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13. Let it not then add anything to that which it knows itself to
be, when it is bidden to know itself. For it knows, at any rate,
that this is said to itself; namely, to the self that is, and that
lives, and that understands. But a dead body also is, and cattle
live; but neither a dead body nor cattle understand. Therefore it so
knows that it so is, and that it so lives, as an understanding is and
lives. When, therefore, for example's sake, the mind thinks itself
air, it thinks that air understands; it knows, however, that itself
understands, but it does not know itself to be air, but only thinks
so. Let it separate that which it thinks itself; let it discern that
which it knows; let this remain to it, about which not even have they
doubted who have thought the mind to be this corporeal thing or that.
For certainly every mind does not consider itself to be air; but some
think themselves fire, others the brain, and some one kind of
corporeal thing, others another, as I have mentioned before; yet all
know that they themselves understand, and are, and live; but they
refer understanding to that which they understand, but to be, and to
live, to themselves. And no one doubts, either that no one
understands who does not live, or that no one lives of whom it is not
true that he is; and that therefore by consequence that which
understands both is and lives; not as a dead body is which does not
live, nor as a soul lives which does not understand, but in some
proper and more excellent manner. Further, they know that they will,
and they equally know that no one can will who is not and who does not
live; and they also refer that will itself to something which they will
with that will. They know also that they remember; and they know at
the same time that nobody could remember, unless he both was and
lived; but we refer memory itself also to something, in that we
remember those things.
Therefore the knowledge and science of many things are contained in two
of these three, memory and understanding; but will must be present,
that we may enjoy or use them. For we enjoy things known, in which
things themselves the will finds delight for their own sake, and so
reposes; but we use those things, which we refer to some other thing
which we are to enjoy. Neither is the life of man vicious and culpable
in any other way, than as wrongly using and wrongly enjoying. But it
is no place here to discuss this.
14. But since we treat of the nature of the mind, let us remove
from our consideration all knowledge which is received from without,
through the senses of the body; and attend more carefully to the
position which we have laid down, that all minds know and are certain
concerning themselves. For men certainly have doubted whether the
power of living, of remembering, of understanding, of willing, of
thinking, of knowing, of judging, be of air, or of fire, or of the
brain, or of the blood, or of atoms, or besides the usual four
elements of a fifth kind of body, I know not what; or,whether the
combining or tempering together of this our flesh itself has power to
accomplish these things. And one has attempted to establish this, and
another to establish that. Yet who ever doubts that he himself lives,
and remembers, and understands, and wills, and thinks, and knows,
and judges? Seeing that even if he doubts, he lives; if he doubts,
he remembers why he doubts; if he doubts, he understands that he
doubts; if he doubts, he wishes to be certain; if he doubts, he
thinks; if he doubts, he knows that he does not know; if he doubts,
he judges that he ought not to assent rashly. Whosoever therefore
doubts about anything else, ought not to doubt of all these things;
which if they were not, he would not be able to doubt of anything.
15. They who think the mind to be either a body or the combination
or tempering of the body, will have all these things to seem to be in a
subject, so that the substance is air, or fire, or some other
corporeal thing, which they think to be the mind; but that the
understanding (intelligentia) is in this corporeal thing as its
quality, so that this corporeal tiring is the subject, but the
understanding is in the subject: viz. that the mind is the subject,
which they judge to be a corporeal thing, but the understanding
[intelligence], or any other of those things which we have mentioned
as certain to us, is in that subject. They also hold nearly the same
opinion who deny the mind itself to be body, but think it to be the
combination or tempering together of the body; for there is this
difference, that the former say that the mind itself is the substance,
in which the understanding [intelligence] is, as in a subject; but
the latter say that the mind itself is in a subject, viz. in the
body, of which it is the combination or tempering together. And
hence, by consequence, what else can they think, except that the
understanding also is in the same body as in a subject?
16. And all these do not perceive that the mind knows itself, even
when it seeks for itself, as we have already shown. But nothing is at
all rightly said to be known while its substance is not known. And
therefore, when the mind knows itself, it knows its own substance;
and when it is certain about itself, it as certain about its own
substance. But it is certain about itself, as those things which are
said, above prove convincingly; although it is not at all certain
whether itself is air, or fire, or some body, or some function of
body. Therefore it is not any of these. And to that whole which is
bidden to know itself, belongs this, that it is certain that it is not
any of those things of which it is uncertain, and is certain that it is
that only, which only it is certain that it is. For it thinks in this
way of fire, or air, and whatever else of the body it thinks of.
Neither can it in any way be brought to pass that it should so think
that which itself is, as it thinks that which itself is not. Since it
thinks all these things through an imaginary phantasy, whether fire,
or air, or this or that body. or that part or combination and
tempering together of the body: nor assuredly is it said to be all
those things, but some one of them. But if it were any one of them,
it would think this one in a different manner from the rest viz. not
through an imaginary phantasy, as absent things are thought, which
either themselves or some of like kind have been touched by the bodily
sense; but by some inward, not feigned, but true presence (for
nothing is more present to it than itself); just as it thinks that
itself lives, and remembers, and understands, and wills. For it
knows these things in itself, and does not imagine them as though it
had touched them by the sense outside itself, as corporeal things are
touched. And if it attaches nothing to itself from the thought of
these things, so as to think itself to be something of the kind, then
whatsoever remains to it from itself that alone is itself.
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