart, and are exceedingly small.
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: For by want of example, when the blood happens to
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: be pure and well tempered, so that the dilates in
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: the heart more readily and strongly than usual, is so
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: enlarged and moves small nerves scattered around the orifices that
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: there is thence a corresponding movement in the brain, which
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: affects the mind with a certain natural feeling of joy.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: And as often as these same nerves are moved in
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: the same way, although this is by other causes, they
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: excite in her mind the same feeling senses sentiment. Thus,
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: the imagination of the enjoyment of a good does not
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: contain in itself the feeling of joy, but it causes
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: the animal spirits to pass from the brain to the
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: muscles in which these nerves are inserted, and thus dilating
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: the orifices of the heart. It also causes these small
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: nerves to move in the way appointed by nature to
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: afford the sensation of joy. Thus, when we receive news,
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: the mind first of all judges of it, and if
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: the news be good, it rejoices with that intellectual joy
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: gaudium intellectual, which is independent of any emotion commotio of
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: the body, and which the Stoics did not deny it
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: to their wise man, although they supposed to make them
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: from all passion. But as soon as this joy passes
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: from the understanding to the imagination. The spirits flow from
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: the brain to the muscles that are about the heart,
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: and they are excite the motion of the small nerves,
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: by means of which another motion is caused in the brain,
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: which affect the mind with the sensation of animal joy.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: Leticia animalis on the same principle, when the blood is
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: so thick that it flows blood sparingly into the ventricles
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: of the heart, and is not there sufficiently dilated, it
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: excites in the same nerves emotion quite different from the proceeding,
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: which communicated to the brain, gives to the mind the
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: sensation of sadness, although the mind itself is perhaps ignorant
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: of the cause of its sadness, and all the other
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: causes which move these nerves in the same way may
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: also give to the mind the same sensation. But the
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: other movements of the same nerves produce other effects, as
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: the feelings of love, hate, fear, anger, et cetera. As
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: far as they are merely affections or passions of the mind.
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: In other words, as far as they are confused thoughts
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: which the mind has not from itself alone, but from
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: its being closely joined to the body from which it
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: receives impressions, For there is the widest difference between these
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: passions and the distinct thoughts which we have of what
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: ought to be loved, or chosen or shunned, et cetera,
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: although these are often enough found together. The natural appetites
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: as hunger, thirst, and the others, are likewise sensations excited
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: in the mind by means of the nerves of the stomach, policies,
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: and other parts, and are entirely different from the will
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: which we have to eat, drink, and to do all
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: that which we think proper for the conservation of our body.
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: But because this will or appetition almost always accompanies them,
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: they are therefore named appetites one hundred and ninety one
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: of the external senses, and first of touch. We commonly
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: reckon the external senses five in number, because there are
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: as many different kinds of objects which moved the nerves
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: and the organs, and an equal number of kinds of
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: confused thoughts excited in the soul by these emotions. In
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: the first place, the nerves terminating in the skin of
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: the whole body can be touched through this medium by
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: any to real objects whatever, and moved by these holes
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: in one way by their hardness, in another, by their gravity,
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: in a third, by their heat, in a fourth by
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: their humility, et cetera. And in as many diverse modes
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: as they are either moved or hindered from their ordinary motion.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: To that extent are diverse sensations excited in the mind,
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: from which a corresponding number of tractile qualities derive their appellations.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: Besides this, when these nerves are moved a little more
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: powerfully than usual, but not nevertheless to the degree by
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: which our body is in any way hurt, there thus
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: arises a sensation of titillation, which is naturally agreeable to
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: the mind, because it testifies to it of the powers
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: of the body with which it is joined, in that
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: the latter can suffer the action causing this testillation without
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: being hurt. But if this action be strong enough to
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: hurt our body in any way, this gives to our
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: mind a sensation of pain. And we do see why
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: corporeal pleasure and pain, although sensations of quite an opposite
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: character arise nevertheless from causes nearly alike one hundred and
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: ninety two two of taste. In the second place, the
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: outer nerves scattered over the tongue and departs in its vicinity,
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: are diversely moved by the particles of the same bodies,
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: separated from each other and floating in the saliva in
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: the mouth, and thus caused sensations of diverse tastes according
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: to the diversity of figure in these particles one hundred
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: ninety three of smell. Thirdly, two nerves, also or appendages
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: of the brain, for they do not go beyond the
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: limits of the skull, are moved by the particles of
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: terrestrial bodies, separated and flying in the air, not indeed
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: by all particles indifferently, but by those only that are
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: sufficiently subtle and penetrating to enter the pores of the
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: bone we called a sponge when drawn into their nostrils,
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: and thus to reach the nerves from the different motions
