|
[勞思光] [許國宏] [呂健吉] [郭朝順] [黃冠閔] [伍至學] [龔維正] [陳振崑] [冀劍制] |
|
黃冠閔之哲學教學網
|
Meditations
on First Philosophy (1638-1640) Rene
Descartes (Meditation
4 - Meditation 6)
FOURTH MEDITATION
Truth and falsity During
these past few days I have accustomed myself to leading my mind away from the
senses; and I have taken careful note of the fact that there is very little
about corporeal things that is truly perceived, whereas much more is known about
the human mind, and still more about God. The result is that I now have no
difficulty in turning my mind away from imaginable things ^1 and towards things
which are objects of the intellect alone and are totally separate from matter.
And indeed the idea I have of the human mind, in so far as it is a thinking
thing, which is not extended in length, breadth or height and has no other
bodily characteristics, is much more distinct than the idea of any corporeal
thing. And when I consider the fact that I have doubts, or that I am a thing
that is incomplete and dependent, then there arises in me a clear and distinct
idea of a being who is independent and complete, that is, an idea of God. And
from the mere fact that there is such an idea within me, or that I who possess
this idea exist, I clearly infer that God also exists, and that every single
moment of my entire existence depends on him. So clear is this conclusion that I
am confident that the human intellect cannot know anything that is more evident
or more certain. And now, from this contemplation of the true God, in whom all
the treasures of wisdom and the sciences lie hidden, I think I can see a way
forward to the knowledge of other things.^2
To begin with, I recognize that it is impossible that God should ever
deceive me. For in every case of trickery or deception some imperfection is to
be found; and although the ability to deceive appears to be an indication of
cleverness or power, the will to deceive is undoubtedly evidence of malice or
weakness, and so cannot apply to God.
Next, I know by experience that there is in me a faculty of judgement
which, like everything else which is in me, I certainly received from God. And
since God does not wish to deceive me, he surely did not give me the kind of
faculty which would ever enable me to go wrong while using it correctly.
There would be no further doubt on this issue were it not that what I
have just said appears to imply that I am incapable of ever going wrong. For if
everything that is in me comes from God, and he did not endow me with a faculty
for making mistakes, it appears that I can never go wrong. And certainly, so
long as I think only of God, and turn my whole attention to him, I can find no
cause of error or falsity. But when I turn back to myself, I know by experience
that I am prone to countless errors. On looking for the cause of these errors, I
find that I possess not only a real and positive idea of God, or a being who is
supremely perfect, but also what may be described as a negative idea of
nothingness, or of that which is farthest removed from all perfection. I realize
that I am, as it were, something intermediate between God and nothingness, or
between supreme being and non-being: my nature is such that in so far as I was
created by the supreme being, there is nothing in me to enable me to go wrong or
lead me astray; but in so far as I participate in nothingness or non-being, that
is, in so far as I am not myself the supreme being and am lacking in countless
respects, it is no wonder that I make mistakes. I understand, then, that error
as such is not something real which depends on God, but merely a defect. Hence
my going wrong does not require me to have a faculty specially bestowed on me by
God; it simply happens as a result of the fact that the faculty of true
judgement which I have from God is in my case not infinite.
But this is still not entirely satisfactory. For error is not a pure
negation,^1 but rather a privation or lack of some knowledge which somehow
should be in me. And when I concentrate on the nature of God, it seems
impossible that he should have placed in me a faculty which is not perfect of
its kind, or which lacks some perfection which it ought to have. The more
skilled the craftsman the more perfect the work produced by him; if this is so,
how can anything produced by the supreme creator of all things not be complete
and perfect in all respects? There is, moreover, no doubt that God could have
given me a nature such that I was never mistaken; again, there is no doubt that
he always wills what is best. Is it then better that I should make mistakes than
that I should not do so?
As I reflect on these matters more attentively, it occurs to me first of
all that it is no cause for surprise if I do not understand the reasons for some
of God's actions; and there is no call to doubt his existence if I happen to
find that there are other instances where I do not grasp why or how certain
things were made by him. For since I now know that my own nature is very weak
and limited, whereas the nature of God is immense, incomprehensible and
infinite, I also know without more ado that he is capable of countless things
whose causes are beyond my knowledge. And for this reason alone I consider the
customary search for final causes to be totally useless in physics; there is
considerable rashness in thinking myself capable of investigating the
<impenetrable> purposes of God.
It also occurs to me that whenever we are inquiring whether the works of
God are perfect, we ought to look at the whole universe, not just at one created
thing on its own. For what would perhaps rightly appear very imperfect if it
existed on its own is quite perfect when its function as a part of the universe
is considered. It is true that, since my decision to doubt everything, it is so
far only myself and God whose existence I have been able to know with certainty;
but after considering the immense power of God, I cannot deny that many other
things have been made by him, or at least could have been made, and hence that I
may have a place in the universal scheme of things.
Next, when I look more closely at myself and inquire into the nature of
my errors (for these are the only evidence of some imperfection in me), I notice
that they depend on two concurrent causes, namely on the faculty of knowledge
which is in me, and on the faculty of choice or freedom of the will; that is,
they depend on both the intellect and the will simultaneously. Now all that the
intellect does is to enable me to perceive ^1 the ideas which are subjects for
possible judgements; and when regarded strictly in this light, it turns out to
contain no error in the proper sense of that term. For although countless things
may exist without there being any corresponding ideas in me, it should not,
strictly speaking, be said that I am deprived of these ideas,^2 but merely that
I lack them, in a negative sense. This is because I cannot produce any reason to
prove that God ought to have given me a greater faculty of knowledge than he
did; and no matter how skilled I understand a craftsman to be, this does not
make me think he ought to have put into every one of his works all the
perfections which he is able to put into some of them. Besides, I cannot
complain that the will or freedom of choice which I received from God is not
sufficiently extensive or perfect, since I know by experience that it is not
restricted in any way. Indeed, I think it is very noteworthy that there is
nothing else in me which is so perfect and so great that the possibility of a
further increase in its perfection or greatness is beyond my understanding. If,
for example, I consider the faculty of understanding, I immediately recognize
that in my case it is extremely slight and very finite, and I at once form the
idea of an understanding which is much greater - indeed supremely great and
infinite; and from the very fact that I can form an idea of it, I perceive that
it belongs to the nature of God. Similarly, if I examine the faculties of memory
or imagination, or any others, I discover that in my case each one of these
faculties is weak and limited, while in the case of God it is immeasurable. It
is only the will, or freedom of choice, which I experience within me to be so
great that the idea of any greater faculty is beyond my grasp; so much so that
it is above all in virtue of the will that I understand myself to bear in some
way the image and likeness of God. For although God's will is incomparably
greater than mine, both in virtue of the knowledge and power that accompany it
and make it more firm and efficacious, and also in virtue of its object, in that
it ranges over a greater number of items, nevertheless it does not seem any
greater than mine when considered as will in the essential and strict sense.
