Over these last few days I have grown so accustomed to withdrawing
my mind from the senses, and have so thoroughly grasped that true
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perceptions of bodily things are very rare, but that more can be known [cognosci] about the human mind, and still more about God, that I can now direct my thought without any difficulty away from things that can be imagined and towards those that are purely intelligible, and detached from all matter. And certainly the idea I have of the human mind, in so far as it is a thinking thing, not extended in length, breadth, and depth, or having any other bodily properties, is much more distinct than the idea of any bodily thing. And when I consider that I doubt, or that I am an incomplete and dependent thing, so clear and distinct an idea of an independent and complete being (that is, God) comes to my mind, and from this single fact that such an idea is in me, or that I exist possessing this idea, I so manifestly conclude that God also exists, and that all my existence, from one moment to the next, depends on him, that I can confidently assert that nothing can be more evidently or certainly discovered [ cognosci] by human intelligence. And now I seem to glimpse a path by which, from this contemplation of the true God, in whom indeed all the treasures of the sciences and wisdom lie hidden, we can pass to the knowledge of other things.
First of all, I recognize that it cannot happen that he should ever deceive me; for in all deceit and trickery some element of imperfection is to be found; and although to be able to deceive seems to be some indication of intelligence or power, nonetheless to wish to deceive is beyond doubt a proof of malice or feeble-mindedness, to which God cannot be liable.
Besides, I know by experience that there is within me a faculty of judging, which I certainly received from God, along with everything
else that is in me; and since he does not wish to deceive me, this
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God-given faculty must be such that I shall never go astray, as long as I use it correctly.
It would seem that there is no room left for doubt on this matter, except that it would apparently follow from what has just been said, that I can therefore never be mistaken at all. For if whatever is in me, I have from God, and if he has not given me any faculty of making mistakes, it seems I can never be mistaken. And indeed, as long as I am thinking only of God, and directing my attention wholly to him, I cannot detect any cause of error or falsity; but when presently I turn back to myself, I find by experience that I am, on the contrary, subject to innumerable errors. When I investigate the cause of these, I observe that, besides the real and positive idea of God, or the supremely perfect being, there is also, so to speak, a certain negative idea of nothingness, or of that which is infinitely remote from all perfections, that presents itself to me; and I see also that I am so constituted as a medium term between God and nothingness, or between the supreme being and non-being, that, in so far as I was created by the supreme being, there is indeed nothing within me by which I can be deceived or led into error; but that, in so far as I have, in a way, a share of nothingness or non-being (in so far, in other words, as I am not myself the supreme being), and very many things are lacking to me, it does not seem so strange that I should be deceived. And thus I can understand, quite certainly, that error, in so far as it is error, is not something real dependent on God, but purely and simply a deficiency; and therefore that, in order to make mistakes I do not need a special mistake-making faculty given me by God for this purpose, but that it happens that I make mistakes, for the reason that the faculty of judging the truth, which he did give me, is not infinite in me.
And yet this does not satisfy me completely. For error is not a pure
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negation but a privation,* a lack of some knowledge [cognitio] that ought to be in me in some way; and when I consider God’s nature, it does not seem possible that he should have endowed me with some faculty that is not perfect of its kind, or that is deprived of some perfection due to it. For if, the more skilful the craftsman, the more perfect the works he produces, what can have been produced by this supreme creator of everything that is not perfect in all its components? Nor is there any doubt that God could have created me incapable of being deceived; besides, there is no doubt that he wishes always what is best—but could it be better for me to be deceived than not?
When I go into this more closely, it first occurs to me that I should not be surprised if God does some things the reasons for which I do not understand. Nor would there be any reason to doubt his existence if perhaps I discovered other things of which I cannot understand how or why he produced them. For since I already know [sciam] that my nature is very weak and limited, while on the other hand God’s is immense, incomprehensible, and infinite, it follows that I know [scio] quite clearly that he can do innumerable things of the causes of which I am ignorant; and for this reason alone, I judge that the whole category of causes that people are in the habit of seeking by considering the purposes of things* is of no use in the study of physics; for I think that it could only be rash of me to investigate God’s purposes.
My next reflection is that we should not look at any one single creature in isolation, but at the whole universe of things, whenever we are inquiring whether God’s works are perfect. For what would perhaps appear (and not without reason) very imperfect if it were
taken in isolation, is completely perfect if considered as a part of the
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universe; and although, since I have decided to doubt everything, I have not yet discovered [cognovi] for certain whether anything else exists besides God and myself, I cannot however deny, since I have become aware of the immense power of God, that many other things have been created by him, or at least could be created by him, in which case I too would exist as a part of the universe.
