Page:Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences - Descartes (trans. Veitch).djvu/25

 me, exists only in this or that Mode: and likewise that in appearing to me in this or that Mode it to the extent of its appearance or manifestation exists, or is thought existent.

4. That Self as the Subject of, or Existence underlying certain acts or modifications which exist only in so far as we are conscious of them, is not known to us as existing unless through these; and likewise, that we cannot know, or be conscious of, any modification or act without knowing that Self to the extent to which we are conscious exists.

Now the First Principle of, as expressed in the famous Cogito, Ergo Sum, is merely a particular case, a concrete or determinate exemplification of these universal laws of thought. It is not an inference from these, but they are, so to speak, derived from it: for universal laws, though potentially prior, are actually posterior in the order of knowledge, to the particular cases in which they are discovered to us under a concrete form. Laws or principles that are necessary and of universal extent are, according to truth and the doctrine of, revealed to us in particular cases and in contingent matter, and are evolved out of these not certainly by elaboration, but by analysis, that is, they are found not made.

That the first principle of is of such a character and no other,—is indeed a particular exemplification of these universal principles,—and no inference, may be made manifest by briefly considering it. Thus, in the first place, when -