ESSAY V. 387 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 exclu- ded 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 think- ing be the very substance of the soul, that is the opinion I am supporting; only I suppose, that it never ceases from actual ex- ercise: 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 mineable, or may it not be maim- ed 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 philo- sophers have undertaken to prove, hew 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 bath parts exterior to one ano- sb2
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