ideas he has there, are any other than of the objects of his fenfes, or of CHAP. I. the operations of his mind, confidered as objects of his reflection? and how great a mafs of knowledge foever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, fee that he has not any idea in his mind, but what one of these two have imprinted; though perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the understanding, as we shall see hereafter.

§ 6. HE that attentively confiders the state of a child, at his first coming Obfervable in into the world, will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, children. that are to be the matter of his future knowledge: It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them. And though the ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them: and if it were worth while, no doubt a child might be fo ordered as to have but a very few even of the ordinary ideas, till he were grown up to a man. But all that are born into the world being furrounded with bodies that perpetually and diverfly affect them; variety of ideas, whether care be taken of it or no, are imprinted on the minds of children. Light and colours are bufy at hand every-where, when the eye is but open; founds and fome tangible qualities fail not to folicit their proper fenfes, and force an entrance to the mind: but yet, I think, it will be granted eafily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never faw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster or a pineapple, has of those particular relishes.

nished with

the different objects

87. MEN then come to be furnished with fewer or more fimple ideas Men are diffrom without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or ferently furless variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they thefe, accordmore or lefs reflect on them. For though he that contemplates the ope- ing to thejects rations of his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet un- they converfe lefs he turns his thoughts that way, and confiders them attentively, he will with. no more have clear and diftinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture or clock may be fo placed, that they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention to confider them each in particular.

flection later,

§8. AND hence we see the reason, why it is pretty late before most chil- Ideas of redren get ideas of the operations of their own minds; and fome have not any because they very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives: be- need attencause though they pafs there continually, yet, like floating vifions, they make tion. not deep impreffions enough to leave in their mind clear diftinct lafting ideas,. till the understanding turns inward upon itself, reflects on its own operations, and makes them the objects of its own contemplation. Children when they

come

Book II. come first into it, are furrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant folicitation of their fenfes, draw the mind conftantly to them, forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing, objects. Thus the first years are ufually employed and diverted in looking abroad. Men's bufinefs in them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be found without; and fo growing up in a conftant attention to outward fenfations, feldom make any confiderable reflection on what passes within them till they come to be of riper years; and fome scarce ever at all. § 9. To afk at what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask when he gins to have begins to perceive; having ideas, and perception, being the fame thing. I it begins to know it is an opinion, that the foul always thinks, and that it has the actual perceive. perception of ideas in itself conftantly as long as it exifts; and that actual thinking is as infeparable from the foul, as actual extenfion is from the body: which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a man's ideas is the fame as to enquire after the beginning of his foul. For by this account foul and its ideas, as body and its extenfion, will begin to exift both at the fame

The foul be

ideas, when

The foul

ways; for this wants

proofs.

time.

10. BUT whether the foul be fupposed to exift antecedent to, or coeval thinks not al- with, or fome time after the first rudiments or organization, or the beginnings of life in the body; I leave to be difputed by those who have better thought of that matter. I confefs myself to have one of those dull fouls, that doth not perceive itself always to contemplate ideas; nor can conceive it any more neceflary for the foul always to think, than for the body always to move: the perception of ideas being (as I conceive) to the foul, what motion is to the body; not its effence, but one of its operations. And therefore though thinking be supposed ever so much the proper action of the foul, yet it is not neceffary to fuppofe that it should be always thinking, always in action. That perhaps is the privilege of the infinite author and preferver of things, who never flumbers nor fleeps; but it is not competent to any finite being, at least not to the foul of man. We know certainly by experience that we fometimes think, and thence draw this infallible confequence, that there is something in us that has a power to think: but whether that fubftance perpetually thinks or no, we can be no farther affured than experience informs us. For to say that actual thinking is effential to the foul, and infeparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to prove it by reafon; which is neceffary to be done, if it be not a felf-evident propofition. But whether this, "that the foul always thinks," be a felf-evident propofition, that every body affents to at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I thought at all last night or no; the question being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring, as a proof for it, an hypothefis, which is the very thing in difpute; by which way one may prove any thing: and it is but fuppofing that all watches, whilft the ballance beats, think; and it is fufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my watch thought all last night. But he that would not deceive himself, ought to build his hypothefis on matter of fact, and make it out by fenfible experience, and not presume on matter of fact, because of his hypothefis; that is, because he supposes it

to

to be fo: which way of proving amounts to this, that I must neceffarily CHAP. I. think all last night, because another fuppofes I always think, though I myself cannot perceive that I always do fo.

