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.
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