OBJECT. I.
Against the First Meditation: Of things
Doubtful.
’Tis evident enough from What has been said in this Meditation, that there is no sign by Which we may Distinguish our Dreams from True Sense and Waking, and therefore that those Phantasmes which we have waking and from our Senses are not accidents inhering in Outward Objects, neither do they Prove that such outward Objects do Exist; and therefore if we trust our Senses without any other Ground, we may well doubt whether any Thing Be or Not. We therefore acknowledge the Truth of this Meditation. But Because Plato and other Antient Philosophers argued for the same incertainty in sensible Things, and because ’tis commonly Observed by the Vulgar that ’tis hard to Distinguish Sleep from Waking, I would not have the most excellent Author of such new Thoughts put forth so antique Notions.
ANSWER.
Those Reasons of Doubt which by this Philosopher are admitted as true, were proposed by Me only as Probable, and I made use of them not that I may vend them as new, but partly that I may prepare the Minds of my Readers for the Consideration of Intellectual Things, wherein they seem’d to me very necessary; And partly that thereby I may shew how firm those Truths are, which hereafter I lay down, seeing they cannot be Weaken’d by these Metaphysical Doubts: So, that I never designed to gain any Honor by repeating them, but I think I could no more omit them, then a Writer in Physick can pass over the Description of a Disease, Whose Cure he intends to Teach.