Actual Matters

The soul is attributed with a body too, but one that is composed of very fine and spiritual substance, which is nobler than the rest of the body. To this we respond: although it is difficult to fully comprehend that the soul, being completely immaterial, nevertheless has a mutual relationship with our body and five senses, and can be affected by them; yet we believe it is not entirely hard to understand that thought and the consciousness of that thought cannot be an action of any body, as it directly contradicts the clear idea we have of the properties of a body. Nor can the wonderful arrangement and combination of the parts of our body produce such a thing: it has not been evidenced as probable; and placing it in a finer or thinner body, or adjusting its nature, does not entirely change the nature of a thing. Therefore, we believe that the idea we have of a body (whether fine or coarse, which gives nothing to its nature) never includes a capacity that is capable of thinking by itself, much less of thinking in and of itself. Thus, ideas of things we can call bodies must remain distinct. In ourselves, we find that when we detach our thinking from our bodies and free the spirit from the constraints of the body and go outside ourselves, then we can form the purest and most unblemished thoughts without any tools.

Bodies cannot think of themselves.