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: of these particles arise the sensations of the different smells
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: one hundred ninety four of hearing. Fourthly, there are two
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: nerves within the ears, so attached to three small bones
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: that are mutually sustaining, and the first of which rests
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: on the small membrane that covers the cavity we call
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: the tympanum of the year that all the diverse vibrations
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: which the surrounding air communicates to this membrane are transmitted
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: to the mind by these nerves, and these vibrations give rise,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: according to their diversity, to the sensations of the different
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: sounds one hundred and ninety five of sight. Finally, the
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: extremities of the optic nerves composing the coat in the
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: eyes called the retina, are not moved by the air
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: nor by any terrestrial object, but only by the globules
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: of the second element. Whence we have the sense of
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: light and colors. As I have already at sufficient length
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: explained in the Dioptrics and the Treaties of Meteors one
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: hundred and ninety six, that the soul perceives only in
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: so far as it is in the brain. It is
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: clearly established, however, that the soul does not perceive insofar
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: as it is in each member of the body, but
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: only in so far as it is in the brain,
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: where the nerves, by their movements, convey to it the
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: diverse actions of the external objects that touch the parts
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: of the body in which they are in. For in
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: the first place, there are various maladies which, though they
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: affect the brain alone, yet to bring disorder upon or
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: the privus altogether of the use of or senses, just
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: as sleep, which affects the brain only, and yet takes
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: from us daily during a great part of our time,
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: the faculty of perception, which afterwards in our waking state,
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: is restored to us. The second proof is that though
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: there be no disease in the brain or in the
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: members in which the organs of the external senses are,
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: it is nevertheless sufficient to take away sensation from the
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: part of the body where the nerves terminate, if only
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: the movement of one of the nerves that extend from
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: the brain to these members be obstructed in any part
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: of the distance that is between the two. And The
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: last proof is that we sometimes feel pain, as if
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: ben certain of our members, the cause of which, however,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: is not in these members where it is felt, but
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: somewhere nearer the brain through which the nerves pass that
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: give to the mind the sensation of it. I could
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: establish this fact by innumerable experiments. I will here, however,
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: merely refer to one of them. A girl's suffering from
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: a bad ulcer in the hand, had her eyes bandaged.
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: Whenever the surgeon came to visit, her, not being able
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: to bear the sight of the dressing of the sore,
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: and the gangrene having spread. After the expiry of a
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: few days, the arm was amputated from the elbow. Without
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: the girl's knowledge, Linen cloths tied at one above the
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: other were substituted in place of the part amputated, so
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: that she remained for some time without knowing that the
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: operation had been performed. And meanwhile she complained of feeling
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: various pains, sometimes in one finger of the hand that
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: was cut off, and sometimes in another. The only explanation
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: of this is that the nurse which before stretched downwards
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: from the brain to the hand, and then terminated in
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: the arm close to the elbow, were there moved in
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: the same way as they require to be moved before
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: in the hand, for the purpose of impressing on the
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: mind residing in the brain the sensation of pain in
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: this or that finger. And this clearly shows that the
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: pain of the hand is not felt by the mind
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: in so far as it is in the hand, but
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: in so far as it is in the brain. One
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: hundred and ninety that the nature of the mind is
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: such that from the motion alone of body the various
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: sensations can be excited in it. In the next place,
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: it can be proved that our mind is of such
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: a nature that the motions of the body alone are
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: sufficient to excite in it all sorts of thoughts, without
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 1: it being necessary that these should in any way resemble
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: the motions which give rise to them, and especially that
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: these motions can excite in it those confused thoughts called
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: sensations senses. Sensationis for we see that words, whether uttered
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: by the voice or merely written, excite in our minds
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: all kinds of thoughts and emotions on the same paper
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: with the same pen and ink. By merely moving the
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: point of the pen over the paper in a particular way,
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: we can trace letters that will raise in the minds
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: of our readers the thoughts of combats, tempests, or the furies,
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: and the passions of indignation and sorrow, in place of which,
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: if the pen be moved in another way hardly different
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: from the former, this slight change will cause thoughts widely
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: different from the above, such as those of repose, peace, pleasantness,
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: and the quite opposite passages of love and joy. Someone
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: will perhaps subject that writing and speech do not immediately
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: excite in the mind any passions or imaginations of things
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: different from the letters and sounds. But if forth simply
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: the knowledge of these on occasion of which the mind,
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: understanding the signification of the words, afterwards excites in itself
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: the imaginations and passions that correspond to the words. But
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: what will be said of the sensations of pain and detillation.
