GAIETY
What I call gaiety is a species of joy, in which there is the peculiar quality that its sweetness is augmented by the memory of evils which one has suffered, and from which one feels himself relieved, in the same way that he would if he felt himself discharged of some heavy burden, which he had carried for a long time upon his shoulders.
Passions, III, 210. XI, 485.
GAY
It is better to be less gay and have more knowledge.
Letter to Elisabeth, Oct. 6, 1645. IV, 305.
GENERATION
Simple alteration is that which does not change the form of the subject, as when wood becomes warmer, and generation is that which changes the form, as when wood is consumed by fire.
Letter to Regius, Dec., 1641. III, 461.
Generation is to be considered in two ways, one without semen or womb, the other from semen.
Generatio Animalium. XI, 505.
GENEROSITY
I believe that the true generosity, which gives a man the highest self-esteem that he can legitimately have, only consists, partly in that he knows that there is nothing which truly belongs to him other than the free determination of his acts of will, nor reason to be praised or blamed, except because he uses it well or badly; and partly in that he senses in himself a firm and constant resolution to use it well, that is, never to lack the will to undertake and execute all the things which he judges to be the best. Which is to follow perfectly the course of virtue.
Passions, III, 153. XI, 445-446.
GENESIS
Whoever explains [the book of Genesis to me], or the Song of Solomon or the book of Revelation, would seem to me to be a veritable Apollo.
Burman. V, 168-169.
As for the book of Genesis, the story of the creation found there is perhaps metaphorical; it ought therefore to be left to the theologians; and the creation ought not to be taken as divided into six days, but the division ought to be made only with regard to our manner of conceiving it, as St. Augustine did with his Thoughts on the Angels.
Burman. V, 169.
GEOMETRY
I hope to establish by demonstration which questions can be solved in such and such a way and not otherwise, with the result that nothing will be left to discover in geometry. The work, it is true, is infinite, and cannot be accomplished by one person alone. What an unbelievably ambitious project!
To Beeckman, Mar. 26, 1619. X, 157.
I conceived the object of geometry as continuous body, or a space which was indefinitely extended in length, breadth, and height or depth, divisible into various parts, which could have various shapes and sizes, and be moved or transposed in all ways.
Discourse, IV. VI, 36.
I know very well that the number of those who can understand my geometry will be very small.
Letter to Plempius, Oct. 3, 1637. I, 411.
It is with good reason that the conarium [pineal gland] is similar to a gland, because the principal role of all the glands is to receive the most subtle parts of the blood which are given off by the blood vessels around them, and the role of the conarium is to receive the animal spirits in the same way.
Letter to Mersenne, Dec. 24, 1640(?). III, 264.
GOD
When Genesis says that God separated light from darkness, it means that he separated the good angels from the evil ones. One cannot actually separate a privation from a positive quality, and it is for this reason that the text cannot be taken literally. God is pure intelligence.
Cogitationes Privatae. X, 218.
If God is not conceived by the imagination, either one conceives nothing when one speaks of God (which would mark a shocking blindness), or one conceives him in some other manner.
Letter to Mersenne, July, 1641. III, 393.
Although I do not doubt that everyone has the idea of God in him, at least implicitly, i.e., that he has in him the disposition to conceive the idea of God explicitly, I am not astonished nevertheless to see men who do not feel that they have this idea in them, or rather who do not perceive it and still will not perceive it, after having read my Meditations, if you wish, a thousand times.
Letter to “Hyperaspistas,” Aug., 1641. III, 430-431.
The idea by which I conceive a God who is sovereign, eternal, infinite, immutable, all-knowing, all-powerful, and universal Creator of all things which are not himself; this idea, I say, certainly has within it more objective reality than those by which finite substances are represented to me.
Meditations, III. IX, 32.
By the name “God” I understand a substance which is infinite, eternal, immutable, free, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and all other things which exist (if it is true that there are any other things which exist) have been created and produced.
Meditations, III. IX, 35-36.
The unity, the simplicity, or the inseparability of all the things which are in God, is one of the principal perfections which I conceive to be in him.
Meditations, III. IX, 40.
The existence of God is much more evident than that of any sensible thing.
