Delphi Collected Works of René Descartes
Polyander. I thought I had satisfied you by saying to you that I was a man, but I now see that I did not calculate well. I see very well that this answer does not satisfy you, and, truth to say, I confess that it does not now satisfy myself, more especially since you have shown me the embarrassment and uncertainty into which it can throw us if we wish to get light upon it and understand it. As a matter of fact, whatever Epistemon may say, I observe great obscurity in all these metaphysical steps. If, for instance, we say that a body is a corporeal substance without saying what a corporeal substance is, these two words will not teach us more than the word body. In the same way if we say that what lives is an animate body without having first explained what body is, and what animate is, and if we likewise enquire into all the other metaphysical degrees, it may be to put forward words in a certain order, but it is to express nothing; for it indicates nothing that can be conceived or that can form a clear and distinct idea in our mind. Even when, in order to reply to your question, I said that I was a man, I did not think of all the scholastic entities of which I was ignorant, and of which I had never even heard, and which, as far as I am concerned, exist only in the imagination of those who have invented them. But I spoke of the things that we see, that we touch, that we feel, that we experience in ourselves, in a word, of the things that the simplest of men know as well as the greatest philosopher in the world, that is to say that I am a certain whole composed of two arms, two legs, a head, and all the parts which constitute what we call the human body, and which in addition is nourished, walks, feels, and thinks.
Eudoxus. I saw at once by your reply that you had not quite understood my question, and that you replied to more things than I asked of you. But as you have just numbered in the things of which you doubt, the arms, legs, head, and all the other parts composing the human body, I did not wish to interrogate you on any of these things of whose existence you are not sure. Tell me, then, what you really are inasmuch as you doubt. It is on this point alone, the only one which you can know with certainty, that I desired to question you.
Polyander. I now see that I have been mistaken in my reply and that I have gone further than I should, inasmuch as I did not properly understand your idea. That will render me more circumspect in future and at the same time it causes me to marvel at the exactitude of your method, whereby you conduct us little by little by simple and easy paths to the knowledge of the things that you wish to teach us. I have however reason to call the error that I have committed happy, since, thanks to it, I know very well that what I am inasmuch as I doubt, is in no wise what I call my body. And more than that, I do not even know that I have a body, since you have shown me that I might doubt of it. In addition to this I may add that I cannot even absolutely deny that I have a body. Yet, while entirely setting aside all these suppositions, this will not prevent my being certain that I exist. On the contrary, they confirm me yet more in the certainty that I exist and that I am not a body; otherwise, doubting of my body I should at the same time doubt of myself, and this I cannot do; for I am absolutely convinced that I exist, and I am so much convinced of it, that I can in no wise doubt of it.
Eudoxus. That is beautifully expressed and you bring out the matter so well that I should not do better myself. I see very well that all that now remains is to leave you entirely to yourself, merely taking care to set you on the right road. Nay, further: I think that in order to find the most difficult truths, provided we are well guided, the only necessity is to have common sense, to put it vulgarly; and, as I find you very well provided with that, as I had hoped, all I have to do is to show you the road you should henceforward follow. Continue then to deduce by yourself the consequences which flow from this first principle.
Polyander. This principle seems to me so fertile, and it offers me so many things at once, that it seems as though I should want a great deal of work to reduce them to order. This one admonition that you have given me to consider who I who doubt am, and not to confound myself with what I formerly believed to be me, has thrown such a flood of light upon my mind, and so dissipated the mists, that by the light of this torch I see more accurately in myself what is not visible to the eyes, and that I am more persuaded that I possess what cannot be touched, than I ever have been of possessing a body.
Eudoxus. This warmth pleases me infinitely well although it may displease Epistemon who, because you have not shewn him his error, or placed under his eyes a part of the things that you say are contained in this principle, will always believe, or will at least fear, that the torch offered to you is similar to those wandering fires that are extinguished and vanish away when they are approached, and that so you may fall into your original darkness, i.e. into your former ignorance. And it certainly would be marvellous if you who have never studied nor opened books of philosophy, should all at once gain wisdom at such a small cost. So we should not be astonished that Epistemon judges in this way.
Epistemon. Yes, I confess I took that to be the result of mere enthusiasm, and I thought that Polyander who has never meditated on the great truths which philosophy teaches, was so transported by the discovery of the least of them that he could not prevent himself from letting you know of it by his shouts of joy. But those who like you have travelled this road for long, have expended much oil and trouble in reading and re-reading the writings of the ancients, and in unravelling and expounding all that is most complicated in the philosophers, are no longer astonished by this enthusiasm, and make no more of it than they do of the vain hopes which frequently lay hold of one in commencing mathematics, when the threshold of the temple alone has so far been saluted. These novices have scarcely been given the line and the circle, and shown what is a straight line and a curved, when they believe that they are going to square the circle and duplicate the cube. But we have so frequently refuted the opinion of the Pyrrhonists, and they themselves have derived so little fruit from this method of philosophizing, that they have been in error all their lives, and have not been able to get free of the doubts which they have introduced into philosophy. They thus seem never to have worked for anything but learning to doubt: that is why, with Polyanders permission, I shall doubt whether he himself can derive anything better from it.