Finally, coming closer to myself and investigating the nature of my errors (which are sufficient proof by themselves that there is some imperfection in me), I realize that they depend on two simultaneously operative causes, namely, the faculty I possess of acquiring knowledge [cognoscendi] and the faculty of choosing, or free will; that is, they depend on the intellect and the will simultaneously. For through the intellect alone I only perceive ideas on which I can pass judgement, nor can any error in the strict sense be found in it when considered from this precise viewpoint. For although, perhaps, there are innumerable things in existence of which the ideas are not in me, I cannot be said, strictly speaking, to be deprived of these ideas, but only, in a negative sense, to be without them; since, certainly, I can adduce no reason to prove that God should have given me a greater faculty of acquiring knowledge [cognoscendi] than the one he has given me; and although I understand him to be the most skilful craftsman possible, I do not therefore think that he should have endowed each individual piece of his handiwork with all the perfections with which he may endow some. Nor indeed can I complain that I have received from him an insufficiently wide-ranging and perfect will, or freedom of choice; for I experience it as unbounded by any limits. And it seems to me particularly important to note that
there is no other property in me, apart from this one, that is so
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perfect or so great that I cannot understand how it could be more perfect or greater. For if, for example, I consider the faculty of understanding, I immediately recognize that in me it is very small and seriously limited; and at the same time I form the idea of another faculty that is far greater, one indeed that is supremely great and infinite, and, from the very fact that I can form the idea of it, I perceive that it belongs to the nature of God. By the same token, if I examine the faculty of remembering or imagining, or any other, I realize they are all very inadequate and restricted in me, but that in God they are boundless. It is only the will, or freedom of choice, that I experience in myself as so great that I can form the idea of none greater; so much so that it is chiefly on account of the will that I understand that I bear a certain image and likeness of God. For although the will is incomparably greater in God than in me, first, in virtue of the knowledge and power that are combined with it in him, and that make it stronger and more effective, and secondly, in virtue of its object, since its range is far greater, nonetheless, when it is considered strictly as it is essentially in itself, it does not seem to be greater in him than in me. This is because it consists purely in our ability to do or not to do a given thing (that is, to affirm or deny something, pursue something or avoid it); or rather, it consists purely in this: that we are moved in relation to that which the intellect presents to us as to be affirmed or denied, pursued or avoided, in such a way that we feel we are not being determined in that direction by any external force.* For, in order to be free, I do not have to be able to be moved in either direction.* On the contrary, the more
I incline to one alternative, whether because I clearly understand that
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the good and the true are on that side, or because God so disposes my innermost thoughts,* the more freely I choose it. Certainly, neither divine grace nor natural knowledge [cognitio] ever diminishes freedom; on the contrary, they increase and reinforce it. On the other hand, the indifference I experience, when no reason impels me towards one alternative rather than the other, is the lowest degree of freedom, and is not a mark of perfection but only of a shortfall in my knowledge, or a certain negation;* for if I always clearly saw what is true and good, I would never need to deliberate about a judgement to be made or a course of action to be chosen; and in that case, although I would be fully free, I could never be indifferent.
From all this, I perceive that the cause of my errors is neither the God-given power of willing, considered in itself, for it is extremely extensive and perfect of its kind; nor the power of understanding, for whatever I understand, since my understanding is a gift of God, most certainly I understand it correctly, nor is there any possibility of my being deceived in this. So what is the origin of my errors? It can only be this: that, since the range of the will is greater than that of the intellect, I do not confine it within the same limits, but extend it even to matters I do not understand;* and since it is indifferent to these, it easily falls away from the true and the good, and this is both how I come to be deceived and how I come to sin.*
For example, when I was examining, over these last few days, whether anything existed in the world, and realized that, from the very fact that I was examining this point, it clearly followed that I existed, I could not indeed refrain from judging that what I so
clearly understood was true. It was not that I was compelled to this
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by some external force, but that a great illumination of the intellect was followed by a great inclination of the will; and in this way my belief was all the freer and more spontaneous for my being less indifferent. But now, however, I not only know that I, in so far as I am a thinking thing, exist: a certain idea of bodily nature also presents itself to me, as a result of which I doubt whether the thinking nature that is within me, or rather that I myself am,* is distinct from this bodily nature, or whether they are both one and the same. (I am supposing here that no reason has yet occurred to my intellect to convince me in favour of one view or the other.) And from this fact alone, I am certainly indifferent as regards affirming or denying one view or the other, and indeed as regards making no judgement at all about the matter.
