I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own.
I myself know nothing, and am nothing.

Images there are; they constitute all that apparently exists; and what they know of themselves is after the manner of images; images that pass and vanish without there being aught to witness their transition; that consist, in fact, of the images of images, without significance and without an aim.

I myself am one of these images; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images.

All reality is converted into a marvellous dream, without a life to dream of, and without a mind to dream,--into a dream made up only of a dream itself.

Perception is a dream; thought--the source of all existence, and all the reality which I imagine to myself of _my_ existence, of my power, of my destination--is the dream of that dream."[136] The tendency of such speculations as these towards universal Skepticism, or even absolute Nihilism, with the exception only of certain fleeting phenomena of Consciousness, is too apparent to require any formal proof; and it must be equally evident that they contradict some of the most universal and deeply-rooted convictions of the human mind.