necessary forthwith to inquire into what ismeant by animal, and what by rational, and thus, from a single question, I should insensibly glide intoothers, and these more difficult than the first; nor do I now possess enough of leisure to warrant me inwasting my time amid subtleties of this sort. I prefer here to attend to the thoughts that sprung up ofthemselves in my mind, and were inspired by my own nature alone, when I applied myself to theconsideration of what I was. In the first place, then, I thought that I possessed a countenance, hands,arms, and all the fabric of members that appears in a corpse, and which I called by the name of body. Itfurther occurred to me that I was nourished, that I walked, perceived, and thought, and all thoseactions I referred to the soul; but what the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, Iimagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread throughmy grosser parts. As regarded the body, I did not even doubt of its nature, but thought I distinctlyknew it, and if I had wished to describe it according to the notions I then entertained, I should haveexplained myself in this manner: By body I understand all that can be terminated by a certain figure;that can be comprised in a certain place, and so fill a certain space as therefrom to exclude every otherbody; that can be perceived either by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell; that can be moved indifferent ways, not indeed of itself, but by something foreign to it by which it is touched [and fromwhich it receives the impression]; for the power of self-motion, as likewise that of perceiving andthinking, I held as by no means pertaining to the nature of body; on the contrary, I was somewhatastonished to find such faculties existing in some bodies.[ L][ F]6. But [as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since I suppose there exists an extremelypowerful, and, if I may so speak, maligna...
