Géraud De Cordemoy Six Discourses on the Distinction Between the Body and the Soul and Treatises on Metaphysics

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Six Discourses on the Distinction between the Body and the Soul and Treatises on Metaphysics OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Géraud de Cordemoy Six Discourses on the Distinction between the Body and the Soul and Treatises on Metaphysics

translated with an introduction by Steven Nadler

1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Steven Nadler 2015 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014949660 ISBN 978–0–19–871331–9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Contents

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction: Géraud de Cordemoy and Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame 1 Géraud de Cordemoy: Life and Works 3 A Cartesian Decade 10 Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame en Six Discours 14 Cordemoy’sInﬂuence 45 Texts and Translations 49 References 50 Six Discourses on the Distinction between the Body and the Soul

To Your Majesty 54 Preface 56 First Discourse: On Bodies and Matter 60 Second Discourse: On the Motion and Rest of Bodies 70 Third Discourse: On Natural and Artiﬁcial Machines 81 Fourth Discourse: On the First Cause of Motion 93 Fifth Discourse: On the Union of Mind and Body 102 Sixth Discourse: On the Distinction Between Body and Soul 108 Treatises on Metaphysics

I. What Constitutes the Happiness or Misery of Minds 145 II. That God Does Everything That is Real in Our Actions, Without Depriving Us of Freedom 150

Index of Names 155 Index of Topics 156 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Ullrich Langer and Sandrine Roux for their help on some ﬁner points of French translation, and to Peter Momtchiloff at Oxford University Press for his support of this project. I am also very grateful to the two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press for their extensive comments on an early draft of this translation; I very much appreciate the time and effort they generously put into helping make the translation more accurate and a better read. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Introduction Géraud de Cordemoy and Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame

It was not long after the death of the great René Descartes in 1650 that his philosophy was well on its way to becoming the dominant philosophical and scientific paradigm in Europe. There were, of course, competing intellectual traditions in this period, including materialism (represented most prominently in its Epicurean form by Pierre Gassendi, and in a non-Epicurean form by Thomas Hobbes)1 and skepticism, in both libertine (Pierre Charon, La Mothe Le Vayer) and religious (Blaise Pascal, Pierre Bayle) guises.2 Moreover, Cartesianism was still a contentious philosophy with plenty of powerful opponents. It was regarded as a radical break with philosophical, scientific, and even religious tradition, and came in for a good deal of censure from French ecclesiastic and civil authorities. It was also attacked by the more conservative elements in the academic faculties, which had long been wedded to Aristotelian philosophy.3 And yet, despite these difficulties, the principles of Cartesian epistemology, metaphysics, and natural philosophy informed much of intellectual life in the academies, conférences, and salons of Paris and elsewhere (and eventually the colleges and universities as well) until their eclipse by Newtonian science in the eighteenth century. Even the sessions of the official Académie des Sciences, founded by Louis XIV at the instigation of his finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, were dominated by discussions of Cartesian physics and mathematics. As Francisque

1 For the contrast between Cartesian philosophy and 17th-cent. Epicureanism (both its Gassendist form and more generally), see Lennon 1993 and Wilson 2008. 2 See Popkin 2003. 3 On the censure of Cartesianism in the 17th cent., see Cousin 1841. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Bouillier, the nineteenth-century author of a magisterial history of Car- tesian philosophy, puts it (albeit with not a little exaggeration), “during more than a half-century, there did not appear in France a single book of philosophy, there was not a single philosophical discussion, that did not have Descartes as its object, that was neither for nor against his system.”4 1666 was a watershed year in the fortunes of Cartesian philosophy in France. Barely three years after Descartes’s works were placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books (donec corrigantur—“until they are corrected”), two of the most important treatises in that philosophical camp were published. Both works were written by members of the professional class who found time to pursue philosophy in a serious way, both dealt with the same general metaphysical themes, and both offered novel and creative solutions to some residual problems bequeathed by their intellectual mentor. Louis de La Forge (1632–66) was a physician in Saumur who had recently participated in the posthumous publication of Descartes’s treatise on the human body (the Treatise on Man [Traité de l’homme], 1664) by supplying illustrations and extensive editorial and a philosophical commentary. In January 1666,5 he published his own Treatise on the Human Mind (Traité de l’esprit de l’homme). Completed sometime in late 1665 but based on ideas La Forge had been entertaining for several years, this was a relatively faithful but nonetheless innovative and inﬂu- ential continuation of Descartes’s project of investigating human nature, and especially the problematic relationship between mind and body. Then, in the same month that La Forge’s book appeared, the Parisian publisher Florentin Lambert, housed on the rue Saint Jacques, brought out a 230-page treatise (in-12) with the title Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame en six discours pour servir à l’éclaircissement de la physique (The Distinction Between the Body and the Soul in Six Discourses, to serve for the elucidation of physics—I will henceforth refer to this as Six Dis- courses). Its author, a 40-year-old lawyer named Géraud (alternatively spelled Gerauld) de Cordemoy, was already well-known within Parisian Cartesian circles; the publication of the Six Discourses marked the

4 Bouillier 1868, i. 430. 5 The 1st edn bore a 1666 publication date, although the work was apparently printed in Dec. 1665. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  beginning of a short period in which he took a leading role in the public defense of this still relatively new philosophy. Cordemoy’s relatively concise treatise (at least by early modern stand- ards) represents one of the most important and inﬂuential, if unorthodox, works in the history of Cartesianism. The Six Discourses is among the original seventeenth-century sources of the famous causal doctrine of occasionalism, which it presented years before that doctrine’s more extensive and celebrated appearance in Malebranche’s works. Cordemoy also argued, contrary to some of the foundational principles of Cartesian metaphysics, for an atomistic conception of matter. While his views were harshly criticized by fellow Cartesians, no less a thinker than Leibniz found him to be one of the more perspicacious members of that movement and found much to admire in the Six Discourses.

Géraud de Cordemoy: Life and Works Cordemoy was born in Paris in October 1626.6 He was one of four children, and the only son, of Géraud de Cordemoy (b. 1591) and his wife Nicole Bucé. The family was well-off, and descended from nobility in Auvergne. Géraud père was, for a time, Professor of Human Lan- guages at the Université de Paris, and subsequently was appointed controller of tithes in Langres. By 1667, he was a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris. Géraud fils would follow his father into a Parisian legal career, although his real passion lay elsewhere. We know next to nothing about Cordemoy’s life until his marriage to Marie de Chazelles, which must have taken place sometime before December 1651, when Louis-Géraud, the first of their five children, was born. Nor do we have much information about his legal career, although he reportedly served the Parlement with some distinction (if not great eloquence).7 However, Cordemoy seems to have been constitutionally unsuited for the life of a Parisian lawyer—he apparently had little taste for the

6 October 6 was the date either of his birth or of his baptism; there seems to be some disagreement on this. For fuller biographical studies of Cordemoy, including examination of the documentary sources, see Battail 1973, and the “Étude bio-bibliographique” by Pierre Clair and François Girbal, in Cordemoy 1968, 15–84. 7 For Cordemoy’s legal career, see Cordemoy 1968, 17–22. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

duplicity and disingenuousness required for success in that domain, where one often had to use great rhetorical flourish to defend what Cordemoy considered (according to his son) “bad cases (mauvaises causes)”8—and he sought intellectual fulfillment elsewhere. By the late 1650s, he was a regular attendee at a number of philosophical associations in Paris. These included the salon held by Mme de Bonnevaux in her home; the popular academy run by Henri-Louis Habert de Montmort; the scientific conferences convened on Wednesdays by Jacques Rohault; the Monday evening academies presided over by Guillaume de Lamoignon; and the academy established by Pierre Michon (the abbé Bourdelot) at the residence of the Prince of Condé. Many Parisian academies were not associated with any particular school of thought, and they often attracted large and diverse groups of people. Among the eclectic mix of intellectual luminaries at Michon’s liberal and ecumenical meetings were Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Gassendi, Blaise Pascal, and Marin Mersenne. However, several of the gatherings frequented by Cordemoy were essentially Cartesian study groups. Mme de Bonnevaux, we are told, was “very learned” in the philosophy of Descartes. “Never has the philosophy of M. Descartes received more honor nor has it ever been more esteemed since the approbation of this illustrious woman, who dissipated the shadows around it and put it in the most beautiful light ever.”9 Perhaps even more important from the perspective of Cordemoy’s intellectual development were the weekly Wednesday conferences (les mercredis) held by Rohault (1618–72), a prominent Cartesian who gave expert lessons in the new philosophy’s mechanistic physics, and the academy hosted by the well-connected Montmort, who was an eminent Cartesian sympathizer—he wrote a poem in praise of Descartes’s physics—as well as a good friend of Gassendi (whose complete works he would later edit). It was at one of the meetings of the Montmort group that Cordemoy made his first philosophical presentation: a “Discourse on the Action of Bodies,” essentially a study in Cartesian physics that would appear in print in the 1664 edition of Descartes’s treatise The World and two years later be incorporated into Cordemoy’s first published book, the Six Discourses.

8 Cordemoy 1968, 17. 9 The report is from Marguerite Buffet, writing in 1668; cited in Cordemoy 1968, 29. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

By his late thirties, then, Cordemoy seems to have lost interest in his legal career (although he may have continued to practice law) and gained a substantial Cartesian education. With the publication of the Six Dis- courses in 1666, his renown spread beyond the world of the Cartesian salons and he became regarded in the Republic of Letters as one of the movement’s leaders. When Descartes’s remains were returned from Stockholm in 1667 to be interred in Paris, Cordemoy was among those gathered for a ceremony to commemorate the occasion. Descartes’s early biographer, Adrien Baillet, writing in 1691, relates that

As they left the Church of Saint Geneviève, M. d’Alibert led several qualified people and some of the principal Cartesians who had been at the ceremony to the home of the famous Bocquet, where he had prepared for them a splendid and sumptuous meal. Among those who gathered there whose name we have not forgotten were M. de Montmort ...M. d’Ormesson ...M. de Guedreville ...M. d’Amboile fils de M. d’Ormesson ...M. de Fleury, then a lawyer and now Abbé de Locdieu and sub-preceptor to My Lord the Duke de Bourgogne and to My Lord the Duke d’Anjou, M. de Cordemoy, also a lawyer, and recently tutor to My Lord [the Dauphin], M. Rohault, son-in-law to M. Clerselier and chief of the Cartesians.10 Cordemoy’s active work on behalf of Cartesian philosophy would, in the end, be short-lived. In early 1668, he published a long letter to Gabriel Cossart, a Jesuit priest and professor at the College of Clermont. The letter is a follow-up to some conversations that the two men had had in late 1667, in which the Jesuit had argued against the Cartesian view that non-human animals do not really have souls but are simply machines operating mechanically; Cossart had also questioned the compatibility of Descartes’s philosophy with scripture. In the Letter to the Reverend Father Cossart of the Company of Jesus, to show that everything that Monsieur Descartes has written on the system of the world and on the soul of beasts seems to have been drawn from the first chapter of Genesis (Lettre écrite au R. P. Cossart de la Compagnie de Jésus, pour montrer que tout ce que Monsieur Descartes à écrit du Systême du Monde, & de l’ame des Bêtes, semble être tiré du premier Chapitre de la Genese), published in 1668, Cordemoy, despite his distrust of fancy language, shows himself capable of great eloquence, even hyperbole, when it comes to defending Descartes: “The majority of his [Descartes’s] views are so conformable with what Moses has said, that he seems to have become a philosopher

10 Baillet 1691 [1987], 442. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

only by reading this prophet” (CG 257).11 One contemporary critic of Cartesianism, Gabriel Daniel, calls Cordemoy’s Letter “a veritable Car- tesian manifesto.”12 Later that same year, Cordemoy brought out his Physical Discourse on Language (Discours physique de la parole). Cordemoy envisioned the Physical Discourse as a continuation of sorts of the Six Discourses. It has sometimes been called the “seventh discourse” of that six-part treatise, and in the period it was perhaps Cordemoy’s most well-known work.13 The subject is primarily the problem of other minds, and Cordemoy expands on some considerations offered by Descartes in part 5 of the Discourse on Method on behalf of the belief that some of the bodies in the world of our experience are animated by (human) souls. Descartes had sought a way to distinguish “automata, or moving machines,” purely material beings that operate solely from “the disposition of their organs”—which is also how he believes all non-human animals function—from human beings, who are endowed with immaterial souls. How does one know that one is in the presence of a real person rather than a robot? The two criteria he offers are behavioral. He proposes that, while certain machines, as well as the bodies of certain animals (such as parrots), can be organized and made to move so that they “utter words like we do,” it takes the presence of a mind for a body actually to engage in true, identiﬁable linguistic behavior (understood broadly to include any kind of authentic symbolic communication) and to respond appropriately, by word or by deed, to the utterances and behavior of others. Referring to automata and non-human animals, Descartes says that “they could never use words, or put together other signs, as we do in order to declare out thoughts to others ...It is inconceivable that a machine should produce different arrangements of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to whatever is said in its presence, as the dullest of men can do.”14 Moreover, only a being with a soul has the ability to react to circumstances in the various,

11 I have used the abbreviation ‘CG’ in my citations of Cordemoy’s philosophical texts; it refers to Cordemoy 1968 (edited by Clair and Girbal). 12 Gouhier 1926, 95. 13 In fact, the Six Discourses end with this statement: “[i]n what follows, pursuing my investigations beyond my own case, I will try to discover if, among the bodies that surround me, there are any to which I must believe souls are united” (CG 189). 14 Discourse on Method, part 5, Descartes 1964–76, vi. 56–7; Descartes 1985–91, i. 140). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  often unpredictable, and creative ways that our survival and flourishing demand. “It is, for all practical purposes, impossible for a machine to have enough different organs to make it act in all the contingencies of life in the way in which our reason makes it act.”15 In other words, if you want to know that you are in the presence of a real human being and not an automaton, pay attention to how it speaks and watch how it behaves. In the Physical Discourse, Cordemoy pursues this general topic in some depth, at the same time offering a series of reflections on language, its various forms, its function, and its acquisition.16 Having in the Six Discourses covered the union of mind and body in his own case, from the first-person perspective, he now approaches the question from the third-person perspective and inquires as to when is one justified in believing about another body that it is also united with a soul.

Among the bodies that I see in the world, I perceive some that are similar to mine in all respects, and I admit that I am very inclined to believe that they are united to souls like mine. But when I consider that my own body performs so many operations distinct from those of the soul, and that whatever contributes to its subsistence does not depend on the soul in any manner, I ﬁnd that I have some reason to doubt that these other bodies are united with souls, at least until I have examined all their actions. (CG 201) What is it, then, that these other bodies, so similar to my own, do that leads me to conclude that they are ensouled—that is, that there are other minds in the world? Cordemoy insists that the key lies not in the basic physical actions that we see bodies perform on a regular, even law-like basis: eating, drinking, sleeping, waking, walking, breathing, etc. All of these can be explained mechanistically, without any thought involved and “through a certain ordering of organs and parts [of matter].” Rather, the distinctive behavior that warrants attributing a soul to a body is the use of language.

15 Descartes 1964–76, vi. 57; Descartes 1985–91, i. 140. 16 In one sense, Descartes and Cordemoy are addressing slightly different questions. Descartes is interested in how we know that we are in the presence of a human being (which is assumed to be a being with a soul or mind) and not a mindless automaton. Cordemoy, on the other hand, is interested in how we know that the human beings around us are, unlike other bodily beings, endowed with minds. But for both philosophers the deep question is the same: how does one know that one is in the presence of a being with a soul. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

I proposed in the six Discourses that have preceded this one [i.e. in the Six Discourses] the means by which one can know oneself; and I have shown that it consists in nothing more than distinguishing in oneself the operations of the soul and those of the body. I now propose the means by which one can know others, and this means is language (la Parole). I explain, as far as I am able, what it is, and ...I distinguish precisely everything in it that comes from the soul from what it borrows from the body. (CG 196) It is the creative linguistic activity of certain bodies in my environment— the irregular, context-sensitive variability in their use of words—that offers compelling evidence that those bodies are, like my own body, endowed with minds. The way in which I see other bodies employ word-sounds, so similar to the way in which I know I use word-sounds to express my thoughts to others, leaves me “practically unable to doubt” that those other bodies are also trying to express thoughts. Likewise, Cordemoy continues, one is struck by the effects that one’s own words have on the behavior of other bodies—for example, another bodily individual will respond verbally to my question, or it will do what I speciﬁcally ask it to do—leading one to conclude that those words have not merely a mechanical kinetic inﬂuence on those bodies but that they are “understood” (CG 203). These general observations lead Cordemoy to inquire at length into the nature and origin of language, and symbolic communication in general, and especially what role the body and its material processes play in this phenomenon and what role the mind and its thoughts play. (He even speculates on how two disembodied minds might directly communicate without the use of verbal language.) “This is the most certain means I have of knowing whether all the bodies that perfectly resemble mine are, in fact, men like me” (CG 203). Finally, among Cordemoy’s writings there are the two Treatises on Metaphysics (Traitez de métaphysique), unpublished in his lifetime but almost certainly composed shortly after the Six Discourses and the Physical Discourse, in so far as they are also devoted to the general topic of mind–body union.17 In these short pieces, Cordemoy pays

17 Battail (1973, 18) dates them c.1668–70. The only problem with any dating of these treatises close to the Six Discourses is the similarity between their account of the will and what Malebranche says about the will in the Search After Truth, published in 1674–5. If Cordemoy’s account was inﬂuenced by Malebranche, then the two Treatises on Metaphysics were not published until after the appearance of Malebranche’s work. Of course, it is OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  particular attention to the problem of human freedom. One treatise— “What constitutes the happiness or misery of minds”—addresses freedom through an examination of the nature of happiness. The key to discovering and acquiring true happiness, Cordemoy insists, is the proper use of the senses, an informed direction of the natural and “incessant” inclination in the human being toward happiness (an inclination that is “the cause of all his actions”), and paying careful attention to the clear and distinct ideas of the faculty of understanding. One must know what happiness is, one must want it, and one must have the proper affective sensibility to pleasure and pain. In the other, even shorter essay—“That God does everything that is real in our actions, without depriving us of freedom”—Cordemoy considers the problem of human freedom in the light of the occasionalist principle for which, as we shall see, he argues at length in the Six Discourses.18 These five works—totaling no more than 200 pages in the modern edition of Cordemoy’s uvres—constitute the sum of Cordemoy’s philosophical output, the urge for which appears to have been exhausted already by the early 1670s. As attested by Baillet’s recitation (written many years after the fact) of those whom he knew to have been present at the grand occasion to honor the memory of Descartes when his remains were repatriated, Cordemoy soon found himself yet another new vocation, not to mention a depend- able means of support. In 1670, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet—Bishop of Condom, in Gascony, and later to become the Bishop of Meaux—was appointed tutor to the eldest son of Louis XIV.19 Bossuet was a fan of Cartesian philosophy and a friend of Cordemoy’s, and in 1673 he arranged to have Cordemoy join the Dauphin’s educational cohort as lecteur (essentially, Bossuet’s assistant tutor). This was a good opportun- ity for Cordemoy to put his own educational ideas into practice. A few possible that the line of influence went the other way, with Malebranche taking his lead from Cordemoy, either because of what he read in Cordemoy’s treatises—although (since they were not published in Cordemoy’s lifetime) he would have had to see them only in manuscript form (and they may have circulated in Cartesian circles)—or from what Cordemoy might have said in conversation. 18 These two treatises first appeared in a posthumous collection of Cordemoy’s unpublished writings, edited by his son Louis-Géraud: Divers Traitez de Metaphysique, d’Histoire, et de Politique (Paris, 1691). 19 Louis “le grand Dauphin” would die in 1711, before his father, and thus never assumed the throne. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

years before taking up this position, Cordemoy had composed a letter to his friend Claude Fleury with the title On the Reformation of a State (De la Réformation d’un État). This treatise is a political-pedagogical excur- sus in which Cordemoy lays out his vision of the ideal state and recom- mends the proper education and training from childhood—including the necessary spiritual and physical exercises and alimentary regime, starting from age 5—for a professional political elite that will govern it. In 1675, Cordemoy was elected to the Académie Française. He was not the first Cartesian to be granted this honor—sympathizers like Mont- mort and Bossuet were already among the ranks of the immortels. (Cordemoy’s election to the Académie came one year after that of Pierre-Daniel Huet, a vehement anti-Cartesian who, in 1689, would publish the Condemnation of Cartesian Philosophy [Censura philosophiae cartesianae]. One can only imagine Huet’s pique when, in 1683, Cordemoy was named the academy’s director.) While engaged with his teaching duties in the royal household, Cor- demoy began writing a monumental history of France. This work, originally intended for the edification of the Dauphin, was still unfin- ished at the time of Cordemoy’s death on October 15, 1684.20

A Cartesian Decade In epistemology, Cartesian philosophy was deﬁned by an approach to knowledge grounded in what Descartes had called “clear and distinct ideas,” or intellectual notions that offered a more perspicuous and fruitful understanding of the nature of things than the obscure and confused testimony of the senses and the imagination.21 In metaphysics, it was characterized by substance dualism, or the doctrine that there are two kinds of created, ﬁnite substance—mind and body—and that they are radically different in essence.22 Minds and bodies have nothing whatsoever in common: neither in their fundamental natures nor in the kinds of properties (or modes) of which they are capable. Mind (or soul) is un- extended (non-spatial) thinking substance (res cogitans), and its modes are ideas and volitions. Body is extended substance (res extensa), and its

20 The Histoire de France was published in 1685. 21 See especially Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditations 2 and 3. 22 Meditations, Meditation 6. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  modes are shape, size, divisibility, and mobility. Mind can exist without body, and body can exist without mind. A human being is constituted by a union of the two substances. For most Cartesian philosophers of the seventeenth century, all other individual things in nature are purely material substances. Rocks, trees, and even non-human animals are all soul-less configurations of matter and operate according to strict mechanical principles. Although animals happen to be particularly complex bodies, they, too, move and respond to stimuli in non-thinking, machine- like ways. In the domain of natural philosophy, and especially physics, Carte- sians rejected the Aristotelian hylomorphic model of bodies, whereby scientific explanations of natural phenomena appeal to both a material substratum and immaterial “forms.” According to Aristotelian metaphysics, the “thisness” or numerical individuation of bodies in nature derives from their matter. The essential or species properties of any body—what makes this parcel of matter a human being and that parcel of matter a horse—derives from the substantial form that inheres in the matter. The thing’s active causal powers and dynamic properties—why lions roar, horses gallop, fire burns, and trees grow leaves—are a function both of the substantial form and of various secondary forms and real qualities that also inhere in the substance. In Cartesian science, by contrast, all natural phenomena are explained according to the principles of the mechanical philosophy. There are no immaterial or soul-like forms in nature. Whatever happens, happens solely through the motion, position, and impact of particles of matter of varying size and shape. Because matter is identical with extension, the Cartesian cosmos (in its orthodox version) is a plenum: there is no such thing as a vacuum, that is, a space (extension) devoid of matter. Indi- vidual bodies are generated from the indefinite expanse of created matter through motion, which is added to extension by God when creating the universe. In Cartesian physics, the ordinary behavior of bodies follows a number of laws that govern their basic motions and whatever changes in motion are brought about by collision.23 In the years after Descartes’s death, especially between 1663, when the Vatican issued its condemnation of Descartes’s writings, and 1674, when

23 The summa of Descartes’s science is his Principles of Philosophy (1644). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) published the first volume of his philosophical masterpiece The Search After Truth (De la recherche de la vérité)—a ground-breaking and unorthodox work that significantly modified some essential elements of Descartes’s epistemology and metaphysics in the light of Augustinian principles and thereby ushered in a new era in the history of Cartesianism—the new philosophy rapidly achieved great (if not uncontroversial) influence. This was particularly true in the Netherlands, where Descartes had spent most of his adult years and where philosophers such as Johannes Clauberg and Arnold Geulincx promoted his system within Dutch universities.24 But Cartesian metaphysics and the mechanistic physics grounded in extension and motion also generated a number of philosophical (and theological) problems. Thus, a coterie of second-generation Cartesians, primarily in France, made it their mission to clarify, complete, expand and, in some cases, correct Descartes’s philosophical and scientific program, either through small adjustments or major overhauls.25 The Benedictine monk Robert Desgabets (1610–78) was a generally orthodox, although not uncritical, disciple who defended Descartes’s views on mind and body while, at the same time, arguing for a more important role of sensory perception in the acquisition of knowledge. He also took it upon himself to defend the compatibility of Cartesian metaphysics with Catholic dogma on Eucharistic transubstantiation. The Cartesian account of matter, without the “real qualities” of medieval Aristotelians, seemed to theological critics to make it difficult to account for the “real presence” of Christ’sbodyunderthe“accidents” (appearances) of bread and wine in the Eucharist.26 Jacques Rohault—and, later, his student Pierre-Sylvain Régis (1632–1707), who also studied with Desgabets but did not really become publicly philosophically active until a decade later, in the wake of Malebranche—made important contributions to the development and

24 See Verbeek 1992. 25 For a general overview of the reception of Cartesianism in the 17th cent., see the essays in Schmaltz 2005. For an inﬂuential study of some of the metaphysical and epistemological problems facing Cartesianism, see Watson 1966. 26 Desgabets’s writings include the Considérations sur l’état présent de la controverse touchant le Très Saint-Sacrement de l’autel (1671), and the Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la vérité (1675, his response to Simon Foucher). For a study of the controversy over Descartes’s account of the Eucharist and of Desgabets’s role in it, see Armogathe 1977. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  dissemination of Cartesian science. Rohault’s Treatise on Physics (Traité de physique, 1671), which derived from the weekly lectures he held in his home in Paris, became a standard textbook of Cartesian physics, while Régis provided a systematic overview and defense of Cartesian epistemology, metaphysics, and natural philosophy in his Complete Course of Philosophy, or General System According to the Principles of Descartes (Cours entier de philosophie, ou Système générale selon les principes de Descartes, 1691—henceforth, General System). Like Desgabets, Régis argued for a more empiricist approach to knowledge than what is found in Descartes’s works; he also defended Cartesianism against epistemological and metaphysical objections posed by the skeptic Simon Foucher and by Huet in his Condemnation. Desgabets and Régis (and, to a lesser extent, Rohault) were also among the few Cartesians who followed Descartes in making the extreme and highly contentious claim that the eternal truths of mathematics, metaphysics, and morality are created by God with an “indifferent” and arbitrary will.27 This unusual doctrine was, Descartes had argued, essential for safeguarding divine omnipotence and the simplicity of God’s nature—the divine attributes of will and understanding must be one and the same, he believed, lest there be division and plurality in God; and so for God to know that one plus one equals two is identical to God willing that one plus one equals two. Only some of Descartes’s disciples were willing to follow him down this radical theological path. Desgabets, Rohault, La Forge, Cordemoy, and, later, Régis thus formed the core of the second generation of faithful French Cartesians who defended and extended Descartes’s metaphysical, epistemological, scien- tiﬁc, and even theological principles. This is not to say that they were all in agreement on all matters; they were divided even on some of the most basic principles of Cartesianism. But they were united in their commitment to seeing the system become as internally consistent and widely accepted as possible—and not just within the private homes and academies of Paris. If this meant departing on occasion from Cartesian orthodoxy, then so be it. In fact, Cordemoy, with the main doctrines of the Six Discourses, may rightfully be seen as the most unorthodox of orthodox Cartesians in the mid-seventeenth century.

27 An important study of Desgabets and Régis is Schmaltz 2002. For Desgabets, see also Cook 2008. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame en Six Discours As beﬁts a short philosophical treatise, the Six Discourses is relatively narrow in its focus. Unlike Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy or Régis’s General System, this is not, at least ostensibly, a summa philosophiae covering metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy. Corde- moy’s primary subject is the human being. His aim, as stated in the Preface, is to encourage the reader “to turn his gaze upon himself (rentrer en soy-même)” and come to know the parts of which he is composed. Those parts are, of course, the soul and the body. “There is hardly anyone who takes the time to consider the marvels of the body and the soul,” he says in the very ﬁrst sentence. “These are ...two distinct things [ouv- rages] each of which is admirable on its own, and which together form a remarkable compound” (CG 89). In the Six Discourses, Cordemoy examines the human soul and the human body in order to reveal their different individual natures and functions—“what in us belongs to and is caused by the soul, and what by the body”—as well as the nature of their relationship in the compound substance to which they belong. At the same time, the Six Discourses is broad in its philosophical scope, as Cordemoy, pursuing his investigation of the distinction and union of mind and body, does end up addressing a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, natural philosophy, and even ethics. The subtitle of the treatise, after all, is “to serve for the elucidation of physics”; and nothing serves mechanistic physics better than emptying the world of all non-material elements (such as Aristo- telian forms) and leaving behind only geometric matter—precisely the result achieved by defending the Cartesian distinction between mind and body. Descartes permeates La Forge’s Treatise on the Human, as well he should (since the treatise is intended as a continuation of the Treatise on Man). By contrast, his formal absence from Cordemoy’s Six Discourses is striking. Descartes’s name is nowhere to be found in the work. Still, there is no mistaking Cordemoy’s general philosophical orientation. His metaphysics is a Cartesian metaphysics, and his project is to bring that system to greater consistency. Cordemoy does not see himself as an innovator, and certainly not as a schismatic (as some of his Cartesian critics would allege). Rather, he believes that he is doing what any good, loyal, but not OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  slavish follower should do. To take just one example, his account of the passions in the Sixth Discourse—both their physiology or purely bodily dimension and their mental manifestation—is straight out of Descartes’s treatise The Passions of the Soul. At the same time, it is clear that several of Cordemoy’s more critical remarks on the views of “some people” are directed at Descartes and his followers. And the two most important and notable doctrines of his Six Discourses represent highly unorthodox departures from anything Descartes envisioned or of which he would likely have approved. This is something noted by the author of a generally positive review of the book in the Journal des Savants on June 7, 1666:

Everything pertaining to natural bodies and animated bodies in particular is explained in a very learned way. The author ordinarily follows the principles of M. Descartes, but he is, however, not so attached to them that he does not distance himself from them in some places.28 It was Cordemoy’s atomism that drew especially harsh criticism from fellow Cartesians. And although occasionalism may have its roots in Descartes, and especially his conception of matter, and while some other Cartesians—most notably Malebranche—followed Cordemoy down this path, it nonetheless represents in 1666 a new and unsanctioned direction for the new philosophy. But it may be that Cordemoy took that philosophy in the only direction it could have gone, given what appeared at the time to be its philosophical and scientiﬁc problems and shortcomings. As one early twentieth-century scholar notes of Cordemoy, “his originality is uncontestable.”29 1. Atomism Cordemoy is unmistakably in the mechanist camp with respect to natural philosophy. All the world’s phenomena are to be explained solely by means of matter and motion. As the subtitle of the Second Discourse (“On the Motion and Rest of Bodies”) proclaims, “no change occurs in matter that cannot be explained by local motion.” The physical realm is devoid of any immaterial, spiritual elements, such as the forms and qualities of the Aristotelians. Whatever happens, happens by the movement, impact, conglomeration, and separation of differently shaped particles of

28 Cordemoy 1968, 33. 29 Prost 1907, 56. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION matter of varying size. All bodily phenomena proceed in a machine-like manner, analogous to the way in which a clock performs its functions.

We are sufficiently convinced that in a clock the arrangement of its parts is the cause of all its effects. Whether the clock marks the hours or chimes them, whether it indicates days, months, or years, or even does things more difficult and more rare than these, we never seek any form, faculty, occult virtues,or qualities in it. We are even certain that the clock is not animate, since everything that it does can be explained by the motion and shape of its parts. (CG 122) This mode of explanation applies just as much to the human body (at least, in its non-voluntary motions) as it does to an “artificial” machine. Cordemoy explicitly draws a parallel between the mechanical workings that keep a clock going and the kinetic processes that constitute a living body. “The same matter that causes the spring of the clock also causes the motion of the heart ...I have shown, through the examples of the clock and the human body, that artificial and natural machines have the same cause of their motions. With respect to bodies alone, this cause is the most subtle matter” (CG 131, 134). Cordemoy is no materialist, though. Like any good Cartesian, he is committed to the radical distinction between mind (or soul) and body. There is thinking substance, and there is extended substance, and the two have absolutely nothing in common—neither in their fundamental natures nor in the kinds of properties of which they are capable. In the Sixth Discourse, titled “On the Distinction Between Body and Soul,” Cordemoy notes that “what I understand by the word ‘soul’ includes nothing of what I understand by ‘body’.Thus I have reason to judge that these are two totally different things” (CG 153). Moreover, the distinction between mind and body is exclusive and exhaustive. Nothing is a mind and abody,andeverythingis either a mind or abody.

Only two kinds of substances can be conceived, namely, mind (or that which thinks) and body. That is why they ought to be considered the causes of everything that happens. What does not come about by means of one must necessarily be attributed to the other. (CG 135)

What minds do is think, and when a mind thinks it must always think of something. Thinking includes not only entertaining an idea (what Cor- demoy calls “perception”), but also judging and willing. Bodies, on the other hand, have ﬁgure, spatial relations, and motion and rest. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Cordemoy’s general dualism is perfectly ordinary, and there is nothing in his presentation of the mind/body distinction per se that any good Cartesian would not accept. However, as Cordemoy begins the Six Discourses with a detailed investigation into the nature of body, his departure from an orthodox Cartesian position is immediately apparent. In the seventeenth century, there were, within the mechanical philosophy, two views one could take on the nature of matter. According to general corpuscularianism, the basic constituents of visible bodies—and the primary subjects of motion and agents of change—are just smaller bodies, minute particles of matter. It is an open question, however, as to whether or not there are any ultimately minute, indivisible particles of matter, as well as whether these “atoms” are surrounded by and move through empty space. Atomists like Gassendi, who—in his Compendium of the Philosophy of Epicurus (Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri, 1649) and other writings—adopts an Epicurean account of nature, reject the infinite divisibility of matter and argue that there are minute, shaped, absolutely indivisible bodies that are the most basic constituents of all more complex bodies. Gassendi also argues in favor of the void, within which these atoms move and interact. Descartes, on the other hand, insists that matter is infinitely—or, since only God is truly infinite, “indefinitely”—divisible. Descartes is a cor- puscularian, but of the non-atomistic variety. If body is nothing but extension, as Descartes claims, then it is infinitely divisible. Any extension (that is, anything existing in three dimensions), thus any corpuscle, no matter how small, can at least in principle be divided into two or more parts.