BUT men in love with their opinions may not only fuppofe what is in queftion, but alledge wrong matter of fact. How else could any one make it an inference of mine, that a thing is not, because we are not fenfible of it in our fleep? I do not fay there is no foul in a man, because he is not fenfible of it in his fleep: but I do fay, he cannot think at any time waking or fleeping, without being fenfible of it. Our being fenfible of it is not neceffary to any thing, but to our thoughts; and to them it is, and to them it will always be neceffary, till we can think without being confcious of it.

For to

ous of it.

SII. IGRANT that the foul in a waking man is never without thought, It is not albecause it is the condition of being awake: but whether fleeping without ways confeidreaming be not an affection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man's confideration; it being hard to conceive, that any thing should think, and not be conscious of it. If the foul doth think in a fleeping man without being conscious of it, I afk, whether during fuch thinking it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or misery? I am fure the man is not, any more than the bed or earth he lies on. be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, feems to me utterly inconfiftent and impoffible. Or if it be poffible that the foul can, whilft the body is fleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments and concerns, its pleasure or pain, apart, which the man is not confcious of nor partakes in; it is certain that Socrates afleep and Socrates awake is not the fame perfon: but his foul when he fleeps, and Socrates the man, confifting of body and foul when he is waking, are two perfons; fince waking Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment for that happiness or misery of his foul which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he fleeps, without perceiving any thing of it; any more than he has for the happiness or misery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and senfations, efpecially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place perfonal identity.

without

12. "THE foul, during found fleep, thinks," say these men. Whilft If a fleeping. it thinks and perceives, it is capable certainly of thofe of delight or trouble, man thinks as well as any other perceptions; and it must neceffarily be confcious of its knowing it, own perceptions. But it has all this apart; the fleeping man, it is plain, is the fleeping and waking confcious of nothing of all this. Let us fuppofe then the foul of Caftor, man are two whilft he is fleeping, retired from his body; which is no impoffible fuppo- perfons.. fition for the men L have here to do with, who fo liberally allow life, without a thinking foul, to all other animals. These men cannot then judge. it impoffible, or a contradiction, that the body fhould live without the foul; nor that the foul fhould fubfift and think, or have perception, even perception of happiness or mifery, without the body. Let us then, as I fay, fuppose the foul of Caftor feparated, during his fleep, from his body, to think apart.. Let us fuppofe too, that it chufes for its scene of thinking the body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who is fleeping without a foul: for if Caftor's.

foul

Book II. foul can think, whilft Caftor is afleep, what Caftor is never confcious of, it is no matter what place it chufes to think in. We have here then the bodies of two men with only one foul between them, which we will fuppofe to fleep and wake by turns; and the foul still thinking in the waking man, whereof the fleeping man is never confcious, has never the least perception. I ask then, whether Caftor and Pollux, thus with only one foul between them, which thinks and perceives in one what the other is never confcious of, nor is concerned for, are not two as diftinct perfons as Caftor and Hercules, or as Socrates and Plato were? And whether one of them might not be very happy, and the other very miferable? Juft by the fame reafon they make the foul and the man two perfons, who make the foul think apart what the man is not confcious of. For I fuppofe no-body will make identity of perfons to confift in the foul's being united to the very fame numerical particles of matter; for if that be neceffary to identity, it will be impoffible, in that conftant flux of the particles of our bodies, that any man should be the fame person two days, or two moments together.

Impoffible to convince

thofe that

813. THUS, methinks, every drowsy nod shakes their doctrine, who teach, that the foul is always thinking. Thofe at least who do at any time fleep fleep without without dreaming, can never be convinced, that their thoughts are fometimes for four hours bufy without their knowing of it; and if they are taken in the very act, waked in the middle of that fleeping contemplation, can give no manner of account of it.

dreaming, that they think.

That men dream without remem

bering it, in vain urged.

