For putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, or
the power of moving or quieting corporeal motion, joined to substance,
of which we have no distinct idea, we have the idea of an immaterial
spirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent solid parts, and
a power of being moved, joined with substance, of which likewise we
have no positive idea, we have the idea of matter. The one is as clear
and distinct an idea as the other: the idea of thinking, and moving
a body, being as clear and distinct ideas as the ideas of extension,
solidity, and being moved. For our idea of substance is equally
obscure, or none at all, in both; it is but a supposed I know not
what, to support those ideas we call accidents. It is for want
reflection that we are apt to think that our senses show us nothing
but material things. Every act of sensation, when duly considered,
gives us an equal view of both parts of nature, the corporeal and
spiritual. For whilst I know, by seeing or hearing, &c., that there is
some corporeal being without me, the object of that sensation, I do
more certainly know, that there is some spiritual being within me that
sees and hears. This, I must be convinced, cannot be the action of
bare insensible matter; nor ever could be, without an immaterial
thinking being.
16. No idea of abstract substance either in body or spirit.
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