Remedies of the soul

It (your letter) would have made me perfectly happy if it hadn’t told me that the illness you had before I left The Hague has lingered on in the form of stomach troubles. The remedies you have chosen—involving •diet and •exercise—are in my opinion the best of all. Well, they are the best (all things considered) after the remedies of •the soul, which certainly has great power over the body, as is shown by the big changes that anger, fear, and the other passions arouse in it. But when the soul conducts the animal spirits to the places where they can help or harm, it does this not by directly willing the spirits to go in those ways but by willing or thinking of something else. For our body is so constructed that certain movements in it follow naturally upon certain thoughts: as we see that blushes follows from shame, tears from compassion, and laughter from joy. I know of no thought more conducive to continuing health than a strong conviction that our body is so well constructed that once we are healthy we can’t easily fall ill—unless we engage in some excess or are harmed by air pollution or some other external cause. Someone who is ill can restore his health solely by the power of nature, especially when he is still young. This •conviction is certainly much truer and more reasonable than the view of some people—I have seen this happen—who are influenced by an astrologer or a physician to think they must die in a certain amount of time, and are caused purely by this belief to become sick and even, often enough, to die. I couldn’t help being extremely sad if I thought that you were still unwell; I prefer to hope that the illness is all over; but my desire to be certain about this makes me eager to return to Holland.

reading the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, I couldn’t help being very distressed to see that such a rare and perfect ·level of· virtue isn’t accompanied by the health and prosperity that it deserves. I can readily understand the multitude of distressing things that keep turning up in your life—things that are made harder to overcome by being of such a kind that true reason doesn’t issue the command ‘Oppose them directly or try to chase them away’. These are domestic enemies that you are forced to keep company with, and you have to be perpetually on guard lest they injure you. The only remedy that I know is to channel your imagination and your senses as far from them as you can, and think about them, when prudence requires you to, using only your intellect.

In this matter it is easy, I think, to see how the intellect differs from the imagination and the senses. •Consider someone who has every reason to be happy but who continually sees enacted before him tragedies full of disastrous events, and who spends all his time brooding on sad and pitiful objects.

Suppose that he knows that these are imaginary fables: they draw tears from his eyes and move his imagination, but don’t touch his intellect at all. I think that this by itself would be enough gradually to constrict his heart and make him sigh in such a way that the circulation of his blood would be clogged and slowed down. The bigger parts of his blood, sticking together, could easily block the spleen, getting caught in it and stopping in its pores; while the more finely divided parts, being continually agitated, could affect his lungs and cause a cough which in time might be very dangerous. •Now consider someone who has countless genuine reasons for distress but who takes such trouble to direct his imagination that he never thinks about them except when some practical necessity forces him to, and who spends the rest of his time thinking about things that can give him contentment and joy. This will greatly help him by enabling him to make sounder judgments about the things that matter to him, because he’ll look on them without passion. Furthermore, I am sure that this by itself could restore him to health, even if his spleen and lungs were already in a poor condition because of the bad condition of the blood caused by sadness. Especially if he also used medical remedies to thin out the part of the blood causing the obstructions. The waters of Spa are very good for this purpose, I think, above all if while taking them you follow the usual recommendation of physicians and free your mind from all sad thoughts, and even from all serious meditations on scientific subjects. Simply imitate people who convince themselves that they aren’t thinking of anything when they are observing the greenness of a forest, the colours of a flower, the flight of a bird, or something else requiring no attention. This doesn’t waste time; it uses time well, because one can content oneself with the hope that by this means one will recover perfect health, which is the foundation of all the other goods of this life.

*

 I know that everything I write here is better known to you than to me, and that what’s difficult in this matter is not the theory but the practice. Still, the great favour that you do me in showing that you aren’t averse to hearing my views makes me take the liberty of writing them down just as they are, and of adding this: The remedy I have just suggested cured an illness of mine that was very like yours and perhaps even more dangerous. I was born of a mother who, a few days [actually, 14 months] after my birth, died from a disease of the lungs caused by distress. From her I inherited a dry cough and a pale colour which stayed with me until I was more than twenty, so that all the doctors who saw me predicted that I would die young. But I have always tended to look at things from the most favourable angle and to make my chief happiness depend upon myself alone; and I believe that this tendency caused the indisposition gradually to disappear completely—the indisposition that was almost part of my nature!

