Chapter 25 The Author's Reply to the Fifth Group of Objections① Mr. Descartes to Mr. Gassendi I

gentlemen: You have attacked my Meditations with a speech so beautiful and elegant, and I thought it so useful to further clarify the truth of my , I am extremely grateful, and I am equally grateful to the venerable Father Mercena for inviting you to do so.Father Mercena has always been very zealous in the pursuit of truth, especially when such truth can contribute to the glory of God.He thought that no better method of judging the soundness of my arguments than by having them examined by certain persons who were recognized to be very intelligent, in order to see what they could suggest to me. All kinds of questions, whether I can properly answer them one by one.He is quite right in this view.For this purpose he invited many persons, and received responses from several of them.I'm glad you accepted his invitation too.For, though in refuting my opinion you employ not the principles of a philosopher, but the eloquence of an orator, and avoid them, this does not prevent me from being very happy; Yes, from this I venture to say that it is not easy to propose to me any new truths beyond those contained in the previous refutations you have read.Because, if there is any new truth, of course you will not let it go.I suppose all your intention in this connection is to tell me what means are available to those who avoid my reasoning, and to make it possible for me to guard against those means.Those whose minds are so deep in the senses that they can experience nothing but imagination, are unfit for metaphysical thinking.So don't think that my reply to you here is a reply to a perfect and capable philosopher (I know you are such a philosopher), but count you among those walking dead, because you are Borrowing their looks; I answer to you but what I want to answer to them.

①This article is translated according to the second edition of French.The first edition in French is missing. ② Refers to the previous four groups of "rebuttals". You say you approve of my method of freeing the mind from its old prejudices.In fact, no one can object to this approach.But you want me to be straight in a few words, which is to say, in short, to do it casually, without being so careful, as if aware of all the mistakes we have accumulated since our infancy It is as easy as if we can do exactly what we unhesitatingly think must be done.But yes, I can see that you meant to tell me that there are plenty of people who say they have to be careful to avoid prejudice, but they never avoid it because they don't really want to avoid it, and think it's not What they accept once as true should be seen as stereotypes.Of course, you play their roles perfectly here, and you leave out nothing that they might refute me.But there's not even a hint of a philosopher in what you're saying.For, you say, there is no need to imagine a deceitful God, or to imagine that I am asleep.A philosopher will think it necessary to give reasons why he cannot doubt it; and if he has no reasons (as there are none), he will not say such things.Nor would he say anything but at this point ascribe the reason for our mistrust to the unwiseness of the human spirit or to the weakness of our nature.For, in order to correct our errors, it need not be said that we err because our minds are not very wise, or because our nature is defective; The error is the same.Of course, out of fear of being too credulous about everything in which we might err, we are all wary of them, as I am, and we cannot deny that it would be more profitable.Nor would a philosopher say that it is wrong to assume everything, that is, I would not hesitate to break free from my old preconceived notion to adopt another, entirely new one.Nor does he first try to point out that an assumption like this might lead us to erroneous conclusions.But on the contrary, you soon said that it was impossible for me to force myself to doubt the truth and reliability of what I assumed to be false;A philosopher is no more surprised by this assumption than he is when he sees a bent stick bent in another direction if one wants to straighten it, because he knows that people often Treat false things as real in order to further clarify the truth. For example, astronomers imagined that there is a celestial equator, a zodiac and other circles in the sky, and geometers add several new lines to the established graphics. Wire.Philosophers often do this too.And the man who calls this pretentiousness, falsification, obscurity, and eccentricity, which is not befitting a philosopher's candor and zeal for truth, fully reveals that he himself does not want to With the candid spirit of philosophy, he is unwilling to make any sense, but to play with rhetoric and rhetoric.

1. You are here not to reason with me, but to play tricks on us by further rhetoric; for when I speak seriously, you think I am joking, and when I speak only in the form of questions, according to common people's When you put forward something with your own opinion, you take it as if you said it seriously and with certainty.For when I say that all evidence received by the senses must be considered unreliable, even false, I mean it; and this is so necessary for the better understanding of my meditations that One who cannot or will not admit it is unlikely to be able to say anything to the contrary worth replying to.

