90 



M E T A P 



Metaphy. 

 sics. 



Corrected 

 by Leib- 

 nitz. 



Error of 

 the mate- 

 rialists. 



ism: for it implies that the senses are the beginning and 

 the end of all our knowledge; a maxim which might 

 easily be employed to cut up by the roots metaphysics, 

 ethics, and religion. It is unfortunate that these scep- 

 tics, who have so eagerly perverted the doctrine did 

 not attend to a most judicious criticism made by 1 

 nitz, on the fundamental principle of Locke's system. 

 It is in these words : Nempe, nihil est in intellect*, 

 nitod non fuerll in senxu, NISI IPSE INTELLECTUS. 

 Hume attended to this, he never would have con- 

 founded mind with its impressions, nor supposed it 

 possible for them to exist but in a spiritual and mtell 



Inconceiv- 

 able that 

 thought 

 should re- 

 tr.it from 

 any combi- 

 nation of 

 matter. 



lne errors Hume, as well as of the continental 

 materialists, who attempt to build their systems on 

 Locke's principles, consists in this, that they view the 

 mind merely as a kind of intellectual machine, or <e- 

 thetical instrument, which receives impressions some- 

 thin* in the same way as a camera obscnra, will 

 onl/difference, that the figures, once introduced, r 

 main as it were in some quiet corner, till, on the in- 

 duction of some of their old friends they start forth 

 to renew their acquaintance. But in all these theories 

 the attention is confined entirely to what maybe calle 

 the mechanism of perception, whilst no regard what 

 ever is paid to the perceiving principle. [ be 



just as rational to suppose that a clock not only indi- 

 cates the hours, but perceive!, and calculates the flux o 

 time, as to suppose that any sensation whatever coi 

 arise in a mere material substance; the very concep- 

 tion of which implies that it is insentient, lo say 

 that extension, figure, motion, solidity, &c car, ever by 

 any possible combination become susceptible of thouj 

 and volition, is as inconceivable, and as utterly repug- 

 nant to every principle of sense and reason, as . 

 would be to suppose that a thing may be itself and 

 contrary at the same time; or that a figure may be a 

 one and the same time a square and a circle ; or 

 light and darkness may exist in the same place, and ; 

 h g e same instant. In short, the sceptics confound 

 themselves and their followers, by making the mm 

 itself the instrument of sensation, instead of ascribing 

 this office to the organs of sense, with which the body 

 is furnished. So distinct is the mind from he mate- 

 rials furnished by the senses, that we firm y believe its 

 mo=t important feelings are independent of the senses: 

 we mean the feelings of pleasure and pain, which a 

 coeval with our existence as sentient beings, and may 

 be nay we doubt not, must be perceived, before the 

 senses 'are called into exercise. All that the senses do 

 so far as the mere animal is concerned, is to s 

 those pleasures which the mind desires or to remove 

 the uneasiness which it feels: and we have elsewhere 

 supposed, and we think it incontrovertible, that 1 

 mind may continue susceptible of pleasure 01 _of pain 

 in the absence of all the external senses. Take away 

 sight, hearing, taste, and smell, will a man then be in- 

 capable of feeling pleasure and pain ? No. 

 away the remaining sense of touch; is he then an in- 

 sentient mass? No: supply his wants, and he will 

 still be happy, so far as his mere animal existence 



C We have seen some very sober philosophers leading 

 themselves astray with the greatest deliberation on 1 

 subject; puzzling themselves to which of the sense 

 they should ascribe pleasure and pain, and the like ; 

 evidently supposing all along that the senses were 

 themselves sentient, and not mere instruments ot sei 

 sation. When a man sees with a' telescope a star mvi- 



H Y S I C S. 



sible to the naked eye, or hears with an ear-trumpet a Mettnhr- 

 sound otherwise inaudible, he would not surely say ^"_ 

 that the telescope sees, or that the trumpet hears : and 

 it would be as improper, strictly speaking, to say that 

 the eye sees or the ear hears : but it is accurate as well 

 as philosophical language, to say that we see with the 

 eye and hear with the ear. Had the sceptical writers 

 attended to this, they never would have confounded 

 the mind with its ideas, and the thinking principle 

 with the instruments which it employs, and the per- 

 ceptions of which it is conscious. 



It is true, indeed, we know matter only by its qua- A substra- 

 lities, and mind by its operations : still, however we turn n 

 have an irresistible conviction that there is something 

 more than the mere qualities of matter to serve as a 

 substratum, in which they must inhere, otherwise mat- 

 ter could not exist; for llie qualities of matter are not 

 material, any more than the sensations of mind are 

 sentient. In both there must be an invisible, incom- 

 prehensible substratum, in the one case, as the recipient 

 of qualities, in the other of sensations. And we have 

 always been of opinion that, were the question to li 

 solely between the materialists and the idealists, every 

 philosophical, as well as every pious mind, must, with- 

 out hesitation, give its suffrages in favour ot the latter, 

 and cling to them, as the best supporters of the dig- 

 nity and immortal hopes of man. For we say again, 

 that Berkeley's system is infinitely more intelligible 

 lan its opposite, we mean than that which would ba- 

 nish mind from the universe; for in that case matter 

 would be inconceivable. 



We must therefore be content to embrace the old 

 system, and admit the existence of mind and matter 

 as ultimate facts, of which we can give no account, 

 (otherwise they would not be ultimate, and as there- 

 fore referable alone to the sovereign will ot him who 

 commanded all things to be as they are. It is sufficient 

 that we know the existence of our own minds by con- 

 sciousness, and the existence of the external world by 

 perception. Of these two points ^we are absolutely 

 certain, if there is any certainty in human knowledge 

 if there is not, it is equally in vain to argue on the one 

 side or on the other. 4 This seems to be the conclusion 

 to which Hume would wish to reduce us; and it is 

 conclusion of one who ought to be denounced as the 

 assassin of human happiness. To the authors of all 

 such attempts, the words of Seneca are peculiarly ap- 

 plicable. A'on facile dixcrim, utrum magts irascor * 

 Us qui nos nihil scire voluerunt. an illis, qui ne hoc qui- 



mission of a material world and of the 



the scholastic maxim, Nihd fntt in intellect, quod non )iarmlesso , 

 fait prius in sensu, the consequences which I -ot, Berkeley - s 

 and the other materialists, deduced from these premises principles, 

 must naturally follow, yet on the scheme of Berkeley 

 the maxim of the schools is perfectly harmless ; nay, it is 

 the very foundation of his doctrine : and several of the 

 continental philosophers have adopted Diderot s pre- 

 mises without coming to the same conclusion In _the 

 Transactions of the Berlin Academy for the yen 1757, 

 there is a paper by M. Merian, in f^**!***!* M> Mer " 

 their full extent, the very principles which Diderot 

 makes the foundation of materialism ami argues that 

 such consequences by no means f " f J 

 If we are once fully persuaded," says he, that MI 

 satioTi. the foundation of all our knowledge, we have 

 only a single step to advance, to be convinced that al, 

 our knowledge consists of sensations It is even im- 



