Perte de Foi: 

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Speculative Metaphysics 

 

by 

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Bradley Andrew Ramsey

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2025

  

 

Prolegomena: The Power of Make Believe  

   
Cigarettes and ashtrays and make believe,   
Cotton candy, apple sauce, hard liquor,    
Tombs full of gold, sealed with a curse,    
And a cradle high up on a bough.   
 
I was wondering who farted,   
Then I realized I was the only person in the room,   
So, it had to be me. Yet is a fart laid by someone when no one else is around really a fart?   
 
These and other things occur to me when I think of the false claim of immaculate conception.   
Nothing is real and substantially less material than reality that is too gross an idea to endure.   

 

B. A. R.    

 

 

Chapter One: Not Unlike Madmen 

          I was perdu. I was deprived of a part of myself, deprived of a faculty or a quality proper to me. I lost reason. I was deprived of the enjoyment of any advantage or property. I ceased to have an advantage, a superiority. I was deprived of a satisfaction I might have had.   

          I, Ignatius Star, secret agent of the posthuman world, liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapors of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers. I am yet struck by a falsehood that I had accepted as true since childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on [it]. That falsehood was my former erroneous belief that God exists.   

          The First Meditation of Descartes, the text which I have included as an “appendix a” to this short monograph, which I can recall from my course in epistemology at university, includes a valid observation by the philosopher even though he was misguided by his belief in God.   

  

Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time, I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.     

 

           The philosopher states that everything he has accepted as either being true or false has been acquired by or through his senses, and that prudence is a caution best exercised against being deceived when senses and the sense organs are the only means to assessing reality. Why this is important to observe is because perceptions lead to opinions, subsequently opinions can be false, and it is always desirable to ascertain facts to know anything with certainty.    

          I will furthermore show that any rational process such as prudence applied to the senses is accomplished by the sense organ called the brain; yet a belief that the mind and soul exist in any dual or tripart relation to the body shall be disproven.    

          Likening myself to madmen damaged by melancholia is slightly overdramatic, regardless I cannot help feeling sorrowful about my conversion to atheism. I hope you will keep me company for I feel shortchanged by the no-good purchase I made when I was a child of my former beliefs in God and the afterlife.   

 

Chapter Two: The Malicious Demon  

          Although the faithful will admonish me for my atheism and tell me I am in despair; that, by not believing in God I shall perish; that I should repent; that, a malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me; nonetheless, the withholding of assent, or doubt as it pertains to opinions, is Descartes erring on the side of caution whilst acquisitioning knowledge.   

          Here is a ready list of four just as suitable means Descartes could have used respecting opinions and acquisitioning knowledge: (1) Sensibility: whereby opinions or objects excite lively emotions and thus by feelings we might assent whilst acquisitioning knowledge. (2) Wit is that which seizes promptly or pithily assent to opinions whilst acquisitioning knowledge. (3) Genius comprehends opinions that are difficult and useful to assent to whilst acquisitioning knowledge. (4) Imagination is an embellishment, and either purports or distorts opinions whilst acquisitioning knowledge.   

           To what does knowledge pertain? Knowledge of substances – both corporeal and incorporeal – which populate the universe.   

   

 

Chapter Three: Three Varieties of Substance 

          This chapter classifies the three traditional varieties of substances. The three varieties being: monist, dualist, and pluralist substances. The next chapter distinguishes between corporeal and incorporeal substances. The concluding remarks of that chapter shall introduce the notion that whether a causally effective incorporeal body is even a coherent concept requires the belief that something cannot affect what is material unless it physically exists at the point of effect of any substance. Otherwise, it is unknowable, nonexistent, and causally inert. The significance of this claim will become evident later and will show that the soul properly understood to be the genuine article is not immortal. Rather, it is corporeal and dies alongside the organism.   

          Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent, existing all by themselves. They are concrete, spatiotemporal entities. Attributes or properties are borne of substances and show what every substance is like. Moreover, substances can undergo change. Substances existing before, during, or after change, are described as persisting substances which gain or lose properties because of that change. In contrast, universals are what particulars of properties have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals recur in many particulars, like the colour of green, which is to say that greenness is a universal characteristic or quality of the attributes or properties, for example of unripe bananas and a green bicycle.   

