I was referring to human beings in that example. — Manuel

The question was raised about the connection between the senses and the intellect. Since Descartes denies that animals have intellect we should consider what he allows the senses alone can accomplish. In the passages I cite these are beliefs that come from the senses. Are the senses alone sufficient? Given the connection between mind and body, which he will discuss, perhaps the problem arises only in abstraction, when mind and body are artificially separated and not treated as a union.

the intellect too can deceive us — Manuel

As we see with Zeno and the denial of motion. Does this fall under logical formulations?

The issue I am highlighting is that it's not clear senses alone give us any knowledge, without an intellectual component. — Manuel

As I think you know, he will confirm this. This is, of course, a very old problem going back at least to Plato.

Descartes observation about what literally hits the eye — Manuel

His mechanistic view of optics allows that animals without mind can see, otherwise they would not be able to move around in the world.

Following his claim that:

Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.

he lists several things that come through the senses:

Yet although the senses sometimes deceive us about objects that are very small or distant, that doesn’t apply to my belief that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on. It seems to be quite impossible to doubt beliefs like these, which come from the senses.

... the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds ... no hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses ...

(First Meditation)

Well you seem to think you understand what I’m trying to say and just flatly disagree. — Antony Nickles

? When you say:

He is looking for a foundation in order to have the certainty he needs to conquer doubt. — Antony Nickles

I take it that is what you are saying.

this is uncalled for in this kind of forum. If you want to believe Descartes or Plato or Kant never made a mistake, feel free, but there is no cause to mock me. — Antony Nickles

First of all, he is a careful writer. Second, from that statement to claiming he never made a mistake is quite a leap. Third, if you think he made a mistake then either he did or you did.

I think it odd that you think that suggesting you rather than Descartes is lost is to mock you.

I meant we should not just take him to be making explicit everything we can learn. — Antony Nickles

Right, but does anyone?

He is looking for a foundation in order to have the certainty he needs to conquer doubt. — Antony Nickles

I don't think so.

You’re assuming he’s a reliable narrator. — Antony Nickles

It is because he is not a reliable narrator that I don't think that conquering doubt is as much a problem as you make it out to be.

As I pointed out on page one:

He took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit) — Fooloso4

I also said:

Descartes dedication to the faculty of theology is both revealing and concealing. He tells them that once they understand the principle behind his undertaking they will protect it. This raises the question of what that principle is. — Fooloso4

The whole force of my argument has been that there is more here than meets the eye.

What he’s telling you he’s doing is not the whole picture. — Antony Nickles

That is right. Despite your claim, he has not said what the principle behind his undertaking is.

I’m analyzing how he gets lost along the way because of what he wants from it. — Antony Nickles

Descartes is a careful writer. He is a central figure in Western philosophy. He did not gain that reputation by getting lost. If someone is lost it is not him.

If we take philosophy literally and at face value, we are not putting it in contrast to the rest of the tradition, nor questioning why he has chosen this method, why he needs certainty. — Antony Nickles

You seem to be arguing that we should not take what he says literally, but you go on to object to the idea that there is a rhetorical aspect. From the beginning I have set his work both within and against the tradition. I have also said why he chose this method. Why does he need certainty? Because, as I also said, he is looking to established a foundation. If, as he said, he is to:

... establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last ...

Now there are problems with the idea of foundationalism, but if we are to understand him, we should not begin by rejecting what he sets out to do.

The fact that Descartes “withdraws from the practical concerns of daily life” is not only the cause of the abstraction, — Antony Nickles

It is the deliberate act of abstraction. These meditations could not take place while dealing with the demands of life outside his closed room.

to be apart from our human life, its uncertainty. — Antony Nickles

It is not in order to be apart from uncertainty. It is just the opposite. It is done in order to give free rein to it.

So I do not take anything as “rhetorical” but take it seriously enough to attribute reasons for everything, implications, assumptions, motivations, blind spots, frameworks, analogies, etc. — Antony Nickles

These are not mutually exclusive alternatives. As Aristotle said, rhetoric is as counterpart to dialectic. They are closely related. It is rhetoric that takes into consideration assumptions, motivations, blind spots, frameworks, etc.

Good question. From the first meditation:

Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.

At PI 217 Wittgenstein says:

Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: “This is simply what I do.”

His spade is not turned when he hits a proposition that is bedrock but when he has exhausted propositions used to justify his acting in this way when complying with a rule. He can go no further.

From On Certainty:

166. The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.

And:

358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality,
but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)
359. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or
unjustified; as it were, as something animal.