Eudoxus. I see very clearly that you speak to Polyander in order to spare me; your pleasantries are all the same evidently directed against me; but let Polyander speak and after that we shall see which of us will laugh last.
Polyander. I will do so willingly; nay, I fear that this dispute will become hot between you two and that if you plunge into the matter too deeply, I shall end by understanding nothing at all.
Thus shall I lose the fruit which I promise myself in returning to my original studies. I pray then that Epistemon may permit me to nourish this hope for so long as it pleases Eudoxus to lead me by the hand in the path in which he has placed me.
Eudoxus. You have already clearly recognized in considering yourself simply as doubting, that you are not body, and that as such you would not find within you any of the parts which constitute the human machine: that is to say, that you have neither arms, nor legs, nor head, nor eyes, nor ears, nor any organ which may serve for a sense of any kind. But notice whether in the same way you cannot reject all the things that you formerly understood by the description which you gave of the idea which in former times you had of man. For, as you judiciously remarked, that was a fortunate error that you committed in passing beyond the limits of my question. Thanks really to it, you can arrive at a knowledge of what you are by removing from you and rejecting all that you perceive clearly does not belong to you, and by simply admitting what so necessarily pertains to you that you are as certain of it as of your existence and doubt.
Polyander. I thank you for thus setting me on my way; I did not know any longer where I was. I said first of all that I was a whole formed of arms, legs, a head, and all the parts which form the human body, besides which I walk, am nourished, feel and think. It has been necessary for me, in order to consider myself simply
as I know myself to be, to set aside all these parts or all these members which constitute the human machine; that is to say, I must consider myself as ‘without arms, legs, head, and, in a word, without body. But it is true that what in me doubts is not what we call our body; so then it is also true that I, inasmuch as I doubt, do not eat or walk, for neither of these two things can be done without body. Further, I cannot even state that I, inasmuch as I doubt, can feel. As feet really serve for walking, so do eyes for seeing, and ears for hearing. But as I have none of these organs because I have not body, I cannot say that I feel. In addition to that, I have often in dreaming thought I felt many things that I did not really feel at all, and as I resolved to admit nothing here but what was so true that I could not doubt of it, I cannot say that I am a perceiving thing, that is, one that sees with eyes and hears with ears. It might indeed be that I thought I perceived although none of these things happened.
R. H.
Eudoxus. I cannot prevent myself from stopping you here, not to turn you aside, but to encourage you, and make you consider what common sense can do if it is well directed. As a matter of fact, is there anything in all this which is not exact, which is not legitimately argued, and well deduced from what precedes? And all that is said and done without logic, or rule, or a formula for the argument, but with the simple light of reason and with a just sense which, acting alone and of itself, is less exposed to error than when it anxiously tries to follow a thousand diverse routes which art and human idleness have discovered, less to bring it to perfection than to corrupt it. Epistemon even seems to be in this matter of our opinion; for while saying nothing of the matter, he gives us to understand that he approves what we have said. Go on, then, Polyander, and show him how far good sense can carry us, and at the same time what consequences can be derived from our principle.
Polyander. Of all the attributes which I bestowed upon myself, only one remains for me to examine and that is thought; and I see that it is the only one that I cannot separate from myself. For if it is true that I doubt just because I cannot doubt that I do so, it is also equally true that I think; for what is doubting but thinking in a certain way? And in fact if I did not think, I could not know whether I doubt or exist. Yet I am, and I know that I am, and I know it because I doubt, that is to say because I think. And better, it might be that if I ceased for an instant to think I should cease at the same time to be. Likewise the sole thing that I cannot separate from me, that I know certainly to be me and that I can now affirm without fear of deception — that one thing, I repeat, is that I am a thinking thing.
Eudoxus. What, Epistemon, do you think of what Polyander has just said? Do you find his argument to be halting or inconsequent? Should you have thought that an unlettered man, and one who had not studied, would have reasoned so well and followed out his ideas so rigorously? Here, if I do not mistake, you must begin to see that he who knows how properly to avail himself of doubt can deduce from it absolutely certain knowledge, better, more certain, and more useful than that derived from this great principle which we usually establish as the basis or centre to which all other principles are referred and from which they start forth, viz it is impossible that one and the same thing should both be and not be. I shall perhaps have occasion to demonstrate the utility of it to you. But let us not interrupt Polyander’s discourse, or remove ourselves from our subject; as to you, see if you have anything to say or any objection to make.
Epistemon. Since you lay the blame on me and even exasperate me, I shall show you what logic can do when it is roused, and at the same time I shall raise difficulties and obstacles of such a nature that not only Polyander but you yourself will have much difficulty in getting free of them. Let us then go no further, but stop here and severely examine your principles and deductions. As a matter of fact with the aid of true logic, and after your own principles, I shall show that nothing of what Polyander has said rests on a legitimate foundation or brings about any conclusion. You say that you are and that you know that you are, that you know it because you doubt and because you think. But do you know what doubting or what thinking is? And as you do not desire to admit anything of which you are not certain and do not know perfectly, how can you be certain that you are by means of attributes so obscure and consequently so uncertain? It would have been better first of all to have taught Polyander what doubt is, what thought is, what existence is, so that his reasoning might have the strength of a demonstration, and that he might first of all understand himself before applying himself to make others comprehend.
