Another fruit from the considering things in themselves abstract from our opinions and other men’s notions and discourses on them, will be, that each man will pursue his thoughts in that method which will be most agreeable to the nature of the thing, and to his apprehension of what it suggests to him.
When we make our own thoughts and passion, and the various operations of our minds, the objects of our attention, either while they are present or when they are recent and fresh in our memory, this act of the mind is called reflection. Attention is the energy of the mind directed towards things present. Reflection has to do with things past and the ideas of them. Attention may employ the organs of the body. Reflection is purely a mental operation.
