19. "That a man should be busy in thinking, and yet not retain it the next moment," very improbable.
To suppose
the soul to think, and the man not to perceive it, is, as has been said, to make two persons in one man. And if one
considers well these men's way of speaking, one should be led into a suspicion that they do so. For they who tell
us that the soul always thinks, do never, that I remember, say that a man always thinks. Can the soul think, and
not the man? Or a man think, and not be conscious of it? This, perhaps, would be suspected of jargon in others. If
they say the man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it, they may as well say his body is extended
without having parts. For it is altogether as intelligible to say that a body is extended without parts, as that
anything thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does so. They who talk thus may, with as much
reason, if it be necessary to their hypothesis, say that a man is always hungry, but that he does not always feel it;
whereas hunger consists in that very sensation, as thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks. If they say
that a man is always conscious to himself of thinking, I ask, How they know it? Consciousness is the perception
of what passes in a man's own mind. Can another man perceive that I am conscious of anything, when I perceive
it not myself? No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience. Wake a man out of a sound sleep, and ask
him what he was that moment thinking of. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a
notable diviner of thoughts that can assure him that he was thinking. May he not, with more reason, assure him he
was not asleep? This is something beyond philosophy; and it cannot be less than revelation, that discovers to
another thoughts in my mind, when I can find none there myself, And they must needs have a penetrating sight
who can certainly see that I think, when I cannot perceive it myself, and when I declare that I do not; and yet can
see that dogs or elephants do not think, when they give all the demonstration of it imaginable, except only telling
us that they do so. This some may suspect to be a step beyond the Rosicrucians; it seeming easier to make one's
self invisible to others, than to make another's thoughts visible to me, which are not visible to himself. But it is but
defining the soul to be "a substance that always thinks," and the business is done. If such definition be of any
authority, I know not what it can serve for but to make many men suspect that they have no souls at all; since they
find a good part of their lives pass away without thinking. For no definitions that I know, no suppositions of any
sect, are of force enough to destroy constant experience; and perhaps it is the affectation of knowing beyond what
we perceive, that makes so much useless dispute and noise in the world.