Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.8

ESSAY II. 339 Another objection against a spirit being a thinking power is this, that a spirit itself has several powers, viz. judging; reason- ing, wishing, willing, fearing, &c.' Now how can one power have other powers ? I answer, voice is a power in man, and yet a human voice has the power of singing or music ; again, sing- ing has a power of gladdening the heart. Why thenmay not a spirit, which is a substantial power, have several other modal powers and properties in it ? But I proceed to the next consideration, to skew that solidextension and a thinking power may be substances. Fourthly. If we will but allow these two; viz, solid exten- sion and the power of.cogitation to be substances, we are then furnished with all the ideas of substance that are necessary for all the millionsof simple and complex ideas of all the different be- ings, natures, properties, actions and powersthat we have ; for we may refer them all to one or other of these two substances, and conceivethem as inhering therein ; and we shall not be forced to search further, nor run to someother unknown and inconceivable being called substance, of which we have no idea, to support any of the modes or qualities of' mind or body, i. e. of the whole universe of real beings. Allow but these two to be substances, and there is no need of framing anyother idea of substance to accommodate all the beings in the universe with something suffi- cient to uphold all the infinite variety of their properties, or to be the cause of the union of these properties. Solid extension and thinking power will sustain all the modes which we can con- ceive ; now all the substances that we know dig body and spirit, and all the modes that we know belong to one of these. Fifthly. Let it be consideredalso that the supposition of some utterly unknown being called substance to be the substratum or subject of all the properties of body, and such an unknown be- ing also to be the subject of all the properties of mind or spirit, is a notion that carries with it some dangerous consequences, and therefore ought not to be too easily embraced. For if the sub- stance of body and the substance of mind be so much unknown, then the substance of body (as I have hinted already) may be the same with the substance of mind, for ought we know to the contrary. If we know nothing of this substance, but that it is something that subsists by itself, and upholds and unites proper- ties, how can we tell but that the very same individual substance may be the substratum or subject bothof solid extension with all its modes, and of thinking with all its modes and may unite the modes or properties of body and mind together i And thus matter may be made able to think, or may have thepower of thinking put into it, and which may inhere in it together with solid extension. And indeedMr. Locke was very sensible that his opinion

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