This is because the will simply consists in our ability to do or not do
something (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid); or rather, it
consists simply in the fact that when the intellect puts something forward for
affirmation or denial or for pursuit or avoidance, our inclinations are such
that we do not feel we are determined by any external force. In order to be
free, there is no need for me to be inclined both ways; on the contrary, the
more I incline in one direction - either because I clearly understand that
reasons of truth and goodness point that way, or because of a divinely produced
disposition of my inmost thoughts - the freer is my choice. Neither divine grace
nor natural knowledge ever diminishes freedom; on the contrary, they increase
and strengthen it. But the indifference I feel when there is no reason pushing
me in one direction rather than another is the lowest grade of freedom; it is
evidence not of any perfection of freedom, but rather of a defect in knowledge
or a kind of negation. For if I always saw clearly what was true and good, I
should never have to deliberate about the right judgement or choice; in that
case, although I should be wholly free, it would be impossible for me ever to be
in a state of indifference.
From these considerations I perceive that the power of willing which I
received from God is not, when considered in itself, the cause of my mistakes;
for it is both extremely ample and also perfect of its kind. Nor is my power of
understanding to blame; for since my understanding comes from God, everything
that I understand I undoubtedly understand correctly, and any error here is
impossible. So what then is the source of my mistakes? It must be simply this:
the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect; but instead of
restricting it within the same limits, I extend its use to matters which I do
not understand. Since the will is indifferent in such cases, it easily turns
aside from what is true and good, and this is the source of my error and sin.
For example, during these past few days I have been asking whether
anything in the world exists, and I have realized that from the very fact of my
raising this question it follows quite evidently that I exist. I could not but
judge that something which I understood so clearly was true; but this was not
because I was compelled so to judge by any external force, but because a great
light in the intellect was followed by a great inclination in the will, and thus
the spontaneity and freedom of my belief was all the greater in proportion to my
lack of indifference. But now, besides the knowledge that I exist, in so far as
I am a thinking thing, an idea of corporeal nature comes into my mind; and I
happen to be in doubt as to whether the thinking nature which is in me, or
rather which I am, is distinct from this corporeal nature or identical with it.
I am making the further supposition that my intellect has not yet come upon any
persuasive reason in favour of one alternative rather than the other. This
obviously implies that I am indifferent as to whether I should assert or deny
either alternative, or indeed refrain from making any judgement on the matter.
What is more, this indifference does not merely apply to cases where the
intellect is wholly ignorant, but extends in general to every case where the
intellect does not have sufficiently clear knowledge at the time when the will
deliberates. For although probable conjectures may pull me in one direction, the
mere knowledge that they are simply conjectures, and not certain and indubitable
reasons, is itself quite enough to push my assent the other way. My experience
in the last few days confirms this: the mere fact that I found that all my
previous beliefs were in some sense open to doubt was enough to turn my
absolutely confident belief in their truth into the supposition that they were
wholly false.
If, however, I simply refrain from making a judgement in cases where I do
not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is
clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error. But if in such cases I
either affirm or deny, then I am not using my free will correctly. If I go for
the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error; if I take
the other side, then it is by pure chance that I arrive at the truth, and I
shall still be at fault since it is clear by the natural light that the
perception of the intellect should always precede the determination of the will.
In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes
the essence of error. The privation, I say, lies in the operation of the will in
so far as it proceeds from me, but not in the faculty of will which I received
from God, nor even in its operation, in so far as it depends on him.
And I have no cause for complaint on the grounds that the power of
understanding or the natural light which God gave me is no greater than it is;
for it is in the nature of a finite intellect to lack understanding of many
things, and it is in the nature of a created intellect to be finite. Indeed, I
have reason to give thanks to him who has never owed me anything for the great
bounty that he has shown me, rather than thinking myself deprived or robbed of
any gifts he did not bestow.^1
Nor do I have any cause for complaint on the grounds that God gave me a
will which extends more widely than my intellect. For since the will consists
simply of one thing which is, as it were, indivisible, it seems that its nature
rules out the possibility of anything being taken away from it. And surely, the
more widely my will extends, then the greater thanks I owe to him who gave it to
me.
Finally, I must not complain that the forming of those acts of will or
judgements in which I go wrong happens with God's concurrence. For in so far as
these acts depend on God, they are wholly true and good; and my ability to
perform them means that there is in a sense more perfection in me than would be
the case if I lacked this ability. As for the privation involved - which is all
that the essential definition of falsity and wrong consists in - this does not
in any way require the concurrence of God, since it is not a thing; indeed, when
it is referred to God as its cause, it should be called not a privation but
simply a negation.^2 For it is surely no imperfection in God that he has given
me the freedom to assent or not to assent in those cases where he did not endow
my intellect with a clear and distinct perception; but it is undoubtedly an
imperfection in me to misuse that freedom and make judgements about matters
which I do not fully understand. I can see, however, that God could easily have
brought it about that without losing my freedom, and despite the limitations in
my knowledge, I should nonetheless never make a mistake. He could, for example,
have endowed my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything
about which I was ever likely to deliberate; or he could simply have impressed
it unforgettably on my memory that I should never make a judgement about
anything which I did not clearly and distinctly understand. Had God made me this
way, then I can easily understand that, considered as a totality,^3 I would have
been more perfect than I am now. But I cannot therefore deny that there may in
some way be more perfection in the universe as a whole because some of its parts
are not immune from error, while others are immune, than there would be if all
the parts were exactly alike. And I have no right to complain that the role God
wished me to undertake in the world is not the principal one or the most perfect
of all.
