4. Hence it is probable that thinking is the action, not the essence of the soul.
This difference of intention, and
remission of the mind in thinking, with a great variety of degrees between earnest study and very near minding
nothing at all, every one, I think, has experimented in himself. Trace it a little further, and you find the mind in
sleep retired as it were from the senses, and out of the reach of those motions made on the organs of sense, which
at other times produce very vivid and sensible ideas. I need not, for this, instance in those who sleep out whole
stormy nights, without hearing the thunder, or seeing the lightning, or feeling the shaking of the house, which are
sensible enough to those who are waking. But in this retirement of the mind from the senses, it often retains a yet
more loose and incoherent manner of thinking, which we call dreaming. And, last of all, sound sleep closes the
scene quite, and puts an end to all appearances. This, I think almost every one has experience of in himself, and
his own observation without difficulty leads him thus far. That which I would further conclude from hence is, that
since the mind can sensibly put on, at several times, several degrees of thinking, and be sometimes, even in a
waking man, so remiss, as to have thoughts dim and obscure to that degree that they are very little removed from
none at all; and at last, in the dark retirements of sound sleep, loses the sight perfectly of all ideas whatsoever:
since, I say, this is evidently so in matter of fact and constant experience, I ask whether it be not probable, that
thinking is the action and not the essence of the soul? Since the operations of agents will easily admit of intention
and remission: but the essences of things are not conceived capable of any such variation. But this by the by.