Nevertheless, it is important to note the difference between action in life and the pursuit of truth.Pursue the truth, this is what I have said many times; because, when it comes to actions in life, it is very absurd not to connect with the senses.People therefore often laugh at skeptics who neglect everything in the world so much that they must be guarded by their friends, lest they themselves fall into the abyss.It is for this reason that I say elsewhere that a man of conscience cannot really doubt these things.But when it is a matter of seeking truth, of knowing what the human mind can reliably perceive, it is unwilling to seriously reject these as unreliable, or even false, in order to point out that those who in this way discard the false What is lost is therefore something more certain, more recognizable to us, and more reliable, which is undoubtedly completely contrary to reason.

As for my saying that I do not yet fully understand what a thinking thing is, I do not mean it seriously, as you say, because I have explained it there; I say that I never doubt that bodies What is the nature of the soul, and I do not add to it any inherently automatic properties, nor do I mean it seriously; What I have said, and other similar things that are wrong for the sake of pointing out in the future, are not serious.But you say I ascribe to the soul the functions of walking, feeling, eating, etc., so that you then add this: I agree with you on all these, as long as we keep the distinction you drew between mind and body, Are you telling the truth?Because here I clearly say that eating should only be attributed to the body; as for feeling and walking, I also mostly attribute it to the body; as for those things, what I attribute to the soul is only a thought.

2. Also, what reason do you have to say that you don’t need to go through such a big effort to prove my existence?Yes, since I have not been able to make you understand my thoughts, I think I have good reason to guess from your words themselves that I have not troubled enough; You are completely mistaken when you could have come to the same conclusion without any difference, because none of these actions is completely clear to me, and I mean this kind of metaphysical reliability, except thinking, here the problem Only in this metaphysical reliability. Because, for example, I walk, therefore I exist, the conclusion is not true unless what I have as internal knowledge is a thought, and this conclusion is only reliable about the thought, not about the movement of the body , it is false sometimes, as it appears in our dreams, though then we seem to be walking, so from the fact that I think I am walking I can well deduce my spirit (yes It has the existence of this thought) and cannot infer the existence of my body (which is walking).The same goes for everything else.

Then you began to ask me, in a rather humorous tone, vividly (as they call it vividly), not as a whole person, but as a soul separate from the body; Above you seem to want to tell me that these objections do not come from the mind of a shrewd philosopher, but from the mind of a man attached to the senses and the flesh.Meat!Or whatever you are, whatever you like to be called, tell me you are so out of touch with the spirit that you fail to see that I have corrected the common imagination?With the common imagination, people mistakenly think that what is thinking is the same as the wind or other objects of this kind.For, when I point out that one can assume that there is no wind, no fire, nothing else in the world, yet, at any rate, without changing this assumption, all those things I use to realize that I am a thinking thing are I have corrected the average person's imagination when I was there invariably.Hence all the questions you then ask me, like, why can't I be a gust of wind?Why can't a space be enriched?Why can't it be pushed up in many ways?and other similar questions are pointless and meaningless, so they need not be answered.

3. What you said next is not more convincing, for example, if I am a fine, thin object, why can't I be nourished?etc.Because I am firmly opposed to the fact that I am an object.Since what you refute me is pretty much the same thing, and you attack me not for my reasons, but for distorting my reasons as if they had no value at all, or as if they were incomplete and incomplete After that, you find excuses there, and you send me many objections, which make people who are not philosophic often object to my conclusions, or to other similar things, or even to things that have nothing to do with my conclusions, Some of these things are irrelevant to the subject, and some of them have already been refuted and solved by me. Therefore, in order to conclude these objections once and for all, I need not reply to each of your questions, otherwise I would have to respond to my above. Say those words a hundred times again.However, I would like to say a few more words on some points which I think may be difficult for those who are a little expert.As for those who are not very reasonable and are only willing to talk nonsense, I don't care much about their agreement or not, and I don't want to waste time doing unnecessary arguments to win their agreement.

Let me begin by pointing out that I do not believe your assertion, without any proof, that the mind grows and decays with the body.For, as the mind does not act so fully in the body of a child as in the body of a man, and as the action of the mind can often be hindered by wine or other bodily Together, it uses the body as an instrument to do the kind of activities it normally engages in, rather than the body making the mind more or less complete than it is in itself.And you can draw no better conclusions from there than you can from the fact that every time a workman does not work well with a bad tool, you conclude that he is Derived his skill and his technical knowledge from the good use of his tools.