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: The motion merely of a sword cutting a part of
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: our skin causes pain, but does not, on that account
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: make us aware of the motion or figure of the sword.
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: And it is certain that this sensation of pain is
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: not less different from the motion that causes it, or
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: from that of the part of our body which the
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: sword cuts, than are the sensations we have of color, sound, odor,
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: or taste. On this ground, we may conclude that our
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: mind is of such a nature that the emotions alone of
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: certain bodies can also easily excite in it all the
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: other sensations, as the motion of a sword excites in
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: it the sensation of pain. End of section nine, Section
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: ten of Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by Rene
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: de Kart, translated by John Vitch. This LibriVox recording is
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by phone of the Earth
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety eight, that by our senses we
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: know nothing of external objects beyond their figure or situation, magnitude,
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: and motion. Besides, we observe no such difference between the
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: nerves as to lead us to judge that one set
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: of them convey to the brain from the organs of
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: the external senses anything different from another, or that anything
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: at all reaches the brain. Besides the local motion of
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: the nerves themselves. And we see that local motion alone
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: causes in us not only the sensation of detillation and pain,
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: but also of light and sounds. For if we receive
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: a blow in the eye of sufficient force to cause
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: the vibration of the stroke to reach the retina, we
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: see numerous sparks of fire, which nevertheless are not out
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: of our eye. And while we stop our ear with
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: our finger, we hear a humming sound, the cause of
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: which can only proceed from the agitation of the air
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: that is shut up within it. Finally, we frequently observe
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: that heat, heartness, weight, and the other sensible qualities, as
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: far as they are in objects, and also the form
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: of those bodies that are purely material, as for example,
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: the forms of fire are produced in them by the
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: motion of certain other bodies, and that these, in their
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: turn likewise produce other motions and other bodies. And we
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: can easily conceive how the motion of one body may
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: be caused by that of another, and diversified by the size, figure,
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: and situation of its parts. But we are wholly unable
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: to conceive how these same things, that is, size, figure,
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: and motion, can produce something else of a nature entirely
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: different from themselves, as for example, those substantial forms and
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: real qualities which many philosophers supposed to be in our bodies.
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: Nor likewise can we conceive how these qualities or forms
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: possess force to cause motions in other bodies. But since
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: we know from the nature of our soul that the
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: diverse motions of body are sufficient to produce in it
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: all the sensations which it has, and since we learn
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: from experience that several of its sensations are in reality
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: caused by such motions, while we do not discover that
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: anything besides these motions ever passes from the organs of
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: the external senses to the brain, we have reason to
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: conclude that we in no way likewise apprehend that in
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: external objects which we call light, color, smell, tastes, sound,
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: heat or cold, and the other tactic qualities, or that
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: which we call our substantial forms, unless as the various
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: dispositions of these objects, which have the power of moving
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: our nerves in various ways. One hundred and ninety nine,
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: that there is no phenomenon of nature whose explanation has
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: been omitted in this treaties. And thus it may be
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: gathered from an enumeration that is easily made, that there
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: is no phenomenon of nature whose explanation has been omitted
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: in this treaties. For beyond what is perceived by the senses,
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: there is nothing that can be considered a phenomenon of nature.