It is impossible that there should exist atoms, that is, pieces of matter that are by their very nature indivisible . For if there were any atoms, then no matter how small we imagined them to be, they would necessarily have to be extended; and hence we could in our thought divide each of them into two or more smaller parts, and hence recognize their divisibility.30 As already mentioned, Descartes’sdeﬁnition of matter also implies that there is no distinction between “corporeal substance” and space, since any given space is or has a measurable extension. Thus, there can be no space that is not itself a body. In other words, a vacuum, or an area

30 Principles of Philosophy, 2. 20 (Descartes 1964–76, viii/1. 51; Descartes 1985–91, i. 231). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

absolutely devoid of body, is impossible. In the Cartesian cosmos, there is and can be no truly empty space; matter—extension—is everywhere and the universe is a plenum.

The impossibility of a vacuum, in the philosophical sense of that in which there is no substance whatsoever, is clear from the fact that there is no difference between the extension of a space, or internal place, and the extension of a body.31 Cordemoy does not seem given to long, eloquent disquisitions—perhaps this is why he was not overly fond of being a lawyer—and the Six Discourses is a relatively terse book. Thus, in the opening Discourse of the Six Discourses, Cordemoy wastes no time in rejecting the standard Cartesian position on body. This must have occasioned some surprise among his early readers, who might have been expecting a typical Cartesian approach to the topic. In fact, Cordemoy accuses Descartes and other Cartesians (without naming names) of not understanding the proper difference between body and matter: “We [i.e. they] do not have sufficiently distinct notions of these, and ...this is the source of almost all the errors of ordinary physics” (CG 95). Cordemoy defines ‘body’ as “extended substance.” So far, so good. Any good Cartesian would agree. He also notes that the extension of any particular body must be limited, and so a body will have figure or shape. Again, there is nothing out of the Cartesian ordinary here. But then comes the surprise:

Since each body is only one and the same substance, it cannot be divided; its shape cannot change; and it is necessarily so continuous that it excludes every other body. This is what is called impenetrability. (CG 95–6) The term ‘body’ properly refers to an indivisible, shaped, impenetrable, mobile, extended substance. Because they are indivisible bodies have no parts. They are also insensible, because any singular body is too small to have an effect on our sense organs. Bodies, in other words, are simple and (to the naked eye) invisible atoms. Matter, on the other hand, is a collection of bodies (un assemblage de corps). As such, matter has parts (parties). The parts of matter are individual bodies. Parcels of matter, in turn, are “portions” of more compound matter. Depending upon how

31 Principles of Philosophy, 2. 16 (Descartes 1964–76, viii/1. 49; Descartes 1985–91, i. 229–30). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  the collected atoms (parts) of a portion of matter are situated relative to each other, and how that portion of matter relates to other portions of matter constituting a larger parcel of matter, that larger parcel of matter will be a “heap” (tas), a ﬂuid, or a solid. Cordemoy insists that, strictly speaking, extension belongs only to bodies, not to matter. This is because of the unity and simplicity of a body, which means that its ﬁgure is truly continuous. Matter, on the other hand, has “quantity,” not extension.

Any single body is never a quantity, although it may be a part of a quantity, just as unity is not a number, although it constitutes part of number. The upshot is that quantity and extension are two different things: one pertains properly to body and the other pertains properly to matter. (CG 102) A conglomerate of bodies or portions of matter that make up a visible body (a macro-portion of matter) might seem to a perceiver to have extension. This is because of the extension of those bodies and the appearance of unity and continuity when they come together to form portions. However, the empty spaces between the matter’s parts and portions rule out the true continuity necessary for extension. And Cor- demoy, unlike Descartes, does indeed believe that there are empty spaces. The void (vuide) is not only possible, but actual, since it constitutes the necessary space that separates atoms and within which they move.

The bodies that compose heaps, fluids, and masses are not everywhere so tightly packed that they do not leave some gaps in various places. When these gaps are perceived, they are called holes. And when they are not perceived, they are called pores. It is not necessary that these gaps are filled; and it is conceivable that there should be no body between bodies that do not touch each other. (CG 103) Cordemoy takes Descartes head-on when he insists that “it is not at all true to say that these gaps cannot be conceived without extension, and that consequently there are bodies that fill them” (CG 103). The shape of a space should not be confused with the real extension that constitutes a body. Should the contents filling a vase be removed, it does not follow— “as some maintain”—that the “empty” vase keeps its shape only because of the (invisible) matter within it, that only a body taking the place of the contents would keep the vase from collapsing in on itself and its sides from coming together. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Cordemoy’s only formal argument for atomism is premised on the nature of substance. To be a substance is, he insists, to be essentially indivisible. Even if that substance has “extremities and a middle” (ex- trémitez et [un] milieu)—as would anything with extension—it does not follow that these are truly “parts” of a body, since they cannot be separated. He tells his opponents that,

were they to think about it even a little, they would see that one and the same substance, considered in itself, cannot be divided; and that if its nature is to be capable of extension, then the moment that one conceives of it as extended one will have to grant that, because it is the same in all its extremities, none of these extremities are separable from it. (CG 98) Cordemoy’s reasoning here is a little opaque, but the claim that substance is essentially indivisible may be informed by the idea that, because a substance is (by definition) that which is ontologically independent of everything else (except God), were a substance divisible into parts it would in some sense be dependent upon those parts.32 This passage also suggests that Cordemoy believes that where there is continuous uniform extension (as in a body) there is no way actually and objectively to individuate parts (unlike the case of matter, in which, just because it is by its nature complex and non-uniform and lacking true continuous extension, it is possible to identify discrete parts). And if it is not possible objectively to individuate discrete parts in a uniform extension, then there is nothing to separate in that extension. Moreover, Cordemoy suggests, take any portion of visible matter and divide it continuously, even beyond the point where the remaining portions are still visible. The Cartesians say you can do this ad infinitum (or at least indefinitely), but Cordemoy denies that this is possible. Eventually, he says, you will have reduced it to a single portion of matter composed of only two parts, two bodies “that are separate from each other, and this must bring the division to an end, since each of these bodies is a substance that cannot be divided” (CG 96–7). Cordemoy also provides a somewhat indirect set of considerations in favor of atomism, based on several “inconveniences” (inconveniens)of the Cartesian account of the indefinite divisibility of body. Cordemoy claims, for instance, that he is unable to see any difference between an

32 This is the reading of the argument given by Ablondi 2005, 25, and it seems right. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  indefinite and an infinite divisibility—they seem to amount to the same thing; and he says that even the Cartesians admit that there is something inconceivable about infinite divisibility, although they feel themselves “necessitated” by their principles to admit it. A second inconvenience is that the Cartesian non-atomistic view of matter/body generates a serious problem for the individuation of bodies. Descartes had claimed that particular bodies, as finite parcels of matter within an indefinite plenum of matter (extension), are physically distinguished from each other solely by relative motion. A body is simply a collection of parts of extension that happens to move together independently of the bodies making up the surrounding medium.33 But it would seem to follow, then, that a body at rest that is contiguous with another body at rest now in fact composes one body with the latter. How, then, can the partisans of the infinite divisibility of matter account for the integrity and individuality of bodies at rest?

Another shortcoming that I ﬁnd in the view of those who say that matter itself is an extended substance is that they are unable to conceive a body all by itself, without any motion. The result is that, according to their doctrine, we cannot conceive of a body at rest between other bodies. This is because on the supposition that this body is touching the others, this doctrine teaches that, together with them, it makes but one body. However, it seems to me that we have a very clear and natural idea of a body perfectly at rest between other bodies, none of which is in motion, and what I have to say about body agrees perfectly with this idea. (CG 99) * There are two distinctions to be made between kinds of atomism. First, there is a distinction between physical atomism and what has been called “metaphysical” atomism. Physical atomism is the view that there are indivisible bodies. Metaphysical atomism, on the other hand, is the view that there are indivisible substances (which may not necessarily be bodies). Leibniz, for example, argues that the existence of collections or “aggregates” requires that there be some ultimate reality (an “atom”) that is a simple unity, indivisible in principle, out of which the divisible collections are composed—in short, if there are no true unities, there are no pluralities.34 Leibniz is a metaphysical atomist, as is especially clear in the later, monadalogical stage of his career, but he is not a

33 See e.g. Principles of Philosophy, 2. 25. 34 See e.g. Leibniz’s letter to Arnauld, 30 April 1687. Lennon (1993, 138–9) offers a somewhat different account of the distinction between physical atomism and metaphysical atomism. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION physical atomist. Only souls are true unities. He rejects the notion that any body can be indivisible, since bodies necessarily involve extension. Monads, on the other hand, are not physical at all—they are mind-like or spiritual substances—and so they are not physical atoms; their indivisibility derives from their absolute, metaphysical simplicity.35 Second, there is a distinction among types of physical atomism. Physical atomism may be the view that there are in nature certain ultimately small bodies that are physically incapable of being further divided (although God could in fact divide them, since God can do what is physically impossible). This variety of physical atomism—let us call it “contingent” physical atomism—does not imply that these bodies are indivisible in principle, conceptually indivisible. Something that cannot be physically split might, because it has dimensions, still be conceived as divided into at least two parts. Cordemoy is certainly defending at least a physical atomism of this sort. What he calls “bodies” cannot in fact be divided; the division of matter will ultimately reach a point where there are two singular bodies, neither of which can be physically divided into two parts. It is unclear, though, whether Cordemoy intends also to claim that the division of a body is inconceivable, impossible in principle (“conceptual” physical atomism). His claim that the notion of infinite divisibility is “inconceivable” would seem to suggest that his is not just a contingent physical atomism butthathealsobelievesthatatomicbodiesarein principle and conceptually indivisible—they cannot even be conceived as split into two parts.36 However, there is a problem with reading Cordemoy’s atomism in this stronger, conceptual way, and perhaps it is a problem that Cordemoy himself did not see. Why should he find the notion of the infinite divisibility of body in principle inconceivable? As Descartes points out, any parcel of extension, no matter how small (and no matter how physically indivisible), has spatial dimensions; thus, it is always possible to conceive it being divided in two. Cordemoy’s sole formal argument for his atomism does not seem to imply anything more than a physical indivisibility in bodies. Cordemoy might reply that something must be

35 Leibniz, Monadology, }}1–3. 36 I have serious doubts about the coherence of conceptual physical atomism; anything that has dimensions must, it would seem, at least be capable of being conceived as divided. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  composed of parts to be divisible in principle; an extended substance is not composed of parts; therefore, an extended substance (a body) is not divisible even in principle. But this seems to beg the question: if Corde- moy’s atoms are extended, if they have “extremities” and a “middle,” then in what sense is it not possible to at least conceive of the parts of an atom, and thus conceive of its division? Cordemoy’s atomism did not sit well with his fellow Cartesians, as might be expected. And it was just this objection that was raised by Desgabets. It is certainly not true, Desgabets insists in an unpublished letter for Claude Clerselier, Descartes’s friend and literary executor, that “a mass is divisible only if its extremities and its middle are not the same substance.”37 If an atom is extended, if it occupies space, then distinction between parts, and thus division, at least in principle, is possible. Desgabets is especially concerned that Cordemoy’s treatise weakens the Cartesian cause and lends support to the enemies of Cartesianism, especially the Gassendists. He accuses Cordemoy of fomenting a schism that is all the more considerable in so far as it removes from the true philosophy, all at once, one of its strongest supports (colonnes) and strengthens notably M. Gassendi’s party, which already has too much the appearance of supporting itself and overcoming that of M. Descartes, although the latter may be the only philosophy from which the world might receive a general reformation.38 Régis, too, objected to Cordemoy’s atomism, and he did so by aiming his attack at “those who maintain, following Epicurus, that atoms are indivisible because they are substances.”39 In the General System, he claims that an account of body like Cordemoy’s is based on a “paralogism.” Régis concedes that body, as substance, is indeed indivisible: “everyone certainly knows that atoms, as substances, are indivisible.”40 And every body has size (grandeur) by virtue of being extended. But while having size is essential to being a body, having this or that size—what Régis calls “quantity”—is only accidental to a body. Moreover, quantity is divisible; in fact, divisibility is essential to quantity. Therefore, one can allow the

37 The “Lettre écrite à M. Clerselier touchant les nouveaux raisonnements pour les atomes et le vide contenus dans le livre du discernement du corps et de l’âme,” written in 1666, was never published. However, a number of passages from this piece are quoted in Prost 1907, 158–78; this particular passage is quoted on p. 165. See also Ablondi 2005, 44–9; and Lennon 1993, 142. 38 Prost 1907, 158. 39 Régis 1690, i. 282. 40 Régis 1690, i. 282. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

division of the quantity of a body without implying that it is being divided as substance. Indeed, “it is impossible to conceive that a body is of such and such size without conceiving that it can be divided ...”41 Régis also devotes a chapter of his monumental work to demonstrating, on good Cartesian grounds, that “the void of the philosophers is impossible.”42 2. Occasionalism According to the doctrine that has come to be known as “occasionalism,”43 God is the only genuine causal agent in the cosmos. All finite (created) beings in nature are devoid of efficient causal powers. Bodies do not cause effects either in other bodies or in minds, and minds do not cause effects in bodies or even within themselves. God is directly, immediately, and uniquely responsible for bringing about all phenomena. When a needle pricks my skin, the physical event is merely an occasion for God to cause the relevant mental state (pain) in me; a volition in the soul (which is itself of divine origin) to raise my arm or to think of something is only an occasion for God to cause my arm to rise or the relevant idea to be present to my mind; and the impact of one billiard ball upon another is an occasion for God to bring the first ball to rest and move the second ball. In all three contexts—mind–body, body–body, and mind alone—God’s ubiquitous causal activity proceeds in accordance with certain general laws, and (except for miracles) God acts only when the requisite material or psychic conditions obtain. Although seventeenth-century occasionalism has its immediate roots in Cartesian metaphysics (as well as ancestral sources in medieval Latin and Arabic philosophy44), not all Cartesian philosophers in the period were occasionalists. Nor did all the so-called “occasionalists” commit to that doctrine to the same degree. Malebranche certainly was a complete and thoroughgoing occasionalist—the description just given of the

41 Régis 1690, i. 281. 42 Régis 1690, i. 285–7. Atomism and the void were also the target of attack by Rohault, in his Traité de physique. 43 In the 17th cent., the term ‘occasionalism’ was not used, although Leibniz and others referred to “the system of occasional causes” promoted by the Cartesian philosophers. 44 Medieval Islamic philosophy is an important source of occasionalist principles, although it is unlikely to have exercised any inﬂuence on 17th-cent. Cartesian occasionalists. For a study of Islamic occasionalism, see Fakhry 1958. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  doctrine derives from his philosophical system—and he disallowed causal efﬁcacy to any created substance. But other Cartesians often helped themselves to an occasionalist solution in one domain or another while allowing for real causal powers among some other class of natural substances. Thus, La Forge, who denies that bodies can be the causes of motion in other bodies and resorts to divine causality to explain the motion of inanimate bodies, still grants real causal power to the soul, and so is not a complete occasionalist.45 Moreover, even among thoroughgoing occasionalists, one philosopher’s commitment to the doctrine may be more systematic than another’s. Just as interesting, the reasoning used on behalf of the doctrine can differ greatly among occasionalists, with the arguments of one thinker having nothing in common with the arguments of another. There is some debate among scholars as to how systematic Cordemoy is when it comes to his claims about the role of divine causation in the world, and with good reason.46 He comes nowhere as close as Male- branche in providing occasionalism with a broad, systematic and gener- alized elaboration. Thus, as Battail notes, “Malebranche will lay out philosophical notions on a large scale—generality of law, simplicity of means, vision in God; this is something that one simply will not ﬁnd in Cordemoy, and that alone allows occasionalism to become a great coherent and complete metaphysics.”47 On the other hand, although he is certainly no Malebranche, Cordemoy does not merely use occasionalism in an ad hoc and unsystematic way, merely to solve this or that

45 See Nadler 1993. 46 Battail (1973, 140, 136) insists that for Cordemoy “cet univers tout entier [est] passif et inerte ...il n’y a en son sein aucune liaison effective entre les causes et les effets ...La puissance [est] tout entière concentrée en Dieu.” Prost (1907, 69), on the other hand, sees a more limited occasionalism and believes that Cordemoy grants to the human soul a degree of causal efficacy, particularly the power to generate some of its own internal states, such as volitions and desires. Balz (1951, 16) declines to take a stand on the issue: “Whether Corde- moy’s doctrine is a complete occasionalism ...is not a question that need detain us.” See also Bardout 2002, 148; and Gouhier 1926, 101. For a more extended discussion and adjudication of this issue, see Nadler 2005. 47 Battail 1973, 150. See also Gouhier 1926, 95–107, 120. Carraud (2002, 376, 380) insists that Cordemoy begins from difficulties regarding causation, not (like Malebranche) from “l’adoration ...de la gloire de Dieu et de sa puissance ...pour le dire autrement, la pensée de l’efficace divine, chez Malebranche, est antérieure à la solution occasionaliste. À la difference d’un La Forge ou d’un Cordemoy, Malebranche n’est pas d’abord occasionaliste.” OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION problem. He is a principled and thoroughgoing occasionalist, although it may take some work to discover that this is the case. The domain in which Cordemoy’s occasionalism is most clear and forthright is that of body–body relations. There is no mistaking Corde- moy’s view in the Six Discourses, Discourses Four and Five. For Corde- moy, bodies are not the causes of the motions of other bodies. Neither is the human soul the true cause of the motion of the body with which it is united. Only God is the genuine cause of the motions of bodies. Cordemoy begins his demonstration of this conclusion with five axioms: 1. A thing does not have from itself (de soy) that which it might lose without ceasing to be what it is. 2. Every body can lose some of its motion, to the point of not having any at all, without ceasing to be a body. 3. Only two kinds of substances can be conceived, namely, mind (or that which thinks) and body. That is why they ought to be considered the causes of everything that happens. What does not come about by means of one must necessarily be attributed to the other. 4. To move, or to cause motion, is an action. 5. An action can be continued only by the agent that began it. (CG 135–6) Premise one says that only the states or properties of a thing that derive from its own nature, that it has “from itself,” are its essential states or properties. If a property belongs to a thing in such a way that the loss of that property entails no change in the thing’s nature, then it is not an essential property, the possession of that property is not due to the thing’s nature, and thus does not come from its own resources. Corde- moy then argues that no body has its motion de soy, from its own nature or resources. This follows immediately from axioms one and two. Since any body can lose its motion without ceasing to be a body, the essence of which is simply extension, then no body is the source of its own motion. But if no body has motion from itself—that is, if no body can put itself in motion—then neither can any body be a first cause of the motion of bodies, since any such first cause of motion or prime mover would have to be able to put itself in motion. Therefore, any first mover of bodies must be a mind, since (by axiom three) there are only minds and bodies. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Cordemoy’s next step is to show that not only is some mind (or minds) a first mover(s) of bodies, but also that all subsequent motions in the affected bodies are caused by that same mind (or those same minds). This is supposed to follow from axiom four, which states that moving something is an action, and axiom five, which seems to derive from an intuition about the identity conditions of an action. Axiom five says that any single action, to remain the same action, must continue to be generated by the same agent that began it; any change in agency implies a change in action. And Cordemoy is assuming that the subsequent moving of a body is continuous with the initial moving of that body, and thus that the two constitute an identical action (and therefore require the same agent). This part of the argument is intended to rule out the possibility that, a mind/first mover having once initiated motion in a body, the body is itself subsequently responsible for continuing its motion and also, therefore, for causing the motions of other bodies. Bodies thus have no motive force whatsoever. No body has any efficacy to move itself or to be the true cause of motion in another body. Cordemoy grants that sense experience appears to contradict all this and to tell us that one body moves another. But, he insists, in an argument that foreshadows Hume, upon closer examination we discover that, in fact, all that sense experience reveals is a succession of events. What we really see is that following the impact of two bodies, one of which is in motion and the other at rest, the motion of the first body ceases and the motion of the second body begins; we do not, however, witness the one actively causing the other.

Consider again what body B does to body C when it is said that it moves it from its place. All that is evident in this case (as was said in the Fourth Discourse) is that B was moved, that C is now moved, and that the former remains in the place that the latter occupied before it. We see only this; everything else is a matter of conjecture. (CG 150) Moreover—and Cordemoy seems to offer this as an independent argument against body–body interaction—motion is a state (état) of a body, or (to put it in Cartesian terms) a mode of its substance. And a state or mode of one ﬁnite substance just is that substance existing in a certain way, and thus cannot be communicated to another ﬁnite substance. Therefore, one body cannot be the cause of motion in another body, presumably because any real transitive causal relationship between distinct things OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

could only be explained in terms of such transference of properties (i.e. of motion) (CG 138). Thus, the same mind that first moves a body is responsible for continuing the motion of that body. “However accustomed we may be to believe the contrary,” Cordemoy insists, we must nonetheless admit that that which first moves a body is what always moves it, “since that which produces also conserves, and the same action that began the motion must continue it.” To regard one body as the real cause of the motion of another body is to mistake “the occasion for the cause” (CG 139). The question remains, however, as to the identity of the mind(s) which is the source of motion in bodies. What mind is it that serves as the first and continuous mover of a body, or of bodies in general? Nothing Cordemoy has said so far either necessitates or rules out a plurality of minds moving bodies. His argument implies only that when a body moves, there must be some mind moving it. Taking our cue from the way the motions of our bodies follow so closely the volitions of our minds, we tend to believe that it is our own minds that move our bodies. But this belief, Cordemoy argues, is no better grounded than the belief that one body is the cause of the motion of another (CG 139, 142). And this brings us to the question of the causal efficacy of the human soul and occasionalism in the domain of mind–body relations. Cordemoy shares credit with La Forge for making what, in the seventeenth century, is an important and remarkable discovery—namely, that the conceivability of a causal relationship between mind and body is not necessarily more opaque than the conceivability of a causal relationship between bodies. “It is undoubtedly no more difficult to conceive the action of minds upon bodies or that of bodies upon minds than to conceive the action of bodies upon bodies.” But the point here is not to show that mind–body causal relations are as perspicuous as body–body causal relations might seem to be (at least, to the philosophically untutored), but on the contrary that in neither case do we truly apprehend true efficacy. Real causal interaction is inconceivable in both domains. “I dare say that when what occurs [ce qui se rencontre] in the action of one body upon another body is carefully examined, it will not be found any more conceivable [plus concevable] than what occurs in the action of minds upon bodies” (CG 150). Cordemoy argues that a number of considerations count against the human mind’s being the real cause of the motions of the human body. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

He is evidently struck by what he sees as the general independence of the body from the mind (and the will in particular) and the mind’s over- whelming lack of control over the body’s movements. First, there are the involuntary motions in the body that both precede that body’s being animated by a soul and cease before the soul has abandoned the body in death. (In fact, it is such involuntary cessation of motion that is the death of the body and the antecedent condition for the departure of the soul.) This shows that these and other motions in the body do not depend upon the will. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that, even after the union of soul and body, we cannot stop many of the body’s motions even if we want to (and certainly not just by wanting to). There are many motions in the animated body—for example, the beating of the heart and the circulation of the blood—that bear no relationship to the will whatsoever. Simply by willing these motions to stop or change we can do nothing to affect them.

If sometimes our unhappiness is such that it leads us to desire death, it would be invainforussimplytowillthesemotionsinustocometoanend.Theydepend so little on us that, if we simply willed them to stop, they would not, for all that, stop. But were we to use some weapon upon ourselves and make the life-giving blood flow out of the body’s vessels, we would then see those same parts whose motion serves to move our bodies exhaled like smoke. If our despair allowed us still to philosophize, we would see that, since our blood exits from us without our will causing its motion, it is not our will that makes it move in us. ...All those convulsive motions and those subtle and fatal transports that assail our brain fully demonstrate that our will does not provide motion to these particles (which, because of their subtlety, are called ‘spirits’), and that the will is not even the master of the course they take, since on these occasions the will cannot prevent the particles from flowing wherever their impetuosity takes them. (CG 140–1) More generally, Cordemoy argues that a person simply does not have that control over the motions of his body, even the voluntary motions, that he would have if the mind, through the will, were truly the cause of those motions. Old age, exhaustion, and other conditions make this perfectly clear. “It is in vain that an old man wills to walk quickly, or that a drunkard wills to walk a straight line, and it is useless for anyone whose hand is frozen to will to move his fingers” (CG 141). Sleep overcomes us in spite of ourselves, and we often shiver no matter how hard we will to cease. In other words, “our weakness [faiblesse] teaches us that it is not our mind that causes motion” (CG 143). From the previous OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

argument, however, we know that it must be some mind that moves our (and any) body. Cordemoy concludes that it is “another Mind, one to which nothing is lacking, that does it, and does it through its will” (CG 143). The cause of the body’s motions is an all-powerful mind, the same one that first introduced motion into matter and that moves all bodies. A second, somewhat subsidiary consideration that Cordemoy brings forward against the human mind being the cause of motion in the body derives from physics. Cordemoy is committed to the Cartesian conservation principle, according to which the total quantity of motion in the universe is constant. Now, he argues, if we could, at will, initiate new motions in our bodies, it would follow that motion would be added to the universe, since such new motions would not necessarily be compensated for by the loss of motion in some other body. A real causal influence of human mind upon body would therefore result in a “disruption of the order of nature” (CG 140). This consideration does not rule out some higher mind being the cause of motions in all bodies, however, as long as such a mind acts in accordance with the laws of nature, adjusting the motions of bodies in corresponding ways to insure an overall constancy in the quantity of motion. “We must admire [this Mind], above all, on this point, namely, that ...it established laws among bodies, following which it moves them in various ways, according to the diversity of their collisions [leurs rencontres]” (CG 144). Cordemoy seems not to have considered the possibility that while (as his arguments show) it is not our finite minds that are the causes of the motions of our own or any other bodies, there may be a plurality of “first Minds”—a number of all-powerful, self-caused minds to which, unlike our own, “nothing is lacking”—that are the original and sustaining causes of bodily motions. He does show that it is of no use to insist that there is a mind above our minds but subordinate to the first Mind (“a mind between the first Mind and our own”) that does the causal work, since the will of such a created mind (which “is not the source of its own being”) would still require the efficacy of the first Mind to carry out its volitions. But why could there not be two, several, or even many first Minds, all equally powerful and self-sufficient, none subordinate to any other, each of which is responsible for causing and continuing the motion of particular parcels of matter? Cordemoy does not address this question, but simply concludes to the uniqueness of the mind that is the true cause of motion based on the impotence of all finite minds. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Be that as it may, the conclusion of Cordemoy’sargumentisthatGodis the ﬁrst and continuous and only cause of motion in bodies. All material and mental events are only occasions for this “Sovereign Mind” to exercise its causal activity upon bodies.

If there is any room for saying that the soul moves the body, it is in the same sense in which it can be said that one body moves another body. For just as it is said that one body moves another when, because of their collision, it happens that whatever was moving the first now moves the second, so it can be said that a soul moves a body when, because it so wishes, it happens that whatever was moving the body now moves it to where this soul wants it to be moved. Still, it must be admitted that it is convenient to explain things in the ordinary manner, that is, to say that a soul moves a body and that one body moves another. Since we do not always seek the origin of things, it is often more reasonable, given what has already been noted, to cite the occasion rather than the cause of some effect. (CG 142) For Cordemoy, one body is not the real cause of the motion of another body. Neither is the body the real cause of any event in the human mind. Lacking the causal power even to move another body, the human body certainly cannot exert a real and efficacious influence upon the human mind. Moreover, how could motion in a body genuinely bring about an effect in a mind? “If a body acts upon a mind, it cannot be by causing in it any change of motion, shape, or parts, since this mind does not have any of these things” (CG 149). Finally, the human mind is not the real cause of any motions in the body. The union of mind and body in a human being cannot, therefore, consist in any real causally interactive relationship between the two, but only in a law-like correlation in their respective states—what Hume will call “constant conjunction”—a correlation brought about and maintained by God. All the elements seem to be in place in Cordemoy for a full-blown occasionalism. Bodies do not cause effects in other bodies or in minds, and minds do not cause motion in bodies. God causes all motions in nature. This is the conclusion of the Fifth Discourse:

To consider the matter precisely, it seems to me that the action of minds upon bodies should not be found more inconceivable than that of bodies upon bodies.48 For we recognize that, if our souls cannot move our bodies, neither

48 I have corrected for an apparent error in the text here, one that is noted by Clair and Girbal in their modern edn (see note c at CG 151). The text of the ﬁrst, third, and fourth editions reads “celle des corps sur l’esprits.” But what Cordemoy should say here is that the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION can bodies move other bodies. And just as we ought to acknowledge that the collision of two bodies is an occasion for the power that was moving the first body to move the second, so we ought to have no difficulty in conceiving that our will is an occasion for the power that already is moving a body to direct the motion in a certain way corresponding to this thought. (CG 151) And yet one question seems to be left unanswered by Cordemoy’s argument in the Six Discourses. Bodies may, by their nature, lack all causal efficacy; as pure extension, they are capable only of passively receiving motion. But what about finite minds? They are not, we now know, the cause of motions in the human body. But there are two things to notice about what Cordemoy has established with his arguments to this effect. First, even though the human mind is not in fact the cause of motions in the body, nothing Cordemoy has said implies that it is not the cause of motions because it lacks causal power tout court. Most of Cordemoy’s argument against mind–body causation is based on empirical data that is intended to persuade us that the mind is not, de facto, the cause of the involuntary or even the voluntary motions of the body. But none of the empirical considerations about bodily control that he brings forward establish that it is in principle impossible for the mind to move the body. Only the secondary argument from the principle of the conservation of motion establishes this. But—and this is the second thing to notice— even here what is demonstrated is only that a law of physics disallows mind–body causal action. What is not demonstrated, and what cannot be demonstrated by a law of physics alone, is that the soul is by its nature causally inert. Related to this is the fact that none of Cordemoy’s arguments in the Six Discourses explicitly address the issue of the mind’s causality with respect to its own internal properties. Is the mind the real cause of its own ideas, volitions, and other mental states? He does not in this work expressly argue against this position, and nothing he has said in it rules it out. None of his arguments imply that the mind has no immanent causal powers—not the argument from physics against mind–body causation, as we have just seen, nor the argument based on the non-transference of modes or states that is used against body–body interaction. This latter action of minds upon bodies is no more inconceivable than the action of bodies upon bodies. The 2nd edn has (apparently correctly) “celle des corps sur les corps.” OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  argument does rule out the mind causing motion in the body, if all transitive causal interaction is to be understood on the model of such transference—just as much as it rules out one body causing motion in another body, and perhaps even more so, since the mind does not have any motion to transfer to the body in the first place. But the non- transference argument would seem to apply only to cases of transitive causation between numerically distinct things, and not to any case of immanent causation, whereby a thing brings about changes in its own states (which would not, even could not require such modal transference, and which is presumably what the mind would be doing were it to cause its own ideas and volitions). What about the central argument in the Six Discourses against body– body causation, and especially the part directed against a body being the cause of its own motion—that is, the argument based on what properties a thing can have de soy? Can this line of reasoning be used to eliminate causal powers in the soul? Does it imply that the soul cannot possibly be the cause of its own thoughts—its ideas and volitions—since the soul might lose its thoughts (just as a body can lose its motion) without ceasing to be what it is, a thinking substance? The answer to this question is clearly “no.” For a Cartesian like Cordemoy, there is an important difference between the way in which a body is related to its motion and the way in which a mind is related to its thoughts. Both motion and ideas are modes of their respective substances. But while a body can indeed lose its motion and remain a body (at rest), a mind cannot lose its thoughts and remain a thinking substance. The mind can, of course, lose any particular thoughts it might have, but it cannot not have some thoughts. There is in the mental realm no state corresponding to rest, no property that stands to actual thoughts in the way in which rest stands to actual motion. The Cartesian mind, simply by virtue of being a thinking substance, is always modified by thoughts,49 while a Cartesian body is not modified by motion simply by virtue of being an extended substance. Cordemoy, in fact, seems explicitly to rule out such a parallel application of the Six Discourses argument in the Physical Discourse, using the will as his example: “Just as the body is a substance to which extension naturally belongs, so much so that, as

49 See the Fourth Replies, Descartes 1964–76, vi. 246; Descartes 1985–91, ii. 171. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

for physical effects, it would cease to be a body if it ceased to be extended; in the same way the mind is a substance to which the power of determining itself belongs so naturally, that it would cease to be a mind if it ceased to will” (CG 255). Thus, the argument provides no impediment to Cordemoy saying that a mind does indeed have its thoughts “from itself.” Even an attempt to turn Cordemoy’s main argument against human mind–human body causation—i.e. the argument based on our evident lack of control over our own bodies—against the mind and its own states would not succeed, and would not demonstrate the mind’s immanent causal impotence. For example, one could easily marshal empirical considerations on Cordemoy’s behalf to the effect that frequently ideas and sensations occur in the mind involuntarily and beyond the control of the will, similar to the considerations he brings forward in the context of the human body’s motions. Perceptions, pains, and pleasures all appear in the mind independently of any volitions. Does this not show that the mind is not, therefore, the cause of those mental states? However, there is again an important difference between the two cases, one that forestalls using the argument in this way. The will is regarded by Cartesians as the sole locus of causal control that the mind would have over the body’s motions; if the mind moves the body, it can only be through its volitions. (To put this another way, for the Cartesian all “mind-caused” motions in the body are voluntary motions.50) This explains why Cordemoy believes that to show that the body does not, in fact, answer to the soul’s volitions is to show that the soul is not the cause of the body’s motions. In the realm of the mind alone, however, there is no assumption that mental causation of mental events must always occur through the will. No Cartesian would argue that if the mind causes its own states, it is through the will alone.51 Indeed, as we shall see, orthodox Cartesians believe that often the mind does cause its own states but with

50 See e.g. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, 2. 26 and Passions of the Soul, 1. 41. 51 Descartes does, to be sure, argue in the Sixth Meditation that he can know that the active faculty causing his sensory ideas of things is not in him since these ideas “are produced ...often even against my will” (Descartes 1964–76, vii. 79; Descartes 1985–91, ii. 55). But his point here is not to use the independence from the will to argue that the mind cannot be the cause of the “material reality” and even the content of its ideas, but rather concerns the locus of what might be called the “triggering” cause of the episodic occurrence of an idea, a cause that can certainly trigger the mind to causally generate ideas from its own inner resources (much as the account in the Notae in programma (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet) describes; see Descartes 1964–76, viii/2. 359). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  no involvement of the will. Thus, to show that mental states do not always answer to the soul’s volitions would not, in a Cartesian context, conﬁrm that the soul is not the cause of its own states. The arguments from the Six Discourses, then, appear to leave the causal powers of the soul intact. In fact, Cordemoy can perfectly well avail himself of the standard orthodox Cartesian account of the genesis of sensory ideas in the mind. The theologian-philosopher Antoine Arnauld (a contemporary of Cordemoy, the embattled intellectual leader of the French Jansenists, and a ﬁrebrand defender of Cartesianism), La Forge, and others insist that, while contact with an external object and the bodily motions that follow from this do not themselves directly cause any sensory effect in the mind, they do serve as the “occasion” for the mind itself causally to generate such effects. Here is La Forge’s description of the process:

While it can be said that the bodies that surround our own, and generally everything that can compel us to think of bodies, or even of minds, when this does not result from our own will, are in some manner the cause of the ideas that we then have, because we would not have them [the ideas] on all of the occasions that we have them if they [the bodies] did not act upon our body. Nonetheless, because these are material substances, whose action does not extend as far as the soul, in so far as it is simply a thing that thinks; but in so far as it [the soul] is united to a body ...they can at most be only the remote and occasional cause of them [the ideas] that, by means of the union of the mind and the body, compels our faculty of thinking and determines it to produce those ideas of which it is the principal and efﬁcient cause.52 La Forge is an occasionalist with respect to the motion of inanimate (but not animate) bodies. But he also insists that God has given to the soul an active faculty for causing ideas and other mental states. “All of our ideas considered in themselves in so far as they are only different ways of thinking, need ...no cause for their production other than our mind.”53 La Forge is faithfully following Descartes’s own mature account of body–mind causation in the generation of sensory ideas. In his reply to Regius, Descartes notes how external objects do not transmit ideas to our mind through the sense organs. Rather, “they transmit something which,

52 Treatise on the Human Mind, in La Forge 1974, 176. 53 La Forge 1974, 177. For a discussion of this aspect of La Forge’s theory, see Nadler 1993. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION at exactly that moment, gives the mind occasion to form these ideas by means of the faculty innate to it.” The bodily motions are the “remote and accidental cause” of the mind’s sensory ideas; the mind is their real and efficient cause. The former “give the primary cause occasion to produce its effect at one moment rather than another.”54 To return to Cordemoy, in the Six Discourses, all that he says on this matter is that “[the soul] can receive new thoughts through the motions of the body, according to the relation and dependence that God has established between them” (CG 148). This is a fairly neutral and non- committal remark. It is compatible with God having created the soul in such a way that, on the occasion of certain motions occurring in the body (in particular, in the brain), the soul causes specific ideas within itself, much as Descartes and La Forge believe. A causally active human soul generating its own ideas is also suggested by some of Cordemoy’s statements in the Physical Discourse on Lan- guage. He notes that “it should not be difficult to conceive that the Author of nature, in forming a human being, has so well united certain thoughts in his soul to motions in his body that as soon as these motions are excited in the body, these thoughts are excited in the soul” (CG 210). He later says that there is a “natural correspondence” between events in the body and events in the mind, according to which “certain sensations always arise (naissent) in the soul as soon as certain motions are excited in the brain” (CG 238). He does not say that God causes the sensations on the occasion of the brain motions, but only that they “arise” in the soul—perhaps from the soul’s own causal resources and as a result of some kind of natural institution. Finally, there are Cordemoy’s remarks on the will in the Physical Discourse already mentioned, which likewise hint at a human soul endowed with genuine causal efficacy.

