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Synopsis of the Six Following Meditations.
In the first Meditation I set forth the reasons for which
we may, generally speaking, doubt about all things and
especially about material things, at least so long as we have
no other foundations for the sciences than those which we have
hitherto possessed. But although the utility of a Doubt which
is so general does not at first appear, it is at the same time
very great, inasmuch as it delivers us from every kind of
prejudice, and sets out for us a very simple way by which the
mind may detach itself from the senses; and finally it makes
it impossible for us ever to doubt those things which we have
once discovered to be true.
In the second Meditation, mind, which making use of the
liberty which pertains to it, takes for granted that all those
things of whose existence it has the least doubt, are non-
existent, recognises that it is however absolutely impossible
that it does not itself exist. This point is likewise of the
greatest moment, inasmuch as by this means a distinction is
easily drawn between the things which pertain to mind?that is
to say to the intellectual nature?and those which pertain to
body.
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