"Meditations On First Philosophy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Descartes Rene)

it these things that are lacking to it, completing those which
are imperfect, and yourselves taking the trouble to give a
more ample explanation of those things which have need of it,
or at least making me aware of the defects so that I may apply
myself to remedy them4 еwhen this is done and when finally the
reasonings by which I prove that there is a God, and that the
human soul differs from the body, shall be carried to that
point of perspicuity to which I am sure they can be carried in
order that they may be esteemed as perfectly exact
demonstrations, if you deign to authorize your approbation and
to render public testimony to their truth and certainty, I do
not doubt, I say, that henceforward all the errors and false
opinions which have ever existed regarding these two questions
will soon be effaced from the minds of men. For the truth
itself will easily cause all men of mind and learning to
subscribe to your judgment; and your authority will cause the
atheists, who are usually more arrogant than learned or
judicious, to rid themselves of their spirit of contradiction
or lead them possibly themselves to defend the reasonings
which they find being received as demonstrations by all
persons of consideration, lest they appear not to understand
them. And, finally, all others will easily yield to such a
mass of evidence, and there will be none who dares to doubt
the existence of God and the real and true distinction between
the human soul and the body. It is for you now in your
singular wisdom to judge of the importance of the
establishment of such beliefs [you who see the disorders
produced by the doubt of them]5 . But it would not become me
to say more in consideration of the cause of God and religion
to those who have always been the most worthy supports of the
Catholic Church.



Preface to the Reader.



I have already slightly touched on these two questions of
God and the human soul in the Discourse on the Method of
rightly conducting the Reason and seeking truth in the
Sciences, published in French in the year 1637. Not that I
had the design of treating these with any thoroughness, but
only so to speak in passing, and in order to ascertain by the
judgment of the readers how I should treat them later on. For
these questions have always appeared to me to be of such
importance that I judged it suitable to speak of them more
than once; and the road which I follow in the explanation of
them is so little trodden, and so far removed from the
ordinary path, that I did not judge it to be expedient to set