Our souls which depend on [God] for their being and for their conservation do not in any way depend on Him in the employment of their will, whose determination He has left completely free. I will even propose, as something that will seem evident to all men of good sense who will consider it attentively, that just as the body is a substance to which extension naturally belongs, so much so that, as for physical effects, it would cease to be a body if it ceased to be extended; in the

54 Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, Descartes 1964–76, viii/2. 358, 360. This same account also appears in Arnauld’s “Port Royal Logic”; see Arnauld 1970, 71–2. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  same way the mind is a substance to which the power of determining itself belongs so naturally, that it would cease to be a mind if it ceased to will. (CG 255) Cordemoy, in other words, seems prima facie to allow for real causal powers in the human soul. He does not appear in these passages to be willing to rule out genuine causation in finite thinking substances. But this, along with the causal inertness of bodies, is precisely what is required for a thoroughgoing occasionalism. In the end, however, this picture of Cordemoy as only a limited occasionalist will not withstand thorough scrutiny. Cordemoy is not willing to grant causal efficacy even to the human soul. Unfortunately, someone who reads only the Six Discourses could never justifiably conclude this. Cordemoy’s occasionalist accounts of the generation of ideas in the mind and of the operation of the will appear only outside of that work. The notion that the soul causally generates its own ideas on the occasion of bodily motions, such as we find in Descartes and La Forge, is, in fact, eliminated right where it seems to begin, in the Physical Discourse on Language. “It is,” Cordemoy says—and as far as I can tell, he proceeds here without any argument whatsoever—“just as impossible for souls to have new perceptions without God as it is for bodies to acquire new motions without Him” (CG 255). The parallel with God’s role in causing bodily motions is there to make it clear that the correlation between motions in the brain and sensory ideas in the mind is due not to the soul’s own, albeit God-given cognitive causal resources, but directly to the constant causal activity of God. He makes this point just as strongly in the second of the two Treatises on Metaphysics:

The only thing that God did to unite this body and this mind was to make the body move not only on the occasion of other bodies, as He made those of beasts move, but also on the occasion of the volitions of this mind; and to give sensations and inclinations to this mind on the occasion of motions of this body. (CG 279, emphasis added)55 What, then, about the will? The soul causing its own sensory ideas was really never more than a veiled suggestion, a possible way of reading

55 Battail (1973, 149) recognizes that the occasionalist account of sensory ideas lies only outside the Six Discourses: “Sa thèse, c’est que les idées sont produites en nous par Dieu toutes les fois que cela est nécessaire.” Prost (1907, 91) sees this as well. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

some ambiguous lines. But Cordemoy does at least seem to be explicitly committed to a soul that is causally active in its volitions. The mind’s adventitious ideas may be brought about by God on the occasion of external material events, but does not the human being’s freedom require the capacity on the part of the soul to will something through its own inner powers, “to determine itself toward one thing or another”?As Cordemoy says in the Physical Discourse, “all the soul’s action consists in willing ...our mind has the power to determine itself ” (CG 253–4). Does not the mind generate its own volitions? Alas, even here Cordemoy ultimately resorts to occasionalism.56 But to discover this, we need to go again to the second of the Treatises on Metaphysics, “That God does everything that is real in our actions, without depriving us of freedom.” Human beings, Cordemoy claims, universally strive for happiness, and they do so through an inborn tendency toward the good in general. This tendency (pente) should be understood as a primordial urge or desire at- large toward what we believe will beneﬁt us. All of our actions derive from this spiritual force. As soon as we alight upon something that seems to be a means toward happiness and well-being—and we sometimes make this judgment on the basis of the pleasure it occasions in us—our desire is naturally attracted to it. The will toward “good in general” now becomes focused on a particular good, either because we consider it to be itself the supreme good or because we believe it to be a genuine means toward the supreme good. We need to be careful, though, lest we direct our will toward a thing that is not, in fact, a true good. The will needs to be guided by understanding and clear and distinct ideas in order to insure that it is properly directed. The will, this inborn inclination toward the good in general, is nothing but a divine force, a kind of sustained push that God communicates continually to created souls. The mind’s own “action” is limited to either

56 As noted in n. 17, we do not know when the Treatises on Metaphysics were composed, and thus it is certainly possible that Cordemoy initially (in the Six Discourses and Physical Discourse) believed the soul to be active with respect to its volitions, but then (in the Treatise on Metaphysics) changed his view under the inﬂuence of Malebranche’s Search After Truth (and especially Elucidation I, published in the 3rd edn of the work in 1678). But Battail argues, on the basis of biographical and textual evidence, that it is likely that the Treatise was composed between 1668 and 1670, which would be before the publication of Male- branche’s work (Battail 1973, 18). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  withholding or allowing its consent when the will becomes focused on some particular thing. When the mind is unsure whether or not the object is a true good, then it suspends judgment and refuses consent, allowing the inclination to move on to another object; when it believes the object to be a true good—and only God itself is the true good—it consents to the will’s urge toward that object.

God ceaselessly impels minds toward this end. They have a constant desire for it. They cannot even prevent themselves from wanting to arrive at it. And as long as nothing obscures their understanding and they know perfectly the means for achieving it, all the activity of their will is a striving for it. But as soon as their understanding is obscured and presents to them various things whose appearance is such that they no longer know what to choose, this is when they suspend this activity. While God ceaselessly impels them toward their end, and even impels them to choose one of the means that are available to achieve this end, since they often do not know how to choose, they remain in suspense, and this is an action. For they resolve not to choose, and this resolution is an action; while it truly would not be in them without God, it is their action and not God’s. (CG 284) God provides “all that is real (tout ce qu’il y a de réel)” in the human will. The will just is the spiritual impulse or shove continually generated in a soul by God. All that human beings “do” is freely suspend or provide their consent to allowing the will to rest on one particular thing or another that they perceive to be good. Cordemoy does want to say that this suspension or provision of consent is an “action.” After all, it is a Cartesian mind that he is discussing, and Cartesian minds are by their nature active; some of their modiﬁcations—in particular, their volitional modalities—are actions. But Cordemoy also wants to distinguish between something being an action or active and something being a cause. What he has in mind for the human soul’s decisive attitude regarding the direction of the divine impulse is a non-productive activity. It is an activity presumably because it is followed by some continuation or alteration in the circumstances: depending upon whether the soul gives its consent or not, its striving rests upon or moves past some particular thing.57 Cordemoy does not want to say that it is a true and

57 Radner (1993, 358) says that what makes the mind active (but not causally efﬁcacious) for Cordemoy is the fact that the volitional “movement” in the mind is an action that, while caused by God, belongs to the mind as its modiﬁcation.” But it would seem to follow from this way of reading the argument that bodies, too, would be active, since they too have OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

efficacious causal activity, however, since, he insists, it produces nothing real. No new and positive mode arises either in the soul’s substance or in any other thing. This is very much like Malebranche’s mature theory of the will and its freedom—that is, Malebranche’s view once he has moved beyond his early but quickly abandoned claim that the human mind can actually and actively “determine” or direct the divine impulse, much as one directs the trajectory of water by moving the hose from which it flows.58 After noting that “just as the Author of nature is the universal cause of all motion found in matter, so is He also the general cause of all inclinations found in minds,” Malebranche defines the will as “the impression or natural impulse” given to the soul by God “that carries us toward general and indeterminate good.” The freedom of the will consists only in the fact that, the mind not being fully convinced that a particular thing is a true good, worthy of full devotion, “it can suspend its judgment and love” and withhold its consent to allowing the divinely generated inclination to rest with that thing.59 Cordemoy’s account of human volition is practically identical with that of his more celebrated (and yet more unorthodox) Cartesian colleague.60 And it is no less occasionalist. Unfortunately, Cordemoy does not present any argument for this view of the will, and so we are left wondering why exactly it is that the human mind does not have even the power to generate its own volitions. For Malebranche, the total causal inefficacy of the soul is established from general (and argued-for) principles regarding the inefficacy of finite

divinely caused movement as a modification; and surely Cordemoy does not want to say that bodies are active. 58 See Search After Truth, 1. 1. 2 (Malebranche 1958–74, i. 46; Malebranche 1980, 4); 4. 1 (Malebranche 1958–74, ii. 12–13; Malebranche 1980, 267). 59 Search After Truth, 1. 1. 2 (Malebranche 1958–74, i. 48; Malebranche 1980, 5; paragraph added to 3rd edn). See also Treatise on Nature and Grace, 3. 1. The complexities and problems of Malebranche’s account of the will and its freedom are well discussed in the literature; see e.g. Robinet 1965, 367–474, and Dreyfus 1958. 60 As mentioned in nn. 17 and 56, it is unclear—and perhaps indeterminable—who influenced whom on the issue of the will. The Treatises on Metaphysics were not published until 1691, many years after the appearance of Malebranche’s major works. It is possible that Cordemoy, who died in 1684, was influenced by Malebranche on this matter, but there is no direct evidence to this effect, except for the extreme similarity in their views. This will also depend on when exactly he composed the Treatises, and Battail argues for a date earlier than the publication of Malebranche’s Search (see n. 56). For a discussion of Cordemoy and Malebranche on the will, see Battail 1973, 187–8. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  creatures, as well as from specific arguments against causal powers in the soul. But no such global or particular causal considerations appear in Cordemoy’s works to lend support to his occasionalist account of volition and freedom. Indeed, as we have seen, Cordemoy nowhere offers any real arguments against any causal powers in the soul (including the power to generate its own ideas). No in-principle claims about the causal (in)efficacy of the mind appear in either Treatise on Metaphysics. Neither do any such claims follow from the arguments he offers and theses he establishes in the Six Discourses and the Physical Discourse; nor does Cordemoy indicate therein that he believes there to be any claims that do so follow. At best what he offers in the second Treatise on Metaphysics is a simple and unexamined premise to the effect that “God is the cause of all that is [Dieu est cause de tout ce qui est]” and from this it is supposed to follow immediately that “all minds derive their being and their thoughts from Him” and that “God causes the actions of minds” (CG 283). That is the extent of the support he provides for his account. To put this another way, Cordemoy, rather than arguing for the claim that the mind lacks real causal power with respect to its volitions (and other states) as a step on the way to an occasionalist conclusion (as Malebranche does), moves instead from an occasionalist account of the will to the inefficacy of the mind with respect to its volitions. * An interesting issue, but one that may resist any kind of easy and conclusive resolution, concerns the right of priority. Who was the first occasionalist? Or, since there were varieties of occasionalism in medieval philosophy, especially among Arabic/Muslim thinkers, the more precise question is: Who was the first seventeenth-century Cartesian thinker to adopt occasionalism, either in whole or in part? It has been argued that Descartes himself was an occasionalist when it comes to body–body relations.61 This is probably correct (although Descartes would not have seen things that way), but it remains a contentious thesis.62 Even if there are occasionalist elements in Descartes’s

61 Garber 1992 and 1993. 62 See Schmaltz 2008. Of course, Descartes did not explicitly argue for an occasionalist account of causal relations, either generally or in one or another particular context. Moreover, true occasionalism is a metaphysical system, not just a claim about this or that causal relationship. I believe it is safe to say that occasionalism was simply not on Descartes’s intellectual horizon. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION philosophy (and especially in his metaphysical physics), the real issue is who, after Descartes, but working within the framework of his principles, adopted occasionalism in an explicit and systematic, if not thoroughgoing, manner—whether to address residual problems in the Cartesian system (such as providing a metaphysical foundation for force in extended bodies or for explaining within the context of dualism the correlation between mental states and bodily motions) or for some other reason? I would suggest that before La Forge and Cordemoy published their respective treatises in 1666, there really was no such thing as (to use the phrase coined by Leibniz) a “theory of occasional causes.” Two thinkers who have often been mentioned in connection with the genesis of occasionalism are Clauberg and Geulincx, those fellow members of the second generation of Cartesians active in the decades immediately after Descartes’s death. Clauberg published his The Union of Body and Soul in Man (Corporis et animae in homine conjunctio) in 1664, in which he raises serious questions about, and ends up rejecting, the possibility of real mind–body causal interaction. And the first part of Geulincx’s Ethics (Ethica), which argues that the human soul cannot be the cause of motions of the human body, and that only God is the true cause of those motions, appeared in 1665. However, Clauberg is not really an occasionalist at all; his view of mind–body relations more closely resembles Leibniz’s preestablished harmony, whereby God has established in the nature of things a correlation between the states of the two substances that does not require His constant causal activity. Geulincx, on the other hand, was indeed an occasionalist. But his occasionalism first appears in an unusual context, the moral philosophy of the Ethics. It is used to demonstrate that one is not the true cause of any events in the physical world, not even the behavior of one’s own body, and this is supposed to have neo-Stoic ethical implications. It is only in the unpublished True Metaphysics (Metaphysica vera) that Geulincx’s occasionalism takes a somewhat broader, more metaphysical turn. Moreover, Geulincx’s only argument for occasionalism is rather peculiar and unique. It is based not on any Cartesian theses about mind or matter, but on an epistemic requirement for causal efficacy: quod nescis quomodo fiat, id non facis; one is not the true cause of something that one does not know how to bring about. This kind of argument does reappear in a somewhat attenuated form in Malebranche, but it plays only an implicit and minor role in the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Oratorian’s grand case for occasionalism. Finally, even if Geulincx deserves credit for being the first Cartesian to conceive and employ an occasionalist account of causal relations—although he would not qualify as a thoroughgoing occasionalist, since he reserves causal power for the mind to bring about some of its own mental states—it is fairly clear that his work was not of any real influence.63 There is no indication that La Forge, Cordemoy, or Malebranche read Geulincx’s Ethics.64 (On the other hand, La Forge did certainly read Clauberg—he cites him several times in the Treatise on the Human Mind—and even met with him personally when Clauberg was in Saumur;65 but La Forge apparently believed Clauberg to be an interactionist about mind–body relations.66) It appears, then, that seventeenth-century occasionalism was primarily a French affair, centered in Paris and Saumur (the latter no mere provincial backwater devoid of intellectual activity, but “a true republic of philosophers,” in the words of Henri Gouhier67). And while the doctrine was brought to its ultimate, most comprehensive, and most systematic form by Malebranche in 1674, there were two French Carte- sians working a decade earlier who first came up with this approach to causation in nature. But who was really first: La Forge or Cordemoy? There may be no way to adjudicate between the two. (La Forge was the first Cartesian to use the phrase “cause occasionelle,”68 but this is not really to the point, since a philosopher who employs “occasional causes” is not thereby necessarily an occasionalist.69) We are told that both La Forge and Cordemoy were engaged in occasionalist thinking in the late

63 Prost 1907, 150–3; Battail 1973, 143–6. I should add that the occasionalism of Treatise I of the Ethica is rather brieﬂy presented; and the “Annotations” to Treatise I, in which Geulincx provides a more extended argument for his occasionalist account of mind–body relations, was not published until 1675, with the 1st edn of the full Ethica. His Metaphysica Vera, in which the occasionalism is also argued for in some detail, while composed c.1667–9, was not published until 1691 (posthumously). 64 Battail (1973, 143–4) argues that the religious inspiration found in the occasionalism of Geulincx is absent in Cordemoy, and this seems right. 65 Battail 1973, 143. 66 See Treatise on the Human Mind, ch. 13 (La Forge 1974, 211). 67 Gouhier 1926, 95. 68 In the Treatise on the Human Mind, La Forge 1974, 176. See Gouhier 1926, 89; Clair 1976. 69 See Nadler 1994. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

1650s.70 It is also certain that Cordemoy’s work could not have inspired La Forge, since La Forge published his treatise first. This does not rule out Cordemoy having influenced La Forge in some way, especially since both men were familiar presences in Montmort’s academy—La Forge dedicates his Treatise on the Human Mind to Montmort—and probably even met there on occasion.71 More likely, however, is an influence of La Forge upon Cordemoy. La Forge was already a published author and admired in Cartesian circles for his work in bringing out Descartes’s Treatise on Man. Moreover, the occasionalist elements of La Forge’s own Treatise on the Human Mind seem a natural outgrowth of his editorial and commentary work on the Descartes volume.72 On the other hand, Cordemoy’s occasionalism is certainly more thoroughgoing than that of La Forge. Cordemoy eliminates true causal efficacy from all natural substances, minds, and bodies, whereas La Forge wants to reserve some real causal power for the human soul as the cause of its own ideas.73 For this reason, and with all due respect to La Forge’s originality, it seems that Cordemoy deserves the title of the first full-fledged Cartesian occasionalist, one who adopts the doctrine as a complete account of the nature of bodily motion, of mind–body relations, and of mental events grounded in a substantive metaphysics and in an analysis of causation.74

70 For La Forge, see Gousset 1716 and Clair 1976. Cordemoy says, in Discourse V, that it has been “seven or eight years” since he “discovered the secret” to “the union of our body and our soul” and began discussing it with his friends (CG 145); for discussion of this, see Battail 1973, 7–8. 71 Prost (1907, 103–4, 135–6) insists that it was Cordemoy who inﬂuenced La Forge. Clair (1976, 64) is skeptical, however, insisting that La Forge “ne fréquentait guère Paris, où vivait Cordemoy.” But La Forge did dedicate the Treatise to Montmort, and so must have maintained some connection with that Parisian Cartesian circle. 72 For an excellent account of La Forge’s contribution to the development of occasionalism, see Clair 1976. 73 As Battail (1973, 150) puts it, “Cordemoy nous apparaît comme le plus audacieuse- ment novateur de ces cartésiens de seconde zone que la postérité n’a guère retenus, plus que la Forge qui s’arrête en chemin.” I argue elsewhere (Nadler 1998) that in fact La Forge is not entitled to reserve real causal powers for the soul. See also Specht (1966), who notes, too, that La Forge did not achieve a full occasionalism since he reserved some causal powers for the soul (140). It was Cordemoy, Specht claims, who “brought a new symmetry to the Cartesian system, whereby he, schooled in Cartesian mechanics, introduced the passivity of the mind beside the passivity of matter” (142). 74 Gouhier (1926, 102) is essentially right when he says that “Cordemoy voit le problème en métaphysicien ...il s’élève au-dessus des problèmes particuliers de l’union de l’âme et du corps ou de la communication des mouvements; il examine la notion de cause dans son OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Cordemoy’sInfluence A further question, aside from priority and originality, is that of influence. How important was Cordemoy’s Six Discourses in the seventeenth century? How well known was the work and what was its immediate philosophical legacy? To begin with the particular topic of causation, it would be good to know what role Cordemoy’s treatise played in the development of occasionalism as a doctrine. And in the context of seventeenth-century Cartesianism, this essentially comes down to the question of what impact, if any, the Six Discourses had on Malebranche. To put the question in comparative terms, who had the greater influence on Male- branche’s causal views: La Forge or Cordemoy? Unfortunately, this is a rather vexed question, and a diversity of scholarly opinion has grown around it. The Six Discourses was certainly well known in Parisian Cartesian circles in the late 1660s and early 1670s, just the milieu and period in which Malebranche was first developing his philosophical system. But then again, so was La Forge’s Treatise on the Human Mind. (While both Cordemoy and, less frequently, La Forge attended Montmort’s academy, Malebranche likely did not—the academy was done by 1664.) Moreover, we are told that Malebranche was strolling down the Quai des Augustins in Paris one day in 1664 when he happened upon a bookstall with a copy of Descartes’s Treatise on Man, the just-then, posthumously published work of mechanistic physiology. The event was life-changing. According to Father Yves André, the philosopher’s earliest biographer, who claimed to have heard the story from Male- branche himself, “the joy of becoming acquainted with so many new discoveries caused him such violent palpitations of the heart that he had to put the book down immediately and stop his reading in order to compose himself.”75 This was the edition of Descartes’s treatise edited by Clerselier and illustrated and commented on by La Forge. Given Male- branche’s excitement over discovering this book, can there be any doubt that, when La Forge’sownTreatise on the Human Mind, the follow-up to

essence; il aperçoit le lien qui l’unit à l’idée de création, et il esquisse une métaphysique de la causalité.” 75 André 1886, 12. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Descartes’s treatise and a completion of that project, came out two years later, Malebranche rushed out to purchase it and relive the excitement? As expected, there is a copy of La Forge’s Treatise among the books in Malebranche’s library. Aside from these biographical tidbits, there are philosophical reasons for thinking that La Forge’s treatise was more inﬂuential than Corde- moy’s in the development of Malebranche’s occasionalism. Cordemoy’s main argument for occasionalism is highly idiosyncratic. His appeal to the nature of agency and his account of the individuation of action do not appear in any other occasionalist works, as far as I can tell.76 By contrast, one of the main arguments that La Forge employs, based on divine continuous creation—whereby the motion of a body is its simply being conserved in existence from moment to moment by God in different successive places relative to other bodies—reappears as one of Malebranche’s central arguments in the Dialogues on Metaphysics (Dia- logue 8); it is hard not to believe that La Forge was, with Descartes (who insists on divine conservation as a kind of continued creation in the Third Meditation and elsewhere), Malebranche’s inspiration here. On the other hand, Malebranche never mentions La Forge, once in his entire uvre; but in the Search After Truth, Malebranche’s most important philosophical work, he does explicitly cite Cordemoy’s Six Discourses, approvingly, in his discussion of “the distinction between soul and body.”77 Malebranche also owned a copy of Cordemoy’s Letter to Cossart.78 Some scholars have argued that aspects of Cordemoy’s arguments for occasionalism did directly inﬂuence Malebranche, and that he even adopted them as his own.79 Unfortunately, the evidence for

76 Although Gouhier insists that this argument by Cordemoy was a principal inﬂuence on Malebranche (see n. 79). 77 Search After Truth, 1. 10. 1. Clair and Girbal, the editors of the modern edn of Cordemoy’s philosophical writings, cite a number of places in Malebranche’s œuvres where, they claim, he is alluding to Cordemoy’s works; see Cordemoy 1968, 369. 78 See the catalogue of Malebranche’s library in Malebranche 1958–74, xx. 780. 79 Clair and Girbal e.g. claim that “Cordemoy encouragera Malebranche dans la voie de l’occasionalisme” (Cordemoy 1968, 44). See also Gouhier 1926, 111. Gouhier insists, with respect to several of Malebranche’s arguments for occasionalism—that based on continuous creation and that based on the “necessary connection” that is required between cause and effect—that (referring to the “necessary connection” argument) “cette argumentation n’est originale que par sa rapidité; nous l’avons trouvée longuement délayée dans le quatrième discours du Discernement de l’âme et du corps”; in fact, Gouhier claims that Malebranche’s argument “est empruntée à Cordemoy,” and that “cette démonstration de Cordemoy est OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  this is mainly circumstantial. Still, given Malebranche’s obvious famil- iarity with the Six Discourses and his stated approval of that work’s major theses, at the very least it seems safe to say that he was impressed by what he read there. It is perhaps also safe to say that some of Cordemoy’s arguments must have had some “inﬂuence” (to use a cowardly weak term) on Malebranche’s more systematic (and more theologically grounded) reasoning for occasionalism, even if they served only to point the Oratorian in one direction or another or to illuminate something he had not seen before. One direction in which Malebranche most certainly did not follow Cordemoy is atomism. But then again, neither did any other of his Cartesian colleagues. As we have seen, Cordemoy’s atomism was anath- ema to Cartesians (like Desgabets, Régis, and Rohault), and was regarded as a betrayal of the foundational principles of Descartes’s philosophy. There was one philosopher of the period, however, who was sufﬁ- ciently impressed by Cordemoy’s views on bodies and matter to give him credit for distinguishing himself from the Cartesian crowd, although he also believed that Cordemoy still got it wrong. As Battail puts it, “it is with Leibniz that we must look for an echo of this atomism of Cordemoy that Malebranche, for his part, rejected and of which Spinozism seems to be the opposite pole.”80 Leibniz read the Six Discourses closely. Probably around the time of his four-year sojourn in Paris (1672–6)—where he met Cordemoy81—he wrote a not uncritical summary (in Latin) of the physical doctrines of

utilisée par Malebranche” (1926, 111; see also 1948, 54 n. 1). Battail argues that Cordemoy played a decisive role in Malebranche’s development, since he was “le plus métaphysicien des cartésiens français mineurs, est celui qui à cette date a parcouru le chemin le plus long” (Battail 1973, 148); he even refers to a “stade Cordemoy” (Cordemoy stage) in Male- branche’s philosophical development. Ablondi (2005, 61) suggests that Cordemoy (and not Geulincx) “may well have been Malebranche’s source” for another of his arguments for occasionalism—that grounded in an epistemic requirement that a cause must know how to bring about its effect. He also admits that “there is good evidence to claim that Cordemoy’s argument [on the continuity of action] had a strong inﬂuence on Malebranche” (70). But Ablondi also shows, contra Gouhier (and rightly, in my opinion), that the evidence for thinking that Cordemoy’s “continuity of action” argument is the source of one of Malebranche’s main arguments (the “continuous creation” argument) is very thin indeed. 80 Battail 1973, 120. On Cordemoy and Leibniz, see also Prost 1907, ch. 11; and Garber 2009, 67–70. 81 Letter to Bossuet, 1679, cited in Battail 1973, 35. See Antognazza 2008, 167. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

the Six Discourses.82 At this relatively early juncture, Leibniz took Cordemoy—whom he calls a “semi-Gassendist” (semigassendista)—to task mainly for those aspects of his philosophy that derived from his Cartesianism. Cordemoy, he insists, “did not recognize that in corporeal substance there is something besides extension, something that evidently gives rise to the notion itself of substance, a notion that extension alone cannot generate.”83 The problem is not just the lack of activity in extension (for Leibniz, substances are necessarily active), but the incap- acity of extension alone to account for the individuation of bodily substances. If bodies are nothing but extension, then two bodies that are perfectly contiguous must in fact end up constituting just one body. Interestingly, this is precisely the problem that Cordemoy had raised for the orthodox Cartesian view of body and that he believed justiﬁed his account of atoms in a void. On the other hand, in this same piece Leibniz gives Cordemoy credit for moving away from the Cartesian conception of matter, even if he did not go far enough. “The excellent gentleman saw the truth confusedly and through a cloud, but could not set it out clearly.”84 Leibniz agrees with Cordemoy (against the orthodox Cartesians) that substance is necessarily indivisible. A body that is a substance cannot be divided. But matter is inﬁnitely divisible; therefore, body is distinct from matter, and matter is not a substance. And in the short piece “Primary Truths” (c.1686), Leibniz notes with approval that Cordemoy saw that aggregates (or composites) required “true unities” (simple substances) to be aggre- gated.85 Where Cordemoy went wrong, however, was in thinking that the essential unity required of a substance could be found in a physically unsplittable atom that is itself nothing but extension. As Leibniz writes to Arnauld:

I remember that M. Cordemoy, in his treatise on the distinction between the body and the soul, in order to save the substantial unity in the body, feels himself obliged to assume atoms or indivisible extended bodies, so as to have something permanent to constitute a simple being; but you rightly concluded, M[onsieur],

82 “Ex Cordemoii tractatu De Corporis et mentis distinctione”: the text is in Cordemoy 1968, 362–7; and Leibniz 1923–, vi/4b. 1798–1800. 83 Cordemoy 1968, 363; Leibniz 1923–, vi/4b. 1799. 84 Leibniz 1923–, vi/4b. 1798. 85 He makes this point also in “A New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances, and of the Union of the Soul and Body” (1695). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME  that I did not share this opinion. It appears that M. Cordemoy made an approach to the truth, but he did not yet see in what the true notion of a substance consisted, and this latter is the key for most important knowledge.86 For Leibniz, what Cordemoy got right was atomism; what he got wrong was the nature of the atoms. Echoing his earlier commentary on the Six Discourses in another letter to Arnauld, Leibniz rejects the “Epicurean” atoms of Cordemoy that are nothing but extension in favor of “substances that have true unity.”87 Cordemoy clearly made a strong and lasting impression on Leibniz. We see Leibniz still wrestling with the creative Cartesian a decade later when, in “A New System of the Nature and Communication of Sub- stances, and of the Union of the Soul and Body” (1695), Leibniz insists (much as Desgabets had argued) that an extended atom such as Corde- moy’s, even if it is physically indivisible, must, by virtue of its extension, have spatial diversity and thus be composed of parts. It cannot, therefore, have the authentic, in-principle indivisibility required of substance.88 For Leibniz in the mid-1680s, the true atoms of nature are organic bodies; they derive their unity and indivisibility—and thus their substantiality— from a soul-like form that is united with the matter.89 (For the late Leibniz, of course, these corporeal atoms will be supplanted by “metaphysical atoms,” purely spiritual, immaterial substances that he calls “monads.”)

Texts and Translations This is the ﬁrst translation of the Six Discourses into English; it is also, as far as I know, only the second translation into any language (a Latin version appeared in Geneva in 1679). The ﬁrst edition of the work was titled Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame en six discours pour servir à l’éclaircissement de la physique, and published (with a Privilège du Roy) by Florentin Lambert in Paris in January 1666. My translation is based on the version of the text (essentially, a fourth edition) published in 1704 as part of a posthumous collection of Cordemoy’s writings, Les Oeuvres

86 Leibniz to Arnauld, Nov. 28/Dec. 8, 1686, Leibniz 1923–, ii/2. 123; Leibniz 1980, 163–4. 87 To Arnauld, Apr. 30, 1687, Leibniz 1923–, ii/2. 169. 88 Leibniz 1978, iv. 473. 89 For a defense of this reading of Leibniz c.1680s, see Garber 2009. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION de feu Monsieur de Cordemoy, conseiller du Roy, Lecteur ordinaire de Monseigneur Le Dauphin, de l’Académie Françoise (Paris, Christophe Remy); the publication of this single-volume edition of Cordemoy’s writings was overseen by his son, Louis-Géraud. In that collection, the Discernement bore the title Six Discours sur le distinction et l’union du corps et de l’ame. There are numerous variations of expression and vocabulary between this fourth printing and the three previous states of the text; they are noted by Clair and Girbal in their presentation of the text in CG. I have, on occasion, followed the 1666 text (or, sometimes, the second edition) when it seemed to suggest a better reading and more fluid translation. The text of the Traitez de métaphysique, also here translated into English for the first time, is likewise from that 1704 collection. These essays were not published in Cordemoy’s lifetime; they first appeared posthumously in 1691 as part of a collection titled Divers Traitez de Metaphysique, d’Histoire, Et de Politique. Par feu M. De Cordemoy, Conseiller du Roy, Lecteur Ordinaire de Monseigneur Le Dauphin, de l’Académie Françoise (Paris, La Veuve de Jean-Baptiste Coignard). We do not know exactly when these treatises were composed. Given their content and the close relationship with the Six Discourses’ discussion of mind–body union, they were likely written not long after Cordemoy completed the Six Discourses; however, the Malebranchian elements in their discussion of the will suggest (but only suggest) a dating sometime after 1675, when the second volume of Malebranche’s Search After Truth was published (although, of course, it is possible that they were composed earlier and that Cordemoy influenced Malebranche rather than vice versa).