          Substances are classified into monist, dualist, or pluralist varieties, according to how many are said to populate the world. In the monistic view of Stoicism, there is only one substance called pneuma or God. Cartesian dualism recognizes two substances: mind and matter. Pluralist philosophies of substances include Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s hylomorphic categories.   

    

The Stoic View   

          Pneuma is the soul of Zeus (God) and makes the human soul (psyche). It is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos. It structures matter and constitutes being in inanimate objects. Pneuma is described as the “breath of life,” which is formed of the element of air that is in movement, or wind, and which is mixed with the element of fire, as it pertains to warmth. The three kinds of pneuma depend on their proportion of fire and air. The first kind of pneuma is tonos, which supplies cohesion or hexis to things, and constitutes being in inanimate objects. The second kind of pneuma is a life force which gives physis to the attributes or properties of substance and enables growth and characterizes beings as alive. The third kind of pneuma, in its most rarified and fiery form, is the soul or psyche. It pervades the living body, governs its motion, and conveys the powers of perception and reproduction. The rational soul or logica psyche, which grants the force of judgement to a mature human being is sometimes called the fourth grade or kind of pneuma.   

   

Cartesian Dualism  

          Ontological dualism, as it relates to substances, asserts that mind and matter are the two distinct foundations of being. It is the Cartesian belief that what is mental can exist outside the body, but that the body cannot think. The mind-body problem is a philosophical concern which pertains to mental states of the mind and physical states of the body. For example, feelings of sadness in the mind cause people to cry. Similarly, changes in the body’s chemistry via drugs such as antipsychotics or SSIRs, can significantly change one’s state of mind. These examples question whether the mind and body are two distinct entities and support the belief that the two of them causally interact. These reflections also raise this metaphysical consideration: if the mind and body are a single entity, then are mental events explicable in terms of physical events, or vice versa?   

  

Plato's Theory of Forms  

          Plato’s theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Ideas, translated from the Ancient Greek language into English as the word Forms. Forms are timeless, absolute, and unchangeable. They are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are mere imitations. Through the character of Socrates in his dialogues, Plato sometimes suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can supply knowledge of substances.   

          Forms are the essence of objects, without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless trees in the world, but the Form of tree-ness is at the core and is the essence of all of them. Horses, beauty, goodness, men, and women, have a Form. The phenomena of these Forms are mere shadows of a world of them that are transcendent to our corporeal world and are the essential bases of reality. A Form is aspatial, which means it is transcendent to space. It has no spatial dimensions, nor location in space. It is non-physical, and it is not simply an idea in the mind. It is rather super-ordinate to matter, and extra-mental, and has been compared to a “blueprint of perfection.” A Form is also atemporal, in other words it is transcendent to time. Because a Form is atemporal it does not exist within any time-period, rather it supplies the formal basis of time. It is neither eternal, nor mortal.   

 

Hylomorphism  

          The Ancient Greek language originally had no word for matter, so Aristotle adapted the word hyle to explain how very physical object is made of the same basic substance, and every entity or being (ousia) is a compound of matter and immaterial form. Hyle (or wood, matter) correlates with the shape of a substance. Although there can be intellectual hyle, sensible hyle is composed of four elements – fire, water, air, and earth – which exist in a combination of hot, moist, dry, and cold, and which are united to form everything. Matter is something out of which something is made. The matter of syllables is made from the matter of letters. Yet, hyle is a relative concept, and counts as compared to something else which is also hyle. As letters are the hyle of syllables, syllables are also hyle as they relate to words. Sensible hyle involves the form (eidos) which our sense organs perceive the thing to be. Forms are involved with qualia (qualities) such as colours, textures, tastes, smells, and sounds.   

          A soul is the form of a living hyle or that which makes a living thing alive. Aristotle says that a soul is related to its body as a form (morph) is related to matter. Moreover, the soul as the body’s substantial form enables personal identity to persist over time. Although a child’s body consists of different matter than does an adult’s body, it nevertheless shares a soul throughout a person’s life, and a person’s body can be identified by their soul which forms them. In subsequence, Aristotle says that a person’s body is no longer that person at death.  

 

Chapter 4: Corporeal And Incorporeal Substances  

          It is commonly stated that among the three varieties of substances are two distinct kinds. These two kinds are corporeal and incorporeal substances. In the First Meditation of Descartes, the reader is informed that corporeal substances are extended, have shape, exist in quantity and number, and endure in place and time.   

