Chap.I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 3 



Cartes, therefore, has argued very well, when he has faid, * I think ; 

 ' therefore 1 am :' Which by fome is thought an identical propofi- 

 tion ; but it is truly an argument, by which he proves his own ex- 

 iftence as an intelledtual creature. 



All our knowledge, in this ftate of our exiftence, proceeds from 

 our fenfations, that is from the adions of bodies upon our organs of 

 fenfe ; the perceptions of which by the mind are its firft operations 

 in this life. The next operation of our minds is the confcioufnefs 

 of thefe perceptions ; and from thefe two fources is derived all our 

 knowledge in this life, even the knowledge, as 1 have faid,. of our 

 own exiftence. By this faculty of confcioufnefs we are diftinguifh- 

 ed eflentially from the Brute. For the brute has perceptions of fenfe 

 as well as we : He alfo retains thofe perceptions in his Phantafia, as 

 I have {hown elfewhere * ; and they ferve all the purpofes of his ani- 

 mal life. But as he cannot reafon, he cannot draw from them the 

 conclufion which we can dravir, viz. that we exift : So that the 

 brute does not know that he has either body or mind, or that he 

 exifts. This fecond fource, therefore, of our knowledge, makes an 

 eflential difference betwixt us and the brutes, and may be faid to 

 conftitute intellect, and to diftinguifh it from all the faculties of our 

 animal nature: For it is the foundation not only of the knowledge of 

 our own exiftence, but of all arts and fciences, and, in one word, 

 of all our knowledge of every kind ; as it is from our knowing 

 by confcioufnefs that we have perceptions of fenfe, that we form 

 ideas ; and from our ideas it is well known that all arts and fcien- 

 • ces are derived f. 



From this account that I have given of the origin of our know- 

 ledge in this life, it is evident, that without the material world, and 



A 2 the 



* Page 176 of the preceeJing vol. 



I See what I have faid of ideas in the fame vol. book 3. chap. 19. 



