Chapter 3

The pure notion of the soul can only be attained from myself
by stripping myself of all that is foreign to this notion

69. Nevertheless, there is no other way of reaching knowledge of the soul except by beginning from myself. It is in consciousness of our own soul that we can discover what the soul is in general; consciousness of ourselves provides information about the feeling of the soul, which is one of the first rudiments of our cognitions (cf. 12-15). Indeed, if we did not feel the soul in ourselves, we would not perceive it; and if we did not perceive it, we would have no source of positive knowledge about it. Words, the signs with which a master might perhaps want to communicate information, would have no meaning for us except to provide the merely negative cognition which we have described (cf. 18-20).

70. To acquire a true, pure concept of the human soul, we have to meditate on myself, where we find awareness of our own soul, and strip our perception, expressed by myself, of everything foreign to the general concept of soul until we have isolated the net concept that we are seeking. Let us do that.