The Essays of Montaigne – preface by William Carew Hazlitt

The Essays of Montaigne
by Michel de Montaigne, translated into English by Charles Cotton
[first published in 1686 – this text comes from the edition published in 1877 by William Carew Hazlitt]

Preface

The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our literature–a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This great French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the land of his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays, which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, as Hallam observes, the Frenchman’s literary importance largely results from the share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval and subsequent. But, at the same time, estimating the value and rank of the essayist, we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and the circumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education, the comparative scarcity of books, and the limited opportunities of intellectual intercourse. Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and he has found men willing to borrow of him as freely. We need not wonder at the reputation which he with seeming facility achieved. He was, without being aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals. His book was different from all others which were at that date in the world. It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels. It told its readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writer’s opinion was about men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of new light on many matters but darkly understood. Above all, the essayist uncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism public property. He took the world into his confidence on all subjects. His essays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of the writer’s mind, made by himself at different levels and under a large variety of operating influences.

Of all egotists, Montaigne, if not the greatest, was the most fascinating, because, perhaps, he was the least affected and most truthful. What he did, and what he had professed to do, was to dissect his mind, and show us, as best he could, how it was made, and what relation it bore to external objects. He investigated his mental structure as a schoolboy pulls his watch to pieces, to examine the mechanism of the works; and the result, accompanied by illustrations abounding with originality and force, he delivered to his fellow-men in a book.

Eloquence, rhetorical effect, poetry, were alike remote from his design. He did not write from necessity, scarcely perhaps for fame. But he desired to leave France, nay, and the world, something to be remembered by, something which should tell what kind of a man he was–what he felt, thought, suffered–and he succeeded immeasurably, I apprehend, beyond his expectations.

It was reasonable enough that Montaigne should expect for his work a certain share of celebrity in Gascony, and even, as time went on, throughout France; but it is scarcely probable that he foresaw how his renown was to become world-wide; how he was to occupy an almost unique position as a man of letters and a moralist; how the Essays would be read, in all the principal languages of Europe, by millions of intelligent human beings, who never heard of Perigord or the League, and who are in doubt, if they are questioned, whether the author lived in the sixteenth or the eighteenth century. This is true fame. A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same.

The text of these volumes is taken from the first edition of Cotton’s version, printed in 3 vols. 8vo, 1685-6, and republished in 1693, 1700, 1711, 1738, and 1743, in the same number of volumes and the same size. In the earliest impression the errors of the press are corrected merely as far as page 240 of the first volume, and all the editions follow one another. That of 1685-6 was the only one which the translator lived to see. He died in 1687, leaving behind him an interesting and little-known collection of poems, which appeared posthumously, 8vo, 1689.

It was considered imperative to correct Cotton’s translation by a careful collation with the ‘variorum’ edition of the original, Paris, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo or 12mo, and parallel passages from Florin’s earlier undertaking have occasionally been inserted at the foot of the page. A Life of the Author and all his recovered Letters, sixteen in number, have also been given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely be doubted that it is in a purely fragmentary state. To do more than furnish a sketch of the leading incidents in Montaigne’s life seemed, in the presence of Bayle St. John’s charming and able biography, an attempt as difficult as it was useless.

The besetting sin of both Montaigne’s translators seems to have been a propensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language and phraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and, moreover, inserting paragraphs and words, not here and there only, but constantly and habitually, from an evident desire and view to elucidate or strengthen their author’s meaning. The result has generally been unfortunate; and I have, in the case of all these interpolations on Cotton’s part, felt bound, where I did not cancel them, to throw them down into the notes, not thinking it right that Montaigne should be allowed any longer to stand sponsor for what he never wrote; and reluctant, on the other hand, to suppress the intruding matter entirely, where it appeared to possess a value of its own.

Nor is redundancy or paraphrase the only form of transgression in Cotton, for there are places in his author which he thought proper to omit, and it is hardly necessary to say that the restoration of all such matter to the text was considered essential to its integrity and completeness.

My warmest thanks are due to my father, Mr Registrar Hazlitt, the author of the well-known and excellent edition of Montaigne published in 1842, for the important assistance which he has rendered to me in verifying and retranslating the quotations, which were in a most corrupt state, and of which Cotton’s English versions were singularly loose and inexact, and for the zeal with which he has co-operated with me in collating the English text, line for line and word for word, with the best French edition.

By the favour of Mr F. W. Cosens, I have had by me, while at work on this subject, the copy of Cotgrave’s Dictionary, folio, 1650, which belonged to Cotton. It has his autograph and copious MSS. notes, nor is it too much to presume that it is the very book employed by him in his translation.

W. C. H.

KENSINGTON, November 1877.

[Crisis Chronicles editor’s note: Until I have time to proofread and add the rest of the text of The Essays of Montaigne to the Online Library, you may read said text at Wikisource: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Essays_of_Montaigne.]

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Intimate Journals (by Charles Baudelaire) – second half

1821-1867

Intimate Journals [second half]
by Charles Baudelaire

translated by Christopher Isherwood, introduction by W. H. Auden
translation originally published in a limited edition by Blackamore Press in 1930
preface originally published in 1947 in an edition by Marcel Rodd, Hollywood

[This is the second half of Intimate Journals
— consisting of Baudelaire’s
“My Heat Laid Bare” and “A Selection of Consoling Maxims upon Love.”   To read the first half — consisting of Isherwood’s preface, Auden’s introduction and
Baudelaire’s “Squibs,” please click here.]

MY HEART LAID BARE

XXIII

Of the vaporization and centralization of the Ego.
Everything depends on that.

Of a certain sensual pleasure in the company of
those who behave extravagantly.

(I intend to begin My Heart laid bare, no matter
where or how, and to continue it from day to day,
following the inspiration of the day and the circumstances,
provided that the inspiration is vital.)

XXIV

Anyone, provided that he can be amusing, has the
right to talk of himself.

XXV

I understand how one can desert a cause in order
to experience the sensation of serving another.

It would perhaps be pleasant to be alternately
victim and executioner.

XXVI

Stupidities of Girardin:

`We are accustomed to take the bull by the horns.
Let us therefore take the speech by its conclusion’
(November 7, 1861).

Then Girardin believes that the horns of bulls are
set in their behinds. He confounds the horns with
the tail.

`Before imitating the Ptolemies of French journalism, the
Belgian journalists have taken the trouble to meditate upon
the problem which I have been studying for the last thirty
years in all its aspects—as the volume which will shortly
appear, entitled “Questions de presse”, will prove—with
the result that they are in no hurry to treat as a matter for
superlative ridicule*
an opinion which is as indisputable as
the statement that the earth revolves and that the sun does
not revolve.’

                                                           EMILE DE GIRARDIN

XXVII

Woman is the opposite of the Dandy. Therefore
she should inspire horror.

Woman is hungry, and she wants to eat; thirsty,
and she wants to drink.

She is in rut and she wants to be possessed.

What admirable qualities!

Woman is natural, that is to say abominable.

Thus she is always vulgar; the opposite, in fact, of
the Dandy.

Concerning the Legion of Honour. The man who
solicits the Cross has the air of saying: If I am not
decorated for having done my duty, I shall cease to
do it.

If a man has merit, what is the good of decorating
him? If he has none, he can be decorated, since it
will give him distinction.

To consent to being decorated is to recognize that
the State or a prince has the right to judge of your
merits, to dignify you, etc. . . .

Besides, Christian humility forbids the Cross, even
if pride does not.

Calculation in favour of God. Nothing exists without
purpose.

Therefore my existence has a purpose.

What purpose? I do not know.

Therefore, it is not I who have appointed that
purpose. It is someone wiser than I.

It is therefore necessary to pray to this someone to
enlighten me. That is the wisest course.

The Dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly
sublime. He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.

XXVIII

Analysis of the counter-religions. Example: sacred
prostitution.

What is sacred prostitution?

Nervous excitement.

The mystery of Paganism. Mysticism: the common
feature of Paganism and Christianity.

Paganism and Christianity confirm each other.

The Revolution and the Cult of Reason confirm
the doctrine of Sacrifice.

Superstition is the well of all truths.

XXIX

There is in all Change something at once sordid
and agreeable, which smacks of infidelity and household
removals. This is sufficient to explain the
French Revolution.

XXX

My wild excitement in 1848.

What was the nature of that excitement?

The taste for revenge. Natural pleasure in destruction.
Literary excitement; memories of my reading.

The 15th of May. Still the pleasure in destruction.
A legitimate pleasure, if what is natural be legitimate.

The horrors of June. Madness of the People and
madness of the Bourgeoisie. Natural delight in crime.

My fury at the Coup d’Etat. How many gunshots
have I endured! Another Bonaparte! What infamy!

And, meanwhile, all is quiet. Has not the President
some right to invoke?

What Napoleon III is. What he is worth. To find
the explanation of his nature and of his mission
under Providence.

XXXI

To be a useful person has always appeared to me
something particularly horrible.

1848 was amusing only because of those castles in
the air which each man built for his Utopia.

1848 was charming only through an excess of the
ridiculous.

Robespierre can only be admired because he has
made several beautiful phrases.

XXXII

Revolution confirms Superstition, by offering
sacrifice.

XXXIII

Politics. I have no convictions, as men of my century
understand the word, because I have no ambition.
There is no basis in me for a conviction.

There is a certain cowardice, a certain weakness,
rather, among respectable folk.

Only brigands are convinced—of what? That they
must succeed. And so they do succeed.

How should I succeed, since I have not even the
desire to make the attempt?

Glorious empires may be founded upon crime and
noble religions upon imposture.

Nevertheless, I have some convictions, in a higher
sense, which could not be understood by the people
of my time.

XXXIV

The sense of solitude, since my childhood. In spite
of my family, above all when surrounded by my
comrades—the sense of a destiny eternally solitary.

Yet a taste for life and for pleasure which is very
keen.

XXXV

Nearly our whole lives are employed in foolish
inquiries. Nevertheless, there are questions which
should excite man’s curiosity in the highest degree,
and which, to judge from his customary mode of life,
do not inspire him with any.

Where are our dead friends?

Why are we here?

Do we come from some other place?

What is free will?

Can it be reconciled with the laws of Providence?

Is there a finite or an infinite number of souls?

What of the number of habitable lands? Etc.,
etc. . . .

XXXVI

Nations only produce great men in spite of themselves.
Thus the great man is the conqueror of his
whole nation.

The ridiculous modern comic religions:

Molière.

Béranger.

Garibaldi.

XXXVII

Belief in Progress is a doctrine of idlers and Belgians.
It is the individual relying upon his neighbours
to do his work.

There cannot be any Progress (true progress, that
is to say, moral) except within the individual and by
the individual himself.

But the world is composed of people who can think
only in common, in the herd. Like the Sociétés belges.

There are also people who can only take their
pleasures in a flock. The true hero takes his pleasure
alone.

XXXVIII

Eternal superiority of the Dandy.

What is the Dandy?

XXXIX

My views on the theatre. In childhood and still
today, the thing which I have always thought most
beautiful about the theatre is the chandelier—a fine,
luminous, crystalline object with a complex spherical
symmetry.

Meanwhile, I do not entirely deny the value of
dramatic literature. Only I should like the actors
mounted on very high pattens, wearing masks more
expressive than the human face and speaking
through megaphones; also the female parts should
be played by men.

But, after all, whether seen through the big or the
little end of the opera glass, the chandelier has always
appeared to me to be the protagonist.

XL

One must work, if not from inclination at least
from despair, since, as I have fully proved, to work
is less wearisome than to amuse oneself.

XLI

There are in every man, always, two simultaneous
allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan.

Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to
climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight
in descent. It is to this last that love for woman and
intimate conversations with animals, dogs, cats,
etc. . . . must be ascribed. The joys which derive
from these two loves are appropriate to the nature
of these two loves.

XLII

Intoxication of humanity: a great picture to paint:

From the aspect of Charity.

From the aspect of licentiousness.

From the aspect of literature or of the actor.

XLIII

The Question (torture), when considered as the
art of discovering the truth, is a barbarous stupidity;
it is the application of a material means to a spiritual
end.

The penalty of death is the expression of a mystical
idea, totally misunderstood today. The penalty of
death does not attempt to save Society, that is, in the
material sense. It attempts to save spiritually Society
and the guilty person. That the sacrifice may be
perfect there should be joy and consent on the part
of the victim. To give chloroform to a person condemned
to death would be impious, for he would
thereby be deprived of his consciousness of grandeur
as a victim and of his hopes of attaining Paradise.

As for torture, it has been devised by the evil half
of man’s nature, which is thirsty for voluptuous
pleasures. Cruelty and sensual pleasure are identical,
like extreme heat and extreme cold.

XLIV

My opinion of the vote and of the right of election.
Of the rights of man.

The element of baseness in any sort of government
employment.

A Dandy does nothing. Can you imagine a dandy
addressing the common herd, except to make game
of them?

There is no form of rational and assured government
save an aristocracy.

A monarchy or a republic, based upon democracy,
are equally absurd and feeble.

The immense nausea of advertisements.

There are but three beings worthy of respect: the
priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill
and to create.

The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged,
they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise
what they call professions.

XLV

We should observe that the abolishers of the death
penalty must be more or less interested in its abolition.

Often they are guillotiners. Their attitude may be
thus expressed: `I want to be able to cut off your
head, but you shan’t touch mine’.

The abolishers of the Soul (materialists) are necessarily
abolishers of hell; they, certainly, are interested.

At all events, they are people who fear to live again
—lazy people.

XLVI

Madame de Metternich, although she is a princess,
has forgotten to answer me, regarding what I said
about her and Wagner.

Nineteenth-century manners.

XLVII

The story of my translation of Edgar Poe.

The story of the Fleurs du Mal. The humiliation of
being misunderstood and my lawsuit.

The story of my relations with all the celebrated
men of the age.

Some amusing portraits of certain imbeciles:

Clément de Ris.

Castagnary.

Portraits of magistrates, officials, newspaper editors,
etc.

Portraits of artists in general.

Of the chief editor and of the rank and file. The
immense pleasure which the French people take in
being regimented. It is the If I were King!

Portraits and Anecdotes.

François Buloz—Houssaye—the precious Rouy—
de Calonne—Charpentier, who corrects his authors,
by virtue of the equality bestowed on all men by the
immortal principles of (17)89—Chevalier, a really
typical editor-in-chief under the Empire.

XLVIII

On George Sand. The woman Sand is the Prudhomme
of immorality.

She has always been a moralist.

Only she used to work as an anti-moralist.

She has never been an artist. She has that celebrated
flowing style, so dear to the bourgeois.

She is stupid, she is clumsy, and she is a chatterbox.
She has, in her moral concepts, the same profundity
of judgement and delicacy of feeling as a concierge
or a kept woman.

What she says about her mother.

What she says about Poetry.

Her love for the working classes.

It is indeed a proof of the degradation of the men
of this century that several have been capable of
falling in love with this latrine.

See the preface to Mademoiselle La Quintinie, in
which she pretends that true Christians do not
believe in Hell.

Sand represents the God of decent folk, the god of
concierges and thieving servants.

She has good reasons for wishing to abolish Hell.

XLIX

The Devil and George Sand. It must not be supposed
that the Devil only tempts men of genius. Doubtless,
he despises imbeciles, but he does not disdain their
co-operation. Quite the reverse; it is upon them that
he builds his greatest hopes.

Consider George Sand. She is, first and last, a
prodigious blockhead, but she is possessed. It is the Devil
who has persuaded her to trust in her good-nature and
common-sense, that she may persuade all other prodigious
blockheads to trust in their good-nature and
common-sense.

I cannot think of this stupid creature without a
certain shudder of horror. If I were to meet her, I
should not be able to resist throwing a stoup of holy
water at her head.

L

George Sand is one of those decayed ingénues who
will never leave the boards. I have lately read a
preface (the preface to Mademoiselle La Quintinie) in
which she pretends that the true Christian cannot
believe in Hell. She has good reasons for wishing to
abolish Hell.

LI

I am sick of France; chiefly because everybody is
like Voltaire.

Emerson has forgotten Voltaire in his Representative
Men. He could have written a fine chapter entitled
Voltaire, or the Anti-Poet, the king of loungers, the
prince of triflers, the anti-artist, the preacher to concierges,
the Father Gigogne of the Editors of Le Siècle.

LII

In Les Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield, Voltaire jests
about our immortal soul, which has dwelt for nine
months amidst excrement and urine. Voltaire, like
all loafers, hates mystery.

Being unable to abolish Love, the Church has
desired at least to disinfect it, and has invented
marriage.

Note.—He might, at least, have traced, in this localization, a
malicious and satirical intent of Providence against Love, and,
in the mode of generation, a symbol of original sin, since we
can only make love with our excretory organs.

LIII

Portrait of the literary rabble.

Doctor Estaminetus Crapulosus Pedantissimus.
His portrait executed in the manner of Praxiteles.

His pipe.

His opinions.

His Hegelism.

His foulness.

His ideas on art.

His spleen.

His jealousy.

A fine portrait of modern youth.

LIV

Φαρμαχοτρίδης, ἀνήρ καὶ τῶν τούς όψεις ες τα
δαυματα τρεψοντων.

AELIAN (?)

LV

Theology. What is the Fall?

If it is unity become duality, it is God who has
fallen.

In other words, would not creation be the fall of
God?

Dandyism. What is the superior man?

He is not a specialist.

He is a man of leisure and of liberal education.

To be rich and to love work.

LVI

Why does the man of parts prefer harlots to
Society women, although they are equally stupid?

To discover this.

LVII

There are certain women who are like the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honour. They are no longer
desired because they have been contaminated by
certain men.

It is for the same reason that I would not put on
the breeches of a man with the itch.

What is annoying about Love is that it is a crime
in which one cannot do without an accomplice.

LVIII

Study of the great malady, horror of one’s home.
Causes of the malady. Progressive growth of the
malady.

Indignation aroused by the universal fatuity of all
classes, all persons, of both sexes, at all ages.

Man loves man so much that, even when he flees
from the town, he is still in search of the mob; he
wishes, in fact, to rebuild the town in the country.

LIX

Lecture by Durandeau on the Japanese. (`I am,
before all else, a Frenchman.’) The Japanese are
monkeys, Darjon it was who told me so.

Lecture by a doctor, a friend of Mathieu, on the
art of not having children, Moses, and the immortality
of the Soul. Art is a civilizing influence
(Castagnary).

LX

The faces of a sage man and his family, who live
on the sixth floor, drinking café au lait.

Lord Nacquart senior and Lord Nacquart junior.

How the Nacquart son has come to be a counsel
in the Court of Appeal.

LXI

Of the delight in and preference for military metaphors
shown by the French. Here every metaphor
wears moustaches.

Militant literature.

To hold the breach.

To keep the flag flying.

To emerge with flying colours.

To plunge into the fray.

One of the old brigade.

All these glorious phrases are commonly applied
to drunkards and bar-flies.

LXII

French metaphors.

A soldier of the judicial press (Bertin).

The militant press.

LXIII

To be added to the military metaphors:

The fighting poets.

The literary vanguard.

This use of military metaphor reveals minds not
militant but formed for discipline, that is, for compliance;
minds born servile, Belgian minds, which
can think only collectively.

LXIV

Desire for Pleasure attaches us to the Present. Care
for our safety makes us dependent upon the Future.

He who clings to Pleasure, that is, to the Present,
makes me think of a man rolling down a slope who,
in trying to grasp hold of some bushes, tears them up
and carries them with him in his fall.

To be, before all else, a great man and a saint according
to one’s own standards.

LXV

Of the People’s hatred of Beauty. Examples:
Jeanne and Mme. Muller.

LXVI

Political. After all, the supreme glory of Napoleon
III, in the eyes of History and of the French people,
will have been to prove that anybody can govern a
great nation as soon as they have got control of the
telegraph and the national press.

They are imbeciles who believe that such things
can be accomplished without the permission of the
People—and that glory can only be founded upon
virtue!

Dictators are the servants of the People—nothing
more; a damnable job, the glory and the result of
adapting a brain to the requirements of the national
idiocy.

LXVII

What is Love?

The need to emerge from oneself.

Man is an animal which adores.

To adore is to sacrifice and prostitute onself.

Thus all Love is prostitution.

LXVIII

The most prostitute of all beings is the Supreme
Being, God Himself, since for each man he is the
friend above all others; since he is the common,
inexhaustible fount of Love.

PRAYER

Do not punish me through my Mother and do not
punish my Mother on my behalf—I entrust to your
keeping the souls of my father and of Mariette—
Give me the strength immediately to perform my
daily task and thus to become a hero and a saint.

LXIX

A chapter on the indestructible, eternal, universal,
and ingenious ferocity of Men.

Of delight in bloodshed.

Of the intoxication of bloodshed.

Of the intoxication of the mob.

Of the intoxication of the tortured (Damiens).

LXX

There are no great men save the poet, the priest,
and the soldier.

The man who sings, the man who offers up sacrifice,
and the man who sacrifices himself.

The rest are born for the whip.

Let us beware of the rabble, of common-sense,
good-nature, inspiration, and evidence.

LXXI

I have always been astonished that women are
allowed to enter churches. What conversation can
they have with God?

The Eternal Venus (capricious, hysterical, full of
whims) is one of the seductive shapes of the Devil.

On the day when a young writer corrects his first
proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has
just got his first dose of pox.

Do not forget a long chapter on the art of divination
by water, by the cards, by chiromancy, etc.

LXXII

Woman cannot distinguish between her soul and
her body. She simplifies things, like an animal. A
cynic would say that it is because she has nothing
but a body.

A chapter on The Toilet.

Morality of the toilet, the delights of the toilet.

LXXIII

Of nincompoops.

Of professors.

Of judges.

Of priests.

And of Cabinet Ministers.

The precious little great men of the day.

Renan.

Feydeau.

Octave Feuillet.

Scholl.

The editors of newspapers, François Buloz, Houssaye,
Rouy, Girardin, Texier, de Calonne, Solar,
Turgan, Dalloz.

A list of guttersnipes. Solar first of all.

LXXIV

To be a great man and a saint by one’s own standards,
that is all that matters.

LXXV

Nadar is the most astounding example of vitality.
Adrien used to tell me that this brother Felix had all
his viscera double. I have been jealous of him, seeing
him succeed so well in everything which is not
abstract.

Veuillot is so uncouth and such an enemy of the
arts that one might suppose the whole democracy
of the world had taken refuge in his breast.

Development of the portrait. Supremacy of the
pure idea over the Christian and the babouviste communist.

The fanaticism of humility. Not even to aspire to
understand religion.

LXXVI

Music.

Of slavery.

Of Society women.

Of prostitutes.

Of magistrates.

Of the sacraments.

The man of letters is the enemy of the world.

Of bureaucrats.

LXXVII

In Love, as in nearly all human affairs, a satisfactory
relationship is the result of a misunderstanding.
This misunderstanding constitutes pleasure. The
man cries: Oh, my angel. The woman coos: Mamma!
Mamma! And these two imbeciles are persuaded that
they think alike. The unbridgeable gulf—the cause
of their failure in communication remains—unbridged.

LXXVIII

Why is the spectacle of the sea so infinitely and
eternally agreeable?

Because the sea presents at once the idea of immensity
and of movement. Six or seven leagues
represent for man the radius of the infinite. An
infinite in little. What matter, if it suffices to suggest
the idea of all infinity? Twelve or fourteen leagues
of liquid in movement are enough to convey to man
the highest expression of beauty which he can
encounter in his transient abode.

LXXIX

Nothing upon the earth is interesting except
religions.

What is the universal religion? (Chateaubriand,
de Maistre, the Alexandrines, Capé.)

There is a universal religion devised for the alchemists
of thought, a religion which has nothing to do
with Man, considered as a divine memento.

LXXX

Saint-Marc Girardin has uttered one phrase which
will endure: `Let us be mediocre!’

Let us put this beside the words of Robespierre:
`Those who do not believe in the immortality of their
being pass judgement upon themselves’.

This phrase of Saint-Marc Girardin implies an
immense hatred of the sublime.

Whoever sees Saint-Marc Girardin walking in the
street is reminded immediately of a fat goose, full of
self-conceit, but bewildered and waddling along the
high road in front of the stage-coach.

LXXXI

Theory of the true civilization. It is not to be found
in gas or steam or table-turning. It consists in the
diminution of the traces of original sin.

Nomad peoples, shepherds, hunters, farmers and
even cannibals, may all, by virtue of energy and
personal dignity, be the superiors of our races of the
West.

These will perhaps be destroyed.

Theocracy and communism.

LXXXII

I have grown, for the most part, by means of
leisure.

To my great detriment; for leisure without fortune
breeds debts and the insults which result from debts.

But to my great profit also, so far as sensibility is
concerned and meditation and the faculty of dandyism
and dilletantism.

Other men of letters are, for the most part, common,
ignorant earth-grubbers.

LXXXIII

The modern girl according to the publishers.

The modern girl according to the editors-in-chief.

The modern girl as a bugbear, a monster, an
assassin of art.

The modern girl as she is in reality.

A little blockhead and a little slut. The extreme of
imbecility combined with the extreme of depravity.

There are in the modern girl all the despicable
qualities of the footpad and the schoolboy.

LXXXIV

Warning to non-communists:

All is common property, even God.

LXXXV

The Frenchman is a farmyard animal, so well
domesticated that he dares not jump over any fence.
Witness his tastes in art and literature.

He is an animal of the Latin race; he does not
object to filth in his place of abode; and in literature
he is scatophagous. He dotes on excrements. That is
what pothouse men of letters call the Gallic salt.

A choice example of French depravity: of the nation
which pretends to be independent above all others.

(Here a paragraph cut out from a newspaper is
fastened to the manuscript.)

    The following extract from M. de Vaulabelle’s fine book
    
will suffice to give an idea of the impression made by Lavalette’s
    
escape upon the least enlightened section of the Royalist party:

    `The tide of Royalism, at this period of the Second Restoration,
    
was rising almost to the point of madness. The young
    
Josephine de Lavalette was receiving her education at one of
    
the principal convents of Paris (l’Abbaye-au-Bois). She had
    
left it merely to come to kiss her father. When she returned
    
after the escape, and when the very modest part she had played
    
in it was known, an immense outcry was raised against the
    
child; the nuns and her companions avoided her and a number
    
of the parents declared that they would remove their daughters
    
if she were allowed to remain there. They did not wish, they
    
said, to allow their daughters to come into contact with a
    
young person who had been guilty of such conduct and such
    
an example. When Madame de Lavalette recovered her liberty,
    
six weeks later, she was obliged to take away her daughter.’

LXXXVI

Princes and generations. It is equally unjust to attribute
to reigning princes the merits or the vices of
those whom they actually govern.

These merits and these vices are almost always, as
statistics and logic can prove, attributable to the
influence of the preceding government. Louis XIV
inherits from the men of Louis XIII: glory. Napoleon
I inherits from the men of the Republic: glory.
Louis-Philippe inherits from the men of Charles X:
glory. Napoleon inherits from the men of Louis-Philippe:
dishonour.

It is always the preceding government which is
responsible for the morals of its successor, in so far as
a government can be responsible for anything.

The sudden cutting short of a reign by circumstance
prevents this law from being quite exact as
regards time. One cannot mark exactly where an
influence ends, but this influence will survive
throughout the whole generation which has undergone
it in youth.

LXXXVII

Of youth’s hatred of the quoters of precedents.
The quoter is its enemy.

`Even spelling I would hand over to the hangman.’
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

A fine picture to paint: the literary riff-raff.

Not to forget a portrait of Forgues, the plagiarist,
the cream-skinner of letters.

