Other propositions have been set against that of Descartes. Gassendi,[161] for example, asks if we might not just as well say _Ludificor, ergo sum_: I am made a fool of by my consciousness, therefore I exist—or properly speaking, therefore I am made a fool of. Descartes himself recognized that this objection merited consideration, but he here repels it, inasmuch as it is the ‘I’ alone and not the other content which has to be maintained. Being alone is identical with pure thought, and not its content, be it what it may. Descartes further says: “By thought I, however, understand all that takes place in us within our consciousness, in as far as we are conscious of it; thus will, conception, and even feeling are identical with thought. For if I say ‘I see,’ or ‘I walk out,’ and ‘therefore I am,’ and understand by this the seeing and walking which is accomplished by the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain, because, as often happens in a dream, I may imagine that I can see or walk even if I do not open my eyes nor move from my place, and I might also possibly do so supposing I had no body. But if I understand it of the subjective feeling or the consciousness of seeing or walking itself, because it is then related to the mind that alone feels or thinks that it sees or walks, this conclusion is perfectly certain.”[162] “In a dream” is an empirical mode of reasoning, but there is no other objection to it. In willing, seeing, hearing, &c., thought is likewise contained, it is absurd to suppose that the soul has thinking in one special pocket, and seeing, willing, &c., in others. But if I say ‘I see,’ ‘I walk out,’ there is present on the one hand my consciousness ‘I,’ and consequently thought, on the other hand, however, there is present willing, seeing, hearing, walking, and thus a still further modification of the content. Now because of this modification I cannot say ‘I walk, and therefore I am,’ for I can undoubtedly abstract from the modification, since it is no longer universal Thought. Thus we must merely look at the pure consciousness contained in the concrete ‘I.’ Only when I accentuate the fact that I am present there as thinking, is pure Being implied, for only with the universal is Being united.