Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/56

RV 40 (Chap IV.) think, and thence draw this infallible Consequence, That there is something in us, that has a Power to think: But whether that Substance perpetually thinks, or no, we can be no farther assured, than Experience informs us. For to say, that actual thinking is essential to the Soul, and inseparable from it, is, to beg what is in Question, and not to prove it by Reasons; which is necessary to be done, if it be not a self-evident Proposition. But whether this, That the Soul always thinks, be a self-evident Proposition, that every Body assents to at first hearing, I appeal to Mankind.

§. 11. I grant that the Soul in a waking Man is never without thought, because it is the condition of being awake: But whether sleeping without dreaming be not an Affection of the whole Man, Mind as well as Body, may be worth a waking Man's Consideration; it being hard to conceive, that any thing should think, and not be conscious of it. If the Soul doth think in a sleeping Man, without being conscious of it, I ask, whether, during such thinking, it has any Pleasure or Pain, or be capable of Happiness or Misery? I am sure the Man is not, no more than the Bed or Earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, seems to me utterly inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible, that the Soul can, whilst the Body is sleeping, have its Thinking, Enjoyments, and Concerns; its Pleasure or Pain apart, which the Man is not conscious of, nor partakes in, It is certain, that Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same Person; but his Soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the Man consisting of Body and Soul when he is waking, are two Persons: Since waking Socrates, has no Knowledge of, or Concernment for that Happiness, or Misery of his Soul, which it enjoys alone by it self whilst he sleeps, without perceiving any thing of it, no more than he has for the Happiness, or Misery of a Man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all Consciousness of our Actions and Sensations, especially of Pleasure and Pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal Identity.

§. 12. The Soul, during sound Sleep, thinks, say these Men. Whilst it thinks and perceives, it is capable certainly of those of Delight or Trouble, as well as any other Perceptions; and it must necessarily be conscious of its own Perceptions. But it has all this a part: The sleeping Man, 'tis plain, is conscious of nothing of all this. Let us suppose then the Soul of Castor, whilst he is sleeping, retired from his Body, which is no impossible Supposition for the Men I have here to do with, who so liberally allow Life, without a thinking Soul to all other Animals. These Men cannot then judge it is impossible, or a contradiction, That the Body should live without the Soul; nor that the Soul subsists and thinks, or has Perception, even Perception of Happiness or Misery, without the Body. Let us then, as I say, suppose the Soul of Castor separated, during his Sleep, from his Body, to think apart. Let us suppose too, that it chooses for its Scene of Thinking, the Body of another Man, v.g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a Soul: For if Castor's Soul, can think whilst Castor is asleep, what Castor is never conscious of, 'tis no matter what Place it chooses to think in. We have here then the Bodies of two Men with only one Soul between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns; and the Soul still thinking in the waking Man, whereof the sleeping Man is never conscious, has never the least Perception. I ask then, Whether Castor and Pollux, thus, with only one Soul between them, which thinks and perceives in one, what the other is never conscious of, nor is not concerned for, are not two as distinct Persons, as Castor and Hercules; or, as Socrates, and Plato