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One of their chief arguments is, that felf-consciousnefs cannot inhere in any fyftem of matter, because all matter is made up of feveral diftinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being.

This is easily answered by a familiar inftance. In every jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which neither refides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the refult of the whole compo fition: fo in an animal, the felf-consciousness is not a real quality inherent in one being (any more than meat-roafting in a jack), but the refult of feveral modes or qualities in the fame fubject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, &c. make one jack; so the several parts of the body make one animal. As perception or confcioufness is said to be inherent in this animal; fo is meatroafting faid to be inherent in the jack. As fenfation, reafoning, volition, memory, &c. are the feveral modes of thinking; so roafting of beef, roafting of mutton, roafting of pullets, geele, turkeys, &c. are the feveral modes of meat-roafting. And as the general quantity of meatroafting, with its feveral modifications as to beef, mut. ton, pullets, &c. does not inhere in any one part of the jack; fo neither does consciousness, with its feveral modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, &c. inhere in any one, but is the refult from the mechanical compofition of the whole animal.

Juft fo, the quality or difpofition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the feveral modifications of this tune-playing quality, in playing of preludes, farabands, jigs, and gavotts, are as much real qualities in the inftrument, as the thought or the imagination is in the mind of the perfon that compofes them.

The parts, fay they, of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which feem to be the fubject of confcioufnels, are in a perpetual circulation; so that the fame individual particles do not remain in the brain from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual confciousness must be conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for

This whole chapter is an inimitable ridicule on Collins's arguments against Clarke, to prove the foul only a quality. W. VOL. V.

E

ex,

example, must not only be confcious, but confcious that it is the fame being with the particle B that went before.

We anfwer; this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other sense than that maxim of the English law, that the King never dies. This power of thinking, felf moving, and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every particle to its im mediate fucceffor; who, as foon as he is gone, immedi. ately takes upon him the government, which still preferves the unity of the whole fyftem.

They make a great noife about this individuality: how a man is confcious to himself that he is the fame individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of matter that compote his body. We think this is capable of a very plain anfwer, and may be cafily illuftrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned fo often with filk, that they be came at laft a pair of filk ftockings. Now, fuppofing thole ftockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of con fcioufnels at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this fen fation would have continued in them through all the fuc ceflion of darnings: and yet, after the laft of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stock. ings, but they were grown to be filk ftockings, as was faid before.

And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is con fcious of fome individual felf-moving, felf-determining principle; it is aufwered, that, as in the Houfe of Com mons all things are determined by a majority, so it is in every animal fyftem. As that which determines the Houle, is faid to be the reafon of the whole affembly; it is no otherwife with thinking beings, who are determined by the greater force of feveral particles; which, like fo many unthinking members, compofe one thinking fyftem.

And whereas it is likewife objected, that punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted upon the fame individual, which cannot fubfift without the notion of a fpiritual fubftance: we reply, that this is no greater difficul ty to conceive, than that a corporation, which is likewife

a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the ftructure of the brain, the several modes of thinking. It is well known to anatomists, that the brain is a congeries of glands, that feparate the finer parts of the blood, called animal spirits; that a gland is nothing but a canal of a great length, variously intorted and wound up together. From the variation and motion of the fpirits in thofe canals, proceed all the different forts of thoughts. Simple ideas are produced by the motion of the fpirits in one fimple canal; when two of thefe canals difembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a propofition; and when two of thefe propofitional channels empty themfelves into a third, they form a fyllogifin, or a ratiocination. Memory is performed in a diftinct apartment of the brain, made up of veffels fimilar, and like fituated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogiftical veffels, in the prima ry parts of the brain. After the fame manner, it is easy to explain the other modes of thinking; as alfo why fome people think fo wrong and perverfely, which proceeds from the bad configuration of thofe glands. Some, for example, are born without the propofitional or fyllogiftical canals; in others, that reafon ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, where by the motion of the fpirits is retarded; in trifling geni ufes, weak and finall; in the over-refining fpirits, too much intorted and winding; and fo of the rest.

