Meditations - pg. 69

For as long as I am experiencing (cogito), maybe if I wholly ceased from experiencing (ab omni cogitatione), I should as once wholly cease to be. For the present I am admitting only what is necessarily true; so 'I am' precisely taken refers only to a conscious being; that is a mind, a soul (animus), an intellect, a reason -- words whose meaning I did not previously know. I am a real being, and really exist; but what sort of being? As I said, a conscious being (cogitans).