Additmial Notes. 409 



vibrating at the touch of a lady's finger; or upon the grave 

 speculations of a mill-pond while the boys at play are throwing 

 stones into it. 



" 3. Suppose I again grant, for further argument's sake, 

 this hypothesis to the materialists. It will be necessary to show- 

 that in vibrations, considered abstractedly, there is such a va- 

 riety in kind and degree as corresponds exactly with all the 

 varieties of thought. 



" There are at leat ten distinct intellectual powers. Nut 

 one of these can be accounted for by one or more of the others. 

 There are, 1. The powers which we have by means of our five 

 senses. 2. Attention. 3. Memory. 4. Abstraction. 5. Judg- 

 ment. 6. Reasoning. 7. Taste. 8. Powers of moral percep- 

 tion. 9. Consciousness. 10. Conception. Each of these is 

 distinct, and a distinct source of ideas. The active powers, 

 moreover, are numerous j and the mind, so constituted, is ca- 

 pable of a vast variety of thoughts, differing in kind and de- 

 gree. Do vibrations afford an equal variety? No: it is not 

 possible that there should be any more ttian two kinds of vibra- 

 tions in a uniform elastic medium. 1. They may be quick or 

 slow. 2. They may be strong or weak. Thrse kinds admit 

 of various degrees 3 and this is all the variety of which the 

 laws of matter (however finely organized the machine) will 

 admit. Now, he must certainly be ignorant of his own men- 

 tal operations, or of the laws of motion in matter, who can be 

 persuaded of an exact correspondence of the one to the other. 

 Certainly credulity never appeared more conspicuous in the de- 

 votees of Popish superstition than it does in the advocates and 

 believers of the material system ! 



" Shall vibrations in an elastic medium be supposed to ac- 

 count for all the original powers, intellectual and active ? Put 

 all these out of the question except one class, viz. the ynurrs 

 we have hij our external senses, and even then there is a manifest 

 disparity. Had we no sensations but those of hearing, this 

 theory would not be so contemptible. There is a correspond- 

 ence between vibrations and sound. These sensations will 

 themselves appropriate all the vavieties of vibrations j and even 



