ere really there or if they were just some illusion. He recalled on one occasion that he believed he was sitting before a fire, looking at his hands, only to awaken later to discover that it was all a dream. Descartes learned that there is no test to determine that on any given moment one is not dreaming, because any test you can think, you can dream, therefore it's not a test at all. Descartes knew that senses are deceiving, for example; an object can be distant and small, but when you get close to it, it is actually bigger than what you thought originally. So he thought God was a deceiver, but that he was also good. Maybe God was an evil genius?
             In Meditation two, Descartes hits upon the indubitable principle he has been looking for. He exists, at least when he thinks he exists. The cogito (Descartes' proof of his own existence) has been the root of great discussion ever since Descartes first formulated it in the 1637 Discourse on Method and a great deal of misinterpretation (possibly the result of Descartes' repeated contradictions of his own position in earlier literature.)
             "Doubtless, then, that I exist...and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expresse
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