a wonderfull contrivance. But I fhall deny then that they have any Reason or Sense, if they be nothing but Matter. Omnipotence it self cannot create cogitative Body. And 'tis not any imperfecti on in the power of God, but an incapacity in the Subject; The Idea's of Matter and Thought are abfolutely incompatible. And this the Cartefians themselves do allow. Do but convince Them, that Brutes have the leaft participation of Thought, or Will, or Appetite, or Sensation, or Fancy; and they'll readily retract their Opinion. For none but befotted Atheists, do joyn the two Notions together, and believe Brutes to be rational or fenfitive Machins. They are either the one or the other; ek ther endued with Senfe and fome glimmering Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter; or (as the Cartefians fay) they are purely Body, void of all Senfation and Life: and like the Idols of the Gentiles, they have eyes and fee not; ears, and hear not ; nofes, and smell not: they eat without hunger, and drink without thirst, and howl without pain. They perform the outward material actions; but they have no inward Self-consciousness, nor any more Perception of what they do or fuffer, than a Looking Glass has of the Objects it reflects, or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to. And as one of those Watches, when it was first presented

to the Emperour of China, was taken there for an Animal: fo on the contrary, our Cartefians take brute Animals for a fort of Watches. For confidering the infinite diftance betwixt the poor mortal Artist, and the Almighty Opificer; the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch, and the innumerable Springs and Organs in the Bodies of Brutes; they may affirm (as they think, without either abfurdity or impiety) that they are nothing but moving Automata, as the fabulous Statues of Dedalus, be- * Vide Zereaved of all true life, and vital Sensation; which Suidam ix never act spontaneously and freely, but as Watches ποιήματα, must be wound up to set them a going; fo their & Scholi aftem EuMotions also are excited and inhibited, are modera- rip. Hecuted and managed by the Objects without them.

(2.) And now that I have gone through the fix parts that I propofed, and fufficiently fhewn that Senfe and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter and Motion; it remains therefore, that it must neceffarily proceed from some Incorporeal Subftance within us. And though we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul's Action and Paffion; nor what hold it can lay on the Body, when it voluntarily moves it: yet we are as certain, that it doth fo, as of any Mathematical Truth whatfoever; or at least of such as are proved from the Impoffibility.

nobium

Δαιδάλο

bæ 1.838.

Impoffibility or Abfurdity of the Contrary, a way of Proof that is allowed for infallible Demonftration. Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of Pleasure in the Mind, another an Idea of Pain; why such a difpofition of the Body induces Sleep, another difturbs all the operations of the Soul, and occafions a Lethargy or Frenzy; this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties, and is out of the reach of our discovery. I difcern fome excellent Final causes of fuch a vital Conjunction of Body and Soul; but the inftrumental I know not, nor what invifible Bands and Fetters unite them together. I refolve all that into the fole Pleasure and Fiat of our Omnipotent Creator: whose Existence (which is my laft Point) is so plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul; that no wonder the refolved Atheifts do fo labour and beftir themselves to fetch Senfe and Perception out of the Power of Matter. I will dispatch it in three words. For fince we have fhewn, that there is an Incorporeal Substance within us: whence did that proceed, and how came it into Being? It did not exift from all Eternity, that's too abfurd to be fuppofed; nor could it come out of nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause. Something therefore muft have created our Souls out of Nothing; and that Something (fince nothing can give more than

it has) muft it self have all the Perfections, that it hath given to them. There is therefore an immaterial and intelligent Being, that created our Souls: which Being was either eternal it felf, or created im mediately or ultimately by fome other Eternal, that has all thofe Perfections. There is therefore Originally an Eternal, Immaterial, Intelligent Creator; all which together are the Attributes of God alone.

And now that I have finished all the parts, which I proposed to difcourfe of; I will conclude all with a fhort application to the Atheists. And I would advise them as a Friend, to leave off this dabbling and fmattering in Philosophy, this fhuffling and cutting with Atoms. It never fucceeded well with them, and they always come off with the lofs.. Their old Mafter Epicurus feems to have had his Brains fo muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever kept in the right way; though the main Maxim of his Philofophy was to truft to his Senfes, and follow his Nofe. I will not take no- Epicurus tice of his doting conceit, that the Sun and Moon Lucret.1.5. are no bigger, than they appear to the Eye, a foot Cicero de or half a yard over; and that the Stars are no cad.. 2. larger than so many Glow-worms. But let us fee how he manages his Atoms, those Almighty Tools that do every thing of themselves without the help

apud Laert.

Fin. 1.1. A

of

Cic de Fato.

Nat. Deo

Lucret 1.2. of a Workman. When the Atoms (fays he) defcend &L.1.de in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make rum Plu- High and Low in Infinity) they do not fall plumb tarch, &c. down, but decline a little from the Perpendicular, either obliquely or in a Curve: and this Declination (fays he) from the direct Line is the cause of our Liberty of Will. But, I fay, this Declination of Atoms in their Descent, was it self either neceffary or voluntary. If it was neceffary, how then could that Neceffity ever beget Liberty? if it was voluntary, then Atoms had that power of Volition before: and what becomes then of the Epicurean Doctrine of the fortuitous Production of Worlds? The whole business is Contradiction and ridiculous Nonfenfe. 'Tis as if one should say, that a Bowl equally poized, and thrown upon a plain and smooth BowlingGreen, will run necessarily and fatally in a direct Motion: but if it be made with a Byas, that may decline it a little from a ftraight Line, it may ac quire by that Motion a Liberty of Will, and fo run spontaneously to the Jack. It would behoove the Atheists to give over fuch trifling as this, and refume the old folid way of confuting Religion. They should deny the Being of the Soul, because they cannot fee it. This would be an invincible Argument against us: for we can never exhibit it to their Touch, nor expose it to their View; nor

fhew