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: But leaving out of account motion, magnitude, figure, and the
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: situation of the parts of each body, which I have
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: explained as they exist in body, we perceive nothing out
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: of us by our senses except light, colors, smells, tastes, sounds,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: and the tactual qualities. And these I have recently shown
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: to be nothing more, at least so far as they
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: are known to us, than certain dispositions of the objects
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: consisting in magnitude, figure and motion. Two hundred That this
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: treatise contains no principles which are not universally received, and
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: that this philosophy is not new, but of all others,
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: the most ancient and common. But I am desirous also
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: that it should be observed that though I have here
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: endeavored to given an explanation of the whole nature of
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: material things, I have nevertheless made use of no principle
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: which was not received and approved by Aristotle and by
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: the other philosophers of all ages, so that this philosophy,
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: so far from being new, is of all the others,
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: the most ancient and common. For I have, in truth
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: merely consider the figure, motion, and magnitude of bodies, and
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: examine what must follow from their mutual concourse on the
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: principles of mechanics, which are confirmed by certain and daily experience.
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: But no one ever doubted that bodies are moved, and
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: that they are of various sizes and figures, according to
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: the diversity of which their motions also vary, and that
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: from mutual collision, though somewhat greater than others, are divided
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: into many smaller and thus change figure. We have experience
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: of the truth of this, not merely by a single sense,
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: but by several as touch, sight and hearing, we also
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: distinctly imagine and understand it. This cannot be said of
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: any of the other things that fall under our senses,
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: as colors, sounds, and the like, for each of these
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: affects with one of our senses, and merely impresses upon
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: our imagination a confused image of itself, affording our understanding
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: no distinct knowledge of what it is two hundred and
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: one that sensible bodies are composed of insensible particles. But
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: I allow many particles in each body that are perceived
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: by none of our senses, and this will not perhaps
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: be approved of by those who take the senses for
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: the measure of the knowable with greatly wrong human reason. However,
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: as appears to me, if we suppose that it does
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: not go beyond the eye sight, For no one can
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: doubt that there are bodies so small as not to
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: be perceptible by any of our senses, provided he only
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: consider what is each moment added to those bodies that
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: are being increased little by little, and what is taken
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: from those that are diminished. In the same way, a
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: tree increases daily, and it is impossible to conceive how
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: it becomes greater than it was before, unless we, at
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: the same time conceive that somebody is added to it.
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: But whoever observed by the senses those small bodies that
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: are in one day added to a tree well growing
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: among the philosophers, at least those who hold that quantity
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: is indefinitely divisible, ought to admit that in the division
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: the parts may become so small as to be wholly imperceptible.
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: And indeed, it ought not to be a matter of
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: surprise that we are unable to perceive very minute bodies,
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: for the nerves that must be moved by objects to
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: cause perception are not themselves very minute, but are like
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: small chords, being composed of a quantity of smaller fibers.
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: And thus the most minute bodies are not capable of
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: moving them. Nor do I think that any one who
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: makes use of his reason will deny that we philosophize
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: with much greater truth when we judge of what takes
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: place in those small bodies which are imperceptible from their minuteness,
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: only after the analogy of what we see occurring in
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: those we do perceive, and in this way explain all
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: that is in nature. As I have essays to do
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: in this treaties than when we give an explanations of
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: the same things by inventing. I know not what novelties
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: that have no relation to the things we actually perceive
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: as first matter, substantial forms, and all that grand array
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: of qualities which many are in the habit of supposing,
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: each of which is more difficult to comprehend than all
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: that is professed to be explained by means of them
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: two hundred and two. That the philosophy of Democritus is
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: not less different from ours than from the common But
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: it may be said that Democritus also supposed certain corpuscles
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: that were of various figure, sizes, and motions, from the
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: heaping together a mutual concourse of which all sensible bodies arose.
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: And nevertheless his mode of philosophizing is commonly rejected by all.
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: To this, I replied that the philosophy of Democritus was
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: never rejected by any one, because he allowed the existence
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: of bodies smaller than those we perceive, and attributed to
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: them diverse sizes, figures, and motions. For no one can
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: doubt that there are in reality such as may have
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: already shown. But it was rejected in the first place,
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: because he supposed that these corpuscles were indivisible, on which
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: ground I also rejected. In the second place, because he
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: imagined there was a vacuum about them, which I show
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: to be impossible. Thirdly, because he attributed gravity to these bodies,
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: of which I deny the existence in any body in
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 1: so far as the body is considered by itself, because
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: it is a quality that depends on the relations of
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: situation and motion, which several bodies bear to each other.
