APPENDIX. NOTES. 369 



NOTE 3, p. 8. Intermediate, as it were, between matter 

 and spirit. I find a similar idea in the Nouveau Diction- 

 naire D'Histoire Naturelle, 1 " Le mot de matiere porte 

 avec soi 1'idee d'un corps lourd et grossier : cependant il 

 est des substances auxquelles on donne le nom de matiere, 

 telle que la matiere etheree, et qui sont d'une si inconceiv- 

 able tenuite, qu'on diroit qu'elles tiennent le milieu entre 

 Vesprit et la matiere" Sir Humphry Davy seems to have 

 adopted a similar opinion, which I have given in another 

 part of this work ; 2 and Dr. Wollaston also, in his Religion 

 of Nature delineated, asks " Might it not be more reason- 

 able to say, it (the soul) is a thinking substance intimately 

 united to some Jine material vehicle which has its residence 

 in the brain ?" 3 And again " If we should suppose the 

 soul to be a being by nature made to inform some body, 

 and that it cannot exist and act in a state of total 

 separation from all body ; it would not follow from thence, 

 that what we call death, must therefore reduce it to a 

 state of absolute insensibility, and inactivity, which to it 

 would be equal to non-existence. For that body, which 

 is so necessary to it, may be some fine vehicle that dwells 

 with it in the brain, and goes off with it at death. 4 This 

 vehicle, which is so necessary to the soul, dwells with it 

 in the brain, and goes off with it at death, he further 

 supposes, is that by which it acts and is acted upon, by 

 means of the nerves. 5 This vehicle seems not very diffe- 

 rent from the vital powers of modern physiologists, who 

 regard the nervous power as their agent. 6 



The Doctrine of a vehicle for the soul which accom- 



1 xix. 449. article Matures. Patrin. 



a See VOL. II. p. 253. 3 p. 192. 



* Ibid. 196. s Hid. 197. 



Dr. Wilson Philip, in Philos. Tr. 1829, 271, 278. 



