And outside myself, in addition to
extension, figure, and motions of bodies, I remarked in them
hardness, heat, and all other tactice qualities, and, further,
light and colour, and scents and sounds, the variety of which
gave me the means of distinguishing the sky, the earth, the
sea, and generally all the other bodies, one from the other.
And certainly, considering the ideas of all these qualities
which presented themselves to my mind, and which alone I
perceived properly or immediately, it was not without reason
that I believed myself to perceive objects quite different
from my thought, to wit, bodies from which those ideas
proceeded; for I found by experience that these ideas
presented themselves to me without my consent being requisite,
so that I could not perceive any object, however desirous I
might be, unless it were present to the organs of sense; and
it was not in my power not to perceive it, when it was
present. And because the ideas which I received through the
senses were much more lively, more clear, and even, in their
own way, more distinct than any of those which I could of
myself frame in meditation, or than those I found impressed on
my memory, it appeared as though they could not have proceeded
from my mind, so that they must necessarily have been produced
in me by some other things.
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