assent or dissent by these innate principles, though without express reflection on them. Now these principles influence the mind in the same manner, though not as strongly in all things, as the desire of happiness, or aversion to misery, which are allowed to be innate practical principles. After all, it must be confessed with lamentation, to the shame and reproach of human nature, that though these moral principles of judgment in the mind of man, if they were well improved, would lead us in the most common cases to discern and judge what is our duty, and what is sin; yet the prejudices of evil education, customs of iniquity, worldly interest, our sensual appetites, and many other evil influences have so perverted and abused this principle of reason in the mind of man, that now-a-days the mind often goes astray from the truth; and instead of directing us to virtue, hath sometimes been led into gross abominations. The eye of the understanding is strangely blinded, and the judgment strangely perverted by the fall of man; we are led to false judgments of things by the corruptions of our minds, by the unhappy influence that present sensible things have over our whole nature, and the empire which appetite and evil passions have gotten over our superior faculties. Blessed be God for scripture and the gospel, wherein there is a plain revelation made of our duty to God and man; wherein the method of divine grace and salvation is set before us, and whereby even in this world, we are sensibly relieved from the darkness and error, the mistakes and miseries, which are the effects of our fall, and shall be raised to perfect deliverance, to light, truth, and happiness in the other world, if we sincerely comply with the proposals of grace and peace.

ESSAY V.

An Enquiry whether the Soul thinks always.

SECT. I. Considerations toward the Proof of it.

WHEN this great author, Mr. Locke, had proved that we are not born with actual ideas and propositions in our mind, he comes, Book II. Chap. I. to enquire whence we obtain our ideas: And he wisely and evidently derives them originally from these two fruitful and general springs, (viz.) sensation and reflection. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible things by sensation; and the mind or soul itself, by reflection on itself, furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own powers and operations: But still let the power which the soul has of abstracting one idea from another be allowed to be the fountain of our abstract and general ideas, i. e. the immediate cause of them.

Then he proceeds to enquire whether the soul thinks always, and he will by no means allow the soul to be always thinking. I have no mind to enter into a full debate of this matter, yet in a few words I would take leave to mention a reason or two, why I am rather inclined to believe the soul always thinks.

But first, I suppose it to be granted by the persons whom I dispute with, that body cannot think, or that the soul is not matter: For as the very nature of matter or body is solid extension, so I can have no possible conception what extension or solidity can do towards thinking, judging, reasoning, wishing, willing, &c. The ideas are so entirely different, that they seem to be things as utterly distinct as any two things we can name or mention; not heaven and earth are so different from each other, as thought and matter. I can no more conceive what affinity there is between solid extension and thinking, than I can conceive any affinity between green and the sound of a violin, or red and the taste of a cucumber. The ideas of a bitter colour, a blue smell, or a purple sound, are as clear ideas in my conception, and as intelligible things, as thinking body, conscious matter, judging extension, or reasoning quantity: But this point, viz. that matter cannot think, has been proved so largely by many learned writers, particularly by Dr. Clarke, Dr. Bentley, Mr. Grove, and Mr. Ditton, that I say no more on this head.

Now to propose my argument for the soul's perpetual think

ing. Since the soul is not matter or solid extension, if the soul ceases to think, what is it of the soul that then remains existing? I confess I have no idea of any thing that remains. It is not solid extension, for that is body or matter, and that is already excluded by concession. It is not empty or unsolid extension, for that is pure space, which in my esteem is mere nothing, or at best an abstract idea of the mind. If you suppose a soul to be the least degree more dense or more solid than empty space, that is the very idea which I have of body or matter, let it be never so tenuious or subtle; so that as far as my ideas reach, a soul ceases to be, if it ceases to think.

Or if you should reply, that there is a power of thinking remaining; I ask is this power of thinking the substance of the soul or not? If it be not the substance of the soul, then there is another substance, in which this power of thinking inheres. And what is that besides mere space? Or if this power of thiuking be the very substance of the soul, that is the opinion I am supporting; only I suppose, that it never ceases from actual exercise: for if such a power of thinking be the substance of the soul, and yet it fall asleep, or be unconscious, I have no idea of what remains; nor can I guess how it can awake itself again into actual thought.

I grant the soul is a power of thinking, but I cannot allow that it is a power of not thinking, or that it has any such power belonging to it. Let any man use his utmost art and labour, to cease thinking, he cannot do it. He may indeed put the animal body into such a temper, i. e. sleep, as to be unfit to assist the soul in such acts of memory as are suited to its incarnate state, and then the soul cannot remember its thoughts or ideas; but this is not ceasing to think. Besides, if a soul be extended, be it never so thin and subtle an extension, it has limits, or it has not; if it has no limits, every soul is infinitely extended, or really infinite; if the soul has limits, then it has a figure or shape; for shape is nothing else but the mere limits of extension; and if it has a shape, is not this shape minuable, or may it not be maimed by losing a part?