Most succinctly:

482. It is as if "I know" did not tolerate a metaphysical emphasis.

Rather than bedrock we should consider the river and its banks:

96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were
hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid;
and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became
fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I
distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself;
though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

Harth dropped the lawsuit right after Trump settled an outstanding business lawsuit from her partner. Weird how that happens. — NOS4A2

She dropped the lawsuit but stands by her accusations. If you read the article you cited you would know that.

Why aren’t you mentioning these things? — NOS4A2

As I said:

She backtracked in October of 2016. Just a big coincidence? — Fooloso4

Once again Trump and his lawyers resorted to his default position: he is the victim. In damage control mode she denied it was rape "in a literal or criminal sense" but also said:

As a woman, I felt violated ...

An important element that she mentioned is the children she had with him. Children who hold important positions in his business/charitable/political organization. Since he demands unquestionable loyalty but is incapable of being loyal she was protecting her children.

Look at the date of their accusations. October 2016. — NOS4A2

Yes, LOOK at the dates.

... his then-wife Ivana made a rape claim during their 1990 divorce litigation ...

She backtracked in October of 2016. Just a big coincidence?

Jill Harth

filed a lawsuit in 1997 in which she accused Trump of non-consensual groping of her body, among them her "intimate private parts"

As is typical, when others come forward those who thought they were alone speak out. You would do well to educate yourself on #MeToo. That 25 or more women accused Trump because he was a political target does not stand up to reason. Why Trump and not every political candidate? Your defense of Trump, trying to spin it as if he is the victim, is a callous disregard for the true victims of his abuse.

Hume's method is to portray reason as infallible — Metaphysician Undercover

Where does he portray reason as infallible?

All after he became a political target — NOS4A2

That is incorrect.

Why do you repeat his lies? Is it ignorance or blind loyalty?

He said; she said. — NOS4A2

As with Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby it's:
He said; she said. And she said, and she said, and she said ...

I am claiming he is externalizing that he is demonized (afraid), that his ability to have a clear path through our culture and customs is fraught. — Antony Nickles

I think you have mistaken a rhetorical device for something existential.

From the First Meditation:

I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed – just once in my life – to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations. It looked like an enormous task, and I decided to wait until I was old enough to be sure that there was nothing to be gained from putting it off any longer. I have now delayed it for so long that I have no excuse for going on planning to do it rather than getting to work. So today I have set all my worries aside and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself, sincerely and without holding back, to demolishing my opinions.

It is a meditation, not a crisis of doubt. He has waited to do this meditation until he was able to set aside the time to withdraw from the practical concerns of daily life. It is in that sense a practice of abstraction.

The thing about Descartes, even Socrates, is that they do put the cart before the horse in wanting a specific type of knowledge ... — Antony Nickles

In my opinion, knowledge of our ignorance is the proper philosophical starting point. Descartes was more cautious than Socrates. But he was also more cautious than Galileo, who did know something of which the Church was ignorant.

How could Descartes claim that there are things the Church is ignorant of, thing the Church claimed that are doubtful and wrong? By doubting everything.

If they don't consent then yes. — Michael

I answered in the same way. Does he really not know this? Giving him the benefit of the doubt he is just being stubbornly argumentative. Otherwise ...

Now it is just a matter of who is more honest about it. — NOS4A2

Who is more honest about what? Many conservatives today want to or claim they want to dismantle the administrative state. The administrative state is comprised of a few in terms of the overall population but it is not comprised of only a few, it is quite large.

None of your straw-grasping can contend with the fact no evidence of any sexual assault or admission of any sexual assault occurred in the video. — NOS4A2

He admits to grabbing women by the pussy. Perhaps it is just boasting, but if so, thinking that this is something to boast about says a lot. The fact that he does not assault anyone in the video is evidence that he did not assault anyone in the video. Nothing more.

All sexual assault has been explicitly denied. — NOS4A2

He explicitly denies lots of things he is guilty of. One example from last night is his explicitly denying he did not ask for votes to be "found" in Georgia.

As for the jury selection it was an anonymous jury. — NOS4A2

Anonymous does not mean that there was no jury process.

Can you think of a way around the Iron Law of Oligarchy? — NOS4A2

If by oligarchy you simply mean rule by a few then by definition the rulers of a democratic republic are a few, although the few are actually many, but still a small percentage of the population.

In the absence of a better alternative I don't think there is a way around.

Or would you admit, like the conservatives do, that the very structure of your organization requires a hierarchy of betters and lessers, elites and the masses, masters and slaves? — NOS4A2

There is a difference between "betters and lessers". "Elites" is a term that is stretched in order to argue for or against something. Your man Trump is an elite, if by that term you mean rich and powerful, but there are many conservatives who object to him because he is not an elite in the sense of being capable of wise and beneficial leadership. "Masters and slaves" is even more loaded.

