The mind and body are really distinct.
Demonstration
All that we clearly conceive can be made by God in the manner in which we conceive it (by foregoing Corollary). But we clearly conceive mind, that is, a substance which thinks, without body, that is to say, without an extended substance (by Postulate II ); and, on the other hand, we as clearly conceive body without mind (as every one admits):
Hence, at least, by the omnipotence of God, the mind can exist without the body, and the body without the mind.
Now, substances which can exist independently of each other, are really distinct (by Definition X ).
But the mind and the body are substances (by Definitions V , VI , and VII ), which can exist independently of each other, as I have recently proved:
Hence the mind and the body are really distinct.
And it must be observed that I have here made use of the omnipotence of God in order to found my proof on it, not that there is need of any extraordinary power in order to separate the mind from the body but for this reason, that, as I have treated of God only in the foregoing propositions, I could not draw my proof from any other source than from him: and it matters very little by what power two things are separated in order to discover that they are really distinct.