SOUL. 



thoughts, without making thinking its eiience. It is no 

 more eflential to the foul to think than to will ; for a thing I 

 can conceive the foul without, cannot be its efTence. 



Again, if thought be the eflence of the foul, as a thing can- 

 not produce itfelf, its own being, or efTence ; the foul does 

 not produce its own thoughts, nor its own will : and thus it 

 is brought to the condition of brutes, or even of inanimate 

 bodies, without any aftion, any liberty, &c. 



If the Cartefians only mean this of the faculty of think- 

 ing, they do wrong even to call this the elFence of the foul. 

 It is no more its eflence than the faculty of willing is. And 

 we conceive fomething in the foul prior to both thofe 

 faculties. 



The foul is a fpiritual fubftance, proper to inform or ani- 

 mate a human body : and, by its union with this body, to 

 conllitute a reafonable animal or man. This is its efTence, 

 and this its definition. 



It muft be owned, the Cartefians prove the fpirituality and 

 immortality of the foul, from its thinking, exceedingly 

 well ; but they are not to have the honour of this proof as 

 their own invention. All the great philofophers ufed it be- 

 fore them, and ufe it ftill. 



For an account of Leibnitz's doftrine concerning the 

 foul, fee Leibnitz, Leibnitzian Philofophy, Monad, and 

 Pre-cjlablijhed Harmony. 



Spinoza, and his followers, allowing only of one kind of 

 fubllance, I'/z. matter ; maintain the foul to be of the fame 

 fubftance with the body, w'z. material. See Spinozism. 



The doftrine of the materiality of the human foul has 

 been adopted and maintained by feveral modern writers ; and 

 even by thofe who have diftinguifhed themfelves as able and 

 zealous advocates in the caufe of rehgion, both natural and 

 i-evealed. In this number we may reckon Dr. Prieftley, 

 who, rejefting the commonly received notion of matter, 

 (fee Matter,) as an abfolutely impenetrable, inert fub- 

 ftance, and premifing, that the powers of fenfation or per- 

 ception, and thought, as belonging to man, have never been 

 ■ found but in conjunftion with a certain organized fyftem of 

 matter, maintains, that thofe powers neceffarily exifl in, and 

 depend upon, fuch a fyflem. In proof of this doArine, it 

 19 alleged, that perception and thought are not incom- 

 patible with the properties of matter, confidered as a fub- 

 ftance extended and endued with the powers of attraftiou 

 and repulfion ; and, therefore, if one kind of fubftance be 

 capable of fupporting all the known properties of man, 

 true philofophy, which will not authorize us to multiply 

 caules or kinds of fubftance, without necefTity, will forbid 

 us to admit of any fubllance in the conftitution of human 

 nature, efTentially different from matter. The proper feat 

 of the powers of perception and thought, according to this 

 writer, is the brain ; bccaufe, as far as we can judge, the 

 faculty of thinking, and a certain ftate of the brain, always 

 accompany and correfpond to one another ; and there is no 

 intlance of any man retaining this faculty, when his brain was 

 deftroyed ; and whenever that faculty is impeded or injured, 

 there is fufficient reafon to believe that the brain is difordered 

 in proportion. Dr. Prieftley apprehends, that fenfation 

 and thought neceflarily refult from the organization of the 

 brain, when the powers of mere life are given to the fyftem, 

 and that they follow of courfe, as much as the circulation 

 of the blood follows rcfpiration ; but he profefTes to have 

 no idea at all of the manner in which the power of percep- 

 tion refults from organization and life. 



To this reafoning it has been replied, in general, that Dr. 

 Prieftley's account of matter does not anfwer to the com- 

 mon ideas of matter, or that it is not folid extenfion, or an 

 impenetrable and inert fubftance, which is the only matter that 



is the objeil of natural philofophy ; but fomething not folid, 

 that exifts in fpace, and fo far agreeing with Ipirit ; and con- 

 fequently, if fuch matter is, as he afTerts, the only matter 

 poflible, it will follow, not that we have no fouls diftinft 

 from our bodies, but that we have no bodies diflinft from 

 our fouls, and that all in nature is fpirit. Befides, it has 

 been farther urged, that a connection and dependence by no 

 means prove famenefs. 



From the dependence of aftual fenfations and thought on 

 the brain, we have no more reafon to conclude that the brain 

 is the mind, than a favage who had never heard the mufic of 

 a harpfichord, and did not fee the hand that played upon it, 

 would have to conclude, that it played upon itfelf, and was 

 the mufician ; becaufe he could trace all the founds to the 

 inftrument, and found that when the ftrings were out of 

 order, the mufic was difturbed or deftroyed. What expe- 

 rience teaches us is, that the exercife of the mental powers 

 depends on the brain and the nerves ; not that the mind is the 

 brain and the nerves. We are fure the mind cannot be the 

 brain, becaufe the brain is an afTemblage of beings ; where- 

 as the mind is one being. 



It has been further objeAed by an anonymous writer 

 (Edinb. Rev. N°XVII.), that it is unphilofophical to clafs 

 perception among the qualities of matter, when it is ob- 

 vious, that it is by means of perception alone that we get 

 any notion of matter or its qualities ; and that it is poflible, 

 with perfeft confillency, to maintain the exiltence of our 

 perceptions, and to deny that of matter altogether. The 

 other qualities of matter are perceived by us ; but percep- 

 tion cannot be perceived ; all we know about it is, that it is 

 that by which we perceive every thing elfe. It founds forae- 

 what abfurd and unintelligible, to fay that perception is that 

 quality of matter by which it becomes confcious of its own 

 exiltence, and acquainted with its other qualities. It is 

 plain that this is not a quality, but a knowledge of qualities ; 

 and that the percipient muft neceffarily be diitinft from that 

 which is perceived by it. We muft always begin with per- 

 ception ; and the followers of Berkeley will tell us, that 

 we mull end there alfo. At all events, it certainly never 

 entered into the head of any plain man to conceive, that the 

 faculty of perception itfelf was one of the qualities with 

 which that faculty made him acquainted ; or that it could 

 pol!ibIy belong to a fubftance, which his earlieft intimations 

 and molt indeftruftible impreffions taught him to regard as 

 fomething external and feparate. 



The following lines, if we may be allowed to avail our- 

 felves of poetry in the illuftration of a metaphyfical queftion, 

 forcibly exprefs the univerfal and natural imprefiion of man- 

 kind on this fubjeft. 



" Am I but what I feem, mere flefh and blood ? 

 A branching channel, and a mazy flood ? 

 The purple Itream, that through my veffels glides, 

 Dull and unconfcious flows like common tides. 

 The pipes, through which the circling juices Itray, 

 Are not that thinking I, no more than they. 

 This frame, compafted with tranfcendent fkill. 

 Of moving joints, obedient to my will, 

 Nurfed from the fruitful glebe like yonder tree, 

 Waxes and waftes : I call it mine, not me. 

 New matter ftill the mouldering mafs fuftains ; 

 The manfion changed, the tenant ftill remains. 

 And, from the fleeting ftream repair'd by food, 

 Diftinft, as is the fwimmer from the flood." 



But, befides the impropriety of making the faculty of 

 perception a quality of the thing perceived, and of abfurdly 

 converting our knowledge of the qualities of matter into 



another 