It should also be pointed out that meat!You don't seem to know anything about the use of reason, because, in order to prove that the connection of my senses and my trust in them should not be doubted, you say that although I sometimes don't use my eyes, I seem to feel that I must use them. Feelings, but I don't keep making the same mistakes, as if there's no good reason to doubt a thing even if you see a mistake once, as if we can find a mistake every time we make a mistake ; for, on the contrary, the error is only that it is not what it appears to be.Finally, because you often ask me for reasons when you have none of your own, when in fact you should have them, I have to tell you that it is not necessary to philosophize well in order to philosophize well What is not known to be true and therefore not accepted as true turns out to be false, but care must be taken not to accept as true what we cannot prove to be true.Thus, when I feel that I am a thinking substance and of which I form a distinct concept, in which there is nothing belonging to the concept of a bodily substance, this is quite sufficient to assure me. , so far as I know myself, I am only a thinking thing, and that is all I am sure of in the second meditation, which we are talking about now.I should not admit that this thinking entity is a fine, pure, thin... object, because in the second meditation I have no reason to believe so; if you have any reason, then you should tell me You should not ask me to prove that something is false, just because I don't know it, so I don't admit it.Because what you do is no different from the following statement: For example, I am in the Netherlands now, and you say that if I don’t first prove that I am not in China, and I am not in any other place in the world, I say that I should not be allowed to be in the Netherlands. Man believed, because it might be possible, that the same object could be in several places at the same time due to the omnipotence of God.When you go on to say that I should also prove that animal souls are not corporeal and that bodies are of no use to thinking, it shows that you not only don't understand whose responsibility it is to prove something, but that everyone should prove that because, for my part, I neither believe that the soul of an animal is not corporeal, nor that the body is of any use to the mind; I simply say that this is not the place to examine such things.

4. The reason for your ambiguity here is due to different understandings of the word soul; but I have said this word so many times that I am ashamed to repeat it here.All I'm saying is that names are generally coined by ignorant people, which makes them not always quite as good as what they signify.Nevertheless, once they have been accepted, we cannot change them at will, but correct their meaning only when we see that their meaning is not well understood.Thus, for perhaps he who first coined those names did not associate in us the same principle from which we eat, grow, and do all the other activities that we do without thinking, the same as animals do, with the principle from which we think. They called both the soul, and when they later saw that thinking is different from eating, they called that which has the function of thinking in our minds spirit, and thought that this is the main principle of the soul part.And I, noticing that the principle from which we eat is quite different from the principle from which we think, I said that the name soul is ambiguous when it refers to both this and that at the same time. , and in order for this principle to be properly regarded as the first act or the main form of man, it should only refer to this principle from which we think, and I call it spirit most of the time so that Avoid this ambiguity and ambiguity.For I do not see spirit as this whole