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: And finally, because he has not explained in particular how
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: all things arose from the concourse of corpuscles alone, or
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: if he gave this explanation with regard to a few
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: of them, his whole reasoning was far from being coherent,
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: or such as would warned us in extending the same
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: explanation to the whole of nature. This, at least is
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: the verdict we must give regarding his philosophy, if we
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: may judge of his opinions from what has been handed
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: down to us in writing. I leave it to others
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: to determine whether the philosophy I profess possesses a valid coherency,
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 1: and whether on its principles we can make the requisite
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: number of deductions. And inasmuch as the consideration of figure,
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: magnitude and motion has been admitted by Aristotle and by
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: all the others, as well as by Democritus, and since
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: I reject all that the latter has supposed with this
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: single exception, while I reject generally all that has been
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: supposed by the others, it is plain that this mode
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: of philosophizing has no more affinity with that of Democritus
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: than of any other particular sect two hundred and three.
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: How may arrive at the knowledge of the figures, magnitudes,
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: and motions of the insensible particles of bodies? But since
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: I assign determined figures, magnitude, emotions to the insensible particles
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: of bodies as if I had seen them, whereas I
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: admit that they do not fall under the senses, someone
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: will perhaps demand how I have come by my knowledge
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: of them. To this, I replied that I first considered
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: in general all the clear and distinct notions of material
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: things that are to be found in our understanding, and
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: that finding no others except those of figures, magnitude, and motions,
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: and of the rules according to which these three things
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: can be diversified by each other. Which rules are the
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: principles of geometry and mechanics. I judge that all the
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: knowledge men can have of nature must of necessity be
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: drawn from this source, because all the other notions we
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: have of sensible things, as confused and obscure, can be
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: of no avail in affording us the knowledge of anything
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 1: out of ourselves, but must serve rather to impede it. Thereupon,
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: taking as my ground of inference the simplest and best
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: known of the principles that have been implanted in our
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: minds by nature, I considered the chief differences that could
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: possibly subsist between the magnitudes and figures and situations of
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: bodies insensible on account of their smallness alone, and what
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: sensible effects could be produced by their various modes of
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: coming into contact. And afterwards, when I found like effects
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: in the bodies that we perceive by our senses, I
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: judge that they could have been thus produced, especially since
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: no other mode of explaining them could be devised. And
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: in this matter, the example of several bodies made by
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: art was of great service to me, for I recognize
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: no difference between these and natural bodies. Beyond this that
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: the effects of machines depend for the most part on
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: the agency of certain instruments, which, as they must bear
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: some proportion to the hands of those who make them,
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: are always so large that their figures and motions can
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: be seen in place of which the effects of natural
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: bodies almost always depend upon certain organs so minute as
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: to escape our senses. And it is certain that all
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: the rules of mechanics belong also to physics, of which
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: it is a part or species, so that all the
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: artificial is withal natural. For it is not less natural
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: for a clock made of the requisite number of wheels
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: to mark the hours, than for a tree which has
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: sprung from this or that seed to produce the fruit
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: peculiar to it. Accordingly, just as those who are familiar
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: with automata, when they are informed of the use of
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: a machine and see some of its parts, easily infer
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: from these the way in which the others that are
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: not seen by them are made. So from considering the
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: sensible effects in parts of natural bodies, I have essayed
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: to determine the character of their causes and insensible parts
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: two hundred and four that touching the things which our
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: senses do not perceive it is sufficient to explain how
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: they can be, and that this is all that Aristotle
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: has essayed. But here someone will perhaps reply that although
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: I have supposed causes which could produce all natural objects,
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: we ought not on this account to conclude that they
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 1: were produced by these causes. For just as the same
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: artisan can make two clocks, which, though they both equally
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: well indicate the time and are not different in outward appearance,
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: have nevertheless nothing resembling in the composition of their wills.
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: So doubtless the supreme maker of things has an infinity
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: of diverse means at its disposal, by each of which
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: he could have made all the things of this world
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: to appear as besee them, without it being possible for
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: the human mind to know which of all these means
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: he chose to employ. I most freely concede this, and
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: I believe that I have done all that was required.