*

Descartes

( from letters to Elizabeth)

 

Which truths are most useful to us

In order to be always disposed to judge well, it seems to
me, only two things are needed: •knowledge of the truth and
•a dependable practice of remembering and assenting to this
knowledge whenever the occasion demands. But because
nobody except God knows everything perfectly, we have to
settle for knowing the truths that are most useful to us.

(1) The first and chief of these is that there is a God
on whom all things depend, whose perfections are infinite,
whose power is immense and whose decrees are infallible.
This teaches us to accept with a good spirit everything that
happens to us, as expressly sent by God. Moreover, since the
true object of love is perfection, when we lift up our minds
to think about God as he is we find ourselves naturally so
inclined to love him that we even rejoice in our afflictions,
through the thought that he wills that they should come to
us.

(2) The second thing we must know is the nature of
our soul: that it •doesn’t need the body in order to stay
in existence, •is much nobler than the body, and •is capable
of enjoying countless satisfactions that aren’t to be found
in this life. This prevents us from fearing death, and moves
us so far from caring about the things of this world that we
regard as negligible anything that fortune can do to us.

(3) We can be greatly helped towards this ·frame of mind
or condition of soul· by judging the works of God in the way
they deserve and by having the capacious idea of the extent
of the universe that I tried to make conceivable in the third
book of my Principles. For if we imagine that
•beyond the heavens there is nothing but imaginary
spaces, and that
•all the heavens are made only for the service of the
earth and
•the earth is made only for man,
this ·has three bad effects on us·. •It inclines us to think
that this earth is our principal home and that this life is the
best life we will have. •Instead of knowing the perfections
that we really do have, we get a sense of our perfections
by comparing ourselves with other creatures to which we
attribute imperfections that they don’t have. •With preposterous
self-importance we want to be in God’s confidence and
to join him in running the world—which causes an infinity
of pointless anxieties and frustrations.

(4) After acknowledging the goodness of God, the immortality
of our souls and the immensity of the universe, there is
one more truth that seems to me to be most useful to know,
namely this:
Although each of us is a person separate from others,
and therefore with interests that differ somewhat from
those of the rest of the world, each of us ought still
to think that he couldn’t survive on his own, and
that he is really one of the parts of the universe, and
more particularly a part of this earth, of this state,
of this society, of this family—to which he is joined
by where he lives, by his oath ·of allegiance·, by his
birth. And the interests of the whole of which he is a
part should always be put before his own individual
personal interests.
In a measured and thoughtful way, however; for •it would
be wrong for him to expose himself to a great evil in order to
procure only a slight benefit for his relatives or his country,
and •if he on his own is worth more than all the rest of his
city, it would be wrong for him to sacrifice himself to save
it. But someone who saw everything in relation to himself
wouldn’t shrink from greatly harming other men when he
believed that this would bring him some small benefit. Such
a person would have no true friendship, no fidelity—quite
generally no virtue. On the other hand, someone who
•considers himself a part of the community takes pleasure
in doing good to everyone, and isn’t afraid of even risking
his life in the service of others when the occasion demands;
indeed, he would be willing to lose his soul, if he could, to
save others. So this way of •considering oneself—·namely as
a part of something larger·—is the source and origin of all
the most heroic actions men do. ·But let us be careful about
what we identify as heroism·. Someone who risks death for
reasons of vanity (he hopes to be praised) or out of stupidity
(he doesn’t see the danger) is to be pitied more than prized.
Now think about someone who risks death because he thinks
it is his duty, or suffers some other harm in order to bring
good to others. It may be that when he thinks about it he
doesn’t think he did it because he owes more to the public
of which he is a part than to himself in particular, but
that is why he acted as he did, and this reason has become
confused in his mind. A person is naturally drawn to have
it—·i.e. this thought of being part of a larger whole·—when
he knows and loves God as he should. For then, abandoning
himself completely to God’s will, he strips himself of his own
interests and has only one passion—to do what he believes
would be agreeable to God. This brings him satisfactions of
the mind, contentments, that are worth incomparably more
than all the transient little joys that depend on the senses.

