—-1 —0 —+1 Introduction The subtitle of the first edition of Descartes’s Meditations promises a dem- onstration of the immortality of the soul (AT 7, xviii). 1 But although the “real distinction” between the mind and body is defended in the Sixth Meditation, early readers like Arnauld, and here Mersenne, were quick to point out that “it does not seem to follow from the fact that the mind is distinct from the body that it is incorruptible or immortal” (AT 7, 128; CSM 2, 91). 2 Apparently at Mersenne’s urging, Descartes constructed a more detailed proof of immortality in the final week of 1640, and included it in a “Synopsis” or “Abrégé” to the already completed, and soon to be pub- lished, Meditations. 3 Descartes notes that the new proof depends on two assumptions not made explicit in the six meditation s (these he admits are sufficient only to give mortals the “hope” of an afterlife). 4 First we need to know that absolutely all substances, or things that must be created by God in order to exist, are by their very nature incor- ruptible, and cannot ever cease to exist unless reduced to nothing by God’s denying his concurrence to them. Second, we need to recognize that even body, taken in the general sense, is a substance, so that it too never perishes. But the human body, insomuch as it differs from other bodies, is simply made up of a certain configuration of limbs and other accidents of this sort, whereas the human mind is not made up of any accidents in this way but is a pure substance. For even if all the accidents of the mind change, so that it has different objects of the understanding and different desires and sensations, it does not on that account become a different mind; whereas a human body loses its identity merely as a result of a change in the shape of some of its parts. And it follows from this that whereas the body can very easily perish, the soul is immortal by its very nature (AT 7, 14; CSM 2, 10). 8 Descartes on Persistence and Temporal Parts Geoffrey Gorham 42886_1P_Campbell_01_001-322.indd 165 42886_1P_Campbell_01_001-322.indd 165 12/10/09 8:44 PM 12/10/09 8:44 PM