Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/57

RV 41 (Chap II.) were? And whether one of them might not be very happy, and the other very miserable? Just by the same reason, they make the Soul and the Man two persons, who make the Soul think apart, what the Man is not conscious of. For, I suppose, no body will make Identity of persons, to consist in the Soul's being united to the very same numerical particles of matter: For if that be necessary to Identity, 'twill be impossible, in that constant flux of the particles of our Bodies, that any Man should be the same person, two days, or two moments together.

§. 13. Thus, methinks, every drousie nod shakes their Doctrine, who teach, That the Soul is always thinking. Those, at least, who do at any time sleep without dreaming, can never be convinced, That their Thoughts are sometimes for four hours busie without their knowing of it; and if they are taken in the very act, waked in the middle of that sleeping contemplation, can give no manner of account of it.

§. 14. 'Twill perhaps be said, That the Soul thinks, even in the soundest Sleep, but the Memory retains it not. That the Soul in a sleeping Man should be this moment busie a thinking, and the next moment in a waking Man, not remember, nor be able to recollect one jot of all those Thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some better Proof than bare Assertion to make it be believed. For who can without any more ado, but being barely told so, imagine, That the greatest part of Men, do, during all their Lives, for several hours every Day, think of something, which if they were asked, even in the middle of these Thoughts, they could remember nothing at all of? Most Men, I think, pass a great part of their Sleep without dreaming. I once knew a Man, that was bred a Scholar, and had no bad Memory, who told me, he had never dream'd in his Life, till he had that Fever, he was then newly recovered of, which was about the Five or Six and Twentieth Year of his Age. I suppose the World affords more such Instances: At least every ones Acquaintance, will furnish him with Examples enough of such, as pass most of their Nights without dreaming.

§. 15. To think often, and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking: and the Soul in such a state of thinking, does very little, if at all, excel that of a Looking-glass, which constantly receives variety of Images, or Ideas, but retains none; they disappear and vanish, and there remain no footsteps of them; the Looking-glass is never the better for such Ideas, nor the Soul for such Thoughts. Perhaps it will be said, that in a waking Man, the materials of the Body are employ'd, and made use of, in thinking; and that the memory of Thoughts, is retained by the impressions that are made on the Brain, and the traces there left after such thinking; but that in the thinking of the Soul, which is not perceived in a sleeping Man, there the Soul thinks apart, and making no use of the Organs of the Body, leaves no impressions on it, and consequently no memory of such Thoughts. Not to mention again the absurdity of two distinct Persons, which follows from this Supposition, I answer farther, That whatever Ideas the Mind can receive, and contemplate without the help of the Body, it is reasonable to conclude, it can retain without the help of the Body too, or else the Soul, or any separate Spirit, will have but little advantage by thinking. If it has no memory of its own Thoughts; if it cannot record them for its use, and be able to recall them upon any occasion; if it cannot reflect upon what is past, and make use of its former Experiences, Reasonings, and Contemplations, to what purpose does it think? They who make the Soul a thinking Thing, at this rate will not make it a much more noble Being, than those do, whom they