References Ablondi, Fred. 2005. Gérauld de Cordemoy: Atomist, Occasionalist, Cartesian. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. André, Yves. 1886. La vie du R.P. Malebranche, prêtre de l’Oratoire. Paris: Poussielgue. Antognazza, Maria Rose. 2008. Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Armogathe, Jean-Robert. 1977. Theologia-Cartesiana: L’explication physique de l’Eucharistie chez Descartes et dom Desgabets. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Arnauld, Antoine. 1970. La Logique, ou l’art de penser. Paris: Flammarion. Baillet, Adrien. 1691 [1987]. La vie de Monsieur Descartes. 2 vols. Paris: Daniel Horthemels [New York and London: Garland Reprints]. Balz, Albert G. A. 1951. Cartesian Studies. New York: Columbia University Press. Bardout, Jean-Christophe. 2002. “Occasionalism: La Forge, Cordemoy, Geu- lincx,” in Steven Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Boston: Blackwell, 140–51. Battail, Jean-François. 1973. L’avocat philosophe Géraud de Cordemoy. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Bouillier, Francisque. 1868. Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne. 2 vols. Paris: Delagrave. Carraud, Vincent. 2002. Causa sive ratio: La raison de la cause, de Suarez à Leibniz. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Clair, Pierre. 1976. “Louis de la Forge et les origines de l’occasionalisme.” Recherches sur le XVIIième siècle, 1: 63–72. Cook, Monte. 2008. “Desgabets and the Creation of the Eternal Truths.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 43: 21–36. Cordemoy, Géraud de. 1968. Œuvres philosophiques. Ed. Pierre Clair and François Girbal. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Cousin, Victor. 1841. “De la persécution du cartésianisme en France,” Fragments philosophiques,inŒuvres de Victor Cousin, 3 vols. Brussels: Société Belge de Librairie, ii. 181–91. Descartes, René. 1964–76. Œuvres de Descartes. 12 vols. Ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. Paris: J. Vrin/CNRS. Descartes, René. 1985–91. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 3 vols. Ed. and tr. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dreyfus, Ginette. 1958. La volonté selon Malebranche. Paris: J. Vrin. Fakhry, Majid. 1958. Islamic Occasionalism and its Critique by Averroës and Aquinas. London: George Allen & Unwin. Garber, Daniel. 1992. Descartes’s Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Garber, Daniel. 1993. “Descartes and Occasionalism,” in Steven Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Cartesianism, Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 9–26. Garber, Daniel. 2009. Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad. Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press. Gouhier, Henri. 1926. La vocation de Malebranche. Paris: J. Vrin. Gouhier, Henri. 1948. La philosophie de Malebranche et son expérience religieuse. Paris: J. Vrin. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 INTRODUCTION

Gousset, Jacob. 1716. Causarum primae et secundum realis operatio rationibus conﬁrmatur et ab objectionibus defenditur. Leuwarden: François Halma. La Forge, Louis de. 1974. Œuvres philosophiques. Ed. Pierre Clair. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1923–. Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften. Multiple vols. in 7 series. Darmstadt/Leipzig/ Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1978. Philosophische Schriften. Ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. Hildesheim: Georg Olms (originally Berlin: Weidmann, 1875–90). Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1980. Discourse on Metaphysics/Correspondence with Arnauld/Monadology. Tr. George R. Montgomery. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Lennon, Thomas M. 1993. The Battle of the Gods and Giants: The Legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655–1715. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Malebranche, Nicolas. 1958–74. Œuvres complètes. 20 vols. Dir. André Robinet. Paris: J. Vrin. Malebranche, Nicolas. 1980. The Search After Truth. Tr. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Nadler, Steven. 1993. “The Occasionalism of Louis de la Forge,” in Steven Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Cartesianism, Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 57–74. Nadler, Steven. 1994. “Descartes and Occasional Causation.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2: 35–54. Nadler, Steven. 1998. “Continuous Creation and the Activity of the Soul: Louis de la Forge and the Development of Occasionalism.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 36: 215–31. Nadler, Steven. 2005. “Cordemoy and Occasionalism.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 43: 37–54. Popkin, Richard. 2003. The History of Skepticism, from Savonarola to Bayle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Prost, Joseph. 1907. Essai sur l’atomisme et l’occasionalisme dans la philosophie cartésienne. Paris: Henri Paulin. Radner, Daisie. 1993. “Occasionalism,” in G. H. R. Parkinson (ed.), Routledge History of Philosophy, iv. The Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century Rational- ism. London: Routledge, 349–76. Régis, Pierre Sylvain. 1690. Système de philosophie, contenant la logique, la metaphysique, la physique et la morale. 3 vols. Paris: Thierry. Robinet, André. 1965. Système et existence dans l’oeuvre de Malebranche. Paris: J. Vrin. Schmaltz, Tad. 2002. Radical Cartesianism: The French Reception of Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

GÉRAUD DE CORDEMOY: LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L’AME 

Schmaltz, Tad (ed.). 2005. Receptions of Descartes: Cartesianism and Anti- Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe. Oxford and New York: Routledge. Schmaltz, Tad. 2008. Descartes on Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Specht, Rainer. 1966. Commercium mentis et corporis: Über Kausalvorstellungen im Cartesianismus. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Fromman Verlag. Verbeek, Theo. 1992. Descartes and the Dutch. Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Watson, Richard A. 1966. The Downfall of Cartesianism. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Wilson, Catherine. 2008. Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Six Discourses on the Distinction between the Body and the Soul

To Your Majesty

It is not my intention to undermine the respect with which I present this book to Your Majesty when I dare to assure Your Majesty that you will find in it things worthy of your attention. In this work, I examine the different operations of the soul and the body, as well as the secret of their union. By thus presenting what each of us is and what takes place within us, I believe I can say that I am presenting to Your Majesty an object most worthy of your attention and one that merits your reflection. Never have these two excellent parts that together compose a whole man been so marvellously united as they are in Your Majesty. Never has a hero had so great a soul in so beautiful a body. Moreover, we should not look upon your sacred Person purely as a work of Nature. Ever since the moment of its birth we have believed that it came from Heaven, and we consider all of its actions to be the continuous consequences of the miracle that firstgaveittous. Indeed, Your Majesty, we see things that only testify to the marvels of Your Majesty. When the ardour of the age and the fair success of its arms seemed destined to inspire only battles, Your Majesty gave us peace; and when such a deep respite seemed destined to inspire only luxurious living, we saw how, through a thousand labours greater and more glorious than all OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

TO YOUR MAJESTY  the works of war, Your Majesty repaired, as if instantaneously, the disorders of thirty years. These marvels have taken the entire land by surprise. But Your Majesty is not satisfied with these illustrious beginnings. Your Majesty contemplates greater things for our happiness. Your Majesty seeks to correct the abuses of many centuries, and what Your Majesty does each day in pursuit of so grand a plan clearly shows that Your Majesty sees all the glory of your reign to consist in making us perfectly happy. It is clear that Your Majesty is committed to whatever might maintain justice, prosperity, and tranquillity in your realm, and that, far from lending an ear to those baneful opinions that tend only toward the oppression of your people, Your Majesty takes vengeance upon its persecutors and desires advice only about how to establish commerce, perfect the arts, and render the lives of your subjects sweeter, more tranquil, and more comfortable. It is equally evident that, in order to motivate the learned to seek out everything that might serve such worthy enterprises, Your Majesty has honoured the sciences with special patron- age. Finally, good people have the pleasure of knowing that they can look forward to royal favour as soon as they are able to render service to the state, and that he who works most indefatigably for the public is also he who pleases Your Majesty the most. What a fine way that is to please kings, Your Majesty. There are so few to whom one can show allegiance in that manner. It would be a great advantage for all nations if all sovereigns followed Your Majesty’s example, or even if Your Majesty reigned over the entire world! However, I did not realize that, following my inclinations more than my original plan, I have been speaking more about what I admire in Your Majesty than about my book. The subject of this book has always seemed to me so important and so fine that I have tried not to omit anything that might serve to clarify that topic. In order to resolve any difficulties, I have made use only of the knowledge that we naturally have of the soul and the body. I hope, Sire, that my work will be useful to the public, so that it should be pleasing to Your Majesty. And if this is too much to ask, I hope at least that you will regard it as the product of my great desire to please you and of the ardent zeal with which I am, Sire, Your Majesty’s very humble, very obedient, and very faithful servant and subject, De Cordemoy. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Preface

There is hardly anyone who takes the time to consider the marvels of the body and the soul. These are, nevertheless, two distinct things, each of which is admirable on its own and which together form a remarkable compound. This compound should delight anyone who examines it, and nothing can give as much pleasure to those in search of some diversion as this kind of study. Some are convinced that we need only the body to enjoy the greatest pleasures of life. But I would say, with greater reason, that only the soul is needed. The soul bears within itself everything that could satisfy it, and to experience an unparalleled joy it need do nothing other than reflect on what it is. The soul has only to examine carefully the notions with which God has endowed it in order either to know itself, to know the body that it animates, or to know what this marvellous relationship is that constitutes their union. Through these same means, the soul can know (at least in so far as it is useful to do so) all the other things that compose this universe. Finally, through this illumination the soul can know God Him- self, and know Him sufficiently to love Him more than all other things. It seems to me that all these considerations are powerful enough to oblige a reasonable person to turn his gaze upon himself. But while the need for each person to know himself better will certainly not move everyone equally to examine the different functions of the soul and the body, it must be admitted that this is a study that cannot be neglected in those professions that are ordinarily pursued by those who find in themselves a little talent and intelligence. Those who are destined for the pulpit seem necessarily obliged to undertake it, and physicians cannot neglect it without opening themselves up to a thousand errors that are as shameful for them as they are fatal for their patients. If those who are occupied with the handling of public or private affairs are not absolutely required to engage in a deep study of the mind and body, it is nonetheless true that it is very convenient for them to at least sometimes undertake it. For while such fine knowledge seems to be of OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

PREFACE  little relevance in worldly commerce, still, the means that are necessary for acquiring that knowledge so thoroughly accustom the mind to disentangling the greatest difficulties that there is practically no obscurity in the most complicated affairs that a mind that has been able to master those means cannot easily clarify. Indeed, there is nothing that can dispose a man to conceive each thing so clearly and to disentangle things that seem confused so exactly as the clarifications that he must make in order properly to distinguish what belongs to him because of the body from what belongs to him because of the soul. In such a study he examines only what takes place within himself, and because the object of study is always present to him he cannot lack for attention when he considers it. And when a little practice in this physics has made him sufficiently attentive to observing the particularities of each thing before making a judgement about it, and has allowed him to know by this means all of those things that are most important and most within himself, he can, in addition, make certain judgements about external things and those that are important only to other men. He is no longer so given to haste. He recalls his former errors, he knows the causes of them, and he knows how things fared.Andwhathehasnowdoneforhimselfalsomakeshimableto help those who listen to him discern and even pursue what is always the best course—whether it be in negotiations, public action, or deliber- ation. For in the end, since all men are subject to the same passions and to the same mistakes, he who has sufficiently studied himself as to know his own passions and errors, as well as all the causes of the many motions that agitate him, has much better knowledge of the means that are required to instruct or affect others. It is in this, if I am not mistaken, that true eloquence consists. I do not want to conclude from this that the greatest philosophy is always the most eloquent and the most appropriate for business affairs. I know that such matters require natural talents, and even some inclination, and that without these one cannot hope to succeed in them. But I also know that someone who has all these advantages can make more valuable use of them when he is aided byphilosophy.Itis,withoutadoubt,forthisreasonthatallthe great orators so often employed philosophy, and I believe I can say that the two most illustrious orators of antiquity drew from philosophy those fine and illuminating things that allowed them to rise above others. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 SIX DISCOURSES

However, I admit that philosophy should not occupy one’s entire life, and that after having spent several years closely devoted to it, one should not think about it for more than a few hours, when there is an oppor- tunity for diversion. This is apparently how Cicero used philosophy, and the way in which he speaks on several occasions shows that one should try to master it in such a way that one can make a kind of entertainment out of it (which can never happen if one does not initially apply oneself to it in a very serious manner). But it is important that one not prefer this philosophical diversion to the service one can render to one’s country or to one’s family in considerable ways, or in some particular profession. If this great man and all those who managed the most difficult affairs of Rome and Greece were so comfortable with this method, it is evident that it cannot but help anyone succeed in whatever employment in which they are destined to be engaged. In order to follow the ancients (at least as far as we are allowed to), the first step that we must take is the study of one philosophy that will render us capable of making a fair judgement about each thing and of reasoning on foundations other than our prejudices and common opinions. I am not saying that these opinions are all bad. But in truth, not one of them ought to be trusted until after it has been carefully examined. And in order for a person to grow accustomed to doing this, there is no better way for him to begin than with what happens within himself and by an examination of all the ideas he has of the soul and the body. This is what I have attempted to do in my own case. I have tried to review in the Six Discourses that follow everything we ought to know about these two things, and above all that which will help us fully distinguish the one from the other. In the First Discourse, I examine our general notions of body and of matter, of quantity, of qualities, of place, of rest, of motion, of the void, and of form. My goal is to show what is to be understood by all these terms, which generate all the confusion in ordinary physics. In the Second, I examine the changes that I know of in matter, and I explain all those regarding quantity, quality, and form by means of local motion. This will prove that there is no need to admit any other kind of motion. In the Third, I explain the motion of artificial machines and of natural machines through one and the same cause. With respect to bodies alone, I reveal what this cause is. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

PREFACE 

In the Fourth, I go beyond bodies and talk about the first cause of motion. I show that no body nor any created mind, however excellent it may be, is the true cause of any motion, and that these can be only the occasion for such motion. This allows me to examine, in the Fifth Discourse, what the union of soul and body consists in and how they act one upon the other. Finally, in the Sixth, after showing what ought to be understood by what we call our soul and what we call our body, I try to clarify the distinction between the two, and even to show that we are more certain of the existence of the soul than that of the body. In this final Discourse, I begin by not discussing anything other than what I apprehend in myself, so that I might proceed with less uncer- tainty. I examine as precisely as I can all the operations that depend on my soul, those that depend on my body, and those that result from their union. I believe that it will not be difficult for any person of good sense to disentangle all these things in himself and to see what he ought to judge (1) about himself, (2) about other men, and (3) about beasts. However, I do not deal in this treatise with these last two points.1 Although the stated partitioning of the Sixth Discourse promises an explanation of them, several considerations have prevented me from carrying this out. Once these considerations disappear, I will be able someday to provide what I now withhold. But it seems that for someone who reflects even a little on what I have said in this treatise, it will be easy to supply what I have left out.

1 Cordemoy takes up these matters in the Discours physique de la parole. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

First Discourse On Bodies and Matter

We know that there are bodies, and that their number is practically infinite. We also know that there is matter. But it seems to me that we do not have sufficiently distinct notions of these, and that this is the source of almost all the errors of ordinary physics. I am thus persuaded that the best way to fix this science is to sort out this confusion and examine precisely what ought to be understood by ‘body’ and by ‘matter’. BODIES are extended substances.

1. Since there are many bodies, the extension of each must be limited, and this limit is what we call shape. 2. Since each body is only one and the same substance, it cannot be divided; its shape cannot change; and it is necessarily so continuous that it excludes every other body. This is what is called impenetrability. 3. The relation that bodies have among themselves on account of their position is called place. 4. When this relation changes, we say that the bodies on whose account the change occurs are moved, or (which is the same thing) that they are in motion. 5. When this relation continues unchanged, we say that they are at rest.

MATTER is a collection of bodies.

1. Each body, considered as a member of this collection, is what is properly called a part of matter. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ON BODIES AND MATTER 

2. Several of these bodies considered together and separately from all the others is what might properly be called a portion of matter. 3. If these parts or these portions of matter dwell beside each other without any connection, it is called a heap. 4. If they flow between each other, constantly changing their position, it is called a fluid. 5. If they are hooked together and motionless, or with so little motion that they cannot detach from each other, it is called a mass. Because each body cannot be divided, it cannot have parts. But because matter is a collection of bodies, it can be divided into as many parts as there are bodies. It can also be divided into portions, although it cannot have as many portions as it has parts. Due to a failure to consider these things attentively, the notion of matter in general and that of each body in particular have been mixed up. And because we saw how heaps, fluids, and masses are divided initially into various visible portions, which in turn are reduced by division into imperceptible portions, we came to believe that what has already happened numerous times to the portions that have been separated from others could continue to infinity. We thought, too, that if the number of divisions did not leave us with something insensible, we would be able to divide forever—without noticing that, through division, we must finally reach some portion of matter composed of only two bodies that are separate from each other, and that this must bring the division to an end, since each of these bodies is a substance that cannot be divided. This is a good place to remark on two things. First, that each particular body is incapable of disturbing our sense organs. And because a great number of bodies are needed to compose the least portion of sensible matter, it is certain that we cannot perceive any body; all that we see is matter. Second, because each body is imperceptible, the connections between bodies cannot be perceived. Thus, all their extensions appear in a mass, as if there were only one and the same extension. However, because we have a very clear idea of body and know that bodies are extended substances, we indiscriminately join our notion of body to our notion of matter. We thus take a mass to be a body and believe that all that we see is but one and the same extension, and we therefore regard it as one substance. And because whatever we see thus OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FIRST DISCOURSE extended is divisible, we so join the notion of what is extended to the notion of what is divisible that we believe that whatever is extended is divisible. In order to judge these matters better, it is essential to get accustomed to considering things as they are and not as they appear to be, and to keep in mind two things. The first is that every mass is a collection of several substances and not itself a substance. The other is that this mass has no proper extension of its own; it only seems to have extension because each body that composes it has extension. With this in mind, we will see clearly that a mass is divisible only because its extremities and its middle are not the same substance; that what we call the bottom of the mass, or the top, or the side, or the interior, or the exterior, are different substances; and that because each substance subsists independently of those that accompany it in this mass, it can be separated from them. By contrast, in each particular body the extremities and the middle are but the same substance, which cannot be extended without necessarily having all these things—so much so that none of them is distinct from the body and none can be separated from it. In this way the body remains indivisible. All of these things will necessarily appear true to whoever takes the time to consider them attentively. They will see that it is otherwise impossible to arrive at any clear notion of the principles of physics. I concede that we are so accustomed to thinking of matter in terms of body that even great men give them the same definition. But since this definition involves only what can in fact pertain to a particular body— namely, to be a substance and to be extended—it should not be a surprise if these people who believe that matter is a substance and that there is no other extension than what belongs to matter also believe that every extension is divisible. But were they to think about it even a little, they would see that one and the same substance, considered in itself, cannot be divided; and that if its nature is to be capable of extension, then the moment that one conceives of it as extended one will have to grant that, because it is the same in all its extremities, none of these extremities are separable from it. If we were without prejudice on this subject, there would be no need for such a long discussion, nor to beat about the same thing so many times. But because the habit of believing that we know something often exerts as powerful an influence on the mind as knowledge itself, it is not OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ON BODIES AND MATTER  always enough simply to expose people to the truth in order to persuade them of the contrary of what they think they know. It is only by repeatedly showing the truth to them that one can make them see it. Moreover, not only is it good to help them come to see the truth by frequent repetition, but it is often appropriate, after having revealed to them the truth through basic principles, to show the problems that arise in believing the contrary. For this reason, I will not disguise the fact that I have found that all those whom I have heard speak about bodies and matter as the same thing have never really been able to explain to me their thought on this topic, although I have known some who have an excellent mind and great facility in disentangling the greatest difficulties. Even when I was willing to assume with them that matter is a substance and that a substance can be divided—two things that are the most contrary to what is known about them by the natural light—they have not provided me with any satisfaction. When I asked them if this substance that they believe to be divisible is divisible to infinity, which is where their assumption seemed to me to lead, they responded ‘no, but it is indefinitely divisible’.1 When I begged them to explain this indefinite division to me, they led me to understand it in the same way in which everyone understands infinity. In order to complete their discourse, as full of obscurity as it was, with a bit of good faith, they avowed that, in truth, there is indeed something inconceivable in all this, but that it was necessarily so. Now it seems to me that there is not this kind of obscurity in what I am proposing. I say that each body is an extended substance, and consequently indivisible; and that matter is a collection of bodies, and consequently divisible into as many parts as there are bodies. This seems to me perfectly clear. Another shortcoming that I find in the view of those who say that matter itself is an extended substance is that they are unable to conceive a body all by itself, without any motion. The result is that, according to their doctrine, we cannot conceive of a body at rest between other bodies. This is because on the supposition that this body is touching the others,

1 This is what Descartes claims, arguing that inﬁnitude is to be reserved for God alone and thus that extension is “indeﬁnitely” divisible; see Principles of Philosophy, 1. 26–7. He was followed in this by more orthodox Cartesians. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FIRST DISCOURSE

this doctrine teaches that it makes but one body together with them. However, it seems to me that we have a very clear and natural idea of a body perfectly at rest between other bodies, none of which is in motion, and what I have to say about body agrees perfectly with this idea. The third shortcoming that I find in this view is that if one believes that a body, as a portion of matter, must be divided as soon as its extremities are moved in different directions, it will follow that when surrounding bodies push a body this way and that, on opposite trajec- tories, they will end up dividing it in as many ways as it is being pushed. The result is that the parts of this body that separate are pushed in various ways against those that remain and will separate the latter indefinitely (to use the terms of this doctrine)—that is, if the division is not infinite, then at least its limits will be beyond what we can conceive. It will continue forever, without our ever once being able to determine the size of a body in motion. Even less will we be able to do so if we suppose that the body spins on its own axis and that it is square. If one of the corners of the square tends upward, the other necessarily tends downward; and while the top one will be directed to the right, the bottom one will be directed to the left. Thus right from the very start, the body, with its corners departing, is broken up into five pieces. If its motion continues, it is clear that it will not retain for even an instant either the same shape or the same size. If in order to avoid this unfortunate conclusion one responds that the body will hold on to as many parts as it is divided into, it is easy to see that one simply falls back into the shortcoming that one was trying to avoid. For if it is true that at each moment parts are separated and rejoined, then there is never a single instant at which any body could remain the same size or the same shape. Thus, this rather vague opinion would not do much good in physics, since such an assumption could explain neither the rest nor the motion of bodies on which we know all of physics depends. I honestly confess, however, that I have never heard anyone speak better about the natural sciences than those who hold this opinion.2 But at the same time they ought to admit that, when they do say such fine things in science, they are not in fact following this opinion of theirs, and

2 Cordemoy is presumably referring to Descartes and the Cartesians here. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ON BODIES AND MATTER  that after having claimed that every body is divisible, they end up supposing that many are not actually divided at all during some given period of time. For if their principle is followed consistently, this cannot possibly be the case. Thus they abandon that principle and are compelled to make a completely contrary assumption when they want to provide an explanation for something. Thus it seems to me that, in order for them to begin their discussion of physics in as intelligible a manner as that in which they conclude it, they need only follow the principles that I am proposing. These are intelligible principles, and from them can be deduced all the admirable conclusions that have inspired me to follow their scientific doctrine so closely and with such great pleasure. Moreover, these principles are not at all new. I do not pretend to have discovered anything in particular. I only did a little reflecting upon the notions that we have of bodies and of matter, and I thereby realized that bodies can be conceived only as indivisible substances, and matter only as an aggregate of these same substances. This is something that seems not to have been explained well until now. It also seems to be so satisfactory on all accounts that I do not believe that there is any difficulty that it cannot resolve, or that anything in physics can be discussed clearly without it. As a final observation about our notions of bodies and matter, I have noticed that we are naturally led to call body what seems to us to be indivisible, and to call matter what can be divided without being destroyed. Thus what we call our body is, in effect, an aggregate of a hundred million bodies; in a word, it is matter. And yet we regard this collection of so many bodies as if it were only one body, mainly because its parts, all working together toward the same end, are mutually arranged in a manner so conducive to this end that they cannot be separated from each other without undoing their fitness for it. For the same reason, in the domain of law, what legal experts call body is that which cannot be divided without being destroyed, such as a horse or a slave; and they call quantity whatever is only an aggregate of things that subsist independently of each other, such as wheat, wine, oil, etc. Finally, any time one encounters matter whose arrangement so necessarily produces a certain effect that that effect would be destroyed were the arrangement itself destroyed by the division of its parts, that matter is given the name body, because it is regarded as indivisible. On the other hand, when one encounters matter that is simply a heap, a fluid, or massed together in OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FIRST DISCOURSE such a way that it can be divided into several portions each similar to the others without destroying any effect that results from their arrangement, it receives the name matter. This is so clearly true that the idea that anyone has of body naturally represents to him an indivisible thing, and the idea of matter represents a thing that is capable of being divided. We thereby have demonstrations, through our natural light and through the various implications of the opposing view, that bodies are not divisible. We know this through the natural light because, since any body is one and the same substance, it must be indivisible, and it cannot be said that the top can be conceived without the bottom. For while you might be able to think of one of its extremities without thinking of the others, you cannot conceive that it has only one such extremity as soon as you conceive it as extended. Far from concluding that a body is divisible just because it has different extremities, you will in fact conclude that all of its different extremities are inseparable because they are the extremities of one and the same extension, or, to put it properly, one and the same substance. As for the implications of the opposing view, I have tried to show that if any body is divisible, then it is impossible to conceive a body at rest between other bodies, and just as impossible to conceive its motion—that is, it is impossible to conceive anything in nature. On the other hand, everything is explicable if one assumes that any body is an indivisible substance. For besides the fact that this agrees with the natural idea that we have of substance, it also allows us to explain perfectly the motion and rest of any body. Now it is evident that if one of these opinions is not true, then the other necessarily is true. For in the end, it must be the case either that any body is divisible or that it is not. If a body is divisible, then nature cannot subsist as it is, and I have shown that neither motion nor rest can be explained. If, on the other hand, a body is not divisible, then everything we perceive about motion and rest can be very conveniently explained. I do not think that a more convincing proof of any truth can be found. 6. The more or fewer bodies of which heaps, ﬂuids, and masses are composed is called their quantity; and their greatness or smallness comes from the greater or lesser number of bodies that are found therein. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ON BODIES AND MATTER 

Thus, any single body is never a quantity, although it may be a part of a quantity, just as unity is not a number, although it constitutes part of number. The upshot is that quantity and extension are two different things: one pertains properly to body and the other pertains properly to matter. 7. The bodies that compose heaps, fluids, and masses are not everywhere so tightly packed that they do not leave some gaps in various places. When these gaps are perceived, they are called holes. And when they are not perceived, they are called pores. 8. It is not necessary that these gaps are filled, and it is conceivable that there should be no body between bodies that do not touch each other. It is not at all true to say that these gaps cannot be conceived without extension, and that consequently there are bodies that fill them. And while it can be said that between two bodies that are not in contact one could insert other bodies of a given length, it does not follow that therefore there are any such other bodies. All that should be said is that the two bodies are so situated relative to each other that other bodies can be placed between them, such that all these bodies joined together would compose one extension of so many feet. Thus, what is conceived is only that bodies could be placed there, not that they are therefore there. And just as we might have the idea of several bodies although none of them actually exists, so we are able also to conceive that several bodies might be placed between other bodies, although none yet exists between them. Some have maintained that, if all the bodies that fill up a vase were to be destroyed, the sides of the vase would come together. I confess that I do not understand this reasoning, and I am unable to conceive what one body contributes to the subsistence of another.3 It may well be that, if the bodies that surround the vase push in on its sides, they will break the vase if those sides are not sustained from within by other bodies. But to say that as soon as all the bodies in the vase were withdrawn the sides would have to come together, even if nothing were pushing in on those

3 Cordemoy, again, is referring to Descartes; see Principles of Philosophy, 2. 18. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FIRST DISCOURSE sides, and to use this as an argument against the void—well, if this is a good argument, I swear that I fail to see its force. As for me, I see very clearly that two bodies could subsist so far apart from each other that a very great number of bodies might be put between them, or none at all, without this either bringing the two bodies together or moving them apart. 9. Because the shapes of bodies are exceedingly diverse, the perceptible and imperceptible portions of matter that they compose when they come together may have very different shapes. 10. But because, among bodies, many have the same shape, there are also portions of matter that have similar shapes. 11. Even several bodies of different shapes, mixed together in an equal number and in the same manner, can make up different portions of matter all having the same shape and the same properties. Whatever results from the aggregation of these portions is called matter of a certain sort, or, if you prefer, secondary matter. Primary matter can be defined (according to what has been said) as an aggregate of bodies, and it is evident that a particular body is a part of this primary matter. Similarly, secondary matter might be defined as a collection of several portions of the same nature, and each of these portions is a true part of this secondary matter. Because each portion of a certain nature can be joined to some portion of a different nature, the result of which will be a third kind of portion, it is evident that several of these latter portions would compose a matter that could be called tertiary matter. These mixed portions would be the true parts of this tertiary matter, which would be a mix of the other two. In the same way things can proceed from a third to a fourth nature. For the sake of maintaining some order that keeps all these changes intelligible, the portions into which each matter is first resolved are to be called the parts of this matter. I should note that, in so far as these different states of matter are knowable, they have been given names, and this is perfectly appropriate. But it is very inappropriate to pretend that with each change there appears a new being called quality or form. It is not that these words are inappropriate for expressing the differing arrangements of the parts of matter, but they cannot reasonably signify anything else. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ON BODIES AND MATTER 

12. It is only through their effects that we can judge the different shapes that the different parts of each matter might have. Thus, when postulating a mass or some ﬂuid whose parts cannot be discerned, it is essential to examine what their effects are. The next step is to consider what shapes are the most appropriate for producing such effects. And we will have to accept that the right shape for the parts that compose a mass or a ﬂuid has been proposed when some shape has been discovered that explains all their effects. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Second Discourse On the Motion and Rest of Bodies

That no change occurs in matter that cannot be explained by local motion.

Everyone agrees that there is nothing more opposed to motion than rest. Now it is certain that when a body is said to be at rest, nothing is understood other than that this body remains in the same place. Thus, according to the law of contraries, when one speaks of the motion of a body, nothing should be understood other than that this body is transported in such a way that it does not remain in the same place for a single moment. It might be asked what is the cause of this transport. But this would be to go beyond the question at hand, where the goal is not to explain the causes of the motion of bodies but only to know its nature, that is, to discover a definition that might agree with all the kinds of motion that we know occur in bodies. I think that the definition I have proposed for rest, and consequently for motion, will easily be accepted, because it was arrived at according to an infallible rule. It thus remains for me to show that this definition agrees with all the motions that are known to us. Several people, while admitting that this definition is quite appropriate for explaining the change to which we give the name ‘local motion’, nevertheless say that it agrees only with that kind of motion, and that it cannot apply to those changes in quantity that are called increase or decrease; to changes in quality that are called alteration; and to those of form that are called generation or corruption. But if I show that all of these changes happen only through motion as I have defined it, it will follow that it applies to all the motions that are known to us. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON THE MOTION AND REST OF BODIES 

Quantity Regarding changes in quantity, if a mass undergoes an increase, is it not because some new bodies are joined to those that already compose the quantity of this mass? If it undergoes a decrease, is it not because some of those bodies are separated from it? And can these bodies be added or separated without the local motion that our deﬁnition explains so well? Imagine that a lump of earth, which is already lying right next to a stone, is so moved by the heat of the sun or by some other cause that its more humid parts are forced out and that its more solid parts coalesce according to their irregular shapes, and that these are so squeezed against each other that in the end this lump seems to be in a state that is quite similar to the rest of the stone. It is certain that this exhalation of some parts and coming together of others is nothing but local motion, and thus this increase of quantity [in the stone], which is usually called juxtaposition, can be explained by our deﬁnition. As for that other increase that comes about through intussusception,1 it differs not at all from juxtaposition except that in the latter the parts that gather together are joined by their extremities to the parts of the mass that is undergoing increase, whereas in the former the newly introduced parts slide between the smallest spaces that remain between the parts of this mass until they have come upon places a little too tight for them to enter. What happens, then, is that as these parts strive to pass through the mass, their motion is often strong enough to get them in but not strong enough to allow them to go further, and so they remain joined to the mass and thereby increase it. Something like this might happen to an arrow that is shot into a stack of many others. We know that however tight the union of these arrows might be, there were always spaces between them where the new arrow could enter. And while this arrow had enough force to separate the other arrows from each other just a little, it might, after having lost all of its motion on account of this effort, remain stuck between the others and thereby increase the stack, which could increase by as many arrows as could be shot between those that compose the bundle. The same thing happens within plants, which derive their nourishment from the ground only because the heat of the sun causes the

1 “Intussusception” is a process whereby something slides into another. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 SECOND DISCOURSE

different juices (that is, the different small particles of diverse shapes) deep within the land to move and makes them finally rise up and flow through an infinite number of small channels. Within these channels the particles encounter some seed grains, the pores of which are about the same shape as the particles. These pores allow the particles to enter because it is easier for the particles to thereby continue their motion in a straight line. Having used up a part of their momentum in gaining entrance to the grain, they remain stuck there and increase the substance of the seeds. If the particles should happen to preserve enough of their motion to pass through the grain, they contribute nothing to its nourishment. This is why too much heat, by giving too much motion to these particles— which, if less heated, would cause the seeds to sprout—causes them instead to dry out in the ground. Too great a motion could even cause particles much larger than those which are needed to nourish a certain plant to squeeze through the plant’s passageways. This would ruin the shape and arrangement of the pores of this plant and make it unable to retain those that are proper to it. On the other hand, a lack of motion can leave the juice without enough force to enter the seeds, which it would otherwise cause to grow, and the seeds thereby become useless. It might also be the case that these small juices do not all have similar shapes, and thus they are not all properly suited for entering every kind of seed. Rather, each juice, after having vainly come upon seeds that it cannot enter, might finally be carried to places where it encounters seeds whose pores are a close enough match to its shape that they bring it to rest. In such manner, the ground could contain, at one and the same time, enough differently shaped juices, and the sun itself could, at the same time, be moving them all sufficiently differently, to nourish one plant whose sap is fatal right next to another plant that could serve as an antidote for this poison. For it is certain that the one plant will never accept what is suited for nourishing the other, for the same reason that two differently perforated screens will allow passage only to those grains whose shape is proportionate to the shape of their holes.

