SECTION I. 



GENERAL RELATIONS. 

 CHAP. I. Condition of the Spirit, fyc. 



1. 1 HE organic spirit is liable to the application of 

 all those laws which have been noticed in the chapter on Causation: 

 the proof of which is that those laws are universal, and the grounds 

 of this last assumption are stated in the chapter just referred to. 



2. By these laws of causation we are taught to regard this 

 spirit as no simple elementary principle, but as containing an infinite 

 number of properties by which altogether it is constituted. 



3. The spirit itself is not an object of sense, but its existence 

 is interred from its operation. The effects of its operation are so 

 numerous and the instances so familiar, that the supposition of it 

 acquires a currency and credit in our reasonings equal almost to 

 perceptive knowledge. The existence of this spirit being once in- 

 ferred from its effects, we next begin to class those effects, giving 

 corresponding denominations to the properties of the spirit by 

 which these effects are accomplished. 



4. The progress which has been made in this work of analysis 

 and classification is not much to be boasted of; the most that has 

 been done is to designate three or four species of contractility, from 

 which has originated a vast deal of erroneous and absurd reasoning. 

 The spiritual phenomena have never been considered in their true 

 mode: I shall proceed merely to shew in this place that a proper 

 foundation for reasoning about these processes has not yet been 

 indicated. 



5. The phenomena of life, it has been said, are produced by 

 the operation of stimuli on that which has been called " excitability." 

 By the proportions, &c. of these two the state of excitement or of 