You would think that Trumps lawyers would have done better in the jury selection process. I hear he only hires the best people. — praxis

As I am sure you know, the best people will not work for him. I don't think they could have done better at selecting impartial jurors, although team Trump, led here by NOS will argue that any jury that finds him guilty must be biased against him.

There was no jury selection process. Such a fair trial. — NOS4A2

There was a jury selection process.

Do you think that when "they let you do it", it is assault? — NOS4A2

If they let you do it without them wanting him to do it, it is.

Nowhere does he admit to any assault in the video. — NOS4A2

If he grabs them by the pussy without their consent then he is admitting to assault. Groupie might consent because someone is a star, but this does not mean that if a star lets them do it they consent. Do you think Harvey Weinstein was innocent?

Nowhere has assault been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. — NOS4A2

As others have already pointed out, this was not a criminal case. He was found guilty based on the preponderance of evidence.

The crux of what I see is that Descartes is demonizing the inherent fallibility of our human condition. — Antony Nickles

Well, he does posit a demon but I do not think he is demonizing our fallibility.

But we regularly fail, make mistakes, don’t assess the situation (act thoughtlessly) or do so not taking into account the other, etc. None of this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. — Antony Nickles

We do, but he does not argue that this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. Quite the opposite, it is reason to find something indubitable and build on that foundation.

so that we can just follow the moral rules and never be wrong or judged. — Antony Nickles

In the Discourse on Method Descartes presents his "provisional morality".

My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world.

It is provisional because his method will allow man to master fortune. Man will no longer have to accept things the way they are. Descartes method of reason is, as he says in the Meditations, the Archimedean point from which he can move the world.

Who knows? — NOS4A2

You don't know what is to be done but think something should be done, even though you don't know that what should be done will make things better rather than worse. This is just the kind of thinking demagogues rely on.

So when NOS says: "Fact: He does not grab by the pussy the woman he was just talking about." He's saying that Trump has never grabbed for pussy and this is a fact. — praxis

That appears to be what he is arguing. I don't know if he actually believes what he says though. He also argues that Trump was just boasting. I don't know if he actually believes that either.

Note how he misrepresents in order to deny what no one has claimed:

... not what he does when he meets people. — NOS4A2

So, unless he grabs "people" by the pussy when he meets them it cannot be true that he has grabbed some women by the pussy. He seems to think that since he did not grab this woman on camera it cannot be true that he has ever done this.

... many people claim he is admitting to assault — NOS4A2

He does not admit to assault because he does not see it as assault. It is what "stars" do. They can do anything. But not this, it is just boasting.

One point that he continues to ignore is that a number of other women have accused him of the same thing. But by some perversion of reason he thinks or at least claims to think that is not evidence. In addition, the unanimous decision of the jury based on the evidence they heard is not evidence either because they are all biased against him.

How then can we reach it?

the people just need to go rule themselves. — NOS4A2

And how does that work?

I’m suggesting that democracy is impossible where certain organizational structures are concerned, for instance representative government. — NOS4A2

And what is the alternative?

As for grabbing pussy, he’s clearly speaking in the second person. — NOS4A2

He is speaking as a "star" about what stars can do.

I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

On the other side of your misrepresentation, he is not talking about some particular person but "they".

The fact is, he supported Mussolini. If he thought that Mussolini and/or fascism could lead to democracy he was wrong.

Are you suggesting that Trump's autocratic demography delivers democracy?

How do you reconcile socialism and fascism?

Another inept Trumpian apologetic. Michels supported Mussolini, you support Trump. Same difference. One fascist autocrat or another. Rather than the rule of a few, the rule of one.

Plato's degeneration of democracy into tyranny is remarkably prescient, as many pointed out when Trump rose to power.

Fact: He does not grab by the pussy the woman he was just talking about. — NOS4A2

Proof: He did not grab one woman he was talking to in front of the cameras, therefore contrary to what he said, he has never grabbed any women by the pussy.

I have no interest in the sexual lives of politicians. — NOS4A2

When someone's sexual life includes sexual assault it is no longer a private matter. This reflects poorly on you. Do you not know the difference?

You then switch gears and claim their is no evidence of sexual assault. The list of women who have accused him of sexual assault is long and goes back many years. But none of this matters to you because you have no interest in the sexual lives of politicians.

So our doubts continue to develop. — frank

He does not doubt that there are:

... simpler and more universal kinds include body, and extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity, size and number; the places things can be in, the time through which they can last, and so on. — Descartes, First Meditation

At this point the ontological status of these things has not been determined. Only that they are:

... the elements out of which we make all our mental images of things – the true and also the false ones.

but perhaps nothing more.