soul that thinks. But you said that it is difficult for you to know whether the soul is thinking all the time.But since the soul is a thinking entity, why isn't it always thinking?It is not surprising if we do not remember what we thought in our mother's womb or when we were asleep, for we cannot remember even when we are adults, healthy and awake, things we know we have thought ; This is because, to remember what the mind has thought at the time of its union with the body, it must be done by imprinting certain traces of thought in the brain toward which the mind turns and takes its thoughts Combined with these traces, it can remember.And is it any wonder if the brain of a child or a stupor is not adapted to receive impressions like these? Finally, when I say that it might be possible that what I don't yet know (i.e. my body) is no different from what I already know (i.e. my spirit), I don't know at all, and I don't go Arguing, wait, you counter me and say: If you don't know a thing, if you don't argue, then why do you say that you are never those things?It would be wrong to say here that I confessed what I did not know; for, on the contrary, since I did not know at that time whether body and mind were the same thing or not, I did not want to admit anything, I only think about the spirit.It was not until the end, in the sixth meditation, that I not only admitted, but demonstrated very clearly that the mind is actually distinct from the body.But you yourself have made a great mistake in this, because you have not given the slightest reason why the mind is no different from the body, and affirmed it without any proof. 5. What I have said about the imagination is quite clear if one pays close attention, but it is not surprising if it does not seem clear to those who never think deeply about what they think.However, I would draw their attention to the fact that what I am sure does not belong to this knowledge of myself is not contradictory to what I have said before, that I do not know whether those things belong to my essence, because they belong to My essence and what I know of myself are two entirely different things. 6. Very good meat!All that you have said here seems to me to be no rebuttal, but mere babble, so there is no need to counter it. 7. You are still continuing your blah blah blah here, and I don't need to refute it like I do with other babble, because this is not the place to consider these issues, because when the spirit is thinking about itself and reflecting on what it is, it is very difficult to refute it. It can be experienced that it is thinking, but it cannot be experienced whether beasts have thinking. Only when considering their activities can they find out whether they have thinking or not when tracing the cause from the result.Nor do I dwell on refuting you where you utter the vulgarity in my tone, for I need only tell you once: the readers say that you are unfaithful in quoting others.But I have often pointed out the true sign by which we can recognize the mind as distinct from the body, and this is the sign that the whole essence or nature of the mind consists in thinking, whereas the whole nature of the body consists in the fact that the body has an extension. things, but thought and extension have nothing in common.I have also often stated very clearly that the mind can act independently of the brain, because, no doubt, the brain is of no use at all when it is a matter of making a purely intellectual act, but only in feeling or imagining something. It's only useful.When the feeling or imagination is strongly excited, such as if the brain is stimulated, although the mind cannot easily comprehend other things at that time, we experience that when our imagination is not so strong, we can still Often we perceive something quite different from what we imagine, as we perceive in sleep that we are dreaming; for, it is true, what we dream is an effect of our Our dreams can only be the work of reason alone. 