But indeed, this indifference does not extend only to those matters about which the intellect has no knowledge at all, but also to all things in general that are not sufficiently clearly known by the intellect at the time when the will is deliberating about them. For however strongly probable conjectures may draw me to one alternative, the mere fact of knowing that they are only conjectures, and not certain and indubitable reasons, is sufficient to impel me to assent to the contrary view. This has been fully borne out in my own experience during these last few days, when, considering all the beliefs I had once very firmly held as true, I decided, simply because I had realized that it was possible to doubt them in some respect, to suppose them to be altogether false.
Now, if indeed, whenever I do not sufficiently clearly and distinctly perceive where the truth lies, I refrain from passing judgement, it is clear that I am acting rightly and not being deceived. But if I either affirm or deny, then I am not making the right use of my
freedom of choice; and if I adopt the view that is false, I shall be altogether
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deceived. Yet if I adopt the other view, although it happens to be the true one, I shall still be at fault, because it is manifest by the natural light that a decision on the part of the will should always be preceded by a perception on the part of the intellect. The privation in which the essence of error consists lies in this wrong use of free choice. The privation, that is, lies in the operation itself, in so far as it derives from me, but not in the faculty given to me by God, or in the operation in so far as that depends on him.*
Nor do I have any grounds for complaining that God has not given me a more powerful intellectual capacity, or a greater natural light, than he actually has, since it is of the essence of a finite intellect that it is unable to understand many things, and to be finite is of the essence of a created intellect. Rather, I should be grateful to him, who has never owed me anything, for what he has bestowed on me. But I have no cause to think that I have been deprived by him of those things he has not given me, or that he has robbed me of them.
I have no more reason to complain at his giving me a will that is more wide-ranging than my understanding; for since the will consists purely in a single property that is, so to speak, indivisible, its very nature seems to make it impossible that anything should be taken away from it. Indeed, the more extensive it is, the more grateful I should be to him who has given it to me.
And finally, I have no right to complain that God cooperates with me in the production of those acts of the will, or those judgements, in which I am deceived; for these acts are altogether true and good, in so far as they depend on God, and it is in some ways a greater perfection in me to be able to perform them than not. For the privation
in which alone the essence of falsity and guilt consists requires no
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cooperation on God’s part, since it is not a thing, nor a privation related to him as to its cause: it should be classed, purely and simply, as a negation.* For it is certainly no imperfection on God’s part that he has given me the freedom to assent or not to assent to some things of which he has implanted no clear and distinct perception in my intellect; but it is undoubtedly an imperfection on my part not to use this freedom properly, and to pass judgement on things I do not rightly understand. I see, however, that God could have easily brought it about that, while remaining free and endowed only with finite knowledge, I should never err: for instance, if he had implanted in my intellect a clear and distinct perception of everything upon which I would ever have to make up my mind; or if he had simply engraved on my memory, so deeply that I could never forget it, the resolution never to pass judgement about anything I do not clearly and distinctly understand. And I can easily grasp that, in so far as I consider myself as a totality, I would have been more perfect than I am now, if I had been so created by God. But, for all that, I cannot deny that in a way the universe as a whole is more perfect as a result of the fact that some of its parts are not immune from error, while others are, than it would have been if all its parts were entirely similar. And I have no right to complain that the part God has given me to play in the world is not the most prominent and perfect of all.
Besides, even though I cannot refrain from error in the first of the ways just mentioned, which would involve my having an evident perception of everything about which I would ever need to
make up my mind, I can in the second way, which simply involves
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my remembering that, whenever the truth of a matter is not clear, I should abstain from passing judgement. For although I find by experience that there is a weakness in my nature that means that I cannot always concentrate attentively on one and the same piece of knowledge [cognitioni], I can nonetheless, by careful and frequently repeated meditation, ensure that I remember this maxim whenever I need to, and thus I can acquire a certain habit of not making mistakes.
And since the greatest and most distinctive perfection of a human being consists in this, I think I have derived no little profit from today’s meditation, since I have tracked down the cause of error and falsity. And indeed, this cause can be no other than I have explained. For whenever in passing judgement I so keep my will under control that it confines itself to items clearly and distinctly represented to it by the intellect, it certainly cannot come about that I should make a mistake; since every clear and distinct perception is something, and therefore cannot come from nothing, but necessarily derives from God—God, the supremely perfect being, whose nature is incompatible with deception. It is therefore undoubtedly true. And I have learned today not only what I should avoid in order not to be deceived, but at the same time what I must do in order to attain truth; for I certainly shall attain it, provided I pay sufficient attention to everything I perfectly understand, and keep it quite separate from everything else that I apprehend more confusedly and obscurely. And I shall take particular care to do this in future.