(5) In addition to these truths that generalize over all our
actions, we ought to know many other truths that concern
more particularly each individual action. The chief of these,
in my view, are the ones I mentioned in my last letter, namely:
•All our passions represent to us the goods that they
incite us to seek as being much greater than they
really are;
•The pleasures of the body are never as lasting as those
of the soul, or as great when we have them as they
appear when we are looking forward to them.
We should carefully take this in, so that •when we feel ourselves
moved by some passion we’ll suspend our judgment
until it calms down and •we won’t let ourselves easily be
deceived by the false appearance of the goods of this world.

(6) I have only this to add, that we ought to examine in
detail all the customs of the place where we are living, so as
to see how far they should be followed. Although we can’t
have certain demonstrations of everything, we ought to make
choices and (in matters of custom) embrace the opinions
that seem the most probable. Why? So that when there’s
a need for action we won’t be irresolute; because nothing
causes regret and repentance except irresolution.

Finally, just this: As I said before, if one is to be disposed
always to judge well, one needs not only •knowledge of the
truth but also •habit. ·Here is why·. Suppose that in the past
we have been convinced of some truth P by clear and evident
reasons; we can’t keep anything—·e.g. those reasons·— in
mind continually; so in the course of time we might be led
by false appearances to turn away from believing P; and our
protection against that is by long and frequent meditation
on P to imprint it in our mind so ·deeply· that it turns into a
•habit. In this sense the scholastics are right when they say
that virtues are habits; for our failings are indeed usually
due not to lack of •theoretical knowledge of what we should
do but to lack of practical knowledge—i.e. lack of a firm habit
of belief. 

Descartes

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misfortunes and good sense

I know that it’s nearly impossible to resist the first upsets
that new misfortunes arouse in us, and even that the best
minds are usually the ones in which passions are the most
violent and act most strongly on their bodies. But it seems
to me that on the following day, when sleep has calmed the
emotions that the blood carries in such circumstances, the
person can begin to get his mind in order, calming it down.
To do this, focus on thinking of all the •benefits you can get
from whatever it was that you had taken to be a great mishap
the day before, and turn your attention away from the •evils
you had imagined in it. ·This can be done·, because there
are no events so disastrous, or so absolutely bad in people’s
judgment, that a lively-minded person couldn’t look at them
from an angle that would make them appear favourable. You
can draw this general consolation from the misfortunes that
have come your way: they may have contributed greatly
towards your developing your mind to the point that you
have—and that’s a good that you should value more than
an empire! Great prosperity often dazzles and intoxicates in
such a way that it possesses those that have it rather than
being possessed by them. Although this doesn’t happen to
anyone with a cast of mind like yours, prosperity would still
give you fewer openings for the exercise of your mind than
adversity does. I believe that just as nothing in the world
can be called ‘good’ without qualification except good sense,
so there is no evil from which we can’t draw some benefit if
we have good sense.


Descartes

Beatitude of soul

good fortune [= ‘good luck’] depends only on things external to us;
so someone to whom some good comes without his having
done anything to get it is regarded as more fortunate than
wise men are. In contrast with that, true beatitude [béatitude]
seems to me to consist in a complete contentment of the
mind and an inner satisfaction. People who are the most
favoured by fortune usually don’t have this contentment,
and wise people acquire it with no help from fortune. Thus,
vivere beate, to live in beatitude, is nothing but to have a
mind that is perfectly content and satisfied.