8. You are here, as always elsewhere, merely stating that you do not understand what you are trying to accuse; for I have not abstracted the concept of wax from the concept of the accident of wax, I am merely pointing out How the substance of wax is manifested by accident, how different is the perception of it from the ordinary, vague .Meat!I don't see on what basis you can be so sure that a dog sees and judges in the same way we do, except because you see that it is made of flesh, you believe that what is on you is also The same appears on it.For me, who does not admit that there is any spirit in the dog, I do not think that there is anything in it that is the same as that which belongs to the spirit. 9. I wonder that you should think that everything I observe on wax is sufficient proof of my clear awareness that I exist, and not of what I am or what my nature is, for one cannot be without the other. Get proven.Also on this point, I don't see that you could wish for anything more than that people tell you what the human spirit smells like, or tastes like, or is made of, or what salt, or sulfur, or mercury; for you want Like a chemical experiment, we steam it in a steamer according to the appearance of wine, so as to know what has entered into its essential composition.Meat!It must be for you, and for all who are confused about everything and don't know what to study about everything.As for me, however, it never occurred to me that in order to make sense of an entity, it is necessary to discover something other than its various properties.The more we know the properties of a substance, the more fully we know its nature; and we can thus distinguish in wax several different properties: one that it is white, one that it is hard. One is that it changes from hard to liquid, etc.Similarly, there are so many attributes in the spirit: one is that it has the ability to recognize the "whiteness" of wax, the other is that it has the ability to recognize softness and hardness, the other is that it can recognize the change or liquefaction of this softness and hardness, and so on.Because some people can know softness and hardness but not whiteness, a man who is born blind is like that, and so is the rest.It is thus clearly seen that there is nothing but our mind that we can know so many of its properties, for in the mind we can count as many properties as it knows in other things. , so that its nature is easier to know than anything else. Finally, here you accuse me incidentally, saying that since I only recognize the spirit in me, I speak of the wax I see and touch, which I cannot do without eyes and hands.But you should have noticed that I specifically warned that the problem here is not seeing and touching, because seeing and touching can only be done through the medium of physical organs, but only the thinking of seeing and touching, which does not need those things. Organ, like what we experience every night in our dreams; you must have noticed that you just want to show people who don't take the trouble to understand a thing well, but just to find fault with it How many absurd and preposterous things can be created. One, great!You're finally taking a point against me here, which I haven't seen you do until now.For, to prove that this is not a sure rule, and that what we grasp very clearly and distinctly is not always true, you say that there are so many great men who, though they seemed to have Know many things, but think that the truth is hidden in the heart of God himself or in the bottomless abyss.At this point I admit that this is a very clever argument made on the authority of others.But meat!You should remember that you are speaking to a spirit