bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning. But, what is important to note here is, that my perception is not a sensation of sight, nor of touch, nor an act of the imagination, and it has never been this, although it may have seemed so before; but it is merely an intuition (_inspection_) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is at present, according as my attention is directed more or less to the elements in it, and of which it is composed. "However, I cannot be too much surprised when I consider the weakness of my mind and its proneness to be carried insensibly into error. For even when I consider all this in my own mind, and without using language, the words arrest me, and I am almost deceived by the terms in common use; for we say that we see the same wax if it be present, and not that we judge that it is the same, from its having the same color and figure; whence I might be tempted to conclude that one knows the wax by the sight of the eyes, and not merely by the intuition of the mind, were it not that, in looking from a window at men passing in the street, I say that I see men, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from this window except hats and cloaks which might cover machines moved by springs? But I judge that they are men, and thus comprehend only by the power of judging, which is in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes."[51] [51] Méditation Deuxième.--Ed. Simon, Paris, 1860, pp. 76-78. In this extract the author attempts to distinguish between what is thought and what is perceived by the senses or imagined. Had he remained within the sphere of the immediately known, one could not have objected to such a distinction. Sameness in sense third is something highly complex, implying that elaboration of mental elements which we call thought. It is quite just to distinguish the notion "a bit of wax" from any single sense experience or picture of the imagination. In doing this Descartes was searching for sameness in sense third. But when he leaves the sphere of consciousness, and assumes that what remains the same in the bit of wax is something distinct from the sum total of experiences, as men are distinct from their garments, he falls into error. It is against this that the criticism in the text is directed.