have better thought of that matter. I confefs myself to have one of thofe dull fouls, that doth not perceive itfelf always to contemplate ideas; nor can conceive it any more neceffary 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 fuppofed ever fo 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 flunibers 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 fomething 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 fay that actual thinking is effential to the foul, and infeparable from it, is to beg what is in queftion, 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 queftion 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 balance 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 prefume on matter of fact, becaufe of his hypothefis; that is, becaufe he fuppofes it to be fo: which way of proving amounts to this, that I muft neceffarily think all laft night, because another fuppofes I always think, though I myself cannot perceive that I always do fo.

But

But men in love with their opinions may not only fuppofe what is in queftion, but allege wrong matter of fact. How elfe could any one make it an inference of mine, that a thing is not, becaufe we are not fenfible of it in qur fleep? I do not say 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. §. 11. I grant that the foul in a waking It is not alman is never without thought, because it is ways confcithe condition of being awake: but whether ous of it. fleeping without dreaming 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 fhould think, and not be confcious 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 mifery? I am fure the man is not, any more than the bed or earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable without being confcious 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 pleafure 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 mifery of his foul which it enjoys alone by itself whilft he fleeps, without perceiving any thing of it; any more than he has for the happiness or mifery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all confciousness of our actions and fenfations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein: to place perfonal identity.

G 2

§. 12.

If a fleeping man thinks without

knowing it, the fleeping and waking

man are two

perfons.

$. 12. "The foul, during found fleep, thinks," say these men. Whilft it thinks and perceives, it is capable certainly of thofe of delight or trouble, as well as any other perceptions; and it muft neceffarily be conscious of its own perceptions. But it has all this apart; the fleeping man, it is plain, is conscious of nothing of all this. Let us fuppofe then the foul of Caftor, while he is fleeping, retired from his body; which is no impoffible fuppofition for the men I have here to do with, who fo libe rally allow life, without a thinking foul, to all other animals. These men cannot then judge it impoffible, or a contradiction, that the body thould live without the foul; nor that the foul should subsist 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 chooses for its scene of thinking the body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who is fleeping without a foul: for if Caftor's foul can think, whilft Caftor is afleep, what Caftor is never confcious of, it is no matter what place it choofes 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 ftill 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? Juit by the fame reason 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

that the

That the foul

Impoffible to convince

those that fleep without dreaming, that they

That men

dream without remem

bering it, in vain urged.

the particles of our bodies, that any man fhould be the fame perfon two days, or two moments together. §. 13. Thus, methinks, every draw fy nod fhakes their doctrine, who teach, that the foul is always thinking. Those at least, who do at any time fleep without dreaming, can never be convinced, that their thoughts are fometimes for four hours bufy think, 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. S. 14. It will perhaps be faid, "that the foul thinks even in the foundeft fleep, but the memory retains it not." That the foul in a fleeping man fhould 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 thofe 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 these thoughts, they could remember nothing at all of? Moft men, I think, pass a great part of their fleep without dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a fscholar, 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 fuppofe the world affords more fuch inftances: at least every one's acquaintance will furnish him with examples enough of fuch, as pafs most of their nights without dreaming.

Upon this the thoughts hypothefis of a fleeping man ought to be molt ra

§. 15. To think often, and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless fort of thinking: and the foul, in such a state of thinking, does very little, if at all, excel that of a looking-glafs, which conftantly receives variety of images, or ideas, but retains none; they disappear and vanish, and

G 3

tional.

there

there remain no footsteps of them; the looking-glass is never the better for fuch ideas, nor the foul for fuch thoughts. Perhaps it will be said, "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 the impreffions that are made "on the brain, and the traces there left 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 abfurdity of two diftinct perfons, which follows from this fuppofition, I anfwer farther, that whatever ideas the mind can receive and contemplate without the help of the body, it is reafonable to conclude, it can retain without the help of the body too; or else the foul, or any feparate fpirit, 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 ufe, and be able to recall them upon occafion; if it cannot reflect upon what is paft, 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 thofe do, whom they condemn, for allowing it to be nothing but the fubtileft parts of matter. Characters drawn on duft, 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 fubject as noble, as the thoughts of a foul that perish 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 ufes 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 ufelefly employed, at least a fourth part of its time here, as to think conftantly, without remembering any of thofe thoughts, without doing

any