Difference between revisions of "Third Meditation Latin English Heffernan"

Third Meditation Latin/English translated by George Heffernan

MEDITATIO III. De Deo, qudd existat.

Claudam nunc oculos, aures obturabo, avocabo omnes sensus, imagines etiam rerum corporalium omnes vel ex cogitatione mea delebo, vel certe, quia hoc fieri vix potest, illas ut inanes & falsas nihili pendam, meque solum alloquendo & penitius inspiciendo, meipsum paulatim mihi magis notum & familiarem reddere conabor. Ego sum res cogitans, id est dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans etiam & sentiens; ut enim ante animadverti, quamvis illa quae sentio vel imaginor extra me fortasse nihil sint, illos tamen cogitandi modos, quos sensus & imaginationes [35] appello, quatenus cogitandi quidam modi tantiim sunt, in me esse sum certus. Atque his paucis omnia recensui quae vere scio, vel saltem quae me scire hactenus animadverti. Nunc circumspiciam diligentiūs an forte adhuc apud me alia sint ad quae nondum respexi. Sum certus me esse rem cogitafitem. Nunquid ergo etiam scio quid requiratur ut de aliqufi re sim certus? Nempe in hac prima cognitione nihil aliud est, qt.tin clara quaedam & distincta perceptio ejus quod affirmo; quae sane non sufficeret ad me certum de rei veritate reddendum, si posset unquam con-tingere, ut aliquid, quod ita clare & distincte perciperem, fal- 118

MEDITATION III: Concerning God, that he exists.

[1.] Now I shall close my eyes. I shall stop up my ears. I shall call away all my senses. I shall also delete all the images of corporeal things from my cogitation — or rather shall I, because this can hardly be done, certainly regard these images, as empty and false, as being nothing— , and by conversing with and more penetratingly inspecting me alone I shall attempt to render me myself gradually more known and familiar to me. I am a cogitating thing, that is, a thing doubting, affirming, denying, understanding a few things, being ignorant of many things, willing, not willing, as well as imagining and sensing. For as I have noticed before, although those things which I sense or imagine would perhaps be nothing outside me, I am still certain that those modes of cogitating which I call "sensations" and "imaginations," in so far as they are only certain modes of cogitating, are in me. [2.] And with these few words I have reviewed all the things that I truly know, or at least all the things that I have hitherto noticed that I know. Now I will look around more diligently to see whether there might perhaps be still other things within me at which I have not yet looked. I am certain that I am a cogitating thing. Do I therefore also now know what would be required in order that I might be certain of anything? In this primary cognition there is, namely, nothing other than a certain clear and distinct perception of that which I affirm: which would indeed not suffice to render me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever happen that something that I did so clearly and distinctly perceive were false. And so I now seem

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Meditatio tertia sum esset; ac proinde jam videor pro regura generali posse statuere, illud omne esse verum, quod valde clare & distincte percipio. Verumtamen multa prius ut omnino certa & manifesta ad-misi, quae tamen postea dubia esse deprehendi. Qualia ergo ista fuere? Nempe terra , coelum, sydera & caetera omnia quae sensibus usurpabam. Quid autem de illis clare percipiebam? Nempe ipsas talium rerum ideas, sive cogitationes, menti meae obversari. Sed ne nunc quidem illas ideas in me esse inficior. Aliud autem quiddam erat quod affirmabam, quodque etiam ob consuetudinem credendi clare me percipere arbitrabar, quod tamen revera non percipiebam: nempe res quasdam extra me esse, a quibus ideae istae procedebant, & quibus omnino si-miles erant. Atque hoc erat, in quo vel fallebar, vel certe, si ve-rum judicabam, id non ex vi meae perceptionis contingebat. Quid vers5? Cūm circa res Arithmeticas vel Geome[36]tricas aliquid valde simplex & facile considerabam , ut qu6d duo & tria simul juncta sint quinque, vel similia, nunquid saltem illa satis perspicue intuebar, ut vera esse affirmarem? Equidem non aliam ob causam de iis dubitandum esse postea judicavi, qtthm quia veniebat in mentem forte aliquem Deum talem mihi naturam indere potuisse, ut etiam circa illa deciperer, quae manifestissima viderentur. Sed quoties haec praeconcepta de summi Dei potentii opinio mihi occurrit, non possum non fateri, siquidem velit, facile illi esse efficere ut errem, etiam in iis quae me puto mentis oculis quAm evidentissime intueri. Quoties verO ad ipsas res, quas valde clare percipere arbitror, me converto, tam plane ab illis persuadeor, ut sponte erum-pam in has voces: fallat me quisquis potest, nunquam tamen efficiet ut nihil sim, quandiu me aliquid esse cogitabo; vel ut Third Meditation 121 to be able to establish as a general rule that all that which I very clearly and distinctly perceive is true. [3.] But yet I have previously admitted many things as com-pletely certain and manifest which later I have still found to be dubious. What kinds of things therefore have these been? Obviously the earth, the heavens, the stars and all the other things that I grasped with the senses. But what concerning these things did I clearly perceive? Obviously that the ideas or cogi-tations themselves of such things were before my mind. Yet not even now am I denying that these ideas are in me. But there was something else that I affirmed and also that — due to the custom of believing it — I thought that I clearly perceived, yet that I did not really and truly perceive, namely, that there were certain things outside me from which those ideas proceeded and to which they were completely similar. And it was in this that I was deceived — or if I judged the true, it certainly did not hap-pen by virtue of the power of my perception. [4.] But then what? When I considered something very sim-ple and easy about things arithmetical or geometrical, such as that two and three added together were five, or similar things, did I not then intuit at least these things perspicuously enough that I might affirm that they are true? I have indeed later judged that these things are to be doubted for no other reason than because it came to mind that some God could perhaps have given to me such a nature that I were to be deceived even about those things which would seem most manifest. But so often as there occurs to me this preconceived opinion about the very high pow-er of God, I cannot not admit that — if he were only to will it— it is easy for him to effect that I would err even in the things that I think that I most evidently intuit with the eyes of the mind. Yet so often as I turn to those things which I think that I very clearly perceive, I am so fully persuaded by them that I would spontaneously erupt in these words: "Whoever can, may de-ceive me, he will still never effect that I would be nothing, so long as I shall be cogitating that I am something, or that it would