I would fain know wherein does this bulk or substance of the soul thus limited or figured, differ from so much mere space, if it cease to think, and be not more solid or dense than space is? And again, what influence can this extended empty figure or shape have upon our thinking, any more than solid matter has? If solid extension or matter cannot think, as several modern philosophers have undertaken to prove, how can unsolid extension be capable of thinking? If any extension could think, I do not see how solidity could hinder its thinking. Perhaps the strongest arguments against the power of matter to think, arise from the extension of matter, viz. that it hath parts exterior to one ano

ther; now this belongs to all extension, whether solid or unsolid; and therefore I cannot but wonder a little at those gentlemen who pretend to prove strongly that matter cannot think, and yet allow a soul to be extended, i. e. allow unsolid extension to have a thinking power. Such sort of thoughts as these, with some others, have inclined me rather to suppose the nature and essence of the soul to consist in thinking.

I own this sort of doctrine concerning the soul is not only out of the way of vulgar opinion, but it is now also in a great measure banished from the schools and sentiments of learned men, since the Cartesian philosophy lost its ground in the world. Now though I never was, nor could persuade myself to be a disciple of Des Cartes in his doctrine of the nature of matter, or vacuum, or of plenum, &c. and I have many years ago given up his opinions as to the chief phænomena of the corporeal world, yet I have never seen sufficient ground to abandon all his scheme of sentiments of the nature of mind or spirit, because I could not find a better in the room of it, that should be more free from objections and difficulties.

The large and powerful influence that the name and authority of Mr. Locke has in the world, has carried away multitudes into the supposition that extension or expansion, as well as duration, are the properties of all beings whatsoever; and that therefore spirits as well as bodies are expanded or extended, which are but two words for the same idea; though it must be owned Mr. Locke himself is so cautious, that I think he doth not any where positively assert it, not even in book 11. chap. 15. sect. 11. where he thinks it is " near as hard to conceive any real being without expansion as without duration."

SECT. II.-Of Dreams, why not remembered.

BUT my design in this place being chiefly to take notice of the sentiments of this great philosopher, I shall proceed to answer the chief objections which he raises against those who suppose that the soul always thinks. His grand argument is that "the soul sleeps as well as the body, and has no thought when it bas no dream :" Now there are some persons (says he) who never dream, and others that sleep sometimes for several hours without dreaming; therefore it is plain to him, that all this while the soul has been or existed without thinking. Mr. Locke's chief objection against the soul's thinking in sleep, may be answered by an explication of what we mean by dreams, of which dreams the body by the animal spirits (whatever they be) is the occasion, and of which the soul is conscious.

Note, by animal spirits I mean those subtle corpuscles, whatsoever they are, whereby such traces or impressions are formed or revived on the brain which correspond to our sensations or ideas, and which are usually the occasion of them.

First then, there are some impressions made upon the brain by the animal spirits, which are so soft and gentle, that there are no traces, no footstep of any such motions left upon the brain; yet the soul might be just slightly conscious of them at that moment, and form correspondent ideas, though both the traces and the ideas vanish almost as fast as they are formed.These might be called dreams; but they being all forgotten, as though they had not been, this is not usually called dreaming.

Secondly, There are some impressions which do, more strongly than the former, affect the brain, and occasion idea in the soul, and yet do not with an over-vigorous tide of impressions delude and confound one another; this is usually called dreaming sleep, and these dreams we remember and can relate; because the soul was strongly and distinctly conscious of them through their strong distinct traces on the brain which were then made, and in a great measure remain.

Thirdly, There are some impressions which by a too impetuous flux, and too violent a throng of animal spirits crowding through the pores and passages of the brain altogether, mingle, confound, and destroy the perpetual traces which are made; hereby the thoughts or ideas are all confounded and mutually destroy one another, so that we are rendered incapable of recollecting them.

The first of these is like a soft touch of a seal upon melted wax which scarce makes any image, or at least such as is lost again as soon as made, by the mere softness of the wax itself not retaining the impression. The second of these is like deep and distinct impressions of the seal upon wax, yet not so immoderate either in violence or number as to confound and destroy one another; therefore they remain and we remember them. The third is like a multitude of violent impressions on the wax, which perpetually mingle and confound one another, and leave no perfect image of any thing.

Thus the faint impressions of the first kind have much the same effect as the excessive numbers and violence of the third kind, i. e. they leave no distinct traces or memorials.

The first is our common and most refreshing sleep, which is usually called sleep without dreaming; and very much resembles what is often called brown study, while we are awake; that is, when after several minutes of musing thoughtfulness, if we are spoken to or roused out of it on a sudden, we can scarce recollect one thought past, or at least only the very last thought we had; because the traces on the brain, that excited those slightly and passing thoughts, were very faint and superficial.— They produce but feeble and indistinct images, like the stghi of

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