Page:Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences - Descartes (trans. Veitch).djvu/38

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xxxvi

INTRODUCTION.

with the laws of thought is a sufficient guarantee of the real existence of the thing, in other words, of the matter of the thought. In the present instance, the demonstration proceeds on the principle of identity; for merely because God is thought under the notion necessary existence, in other words, because it is clearly thought that the notion is equal to its character or itself, it is concluded that Deity is really existent. Such procedure in identifying what is possible in thought with what is actual in existence is of course wholly illegitimate.^[1]

↑ The demonstration to which reference is here made is given at length in Med. V. See also Resp. ad Sec. Obj., towards the end. Descartes explicitly makes it a corollary from his criterion of truth. It ought to be observed, that Descartes gives three demonstrations of the existence of God: none of which, however, he has fully elaborated in the Method. The first in order of these, as given in the Method, founds upon the existence of the notion of the Perfect in relation to that of the Imperfect. A limited being, according to Descartes, cannot be the cause either formal or eminent of the existence of this notion. Its only adequate cause is an Absolute Being: hence, as the notion exists, the cause, i.e., God, must also exist.
The notions of the Infinite and Finite necessarily arise in the limited being; but it is not on its necessity, but on the representative perfection of the notion of the Infinite that Descartes founds his demonstration. With regard to the character of this notion as positive or negative, he is, however, vacillating.
Through this demonstration Descartes arrives for the first time at the knowledge of somewhat different from the thinking subject. The Cartesian Non-Ego is thus not matter, but God.
In the second proof, Descartes founds on the fact of our existence and its limitation; and infers that there is a sustainer or ground of dependence, by whose act we at first commenced to exist, and by whose power, manifested in acts repeated from moment to moment, we continue to exist.
The third proof is the Ontological. This is referred to in the text.

[pxxxvi-1] The demonstration to which reference is here made is given at length in Med. V. See also Resp. ad Sec. Obj., towards the end. Descartes explicitly makes it a corollary from his criterion of truth. It ought to be observed, that Descartes gives three demonstrations of the existence of God: none of which, however, he has fully elaborated in the Method. The first in order of these, as given in the Method, founds upon the existence of the notion of the Perfect in relation to that of the Imperfect. A limited being, according to Descartes, cannot be the cause either formal or eminent of the existence of this notion. Its only adequate cause is an Absolute Being: hence, as the notion exists, the cause, i.e., God, must also exist.
The notions of the Infinite and Finite necessarily arise in the limited being; but it is not on its necessity, but on the representative perfection of the notion of the Infinite that Descartes founds his demonstration. With regard to the character of this notion as positive or negative, he is, however, vacillating.
Through this demonstration Descartes arrives for the first time at the knowledge of somewhat different from the thinking subject. The Cartesian Non-Ego is thus not matter, but God.
In the second proof, Descartes founds on the fact of our existence and its limitation; and infers that there is a sustainer or ground of dependence, by whose act we at first commenced to exist, and by whose power, manifested in acts repeated from moment to moment, we continue to exist.
The third proof is the Ontological. This is referred to in the text.

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