Status Updates From Discourse on Method and Med...

“But because the necessities of action often oblige us to make a decision before we have had the leisure to examine things so carefully, it must be admitted that the life of man is very often subject to error in particular cases; and we must, in conclusion, recognize the infirmity and weakness of our nature.”

“For one can well conceive that a machine may be so made as to emit words, and even that it may emit some in relation to bodily actions which cause a change in its organs, as, for example, […] if it is touched in another place, it may cry out that it is being hurt, and so on; but not that it may […] reply to […] everything that is said in its presence, in the way that the most unintelligent of men can do.”

“Finally, if there are still men who are not sufficiently persuaded of the existence of God and of their soul by the reasons I have given, I would like them to know that all the other things of which they think themselves perhaps more assured, such as having a body, and that there are stars and an earth, and such like, are less certain […]”

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“That human happiness is conditioned by the progress of medicine, Descartes never doubted, and he never ceased to preoccupy himself with the problem.”