182. The predicate _thinking_ is the expression of a general idea, comprehending not only all thought, but also all phenomena which immediately affect the mind. These phenomena, considered in what they have in common, under the general idea of present to the mind, are expressed in the word thinking. The relation of the predicate with the subject, or the agreement of _thinking_ with the soul, also expresses an analysis worthy of attention. We at once detect a decomposition of the conception of the soul into two ideas; that of the subject of various modifications, and that of thinking. Otherwise the proposition has no meaning, or rather its expression becomes impossible. The idea of subject involves the ideas of unity and substance, and that of thinking involves the idea of activity, or of passivity, so to speak, accompanied by consciousness. 183. To render the proposition possible, we must suppose the decomposition of the ideas to commence at some point, that is, either in the idea of the soul we find that of _thinking_, or in that of _thinking_ we find that of the soul. Fixing ourselves in the soul, and abstracting _thinking_, we meet with the idea of subject, or of substance in general; and there, however much we cavil, we shall never find the idea of _thinking_. The soul in itself is not manifested to us; we know it by thought; in thought therefore we must fix the point of departure, not in the soul; wherefore in the above proposition, what is primitively known is rather the predicate than the subject; and of the two conceptions, that of subject has rather the character of a thing contained, than of a thing containing. The soul by itself, so to speak, springs up with the presence of thought. If the intellectual activity is concentrated in search of its first basis, it finds it, not in the pure subject, but in its acts, that is, in its thoughts. These last are then the first object of reflective intellectual activity, its first element of combination, its first _datum_ for the solution of the problem. Fixing its sight on this element, it discovers a unity in the midst of plurality, a being that remains the same through the ebb and flow of the phenomena of consciousness; and this identity is incontestably asserted by consciousness itself. The idea of the soul then is taken from that of thought, and consequently the subject springs from the predicate, rather than the predicate from the subject. 184. The thought from which we derive the idea of the soul is not thought in general, but thought realized, existing in ourselves. But this reality is sterile unless offered to the mind under a general idea; for it is evident that the soul does not come from one single act, since it is unity, the subject of plurality. To arrive at the idea of the soul we require unity of consciousness, and this we know only as we have experienced it, that is, so far as we perceive the relation of the one to the multiple, of a subject to its modifications.