Quality As for changes of quality, which are called alterations, it is easy to show that they all happen by means of motion such as we have deﬁned it. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON THE MOTION AND REST OF BODIES 

To do this, it is necessary ﬁrst to examine what is understood by the word ‘alteration’. This word is, without a doubt, understood to refer to all the changes that can happen in a body composed of several parts without any increase or decrease in its bulk and without destroying that constitution of parts in which its particular nature consists—that is, which makes it different from other bodies. I say ‘without any increase or decrease in its bulk’ because such a change would be one of quantity, as we have already seen. Let me add that alteration in the body in which it occurs must not destroy that particular constitution of parts that makes up its whole nature and that distinguishes it from other bodies. For such a great and ultimate change relates to form, which is the topic of the next section. Having posited these things, I say that alteration cannot happen without local motion. Because a body composed of several parts is what it is only because of the structure of its parts, it cannot undergo change except through its parts. Now it is commonly acknowledged that if its parts, right down to the least, remain always in the same position—without moving away from, coming closer to, or passing into each other, and without allowing any other parts to come between them—it is acknowledged, I say, that no change will ever occur, and that as long as this rest of all the parts of a body persists, we can be assured that it will always remain the same, that is, that it is not at all altered. Thus, if some change in the body is perceived, it must be concluded that it happened because its parts either drew together or separated, or that some passed into others, or that they allowed some other parts to come between them—none of which can happen except by local motion. Consequently it is through local motion that alterations and changes of quality occur. If we now consider particular things, we will see, for example, that bread can indifferently take on the quality of soft or the quality of stale, all without ceasing to be bread; but it can be neither soft nor stale except through motion and a different positioning of its parts. It is soft only because its parts are still soaked with particles of water between them and thus are more pliant and less resistant to touch. Moreover, they retain some of their motion, which keeps them separate from one another and makes it easier for someone to insert his teeth between them, so that they are less capable of irritating the palate and other parts of the mouth. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 SECOND DISCOURSE

Similarly, the bread becomes dry after a few days only because the particles of water, animated either by their own motion or by the motion of the air, evaporate, with the result that the dough’s larger parts, which are left behind with much less motion, sit much more tightly with each other, which leaves the bread in such a condition that a knife can hardly penetrate it. However, it is still called ‘bread’ because its parts continue to maintain enough of that arrangement in which its nature consists. We thereby see that it is not a bad way to deﬁne ‘alteration’ by saying that it is a change such that the body to which it occurs can now affect some of our senses in ways different from the ways in which it previously affected them—not so differently, however, that we do not recognize in the body anything at all from what appeared before; were this the case (as we will examine in what follows), we would describe it as a corruption of the form and the generation of another form. But what ought to be noted here is that the alteration that we explained in the bread has for its cause nothing other than the evaporation of certain parts and the coming together of certain other parts—that is, according to our deﬁnition, motion.

Form It remains to be seen what are those changes of form called ‘generation’ or ‘corruption’. There is said to be corruption and, subsequently, generation in a certain portion of matter when nothing of its original arrangement remains to be seen in it. Our senses are so much the masters of our beliefs that when we no longer perceive anything of what we previously perceived in something, we not only begin to give it a different name that corresponds to the new idea we have of it, but we are also inclined to believe that it is no longer the same thing, and often we say that it is now another thing. Doubtless, we would be speaking more properly if we simply said that it is a completely different thing, that is, that it is totally altered. We are accustomed to distinguishing between two degrees or kinds of change, although the only difference between them is one of more or less. When a thing is not changed to the point of being unrecognizable, we say that it is merely altered. But when its change is such that nothing that the thing previously possessed is perceived in it any longer, we are certain that it is no longer the same thing. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON THE MOTION AND REST OF BODIES 

However, if we consult reason instead of the senses, we will find that this thing is still the same body, that it still has just as many parts, and that it could not have been changed except in so far as its smallest parts are now arranged completely differently than they were before—so much so that they no longer have anything similar to their previous structure. To show that motion, as we have defined it, is the cause of this latter effect, as well as of the others, we need only examine one of those extreme changes that are called ‘changes of form’. A bunch of wheat appears to us divided into several small portions. The parts of each grain are squeezed together in such a manner as to make it almost round; and a hull delicate enough not to crush it but strong enough to protect it reflects the light toward our eyes in such a way that it appears to us a yellowish grey, tinged with white in some places. If you run this wheat through a millstone, you will see that the uppermost grains, as they gather in the cavities that have been purposely made in the stone, are forced to follow its motions. And as the first layer of grains has spikey ends engaged in the gaps that are found between the grains of the second layer, this second layer is, at the same time, forced to follow along. For the same reason, it carries along the third layer, and this layer carries along the one below it, so that in the end the entire mass is turning. The result is that the weight of the machine, together with the effect of its motions, grinds the grains, breaks their husks, and causes each of the particles that it enclosed to separate from those that surrounded it and to mix with others. Everything thus begins to compose a certain whole, with a colour and a constitution so different from what was there before that we no longer see any of the appearances of wheat and now call it ‘flour’. Up to this point, it seems to me that there is nothing in all this that cannot easily enough be explained by motion such as I have defined it. If, in order to make some bread, the small pieces of hull that constitute the bran are separated from the particles that make up the finest flour, it is clear that this, too, happens according to the laws of the same motion. If one then mixes these parts of the finest flour with those of water so that the former get caught in the latter and they begin to become more closely linked together, I believe that no one will seek the cause of all this anywhere except in the same motion. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 SECOND DISCOURSE

If one now exposes this doughy mass to the heat of a fire in some enclosed place capable of bringing all this activity together, it will first rise, and most of the particles of water will evaporate. The interior parts, which have become animated, move away from each other; those on the surface, which are hardened by the air and by other surrounding small corpuscles, will become more polished, more compact, drier, and more coloured than the rest of the mass. Finally, if, after the required amount of time, you remove the mass from this place, you will find it in that condition that you call ‘bread’. Through all this time, is it not the same mass that has undergone these different changes? And has not everything happened to it by way of motion, such as we have defined it? And yet, someone will say that it has changed form, that there was corruption of the form of wheat and generation of the form of bread. I cannot object to the fact that this extreme change, by which we are no longer able to find in a mass anything that had previously appeared in it, is called a ‘mutation of form’, so as to distinguish it from those lesser changes that are called ‘simple alterations of quality’. But I cannot conceive what leads some people to imagine that a form perishes and that another one is generated, and even less that a privation is required to go from one form to the other. This middle step has always seemed to me just as chimerical as the two extremes between which it is supposed to be the link; and it seems to me that, since we can explain the greatest changes that happen in matter through the arrangement, shapes, and motion that are found therein, it is not necessary to create new beings of which we have no knowledge whatsoever. I am well aware that many people, not at all given to postulating forms and thus certainly able to do without them, never seek out causes of the changes that occur in a body besides the motion of its parts and the diversity of their shapes, as long as they can perceive this motion and these shapes. But whenever the change is caused by the motion and shape of parts that are too small to be perceived, they have recourse to forms; and in order to safeguard the honour of the forms they have invented and to confer upon them alone all the glory of generation, they say that any change that occurs through shape or motion is not generation at all. On the other hand, it is easy to show that everything that is called ‘generation’ can be explained through the motion and shape of small parts, whether they are perceptible or imperceptible. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON THE MOTION AND REST OF BODIES 

First, it is certain that the bodies that escape our senses are, nonetheless, still bodies; they are no less endowed with particular shapes and no less capable of motion. This being so, if we explain the changes that occur in matter through the shape and motion of certain parts when they are perceptible, and we are convinced that the most imperceptible parts have all the same features, then we ought to believe that they act in the same way as the largest ones and that they even cause greater changes. This is because, to the extent that all the parts of a portion of matter are smaller, it is also more subject to the changes that can be caused by the shapes and motions of its parts. Nature has not made any laws for the parts of matter that we see that do not also apply to the parts that we do not see, and those rules that the science of mechanics shows to be certain for the former are also infallible for the latter. Indeed, if someone who sees the bubbles generated in water by the heat of a fire and the vortices of smoke that waft up from it is persuaded that, when the air current has sufficiently dissipated them so that the particular particles are no longer perceived, they no longer have shape or motion, will he not be quite mistaken in this conjecture? Or rather, if he believes (as he should) that they still maintain their shape and motion, and then comes to think that these shapes and motions no longer follow the same laws that govern the others, will he not be deluding himself with this reasoning? But will he not finally be convinced of his error when he sees that once the cold of high altitudes calms the motions of these small particles and condenses them, they fall back down as water like before? If it were true that they no longer follow the laws of other bodies, who or what would have been able to subject them to those laws a second time? And if they had escaped this power for even a moment, who or what would have been able to put its yoke back on them? Thus, it seems more reasonable to conclude that in so far as something is a body, however small it may be, it behaves like all other bodies. And if we find that shape and motion explain everything that occurs in bodies that are perceptible because their parts are sufficiently large, we should be convinced that the cause of change is the same in those bodies whose parts are too small to be perceived. Let us again use the example of one of those motions wherein the generation of a new form is said to occur and see whether that mass that OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 SECOND DISCOURSE

has gone from wheat to bread through motions, so well explained by our definition, can now turn into the substance of a human being and (to speak with the Schools) take on the form of flesh by the same motions that explained everything else. Anyone who has cut off a piece of the bread will already have to agree that he separates that piece from the rest only by one of these motions. If, when he puts the bread in his mouth, he breaks it down into finer pieces so that they might pass through the oesophagus; and if some saliva mixes with it and makes it easier to undertake this initial division, clearly all of this happens only through motion. If it then passes into the stomach, where it encounters a certain solution all of whose sharp parts, like those of nitric acid, are agitated by the heat of the bowels, it is again divided even more than before and reduced practically to the same state as those diversely coloured scraps that collect beneath the hammers of a paper mill, only to be dampened by constantly running water and divided into so many small pieces that they compose a whitish fluid like paste: does this occur by any means other than motion? If, when this fluid descends from these viscera into those that surround the intestines, the continual pressure of the lower stomach ends up squeezing its more delicate parts through the pores that correspond to the small ducts called the ‘milk veins’, and pushing the heavier parts of the fluid into the large intestine, so that they might be discharged from the body like a useless burden—should not all of this also be attributed to the same kind of motion? If from there the finest and rarest parts of this fluid go through ducts that the eyes cannot see (and whose pathways only the treatise by Monsieur Pequet has been able to discover2) and become more agitated than before—whether because a portion of bile has become mixed in with them and increased their action, or because they acquire greater activity as they are forced through overly narrow passages—and if, because of this, they begin to reflect light into our eyes differently than they did before: it is clear that all of this happens through motion. If the fluid mixes with the blood which is already flowing through the veins; and if, pursuing its course through the vessels that nature has

2 The reference is to Jean Pecquet, a medical doctor in Dieppe and author of an anatomical treatise, Johannis Pecqueti Diepaei anatomica (1651); see CG 314 n. 9. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON THE MOTION AND REST OF BODIES  mechanically disposed for this purpose, it goes to the heart, where it acquires even more heat and activity, and finally passes into the arteries: this, too, is, without a doubt, an effect of motion and the disposition of all its parts. If it is now pushed into the arteries with an endeavour that inflates the arteries as much as they will go, such that with their membranes extended and their pores open the blood particles escape through those pores that fit their shapes: does not all this happen through motion? If these particles of blood that escape, with their different shapes and with some less solid than others, according to the various treatments they have received and the different places through which they have passed, then travel hither and yon to mingle with the straight or bent fibres that already compose the flesh, such that they increase the bulk of the parts of flesh that are similar to them: does not all this take place through motion? And can this assimilation, whose explanation causes so much trouble for those who seek it in the wrong place, be so difficult to conceive in this manner? Through this process, it seems that we have been able to see that one and the same mass, which was said to have the form of bread, was changed into a fluid when its parts were further divided and rearranged in a different way, and that a different form was attributed to the new arrangement. Then we were able to observe that this same fluid, all of whose droplets seemed to be uniform when its particles were all mixed together, was not in fact composed of completely similar parts, since the diversity of their shapes and sizes allowed them to pass through very different places, and in one place to form flesh, in another place fat, in another hair, and in another yet something else. Meanwhile, not one of these parts has perished, but rather each has so changed its shape, its position, and its motion, that to see what it now is in a human being, you would hardly believe what it had been in the bread. This is because ordinarily we do not follow the progress of the cause of the change in each particle with sufficient attention. Rather, instead of taking into account that it is through motion that the particle passes little by little from one state to the other, we abruptly consider the state it had been in before and the state we see it in afterward as two things so specifically different that we imagine that this change must have a cause other than motion; and for the sake of assigning such a cause, we say that there is a new form. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 SECOND DISCOURSE

Moreover, if we were to continue to follow these small particles that I have left in different places of our bodies, it would be easy to explain why, when they are endowed with great motions, they depart from the body without stopping, so that the body becomes practically dried out. I could also explain the shape of the parts that make up fat; how, for lack of a strong enough motion, or for being too abundant, they gather together; and how, ﬁnally, they dry up. Finally, I could explain the different paths taken by the particles that the arteries expel from themselves, according to differences in age, location, and season. But all of that would take me beyond the limits I have set for myself. I am content to have tried to explain through one single deﬁnition all the motions that are known to us, or (which is the same thing) to show that all motions are of the same kind, and that it is only the variety of their degrees or of their sensible effects, rather than a difference in their natures, that we intended to denote when we formerly gave them the name of ‘local motion’,or ‘change of place’, or, at another time, ‘change of quantity’, ‘of quality’,or ‘of form’.

On Rest The same ought to be said about rest. For as long as one mass remains contiguous with the same parts of the surrounding bodies, this state is called ‘resting in place’. If the parts of this mass have a slight motion but, despite that, one does not see any of them departing from the mass or allowing other similar parts to join them, one would say that this mass neither increases nor decreases. This state is called ‘quantitative rest’. Next, as long as the parts of this same mass are perceived always to keep enough of the same position so as to continue producing a certain effect on our senses, although the parts may be stirring among themselves, this state is called ‘qualitative rest’. Finally, as long as the arrangement of parts in which the particular nature of a mass is said to consist remains sufﬁciently unchanged, it is called ‘formal rest’. Thus, if a mass remains in the same state, it is because its parts have not changed their position. If this mass undergoes a change of state, it is because its parts are no longer in the same position. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Third Discourse On Natural and Artiﬁcial Machines

Thattheyallhaveoneandthesamecauseoftheirmotion. And what this cause is, with respect to bodies alone.

Everything that we admire in the works of art or nature is an effect purely of motion and the arrangement of parts. It is these that, according to their varieties, make things suitable for different purposes. The best way for us to come to know this is through examples, and there are no examples more persuasive for this purpose than a clock and the human body.1 We are fully convinced that in a clock the arrangement of its parts is the cause of all its effects. Whether the clock marks the hours or chimes them, whether it indicates days, months, or years, or even does things more difﬁcult and more rare than these, we never seek any form, faculty, occult virtues,orqualities in it. We are even certain that the clock is not animate, since everything that it does can be explained by the motion and shape of its parts. All the same, there is no argument to prove that the clock does not have a soul. And we will hardly be able to convince someone who, in order to show that it does have a faculty, a soul, or a form, says that as soon as the clock’s various parts are arranged in a certain manner, that which would animate it is then introduced into it, and who justiﬁes this by appealing to the rule that a form is not denied to something that has the appropriate disposition. Some consider this law to be quite infallible,

1 The comparison of the non-voluntary motions of the human body (and other bodies, including non-human animals) with the mechanisms of the clock occurs in Descartes’s, Passions of the Soul, and would become common among philosophers of the mechanistic natural philosophy. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE

and a suitably deluded person might structure a mass like a human body and therefore expect that his machine will not lack a soul. He would be so certain of this that when he conceived this undertaking, he did not say to himself that he would be making a body similar to ours, but rather, quite sincerely, that he would be making a human being like us. It would be very difﬁcult to persuade such a philosopher that a clock has no soul once he has decided to maintain that it does. On the other hand, in order to convince reasonable people, who know that beings must not be multiplied beyond necessity, that a clock has no soul, it is enough to show them that everything the clock does can be explained through body alone. Since I am assuming that everyone knows the makeup and all the pieces of a clock, I will not take the time to explain how one wheel moves another, nor how each wheel guides the various parts of the machine with which it is in contact in various ways, thereby preparing them, all at the same time, for different purposes. We know the artiﬁce through which all of the motions of the clock are regulated, and I will not digress by examining how the cord or the chain that serves to wind up the spring makes all the pieces follow its motion. But I do think that it is useful for our purposes to stop and consider what causes lie behind such a spring. All the Schoolmen are in agreement that this happens by way of an elastic virtue, that is, in the language of the vulgar, there is something that has the power or the virtue of making this springiness. But this is not an explanation of the thing. As for myself, I imagine that, since everything that happens in the clock between the spring and the pin takes place because one body moves another, it is most likely that the parts of the spring (which is only a steel strip coiled around a shaft or pivot) are in turn pushed by some other body. I cannot give any credibility to those who say that while this spring needed another body to be wound up, it needs only itself to unwind. For it is certain that the force that is required for the spring to recover can be only a motion, which I do not conceive a body is capable of having from itself.2 Whence it follows that, if a body must remain in the state in which it has been put as long as nothing happens to change it, then as long as

2 “The reasons for this are found in the Fourth Discourse” [note by Cordemoy]. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MACHINES  this steel strip, which was straight, has been curved, it has to remain in this latter state and not return to the former state. This is because nothing needs to change in order for it to remain in this latter state and not return to the former state, whereas a motion is required for it to return to the former state—a motion whose cause I cannot conceive as possibly being in the strip itself. On the contrary, it is clear to me that before the strip was curved, it was at rest. It is also clear that the motion that curved it was given to it through contact and on the occasion of another body; and that when this motion ceases to be in the strip, either the strip must remain in the state that it was in when the motion ceased—that is, it must remain at rest and curved—or contact with some other body, which gives it occasion to move again, must make it return to its former condition. Although our senses do not allow us to perceive the body that communicates the motion through which the strip is straightened, as they allow us to perceive the body that communicates the motion through which it had been curved, nonetheless, because the reason for both events is equally evident, we should not be any less certain in the one case than in the other. However, because it is our senses that convince us of the presence of bodies, we always rely on them, and when their aid is lacking we can barely bring ourselves to believe that of which nature itself persuades us. All the same, we can extricate ourselves from this difficulty if we are careful to keep two things in mind. The first is that before microscopes had been invented, we did not have any means of knowing through our senses thousands of details in the shape and motions of the many small parts of our bodies, and it would have been unreasonable for us to want to deny, or even resist believing, that there were such small parts just because we could not sense them. The second is that, once we are persuaded that there are things smaller than those we perceive when our eyes are not aided by lenses, we can conjecture that there are things even smaller than those that this new artifice allows us to perceive. Reason, which must go beyond sensation, is required to help us do this. We need to take into account the fact that, while a portion of matter must have a certain size to move the nerves by means of which we sense, only a minimal extension is needed to make a body. Besides, if it is true that the smallest body must have a shape and be capable of motion, and if it is also true that the laws of nature are proportionately the same for small and large masses, then we can reason OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE

about the shape and motion of bodies that we do not see because we know the shapes and motions of masses that we do see. For example, just as we see that the fingers of a glove that are collapsed upon each other can be separated and opened up when a hand or some other visible body is inserted into it, so similarly it ought to be surmised that when these fingers are seen to inflate because of some breath of air, it is because there enters into the glove a quantity of small bodies, whose number is so great that, while not one of them is visible, nevertheless, when enclosed in the glove, they raise it up in such a way that as long as they remain within the glove it will remain taut, as if some hand were filling it. If this is true of a glove, whose cavities are visible, it can certainly be true of any other thing whose pores are invisible. Thus, while the steel that constitutes the spring of a clock has pores that are too small to be perceived when our eyes do not have the aid of a microscope, nonetheless, it should not be difficult for us to comprehend that, however small the pores of the steel strip may be, they allow passage to matter subtle enough to be able to enter them, as long as the strip is perfectly straight. In this case, as the matter finds each pore to be the same with regard to both entering and exiting, nothing stops its flow in any direction. But when this strip comes to be curved, as its parts separate from each other on the convex side of the surface and gather together on the concave side, the pores shrink on one side and grow larger on the other. In this way, as the subtle matter, which continues to flow around the strip, encounters the more open side of each pore, it enters there plentifully. At the same time, finding the other side of each pore more tightly closed, it strives continuously to separate the parts thus bunched together and continue its course in a straight line, and it can do this only by straightening out the strip—that is, by returning all of its parts to their earlier positions. Notice, too, that this happens all at once if the force that bent this strip ceases all at once. This is because each of its pores is permeated by a line of this subtle matter, all of which, acting at the same time and exerting force on each part of the strip, restore it in an instant to its earlier state. On the other hand, this will happen only little by little if the force that keeps the strip bent is but slightly less than the force with which the parts of the subtle matter tend to insinuate themselves within the pores of the strip. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MACHINES 

Someone may object that, while such subtle matter may be a useful assumption for explaining the spring, it is not so easy an assumption that it should be accepted without examination. To this I respond, in the first place, that just as it is reasonable for those who see a glove inflate to suppose that some matter has entered it, even if that matter is too fine to be perceived, so similarly, we who know that there are pores in the steel strip, that its bending cannot happen without its pores enlarging on one of its surfaces and shrinking on the other, that the parts of this strip cannot return to their previous position without each of its pores returning to its previous state, and finally that this cannot happen if some matter does not permeate it—we, I say, must necessarily conclude that there is a matter subtle enough for all this. Thus, the supposition is not only easy, but necessary. In the second place, I respond that it is easy to grant the existence of matter whose parts are very subtle and always moving so much (however imperceptible they may be) that they communicate that motion to the parts of masses or sensible fluids. Whoever puts his hand into some water knows that the parts of this water are in motion, and that these parts are not attached to each other. Otherwise they would not give way so easily to the parts of the hand. Indeed, when the water is frozen and all of these parts are at rest, it is no longer possible to submerge the hand in it. And if you remove a stick from the frozen water, the parts of the frozen water do not come together to fill the space from which you have removed the stick. Why, then, does it happen that the parts of this water sometimes have motion and at other times do not? It must certainly be because sometimes other bodies agitate its parts and at other times they do not, just as we see that a ball, or some other visible mass, moves when it is pushed and does not move when it is not pushed. Moreover, you should not think that the parts of the water are so closely joined together that they do not allow anything to come between them. For it seems that whatever constitutes light passes through water, even when it is frozen; and the learned no longer doubt that it is matter that generates the sensation of light in us. Besides, this rigidity in the parts of frozen water clearly indicates that, should they become more pliable, it is only because they are surrounded by small bodies that are in much greater motion than the parts of light. These small bodies are so subtle that not only are they able to flow between the parts of the water, OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE but they are also able to penetrate the pores of each part and, after the part has been forced to bend by an encounter with other small bodies that press upon it at its ends, straighten it out. This happens continuously, sometimes to one part of the water and sometimes to another. Finally, it is so true that the parts of the water are more agitated at one time than another, according to the subtle matter that surrounds them, that sometimes they are less agitated than the parts of our hands (which is why they feel cold to us) and other times they are much more agitated than the parts of our hands (which is why we sense them as hot). Perhaps it will be objected that because I do not accept that the parts of the spring of a clock or those of water move unless they are agitated by the parts of a more subtle matter, I should therefore admit that another, even more subtle matter is required to move the parts of that first subtle matter, and that, according to my principle, subtle matters must be sought to infinity. It is true that the bodies that compose this subtle matter of which I speak must not, as bodies, have motion from themselves. I will show in the following discourse, in which I explain what the motion of bodies is, what its first cause is and how it is conserved. But two observations suffice for removing the present difficulty. First, there is motion, and whatever motion there is can certainly be communicated from one body to another, but it cannot disappear. Second, there are certain portions of matter that are much better suited for conserving motion than others. Among them all, those portions that are smallest and with the fewest branches are best suited for that; and when simple bodies are not attached to each other, they are in a better condition for maintaining their motion than all composite bodies, however small these latter may be. For ultimately, since in general every portion of matter and every body maintains its motion as long as it does not communicate it to others, unattached bodies must conserve their motion better than portions, and the smallest portions better than the largest ones. In addition, since bodies are better able than portions to travel into the smallest gaps, they are less likely to get stuck. For the same reason, the smallest portions are less likely to get stuck than the largest, provided that their shape does not alter the effect of their size. It follows that what is smallest is better at conserving motion, and that the most subtle matter will be best suited for this. And it is worth noting that several bodies, or several small portions, that are in motion around a OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MACHINES  large mass and touch it in various places can break it down to its foundations and divide up all its parts. This is what happens to the parts of a cone of sugar, which the parts of water or other fluids so easily dissolve. At other times, if the parts of the mass are closely joined together and the parts of the surrounding fluids come into contact with it, although each individual part of the fluids would have bounced off had it alone come into contact with the mass, when they are together they have enough force to spin the mass around or carry it in a straight line, whichever would agree most easily with their various directions, that is, in the manner that least changes the state of each. Now when liquids are thus disturbing a mass, since the motion of their parts is much greater than that which they give to this mass, each part is rebounding in various ways off the others or back upon itself. And since those that gather on one side of the mass cannot push others without being pushed back in turn, each is always receiving as well as giving motion. No one with good sense who accepts these assumptions will fail to judge that, if water is a fluid with respect to a wisp of straw, then air is a fluid with respect to a part of water; and that just as the parts of water can turn or carry the straw without ceasing to move, so the parts of the air often carry those of water and lift them up while turning them about. Similarly, the parts of matter that cause light are a fluid with respect to a part of air, which they can agitate in various ways. Similarly, again, another, even more subtle matter can be a fluid that disturbs each part of that fluid which causes light. For all that, however, one ought not to believe that this progression is infinite, for two reasons. One reason is that, in the present case, it is sufficient for explaining everything that we come up with a fluid whose parts are more subtle than those of the matter that causes light. The other reason is that, should it be necessary to come up with many other fluids, this clearly would not have to go on to infinity, since matter is only a collection of bodies, each of which is indivisible (as I showed in the First Discourse), and thus it is inconceivable that there be matter or fluid more subtle than that which is composed only of bodies detached from each other. From all of this, it necessarily follows that large masses are less susceptible to motion. It also follows that, having once received motion, OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE

they maintain it less than the portions of matter of which fluids are composed; and that among fluids, those whose portions are the least composite are the most susceptible to motion and the most capable of maintaining it. The result is that there is nothing that is so suitable for maintaining motion in all kinds of matter as the most subtle fluid, that is, that which is composed only of simple bodies, which flow past each other without getting attached. Thus, as long as we opt not to go outside the realm of bodies in search of the first cause of their motion, and as long as we want only to know what is that matter that agitates all others and that accounts for all the motion in nature, this most subtle fluid must be what we are looking for. I now think that it should not be difficult to accept the explanation that I have given of the motions of the clock. We have, of course, understood the motion of the hand by means of that of a wheel, the motion of that wheel by means of another wheel, and the motion of all of them by means of the cord. Having, at last, arrived at this bent steel strip, we saw that its motion in straightening itself, which must derive from some bodies, could only have come from bodies fine enough to pass through its pores and moving with enough speed to enlarge those pores on that side of the strip where they had been trapped by the effort made to bend it. With respect to this, it should be noted that these small bodies always tend to continue their motion in a straight line, and that the contraction of the strip into a concave surface interrupts this line. There is no need for me to show here that every motion tends to continue in a straight line. Aside from the fact that everyone knows the reasons for this, we are convinced of the truth of this by our experience of all the motions of sensible bodies. The stone that flies away from a sling that is being whipped around in a circle and the parts that fly off a wheel that turns with some force make this abundantly clear. But it is not inappropriate at least to note that when I assign the motion of the clock to matter whose parts are very subtle, always in motion, and have a tendency in a straight line, I am not saying anything that is not perfectly intelligible, evident in experience, and even necessarily true. It is also good to take note of something else, namely, that the motion of the clock is so closely related to this subtle matter that, were it possible to prevent that matter from flowing into the pores of the steel strip, there would no longer be any springiness in it, and the clock would come to rest without motion. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MACHINES 

Let us now see if this is how it is with our bodies as well. Because I am assuming that we all know what the composition of the body is, I will not stop to explain how the bones, which have the most solid constitution of all the parts of the body, support all the other parts; why they are articulated in such a variety of ways; what their connections and casings are; what flesh surrounds them; how the muscles that attach to their extremities serve to pull them in different ways; how these muscles communicate with the brain by way of the nerves, which are only the extensions and elongations of the brain itself; how these nerves are sometimes full and sometimes empty of the spirits that flow there from the brain; how the spirits, which are only the most subtle and heated parts of the blood ascend from the heart into the brain by the carotid arteries; or, finally, that it is in the heart that the blood is heated, and that the heart is to the human being what the spring is to the clock.3 However, it seems to me that, just as it is not commonly known what is the cause of the motion of the spring of the clock, it is also not commonly known what is the cause of this great motion that happens to the parts of the blood when it is in the heart. It is my view that the same matter that moves the spring of the clock also causes the motion of the heart. It seems that I have already shown that the subtle matter is the cause of all the motions that we see in masses or in sensible liquids. But note that this subtle matter is found in two kinds of state. Either it forms a separate body—that is, it is found in some quantity without any admixture of larger matter, or it is found mixed with parts of larger matter. In the first state, it is the cause of that radiance we call light. Indeed, we find that all the ways of producing light in places where it was not present at all consist only in finding ways of separating off larger matter and making a space for the most subtle matter by distancing them from each other. Thus, when, with the help of a looking-glass, several rays of light are made to gather at the same point, the parts that compose these rays,

3 Cordemoy here follows Descartes’s account of the circulation of the blood and the heart’s role in that process, as detailed in L’Homme and other writings. William Harvey published his De motu cordis in 1628, in which he explains the “movement” (beating) of the heart as it pumps the blood through its own contractions. Cordemoy must have known Harvey’s work, but (unlike his attitude toward atomism) is unwilling to depart from Descartes’s view; he thus explains the heart’s beating as a result of the fact that the blood being heated by the heart expands within it. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE being quite agitated, tend forcefully to expel each other from the place where they meet. The result is that that place fills up with the most subtle matter, which forms a little whirlpool and pushes out all the surrounding matter. As it encounters that matter whose parts can move our eyes, it excites in us, through their means, the sensation of light. Similarly, when two stones whose parts are extremely hard are struck against each other, the parts that come together on their surfaces at the point of contact are pushed back with some force upon those beneath them. They then rebound with such violence that they separate into small flakes that spin off into the air and divide the parts of the air. The result is that they are no longer surrounded by anything except the most subtle matter, and their extremities are so disturbed when they encounter this matter which makes us sense light that they push it against our eyes strongly enough to make us see something redder and more vivid than ordinary light. These parts of the stone, thus agitated by the subtle matter that surrounds them, can, by communicating their motion to masses which they encounter, be the cause of great flames. If this subtle matter flows into the pores of some mass and divides it into such small parts that each does not have enough force to communicate its motion to the parts of neighbouring masses but only to the parts of the matter that can excite the nerves of our eyes, it can cause light without burning. This is what happens to decomposed wood, whose parts, reduced by this subtle matter, do not have the force to disturb the bodies which they touch but can nonetheless stir up the particles that excite in us the sensation of light; whence it happens that they do not burn but often glow. On the other hand, there are fires that consume without glowing. This is the effect of the subtle matter considered in its second state, that is, when it is mixed with parts of larger matter. Sometimes the subtle matter causes such great division in certain masses—for example, in fruits or in flesh—that, although they do not feel hot to the touch (since their parts have become too separated to make their motion sensible), nonetheless they are seen to decay, and this is called ‘gangrene’ or ‘rotting’. Sometimes, when a certain fluid is poured on a mass, the fluid insinuates itself into the pores of the mass. But since it does not fill the pores up completely, and as neither the parts of the air nor other surrounding matter can flow in there with the fluid, some subtle matter OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

ON NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MACHINES  does flow in. It surrounds the fluid on all sides and communicates so much motion to it that it shakes all the parts of it with which it comes in contact and makes them boil all over the place. This lasts for as long as it takes for the fluid to insinuate itself into all the pores of the mass. This is what happens, for example, to quicklime when water is poured onto it. Sometimes, as well, the subtle matter is the cause of why two fluids that individually would have chilled our hands before being mixed will burn us if we touch them after they have been poured into the same vessel. This happens whenever one of the two fluids has parts that can insinuate themselves among the parts of the other without leaving any space except what is necessary for the most subtle matter to enter. As soon as the subtle matter comes in and surrounds them, it communicates its motion to them, heats them, and makes them boil. This is precisely the way that blood is heated in the heart of a human being. Since at each diastole the heart does not push all the blood with which it is filled into the two arteries, some of the blood stays in the cavities of the heart and its particles are reduced in the time that they remain there. The new blood which falls into the heart from the two veins cannot mingle with the blood that remains there without immediately expanding. This is because the parts that remained in the heart and that now slide between those that arrive there contain only the most subtle matter. This subtle matter heats the new blood so quickly and to such a degree that as the heart begins to contract, it forces the blood particles to enter into the two arteries and to push all the blood therein to the extremities of the body. This cannot happen unless some of the arterial blood enters into the veins, at the point where they interface, and unless the blood that enters the veins at their extremities pushes all the blood that fills them toward the heart. Now while these things are taking place, a little of the blood that remained in the heart is refined and ferments, which once again agitates the blood which the two veins allow to fall in. Thus, the action of the heart is continuous. It always sends warm blood to the extremities, which in turn pushes the blood of the extremities back toward the heart to be warmed. Because the arteries are porous, their motion, which responds to that of the heart, makes their pores open up at certain moments and allow parts of the blood to escape. As these parts join with those of the flesh, the bones, or the muscles, they nourish them. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 THIRD DISCOURSE

There are even parts of the blood that escape the body entirely, without being perceived, and others that, upon exiting the skin, join together and look like water. Thus, it is because of the subtle matter that the blood is heated; it is because of it that the blood is capable of nourishing the body; and (which is our main subject) it is because of it that the blood ascends into the carotids and then into the brain. In the brain, these most subtle parts enter those places where other parts of matter cannot insinuate themselves. They separate from the larger parts and constitute that mass of small bodies whose agility earns them the name ‘spirits’. It is these spirits that flow through the nerves into all the muscles and make our bodies move in so many admirable ways. And it is these same spirits, a part of which flow from one branch of the nerve of the sixth conjunction into the fibres that compose the flesh of the heart, that are the cause of its beating. Thus the heart is, all at the same time, a vessel where the blood is heated and a muscle that pushes the blood toward all the extremities after it has been heated. And just as the brain receives from the heart blood from which the spirits are formed, so the heart receives from the brain spirits, which it uses to send blood toward all the parts of the body. While I have not explained all these things thoroughly, it is enough if I have shown, through the examples of the clock and the human body, that artificial and natural machines have the same cause of their motions. With respect to bodies alone, this cause is the most subtle matter. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Fourth Discourse On the First Cause of Motion

With respect to bodies alone, the cause of all their motions is to be sought only in the most subtle matter. But this subtle matter does not have motion from itself. Thus, if we wish to discover the true cause of motion, we need to go outside the realm of bodies. Since this investigation is one of the most important and most difficult that can be undertaken, we must proceed step by step. That is why I follow the method of the geometers and first explain several of the terms which I will be using and which are equivocal. Next, I propose several axioms, and then I put forth my propositions. In this way, each item, properly isolated, can be better examined, and if there are any fallacies, they can be more easily identified than if I had constructed my discourse with all the parts bound together.