When I think about what the things are quod beatam
vitam efficiat, i.e. that can give us this utter contentment
·that I call ‘beatitude’·, I see that they are of two sorts:
(1) those that depend on us, such as virtue and wisdom,
and (2) those that don’t depend on us, such as honours,
riches, and health. Consider two men who are equally (1)
wise and virtuous, and who differ in that (2) one of them
is shapely, not ill, and affluent while the other is deformed,
unhealthy, and poor; it is certain that the former can be more
completely contented than the latter can.
Still, a small jug can be just as full as a larger one! Taking
the contentment of each man to be
the fullness and the satisfaction of
his desires regulated according to reason,
I don’t doubt that the poorest people, least blest by nature
and fortune, can be entirely content and satisfied just as
others can, although they don’t enjoy as many good things.
That is the only sort of contentment that is in question here;
trying for the other sort would be a waste of time, because it
is not in our own power.
Now, it seems to me that each person can make himself
content, unaided by anything external to him, provided he
respects three conditions that are related to the three rules
of morality that I presented in the Discourse on the Method.
(1) He should always try to use his mind as well as he
can in order to know what he should do or not do in all the
events of life.
(2) He should have a firm and constant resolution to do
whatever reason advises, without being turned away from
that by his passions or appetites. Virtue, I believe, consists
precisely in sticking firmly to this resolution; though I don’t
know that anyone has ever explained the word in this way. . . .
(3) He should bear in mind that while he is living as much
as he can under the guidance of reason, all the good things
that he doesn’t have are one and all entirely outside his
power. This will get him into the habit of not wanting them.
Why is it that we want to be healthier and richer than we are,
but don’t want to have more arms or more tongues than we
have? It is because we know that we can’t by our own efforts
come to have more tongues or arms, while •we imagine that
health and riches are achievable by our exertions or are owed
to our nature—·i.e. are things that it is not natural for us
to lack·. We can rid ourselves of •that opinion by bearing in
mind that since we have always followed the advice of our
reason we have left undone nothing that was in our power,
and that sickness and misfortune are as natural to man as
prosperity and health. 
Nothing can impede our contentment except •desire and
•regret or repentance. 
·I have explained how the person who
lives by reason can be free of discontenting desires, and now
I add that he can also be free of repentance·. If he always
does whatever his reason tells him to do, then even if events
show him afterwards that he has gone wrong, he will never
have any grounds for repentance, because it was not his
fault.
I should add that beatitude is not incompatible with
every sort of desire—only with desires that are accompanied
by impatience and sadness. Also, it isn’t necessary ·for
beatitude = utter contentment· that our reason should be
free from error. All that is needed is for our conscience
to testify that we have never lacked resolution and virtue
to carry out whatever we have judged the best course. So
virtue by itself is sufficient to make us content in this life.
Nevertheless, because virtue unenlightened by intellect can be false: i.e. our will and resolution to do well can carry us to evil
courses that we think are good,
(1) the contentment that comes from such virtue is not solid,
·i.e. we can’t depend on it to be durable·; and because
we ordinarily oppose this virtue to pleasures, appetites,
and passions,
(2) it’s very difficult to put it into practice. On the other
hand, the right use of reason gives us a true knowledge of
the good ·and thus (1) gives us solid contentment because· it
prevents our virtue from being false; and because the right
use of reason brings virtue into harmony with permissible
pleasures, (2) it makes the practice of virtue quite easy.
·And it also contributes to virtue in a way that I haven’t yet
mentioned, namely·: by giving us knowledge of the condition
of our nature, it restrains our desires in such a way that
one must admit that •man’s greatest happiness depends on
this right use of reason and that therefore •the study that
leads one to it is the most useful occupation one can have.
Certainly it is the most agreeable and delightful.

