_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.
[Sidenote: * _Places noted with this Asterick are the Passages of the
foregoing Meditations here Objected against._]
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_.