Source:

Opera Omnia volume VI, 1
Ludovic Dutens (ed)
p 319


Date: no later than spring 1698

Translated from the Latin


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LEIBNIZ: DESCARTES ON FINAL CAUSES


[D VI 1, p319]

In Meditation 4, Descartes says: "I consider the customary search for final causes to be totally useless in physics; there is considerable rashness in thinking myself capable of investigating the purposes of God."1 This is what Descartes says, albeit rashly. For otherwise it would not be possible to admire God's wisdom, which he reveals in the admirable design of all things for his own ends, nor would doctors be able to say anything about the use of parts.




NOTE:

1. René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Volume II, eds. and trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoof, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 39.


© Lloyd Strickland 2018