time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or in some even simpler matter, if that is imaginable". After the deceiving God argument Descartes concludes that he is "compelled to admit that there is not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised". It is only after arriving at this conclusion that Descartes introduces the evil demon. Although Descartes has provided arguments for doubting all his former beliefs he notes that "my habitual opinions keep coming back". It is to deal with this problem that Descartes decides he must do more than just acknowledge that the beliefs are open to doubt and must deceive himself, "by pretending for a time that these former opinions are utterly false and imaginary" and that he shall do this "until the weight of preconceived opinion is counter-balanced and the distorting influence of habit no longer prevents my judgement from perceiving things correctly". It is to achieve this state of denial that Descartes says he will suppose that "some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me". The evil demon is also mentioned at the beginning of Meditation Two. Descartes says that if there is "a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me" then he himself must undoubtedly exist for the deceiver can "never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something". A little later he says, "But what shall I now say that I am, when I am supposing that there is some supremely powerful and, if it is permissible to say so, malicious deceiver, who is deliberately trying to trick me in every way he can?" The deceiving god Some writers, e.g. Williams and Musgrave, make no distinction between the deceiving God and evil demon arguments and regard anything said about the deceiving God as being equivalent to saying something about the evil demon. Other writers acknowledge that Descartes makes mention of both but then claim they are 'epistemologically equivalent'. Kenny says, "the two hypotheses do not differ in any respect of epistemological importance... The content of the two hypotheses is the same..." Newman says, "Descartes' official position is that the Evil Genius Doubt is merely one among multiple hypotheses that can motivate the more general hyperbolic doubt...