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tion, affociation, &c. and the various faculties of the mind, to which thofe affections of our fenfations and ideas give rise, as memory, judgment, volition, the paffions, &c. will admit of a fatisfactory illuftration on the principles of vibration, which is an affection of a material fubftance. I, therefore, admit of no argument for the spirituality of the foul, from the confideration of the exquifiteness, fubtlety, or complexness of the mental powers, on which much ftrefs has been laid by fome; there being in matter a capacity for affections as fubtle and complex as any thing that we can affirm concerning those that have hitherto been called mental affections. I confider Hartley's Theory of the Mind, as a practical anfwer to all objections of this kind.

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OBJECTION II. From abftract Ideas.

Matter," fays Mr. Wollafton*,

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can

never, by itself, entertain abstracted, or ge"neral ideas, fuch as many in our minds are. "For could it reflect upon what paffes within itself, it could poffibly find there nothing "but material and particular impreffions. "Abstract and metaphysical ideas could not "be found upon

it.'

But Mr. Locke, and others, have observed, that all actual ideas are, in fact, particular, and that abftraction is nothing more than

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* P. 357. I

leaving

leaving out of a number of resembling ideas, what is peculiar to each, and confidering only what is common to them all.

OBJECTION III.

From the Influence of Reofons.

Mr. Wollafton argues, that the mind cannot be material, because it is influenced by reasons. "When I begin to move myself," fays he*, “I do it for fome reason, and with

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refpect to fome end. But who can imagine "matter to be moved by arguments, or "ever ranked fyllogifms and demonftrations among levers and pullies?-Do we not fee, in converfation, how a pleasant thing "will make people break out into laughter,

a rude thing into a paffion, and so on. "Thefe affections cannot be the phyfical ef"fects of the words fpoken, because then "they would have the fame effect, whether they were understood or not. It is, there

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fore, the fenfe of the words, which is an "immaterial thing, that by paffing through "the understanding, and caufing that which " is the fubject of the intellectual faculties to "influence the body, produces thofe motions "in the fpirits, blood, and muscles."

I anfwer, that, fince it is a fact, that reafons, whatever they be, do ultimately move matter, there is certainly much lefs difficulty

* P. 355.

in

in conceiving that they may do this, in confequence of their being the affection of fome material fubftance, than upon the hypothefis of their belonging to a fubftance that has no common property with matter. It is acknowledged, that fyllogifms and demonftrations are not levers and pullies, but neither are the effects of gun-powder, in removing the heavieft bodies, produced by levers and pullies, and yet they are produced by a material caufe. To fay that reafons and ideas are not things material, or the affections of a material fubftance, is to take for granted the very thing to be proved.

OBJECTION IV. From the Unity of ConSciousness.

It is afferted, that the foul of man cannot be material and divisible, because the principle of consciousness, which comprehends the whole of the thinking power, is neceffarily fimple, and indivifible. But before this can be admitted as any argument, it should be strictly defined what unity of consciousness means. I profefs, that those who have hitherto written about it, have given me no clear ideas upon the fubject. The only meaning that I can annex to the words unity of consciousness, is a feeling or perception of the unity of my nature, or being; but all that can be inferred from this is, that I am only one person, one fen

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tient

tient and thinking being; and not two perfons, or two fentient or thinking beings; which is no more an argument that this one fentient being cannot be divided, than that a sphere, being one thing, is a proof that it likewife confifts of indivifible materials. It is true, that it is impoffible to divide a sphere so as to make it two fpheres; but ftill the matter of which it confifts is, ftrictly speaking, divisible, and the matter of it may be fo difunited, that it fhall intirely cease to be a sphere. So, though that fyftem of intelligence, which we call the foul of a man, cannot be divided into two fyftems of intelligence, it may be fo divided, or diffolved, as to become no fyftem of intelligence at all. If any perfon can define unity of confcioufness in a manner more favourable to the proof of the immateriality of the foul, I fhall be glad to hear it, and to attend to it.

OBJECTION V. From a feparate Confcioufnefs not belonging to every Particle of the Brain.

It is faid to be à decifive argument against materialism, that the confciousness of existence cannot be annexed to the whole brain, as a fyftem, while the individual particles of which it confifts are feparately inconfcious; fince the whole brain, being a collection of parts, can

not

not poffefs any thing but what is derived from them*.

But furely there may be a feparate unity of the whole nervous fyftem, as well as of one atom; and if the perception that we call confciousness, or that of any other complex idea, neceffarily confifts in, or depends upon, a very complex vibration, it cannot poffibly belong to a fingle atom, but muft belong to a vibrating fyftem, of some extent.

A certain quantity of nervous fyftem is neceffary to fuch complex ideas and affections. as belong to the human mind; and the idea of felf, or the feeling that correfponds to the pronoun I (which is what some may mean by consciousness) is not effentially different from other complex ideas, that of our country, for inftance. This is a term by which we denote a part of the world fubject to that form of government, by the laws of which we ourselves are bound, as diftinguished from other countries, fubject to other political fyftems of government; and the term felf denotes that fubstance, which is the feat of that particular set of fenfations and ideas, of which those that are then recollected make a part, as diftinguished from other fubftances, which are the feat of fimilar fets of fenfations and ideas. But it may be neceffary to confider this objection, with refpect to the faculty of fimple perception, exclufive of the general feeling of conSciousness.

* See Letters on Materialism, p. 67.
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