Descartes

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souls- vulgar and great

What chiefly marks off the greatest souls from low-level vulgar ones, it seems to me, is that vulgar souls give themselves over to their passions and are happy or sad purely according to whether
what happens to them is agreeable or unpleasant;
whereas great souls reason so powerfully that—although they
too have passions, which are often more violent than
those of the vulgar—their reason remains in command
and brings it about that even afflictions serve them
and contribute to the perfect happiness that they can
enjoy ·not merely in the after-life but· already in this
life.
Here is how they do it. They bear in mind •that they are
immortal and capable of receiving very great contentment,
and on the other hand •that they are joined to mortal and
fragile bodies that are bound to perish in a few years; so
they do whatever they can to make fortune favourable in this
life, but they value this life so little from the perspective of
eternity that they give ·worldly· events no more consideration
than we give to events on the stage. Just as the sad stories
that we weep to see represented on a stage often entertain
us as much as happy ones, so the greatest souls get an
inner satisfaction from all the things that happen to them,
even the most distressing and unbearable. When they feel
pain in their bodies they try hard to put up with it, and
this show of their strength is agreeable to them. Seeing
a friend in some great trouble they feel compassion at the
friend’s ill fortune and do all they can to rescue him from it,
and they aren’t afraid of risking death if that is necessary
for this purpose. But the sadness that their compassion
brings doesn’t afflict them, because they are happy over the
testimony of their conscience, which tells them that they are
doing their duty, acting in a manner that is praiseworthy
and virtuous. In short, just as the greatest prosperity of
fortune never intoxicates them or makes them insolent, so
also the greatest adversities can’t defeat them or make them
so sad that the body to which they are joined falls ill.


Descartes

virtues and wisdom

There’s a great difference between apparent virtues and true ones. .
What I call ‘apparent virtues’ are certain relatively unusual
vices that are ·extreme· opposites of other better known vices,
with the related virtues occupying a position intermediate
between the two. Because they are further from their
opposite vices than the virtues are, they are usually praised
more highly than the related virtues are. Here are some
examples.
 (1) It more often happens that someone timidly
flees from danger than that someone rashly throws himself
into it; so rashness is contrasted with the vice of timidity
as if it were a virtue, and is commonly valued more highly
than true courage ,which is intermediate between timidity
and rashness. 
The same mechanism is at work when 
(2)someone who is over-generous is more highly praised than
one who gives liberally ·because his conduct is further from
the vice of meanness than is the virtuous conduct of the
merely liberal giver.
There is also a division within the true virtues, between
ones that arise solely from knowledge of what is right and
ones that come partly from some error. Examples of the
latter class of virtues:
goodness that is a result of naivety,
piety that comes from fear,
courage that comes from the loss of hope.
Because such virtues differ from each other, they have
different names; whereas the pure and genuine virtues that
come entirely from knowledge of what is right all have the
very same nature and are covered by the single term ‘wisdom’.
The person who is firmly and effectively resolved always to
use his reasoning powers correctly, as far as he can, and to
do whatever he knows to be best, is the person who is as
wise as his nature allows him to be. And simply because
of this wisdom, he will have justice, courage, temperance,
and all the other virtues—all interlinked in such a way that
no one of them stands out among the others. Such virtues
are far superior to the ones that owe their distinguishing
marks to some admixture of vice, but they usually receive
less praise because common people are less aware of them.The kind of wisdom I have described has two prerequisites:


•the perceptiveness of the intellect and the •disposition
of the will. If something depends on the will, anybody can
do it; but ·the same doesn’t hold for intellectual perceptions,
because· some people have much keener intellectual vision
than others. Someone who is by nature a little slow in
his thinking and ·therefore· ignorant on many points can
nevertheless be wise in his own way and thus find great
favour with God; all that is needed is for him to make a firm
and steady decision to do his utmost to acquire knowledge
of what is right, and always to pursue what he judges to
be right. Still, he won’t rise to the level of those who are
firmly resolved to act rightly and have very sharp intellects
combined with the utmost zeal for acquiring knowledge