§ 14. IT will perhaps be faid, "that the foul thinks even in the foundest fleep, but the memory retains it not." That the foul in a sleeping man should be this moment bufy a thinking, and the next moment in a waking man not remember nor be able to recollect one jot of all those thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need fome better proof than bare affertion to make it be believed. For who can without any more ado, but being barely told fo, imagine, that the greatest part of men do, during all their lives, for feveral hours every day, think of fomething, which if they were asked, even in the middle of thefe thoughts, they could remember nothing at all of? Most men, I think, pafs a great part of their fleep without dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory, who told me, he had never dreamed in his life till he had that fever he was then newly recovered of, which was about the five or fix and twentieth year of his age. I suppose the world affords more fuch inftances: at least every one's acquaintance will furnish him with examples enough of such, as pafs most of their nights without dreaming.

Upon this § 15. To think often, and never to retain it fo much as one moment, is hypothefis a very useless fort of thinking: and the foul, in such a state of thinking, the thoughts of a fleeping does very little, if at all, excel that of a looking-glafs, which conftantly reman ought to ceives variety of images, or ideas, but retains none; they difappear and va

be moft ra

tional.

nish, and there remain no footsteps of them; the looking-glafs is never the better for fuch ideas, nor the foul for fuch thoughts. Perhaps it will be faid, "that in a waking man the materials of the body are employed, and "made use of, in thinking; and that the memory of thoughts is retained

by

·

by the impreffions that are made on the brain, and the traces there left CHAP. I. "after fuch thinking; but that in the thinking of the foul, which is not perceived in a fleeping man, there the foul thinks apart, and, making no "ufe of the organs of the body, leaves no impreffions on it, and confe"quently no memory of fuch thoughts." Not to mention again the absurdity of two distinct perfons, which follows from this fuppofition, I answer farther, that whatever ideas the mind can receive and contemplate without the help of the body, it is reasonable to conclude, it can retain without the help of the body too; or else the foul, or any separate spirit, will have but little advantage by thinking. If it has no memory of its own thoughts; if it cannot lay them up for its own use; and be able to recall them upon occafion; if it cannot reflect upon what is past, and make use of its former experiences, reafonings, and contemplations; to what purpose does it think? They, who make the foul a thinking thing, at this rate, will not make it a much more noble being, than those do, whom they condemn, for allowing it to be nothing but the fubtileft parts of matter. Characters drawn on dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or impreffions made on a heap of atoms, or animal fpirits, are altogether as ufeful, and render the subject as noble, as the thoughts of a foul that perifh in thinking; that once out of fight are gone for ever, and leave no memory of themselves behind them. Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wife creator fhould make fo admirable a faculty as the power of thinking, that faculty which comes nearest the excellency of his own incomprehenfible being, to be fo idly and uselefly employed, at least a fourth part of its time here, as to think conftantly, without remembering any of those thoughts, without doing any good to itself or others, or being any way ufeful to any other part of the creation. If we will examine it, we shall not find, I fuppofe, the motion of dull and fenfeless matter, any where in the univerfe, made fo little ufe of, and fo wholly thrown away.

foul muft

from fenfa

tion, of which

there is no

appearance.

§ 16. IT is true, we have fometimes inftances of perception, whilft we On this hyare afleep, and retain the memory of those thoughts: but how extravagant pothefis the and incoherent for the most part they are; how little conformable to the per- have ideas fection and order of a rational being, thofe who are acquainted with dreams not derived need not be told. This I would willingly be fatisfied in, whether the foul, tion or reflecwhen it thinks thus apart, and as it were feparate from the body, acts lefs rationally than when conjointly with it or no? If its feparate thoughts be lefs rational, then these men must say, that the foul owes the perfection of rational thinking to the body: if it does not, it is a wonder that our dreams should be, for the most part, fo frivolous and irrational; and that the foul should retain none of its more rational foliloquies and meditations, $17. THOSE Who fo confidently tell us, that "the foul always actually If I think thinks," I would they would also tell us what thofe ideas are that are in the when I know foul of a child before, or juft at the union with the body, before it hath re- body elfe can ceived any by fenfation. The dreams of fleeping men are, as I take it, all know it. made up of the waking man's ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. It is ftrange if the foul has ideas of its own, that it derived not from

VOL. I.

H

it not, no