Ineradicable desire for prostitution in the heart
of man, whence is born his horror of solitude. He
wants to be two. The man of genius wants to be one,
and therefore solitary. Glory is to remain one, and to
prostitute oneself in an individual manner.

It is this horror of solitude, this need to lose his
ego in exterior flesh, which man calls grandly the need
for love.

Two fine religions, immortalized upon walls, the
eternal obsessions of the People: a p—(the antique
phallus) and `Long live Barbès!’ or `Down with
Philippe!’ or `Long live the Republic!’

LXXXVIII

To study in all its modes, in the works of nature and
in the works of man, the universal and eternal law
of gradation, of the little by little, of the by degrees,
with forces progressively increasing, like compound
interest in money matters.

It is the same with literary and artistic talents; it is
the same with the variable treasures of the will.

LXXXIX

The crush of minor literary men whom one sees
at funerals, distributing handshakes and trying to
catch the eye of the writer of the obituary notice.

Of the funerals of famous men.

XC

Molière. My opinion of Tartuffe is that it is not a
comedy but a pamphlet. An atheist, if he is simply
a well-educated man, would reflect, in thinking
about this piece, that there are certain serious
questions which must never be referred to the rabble.

XCI

To glorify the cult of pictures (my great, my
unique, my primitive passion).

To glorify vagabondage and what may be called
bohemianism. Cult of the multiple sensations expressed
by music. Refer here to Liszt.

Of the necessity of thrashing women.

One can chastise those whom one loves. As in the
case of children. But that implies the sorrow of
despising those whom one loves.

Of cuckolds and cuckoldom.

The sorrows of the cuckold.

They are born of his pride, of false reasoning concerning
honour and happiness, and of a love which
has been foolishly withdrawn from God to be
bestowed upon his fellow-creatures. It is always the
animal idolator being deceived in his idol.

XCII

Analysis of insolent imbecility. Clément de Ris and
Paul Pérignon.

XCIII

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he
fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage
occurs between the spirit and the brute.

Only the brute is really potent. Sexuality is the
lyricism of the masses.

To fornicate is to aspire to enter into another; the
artist never emerges from himself.

I have forgotten the name of that slut. Bah! I shall
remember it at the last judgement.

Music conveys the idea of space.

So do all the arts, more or less; since they are
number and since number is a translation of space.

To will every day to be the greatest of men!

XCIV

When I was a child I wanted sometimes to be pope,
but a military pope, and sometimes to be an actor.

The pleasures that I derived from these two
phantasies.

XCV

Even when quite a child I felt two conflicting
sensations in my heart: the horror of life and the
ecstasy of life. That, indeed, was the mark of a
neurasthenic idler.

XCVI

Nations produce great men only in spite of themselves.

Speaking of the actor and of my childish dreams,
a chapter upon what constitutes, in the human soul,
the vocation of the actor, the glory of the actor, the
art of the actor and his situation in the world.

The theory of Legouvé. Is Legouvé a dispassionate
joker, a Swift, who has tried to make France swallow
a new absurdity?

His choice. Good, in the sense that Samson is not
an actor.

Of the true grandeur of pariahs.

It is possible, indeed, that virtue would injure the
talents of pariahs.

XCVII

Commerce is, in its very essence, satanic. Commerce
is return of the loan, a loan in which there is
the understanding: give me more than I give you.

The spirit of every business-man is completely
depraved.

Commerce is natural, therefore shameful.

The least vile of all merchants is he who says: `Let
us be virtuous, since, thus, we shall gain much more
money than the fools who are dishonest’.

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial
speculation.

Commerce is satanic, because it is the basest and
vilest form of egoism.

XCVIII

When Jesus Christ says, `Blessed are they that
hunger, for they shall be filled,” Jesus Christ is
calculating on probabilities.

XCIX

The world only goes round by misunderstanding.

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree.

For if, by ill luck, people understood each other,
they would never agree.

The man of intelligence, who will never agree with
anyone, should cultivate a pleasure in the conversation
of imbeciles and the study of worthless books.
From these he will derive a sardonic amusement
which will largely repay him for his pains.

C

Any official, whether a minister, a theatre manager
or a newspaper editor, can sometimes be an
estimable individual, but he is never a man of distinction.
They are persons without personality,
unoriginal, born for office, that is, for domestic
service to the public.

CI

God and His profundity. It is possible even for the
intelligent man to seek in God that helper and friend
whom he can never find. God is the eternal confidant
in that tragedy of which each man is hero. Perhaps
there are usurers and assassins who say to God:
`Lord, grant that my next enterprise may be successful!’
But the prayers of these vile persons do not mar
the virtue and joy of my own.

CII

Every idea is endowed of itself with immortal life,
like a human being. All created form, even that
which is created by man, is immortal. For form is
independent of matter: molecules do not constitute
form.

Anecdotes of Emile Douay and Constantin Guys,
and how they destroyed, or believed that they
destroyed, their works.

CIII

It is impossible to glance through any newspaper,
no matter what the day, the month or the year,
without finding on every line the most frightful
traces of human perversity, together with the most
astonishing boasts of probity, charity, and benevolence
and the most brazen statements regarding the
progress of civilization.

Every journal, from the first line to the last, is
nothing but a tissue of horrors. Wars, crimes, thefts,
lecheries, tortures, the evil deeds of princes, of
nations, of private individuals; an orgy of universal
atrocity.

And it is with this loathsome appetizer that civilized
man daily washes down his morning repast.
Everything in this world oozes crime: the newspaper,
the street wall, and the human countenance.

I am unable to comprehend how a man of honour
could take a newspaper in his hands without a
shudder of disgust.

CIV

The power of the amulet as displayed by philosophy.
The sous with holes bored in them, the
talismans, each man’s souvenirs.

Dissertation on the moral dynamic. Of the virtue
of the sacraments.

A tendency to mysticism since my childhood. My
conversations with God.

CV

Of Obsession, of Possession, of Prayer and Faith.

The dynamic Ethic of Jesus.

Renan finds it ridiculous that Jesus should believe
in the omnipotence, even over matter, of Prayer and
Faith.

The sacraments are the modes of this dynamic.

Of the infamy of the press, a great obstacle to the
development of the Beautiful.

The Jews who are librarians and bear witness to
the Redemption.

CVI

All these imbecile bourgeois who ceaselessly utter
the words: immoral, immorality, morality in art,
and other idiotic phrases, make me think of Louise
Villedieu, the five-franc whore, who, having accompanied
me one day to the Louvre, where she had
never been before, began blushing and covering her
face with her hands. And as we stood before the
immortal statues and pictures she kept plucking me
by the sleeve and asking how they could exhibit such
indecencies in public.

The fig-leaves of Mr. Nieuwerkerke.

CVII

In order that the law of Progress could exist each
man would have to be willing to enforce it; for it is
only when every individual has made up his mind
to move forward that humanity will be in a state of
progress.

This hypothesis may serve to show that two contradictory
ideas—free-will and destiny—are identical.
Not only will there be identity between free-will and
destiny in Progress, but this identity has always
existed. This identity is history—the history of
nations and individuals.

CVIII

A sonnet to be quoted in My Heart Laid Bare.
Quote also the poem on Roland:

    I dreamt that night that Philis had returned
    
Fair as she was in the brightness of day,
    
And I desired once again to possess her as ghost
    
And, like Ixion, to embrace a cloud.

    
Her naked shadow stole into my bed,
    
Saying, `Dear Damon, see, I have come back;
    
Only grown fairer in my sad abode
    
Where fate has held me since my departure.

    
`I am come to kiss again the most beautiful of lovers;
    
I am come to die again within thine embrace.’
    
Then, when my idol had abused my flame,
    
She said, `Adieu. I must return to the dead.
    
As thou hast bragged of having — my body,
    
So also canst thou boast of having — my soul.’

                                                           Parnasse Satyrique

I believe that this sonnet is by Maynard.
Malassis pretends that it is by Théophile.

CIX

Hygiene. Projects. The more one desires, the stronger
one’s will.

The more one works, the better one works and
the more one wants to work.

The more one produces, the more fecund one
becomes.

After a debauch, one feels oneself always to be
more solitary, more abandoned.

In the moral as in the physical world, I have been
conscious always of an abyss, not only of the abyss
of sleep, but of the abyss of action, of day-dreaming,
of recollection, of desire, of regret, of remorse, of the
beautiful, of number . . . etc.

I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and
terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and
today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a
singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of
madness pass over me.

CX

Hygiene. Morality. To Honfleur! as soon as possible,
before I sink further.

How many have been the presentiments and signs
sent me already by God that it is high time to act, to
consider the present moment as the most important
of all moments and to take for my everlasting delight
my accustomed torment, that is to say, my work!

CXI

Hygiene. Conduct. Morality. We are weighed down,
every moment, by the conception and the sensation
of Time. And there are but two means of escaping
and forgetting this nightmare: Pleasure and work.
Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us
choose.

The more we employ one of these means, the
more the other will inspire us with repugnance.

One can only forget Time by making use of it.

Nothing can be accomplished save by degrees.

De Maistre and Edgar Poe have taught me to
reason.

No task seems long but that which one dares not
begin. It becomes a nightmare.

CXII

Hygiene. In putting off what one has to do, one
runs the risk of never being able to do it. In refusing
instant conversion one risks damnation.

To heal all things, wretchedness, disease or melancholy,
absolutely nothing is required but an inclination
for work.

CXIII

Precious notes. Do, every day, what duty and prudence
dictate.

If you worked every day your life would be more
supportable. Work six days without relaxing.

To find subjects, Γνωδί σεαυτόν.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

The grand style (nothing more beautiful than the
commonplace).

First make a start, then apply logic and analysis.
Every hypothesis demands a conclusion.

To achieve a daily madness.

CXIV

Hygiene. Conduct. Morality. Two parts. Debts.

(Ancelle.)

Friends (my mother, friends, myself).

Thus, 1,000 francs should be divided into two
parts of 500 francs each, and the second divided into
three parts.

At Honfleur. To go through and classify all my
letters (two days) and all my debts (two days). (Four
categories: notes of hand, large debts, small debts, friends.)
A classification of my engravings (two days). A
classification of my notes (two days).

CXV

Hygiene. Morality. Conduct. Too late, perhaps!—
My mother and Jeanne—My health, for pity’s, for
duty’s sake!—The maladies of Jeanne. My mother’s
infirmities and loneliness.

To do one’s duty every day and trust in God for
the morrow.

The only method of earning money is to work in
a disinterested manner.

A summary of wisdom. Toilet. Prayer. Work.

Prayer: charity, wisdom and strength.

Without charity I am no more than a resounding
cymbal.

My humiliations have been the graces of God.

My phase of egoism—is it passed?

The faculty of being able to meet the need of the
moment; exactitude, in other words, must infallibly
obtain its reward.

    Prolonged unhappiness has upon the soul the same
    
effect as old age upon the body: one cannot stir, one
    
takes to one’s bed. . . .

    Extreme youth, on the other hand, finds reasons for
    
procrastination; when there is plenty of time to spare,

    one is persuaded that years may be allowed to pass
    
before one need play one’s part.

                                                           CHATEAUBRIAND

CXVI

Hygiene. Conduct. Morality. Jeanne 300, my mother
200, myself 300—800 francs a month. To work from
six o’clock in the morning, fasting at midday. To
work blindly, without aim, like a madman. We shall
see the result.

I believe that I stake my destiny upon hours of
uninterrupted work.

All may be redeemed. There is still time. Who
knows, even, if some new pleasure . . . ?

Fame, payment of my debts. Wealth of Jeanne
and my mother.

I have never yet tasted the pleasure of an accomplished
design.

Power of the fixed idea, power of hope.

The habit of doing one’s duty drives out fear.

One must desire to dream and know how to dream.
The evocation of inspiration. A magic art. To sit
down at once and write. I reason too much.

Immediate work, even when it is bad, is better
than day-dreaming.

A succession of small acts of will achieves a large
result.

Every defeat of the will forms a portion of lost
matter. How wasteful, then, is hesitation! One may
judge this by the immensity of the final effort necessary
to repair so many losses.

The man who says his evening prayer is a captain
posting his sentinels. He can sleep.

Dreams and warnings of death.

Up to the present I have only enjoyed my
memories alone; I must enjoy them in the company
of another. To make the pleasures of the spirit one’s
passion.

Because I can understand the nature of a glorious
existence, I believe myself capable of its realization.
Oh, Jean-Jacques!

Work engenders good habits, sobriety and chastity,
from which result health, riches, continuous and
strengthening inspiration and charity. Age quod agis.

Fish, cold baths, showers, moss, pastilles occasionally,
together with the abstinence from all stimulants.

Iceland moss . . . 125 grammes.

White sugar . . . 250 grammes.

Soak the moss for twelve to fifteen hours in a
sufficient quantity of cold water, then pour off the
water. Boil the moss in two litres of water upon a
slow and constant fire until these two litres are
reduced to one, skim the froth off once, then add the
250 grammes of sugar and let it thicken to the consistency
of syrup. Let it cool off. Take three very large
tablespoonfuls daily, in the morning, at midday and
in the evening. One need not be afraid to increase the
doses if the crises are too frequent.

CXVII

Hygiene. Conduct. Method. I swear to observe henceforth
the following rules as immutable rules of my
life:

To pray every morning to God, the source of all
power and all justice; to my father, to Mariette and to Poe,
as intercessors; that they may give me the necessary
strength to fulfil all my appointed tasks and that
they may grant my mother a sufficient span of life in
which to enjoy my transformation; to work all day
long, or as long, at any rate, as my strength allows me;
to put my trust in God, that is, in Justice itself, for the
success of my plans; to offer, every evening, a further
prayer, asking God for life and strength for my
mother and myself; to divide all my earnings into
four parts—one for current expenses, one for my
creditors, one for my friends and one for my mother
—to obey the strictest principles of sobriety, the first
being the abstinence from all stimulants whatsoever.

A SELECTION OF CONSOLING
MAXIMS UPON LOVE

Whoever writes maxims likes to exaggerate his
character—the young pretend to be old, the old
paint their faces.

Since the world, this vast system of contradictions,
holds all forms of decay in great esteem—quick, let
us darken our wrinkles; let us garland our hearts like
a frontispiece, for sentiment is widely fashionable.

To what purpose? If you are no true men, be at
least true animals. Be unaffected, and you will, of
necessity, be useful or agreeable to somebody. Were
my heart on my right side, it would find at least a
thousand co-pariahs among the three thousand
millions of beings who browse upon the nettles of
sentiment.

If I begin with Love, it is because Love is for
everyone—and they will deny it in vain—the greatest
thing in life!

All you who feed some insatiable vulture—you
Hoffmannesque poets, whom the harmonica sends
dancing through crystal regions, whom the violin
lacerates like a blade searching the heart—you eager
and embittered onlookers in whom the spectacle of
nature herself promotes dangerous ecstasies; let Love
be your calmative.

You tranquil, you objective poets, the noble partisans
of technique, architects of style—you prudent ones
who have a daily task to accomplish; let Love be
your stimulant, an exhilarating and strengthening
potion, and the gymnastic of pleasure your perpetual
encouragement to action! To those the soporifics, to
these the alcohols.

You for whom nature is cruel and time precious;
let Love be a burning draught which inspires the
soul.

It is necessary, therefore, to choose one’s loves.

Without denying the coups de foudre, which is impossible—see
Stendhal (De l’Amour—book one,
chapter XXIII)—one must suppose that fate possesses
a certain elasticity, which is called human liberty.

In the same way as, for theologians, liberty consists
in avoiding occasions of temptation rather than
in resisting it; so, in Love, liberty consists in avoiding
women of a dangerous category—dangerous, that is
to say, for yourself.

Your mistress, the woman of your paradise, will
be sufficiently indicated to you by your natural
sympathies, verified by Lavater and by a study of
painting and statuary.

The physiognomical signs would be infallible if
one knew them all, and well. I cannot here set down
all the physiognomical signs of the woman eternally
suitable to such and such a man. Perhaps one day I
shall accomplish this enormous task in a book which
will be entitled: the catechism of the beloved woman; but
I am certain that every man, assisted by his imperious
and vague desires and guided by observation,
can discover, after a time, the woman necessary to
himself. Further, our sympathies are not, in general,
dangerous; nature, whether in cookery or in love,
rarely gives us a taste for what is bad for us.

As I understand the word Love in its fullest sense,
I am here obliged to set down some special maxims
upon delicate questions.

You man of the North, you eager navigator lost in
the mists, seeker of auroras more beautiful than the
sunlight, untiring in your thirst for the ideal; love
cold women. Love them well, for the toil is greater
and more bitter and you will find one day more
honour at the tribunal of Love, who is seated over
there in the blue of the infinite!

You man of the South, you whose open nature can
have no taste for secrets and mysteries—light-hearted
man—of Bordeaux, of Marseilles or of Italy—let
passionate women suffice you; their mobility and
their animation are your natural empire, an empire
of beguilement.

Young man, you who wish to become a great poet,
beware of the paradoxical in Love; let schoolboys
excited by their first pipe sing at the top of their
voice the praises of the fat women; leave these falsehoods
to the neophytes of the pseudo-romantic
school. If the fat woman is sometimes a charming
caprice, the thin woman is a well of sombre delights!

Never slander great Nature; if she has bestowed
upon you a mistress without a bosom, say: `I have a
love—with such hips!’ and go to the temple to render
thanks to the Gods.

You must know how to make the best of ugliness
itself—of your own, that is too easy—everyone
knows how Trenk (la gueule brûlée) was adored by
women;*
of hers! that is a rarer and more beautiful
art, but the association of ideas will render it easy and
natural. Let us suppose that your idol is ill. Her
beauty has disappeared under the frightful crust of
small-pox, like verdure beneath the heavy winter
ice. Still shaken by long hours of anguish and the
fluctuations of the disease, you are regarding sorrowfully
the ineffaceable stigmata upon the body of the
dear convalescent; then suddenly there vibrates in
your ears a dying air executed by the rapturous bow
of Paganini, and this air speaks to you with sympathy
of yourself, seeming to reiterate the whole poem of
your dearest abandoned hopes. Thenceforward, the
traces of the small-pox will form a part of your
happiness, beneath your tender gaze there will
always echo the mysterious air of Paganini. Henceforth
they will be the objects, not only of sweet
sympathy but even of physical desire—if, that is, you
are one of those sensitive spirits for whom beauty is
the promise of happiness. Above all, it is an association
of ideas which makes one love ugly women—so
much so that you run a grave risk, if your pock-marked
mistress betrays you, of being able to console
yourself only with pock-marked women.

For certain spirits, more precious and more jaded,
delight in ugliness proceeds from a still more obscure
sentiment—the thirst for the unknown and the
taste for the horrible. It is this sentiment, whose germ,
more or less developed, is carried within each one
of us, which drives certain poets into the dissecting
room or the clinic and women to public executions.
I am sincerely sorry for the man who cannot understand
this—he is a harp who lacks a bass string!

As for illiteracy, which forms (according to some
blockheads) a part of moral ugliness—is it not superfluous
to explain to you how this may be a whole
naïve poem of memories and delights? The charming
Alcibiades lisped so well; childhood has such a divine
jargon. Then beware, young adept of pleasure, of
teaching your love French—unless it is necessary to
become her French master that you may be her lover.

There are those who blush to have loved a woman
as soon as they perceive that she is stupid. These are
vainglorious jackasses, born to crop the foulest
thistles in creation or enjoy the favours of a bluestocking.
Stupidity is often an ornament of beauty;
it gives the eyes that mournful limpidity of dusky
pools, and that oily calm of tropical seas. Stupidity
always preserves beauty, it keeps away the wrinkles,
it is the divine cosmetic which preserves our idols
from the gnawings of thought which we must suffer,
miserable scholars that we are.

There are those who begrudge their mistress’s
extravagance. These are the misers, republicans
ignorant of the first principles of political economy.
The vices of a great nation are its greatest wealth.

There are others, the sedate, the reasonable,
moderate deists, followers of the middle path in
dogma, who are furious when their wives become
devout. Oh! the fumblers, who will never learn to
play any instrument! Oh, the thrice-foolish ones,
who do not perceive that the most adorable form
religion can take—is that of their wife! A husband
to be converted, what a delicious apple! The beautiful
fruit forbidden like some huge impiety—on a
stormy winter night, in a corner by the fire, with
wine and truffles—mute hymn of domestic bliss,
victory over harsh Nature, who seems herself to be
blaspheming the gods!

I should not have finished so soon had I wished to
enumerate all the beautiful and noble aspects of
what is called vice and moral ugliness, but there is
one problem which often presents itself to men of
feeling and understanding, a problem as vexed and
painful as a tragic drama; it is when they are caught
between the hereditary moral impulse implanted by
their parents and the tyrannical desire for a woman
whom they ought to despise. Numerous and ignoble
infidelities, habits which betray their evil haunts,
shameful secrets unseasonably laid bare, inspire you
with horror for your idol, and it sometimes comes to
pass that your joy makes you shudder. Here you are
much embarrassed in your platonic reasonings.
Virtue and Pride cry: Fly from her. Nature speaks
in your ear: whither can I fly? These are terrible
alternatives, in face of which even the strongest souls
reveal the insufficiency of all our philosophic education.
The more cunning, seeing themselves constrained
by nature to play the eternal drama of
Manon Lescaut and Leone Leoni, make their retreat,
saying that contempt goes well with love. I am
going to give you a very simple formula which will
not only save you from these shameful self-justifications
but will make it possible for you even to leave
your idol undisfigured, without injury to your
crystallization.*

We will suppose that the heroine of your heart has
abused the fas and nefas and is come to the limits of
perdition, after having—final infidelity! supreme
torture!—tried the power of her charms upon her
gaolers and executioners.*
Are you going to abjure
your ideal so lightly, or, if nature throws you, faithful
and weeping, into the arms of this pale victim of the
guillotine, will you say, with the mortified accents
of resignation: Contempt and Love are cousins-german?
Not at all. These are the paradoxes of a
timid nature and a clouded intelligence. Say boldly
and with the candour of the true philosopher: `Had
she been less criminal my ideal had been less complete.
I contemplate her and I submit; great Nature
alone knows what she intends to make of such a
glorious hussy. Supreme happiness and supreme
absolute reason! product of contrary forces. Ormuz
and Ahriman, you are one!’

And thus, thanks to a more synthetic outlook upon
things, your admiration will lead you quite naturally
towards chaste love, that sunlight in whose intensity
all stains are swallowed up.

Remember this, that one must beware above all
of the paradoxical in love. It is simplicity which
saves, it is simplicity which brings happiness, though
your mistress be as ugly as old Mab, the queen of
terrors. In general, for men of the world, a subtle
moralist has said, Love is but love of gambling, love
of fighting. That is altogether wrong. Love should
be love, fighting and gambling are permissible only
as the politics of love.

The gravest mistake of modern youth is that they
force their emotions. A great number of lovers are
imaginary invalids who spend large sums on nostrums
and pay M. Fleurant and M. Purgon heavily,
without enjoying the pleasures and privileges of a
genuine malady. Observe how they irritate their
stomachs with absurd drugs, wearing out the digestive
faculties of Love. It may be necessary to belong
to one’s century, but beware of apeing the illustrious
Don Juan, who was, according to Molière, at first
nothing more than a rude rascal, well trained and
versed in love, crime and cunning, but who has since
become, thanks to MM. Alfred de Musset and
Théophile Gautier, an artistic lounger, chasing perfection
through the bawdy-houses, and who is finally
only an old dandy worn out by his travels, the
stupidest creature in the world when he is in the
company of an honest woman who loves her husband.

A last, general rule: in love, beware of the moon
and the stars, beware of the Venus de Milo, of lakes,
guitars, rope-ladders, and of all love stories—yes,
even the most beautiful in the world, were it written
by Apollo himself! But love dearly, vigorously, fearlessly,
orientally, ferociously the woman you love;
so that your love—harmony being included—does
not torment the love of another; so that your choice
does not cause disturbance to the community.
Among the Incas a man could make love to his
sister; be content with your cousin. Do not climb
balconies or give trouble to the public authorities;
do not on any account deprive your mistress of the
happiness of belief in the gods; and when you accompany
her to the temple remember to dip your fingers
in orthodox fashion in the pure, refreshing water of
the stoup.

Since all morality testifies to the good will of its
legislators—since all religion is a supreme consolation
for the afflicted—since every woman is a part of
essential Woman—since love is the sole thing which
merits the turning of a sonnet and the putting-on of
fine linen: I revere these things above all else and
denounce as a slanderer the man who sees in this
fragment of a morality an occasion for crossing himself
and a cause for scandal. Morality wrapped in
tinsel, is it not? Coloured glass which tints too
brightly, perhaps, the eternal lamp of truth shining
within? No, no. Had I wished to prove that all is for
the best in the best of all possible worlds, the reader
would have the right to tell me, like the ape of genius:
you are naughty! But I have desired to prove that
all is for the best in the worst of all possible worlds.
Much therefore will be forgiven me because I have
loved much—my male, or female reader!

   

Intimate Journals (by Charles Baudelaire) – first half

1821-1867

Intimate Journals [first half]
by Charles Baudelaire

translated by Christopher Isherwood, introduction by W. H. Auden
translation originally published in a limited edition by Blackamore Press in 1930
preface originally published in 1947 in an edition by Marcel Rodd, Hollywood

[This is the first half of Intimate Journals — consisting of Isherwood’s preface, Auden’s introduction and Baudelaire’s “Squibs”.  To read the second half — consisting of Baudelaire’s “My Heat Laid Bare” and “A Selection of Consoling Maxims upon Love — please click here.]

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

What kind of a man wrote this book?

A deeply religious man, whose blasphemies horrified the
orthodox. An ex-dandy, who dressed like a condemned
convict. A philosopher of love, who was ill at ease with
women. A revolutionary, who despised the masses. An
aristocrat, who loathed the ruling class. A minority of one.
A great lyric poet.

By nature, Baudelaire was a city-dweller. He was born
(1821) and died (1867) in Paris. He loved luxury and
fashionable splendour, the endless cavalcade of the boulevards,
the midnight brilliance of talk in the artists’ cafés.
Paris taught him his vices, absinthe and opium, and the
extravagant dandyism of his early manhood which involved
him in debt for the rest of his life. Even in extreme
poverty, he preferred the bohemian freedom of the Latin
Quarter to the sheltered respectability of his family home.
The atmosphere of Paris was the native element of his inspiration.
He speaks of the `religious intoxication of the great
cities’. `The pleasure of being in crowds is a mysterious expression
of sensual joy in the multiplication of Number.’

Brussels, in the eighteen-sixties, was not a great city. It
was a provincial town. Baudelaire hated it. Expressing his
contempt for a man, he calls him `a Belgian spirit’. But
no doubt this attitude was also due to the state of his affairs
and his health. Baudelaire did not come to Brussels until
1864, when he was already ruined, financially and physically.
He was miserably poor. His work had failed to obtain
proper recognition. Six of the poems in Les Fleurs du Mal
had been judged obscene and suppressed by court order.
His publisher had gone bankrupt. He was slowly dying of
syphilis. Violent nervous crises made him dread insanity.
`Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today,
23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning.
I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.’

Baudelaire was one of the first writers of `the poetry of
departure’. His longing for escape—from the nineteenth
century and himself—fastened nostalgically upon ships.
`When’, he imagines them asking, `shall we set sail for
happiness?’

