Conjectures on the proximate Cause of Sleep. 333 



In its second sense, materialism implies the double proposition 

 that the human frame is untenanted by a soul, and that there is 

 no future state of rewards and punishments. This opinion, as 

 pernicious to society as the former, is not so much as glanced at 

 in the essay. But if it be inferred, as a necessary deduction from 

 the theory of Gall and Spurzheim (whose sentiments, so far as 

 thev embrace distinct and numerous organs of the mind, it is mv 

 pride to avow, and mv ambition to vindicate), the inference could 

 only be made by individuals v.ho have not the good fortune to 

 be intimately acquainted with their ])rinciples. The opinion 

 which these philosophers universally maintain is, that the brain is 

 the instrument by which the soul performs her intellectual ope- 

 rations ; and I fancy that few will be hardy enough to maintain 

 that the soul, in this life, ever performs those operations without 

 one. Is there a physiologist to be found who will assert the 

 fact, or a logician that will advance the argument, that the en- 

 cephalon is a useless appendage to the soul ; and that she could 

 exercise all her powers as commodiously and effectually in the 

 empty cavern of the skull ? Even the best brain which Divine 

 Wisdom could bestow upon her would, in this view of things, be 

 an absurd and superfluous donation. 



The third and least obnoxious sense in which materiahsm may 

 be employed, is that which would consider man as a simple be- 

 ing, whose intellectual powers depend on the peculiar organiza- 

 tion in which God has invested them, and regards the resurrec- 

 tion from death as the sole but sure foundation of a future state 

 of existence. This doctrine must be acknowledged by every theo- 

 logian to derive the most unambiguous support from, Scripture;— 

 the physical evidence in its favour is strong and peculiar ; — in mo- 

 rals it stands upon the self-same rock whereon we build our hopes 

 of a life to come, come in what manner it may; and possibly it 

 may be slandered in its nature when nick-named materialism. 



This opinion I have examined at large in another treatise, which 

 lias not yet been submitted to the public ; but it is unnecessary 

 here to anticipate the discussions it embraces, particularly as in 

 the essay now under consideration the question does not once oc- 

 cur ; and the argument, whether metaphysical or physiological, 

 is pursued with so little bias to or from this opinion, or any other 

 not necessarily involved in the subject, that the disciples of Locke 

 and Berkeley, Priestley and Stewart, may arise from the perusal 

 in perfect amity and good will to the author, satisfied that he has 

 not meant to undermine a single j)rinciplc, or offend a single pre- 

 judice peculiar to any of their schools; unless, indeed, Bcrkeieyans 

 will complain that the existence of the body, and I'ricstlcyaus, 

 that the existence of the soul, is assumed in the argument. 



It was, therefore^ as unnecessary as unjust to brand my essay 



with 



