THE SENSATIONALIST PHILOSOPHY. 



We must nevertheless seek truth, by the best means in our power, 

 on the subject we are investigating, and when we are satisfied, follow 

 it into it's genuine consequences vnth sobriety and caution. As a 

 matter of fact, Hartley rejected materialism, denied it's following 

 from his principles, and considered himself as only studying the 

 nature of the connection established by our Creator between mind 

 or spirit, and the bodily frame. The same is true of other eminent 

 Sensationalists who had carefully examined the consequences of the 

 doctrine they maintained ; and if some eminent men of this school 

 have been materialists, having dwelt on the connection of mental 

 states with the physical frame, until they persuaded themselves 

 that the former might be functions of the latter, and that there is no 

 ground for inferring the independent existence of the spirit in man, 

 let it in justice be kept in mind, that a large proportion of these have 

 been as firm believers in Grod the author and governor of all things, 

 in revelations made by Him of his purposes and will, and in the future 

 life of man, as positively made known by Him, as any defenders of any 

 other philosophical systems whatsoever. It is then a poor contro- 

 versial artifice to set up materialism as a bug-bear to frighten the 

 weak. Let it be left to its evidence. We may not think it likely to 

 prevail, and may ourselves be abundantly satisfied with the arguments 

 against it, but it is not a necessary or general consequence of Sensa- 

 tionalism, neither supposing it adopted, has it any necessary tendency 

 towards the pernicious and revolting doctrines which some minds will 

 entertain, and which have been founded upon the most opposite 

 philosophical systems. Pantheism, one of the most delusive forms of 

 atheism, is a frequent result, and often regarded as a necessary con- 

 sequence of pure Idealism. 



Having myself early adopted the sensationalist philosophy ; having 

 a firm belief in its ultimate prevalence, and seeing how it is misrepre- 

 sented and perverted by those who profess to give information to 

 inquirers, I hope to be indulged in offering these few remarks in ex- 

 planation of our views to a Society, whose wide field embraces equally 

 the philosophy of the mind and of nature, the abstract and practical 

 sciences, and the whole extent of literature and art. I am not insen- 

 sible to the weight of authority against my opinions, or to the value 

 of much that has been written by those to whom in the general theory 

 of the mind I am opposed ; but I claim on my own side that we also 

 have our great men, and high authorities, that we are not a set of 