When Baudelaire was a boy of twenty, his parents became
alarmed by the wildness of the life he was leading.
They persuaded him to take a long ocean voyage, hoping
that it would change his tastes and ideas. The ship was
bound for Calcutta. Baudelaire insisted on leaving it at the
island of Réunion and being sent back to France. He detested
the sea and his fellow-passengers, but he never forgot
this glimpse of the tropics. It is characteristic of him, and
of the romantic attitude in general, that he later pretended
to have been in India, told fantastic lies about his adventures,
and always regretted the opportunity he had missed.

Shy men of extreme sensibility are the born victims of,
the prostitute. Baudelaire’s mulatto mistress, Jeanne
Duval, was a beautiful, indolent animal. She squandered
his money and slept with his friends. The biographers
usually condemn her; most unjustly. Few of us would really
enjoy a love-affair with a geni. Jeanne had to endure
Baudelaire’s moods and listen to his poems; she understood
neither. But, in some mysterious manner, these two human
beings needed each other. They stayed together, on and
off, for twenty years. Baudelaire always loved and pitied
her, and tried to help her. Hideous and diseased, she limps
out of his history on crutches and disappears.

Like many lesser writers before and after him, Baudelaire
suffered constantly from Acedia, `the malady of monks’,
that deadly weakness of the will which is the root of all evil.
He fought against it with fury and horror. `If, when a man
has fallen into habits of idleness, of day-dreaming and of
sloth, putting off his most important duties continually till
the morrow, another man were to wake him up one
morning with heavy blows of a whip and were to whip
him unmercifully, until he who was unable to work for
pleasure worked now for fear—would not that man, the
chastiser, be his benefactor and truest friend?’ The Intimate
Journals are full of such exclamations, coupled with resolves
to work—`to work from six o’clock in the morning, fasting
at midday. To work blindly, without aim, like a madman.
. . . I believe that I stake my destiny upon hours of
uninterrupted work.’ It is terribly moving to read these
passages, knowing that the time is close at hand when
Baudelaire will be lying dazed and half-paralysed; when
he will no longer be able to remember his name and have
to copy it, with tedious care, from the cover of one of his
books; when he will not recognize his own face in the
mirror, and will bow to it gravely, as if to a stranger.

In his lifetime, Baudelaire witnessed the dawn of the
Steam Age—a false, gaslit dawn, loud with engines and
advertisement, faithless, superstitious and blandly corrupt.
Baudelaire foresees the future with dismay and denounces
it in the magnificent outburst which opens with the words:
`The world is about to end. . . .’ Elsewhere he writes:
`Theory of the true civilization. It is not to be found in gas,
or steam, or table-turning. It consists in the diminution of
the traces of original sin.’ After two world-wars and the
atomic bomb, we of today should understand him better
than his contemporaries.

Baudelaire’s nervous, unstable temperament, his contempt
for bourgeois ethics and his impatience of mediocrity
led him into a series of quarrels—with his family, his friends
and his business associates. For his mother—the only
important woman in his life except Jeanne Duval—he
experienced mingled feelings of love, exasperation, pity, rebellion
and hatred. He sincerely admired his distinguished
stepfather, General Aupick; but the two men were worlds
apart, they spoke different languages and could never
understand each other. He could appreciate the honesty
and good-faith of Ancelle, his legal guardian; but the
elderly lawyer’s primness and caution drove him frantic.
Even in middle age, Baudelaire often seems touchingly
immature, like a defiant schoolboy surrounded by disapproving
grown-ups.

His passionate outbursts and bitter words hurt nobody
so much as himself. His rage was immediately followed
by remorse. His last years were darkened with regrets—
regrets for deeds done and undone, for
health and vigour
lost, for time irretrievably wasted. Yet Baudelaire never
gave way finally to despair. He struggled with himself to
the very end, striving and praying to do better. His life is
not the dreary tale of a talented weakling, it is the heroic
tragedy of a strong man beset by great failings. Even its
horrible closing scenes should not disgust or depress us.
They represent a kind of victory. Baudelaire died undefeated—a
warning and an inspiration to us all.

The Intimate Journals consist of papers which were not
collected and published until after Baudelaire’s death. The
section called Squibs was probably written before 1857;
My Heart Laid Bare belongs, more or less, to the Brussels
period. This latter title is taken from the writings of Edgar
Allan Poe, who says that if any man dared to write such a
book, with complete frankness, it would necessarily be
a masterpiece. Baudelaire certainly dared, but he did not
live to carry out his project. What we have here is an
assortment of wonderful fragments, cryptic memoranda,
literary notes, quotations, rough drafts of prose poems,
explosions of political anger and personal spleen.

After some thought, I have decided not to attempt
annotation. I have neither the time nor the scholarship
for such a task—and, anyway, what does it matter to the
average reader who Moun was, or Castagnary, or Rabbe?
Read this book as you might read an old diary found in
the drawer of a desk in a deserted house. Substitute—if
you like—names from your own life and world, names of
friends and enemies, of band-wagon journalists and phoney
politicians. Much of the obscurity is unimportant or on the
surface. The more you study these Intimate Journals, the
better you will understand them.

This translation was made from the French text published
by Georges Grès. It first appeared in England, in a
limited edition, in 1930. Professor Myron Barker of
U.C.L.A. has very kindly helped me to make the work of
revision as accurate as possible. Where the reference is so
often uncertain, it is hard to avoid some mistakes.

Mr. T. S. Eliot wrote an admirable introduction to the
original edition. We have decided not to ask permission to
reprint this, however, since it is already available in his
Selected Essays, 1917-1932, published by Faber and Faber.

Except for the frontispiece, all the illustrations reproduced
in this book are from drawings by Baudelaire himself.
Baudelaire was not only an art-critic of the first rank, he
had remarkable artistic talent. Daumier, whose portrait he
once drew, said of him that he might have become a great
draughtsman, if he had not preferred to be a great poet.

The first three drawings are, of course, self-portraits. Next
comes a portrait of Jeanne Duval—the only authenticated
one we have. The last two drawings are of unidentified or
imaginary women. On the first of these, Baudelaire has
written: `A specimen of Antique Beauty, dedicated to
Chenavard’. Chenavard, whose name also appears in the
text of the Intimate Journals, was a painter and philosopher
of the period. Baudelaire evidently intended a caricature
of his style.

                                                           CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD

INTRODUCTION

The important and complicated relation between an
artist and the age in which he lives has been the downfall
of many an excellent critic. Some, denying its importance,
have regarded works of art as if artists—and critics too—
lived exclusively in the timeless and spaceless world of the
spirit; others, denying its complexity, have assumed that
a work of art is a purely natural product, like a pebble on a
beach, totally explicable in terms of its physical causes.
(Such critics, however, are usually reluctant to apply the
same hypothesis to their own judgements.)

Since Man is neither pure spirit nor pure nature—if he
were purely either he would have no history—but exists in
and as a tension between their two opposing polarities,
both approaches lead to misunderstanding. Thus, among
literary critics, the first type is correct in maintaining that
aesthetic values are spiritual, to be recognized intuitively,
and that, for example, no comparative study of Elizabethan
and Victorian society can explain why Shakespeare’s
poetry is better than Browning’s. The second type is right
is maintaining that aesthetic character is, to a great degree,
natural, and that a study of their respective milieus is
essential if one is to understand why Shakespeare’s poetry
is different from Browning’s.

The former critic, pledged to appreciation, would, if he
were consistent, contract criticism to the making of translations
and anthologies; the latter, pledged to causal relations,
would expand it into an investigation of every word ever
printed, including menus and telephone-books.

Few of the entries in Baudelaire’s Intimate Journals are
concerned with the art of poetry; most of them are reflections
on subjects which concern all men at all times, love,
religion, politics, etc.; at the same time they are the
reflections of a poet living in Paris in the middle of
the nineteenth century.

They require, therefore—and this is a great part of their
fascination—to be read in four different ways at once: as
the observations of a human spirit irrespective of time
or place; as the observations of a poet irrespective of
time or place but as distinguished from men with other
gifts and professions; as the observations of a Frenchman
of the nineteenth century; and as the observations of a
French poet of the nineteenth century.

Random jottings though they are, most of the entries
revolve around one central preoccupation of Baudelaire’s,
namely: what makes a man a hero, i.e. an individual; or,
conversely, what makes him a churl, i.e. a mere unit in
human society without any real individual significance
of his own?

The term `individual’ has two senses, and one must be
careful in discussion to find out in which sense it is being
used. In the realm of nature, `individual’ means to be
something that others are not, to have uniqueness: in the realm
of spirit, it means to become what one wills, to have a self-determined
history.

In the first sense, individuality is a gift of fortune, as
when this dog is white and that one black, or this man
intelligent and that man stupid; it is objectively manifest,
for an impartial observer has only to compare one with the
other to recognize it; and, since it applies to being, not
becoming, time is either irrelevant or, in so far as time is
the dimension of change, the enemy. In the second sense,
fortune is either the enemy—for to will to become something
usually implies that what one is by fortune is other
than one wills—or irrelevant, as in the exceptional case
when one wills to become by duplication what one already
is—for, in this case, the point is that one wills it, and the
fact that it is already granted one is an accident. This kind
of individuality is not manifest to an outsider since the
comparison by which it is recog
nized is not between one
object and another object but between what the subject
thinks he is and what he wills to become, and this comparison
no outsider can see; he can only take the subject’s word
for it. Further, since it applies to becoming, time is its
necessary dimension, without which it cannot come into
existence.

Since Man is both nature and spirit, he possesses both
kinds of individuality, and one of his major problems in
understanding himself is to determine what relative importance
to assign to each, and how to reconcile them.

As a European, Baudelaire inherited three main concepts
of the human individual, two of them Greek and one
Jewish. The Greek poets thought of the hero in terms of
nature, i.e. as the exceptional man, endowed by fate with
areté, recognized by the exceptional public deeds he performs,
and in the end publicly humiliated and destroyed
by fate. The spirit could only enter into their work in
disguise, as the hubris by which the hero offends the Gods—
for what is this hubris really but the will of the hero to
become the fortunate man he already is? It is not the same
as the Christian sin of pride which disobeys the commands
of God; for, if it were, one would be able to say of the tragic
hero—at such and such a point in his life he made the
wrong choice. And one can never say this. No, what his
arrogance really consists in is saying `I am exceptional by
choice, not by fate’.

The Greek philosophers, particularly Plato, took the
opposite course and thought of the hero in terms of spirit,
i.e. as the knower of the Divine Ideas who by fate was a
churl, imprisoned in the body and its temporal flux of
passions, but who, by his own will, has transcended his
fate and lifted himself into the timeless realm of the Good.
This transcendence is not manifest to others, except in so
far as they are willing to accept him as their teacher, but
is only known directly to the hero himself as a freedom
from passion and a knowledge of the Good; and once he
has attained this state he cannot lose it, for his knowledge
of the Good determines his will. This time it is nature that
enters in disguise as the heavenly eros, i.e. the desire to
know the Good before one knows it. This is really a gift of
fortune and sets one apart as an exception to the brutish
mass: that is to say, the hero and the churl are still recognizable
by comparison—only, instead of the poet’s comparison
between the strong and nobly born and the weak
and ill-bred, the contrast is now between the sage and the
ignorant.

The third concept of the hero, which does justice both
to human nature and to human spirit, is found in the Old
Testament, and, in a more consciously developed form,
in orthodox Christianity.

Abraham is not a hero in the poetic sense, for he has no
exceptional gifts, only the human nature that any man has.
What makes him exceptional is that he, outwardly an
average man, is called by God to an exceptional task and
obeys. Adam, on the other hand, loses his true self—not
because he is overconfident of his powers or ignorant, but
because he diobeys. While Agamemnon sacrifices his
daughter for the sake of the Greek Army, and suffers,
Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his son as a test of faith
and—because, without saying a word to anyone, he proceeds
to obey—Isaac is saved and he is blessed. Job suffers
a reversal of fortune which, to the Greeks, would have been
a sign of divine disfavour, but actually it is nothing of the
kind: the catastrophes which befall him are not the sentence
pronounced on one who is guilty, but the trial by
which he proves himself innocent.

Nor, on the other hand, are Abraham and Job philosophical
heroes: they keep on insisting that it is impossible
to know the mind of God in the way the philosopher can
know ideas, and that it is presumption to try to know it:
one can only obey or disobey his commands. In this
capacity, however, lies a spiritual freedom which is lacking
in both the tragic and the philosophic hero. The hero of
poetry necessarily becomes guilty of hubris—otherwise
there would be some who remain fortunate forever; and
there are none. The churl of poetry necessarily remains
innocent, because fortune does not give him a chance to
become anything else. The hero of philosophy necessarily
remains a hero—once he has attained his vision, to which
he can no more refuse assent than the mind can refuse
assent to the truths of arithmetic. The churl of philosophy
necessarily remains a churl because he lacks the prerequisite
endowment of eros which could start him off on
the ascent from ignorance to knowledge. But when what
distinguishes the hero from the churl is the choice of
obedience or disobedience, then it is open to anyone at
any time to become either. Thus the heroes of poetry and
philosophy have only a temporary interval of personal
history—the former during his downfall from greatness to
death, the latter during his ascent from nature to spirit.
Only the religious hero is an historical individual at every
moment of his existence.

In so far as Abraham and Job are recognizable as heroes
by being in the end rewarded by worldly success, there
are traces in the Old Testament of the poetic concept of
individuality—but these disappear in the Prophets and the
New Testament, where the religious hero is revealed to
the eye of faith as the suffering servant, the despised and
rejected of men, whose individuality is invisible to the eyes
of poetry and philosophy—by whose standards, indeed, he
seems both weak and ignorant.

Confronted with his own nature and the society of the
nineteenth century, Baudelaire devised and maintained,
until just before he went mad, his own pair of opposites.
The Dandy, or the heroic individual, on the one hand;
and, on the other, as the churlish mass, Woman, the man
of commerce, l’esprit belge.

     The Dandy:

    Is a great man and a saint, for his own sake
    Lives and sleeps in front of a mirror.
    Is a man of leisure and general education.
    Is rich and loves work.
    Works in a disinterested manner.
    Does nothing useful.
    Is either a poet, a priest, or a soldier.
    Is solitary.
    Is unhappy.
    Has as many gloves as he has friends—for fear of the itch.
    Is proud that he is less base than the passers-by.
    Never speaks to the masses except to insult them.
    Never touches a newspaper.

    His anti-types:

    Are natural—when they are hungry, they want to eat.
    Run away from home at twelve—not in search of heroic adventures, but to found a business.
    Dream in their cradles that they sell themselves for a million.
    Want, each of them, to be two people.
    Believe in progress—that is, count on their neighbours to do their duties for them.
   &n
bsp;Are like Voltaire.

The Dandy, it will be seen, is like the hero of poetry, in
that he requires certain gifts of fortune, such as money and
leisure, and like the hero of philosophy, in that he must be
endowed with the will to make himself into a dandy out
of the corrupt nature into which he, like everyone else, is
born. On the other hand, the Dandy is neither a man of
action nor a seeker after wisdom; his ambition is neither to
be admired by men nor to know God, but simply to become
subjectively conscious of being uniquely himself, and unlike
anyone else. He is, in fact, the religious hero turned upside
down—that is, Lucifer, the rebel, the defiant one who
asserts his freedom by disobeying all commands, whether
given by God, society, or his own nature. The truly dandyish
act is the acte gratuile, because only an act which is quite
unnecessary, unmotivated by any given requiredness, can
be an absolutely freely self-chosen individual act.

Logically, the Dandy should remain chaste: if, like
Baudelaire, he lacks the will-power to do so, he can at least
partially assert his freedom from natural desire by choosing
to be debauched, i.e. by yielding deliberately to what he
despises and making it as despicable as possible, until every
pleasure in love has been eliminated except the knowledge
that he is deliberately doing evil. Again, the Dandy should,
logically, become a hermit: if, like Baudelaire, he cannot
endure the loneliness which lack of relation to others
entails, then at least he can assert his freedom from social
relations by deliberately making them negative, i.e. by
giving offence. `When’, Baudelaire says, `I have inspired
universal horror and disgust, I shall have conquered
solitude.’

Even when one has allowed for the love of exaggeration
which every writer has, Baudelaire’s conclusions would
have seemed, to any earlier age, rather extreme: if they do
not seem so to us, it is because we experience for ourselves
the extreme situation which provoked them. Poe and
Baudelaire are the fathers of modern poetry in that they
were the first poets (with the possible exception of Blake)
who, born into the modern age—that is to say, after the
mutation of the closed society of tradition and inheritance
into the open society of fashion and choice—realized what
a decisive change this was. This change was not instantaneous,
and even now it is still incomplete; it does not
proceed uniformly in all fields of activity and at all levels
of experience: traditional beliefs may break down before
traditional morals, or vice versa; an artistic style, a
rhetoric, may persist when the habitual pattern of ideas
and emotions which made its interest has dissolved; poetry
may have reached modernity while music is still unreflective;
but, sooner or later, the change comes to all and,
once this happens, it is decisive and irrevocable—for,
whatever the field, once the mind becomes conscious of
alternatives, retreat into habit is cut off; either a man must
make a deliberate choice (that is to say, become a critic as
well as an actor) or become paralysed. Reliance on others
is only possible in so far as their authority can be recognized,
i.e. chosen. Reliance upon public opinion—on numbers of
people in general—is impossible, because they too are in
the same position as oneself, and the inevitable result is a
mutual destruction of individuality.

Viewed objectively, there may seem little difference
between living by tradition and living by public opinion;
in both cases the observer sees a number of people believing
the same thing or acting in the same way—without having
individually examined the evidence or made a personal
act of faith. Subjectively, however, the difference is infinite:
the believer by tradition is unconscious of any possible
alternative, and therefore cannot doubt—for, even if his
real reason for believing what he believes is that his
neighbours believe it, he cannot know this and must
imagine his reason is that the belief is true. The believer
through force of public opinion, on the other hand, is
conscious both of the fact that alternatives exist, or might
exist, and of the fact that he does not choose to consider
them—so that, even if what he believes happens to be true,
he cannot escape knowing that he does not believe it for
this reason but because his neighbours do; to whom, as he
also knows, the same applies. The danger of losing one’s
individuality is, therefore, greater in modern times than it
has ever been before.

The members of a traditional society—say, a Chinese
peasant village—are not fully developed individually, but
they have not lost their potential capacity to become so,
and one can therefore say that, as far as they have gone and
as far as one knows, they are individuals. The members of a
public—say, the evening crowds on Times Square—have
been offered the possibility of full development but have
rejected it, and by this rejection have lost the right to be
called individuals. Though neither is capable of fatherhood,
a boy who has not yet reached puberty is considered
masculine, a eunuch is not.

In a society which has become a public, a gifted man like
Baudelaire is placed in a peculiar position: his gifts enforce
a clarity of consciousness which makes it impossible for
him to join the crowd; they compel him to raise those
questions which the public by tacit consent represses. He
is bound, for example, to ask, as Baudelaire does:

    Why are we here?
    Do we come from some other place?
    What is free-will?
    Can it be reconciled with the laws of Providence?

Above all, he is bound to ask: What do I, or ought I, to
will to become? That is, how am I to become an individual?

At the same time nothing—neither his gift, nor nature,
nor God, nor society—can give an answer which compels
certainty; he must choose his answer and choice is a matter
of will, not of gifts. It is not surprising, then, if the gifted
man of our times so often is caught in the snare of reflection
in which his will prevents itself from willing anything
in particular, so that, like Baudelaire, he suffers from
`Acedia: the malady of monks’, and is desperately homesick
for a pre-conscious state—

    un vrai pays de Cocagne . . . où le luxe a plaisir à se mirer
    dans l’ordre . . . d’où le désordre, la turbulence et l’impré-vu
    sont exclus . . . où la cuisine elle-même est poétique,
    grasse et excitante à la fois.

He seeks to compel nature and society to provide his spirit
gratis with a history which it is not in their power to give,
either by making a god out of a novelty—

    Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe?
    Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau—

or a devil out of the characterless public.

The unselfconscious man can rest in his natural individuality,
in the fact that he is what others are not—but,
once he becomes self-conscious, this is not enough; he must
immediately set about becoming a spiritual individual.
His danger now is that he will make the Dandy’s mistake,
and try to transform the former kind of individuality into
the latter—that is, to think of becoming a
spiritual individual
not as becoming what one wills, but as becoming
what others are not.

Running through the Journals, however, even from the
start, is a thread of thought which is completely contrary
to the Dandy, with his pride in his uniqueness:

     There is no exalted pleasure which cannot be related to
    prostitution. At the play, in the ball-room, each one
    enjoys possession of all. God is the most prostituted of all
    beings, because he is the closest friend of every individual,
    because he is the common inexhaustible reservoir of love.

Thus, in deliberately provoking paradoxical terms, Baudelaire
recognizes the Christian concept of love as agapé, in
contrast to the Platonic concept of love as eros which is held
by the Dandy. He admits that to love is not to desire,
however noble the object desired—even self-perfection—
but to give oneself; that indeed the only way in which one
can will to become oneself is by willing to give oneself in
answer to the needs of one’s neighbour.

Such thoughts seem to have occurred to Baudelaire only
occasionally until the crisis of January 23rd, 1862, when he
writes: `I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and
terror . . . and today I have received a singular warning. I
have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.’
The last few pages in My Heart Laid Bare which follow this
entry are some of the most terrifying and pathetic passages
in literature. They present a man fighting against time to
eradicate a lifetime’s habits of thought and feeling, and set
himself in order and acquire a history.

The man who wrote:

     Whenever you receive a letter from a creditor write fifty
    lines upon some extra-terrestrial subject, and you will be
    saved—

now writes:

     Jeanne 300, my mother 200, myself 300—800 francs a
    month. . . . Immediate work, even when it is bad, is better
    than day-dreaming.

     To pray to God . . . for life and strength for my mother
    and myself; to divide all my earnings into four parts—
    one for current expenses, one for my creditors, one for my
    friends and one for my mother—to obey the strictest
    principles of sobriety, the first being the abstinence from
    all stimulants whatsoever.

Between the Dandy and this lies a real change of heart
which is lacking, I think, in that subsequent and more
spectacular decision by which Rimbaud the poet became
Rimbaud the trader. In the latter, it only seems as if one
kind of Dandy were exchanged for another; the same
pride, the same desire to be unique, emanates from both.
In Baudelaire’s case, what makes the note of humility
sound true is that he does not propose to make any outwardly
spectacular change in his career, to vanish from
poetry in a cloud of publicity: no—he merely prays that
he may use his talents better and acknowledges that, gifted
though he may be, he, the Dandy, is as weak as a woman,
M. Prudhomme, or the Belgians.

To the eye of nature, he was too late. As he spoke, the
bird stooped and struck. But, to the eye of the spirit, we
are entitled to believe he was in time—for, though the
spirit needs time, an instant of it is enough.

W. H. AUDEN

SQUIBS

Even though God did not exist, Religion would be
none the less holy and divine.

God is the sole being who has no need to exist in
order to reign.

That which is created by the Mind is more living
than Matter.

Love is the desire to prostitute oneself. There is,
indeed, no exalted pleasure which cannot be related
to prostitution.

At the play, in the ball-room, each one enjoys
possession of all.

What is Art? Prostitution.

The pleasure of being in crowds is a mysterious
expression of sensual joy in the multiplication of
Number.

All is Number. Number is in all. Number is in the
individual. Ecstasy is a Number.

Inclinations to wastefulness ought, when a man is
mature, to be replaced by a wish to concentrate and
to produce.

Love may spring from a generous sentiment, the
desire for prostitution; but it is soon corrupted by
the desire for ownership.

Love wishes to emerge from itself, to become, like
the conqueror with the conquered, a part of its victim,
yet to preserve, at the same time, the privileges
of the conqueror.

The sensual delights of one who keeps a mistress
are at once those of an angel and a landlord. Charity
and cruelty. Indeed, they are independent of sex, of
beauty and of the animal species.

The green shadows in the moist evenings of summer.

Immense depths of thought in expressions of
common speech; holes dug by generations of ants.

The story of the Hunter, concerning the intimate
relation between cruelty and love.

II

Squibs. Of the feminine nature of the Church, as a
reason for her omnipotence.

Of violet (love repressed, mysterious, veiled;
canoness colour).

The priest is a tremendous figure, because he
makes the crowd believe marvellous things.

That the Church should wish to do all things and
be all things is a law of human nature.

The People adore authority.

Priests are the servants and sectaries of the imagination.

Revolutionary maxim: the throne and the altar.

E. G. or The Seductive Adventuress.

Religious intoxication of the great cities.

Pantheism. I am all things. All things are myself.

Whirlwind.

III

Squibs. I believe I have already set down in my
notes that Love greatly resembles an application of
torture or a surgical operation. But this idea can be
developed, and in the most ironic manner. For even
when two lovers love passionately and are full of
mutual desire, one of the two will always be cooler
or less self-abandoned than the other. He or she is
the surgeon or executioner; the other, the patient or
victim. Do you hear these sighs—preludes to a
shameful tragedy—these groans, these screams, these
rattling gasps? Who has not uttered them, who has
not inexorably wrung them forth? What worse sights
than these could you encounter at an inquisition
conducted by adept torturers? These eyes, rolled
back like the sleepwalker’s, these limbs whose muscles
burst and stiffen as though subject to the action of a
galvanic battery—such frightful, such curious phenomena
are undoubtedly never obtained from even the
most extreme cases of intoxication, of delirium, of
opium-taking. The human face, which Ovid believed
fashioned to reflect the stars, speaks here only of an
insane ferocity, relaxing into a kind of death. For I
should consider it
indeed a sacrilege to apply the
word `ecstasy’ to this species of decomposition.

A terrible pastime, in which one of the players
must forfeit possession of himself!

It was once asked, in my hearing, what was the
greatest pleasure in Love? Someone, of course,
answered: To receive, and someone else: To give
oneself— The former said: The pleasure of pride,
and the latter: The voluptuousness of humility. All
these swine talked like The Imitation of Jesus Christ.
Finally, there was a shameless Utopian who affirmed
that the greatest pleasure in Love was to beget citizens
for the State. For my part, I say: the sole and
supreme pleasure in Love lies in the absolute knowledge
of doing evil. And man and woman know, from
birth, that in Evil is to be found all voluptuousness.

IV

Schemes. Squibs. Projects. Comedy à la Silvestre.
Barbora and the sheep.

Chenavard has created a superhuman type.

My homage to Levaillant.

The Preface, a blend of mysteriousness and drollery.

Dreams and the theory of dreams, in the manner
of Swedenborg.

The thought of Campbell (The conduct of life).

Concentration.

Power of the fixed idea.

Absolute frankness, the means of originality.

To relate pompously things which are comic. . . .

V

Squibs. Suggestions. When a man takes to his bed,
nearly all his friends have a secret desire to see him
die; some to prove that his health is inferior to their
own, others in the disinterested hope of being able to
study a death-agony.

The Arabesque is the most spiritualistic of designs.

VI

Squibs. Suggestions. The man of letters shakes
foundations. He promotes the taste for intellectual
gymnastics.

The Arabesque is the most ideal of all designs.

We love women in so far as they are strangers to
us. To love intelligent women is a pleasure of the
pederast. Thus it follows that bestiality excludes
pederasty.

The spirit of buffoonery does not necessarily
exclude Charity, but this is rare.

Enthusiasm applied to things other than abstractions
is a sign of weakness and disease.

Thinness is more naked, more indecent than
corpulence.

VII

Tragic Sky. An abstract epithet applied to a
material entity.

Man drinks in light with the atmosphere. Thus the
masses are right in saying that the night air is unhealthy
for work.

The masses are born fire-worshippers.

Fireworks, conflagrations, incendiaries.