What is more, even if I have no power to avoid error in the first way
just mentioned, which requires a clear perception of everything I have to
deliberate on, I can avoid error in the second way, which depends merely on my
remembering to withhold judgement on any occasion when the truth of the matter
is not clear. Admittedly, I am aware of a certain weakness in me, in that I am
unable to keep my attention fixed on one and the same item of knowledge at all
times; but by attentive and repeated meditation I am nevertheless able to make
myself remember it as often as the need arises, and thus get into the habit of
avoiding error.
It is here that man's greatest and most important perfection is to be
found, and I therefore think that today's meditation, involving an investigation
into the cause of error and falsity, has been very profitable. The cause of
error must surely be the one I have explained; for if, whenever I have to make a
judgement, I restrain my will so that it extends to what the intellect clearly
and distinctly reveals, and no further, then it is quite impossible for me to go
wrong. This is because every clear and distinct perception is undoubtedly
something,^1 and hence cannot come from nothing, but must necessarily have God
for its author. Its author, I say, is God, who is supremely perfect, and who
cannot be a deceiver on pain of contradiction; hence the perception is
undoubtedly true. So today I have learned not only what precautions to take to
avoid ever going wrong, but also what to do to arrive at the truth. For I shall
unquestionably reach the truth, if only I give sufficient attention to all the
things which I perfectly understand, and separate these from all the other cases
where my apprehension is more confused and obscure. And this is just what I
shall take good care to do from now on.
FIFTH MEDITATION
The essence of material things, and the existence of God
considered a second time There
are many matters which remain to be investigated concerning the attributes of
God and the nature of myself, or my mind; and perhaps I shall take these up at
another time. But now that I have seen what to do and what to avoid in order to
reach the truth, the most pressing task seems to be to try to escape from the
doubts into which I fell a few days ago, and see whether any certainty can be
achieved regarding material objects.
But before I inquire whether any such things exist outside me, I must
consider the ideas of these things, in so far as they exist in my thought, and
see which of them are distinct, and which confused.
Quantity, for example, or 'continuous' quantity as the philosophers
commonly call it, is something I distinctly imagine. That is, I distinctly
imagine the extension of the quantity (or rather of the thing which is
quantified) in length, breadth and depth. I also enumerate various parts of the
thing, and to these parts I assign various sizes, shapes, positions and local
motions; and to the motions I assign various durations.
Not only are all these things very well known and transparent to me when
regarded in this general way, but in addition there are countless particular
features regarding shape, number, motion and so on, which I perceive when I give
them my attention. And the truth of these matters is so open and so much in
harmony with my nature, that on first discovering them it seems that I am not so
much learning something new as remembering what I knew before; or it seems like
noticing for the first time things which were long present within me although I
had never turned my mental gaze on them before.
But I think the most important consideration at this point is that I find
within me countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist
anywhere outside me still cannot be called nothing; for although in a sense they
can be thought of at will, they are not my invention but have their own true and
immutable natures. When, for example, I imagine a triangle, even if perhaps no
such figure exists, or has ever existed, anywhere outside my thought, there is
still a determinate nature, or essence, or form of the triangle which is
immutable and eternal, and not invented by me or dependent on my mind. This is
clear from the fact that various properties can be demonstrated of the triangle,
for example that its three angles equal two right angles, that its greatest side
subtends its greatest angle, and the like; and since these properties are ones
which I now clearly recognize whether I want to or not, even if I never thought
of them at all when I previously imagined the triangle, it follows that they
cannot have been invented by me.
It would be beside the point for me to say that since I have from time to
time seen bodies of triangular shape, the idea of the triangle may have come to
me from external things by means of the sense organs. For I can think up
countless other shapes which there can be no suspicion of my ever having
encountered through the senses, and yet I can demonstrate various properties of
these shapes, just as I can with the triangle. All these properties are
certainly true, since I am clearly aware of them, and therefore they are
something, and not merely nothing; for it is obvious that whatever is true is
something; and I have already amply demonstrated that everything of which I am
clearly aware is true. And even if I had not demonstrated this, the nature of my
mind is such that I cannot but assent to these things, at least so long as I
clearly perceive them. I also remember that even before, when I was completely
preoccupied with the objects of the senses, I always held that the most certain
truths of all were the kind which I recognized clearly in connection with
shapes, or numbers or other items relating to arithmetic or geometry, or in
general to pure and abstract mathematics.
But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of
something entails that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to
belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for
another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a
supremely perfect being, is one which I find within me just as surely as the
idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature
that he always exists ^1 is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I
prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature. Hence,
even if it turned out that not everything on which I have meditated in these
past days is true, I ought still to regard the existence of God as having at
least the same level of certainty as I have hitherto attributed to the truths of
mathematics.^2
At first sight, however, this is not transparently clear, but has some
appearance of being a sophism. Since I have been accustomed to distinguish
between existence and essence in everything else, I find it easy to persuade
myself that existence can also be separated from the essence of God, and hence
that God can be thought of as not existing. But when I concentrate more
carefully, it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the
essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be
separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be
separated from the idea of a valley. Hence it is just as much of a contradiction
to think of God (that is, a supremely perfect being) lacking existence (that is,
lacking a perfection), as it is to think of a mountain without a valley.
However, even granted that I cannot think of God except as existing, just
as I cannot think of a mountain without a valley, it certainly does not follow
from the fact that I think of a mountain with a valley that there is any
mountain in the world; and similarly, it does not seem to follow from the fact
that I think of God as existing that he does exist. For my thought does not
impose any necessity on things; and just as I may imagine a winged horse even
though no horse has wings, so I may be able to attach existence to God even
though no God exists.
But there is a sophism concealed here. From the fact that I cannot think
of a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that a mountain and valley
exist anywhere, but simply that a mountain and a valley, whether they exist or
not, are mutually inseparable. But from the fact that I cannot think of God
except as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and hence
that he really exists. It is not that my thought makes it so, or imposes any
necessity on any thing; on the contrary, it is the necessity of the thing
itself, namely the existence of God, which determines my thinking in this
respect. For I am not free to think of God without existence (that is, a
supremely perfect being without a supreme perfection) as I am free to imagine a
horse with or without wings.