          Incorporeal substances have no material body or form. They lack physical substance or are immaterial. For example, ghosts are often considered to be incorporeal beings. Additionally, in legal contexts, incorporeal can describe rights or property that exist without intrinsic value, such as a franchise or intellectual property. This class of substances emphasizes the absence of tangible or physical presence, existing instead in the realm of ideas or concepts.   

          Re-examining the monist, dualist, and pluralist varieties of substances, let us determine whether they are corporeal or incorporeal. In the Stoic view of monistic substance, Pneuma is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the world. It is formed of the element of air mixed with the element of fire. Both elements– fire and air – are extended, have shape, and endure in place and time; therefore, pneuma is a corporeal substance.   

          The dualist variety of substance asserts that mind and matter are the two distinct foundations of being. The body is corporeal, but Descartes maintains that what is mental is incorporeal and can exist outside the body. However, the two foundations of being appear to be causally related. For example, feelings of sadness cause people to cry. If the mind and body are a single entity, then that potentially supports the belief that the mind is not immaterial; that, in so far as it causally interacts with the body, it endures in place and time, and although it appears to be without extension, it has a material form and shape which affects the body. Therefore, the dualist reality of the substance, or rather of those parts which are mind and body, are likely a single corporeal substance which indicates itself readily when matter is in point of contact with that which is mental. Thus, the example of SSIRs taken by mouth which affect the mind is an indication that the mind, being material, and capable of sensations, is corporeal.   

          Regarding Plato’s Theory of Forms, those entities are the non-physical essences of all things. A Form is aspatial, which means it has no spatial dimensions, nor location in space. It is non-physical, or immaterial, and it is not simply an idea in the mind. It is super-ordinate to matter; extra-mental; and atemporal, which means it does not exist within any time-period. Moreover, it is neither eternal, nor mortal. Yet such a theory begs the question how such a concept as the Form, which is immaterial, and therefore incorporeal, affects bodies which are corporeal substances, and how such incorporeality can be the basis of reality.   

          Concerning the pluralistic philosophy of hylomorphism, hyle is matter, and its corporeal substance is comprised of the four elements – fire, water, air, and earth – which exist in combination of hot, moist, dry, and cold. Forms are involved with qualia such as colors, textures, tastes, smells, and sounds. Therefore, as they interact in point of effect with matter, they are corporeal substances.   

 

Chapter Five: The Death of a Soul 

          The “immortality of the soul” is a popular idea. Adherents to this idea believe that the soul is exempt from dissolution because it is an incorporeal substance, without extent, devoid of parts, and not subjected to the laws of decomposition common to the body. Humans feel within themselves a concealed force, which gives direction to the motion of the body, and furthermore believe that the entirety of Nature owes its motion to an agent analogous to their soul; that this macrocosm acts upon the soul as the soul acts upon the body.   

          Humans are therefore double. They distinguish the soul from the body. Nature in all its attributes is also double. It is double because it exists not only in its physical emanations, but as a soul of the world. It is a widespread belief subsequently that the human soul is a portion of Divinity; and that, like the Godhead, it is immortal. Moreover, it is believed that after the death of the body, it departs to an abode for souls, supposing a region, which humans according to their hopes and fears, their desires and prejudices, imagine, and describe. The ardent desire to exist causes a desire to live forever; the frustration of the eternal life of the body, causes a desire and strong belief in the eternal life of the soul.   

          Yet the soul is material and not immaterial. The operations of the soul are in their entire extent, moreover, sensations of the body. Sensations are impulses collected by the organs of the body, through their macro structure as parts of the body and even by their sub-atomic particles. The presence of material objects transfers information to the brain, aided by nerves, which are dispersed throughout the body. Thus, the impressions which material objects excite on the organs, are themselves material. The soul, if it is an interior organ, has no faculty of drawing its ideas from within itself. Rather it is assailed by a multitude of sensations, and it is stored with a multitude of ideas, which it receives from exterior objects through the medium of the body. The soul cannot be distinguished from the body: it is born with it; it is modified by sensations; and it dies with it. The soul is the experience of being alive, in all the physical pains and pleasures of feelings and all the ideas it has. Thus, with the death of the body, so to comes the death of the soul.  

