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.
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