And when I said that the proposition,
_I_ THINK, THEREFORE _I_ AM, is of all others the first and most
certain which occurs to one philosophizing orderly, I did not
therefore deny that it was necessary to know what thought,
existence, and certitude are, and the truth that, in order to think
it is necessary to be, and the like; but, because these are the most
simple notions, and such as of themselves afford the knowledge of
nothing existing, I did not judge it proper there to enumerate them.
XI. How we can know our mind more clearly than our body.
But now that it may be discerned how the knowledge we have of the
mind not only precedes, and has greater certainty, but is even
clearer, than that we have of the body, it must be remarked, as a
matter that is highly manifest by the natural light, that to nothing
no affections or qualities belong; and, accordingly, that where we
observe certain affections, there a thing or substance to which
these pertain, is necessarily found. The same light also shows us
that we know a thing or substance more clearly in proportion as we
discover in it a greater number of qualities.
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