    

Chapter Six: The Insignificance of Immaterial Entities 

          The idea of an immaterial or incorporeal substance is merely an idea of what is the most which can be more properly understood about the material universe by the senses, or by concepts which test the limits of our senses. Thus, we imagine something divine that is infinite and not finite; immaterial, and not material; aspatial, and not spatial; and atemporal and not temporal. Just as we imbue the divine with qualities which we admire about ourselves in their utmost extremity, such as all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, and as existing simultaneously everywhere, rather than in a particular space, our conception of the divine is based on something which exceeds our limits as human beings; and, as we admire these traits because they transcend our limitations, we deify a being whose desirable attributes are in superabundance or of an infinite degree.   

          Yet anthropomorphizing that which is infinite or immaterial is a misappropriation of a term; for, something immaterial, or infinite, cannot contain the corporeal qualities which we ascribe to it. Thus, to say that something is immaterial would necessarily mean that it could not affect something which is material. Even if it were a spiritual substance, which was somehow incorporeal, it could not affect those things with bodies nor any corporeal substance. This is because something which is immaterial, does not exist as we understand what existence means.   

          Ghosts for example, if they are real and felt to be in our presence on any occasion, must necessarily be corporeal substances. To see or feel a point of contact with a ghost, or indeed have an omen to mention another example, necessarily means that they have bodies, or at least something material about them. If they were immaterial, our senses would not take note of such manifestations.   

          To insist that there could be incorporeal substances or immaterial objects, which is to say that entities could exist which escape our senses and our technologies, might be possible, but such beings, if they existed, would unlikely be the originators of ourselves or a divinity. Such an entity would be basically dissimilar to us, and woud not have intellectual qualities such as intelligence or love, formerly ascribed to its existence, nor would it have the ability to produce anything material; such anthropomorphisms indicate states like this which are impossible, since something incorporeal is not a physical object or living creature.   

           The universe, like the soul, is not immaterial: it is corporeal and exists as matter. Matter, not an immaterial entity or infinite divinity both comprises and is the creative cause of the universe, in all its varieties and forms of substance.   

   

 Chapter Seven: The Primacy of Matter  

          The terminology that theologians use concerning incorporeal substance becomes intelligible when applied to matter: for example, matter is both eternal and infinite. Matter has existed from all eternity, seeing that we cannot conceive of a substance which ever had a beginning, but rather would always involve something corporeal about its own being in a material universe. For the same reason, nature has always existed and always shall. Something cannot be created from nothing. It would necessarily have a material cause. Therefore, matter has always existed.   

          Matter is immutable; it is changeless in its nature. Rather it is only changing or multiplying by its forms and combinations. Matter is permanent; it cannot be annihilated. Matter always has existed, and it is impossible to conceive of it ever not existing, for such would imply that we could conceive of nothing, which is impossible.   

          Although we do not know the essence, or underlying nature, of matter, we have a knowledge of some of its properties or qualities. We also have a knowledge of the mode in which these properties or qualities of matter act upon us. The numerous combinations of matter have a commencement and an ending, yet matter itself, having never had a beginning, will never have an end. We also know that since it has aways existed, and is the substance of everything, it cannot be incorporeal.  

          Matter has no limits other than those which are determined by its own spatial existence. Thus, heavy bodies fall; light bodies seem to rise; fire burns; humans experience good and evil. That which cannot be conceived, or that which is immaterial, can only be without parts, devoid of extent, without mass, and would not move itself nor move other bodies.  

          To believe in the existence of anything that is not corporeal or made of matter impedes our understanding, and asks us to ascribe divinity, in many circumstances, to incomprehensible beings with inconceivable qualities, which exist only by the faculty of our imagination.   

