'4 ANALOGIES BETWEEN 



thefe faculties to matter, would be afcriblng to it 

 the power of thinking, of acting, and of per- 

 ceiving, nearly in the fame maner as we oar- 

 felves think, a(St, and perceive; which is equally 

 repugnant to reafon and religion. 



With inanimated matter, therefore, though 

 formed of dull and clay, we have no other 

 relations than what arife from the general pro- 

 perties of bodies, fuch as, extenfion, impene- 

 trability, gravity, &c. But, as relations purely 

 material make no internal impreifion on us, and, 

 as they exiil entirely independent of us, they 

 cannot be confidered as any part of our being. 

 Our exiftence, therefore, is an effedt of organi- 

 zation, of life, of the foul. Matter, in this view, 

 is not a principal, but an accelfory. It is a fo- 

 reign covering, united to us in a manner un- 

 known ; and its prefcnce is noxious. Thought 

 is the conftituent principle of our being, and is 

 perhaps totally independent of matter. 



We exift, then, without knowing how ; and 

 we think, without perceiving the reafon of 

 thought. But, whatever be the mode of our 

 being, or of our thinking, whether our fenfa- 

 tions be real or apparent, their effedls are not the 

 lefs certain. The train of our ideas, though dif- 

 ferent from the objeds which occafion them, 

 gives rife to genuine affedlions, and produces in 

 us relations to external objects, which we may 

 regard as real, becaufe they are uniform and in- 

 variable. Thus, agreeable to the nature of our 



being, 



