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Man and the Brute Creation. 407 



all the operations of the mind, with incorruptible parts 

 and indivisibility ; what shall we call this something, or 

 this substratum which supports these qualities? It cannot 

 strictly be called matter, for to matter belongs the quality 

 of divisibility ; neither is it spirit, for spirit we allow to 

 have neither parts nor extension. Whatever we agree to 

 call it, it is not an improbable conjecture, that such a some- 

 thing with such qualities may exist. That the soul of 

 man is powerfully acted upon and influenced by matter; 

 that it is often held in subjection by the body, and strongly 

 oppressed by physical causes, cannot be denied : but pure 

 spirit is independent of matter. Were our souls purely 

 spiritual and immaterial, our mental constitution would be 

 totally different ; we should be divinities, instead of human 

 Deings. Englishmen would not then shoot themselves on 

 a foggy day, nor lunatics grow worse when the moon 

 changed. But at present surrounding objects act upon our 

 material bodies, to which they have an affinity ; this action 

 operates on the soul, through the medium of our nerves 

 and fluids; and as no matter, as far as we have reason to 

 suppose, can act on other substances than those to which 

 it has some affinity, how could our nerves operate on the 

 soul, or sentient principle, if that soul was purely spiritual, 

 and had no affinity to matter? I will imagine a very subtile, 

 invisible, ethereal substance, whose parts adhering together, 

 by a strong principle uf attraction, are indivisible by less 

 power than that of Omnipotence; I will suppose this sub- 

 stance to be placed in the brain. God has endowed it with 

 an intelligent power ; with thought, reason, and volition ; 

 and ideas, which exercise these faculties, are conveyed to 

 it from external objects, through the njedium of the senses; 

 — how, or in what manner, I do not conjecture ; — but it is 

 as easy to suppose one something, we know not what, to 

 think, as another something of which we are equally igno- 

 rant. This substance, which is the soul, is in different ani- 

 mals (both men and brutes) of a different degree of tenuity ; 

 and this difference of tenuity is the cause of that gradation 

 of intellect which regulates the scale of anin)ated beings. 

 Ideas conveyed to souls differently tenuous, produce a 

 stronger or a fainter impression in exact proportion to the 

 degree of tenuity ; as rays of light passing through bodies 

 more or less dense, will differently illumine the object on 

 which they fall. Is there any thing improbable or revolting in 

 this theory? Certainlv not. If 1 suppose tlie soul to be ma- 

 terial, I do not assert that a certain organization of matter 

 will produce thought; or that thought is produced by mo- 

 C c 4 tion. 



