ESSAY V. An Enquiry whether the Soul thinksalways. SECT. I. Considerations toward Me 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 re- flection 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 al- ways, 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 whomI dispute with, that bodycannot think, or that the soul is not mat- ter : 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 men- tion ; 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 reasoningquantity: But this point, viz. that mat- ter 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-
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