Descartes

Three Principles

I had long been aware

that in practical life one sometimes has to act on opinions

that one knows to be quite uncertain just as if they were

unquestionably •true (I remarked on this above). But now

that I wanted to devote myself solely to the search for truth,

I thought I needed to do the exact opposite—to reject as if

it were absolutely •false everything regarding which I could

imagine the least doubt, so as to see whether this left me

with anything entirely indubitable to believe. Thus,

•I chose to suppose that nothing was such as our

senses led us to imagine,

because our senses sometimes deceive us. Also,

•I rejected as unsound all the arguments I had previously

taken as demonstrative [= ‘absolutely rigorous’]

proofs,

because some men make mistakes in reasoning, even in the

simplest questions in geometry, and commit logical fallacies;

and I judged that I was as open to this as anyone else. Lastly,

•I decided to pretend that everything that had ever

entered my mind was no more true than the illusions

of my dreams,

because all the mental states we are in while awake can

also occur while we sleep ·and dream·, without having any

truth in them. But no sooner had I embarked on this project

than I noticed that while I was trying in this way to think

everything to be false it had to be the case that •I, who was

thinking this, was •something. And observing that this truth

I am thinking, therefore I exist

was so firm and sure that not even the most extravagant

suppositions of the sceptics could shake it, I decided that

I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of

the philosophy I was seeking. [This ‘first principle’ could be (1)

‘I exist’ or (2) the connection between ‘I am thinking’ and ‘I exist’—the

uncertainty in this version echoes that in Descartes’s French.]

Then I looked carefully into what I was. I saw that while I

could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world

and no place for me to be in, I still couldn’t pretend that I

didn’t exist. I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact

that I thought about doubting the truth of other things, it

followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed; whereas

if I had merely stopped thinking altogether [here = ‘stopped

being in any conscious mental state’], even if everything else I had

ever imagined had been true, I ·would have· had no reason to

believe that I existed. This taught me that I was a substance

whose whole essence or nature is simply to think [here = ‘to be

in conscious mental states’], and which doesn’t need any place, or

depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly

this me—this soul that makes me what I am—•is entirely

distinct from the body, •is easier to know than the body, and

•would still be just what it is even if the body didn’t exist.

After that I considered in general what is needed for a

proposition to be true and certain: I had just found one

that I knew was true and certain, I thought that I ought

also to know what this certainty consists in. I observed that

the proposition ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ has nothing

about it to assure me that I am speaking the truth ·when I

assert it· except that I see very clearly that in order to think

it is necessary to exist. This convinced me that I could take it

as a general rule that the things we conceive very vividly and

very clearly are all true; but ·this isn’t as powerfully simple

a rule as you might think, because· there is some difficulty

in telling which conceptions are really clear.

Next, I reflected on the fact that I was doubting, and that

consequently I wasn’t wholly perfect (for I saw clearly that it

is a greater perfection to know than to doubt). This led me

to the question:

Where did I get my ability to think of something more

perfect than I am?

and I drew the obvious conclusion that this ability had to

come from—·had to be caused by·—something that was in

fact more perfect than me. ·To explain why I reached that

conclusion, I should first explain why· I wasn’t exercised

about such questions as

Where did I get my ability to think of the heavens, the

earth, light, heat (and so on)?

It was because I saw nothing in those thoughts that seemed

to make them superior to me, ·i.e. more perfect than I am·;

and ·that opened the door to a pair of possible explanations

for my ability to have them·. (1) If the thoughts in question

were true, they could depend on—·i.e. come from·—some

perfection in my own nature. (2) If they weren’t true, I could

have derived them from •nothingness - meaning that they

could be in me because I had some •defect. But neither of

these explanations could hold for the idea of a being more

perfect than me. For it was obviously impossible (2) to get

this from nothingness; and I couldn’t have (1) derived it from

myself, because the proposition

(1) Something resulted from and depends on something

less perfect than it is

is just as contradictory as

(2) Something resulted from nothingness.

So the only possibility left was that the idea had been

put into me by •something that truly was more perfect

than I was, •something indeed having every perfection of

which I could have any idea, that is—to explain myself in

one word—by •God. To this I added that since I knew of

some perfections that I didn’t myself have, I wasn’t the only

being that existed. . . .,and there had to be some other more

perfect being on which I depended and from which I had

acquired everything that I had. For if I had existed alone,

not depending on anything else, so that my meagre ration of

perfections had come from myself, then by that same line of

reasoning

•I could have derived from myself all the remaining

perfections that I knew I lacked,

and thus

•I could myself have been infinite, eternal, unchanging,

omniscient, omnipotent;

in short,

•I could have had all the perfections that I had been

able to discover in God.

