tion; and passes away whenever the mind is determined either to join or disjoin, to include or exclude, with certainty. Thus far of doubt in general, and of the Cartesian doubt in particular.[1]
In it is necessary to state farther, that the Cartesian doubt embraced within its sphere all the judgments and beliefs that were due to education and authority. Of these Descartes made a surrender, under certain conditions and reservations to be found stated in the Method (Part III.): which, however, scarcely affect the generality and immediateness of the doubt.
But doubt, suspension of judgment, is with Descartes not an end in itself; it is not that for which, as with the Sceptic, the activity of the faculties of knowledge is put forth, and which is itself for no other end. On the contrary, doubt is with Descartes singly a means, and the end of the Cartesian doubt is the end of the Cartesian
- ↑ As in certain passages of the Discourse on Method the precise nature of the Cartesian doubt does not appear, it may be proper to quote the following explicit declaration by Descartes himself, in reply to Gassendi:—"In order to rid one's self of all sorts of prejudices, it is necessary only to resolve to affirm or deny nothing of all that we had formerly affirmed or denied, until this has been examined anew, although we are not on this account prevented from retaining in the memory the whole of the notions themselves." Lettre de M. Descartes à M. Clerselier, &c. See Simon's Ed., p. 367. Compare Remarks on Seventh Objections, E.
In doubting, therefore, Descartes suspended his judgment, that is, he asserted neither that the subject lay within nor without the sphere of the predicate; and as in this respect the act had no determinate product, Descartes was not as yet a Dogmatist. Again, as the doubter resolved to doubt, he affirmed the propriety of the doubt, and its necessity as a means to his end; to the extent of this affirmation, Descartes is a Dogmatist.
