By yesterdays Meditation I am cast into so great Doubts, that I shall never forget them, and yet I know not how to answer them, but being plunged on a suddain into a deep Gulf, I am so amazed that I can neither touch the bottome, nor swim at the top.
Nevertheless, I will endeavour once more, and try the way I set on yesterday, by removing from me whatever is in the least doubtful, as if I had certainly discover’d it to be altogether false, and will proceed till I find out some certainty, or if nothing else, yet at least this certainty, That there is nothing sure.
Archimedes required but a point which was firm, and immoveable that he might move the whole Earth, so in the perfect undertaking Great things may be expected, if I can discover but the least thing that is true and indisputable.
Wherefore I suppose all things I see are false, and believe that nothing of those things are really existent, which my deceitful memory represents to me; ’tis evident I have no senses, that a Body, Figure, Extension, Motion, Place, &c. are meer Fictions; what thing therefore is there that is true? perhaps only this, That there is nothing certain.
But how know I that there is nothing distinct from all these things (which I have now reckon’d) of which I have no reason to doubt? Is there no God (or whatever other name I may call him) who has put these thoughts into me? Yet why should I think this? When I my self perhaps am the Author of them. Upon which Account, therefore must not I be something? ’tis but just now that I denied that I had any senses, or any Body. Hold a while—Am I so tied to a Body and senses that I cannot exist without them? But I have perswaded my self that there is nothing in the World, no Heaven, no Earth, no Souls, no Bodies; and then why not, that I my self am not? Yet surely if I could perswade my self any thing, I was.
But there is I know not what sort of Deceivour very powerful and very crafty, who always strives to deceive Me; without Doubt therefore I am, if he can decieve me; And let him Deceive me as much as he can, yet he can never make me not to Be, whilst I think that I am. Wherefore I may lay this down as a Principle, that whenever this sentence I am, I exist, is spoken or thought of by Me, ’tis necessarily True.
But I do not yet fully understand who I am that now necessarily exist, and I must hereafter take care, least I foolishly mistake some other thing for my self, and by that means be deceived in that thought, which I defend as the most certain and evident of all.
Wherefore I will again Recollect, what I believed my self to be heretofore, before I had set upon these Meditations, from which Notion I will withdraw whatever may be Disproved by the Foremention’d Reasons, that in the End, That only may Remain which is True and indisputable.
What therefore have I heretofore thought my self? A Man. But what is a man? Shall I answer, a Rational Animal? By no means; because afterwards it may be asked, what an Animal is? and what Rational is? And so from one question I may fall into greater Difficulties; neither at present have I so much time as to spend it about such Niceties.
But I shall rather here Consider, what heretofore represented it self to my thoughts freely, and naturally, whenever I set my self to understand What I my self was.
And the first thing I find Representing it self is, that I have Face, Hands, Arms, and this whole frame of parts which is seen in my Body, and which I call my Body.
The next thing represented to me was, that I was nourish’d, could walk, had senses, and could Think; which functions I attributed to my Soul. Yet what this soul of mine was, I did not fully conceive; or else supposed it a small thing like wind, or fire, or aire, infused through my stronger parts.
As to my Body truly I doubted not, but that I rightly understood its Nature, which (if I should endeavour to describe as I conceive it) I should thus Explain, viz. By a Body I mean whatever is capable of Shape, or can be contained in a place, and so fill’s a space that it excludes all other Bodys out of the same, that which may be touch’d, seen, heard, tasted, or smelt, and that which is capable of various Motions and Modifications, not from it self, but from any other thing moving it, for I judged it against (or rather above) the nature of a Body to move it self, or perceive, or think, But rather admired that I should find these Operations in certain Bodys.