at the fame time be either freed from the "laws of bodies, and fall under fome other, "which will carry it to fome proper manfion

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or ftate; or at leaft, by the old ones, "be capable of mounting upwards, in proportion to the volatility of its vehicle, and "of emerging out of these regions, into fome "medium more fuitable, and (if the philofopher may fay fo) more equilibrious."

This has the appearance of being written in ridicule of the vehicular fyftem, but it was meant to be a juft expofition and defence of it. I would obferve alfo, that this writer, taking it for granted, that all these vehicles are specifically lighter than the atmosphere that furrounds the earth, and therefore muft afcend in it, makes no provifion for the descent of any unembodied fpirit into any of the lower regions, where most of the moderns dispose of the fouls of the wicked, and where all the ancients placed the receptacle of all fouls without diftinction,

Even Dr. Hartley, who afcribes fo much to matter, and fo little to any thing immaterial in man (nothing but the faculty of fimple perception) yet fuppofes, that there is fomething intermediate between the foul and the grofs body, which he diftinguishes by the name of the infinitefimal elementary body. But, great as is my admiration of Dr. Hartley, it is very far from carrying me to adopt every thing in him. His language, in this inftance, conveys no clear ideas to my mind, and I confider both

his intermediate body, and immaterial foul, as an encumbrance upon his fyftem, which, in every other refpect, is moft admirably fimple.

I do not find, that any thing has been faid of the state of the vehicle of the foul during fleep. Does the vehicle require reft as well as the body and brain; and if the foul think during fleep, where is the repofitory of the ideas on which it is employed? Are they contained in the vehicle, or the foul itfelf.

Indeed, every thing relating to fleep, is a very puzzling phenomenon, on the fuppofition of the diftinction between the foul and the body, especially the little evidence that can be pretended of the foul being employed at all in a state of really found fleep, exclufive of dreaming. And furely, if there be a foul distinct from the body, and it be sensible of all the changes that take place in the corporeal fyftem to which it is attached, why does it not perceive that ftate of the body which is termed fleep; and why does it not contemplate the ftate of the body and brain during fleep, which might afford matter enough for reafoning and reflection? If no new ideas could be tranfmitted to it at that time, it might employ itfelf upon the ftock which it had acquired before, if they really had inhered in it, and belonged to it; taking the opportunity of ruminating upon its old ideas, when it was fo circumftanced, that it could acquire no new

ones.

All

All this we should naturally expect if the foul was a fubftance really diftinct from the body, and if the ideas properly belonged to this fubftance, fo that it was capable of carrying them all away with it, when the body was reduced to duft. The foul, during the fleep of the body, might be expected to approach to the state in which it would be when the body was dead, death being often compared to a more found fleep. For if it be capable of thinking, and feeling, when the powers of the body fhall entirely cease, it might be capable of the fame kind of fenfation and action when thofe powers are only fufpended.

SECTION X.

OBJECTIONS to the Syftem of Materialifm confidered.

OST of the objections that have been made to the poffibility of the powers of fenfation and thought belonging to matter, are entirely founded on a miftaken notion of matter, as being neceffarily inert and impenetrable, and not a thing poffeffed of no other powers than those of attraction and repulfion, and fuch as may be confiftent with them. With fuch objections as these I have properly

no

no concern, because they do not affect my peculiar fyftem. Some objections, however, which are founded on the popular notion of matter, it may be worth while to confider; because, while they remain unnoticed, they may impede the reception of any system that bears the name of materialifm, how different foever it may be from any thing that has hitherto been fo denominated. I fhall, therefore, briefly reply to every objection that can be thought confiderable, either in itself, or on account of the person who has proposed it.

OBJECTION I. From the difficulty of conceiv ing how Thought can arife from Matter.

IT is faid, we can have no conception how fenfation, or thought, can arife from matter, they being things fo very different from it, and bearing no fort of resemblance to any thing like figure or motion; which is all that can refult from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.

But this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of fenfation and thought, from fuch as are usually afcribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the fame fubftance, unless we can fhew them to be abfolutely incompatible with one another. There is no apparent refemblance between the ideas of fight, and thofe of hearing, or smelling, &c,

and

and yet they all exift in the fame mind, which is poffeffed of the very different fenfes and faculties appropriated to each of them. Befides, this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial fyftem: for we have no more conception how the powers of fenfation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material fubftance. For, in fact, we have no diftinct idea either of the properties, or of the fubftance of mind or fpirit. Of the latter, we profefs to know nothing, but that it is not matter; and even of the property of perception, it seems to be as impoffible that we fhould fully comprehend the nature of it, as that the eye fhould fee itself.

Befides, they who maintain the intimate union of fubftances fo difcrepant in their natures as matter and immaterial spirit, of which they certainly cannot pretend to have any conception, do, with a very ill grace, urge any objection against the fyftem of materialism, derived from our ignorance of the manner in which a principle of thought may be superadded to matter.

I would obferve, that by the principle of thought, I mean nothing more than the power of fimple perception, or our confciousness of the prefence and effect of fenfations and ideas. For I fhall, in thefe Difquifitions, take it for granted, that this one property of the mind being admitted, all the particular phenomena of fenfation and ideas, refpecting their reten