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. To-day, 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.