Replies, I. IX, 85.
Although God has always existed, nevertheless, because he himself actually conserves himself, it seems quite proper to call him the cause of himself.
Replies, I. IX, 87.
The substance which we understand to be supremely perfect, and in which we conceive nothing which comprises any fault or limitation upon perfection, is called God.
Replies, II. IX, 125.
The most perfect thing that we can conceive: this is what all men call God.
Letter to Clerselier. IX, 209.
When one considers attentively the immensity of God, one sees that it is manifestly impossible that there is anything which does not depend upon him, not only of all that subsists, but also that there is neither order, nor law, nor measure of goodness and truth which does not depend upon him.
Replies, VI. IX, 235.
God can do all that we can comprehend clearly; and if there are other things which God is said not to be able to do, it is because they imply a contradiction in their ideas, i.e., they are not intelligible.
Letter to Regius, June, 1642. III, 567.
Reflecting upon the idea that we have naturally [or innately] of him [God], we see that he is eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, source of all goodness and truth, creator of all things, and finally that he has within him everything in which we can recognize some infinite perfection, or, better, that is not limited by any imperfection.
Principles, I, 22. IX2, 35.
All the knowledge that we can have of God, without miracle, in this life, derives from reasoning and from the sequence of our words, which deduces it from the principles of the faith, which is obscure, or comes from natural ideas and notions which are in us, which, however clear they might be, are only clumsy and confused upon so high a subject.
Letter to Newcastle, Mar. or Apr., 1648. V, 136-137.
Knowing by the idea of God that he is the most perfect being, to whom all the absolute perfections belong, I ought not to attribute to him anything that I have not recognized to be absolutely perfect; and everything that I can so imagine and conceive as an absolutely perfect perfection, simply from the fact that I can imagine it, belongs to the nature of God.
Burman. V, 158.
One ought not to say of anything that it cannot be done by God; given that every species of truth and goodness depends upon his omnipotence, I would not even say that God could not make a mountain without a valley, or that one and two not make three.
Letter to Arnauld, July 29, 1648. V, 223-224.
I boldly assert that God can do everything that I conceive as possible, without having the temerity to say that he cannot do what is inconsistent with my manner of conceiving.
Letter to More, Feb. 5, 1649. V, 272.
See being by itself.
GOOD
If the understanding never represented anything to the will as good, which was not good, then the will would never fail to choose correctly.
Letter to Mersenne, May, 1637. I, 366.
When the idea of the good is considered as a rule for our actions, it is taken as all the perfection which there can be in the thing which is called good, and it may be compared to a straight line, which is unique among the infinity of curves, to which evil may be compared. It is in this sense that the philosophers usually say that the good comes from the whole cause, the evil from some defect. But when one considers the goods and the evils which can be in the same thing, in order to know what value to place upon it, as I did when I spoke of the esteem which we ought to give to this life, one takes the good to be everything from which he can have some benefit, and one calls evil only that from which he can receive some harm; for the other faults that might be there are not counted.
Letter to Elisabeth, Jan. 1646. IV, 354-355.
GRATITUDE
Gratitude is a species of love, excited in us by some action of the person for whom we have it, and by which we believe that he has done some good to us, or at least that he has had the intention of doing so.
Passions, III, 193. XI, 473-474.
See favor.
GRAVITY, CENTER OF
The center of gravity is not fixed and immobile in each body, as the ancients supposed.
Treatise on Mechanics. I, 447.
I could demonstrate that even the definition of the center of gravity, which was given by Archimedes, is false, and that there is no such center.
Letter to Mersenne, May 17, 1638. II, 142.
GROWTH
There are two sorts of growth. First, that of non-living beings, which do not partake of nourishment, in which growth takes place by means of the simple apposition of parts, without any change in those parts, and [second] that of living beings which partake of nourishment, in which growth always implies a certain change in the parts.
On Growth and Nutrition, Nov., 1637. XI, 596.
See fat.
GUESSES
Everyone feels freer to guess at an obscure subject than one which is evident, and it is much easier to have some vague notion about any subject, no matter what, than to arrive at the real truth about a single question, however simple that may be.
Rules, II. X, 365.