Objection 1. Against the First Meditation: Of things Doubtful
’Tis evident enough from What has been said in this Meditation, that there is no sign by Which we may Distinguish our Dreams from True Sense and Waking, and therefore that those Phantasmes which we have waking and from our Senses are not accidents inhering in Outward Objects, neither do they Prove that such outward Objects do Exist; and therefore if we trust our Senses without any other Ground, we may well doubt whether any Thing Be or Not. We therefore acknowledge the Truth of this Meditation. But Because Plato and other Antient Philosophers argued for the same incertainty in sensible Things, and because ’tis commonly Observed by the Vulgar that ’tis hard to Distinguish Sleep from Waking, I would not have the most excellent Author of such new Thoughts put forth so antique Notions.
Answer
Those Reasons of Doubt which by this Philosopher are admitted as true, were proposed by Me only as Probable, and I made use of them not that I may vend them as new, but partly that I may prepare the Minds of my Readers for the Consideration of Intellectual Things, wherein they seem’d to me very necessary; And partly that thereby I may shew how firm those Truths are, which hereafter I lay down, seeing they cannot be Weaken’d by these Metaphysical Doubts: So, that I never designed to gain any Honor by repeating them, but I think I could no more omit them, then a Writer in Physick can pass over the Description of a Disease, Whose Cure he intends to Teach.
Objection 2. Against the Second Meditation: Of the Nature of Mans Mind
I am a Thinking Thing. ’Tis True; for because I think or have a Phantasme (whether I am awake or asleep) it follows that I am Thinking, for I Think and I am Thinking signifie the same Thing. Because I Think, it follows That I am, for whatever Thinks cannot be Nothing. But when he Adds, That is, a Mind, a Soul, an Understanding, Reason, I question his Argumentation; for it does not seem a Right Consequence to say, I am a Thinking Thing, therefore I am a Thought, neither, I am an Understanding Thing, therefore I am the Understanding. For in the same manner I may Conclude, I am a Walking Thing, therefore I am the Walking it self.
Wherefore D.Cartes Concludes that an Understanding Thing and Intellection (which is the Act of an Understanding Thing) are the same; or at least that an Understanding Thing and the Intellect (which is the Power of an Understanding Thing) are the same; And yet all Philosophers distinguish the subject from its Faculties and Acts, that is, from its Properties and Essence, for the Thing it self is one thing, and its Essence is an other. It may be therefore that a Thinking Thing is the Subject of a Mind, Reason, or Understanding, and therefor it may be a Corporeal Thing, the Contrary Whereof is here Assumed and not Proved; and yet this Inference is the Foundation of that Conclusion which D.Cartes would Establish.
In the same Meditation, on, * I know that I am, I ask, What I am Whom I Thus Know, Certainly the Knowledge of Me precisely so taken depends not on those Things of whose Existence I am yet Ignorant.
’Tis Certain the Knowledge of this Proposition I am, depends on this, I think as he hath rightly inform’d us; but from whence have we the knowledge of this Proposition, I think? certainly from hence only, that we cannot conceive any Act without its subject, as dancing without a Dancer, knowledge, without a Knower, thought without a thinker.
And from hence it seems to follow, that a thinking Thing is a Corporeal Thing; for the Subjects of all Acts are understood only in a Corporeal way, or after the manner of matter, as he himself shews hereafter by the example of a piece of Wax, which changing its colour, consistence, shape, and other Acts is yet known to continue the same thing, that is, the same matter subject to so many changes. But I cannot conclude from another thought that I now think; for tho a Man may think that he hath thought (which consists only in memory) yet ’tis altogether impossible for him to think that he now thinks, or to know, that he knows, for the question may be put infinitely, how do you know that you know, that you know, that you know? &c.
Wherefore seeing the Knowledge of this Proposition I am, depends on the knowledge of this I think, and the knowledge of this is from hence only, that we cannot separate thought from thinking matter, it seems rather to follow, that a thinking thing is material, than that ’tis immaterial.