As to my _Body_ truly _I_ doubted not, but that _I_ rightly understood its _Nature_, which (if _I_ should endeavour to describe as _I_ conceive it) _I_ should thus Explain, _viz._ By a _Body_ _I_ mean whatever is _capable_ of _Shape_, or can be _contained_ in a _place_, and so fill’s a space that it excludes all other _Bodys_ out of the same, that which may be _touch’d_, _seen_, _heard_, _tasted_, or _smelt_, and that which is _capable_ of _various_ _Motions_ and _Modifications_, not from it _self_, but from any _other thing moving_ it, for _I_ judged it _against_ (or rather _above_) the _nature_ of a _Body_ to _move it self_, or _perceive_, or _think_, But rather admired that _I_ should find these _Operations_ in certain _Bodys_. But How now (since _I_ suppose a certain _powerful_ and (if it be lawful to call him so) _evil deluder_, who useth all his endeavours to deceive me in all things) can _I_ affirme that I have any of those things, which I have now said belong to the _nature_ of a _Body_? Hold— Let me Consider—, Let me think—, Let me reflect— I can find no Answer, and I am weary with repeating the same things over-again in vain. But Which of these _Faculties_ did I attribute to my _Soul_, my _Nutritive_, or _Motive faculty_? yet now seeing I have no _Body_, these also are _meer delusions_. Was it my _sensitive faculty_? But this also cannot be perform’d without a _Body_, and I have seem’d to _perceive_ many things in my _sleep_, of which I afterwards understood my self _not_ to be _sensible_. Was it my _Cogitative Faculty_? Here I have discovered it, ’tis my _Thought_, this alone cannot be separated from Me, I _am_, I _exist_,⸺_tis true_, but for what time _Am I_? Why _I am_ as long as _I think_; For it May be that When I cease from _thinking_, I may cease from being. Now I admit of nothing but what is necessarily true: In short therefore I _am_ only a _thinking thing_ that is to say, a _mind_, or a _soul_, or _understanding_, or _Reason_, words which formerly _I_ understood not; I am a _Real thing_, and _Really Existent_, But what sort of thing? I have just now said it, _A thinking thing_. [Sidenote: * _Places noted with their Asterisk are refer’d to in the following Objections._]