4O4 OF THE PLACE AND MOTION OF SPIRITS. length of the soul engaged in the shortest and slightest'thought: Or does one part of the soul perceive one part of a large object and another another ? Then a small part of the soul would per- ceive a small object, and every part of the soul would be a dis- tinct conscious being. Again, If part of the soul were separa- ted, whether the same power of cogitation would remain entire in the other part, or would this power be any way impaired or maimed ?s` In short, it seems to me, that those who suppose a spirit or thinking substance to be extended, do first conceive of the power of thinking and then conceive of an extended being, and join these two in their minds till they think they have made them one, though the things themselves have no cognation. Upon the whole, as it cannot be conceived how a power of thinking can have any contact with body, so neither can I con- ceive in proper speech, how a' being whose nature consists in con- sciousness and activity, without extension or shape, can have any dearness or jnxta-position to body ; for if it be near a body, then it may be nearer and nearer till at last it touches, or till the sur- faces of body and spirit unite. But I can have no idea of a soul's touching a body, any more than how a thought can touch or lie near to a piece of flesh or a bone; for the very idea of a thinking power, as well as of a thought, is utterly and entirely distinct from the idea of body, as any two ideas can be; and I think Mr. Locke seems to allow it, § 32, and in other places. SECT. III.The first Objection against the Locality of Spirits answered. YOU will immediately exclaim then, and with some shew of reason too, What ! cannot aspirit be in a place ? Is not your soul in your own body ? Surely it cannot be every where, for then it would be infinite? it must therefore be some where, and * These sort of questions are by no means no ridiculous and of so little' weight in this argument, as some persons would pronounce them. The learned Dr. Simnel Clarke is known to favour and suppose the extension or expansíanof the soul, and yet he confesses the queries about the extension and the divisibility of a conscious being or spirit to baie considerable difficulty in them. These are his words, as they are cited in a Defence of his Demonstration of the Being of a God, p. 43. " The only properties we certainly and indisputably iknow of spirits, namely, consciousness, and its modes, do prove that they most necessarily be indisceeplible beings. And as evidently as the knownproperties of matter prove it to he certainly a discerplible (or divisible) substance, whateverunknown proper ties is may be endued with; so evidently the known and confessed prope,ties of immaterial beings, prove them to be indisceplible, whatever unknown property they, likewise may be endued with. How far such indiscerptibilily can be reconciled and be consistent with some kind of expansion, that is, what unknown proper ties are joined together with these knownones of consciousnessand indiscerptibitily, is another questionof considerable difficulty." It is plain by this confession that that great philosopher was muck more sure the soul was conscious, indivisible and immortal, than he was or could be that the soul was extended.
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