| OCR Text |
Show Men think_ not ah1·ays. Book II. condemn for allowing it tol:e nothing but the fubtilell parts of Matter. Characters drawn on Dull, that the firll breath of wmd effaces; or lmpre! lions made on a heap of Atoms, or anima!Spirits,are altogether as ufeful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul thar peri fit in thinking; that once out of light, arc gone for ever, and leave no memory of themfelves behind them. Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no ufes: and it is hardly to be conccived,that our infinitely wife Creator, fl1ould makefoadmirablea Faculty, as the power of Thinl<ing, that Faculty which comes ncarell the Excellency of his own incomprehenlible Being, to be fo idlely and ufelcfly employ'd, at !call; part of its time here, as to tlunk conllantly, \l'lthout remembnng any of thofe Thoughts, without doing any good to its felf or others, or being any way ufeful to any other J>Jrt of the Creation. if we will e1<amine it, we fhall not find, I fuppofe,thc motion of dull and fenllefs matter,any where in the Univerfe, made fo little ufe of, and fo wholly thrown away. §. 1 6. 'Tis true, we havefometimes inllances of Perception, whilfl: we are qf/eep, and retain the memory of thofe ihoughts: but how extravagant and' incoherent for the moll part they are; how little conformable to the Perfection and Order p_f a rational Being, thofe '"!10 arc acquainted with breams, need not be told. This I would willingly be fatislicd in, Whether the Soul, when it thinks thus apart, and as it were feparate from the Body, acts Jefs rationallY then, when conjointly wit!t it, or no : If its feparateThoughtsbe lefsrational, then thefe Men mull fay, That the Soul owes the perlection of rational thinking to the Body: If it does not, 'cis a wonder that our Dreams lhould be, for the moll part, fo frivolous and irrational ; and that the Soul fhould retain none of its more rational Soliloquies and Meditations. . §. 17. Thofe whofo confidently tell us,. That the Soul always actually thinks, I would they would alfo tell us, what thofe Ideas are, that are in the Soul of a Child, before, or jull at the union with the Body, before it hath received any by Senfotion. The Dreams of lleeping Men, are, as I take it, all made up of the waking Mans Ideas, though, for the moll part, oddly put together. 'Tis llrange, if the Soul has Ideas of its own, that it derived no~ from S~nj'ation or Ref/eEl ion, (as it mull_ have, ifit thought before 1t recetved any 1mpre!lions from the Body) that 1t lhould never, in its private thinking, (fo private, that the Man himfelf perceives it not) retain any of them1 the very moment it wakes out of them, and then make the Man glad W1th new difcoveries. Who can find it reafon that the Soullhould,in its retirement, during flecp, have fo man'y hours'thoug_hcs, an.d yet never hght on any of thofe !d<as it borrowed 90t from Senfation _or Rejh1ion, or at leaf!: preferve the memory of none, but fuch, which bemg occalioned from the llody, mull needs be Jefs natural to a Spirit 1 'T!s llrange,t~eSoul lhouldneveroncein a Man's whole life,recaloverany of~ts pure,nattve Thoughts,and thofe Ideas it had before it borrowed any dung from the Body; never bring into the wakinr; Man's view, any o· ther (deas, but what have a tangue of the Cask, manifellly derive their Ongm~l from that union. If it always thinks, and fo had Ideas before it was umted, or before it received any from the Body, 'tis not to be fuppofed, but that dunng lleep, it recolletls its native Ideas, and during that retirement from communicating with the Body, whilll it thinks by it felf, the Ideas 1t 1s bufiedabout, lhould be fometimes at Jeafl: thofc more natural and congenial ones had in it felf, underived fr~m the Body, or irs own operatKlns about them, which fioce the waking Man never rcmem· bers , we mull from this Hypothefis conclude , that Memory belongs . OJlly Chap. I. Men think_ not al'nlays. only ro IdeAS , derived from_ the Body, and the Operations of the Mind about them, or elfe that the Soul remembers fomething that the Man docs not. §.t8.1 would be glad alfo to learn from thefe men, who foconfidently pronounce, thatthe humane Soul,or,which is all one, that a man always thinks how they come to know it; nay, !Jowtheycometoknowthattheyth<mftlv ' tl.