Now what seems indubitable is that two plus three makes five. — frank

He says that such obvious truths cannot be false, but the problem remains as to what they are truths of, that is:

... whether they really exist in nature or not ... — Descartes, First Meditation

The full significance of this is revealed in what follows immediately:

...I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God who made me to be the sort of creature that I am.

This too must be doubted. Both that there is an all-powerful God and what sort of creature he, Descartes, is.

He has claimed that:

For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square has only four sides.

but in what follows:

... how do I know that I myself don’t go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square?

Although the common picture of Descartes focuses on the dualism of mind and body, it should not overshadow the unity of his work as a whole which includes medicine, optics, and ethics. This is most easily seen in his Discourse on Method and the appendixes on geometry, optics, and meteorology.

Descartes' science of optics stands as a counterweight to the doubts raised in the Meditations. He begins the discourse on optics:

All the conduct of our lives depends on our senses, among which the sense of sight being the most universal and most noble, there is no doubt that the inventions which serve to augment its power are the most useful that could be made.

The science of optics is a study and theory of the nature of light. Its explanations are in terms of a physics of motion and physiology. Further, what is at issue is not the fact that the senses can deceive us but that they can be augmented and improved upon. Descartes overarching concern is not to bifurcate but to unify.

In his synopsis of the Meditations he says:

... the premisses which lead to the conclusion that the soul is immortal depend on an account of the whole of physics.

In other words, his metaphysics is grounded in physics. And yet he says in the First Meditation:

So a reasonable conclusion from this might be that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal with the simplest and most general things, regardless of whether they really exist in nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable.

The problem is obvious. If his account of the immortality of the soul depends on an account of physics but it is reasonable to conclude that physics is doubtful then it is reasonable to conclude that the immortality of the soul is doubtful.

If only he had an Archimedean Point.

As with the God of Genesis Descartes creates the 'objective reality' in the Meditations in six days.

Without jumping too far ahead, a bit of explanation regarding this structure is needed. His use of the term 'objective' differs from ours. Objective reality refers to the ideas represented in the mind and differs from formal or actual reality. (Meditation 3)

For now I will only note that unlike the God of Genesis, Descartes' God does not rest on the seventh day (Meditation 3 on preservation and creation).

He could have doubted that "thinking" exists, no? — Benj96

No. To doubt is to think. He says so explicitly in the third meditation quoted above.

The only thing I don't understand is why, having considered that, and it's circularity, it did not lead him to a further reduction based on skepticism to the simpler statement "I am". — Benj96

It did:

So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.

(Second Meditation)

... doubting one exists would naturally lead to one not existing. — Benj96

He does not doubt he exists. That is the point:

I will proceed in this way until I recognize something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty. Archimedes used to demand just one firm and
immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable.

(Second Meditation)

Can one exist without thinking? I would imagine so, or else dreamless sleep would be ultimate death. As might deep and silent meditation. — Benj96

Can one consider that question if one did not exist? Descartes is not claiming that he only exists as long as he is thinking. You misconstrue what "therefore" means in the statement "I think therefore I am". It means, therefore I can be certain that I am. About this I cannot be deceived.

He who lived well, did not hide himself ... — Benj96

There are different ways in which one might hide. An important and influential contemporary work on this is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing". The complement of the art of writing is the art of reading. It is through the art of reading that we find what Descartes hides in his art of writing.

for the benefit/teaching/education of others. — Benj96

One problem with writing, as Socrates notes in Plato's Phaedrus, is that what is said cannot be tailored to suit the reader. What may be of benefit to one person may be detrimental to another. Descartes gives us an example in the Dedication:

And since in this life the rewards offered to vice are often greater than the rewards of virtue, few people would prefer what is right to what is expedient if they did not fear God or have the expectation of an after-life.

For the benefit of others Descartes argues along traditional lines for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul; but he does not claim, as Proverbs does, that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In addition he equates soul and thinking, and is silent about an afterlife. The significance of this will become clearer when he replaces sin with erring, and connects the avoidance of error with perfectibility. The latter is accomplished not by obedience but by will and knowledge.

In other words, there is a potentially harmful esoteric teaching hiding in the salutary exoteric teaching.

If we are to take Descartes thinking = being sentiment, then we must assume the universe "thinks". — Benj96

There are two substances, two kinds of being, thinking and extended.

But for me "thinking" requires at its basis more than one "being" such that thought "leads" or "traverses" between once concept (one state of being) and another.