We are fo much perfuaded of the truth of this our hypothefis, that we have employed one of our members, a great virtuofo at Nuremberg, to make a fort of an hydrulic engine, in which a chemical liquor, refembling blood, is driven through elaftic channels refémbling arteries and veins, by the force of an embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatic machine of the nature of the lungs, with ropes and pullies, like the nerves, tendons, and mufcles and we are perfuaded, that this our artificial man will not only walk, and fpeak, and perform most of the outward actions of the animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reafon as well as most of your country parlons.

:

We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of

having you a member of our fociety, and beg leave to af fure you that we are, &c.

What return Martin made to this obliging letter we muft defer to another occafion : let it fuffice at present to tell, that Crambe was in great rage at them, for ftealing, as he thought, a hint from his Theory of Syllogifms, without doing him the honour fo much as to mention him. He advised his master by no means to enter into their fociety, unless they would give him fufficient fecurity, to bear him harmlefs from any thing that might happen after this prefent life.

CHAP. XIII.

Of the feceffion of Martinus, and fome hint of his travels.

IT

Twas in the year 1699 that Martin fet out on his travels. Thou wilt certainly be very curious to know what they were. It is not yet time to inform thee. But what hints I am at liberty to give, I will.

Thou fhalt know then, that, in his first voyage he was carried by a profperous storm, to a difcovery of the remains of the ancient Pygmæan empire,

That, in his fecond, he was as happily fhipwrecked on the land of the giants, now the most humane people in the world.

That, in his third voyage, he difcovered a whole kingdom of philofophers, who govern by the mathematics ; with whofe admirable fchemes and projects he returned to benefit his own dear country; but had the misfortune to find them rejected by the envious minifters of Queen Anne, and himself fent treacheroufly away.

And hence it is, that, in his fourth voyage, he discovers a vein of melancholy, proceeding almost to a disgust of his fpecies; but above all, a mortal deteftation to the whole flagitious race of minifters, and a final resolution not to give in any memorial to the Secretary of fate, in order to fubject the lands he difcovered to the crown of Great Britain.

Now if, by these hints, the reader can help himself to a far

a farther difcovery of the nature and contents of these travels, he is welcome to as much light as they afford him; I am obliged, by all the ties of honour, not to fpeak more openly.

But if any man fhall ever fee fuch very extraordinary voyages, into fuch very extraordinary.nations, which manifeft the most diftinguished marks of a philofopher, a po. litician, and a legiflator; and can imagine them to belong to a furgeon of a ship, or a captain of a merchantman, let him remain in his ignorance.

And whoever he be that fhall further obferve, in every page of fuch a book, that cordial love of mankind, that: inviolable regard to truth, that pasion for his dear country, and that particular attachment to the excellent princefs Queen Anne; furely that man deferves to be pitied,. if by all thofe vifible figns and characters, he cannot diftinguish and acknowledge the great Scriblerus*.

CHAP XIV..

Of the difcoveries and works of the great Scriblerus,. made and to be made, written and to be written, known and unknown.

HR

ERE therefore, at this great period, we end our first book. And here, O reader, we intreat thee utterly to forget all thou haft hitherto read, and to caft thy eyes only forward, to that boundless field the next fhall open unto thee; the fruits of which (if thine, or our fins do not prevent) are to spread and multiply over this our work, and over all the face of the earth.

In the mean time, know what thou oweft, and what thou yet mayst owe, to this excellent perfon, this prodigy of our age; who may well be called, The philofopher of ultimate caufes, fince, by a fagacity peculiar to himfelf, he hath discovered effects in their very caufes; and without the trivial helps of experiments, or obfervations, hath been the inventor of most of the modern fyftems and hypothefes.

* Gulliver's Travels were first intended as a part of Scriblerus'sMemoirs.

Warburton.

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