pure to be so. We assert that manure will nourish a plant-that muscular fibres are irritable-that the nerves are the instruments of sensation, &c. for the same reason. Let the reader sit down, and describe a mineral by its characters, and he will have no doubt of the truth of this assertion.

Moreover, finding by experience that every thing we see has some cause of its existence, we are induced to ascribe the constant concomitance of a substance and any of its properties, to some necessary connexion between them. Hence, therefore, certainty and universality of concomitance is the sole ground of asserting or supposing a necessary connexion between two phenomena. And we cannot help believing that like consequences will invariably follow like antecedents under like circumstances. For thus we reason: if two circumstances, or things, always present themselves to our observation accompanying each other-the one always preceding, the other always following-there must be some reason in the nature of things why it should be so.

There is a necessary connexion between such a structure as the nervous system in animals, and the property of sensation, or as it is often called, PERCEPTION-the property of feeling, of being conscious of impressions made upon our senses. For there is precisely the same reason for making this assertion, as there can be for any other the most incontestable; namely, the certainty and universality wherewith (in a healthy state of the system) we observe perception and the nervous system accompany each other. The seat of perception, so far as we know from the facts of anatomy and physiology, is situated at the internal sentient extremity of the nerve impressed. But be it there or elsewhere, as it manifestly belongs to the nervous system, that is sufficient for the purpose. It must be somewhere. Let the reader, according to his best judgment from known facts, place it where he thinks fit, and it will equally serve the purposes of my argument. Perception, sensation, feeling, consciousness of impressions, (for all these terms have been used synonymously; I prefer the first,) is a property of the nervous apparatus belonging to animal bodies in health and life. When the sentient extremities of a nerve are excited or impressed, perception is the certain instantaneous result, as surely as the peculiar weight, color, ductility, and affinities of gold are the result of gold, when obtained pure. These properties are inseparable. You must define gold by them: in like manner, you must define the properties of the nervous system by perception-sensa

tion.

I consider this argument as conclusive; unless it can be shewn how perception results necessarily from something distinct from, and independent of the nervous system; or that, whether this can

*The French writers call it conscience, consciousness. The English adopt perception.

be shewn or not, the assertion that perception does so result, implies a contradiction, and therefore is at all events inadmissible. As to the how the mode and manner in which perception results from the stimulations of the nervous system-how or why it is, as we see it to be, a function of the brain-no one can pretend to shew or to explain; any more than we can shew or explain how an immaterial soul can act on a material body without having one property in common with it. In the first case we feel in ourselves, and we know by observing others, that perception, feeling, or consciousness is a function of that visible organ; but of the existence of a separate soul, we know nothing but by conjecture. We know that irritability and contractility are properties of the muscular fibre, but beyond the mere fact of its being thus, we know nothing. Can we explain the life and growth of a blade of grass? That certainty and universality of concomitance is the sole ground for asserting a necessary connexion between two phenomena, or that the one is the result of the other, is so true, that if this be false, no argument from induction can possibly be true: for all proofs from induction imply the truth of this. And as no direct contradiction has ever been attempted to be shewn in the assertion that perception is the result of organization-as the matter of fact, so far as our senses can judge, is plainly so-and as no immaterialist has ever yet pretended to account how perception results from an immaterial rather than a material substance there is nothing more requisite to prove that perception is really and truly the result of our organization. The argument then stands thus: Certainty and universality of concomitance between two or more phenomena, are the only direct reasons we have, for asserting or supposing a necessary connexion between them. The property of perception and a sound state of the nervous system under excitation, are certainly and universally concomitant. Therefore, this concomitance furnishes the only direct reason we have for asserting a necessary connexion between perception and the nervous system. But this reason is the same that we have for asserting a necessary connexion between any other phenomena whatever. Therefore, we have the same reason for asserting a necessary connexion between the property of perception and a sound state of the nervous system, as for asserting the same thing of any other phenomena whatever. It will be understood of course, that the nervous system must be excited, before the excitement can be perceived; and whether we adopt Hume's phraseology, or that of Dr. T. Brown in his Treatise on Cause and Effect, the argument will be exactly the same. In all cases, where the necessaryconnection between two phenomena is such, that the one is denominated a property, and the other the subject of which the first is a property, the property is universally deemed to result necessarily from the nature or essence of the subject to which it belongs. But as perception must be a property of something:

and as it is uniformly connected with a sound state of the nervous system, perception is a property of that system, and results necessarily from the nature or essence thereof.

Such is the proper and direct proof of the doctrine of Materialism; which, so far as I am acquainted with the controversy, REBut this doctrine will receive additional support, if the opposite doctrine of Immaterialism can be shewn impossible or improbable. I shall endeavour to do both.

MAINS UNANSWERED.

Of the Impossibility of the Existence of an Immaterial, Indiscerptible, Immortal Soul.

2.-(a) The Soul hath all the properties of matter and no other: or it hath some properties in common with matter, and some that matter hath not: or it hath no property in common with

matter.

In the first case, it is matter, and nothing else.

In the second case, it is partially material.

In the third case, it is in no respeet of degree material. This the last case is the only one of the alternatives that the hypothesis of Immaterialism can consistently maintain: for in so far as the soul is material, it will be discerptible, mortal, and corruptible,

as matter is.

(b) But let the Soul have no property in common with matter. Then I say: Nothing can act upon another but by means of some common property. Of this we have not only all the proof that induction of known and acknowledged cases can furnish, but that additional proof also which arises from the impossibility of conceiv ing how the opposite proposition can be true. You cannot erect the Coliseum at Rome by playing Haydn's Rondeau. You cannot impel a ray of light by the mace of a billiard table, and so on. This proposition is every where admitted, or assumed in treatises on natural philosophy.

