32 Philosophy of the Hitman Mind. 



instances, really deserved this character. Hence a 

 materialist has been commonly considered as a de- 

 nomination tantamount to a charge of atheism itself, 

 or at least of criminal indifference to religion. The 

 Christian world, accustomed to connect this tenet 

 with such heresies as those of Spinoza, Hobbes, 

 Collins, and others, of a similar character, natu- 

 rally concluded, that a belief in immaterialism 

 necessarily flowed from a belief in Christianity. 

 The last age is distinguished by the adoption of 

 this anti-christian error, by some who profess 

 to embrace the Christian faith. Among these 

 the most conspicuous and active is Dr. Priestley/ 

 who maintains that " man does not consist of two 

 substances essentially different from each other; 

 but that the conscious and thinking principle, or 

 what we generally term the soul, is merely a pro- 

 perty resulting from a peculiar organical structure 

 of the brain." On this principle he attempts to 

 show that the idea of the natural immortality of 

 the soul is wholly fallacious; that the properties of 

 sensation and thought, and of course all the dis- 

 tinguishing characteristics of the thinking part of 

 our nature, must be extinguished by the dissolu- 

 tion of the organized mass in which they exist; 

 and therefore that the only reason which men have 

 to expect a state of consciousness or enjoyment 

 hereafter, is derived from the scripture doctrine 

 of the resurrection. In former parts of this work 

 the services of Dr. Priestley in the physical sci- 

 ences have been mentioned with high respect, and 

 with frequently repeated tributes of applause. It 

 is to be regretted that so much of what he has 

 written on the philosophy of mind, and almost the 

 whole of his writings on the subject of theology, 

 should be so radically erroneous, and so subversive 



b Disquisitions concerning Matter and Spirit i and Correspondents betviewi 

 Price £nd Priestley. 



