To this objection I reply that it was not my
intention in that place to exclude these in accordance with
the order that looks to the truth of the matter (as to which I
was not then dealing), but only in accordance with the order
of my thought [perception]; thus my meaning was that so far as
I was aware, I knew nothing clearly as belonging to my
essence, excepting that I was a thing that thinks, or a thing
that has in itself the faculty of thinking. But I shall show
hereafter how from the fact that I know no other thing which
pertains to my essence, it follows that there is no other
thing which really does belong to it.
The second objection is that it does not follow from the
fact that I have in myself the idea of something more perfect
than I am, that this idea is more perfect than I, and much
less that what is represented by this idea exists. But I
reply that in this term idea there is here something
equivocal, for it may either be taken materially, as an act of
my understanding, and in this sense it cannot be said that it
is more perfect than I; or it may be taken objectively, as the
thing which is represented by this act, which, although we do
not suppose it to exist outside of my understanding, may, none
the less, be more perfect than I, because of its essence.
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