Wax on, wax off

Descartes poses the proposition that we know our mind better than we know the body. Initially it seems that we would know the body of something more clearly due to our sensational perception of bodily objects (pun intended). However, Descartes wishes to dispose of this notion and aims to do so by proposing first that perhaps we do know the nature of body better and using an example to eventually show that this is not the case.

Now for the wax. The meditator considers a piece of wax as an example of an bodily object in order that the investigation will be able to represent the nature of all bodies. In considering the wax, it is obvious to the meditator at first that it contains certain properties such as sound when tappen, scent, and color. However, she notices the fact that the wax's scent, shape, and sound when tapped are dispelled if the wax is melted. In addition, the newly melted wax maintains it's inherent "waxness" despite this fact. Thus, it must be something else that causes the wax to be wax. Eventually the meditator lands on only standing properties of the wax being something "extended, flexible, and changeable".

The meditator now must consider how these properties are known. The knowledge that the wax may take an infinite number of forms allows the meditator to eventually make certain conclusions as to how we know the mind more clearly. This is done as she notes that the knowledge of the wax's infinite possibilities could not be known from the imagination as one cannot imagine each and every different possibility. However, one does grasp that the wax is capable of infinite shape and it must be known by some other faculty, the mind. Hatfield lays this out in 5 steps.
1. I can grasp that this melted wax is flexiable and changeable so as to be capable of innumberable changes of shape.
2. Imagination could allow me to grasp this fact only by representing these changes by an image of each possible shape.
3. My imagination cannot represent the innummerable shapes required.
4. It is not the imagination that allows me to grasp this capability of the wax.
5. But I do grasp this capability, so it must be by a faculty other than (sense or) imagination: call it the mind itself.
Given that it is the mind itself grasping the capabilities of the wax, it is noted that whenever one learns about the nature of a body it is the mind that grasps it. Each time it is the mind grasping the concept the cogito reasoning can be taken into account and one discovers once again the existence of self as a thinking thing. Thus, in a sense, knowledge of the mind's existence is always a precursor to the knowledge of the nature of body, and the claim is made that one must know the nature of the mind better than the nature of body.
For those unconvinced of the mind discovering the nature of bodily objects, Descartes discusses the cloaked men in which we cannot see the man himself but we use our mind to infer that it is a man under the cloak. In the same way we use our mind to discover many things that our senses and imagination to not directly show us.
The conclusion drawn from the whole mess of wax is essentially that due to the nature of body being derived from the mind allows us precursory knowledge of the nature of the mind, which in essence is saying that we know the nature of the mind better. This reasoning seems to work out pretty well, however, I still am wrestling with a couple of the arguments Wilson brought up. The main argument that I could not see the answer to was that if our knowledge of the nature of the body was incorrect, why wouldn't the knowledge of the nature of our mind be even moreso incorrect? However, I suppose that argument fails when one considers that the nature of the body and mind cannot be analyzed in the same scientific fashion. Thus, Descartes' reasoning lives to see another day.