who has been so completely freed from material things that he does not even know whether there were people before him, and is therefore indifferent to the prestige of those people.What you say next about skeptics is good too, but it proves nothing; neither does what you say about some people desperately defending their false views, because people are so stubborn about what they affirm. This is something they understand clearly and distinctly, which cannot be proved.Finally, you go on to say that it would not take so much trouble to prove the truth of this maxim, but to point out an efficient way of knowing where we are mistaken when we think we understand something clearly and distinctly. It's fine if you don't make a mistake, which is very correct.I must say, however, that I have done exactly this where appropriate, first by removing prejudices, then by explaining all the main ideas, and finally by distinguishing clear and distinct ideas from vague ones. 2. You want to prove that all our ideas are foreign, from the outside world, and none of them are made by us, you say, because the mind not only has the ability to comprehend foreign ideas, but also has the ability to assemble and divide them in several ways. the ability to magnify, reduce, combine, etc., and thus you conclude that the idea of ​​a monster made by the mind by combining, dividing, etc., is not made by the mind, but comes from outside, or Foreign, of course I appreciate your inference.But you can also prove in the same way that Praxit did not carve any statues, since in himself he has no marble with which to carve; , because you combined these objections with words which you did not invent but which you borrowed from others.But, of course, the form of a monster does not contain the components of a goat or a lion, and the forms of your rebuttals are not contained in every sentence you use, but only in the combination and arrangement.I also appreciate your saying that if the idea of ​​an animal, a plant, a stone, and all common ideas are not in the mind, then the idea that people call a thing cannot be in the mind either.This is like saying that in order to know that I am a thinking thing, I must know animals and plants, because I must know what people call a thing, or what a thing in general is. Everything you say about truth is equally wrong.In the end, since what you are attacking is something that I have not determined, it is all aimless. ① Praxitele, a famous ancient Greek sculptor who carved the statue of Venus, the god of love, was born about 390 BC. 3. In order to contradict the grounds on which I think one can doubt the existence of material things, you here ask me why I walk on the ground, etc. Here it is clear that you have fallen into the first difficulty again; for you have taken as grounds what is controversial and needs to be proved, for example, that it is true that I walk on the ground, there is no doubt about it. at. Where I objected to myself and I have proposed a solution, you add this objection, why there is no idea of ​​color in the mind of a born blind man, or of sound in a born deaf man ? This is just to show that you are wasting your efforts and getting nowhere; for how do you know that when we experience the sensations of color and light in our minds sometimes with our eyes closed? What if the blind man has no concept of color in his heart?Moreover, even if you agree with what you say, a person who denies the existence of material things can still say that a born blind man has no idea of ​​​​color because his mind lacks the ability to form the idea of ​​​​color. Isn't it also true that the idea of ​​having no color is due to his lack of sight? What you then say about the two ideas of the sun proves nothing; But you take these two ideas as one, because they both refer to the same sun, just as you say that true and false are indistinguishable when they mean the same thing; and When you deny that one ought to call the idea which we deduce from astronomical principles, you confine the name idea to mere arbitrarily constructed images, contrary to the meaning I have specially established. 