Cr^AP. XII.] Philosophy of the Human Mind. L>09 



material atom is, in a greater or less degree, ani. 

 mated or endowed with sensation. Dr. Hartley 

 (if lie be ranked in tliis class, and it is not easy to 

 giv'e him any other phice) sometinies appears to re- 

 cognise a sentient principle, >viiich, if not wholly 

 immaterial, differs from any ideas which he seems 

 to have formed of ordinary matter. l)r» Priest- 

 ley's opinions on this subject, considered as a con* 

 nected system, are new. He denies that there is 

 any ground for making a (hstinction between the 

 soul of man and the body ; supposing the whole 

 human constitution to be made up of one homo- 

 geneons substance. He denies that we have any 

 evidence that the deity himself is immaterial, in 

 the commonly received sense of this word ; and, 

 finally, by the adoption of father Boscovich's 

 theory, he so refmcs and ,spiriti(alhcs matter, as to 

 make it an extremely different thing from tliat 

 gross and impenetrable substance which it is gene- 

 rally represented to be. He differs from preced- 

 ing materialists, then, in his views of the nature of 

 matter, and in rejecting the idea entertained by 

 most of them, that the sentient principle is a spe- 

 cies of matter peculiarly refined and attenuated *. 



Dr. Darwin supposes that tiie sentient principle, 

 or the mind oi'-man, is a subtle J/uid, which he de- 

 nominates se)isorial power, or spirit of aniwatioNi 

 This sensorial power he represents as secreted in 

 the brain, and in the medullary part of the nerves, 

 where it especially resides, and from whicli it ex- 

 tends to every part of the body, w iihout being 



* ^xiQ Additional notcs^( MM 



Vol. II. P 



