THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 247 



But the doctrine that all the phenomena of 

 nature are resolvable into mechanism is what 

 people have agreed to call " materialism ; " and 

 when Locke and Collins maintained that matter 

 may possibly be able to think, and Newton 

 himself could compare infinite space to the sen- 

 sorium of the Deity, it was not wonderful that 

 the English philosophers should be attacked as 

 they were by Leibnitz in the famous letter to the 

 Princess of Wales, which gave rise to his corre- 

 spondence with Clarke. 1 



" 1. Natural religion itself seems to decay [in 

 England] very much. Many will have human 

 souls to be material ; others make God Himself a 

 corporeal Being. 



" 2. Mr. Locke and his followers are uncertain, 

 at least, whether the soul be not material and 

 naturally perishable. 



"3. Sir Isaac Newton says that space is an 

 organ which God makes use of to perceive things 

 by. But if God stands in need of any organ to 

 perceive things by, it will follow that they do not 

 depend altogether upon Him, nor were produced 

 by Him. 



regulares cohoerent vel ab invicem fugantur et recedunt ; quibus 

 viribus ignotis, Philosophi hactenus Naturam frustra tentarunt 

 Spero autem qu6d vel huic pb.il osophandi modo, vel veriori, 

 aficui, principia hie posita lucem aliquam prsebebunt." Preface 

 to First Edition of Principia, May 8, 1686. 



1 Collection of Papers which passed between the learned late 

 Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarke. 1717. 



