posites as participating of negation and arising from our imperfection.[1]
According to this doctrine, the clear and distinct must be held as equivalent to a certain degree of consciousness, and the obscure and indistinct as equivalent to the absence of this degree: For, first, thought is only real or actual when it exists in a determinate degree. And hence, secondly, as the obscure is a negation, it must be a negation, as the opposite of the clear, of the real in thought, and, therefore, of a determinate degree of consciousness. The obscure and indistinct thus arise in the absence or negation of adequate cognitive action.
(2,) We have an explicit declaration of the nature of the clear and the distinct by Descartes, in which these terms are made to refer exclusively to the degree of cognitive activity. "Claram voco illam, (he says,) quæ menti attendenti præsens et aperta est; sicut ea clarè a nobis videri dicimus, quæ oculo intuenti præsentia, satis fortiter et apertè illum movent. Distinctam autem illam, quæ, cùm clara sit, ab omnibus aliis ita sejuncta est et præcisa, ut nihil planè aliud, quàm quod clarum est, in se contineat."—Prin. Phil. P. P. § 45; see also § 46. From this statement it is plain that the clear is that which stimulates to free and full cognitive activity.
The resolution of Descartes, therefore, to accept nothing but what was clearly and distinctly presented, was taken with a view to secure the
- ↑ Discourse on Method, pp. 80, 81; see also Med. IV. passim.
