Therefore this idea of God which is in us demands God for its cause, and consequently God exists (by Axiom III).
Proposition III
The existence of God is also demonstrated from this, that we ourselves, who possess the idea of him, exist.
Demonstration
If I possessed the power of conserving myself, I should likewise have the power of conferring, a fortiori, on myself, all the perfections that are awanting to me (by Axioms VIII and IX), for these perfections are only attributes of substance, whereas I myself am a substance.
But I have not the power of conferring on myself these perfections, for otherwise I should already possess them (by Axiom VII).
Hence, I have not the power of self-conservation.
Further, I cannot exist without being conserved, so long as I exist, either by myself, supposing I possess the power, or by another who has this power (by Axioms I and II).
But I exist, and yet I have not the power of self-conservation, as I have recently proved. Hence I am conserved by another.
Further, that by which I am conserved has in itself formally or eminently all that is in me (by Axiom IV).
But I have in me the perception of many perfections that are awanting to me, and that also of the idea of God (by Definitions II and VIII). Hence the perception of these same perfections is in him by whom I am conserved.
Finally, that same being by whom I am conserved cannot have the perception of any perfections that are awanting to him, that is to say, which he has not in himself formally or eminently (by Axiom VII); for having the power of conserving me, as has been recently said, he should have, a fortiori, the power of conferring these perfections on himself, if they were awanting to him (by Axioms VIII and IX).
But he has the perception of all the perfections which I discover to be wanting to me, and which I conceive can be in God alone, as I recently proved:
Hence he has all these in himself, formally or eminently, and thus he is God.
Corollary
God has created the sky and the earth and all that is therein contained; and besides this he can make all the things which we clearly conceive in the manner in which we conceive them.
Demonstration
All these things clearly follow from the preceding proposition. For in it we have proved the existence of God, from its being necessary that some one should exist in whom are contained formally or eminently all the perfections of which there is in us any idea.
But we have in us the idea of a power so great, that by the being alone in whom it resides, the sky and the earth, etc., must have been created, and also that by the same being all the other things which we conceive as possible can be produced.
Hence, in proving the existence of God, we have also proved with it all these things.
Proposition IV
The mind and body are really distinct.
Demonstration
All that we clearly conceive can be made by God in the manner in which we conceive it (by foregoing Corollary). But we clearly conceive mind, that is, a substance which thinks, without body, that is to say, without an extended substance (by Postulate II); and, on the other hand, we as clearly conceive body without mind (as every one admits):
Hence, at least, by the omnipotence of God, the mind can exist without the body, and the body without the mind.
Now, substances which can exist independently of each other, are really distinct (by Definition X).
But the mind and the body are substances (by Definitions V, VI, and VII), which can exist independently of each other, as I have recently proved:
Hence the mind and the body are really distinct.
And it must be observed that I have here made use of the omnipotence of God in order to found my proof on it, not that there is need of any extraordinary power in order to separate the mind from the body but for this reason, that, as I have treated of God only in the foregoing propositions, I could not draw my proof from any other source than from him: and it matters very little by what power two things are separated in order to discover that they are really distinct.
Endnotes
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Literally, in a room heated by means of a stove. —Tr. ↩
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The “Discourse on Method” was originally published along with the “Dioptrics,” the “Meteorics,” and the “Geometry.” —Tr. ↩
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Holland; to which country he withdrew in 1629. —Tr. ↩
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Harvey. —Lat. Tr. ↩
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Galileo. —Tr. ↩
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See second endnote. ↩
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The square brackets, here and throughout the volume, are used to mark additions to the original of the revised French translation. ↩
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The term “perception” (perceptio) has a much wider signification in the writings of Descartes and the Cartesians than in the literature of the schools of philosophy in our times. Perception is, at present, used to denote the immediate knowledge we obtain through sense, or even still further restricted to the apprehension of what have been called the primary qualities of matter; with the Cartesians, and the older philosophers generally, the word is employed in the same sense in which we use consciousness, to denote an act of mind by which we merely apprehend or take note of the object of thought or consciousness, considered as distinguished from any affirmation or negation (judgment) regarding it. Accordingly, in Cartesian literature perception is synonymous with cognition, when, in the narrower sense of the term, it is said to consist in the apprehension of a thing, or in the immediate consciousness of that which is known, as opposed to judgment and