      

Chapter Eight: The Antidote of Despair 

          My atheism is not so absolute in the idea in geometry; that is the Pythagorean monad; for that concept which indicates an object which is separate from a point that extends into a line,  tentatively prevents me from drawing the conclusion that God does not exist; There is an inevitability of drawing a conclusion in the debate between idealism and materialism of substance, because we are often forced to entertain only two alternatives. Consider this antidote: if a monad ever became a point and extended into a new line, then conditionally that would not preclude the fact of that God exists. Yet that remains to be seen posited "in position" or "with position added" as Pythagoras tells us:  

 

A point is that which has no part. (Euclid)   

The extremities of lines are points (Euclid)   

A point is that which is indivisible of parts. (Aristotle)   

A point is that a part of which is nothing. (Martianus Capella)   

A point is a “monad having position” or “with position added.” (Pythagoras)   

That which is indivisible every way in respect of magnitude and qua magnitude but has not position is a monad, while that which is similarly indivisible and has position is a point. (Aristotle)   

 

Chapter Nine: The Monad 

          As was generally recognized by Pythagoreans, the Monad is the source of number but is not itself a number. Unity characterizes the Monad. It is not itself an interval or number, it is the beginning of intervals and numbers. The Godhead alone creates unity and has the power of origination; therefore, the Monad is divine in nature. The Pythagoreans associated unity with the god Apollo, whose name in Greek means the ‘not-many’. The Monad is non-dimensional in nature or a non-spatial source of number. It is possible to define a point as “a Monad having position”.  

        The Monad represents the principle of Limit. It was the active principle imposing Limit on the opposing formless disordered principle of the indefinite Dyad. The Limit and the Unlimited formed the basic categories for the Pythagorean mathematical system. The Monad was also the divine point of origin for the Cosmos and represents in potential its totality, and all the numbers which comprise its essence. As Iamblichus observed,  

 

The Monad contains everything potentially. For, even if they are not yet actual, the Monad holds essentially the principles which are within all numbers, including those which are within the dyad. For the Monad is even and odd and even/odd; linear and plane and solid...and is the source of every relation, whether one of equality or inequality.  

  

          The Monad is treated as indivisible and represents the quality of sameness as opposed to the otherness of the dyad. As Theon of Smyrna observed, it is immutable,  

  

Unity (i.e. the Monad) is the principle of all things... It is indivisible, immutable, and never departs from its own nature through multiplication (1x1=1). Everything that is intelligible and not yet created exists in it.  

                 

          Since everything that is intelligible and not yet created exists in the Monad, and that contains everything in potential, then like a mechanical pencil which is poised in mid-air that is able to create a point on a piece of graph paper which might extend into any number of lines, neither materialism nor idealism satisfy me fully. Rather than despair, the wonder I had concerning what must be seems involved with what might be at the end of this short monograph concerning speculative metaphysics. Since, I have reached an agnostic truce with myself at this juncture, it is wisest to shrug off my loss of faith.   

  

 

Appendix a   

Meditations     

by René Descartes (1641) translated by John Cottingham (1984)   

  

First Meditation   

What can be called into doubt? 

   

          Some years ago, I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last. But the task looked an enormous one, and I began to wait until I should reach a mature enough age to ensure that no subsequent time of life would be more suitable for tackling such inquiries. This led me to put the project off for so long that I would now be to blame if by pondering over it any further I wasted the time still left for carrying it out. So today I have expressly rid my mind of all worries and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.   

          But to accomplish this, it will not be necessary for me to show that all my opinions are false, which is something I could perhaps never manage. Reason now leads me to think that I should hold back my assent from opinions which are not completely certain and indubitable just as carefully as I do from those which are patently false. So, for the purpose of rejecting all my opinions, it will be enough if I find in each of them at least some reason for doubt. And to do this I will not need to run through them all individually, which would be an endless task. Once the foundations of a building are undermined, anything built on them collapses of its own accord; so, I will go straight for the basic principles on which all my former beliefs rested.   

          Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time, I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.   

          Yet although the senses occasionally deceive us with respect to objects which are very small or in the distance, there are many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even though they are derived from the senses—for example, that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on. Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapors of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. But such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself.   

          A brilliant piece of reasoning! As if I were not a man who sleeps at night and regularly has all the same experiences [1] while asleep as madmen do when awake—indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events—that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire—when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the moment my eyes are certainly wide awake when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my head and it is not asleep; as I stretch out and feel my hand I do so deliberately, and I know what I am doing. All this would not happen with such distinctness to someone asleep. Indeed! As if I did not remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, this very feeling only reinforces the notion that I may be asleep.   

