suppose this dull and heavy earth we tread upon to know how long it hath dwelt in this part of the universe that now it doth, and what variety of creatures have in all past ages sprung forth from it, and all those occurrences and events which have all this time happened upon it." * What, then, shall we say of the effects of disease and old age on the mind? That they are convincing proofs of its intimate union with the body, and of the dependence of our intellectual operations at present on our corporeal organs, cannot be disputed. But they surely ⚫ Select Discourses by John Smith of Cambridge, pp. 83, 84. I have, in another work, made some remarks on the Argument against the Immateriality of the Soul which Priestley and others have founded on the common apprehensions of mankind, as manifested in their modes of speaking on the subject.Spiritus, vua, Ghost, &c. (Phil. Essays, Ess. V. ch. ii.) The same metaphorical language, with respect to the nature of mind, occurs in one of the most classical didactic poems in our language. "There is they say (and I believe there is) Art of Preserving Health. I have quoted these lines not on account of their own merit, but as an introduction to what appears to me to be a very exceptionable remark on them, by a writer for whose taste and critical judgment I entertain a high respect. The theory," he observes, "of the union of a spiritual principle with the gross corporeal substance, is that which Armstrong adopts as the basis of his reasonings. He evidently confounds, however, (as all writers on this system do) matter of great subtlety with what is not matter-or spirit." See an ingenious and elegant Essay prefixed to the edition of Armstrong's Poems, published by J. Aikin, M. D. If this observation had been confined to the passage of Armstrong here referred to, I should not have been disposed to object to it, as I think it completely justified by some expressions which occur in the next paragraph, particularly by what is there said of the various functions which are performed "By subtle fluids pour'd through subtle tubes; " Of some of which fluids we are afterwards told that they "Are lost in thinking, and dissolved in air." It is the parenthetical clause alone (distinguished by italics) which has led me to point out to my readers the foregoing criticism of Dr. Aikin's, and in this clause I must be allowed to say, that the greatest injustice is inadvertently done to many of our best philosophers, both ancient and modern. To this note I shall only add the following query :— Whence has arisen that disposition which materialists of every description have shown to subtilize, as far as was possible for the imagination to do so, the atoms which they conceived to produce by their organization the phenomena of thought? "Quintessence d'atôme, extrait de la lumière !" Might not a plausible argument against their opinion be deduced from this acknowledged fact, by employing a mode of reasoning somewhat analogous to the method of exhaustions among the Greek geometricians? do not amount to a proof that the soul is necessarily extinguished when the body is dissolved. "Suppose a person," says Cicero, "to have been educated from his infancy in a chamber, where he enjoyed no opportunity of seeing external objects, but through a small chink in the window shutter, would he not be apt to consider this chink as essential to his vision, and would it not be difficult to persuade him that his prospects would be enlarged by demolishing the walls of his prison?" Admitting that this analogy is founded merely on fancy, yet, if it be granted that there is no absurdity in the supposition, it furnishes a sufficient answer to all the reasonings which have been stated against the possibility of the soul's separate existence from the consideration of its present union with the body. In order to be completely sensible of the force of this observation, it is necessary to attend to the distinction between the mind and its organs of sense; or, in other words, between the percipient and his organs of perception; a distinction for the illustration of which I shall again avail myself of the language of Cicero. "Nos enim ne nunc quidem oculis cernimus ea quæ videmus ; neque enim est ullus sensus in corpore, sed, ut non solum physici docent, verum etiam medici, qui ista aperta et patefacta viderunt, viæ quasi quædam sunt ad oculos, ad aures, ad nares à sede animi perforatæ. Itaque sæpe aut cogitatione aut aliquâ vi morbi impediti, apertis atque integris et oculis, et auribus, nec videmus, nec audimus: ut facile intelligi possit animum et videre et audire, non eas partes, quæ quasi fenestræ sunt animi: quibus tamen sentire nihil queat mens, nisi id agat et adsit. Quid, quod eâdem mente res dissimillimas comprehendimus, ut colorem, saporem, calorem, odorem, sonum? quæ numquam quinque nuntiis animus cognosceret, nisi ad eum omnia referrentur, et is omnium judex solus esset. Atque ea profectò tum multo puriora et dilucidiora cernentur, cum, quo natura fert, liber animus pervenerit. Nam nunc quidem, quamquam foramina illa, quæ patent ad animum a corpore, callidissimo artificio natura fabricata est, tamen terrenis concretisque corporibus sunt intersepta quodammodo : cum autem nihil erit præter ani mum, nulla res objecta impediet, quo minus percipiat, quale quidque sit."