Since
whatever change is observed, the mind must collect a power somewhere
able to make that change, as well as a possibility in the thing itself
to receive it. But yet, if we will consider it attentively, bodies, by
our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active
power, as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds.
For all power relating to action, and there being but two sorts of
action whereof we have an idea, viz. thinking and motion, let us
consider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce
these actions. (1) Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it
is only from reflection that we have that. (2) Neither have we from
body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at rest affords us no
idea of any active power to move; and when it is set in motion itself,
that motion is rather a passion than an action in it. For, when the
ball obeys the motion of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the
ball, but bare passion. Also when by impulse it sets another ball in
motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had
received from another, and loses in itself so much as the other
received: which gives us but a very obscure idea of an active power of
moving in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer, but not produce
any motion.
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