ends (flight), though not the emotion
itself, and, in the intervals of quiet, it can take measures to render a
new attack of the passion less dangerous. Instead of enlisting one passion
against another, a plan which would mean only an appearance of freedom,
but in fact a continuance in bondage, the soul should fight with its own
weapons, with fixed maxims _(judicia)_, based on certain knowledge of good
and evil. The will conquers the emotions by means of principles, by clear
and distinct knowledge, which sees through and corrects the false values
ascribed to things by the excitement of the passions. Besides this negative
requirement, "subjection of the passions," Descartes' contributions to
ethics--in the letters to Princess Elizabeth on human happiness, and to
Queen Christina on love and the highest good--were inconsiderable. Wisdom
is the carrying out of that which has been seen to be best, virtue is
steadfastness, sin inconstancy therein. The goal of human endeavor is peace
of conscience, which is attained only through the determination to be
virtuous, i.e., to live in harmony with self.

Besides its ethical mission, the will has allotted to it the theoretical
function of affirmation and negation, i.e., of judgment. If God in his
veracity and goodness has bestowed on man the power to know truth, how is
misuse of this power, how is error possible? Single sensations and ideas
cannot be false, but only judgments--the reference of ideas to objects.
Judgment or assent is a matter of the will; so that when it makes erroneous
affirmations or negations, when it prefers the false judgment to the true,
it alone is guilty. Our understanding is limited, our will unlimited; the
latter reaches further than the former, and can assent to a judgment
even before its constituent parts have attained the requisite degree of
clearness. False judgment is prejudgment, for which we can hold neither God
nor our own nature responsible. The possibility of error, as well as the
possibility of avoiding error, resides in the will. This has the power to
postpone its assent or dissent, to hold back its decision until the ideas
have become entirely clear and distinct. The supreme perfection is the
_libertas non errandi_. Thus knowledge itself becomes a moral function; the
true and the good are in the last analysis identical. The contradiction
with which Descartes has been charged, that he makes volition and cognition
reciprocally determinative, that he