[What follows starts with the word Car = ‘For’. Descartes seems to be

promising a reason for what he has just said, but the promise isn’t kept.]

For, according to the arguments I have just presented: in

order to know as much of God’s nature as my nature allows

me to know, all I needed was to consider, for each property

of which I had some idea, whether having it was a perfection

or not; and I was sure that God doesn’t have any of the

properties that indicate any imperfection, but that he does

have all the others. Thus I saw that God could not have

doubt, inconstancy, sadness and the like, since I myself

would have been very glad to be free from them, ·which

shows that they are imperfections·. Furthermore, I had

ideas of many perceptible bodies (even if I was dreaming, and

everything that I saw or imagined was false, I still couldn’t

deny that the ideas of bodies were in my mind). But since

I had already recognized very clearly in my own case that

intellectual nature is distinct from bodily nature, and as I

observed that

•if a thing is composed ·of simpler elements· in any

way, that shows that it is dependent on something

else,

and that

•dependence is obviously a defect,

I concluded that

•it couldn’t be a perfection in God to be composed of

these two natures—·the intellectual and the bodily·—

and consequently that he was not composed of them;

and also that if there were any bodies in the world, or any

intelligences or other natures that weren’t wholly perfect,

their being must depend on God’s power in such a way that

they couldn’t stay in existence for a single moment without

him.

Rene Descartes

Provisional moral code of Descartes

I formed for myself a provisional moral code consisting of just

three or four maxims, which I should like to tell you about.

(1) The first was to obey the laws and customs of my

country, holding constantly to the religion in which by

God’s grace I had been instructed from my childhood, and

governing myself in all other matters—·i.e. all the ones not

settled by the law of the land or my religion·—on the basis of

the most moderate and least extreme opinions, the opinions

commonly accepted in practice by the most sensible of the

people with whom I would have to live. For I had begun at

this time to count my own opinions as worthless, because

I wanted to examine them all, and didn’t see how I could

do better than ·in the meantime· to follow those of the most

sensible men. And although the Persians or Chinese may

have men as sensible as any of ours, I thought •that it would

serve me best to be guided by those with whom I was going

to live, and—·a second reason for going this way·—•that in

order to discover what opinions people really held I had to

attend to their actions rather than their words. ·There are

two reasons for this last point·. With our declining standards

of behaviour, few people are willing to say everything that

they believe; and anyway many people don’t know what they

believe, since •believing something and •knowing that you

believe it are different acts of thinking, and you could have

one without the other. Where many opinions were equally

well accepted, I chose only the most moderate, both because

these are always the most convenient in practice, and

probably the best (excess being usually bad),

and also so that

if I made a mistake, it wouldn’t take me as far from

the right path as if I had chosen one extreme when I

ought to have adopted the other.

Coming down to details: I counted as excessive all promises

by which we give up some of our freedom. Not that I

disapproved of laws that allow people to make vows or

contracts that •oblige them to persevere in some worthy

project (or even, for the security of commerce, in something

that is neither good nor bad)—this being a remedy for the

inconstancy of weak minds. ·But I didn’t see myself as

bound by any contract to remain faithful to any of my earlier

beliefs·. I saw nothing in the world that remained always in

the same state, and for my part I was determined to make

my judgments ever more perfect, rather than worse; so I

thought I would be sinning against good sense if I took my

previous approval of something as •obliging me to regard it

as good later on, when it had perhaps ceased to be good or I

no longer regarded it as such.