And it must not be objected at this point that while it is indeed
necessary for me to suppose God exists, once I have made the supposition that he
has all perfections (since existence is one of the perfections), nevertheless
the original supposition was not necessary. Similarly, the objection would run,
it is not necessary for me to think that all quadrilaterals can be inscribed in
a circle; but given this supposition, it will be necessary for me to admit that
a rhombus can be inscribed in a circle - which is patently false. Now
admittedly, it is not necessary that I ever light upon any thought of God; but
whenever I do choose to think of the first and supreme being, and bring forth
the idea of God from the treasure house of my mind as it were, it is necessary
that I attribute all perfections to him, even if I do not at that time enumerate
them or attend to them individually. And this necessity plainly guarantees that,
when I later realize that existence is a perfection, I am correct in inferring
that the first and supreme being exists. In the same way, it is not necessary
for me ever to imagine a triangle; but whenever I do wish to consider a
rectilinear figure having just three angles, it is necessary that I attribute to
it the properties which license the inference that its three angles equal no
more than two right angles, even if I do not notice this at the time. By
contrast, when I examine what figures can be inscribed in a circle, it is in no
way necessary for me to think that this class includes all quadrilaterals.
Indeed, I cannot even imagine this, so long as I an willing to admit only what I
clearly and distinctly understand. So there is a great difference between this
kind of false supposition and the true ideas which are innate in me, of which
the first and most important is the idea of God. There are many ways in which I
understand that this idea is not something fictitious which is dependent on my
thought, but is an image of a true and immutable nature. First of all, there is
the fact that, apart from God, there is nothing else of which I am capable of
thinking such that existence belongs ^1 to its essence. Second, I cannot
understand how there could be two or more Gods of this kind; and after supposing
that one God exists, I plainly see that it is necessary that he has existed from
eternity and will abide for eternity. And finally, I perceive many other
attributes of God, none of which I can remove or alter.
But whatever method of proof I use, I am always brought back to the fact
that it is only what I clearly and distinctly perceive that completely convinces
me. Some of the things I clearly and distinctly perceive are obvious to
everyone, while others are discovered only by those who look more closely and
investigate more carefully; but once they have been discovered, the latter are
judged to be just as certain as the former. In the case of a right-angled
triangle, for example, the fact that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to
the square on the other two sides is not so readily apparent as the fact that
the hypotenuse subtends the largest angle; but once one has seen it, one
believes it just as strongly. But as regards God, if I were not overwhelmed by
preconceived opinions, and if the images of things perceived by the senses did
not besiege my thought on every side, I would certainly acknowledge him sooner
and more easily than anything else. For what is more self-evident than the fact
that the supreme being exists, or that God, to whose essence alone existence
belongs,^2 exists?
Although it needed close attention for me to perceive this, I am now just
as certain of it as I am of everything else which appears most certain. And what
is more, I see that the certainty of all other things depends on this, so that
without it nothing can ever be perfectly known.
Admittedly my nature is such that so long as ^1 I perceive something very
clearly and distinctly I cannot but believe it to be true. But my nature is also
such that I cannot fix my mental vision continually on the same thing, so as to
keep perceiving it clearly; and often the memory of a previously made judgement
may come back, when I am no longer attending to the arguments which led me to
make it. And so other arguments can now occur to me which might easily undermine
my opinion, if I were unaware of God; and I should thus never have true and
certain knowledge about anything, but only shifting and changeable opinions. For
example, when I consider the nature of a triangle, it appears most evident to
me, steeped as I am in the principles of geometry, that its three angles are
equal to two right angles; and so long as I attend to the proof, I cannot but
believe this to be true. But as soon as I turn my mind's eye away from the
proof, then in spite of still remembering that I perceived it very clearly, I
can easily fall into doubt about its truth, if I am unaware of God. For I can
convince myself that I have a natural disposition to go wrong from time to time
in matters which I think I perceive as evidently as can be. This will seem even
more likely when I remember that there have been frequent cases where I have
regarded things as true and certain, but have later been led by other arguments
to judge them to be false.
Now, however, I have perceived that God exists, and at the same time I
have understood that everything else depends on him, and that he is no deceiver;
and I have drawn the conclusion that everything which I clearly and distinctly
perceive is of necessity true. Accordingly, even if I am no longer attending to
the arguments which led me to judge that this is true, as long as I remember
that I clearly and distinctly perceived it, there are no counter-arguments which
can be adduced to make me doubt it, but on the contrary I have true and certain
knowledge of it. And I have knowledge not just of this matter, but of all
matters which I remember ever having demonstrated, in geometry and so on. For
what objections can now be raised?^2 That the way I am made makes me prone to
frequent error? But I now know that I am incapable of error in those cases where
my understanding is transparently clear. Or can it be objected that I have in
the past regarded as true and certain many things which I afterwards recognized
to be false? But none of these were things which I clearly and distinctly
perceived: I was ignorant of this rule for establishing the truth, and believed
these things for other reasons which I later discovered to be less reliable. So
what is left to say? Can one raise the objection I put to myself a while ago,
that I may be dreaming, or that everything which I am now thinking has as little
truth as what comes to the mind of one who is asleep? Yet even this does not
change anything. For even though I might be dreaming, if there is anything which
is evident to my intellect, then it is wholly true.
Thus I see plainly that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends
uniquely on my awareness of the true God, to such an extent that I was incapable
of perfect knowledge about anything else until I became aware of him. And now it
is possible for me to achieve full and certain knowledge of countless matters,
both concerning God himself and other things whose nature is intellectual, and
also concerning the whole of that corporeal nature which is the subject-matter
of pure mathematics.^1
SIXTH MEDITATION
The existence of material things, and the
real distinction between mind and body^1 It
remains for me to examine whether material things exist. And at least I now know
they are capable of existing, in so far as they are the subject-matter of pure
mathematics, since I perceive them clearly and distinctly. For there is no doubt
that God is capable of creating everything that I am capable of perceiving in
this manner; and I have never judged that something could not be made by him
except on the grounds that there would be a contradiction in my perceiving it
distinctly. The conclusion that material things exist is also suggested by the
faculty of imagination, which I am aware of using when I turn my mind to
material things. For when I give more attentive consideration to what
imagination is, it seems to be nothing else but an application of the cognitive
faculty to a body which is intimately present to it, and which therefore exists.