          Suppose then that I am dreaming, and that these particulars— that my eyes are open, that I am moving my head and stretching out my hands—are not true. Perhaps, indeed, I do not even have such hands or such a body at all. Nonetheless, it must surely be admitted that the visions which come in sleep are like paintings, which must have been fashioned in the likeness of things that are real, and hence that at least these general kinds of things— eyes, head, hands and the body as a whole—are things which are not imaginary but are real and exist. For even when painters try to create sirens and satyrs with the most extraordinary bodies, they cannot give them natures which are new in all respects; they simply jumble up the limbs of different animals. Or if perhaps they manage to think up something so new that nothing remotely similar has ever been seen before—something which is therefore completely fictitious and unreal—at least the colors used in the composition must be real. By similar reasoning, although these general kinds of things— eyes, head, hands and so on—could be imaginary, it must at least be admitted that certain other even simpler and more universal things are real. These are as it were the real colors from which we form all the images of things, whether true or false, that occur in our thought.   

          This class appears to include corporeal nature in general, and its extension; the shape of extended things; the quantity, or size and number of these things; the place in which they may exist, the time through which they may endure, [2] and so on.   

          So a reasonable conclusion from this might be that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal only with the simplest and most general things, regardless of whether they really exist in nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable. For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five, and a square has no more than four sides. It seems impossible that such transparent truths should incur any suspicion of being false.   

          And yet firmly rooted in my mind is the long-standing opinion that there is an omnipotent God who made me the kind of creature that I am. How do I know that he has not brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, while at the same time ensuring that all these things appear to me to exist just as they do now? What is more, just as I consider that others sometimes go astray in cases where they think they have the most perfect knowledge, how do I know that God has not brought it about that I too go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or in some even simpler matter, if that is imaginable? But perhaps God would not have allowed me to be deceived in this way, since he is said to be supremely good. But if it were inconsistent with his goodness to have created me such that I am deceived all the time, it would seem equally foreign to his goodness to allow me to be deceived even occasionally; yet this last assertion cannot be made. [3]    

          Perhaps there may be some who would prefer to deny the existence of so powerful a God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain. Let us not argue with them but grant them that everything said about God is a fiction. According to their supposition, then, I have arrived at my present state by fate or chance or a continuous chain of events, or by some other means; yet since deception and error seem to be imperfections, the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time. I have no answer to these arguments but am finally compelled to admit that there is not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised; and this is not a flippant or ill-considered conclusion but is based on powerful and well-thought-out reasons. So, in the future I must withhold my assent from these former beliefs just as carefully as I would from obvious falsehoods, if I want to discover any certainty. [4]    

          But it is not enough merely to have noticed this; I must make an effort to remember it. My habitual opinions keep coming back, and, despite my wishes, they capture my belief, which is as if it were bound over to them as a result of long occupation and the law of custom. I shall never get out of the habit of confidently assenting to these opinions, so long as I suppose them to be what in fact they are, namely highly probable opinions— opinions which, despite the fact that they are in a sense doubtful, as has just been shown, it is still much more reasonable to believe than to deny. In view of this, I think it will be a good plan to turn my will in completely the opposite direction and deceive myself, by pretending for a time that these former opinions are utterly false and imaginary. I shall do this until the weight of preconceived opinion is counter-balanced and the distorting influence of habit no longer prevents my judgment from perceiving things correctly. In the meantime, I know that no danger or error will result from my plan, and that I cannot possibly go too far in my distrustful attitude. This is because the task now at hand does not involve action but merely the acquisition of knowledge.   

          I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment. I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things. I shall stubbornly and firmly persist in this meditation; and, even if it is not in my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, [5] that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will be unable to impose on me in the slightest degree. But this is an arduous undertaking, and a kind of laziness brings me back to normal life. I am like a prisoner who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep; as he begins to suspect that he is asleep, he dreads being woken up and goes along with the pleasant illusion as long as he can. In the same way, I happily slide back into my old opinions and dread being shaken out of them, for fear that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labor when I wake, and that I shall have to toil not in the light, but amid the inextricable darkness of the problems I have now raised.   

 

Notes  

   

1. ... and in my dreams regularly represent to myself the same things’ (French version).  

2. ... the place where they are, the time which measures their duration’ (French version).   

3. ‘... yet I cannot doubt that he does allow this’ (French version).   

4. ‘... in the sciences’ (added in French version).  ... ‘nevertheless, it is in my power to suspend my judgment’ (French Version)