An Enquiry Into the Nature of the Human Soul: Wherein the Immateriality of the Soul is Evinced from the Principles of Reason and Philosophy, Volume 2

Front Cover
author and sold by A. Millar, 1737 - Soul
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 176 - But in, dreams it is wonderful to observe with what a sprightliness and alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of speech make unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are but little acquainted with. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit.
Page 176 - There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention ; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every one, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters ; in which case the invention prompts so readily, that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the compositions of another.
Page 283 - ... which he will find in the following treatise. It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not avoid frequently using it.
Page 218 - ... When a body is once in motion, it moveth, unless something else hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees, quite extinguish it; and as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of a man, then, when he sees, dreams, etc.
Page 304 - in the idea of a solid inch of matter," there is no trillionth part because such a part would be smaller than the minimum sensible ("we may make the [denominator] greater, for those who have very good eyes"), but if there is no such part, then "the whole idea is made up of a million of million of no ideas: or the whole idea is no idea
Page 190 - thought and confcioufnefs in fleep, " the foul would have feemed to be of " the fame nature with the body : if " there had been no difference of thought " and confcioufnefs then and at other " times, the body would have appeared "to be of the fame nature with the "foul; nor could the thinking princi" pie have been fo diftinguifhable.
Page 153 - And seeing dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the body, divers distempers must needs cause different dreams. And hence it is that lying cold breedeth dreams of fear, and raiseth the thought and image of some fearful object, the motion from the brain to the inner parts and from the inner parts to the brain being reciprocal ; and that as anger causeth heat in some parts of the body when we are awake, so when we sleep the...
Page 262 - For it seems impossible that a man should be seriously persuaded that he has neither country nor parents, nor any material body, nor eats, nor drinks, nor lies in a house; but that all these things are mere illusions, and have no existence but in the fancy [Enq.
Page 354 - I readily grant it but on the condition that this great maxim of "nothing being ever made from nothing" may hold as well on my side as my adversary's.
Page 289 - I shall hereafter find occasion to speak somewhat of them. 22. I am afraid I have given cause to think I am needlessly prolix in handling this subject. For, to what purpose is it to dilate on that which may be demonstrated with the utmost evidence in a line or two, to any one that is capable of the least reflection...

Bibliographic information