To make this clear, I will first examine the difference between
imagination and pure understanding. When I imagine a triangle, for example, I do
not merely understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines, but at the
same time I also see the three lines with my mind's eye as if they were present
before me; and this is what I call imagining. But if I want to think of a
chiliagon, although I understand that it is a figure consisting of a thousand
sides just as well as I understand the triangle to be a three-sided figure, I do
not in the same way imagine the thousand sides or see them as if they were
present before me. It is true that since I am in the habit of imagining
something whenever I think of a corporeal thing, I may construct in my mind a
confused representation of some figure; but it is clear that this is not a
chiliagon. For it differs in no way from the representation I should form if I
were thinking of a myriagon, or any figure with very many sides. Moreover, such
a representation is useless for recognizing the properties which distinguish a
chiliagon from other polygons. But suppose I am dealing with a pentagon: I can
of course understand the figure of a pentagon, just as I can the figure of a
chiliagon, without the help of the imagination; but I can also imagine a
pentagon, by applying my mind's eye to its five sides and the area contained
within them. And in doing this I notice quite clearly that imagination requires
a peculiar effort of mind which is not required for understanding; this
additional effort of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and
pure understanding.
Besides this, I consider that this power of imagining which is in me,
differing as it does from the power of understanding, is not a necessary
constituent of my own essence, that is, of the essence of my mind. For if I
lacked it, I should undoubtedly remain the same individual as I now am; from
which it seems to follow that it depends on something distinct from myself. And
I can easily understand that, if there does exist some body to which the mind is
so joined that it can apply itself to contemplate it, as it were, whenever it
pleases, then it may possibly be this very body that enables me to imagine
corporeal things. So the difference between this mode of thinking and pure
understanding may simply be this: when the mind understands, it in some way
turns towards itself and inspects one of the ideas which are within it; but when
it imagines, it turns towards the body and looks at something in the body which
conforms to an idea understood by the mind or perceived by the senses. I can, as
I say, easily understand that this is how imagination comes about, if the body
exists; and since there is no other equally suitable way of explaining
imagination that comes to mind, I can make a probable conjecture that the body
exists. But this is only a probability; and despite a careful and comprehensive
investigation, I do not yet see how the distinct idea of corporeal nature which
I find in my imagination can provide any basis for a necessary inference that
some body exists.
But besides that corporeal nature which is the subject-matter of pure
mathematics, there is much else that I habitually imagine, such as colours,
sounds, tastes, pain and so on - though not so distinctly. Now I perceive these
things much better by means of the senses, which is how, with the assistance of
memory, they appear to have reached the imagination. So in order to deal with
them more fully, I must pay equal attention to the senses, and see whether the
things which are perceived by means of that mode of thinking which I call
'sensory perception' provide me with any sure argument for the existence of
corporeal things.
To begin with, I will go back over all the things which I previously took
to be perceived by the senses, and reckoned to be true; and I will go over my
reasons for thinking this. Next, I will set out my reasons for subsequently
calling these things into doubt. And finally I will consider what I should now
believe about them.
First of all then, I perceived by my senses that I had a head, hands,
feet and other limbs making up the body which I regarded as part of myself, or
perhaps even as my whole self. I also perceived by my senses that this body was
situated among many other bodies which could affect it in various favourable or
unfavourable ways; and I gauged the favourable effects by a sensation of
pleasure, and the unfavourable ones by a sensation of pain. In addition to pain
and pleasure, I also had sensations within me of hunger, thirst, and other such
appetites, and also of physical propensities towards cheerfulness, sadness,
anger and similar emotions. And outside me, besides the extension, shapes and
movements of bodies, I also had sensations of their hardness and heat, and of
the other tactile qualities. In addition, I had sensations of light, colours,
smells, tastes and sounds, the variety of which enabled me to distinguish the
sky, the earth, the seas, and all other bodies, one from another. Considering
the ideas of all these qualities which presented themselves to my thought,
although the ideas were, strictly speaking, the only immediate objects of my
sensory awareness, it was not unreasonable for me to think that the items which
I was perceiving through the senses were things quite distinct from my thought,
namely bodies which produced the ideas. For my experience was that these ideas
came to me quite without my consent, so that I could not have sensory awareness
of any object, even if I wanted to, unless it was present to my sense organs;
and I could not avoid having sensory awareness of it when it was present. And
since the ideas perceived by the senses were much more lively and vivid and
even, in their own way, more distinct than any of those which I deliberately
formed through meditating or which I found impressed on my memory, it seemed
impossible that they should have come from within me; so the only alternative
was that they came from other things. Since the sole source of my knowledge of
these things was the ideas themselves, the supposition that the things resembled
the ideas was bound to occur to me. In addition, I remembered that the use of my
senses had come first, while the use of my reason came only later; and I saw
that the ideas which I formed myself were less vivid than those which I
perceived with the senses and were, for the most part, made up of elements of
sensory ideas. In this way I easily convinced myself that I had nothing at all
in the intellect which I had not previously had in sensation.^1 As for the body
which by some special right I called 'mine', my belief that this body, more than
any other, belonged to me had some justification. For I could never be separated
from it, as I could from other bodies; and I felt all my appetites and emotions
in, and on account of, this body; and finally, I was aware of pain and
pleasurable ticklings in parts of this body, but not in other bodies external to
it. But why should that curious sensation of pain give rise to a particular
distress of mind; or why should a certain kind of delight follow on a tickling
sensation? Again, why should that curious tugging in the stomach which I call
hunger tell me that I should eat, or a dryness of the throat tell me to drink,
and so on? I was not able to give any explanation of all this, except that
nature taught me so. For there is absolutely no connection (at least that I can
understand) between the tugging sensation and the decision to take food, or
between the sensation of something causing pain and the mental apprehension of
distress that arises from that sensation. These and other judgements that I made
concerning sensory objects, I was apparently taught to make by nature; for I had
already made up my mind that this was how things were, before working out any
arguments to prove it.