Polyander. That is beyond me, so I give it up leaving you to unravel this knot with Epistemon.
Eudoxus. For this occasion I undertake it with pleasure, but on the condition that you will be judge of our differences; for I dare not hope that Epistemon will give way to my reasoning. He who is like him, full of opinions and prepossessed with a hundred prejudices, finds it difficult to hand himself over to the light of nature alone; for long he has been accustomed to yield to authority rather than to lend his ear to the dictates of his own reason. He likes better to interrogate others, to weigh what the ancients have written, than to consult himself on the judgment which he should form; and as from his childhood he has taken as reason what rested only on the authority of precepts, now he gives his authority as a reason and desires that others should pay to him the tribute which he formerly paid them. But I shall have reason to be content and I shall believe myself to have sufficiently answered the objections which have been proposed to you by Epistemon, if you give your assent to what I shall say, and if your reason convinces you of it.
Epistemon. I am not so rebellious nor so difficult to persuade, nor is it so difficult to satisfy me as you think. And further, although I had reasons for mistrusting Polyander, I would willingly submit our case to his arbitration; and as soon as he favours you I promise you to confess myself vanquished. But he must guard himself from being deceived and falling into the error for which he reproaches others, that is to say, from taking as a motive for persuasion the esteem which he has formed for you.
Eudoxus. If he allowed himself to rest on so feeble a support he would look badly after his own interests and I presume that he will attend to them. But let us return to our subject matter.
I am quite of your opinion, Epistemon, that we must know what doubt is, what thought is, before being fully convinced of the truth of this reasoning I doubt therefore I am; or, what comes to the same, I think therefore I am. But do not go and imagine that in order to know this we must do violence to our mind and put it to torture in order to ascertain the proximate species and the essential difference, and form from it a definition by rule. All that must be left to him who is going to be a professor or to dispute in the Schools. But whoever desires to examine things by himself and judge of them as he conceives them, cannot be so devoid of mental power not to see clearly whenever he is willing to give attention to it, what doubt is, or thought or existence, and to be required to learn their distinctions. Further I declare that there are certain things which we render more obscure by trying to define them, because, since they are very simple and clear, we cannot know and perceive them better than by themselves. Nay, we must place in the number of those chief errors that can be committed in the sciences, the mistakes committed by those who would try to define what ought only to be conceived, and who cannot distinguish the clear from the obscure, nor discriminate between what, in order to be known, requires and deserves to be defined, from what can be best known by itself. And in the number of the things which are clear in the way above explained and which can be known by themselves, we must place doubt, thought, and existence.
I do not think that anyone has ever existed who is stupid enough to have required to learn what existence is before being able to conclude and affirm that he is; the same holds true of thought and doubt. Indeed I add that one learns those things in no other way than by ones self and that nothing else persuades us of them except our own experience and this knowledge and internal testi
mony that each one finds within himself when he examines things. In vain shall we define what white is in order to make it comprehensible to him who sees absolutely nothing, while in order to know it, it is only requisite to open one’s eyes and see the white; in the same way in order to know what doubt is, or thought, it is only requisite to doubt and think. That teaches us all that we can know of it, and explains more respecting it than even the most exact definitions. It is thus true that Polyander ought to have known these things, before being able to draw the conclusions which he has advanced; but since we have chosen him as judge, ask him if he has ever been ignorant of what is.
Polyander. I certainly confess that it is with the greatest pleasure that I have heard you disputing regarding a thing which you have not been able to know but from me, and it is not without some joy that I see, at least on this occasion, that it is necessary for me to be recognised as your master and for you to recognise yourselves as my pupils. Therefore in order to put both of you out of pain and quickly to resolve your difficulty (as a matter of fact we say that a thing is promptly done when it is done beyond all hope and expectation), I can state for certain that I never doubted what doubt is, although I never began to know it, or rather to think of it until the time when Epistemon desired to place it in doubt. You no sooner showed me the small amount of certainty which we have as to the existence of things which are only known to us by the evidence of the senses, than I commenced to doubt of them, and that sufficed to make me know doubt and at the same time my certainty of it, in such a way that I can affirm that as soon as I commenced to doubt I commenced to know with certainty. But my doubt and my certainty did not relate to the same object; my doubt regarded things only which existed outside me, my certainty concerned me and my doubt. Eudoxus then spoke truly when he asserted that there are things that we cannot know without seeing them; therefore to learn what doubt is, what thought is, it is necessary only that we ourselves should think and doubt. The same holds good of existence; it is only necessary to know what we understand by this word; we know at the very same moment what the thing is, at least in so far as we can know it, and there is no necessity here for a definition, which will more confuse than clear up the matter.