Mo AS consciousness from Letter to Elizabeth, 28 June 1643! First ofall then, I observe one great difference between these three kinds of notions. The soul can bbe conceived only by pure intellect; the body (ie extension, shape, and movement) can likewise be ‘known by pure intellect, but much better by intel lect sided by imagination: and finally what belongs to the union of the soul and the body can be Known only obscurely by pure intellect or by in- tellect aided by imagination, but it can be known very clearly by the senses. That is why people who never philosophize and use only their senses have ‘no doubt that the soul moves the body and that the body acts on the soul. They regard both of them as 8 single thing, that is to say. they conccive their "unions because to conceive the tnion between two things is to conceive them as one single thing Metaphysical thoughts, whieh exercise the pure in- tcllect, help to familiarize us withthe notion ofthe soul: and the study of mathematies, which exer cises mainly the imagination in the consideration Of shapes and movements, accustoms us to form distinct notions of bodies. But it is the ordinary course of life and conversation, and abstention from meditation and from the study of the things Which exercise the imagination, that teaches us hhow to conceive the union of the soul and the body. Tam almost afraid that your Highness witl think that 1am not now speaking seriously: but that would go against the respect which T owe you and which I will never cease to show you, can say with truth that the chief rule I have always ob. served in my studies, which I think has been the ‘most useful to me in acquiring what knowledge | have, has been never to spend more than a few hours a day in the thoughts which occupy the imagination and a few hours year on those which ‘occupy the pure intellect, Ihave given all the rest ‘of my time to the relaxation of the senses and the repose of the mind. And I include among the ex- cercise of the imagination all serious conversations land anything which needs to be done with atten- tion. This is why T have retired to the country. In the busiest city in the world I could stil have as ‘many hours to myself as T now employ in study, ‘but I could not spend them so usefully if my mind as tired by the attention required by the bustle of 1. AT 690; AM v.22: French comple. life. I take the iberty of writing this to your High= ress, so that she may see how genuine is my ad- miration for her devoting time to the meditations needed to appreciate the distinetion between the mind and the body, despite all the business and care which attend people who combine great ‘minds with high birth | think it is those meditations rather than thoughts requiring less attention that have made your Highness find obscurity in our notion of their lunion, Mt does not seem to me that the human mind is capable of conceiving atthe same time the distinction and the union between body and soul, ‘because for ths itis necessary to conceive them as a single thing and at the same time to conceive them as two things: and this is absurd. This is why | made use earlier of an analogy with heaviness and other qualities which we commonly imagine to be united to certain bodies in the way that ‘thought is united to ours. 1 supposed that your Highness still had in mind the arguments proving the distinction between the soul and the body. and 1 did not want to ask her to put them away in order {0 represent to herself the notion of the union which everyone has in himself without philoso- phizing. Everyone feels that he isa single person with both body and thought so related by nature that the thought can move the body and feel the things which happen to it.I did not worry about the fact that the analogy with heaviness was lame because such qualities are not rel as people imag- ine them to be. This was because I thought that your Highness was already completely convinced that the soul isa substance distnet from the body Your Highness observes that itis easier 10 a tribute matter and extension to the soul than 0 tribute to it the capacity to move and to be moved by the body without having matter. I beg her to feel free to attribute matter and extension to the soul because that i simply to conceive it as united to the body. And once she has formed a proper conception of this and experienced it in herself, it “ll be easy for her to consider thatthe matter tributed to the thought is not thought itself, and that the extension of the matter is of diferent na- tre from the extension of the thought, because the former is determined to a definite place, from hich it excludes all other bodily extension, which isnot the case withthe latter. And so your High: nes will easily be able to return to the knowledge ‘of the distinction of soul and body in spite of hay ing conceived their union, From Descartes: Picsophica Letters, arsats by Anthony Kenny. Oxon: Oxford Uiversy Press, 1970, pp. 141-49. Copy "igh © 1981 by Anthony Kenny. Ropreted wih pemesaon of AnPeny Kenny.