Later on, however, I had many experiences which gradually undermined all
the faith I had had in the senses. Sometimes towers which had looked round from
a distance appeared square from close up; and enormous statues standing on their
pediments did not seem large when observed from the ground. In these and
countless other such cases, I found that the judgements of the external senses
were mistaken. And this applied not just to the external senses but to the
internal senses as well. For what can be more internal than pain? And yet I had
heard that those who had had a leg or an arm amputated sometimes still seemed to
feel pain intermittently in the missing part of the body. So even in my own case
it was apparently not quite certain that a particular limb was hurting, even if
I felt pain in it. To these reasons for doubting, I recently added two very
general ones.^1 The first was that every sensory experience I have ever thought
I was having while awake I can also think of myself as sometimes having while
asleep; and since I do not believe that what I seem to perceive in sleep comes
from things located outside me, I did not see why I should be any more inclined
to believe this of what I think I perceive while awake. The second reason for
doubt was that since I did not know the author of my being (or at least was
pretending not to), I saw nothing to rule out the possibility that my natural
constitution made me prone to error even in matters which seemed to me most
true. As for the reasons for my previous confident belief in the truth of the
things perceived by the senses, I had no trouble in refuting them. For since I
apparently had natural impulses towards many things which reason told me to
avoid, I reckoned that a great deal of confidence should not be placed in what I
was taught by nature. And despite the fact that the perceptions of the senses
were not dependent on my will, I did not think that I should on that account
infer that they proceeded from things distinct from myself, since I might
perhaps have a faculty not yet known to me which produced them.^1
But now, when I am beginning to achieve a better knowledge of myself and
the author of my being, although I do not think I should heedlessly accept
everything I seem to have acquired from the senses, neither do I think that
everything should be called into doubt.
First, I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand
is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my
understanding of it. Hence the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand
one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things
are distinct, since they are capable of being separated, at least by God. The
question of what kind of power is required to bring about such a separation does
not affect the judgement that the two things are distinct. Thus, simply by
knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else
belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer
correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking
thing. It is true that I may have (or, to anticipate, that I certainly have) a
body that is very closely joined to me. But nevertheless, on the one hand I have
a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking,
non-extended thing; and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body,^2 in
so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, it is
certain that I ^3 am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of
thinking,^4 namely imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and
distinctly understand myself as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot,
conversely, understand these faculties without me, that is, without an
intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because there is an intellectual
act included in their essential definition; and hence I perceive that the
distinction between them and myself corresponds to the distinction between the
modes of a thing and the thing itself.^5 Of course I also recognize that there
are other faculties (like those of changing position, of taking on various
shapes, and so on) which, like sensory perception and imagination, cannot be
understood apart from some substance for them to inhere in, and hence cannot
exist without it. But it is clear that these other faculties, if they exist,
must be in a corporeal or extended substance and not an intellectual one; for
the clear and distinct conception of them includes extension, but does not
include any intellectual act whatsoever. Now there is in me a passive faculty of
sensory perception, that is, a faculty for receiving and recognizing the ideas
of sensible objects; but I could not make use of it unless there was also an
active faculty, either in me or in something else, which produced or brought
about these ideas. But this faculty cannot be in me, since clearly it
presupposes no intellectual act on my part,^1 and the ideas in question are
produced without my cooperation and often even against my will. So the only
alternative is that it is in another substance distinct from me - a substance
which contains either formally or eminently all the reality which exists
objectively ^2 in the ideas produced by this faculty (as I have just noted).
This substance is either a body, that is, a corporeal nature, in which case it
will contain formally <and in fact> everything which is to be found
objectively <or representatively> in the ideas; or else it is God, or some
creature more noble than a body, in which case it will contain eminently
whatever is to be found in the ideas. But since God is not a deceiver, it is
quite clear that he does not transmit the ideas to me either directly from
himself, or indirectly, via some creature which contains the objective reality
of the ideas not formally but only eminently. For God has given me no faculty at
all for recognizing any such source for these ideas; on the contrary, he has
given me a great propensity to believe that they are produced by corporeal
things. So I do not see how God could be understood to be anything but a
deceiver if the ideas were transmitted from a source other than corporeal
things. It follows that corporeal things exist. They may not all exist in a way
that exactly corresponds with my sensory grasp of them, for in many cases the
grasp of the senses is very obscure and confused. But at least they possess all
the properties which I clearly and distinctly understand, that is, all those
which, viewed in general terms, are comprised within the subject-matter of pure
mathematics.
What of the other aspects of corporeal things which are either particular
(for example that the sun is of such and such a size or shape), or less clearly
understood, such as light or sound or pain, and so on? Despite the high degree
of doubt and uncertainty involved here, the very fact that God is not a
deceiver, and the consequent impossibility of there being any falsity in my
opinions which cannot be corrected by some other faculty supplied by God, offers
me a sure hope that I can attain the truth even in these matters. Indeed, there
is no doubt that everything that I am taught by nature contains some truth. For
if nature is considered in its general aspect, then I understand by the term
nothing other than God himself, or the ordered system of created things
established by God. And by my own nature in particular I understand nothing
other than the totality of things bestowed on me by God.
There is nothing that my own nature teaches me more vividly than that I
have a body, and that when I feel pain there is something wrong with the body,
and that when I am hungry or thirsty the body needs food and drink, and so on.
So I should not doubt that there is some truth in this.
Nature also teaches me, by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and
so on, that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a
ship,^1 but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it,
so that I and the body form a unit. If this were not so, I, who am nothing but a
thinking thing, would not feel pain when the body was hurt, but would perceive
the damage purely by the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if
anything in his ship is broken. Similarly, when the body needed food or drink, I
should have an explicit understanding of the fact, instead of having confused
sensations of hunger and thirst. For these sensations of hunger, thirst, pain
and so on are nothing but confused modes of thinking which arise from the union
and, as it were, intermingling of the mind with the body.