But by the proposition, the Soul hath no property in common with matter. Whereas by the universal acknowledgement of Immaterialists, the Soul acts upon and by means of the material body: but it is a contradiction to suppose that the Soul can and cannot, does and does not, act upon the material body: and therefore, the hypothesis involving this contradiction must fall to the ground.

3. (a) Whatever we know, we know by means of its properties, nor do we, in any case, know certainly any thing but these. Gold is heavy, yellow, ductile, soluble in aqua regia, &c. Suppose gold deprived for an instant of all these properties-what remains, would it be gold? If it have other properties, it is another substance; if it have no properties remaining, it is nothing; for nothing is that which hath no properties. Hence, if any thing lose all its properties, it becomes nothing; it looses its existence.

(b) Now the existence of the soul is inferred like the existence of every thing else, from its supposed properties, which are the in

tellectual phenomena of the human being, perception,* memory, judgment, volition. But in all cases of perfect sleep-of the operation of a strong narcotic-of apoplexy-of swooning-of drowning where the vital powers are not extinguished-of the effects of a violent blow on the back of the head-and all other leipothymic affections-there is neither perception, memory, judgment or volition; that is, all the properties of the Soul are gone, are extinguished; therefore the Soul itself looses its existence for the time; all evidences and traces of its existence are lost; pro hac vice, therefore, and during the continuance of these derangements of the nervous system, the Soul is dead, for all its properties are actually extinguished. The Soul, therefore, is not immortal, and of consequence it is not immaterial.

(c) This disappearance of all intellectual phenomena in consequence of the derangement of the nervous apparatus of the human system, is easily accounted for, if they be considered (as the Materialists consider them) no other than phenomena dependent upon the nervous system in its usual state of excitement by impressions ab extra, or motions dependent on the sensitive surfaces of the internal vicera, and on association originating ab intra. On this view of the subject, all is natural and explicable. But if these intellectual phenomena are the evidences and properties of a separate immaterial being (the Soul) then comes the insuperable difficulty-where is the subject itself when all its properties, all evidences of its existence are annihilated; though but for a day or an hour. A materialist can easily account for returning animation by renewed excitement from the unsuspended action of the functions of organic life.

4. No laws of reasoning will free us from the bondage imposed by matters of fact. It is impossible to deny that all these intellectual phenomena, these peculiar properties of an immaterial Soul, these only evidences of its existence, are also properties of the body: for where there is no nervous apparatus, as in vegetables, they never appear; nor do they appear in the embryo or the infant, till the encephalon is developed; where the nervous system is deranged by violence, or by disease, or by medicine, these phenomena are also deranged, and even disappear; when the body dies and the nervous system with it, all these phenomena cease, and are irrevocably gone; we never possess after death, so far as our senses can inform us, the slightest evidence of the existence of any remaining being, which, connected with the body during life, is separated from it at death. This may be asserted, but there is not one solitary fact to prove it: when the body dies, no more perception, no more memory, no more volition. So far as we can see, these die with the body, and exhibit no proof of their subsequent existence. These phenomena, are phenomena then of the body: if they be al

*Feeling, Sensation, Consciousness, are the synonymous terms. T. C,

so phenomena of the Soul, then is the Soul also, like the body, material; for it has properties in common.

(b) If it be said the Soul may exist after the body is dead and decomposed, I reply, the soul may also not exist: one supposition is as good as the other. Remember, it is not allowable in fair argument to take for granted the existence of a thing, merely because it may possibly exist. If you assert its existence, you must prove your assertion. Affirmantis est probare. A posse ad esse, non valet consequentia.

(c) If any one shall say these properties are only suspended for the time, I would desire him to examine what idea he annexes to this suspension; whether it be any thing more or less than they are made not to exist for the time. Either no more is meant, or it is plainly opposed to matter of fact. Moreover if more be meant, it may easily be proved to involve the archetypal existence of abstract ideas; to approach to the Platonic absurdities modified by the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz, which, I apprehend, will not be considered as defensible at this day. It can also be shewn that such ulterior meaning will contradict the maxim impossibile est idem esse et non esse. It will involve the grammatical absurdity of making a noun adjective stand by itself.

(d) If any one shall say farther, These mental phenomena are not constituent parts, but acts of the soul, and evidences of its existence; so that the soul may continue to exist when it no longer continues to act, or to act in this manner-that it does not follow that a man's power of working is annihilated because he has lost the tools or instruments with which he has usually worked."—I reply: 1. That whenever the evidences of the existence of a thing arise from the nature and structure of the thing itself, they are synonymous with its properties. Such are the phenomena of thinking with respect to the Soul: they are confessedly of its very essence. I cannot give a plainer illustration than I have already given; let my reader, if he be a mineralogist, sit down and describe a mineral; and then let him suppose all his characters annihilated. 2. As these intellectual phenomena are all the evidences we have of the Soul's existence, when these are destroyed or extinguished, so is the conclusion drawn from them. When all the evidences of the existence of life fail, no one scruples to say that life itself is gone. 3. The instruments with which a man usually works, are only a small part of, not all the evidences of his power of working. Were he to lose his senses, and his hands, and his powers of volition, and of voluntary motion, which are also conjoint evidences of his power of working, every one would say he had lost that power; that is, it no longer existed. 4. It is equally legitimate to assert of gold, for instance, that what are termed its essential and characteristic properties are nothing more than acts and evidences of the existence of the substance gold, which may continue to ex

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