If one imagined a born fire-worshipper, a born
Parsee, one could write a story . . .

VIII

Mistakes made about people’s faces are due to an
eclipse of the real image by some hallucination to
which it gives rise.

Know therefore the pleasures of an austere life and
pray, pray without ceasing. Prayer is the fountain
of strength. (Altar of the Will. Moral dynamic. The
Sorcery of the Sacraments. Hygiene of the Soul.)

Music excavates Heaven.

Jean-Jacques said that he always entered a café
with a certain emotional disturbance. For a timid
nature, the ticket-office in a theatre is rather like the
tribunal of Hell.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of gambling.
But what if we are indifferent to gain or loss?

IX

Suggestions. Squibs. Nations—like families—only
produce great men in spite of themselves. They make
every effort not to produce them. And thus the great
man has need, if he is to exist, of a power of attack
greater than the power of resistance developed by
several millions of individuals.

Of sleep, every evening’s sinister adventure, it may
be observed that men go daily to their beds with an
audacity which would be beyond comprehension
did we not know that it is the result of their ignorance
of danger.

X

There are some skins as hard as tortoise shell
against which scorn has no power.

Many friends, many gloves. Those who loved me
have been despised persons; worthy of being despised,
I might even say, if I were determined to
flatter the respectable.

For Girardin to speak Latin! Pecudesque locutae

It was typical of a Society without faith to send
Robert Houdin to the Arabs to convert them from
belief in miracles.

XI

These great and beautiful ships, imperceptibly
poised (swayed) on calm waters; these stout ships,
with their out-of-work, home-sick air—are they not
saying to us in dumb show: When shall we set sail
for happiness?

Do not neglect the marvellous element in drama—
the magical and the romanesque.

The surroundings, the atmospheres in which the
whole narrative must be steeped. (See Usher, and
compare this with the most intense sensations of
hashish and opium.)

XII

Are there mathematical lunacies and madmen
who believe that two and two make three? In other
words, can hallucination invade the realms of pure
reason—if the words do not cry out (at being joined
together)? If, when a man has fallen into habits of
idleness, of day-dreaming and of sloth, putting off
his most important duties continually till the morrow,
another man were to wake him up one morning
with heavy blows of a whip and were to whip him
unmercifully, until he who was unable to work for
pleasure worked now for fear—would not that man,
the chastiser, be his benefactor and truest friend?
Moreover, one may go so far as to affirm that
pleasure itself would follow, and this with much
better reason than when it is said: love comes after
marriage.

Similarly, in politics, the real saint is he who
chastises and massacres the People, for the good of
the People.

                                                           Tuesday, May 13, 1856

Take some copies to Michel.

Write to Moun,
to Urriès.
to Maria Clemm.

Send to Madame Dumay to know if Mirès . . .

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible
appeal; from which it follows that irregularity—that
is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment,
are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

XIII

Notes. Squibs. Théodore de Banville is not precisely
a materialist; he gives forth light.

His poetry represents happy hours.

Whenever you receive a letter from a creditor
write fifty lines upon some extra-terrestrial subject,
and you will be saved.

A great smile on the beautiful face of a giant.

XIV

Of suicide and suicidal mania considered in their bearings
upon sta
tistics, medicine, and philosophy.
                                                           BRIERE DE BOISMONT

Look up the passage: To live with someone who feels
towards you nothing but aversion. . . .

The portrait of Serenus by Seneca. That of Stagirus
by St. John Chrysostom. Acedia, the malady of
Monks.

Taedium Vitae.

XV

Squibs. Translation and paraphrase of La Passion
rapporte tout à elle.

Spiritual and physical pleasures caused by the
storm, electricity and the thunderbolt, tocsin of dark
amorous memories, from the distant years.

XVI

Squibs. I have found a definition of the Beautiful,
of my own conception of the Beautiful. It is something
intense and sad, something a little vague,
leaving scope for conjecture. I am ready, if you will,
to apply my ideas to a sentient object, to that object,
for example, which Society finds the most interesting
of all, a woman’s face. A beautiful and seductive
head, a woman’s head, I mean, makes one dream,
but in a confused fashion, at once of pleasure and of
sadness; conveys an idea of melancholy, of lassitude,
even of satiety—a contradictory impression, of an
ardour, that is to say, and a desire for life together
with a bitterness which flows back upon them as
if from a sense of deprivation and hopelessness.
Mystery and regret are also characteristics of the
Beautiful.

A beautiful male head has no need to convey, to
the eyes of man, at any rate—though perhaps to
those of a woman—this impression of voluptuousness
which, in a woman’s face, is a provocation all the
more attractive the more the face is generally melancholy.
But this head also will suggest ardours and
passions—spiritual longings—ambitions darkly repressed—powers
turned to bitterness through lack
of employment—traces, sometimes, of a revengeful
colnss (for the archetype of the dandy must not be
forgten here), sometimes, also—and this is one of
the most interesting characteristics of Beauty—of
mystery, and last of all (let me admit the exact point
to which I am a modern in my aesthetics) of Unhappiness.
I do not pretend that Joy cannot associate
with Beauty, but I will maintain that Joy is one of
her most vulgar adornments, while Melancholy may
be called her illustrious spouse—so much so that I
can scarcely conceive (is my brain become a witch’s
mirror?) a type of Beauty which has nothing to do
with Sorrow. In pursuit of—others might say obsessed
by—these ideas, it may be supposed that I
have difficulty in not concluding from them that the
most perfect type of manly beauty is Satan—as
Milton saw him.

XVII

Squibs. Auto-Idolatry. Poetic harmony of charactter.
Eurhythrnic of the character and the faculties.
To preserve all the faculties. To augment all the
faculties.

A cult (Magianism, evocatory magic).

The sacrifice and the act of dedication are the
supreme formulae and symbols of barter.

Two fundamental literary qualities, supernaturalism
and irony. The individual ocular impression, the
aspect in which things present themselves to the
writer—then the turn of satanic wit. The supernatural
comprises the general colour and accent—
that is to say, the intensity, sonority, limpidity,
vibrancy, depth and reverberation in Space and
Time.

There are moments of existence at which Time
and Duration are more profound, and the Sense of
Being is enormously quickened.

Of magic as applied to the evocation of the great
dead, to the restoration and perfection of health.

Inspiration comes always when man wills it, but it
does not always depart when he wishes.

Of language and writing, considered as magical
operations, evocatory magic.

Of airs in Woman.

The charming airs, those in which beauty consists,
are:

    The blasé,
    The bored,
    The empty-headed,
    The impudent,
    The frigid,
    The introspective,
    The imperious,
    The capricious,
    The naughty,
    The ailing,
    The feline—a blend of childishness, nonchalance and malice.

In certain semi-supernatural conditions of the
spirit, the whole depths of life are revealed within
the scene—no matter how commonplace—which
one has before one’s eyes. This becomes its symbol.

As I was crossing the boulevard, hurrying a little
to avoid the carriages, my halo was dislodged and
fell into the filth of the macadam. Fortunately, I had
time to recover it, but a moment later the unhappy
thought slipped into my brain that this was an ill
omen; and from that instant the idea would not let
me alone; it has given me no peace all day.

Of the cult of oneself as a lover—from the point
of view of health, hygiene, the toilet, spiritual
nobility, eloquence.

Self-purification and anti-humanity

There is, in the act of love, a great resemblance to
torture or to a surgical operation.

There is, in prayer, a magical operation. Prayer
is one of the great forces of intellectual dynamism.
There is, as it were, an electric current.

The rosary is a medium, a vehicle. It is Prayer
brought within the reach of all.

Work—a progressive and accumulative force,
yielding interest like capital, in the faculties just as
much as by its fruits.

Gambling, even when it is conducted scientifically,
is an intermittent force and will be overcome, however
fruitful it may be, by continuous work, however
little.

If a poet demanded from the State the right to
have a few bourgeois in his stable, people would be
very much astonished, but if a bourgeois asked for
some roast poet, people would think it quite natural.

That would not scandalize our wives, our daughters
or our sisters.

Presently he asked permission to kiss her leg, and,
profiting by the occasion, he kissed that beautiful
limb in such a position that her figure was sharply
outlined against the setting sun!

`Pussy, kitty, catkin, my cat, my wolf, my little
monkey, big monkey, great big serpent, my little
melancholy monkey.’

Such caprices of language, too often repeated,
such excessive use of animal nicknames, testify to a
satanic aspect in love. Have not demons the forms of
beasts? The camel of Cazotte—camel, devil and
woman.

A man goes pistol-shooting, accompanied by his
wife. He sets up a doll and says to his wife: `I shall
imagine that this is you’. He closes his eyes and
shatters the doll. Then he says, as he kisses his companion’s
hand, `Dear angel, let me thank you for
my skill!’

When I have inspired universal horror and disgust,
I shall hav
e conquered solitude.

This book is not for our wives, our daughters and
our sisters. I have little to do with such things.

There are some tortoise-like carapaces against
which contempt ceases to be a pleasure.

Many friends, many gloves—for fear of the itch.

Those who have loved me were despised people, I
might even say worthy of being despised, if I were
determined to flatter the respectable.

God is a scandal—a scandal which pays.

XVIII

Squibs. Despise the sensibility of nobody. Each
man’s sensibility is his genius.

There are only two places where one pays for the
right to spend: women and public latrines.

From a passionate concubinage one may guess at
the joys of a young married couple.

The precocious taste for women. I used to confuse
the smell of women with the smell of furs. I remember
. . . Indeed, I loved my mother for her elegance.
I was a precocious dandy.

My ancestors, idiots or maniacs, in their solemn
houses, all victims of terrible passions.

The protestant countries lack two elements indispensable
to the happiness of a well-bred man;
gallantry and devotion.

The mixture of the grotesque and the tragic is
agreeable to the spirit, as are discords to the jaded ear.

What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic
pleasure of giving offence.

Germany expresses her dreams by means of line,
England by means of perspective.

There is, in the creation of all sublime thought, a
nervous concussion which can be felt in the cerebellum.

Spain brings to religion the natural ferocity of
Love.

Style. The eternal touch, eternal and cosmo-polite.
Chateaubriand, Alph. Rabbe, Edgar Poe.

XIX

Squibs. Suggestions. It is easy to guess why the rabble
dislike cats. A cat is beautiful; it suggests ideas of
luxury, cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures . . . etc.

XX

Squibs. A small amount of work, repeated three
hundred and sixty-five times, gives three hundred
and sixty-five times a small sum of money—that is to
say, an enormous sum. At the same time, glory is
achieved. [In the margin] Similarly, a crowd of small
pleasures compose happiness.

To write a pot-boiler, that is genius. I ought to
write a pot-boiler.

A really clever remark is a masterpiece.

The tone of Alphonse Rabbe.

The tone of a kept woman (My beautifullest! Oh,
you fickle sex!)

The eternal tone.

The colouring crude, the design profoundly simplified.

The prima donna and the butcher boy.

My mother is fantastic; one must fear and propitiate
her.

Hildebrand the arrogant.

Caesarism of Napoleon III (Letter to Edgar Ney),
Pope and Emperor.

XXI

Squibs. Suggestions. To give oneself to Satan. What
does this mean?

What can be more absurd than Progress, since
man, as the event of each day proves, is for ever the
double and equal of man—is for ever, that is to say,
in the state of primitive nature! What perils have the
forest and the prairie to compare with the daily
shocks and conflicts of civilization? Whether man
ensnares his dupe upon the boulevard or pierces his
victim within the trackless forests, is he not everlasting
man, the most perfect of the beasts of prey?

People tell me that I am thirty, but if I have lived
three minutes in one . . . am I not ninety years old?

Is not work the salt which preserves mummified
souls?

At the beginning of a story attack the subject, no
matter where, and open with some very beautiful
phrases which will arouse the desire to complete it.

XXII

I believe that the infinite and mysterious charm
which lies in the contemplation of a ship, especially
of a ship in motion, depends firstly upon its order
and symmetry—primal needs of the human spirit as
great as those of intricacy and harmony—and,
secondly, upon the successive multiplication and
generation of all the curves and imaginary figures
described in space by the real elements of the object.

The poetic idea which emerges from this operation
of line in motion is an hypothesis of an immeasurably
vast, complex, yet perfectly harmonized entity, of an
animal being possessed of a spirit, suffering all
human ambition and sighing all the sighs of men.

You civilized peoples, who are for ever speaking
foolishly about Savages and Barbarians—soon, as
d’Aurevilly says, you will have become too worthless
even to be idolaters.

Stoicism, a religion which has but one sacrament:
suicide!

To conceive a sketch for a lyrical or fairy extravagance
for a pantomime and to translate it into a
serious romance. To plunge the whole into a supernatural,
dreamlike atmosphere—the atmosphere of
the great days. That there should be something lulling,
even screne, in passion. Regions of pure poetry.

Moved by contact with those pleasures which were
themselves like memories, softened by the thought
of a past ill spent, of so many faults, so many quarrels,
of so many things which each must hide from
the other, he began to weep; and his tears fell warm,
in the darkness, upon the bare shoulder of his beloved
and still charming mistress. She trembled. She, also,
felt moved and softened. The darkness shielded her
vanity, her elegant affectation of coldness. These
two fallen creatures, who could still suffer, since a
vestige of nobility remained with them, embraced
impulsively, mingling, in the rain of their tears and
kisses, regrets for the past with hopes, all too uncertain,
for the future. Never, perhaps, for them, as
upon that night of melancholy and forgiveness, had
pleasure been so sweet—a pleasure steeped in sorrow
and remorse.

Through the night’s blackness, he had looked
behind him into the depths of the years, then he had
thrown himself into the arms of his guilty lover, to
recover there the pardon he was granting her.

Hugo often thinks of Prometheus. He applies an
imaginary vulture to his breast, which is scared only
by the moxas of vanity. Then, as the hallucination
becomes more complex and varied, following always,
however, the progressive stages which medical men
describe, he believes that a fiat of Providence has
substituted Jersey for St. Helena.

This man is so little of a poet, so little spiritual,
that he would disgust even a solicitor.

Hugo, like a priest, always has his head bowed—
bowed so low that he can see nothing except his own
navel.

What is not a priesthood nowadays? Youth itself
is a priesthood—according to the young.

And what is not a prayer? To sh—is a prayer—
according to the rabble, when they sh—

M. de Pontmartin—a man who has always the air
of having just arrived from the provinces.

Man—all mankind, that is to say—is so naturally
depraved that he suffers less from universal degradation
than
from the establishment of a reasonable
hierarchy.

The world is about to end. Its sole reason for continuance
is that it exists. And how feeble is this
reason, compared with those which announce the
contrary, particularly the following: What, under
Heaven, has this world henceforth to do? Even
supposing that it continued materially to exist,
would this existence be worthy of the name or the
Historical Dictionary? I do not say that the world
will be reduced to the clownish shifts and disorders
of a South American republic, or even that we shall
perhaps return to a state of nature and roam the
grassy ruins of our civilization, gun in hand, seeking
our food. No; for these adventures would require a
certain remnant of vital energy, echo of earlier ages.
As a new example, as fresh victims of the inexorable
moral laws, we shall perish by that which we have
believed to be our means of existence. So far will
machinery have Americanized us, so far will Progress
have atrophied in us all that is spiritual, that no
dream of the Utopians, however bloody, sacrilegious
or unnatural, will be comparable to the result. I
appeal to every thinking man to show me what remains
of Life. As for religion, I believe it useless to
speak of it or to search for its relics, since to give
oneself the trouble of denying God is the sole disgrace
in these matters. Ownership virtually disappeared
with the suppression of the rights of the eldest son;
but the time will come when humanity, like an
avenging ogre, will tear their last morsel from those
who believe themselves to be the legitimate heirs of
revolution. And even that will not be the worst.

Human imagination can conceive, without undue
difficulty, of republics or other communal states
worthy of a certain glory, if they are directed by
holy men, by certain aristocrats. It is not, however,
specifically in political institutions that the universal
ruin, or the universal progress—for the name matters
little—will be manifested. That will appear in the
degradation of the human heart. Need I describe
how the last vestiges of statesmanship will struggle
painfully in the clutches of universal bestiality, how
the governors will be forced—in maintaining themselves
and erecting a phantom of order—to resort to
measures which would make our men of today shudder,
hardened as they are? Then the son will run
away from the family not at eighteen but at twelve,
emancipated by his gluttonous precocity; he will fly
not to seek heroic adventures, not to deliver a beautiful
prisoner from a tower, not to immortalize a
garret with sublime thoughts, but to found a business,
to enrich himself and to compete with his
infamous papa, to be founder and shareholder of a
journal which will spread enlightenment and cause
Le Siècle of that time to be considered as an instrument
of superstition. Then the erring, the déclassées,
those women who have had several lovers and who
are sometimes called Angels, by virtue of and in gratitude
for the empty-headed frivolity which illumines,
with its fortuitous light, their existences logical as
evil—then these women, I say, will be nothing but
a pitiless wisdom, a wisdom which condemns everything
except money, everything, even the crimes of the
senses. Then, any shadow of virtue, everything indeed
which is not worship of Plutus, will be brought into
utter ridicule. Justice, if, at that fortunate epoch,
Justice can still exist, will deprive of their civil rights
those citizens who are unable to make a fortune. Thy
spouse, O bourgeois! Thy chaste better half, whose
legitimacy seems to thee poetic—making legality to
be henceforth a baseness beneath reproach—vigilant
and loving guardian of thy strong-box, will be no
more than the absolute type of the kept woman. Thy
daughter, with an infantile wantonness, will dream
in her cradle that she sells herself for a million—and
thou, thyself, O bourgeois—less of a poet even than
thou art today—thou wilt find no fault in that, thou
wilt regret nothing. For there are some qualities in
a man which grow strong and prosper only as others
diminish and grow less; thanks to the progress of that
age, of thy bowels of compassion nothing will remain
but the guts!—That age is perhaps very near; who
knows if it is not already come and if the coarseness
of our perceptions is not the sole obstacle which prevents
us from appreciating the nature of the atmosphere
in which we breathe?

For myself, who feel within me sometimes the
absurdity of a prophet, I know that I shall never
achieve the charity of a physician. Lost in this vile
world, elbowed by the crowd, I am like a worn-out
man, whose eyes see, in the depths of the years behind
him, only disillusionment and bitterness, ahead
only a tumult in which there is nothing new, whether
of enlightenment or of suffering. In the evening
when this man has filched from his destiny a few
hours of pleasure, when he is lulled by the process
of digestion, forgetful—as far as possible—of the past,
content with the present and resigned to the future,
exhilarated by his own nonchalance and dandyism,
proud that he is less base than the passers-by, he says
to himself, as he contemplates the smoke of his cigar:
What does it matter to me what becomes of these
perceptions?

I believe I have wandered into what those of the
trade call a hors-d’œuvre. Nevertheless, I will let
these pages stand—since I wish to record my days
of anger.

   

Le Directeur (by T.S. Eliot)

T.S. Eliot

Le Directeur
by T.S. Eliot
[Written in French, from Eliot’s Poems, 1920]

Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise
Qui coule si près du Spectateur.
Le directeur
Conservateur
Du Spectateur
Empeste la brise.
Les actionnaires
Réactionnaires
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Bras dessus bras dessous
Font des tours
A pas de loup.
Dans un égout
Une petite fille
En guenilles
Camarde
Regarde
Le directeur
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Et crève d’amour.


* * *

The Director
[English translation courtesy of Wikisource]

Evil to the unhappy Thames
Which flows so close to The Spectator. The
Conservative
Director
Of The Spectator
Fouls the breeze.
The reactionary
Shareholders of the
Conservative
Spectator
With folded arms
And stealthy step
Encircle.
In a gutter
A little girl
In rags,
With flattened nose
Looks at the
Conservative
Director
Of The Spectator
And starves for love.

* * * * *


     

Meditations on First Philosophy (second half) by René Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy [second half]
by René Descartes, 1641
translated into English by John Veitch, 1901


[The Crisis Chronicles Online Library presents this work in two parts.  This second includes Meditations III through VI.  To read the first (including Descartes’ introductory letter, preface, synopsis, and Meditations I and II) click here.]

MEDITATION III
OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS

1. I will now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn away my senses from their objects, I will even efface from my consciousness all the images of corporeal things; or at least, because this can hardly be accomplished, I will consider them as empty and false; and thus, holding converse only with myself, and closely examining my nature, I will endeavor to obtain by degrees a more intimate and familiar knowledge of myself. I am a thinking (conscious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many,– who loves, hates], wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and perceives; for, as I before remarked, although the things which I perceive or imagine are perhaps nothing at all apart from me and in themselves, I am nevertheless assured that those modes of consciousness which I call perceptions and imaginations, in as far only as they are modes of consciousness, exist in me.

2. And in the little I have said I think I have summed up all that I really know, or at least all that up to this time I was aware I knew. Now, as I am endeavoring to extend my knowledge more widely, I will use circumspection, and consider with care whether I can still discover in myself anything further which I have not yet hitherto observed. I am certain that I am a thinking thing; but do I not therefore likewise know what is required to render me certain of a truth? In this first knowledge, doubtless, there is nothing that gives me assurance of its truth except the clear and distinct perception of what I affirm, which would not indeed be sufficient to give me the assurance that what I say is true, if it could ever happen that anything I thus clearly and distinctly perceived should prove false; and accordingly it seems to me that I may now take as a general rule, that all that is very clearly and distinctly apprehended (conceived) is true.

3. Nevertheless I before received and admitted many things as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterward found to be doubtful. What, then, were those? They were the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other objects which I was in the habit of perceiving by the senses. But what was it that I clearly and distinctly] perceived in them? Nothing more than that the ideas and the thoughts of those objects were presented to my mind. And even now I do not deny that these ideas are found in my mind. But there was yet another thing which I affirmed, and which, from having been accustomed to believe it, I thought I clearly perceived, although, in truth, I did not perceive it at all; I mean the existence of objects external to me, from which those ideas proceeded, and to which they had a perfect resemblance; and it was here I was mistaken, or if I judged correctly, this assuredly was not to be traced to any knowledge I possessed (the force of my perception, Lat.).

4. But when I considered any matter in arithmetic and geometry, that was very simple and easy, as, for example, that two and three added together make five, and things of this sort, did I not view them with at least sufficient clearness to warrant me in affirming their truth? Indeed, if I afterward judged that we ought to doubt of these things, it was for no other reason than because it occurred to me that a God might perhaps have given me such a nature as that I should be deceived, even respecting the matters that appeared to me the most evidently true. But as often as this preconceived opinion of the sovereign power of a God presents itself to my mind, I am constrained to admit that it is easy for him, if he wishes it, to cause me to err, even in matters where I think I possess the highest evidence; and, on the other hand, as often as I direct my attention to things which I think I apprehend with great clearness, I am so persuaded of their truth that I naturally break out into expressions such as these: Deceive me who may, no one will yet ever be able to bring it about that I am not, so long as I shall be conscious that I am, or at any future time cause it to be true that I have never been, it being now true that I am, or make two and three more or less than five, in supposing which, and other like absurdities, I discover a manifest contradiction. And in truth, as I have no ground for believing that Deity is deceitful, and as, indeed, I have not even considered the reasons by which the existence of a Deity of any kind is established, the ground of doubt that rests only on this supposition is very slight, and, so to speak, metaphysical. But, that I may be able wholly to remove it, I must inquire whether there is a God, as soon as an opportunity of doing so shall present itself; and if I find that there is a God, I must examine likewise whether he can be a deceiver; for, without the knowledge of these two truths, I do not see that I can ever be certain of anything. And that I may be enabled to examine this without interrupting the order of meditation I have proposed to myself which is, to pass by degrees from the notions that I shall find first in my mind to those I shall afterward discover in it, it is necessary at this stage to divide all my thoughts into certain classes, and to consider in which of these classes truth and error are, strictly speaking, to be found.

5. Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things, and to these alone properly belongs the name IDEA; as when I think represent to my mind a man, a chimera, the sky, an angel or God. Others, again, have certain other forms; as when I will, fear, affirm, or deny, I always, indeed, apprehend something as the object of my thought, but I also embrace in thought something more than the representation of the object; and of this class of thoughts some are called volitions or affections, and others judgments.

6. Now, with respect to ideas, if these are considered only in themselves, and are not referred to any object beyond them, they cannot, properly speaking, be false; for, whether I imagine a goat or chimera, it is not less true that I imagine the one than the other. Nor need we fear that falsity may exist in the will or affections; for, although I may desire objects that are wrong, and even that never existed, it is still true that I desire them. There thus only remain our judgments, in which we must take diligent heed that we be not deceived. But the chief and most ordinary error that arises in them consists in judging that the ideas which are in us are like or conformed to the things that are external to us; for assuredly, if we but considered the ideas themselves as certain modes of our thought (consciousness), without referring them to anything beyond, they would hardly afford any occasion of error.

7. But among these ideas, some appear to me to be innate, others adventitious, and others to be made by myself (factitious); for, as I have the power of conceiving what is called a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it seems to me that I hold this power from no other source than my own nature; but if I now hear a noise, if I see the sun, or if I feel heat, I have all along judged that these sensations proceeded from certain objects existing out of myself; and, in fine, it appears to me that sirens, hippogryphs, and the like, are inventions of my own mind. But I may even perhaps come to be of opinion that all my ideas are of the class which I call adventitious, or that they are all innate, or that they are all factitious; for I have not yet clearly discovered their true origin.

8. What I have here principally to do is to consider, with reference to those that appear to come from certain objects without me, what grounds there are for thinking them like these objects. The first of these grounds is that it seems to me I am so taught by nature; and the second that I am conscious that those ideas are not dependent on my will, and therefore not on myself, for they are frequently presented to me against my will, as at present, whether I will or not, I feel heat; and I am thus persuaded that this sensation or idea (sensum vel ideam) of heat is produced in me by something different from myself, viz., by the heat of the fire by which I sit. And it is very reasonable to suppose that this object impresses me with its own likeness rather than any other thing.

9. But I must consider whether these reasons are sufficiently strong and convincing. When I speak of being taught by nature in this matter, I understand by the word nature only a certain spontaneous impetus that impels me to believe in a resemblance between ideas and their objects, and not a natural light that affords a knowledge of its truth. But these two things are widely different; for what the natural light shows to be true can be in no degree doubtful, as, for example, that I am because I doubt, and other truths of the like kind; inasmuch as I possess no other faculty whereby to distinguish truth from error, which can teach me the falsity of what the natural light declares to be true, and which is equally trustworthy; but with respect to seemingly] natural impulses, I have observed, when the question related to the choice of right or wrong in action, that they frequently led me to take the worse part; nor do I see that I have any better ground for following them in what relates to truth and error.

10. Then, with respect to the other reason, which is that because these ideas do not depend on my will, they must arise from objects existing without me, I do not find it more convincing than the former, for just as those natural impulses, of which I have lately spoken, are found in me, notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony with my will, so likewise it may be that I possess some power not sufficiently known to myself capable of producing ideas without the aid of external objects, and, indeed, it has always hitherto appeared to me that they are formed during sleep, by some power of this nature, without the aid of aught external.

11. And, in fine, although I should grant that they proceeded from those objects, it is not a necessary consequence that they must be like them. On the contrary, I have observed, in a number of instances, that there was a great difference between the object and its idea. Thus, for example, I find in my mind two wholly diverse ideas of the sun; the one, by which it appears to me extremely small draws its origin from the senses, and should be placed in the class of adventitious ideas; the other, by which it seems to be many times larger than the whole earth, is taken up on astronomical grounds, that is, elicited from certain notions born with me, or is framed by myself in some other manner. These two ideas cannot certainly both resemble the same sun; and reason teaches me that the one which seems to have immediately emanated from it is the most unlike.