I am also taught by nature that various other bodies exist in the
vicinity of my body, and that some of these are to be sought out and others
avoided. And from the fact that I perceive by my senses a great variety of
colours, sounds, smells and tastes, as well as differences in heat, hardness and
the like, I am correct in inferring that the bodies which are the source of
these various sensory perceptions possess differences corresponding to them,
though perhaps not resembling them. Also, the fact that some of the perceptions
are agreeable to me while others are disagreeable makes it quite certain that my
body, or rather my whole self, in so far as I am a combination of body and mind,
can be affected by the various beneficial or harmful bodies which surround it.
There are, however, many other things which I may appear to have been
taught by nature, but which in reality I acquired not from nature but from a
habit of making ill-considered judgements; and it is therefore quite possible
that these are false. Cases in point are the belief that any space in which
nothing is occurring to stimulate my senses must be empty; or that the heat in a
body is something exactly resembling the idea of heat which is in me; or that
when a body is white or green, the selfsame whiteness or greenness which I
perceive through my senses is present in the body; or that in a body which is
bitter or sweet there is the selfsame taste which I experience, and so on; or,
finally, that stars and towers and other distant bodies have the same size and
shape which they present to my senses, and other examples of this kind. But to
make sure that my perceptions in this matter are sufficiently distinct, I must
more accurately define exactly what I mean when I say that I am taught something
by nature. In this context I am taking nature to be something more limited than
the totality of things bestowed on me by God. For this includes many things that
belong to the mind alone - for example my perception that what is done cannot be
undone, and all other things that are known by the natural light;^1 but at this
stage I am not speaking of these matters. It also includes much that relates to
the body alone, like the tendency to move in a downward direction, and so on;
but I am not speaking of these matters either. My sole concern here is with what
God has bestowed on me as a combination of mind and body. My nature, then, in
this limited sense, does indeed teach me to avoid what induces a feeling of pain
and to seek out what induces feelings of pleasure, and so on. But it does not
appear to teach us to draw any conclusions from these sensory perceptions about
things located outside us without waiting until the intellect has examined ^2
the matter. For knowledge of the truth about such things seems to belong to the
mind alone, not to the combination of mind and body. Hence, although a star has
no greater effect on my eye than the flame of a small light, that does not mean
that there is any real or positive inclination in me to believe that the star is
no bigger than the light; I have simply made this judgement from childhood
onwards without any rational basis. Similarly, although I feel heat when I go
near a fire and feel pain when I go too near, there is no convincing argument
for supposing that there is something in the fire which resembles the heat, any
more than for supposing that there is something which resembles the pain. There
is simply reason to suppose that there is something in the fire, whatever it may
eventually turn out to be, which produces in us the feelings of heat or pain.
And likewise, even though there is nothing in any given space that stimulates
the senses, it does not follow that there is no body there. In these cases and
many others I see that I have been in the habit of misusing the order of nature.
For the proper purpose of the sensory perceptions given me by nature is simply
to inform the mind of what is beneficial or harmful for the composite of which
the mind is a part; and to this extent they are sufficiently clear and distinct.
But I misuse them by treating them as reliable touchstones for immediate
judgements about the essential nature of the bodies located outside us; yet this
is an area where they provide only very obscure information.
I have already looked in sufficient detail at how, notwithstanding the
goodness of God, it may happen that my judgements are false. But a further
problem now comes to mind regarding those very things which nature presents to
me as objects which I should seek out or avoid, and also regarding the internal
sensations, where I seem to have detected errors ^1 - e.g. when someone is
tricked by the pleasant taste of some food into eating the poison concealed
inside it. Yet in this case, what the man's nature urges him to go for is simply
what is responsible for the pleasant taste, and not the poison, which his nature
knows nothing about. The only inference that can be drawn from this is that his
nature is not omniscient. And this is not surprising, since man is a limited
thing, and so it is only fitting that his perfection should be limited.
And yet it is not unusual for us to go wrong even in cases where nature
does urge us towards something. Those who are ill, for example, may desire food
or drink that will shortly afterwards turn out to be bad for them. Perhaps it
may be said that they go wrong because their nature is disordered, but this does
not remove the difficulty. A sick man is no less one of God's creatures than a
healthy one, and it seems no less a contradiction to suppose that he has
received from God a nature which deceives him. Yet a clock constructed with
wheels and weights observes all the laws of its nature just as closely when it
is badly made and tells the wrong time as when it completely fulfils the wishes
of the clockmaker. In the same way, I might consider the body of a man as a kind
of machine equipped with and made up of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and
skin in such a way that, even if there were no mind in it, it would still
perform all the same movements as it now does in those cases where movement is
not under the control of the will or, consequently, of the mind.^2 I can easily
see that if such a body suffers from dropsy, for example, and is affected by the
dryness of the throat which normally produces in the mind the sensation of
thirst, the resulting condition of the nerves and other parts will dispose the
body to take a drink, with the result that the disease will be aggravated. Yet
this is just as natural as the body's being stimulated by a similar dryness of
the throat to take a drink when there is no such illness and the drink is
beneficial. Admittedly, when I consider the purpose of the clock, I may say that
it is departing from its nature when it does not tell the right time; and
similarly when I consider the mechanism of the human body, I may think that, in
relation to the movements which normally occur in it, it too is deviating from
its nature if the throat is dry at a time when drinking is not beneficial to its
continued health. But I am well aware that 'nature' as I have just used it has a
very different significance from 'nature' in the other sense. As I have just
used it, 'nature' is simply a label which depends on my thought; it is quite
extraneous to the things to which it is applied, and depends simply on my
comparison between the idea of a sick man and a badly-made clock, and the idea
of a healthy man and a well-made clock. But by 'nature' in the other sense I
understand something which is really to be found in the things themselves; in
this sense, therefore, the term contains something of the truth.
When we say, then, with respect to the body suffering from dropsy, that
it has a disordered nature because it has a dry throat and yet does not need
drink, the term 'nature' is here used merely as an extraneous label. However,
with respect to the composite, that is, the mind united with this body, what is
involved is not a mere label, but a true error of nature, namely that it is
thirsty at a time when drink is going to cause it harm. It thus remains to
inquire how it is that the goodness of God does not prevent nature, in this
sense, from deceiving us.