4. In the same way, you deny that man can have any real idea of ​​substance, because substance, you say, cannot be imagined, but can only be seen by the intellect alone.But, meat!I have stated more than once that I do not want to have dealings with those who use only the imagination and not the reason. But you said that the reality in the concept of substance is not moved from the concept of accident, and substance is understood from accident or in the way of accident. You clearly show your understanding of substance here. Ideas are not at all clear, since substance can never be apprehended in the manner of accidents, nor can its reality be transferred from accidents; on the contrary, accidents are generally understood by philosophers as substances when they take When the accident comprehends itself as a real thing; for any reality ascribed to the accident, that is to say, something more essential than form, can only be transferred from the idea of ​​substance. Finally, you say that we have made the idea of ​​God only by learning and hearing about it from other people, and we see that others attribute to him those perfections, and we also attribute the same perfections to him in their likeness. to him.Here too I would ask you to explain how the first men from whom we learn and hear these things had the idea of ​​God.For if they had the idea themselves, why should we not have it ourselves?If God revealed his ideas to them, it follows that God exists. When you go on to say that whoever speaks of an infinite thing is giving a name which he does not understand even he himself does not understand, you are referring to the intellectual activities which our minds can achieve (such as Every man is sufficiently aware that there is some infinity in himself) and a complete and perfect conception of things (that is to say, a conception which can understand all intelligible things in themselves, so that no one can conceive not only infinities , and perhaps even conceive of anything else in the world, however small) without making any distinction.Nor is it true that we apprehend the infinite through the negation of the finite; for, on the contrary, every limitation contains within itself the negation of the infinite. It is also not true to say that the idea which represents to us all the perfections which we ascribe to God has no more objective reality than that which is finite.For you yourself admit that all these perfections are enlarged by our minds to enable them to be attributed to God; do you think that what is thus enlarged is not greater than what is not?把一切被创造的完满性扩大了的这种能力，也就是说，把不是那么大、那么完满的什么东西领会为那么大、那么完满的这种能力，如果不是只能来自我们所具有的在我们心里更大的一个东西的观念，即上帝本身的观念，那么它能来自什么地方呢？最后，说如果上帝并不比我们所领会的更大，那么他就没有什么了不起，这话也不对；因为我们领会他是无限的，而没有什么东西是比无限再大的。不过你把智力活动和想象混为一谈了，你硬说我们把上帝想象成为什么强大的巨人，就好象没有看见过大象的人把大象想象成就象一个粗大得不得了的小蛆那样，我和你一起承认这是十分粗卤的。 五、为了硬反对我，你在这里说了很多东西，其实你说的没有一件是反对得着我的，因为你得出的结论和我的结论一样。虽然如此，你随处掺杂了许多我不同意的东西，比如，在一个结果里的东西没有不是首先在它的原因里的这个定理里，你说什么这个原因应该是指质料因，不应该是指动力因说的，因为形式的完满性事先存在于质料因里，这是无法理解的。它应该事先只存在于动力因里。还有，一个观念的形式的实在性是一个实体，以及其他许多诸如此类的东西，也都是我不能同意的。 六、假如你有什么理由证明物质性的东西的存在性，你无疑会已经在这里提到了。But.既然你仅仅问是不是真地我不清楚除了我以外世界上还有什么别的东西存在，并且硬说用不着去寻求一件如此明显的事情的理由，以及这样一来你就仅仅听从你的一些旧成见的支配，那么这比你什么都不说还更使人看出你没有任何理由来证明你所肯定的东西。至于你关于观念所说的话，这用不着答辩，因为你把观念这一名称仅仅局限于任意勾画出来的影象；而我是把它扩展到我们用思维所领会的一切上去的。 不过我顺便问问你：你用什么论据来证明什么都不能作用于自己本身？因为使用论据并且证明你说的话，这并不是你的习惯。你用手指和眼睛的例子来做证明，说手指不能打它自己，眼睛除非在镜子里就不能看它自己。对于这个，我很容易回答：能看到自己的既不是眼睛，也不是镜子，而是精神，只有精神既能认识镜子，又能认识眼睛，又能认识它自己。在物体性的东西里也可以举出一个东西作用于它自己本身的行动的例子，比如当一个陀螺旋转的时候，这种旋转难道不是作用于自己本身的行动吗？ 