12. And these things sufficiently prove that hitherto it has not been from a certain and deliberate judgment, but only from a sort of blind impulse, that I believed existence of certain things different from myself, which, by the organs of sense, or by whatever other means it might be, conveyed their ideas or images into my mind and impressed it with their likenesses.

13. But there is still another way of inquiring whether, of the objects whose ideas are in my mind, there are any that exist out of me. If ideas are taken in so far only as they are certain modes of consciousness, I do not remark any difference or inequality among them, and all seem, in the same manner, to proceed from myself; but, considering them as images, of which one represents one thing and another a different, it is evident that a great diversity obtains among them. For, without doubt, those that represent substances are something more, and contain in themselves, so to speak, more objective reality that is, participate by representation in higher degrees of being or perfection, than those that represent only modes or accidents; and again, the idea by which I conceive a God sovereign], eternal, infinite, immutable, all-knowing, all-powerful, and the creator of all things that are out of himself, this, I say, has certainly in it more objective reality than those ideas by which finite substances are represented.

14. Now, it is manifest by the natural light that there must at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect; for whence can the effect draw its reality if not from its cause ? And how could the cause communicate to it this reality unless it possessed it in itself? And hence it follows, not only that what is cannot be produced by what is not, but likewise that the more perfect, in other words, that which contains in itself more reality, cannot be the effect of the less perfect; and this is not only evidently true of those effects, whose reality is actual or formal, but likewise of ideas, whose reality is only considered as objective. Thus, for example, the stone that is not yet in existence, not only cannot now commence to be, unless it be produced by that which possesses in itself, formally or eminently, all that enters into its composition, in other words, by that which contains in itself the same properties that are in the stone, or others superior to them; and heat can only be produced in a subject that was before devoid of it, by a cause that is of an order, degree or kind], at least as perfect as heat; and so of the others. But further, even the idea of the heat, or of the stone, cannot exist in me unless it be put there by a cause that contains, at least, as much reality as I conceive existent in the heat or in the stone for although that cause may not transmit into my idea anything of its actual or formal reality, we ought not on this account to imagine that it is less real; but we ought to consider that, as every idea is a work of the mind, its nature is such as of itself to demand no other formal reality than that which it borrows from our consciousness, of which it is but a mode that is, a manner or way of thinking. But in order that an idea may contain this objective reality rather than that, it must doubtless derive it from some cause in which is found at least as much formal reality as the idea contains of objective; for, if we suppose that there is found in an idea anything which was not in its cause, it must of course derive this from nothing. But, however imperfect may be the mode of existence by which a thing is objectively or by representation] in the understanding by its idea, we certainly cannot, for all that, allege that this mode of existence is nothing, nor, consequently, that the idea owes its origin to nothing.

15. Nor must it be imagined that, since the reality which considered in these ideas is only objective, the same reality need not be formally (actually) in the causes of these ideas, but only objectively: for, just as the mode of existing objectively belongs to ideas by their peculiar nature, so likewise the mode of existing formally appertains to the causes of these ideas (at least to the first and principal), by their peculiar nature. And although an idea may give rise to another idea, this regress cannot, nevertheless, be infinite; we must in the end reach a first idea, the cause of which is, as it were, the archetype in which all the reality or perfection] that is found objectively or by representation] in these ideas is contained formally and in act]. I am thus clearly taught by the natural light that ideas exist in me as pictures or images, which may, in truth, readily fall short of the perfection of the objects from which they are taken, but can never contain anything greater or more perfect.

16. And in proportion to the time and care with which I examine all those matters, the conviction of their truth brightens and becomes distinct. But, to sum up, what conclusion shall I draw from it all? It is this: if the objective reality or perfection of any one of my ideas be such as clearly to convince me, that this same reality exists in me neither formally nor eminently, and if, as follows from this, I myself cannot be the cause of it, it is a necessary consequence that I am not alone in the world, but that there is besides myself some other being who exists as the cause of that idea; while, on the contrary, if no such idea be found in my mind, I shall have no sufficient ground of assurance of the existence of any other being besides myself, for, after a most careful search, I have, up to this moment, been unable to discover any other ground.

17. But, among these my ideas, besides that which represents myself, respecting which there can be here no difficulty, there is one that represents a God; others that represent corporeal and inanimate things; others angels; others animals; and, finally, there are some that represent men like myself.

18. But with respect to the ideas that represent other men, or animals, or angels, I can easily suppose that they were formed by the mingling and composition of the other ideas which I have of myself, of corporeal things, and of God, although they were, apart from myself, neither men, animals, nor angels.

19. And with regard to the ideas of corporeal objects, I never discovered in them anything so great or excellent which I myself did not appear capable of originating; for, by considering these ideas closely and scrutinizing them individually, in the same way that I yesterday examined the idea of wax, I find that there is but little in them that is clearly and distinctly perceived. As belonging to the class of things that are clearly apprehended, I recognize the following, viz, magnitude or extension in length, breadth, and depth; figure, which results from the termination of extension; situation, which bodies of diverse figures preserve with reference to each other; and motion or the change of situation; to which may be added substance, duration, and number. But with regard to light, colors, sounds, odors, tastes, heat, cold, and the other tactile qualities, they are thought with so much obscurity and confusion, that I cannot determine even whether they are true or false; in other words, whether or not the ideas I have of these qualities are in truth the ideas of real objects. For although I before remarked that it is only in judgments that formal falsity, or falsity properly so called, can be met with, there may nevertheless be found in ideas a certain material falsity, which arises when they represent what is nothing as if it were something. Thus, for example, the ideas I have of cold and heat are so far from being clear and distinct, that I am unable from them to discover whether cold is only the privation of heat, or heat the privation of cold; or whether they are or are not real qualities: and since, ideas being as it were images there can be none that does not seem to us to represent some object, the idea which represents cold as something real and positive will not improperly be called false, if it be correct to say that cold is nothing but a privation of heat; and so in other cases.

20. To ideas of this kind, indeed, it is not necessary that I should assign any author besides myself: for if they are false, that is, represent objects that are unreal, the natural light teaches me that they proceed from nothing; in other words, that they are in me only because something is wanting to the perfection of my nature; but if these ideas are true, yet because they exhibit to me so little reality that I cannot even distinguish the object represented from nonbeing, I do not see why I should not be the author of them.

21. With reference to those ideas of corporeal things that are clear and distinct, there are some which, as appears to me, might have been taken from the idea I have of myself, as those of substance, duration, number, and the like. For when I think that a stone is a substance, or a thing capable of existing of itself, and that I am likewise a substance, although I conceive that I am a thinking and non-extended thing, and that the stone, on the contrary, is extended and unconscious, there being thus the greatest diversity between the two concepts, yet these two ideas seem to have this in common that they both represent substances. In the same way, when I think of myself as now existing, and recollect besides that I existed some time ago, and when I am conscious of various thoughts whose number I know, I then acquire the ideas of duration and number, which I can afterward transfer to as many objects as I please. With respect to the other qualities that go to make up the ideas of corporeal objects, viz, extension, figure, situation, and motion, it is true that they are not formally in me, since I am merely a thinking being; but because they are only certain modes of substance, and because I myself am a substance, it seems possible that they may be contained in me eminently.

22. There only remains, therefore, the idea of God, in which I must consider whether there is anything that cannot be supposed to originate with myself. By the name God, I understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such there be, were created. But these properties are so great and excellent, that the more attentively I consider them the less I feel persuaded that the idea I have of them owes its origin to myself alone. And thus it is absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have before said, that God exists.

23. For though the idea of substance be in my mind owing to this, that I myself am a substance, I should not, however, have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I am a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance in reality infinite.

24. And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the negation of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the finite, and therefore that in some way I possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that of the finite, that is, the perception of God before that of myself, for how could I know that I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting to me, and that I am not wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more perfect than myself, by comparison of which I knew the deficiencies of my nature?

25. And it cannot be said that this idea of God is perhaps materially false, and consequently that it may have arisen from nothing in other words, that it may exist in me from my imperfections as I before said of the ideas of heat and cold, and the like: for, on the contrary, as this idea is very clear and distinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other, there can be no one of itself more true, or less open to the suspicion of falsity. The idea, I say, of a being supremely perfect, and infinite, is in the highest degree true; for although, perhaps, we may imagine that such a being does not exist, we cannot, nevertheless, suppose that his idea represents nothing real, as I have already said of the idea of cold. It is likewise clear and distinct in the highest degree, since whatever the mind clearly and distinctly conceives as real or true, and as implying any perfection, is contained entire in this idea. And this is true, nevertheless, although I do not comprehend the infinite, and although there may be in God an infinity of things that I cannot comprehend, nor perhaps even compass by thought in any way; for it is of the nature of the infinite that it should not be comprehended by the finite; and it is enough that I rightly understand this, and judge that all which I clearly perceive, and in which I know there is some perfection, and perhaps also an infinity of properties of which I am ignorant, are formally or eminently in God, in order that the idea I have of him may be come the most true, clear, and distinct of all the ideas in my mind.

26. But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself to be, and it may be that all those perfections which I attribute to God, in some way exist potentially in me, although they do not yet show themselves, and are not reduced to act. Indeed, I am already conscious that my knowledge is being increased and perfected] by degrees; and I see nothing to prevent it from thus gradually increasing to infinity, nor any reason why, after such increase and perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire all the other perfections of the Divine nature; nor, in fine, why the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it really now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce the ideas of them.

27. Yet, on looking more closely into the matter, I discover that this cannot be; for, in the first place, although it were true that my knowledge daily acquired new degrees of perfection, and although there were potentially in my nature much that was not as yet actually in it, still all these excellences make not the slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom there is no perfection merely potentially but all actually] existent; for it is even an unmistakable token of imperfection in my knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. Further, although my knowledge increase more and more, nevertheless I am not, therefore, induced to think that it will ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach that point beyond which it shall be incapable of further increase. But I conceive God as actually infinite, so that nothing can be added to his perfection. And, in fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a being that is merely potentially existent, which, properly speaking, is nothing, but only by a being existing formally or actually.

28. And, truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it is not easy for any one, who shall carefully consider it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured, and, as it were, blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more perfect than myself, must of necessity have proceeded from a being in reality more perfect. On this account I am here desirous to inquire further, whether I, who possess this idea of God, could exist supposing there were no God.

29. And I ask, from whom could I, in that case, derive my existence? Perhaps from myself, or from my parents, or from some other causes less perfect than God; for anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined.

30. But if I were independent of every other existence, and] were myself the author of my being, I should doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing, and, in fine, no perfection would be awanting to me; for I should have bestowed upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than that of which I am already possessed; for, on the contrary, it is quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a thinking substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the greater perfection of which I have now spoken in other words, if I were the author of my own existence], I would not at least have denied to myself things that may be more easily obtained as that infinite variety of knowledge of which I am at present destitute]. I could not, indeed, have denied to myself any property which I perceive is contained in the idea of God, because there is none of these that seems to me to be more difficult to make or acquire; and if there were any that should happen to be more difficult to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me (supposing that I myself were the source of the other things I possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my power.

31. And though I were to suppose that I always was as I now am, I should not, on this ground, escape the force of these reasonings, since it would not follow, even on this supposition, that no author of my existence needed to be sought after. For the whole time of my life may be divided into an infinity of parts, each of which is in no way dependent on any other; and, accordingly, because I was in existence a short time ago, it does not follow that I must now exist, unless in this moment some cause create me anew as it were, that is, conserve me. In truth, it is perfectly clear and evident to all who will attentively consider the nature of duration, that the conservation of a substance, in each moment of its duration, requires the same power and act that would be necessary to create it, supposing it were not yet in existence; so that it is manifestly a dictate of the natural light that conservation and creation differ merely in respect of our mode of thinking and not in reality.

32. All that is here required, therefore, is that I interrogate myself to discover whether I possess any power by means of which I can bring it about that I, who now am, shall exist a moment afterward: for, since I am merely a thinking thing (or since, at least, the precise question, in the meantime, is only of that part of myself ), if such a power resided in me, I should, without doubt, be conscious of it; but I am conscious of no such power, and thereby I manifestly know that I am dependent upon some being different from myself.

33. But perhaps the being upon whom I am dependent is not God, and I have been produced either by my parents, or by some causes less perfect than Deity. This cannot be: for, as I before said, it is perfectly evident that there must at least be as much reality in the cause as in its effect; and accordingly, since I am a thinking thing and possess in myself an idea of God, whatever in the end be the cause of my existence, it must of necessity be admitted that it is likewise a thinking being, and that it possesses in itself the idea and all the perfections I attribute to Deity. Then it may again be inquired whether this cause owes its origin and existence to itself, or to some other cause. For if it be self-existent, it follows, from what I have before laid down, that this cause is God; for, since it possesses the perfection of self-existence, it must likewise, without doubt, have the power of actually possessing every perfection of which it has the idea–in other words, all the perfections I conceive to belong to God. But if it owe its existence to another cause than itself, we demand again, for a similar reason, whether this second cause exists of itself or through some other, until, from stage to stage, we at length arrive at an ultimate cause, which will be God.

34. And it is quite manifest that in this matter there can be no infinite regress of causes, seeing that the question raised respects not so much the cause which once produced me, as that by which I am at this present moment conserved.

35. Nor can it be supposed that several causes concurred in my production, and that from one I received the idea of one of the perfections I attribute to Deity, and from another the idea of some other, and thus that all those perfections are indeed found somewhere in the universe, but do not all exist together in a single being who is God; for, on the contrary, the unity, the simplicity, or inseparability of all the properties of Deity, is one of the chief perfections I conceive him to possess; and the idea of this unity of all the perfections of Deity could certainly not be put into my mind by any cause from which I did not likewise receive the ideas of all the other perfections; for no power could enable me to embrace them in an inseparable unity, without at the same time giving me the knowledge of what they were and of their existence in a particular mode.

36. Finally, with regard to my parents from whom it appears I sprung ], although all that I believed respecting them be true, it does not, nevertheless, follow that I am conserved by them, or even that I was produced by them, in so far as I am a thinking being. All that, at the most, they contributed to my origin was the giving of certain dispositions (modifications) to the matter in which I have hitherto judged that I or my mind, which is what alone I now consider to be myself, is inclosed; and thus there can here be no difficulty with respect to them, and it is absolutely necessary to conclude from this alone that I am, and possess the idea of a being absolutely perfect, that is, of God, that his existence is most clearly demonstrated.

37. There remains only the inquiry as to the way in which I received this idea from God; for I have not drawn it from the senses, nor is it even presented to me unexpectedly, as is usual with the ideas of sensible objects, when these are presented or appear to be presented to the external organs of the senses; it is not even a pure production or fiction of my mind, for it is not in my power to take from or add to it; and consequently there but remains the alternative that it is innate, in the same way as is the idea of myself.

38. And, in truth, it is not to be wondered at that God, at my creation, implanted this idea in me, that it might serve, as it were, for the mark of the workman impressed on his work; and it is not also necessary that the mark should be something different from the work itself; but considering only that God is my creator, it is highly probable that he in some way fashioned me after his own image and likeness, and that I perceive this likeness, in which is contained the idea of God, by the same faculty by which I apprehend myself, in other words, when I make myself the object of reflection, I not only find that I am an incomplete, imperfect] and dependent being, and one who unceasingly aspires after something better and greater than he is; but, at the same time, I am assured likewise that he upon whom I am dependent possesses in himself all the goods after which I aspire and the ideas of which I find in my mind, and that not merely indefinitely and potentially, but infinitely and actually, and that he is thus God. And the whole force of the argument of which I have here availed myself to establish the existence of God, consists in this, that I perceive I could not possibly be of such a nature as I am, and yet have in my mind the idea of a God, if God did not in reality exist–this same God, I say, whose idea is in my mind–that is, a being who possesses all those lofty perfections, of which the mind may have some slight conception, without, however, being able fully to comprehend them, and who is wholly superior to all defect and has nothing that marks imperfection: whence it is sufficiently manifest that he cannot be a deceiver, since it is a dictate of the natural light that all fraud and deception spring from some defect.

39. But before I examine this with more attention, and pass on to the consideration of other truths that may be evolved out of it, I think it proper to remain here for some time in the contemplation of God himself–that I may ponder at leisure his marvelous attributes–and behold, admire, and adore the beauty of this light so unspeakably great, as far, at least, as the strength of my mind, which is to some degree dazzled by the sight, will permit. For just as we learn by faith that the supreme felicity of another life consists in the contemplation of the Divine majesty alone, so even now we learn from experience that a like meditation, though incomparably less perfect, is the source of the highest satisfaction of which we are susceptible in this life.

MEDITATION IV
OF TRUTH AND ERROR

1. I have been habituated these bygone days to detach my mind from the senses, and I have accurately observed that there is exceedingly little which is known with certainty respecting corporeal objects, that we know much more of the human mind, and still more of God himself. I am thus able now without difficulty to abstract my mind from the contemplation of sensible or imaginable objects, and apply it to those which, as disengaged from all matter, are purely intelligible. And certainly the idea I have of the human mind in so far as it is a thinking thing, and not extended in length, breadth, and depth, and participating in none of the properties of body, is incomparably more distinct than the idea of any corporeal object; and when I consider that I doubt, in other words, that I am an incomplete and dependent being, the idea of a complete and independent being, that is to say of God, occurs to my mind with so much clearness and distinctness, and from the fact alone that this idea is found in me, or that I who possess it exist, the conclusions that God exists, and that my own existence, each moment of its continuance, is absolutely dependent upon him, are so manifest, as to lead me to believe it impossible that the human mind can know anything with more clearness and certitude. And now I seem to discover a path that will conduct us from the contemplation of the true God, in whom are contained all the treasures of science and wisdom, to the knowledge of the other things in the universe.

2. For, in the first place, I discover that it is impossible for him ever to deceive me, for in all fraud and deceit there is a certain imperfection: and although it may seem that the ability to deceive is a mark of subtlety or power, yet the will testifies without doubt of malice and weakness; and such, accordingly, cannot be found in God.

3.In the next place, I am conscious that I possess a certain faculty of judging or discerning truth from error, which I doubtless received from God, along with whatever else is mine; and since it is impossible that he should will to deceive me, it is likewise certain that he has not given me a faculty that will ever lead me into error, provided I use it aright.

4. And there would remain no doubt on this head, did it not seem to follow from this, that I can never therefore be deceived; for if all I possess be from God, and if he planted in me no faculty that is deceitful, it seems to follow that I can never fall into error. Accordingly, it is true that when I think only of God (when I look upon myself as coming from God, Fr.), and turn wholly to him, I discover in mysel no cause of error or falsity: but immediately thereafter, recurring to myself, experience assures me that I am nevertheless subject to innumerable errors. When I come to inquire into the cause of these, I observe that there is not only present to my consciousness a real and positive idea of God, or of a being supremely perfect, but also, so to speak, a certain negative idea of nothing, in other words, of that which is at an infinite distance from every sort of perfection, and that I am, as it were, a mean between God and nothing, or placed in such a way between absolute existence and non-existence, that there is in truth nothing in me to lead me into error, in so far as an absolute being is my creator; but that, on the other hand, as I thus likewise participate in some degree of nothing or of nonbeing, in other words, as I am not myself the supreme Being, and as I am wanting in many perfections, it is not surprising I should fall into error. And I hence discern that error, so far as error is not something real, which depends for its existence on God, but is simply defect; and therefore that, in order to fall into it, it is not necessary God should have given me a faculty expressly for this end, but that my being deceived arises from the circumstance that the power which God has given me of discerning truth from error is not infinite.

5. Nevertheless this is not yet quite satisfactory; for error is not a pure negation, in other words, it is not the simple deficiency or want of some knowledge which is not due, but the privation or want of some knowledge which it would seem I ought to possess. But, on considering the nature of God, it seems impossible that he should have planted in his creature any faculty not perfect in its kind, that is, wanting in some perfection due to it: for if it be true, that in proportion to the skill of the maker the perfection of his work is greater, what thing can have been produced by the supreme Creator of the universe that is not absolutely perfect in all its parts? And assuredly there is no doubt that God could have created me such as that I should never be deceived; it is certain, likewise, that he always wills what is best: is it better, then, that I should be capable of being deceived than that I should not?

6. Considering this more attentively the first thing that occurs to me is the reflection that I must not be surprised if I am not always capable of comprehending the reasons why God acts as he does; nor must I doubt of his existence because I find, perhaps, that there are several other things besides the present respecting which I understand neither why nor how they were created by him; for, knowing already that my nature is extremely weak and limited, and that the nature of God, on the other hand, is immense, incomprehensible, and infinite, I have no longer any difficulty in discerning that there is an infinity of things in his power whose causes transcend the grasp of my mind: and this consideration alone is sufficient to convince me, that the whole class of final causes is of no avail in physical or natural ] things; for it appears to me that I cannot, without exposing myself to the charge of temerity, seek to discover the impenetrable ends of Deity.

7. It further occurs to me that we must not consider only one creature apart from the others, if we wish to determine the perfection of the works of Deity, but generally all his creatures together; for the same object that might perhaps, with some show of reason, be deemed highly imperfect if it were alone in the world, may for all that be the most perfect possible, considered as forming part of the whole universe: and although, as it was my purpose to doubt of everything, I only as yet know with certainty my own existence and that of God, nevertheless, after having remarked the infinite power of Deity, I cannot deny that we may have produced many other objects, or at least that he is able to produce them, so that I may occupy a place in the relation of a part to the great whole of his creatures.

8. Whereupon, regarding myself more closely, and considering what my errors are (which alone testify to the existence of imperfection in me), I observe that these depend on the concurrence of two causes, viz, the faculty of cognition, which I possess, and that of election or the power of free choice,–in other words, the understanding and the will. For by the understanding alone, I neither affirm nor deny anything but] merely apprehend (percipio) the ideas regarding which I may form a judgment; nor is any error, properly so called, found in it thus accurately taken. And although there are perhaps innumerable objects in the world of which I have no idea in my understanding, it cannot, on that account be said that I am deprived of those ideas as of something that is due to my nature, but simply that I do not possess them, because, in truth, there is no ground to prove that Deity ought to have endowed me with a larger faculty of cognition than he has actually bestowed upon me; and however skillful a workman I suppose him to be, I have no reason, on that account, to think that it was obligatory on him to give to each of his works all the perfections he is able to bestow upon some. Nor, moreover, can I complain that God has not given me freedom of choice, or a will sufficiently ample and perfect, since, in truth, I am conscious of will so ample and extended as to be superior to all limits. And what appears to me here to be highly remarkable is that, of all the other properties I possess, there is none so great and perfect as that I do not clearly discern it could be still greater and more perfect. For, to take an example, if I consider the faculty of understanding which I possess, I find that it is of very small extent, and greatly limited, and at the same time I form the idea of another faculty of the same nature, much more ample and even infinite, and seeing that I can frame the idea of it, I discover, from this circumstance alone, that it pertains to the nature of God. In the same way, if I examine the faculty of memory or imagination, or any other faculty I possess, I find none that is not small and circumscribed, and in God immense and infinite. It is the faculty of will only, or freedom of choice, which I experience to be so great that I am unable to conceive the idea of another that shall be more ample and extended; so that it is chiefly my will which leads me to discern that I bear a certain image and similitude of Deity. For although the faculty of will is incomparably greater in God than in myself, as well in respect of the knowledge and power that are conjoined with it, and that render it stronger and more efficacious, as in respect of the object, since in him it extends to a greater number of things, it does not, nevertheless, appear to me greater, considered in itself formally and precisely: for the power of will consists only in this, that we are able to do or not to do the same thing (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or shun it), or rather in this alone, that in affirming or denying, pursuing or shunning, what is proposed to us by the understanding, we so act that we are not conscious of being determined to a particular action by any external force. For, to the possession of freedom, it is not necessary that I be alike indifferent toward each of two contraries; but, on the contrary, the more I am inclined toward the one, whether because I clearly know that in it there is the reason of truth and goodness, or because God thus internally disposes my thought, the more freely do I choose and embrace it; and assuredly divine grace and natural knowledge, very far from diminishing liberty, rather augment and fortify it. But the indifference of which I am conscious when I am not impelled to one side rather than to another for want of a reason, is the lowest grade of liberty, and manifests defect or negation of knowledge rather than perfection of will; for if I always clearly knew what was true and good, I should never have any difficulty in determining what judgment I ought to come to, and what choice I ought to make, and I should thus be entirely free without ever being indifferent.

9. From all this I discover, however, that neither the power of willing, which I have received from God, is of itself the source of my errors, for it is exceedingly ample and perfect in its kind; nor even the power of understanding, for as I conceive no object unless by means of the faculty that God bestowed upon me, all that I conceive is doubtless rightly conceived by me, and it is impossible for me to be deceived in it. Whence, then, spring my errors? They arise from this cause alone, that I do not restrain the will, which is of much wider range than the understanding, within the same limits, but extend it even to things I do not understand, and as the will is of itself indifferent to such, it readily falls into error and sin by choosing the false in room of the true, and evil instead of good.

10. For example, when I lately considered whether aught really existed in the world, and found that because I considered this question, it very manifestly followed that I myself existed, I could not but judge that what I so clearly conceived was true, not that I was forced to this judgment by any external cause, but simply because great clearness of the understanding was succeeded by strong inclination in the will; and I believed this the more freely and spontaneously in proportion as I was less indifferent with respect to it. But now I not only know that I exist, in so far as I am a thinking being, but there is likewise presented to my mind a certain idea of corporeal nature; hence I am in doubt as to whether the thinking nature which is in me, or rather which I myself am, is different from that corporeal nature, or whether both are merely one and the same thing, and I here suppose that I am as yet ignorant of any reason that would determine me to adopt the one belief in preference to the other; whence it happens that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me which of the two suppositions I affirm or deny, or whether I form any judgment at all in the matter.

11. This indifference, moreover, extends not only to things of which the understanding has no knowledge at all, but in general also to all those which it does not discover with perfect clearness at the moment the will is deliberating upon them; for, however probable the conjectures may be that dispose me to form a judgment in a particular matter, the simple knowledge that these are merely conjectures, and not certain and indubitable reasons, is sufficient to lead me to form one that is directly the opposite. Of this I lately had abundant experience, when I laid aside as false all that I had before held for true, on the single ground that I could in some degree doubt of it.

12. But if I abstain from judging of a thing when I do not conceive it with sufficient clearness and distinctness, it is plain that I act rightly, and am not deceived; but if I resolve to deny or affirm, I then do not make a right use of my free will; and if I affirm what is false, it is evident that I am deceived; moreover, even although I judge according to truth, I stumble upon it by chance, and do not therefore escape the imputation of a wrong use of my freedom; for it is a dictate of the natural light, that the knowledge of the understanding ought always to precede the determination of the will. And it is this wrong use of the freedom of the will in which is found the privation that constitutes the form of error. Privation, I say, is found in the act, in so far as it proceeds from myself, but it does not exist in the faculty which I received from God, nor even in the act, in so far as it depends on him.

13. For I have assuredly no reason to complain that God has not given me a greater power of intelligence or more perfect natural light than he has actually bestowed, since it is of the nature of a finite understanding not to comprehend many things, and of the nature of a created understanding to be finite; on the contrary, I have every reason to render thanks to God, who owed me nothing, for having given me all the perfections I possess, and I should be far from thinking that he has unjustly deprived me of, or kept back, the other perfections which he has not bestowed upon me.