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: If the causes I have assigned are such that their
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: effects accurately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: determining whether it is by these or by others that
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: they are actually produced, and it will be sufficient for
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: the use of life to know the causes. Thus imagined
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: for medicine, mechanics, and in general, all the arts to
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: which the knowledge of physics is of service have further end,
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: only those effects that are sensible and that are accordingly
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: to be reckoned among the phenomena of nature. And lest
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: it should be supposed that Aristotle did or professed to
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: do anything more than this, it ought to be remembered
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: that he himself expressly says, at the commencement of the
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: seventh chapter of the first Book of the Meteorologies, that
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: with regard to things which are not manifest to the senses,
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: he thinks to adduce sufficient reasons and demonstrations of them,
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: if he only shows that they may be such as
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: he explains them two hundred and five. That nevertheless, there
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: is a moral certainty that all the things of this
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: world are such as has here been shown they may be.
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: But nevertheless, that I may not wrong the truth by
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: supposing it less certain than it is. I will here
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: distinguish two kinds of certitude. The first is called moral,
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 1: that is a certainty sufficient for the conduct of life,
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: though if we look to the absolute power of God,
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: what is morally certain may be false. Thus, those who
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: never visited Rome do not doubt that it is the
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: city of Italy, though it might be that all from
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: whom they got their information were deceived. Again, If anyone
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 1: wishing to decipher a letter written in Latin characters that
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: are not placed in regular order, bethinks himself of reading
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: a bee wherever an A is found, and a C
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: wherever there is a B, and thus of substituting in
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: place of each letter the one which follows it in
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: the order of the alphabet. And if by this means
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: he finds that there are certain Latin words composed of these,
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: he will not doubt that the true meaning of the
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 1: writing is contained in these words, although he may discover
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: this is only by conjecture. And although it is possible
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: that the writer of it did not arrange the letters
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: on this principle of alphabetical order, but on some other,
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: and thus concealed another meaning in it, For this is
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: so improbable, especially when the cipher contains a number of
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: words as to seem incredible. But they who observe how
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 1: many things regarding the magnet fire and the fabric of
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: the whole world are here deduced from a very small
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: number of principles, though they deemed that they had taken
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: them up at random and without grounds. Will yet perhaps
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that it could hardly happen that so many things
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: to to go here if these principles were false two
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: hundred and six, that we possess even more than a
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: moral certainty of it. Besides, there are some even among
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: natural things, which we judge to be absolutely certain. Absolute
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: certainty arises when we judge that it is impossible a
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: thing can be otherwise than as we think it. This
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: certainty is founded on the metaphysical ground that, as God
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: is supremely good in the source of all truth, the
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: faculty of distinguishing truth from error which He gave us
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: cannot be fallacious so long as we use it aright
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: and distinctly perceive anything by it. Of this character are
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: the demonstrations of mathematics, the knowledge that material things exist,
• 2:41:31
  Speaker 1: and the clear reasonings that are formed regarding them. The
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: results I have given in this treaties will perhaps be
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: admitted to a place in the class of truths that
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: are absolutely certain, if it be considered that they are
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: deduced in a continuous series from the first and most
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: elementary principles of human knowledge, especially if it be sufficiently
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: understood that we can perceive no external objects unless some
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: local motion be caused by them in our nerves, and
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: that such motion cannot be caused by the fixed stars,
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: owing to their great distance from us, unless emotion be
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: also produced in them and in the whole heavens lying
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: between them and us. For these points being admitted, all
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: the others at least the more general doctrines which I
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: have advanced regarding the world or Earth, for example, the
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: fluidity of the heavens, Part three, Section forty six, will
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: appear to be almost the only possible explanations of the
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: phenomena they present two hundred and seven. That, however, I
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 1: submit all my opinions to the authority of the Church. Nevertheless,
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: lest they should presume too far, I affirm nothing but
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: submit all these my opinions to the authority of the
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: Church and the judgment of the Morsage. And I desire
• 2:42:41
  Speaker 1: no one to believe anything I may have said unless
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: he is constrained to admit it by the force and
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: evidence of reason. End of section ten, recording my phone.
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 1: End of selections from the Principles of Philosophy by Rene Descartes,
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: translated by John Vitch