306 Thesoul necejsarily living,

in this period; for the fame reason. Forrational pleasure is such that we might say>the Author of our beings was not infinitelyrational, if ever it were to have an end. Uponthis and other accounts, I shall afterward en-quire as exactly as I am capable, into the na-ture and extent of these two different kindsof pleasure, sensual and rational. But to re-turn from this digression, to where we leftoff at N° 9. concerning the indesinent acti-vity of the foul in a state of separation.

XVII. It will possibly he said, that thoughit may be easily conceived that the humanfoul should be incessantlypercipient of some-thing or other, yet it seems hard to imagingthat it should be incessantly aBive-, that if jtis only active by willing , and only wills, whenit turns its perceptivity from the consideration

of one object to another, it must at that ratebe incessantly shifting the objects of its con-templation ; and for it to dwell on the con-sideration of any one, for any time, WO u ‘ abe impossible: that we have experience, ev enwhen the body is best disposed, of its bein£merely passive, and percipient only of obje^offered to it, without its own activity exerts