(2) My second maxim was to be as firm and decisive in

my actions as I could, and to follow even the most doubtful

opinions, once I had adopted them, as constantly as if they

had been quite certain. In this I would be imitating travellers

who find themselves lost in a forest: rather than •wandering

about in all directions or (even worse) •staying in one place,

they should •keep walking as straight as they can in one

11

direction, not turning aside for slight reasons, even if their

choice of direction was a matter of mere chance in the first

place; for even if this doesn’t bring them to where they want

to go it will at least bring them to somewhere that is probably

better for them than the middle of a forest. Similarly, since

in everyday life we often have to act without delay, it is a

most certain truth that when we can’t pick out the truest

opinions we should follow the most probable ones. And

when no opinions appear more probable than any others, we

should nevertheless adopt some; and then we should regard

those as being—from a practical point of view—not doubtful

but most true and certain, because the reason that made us

pick on them is itself true and certain. This maxim could

free me from all the regrets and remorse that usually trouble

the consciences of those weak and stumbling characters who

set out on some supposedly good course of action and then

later, in their inconstancy, judge it to be bad.

(3) My third maxim was to try always to master •myself

rather than •fortune, and change •my desires rather than

changing •how things stand in the world. This involved

getting the habit of believing that nothing lies entirely within

our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done

our best in dealing with matters external to us, whatever

we fail to achieve is absolutely impossible so far as we are

concerned. This seemed to me to be enough, all by itself,

to •prevent me from having unsatisfied desires and thus to

•make me content. For it is the nature of our will to want

only what our intellect presents to it as somehow possible; so

if we regard all external goods as equally beyond our power,

that will certainly save us from regrets over not having goods

that seem to be our birthright but which we are deprived

of through no fault of our own, any more than we regret

not owning the kingdom of China or of Mexico! ‘Making

a virtue of necessity’—as the phrase goes—we shan’t want

to be healthy when ill, or free when imprisoned, any more

than we now want to have bodies as hard as diamonds

or wings to fly like the birds. But I admit that it takes

long practice and repeated meditation to get used to seeing

everything in this light. I think this was the secret of those

philosophers of old who could escape from being dominated

by fortune and, despite suffering and poverty, could rival

their gods in happiness. By constantly busying themselves

with thoughts about the limits that nature had placed on

them, they became thoroughly convinced that nothing was

in their power except their own thoughts, which was enough

to prevent them from being attracted to other things. They

were so absolutely in control of their thoughts that this gave

them some reason to think themselves richer, more powerful,

freer and happier than any men who—however favoured by

nature and fortune they may be—don’t have this philosophy

and so never get such control over all their desires.

 (4) Finally, to conclude this moral code, I decided to

review the various occupations of human life, so as to try

to choose the best. Without wanting to say anything about

other people’s occupations, I thought it would be best for me

to continue with the very one I was then engaged in, and

devote my whole life to cultivating my reason and advancing

as far as I could in the knowledge of the truth, following my

self-imposed method. Since beginning to use this method I

had felt such extreme satisfactions that I didn’t think one

could enjoy any sweeter or purer ones in this life [= ‘before we

get to heaven’]. Every day my method led me to discover truths

that seemed to me to be quite important and not widely

known; my pleasure in this so filled my mind that nothing

else mattered to me. The sole basis for maxims (1)–(3) was

my plan to continue my self-instruction, ·i.e. the course of

action decided on in (4)·. For God has given each of us a light

to distinguish truth from falsehood, and I wouldn’t have (1)

thought myself obliged to rest content for a single moment

with the opinions of others if I hadn’t intended in due course

to bring my own judgment to bear on them; I couldn’t have

(2) avoided having scruples about following these opinions, if

I hadn’t hoped to take every opportunity to discover better

ones if there were any; and I couldn’t have (3) limited my

desires, or been happy, if I hadn’t been following a path that

I thought was sure to lead me to

all the knowledge of which I was capable,

and in this way to lead me to

all the true goods that were within my power.

For our will tends to pursue (or avoid) only what our intellect

represents as good (or bad), so all we need in order to act

well is to judge well; and judging as well as we can is all we

need to •act as well as we can—that is to say, •to acquire

all the virtues and in general all the other attainable goods.

With this certainty, one cannot fail to be happy.

Rene Descartes