It has been repeatedly fhewn, by fome of the ableft philofophers and metaphyficians, that the complex nature, the divifibility, and the inertnefs of matter, are totally inconfiftent with perception, thought, consciousness, fpontaneous motion, and all the other active and fimple powers which evidently distinguish our mental part; that all the poffible arrangements, combinations, and modifications of figure and motion, can generate nothing but figure and motion; and that it is just as credible, that the union of a taste and a colour fhould produce a found, as that any thing so totally remote from all refemblance to the properties of body, as intelligence plainly is, should refult from the mechanical operations of any corporeal fyftem, however curiously contrived, difpofed, or organized.

Arguments of this kind, if unfolded and pursued to their full extent, would afford very fatisfactory proofs of an incorporeal percipient. But I forbear leading you further into fuch difcuffions; not only because they are unsuitable to this place, and would bewilder us in an endless labyrinth of minute

and

and abftruse investigations, but also for this plain reafon; because, after all, it might be faid, that, although perception and reflexion. cannot perhaps be the natural refult of mere matter and motion, yet God certainly may, if he thinks fit, fupernaturally annex them to a system of organized matter, fuch as the medullary substance of the brain probably is.

Now it would undoubtedly be prefumptuous in man to decide with peremptory boldness, what is, or is not, poffible for his Creator to do, and to prefcribe bounds to his almighty power; but thus much we may be allowed to fay, that Omnipotence itself cannot work a contradiction; and to our weak apprehenfions it has very much the appearance of a contradiction, to ingraft felfmotion, activity, intelligence, volition, confcioufnefs, fimplicity, and indivifibility, on a dead clod of earth; on a fubftance, which, if we may either credit our fenfes, or the fentiments of the most eminent philofophers, is a folid, extended, compound, divifible mafs, incapable of changing its own ftate,

and

and making refistance to motion *. For, refine and fubtilize matter as much as you please, yet still it must retain its effential characteristic properties; and it is not very credible that it should have two different fets of properties belonging to it, equally effential, and diametrically oppofite to each other. Of fuch an union as this, we have no instance in nature, nor is there any analogy that can lead us to expect it, or think it poffible. Nothing less, one should think, could induce any one to adopt fo harsh a conclufion, than the clearest and most decifive evidence that

• The reader will perceive that here, and in other parts of this discourse, I adhere to the received opinion of the folidity, impenetrability, and vis inertia of matter. At the fame time, I am not ignorant that it has of late been controverted, and a very different fyftem advanced, by men of confiderable ability. But, notwithstanding the great ingenuity of their arguments, I must confess myself not very willing to abandon the principles of fuch men as Locke, Clarke, Newton, Maclaurin, &c. &c. ; and perhaps the intelligent reader will be difpofed to think this attachment to old opinions, fomething more than early prejudice, when he has perufed with care Mr. De Luc's Lettres Morales et Phyfiques, tom. i. D. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; where he will find this very abstruse question discussed, and in my conception decided, with a truly philofophical penetration, clearnefs, and precifion.

there

there cannot poffibly be immaterial substance.

any fuch thing as an

But fo far is this

from being capable of proof, that the actual existence of such fubftances is a truth which refts on the highest authority, and is fupported by arguments which have never yet been overthrown.

In the very first dawn of philofophy, two forts of substances, effentially different from each other, were 'fuppofed to exist, which were distinguished by the names of MIND and BODY. This distinction was exprefsly maintained by Plato, Aristotle, and almost all the antient Theifts, from Thales down to Seneca. Many of them held also, that BODY, or MATTER, was in its own nature effentially paffive, inert, and incapable of moving itself, and that the only active power in the universe was MIND, or incorporeal fubftance*, This

* Ικανωλαία δεδεικίαι ψυχη των παύλων πρεσβυλαίη, γινομένη τε αρχή zivnoɛws. Plato de Leg. 1. x. p. 952. Ed. Fic.

Της μεν ύλης το πασχειν εςι και το κινείσθαι τη δε κινειν και το molen Elegas duvaμews. Ariftotle de Gen. & Carrupt. 1. ii. r. 9. 2.407. See alfo Phyf. l. viii. c. 5. p. 325. and Metaphyf. I. xii. <. 7. p. 741. And in his book de Anim. l. i. c. 2. he gives the opinions of feveral antient philofophers concerning MIND, of whom the greater part agree in making it the principle of motion.

great

great principle they fuppofed to be diffused through every part of nature *; they conceived it to be the immediate cause of vegetation, animal life, and intelligence, and they feem to have thought it impoffible that there ever should have been any such thing as motion in the world, had there never been any other substance existing in it but matter +.

This idea, instead of being reprobated by the wonderful discoveries and fuperior lights of modern philosophy, receives, on the contrary, the ampleft confirmation from them. It is well known to be an established principle of this philosophy, to be laid down as

* See those well-known and beautiful lines in Virgil: Principio cælum et terras, &c. Æn. I. vi. v. 724. And again, Deum namque ire per omnes, &c. Georg. iv. v. 221.

On these principles of the antient philofophy, is founded the PLASTIC NATURE of the profound and learned Cudworth; and also that hypothefis of the univerfal dominion of MIND; and the existence of a diftinct, internal, active principle in every part of nature (not excepting even inanimate fubftances) which is maintained by the very ingenious author of a book lately published, entitled Antient Metaphyfics. This system, few, I conceive, will be difpofed to admit in all its extent; but yet the lovers of antient learning and philofophy will receive from it much curious information; and the advocates for immaterialism will find in it some new arguments for that doctrine well worthy their attention.

the