I am, however, a real thing and really exist; but what thing?
I have answered: a thing which thinks.
And what more? I shall exercise my imagination [in order
to see if I am not something more]. I am not a collection of
members which we call the human body: I am not a subtle air
distributed through these members, I am not a wind, a fire, a
vapour, a breath, nor anything at all which I can imagine or
conceive; because I have assumed that all these were nothing.
Without changing that supposition I find that I only leave
myself certain of the fact that I am somewhat. But perhaps it
is true that these same things which I supposed were non-
existent because they are unknown to me, are really not
different from the self which I know. I am not sure about
this, I shall not dispute about it now; I can only give
judgment on things that are known to me. I know that I exist,
and I inquire what I am, I whom I know to exist. But it is
very certain that the knowledge of my existence taken in its
precise significance does not depend on things whose existence
is not yet known to me; consequently it does not depend on
those which I can feign in imagination.
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