active substance or Spirit.

27. NO IDEA OF SPIRIT.--A spirit is one simple, undivided, active
being--as it perceives ideas it is called the UNDERSTANDING, and as it
produces or otherwise operates about them it is called the WILL. Hence
there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever,
being passive and inert (vide sect. 25), they cannot represent unto us,
by way of image or LIKENESS, that which acts. A little attention will make
it plain to any one, that to have an idea which shall be like that active
principle of motion and change of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is
the nature of SPIRIT, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself
perceived, BUT ONLY BY THE EFFECTS WHICH IT PRODUCETH. If any man shall
doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try
if he can frame the idea of any power or active being, and whether he has
ideas of two principal powers, marked by the names WILL and UNDERSTANDING,
distinct from each other as well as from a third idea of Substance or
Being in general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the
subject of the aforesaid powers--which is signified by the name SOUL or
SPIRIT. This is what some hold; but, so far as I can see, the words
WILL [Note: "Understanding, mind."--Edit 1710.], SOUL, SPIRIT, do not stand
for different ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something
which is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be
like unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. Though it must be owned
at the same time that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the
operations of the mind: such as willing, loving, hating--inasmuch as we
know or understand the meaning of these words.

28. I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift
the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than willing, and
straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power