最后，必须注意，你硬说我说过物质性的东西的观念是来自精神的，我并没有这样说过；因为我在以后曾特意指出观念经常出自物体，指出人们证明物体性的东西的存在就是由于这个原故。而我在那个地方只是由于在结果里的东西没有不是形式地或者卓越地存在于它的原因里的这个定理才说在观念里边有那么多的实在性，人们本来应该由此得出观念不能仅仅是来自精神这样的结论的；因此你这是无的放矢。 七、你在这里说的没有不是你以前说过而被我全部驳斥过了的。我在这里仅仅就无限的观念警告你：你说，如果我不懂得无限，这个观念就不可能是真的，而我所认识的只多是无限的一个部分，甚至是非常小的一个部分，它跟一根头发的画象之不能表象一个整个的人一样，不能表象无限。我说，我将警告你：说我懂得什么东西，而我懂得的就是无限，这是毫无道理的；因为，既然不可理解性本身就包含在无限的形式理由内，那么为了具有一个无限的真实观念，它绝对用不着被懂得。尽管如此，非常明显的是：我们关于无限所具有的观念不仅仅表象无限的一个部分，而且，按照被一个人类的观念所应该表象的那样，表象无限的全部。虽然无疑上帝或者其他什么灵性可以具有一个比人所具有的观念完满得多，也就是说正确得多、明显得多的观念，就如同我们说，在几何学里不内行的人，当他把三角形领会为一个由三条线构成的形状时，也能具有全部三角形的观念一样，虽然几何学家们比那个不内行的人能够认识三角形的许多别的特性，能够注意到三角形的观念中的很多东西。因为，为了具有全部三角形的观念，只要领会三角形是一个由三条线构成的形状就够了，同样，为了具有全部无限的一个真实的、完整的观念，只要领会出一个不包含任何限制的东西就够了。 八、在你否认我们能够具有上帝的一个真实的观念时，你在这里犯了同样的错误；因为，尽管我们不认识上帝里的全部东西，可是我们在上帝里所认识的一切东西都是真实的，至于你所说的面包并不比希求面包的人更完满，并且，从我领会什么东西是现实存在于一个观念里这件事，不能说这个东西在观念里所表象的东西里边是现实存在的，那样我就给我所不知道的东西下了判断，以及诸如此类的其他东西，我说，所有这些不过是向我们表明你对许多东西都是糊里糊涂地想要反对，可是你并不理解它们的意义；因为，从有人希求面包这件事，推论不出来面包比那个人更完满，只能推出需要面包的那个人不如他不需要面包时完满。并且，从什么东西包含在一个观念里这件事，我并没有得出结论说这个东西是现实存在的，除非是，除了观念所表象为现实存在的那个东西以外，不指这个观念的任何别的原因。我所论证的不能说是许多世界，也不能说是任何别的什么东西，而只能说是关于上帝的。而且，我也不是对我所不知道的东西下判断，因为我所下的判断，我都举出了判断的理由，而对这些理由，你直到现在一点也没有反驳。 九、在你否认我们为了被保存起见需要第一原因的不断帮助和影响时，你否认了一切形而上学家们认为非常明显的一件事，可是对于这件事，没有什么学问的人是不曾想到的，因为他们只想到在学院里人们称之为Secundum fieri〔根据开始存在〕的那些原因，即结果赖以产生的那些原因，而没有想到人们称之为Secundum esse〔根据存在〕的那些原因，即结果在存在里赖以继续的那些原因。同样，单就产生来说，工程师是房子的原因，父亲是他的儿子的原因；这就是为什么工作一旦完成，它就能够不用这个原因而继续存在下去。可是太阳是光的原因，光是从太阳产生的，而上帝是一切造物的原因，不仅是在它们的产生所赖以存在上，而且就连在它们的存在的持续保存上也是如此。这就是为什么他应该永远以同样方式作用于他的结果以便保存他所给予的最初的存在。这一点，由于我关于时间各个部分的独立性时已经解释过了，因而是十分清楚的了，而在这一点上，你用提出当作在抽象里的时间的各个部分之间的连续的必要性徒劳地试图回避了，关于这种必要性，在这里不是问题的所在，问题仅仅在于关于时间或者东西本身的延续，关于这一点，你不能否认一切时刻不能同紧跟着它们的时刻分割开，也就是说，东西本身不能在它延续的每个时刻上停止存在。 在你说在我们里边有足够的能力在万一有什么毁灭原因突然到来的情况下得以继续存在下去的时候，你没有注意到，说造物不依赖别人而独立继续存在时，你是把造物主的完满性加给了造物，同时，你把造物的不完满性加给了造物主；因为，按你的意思，如果万一他想要让我们停止存在时，他必须用“无”来结束一个正面的活动。 你在这以后关于无穷地往上追究所说的话，即象这样的一种追究没有什么不合理，你以后又粗暴地反对了；因为你自己承认在这样的一些原因里不可能无穷地往上追究：这些原因彼此如此紧密地互相连结和从属，以致低级的东西没有高级的推动就不能行动。可是，这里涉及的正是这样的一些原因，即把存在给予和保存它们的结果的那些原因，而不是其结果仅仅赖以产生的那些原因，比如父母；从而亚里士多德的权威跟我并不相矛盾。 你关于潘多腊的话也说得不对，因为你自己也承认我能够把在人里认识到的一切完满性扩大、增加到如此程度，以致我将很容易认出它们对我来说是这样的，即它们跟人的本性是不能相容的，这就使我完全足够证明上帝存在；因为，坚持认为这种能力，即把人的完满性增加和扩大到如此程度，以致它们不再是人的完满性，而是无限超出人的情况和条件，这种能力我们不可能有，假如不是我们具有一个上帝作为我们存在的作者的话。不过，说实在的，对于你认为我没有论证得足够清楚，这我并不奇怪；因为直到现在我还没有看到你很好地理解我的任何一个理由呢。 十、在你提到我说人们不能在上帝的观念上面加减任何东西的话时，你好象没有注意到哲学家一致说的话：事物的本质是不可分割的；因为观念表象事物的本质，如果人们在它上面加减不管什么东西，它立刻变成另外一个事物的观念。 从前人们就是这样地做成一个潘多腊的观念的；没有正确理解真实上帝的观念的那些人就是这样地制造了各种假上帝的各式各样的观念。不过，自从人们一旦领会了真实上帝的观念以后，虽然人们可以在他身上发现了以前尚未发现的一些新的完满性，它的观念并不因此而有所增长或者增加，它不过仅仅是更清楚、更明显罢了，因为，既然把这个观念设定为真实的，那么这些完满性本来都应该早已包含在人们已有的这个观念里了。同样，当人们在三角形的观念里看出以前不知道的几种特性时，三角形的观念并没有增加。因为，不要以为我们所具有的上帝的观念是由造物的不断增加的完满性做成的；它是全部地、一次地由我们的精神所领会为无限的、不可能有任何增加的存在体。 你问我怎么证明上帝的观念在我们心里就如同工匠的标记刻印在他的作品上一样？是用什么方式刻印的？这个标记是什么形式的？这就如同说，在认出了某一幅技巧十分精练的画，这个作品我判断为除了阿派拉①不可能出自别人之手，我说这种不可模拟的精练技巧就象是阿派拉刻印在他所有的作品上以别于其他作品一样，而你问我这个标记是什么形式的，或者是用什么方式刻的。当然，你好象是更值得惹人嘲笑而不值得对你进行答辩。你接着说：如果这个标记和作品没有什么不同，那么你自己就是一个观念，你不过是一个思维方式，你既是刻印的标记，同时又是刻印的主体，这跟如果我说阿派拉的画由之而有别于其他画的那种精练技巧跟这些画的本身并没有什么不同，而你反对说这些画只不过是一种精练技巧，它们并不是由任何一种方式组合成的，它们只是一种画的方式，等等，不是同样的狡赖吗？ ①Apelles，是以画亚历山大大帝画像而著名的古希腊画家。 为了否认我们是按照上帝的形象和相似性做成的，你说因而上帝具有一个人的形象，接着你又提出人的本性之所以不同于上帝的本性的一切东西，你在这上面比你为了否认阿派拉的某些画是按照亚历山大的形象画成的，你说亚历山大像一幅画，而画是由木板和颜色组成的，并不是像亚历山大那样由肉组成的，难道不是更狡赖吗？因为，一幅画完完全全和它所表象的东西相似，这并不是那幅的本质，问题是只要它在某一点上象那个东西就行了。非常明显的是：我们领会在上帝里边的那种可赞美的、非常完满的思维能力被我们心里的虽然是很不完满的思维能力来表象了。而当你更喜欢把上帝的创造跟一个建筑师的活动来比较，而不喜欢跟一个父亲的生育来比较时，你这样做一点道理都没有；因为，虽然这三种行动方式完全不同，不过从自然的生产到上帝的生产，同人工的生产到上帝的生产，差距并不很大。不过，你不但找不出来我曾说过什么上帝同我们的关系和父亲同他的孩子们的关系一样大，而且工匠同他的作品，就如同一个画家画了一幅和他相象的画，二者之间从来没有什么关系，这也并不是真的。 可是在你硬说我曾说过我领会我和上帝的这个相似性是由于我认识我是一个不完全的、依存于别人的东西时，你引证我的话是多么不忠实；因为相反，我说这话仅仅是为了指出上帝和我们之间的不同，怕的是人们会以为我想把人和上帝、造物和造物主混同起来！因为，就在那个地方，我说我不仅领会到我在这一点上比上帝低得多却希求我所没有的一些更伟大的东西，而且也领会到我所希求的那些更伟大的东西是现实地、无限地存在在上帝里面，虽然如此，我却在我里面看到某种相似的东西，因为在某种程度上我敢于希求它们。 最后，在你说奇怪的是为什么其余的人对于上帝的想法和你对于上帝的想法不一样，既然上帝把他的观念也和刻印在你心里一样地刻印在他们的心里时，这就跟你感到奇怪为什么大家都有三角形的观念，而每个人并没有同样地注意到那么多特性，甚至也许有些人把许多错误的东西也加给三角形是一样的。