3812. I perceived that those of this quality who retain so little of their own, can indeed belong to societies, but they are scarcely aware of the fact; they are, as it were, subjects, and as to their propria inanimate, and serving in societies for bonds of connection, or as mere insertions in respect to such bonds, answering the same purpose as certain words in discourse, which merely perform the office of connectives, without contributing anything of account to the subject-matter, because there is nothing essential in them. Whether they can also serve for subjects through which others speak, without knowing whether it is themselves or the others [that really speak], as is the case with some subjects, I do not yet know; but so it appears, for of themselves they know almost nothing. - 1748, November 1, 2.