THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 249 



England was essentially sceptical, critical, and 

 materialistic. Why such "materialism" 1 should 

 be more inconsistent with the existence of a 

 Deity, the freedom of the will, or the immor- 

 tality of the soul, or with any actual or possible 

 system of theology, than " idealism," I must 

 declare myself at a loss to divine. But, in the 

 year 1700, all the world appears to have been 

 agreed, Tertullian notwithstanding, that material- 

 ism necessarily leads to very dreadful conse- 

 quences. And it was thought that it conduced to 

 the interests of religion and morality to attack the 

 materialists with all the weapons that came to 

 hand. Perhaps the most interesting controversy 

 which arose out of these questions is the wonder- 

 ful triangular duel between Dodwell, Clarke, and 

 Anthony Collins, concerning the materiality of 

 the soul, and what all the disputants considered 

 to be the necessary consequence of its material- 

 ity its natural mortality. I do not think that 

 any one can read the letters which passed between 

 Clarke and Collins, without admitting that 

 Collins, who writes with wonderful power and 

 closeness of reasoning, has by far the best of the 

 argument, so far as the possible materiality of the 

 soul goes ; and that, in this battle, the Goliath of 

 Freethinking overcame the champion of what was 

 considered Orthodoxy. 



In Dublin, all this while, there was a little 

 1 See Note A appended to this Essay. 



