240 VESTIGES OF THE 



science, for it doos not so much as pretend to have nature 

 for its basis. There is a general disinchnation to regard 

 mind in connexion with organisation, from a fear that this 

 must needs interfere with the cherished reUgious doctrine 

 of the spirit of man, and lower him to the level of the 

 brutes. A distinction is therefore drawn between our 

 mental manifestations and those of the lower animals, 

 the latter being comprehended under the term instinct, 

 while ours are collectively described as mind, mind being 

 again a received synonyme with soul, the immoi'tal part 

 of man. There is here a strange system of confusion and 

 error, which it is most imprudent to regard as essential 

 to religion, since candid investigations of nature tend 

 to show its untenableness. There is, in reality, nothing 

 to prevent our regarding man as specially endowed with 

 an immortal spirit, at the same time that his ordinary 

 mental manifestations are looked upon as simple pheno- 

 mena resulting from organisation, those of the lower 

 animals being phenomena absolutely the same in cha- 

 racter, though developed within narrower limits.* 



* "Is not God the first cause of matter as well as of mind? Do 

 not the first attributes of matter lie as inscrutable in tlie bosom of 

 God — of its first author — as those of mind? Has not even matter 

 confessedly received from (Jod the power of experiencing, in conse- 

 quence of impressions from the earlier modifications of matter, certain 

 consciousnesses called sensations of the same? Is not, therefore, the 

 wonder of matter also receiving the consciousnesses of other matter 

 called ideas of the mind, a wonder more flowing out of and in analogy 

 with all former wonders, than would be, on the contrary, the wonder 

 of this faculty of the mind not flowing out of any faculties of matter ? 

 Is it not a wonder which, so far from destroyhig our hopes of im- 

 mortality, can establish that doctrine on a train of inferences and 

 inductions more firmly established and mere connected with each 

 other than the former belief can be, as soon as we have proved that 

 matter is not perishable, but is only liable to successive combinations 

 and decombinations? 



" Can we look farther back one way into the first origin of matter 



