It would be
tedious to stop to enumerate them. Let us pass to the
attributes of soul and see if there is any one which is in me?
What of nutrition or walking [the first mentioned]? But if it
is so that I have no body it is also true that I can neither
walk nor take nourishment. Another attribute is sensation.
But one cannot feel without body, and besides I have thought I
perceived many things during sleep that I recognised in my
waking moments as not having been experienced at all. What of
thinking? I find here that thought is an attribute that
belongs to me; it alone cannot be separated from me. I am, I
exist, that is certain. But how often? Just when I think;
for it might possibly be the case if I ceased entirely to
think, that I should likewise cease altogether to exist. I do
not now admit anything which is not necessarily true: to
speak accurately I am not more than a thing which thinks, that
is to say a mind or a soul, or an understanding, or a reason,
which are terms whose significance was formerly unknown to me.
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