Appendix: Reasons Which Establish the Existence of God, and the Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man, Disposed I

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.

Professor Huxley, Lay Sermons.— ‘Descartes,’ p. 339

All that is stated here will be found proved and illustrated in the Appendix to the present volume. Notes I., II., and VI. These are now reproduced exactly as they appeared in the Appendix to the Translation of The Meditations, published in 1853. The information therein contained, and the relative passages, have since been generally utilized by writers on Descartes and Cartesianism; and not unfrequently the quotations are credited to those who thus make use of them as introduced for the first time into our Cartesian literature.

His writing appeared from 1674 to 1715. Spinoza lived from 1632-1677. His writings appeared from 1663 to 1677. Malebranche, as in some respects nearer in doctrine to Descartes, is first considered.

He speaks of ≪a certain Greek philosopher named Aristotle≫ (Tractatus, c. vii.); and Bacon is “a little confused.”

The Imagination must here be taken as equivalent simply to the Representative Faculty.— Tr.

The Discourse on Method was originally published along with the “Dioptrics.” the “Meteorics,” and the “Geometry.” See the “Introduction.”

Holland; to which country he withdrew in 1629.—Tr.

Harvey.— Lat. Tr.

Galileo.— Tr.

The Discourse on Method was originally published along with the Dioptrics, the Meteorics. and the Geometry.

The square brackets, here and throughout the volume, are used to mark additions to the original of the revised French translation.

Instead of ≪local motion,≫ the French has ‘existence In any place’.

In the French, “which alone has the power of perceiving, or of being conscious in any other way whatever.”

“As what they represent of their object has more perfection.”— French.

After limits, “what of them we do conceive is much less confused. There is, besides, no speculation more calculated to aid in perfecting our understanding, which is more important than this, inasmuch as the consideration of an object that has no limits to its perfections fills us with satisfaction and assurance.”—French.

In the French, “since extension constitutes the nature of body,”

In the French, “because our perceptions arise from impressions made upon us from another source,” i. e., than ourselves.

“To essay to comprehend the infinite.”— French.

“We will not stop to consider the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world, and we will entirely reject from our philosophy the search of final causes.” — French.

“Faculty of reasoning.”—French.

The last clause, beginning “bearing in mind,” is omitted in the French.

“What appears manifestly to him who considers it as he ought.” — French.

“First” —French.

Things and the affections of things are (in the French) equivalent to ≪what has some (i.e., a. real) existence,≫ as opposed to the class of “eternal truths,” which nave merely an ideal existence.

“And generally all the attributes that lead us to entertain different thoughts of the same thing, such as, for example, the extension of body and its property of divisibility, do not differ from the body which is to us the object of them, or from each other, unless as we sometimes confusedly think the one without thinking the other.”— French.

“By the color we perceive on occasion of it” — French.

“Which vary according to the diversities of the movements that pass from all parts of our body to the part of the brain to which it (the mind) is closely joined and united.” — French.

“Which it perceived on occasion of them” (t. e., of external objects).—French.

“Reasonings.” —French.

“Common Sense.” —French.

In the French this section begins, ≪Taste, after touch the grossest of the senses,≫ etc.

In the French this section begins, “Finally, sight is the most subtle of all the senses,” etc.

≪The diverse figures, situations, magnitudes, and motions of their parts.≫ — French.

≪That of Aristotle or the others.≫ — French.

≪Have for their end only to apply certain sensible bodies to each other in such a way that, in the course of natural causes, certain sensible effects may be produced; and we will be able to accomplish this quite as well by considering the series of certain causes thus imagined, although false, as if they were the true, since this series is supposed similar as far as regards sensible effects.≫ —French.