Deﬁnitions 1. To cause the motion of bodies means nothing other than to move bodies. 2. To have motion means nothing other than to be moved.

Axioms 1. A thing does not have from itself that which it might lose without ceasing to be what it is. 2. Every body can lose some of its motion, to the point of not having any at all, without ceasing to be a body. 3. Only two kinds of substances can be conceived, namely, mind (or that which thinks) and body. That is why they ought to be considered OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FOURTH DISCOURSE

the causes of everything that happens. What does not come about by means of one must necessarily be attributed to the other. 4. To move, or to cause motion, is an action. 5. An action can be continued only by the agent that began it.

Conclusions 1. No body has motion from itself. Proof: According to the first axiom, a thing does not have from itself that which it might lose without ceasing to be what it is. But according to the second axiom, every body can lose its motion without ceasing to be a body. Therefore, no body has motion from itself. 2. The first mover of bodies is not a body. Proof: If the first mover of bodies were a body, it would follow that a body would have motion from itself. But according to the first proposition, no body has motion from itself. Therefore, the first mover of bodies is not a body. 3. Only a mind can be a first mover. Proof: According to the third axiom, there are only two kinds of substances, namely, body and mind; and what cannot belong to one must necessarily be attributed to the other. But according to the second proposition, a body cannot be a first mover. Therefore, only a mind can be a first mover. 4. Only the mind that began moving bodies can be that which continues to move them. Proof: Assume that, as the fourth axiom states, to move bodies is an action; and that, as the fifth axiom states, one and the same action can be continued only by the agent that began it. It follows that if a mind began moving bodies, the same mind must continue to move them. But according to the third proposition, it is a mind that began moving bodies. Therefore, it is only that same mind that continues to move them. This last proposition might be found more problematic than the preceding ones, because we are convinced that one body can make another body move, and because we imagine that once the mind that was shown in the third proposition to be the first mover has agitated OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ONTHEFIRSTCAUSEOFMOTION  certain portions of matter, these were able to move other parts of matter. We even believe that all of our experiences of sensible things reveal that it is always a body that makes another body move. But lest we be deceived, we ought carefully to distinguish that which is actually revealed in experience from that which is merely conjectured. For all of our errors in this matter derive from the confusion of these two things. Consider, for example, the case where body B has driven body C from its place. If one examines carefully what is in fact known for certain in all this, one will ﬁnd only that B was moved, that it encountered C, which was at rest, and that subsequent to this collision the ﬁrst body ceased being moved and the second body began to be moved. But to think that one apprehends B giving motion to C is really only a prejudice, one that arises from the fact that all we see are these two bodies and the fact that we are accustomed to attributing all effects that are known to us to things that we perceive. But we thereby ignore the fact that often these things are incapable of producing such effects, and we fail to consider that there may be a thousand causes that, though totally imperceptible, can produce sensible effects. However, we have already agreed that an imperceptible cause can produce a sensible effect, since we were forced, in the third proposition, to allow a mind, which we do not see, to be a cause of the motion that we perceive in bodies. Thus, it remains to be seen whether, when we say that B has driven C from its place, we are right to think that the motion of the one could have been produced by the other. For in case we decide that body B, which, of all the things that appear before us, is the only one that we judge capable of this effect, cannot in fact produce it, we will have to conclude that the cause of that effect is hidden from the senses and so try to discover it through reason. First, when it was said that B was being moved, without any thought as to what was making it move, what was meant was that it was in a certain state. Accordingly, we ought not to have believed that it could communicate its motion to C, since the state of one body can never pass into another. Second, if, when it was said that C began to be moved, our thought turned to what was making it move, we could not really have believed that it was B, since B was no longer in motion but began to be at rest. Thus, since however one conceives motion, that of body C cannot have been caused by body B, it must be concluded that the cause of this motion is insensible. And since we know from the third proposition that OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FOURTH DISCOURSE a mind is a first mover, if we suppose that B has been moved by this mind up to the point where it encounters C, we ought not doubt that when C begins to be moved it must be by the same mind. This mind is capable of moving C, just as it was capable of moving B, and we see that B, at rest, is not capable of moving C. But someone will say: if B keeps half of its motion after its collision with C, could we not then be certain that, if they continue on together, B is making C move? The answer, it seems to me, is ‘no’. When it is said that B, which we are supposing is being moved by the first mover, keeps half of its motion, what ought to be understood is that if this mind was moving it with a speed of, say, eight, then after the collision with C it moves it with a speed of no more than four, and that C begins to be moved by that same mind at a speed of four. We should also note that, when each body is moved, it possesses its motion only as if it were for itself. This becomes clear if we assume (as we know might happen) that body B rebounds from body C at the same time that C is moved by their collision. For even if in this case it might be said that the second body is being moved by that which moved the first, and that we should refer the degrees of motion with which the second body began to be moved to the motion of the first body, nevertheless, it cannot be said that the degrees of motion that remain in the one are serving the other, for then, after the separation, they would go at exactly the same rate. For the same reason, it must not be said that when the two bodies continue to move on together the one goes by means of the other, but only that because they are being moved in the same direction and with so many degrees of motion, they must go equally fast and thus never leave one another. What has been said about body B and body C should be understood to apply to all bodies that might encounter one another. However accustomed we may be to believe the contrary, we must conceive that whatever moved the first must move all the others, since that which produces also conserves, and the same action that began the motion must continue it. Thus, what ought to be understood when it is said that bodies move bodies is that, since they are all impenetrable and therefore cannot all always be moved, at least with the same speed, their collision is an occasion for the mind that first moved some of them to then move the others. Now since we do not always consider this first cause of motion, and because we dwell only upon what is seen—since often this is sufficient to allow us to understand what is happening—when we want OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ONTHEFIRSTCAUSEOFMOTION  to say why a certain body that was at rest begins to be moved, we are content to explain how it was in contact with another body that was in motion, thus offering the occasion as the cause. Now that I have shown that a body cannot move another, and that it is some mind that makes them move, we need to discover what mind this is. Some terminate their inquiries with themselves. They see that the motions of their bodies very closely follow their wills, and so they believe that they need not seek any other cause of the motion of their bodies than their own will. This error is similar to the error of those who think that one body can move another. These people—because they see only two bodies, and because the transit of the second body always happens as soon as the first moving body has been brought near it—are persuaded that it is indeed the one that makes the other move, without considering that a body could not produce the effect that they are attributing to it. Similarly, some people, because they see that as soon as they will a part of their body to be moved toward a certain place it is immediately carried there, and because they notice nothing at the time other than their will and the transit of their body that immediately follows, imagine that this transit can only be caused by the will. And yet, they do not consider the fact that the will cannot be the cause of that motion. To see why the will cannot be the cause of the body’s motion, it is necessary first to consider the fact that often our bodies move before we want them to be moved, whence it follows that it is a will other than our own that moves them. If it is said that the motions of our bodies happen only because we will them to happen, I respond that the phenomenon manifestly reveals the contrary, and that the motion is in the matter that composes our bodies before they are animated, that is, before that which does the willing is united with them. Besides, our souls abandon our bodies only because the latter no longer have any of the motions necessary for life; and to see that the duration of those motions does not depend on our will, we need only consider the fact that they always cease long before we want them to. Consider that, if sometimes our unhappiness is such that it leads us to desire death, it would be in vain for us simply to will these motions in us to come to an end. They depend so little on us that, if we simply willed them to stop, they would not, for all that, stop. But were we to use some weapon upon ourselves and make the life-giving blood flow out of the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FOURTH DISCOURSE body’s vessels, we would then see those same parts whose motion serves to move our bodies exhaled like smoke. If our despair allowed us still to philosophize, we would see that, since our blood exits from us without our will causing its motion, it is not our will that makes it move in us. Second, if we were able at will to make new motions, it would follow that the quantity of motion in nature could increase, and thus the order of nature would be disrupted. For if only a certain quantity of motion was needed to establish this order, only exactly this same quantity is needed to conserve it. Third, if our wills were able to produce motions, they would conserve them. But we have already shown, by a very clear example, that they cannot conserve those motions whose duration they most ardently want to conserve. Fourth, if the motions of these fine and subtle particles that agitate our limbs came from our will, they would be either faster or slower, according to what pleased us. But it is in vain that an old man wills to walk quickly, or that a drunkard wills to walk a straight line, and it is useless for anyone whose hand is frozen to will to move his fingers. People in this condition demonstrate only too clearly that if these small particles can be moved more at one time and less at another, it is never according to our will but always according to the difference in the matters of which they are composed, as well as differences in our ages and in the places where we live. Besides, wakefulness, which is merely the motion of particles in the brain (in order to keep its pores open) and in the nerves (in order to keep their fibres taut) often happens in us despite ourselves, and it often continues longer than we want, which would not happen if these motions answered to our will. Similarly, sleep would not so often overcome us against our wishes if we were able to continue the motion of these particles as long as we pleased. Finally, all those convulsive motions and those subtle and fatal transports that assail our brain fully demonstrate that our will does not provide motion to these particles (which, because of their subtlety, are called ‘spirits’), and that the will is not even the master of the course they take, since on these occasions the will cannot prevent the particles from flowing wherever their impetuosity takes them. Moreover, we know that there is nothing that depends less on us than the motions of our heart. However little one may have observed the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ONTHEFIRSTCAUSEOFMOTION  difference in its beating as one approaches a hot or cold place, it is impossible not to see that it moves only through its interaction with other bodies in the universe. Finally, if one takes care to note that all the other motions of the body follow from the heart’s motion, one will no longer think that it is our soul that triggers the motion of the small particles called the ‘spirits’. It will be clear that these spirits are nothing other than the most delicate parts of the blood that has been heated— that is, moved—in the heart. It will be seen that the blood rises more or less, according to whether this heat is more or less great; and that once these parts have arrived in the brain, they ﬂow into the nerves and from there into the muscles, so that they have no need of the soul in order to be moved. It is certainly true that once these parts are in motion, when they pass into the brain some of them can be directed according to the soul’s wishes. But this is just to say that as soon as the soul desires that the body to which it is united should betake itself in some direction, the power that moves these particles moves them in a manner that corresponds to this desire. Thus, if there is any way of saying that the soul moves the body, it is in the same sense in which it can be said that one body moves another body. For just as it is said that one body moves another when, because of their collision, it happens that whatever was moving the ﬁrst now moves the second; so it can be said that a soul moves a body when, because it so wills, it happens that whatever was moving the body now moves it to where this soul wants it to be moved. Still, it must be admitted that it is convenient to explain things in the ordinary manner, that is, to say that a soul moves a body and that one body moves another. Since we do not always seek the origin of things, it is often more reasonable, given what has already been noted, to cite the occasion rather than the cause of some effect. After having tried to respond to those who say that our minds can move our bodies by their will alone, I must now go from one extreme to the other and respond to those who doubt that there is any mind that can move bodies by its will alone. In my opinion, this error comes from the fact that often we will more than we are able to achieve. And since we do nothing except through the aid of some power that is not at all our own, we are inclined to believe that every will is impotent in itself, or (which is the same thing) that every mind needs, besides its will, some power to carry out what it wants. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 FOURTH DISCOURSE

Thus, our habit of judging everything by what we experience in ourselves brings it about that while we recognize through evident reasons that it must be a mind that moves bodies, nevertheless, when we come to the conclusion that it does this by its will alone and, at the same time, consider how weak our own will seems to be in all respects, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that, whatever this mind may be, its will is powerful enough to do all this. But if we consider that this perpetual defect of our mind comes only from the fact that it is not the source of its own being,1 and that if it were the source of its own being nothing would be lacking to it, such that whatever it willed to happen would happen, we will easily see that there is a first Mind that, as the source of its own being, needs only its will in order to do everything, and that, because it lacks nothing, as soon as it wills something that is capable of being moved to be in motion, this necessarily happens. We will be persuaded of this truth easily enough if we reflect a little on things of which we are in fact already convinced. First, we are certain that, in general, some spirit must do everything that body cannot do. Second, on the particular subject of motion, we know that while body alone is capable of receiving motion as an effect, it cannot be the cause of motion. Finally, our weakness teaches us that it is not our mind that causes motion. What possibility, then, remains? It must be another mind, one to which nothing is lacking, that does it, and does it through its will. But, someone will say, just because our minds cannot cause motion, does it follow that, in order to discover the cause of it, we need to have recourse to the first Mind? Can there not be a mind between this first Mind and our own that could be the cause of motion? I reply that if this mind, of whatever sort one imagines it to be, is not the first Mind, then it is not the source of its own being; and if it is not the source of its own being, then it has nothing that does not come to it from elsewhere, such that it is not the true cause of anything. We certainly could conceive that a mind was directing all the motions of this universe just as we direct some of the motions of our bodies, all of which happens because the first power arranges those motions according to our wills. Nonetheless, this mind, however excellent it may be, would not produce

1 This is my admittedly free translation of il n’est pas par luy-même, and seems to capture the ontological point that Cordemoy wants to make here. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

ONTHEFIRSTCAUSEOFMOTION  any motions, and what would make it of a higher order than our own mind is the fact that the first power would arrange more things according to the will of this mind than it arranges according to our will. But none of these things would have been produced by that mind. If we wanted to find the true cause of them, we would have to ascend to God. It has been well said that He is so enshrined in His works that one cannot consider them without knowing Him. In effect, one cannot know nature without knowing motion, and you now see that we are able to know motion only by recognizing the divine power that causes it. Our senses have allowed us to see clearly enough that bodies can be moved, but our reasoning has taught us that they cannot be moved by other bodies, nor by souls as weak as ours, nor even by any created mind, however excellent it may be. Thus, we have arrived at this first Mind. And we have been obliged not only to avow that this Mind began motion, but also to admit that it continues motion—we have learned that its power alone is capable of that. We must admire it, above all, on this point, namely, that after it established laws among bodies, following which it moves them in various ways, according to the diversity of their collisions, it also established laws between our souls and our bodies, laws which it never violates. And as long as these bodies are constituted in a certain manner, this Mind will always direct certain motions according to our desires. This is something it does with such promptitude and such conformity to our wills that those who are hasty in their judgements believe that they themselves have done what they have simply desired, just because this first power did it as soon as they desired it. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

Fifth Discourse On the Union of Mind and Body

And on the manner in which they act on one another

This marvellous relationship between our motions and our thoughts gives me occasion to speak about the union of our body and our soul and the manner in which they act on one another. These two things have long been admired without being explained. I dare not say that I have discovered their secret, but it does seem to me that I leave nothing more to be desired on this score. Some of my friends to whom I have communicated my thoughts on this subject several times over the past seven or eight years want to persuade me that they are true. If, however, I am mistaken in something in the ﬁrst part of this discourse, where I speak about the union of the body and the soul, and in the second, where I speak about their action, my error will be easy to recognize. For in each part I offer for examination only two deﬁnitions, one axiom, and one proposition.

First Part: On the Union of Mind and Body Deﬁnitions 1. Two bodies are united as much as they can be when their extensions touch each other and with such a relationship that the one necessarily follows the determinations of the other.

I should note that simply seeing this relationship between them continue is sufﬁcient to assure us that their union continues, without inquiring into the identity of the power by which they are so disposed. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE UNION OF MIND AND BODY 

2. Similarly, two minds can be said to be united if their thoughts arise in mutual manner and with such a relationship that the one necessarily follows the determinations of the other. Again, as long as this relationship between them continues we can be certain that they are united, without having to inquire into the identity of the power by which they are so disposed.

Axiom The union of things takes place only through what they have in common. Consequently, if a body and a mind are united, it is not through the relationship of two extensions, since mind has no extension; nor is it through the relationship of two thoughts, since body has no thoughts.

Conclusion But if this mind, whose nature is to think, has some thoughts to which the body can have a relationship through its extension, through its motion, or through something else in its nature—if, for example, from the fact that this mind wills this body to be moved in a certain direction, this body is then so disposed that it is indeed moved there; or if from the fact that there are certain motions in this body, certain perceptions come into this mind—it can be said that they are united (whatever may be the power by which they have been thus disposed). And as long as they have this relationship between them, it can be said that their union continues. If we examine this union, we ﬁnd that it is much greater and more perfect than that which exists between two bodies. For two bodies are united only at their surfaces; that is, they have no relation other than through their extremities, without their other parts being united. By contrast, in the body to which a mind is united there is no part so small that the mind does not bear a relation to it, since the changes that happen in each part of the body can be perceived by this mind or excite new thoughts in it. And there is no part of the body that does not serve to maintain the admirable arrangement that renders it ﬁt for all the things that this mind wills it to do. Moreover, in light of what we observed at the end of the Fourth Discourse, we now know what the power is that keeps the mind and the body constantly disposed to receive various changes, each on the occasion of the other. It was not necessary to examine here what power OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 FIFTH DISCOURSE

maintains this relationship between them. It is enough to have discovered that this relationship is a true one, and that it is that in which the union of mind and body consists. With these things assumed, it is easy to see in what sense it can be said that our minds are in a place, and what ought to be understood when it is said that they are transported. For if, on the one hand, it is true to say that minds cannot be transported, since this assumes an extension that they do not have, on the other hand, if we consider them as united to our bodies in the manner just explained, it can be said that they are wherever the matter is whose motions are directed according to their will and whose various changes can excite different sensations in them. Finally, since anywhere this matter is transported it has motions that correspond to the thoughts of these minds, and since these minds have thoughts that necessarily correspond to the changes of this matter, it can be said that the minds are transported with them. With the same assumptions in place, it can properly be said that a mind is wholly in the whole body that it animates, and wholly in each part, since this whole can follow its volitions or provide it with sensations, and each part of this whole serves to maintain what makes it ﬁt for those tasks. In the same way we can also understand how God is everywhere without being extended. For since each part of matter subsists and is moved only because God so wills it, this action of His will extends everywhere. Nevertheless, God is not united to matter as our souls are united to our bodies. For He has no dependence on matter, and what happens in matter cannot cause in Him any of the kinds of alterations that our soul undergoes as a result of changes in the body. The reason for this difference is that nothing happens in matter other than what is pleasing to this sovereign Mind. Thus, the cause of changes in matter is His will, which He knows before these changes happen; thus, these changes cannot give Him any thought that He did not already have. By contrast, our souls know the changes in matter only when they happen, and they can receive new thoughts through the motions of the body, according to the relation and dependence that God has established between them. It is certainly conceivable that an angel, or some other mind, can direct the motions of a certain portion of matter, even if we cannot say that it animates that matter as our minds animate our bodies. For these other OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE UNION OF MIND AND BODY  minds are not at all subject to the changes in the matter to which they are related. Even if the matter could act upon them in some sense, since they are capable of perceiving these changes and thus of having new thoughts on their occasion, nevertheless, these minds are not at all affected by pleasure, pain, and the various sensations that our soul experiences as soon as there occur in our body changes that restore or ruin the disposition that allow it to be united with the soul. On the other hand, it is conceivable that a demon, or some other mind, can be affected by pain through union with a certain portion of matter, although the direction of any motion of this matter is not subject to its will. God may have disposed this mind to suffer to the extent that He has disposed this matter to move, with the perpetual motion of the one generating the eternal punishment of the other.

Second Part: On the Action of Minds on Bodies, and that of Bodies on Minds Deﬁnitions 1. One body is said to act on another when it is the occasion for this other body to begin to be structured or moved otherwise than it was previously. 2. Similarly, one mind is said to act on another mind when it is the occasion for this other mind to conceive, imagine, will, or think, in whatever manner this may be, otherwise than it did previously. Thus, bodies act upon each other, to the extent that they can, when they cause any change appropriate to extension; and minds act upon each other, to the extent that they can, when they cause any change appropriate to thought.

Axiom Whence it follows that one thing acts on another only in so far as it can bring about a change in it according to its nature. Consequently, if a body acts upon a mind, it cannot be by causing in it any change of motion, shape, or parts, since this mind does not have any of these things. Nor, if a mind acts upon a body, can it be by causing in it any change of thought, since this body has no thought. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 FIFTH DISCOURSE

Conclusion But if this body, either its motion, its shape, or some other thing dependent upon its nature, can be perceived by some mind, such that on its occasion this mind has thoughts that it did not have previously, it can be said that this body has acted on this mind, since it caused in the mind all the change that it was capable of according to its nature. It is undoubtedly no more difﬁcult to conceive the action of minds upon bodies or that of bodies upon minds than to conceive the action of bodies upon bodies. What makes the former seem to us more inconceivable than the latter is that we want to conceive the one through the other, without taking into account the fact that each thing acts only according to its nature, and that we will never understand the action of an agent when we try to examine it through our notions of another agent that has a completely different nature. But what is remarkable in all this is that, although the action of bodies upon bodies is no better known to us than that of minds upon bodies or bodies upon minds, nonetheless, most people think that they understand the former and wonder only about the latter. I dare say, however, that when what occurs in the action of one body upon another body is carefully examined, it will not be found any more conceivable than what occurs in the action of minds upon bodies. In order to see this, consider again what body B does to body C when it is said that it moves it from its place. All that is evident in this case (as was said in the Fourth Discourse) is that B was moved, that C is now moved, and that the former remains in the place that the latter occupied before it. We see only this; everything else is a matter of conjecture. Similarly, consider what a mind does to a body when it is said to put it into motion. All that is evident is that the mind wills the body to be moved in a direction and that the body is, at the same time, moved with a motion that conforms to the desire of this mind. We perceive only this; all the rest is only conjecture. But up to this point, the two cases are the same. For if, in the ﬁrst example, bodies B and C appeared to us both in motion and at rest, it is because they are capable of these two states. In the second example, if the mind willed a certain body which was already in motion to be directed in a certain manner, it is because it was able to so will it; and if the body was thus directed, it is because that was in accord with its nature. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE UNION OF MIND AND BODY 

Let us examine the rest and try to judge it properly. As for the first example, according to what was said in the remarks on the fourth proposition of the Fourth Discourse, although C, which was at rest, is seen to begin to move, and B, which was moving, is now at rest, it cannot be said that the motion of the one passed into the other. This is because it is evident that the motion of each body is, in itself, only a mode of being, and since a mode is inseparable from a body, it cannot in any way pass into the other. Whence it follows that it is something other than body B (which is now at rest) that moves body C. Now we will not have too much difficulty discovering this thing if we recall the conclusions of the Fourth Discourse. Thus, since it is true that it is not B that moves C, if there remains any way for us to say that body B acts upon body C, it is only because as soon as the two bodies are brought together, the one ceases to be moved and the other begins to be moved. Similarly, in the second example, we perceive that as soon as the mind wills the motion of the body to be directed in a certain way, it happens. Why, then, can we not equally say that the mind acts upon the body, since, while it is not effectively our mind that causes the motion, it is nonetheless certain that the motion of our body depends upon our will to the same degree and in the same way as the motion of a body depends upon collision with another body? To consider the matter precisely, it seems to me that the action of minds upon bodies should not be found more inconceivable than that of bodies upon bodies.1 For we recognize that, if our souls cannot move our bodies, neither can bodies move other bodies. And just as we ought to acknowledge that the collision of two bodies is an occasion for the power that was moving the first body to move the second, so we ought to have no difficulty in conceiving that our will is an occasion for the power that is already moving a body to direct the motion in a certain way corresponding to this thought.

1 I have corrected for an apparent error in the text here, one that is noted by Clair and Girbal in their modern edn (see note c at CG 151). The text of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th edns reads “celle des corps sur l’esprits.” But what Cordemoy should say here is that the action of minds upon bodies is no more inconceivable than the action of bodies upon bodies. The 2nd edn has (apparently correctly) “celle des corps sur les corps.” OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

Sixth Discourse On the Distinction Between Body and Soul

That the existence of the soul is more certain than that of the body. On the distinct operations of each. And on the effects of their union.1

Some say that without what faith teaches us about the soul, there would be great reasons to have doubts about it, and that if they were not so very devoted to Christianity, they would absolutely believe only in body. As for me, while the authority of the Church serves well to confirm my belief in the soul, I will say frankly that, seeing that there is nothing more certain to the mind than the mind itself, I am surprised at the doubts that can be raised against it and at how anyone can say that without faith they would not believe that there is anything in a human being other than the body. Nonetheless, since this is a difficult point for some, I think that in order to examine it properly it is necessary, first of all, to agree about what is meant by these words ‘body’ and ‘soul’, and then to examine whether these names are never given to the same thing. Whoever says ‘body’ in this context means an aggregate of several extended parts within a certain limit, such that they necessarily exclude any other extended thing like them. 1. This exclusion is what is called impenetrability. 2. This limit is what is called shape.

1 Much of what Cordemoy says in this Discourse, particularly about mechanisms in the body and the passions as they manifest themselves in the body and in the soul, comes straight out of Descartes’s Passions of the Soul, right down to his choice of terminology. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

3. This relation that it has to other bodies through its position is called its place. 4. When this relation changes, the body on whose account it changes is said to be in motion; and when this relation continues, the body is said to be at rest. Whoever says ‘soul’ or ‘mind’ means that which thinks of something. 1. This thing is what is called object or idea. 2. The first view or knowledge that the soul has of the object is called perception; attention is when the perception continues for some time; and memory is when perception begins again after having ceased to see the object. 3. If one asserts or denies something of the object, this is called judgement. 4. The resolution made after this judgement is called will. With these assumptions, I clearly see that what I understand by the word ‘soul’ includes nothing of what I understand by ‘body’. Thus, I have reason to judge that these are two totally different things. I see that even if I wanted to doubt all the things I conceive when I think of body, I could not at the same time doubt my own thought. Let it be false, if you will, that there is any body in the world, still, it cannot be that there is no thought as long as I am thinking. Now how can I believe that my thought is the same thing as what I call body, given that I can suppose that there is no body at all but I cannot suppose that I do not think, since the supposition itself is a thought? Thus, I know, first of all, that the soul, or that which thinks, is different from the body. Second, I see that the argument for the soul is indubitable, and that so far there is no argument that assures me of the body. For ultimately, how am I persuaded that I now have a body whose extension is five feet four inches?2 I have sometimes thought that I have a body composed of so many parts that their extension was more than a hundred feet, and even

2 The French unit of measurement before the Revolution was le pied de roi, which was somewhat longer than our present-day foot. Thus, cinq pieds (Cordemoy’s phrase here) is really the equivalent of ﬁve feet four inches. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE that it touched the clouds. What now assures me of the little bit that seems to remain of this great body? Is it (you will say to me) because I sense it? But I sensed those hundred feet, just as I now sense the five feet four inches. So as not to heed my own dreams too much, there are those who still feel pain at the end of their fingers when their hand has been cut off: do they not imagine (although they are completely awake) that they have extended parts where there are none? This being the case, I ask one more time: Whence the certainty that I have extension where I now believe I have it, if the only reason I have for believing this is that I sense it? I am quite certain that I think I have a body whose parts are extended up to certain limits, but I am not as convinced of having it as I am convinced that I think this. Thus, my thought remains certain while, speaking as a philosopher, what I believe about my body remains quite doubtful. Even if this body that I imagine I have did not exist, I would not cease to be something, as long as I was thinking. For just as someone whose hand has been cut off continues to have the same thoughts that he had regarding his fingers, since he senses them as if he still had them, so I could have lost all my limbs, one after another, and continue to believe that I still have all of them. It may be, then, that I think I have a body without, in fact, having any extension at all. But it cannot be the case that I think this without, in fact, having a thought. It seems to me that I have said enough to show that it is much more reasonable for someone to doubt the body than it is for those of whom I have spoken to doubt the soul. But I wish to avoid quarrelling with them, and just as they have often said to me that they had no desire whatsoever to dwell upon the reasoning that makes them doubt the soul, and that rather than engaging in so much dispute about everything regarding the soul they preferred to rely on faith, which is always more certain than reasoning, so I, for my part, do not want to think any more about what makes me doubt the body. I prefer to focus constantly on what faith commands me, so that I might be certain about it. For example, I will bear in mind that God became man, like me; and that just as it is a matter of faith that he had a real body, I will believe that I must have one, since otherwise he would not have been a man like me. Thus, whereas the soul is, to some, an article of faith, I prefer to make the body an article of faith, and to reason on this most certain foundation. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

I will thus henceforth say that I have a soul because this is evident to me by the natural light, and because faith assures me of it. As for the body, I will say that I have one because, while this is not evident to me by the natural light, faith sufﬁces to keep me from doubting it. 1. But in order to know myself well, it is not enough to know that I have a body and a soul. It is necessary that I try to distinguish fully all the things that belong to me because I have a body from all those that belong to me because I have a soul. 2. It is necessary that I examine how I am everything that I am through their union, and how they act on each other. 3. Then I will see if any among the bodies that surround my own are such that I must judge them to be united with souls, and whether there are any others to which I am not obliged to attribute souls.3

First Part Thought To begin with the examination of myself and to see what belongs to me because I have a soul, it is clear from what I have already observed about the nature and advantages of the soul that if I think in any manner whatsoever, it is because I have a soul. Perceptions, Attention, and Memory If I conceive different objects in various ways; if, ﬁrst of all, I perceive one of them; if, in order to know them better, I consider them at greater length; if, after having stopped considering them, I recommence—in a word, if I have perceptions, attention, and memory, it is because I have a soul. Intelligence If I consider my thoughts, or those of others, however they may have become accessible to me; if I consider truth and many other things that

3 This last set of questions is something that Cordemoy does not take up in the Six Discourses but only in the Discours physique de la parole, the so-called “Seventh Discourse.” OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

have nothing to do with extension, shape, or motion—in a word, if I am capable of conceiving purely intelligible things, it is because I have a soul. Imagination If, on the other hand, I consider things that depend on extension, shape, and motion—in a word, if I am capable of imagining, it is because I have a soul. Judgements If, while considering an object, whether it is corporeal or spiritual, I assert or deny that certain things belong to it—in a word, if I make judgements, it is because I have a soul. Doubts If, because I do not know everything that should be known about things, I dare not judge about them and remain in suspense until I know them— in a word, if I doubt, it is because I have a soul, and a soul to which something is lacking. Errors If I precipitously and without knowing everything that should be known about a thing judge that it is what it is not, or that it is not what it in fact is—in a word, if I am subject to error, it is (as I have said) because I have a soul, and a soul to which something is lacking. Freedom of judgement If, on other occasions, in order to avoid errors I withhold judgement about things until I know them perfectly; if I feel, on the one hand, that I cannot know everything, and that in this regard something is lacking in my natural light; and if, on the other hand, I feel through constant experiences that I have the power to suspend my judgements until I am perfectly informed, or to not make any judgement when I cannot be so informed—in a word, if I am free in my judgements, it is because I have a soul. Different volitions If I resolve, after my judgments, to act or not to act, to do one thing or another, and to act in a manner either conformable or contrary to what OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

I know I ought to do—in a word, if I have a will capable of good or bad, it is because I have a soul. Freedom of will Let there be a thousand things that I cannot understand, and let there be none so excellent or so great that I cannot will it. If, in this disparity that exists between my power of willing and my power of understanding, I experience in myself the power not to will until after I have come to a full understanding, or to will even before coming to a full understanding— all of this teaches me (besides things that I will not explain here) that I have a freedom in my volitions,aswellasinmyjudgements.AndIhavethis liberty only because I have a soul. Love If, because I consider something to be good, I wilfully join myself with it, that is, if I want everything that is favourable for this thing—in a word, if I love, it is because I have a soul. Hate If, because I consider something to be contrary to that which I love, I wilfully separate myself from it, that is, if I want everything that is contrary to it—in a word, if I hate, it is because I have a soul. Joy If, because I see that everything is the best it can be for the thing that I love, and that everything is the worst it can be for the thing that I hate, I experience an extreme pleasure—in a word, if I have joy, it is because I have a soul. Sadness If, because I see that everything, or at least something, is contrary to that which I love; and that everything, or something, happens that is agreeable to that which I hate, I experience some displeasure—in a word, if I have sadness, it is because I have a soul. Desires; Fear Since love makes me want everything that is favourable for that which I love and hate makes me want everything that is contrary to that which OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

I hate, if, because I come to think that it would be good for that which I love and very bad for that which I hate that a certain thing that does not yet exist should exist, and that another thing that is or can be should not exist, I thereby come to desire that this happen or not happen—in a word, if have desires or fear, it is because I have a soul. Thus, I recognize that if I have ideas, perceptions, attention, memory, intelligence, imagination; if I form judgements; if I have doubts; if I am subject to error; if I have different volitions; if I am capable of good and bad; if I am free; if I have love, hate, joy, sadness, desires, and fear, it is because I have a soul. And I am certain that all these things would belong to me even if I were only a soul.

