pon, it emits no sound. Does the same wax still remain after this change ? It must be admittedthat it does remain; no one doubts it, or judges otherwise. What, then, was it I knew with so muchdistinctness in the piece of wax? Assuredly, it could be nothing of all that I observed by means of thesenses, since all the things that fell under taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing are changed, and yetthe same wax remains. [ L][ F]12. It was perhaps what I now think, viz, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, thepleasant odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body that a little beforeappeared to me conspicuous under these forms, and which is now perceived under others. But, tospeak precisely, what is it that I imagine when I think of it in this way? Let it be attentively considered,and, retrenching all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. There certainly remainsnothing, except something extended, flexible, and movable. But what is meant by flexible and movable? Is it not that I imagine that the piece of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square, or ofpassing from a square into a triangular figure ? Assuredly such is not the case, because I conceive thatit admits of an infinity of similar changes; and I am, moreover, unable to compass this infinity byimagination, and consequently this conception which I have of the wax is not the product of the facultyof imagination. But what now is this extension ? Is it not also unknown ? for it becomes greater whenthe wax is melted, greater when it is boiled, and greater still when the heat increases; and I should notconceive [clearly and] according to truth, the wax as it is, if I did not suppose that the piece we areconsidering admitted even of a wider variety of extension than I ever imagined, I must, therefore, admitthat I cannot even comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is, and that it is the mind alone (mens, Lat., enten...
