9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive.
To ask, at what time a man has first any ideas, is to
ask, when he begins to perceive;--having ideas, and perception, being the same thing. I know it is an opinion, that
the soul always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and
that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul as actual extension is from the body; which if true, to inquire
after the beginning of a man's ideas is the same as to inquire after the beginning of his soul. For, by this account,
soul and its ideas, as body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.