それから，わたしとは何かを注意ぶかく検討し，次のことを認めた。どんな身体も無く，どんな世界も，自分のいるどんな場所も無いとは仮想できるが，だからといって，自分は存在しないとは仮想できない。反対に，自分が他のものの真理性を疑おうと考えること自体から，きわめて明証的にきわめて確実に，わたしが存在することが帰結する。逆に，ただわたしが考えることをやめるだけで，仮にかつて想像したすべての他のものが真であったとしても，わたしが存在したと信じるいかなる理由も無くなる。これらのことからわたしは，次のことを知った。わたしは一つの実体であり，その本質ないし本性は考えるということだけにあって，存在するためにどんな場所も要せず，いかなる物質的なものにも依存しない，と。したがって，このわたし，すなわち，わたしをいま存在するものにしている魂は，身体〔物体〕からまったく区別され，しかも身体〔物体〕より認識しやすく，たとえ身体〔物体〕が無かったとしても，完全に今あるままのものであることに変わりはない，と。
In the next place, I attentively examined
what I was, and as I observed that I could
suppose that I had no body, and that there
was no world nor any place in which I might
be; but that I could not therefore suppose
that I was not; and that, on the contrary,
from the very circumstance that I thought
to doubt of the truth of other things, it
most clearly and certainly followed that
I was; while, on the other hand, if I had
only ceased to think, although all the other
objects which I had ever imagined had been
in reality existent, I would have had no
reason to believe that I existed; I thence
concluded that I was a substance whose whole
essence or nature consists only in thinking,
and which, that it may exist, has need of
no place, nor is dependent on any material
thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the
mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct
from the body, and is even more easily known
that the latter, and is such, that although
the latter were not, it would still continue
to be all that it is.