14. I have no reason, moreover, to complain because he has given me a will more ample than my understanding, since, as the will consists only of a single element, and that indivisible, it would appear that this faculty is of such a nature that nothing could be taken from it without destroying it; and certainly, the more extensive it is, the more cause I have to thank the goodness of him who bestowed it upon me.

15. And, finally, I ought not also to complain that God concurs with me in forming the acts of this will, or the judgments in which I am deceived, because those acts are wholly true and good, in so far as they depend on God; and the ability to form them is a higher degree of perfection in my nature than the want of it would be. With regard to privation, in which alone consists the formal reason of error and sin, this does not require the concurrence of Deity, because it is not a thing or existence], and if it be referred to God as to its cause, it ought not to be called privation, but negation according to the signification of these words in the schools. For in truth it is no imperfection in Deity that he has accorded to me the power of giving or withholding my assent from certain things of which he has not put a clear and distinct knowledge in my understanding; but it is doubtless an imperfection in me that I do not use my freedom aright, and readily give my judgment on matters which I only obscurely and confusedly conceive. I perceive, nevertheless, that it was easy for Deity so to have constituted me as that I should never be deceived, although I still remained free and possessed of a limited knowledge, viz., by implanting in my understanding a clear and distinct knowledge of all the objects respecting which I should ever have to deliberate; or simply by so deeply engraving on my memory the resolution to judge of nothing without previously possessing a clear and distinct conception of it, that I should never forget it. And I easily understand that, in so far as I consider myself as a single whole, without reference to any other being in the universe, I should have been much more perfect than I now am, had Deity created me superior to error; but I cannot therefore deny that it is not somehow a greater perfection in the universe, that certain of its parts are not exempt from defect, as others are, than if they were all perfectly alike. And I have no right to complain because God, who placed me in the world, was not willing that I should sustain that character which of all others is the chief and most perfect.

16. I have even good reason to remain satisfied on the ground that, if he has not given me the perfection of being superior to error by the first means I have pointed out above, which depends on a clear and evident knowledge of all the matters regarding which I can deliberate, he has at least left in my power the other means, which is, firmly to retain the resolution never to judge where the truth is not clearly known to me: for, although I am conscious of the weakness of not being able to keep my mind continually fixed on the same thought, I can nevertheless, by attentive and oft-repeated meditation, impress it so strongly on my memory that I shall never fail to recollect it as often as I require it, and I can acquire in this way the habitude of not erring.

17. And since it is in being superior to error that the highest and chief perfection of man consists, I deem that I have not gained little by this day’s meditation, in having discovered the source of error and falsity. And certainly this can be no other than what I have now explained: for as often as I so restrain my will within the limits of my knowledge, that it forms no judgment except regarding objects which are clearly and distinctly represented to it by the understanding, I can never be deceived; because every clear and distinct conception is doubtless something, and as such cannot owe its origin to nothing, but must of necessity have God for its author– God, I say, who, as supremely perfect, cannot, without a contradiction, be the cause of any error; and consequently it is necessary to conclude that every such conception or judgment is true. Nor have I merely learned today what I must avoid to escape error, but also what I must do to arrive at the knowledge of truth; for I will assuredly reach truth if I only fix my attention sufficiently on all the things I conceive perfectly, and separate these from others which I conceive more confusedly and obscurely; to which for the future I shall give diligent heed.


MEDITATION V
OF THE ESSENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS; AND, AGAIN, OF GOD; THAT HE EXISTS

1. Several other questions remain for consideration respecting the attributes of God and my own nature or mind. I will, however, on some other occasion perhaps resume the investigation of these. Meanwhile, as I have discovered what must be done and what avoided to arrive at the knowledge of truth, what I have chiefly to do is to essay to emerge from the state of doubt in which I have for some time been, and to discover whether anything can be known with certainty regarding material objects.

2. But before considering whether such objects as I conceive exist without me, I must examine their ideas in so far as these are to be found in my consciousness, and discover which of them are distinct and which confused.

3. In the first place, I distinctly imagine that quantity which the philosophers commonly call continuous, or the extension in length, breadth, and depth that is in this quantity, or rather in the object to which it is attributed. Further, I can enumerate in it many diverse parts, and attribute to each of these all sorts of sizes, figures, situations, and local motions; and, in fine, I can assign to each of these motions all degrees of duration.

4. And I not only distinctly know these things when I thus consider them in general; but besides, by a little attention, I discover innumerable particulars respecting figures, numbers, motion, and the like, which are so evidently true, and so accordant with my nature, that when I now discover them I do not so much appear to learn anything new, as to call to remembrance what I before knew, or for the first time to remark what was before in my mind, but to which I had not hitherto directed my attention.

5. And what I here find of most importance is, that I discover in my mind innumerable ideas of certain objects, which cannot be esteemed pure negations, although perhaps they possess no reality beyond my thought, and which are not framed by me though it may be in my power to think, or not to think them, but possess true and immutable natures of their own. As, for example, when I imagine a triangle, although there is not perhaps and never was in any place in the universe apart from my thought one such figure, it remains true nevertheless that this figure possesses a certain determinate nature, form, or essence, which is immutable and eternal, and not framed by me, nor in any degree dependent on my thought; as appears from the circumstance, that diverse properties of the triangle may be demonstrated, viz, that its three angles are equal to two right, that its greatest side is subtended by its greatest angle, and the like, which, whether I will or not, I now clearly discern to belong to it, although before I did not at all think of them, when, for the first time, I imagined a triangle, and which accordingly cannot be said to have been invented by me.

6. Nor is it a valid objection to allege, that perhaps this idea of a triangle came into my mind by the medium of the senses, through my having. seen bodies of a triangular figure; for I am able to form in thought an innumerable variety of figures with regard to which it cannot be supposed that they were ever objects of sense, and I can nevertheless demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no less than of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since I clearly conceive them: and they are therefore something, and not mere negations; for it is highly evident that all that is true is something, truth being identical with existence; and I have already fully shown the truth of the principle, that whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true. And although this had not been demonstrated, yet the nature of my mind is such as to compel me to assert to what I clearly conceive while I so conceive it; and I recollect that even when I still strongly adhered to the objects of sense, I reckoned among the number of the most certain truths those I clearly conceived relating to figures, numbers, and other matters that pertain to arithmetic and geometry, and in general to the pure mathematics.

7. But now if because I can draw from my thought the idea of an object, it follows that all I clearly and distinctly apprehend to pertain to this object, does in truth belong to it, may I not from this derive an argument for the existence of God? It is certain that I no less find the idea of a God in my consciousness, that is the idea of a being supremely perfect, than that of any figure or number whatever: and I know with not less clearness and distinctness that an actual and] eternal existence pertains to his nature than that all which is demonstrable of any figure or number really belongs to the nature of that figure or number; and, therefore, although all the conclusions of the preceding Meditations were false, the existence of God would pass with me for a truth at least as certain as I ever judged any truth of mathematics to be.

8. Indeed such a doctrine may at first sight appear to contain more sophistry than truth. For, as I have been accustomed in every other matter to distinguish between existence and essence, I easily believe that the existence can be separated from the essence of God, and that thus God may be conceived as not actually existing. But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it appears that the existence can no more be separated from the essence of God, than the idea of a mountain from that of a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, from the essence of a rectilinear] triangle; so that it is not less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being supremely perfect, to whom existence is awanting, or who is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive a mountain without a valley.

9. But though, in truth, I cannot conceive a God unless as existing, any more than I can a mountain without a valley, yet, just as it does not follow that there is any mountain in the world merely because I conceive a mountain with a valley, so likewise, though I conceive God as existing, it does not seem to follow on that account that God exists; for my thought imposes no necessity on things; and as I may imagine a winged horse, though there be none such, so I could perhaps attribute existence to God, though no God existed.

10. But the cases are not analogous, and a fallacy lurks under the semblance of this objection: for because I cannot conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that there is any mountain or valley in existence, but simply that the mountain or valley, whether they do or do not exist, are inseparable from each other; whereas, on the other hand, because I cannot conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and therefore that he really exists: not that this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings.

11. Nor must it be alleged here as an objection, that it is in truth necessary to admit that God exists, after having supposed him to possess all perfections, since existence is one of them, but that my original supposition was not necessary; just as it is not necessary to think that all quadrilateral figures can be inscribed in the circle, since, if I supposed this, I should be constrained to admit that the rhombus, being a figure of four sides, can be therein inscribed, which, however, is manifestly false. This objection is, I say, incompetent; for although it may not be necessary that I shall at any time entertain the notion of Deity, yet each time I happen to think of a first and sovereign being, and to draw, so to speak, the idea of him from the storehouse of the mind, I am necessitated to attribute to him all kinds of perfections, though I may not then enumerate them all, nor think of each of them in particular. And this necessity is sufficient, as soon as I discover that existence is a perfection, to cause me to infer the existence of this first and sovereign being; just as it is not necessary that I should ever imagine any triangle, but whenever I am desirous of considering a rectilinear figure composed of only three angles, it is absolutely necessary to attribute those properties to it from which it is correctly inferred that its three angles are not greater than two right angles, although perhaps I may not then advert to this relation in particular. But when I consider what figures are capable of being inscribed in the circle, it is by no means necessary to hold that all quadrilateral figures are of this number; on the contrary, I cannot even imagine such to be the case, so long as I shall be unwilling to accept in thought aught that I do not clearly and distinctly conceive; and consequently there is a vast difference between false suppositions, as is the one in question, and the true ideas that were born with me, the first and chief of which is the idea of God. For indeed I discern on many grounds that this idea is not factitious depending simply on my thought, but that it is the representation of a true and immutable nature: in the first place because I can conceive no other being, except God, to whose essence existence necessarily pertains; in the second, because it is impossible to conceive two or more gods of this kind; and it being supposed that one such God exists, I clearly see that he must have existed from all eternity, and will exist to all eternity; and finally, because I apprehend many other properties in God, none of which I can either diminish or change.

12. But, indeed, whatever mode of probation I in the end adopt, it always returns to this, that it is only the things I clearly and distinctly conceive which have the power of completely persuading me. And although, of the objects I conceive in this manner, some, indeed, are obvious to every one, while others are only discovered after close and careful investigation; nevertheless after they are once discovered, the latter are not esteemed less certain than the former. Thus, for example, to take the case of a right-angled triangle, although it is not so manifest at first that the square of the base is equal to the squares of the other two sides, as that the base is opposite to the greatest angle; nevertheless, after it is once apprehended, we are as firmly persuaded of the truth of the former as of the latter. And, with respect to God if I were not pre-occupied by prejudices, and my thought beset on all sides by the continual presence of the images of sensible objects, I should know nothing sooner or more easily then the fact of his being. For is there any truth more clear than the existence of a Supreme Being, or of God, seeing it is to his essence alone that necessary and eterna existence pertains?

13. And although the right conception of this truth has cost me much close thinking, nevertheless at present I feel not only as assured of it as of what I deem most certain, but I remark further that the certitude of all other truths is so absolutely dependent on it that without this knowledge it is impossible ever to know anything perfectly.

14. For although I am of such a nature as to be unable, while I possess a very clear and distinct apprehension of a matter, to resist the conviction of its truth, yet because my constitution is also such as to incapacitate me from keeping my mind continually fixed on the same object, and as I frequently recollect a past judgment without at the same time being able to recall the grounds of it, it may happen meanwhile that other reasons are presented to me which would readily cause me to change my opinion, if I did not know that God existed; and thus I should possess no true and certain knowledge, but merely vague and vacillating opinions. Thus, for example, when I consider the nature of the rectilinear] triangle, it most clearly appears to me, who have been instructed in the principles of geometry, that its three angles are equal to two right angles, and I find it impossible to believe otherwise, while I apply my mind to the demonstration; but as soon as I cease from attending to the process of proof, although I still remember that I had a clear comprehension of it, yet I may readily come to doubt of the truth demonstrated, if I do not know that there is a God: for I may persuade myself that I have been so constituted by nature as to be sometimes deceived, even in matters which I think I apprehend with the greatest evidence and certitude, especially when I recollect that I frequently considered many things to be true and certain which other reasons afterward constrained me to reckon as wholly false.

15. But after I have discovered that God exists, seeing I also at the same time observed that all things depend on him, and that he is no deceiver, and thence inferred that all which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true: although I no longer attend to the grounds of a judgment, no opposite reason can be alleged sufficient to lead me to doubt of its truth, provided only I remember that I once possessed a clear and distinct comprehension of it. My knowledge of it thus becomes true and certain. And this same knowledge extends likewise to whatever I remember to have formerly demonstrated, as the truths of geometry and the like: for what can be alleged against them to lead me to doubt of them ? Will it be that my nature is such that I may be frequently deceived? But I already know that I cannot be deceived in judgments of the grounds of which I possess a clear knowledge. Will it be that I formerly deemed things to be true and certain which I afterward discovered to be false ? But I had no clear and distinct knowledge of any of those things, and, being as yet ignorant of the rule by which I am assured of the truth of a judgment, I was led to give my assent to them on grounds which I afterward discovered were less strong than at the time I imagined them to be. What further objection, then, is there ? Will it be said that perhaps I am dreaming (an objection I lately myself raised), or that all the thoughts of which I am now conscious have no more truth than the reveries of my dreams? But although, in truth, I should be dreaming, the rule still holds that all which is clearly presented to my intellect is indisputably true.

16. And thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth of all science depends on the knowledge alone of the true God, insomuch that, before I knew him, I could have no perfect knowledge of any other thing. And now that I know him, I possess the means of acquiring a perfect knowledge respecting innumerable matters, as well relative to God himself and other intellectual objects as to corporeal nature, in so far as it is the object of pure mathematics which do not consider whether it exists or not.


MEDITATION VI
OF THE EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGS, AND OF THE REAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE MIND AND BODY OF MAN

1. There now only remains the inquiry as to whether material things exist. With regard to this question, I at least know with certainty that such things may exist, in as far as they constitute the object of the pure mathematics, since, regarding them in this aspect, I can conceive them clearly and distinctly. For there can be no doubt that God possesses the power of producing all the objects I am able distinctly to conceive, and I never considered anything impossible to him, unless when I experienced a contradiction in the attempt to conceive it aright. Further, the faculty of imagination which I possess, and of which I am conscious that I make use when I apply myself to the consideration of material things, is sufficient to persuade me of their existence: for, when I attentively consider what imagination is, I find that it is simply a certain application of the cognitive faculty (facultas cognoscitiva) to a body which is immediately present to it, and which therefore exists.

2. And to render this quite clear, I remark, in the first place, the difference that subsists between imagination and pure intellection or conception. For example, when I imagine a triangle I not only conceive (intelligo) that it is a figure comprehended by three lines, but at the same time also I look upon (intueor) these three lines as present by the power and internal application of my mind (acie mentis), and this is what I call imagining. But if I desire to think of a chiliogon, I indeed rightly conceive that it is a figure composed of a thousand sides, as easily as I conceive that a triangle is a figure composed of only three sides; but I cannot imagine the thousand sides of a chiliogon as I do the three sides of a triangle, nor, so to speak, view them as present with the eyes of my mind ]. And although, in accordance with the habit I have of always imagining something when I think of corporeal things, it may happen that, in conceiving a chiliogon, I confusedly represent some figure to myself, yet it is quite evident that this is not a chiliogon, since it in no wise differs from that which I would represent to myself, if I were to think of a myriogon, or any other figure of many sides; nor would this representation be of any use in discovering and unfolding the properties that constitute the difference between a chiliogon and other polygons. But if the question turns on a pentagon, it is quite true that I can conceive its figure, as well as that of a chiliogon, without the aid of imagination; but I can likewise imagine it by applying the attention of my mind to its five sides, and at the same time to the area which they contain. Thus I observe that a special effort of mind is necessary to the act of imagination, which is not required to conceiving or understanding (ad intelligendum); and this special exertion of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and pure intellection (imaginatio et intellectio pura).

3. I remark, besides, that this power of imagination which I possess, in as far as it differs from the power of conceiving, is in no way necessary to my nature or] essence, that is, to the essence of my mind; for although I did not possess it, I should still remain the same that I now am, from which it seems we may conclude that it depends on something different from the mind. And I easily understand that, if some body exists, with which my mind is so conjoined and united as to be able, as it were, to consider it when it chooses, it may thus imagine corporeal objects; so that this mode of thinking differs from pure intellection only in this respect, that the mind in conceiving turns in some way upon itself, and considers some one of the ideas it possesses within itself; but in imagining it turns toward the body, and contemplates in it some object conformed to the idea which it either of itself conceived or apprehended by sense. I easily understand, I say, that imagination may be thus formed, if it is true that there are bodies; and because I find no other obvious mode of explaining it, I thence, with probability, conjecture that they exist, but only with probability; and although I carefully examine all things, nevertheless I do not find that, from the distinct idea of corporeal nature I have in my imagination, I can necessarily infer the existence of any body.

4. But I am accustomed to imagine many other objects besides that corporeal nature which is the object of the pure mathematics, as, for example, colors, sounds, tastes, pain, and the like, although with less distinctness; and, inasmuch as I perceive these objects much better by the senses, through the medium of which and of memory, they seem to have reached the imagination, I believe that, in order the more advantageously to examine them, it is proper I should at the same time examine what sense-perception is, and inquire whether from those ideas that are apprehended by this mode of thinking (consciousness), I cannot obtain a certain proof of the existence of corporeal objects.

5. And, in the first place, I will recall to my mind the things I have hitherto held as true, because perceived by the senses, and the foundations upon which my belief in their truth rested; I will, in the second place, examine the reasons that afterward constrained me to doubt of them; and, finally, I will consider what of them I ought now to believe.

6. Firstly, then, I perceived that I had a head, hands, feet and other members composing that body which I considered as part, or perhaps even as the whole, of myself. I perceived further, that that body was placed among many others, by which it was capable of being affected in diverse ways, both beneficial and hurtful; and what was beneficial I remarked by a certain sensation of pleasure, and what was hurtful by a sensation of pain. And besides this pleasure and pain, I was likewise conscious of hunger, thirst, and other appetites, as well as certain corporeal inclinations toward joy, sadness, anger, and similar passions. And, out of myself, besides the extension, figure, and motions of bodies, I likewise perceived in them hardness, heat, and the other tactile qualities, and, in addition, light, colors, odors, tastes, and sounds, the variety of which gave me the means of distinguishing the sky, the earth, the sea, and generally all the other bodies, from one another. And certainly, considering the ideas of all these qualities, which were presented to my mind, and which alone I properly and immediately perceived, it was not without reason that I thought I perceived certain objects wholly different from my thought, namely, bodies from which those ideas proceeded; for I was conscious that the ideas were presented to me without my consent being required, so that I could not perceive any object, however desirous I might be, unless it were present to the organ of sense; and it was wholly out of my power not to perceive it when it was thus present. And because the ideas I perceived by the senses were much more lively and clear, and even, in their own way, more distinct than any of those I could of myself frame by meditation, or which I found impressed on my memory, it seemed that they could not have proceeded from myself, and must therefore have been caused in me by some other objects; and as of those objects I had no knowledge beyond what the ideas themselves gave me, nothing was so likely to occur to my mind as the supposition that the objects were similar to the ideas which they caused. And because I recollected also that I had formerly trusted to the senses, rather than to reason, and that the ideas which I myself formed were not so clear as those I perceived by sense, and that they were even for the most part composed of parts of the latter, I was readily persuaded that I had no idea in my intellect which had not formerly passed through the senses. Nor was I altogether wrong in likewise believing that that body which, by a special right, I called my own, pertained to me more properly and strictly than any of the others; for in truth, I could never be separated from it as from other bodies; I felt in it and on account of it all my appetites and affections, and in fine I was affected in its parts by pain and the titillation of pleasure, and not in the parts of the other bodies that were separated from it. But when I inquired into the reason why, from this I know not what sensation of pain, sadness of mind should follow, and why from the sensation of pleasure, joy should arise, or why this indescribable twitching of the stomach, which I call hunger, should put me in mind of taking food, and the parchedness of the throat of drink, and so in other cases, I was unable to give any explanation, unless that I was so taught by nature; for there is assuredly no affinity, at least none that I am able to comprehend, between this irritation of the stomach and the desire of food, any more than between the perception of an object that causes pain and the consciousness of sadness which springs from the perception. And in the same way it seemed to me that all the other judgments I had formed regarding the objects of sense, were dictates of nature; because I remarked that those judgments were formed in me, before I had leisure to weigh and consider the reasons that might constrain me to form them.

7. But, afterward, a wide experience by degrees sapped the faith I had reposed in my senses; for I frequently observed that towers, which at a distance seemed round, appeared square, when more closely viewed, and that colossal figures, raised on the summits of these towers, looked like small statues, when viewed from the bottom of them; and, in other instances without number, I also discovered error in judgments founded on the external senses; and not only in those founded on the external, but even in those that rested on the internal senses; for is there aught more internal than pain ? And yet I have sometimes been informed by parties whose arm or leg had been amputated, that they still occasionally seemed to feel pain in that part of the body which they had lost, –a circumstance that led me to think that I could not be quite certain even that any one of my members was affected when I felt pain in it. And to these grounds of doubt I shortly afterward also added two others of very wide generality: the first of them was that I believed I never perceived anything when awake which I could not occasionally think I also perceived when asleep, and as I do not believe that the ideas I seem to perceive in my sleep proceed from objects external to me, I did not any more observe any ground for believing this of such as I seem to perceive when awake; the second was that since I was as yet ignorant of the author of my being or at least supposed myself to be so, I saw nothing to prevent my having been so constituted by nature as that I should be deceived even in matters that appeared to me to possess the greatest truth. And, with respect to the grounds on which I had before been persuaded of the existence of sensible objects, I had no great difficulty in finding suitable answers to them; for as nature seemed to incline me to many things from which reason made me averse, I thought that I ought not to confide much in its teachings. And although the perceptions of the senses were not dependent on my will, I did not think that I ought on that ground to conclude that they proceeded from things different from myself, since perhaps there might be found in me some faculty, though hitherto unknown to me, which produced them.

8. But now that I begin to know myself better, and to discover more clearly the author of my being, I do not, indeed, think that I ought rashly to admit all which the senses seem to teach, nor, on the other hand, is it my conviction that I ought to doubt in general of their teachings.

9. And, firstly, because I know that all which I clearly and distinctly conceive can be produced by God exactly as I conceive it, it is sufficient that I am able clearly and distinctly to conceive one thing apart from another, in order to be certain that the one is different from the other, seeing they may at least be made to exist separately, by the omnipotence of God; and it matters not by what power this separation is made, in order to be compelled to judge them different; and, therefore, merely because I know with certitude that I exist, and because, in the meantime, I do not observe that aught necessarily belongs to my nature or essence beyond my being a thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my essence consists only in my being a thinking thing or a substance whose whole essence or nature is merely thinking. And although I may, or rather, as I will shortly say, although I certainly do possess a body with which I am very closely conjoined; nevertheless, because, on the one hand, I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that I, that is, my mind, by which I am what I am], is entirely and truly distinct from my body, and may exist without it.

10. Moreover, I find in myself diverse faculties of thinking that have each their special mode: for example, I find I possess the faculties of imagining and perceiving, without which I can indeed clearly and distinctly conceive myself as entire, but I cannot reciprocally conceive them without conceiving myself, that is to say, without an intelligent substance in which they reside, for in the notion we have of them, or to use the terms of the schools] in their formal concept, they comprise some sort of intellection; whence I perceive that they are distinct from myself as modes are from things. I remark likewise certain other faculties, as the power of changing place, of assuming diverse figures, and the like, that cannot be conceived and cannot therefore exist, any more than the preceding, apart from a substance in which they inhere. It is very evident, however, that these faculties, if they really exist, must belong to some corporeal or extended substance, since in their clear and distinct concept there is contained some sort of extension, but no intellection at all. Further, I cannot doubt but that there is in me a certain passive faculty of perception, that is, of receiving and taking knowledge of the ideas of sensible things; but this would be useless to me, if there did not also exist in me, or in some other thing, another active faculty capable of forming and producing those ideas. But this active faculty cannot be in me in as far as I am but a thinking thing, seeing that it does not presuppose thought, and also that those ideas are frequently produced in my mind without my contributing to it in any way, and even frequently contrary to my will. This faculty must therefore exist in some substance different from me, in which all the objective reality of the ideas that are produced by this faculty is contained formally or eminently, as I before remarked; and this substance is either a body, that is to say, a corporeal nature in which is contained formally and in effect all that is objectively and by representation] in those ideas; or it is God himself, or some other creature, of a rank superior to body, in which the same is contained eminently. But as God is no deceiver, it is manifest that he does not of himself and immediately communicate those ideas to me, nor even by the intervention of any creature in which their objective reality is not formally, but only eminently, contained. For as he has given me no faculty whereby I can discover this to be the case, but, on the contrary, a very strong inclination to believe that those ideas arise from corporeal objects, I do not see how he could be vindicated from the charge of deceit, if in truth they proceeded from any other source, or were produced by other causes than corporeal things: and accordingly it must be concluded, that corporeal objects exist. Nevertheless, they are not perhaps exactly such as we perceive by the senses, for their comprehension by the senses is, in many instances, very obscure and confused; but it is at least necessary to admit that all which I clearly and distinctly conceive as in them, that is, generally speaking all that is comprehended in the object of speculative geometry, really exists external to me.

11. But with respect to other things which are either only particular, as, for example, that the sun is of such a size and figure, etc., or are conceived with less clearness and distinctness, as light, sound, pain, and the like, although they are highly dubious and uncertain, nevertheless on the ground alone that God is no deceiver, and that consequently he has permitted no falsity in my opinions which he has not likewise given me a faculty of correcting, I think I may with safety conclude that I possess in myself the means of arriving at the truth. And, in the first place, it cannot be doubted that in each of the dictates of nature there is some truth: for by nature, considered in general, I now understand nothing more than God himself, or the order and disposition established by God in created things; and by my nature in particular I understand the assemblage of all that God has given me.

12. But there is nothing which that nature teaches me more expressly or more sensibly than that I have a body which is ill affected when I feel pain, and stands in need of food and drink when I experience the sensations of hunger and thirst, etc. And therefore I ought not to doubt but that there is some truth in these informations.

13. Nature likewise teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately conjoined, and as it were intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity. For if this were not the case, I should not feel pain when my body is hurt, seeing I am merely a thinking thing, but should perceive the wound by the understanding alone, just as a pilot perceives by sight when any part of his vessel is damaged; and when my body has need of food or drink, I should have a clear knowledge of this, and not be made aware of it by the confused sensations of hunger and thirst: for, in truth, all these sensations of hunger, thirst, pain, etc., are nothing more than certain confused modes of thinking, arising from the union and apparent fusion of mind and body.

14. Besides this, nature teaches me that my own body is surrounded by many other bodies, some of which I have to seek after, and others to shun. And indeed, as I perceive different sorts of colors, sounds, odors, tastes, heat, hardness, etc., I safely conclude that there are in the bodies from which the diverse perceptions of the senses proceed, certain varieties corresponding to them, although, perhaps, not in reality like them; and since, among these diverse perceptions of the senses, some are agreeable, and others disagreeable, there can be no doubt that my body, or rather my entire self, in as far as I am composed of body and mind, may be variously affected, both beneficially and hurtfully, by surrounding bodies.

