(seq. 16)

Oracles

and had it not been by nature a real Substance, it would
have been incapable of either a union with, or sepe-
ration from the body; or a survival (of it,) however imper-
ceptible and mysterious intellectual beings
are to us in this frail condition of being.

When we endeavour to give a
definition of a Spiritual being, by replacing certain
adjectives, to wit, subtile, etherial, electrical, vivid, pure and
the like, before the word Substance which is a substantive;
we do not suppose that they give a true and perfect dis-
cription of the essence of the Soul, or of cogitative be(i)ng in
general; such a knowledge is undoubtedly beyond our
perception, yet such like definitions may serve to
shew negatively, that we do not mean to express in
our Idea of the Substance (of the) Soul that elementary fluxility of
matter, which we denominate to be stupid or senseless.
For though we cannot form a just idea of the nature
of moral beings, yet we may and ought to preclude
in our Idea of them, that kind of sensless matter
which we ascribe to incogitative beings.

Having thus excluded matter
from the Essense of the Soul, which we are intuitively
certain is a thinking being, we still proceed to query
what is thought. It is the act of the Soul. And what is
the Soul. Here our knowldge in great measure fails us
for though our consciousness extends to the thoughts,
(which are the exercises) of the Soul, it does not extend to its

essence