Second Part Having examined what belongs to me because of the soul, I must now see what belongs to me because of the body. Shape; motion; and, in general, organs Given what I have already observed regarding the attributes of body, I know that if I notice shape, motion, and different organs in me, it is because I have a body. Nourishment If I have a heart where the blood is heated; if I have arteries where it flows; if these arteries have pores through which the parts of this blood escape; if I have flesh where these particles end up in order to increase its mass—in a word, if I am nourished, it is because I have a body. The flow of spirits to the brain If parts of this blood that are in greater motion and more subtle than the rest rise like smoke from the place that I call my heart to that which I call my brain, by way of an artery that prevents them from dissipating as they go from the one to the other; Their passage into the nerves If there are cavities in my brain where this mass of small bodies that are called the spirits turns in a thousand different ways, until something gives them an opening or determines their flow more strongly in one direction OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  than another and thereby gives them a way to open up a passage into my nerves, that is, among those fine fibres that are composed of the substance of my brain and extend to the extremities of my limbs, with the same casings that serve to preserve them in the head; Their passage into the muscles; the movement of the limbs If my nerves, gathered together in some places like cords and in other places like tissues, divide so as to mingle with certain parts of flesh that are stretched into very fine membranes; and if they are joined to the extremity of that flesh opposite their entry point in order to spread the spirits therein; and if the spirits that have spread into all the membranes of this composite of nerves and flesh, which is called muscle, cause those membranes to shorten, such that the two extremities come toward the middle and pull the limbs to which they are attached; The transport of the whole body And finally, if all of my muscles are disposed in such a way that, because one is always communicating with another, their spirits pass back and forth, according to how they are determined by new spirits which are constantly descending from the brain, and that through these comings and goings, which are sometimes slow and sometimes fast, they pull one of my limbs, and often my whole body, now to one side and now to another; in a word, if I am transported from one place to another,itis because I have a body. Wakefulness If the flow of spirits is abundant enough that they keep the cavities of my brain so wide open and the fibres of my nerves so tautly stretched that something that touches the extremities of my body, by pushing on one of these fibres, moves my brain at the spot where this same fibre originates; and if on the occasion of this motion, other spirits are determined to move into those places where they would not have otherwise gone; in a word, if I am awake, it is because I have a body. Sleep If sometimes, because these same spirits are drained of energy and no longer rising with enough force or in a great enough number, the parts of my brain sag and the fibres of my nerves slacken, such that the only OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE active ones are those that send the spirits to the muscles that serve to maintain those beatings by which the chest, through its rising and falling, makes air enter or leave the lungs, that is, if I sleep, and if in sleep I breathe, it is because I have a body.

Drowsiness If, because those large nerves whose fibres reach into the base of my eye are slacker than those that terminate in my ear—either because they have been used more or because the heart is now sending fewer spirits than are needed to inflate a nerve as large as the optic nerve but enough spirits to keep the fibres of the auditory nerve, which is much smaller, taut—it sometimes happens that something that touches my ear transmits its action to the interior of my brain, while my eyelids, already closed and with all the nerves of my eye sagging, no longer transmit any motion to the brain through this organ; in a word, if sometimes I am half asleep,itis because I have a body.

Inebriation; convulsions If, because the abundance of spirits, the shape they have, or the matter of which they are formed gives them a greater force for pushing against the cavities of the brain than the brain has for retaining them, they sometimes boldly strike a thousand places in the brain all at once, force entry into the organs, and ﬂow into the muscles where, maintaining the same impetuosity, they enter and emerge from one to the other, tumultuously pulling the limbs in a thousand, indeterminate ways, that is, if I have convulsions, if I am inebriated, if I have a fever, or some other violent illness, it is because I have a body.

Death If my heart or other vessels that contain my blood or spirits are open, such that they can no longer hold in this ﬂuid or vapour; if I lack food that can repair them, or if I ﬁnd myself in places where surrounding bodies are too much in motion or too much at rest, and thus give too much or too little motion to the blood or the spirits; in a word, if I die from a wound, from hunger, from cold, or from heat, it is because I have a body. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

Thus, I recognize that if I am nourished, if I am moved, if I am awake, if Iamasleep,ifIfeelwellorill,andfinally if I die, it is because I have a body. This discussion is, all by itself, capable of persuading me that I have a body. The fact that all these things can be explained precisely through my body is sufficient to convince me that they happen through it alone. But besides this, I see that everything I have just examined can pertain only to my body, and that the soul has no part in them. In truth, the soul takes a great interest in everything that concerns the body; that is, it desires that the body always be in a condition of easy mobility. But I know well that being in this condition does not at all depend on my will. The flow of my spirits is not always as regular as I would like. I am sometimes asleep and sometimes awake against my will, and those transports of fluids or spirits that often occur with such dangerous and sudden upheavals teach my soul that it is not the mistress of their motion. They sometimes end when the soul does not want them to. And should despair lead the soul to desire the dissolution of my body, it is not sufficient for the soul simply to wish for it, but I must also expose my body to other bodies whose motion can destroy this arrangement of solid or fluid parts that makes my life endure; otherwise, it would endure in spite of me. The more I think about it, the more I realize that this marvellous relationship among so many of the parts that compose my body does not depend on my thought. Rather, it depends on the other bodies surrounding it. Indeed, it is so necessary a part of the universe that it depends absolutely on the flow of all matter. I certainly see that the body is made in such a way as to be able to conserve itself for some time. I have solid enough bones to support its mass against the weight of air or water. I have a brain whose consistency and disposition is such that, at the appearance of objects that would harm it and of locations where bodies heavier than air and water could oppress it, it opens itself in places that allow the spirits to flow into the muscles which help it flee from these locations and these dangerous objects. But I see just as well that should my soul not perceive these fatal things, the parts of my body are all arranged in such a way that, following the laws of mechanics, this flight would happen just as necessarily as it happens that a loadstone recoils from another loadstone that it encounters on a certain side. I sometimes even experience a great OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

difﬁculty in not acceding to the motions to which the disposition of the body’s organs makes them conspire, all for the sake of the health of the whole machine to which I am united and of which I am the master only in such a borrowed sense that this power escapes me practically all the time and often forces me to recognize and even call upon a higher power.

Third Part But, so as not to depart from my own self, and having examined separately what would occur in me were I only a body and what would occur in me were I only a mind or a soul (for, as I have already noted, mind and soul are the same thing here), it remains for me, in order to achieve a full knowledge of myself, to examine what belongs to me because of their union. I have discovered, during other meditations, that two things are united as soon as they have between them so necessary a relationship that the one follows the determinations of the other. I discovered, for example, that two bodies are united, as much as they can be, when their extensions are mutually touching, and with such a relationship that the one necessarily follows the determinations of the other. I also discovered that two minds would be united, as much as they can be, if their thoughts occurred in a mutual manner and with such a relationship that the one necessarily followed the determinations of the other. When I at last discovered through these examples that the union of things happens only by means of what they have in common, it was easy for me to judge that if a body and a mind are united, it is not through a relationship between two extensions, since the mind has no extension; nor by a relationship between two thoughts, since the body has no thoughts. But so as not to repeat here what I said more precisely about all this in the Fifth Discourse, I will conﬁne myself simply to the conclusion that I draw from these observations, which is this: If a mind whose nature is to think has some thoughts to which a body can have some relationship through its extension, its motion, or some other thing in its nature—for example, if from the fact that this mind wills this body to be moved in a certain direction, this body is so disposed that it is in fact moved there; or OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  if from the fact that there are certain motions in this body, certain thoughts come into this mind—we can be certain (whatever be the power through which they have been so disposed) that they are united; and for as long as they have this relationship between them, it can be said that their union continues. At this point, I now only have to apply all these things. And just as I have discovered that there is a certain body among others that is moved as soon as my soul wishes that it be moved; that, besides, there is practically no change in this body that my mind does not perceive, and that I cannot prevent myself from having these perceptions—so I must conclude that this body is united to my mind, and I must believe that their union endures as long as this relationship that exists between some of the body’s motions and some of my thoughts endures. With this assumed, I have nothing more to do than to reflect on what happens in me because of this union. In order to know this, I must examine whether certain things that I experience in myself every day, and that I never classify as belonging to me in so far as I am a mind or in so far as I am a body, are such that, in fact, they could not pertain to me if I did not have, at the same time, both a body and a soul. For if among all those things that I have not yet examined there are any that could belong to me if I had only a body or if I had only a mind, there would be no need to believe that they come to me because I have both together. But if there are any that are such that the body alone or the soul alone could not be the entire cause of them, they would have to be attributed to the union of these. To begin this discussion and to make it as precise as the subject merits, I note that I discovered, while observing the various changes that happen in my body, that it needs only its extension, the shape of its parts, their arrangement, and the disposition of its organs in order to be nourished and to be moved. In fact, I found that the nourishment of the body takes place only through the addition to it of some parts of the blood which, once it is heated in the heart, is carried by the arteries into different places; that of all the blood that flows in the arteries, what remains in each limb is only what is fitforthatlimb’s growth; and that if these parts of the blood end up precisely where they are useful, it is not through a choice that they make but only because they all have very different shapes and tend to exit the arteries as they are constantly pushed by the new blood that leaves the heart, and so each part OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

necessarily escapes an artery as soon as it finds pores that match its shape. Just as the Author to whom I owe the structure of my body has made the pores of my arteries differ according to the differences in the limbs where they extend, so, according to the laws of mechanics, there must necessarily remain in each limb only the particles of blood that are proper to it. Similarly, I found that motion takes place only by means of the more delicate parts of this same blood which, because they are more heated than other parts, rise to the brain. There they force their way through narrow passages, separate off from all the larger parts, and compose the spirits that flow—according to how they are variously directed—through one nerve or another into the different muscles that can make my body either move away from or approach certain places, according to what suits it. But it seems to me that in order to conceive this more distinctly, I need to engage here in some further reflections. First, my brain is a substance that is soft enough to receive easily different impressions; however, this substance, as soft as it is, is not so fluid that it does not have some firmness. Second, since my nerves are only an elongation of my brain, whose substance and casings are extended to the extremities of my body, whatever surrounds them cannot touch their external endings without their internal endings immediately being agitated in the brain, and this agitation of them within the brain differs according to how objects variously press upon the exterior parts. Third, the spirits that move around in my brain, like the vapours of some liquid enclosed in an aeolipile,4 are variously agitated according to how the brain is variously agitated. Fourth, these spirits will, according to differences in their agitation, strike this or that part of the brain; and according to the disposition of the brain’s pores, the spirits will then insinuate themselves into one nerve or another, which in turn leads them into the muscles of the arm, of the leg, or of any other part that corresponds to the places by which they have left the brain.

4 A kind of steam vessel, usually a sphere or cylinder with projecting nozzles. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

What seeing is, considering only the body Thus, when the rays of the sun or of a torch reflect off an object and enter into my eyes and disturb the fibres of the optic nerve, which are spread across the retina, this agitation of each fibre passes from the outer extremity of the fibre to its inner one and moves the brain at that spot in various ways, according to whether the object is harmful or agreeable to my body. If the object is harmful, the agitation is such that, given the proportion that my body’s admirable Artisan has established between it and all other bodies, the spirits open up the brain at just those places in it that correspond to the muscles that are responsible for transporting my body away from the object. On the other hand, if the object is useful, the brain is opened at the places that allow the spirits to flow into the muscles that are responsible for moving my body towards this object.5 What it is to hear Similarly, if air that is agitated in diverse ways, according to the differences between the bodies that push it as they push one another, comes into contact with the membrane that is extended at the base of my ear and excites in a certain manner the nerves that correspond to it, my brain will open in such a way that the spirits will flow where they need to go in order to make my body approach or withdraw from those bodies whose beating against the air have agitated it. What it is to smell I also conceive that if certain small particles that fly off of roses insinuate themselves into the nostrils and end up moving certain parts of the brain that correspond to the cribriform plate, the brain, the spirits, and the muscles can be immediately disposed in such a way that the whole body will move toward the place where the roses are. What it is to touch; what it is to taste Finally, it can happen that, without any mediation by light, air or small particles, the bodies surrounding mine will move its parts all by

5 I have opted here for the text of the ﬁrst three edns; the 4th edn, by contrast, has “qui laissent couler dans les muscles des esprits propres à transporter mon corps vers cet objet,” which loses the parallel with the previous sentence, and also fails to make sense, given Cordemoy’s explanation of the body’s motion toward and away from objects. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

themselves. In this case, and according to the different motions that they cause on the outside, which continue to the brain by the mediation of the nerves, the brain will open up in various ways, according to whether the body needs to forge a stronger union with these objects or to reject them, and whether these bodies touch the tongue and palate or some other extremity of the body. If these objects that agitate the brain make no considerable impression therein, thus changing nothing in the position of its parts, the brain will not open up in any places other than those that are usually open for the path of the spirits that are responsible for the beating of the heart and the chest. The rest of the spirits will remain in the brain’s cavities and circulate there like vapours enclosed in an aeolipile, which are always ready to escape through whatever opening they are given. These things are necessary and must always happen in this way, unless the particles of blood that rise from the heart to the brain are more solid, or more heated, or shaped in some way other than they should be. In this case the parts of the brain are overly disturbed and cannot contain the spirits. The brain then allows them to ﬂow tumultuously into one muscle and then into another, and they agitate the whole body in such a way that it approaches or distances itself from other bodies not according to whether they are harmful or agreeable to it but simply according to the path the spirits have taken through the passages of the brain which they have forced open and into the nearest muscles. It seems to me that everything I have observed concerning my body up to this point can happen to it solely through the structure of its parts and by the relationships it has with other bodies in the universe. Thus, if I had only a body: I would be able to see, that is, have the brain moved by rays that reﬂect off objects. I would be able to hear, that is, have the brain moved by air pushed by bodies that beat against it. I would be able to smell, that is, have the brain moved by particles that evaporate or are exhaled from certain bodies. Finally, I would be able to taste and touch, that is, have the brain moved by the parts of bodies that move the parts of my tongue or my hand. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

What hunger is, considering only the body I could also be hungry. That is, certain arteries could allow an acid, like that used in etching, to flow into the bottom of my stomach. This acid would prick the membranes of the stomach and thereby stimulate the nerves that correspond to them and, subsequently, the brain in just the way required to allow the spirits to flow into the muscles responsible for transporting my body to where there might be food. (Moreover, the food itself could move my brain at the same time through the mediation of the eyes or the nose.) What thirst is I could also be thirsty. That is, certain dry exhalations, coming from things in my stomach or perhaps from the arteries situated along the oesophagus, might cling to the membrane that extends from the mouth to the stomach and dry out my throat. This would happen in such a way that the nerves corresponding to the throat are agitated during this dryness in a manner other than that which is agreeable to my body and thus excite my brain in the places that correspond to the muscles whose action lead my body toward water or other fluids. At the same time, these fluids would move my brain through the agitation that they cause to the nerves of the eyes, the nose, or some other part of my body. I could, I say, have all these things, even if I had nothing but a body. But it seems to me that it is not possible for me to sense them and perceive them as soon as they happen unless I have a soul, and unless this soul is united to the body that I call mine. In order to examine this closely, I will begin with the things that I sense the most vividly and distinctly, so that I might apply what I learn from them to other things that might be more confused. I will thereby be less liable to make a mistake. Pain If I feel pain when the end of my finger is pricked, I cannot say that this arises simply from the fact that I have a body. For if I were only a body, I could certainly have the tip of my finger cut open. The disturbance of its parts could be great enough to allow the blood to flow from the veins and arteries that terminate there; and the nerves that extend there, once agitated, could communicate a violent and convulsive motion to my OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE brain and there stir up the spirits and make them ﬂow into the muscles, which would make unusual motions throughout my body. I can even conceive that the spirits might so inﬂate the muscles of the chest that they compress the lungs. This would force all the air out of them through the trachea, which, according to whether it is more or less open, could cause more or less sharp sounds. But this is not sensing. Also, if I had only a soul, I could certainly notice everything that I have just described as happening in my body without sharing in the body’s destruction. As I would have no interest in the body’s preservation, I would know its disorder as if it were the disorder of some other machine, without myself receiving any disagreeable alteration. And this is not feeling pain. But it is certain that if, through the power that made this body and this soul, they are so disposed that there is a necessary relationship between the thoughts of the one and the motions of the other, such that this soul is concerned that the motions of this body always be appropriate and that the organs that serve it be well ordered, the soul could not perceive any condition that is violent or contrary to the arrangement of this body except with pain. Thus, if I sense pain, it is not because I have only a body, or because I have only a soul, but because the one and the other are united. Pleasure It is the same with pleasure, for the contrary reason. Tickling As for tickling, the way in which it happens reveals to me its cause. For I see that when the same point that, were it to enter one of my lips, would make me feel pain instead passes smoothly over them and without any pressure, I feel this with the same emotions that one feels when one sees an evil that is very close but from which one believes oneself to be protected. In fact, this point seems to threaten the body with destruction right at the place where it is applied; and the motion of the brain, which is now agitated, makes the soul fear that which could cause it such extreme pain. However, this point immediately leaves the place where it was menacing and passes to another, and then to another. This is the cause (by means of the small disturbances that are made in different parts of the brain, instead of those that the soul was anticipating) why the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  soul conceives a pleasure contrary to the evil by which it had been menaced. And this is what is called tickling, which can be caused not only by a point but by a fluid or some other liquid that spreads over a membrane. In general, every matter whose parts have shapes and motions that are so proportioned to the condition of the body that it pricks or moves it6 only as much as is necessary to create the fear of pain but not the feeling of pain will cause tickling. Tickling is nothing other than the pleasure that the soul has in seeing that that which moves the body does not, for all that, act as strongly as is needed to destroy it, or that the body is robust enough to resist it. It often happens that, in order to prolong this pleasure, one rubs the spot where some fluid is tickling. This causes a greater motion in that spot, and thus, at least initially, a slightly stronger sensation—that is, a more sensible pleasure. But should the motion become too great, there arises pain, which explains why, if one scratches hard on an itch, one will end up with an extreme burning sensation. The sensation of hunger and of thirst It is now easy for me to discover in hunger and thirst the same things that I found in pain and pleasure. For it is certain that if I had only a body, that fluid that flows through the arteries to prick the membranes of the stomach, or those exhalations that dry the throat, could have all of the effects that they produce on the brain and force it to open up at the places most fit for letting the spirits that pass through the nerves go into the muscles, whose action can transport the body toward food or water. But this is not sensing. Besides, a soul could perceive all these motions— whether of the stomach, the spirits, or the whole body—without taking any interest in them, and that is not what feeling hungry is. But when my soul, which takes such a great interest in everything that can keep my body in a state of easy mobility, perceives that what is needed is either food to restore dissipated spirits, cool refreshment to calm them down, or, finally, a fluid that makes certain parts that are too much at rest flow again, it has a kind of pain, which is different according to whether it is caused by a lack of food or of drink.

6 Correcting again for the text of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th edns, which read “ne les pique ou ne les meut,” when what is meant seems to be “ne le pique ou ne le meut,” as appears in the 2nd edn. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

Now I must consider especially those effects of hunger and thirst, in so far as I believe that food is the cause of the first passions that the soul feels once it has been united to the body. To understand this, I must engage in a little reflection on all the things from which, it seems, this might be deduced. It is certain, in the first place, that the union of a body and a soul consists only in the fact that there is such a necessary relationship between certain thoughts of this soul and certain motions of this body that they necessarily follow each other. From this first observation, it follows that my soul was capable of being united with my body only when my brain already had most of the structure that would make it suitable for these motions. It is certain, in the second place, that, to consider bodies alone, there are only two things that can cause the different motions of the brain: namely, differences in the spirits that constantly rise there from the heart, or differences in the objects that, by agitating the nerves of the extremities, transmit their action into the brain. From this second observation, it is evident that if my body was initially in a place where the differences in objects could not through their action change anything in the brain, then (as I have occasion to believe for reasons that I will not go into here) my brain could have been disposed as it was when my soul was first united to it only by the flow of the spirits, and that these spirits were well- or ill-disposed only in so far as they were suitable or harmful to the whole body. With this supposition, I clearly conceive that, since nothing can be more suitable or more harmful to my body, before it is united to the soul, than what serves to nourish it, my brain was never better disposed than when some good food or some beneficial7 blood was passing through the heart. For then the heart poured enough blood into the arteries to carry good nourishment everywhere, and it sent to the brain only suitable spirits. These spirits, swirling about the brain, did not find any place whose pores fit their shape except those that corresponded to the muscles near the parts whence this good food or fine blood came into the heart.

7 I have opted for this translation of loüable since it is close to the literal meaning of the French while working reasonably well in idiomatic English; ‘commendable’ might have done just as well, being closer to the French, but would have been rather awkward in English. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

The result was that the spirits flowed into the muscles and inflated them as they needed to be in order to squeeze these parts and to make the juice that filled them flow toward the heart. Similarly, I conceive that if this food or blood were bad, a completely opposite effect would have to happen. That is, if the brain were filled with spirits that are different from those I just described—either in size, shape, or agitation—it would be opened in different places and allow these spirits to flow into different muscles. Finally, I conceive that these effects differed as their causes differed. Nonetheless, because the entire fabric of the brain is related to all the other parts, as much as is necessary for the conservation of the whole body, the spirits had to flow toward the parts whence the food or blood came. Sometimes the spirits squeezed those parts to make them send more food or blood, if it was good; at other times, they constricted the passageways, to make them send less, if it was bad. The causes of the first passions of the soul All of this is what necessarily had to happen through the construction of the body alone. But it is evident that when the soul became united with the body, this good or bad disposition of the brain could not happen unless the soul felt it and, at the same time, experienced a pleasure or a pain like that which it now feels when something happens that is useful or harmful to the body. Perhaps the soul even had a stronger sensation than that which it currently experiences, since it was then less distracted by objects. Furthermore, since the soul has been extremely interested in everything that concerns the body ever since the first moment of their union, it has no doubt desired everything that could make a particular state of the body continue or cease, according to whether that state was good or bad. And just as all the different motions on the occasion of which the soul had unpleasant or agreeable sensations came only (as I have just noted) from the difference of spirits, it could not desire anything other than what might either change those spirits or maintain them. Through this necessary relationship that exists between the soul’s volitions and the motions of the brain, the latter was disposed, by the power that united the two, in the way that it had to be in order to allow the spirits to flow into the muscles near the parts whence the food or the blood came to the heart, so that it might be squeezed out of them or retained. Thus, besides the natural disposition of the whole body, which could have produced OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

this effect all by itself, and which did produce it before the body was united with the soul, this volition of the soul was a new occasion for the brain to open up and for the spirits to flow into the muscles of the parts from which the food or the blood came, in order to quicken or retard their flow, according to whether or not it was salutary for the whole body. This is, without a doubt, the true cause of the soul’s first passions; and with this in hand, I do not see any passion whose origin and effects I cannot easily explain. Love Thus, the first time that my soul felt love as a passion, once it was united to the body, was when there passed into the heart a new food, whose particles composed only beneficial spirits when they rose to the brain. For then the soul voluntarily bonded with this food, that is, the soul willed it to continue to flow into the heart. To carry this out, the spirits flowed into the muscles of the stomach, the intestines, and all the lymphatic ducts, and made the food flow abundantly to the heart. What ought to be understood by the word ‘passion’ I do not think that I am mistaken when I say that this is the first time that my soul felt love as a passion. For I certainly conceive that, separated from the body, the soul could feel a great love, even an infinite love, without this having to be called ‘passion’. But I believe that I ought not to here apply this name to all the alterations that my soul suffers because of the body. I even believe that I ought not to apply it indifferently to all sensations, even though they are all changes that happen in the soul because of the body. Although the word ‘passion’, when taken generally, must refer even to the smallest changes in the soul, nonetheless, what is ordinarily understood by the term are the most considerable ones, such as those that happen in the soul through the sudden agitation of the spirits. Anyway, I say that some good food must have been the first cause of this passion, and not beneficial blood—and what I am here calling ‘food’ is what first passes into the heart, and ‘blood’ what has already circulated. It should not be surprising that the soul suffers greater changes when the spirits are agitated than when the nerves are simply excited by objects. For this agitation of the spirits concerns the whole body, which receives its motions only from them. And since it is only to these motions OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  that the thoughts of the soul bear that relationship that constitutes its entire union with the body, it is not strange that the changes that the soul suffers on the occasion of the spirits are the most considerable of all that it might suffer. To understand this, it must be noted that everything that enters the body in a fresh state does not yet form any part of the body as long as it remains in the viscera, which are responsible only for preparing its nourishment. For example, soup no more forms a part of the stomach when it has descended there than it formed a part of the pot from which it was taken. Even if it should undergo some change in the stomach through the matter that mingles there, or through the heat of the entrails, it is certain that this same thing could happen to it in any other vessel. The same might be said of it when it has passed into the lacteal veins, and finally into the duct that leads it to the heart. But when it has passed into the heart and has received there a final change that renders it fit to restore organs or spirits, it begins to become a necessary and true part of the body. Whence it happens that, as long as it is in the stomach, in the lacteal veins, and in the lymphatic duct, it cannot be said effectively to be united to the soul. But the soul can indeed voluntarily unite itself with this food, that is, it can will that it should effectively become a part of the body to which the soul is already united. On the other hand, the soul has no occasion for willing the same thing with regard to the blood that has circulated. Since that blood is already united to the soul as much as it can be, the soul has no reason to will to unite itself to it. Thus, if that blood is capable of causing some passion in the soul, it must be a passion other than love. I say, at last, that since the soul voluntarily united with this food—that is (according to the nature of love, which brings it about that one wants all things to go well for one’s beloved), it has willed that this food, which was beneficial for the body that it loves, continue to flow in the body— the spirits flowed into the muscles of both the stomach and the ducts (through which things newly arrived in the body ordinarily go to the heart), in order to make their juice flow more abundantly. This seems to me clear enough so that I do not have to dwell on it any further. But I should note that this juice has not yet entered the heart, and because its parts are greater and less subdued than those of the blood that has already circulated, they needed a greater force to move there. Thus the heat in the stomach, and even in the chest, had to increase, because of the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

ducts through which the new blood has to pass to go from the right ventricle of the heart to the left ventricle, following the order of circulation. Finally, since the entire relationship between the body and the soul (according to what I have said, and which cannot be repeated too often) consists in the relationship between the thoughts of the one and the motions of the other; and since this relationship is such that as soon as one thought has been joined to a motion of the brain, the soul never has this thought, whatever the occasion may be, without this motion being excited again: it follows that, since the first love felt as a passion by the soul was on the occasion of an object to which it could not be united without exciting all these motions of the brain, the stomach, the intestines, the heart, and the chest, these same motions cannot fail to be excited in the body as soon as the soul feels the same passion, whatever may be the object for which the soul feels that passion.8 In fact, someone in this condition feels that the beating of his pulse is greater and more steady than normal; that a gentle heat flows from the chest; and that digestion occurs promptly in the stomach. All this happens because the new juice has been forcefully pushed from the stomach and the intestines, and so the heart sends into the arteries blood whose parts are greater and more agitated than usual, whence it happens that the pulse is greater. But because the parts of this new juice are more regular than those of ordinary blood, for reasons that I will soon explain, the pulse of the arteries is steady. Finally, it is evident that, because the heart throughout this process sends to the brain stronger and more agitated spirits, these spirits must therein strengthen the impression of the object loved. That is, since the spirits are fit for sustaining the disposition of the brain that accompanies the passion that modifies the soul when it loves some object, they bring it about that the thought of the object is strengthened and that the soul dwells on it longer. Thus, as long as the soul is united to the body, it cannot love any object without the spirits of the brain and the other parts of the body that first excited in the soul a similar thought immediately being excited by this thought and thereafter serving to strengthen it.

8 To make better sense of Cordemoy’s meaning here, I modiﬁed the translation in accordance with the text of the 2nd edn. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

Hatred If sometimes, instead of good food, a juice that is dangerous to the heart and the rest of the body came from the stomach and the lacteal veins, then even if there was only the body, the brain was disposed in such a way that some spirits flowed toward the muscles of these same parts. This happened not as when it was necessary to squeeze those muscles and make the juice flow from them to the heart, but on the contrary to prevent this harmful juice from being carried to them, and often to make the stomach rid itself of the juice by vomiting it up (which, however, could not happen on these first occasions). Meanwhile, other spirits flowed toward the neighbouring small muscles of the spleen and toward its lower part, where the bile is. This made the blood and the fluid of these two parts depart from them in abundance. When they mixed in the heart with blood from the branch of the vena cava, they caused great irregularities in its beating and in the pulse of the arteries. This is because the largest blood of the spleen, which heats up only with difficulty, and the blood of the gall, which heats up quite quickly, had to produce very unequal spirits and extraordinary motions in the brain. Now these motions which, when there was only the body, were excited in the brain on the occasion of bad food could not have been excited there when the soul was united to the body without the soul having an unpleasant sensation or hatred for this food, that is, without it wilfully avoiding it and willing everything that might prevent it from becoming a part of the body to which it is united. Thus, besides the natural disposition of the body, according to which the brain must open up in those places by which the spirits might flow into the muscles whose action could prevent this bad food from coming to the heart or make the stomach discharge it, and into the viscera, from which a less harmful food might come, the soul, once it was united to the body, willed all this to occur. This led to all things being even more strongly disposed for it to happen, because of the relationship that the motions of the brain have with the soul’s volitions. And this thought that the soul had with this first hatred was so joined to all the motions that excited it, that afterward the soul never hated any object without the same motions being excited in the brain and in the rest of the body. It is also certain that with hatred there is an irregular pulse, one that is weaker and often faster. One feels chills mixed with sharp and prickly OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

hot flashes; and far from digesting things, one feels almost always about to vomit. Joy As for the first joy, it can have come about from the fact that since the body did not have any need for new food that comes from the stomach and the intestines or that which the spleen or the gall bladder provide when there is a lack of food, it was able to subsist through the blood that was already flowing in the arteries and veins. In this condition, through the disposition of the body alone, some spirits, rather than flowing from the brain to the places corresponding to the stomach, the intestines, the spleen, and the liver, flowed instead toward the places corresponding to the veins. These they squeezed in the manner that was the most fit for allowing the blood that filled them to flow toward the heart. This is what happened when there was only the body. But once the soul was joined to the body, the body (and principally the brain) could not have so thoroughly enjoyed such a fine disposition unless the soul had some joy from it, that is, unless the soul had that extreme satisfaction that one feels when one knows that nothing is lacking to what one perfectly loves, and that that thing possesses everything that can preserve it in a state that is agreeable to its nature. Finally, this thought of the soul was, at this moment, so closely joined to this interior disposition of the brain that ever afterward the soul could not have joy without a similar disposition being excited in the brain and, subsequently, in the whole body. We also see that in joy, because the spirits are flowing toward the muscles that are next to the exterior veins and parts of the body—and not toward those of the viscera, the stomach, the liver, and the spleen—they push all the blood of the veins toward the heart, whose orifices, opened by other spirits that flow through the nerves that correspond to it, allow the blood to enter there in abundance. Because this blood has already passed through the arteries and the veins several times, it expands more easily in the heart, and the spirits that the heart sends to the brain are more regular and subtle. Whence it happens that, during joy, the pulse is more regular and faster than usual, without, however, being as strong or as high as happens with love. One feels an agreeable warmth, not only in the chest, as in love, but throughout the body’s exterior, where the blood is abundant. Ordinarily, one even has less of an appetite. This is because OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  when fewer things leave the intestines and the stomach and the blood in the body is able to provide for its nourishment and for the maintenance of the spirits, there is no occasion to seek new foods. Sadness Sadness, by contrast, was able to arise from the fact that when the heart did not receive any more food from the stomach and intestines because they were empty, nor blood from the veins because there was little of it in the whole body, the spirits flowed toward the spleen and the gall bladder. These emitted only fluids that are contrary to the whole body, and so caused some spirits flowing through the nerves that correspond to the heart to constrict its openings, so that only so much of this bad blood entered there as was necessary to sustain life. This is what was able to happen when there was only the body. But as soon as the soul was joined to it, such a bad disposition could not have so thoroughly taken over the body, and principally the brain, without the soul having sadness, that is, that extreme distress that one has when one sees that practically everything is lacking to what one perfectly loves and that it has hardly anything within itself that is not harmful to it. Finally, this thought of the soul was, at this time, so closely joined to this interior disposition of the brain, that ever afterward the soul could not have any sadness, whatever the cause might have been, that did not excite a similar disposition in the brain, and thence throughout the whole body. We also see that in sadness the openings of the heart are constricted, and that, with only a little blood coming from the veins, it is practically just the spleen and the gall bladder that are sending their fluids toward the heart. However, the passages of the stomach and the intestines remain open, so their contents flow promptly downward, without turning into food. Whence it happens that when one is sad, the pulse is slow and weak. One feels as if there are fetters tightening around the heart, and sometimes as if there are icicles freezing it and communicating their coldness to the whole body. However, one does not cease to have a good appetite and to eat a lot, although without getting fat. All this happens when one is simply sad and there is no other passion, like hatred, mixed with it. Through my examination of these four passions, it is evident that they were first excited by things that happen in the body itself. For we see that OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