The first observation I make at this point is that there is a great
difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very
nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I
consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am
unable to distinguish any parts within myself; I understand myself to be
something quite single and complete. Although the whole mind seems to be united
to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the
body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the mind. As for the
faculties of willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, these
cannot be termed parts of the mind, since it is one and the same mind that
wills, and understands and has sensory perceptions. By contrast, there is no
corporeal or extended thing that I can think of which in my thought I cannot
easily divide into parts; and this very fact makes me understand that it is
divisible. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is
completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from
other considerations.
My next observation is that the mind is not immediately affected by all
parts of the body, but only by the brain, or perhaps just by one small part of
the brain, namely the part which is said to contain the 'common' sense.^1 Every
time this part of the brain is in a given state, it presents the same signals to
the mind, even though the other parts of the body may be in a different
condition at the time. This is established by countless observations, which
there is no need to review here.
I observe, in addition, that the nature of the body is such that whenever
any part of it is moved by another part which is some distance away, it can
always be moved in the same fashion by any of the parts which lie in between,
even if the more distant part does nothing. For example, in a cord ABCD, if one
end D is pulled so that the other end A moves, the exact same movement could
have been brought about if one of the intermediate points B or C had been
pulled, and D had not moved at all. In similar fashion, when I feel a pain in my
foot, physiology tells me that this happens by means of nerves distributed
throughout the foot, and that these nerves are like cords which go from the foot
right up to the brain. When the nerves are pulled in the foot, they in turn pull
on inner parts of the brain to which they are attached, and produce a certain
motion in them; and nature has laid it down that this motion should produce in
the mind a sensation of pain, as occurring in the foot. But since these nerves,
in passing from the foot to the brain, must pass through the calf, the thigh,
the lumbar region, the back and the neck, it can happen that, even if it is not
the part in the foot but one of the intermediate parts which is being pulled,
the same motion will occur in the brain as occurs when the foot is hurt, and so
it will necessarily come about that the mind feels the same sensation of pain.
And we must suppose the same thing happens with regard to any other sensation.
My final observation is that any given movement occurring in the part of
the brain that immediately affects the mind produces just one corresponding
sensation; and hence the best system that could be devised is that it should
produce the one sensation which, of all possible sensations, is most especially
and most frequently conducive to the preservation of the healthy man. And
experience shows that the sensations which nature has given us are all of this
kind; and so there is absolutely nothing to be found in them that does not bear
witness to the power and goodness of God. For example, when the nerves in the
foot are set in motion in a violent and unusual manner, this motion, by way of
the spinal cord, reaches the inner parts of the brain, and there gives the mind
its signal for having a certain sensation, namely the sensation of a pain as
occurring in the foot. This stimulates the mind to do its best to get rid of the
cause of the pain, which it takes to be harmful to the foot. It is true that God
could have made the nature of man such that this particular motion in the brain
indicated something else to the mind; it might, for example, have made the mind
aware of the actual motion occurring in the brain, or in the foot, or in any of
the intermediate regions; or it might have indicated something else entirely.
But there is nothing else which would have been so conducive to the continued
well-being of the body. In the same way, when we need drink, there arises a
certain dryness in the throat; this sets in motion the nerves of the throat,
which in turn move the inner parts of the brain. This motion produces in the
mind a sensation of thirst, because the most useful thing for us to know about
the whole business is that we need drink in order to stay healthy. And so it is
in the other cases.
It is quite clear from all this that, notwithstanding the immense
goodness of God, the nature of man as a combination of mind and body is such
that it is bound to mislead him from time to time. For there may be some
occurrence, not in the foot but in one of the other areas through which the
nerves travel in their route from the foot to the brain, or even in the brain
itself; and if this cause produces the same motion which is generally produced
by injury to the foot, then pain will be felt as if it were in the foot. This
deception of the senses is natural, because a given motion in the brain must
always produce the same sensation in the mind; and the origin of the motion in
question is much more often going to be something which is hurting the foot,
rather than something existing elsewhere. So it is reasonable that this motion
should always indicate to the mind a pain in the foot rather than in any other
part of the body. Again, dryness of the throat may sometimes arise not, as it
normally does, from the fact that a drink is necessary to the health of the
body, but from some quite opposite cause, as happens in the case of the man with
dropsy. Yet it is much better that it should mislead on this occasion than that
it should always mislead when the body is in good health. And the same goes for
the other cases.
This consideration is the greatest help to me, not only for noticing all
the errors to which my nature is liable, but also for enabling me to correct or
avoid them without difficulty. For I know that in matters regarding the
well-being of the body, all my senses report the truth much more frequently than
not. Also, I can almost always make use of more than one sense to investigate
the same thing; and in addition, I can use both my memory, which connects
present experiences with preceding ones, and my intellect, which has by now
examined all the causes of error. Accordingly, I should not have any further
fears about the falsity of what my senses tell me every day; on the contrary,
the exaggerated doubts of the last few days should be dismissed as laughable.
This applies especially to the principal reason for doubt, namely my inability
to distinguish between being asleep and being awake. For I now notice that there
is a vast difference between the two, in that dreams are never linked by memory
with all the other actions of life as waking experiences are. If, while I am
awake, anyone were suddenly to appear to me and then disappear immediately, as
happens in sleep, so that I could not see where he had come from or where he had
gone to, it would not be unreasonable for me to judge that he was a ghost, or a
vision created in my brain,^1 rather than a real man. But when I distinctly see
where things come from and where and when they come to me, and when I can
connect my perceptions of them with the whole of the rest of my life without a
break, then I am quite certain that when I encounter these things I am not
asleep but awake. And I ought not to have even the slightest doubt of their
reality if, after calling upon all the senses as well as my memory and my
intellect in order to check them, I receive no conflicting reports from any of
these sources. For from the fact that God is not a deceiver it follows that in
cases like these I am completely free from error. But since the pressure of
things to be done does not always allow us to stop and make such a meticulous
check, it must be admitted that in this human life we are often liable to make
mistakes about particular things, and we must acknowledge the weakness of our
nature. |