•tn~, when tbq tbrmftlves do not puc~iv< it •. Thi~,lam afraid,isto be fur~: w1thout proofs; and to knoW,WlthoutpercelV!ng: Tis,! fufpeCl:,a con(ufed Notion, taken up to fervcan Hypothefis; and none ofthofeclear Truths that ei:h:r their own Eviclt:ncefOrce us to admit, or common Expcricnc~ makes 1t 1mpudence to deny. For the mofl: that can be faidofit,is,That 'tis poll1blethc Soul may always tlunk, but not always retain it in memory: And, I f.1y, 1t1s as po!liblc, that the Soul may not always think. and much more probable, that lt lhould fometimes not think than clJat it lhould often think, and that a long while together, and ~ot be confcious to it felfthe next moment after, that it had thought. §. 19. To fuppofe the Soul to think, and the Man not perceive it, i•, as has been fa1d, to make two pcrfons 10 one man : And if one confider well thcfc mens way of (peaking, one fhall be lead into a fufpicion that they ~o fo. For they who tell us, \hat the Soul always thinks, do ~ever that [remember, fay, That a man olways thinks. Can the Soul think' and not the Man ! Or a Man thmk,and not be confcious of it 1 This, per~ haps, would be fufpeCl:ed of Jargon in others. If they fay The man think~ always, but is not alwaysconfcious of, it; they may as ~ell fa ,His Body lSextended,wlthout hav10g parts. For nsaltogetheras intellig~leto fay,that anytlung1s extended Wlthoucparts, as that anything tiJinks without hing conjiious of it; without perc~iving,that it does fo. They who talk thus, may, Wlth as much reafon, 1f 1t be neceffary to their Hypotbelis fay, That a man is alwa~s hungry, but that he does not always feel it; ~ hereas !!Unger confifl:s 10 that very fenfation, as thinking con fills in be- 10g confcwus that onethmks. If they fay, That a man is always confci; ous to himfelf of tlnnlnng; I ask, How they know 1t ~ Confcioufnefs is the perception of what paffes in a man's own mind. Can another man perce1ve, that I am confcwus of any thmg, when I perceive it not my felf 1 No man's Knowledge here, can go beyond his Experience. Wake a man out of a found lleep, and ask him, What he was that moment thinking on If he himfclf be confcious ~f nothing he then thou!Jht on, he mull be~ notable O!Vlner of Thoug.m , that can affure hun, that he was thinking: May he not with .more reJfon atfure him, he was not aflcep ~ This 1s fomerhmg beyond Plulofophy; and it cannot be Jefs than Revelation that d1fcovers to another, Thoughts in my mind, when I can lind non~ _there_ my felf: And they mull needs have a fCOetratiog fight, who can certamly fee, that I tlunk, when I cannot perceive it my felt, and declare, That I do not; and yet can fee, that a Dog, or an Elephant, do not thmk,though they g1vcall the. demonllration ofit imaginable, except only telling us, thar.theydo fo. Tlusfome may fufpect to be a llep beyond the Ro[<cruci"ns; lt (ecming cafier to make ones felf inviliblc to others than toimke another's thoughts virtbleto me,which are notvilible rohimf;lf:But 'ris but defining the Soul to be afubfl:ance, that always thinks, and the buC.nefs 1S done. If fuch a. dcfi111t10n be of any Authority, I know not wha,t It Clll fervc for, but to make many men fufpect , That they have no Souls at all, fincc they find a good part of thc1r Lives pafs away without tlunkmg. For no Defillltions, tlut I know, no SuppoC.tions of any Sect, are ot force enough to dellroy conllant Experience; and, perhaps, G :z. 'tis |
