we could see, if Dr. Hartley's conjecture were proved by actual observation; because this is all that exists in motion, according to our conception of it, and all that we mean when we say that there is motion in any substance. Is it intelligible then to say, that this motion, the whole of which we see and comprehend, is thought and feeling; and that thought and feeling will exist wherever we can excite a similar motion in a similar substance?"" The thing is altogether beyond our comprehension.

That there is a material machinery, capable of being moved and operated on, by certain impulses, for the production of thought, we will not deny-but that these impulses, and the movements of this machinery, are thought and feeling we do. They may be the occasions of these things, but must not be confounded with them. For there is no conceivable affinity between them, however intimately they may be connected.

Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood?
A branching channel and a mazy flood?

The purple stream that through my vessels glides,
Dull and unconscious flows like common tides:
The pipes, thro' which the circling juices stray,
Are not that thinking I, no more than they,
This frame, compacted with transcendent skill,
Of moving joints obedient to my will,
Nursed from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
Waxes and wastes: I call it mine not me.
New matter still the mouldering mass sustains,
The mansion changed, the tenant still remains,
And from the fleeting stream repaired by food,
Distinct as is the swimmer from the flood.

As to the idea that thought is a quality of matter, a little reflection will convince every one that perception itself must, according to this theory, be a quality. But this is an abuse of terms. Perception is an act of which the percipient being is conscious. It cannot therefore be intelligibly called, a quality of that which it perceives. All the 1. Edinburgh Rev. vol. ix. p. 153.

qualities of matter may be divided into primary and es

To the first class beTo this class thought

sential, and secondary or accidental. long extension, solidity and figure. cannot belong, because many modifications of matter are destitute of it. If it be said to resemble the accidental qualities of matter, such as heat or colour which are not inseparable or permanent, we reply that heat, and light which is essential to colour, are themselves material substances. Should we call thought a material substance as we do light, and heat, we must expect the laws of the.material world to operate on it, and that it is liable to attraction, repulsion, condensation, or reflection, as are light and heat which is absurd.

Whatever view then we take of the subject we are convinced that the theory of materialism is alike unintelligible and absurd, What can we make of it, when it confounds the act of perceiving, with the qualities perceived, and makes the very objects of perception the faculty or act by which these objects are introduced to our knowledge, and especially, when it confounds the motions of the brain with the effects which they produce, and makes mind to be the mere play of vibratiuncula, produced alike by impressions from without and certain undefined and unoriginated motions from within?

To deny the existence of spirit because of any supposed want of relation to space, is certainly unphilosophical, When it is contended that matter must always have some relation to space, it is supposed that the advocates of imterial existences maintain, that spirit possesses no such relation, and therefore that it can exist no where. Who does not see the sophistry of this reasoning? It is not maintained that spirit exists without reference to space, but, that its relation to space cannot be understood or estimated by us as we do that of matter. God exists every where. He has some relation to infinite space. A profound wri

ter has supposed infinite space to be the property of Deity. Time and place are necessary to the existence of all created being. The assumption of Dr. Priestley, therefore, is not true that the advocates of spiritual existence deny its relation to space. If it is asserted to be regulated by different laws, that authorizes not the denial of such relation. For to do so would be to assume the point in dispute that there can be no existence which does not follow the law by which material substances are bound to space, that is, that no other than material substances exist. We know that God does exist, that He is a Spirit, and that He is related to space, and is it therefore absurd, and unphilosophical to suppose that there can be created spirits too, not regulated by the laws which govern material existence?

The same mode of reasoning will expose the fallacy of the argument against immaterial existence from the alleged incapacity of spirit to act on matter. When it is admitted that spirit and matter are essentially different, devoid of common properties, it is with as much want of philosophy as of truth inferred that therefore, the one cannot act upon the other. Since if this proves any thing, it proves too much. For it is admitted, that God is a most pure spirit, and yet He does operate on matter-yea, and has created the world and all things out of nothing, between which and Himself there are no common properties. The whole force of this argument depends on the assumption, that unless substances are possessed of common properties, they cannot act on each other. This must be proved before the argument is worth any thing. But such proof cannot be adduced, as we have already shewn, that God, in two respects, furnishes a proof to the contrary. If there is any truth and force in the argument, it must prove these two monstrous absurdities and falsities, that it was impossible for God to create

the world out of nothing, and that God Himself is a material being. And indeed this, though denied by Dr. Priestley, is affirmed by others, which, if adopted and followed out to its legitimate results, will lead us to blank atheism; and the infinite intelligence and wisdom, the Divine Mind will become nothing else than the mere motions or v bratiunculæ of a concatenated universe, and must be confined to some locality correspendent with the human encephalon!!!

We cannot dismiss this topic without submitting to our readers the following very short and simple method of refuting the error of the materialists. If thought be a property or quality of matter, it must be, either resident in the original elementary undivided atoms that compose a body, or it must be superadded to some organized body. It cannot be a quality of simple matter, for there is a unity in our consciousness, which proves, most satisfactorily, that all the atoms composing our bodies do not think. There ought to be as many consciousnesses as there are atoms in our bodies, if thought, of which consciousness is but one form, is a property of simple matter.

It remains for the materialist who affirms this, to account for the entire unity of our consciousness and mental acts. Should this be attempted, and we be referred to the organic structure of the human body, as a sufficient solution of the inquiry, we may remark that if matter be not essentially conscious, that is, if every atom does not think separately and independently, no system of atoms in any possible composition, or attenuation, or division can be an individual conscious being.

Suppose, for example, a line of telegraphic communication, the parts or particles of which system, let us say, are arranged each at 10 or more miles distant, and spreading over a space of 100 or 1000 miles; is it at all possible or

conceivable, that this system, adapted to the transmission. of intelligence most rapidly from one extreme to the other, is one individual conscious being? Yet why not on the materialist's supposition? Are the particles too far apart from each other? Then what is the degree of proximity requisite?

Suppose that all these different parts be brought together into such close contact and be connected by such mechanism as that, when one part is moved, it shall transmit its motions from the one end to the other throughout the whole line? Does this juxta-position render the parts less distinct individual beings, or communicate a capacity for thought to the whole connected series? How can their being disposed in such or any other possible system, make them one individual conscious being? Is it not utterly absurd-at war with the common sense of mankind, to attribute thought to the mill, or steam engine, or any other piece of complicated mechanism? Yet if mere mechanism, or the composition and arrangement of parts into one general system so that their motions shall be adapted and communicated to each other, and be transmitted from or to one common centre, is suficient to account for the production of thought, why do not the mill and engine think? May not the human body as furnished with its admirably adjusted system of nerves, be justly styled a line of telegraphic communication? The impression is transmitted from the surface or extremity, to the encephalon or centre, or other extremity. Does the capability of transmitting such impression constitute the body a thinking substance? No more surely when the apparatus is material nerves, or cords, or tubes, whatever they be, than when it consists of boards, or blocks, or lights, or sounds.

A modern projector of telegraphic communication, by means of rods, which he proposes to have sunk in the earth