he really thinks. He himself says this may be a small point, but it is also a point that goes to the heart of his concern for the mixture that produces the human being.
The difficulty of understanding the different elements and combinations referred to by Descartes is indicated in his letter to Elizabeth when he notes that the soul can only be perceived by pure intellect; the body only by pure intellect or intellect aided by imagination; and the union of the soul and body only obscurely by pure intellect or by intellect aided by the sense, or known very clearly only by the senses. Descartes is here arguing that people who know the world only through their senses, people who do not philosophize, as he says, believe without doubt that the soul moves the body and that the body acts on the soul. These people see the body and soul as a single thing, conceiving of their union. He says this is because to conceive the union between two things is to conc
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