* In support of the foregoing conclusions many strong arguments might be derived from an accurate examination and analysis of our ideas of matter and its qualities; but as such speculations would necessarily engage me in a discussion of some principles, about which philosophers are not as yet perfectly agreed, I shall content myself with barely hinting at my ideas on this subject, without aiming at a complete illustration of the argument. It is well known to those who are at all acquainted with the present state of natural philosophy, that a new theory with respect to matter was proposed not many years ago by the late celebrated Father Boscovich. According to this theory we are taught that the quality of impenetrability, which commonly enters into our idea of matter, does not belong to it, and that the qualities of hardness and softness have always a reference to the force we employ in compressing bodies. As what is hard to an infant may be soft to a man, so what is hard when compared with human strength may be soft when compared with that of more powerful beings. When we have exerted all our force in attempting to compress Tuscul. Disputationum, Liber Primus, c. 20. The same idea which runs through this passage has been adopted and placed in some new lights by an old English poet, whose works are less known than they deserve to be, Sir John Davies, Attorney General in Ireland under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. VOL. V. "So though the clouds eclipse the sun's fair light, Then these defects in sense's organs be Not in the soul, nor in her working might; These imperfections, then, we must impute We must not blame Apollo but his lute, If false accords from her false strings be sent. As a good harper striken far in years, But if Apollo takes his gout away, a body, and find that we cannot diminish its volume any further, the resistance it opposes to our efforts is not an absolute incompressibility, but an incompressibility relative to our strength. With a greater force it might be reduced within a volume still smaller, and with a force sufficiently great its volume might be made to vanish into nothing. Matter, therefore, it is concluded, is nothing but a power of resistance, and there is no such thing in nature as atoms perfectly hard and absolutely impenetrable. With respect to this theory of Boscovich's I shall not venture to give any decided opinion. That it is attended with some difficulties must I think be granted by its most zealous advocates; but, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that he has been successful in establishing three propositions. 1. That the supposition of impenetrable particles is liable to strong, if not to insurmountable objections. 2. That there are no facts which afford any direct evidence of it. And 3. That there are some striking facts which favor the opposite hypothesis. In proof of the last proposition it is sufficient to appeal to those experiments which have led modern philosophers to conclude, that all bodies exert a repulsive power, extending to a certain distance from their surfaces, and that the common effects which are attributed to contact and collision are produced by this repulsion. We know that when a convex lens is laid on a plane glass a very great compressive power may be employed without producing actual contact; and we also know, from some electrical phenomena, that the links of a metallic chain are not in contact with each other, even when the chain is stretched by very heavy weights. The same phenomena, therefore, may be produced by repulsion which we commonly ascribe to contact; and if so, why not attribute to the same cause all effects of the same nature? Accordingly, Boscovich denies the existence of impenetrable particles, and supposes matter to be composed of unextended elements (mere mathematical points) exerting powers of repulsion, so as to produce the same appearances which would take place on the common supposition. On this doctrine with respect to matter, or at least on a doctrine extremely similar to it, Dr. Priestley has founded his reasonings against the immateriality of the soul; and it is from these premises he has attempted to show that the extinction of the sentient and thinking principle must necessarily result from the dissolution of the body. But it appears to me, that, if Boscovich's theory be admitted, instead of establishing materialism, it destroys completely the foundation of that system. It is evident that, according to Boscovich's idea, all that we know of the impenetrability of matter amounts to this, that there exist certain repulsive forces which counteract those compressing forces we ourselves exert. Now, if this is the case, we must ascribe these forces to something analogous to that of which we are conscious in ourselves. In other words, we must ascribe them to the agency of mind; for active force is an attribute of mind just as much as sensation or thought. Matter, therefore, is not a thing which has a separate and independent existence, but an effect which is continued by the constant agency of Divine Power. I formerly endeavoured to show that, in the phenomena of gravitation, and in general in the changes which take place in the state of the material universe, the incessant agency of the Deity, or of some subordinate mind, is indispensably necessary to account for the effects. And this seems now to be the opinion of all the best philosophers. But, according to Boscovich's theory, the constant agency of the Deity is carried much further than any philosopher has hitherto apprehended; for it appears to be necessary to account for even the solidity or impenetrability of matter; that quality which is generally considered as constituting the very essence of matter, or at least to be inseparable from the idea of it. The ancient philosophers, even those of them who were theists, believed matter to be eternal as well as mind. Modern theists in general suppose matter to have been originally created by the Deity, but to have derived. from him a separate and independent existence. But, according to Boscovich's theory, the existence of matter is a constant effect of Divine Power; and, if this pow |