Complete Works, Volume Three

of Sections, Parts, and Books

...the example was adopted, others were omitted. in the same place original: "ibid."
2. That he specifically avoided what had been objected regarding the Idea of a Thing: that it is not formed except from perceived individuals and their previously held ideas. And that he who, after affecting to cast off all prejudices, discovers some ideas in himself, cannot say that they are innate. in the same place.

Doubt 3. Regarding the external original: "aduentitia" origin of Ideas, proven from those things which are lacking to the blind and the deaf: And regarding the single Idea of the Sun, which, once held by sense, is enlarged by reason. 320

Response. 321

Counter-argument. original: "Instantia." A formal rebuttal in a scholastic debate. in the same place.

Article 1. That the objection made concerning the blind and the deaf remains unresolved. Nor can what is intended be legitimately concluded from only certain proposed points. in the same place.
2. That the chief difficulty regarding the Idea of the Sun was concealed. That an Idea is properly an image. That some things are perceived through a true idea, and others by the force of logical consequence. 322

Doubt 4. Regarding the Idea of substance as not unique to itself, but known through accidents secondary qualities like color or shape and after their likeness: And regarding the idea of God taken from things or their perfections. 323

Response. 324

Counter-argument. in the same place.

Article 1. That intellection seems unable to be separated from imagination; and that it is the same thing, or that an image is observed in both. in the same place.
2. That it seems false that substance is perceived not by imagination but by the intellect alone; and that the idea we have of it does not depend on those we have of its accidents. 325
3. By what reasoning it seems the first humans could have had an Idea of God if they did not have it as something innate; and how he who thinks he has it as innate reasons. 326
4. That there is no true idea of God, since He is infinite. That the infinite is known by negation alone. From where the enlargement of an idea comes. That it is wrongly denied that God would be a tiny God if He were no greater than what is understood by us. 327

Doubt 5. Regarding that Maxim: Nothing is in the effect that is not in the cause, understanding this of a material cause. And to what extent it can be true that there must be at least as much formal reality in the cause of an Idea as there is objective reality in the idea. 328

Response. 329

Counter-argument. in the same place.

Article 1. That the royal road, by which the existence of God is proven from manifest effects in the Universe, is wrongly abandoned in favor of proving it through the so-called "objective reality" of an idea. That the word "reality" is used improperly here. in the same place.
2. That an Idea with its objective reality the reality of the thing as it is represented seems to relate as an impression in wax relates to the representation of the seal; so that just as the shape is representative and the seal is representable, so the idea has objective reality (or the representation of the cause), while the cause itself has formal reality actual existence (or representability). 330
3. That difficulties were concealed: And to what extent it is true or not true that an effect pre-exists in the cause, so that a conclusion might be drawn concerning the objective reality of an idea. 331

Doubt 6. Regarding the mind not having an idea of itself (which does not seem able to understand itself any more than the eye can see itself), and having no idea of God, nor of Angels, nor especially of corporeal things. 332

Response. 333

Counter-argument. in the same place.

Article 1. No trifling. That difficulties were avoided. That every idea is an image: therefore, there is an image in the intellect no less than in the imaginative faculty original: "imaginatrice". in the same place.
2. That it was not proven that the same thing does not act upon itself; that he is undeservedly insulted, and the fault is turned back upon the teacher referring to Descartes. In the spinning of a top original: "turbinis", the same thing does not act upon itself. 334
3. That nothing was fabricated when it was objected that the mind was said to be able to deduce ideas of corporeal things from itself: nor was a response given to the difficulty that had been proposed regarding that matter. in the same place.