15. But there are many other beliefs which though seemingly the teaching of nature, are not in reality so, but which obtained a place in my mind through a habit of judging inconsiderately of things. It may thus easily happen that such judgments shall contain error: thus, for example, the opinion I have that all space in which there is nothing to affect or make an impression on] my senses is void: that in a hot body there is something in every respect similar to the idea of heat in my mind; that in a white or green body there is the same whiteness or greenness which I perceive; that in a bitter or sweet body there is the same taste, and so in other instances; that the stars, towers, and all distant bodies, are of the same size and figure as they appear to our eyes, etc. But that I may avoid everything like indistinctness of conception, I must accurately define what I properly understand by being taught by nature. For nature is here taken in a narrower sense than when it signifies the sum of all the things which God has given me; seeing that in that meaning the notion comprehends much that belongs only to the mind to which I am not here to be understood as referring when I use the term nature]; as, for example, the notion I have of the truth, that what is done cannot be undone, and all the other truths I discern by the natural light without the aid of the body]; and seeing that it comprehends likewise much besides that belongs only to body, and is not here any more contained under the name nature, as the quality of heaviness, and the like, of which I do not speak, the term being reserved exclusively to designate the things which God has given to me as a being composed of mind and body. But nature, taking the term in the sense explained, teaches me to shun what causes in me the sensation of pain, and to pursue what affords me the sensation of pleasure, and other things of this sort; but I do not discover that it teaches me, in addition to this, from these diverse perceptions of the senses, to draw any conclusions respecting external objects without a previous careful and mature consideration of them by the mind: for it is, as appears to me, the office of the mind alone, and not of the composite whole of mind and body, to discern the truth in those matters. Thus, although the impression a star makes on my eye is not larger than that from the flame of a candle, I do not, nevertheless, experience any real or positive impulse determining me to believe that the star is not greater than the flame; the true account of the matter being merely that I have so judged from my youth without any rational ground. And, though on approaching the fire I feel heat, and even pain on approaching it too closely, I have, however, from this no ground for holding that something resembling the heat I feel is in the fire, any more than that there is something similar to the pain; all that I have ground for believing is, that there is something in it, whatever it may be, which excites in me those sensations of heat or pain. So also, although there are spaces in which I find nothing to excite and affect my senses, I must not therefore conclude that those spaces contain in them no body; for I see that in this, as in many other similar matters, I have been accustomed to pervert the order of nature, because these perceptions of the senses, although given me by nature merely to signify to my mind what things are beneficial and hurtful to the composite whole of which it is a part, and being sufficiently clear and distinct for that purpose, are nevertheless used by me as infallible rules by which to determine immediately the essence of the bodies that exist out of me, of which they can of course afford me only the most obscure and confused knowledge.

16. But I have already sufficiently considered how it happens that, notwithstanding the supreme goodness of God, there is falsity in my judgments. A difficulty, however, here presents itself, respecting the things which I am taught by nature must be pursued or avoided, and also respecting the internal sensations in which I seem to have occasionally detected error, and thus to be directly deceived by nature: thus, for example, I may be so deceived by the agreeable taste of some viand with which poison has been mixed, as to be induced to take the poison. In this case, however, nature may be excused, for it simply leads me to desire the viand for its agreeable taste, and not the poison, which is unknown to it; and thus we can infer nothing from this circumstance beyond that our nature is not omniscient; at which there is assuredly no ground for surprise, since, man being of a finite nature, his knowledge must likewise be of a limited perfection.

17. But we also not unfrequently err in that to which we are directly impelled by nature, as is the case with invalids who desire drink or food that would be hurtful to them. It will here, perhaps, be alleged that the reason why such persons are deceived is that their nature is corrupted; but this leaves the difficulty untouched, for a sick man is not less really the creature of God than a man who is in full health; and therefore it is as repugnant to the goodness of God that the nature of the former should be deceitful as it is for that of the latter to be so. And as a clock, composed of wheels and counter weights, observes not the less accurately all the laws of nature when it is ill made, and points out the hours incorrectly, than when it satisfies the desire of the maker in every respect; so likewise if the body of man be considered as a kind of machine, so made up and composed of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood, and skin, that although there were in it no mind, it would still exhibit the same motions which it at present manifests involuntarily, and therefore without the aid of the mind, and simply by the dispositions of its organs, I easily discern that it would also be as natural for such a body, supposing it dropsical, for example, to experience the parchedness of the throat that is usually accompanied in the mind by the sensation of thirst, and to be disposed by this parchedness to move its nerves and its other parts in the way required for drinking, and thus increase its malady and do itself harm, as it is natural for it, when it is not indisposed to be stimulated to drink for its good by a similar cause; and although looking to the use for which a clock was destined by its maker, I may say that it is deflected from its proper nature when it incorrectly indicates the hours, and on the same principle, considering the machine of the human body as having been formed by God for the sake of the motions which it usually manifests, although I may likewise have ground for thinking that it does not follow the order of its nature when the throat is parched and drink does not tend to its preservation, nevertheless I yet plainly discern that this latter acceptation of the term nature is very different from the other: for this is nothing more than a certain denomination, depending entirely on my thought, and hence called extrinsic, by which I compare a sick man and an imperfectly constructed clock with the idea I have of a man in good health and a well made clock; while by the other acceptation of nature is understood something which is truly found in things, and therefore possessed of some truth.

18. But certainly, although in respect of a dropsical body, it is only by way of exterior denomination that we say its nature is corrupted, when, without requiring drink, the throat is parched; yet, in respect of the composite whole, that is, of the mind in its union with the body, it is not a pure denomination, but really an error of nature, for it to feel thirst when drink would be hurtful to it: and, accordingly, it still remains to be considered why it is that the goodness of God does not prevent the nature of man thus taken from being fallacious.

19. To commence this examination accordingly, I here remark, in the first place, that there is a vast difference between mind and body, in respect that body, from its nature, is always divisible, and that mind is entirely indivisible. For in truth, when I consider the mind, that is, when I consider myself in so far only as I am a thinking thing, I can distinguish in myself no parts, but I very clearly discern that I am somewhat absolutely one and entire; and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet, when a foot, an arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind; nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the same mind that is exercised all entire] in willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But quite the opposite holds in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot imagine any one of them how small soever it may be], which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which, therefore, I do not know to be divisible. This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body, if I had not already been apprised of it on other grounds.

20. I remark, in the next place, that the mind does not immediately receive the impression from all the parts of the body, but only from the brain, or perhaps even from one small part of it, viz, that in which the common sense (senses communis) is said to be, which as often as it is affected in the same way gives rise to the same perception in the mind, although meanwhile the other parts of the body may be diversely disposed, as is proved by innumerable experiments, which it is unnecessary here to enumerate.

21. I remark, besides, that the nature of body is such that none of its parts can be moved by another part a little removed from the other, which cannot likewise be moved in the same way by any one of the parts that lie between those two, although the most remote part does not act at all. As, for example, in the cord A, B, C, D, which is in tension], if its last part D, be pulled, the first part A, will not be moved in a different way than it would be were one of the intermediate parts B or C to be pulled, and the last part D meanwhile to remain fixed. And in the same way, when I feel pain in the foot, the science of physics teaches me that this sensation is experienced by means of the nerves dispersed over the foot, which, extending like cords from it to the brain, when they are contracted in the foot, contract at the same time the inmost parts of the brain in which they have their origin, and excite in these parts a certain motion appointed by nature to cause in the mind a sensation of pain, as if existing in the foot; but as these nerves must pass through the tibia, the leg, the loins, the back, and neck, in order to reach the brain, it may happen that although their extremities in the foot are not affected, but only certain of their parts that pass through the loins or neck, the same movements, nevertheless, are excited in the brain by this motion as would have been caused there by a hurt received in the foot, and hence the mind will necessarily feel pain in the foot, just as if it had been hurt; and the same is true of all the other perceptions of our senses.

22. I remark, finally, that as each of the movements that are made in the part of the brain by which the mind is immediately affected, impresses it with but a single sensation, the most likely supposition in the circumstances is, that this movement causes the mind to experience, among all the sensations which it is capable of impressing upon it; that one which is the best fitted, and generally the most useful for the preservation of the human body when it is in full health. But experience shows us that all the perceptions which nature has given us are of such a kind as I have mentioned; and accordingly, there is nothing found in them that does not manifest the power and goodness of God. Thus, for example, when the nerves of the foot are violently or more than usually shaken, the motion passing through the medulla of the spine to the innermost parts of the brain affords a sign to the mind on which it experiences a sensation, viz, of pain, as if it were in the foot, by which the mind is admonished and excited to do its utmost to remove the cause of it as dangerous and hurtful to the foot. It is true that God could have so constituted the nature of man as that the same motion in the brain would have informed the mind of something altogether different: the motion might, for example, have been the occasion on which the mind became conscious of itself, in so far as it is in the brain, or in so far as it is in some place intermediate between the foot and the brain, or, finally, the occasion on which it perceived some other object quite different, whatever that might be; but nothing of all this would have so well contributed to the preservation of the body as that which the mind actually feels. In the same way, when we stand in need of drink, there arises from this want a certain parchedness in the throat that moves its nerves, and by means of them the internal parts of the brain; and this movement affects the mind with the sensation of thirst, because there is nothing on that occasion which is more useful for us than to be made aware that we have need of drink for the preservation of our health; and so in other instances.

23. Whence it is quite manifest that, notwithstanding the sovereign goodness of God, the nature of man, in so far as it is composed of mind and body, cannot but be sometimes fallacious. For, if there is any cause which excites, not in the foot, but in some one of the parts of the nerves that stretch from the foot to the brain, or even in the brain itself, the same movement that is ordinarily created when the foot is ill affected, pain will be felt, as it were, in the foot, and the sense will thus be naturally deceived; for as the same movement in the brain can but impress the mind with the same sensation, and as this sensation is much more frequently excited by a cause which hurts the foot than by one acting in a different quarter, it is reasonable that it should lead the mind to feel pain in the foot rather than in any other part of the body. And if it sometimes happens that the parchedness of the throat does not arise, as is usual, from drink being necessary for the health of the body, but from quite the opposite cause, as is the case with the dropsical, yet it is much better that it should be deceitful in that instance, than if, on the contrary, it were continually fallacious when the body is well-disposed; and the same holds true in other cases.

24. And certainly this consideration is of great service, not only in enabling me to recognize the errors to which my nature is liable, but likewise in rendering it more easy to avoid or correct them: for, knowing that all my senses more usually indicate to me what is true than what is false, in matters relating to the advantage of the body, and being able almost always to make use of more than a single sense in examining the same object, and besides this, being able to use my memory in connecting present with past knowledge, and my understanding which has already discovered all the causes of my errors, I ought no longer to fear that falsity may be met with in what is daily presented to me by the senses. And I ought to reject all the doubts of those bygone days, as hyperbolical and ridiculous, especially the general uncertainty respecting sleep, which I could not distinguish from the waking state: for I now find a very marked difference between the two states, in respect that our memory can never connect our dreams with each other and with the course of life, in the way it is in the habit of doing with events that occur when we are awake. And, in truth, if some one, when I am awake, appeared to me all of a sudden and as suddenly disappeared, as do the images I see in sleep, so that I could not observe either whence he came or whither he went, I should not without reason esteem it either a specter or phantom formed in my brain, rather than a real man. But when I perceive objects with regard to which I can distinctly determine both the place whence they come, and that in which they are, and the time at which they appear to me, and when, without interruption, I can connect the perception I have of them with the whole of the other parts of my life, I am perfectly sure that what I thus perceive occurs while I am awake and not during sleep. And I ought not in the least degree to doubt of the truth of these presentations, if, after having called together all my senses, my memory, and my understanding for the purpose of examining them, no deliverance is given by any one of these faculties which is repugnant to that of any other: for since God is no deceiver, it necessarily follows that I am not herein deceived. But because the necessities of action frequently oblige us to come to a determination before we have had leisure for so careful an examination, it must be confessed that the life of man is frequently obnoxious to error with respect to individual objects; and we must, in conclusion, acknowledge the weakness of our nature.

* * * * *

Meditations on First Philosophy (first half) by René Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy [first half]
by René Descartes, 1641
translated into English by John Veitch, 1901

[The Crisis Chronicles Online Library presents this work in two parts.  This first includes Descartes’ introductory letter, preface, synopsis, and Meditations I and II.  To read the second (including Meditations III through VI), please click here.]

TO THE VERY SAGE AND ILLUSTRIOUS,
THE DEAN AND DOCTORS OF THE SACRED FACULTY OF THEOLOGY OF PARIS

Gentlemen,

1. The motive which impels me to present this Treatise to you is so reasonable, and when you shall learn its design, I am confident that you also will consider that there is ground so valid for your taking it under your protection, that I can in no way better recommend it to you than by briefly stating the end which I proposed to myself in it.

2. I have always been of the opinion that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be determined by help of Philosophy rather than of Theology; for although to us, the faithful, it be sufficient to hold as matters of faith, that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it yet assuredly seems impossible ever to persuade infidels of the reality of any religion, or almost even any moral virtue, unless, first of all, those two things be proved to them by natural reason. And since in this life there are frequently greater rewards held out to vice than to virtue, few would prefer the right to the useful, if they were restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of another life; and although it is quite true that the existence of God is to be believed since it is taught in the sacred Scriptures, and that, on the other hand, the sacred Scriptures are to be believed because they come from God (for since faith is a gift of God, the same Being who bestows grace to enable us to believe other things, can likewise impart of it to enable us to believe his own existence), nevertheless, this cannot be submitted to infidels, who would consider that the reasoning proceeded in a circle. And, indeed, I have observed that you, with all the other theologians, not only affirmed the sufficiency of natural reason for the proof of the existence of God, but also, that it may be inferred from sacred Scripture, that the knowledge of God is much clearer than of many created things, and that it is really so easy of acquisition as to leave those who do not possess it blameworthy. This is manifest from these words of the Book of Wisdom, chap. xiii., where it is said, Howbeit they are not to be excused; for if their understanding was so great that they could discern the world and the creatures, why did they not rather find out the Lord thereof? And in Romans, chap. i., it is said that they are without excuse; and again, in the same place, by these words,That which may be known of God is manifest in them–we seem to be admonished that all which can be known of God may be made manifest by reasons obtained from no other source than the inspection of our own minds. I have, therefore, thought that it would not be unbecoming in me to inquire how and by what way, without going out of ourselves, God may be more easily and certainly known than the things of the world.

3. And as regards the Soul, although many have judged that its nature could not be easily discovered, and some have even ventured to say that human reason led to the conclusion that it perished with the body, and that the contrary opinion could be held through faith alone; nevertheless, since the Lateran Council, held under Leo X. (in session viii.), condemns these, and expressly enjoins Christian philosophers to refute their arguments, and establish the truth according to their ability, I have ventured to attempt it in this work.

4. Moreover, I am aware that most of the irreligious deny the existence of God, and the distinctness of the human soul from the body, for no other reason than because these points, as they allege, have never as yet been demonstrated. Now, although I am by no means of their opinion, but, on the contrary, hold that almost all the proofs which have been adduced on these questions by great men, possess, when rightly understood, the force of demonstrations, and that it is next to impossible to discover new, yet there is, I apprehend, no more useful service to be performed in Philosophy, than if some one were, once for all, carefully to seek out the best of these reasons, and expound them so accurately and clearly that, for the future, it might be manifest to all that they are real demonstrations. And finally, since many persons were greatly desirous of this, who knew that I had cultivated a certain Method of resolving all kinds of difficulties in the sciences, which is not indeed new (there being nothing older than truth), but of which they were aware I had made successful use in other instances, I judged it to be my duty to make trial of it also on the present matter.

5. Now the sum of what I have been able to accomplish on the subject is contained in this Treatise. Not that I here essayed to collect all the diverse reasons which might be adduced as proofs on this subject, for this does not seem to be necessary, unless on matters where no one proof of adequate certainty is to be had; but I treated the first and chief alone in such a manner that I should venture now to propose them as demonstrations of the highest certainty and evidence. And I will also add that they are such as to lead me to think that there is no way open to the mind of man by which proofs superior to them can ever be discovered for the importance of the subject, and the glory of God, to which all this relates, constrain me to speak here somewhat more freely of myself than I have been accustomed to do. Nevertheless, whatever certitude and evidence I may find in these demonstrations, I cannot therefore persuade myself that they are level to the comprehension of all. But just as in geometry there are many of the demonstrations of Archimedes, Apollonius, Pappus, and others, which, though received by all as evident even and certain (because indeed they manifestly contain nothing which, considered by itself, it is not very easy to understand, and no consequents that are inaccurately related to their antecedents), are nevertheless understood by a very limited number, because they are somewhat long, and demand the whole attention of the reader: so in the same way, although I consider the demonstrations of which I here make use, to be equal or even superior to the geometrical in certitude and evidence, I am afraid, nevertheless, that they will not be adequately understood by many, as well because they also are somewhat long and involved, as chiefly because they require the mind to be entirely free from prejudice, and able with ease to detach itself from the commerce of the senses. And, to speak the truth, the ability for metaphysical studies is less general than for those of geometry. And, besides, there is still this difference that, as in geometry, all are persuaded that nothing is usually advanced of which there is not a certain demonstration, those but partially versed in it err more frequently in assenting to what is false, from a desire of seeming to understand it, than in denying what is true. In philosophy, on the other hand, where it is believed that all is doubtful, few sincerely give themselves to the search after truth, and by far the greater number seek the reputation of bold thinkers by audaciously impugning such truths as are of the greatest moment.

6. Hence it is that, whatever force my reasonings may possess, yet because they belong to philosophy, I do not expect they will have much effect on the minds of men, unless you extend to them your patronage and approval. But since your Faculty is held in so great esteem by all, and since the name of SORBONNE is of such authority, that not only in matters of faith, but even also in what regards human philosophy, has the judgment of no other society, after the Sacred Councils, received so great deference, it being the universal conviction that it is impossible elsewhere to find greater perspicacity and solidity, or greater wisdom and integrity in giving judgment, I doubt not,if you but condescend to pay so much regard to this Treatise as to be willing, in the first place, to correct it (for mindful not only of my humanity, but chiefly also of my ignorance, I do not affirm that it is free from errors); in the second place, to supply what is wanting in it, to perfect what is incomplete, and to give more ample illustration where it is demanded, or at least to indicate these defects to myself that I may endeavour to remedy them; and, finally, when the reasonings contained in it, by which the existence of God and the distinction of the human soul from the body are established, shall have been brought to such degree of perspicuity as to be esteemed exact demonstrations, of which I am assured they admit, if you condescend to accord them the authority of your approbation, and render a public testimony of their truth and certainty, I doubt not, I say, but that henceforward all the errors which have ever been entertained on these questions will very soon be effaced from the minds of men. For truth itself will readily lead the remainder of the ingenious and the learned to subscribe to your judgment; and your authority will cause the atheists, who are in general sciolists rather than ingenious or learned, to lay aside the spirit of contradiction, and lead them, perhaps, to do battle in their own persons for reasonings which they find considered demonstrations by all men of genius, lest they should seem not to understand them; and, finally, the rest of mankind will readily trust to so many testimonies, and there will no longer be any one who will venture to doubt either the existence of God or the real distinction of mind and body. It is for you, in your singular wisdom, to judge of the importance of the establishment of such beliefs, who are cognisant of the disorders which doubt of these truths produces. But it would not here become me to commend at greater length the cause of God and of religion to you, who have always proved the strongest support of the Catholic Church.


PREFACE TO THE READER

1. I have already slightly touched upon the questions respecting the existence of God and the nature of the human soul, in the “Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting the Reason, and seeking Truth in the Sciences,” published in French in the year 1637; not however, with the design of there treating of them fully, but only, as it were, in passing, that I might learn from the judgment of my readers in what way I should afterward handle them; for these questions appeared to me to be of such moment as to be worthy of being considered more than once, and the path which I follow in discussing them is so little trodden, and so remote from the ordinary route that I thought it would not be expedient to illustrate it at greater length in French, and in a discourse that might be read by all, lest even the more feeble minds should believe that this path might be entered upon by them.

2. But, as in the “Discourse on Method,” I had requested all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings, to do me the favor of pointing it out to me, I may state that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged against what I then said on these questions except two, to which I will here briefly reply, before undertaking their more detailed discussion.

3. The first objection is that though, while the human mind reflects on itself, it does not perceive that it is any other than a thinking thing, it does not follow that its nature or essence consists only in its being a thing which thinks; so that the word ONLY shall exclude all other things which might also perhaps be said to pertain to the nature of the mind. To this objection I reply, that it was not my intention in that place to exclude these according to the order of truth in the matter (of which I did not then treat), but only according to the order of thought (perception); so that my meaning was, that I clearly apprehended nothing, so far as I was conscious, as belonging to my essence, except that I was a thinking thing, or a thing possessing in itself the faculty of thinking. But I will show hereafter how, from the consciousness that nothing besides thinking belongs to the essence of the mind, it follows that nothing else does in truth belong to it.

4. The second objection is that it does not follow, from my possessing the idea of a thing more perfect than I am, that the idea itself is more perfect than myself, and much less that what is represented by the idea exists. But I reply that in the term idea there is here something equivocal; for it may be taken either materially for an act of the understanding, and in this sense it cannot be said to be more perfect than I, or objectively, for the thing represented by that act, which, although it be not supposed to exist out of my understanding, may, nevertheless, be more perfect than myself, by reason of its essence. But, in the sequel of this treatise I will show more amply how, from my possessing the idea of a thing more perfect than myself, it follows that this thing really exists.

5. Besides these two objections, I have seen, indeed, two treatises of sufficient length relating to the present matter. In these, however, my conclusions, much more than my premises, were impugned, and that by arguments borrowed from the common places of the atheists. But, as arguments of this sort can make no impression on the minds of those who shall rightly understand my reasonings, and as the judgments of many are so irrational and weak that they are persuaded rather by the opinions on a subject that are first presented to them, however false and opposed to reason they may be, than by a true and solid, but subsequently received, refutation of them, I am unwilling here to reply to these strictures from a dread of being, in the first instance, obliged to state them. I will only say, in general, that all which the atheists commonly allege in favor of the non-existence of God, arises continually from one or other of these two things, namely, either the ascription of human affections to Deity, or the undue attribution to our minds of so much vigor and wisdom that we may essay to determine and comprehend both what God can and ought to do; hence all that is alleged by them will occasion us no difficulty, provided only we keep in remembrance that our minds must be considered finite, while Deity is incomprehensible and infinite.

6. Now that I have once, in some measure, made proof of the opinions of men regarding my work, I again undertake to treat of God and the human soul, and at the same time to discuss the principles of the entire First Philosophy, without, however, expecting any commendation from the crowd for my endeavors, or a wide circle of readers. On the contrary, I would advise none to read this work, unless such as are able and willing to meditate with me in earnest, to detach their minds from commerce with the senses, and likewise to deliver themselves from all prejudice; and individuals of this character are, I well know, remarkably rare. But with regard to those who, without caring to comprehend the order and connection of the reasonings, shall study only detached clauses for the purpose of small but noisy criticism, as is the custom with many, I may say that such persons will not profit greatly by the reading of this treatise; and although perhaps they may find opportunity for cavilling in several places, they will yet hardly start any pressing objections, or such as shall be deserving of reply.

7. But since, indeed, I do not promise to satisfy others on all these subjects at first sight, nor arrogate so much to myself as to believe that I have been able to forsee all that may be the source of difficulty to each ones I shall expound, first of all, in the Meditations, those considerations by which I feel persuaded that I have arrived at a certain and evident knowledge of truth, in order that I may ascertain whether the reasonings which have prevailed with myself will also be effectual in convincing others. I will then reply to the objections of some men, illustrious for their genius and learning, to whom these Meditations were sent for criticism before they were committed to the press; for these objections are so numerous and varied that I venture to anticipate that nothing, at least nothing of any moment, will readily occur to any mind which has not been touched upon in them. Hence it is that I earnestly entreat my readers not to come to any judgment on the questions raised in the Meditations until they have taken care to read the whole of the Objections, with the relative Replies.

SYNOPSIS OF THE SIX FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS

1. In the First Meditation I expound the grounds on which we may doubt in general of all things, and especially of material objects, so long at least, as we have no other foundations for the sciences than those we have hitherto possessed. Now, although the utility of a doubt so general may not be manifest at first sight, it is nevertheless of the greatest, since it delivers us from all prejudice, and affords the easiest pathway by which the mind may withdraw itself from the senses; and finally makes it impossible for us to doubt wherever we afterward discover truth.

2. In the Second, the mind which, in the exercise of the freedom peculiar to itself, supposes that no object is, of the existence of which it has even the slightest doubt, finds that, meanwhile, it must itself exist. And this point is likewise of the highest moment, for the mind is thus enabled easily to distinguish what pertains to itself, that is, to the intellectual nature, from what is to be referred to the body. But since some, perhaps, will expect, at this stage of our progress, a statement of the reasons which establish the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, I think it proper here to make such aware, that it was my aim to write nothing of which I could not give exact demonstration, and that I therefore felt myself obliged to adopt an order similar to that in use among the geometers, viz., to premise all upon which the proposition in question depends, before coming to any conclusion respecting it. Now, the first and chief prerequisite for the knowledge of the immortality of the soul is our being able to form the clearest possible conception (conceptus–concept) of the soul itself, and such as shall be absolutely distinct from all our notions of body; and how this is to be accomplished is there shown. There is required, besides this, the assurance that all objects which we clearly and distinctly think are true (really exist) in that very mode in which we think them; and this could not be established previously to the Fourth Meditation. Farther, it is necessary, for the same purpose, that we possess a distinct conception of corporeal nature, which is given partly in the Second and partly in the Fifth and Sixth Meditations. And, finally, on these grounds, we are necessitated to conclude, that all those objects which are clearly and distinctly conceived to be diverse substances, as mind and body, are substances really reciprocally distinct; and this inference is made in the Sixth Meditation. The absolute distinction of mind and body is, besides, confirmed in this Second Meditation, by showing that we cannot conceive body unless as divisible; while, on the other hand, mind cannot be conceived unless as indivisible. For we are not able to conceive the half of a mind, as we can of any body, however small, so that the natures of these two substances are to be held, not only as diverse, but even in some measure as contraries. I have not, however, pursued this discussion further in the present treatise, as well for the reason that these considerations are sufficient to show that the destruction of the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body, and thus to afford to men the hope of a future life, as also because the premises from which it is competent for us to infer the immortality of the soul, involve an explication of the whole principles of Physics: in order to establish, in the first place, that generally all substances, that is, all things which can exist only in consequence of having been created by God, are in their own nature incorruptible, and can never cease to be, unless God himself, by refusing his concurrence to them, reduce them to nothing; and, in the second place, that body, taken generally, is a substance, and therefore can never perish, but that the human body, in as far as it differs from other bodies, is constituted only by a certain configuration of members, and by other accidents of this sort, while the human mind is not made up of accidents, but is a pure substance. For although all the accidents of the mind be changed– although, for example, it think certain things, will others, and perceive others, the mind itself does not vary with these changes; while, on the contrary, the human body is no longer the same if a change take place in the form of any of its parts: from which it follows that the body may, indeed, without difficulty perish, but that the mind is in its own nature immortal.

3. In the Third Meditation, I have unfolded at sufficient length, as appears to me, my chief argument for the existence of God. But yet, since I was there desirous to avoid the use of comparisons taken from material objects, that I might withdraw, as far as possible, the minds of my readers from the senses, numerous obscurities perhaps remain, which, however, will, I trust, be afterward entirely removed in the Replies to the Objections: thus among other things, it may be difficult to understand how the idea of a being absolutely perfect, which is found in our minds, possesses so much objective reality i. e., participates by representation in so many degrees of being and perfection] that it must be held to arise from a cause absolutely perfect. This is illustrated in the Replies by the comparison of a highly perfect machine, the idea of which exists in the mind of some workman; for as the objective (i.e., representative) perfection of this idea must have some cause, viz, either the science of the workman, or of some other person from whom he has received the idea, in the same way the idea of God, which is found in us, demands God himself for its cause.

