Page:Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences - Descartes (trans. Veitch).djvu/24

 latively prior. If the latter be correct, this knowledge is a first principle; it is not inferred from any higher knowledge.

Now that this knowledge is mediate, or inferential, has repeatedly and explicitly denied. It is, therefore, according to, immediate and underived. But though incapable of proof, it is yet competent to show how the fact is arrived at, or supposed to be found, in the way of Reflective Analysis.

To place the whole matter in a clear light, we have, in the first place, to attend to the following points. It ought to be considered:—

1. That Existence is as nothing to us where it is not manifested in some determinate Manner. In thinking anywhat as existing, we must think it existing in this or that Mode or Manner: of Existence apart from the Mode in which it appears to us, we have no positive, or immediate knowledge.

2. Again, that, as in thinking a thing existing we must think it existing in this or that mode, so we cannot think of a determinate Mode of existence, without at the same time and in the same indivisible act of thought, thinking that Somewhat of which this Mode is a manifestation, exists. Wherefore:—

3. That Self, that "I" in existing for self, for