their first causes were either a new food, which, according to whether it was beneficial or harmful, disposed the spirits to flow toward the parts whence it came, either to facilitate its passage to the heart (as in love) or to close off its route (as in hatred); or the blood in the veins, which, depending upon whether it was abundant or in little quantity, caused a different flow of spirits toward the extremities of the body and toward the openings of the heart, whether to enlarge them (as in joy) or to constrict them (as in sadness). I thereby clearly see that the first causes of these four passions are in the body itself, and that the body can, without being moved from one place to another, experience all their effects. Desire Desire, by contrast, could arise only when the body needed to be moved from the place where it was toward some other place, either to avoid something that would have destroyed it or to approach something that might aid its preservation. Once the body’s exterior parts, or at least some of them, were disturbed either by surrounding bodies or by more distant ones, they moved the interior of the brain by means of the nerves. The result was that the spirits ceased to flow toward the intestines and the stomach (the source of new juice), the spleen and the liver (the source of food), and even the veins (the source of the blood that is most suitable for the maintenance of life). These spirits were carried instead, with some force and in abundance, into all the muscles that serve to transport the body toward the places where it was most useful for it to be or to put it into the most convenient position. All of this could take place even when there was only the body. But once the soul was united to the body, it could not be alerted by interior impressions made in the brain by the disturbance of the exterior parts without willing the body to be moved to places where it needed to be and that it leave those places where it could not stay without peril. The thought in the soul to pursue what could help the body was named desire, and the thought in the soul to avoid what could harm it was named fear; in truth, however, both thoughts are really one and the same. This thought of the soul was so closely connected to the interior disposition of the entire brain when that thought was first excited in the soul that ever afterward the soul could not have any desire for anything that did not excite a similar disposition in the brain, and thence in the whole body. We also see that in desire, the spirits forcefully flow OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  toward the muscles that serve to move the whole body. Whence it often happens that, although one does not believe oneself able to obtain the thing one desires by going to the place where one knows it to be, nevertheless, one is prone to walking as if to go there. Or, if one stays in place, one feels extreme agitations of the heart, and the particles exhaled by the blood that is extremely heated there rise with such great impetuosity toward the brain and flow so fast from there into the muscles that one can hardly restrain oneself. Having thus distinguished in pain, pleasure, tickling, hunger, thirst, and all the principal passions—such as love, hatred, joy, sadness, and desire—what part the body plays and what part the soul, it seems obvious to me that if there are bodies in the world that, without being united to souls, are moving and mobile (which I know to be possible, since I know that my soul causes neither the life nor the motions of my body), these bodies without souls could have all the motions involved in pain, desire, tickling, hunger, thirst, love, hatred, joy, sadness, desire, and fear, without any need for them also to have the corresponding sensations. With- out ruling out this problem, which no longer seems so great, and without yet going outside my own experience, I want to try to discover, with respect to other effects that derive from the union of body and soul, what precisely comes from the one and from the other. Vision In vision, for example, it is easy to conceive that if there were only the body, the rays of the sun or of a torch that reflect off objects in different ways could variously excite the fibres of the optic nerve, which are spread out in the base of the eye. If this excitation continues until it reaches the brain, it would cause there such an agitation that, with the relationship that the admirable Creator who composed the body established between the brain and the objects surrounding it, the brain would open in different places, according to whether it would be fitting for the body to halt in the presence of these objects or to either approach or flee them. All of this could take place without perception, without sensation, and without choice. But as soon as a soul is united to the body, because it is the nature of the soul to think, it is fitting that it perceive the things that caused the agitation of the brain. It should even feel some alteration in itself, according to whether the object is beneficial or harmful to the body, OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE and choose whatever is more useful to the body and will the body either to remain in place or to be moved closer to or farther away from the objects that it perceives through its means. This is a good place to note that the sensation of the soul in vision is so connected with certain interior motions of the brain that if something towards the middle of the optic nerve stopped the motion that the rays of light caused at the nerve’s endings at the base of the eye, such that the interior extremities of this same nerve in the brain are not agitated at all, the soul will have no sensation of light. The sensation of light is so closely connected to these interior parts of the brain that if something disturbs these interior parts of the brain, the soul immediately has the same sensations that it would have in the presence of the sun, a torch, or a fire. Indeed, when someone bumps hard into a wall in some very dark place, if the agitation that the blow causes to the whole brain causes motion in those parts of the brain on the occasion of which the soul ordinarily has the sensation of light, it makes the soul have the same sensations that it would have in the presence of a thousand candles. I should also note a second thing, which is that the soul does not refer its sensation to that which immediately causes it. For if this were the case, since all sensations arise in the soul on the occasion of interior motions of the brain, it would have to refer all of them to the interior parts of the brain. But on the contrary, it was a good thing for the soul to refer its sensations to those places whence these agitations ordinarily originated. And just as it is useful to the body that the brain can be agitated at a distance by the mediation of the subtle bodies that lie between it and remote objects, and thereby to be disposed either to flee or approach them, depending upon whether they are beneficial to it, so, similarly, it is useful to the soul to relate the sensation that is caused in it by the agitation of the interior parts of the optic nerve to the objects that agitated those parts through the mediation of the rays of light. This is not to say that the soul is thereby never mistaken, as we have seen in the example of those whom some blow causes to see candles, and as can be seen in the example of those who, while sleeping, see several objects as if they are outside them, although they are not present at all. For while in the first example this happens because the brain was agitated by the blow just as it would be by the candles, and in the second because some spirits flowing into the brain agitated the parts that the objects that are seen in the dream would agitate if they were present, still, it is certain OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  that things could not be better ordered than for the soul to have sensations only on the occasion of the interior motions of the brain and for it to refer these sensations only to that remote object which caused the motions. It was good, I say, for the soul to have sensations only on the occasion of motions of the brain. For since anything that acts on the extremities of the body must have its action taken to the brain before the spirits can pursue any course for moving the body in the way that is useful for it to be moved, it was reasonable for the soul to take notice, right at that moment, of what affected the body in order to provide for its needs, and that it be able to aid the body’s organic and natural disposition for its preservation. Finally, it is good that the soul refer its sensation not to the interior part of the brain that excited it, but rather to the object that was its first cause (as in vision), or sometimes to parts of the body itself, as we will see in what follows. Hearing The same things can be discovered in the case of hearing. For it is certain that, if there were only the body, air that is struck in a certain way by bodies jostling about or that depart in various ways from several holes could variously impact the membrane of the ear. This membrane could excite the nerve of the fifth conjuncture with an agitation that continues to the most interior parts of the brain. This would dispose the brain as it should be for the well-being of the whole body. It would make the brain open in places through which the spirits could flow into the muscles in such a manner as to make the body stop and either approach or recoil from the objects that would have been the first causes of this agitation of the brain. All of this could happen without awareness, without sensation, and without choice. But once the soul is conceived to be united to the body, since its nature is to think, it is appropriate that it perceive the things that caused this agitation of the brain; that it even feel some alteration in itself, according to whether the object is useful or harmful to the body; and that it opt for what is more expedient for the body and desire the body to approach or retreat from it. Finally, we see that, just as in vision, it is more expedient for the soul when it has this sensation to refer it to the object that is its first cause rather than to the agitation of the brain that immediately excited it. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE

Smell This can also apply to odour, since we know that the different small bodies that are exhaled from a rose or a cesspit variously agitate the parts of the brain that lead to the cribriform plate. This agitation passes into the base of the brain and disposes it as it should be either to make the spirits go into the muscles that can help distance the body from the cesspit or to make the body move toward the rose, according to whether the odours are useful or harmful to the brain. And it is easily conceivable that, since all this can happen when there is only the body, it should take place without awareness, without sensation, and without choice. But once the soul is conceived to be united to the body, it is appropriate that it perceive the things that caused the agitation of the brain; that the soul itself feel some change, one that differs according to the different effects that these things have produced in the brain; and that, opting for that which is most proper for the brain, it wishes for that thing to be approached or ﬂed by it. It is clear that it is more expedient for the soul to refer this sensation to the object that caused it than to any part of the body, or even to the interior of the brain, although it was through the brain’s agitation that the soul was excited.

Taste It is the same with taste. For certain particles of food insinuate themselves into the pores of the tongue and the palate and agitate there the nerves of the third and fourth conjunctions. This disturbance agitates the brain in various ways, according to the diversity of the parts that cause it, and makes it open up in the places from which the spirits can ﬂow, at one and the same time, both toward the glands that contain a water whose parts are such that, by mixing with the food and diluting it, they can serve to facilitate their passage into the oesophagus; and toward the muscles for moving the jaws and the teeth which must be used to make the initial solution of solid food. It may also happen that the food is mixed with small parts whose shapes agitate the nerves of the tongue and the palate in a way that disposes the brain to send spirits into the muscles where they need to be for the food to be rejected from the mouth. All this could happen when there is only the body, and without any need for awareness, sensation, or choice. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL 

But when the soul is united to the body, it is good for the soul to perceive the food, for it to sense it, and, choosing either to leave it alone or take it, for it to desire that the motion of the spirits conforms to the one or the other of these effects. Besides, it is so true that, if the soul is not united to the body, the regularity of the spirits alone would lead to the rejection of bad-tasting food (that is, food whose parts so move the nerves of the palate and the tongue as to affect the brain badly) that often, when one wants to force oneself to eat certain things, contrary to the dispositions that they have caused in the brain, it will be extremely difficult to dispose the brain to allow the spirits to flow where they must in order to make one swallow what one was ready to spit out. And if the soul (whose wishes have more power over the parts of the brain that correspond to the muscles for moving certain exterior parts) makes it so that this food enters the throat, then, because the soul has much less power over the places in the brain corresponding to the interior muscles, which are responsible for moving the viscera, it often happens that, as soon as the food is in the stomach, spirits flow abundantly from the brain toward all the muscles whose action can, by lifting the ventricle, force it to discharge the food by vomiting. The soul even consents to this, when the motions of the stomach have disturbed the brain in such a way that the soul receives unpleasant sensations. For although the soul had willed the food to enter the stomach, it cannot prevent itself from consenting to the course that the spirits take to make the food be expelled when it feels such great pains from it. Moreover, there is the notable fact that the soul never refers this sensation—any more than it refers the other sensations—to the parts of the brain that excite it in the soul. Rather, the soul refers it to the parts of the tongue and the palate, because it is expedient for it to sense as in these parts, so that if the food contains anything bad it passes no further than them. Touch As for touch, it is known that as soon as the nerves of the body’s extremities have been agitated by surrounding bodies, each fibre, extending continuously up to the brain, causes a disturbance there, which in turn makes the spirits flow into the places where it is useful to the whole body for them to be. This must happen solely through the structuring of the body, without assuming any perception, any sensation, or any choice. On the other hand, when the soul is united to the body, the brain can no longer be agitated by OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE the action of objects that touch the body without the soul perceiving this and desiring whatever is most expedient for the body. It must be remarked that the soul refers this sensation to the parts of the body that were the first to be touched, and not to the parts of the brain which excited the sensation in the soul. There are two indubitable proofs of this. The first is that if one arranges a tight ligature in the middle of the arm and then makes an incision in the hand, the incision will not be felt. This is because the agitation of the fibres of the nerves that are cut in the hand is stopped by the ligature, and so it cannot reach the extremities of these same fibres in the brain. And since it is only on the occasion of the agitation of the endings of these fibres in the brain that the soul has a sensation, it should not be surprising that it cannot sense what happens in the hand when the middle is closed off. The second proof is that if one cuts off the hand of a man, he continues to feel, for a long time after, pains in the fingers of this hand that he no longer has. In order to speak more correctly, we should say that he has the same sensations that he would have if he still had this hand and it were injured. This happens only because the fibres of the nerves that extend to this hand are still moved in the brain in the same way that they would be if that hand were still joined to the rest of the body, and so the brain receives from them the same impressions and the same motions. Since these motions were instituted to represent to the soul what was happening in the hand, the soul still refers its sensation to this hand that it no longer has. This will continue for as long as is required for the soul, by reasoning, to connect this sensation to the parts of the body that, through the amputation of the hand, have now become the extremities of the arm—that is, to the wrist. This allows us to see why the soul, which is not at ten leagues from the body, sees or hears something that is ten leagues from it. Provided that the air (or some more subtle matter), pushed by distant objects, touches the body’s organs and that the brain receives their impressions, the soul refers its sensations from these impressions to the objects that cause them. It is no more necessary that the soul be sensing at ten leagues from the body in order to see or hear what is happening there than it is necessary that it be sensing in its hand what is happening there. Just as the two examples that I have presented allow us to see clearly that it is never in the hand that the soul does its sensing, although it refers its sensation to it, so it is also easy to see that it is not by being ten leagues OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL  from the body that the soul senses objects that are that far away, although it refers its sensations to those distant objects. Finally, to be convinced of all this, one need only consider the effect of dreams, in which we often see the sky, the sea, and the land, with all of that extension that is so visible to us. However, our eyes are closed, and it is only the interior parts of the brain that are agitated by the fortuitous course of some spirits. Since the motion of these parts was instituted for exciting vision in the soul, if the parts are agitated by the ﬂow of the spirits as they would be by the objects themselves, we have the same sensations that the presence of the objects would cause in us. We project those sensations to as great a distance as we would project them if the sensations were in fact caused by the objects. In the same way we often hear a sound, have tastes, and smell odours in a dream, without there being any other cause of these sensations than the agitation of the interior parts of the brain. Thus, since the motion of these parts of the brain is joined with some sensation in the soul, as soon as the motion occurs in the brain, whatever its cause may be, the sensation that corresponds to it is always excited in the soul. And the soul never fails to refer the sensation to where it is more expedient to refer it for the sake of the preservation of the body. In fact, the soul refers vision, or the sensation that it receives through the agitation of the optic nerves, to what is outside the body. Likewise in hearing, or the sensation that it receives through the agitation of the nerves of the ear; and in smell, or the sensation that it receives through the agitation of the parts of the brain that lead to the cribriform plate. All of this happens in order to avoid harmful things before they come too close, or to go seek those far away things that can be useful. Similarly, the soul refers taste and touch to the body’s extremities. This is because ﬁrst sensations can be faulty, and so it is good to be especially certain about things that touch our body or that must go into it. Finally, the soul refers the sensations of hunger and of thirst to the stomach and to the throat. This is because it is useful to refer to these parts a sensation that can excite the soul to will all the rest of the body to be disposed as it needs to be in order to procure for those parts what they lack. Moreover, since the soul has no sensation of which some motion of the brain is not the occasion, and since it imagines no corporeal object except through this relationship to parts of the brain, it is clear that, in so far as the soul is united to the body, it can imagine all at once only those OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/3/2015, SPi

 SIXTH DISCOURSE objects whose impressions the brain can receive at the same time. But it is easy to conceive that a soul separated from the body could imagine, at one and the same time, all bodies and see their properties, without the perception of one preventing the knowledge of the other. For if at present a solid body obscures the view of another body before which it stands, it is because light can reﬂect only off the surface of a body. Since the rays of light are being pushed toward the optic nerve, whose agitation must precede the sensation of the soul as long as it is united with the body, the soul can perceive only objects that reﬂect light toward the eyes of the body that it animates. But if the soul is free of the body, this explanation— in which the soul’s complete union with the body consists—ceases to apply. That is, since the soul’s thoughts would no longer be necessarily joined with the motions of a certain body, it would not be incompatible with its nature for it to be able to perceive all other bodies at the same time. In fact, because it is not itself a body, the soul must not be subject to the laws of bodies, which can receive immediately only the action of those that surround them. And it is certain that, while at present the soul is excited only by the interior motions of the brain, it never perceives them but only the objects that cause their agitation, however distant those objects may be. Whence it follows that, however many bodies there may be surrounding the one that the soul would like to perceive, when the soul is no longer united to a body it will be able to perceive it, without those surrounding bodies preventing it from doing so. If this does not occur at present, it is because the soul’s union with the body consists in the fact that it must not perceive other bodies except in so far as they affect the body which it animates, and because at any given time the soul can perceive through the agitations of the brain only as many bodies as can agitate it at one and the same time. I could carry my investigations much further, whether about the body and the soul by themselves or about what results from their union. But it is enough for me to have examined the most ordinary things, which can in turn explain others. Thus, in what follows, pursuing my investigations beyond my own case, I will try to discover if, among the bodies that surround me, there are any to which I must believe souls are united.9

9 This represents the end of the Six Discourses. Cordemoy is referring in this last paragraph to the project of the Discours physique de la parole, initially intended to be another “Discourse” in (or a second part of) this work but, eventually, published as a separate treatise. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Treatises on Metaphysics OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

What Constitutes the Happiness or Misery of Minds

I. God created minds in order for them to be happy. They cannot be happy if they do not know what happiness consists in, if they do not will it, and if they are not susceptible to it. II. They can neither understand nor will without ﬁrst being affected, that is, without experiencing in themselves some change on the occasion of objects that are either spiritual or corporeal. III. If the changes that a mind experiences on the occasion of objects serve only to make it perceive them, it is simple perception or sensation. If the perception on its own is agreeable or disagreeable, it is simple attraction or aversion. But if the object affects the mind in a way that makes it suffer, this is a state of pain; the contrary state is pleasure. IV. Simple sensation inclines the mind to want to know. Agreeableness inclines the mind to want to unite itself with the object, and aversion inclines the mind to want the contrary. Pleasure inclines the mind to want to remain united with the object, and pain inclines it to want to separate from it. V. Because it was created to be happy, the mind strives incessantly to become happy. This inclination is the cause of all its actions, and it ceaselessly seeks means that can help it achieve this end. As soon as the slightest change happens in the mind on the occasion of an object, the mind wants to know that object, in order to determine whether or not it is what it desires, or at least something suited for it to procure what it desires. As soon as it perceives this object as somewhat agreeable, it inclines toward uniting itself with it. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 TREATISES ON METAPHYSICS

And as soon as it feels pleasure through this union, it does not want to be separated from the object, at least for as long as this pleasure lasts. VI. It is very dangerous for the mind to take this pleasure that it finds in the means for the true pleasure that can be found only in the end for which it was created. The more it strives for this end when it does not know it, the more liable it is to lose its happiness. Thus, it is important for the mind to use all its faculties in order to determine what distinguishes happiness from everything else. The mind is capable of distinguishing the end from the means, and of making the right choice of means. VII. It can make this choice only if it is free, just as it cannot be free unless it has the power of examining its sensations, of resisting its inclinations, of seeking to know, and finally of giving or withholding its consent. VIII. The mind must, above all, be aware of two things: One is that, if it has been made susceptible to happiness, it was also made susceptible to the means of achieving it; but this susceptibility to the means was given to it only to make it want them for the sake of this end. The other is that, when, due to a lack of examination, the mind takes the means for the end, it pursues them with all the ardour and all the inclination that it naturally has for the end itself. Thus the bad angels regarded the beauty of their being with pleasure and took this pleasure (which should have served only to excite them to love the Creator) for their greatest good, and so they dwelled upon it as their end and were lost. It was good for them to be susceptible to the pleasure of seeing themselves so perfect. But it was not good for them to dwell upon this pleasure. Because they were incapable of being satisfied by it and because it was in their nature to want to be satisfied, the absence of this satisfaction was the most sensible evil that could happen to them. It is even evident that the greater their inclination toward happiness, the more they fixate on and are susceptible to imperfect pleasure, in which they want to make all their happiness consist. But, at the same time, it is evident that the more they fixate on this imperfect pleasure, the more they suffer from not finding satisfaction in the one thing for which they have sensibility. IX. Only minds can be sensitive, just as only bodies can be moved. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

WHAT CONSTITUTES HAPPINESS OR MISERY 

X. Beasts are only bodies capable of all the motions that serve vegetative life and growth. XI. Human beings also have a body capable of all the motions necessary for vegetative life and growth. But along with this they also have a mind created to be happy, and consequently the mind knows, wills, and senses. XII. The body of the first human being was formed before the mind was united with it. And just as this body would have been able to nourish itself and be moved in various ways, according to the proportion existing between its organs and other bodies, so this mind would have been able to know, to want, and to sense before their union. The only thing that God did to unite this body and this mind was to make the body move not only on the occasion of other bodies, as He made those of beasts move, but also on the occasion of the volitions of this mind; and to give sensations and inclinations to this mind on the occasion of motions of this body. XIII. It was sufficient that this mind have, on the occasion of the body to which it was united, sensations that other minds did not have in order to make it different from other minds and suitable for informing this body. Likewise, it was sufficient that this body have motions on the occasion of volitions of this mind in order to make it different from the bodies of all the beasts and suitable for this mind. XIV. It is necessary, above all, to consider that this mind and this body were made so that the result of their union would be a human being. With this union of two parts that seem so different, it would be perfectly reasonable to want to regard the body as the matter and the mind as the form of this physical whole. For it is clear that the mind is the cause of the most essential difference that exists not only between human beings and beasts, but also between the human body and all other bodies in the universe. XV. If the principle that makes the bodies of beasts move can be called ‘soul’, the mind that is united with a body must, with even greater reason, be called ‘soul’. But if the mind can be called ‘form’ or ‘soul’ because, in effect, it animates and informs, this soul or form must not be regarded as other souls or forms that are not substances separable from the subjects they animate or inform. XVI. Since what God makes is always the best it can be, the soul of the first man was master of the motions of its body, and everything in this OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

 TREATISES ON METAPHYSICS body and in the rest of nature was so perfectly disposed that this soul could receive only agreeable sensations. This is not to say that, therefore, this soul was not capable of pain, since it was sensitive; and if the body to which it was united had been violently struck, it ought to have felt pain as a result. But the good disposition of this body and all of nature, together with the soul’s clear and distinct cognitions of everything that could help the body, left it immune to any accidents that might cause pain. When God formed the body of the ﬁrst woman from a portion of the body of the ﬁrst man, He also united a mind or a soul to it. By commanding them to increase and multiply, He instituted a kind of law between Himself and them, through which He committed Himself to arranging matter so as to form bodies similar to theirs and create souls like theirs whenever they wished to have children. He revealed to them neither the various motions that He would give to matter to form these bodies nor how He would create these souls. He simply made this formation and this creation depend upon an action that He gave to their will. He promised them eternal happiness if they put to good use everything that He had created for them, and imposed on them only a single prohibition, namely, against eating a fruit that was not necessary for them. He made not only their own happiness dependent upon themselves, but also the happiness of all who were to be born from them. And He made them perfectly happy by promising to provide them with a great posterity and by making them masters of that posterity’s happiness. In this condition nothing was lacking to them. Their bodies were well disposed; their souls were the absolute masters of their bodies; their senses were never deceptive; their inclinations were never violent; their understanding was clear; and their will was upright. They understood all creatures, and they knew how they ought to use them. The only thing they did not understand was the fruit whose use was prohibited to them. All they had to do was use their senses, their inclinations, and their understandings properly. Their senses allowed them to perceive objects: they understood their properties, and they never had, on the occasion of their senses, any disordered motions that made them want anything other than what they knew was suitable for them. It was even easy for them to follow the command of their Author, since the vision of the only OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

WHAT CONSTITUTES HAPPINESS OR MISERY  fruit that was forbidden to them did not cause any disordered appetite in them. That fruit did seem agreeable in their eyes, but all of nature had the same agreeableness for them. And they did not need all of the illumination that God had given them in order to conceive that, since He who had formed everything had threatened them with death if they should eat that fruit, this would infallibly happen just as He had said it would. However, as soon as the woman heard it said that they will be like God Himself if they eat the fruit, she suggested to the man that they do so. And in coming to this decision, they examined neither who it was who advised them to eat the fruit nor who forbade them from doing so. They dwelt only on the thought that it was good to be like God. Moved more by their senses than by what their Author had said to them about this fruit, they found the fruit agreeable to their eyes, they took it in their hands, they found it agreeable in taste, and they ate it. Thus, their souls disordered themselves, and the disorder of their bodies followed, along with that of all of nature. They knew evil: they became subject to pain and to death, and became so subjugated to their bodies that they retained only as much freedom as was necessary to lose themselves completely, just as the demons did. The Son of God, through his Incarnation and through his death, advantageously repaired this evil. But this remedy, which is of an order superior to nature, is such that, while it elevates human beings to things that surpass everything that Adam could have done in the perfect state in which God had put him, yet it still leaves those who participate in it susceptible to all the disorders that nature underwent through the sin of the ﬁrst man. Their soul is disordered, as is their body, and this disorder passed from the soul of the ﬁrst man to their soul, just as it passed from his body to theirs. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

That God Does Everything That is Real in Our Actions, Without Depriving Us of Freedom

I. God is the cause of all that is. He is the cause of the existence of corporeal substances, and of the fact that they are capable of being extended. Thus all bodies derive their being and their extension from Him. He created them, He conserves them. Similarly, He is the cause of the existence of spiritual substances, and of the fact that they are capable of thought, that is, of understanding, willing, etc. Thus, all minds derive their being and their thoughts from Him. He created them, He conserves them. II. He made bodies capable only of passions. They are extended, they are shaped, they have place, and they are moved, but they are incapable of action. Similarly, He made minds capable of passions. They have sensations and perceptions, and they are affected in inﬁnitely many different ways. But they are also capable of action: they will. III. Although God makes all bodies and their extension, and they subsist only through Him, it is not to be said that He is a body nor that He is extended. Extension belongs to body as its substance belongs to it, although God made it. Similarly, although God makes minds and their thoughts, He is neither their being nor their thoughts. God is not what they are—their substance is in them. It is indeed He who makes them think, but it is they that think. Finally, God causes the passions of minds, but they are different from Him. Similarly, He causes the actions of minds, but they are different OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

THAT GOD DOES EVERYTHING THAT IS REAL  from Him. And just as it cannot be said that the passions of minds are His passions, but only that they are the passions of minds, so it cannot be said that the actions of minds are His actions, but only that they are the actions of minds. IV. If God made all beings because He is all-powerful, it is clear that, being all-wise, He also made them for the most beautiful end, that is, for Himself. Since corporeal beings do not know this end, they do not need to be active in order to be carried toward it. It is sufﬁcient that they are capable of passion and of being in all the different states that are suitable for this end. But minds, which know this end, need to be active in order to go toward it. V. God ceaselessly impels minds toward this end. They have a constant desire for it. They cannot even prevent themselves from wanting to arrive at it. And as long as nothing obscures their understanding and they know perfectly the means for achieving it, all the activity of their will is a striving for it. But as soon as their understanding is obscured and presents to them various things whose appearance is such that they no longer know what to choose, this is when they suspend this activity. While God ceaselessly impels them toward their end, and even impels them to choose one of the means that are available to achieve this end, since they often do not know how to choose, they remain in suspense, and this is an action. For they resolve not to choose, and this resolution is an action; while it truly would not be in them without God, it is their action and not God’s. VI. Subsequently, when, having deliberated, they settle upon one means rather than another, it is still true that this determination, which is an action, would not be in them without God. But it is also clear that this action is not God’s, that it is their action. VII. Finally, when they choose well, they deserve a reward; and when they choose badly, they deserve punishment. In the ﬁrst case, it is clear that God has done everything and has made everything happen. He continued to incline them toward the end and toward the means for achieving it. Without Him, the action of suspension, for deliberating on the choice of means, would never have taken place in them, nor that of determining themselves after having deliberated. Consequently, He did everything and made everything happen. Similarly, in the second case, it is clear that He did or made happen everything that is real. He inclined minds toward their end, He inclined them toward the choice of means for OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

 TREATISES ON METAPHYSICS

achieving it, and without Him they would neither have deliberated nor chosen. Thus, He did and made happen everything that is real in this situation. And if minds have chosen badly, it is because of a lack for which they alone are responsible. God had made everything that was from Him and that sufficed for acting well, and minds did not use the power that He put in them. VIII. According to these principles, a man can—with the same interior dispositions, in view of the same objects, and in completely similar circumstances—choose at one time what leads to the ultimate end and, at another time, what diverts him from it. For example, a man who is very hungry can, on a fast day, come upon a well prepared meal, think that he is forbidden to touch it until the hour of eating has arrived, and, in fact, wait until this hour has come before eating. But the same man can, with the same hunger on another fast day, in view of a similar meal and after an equally intense reflection on the prohibition of eating before the hour, fail to wait until that hour has arrived before eating. This results from his freedom. God has, equally in the two cases, made everything that is real in them. For in the one case and in the other, He inclined the soul of this man necessarily toward his happiness. He also inclined him, but without necessity, toward eating, as toward a good which also, in certain circumstances, leads toward this end. Finally, He gave him the power of reflecting on what would be best, and that of choosing. Now it is evident that when this man chooses to wait until the hour when it is permitted to eat, he is inclined to this, as to a means for achieving perfect happiness, by God. It is certain that he leaves everything up to God in this case, since God inclines him to happiness. But when this man chooses to eat before the hour, it is clear that, while God does everything He needs to do—that is, while He inclines this man toward happiness; makes him consider as intently as in the first case that eating before the hour is not conducive to this end; and inclines him to wait until this hour— nonetheless, because at the same time He inclines the man toward the meal as toward an object that is naturally conducive to his happiness, this man, instead of leaving everything up to God, who inclines him to wait until the hour of eating and makes him consider that this is the best course to take, prefers to indulge the other motion and takes the meal. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

THAT GOD DOES EVERYTHING THAT IS REAL 

Certainly, God does everything that is real in all this. He inclines the man toward the meal, but at the same time He inclines him toward waiting until the hour. In order to put him in a meritorious state, He gives the man the power of choice, that is, the power of either waiting until the hour or eating before the hour. And this man, instead of following the former, which he sees conforms most to God’s will—that is, to the good—sticks with the latter, and does not want to use all the power he has to pursue the former or to give himself over to God, who inclines him that way. The upshot is that whatever is evil or defective in this comes purely from the man and not from God.

On sensations that relate to bodies; and how it is that the soul confounds these sensations with their objects I. Sensations are given to the soul so that it might perceive either the state of its body, the bodies that immediately touch it, the effects of distant bodies, or, ﬁnally, those bodies themselves. II. The soul refers each sensation to the thing for the sake of which that sensation is given to it. Thus, it refers pain, pleasure, etc., to parts of its body, because pain and pleasure are sensations that are given to it in order for it to perceive the state of its body. III. Similarly, it refers the sensations of touch and of taste to the bodies that immediately affect its own body, because these two sensations are given to it in order for it to perceive the differences between the bodies that immediately touch its own. IV. It also refers the sensations of hearing and smell to distant bodies, because these two sensations are given to it in order for it to perceive the effects of distant bodies. V. Finally, it refers all the sensations of vision to bodies themselves, because this sensation is given to it in order for it to perceive them. VI. The upshot is that, since the soul always refers its sensation to the thing for the perception of which the sensation is given to it, the soul ordinarily confounds the sensation with this thing. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/3/2015, SPi

Index of Names

André, Yves 45 Descartes, René 1–2, 4–7, 9, 10–15, Arnauld, Antoine 35, 48–9 17–18, 21, 35–6, 41–2, 45–6, 63 n. 2, 81 n. 1, 89 n. 3, 108 n. 1 Baillet, Adrien 5, 9 Desgabets, Robert 12–13, 23, 47, 49 Battail, Jean-François 25, 47 Bayle, Pierre 1 Foucher, Simon 13 Bonnevaux, Mme. de 4 Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne 9–10 Gassendi, Pierre 1, 4, 17, 23 Bouiller, Francisque 1–2 Geulincx, Arnold 12, 42–3 Gouhier, Henri 43 Charon, Pierre 1 Cicero 58 Harvey, William 89 n. 3 Clauberg, Johannes 12, 42–3 Huet, Pierre-Daniel 10, 13 Clerselier, Claude 5, 23, 45 Hume, David 27, 31 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 1 Cordemoy, Louis-Géraud 3, La Forge, Louis de 2, 13–14, 25, 28, 9 n. 18, 50 35–6, 42–6 Cordemoy, Géraud Lamoignon, Guillaume de 4 inﬂuence 45–9 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 3, 21–2, 42, legal career 3–4 47–9 life 3–10 Le Mothe Le Vayer, François de 1 role in development of occasionalism 41–4 Malebranche, Nicolas 3, 12, 15, 24–5, works 40–1, 43, 45–7 De la Reformation d’un Etat 10 Mersenne, Marin 4 Discours physique de la Michon, Pierre (Abbé Bourdelot) 4 parole 6–8, 36–7, 59 n. 1, 111 n. 3 Montmort, Henri-Louis Habert de 4–5, Histoire de France 10 10, 44, 45 Le Discernement du Corps et de l’Ame 14–44 Pascal, Blaise 1, 4 Lettre à Cossart 5–6 Pequet, Jean 78 Traitez de métaphysique 8–9, 37–41, 50 Régis, Pierre-Sylvain 12–14, 23, 47 Cossart, Gabriel 5 Rohault, Jacques 4–5, 12–13, 24 n. 42, 47

Daniel, Gabriel 6 Spinoza, Baruch 47 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/3/2015, SPi

Index of Topics

Académie des Sciences 1 matter 10–11, 15–24, 60–9 Académie Française 10 mechanical philosophy 11, 14–15, 17 action 94, 105 mind 6–8, 109, 150 animals 6, 11, 147 causal activity of 28–41, 97–101, Aristotelian philosophy 11, 14–15 150–3 atomism 15–24, 47–9, 61–6 causal relationship with body 97–101, 105–7 body 10–11, 15–24, 26–7, 60–9, 93, existence of 109–14 108–9, 150 passions in 127–35 action on mind 105–6 union with body 102–5, 117–19, as cause of motion 94–7, 105–7 123–42, 147–8 body-body union 102–3, 118 mind–body dualism 10–11, 16–17, existence of 109–11, 114–18 93–4, 108–10 motion 26–32, 60, 70, 80, 93, Cartesianism 1–3, 10–13, 23 107, 109

Epicureanism 1 occasionalism 15, 24–44, 93–101, eternal truths 13 105–7 extension 60–2; see also body; matter other minds 6–8 freedom 9, 37–41, 112, 146, 149, 150–3 preestablished harmony 42

God 56, 104, 146–9 rest 80 as cause 24, 31, 33, 100–1, 104, 150–3; see also occasionalism sensation 35–7, 135–42, 145, as the good 39, 146 147–8, 153 good 38–9 soul, see mind spirits 92, 98–9, 120 happiness 9, 38, 145–9, 152 substance 20, 61–3, 93 ideas 35–7 void 17–19, 67–8 language 6–8 will 8 n. 17, 29, 33–4, 37–41, 97–8, laws 101 100–1, 109, 112–13, 117, light 89–90 151–3