4. In the Fourth, it is shown that all which we clearly and distinctly perceive (apprehend) is true; and, at the same time, is explained wherein consists the nature of error, points that require to be known as well for confirming the preceding truths, as for the better understanding of those that are to follow. But, meanwhile, it must be observed, that I do not at all there treat of Sin, that is, of error committed in the pursuit of good and evil, but of that sort alone which arises in the determination of the true and the false. Nor do I refer to matters of faith, or to the conduct of life, but only to what regards speculative truths, and such as are known by means of the natural light alone.

5. In the Fifth, besides the illustration of corporeal nature, taken generically, a new demonstration is given of the existence of God, not free, perhaps, any more than the former, from certain difficulties, but of these the solution will be found in the Replies to the Objections. I further show, in what sense it is true that the certitude of geometrical demonstrations themselves is dependent on the knowledge of God.

6. Finally, in the Sixth, the act of the understanding (intellectio) is distinguished from that of the imagination (imaginatio); the marks of this distinction are described; the human mind is shown to be really distinct from the body, and, nevertheless, to be so closely conjoined therewith, as together to form, as it were, a unity. The whole of the errors which arise from the senses are brought under review, while the means of avoiding them are pointed out; and, finally, all the grounds are adduced from which the existence of material objects may be inferred; not, however, because I deemed them of great utility in establishing what they prove, viz., that there is in reality a world, that men are possessed of bodies, and the like, the truth of which no one of sound mind ever seriously doubted; but because, from a close consideration of them, it is perceived that they are neither so strong nor clear as the reasonings which conduct us to the knowledge of our mind and of God; so that the latter are, of all which come under human knowledge, the most certain and manifest– a conclusion which it was my single aim in these Meditations to establish; on which account I here omit mention of the various other questions which, in the course of the discussion, I had occasion likewise to consider.


MEDITATION I
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT

1. Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences. But as this enterprise appeared to me to be one of great magnitude, I waited until I had attained an age so mature as to leave me no hope that at any stage of life more advanced I should be better able to execute my design. On this account, I have delayed so long that I should henceforth consider I was doing wrong were I still to consume in deliberation any of the time that now remains for action. Today, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares and am happily disturbed by no passions, and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions.

2. But, to this end, it will not be necessary for me to show that the whole of these are false–a point, perhaps, which I shall never reach; but as even now my reason convinces me that I ought not the less carefully to withhold belief from what is not entirely certain and indubitable, than from what is manifestly false, it will be sufficient to justify the rejection of the whole if I shall find in each some ground for doubt. Nor for this purpose will it be necessary even to deal with each belief individually, which would be truly an endless labor; but, as the removal from below of the foundation necessarily involves the downfall of the whole edifice, I will at once approach the criticism of the principles on which all my former beliefs rested.

3. All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

4. But it may be said, perhaps, that, although the senses occasionally mislead us respecting minute objects, and such as are so far removed from us as to be beyond the reach of close observation, there are yet many other of their informations (presentations), of the truth of which it is manifestly impossible to doubt; as for example, that I am in this place, seated by the fire, clothed in a winter dressing gown, that I hold in my hands this piece of paper, with other intimations of the same nature. But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors as to cause them pertinaciously to assert that they are monarchs when they are in the greatest poverty; or clothed in gold] and purple when destitute of any covering; or that their head is made of clay, their body of glass, or that they are gourds? I should certainly be not less insane than they, were I to regulate my procedure according to examples so extravagant.

5. Though this be true, I must nevertheless here consider that I am a man, and that, consequently, I am in the habit of sleeping, and representing to myself in dreams those same things, or even sometimes others less probable, which the insane think are presented to them in their waking moments. How often have I dreamt that I was in these familiar circumstances, that I was dressed, and occupied this place by the fire, when I was lying undressed in bed? At the present moment, however, I certainly look upon this paper with eyes wide awake; the head which I now move is not asleep; I extend this hand consciously and with express purpose, and I perceive it; the occurrences in sleep are not so distinct as all this. But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.

6. Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars–namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth-putting of the hands–are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at all events, namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire body, are not simply imaginary, but really existent. For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real. And on the same principle, although these general objects, viz. a body], eyes, a head, hands, and the like, be imaginary, we are nevertheless absolutely necessitated to admit the reality at least of some other objects still more simple and universal than these, of which, just as of certain real colors, all those images of things, whether true and real, or false and fantastic, that are found in our consciousness (cogitatio),are formed.

7. To this class of objects seem to belong corporeal nature in general and its extension; the figure of extended things, their quantity or magnitude, and their number, as also the place in, and the time during, which they exist, and other things of the same sort.

8. We will not, therefore, perhaps reason illegitimately if we conclude from this that Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, and all the other sciences that have for their end the consideration of composite objects, are indeed of a doubtful character; but that Arithmetic, Geometry, and the other sciences of the same class, which regard merely the simplest and most general objects, and scarcely inquire whether or not these are really existent, contain somewhat that is certain and indubitable: for whether I am awake or dreaming, it remains true that two and three make five, and that a square has but four sides; nor does it seem possible that truths so apparent can ever fall under a suspicion of falsity or incertitude.

9. Nevertheless, the belief that there is a God who is all powerful, and who created me, such as I am, has, for a long time, obtained steady possession of my mind. How, then, do I know that he has not arranged that there should be neither earth, nor sky, nor any extended thing, nor figure, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at the same time, however, for the rise in me of the perceptions of all these objects, and the persuasion that these do not exist otherwise than as I perceive them ? And further, as I sometimes think that others are in error respecting matters of which they believe themselves to possess a perfect knowledge, how do I know that I am not also deceived each time I add together two and three, or number the sides of a square, or form some judgment still more simple, if more simple indeed can be imagined? But perhaps Deity has not been willing that I should be thus deceived, for he is said to be supremely good. If, however, it were repugnant to the goodness of Deity to have created me subject to constant deception, it would seem likewise to be contrary to his goodness to allow me to be occasionally deceived; and yet it is clear that this is permitted.

10. Some, indeed, might perhaps be found who would be disposed rather to deny the existence of a Being so powerful than to believe that there is nothing certain. But let us for the present refrain from opposing this opinion, and grant that all which is here said of a Deity is fabulous: nevertheless, in whatever way it be supposed that I reach the state in which I exist, whether by fate, or chance, or by an endless series of antecedents and consequents, or by any other means, it is clear (since to be deceived and to err is a certain defect) that the probability of my being so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception, will be increased exactly in proportion as the power possessed by the cause, to which they assign my origin, is lessened. To these reasonings I have assuredly nothing to reply, but am constrained at last to avow that there is nothing of all that I formerly believed to be true of which it is impossible to doubt, and that not through thoughtlessness or levity, but from cogent and maturely considered reasons; so that henceforward, if I desire to discover anything certain, I ought not the less carefully to refrain from assenting to those same opinions than to what might be shown to be manifestly false.

11. But it is not sufficient to have made these observations; care must be taken likewise to keep them in remembrance. For those old and customary opinions perpetually recur– long and familiar usage giving them the right of occupying my mind, even almost against my will, and subduing my belief; nor will I lose the habit of deferring to them and confiding in them so long as I shall consider them to be what in truth they are, viz, opinions to some extent doubtful, as I have already shown, but still highly probable, and such as it is much more reasonable to believe than deny. It is for this reason I am persuaded that I shall not be doing wrong, if, taking an opposite judgment of deliberate design, I become my own deceiver, by supposing, for a time, that all those opinions are entirely false and imaginary, until at length, having thus balanced my old by my new prejudices, my judgment shall no longer be turned aside by perverted usage from the path that may conduct to the perception of truth. For I am assured that, meanwhile, there will arise neither peril nor error from this course, and that I cannot for the present yield too much to distrust, since the end I now seek is not action but knowledge.

12. I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz, suspend my judgment, and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised.

MEDITATION II
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY

1. The Meditation of yesterday has filled my mind with so many doubts, that it is no longer in my power to forget them. Nor do I see, meanwhile, any principle on which they can be resolved; and, just as if I had fallen all of a sudden into very deep water, I am so greatly disconcerted as to be unable either to plant my feet firmly on the bottom or sustain myself by swimming on the surface. I will, nevertheless, make an effort, and try anew the same path on which I had entered yesterday, that is, proceed by casting aside all that admits of the slightest doubt, not less than if I had discovered it to be absolutely false; and I will continue always in this track until I shall find something that is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing more, until I shall know with certainty that there is nothing certain. Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe from the place it occupied to another, demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so, also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable.

2. I suppose, accordingly, that all the things which I see are false (fictitious); I believe that none of those objects which my fallacious memory represents ever existed; I suppose that I possess no senses; I believe that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are merely fictions of my mind. What is there, then, that can be esteemed true? Perhaps this only, that there is absolutely nothing certain.

3. But how do I know that there is not something different altogether from the objects I have now enumerated, of which it is impossible to entertain the slightest doubt? Is there not a God, or some being, by whatever name I may designate him, who causes these thoughts to arise in my mind? But why suppose such a being, for it may be I myself am capable of producing them? Am I, then, at least not something? But I before denied that I possessed senses or a body; I hesitate, however, for what follows from that? Am I so dependent on the body and the senses that without these I cannot exist? But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds nor bodies; was I not, therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exist? Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded. But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.

4. But I do not yet know with sufficient clearness what I am, though assured that I am; and hence, in the next place, I must take care, lest perchance I inconsiderately substitute some other object in room of what is properly myself, and thus wander from truth, even in that knowledge (cognition) which I hold to be of all others the most certain and evident. For this reason, I will now consider anew what I formerly believed myself to be, before I entered on the present train of thought; and of my previous opinion I will retrench all that can in the least be invalidated by the grounds of doubt I have adduced, in order that there may at length remain nothing but what is certain and indubitable.

5. What then did I formerly think I was? Undoubtedly I judged that I was a man. But what is a man ? Shall I say a rational animal ? Assuredly not; for it would be necessary forthwith to inquire into what is meant by animal, and what by rational, and thus, from a single question, I should insensibly glide into others, and these more difficult than the first; nor do I now possess enough of leisure to warrant me in wasting my time amid subtleties of this sort. I prefer here to attend to the thoughts that sprung up of themselves in my mind, and were inspired by my own nature alone, when I applied myself to the consideration of what I was. In the first place, then, I thought that I possessed a countenance, hands, arms, and all the fabric of members that appears in a corpse, and which I called by the name of body. It further occurred to me that I was nourished, that I walked, perceived, and thought, and all those actions I referred to the soul; but what the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts. As regarded the body, I did not even doubt of its nature, but thought I distinctly knew it, and if I had wished to describe it according to the notions I then entertained, I should have explained myself in this manner: By body I understand all that can be terminated by a certain figure; that can be comprised in a certain place, and so fill a certain space as therefrom to exclude every other body; that can be perceived either by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell; that can be moved in different ways, not indeed of itself, but by something foreign to it by which it is touched and from which it receives the impression; for the power of self-motion, as likewise that of perceiving and thinking, I held as by no means pertaining to the nature of body; on the contrary, I was somewhat astonished to find such faculties existing in some bodies.

6. But as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since I suppose there exists an extremely powerful, and, if I may so speak, malignant being, whose whole endeavors are directed toward deceiving me? Can I affirm that I possess any one of all those attributes of which I have lately spoken as belonging to the nature of body? After attentively considering them in my own mind, I find none of them that can properly be said to belong to myself. To recount them were idle and tedious. Let us pass, then, to the attributes of the soul. The first mentioned were the powers of nutrition and walking; but, if it be true that I have no body, it is true likewise that I am capable neither of walking nor of being nourished. Perception is another attribute of the soul; but perception too is impossible without the body; besides, I have frequently, during sleep, believed that I perceived objects which I afterward observed I did not in reality perceive. Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am–I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind (mens sive animus), understanding, or reason, terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.

7. The question now arises, am I aught besides ? I will stimulate my imagination with a view to discover whether I am not still something more than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not the assemblage of members called the human body; I am not a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these members, or wind, or flame, or vapor, or breath, or any of all the things I can imagine; for I supposed that all these were not, and, without changing the supposition, I find that I still feel assured of my existence. But it is true, perhaps, that those very things which I suppose to be non-existent, because they are unknown to me, are not in truth different from myself whom I know. This is a point I cannot determine, and do not now enter into any dispute regarding it. I can only judge of things that are known to me: I am conscious that I exist, and I who know that I exist inquire into what I am. It is, however, perfectly certain that the knowledge of my existence, thus precisely taken, is not dependent on things, the existence of which is as yet unknown to me: and consequently it is not dependent on any of the things I can feign in imagination. Moreover, the phrase itself, I frame an image (efffingo), reminds me of my error; for I should in truth frame one if I were to imagine myself to be anything, since to imagine is nothing more than to contemplate the figure or image of a corporeal thing; but I already know that I exist, and that it is possible at the same time that all those images, and in general all that relates to the nature of body, are merely dreams or chimeras. From this I discover that it is not more reasonable to say, I will excite my imagination that I may know more distinctly what I am, than to express myself as follows: I am now awake, and perceive something real; but because my perception is not sufficiently clear, I will of express purpose go to sleep that my dreams may represent to me the object of my perception with more truth and clearness. And, therefore, I know that nothing of all that I can embrace in imagination belongs to the knowledge which I have of myself, and that there is need to recall with the utmost care the mind from this mode of thinking, that it may be able to know its own nature with perfect distinctness.

8. But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.

9. Assuredly it is not little, if all these properties belong to my nature. But why should they not belong to it? Am I not that very being who now doubts of almost everything; who, for all that, understands and conceives certain things; who affirms one alone as true, and denies the others; who desires to know more of them, and does not wish to be deceived; who imagines many things, sometimes even despite his will; and is likewise percipient of many, as if through the medium of the senses. Is there nothing of all this as true as that I am, even although I should be always dreaming, and although he who gave me being employed all his ingenuity to deceive me ? Is there also any one of these attributes that can be properly distinguished from my thought, or that can be said to be separate from myself ? For it is of itself so evident that it is I who doubt, I who understand, and I who desire, that it is here unnecessary to add anything by way of rendering it more clear. And I am as certainly the same being who imagines; for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought. In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking.

10. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore. But, nevertheless, it still seems to me, and I cannot help believing, that corporeal things, whose images are formed by thought which fall under the senses, and are examined by the same, are known with much greater distinctness than that I know not what part of myself which is not imaginable; although, in truth, it may seem strange to say that I know and comprehend with greater distinctness things whose existence appears to me doubtful, that are unknown, and do not belong to me, than others of whose reality I am persuaded, that are known to me, and appertain to my proper nature; in a word, than myself. But I see clearly what is the state of the case. My mind is apt to wander, and will not yet submit to be restrained within the limits of truth. Let us therefore leave the mind to itself once more, and, according to it every kind of liberty permit it to consider the objects that appear to it from without, in order that, having afterward withdrawn it from these gently and opportunely and fixed it on the consideration of its being and the properties it finds in itsel, it may then be the more easily controlled.

11. Let us now accordingly consider the objects that are commonly thought to be the most easily, and likewise the most distinctly known, viz, the bodies we touch and see; not, indeed, bodies in general, for these general notions are usually somewhat more confused, but one body in particular. Take, for example, this piece of wax; it is quite fresh, having been but recently taken from the beehive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still retains somewhat of the odor of the flowers from which it was gathered; its color, figure, size, are apparent (to the sight); it is hard, cold, easily handled; and sounds when struck upon with the finger. In fine, all that contributes to make a body as distinctly known as possible, is found in the one before us. But, while I am speaking, let it be placed near the fire–what remained of the taste exhales, the smell evaporates, the color changes, its figure is destroyed, its size increases, it becomes liquid, it grows hot, it can hardly be handled, and, although struck upon, it emits no sound. Does the same wax still remain after this change ? It must be admitted that it does remain; no one doubts it, or judges otherwise. What, then, was it I knew with so much distinctness in the piece of wax? Assuredly, it could be nothing of all that I observed by means of the senses, since all the things that fell under taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing are changed, and yet the same wax remains.

12. It was perhaps what I now think, viz, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the pleasant odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body that a little before appeared to me conspicuous under these forms, and which is now perceived under others. But, to speak precisely, what is it that I imagine when I think of it in this way? Let it be attentively considered, and, retrenching all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. There certainly remains nothing, except something extended, flexible, and movable. But what is meant by flexible and movable? Is it not that I imagine that the piece of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square, or of passing from a square into a triangular figure? Assuredly such is not the case, because I conceive that it admits of an infinity of similar changes; and I am, moreover, unable to compass this infinity by imagination, and consequently this conception which I have of the wax is not the product of the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension ? Is it not also unknown? For it becomes greater when the wax is melted, greater when it is boiled, and greater still when the heat increases; and I should not conceive clearly and according to truth, the wax as it is, if I did not suppose that the piece we are considering admitted even of a wider variety of extension than I ever imagined, I must, therefore, admit that I cannot even comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is, and that it is the mind alone (mens, Lat., entendement, F.) which perceives it. I speak of one piece in particular; for as to wax in general, this is still more evident. But what is the piece of wax that can be perceived only by the understanding or mind? It is certainly the same which I see, touch, imagine; and, in fine, it is the same which, from the beginning, I believed it to be. But (and this it is of moment to observe) the perception of it is neither an act of sight, of touch, nor of imagination, and never was either of these, though it might formerly seem so, but is simply an intuition (inspectio) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused, as it formerly was, or very clear and distinct, as it is at present, according as the attention is more or less directed to the elements which it contains, and of which it is composed.

13. But, meanwhile, I feel greatly astonished when I observe the weakness of my mind, and its proneness to error. For although, without at all giving expression to what I think, I consider all this in my own mind, words yet occasionally impede my progress, and I am almost led into error by the terms of ordinary language. We say, for example, that we see the same wax when it is before us, and not that we judge it to be the same from its retaining the same color and figure: whence I should forthwith be disposed to conclude that the wax is known by the act of sight, and not by the intuition of the mind alone, were it not for the analogous instance of human beings passing on in the street below, as observed from a window. In this case I do not fail to say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from the window beyond hats and cloaks that might cover artificial machines, whose motions might be determined by springs ? But I judge that there are human beings from these appearances, and thus I comprehend, by the faculty of judgment alone which is in the mind, what I believed I saw with my eyes.

14. The man who makes it his aim to rise to knowledge superior to the common, ought to be ashamed to seek occasions of doubting from the vulgar forms of speech: instead, therefore, of doing this, I shall proceed with the matter in hand, and inquire whether I had a clearer and more perfect perception of the piece of wax when I first saw it, and when I thought I knew it by means of the external sense itself, or, at all events, by the common sense (sensus communis), as it is called, that is, by the imaginative faculty; or whether I rather apprehend it more clearly at present, after having examined with greater care, both what it is, and in what way it can be known. It would certainly be ridiculous to entertain any doubt on this point. For what, in that first perception, was there distinct? What did I perceive which any animal might not have perceived? But when I distinguish the wax from its exterior forms, and when, as if I had stripped it of its vestments, I consider it quite naked, it is certain, although some error may still be found in my judgment, that I cannot, nevertheless, thus apprehend it without possessing a human mind.

15. But finally, what shall I say of the mind itself, that is, of myself? For as yet I do not admit that I am anything but mind. What, then! I who seem to possess so distinct an apprehension of the piece of wax, do I not know myself, both with greater truth and certitude, and also much more distinctly and clearly? For if I judge that the wax exists because I see it, it assuredly follows, much more evidently, that I myself am or exist, for the same reason: for it is possible that what I see may not in truth be wax, and that I do not even possess eyes with which to see anything; but it cannot be that when I see, or, which comes to the same thing, when I think I see, I myself who think am nothing. So likewise, if I judge that the wax exists because I touch it, it will still also follow that I am; and if I determine that my imagination, or any other cause, whatever it be, persuades me of the existence of the wax, I will still draw the same conclusion. And what is here remarked of the piece of wax, is applicable to all the other things that are external to me. And further, if the notion or perception of wax appeared to me more precise and distinct, after that not only sight and touch, but many other causes besides, rendered it manifest to my apprehension, with how much greater distinctness must I now know myself, since all the reasons that contribute to the knowledge of the nature of wax, or of any body whatever, manifest still better the nature of my mind? And there are besides so many other things in the mind itself that contribute to the illustration of its nature, that those dependent on the body, to which I have here referred, scarcely merit to be taken into account.

16. But, in conclusion, I find I have insensibly reverted to the point I desired; for, since it is now manifest to me that bodies themselves are not properly perceived by the senses nor by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone; and since they are not perceived because they are seen and touched, but only because they are understood or rightly comprehended by thought, I readily discover that there is nothing more easily or clearly apprehended than my own mind. But because it is difficult to rid one’s self so promptly of an opinion to which one has been long accustomed, it will be desirable to tarry for some time at this stage, that, by long continued meditation, I may more deeply impress upon my memory this new knowledge.



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Dans le Restaurant (by T.S. Eliot)

T.S. Eliot

Dans le Restaurant
[from Poems, 1920]

Le garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire
Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule:
  “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux,
  Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie;
  C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.”
(Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie,
Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe).
  “Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces—
  C’est là, dans une averse, qu’on s’abrite.
J’avais sept ans, elle était plus petite.
  Elle était toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primevères.”
Les taches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trente-huit.
  “Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire.
  J’éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire.”
 
  Mais alors, vieux lubrique, à cet âge . . . 
“Monsieur, le fait est dur.
  Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien;
  Moi j’avais peur, je l’ai quittée à mi-chemin.
  C’est dommage.”
      Mais alors, tu as ton vautour!
 
Va t’en te décrotter les rides du visage;
Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne.
De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi?
Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains.
 
Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,
Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:
Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,
Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible;
Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille. 


[Eliot wrote this poem in French.  When I find a good English translation, I’ll post it in the comments below.]



* * * * *


     

Lune de Miel (by T.S. Eliot)

T.S. Eliot

Lune de Miel
[from Poems, 1920]

Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent Terre Haute;
Mais une nuit d’été, les voici Ravenne,
A l’sur le dos écartant les genoux
De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures.
On relve le drap pour mieux égratigner.
Moins d’une lieue d’ici est Saint Apollinaire
In Classe, basilique connue des amateurs
De chapitaux d’acanthe que touraoie le vent.

Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures
Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue Milan
Ou se trouvent le Cène, et un restaurant pas cher.
Lui pense aux pourboires, et rédige son bilan.
Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France.
Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascètique,
Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore
Dans ses pierres croulantes la forme précise de Byzance. 


[Eliot wrote this poem in French.  When I find a good English translation, I’ll post it in the comments below.]



* * * * *


     

Mélange Adultère de Tout (by T.S. Eliot)

T.S. Eliot

Mélange Adultère de Tout
[from Poems, 1920]

En Amérique, professeur;
En Angleterre, journaliste;
C’est à grands pas et en sueur
Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste.
En Yorkshire, conférencier;
A Londres, un peu banquier,
Vous me paierez bein la tête.
C’est à Paris que je me coiffe
Casque noir de jemenfoutiste.
En Allemagne, philosophe
Surexcité par Emporheben
Au grand air de Bergsteigleben;
J’erre toujours de-ci de-là
A divers coups de tra là là
De Damas jusqu’à Omaha.
Je célébrai mon jour de fête
Dans une oasis d’Afrique
Vetu d’une peau de girafe.
 
On montrera mon cénotaphe
Aux côtes brulantes de Mozambique. 


[Eliot wrote this poem in French.  When I find a good English translation, I’ll post it in the comments below.]



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I Love the Thought… (by Charles Baudelaire)

Charles Baudelaire

V. [from Les Fleurs de Mal]

J’aime le souvenir de ces époques nues,
Dont Phoebus se plaisait à dorer les statues.
Alors l’homme et la femme en leur agilité
Jouissaient sans mensonge et sans anxiété,
Et, le ciel amoureux leur caressant l’échine,
Exerçaient la santé de leur noble machine.
Cybèle alors, fertile en produits généreux,
Ne trouvait point ses fils un poids trop onéreux,
Mais, louve au coeur gonflé de tendresses communes
Abreuvait l’univers à ses tétines brunes.
L’homme, élégant, robuste et fort, avait le droit
D’être fier des beautés qui le nommaient leur roi;
Fruits purs de tout outrage et vierges de gerçures,
Dont la chair lisse et ferme appelait les morsures!

Le Poète aujourd’hui, quand il veut concevoir
Ces natives grandeurs, aux lieux où se font voir
La nudité de l’homme et celle de la femme,
Sent un froid ténébreux envelopper son âme
Devant ce noir tableau plein d’épouvantement.
O monstruosités pleurant leur vêtement!
O ridicules troncs! torses dignes des masques!
O pauvres corps tordus, maigres, ventrus ou flasques,
Que le dieu de l’Utile, implacable et serein,
Enfants, emmaillota dans ses langes d’airain!
Et vous, femmes, hélas! pâles comme des cierges,
Que ronge et que nourrit la débauche, et vous, vierges,
Du vice maternel traînant l’hérédité
Et toutes les hideurs de la fécondité!

Nous avons, il est vrai, nations corrompues,
Aux peuples anciens des beautés inconnues:
Des visages rongés par les chancres du coeur,
Et comme qui dirait des beautés de langueur;
Mais ces inventions de nos muses tardives
N’empêcheront jamais les races maladives
De rendre à la jeunesse un hommage profond,
– A la sainte jeunesse, à l’air simple, au doux front,
A l’oeil limpide et clair ainsi qu’une eau courante,
Et qui va répandant sur tout, insouciante
Comme l’azur du ciel, les oiseaux et les fleurs,
Ses parfums, ses chansons et ses douces chaleurs!

— Charles Baudelaire

Below is an English translation by James McGowan

I Love the Thought… [from The Flowers of Evil]

I love the thought of ancient, naked days
When Phoebus gilded statues with his rays.
Then women, men in their agility
Played without guile, without anxiety,
And, while the sky stroked lovingly their skin,
They tuned to health their excellent machine.
Cybele, in offering her bounty there,
Found mortals not a heavy weight to bear,
But, she-wolf full of common tenderness,
From her brown nipples fed the universe.
Man had the right, robust and flourishing,
Of pride in beauties who proclaimed him king;
Pure fruit unsullied, lovely to the sight,
Whose smooth, firm flesh went asking for the bite!

Today, the Poet, when he would conceive
These native grandeurs, where can now be seen
Women and men in all their nakedness,
Feels in his soul a chill of hopelessness
Before this terrible and bleak tableau.
Monstrosities that cry out to be clothed!
Bodies grotesque and only fit for masques!
Poor twisted trunks, scrawny or gone to flab,
Whose god, implacable Utility,
In brazen wraps, swaddles his progeny!
And pale as tapers, all you women too
Corruption gnaws and nourishes, and you
O virgins, heir to all matemal vice
And all the squalor of the fecund life!

lt’s true, we have in our corrupted states
Beauties unknown to ancient people’s tastes:
Visages gnawed by sores of syphilis,
And one might say, beauties of listlessness;
But these inventions of our tardy muse
Never avert the sickly modem crew
From rendering to youth their deepest bow,
– To holy youth, to smooth, untroubled brow,
To limpid eye, to air of innocence,
Who pours out on us all, indifferent
As flowers, birds, the blue of sky or sea,
His perfumes, songs, his sweet vitality!


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