Not to mention thought requires memory otherwise it is a constant state of "what was I thinking about?" or "forgetfulness". — Benj96

He has a broad notion of what thinking is:

I am a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory
perceptions; for as I have noted before, even though the objects of my sensory experience and imagination may have no existence outside me, nonetheless the modes of thinking which I refer to as cases of sensory perception and imagination, in so far as they are simply modes of
thinking, do exist within me - of that I am certain.

(Meditation 3)

its interesting to note his willingness to venture into unknown territory yet at the same time abide by church law. — Benj96

He took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit)

"I think therefore I am" is the cartesian circle, the basis or hallmark for fallacious circular argument from Descartes. — Benj96

There is nothing fallacious about it. If you begin by doubting everything is there anything that cannot be doubted, anything about which you cannot be deceived? I doubt therefore I exist. I can be deceived therefore I exist. If I did not exist I could not doubt. If I did not exist I could not be deceived.

"I am" is not a relationship. It is one singular thing. I think and I am, is a relationship with 2 distinct phenomenon - being and thinking. — Benj96

He says that he is a thinking thing. One singular thing.

It isn't even circular because there is no cause or effect relationship as a relationship requires 2 things. — Benj96

There is no causal relationship here between between being and thinking. Being and thinking are one and the same. To be is to think. He is not claiming that he is a thing that thinks but that he is "a thinking thing or substance" (Meditation 3). Thinking is the kind of thing that he is, (Meditation 2) not something he does. For example, he walks but is not a walking thing. That is something he does.

Now we may not agree with Descartes claim of a thinking substance, but if so, we should disagree with what he says not with a misrepresentation of what he says.

Unfortunately, this translation does not include the Dedication, Preface, and Synopsis. They can be found here

Writing in the shadow of what happened to Galileo at the hand of the Church, Descartes dedication to the faculty of theology is both revealing and concealing. He tells them that once they understand the principle behind his undertaking they will protect it. This raises the question of what that principle is. Telling them that they will protect it is perhaps misdirection, but determining whether this is the case requires understanding what that principle is.

The second paragraph begins by declaring the superiority of philosophical demonstration and natural reason over that of theological argument. He goes on to defend belief in a way that defies natural reason and runs counter to the principle behind his undertaking:

It is of course quite true that we must believe in the existence of God because it is a doctrine of Holy Scripture, and conversely, that we must believe Holy Scripture because it comes from God; for since faith is the gift of God, he who gives us grace to believe other things can also give us grace to believe that he exists.

Of course, as he has just noted, the unbeliever is not persuaded of the truth based on a doctrine of Holy Scripture or faith and grace. Indeed, as he immediately goes on to say:

But this argument cannot be put to unbelievers because they would judge it to be circular.

The argument in the dedication contains its own circularity.

... in geometry everyone has been taught to accept that as a rule no proposition is put forward in a book without there being a conclusive demonstration available ...

In philosophy, by contrast, the belief is that everything can be argued either way; so few
people pursue the truth, while the great majority build up their reputation for ingenuity by boldly attacking whatever is most sound.

Hence, whatever the quality of my arguments may be, because they have to do with philosophy I do not expect they will enable me to achieve any very worthwhile results unless you come to my aid by granting me your patronage.

... As for the atheists, who are generally posers rather than people of real intelligence or learning, your authority will induce them to lay aside the spirit of contradiction; and, since they know
that the arguments are regarded as demonstrations by all who are intellectually gifted, they may even go so far as to defend them, rather than appear not to understand them.

On the one hand he argues that philosophy like geometry relies on conclusive demonstration, but on the other, since unlike geometry in philosophy everything can be argued either way, it is not demonstration but being persuaded on the authority of the Church that such demonstrations exist that one accepts them as true.

To pursue the truth itself requires something else:

In the same way, although the proofs I employ here are in my view as certain and evident as the proofs of geometry, if not more so, it will, I fear, be impossible for many people to achieve an adequate perception of them, both because they are rather long and some depend on others, and also, above all, because they require a mind which is completely free from preconceived opinions and
which can easily detach itself from involvement with the senses.

Preconceived opinions, including the opinions of the Church stand in the way of the few who are to achieve an adequate perception. Descartes makes a distinction between an exoteric teaching for the many and an esoteric method of inquiry suitable only for the few.

He cites two passages, the first from the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 13 and the second from Romans, Chapter 1, in support of the claim that God may be more easily and more certainly known than the things of this world. He will do this by doubting everything the senses tell us, but both passages do just the opposite, they move from the things of this world to God their creator. Both are rendered unreliable, however, if, as he proposes in the first meditation:

I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.