souu 



another quality of the fame fubftance, chargeable upon the 

 doArine of materialifm, it is alleged that to call perception 

 a qualily at all, is a grofs and unwarrantable abufe of language. 

 Perception is an aft or an event, a faft or a phenomenon, of 

 which the percipient is confcious ; but it cannot be intelli- 

 gibly cvinceived as a quality ; and, Icall of all, as a quality 

 of that fubllance which is known to us as folid and extended, 

 ift. All the quahties of matter, it has been already ftated, 

 are perceived by the fenfes ; but the fenfation itfelf cannot be 

 fo perceived : nor is it poflible to call it an objeft of fenfe, 

 without the grolleft perverfion of expreflion. 2dly. All the 

 qualities of matter have a direft reference to fpace or exten- 

 fion, and arc conceived, in fome meafure, as attributes or 

 qualities of the fpace within which they exift. When we 

 fay that a particular body is folid, we mean merely that a 

 certain portion of fpace is impenetrable ; when we fay that it 

 is coloured, we mean that the fame portion of fpace appears 

 of one hue, — and fo of the other qualities : but fenfation 

 or thought is never conceived to occupy fpace, or to charac- 

 terize it ; nor can thefe faculties be at all conceived as de- 

 finite portions of fpace, endued with perceptible properties. 

 In the third place, all the primary qualities of matter are in- 

 feparable from it, and enter necelTarily into its conception 

 and definition. All matter mult neceflarily be conceived fo 

 extended, folid, and figured. It is obvious, however, that 

 thought or fenfation is not an infeparable attribute of matter, 

 as by far the greater part of matter is entirely deftitute of 

 it ; and it is found in conneftion with thofe parts which we 

 term organized, only while they are in a certain Itate, which 

 we call alive. If it be faid, however, that thought may re- 

 femble thofe accidental qualities of matter, fuch as heat or 

 colour, which are not infeparable or permanent ; then we 

 reply, that none of thefe things can properly be termed 

 matter, more than thought or fenfation ; they are themfelves 

 fubftances, or matter pofleded of infeparable and peculiar 

 qualities, as well as thofe which addrefs themfelves to the 

 other fenfes. Light is a material fubltance, from -which the 

 quality of colour is infeparable ; and heat is a material fub- 

 itance, which has univerfally the quality of exciting the 

 fenfation of warmth. If thought be allowed to be a fub- 

 ftance in this fenfe, it will remain to fliew that it is material, 

 by being referrible to fpace, and liable to attraftion, repul- 

 fion, condenlation or refleftion, hke heat or light. 



Thought, as the advocates of materialifm allege, is 

 nothing elfe than motion ; but, without attempting to de- 

 fine motion, it is fufiicient to obfervc, that it is not a quality 

 of matter ; it is an att, a phenomenon, or a faft ; but it 

 makes no part of the defcription or conception of matter, 

 though it only exills with reference to that iubilance. Let 

 any man afl< himfelf, however, whether the motion of mat- 

 ter bears any fort of refemblance to thought or fenfation ; 

 or whether it be even conceivable that thefe (hould be one 

 and the fame thing ? But, it is faid, we find fenfation always 

 produced by motion ; and as we can difcovcr nothing clfe in 

 conjunftion with it, we are judified in afcribing it to motion. 

 This is not the quellion. It is rot necellary to inquire, 

 whether motion xnd.y produce fenfation or not, but whether 

 fenfation be motion, and nothing elfe. It feems pretty 

 evident that motion can produce nothing but motion or im- 

 pulfe, and that it is at lealt as inconceivable that it (hould 

 ever produce fenfation in matter, a9 that it (liould produce 

 a feparate fubltance, called mind. But this is not the 

 queltion with the materialilU. Tiieir propofition is, not 

 that motion produces fenfation, which might be as well 

 in the mind as in the body ; but that fenfation is motion ; 

 and that all the phenomena of thought and perception are 

 Vox.. XXXIII. 



intelUgibly accounted for by faying, thu they ar* certain 

 little fhakings in the pulpy part of the brain. 



That fenfation may follow motion in the brain, or may cvea 

 be produced by it, is conceivable at leait, and may be 

 affirmed with perfeft precifion and confiftcncy ; but that the 

 motion is itfelf fenfation, and that the proper and complete 

 delinition of thought and feeling is, that they arc certain 

 vibrations in the brain, is a doftrine that can only be won- 

 dered at, and that muft be comprehended before it be 

 anfwered. 



No advocate for the exiftence of mind, ever thought it 

 neceflary to deny that there was a certain bodily appa- 

 ratus neceffary to thought and fenfation in man, and that on 

 many occafions the fenfation was preceded or introduced by 

 certain impulfcs and correfponding movements of this ma- 

 terial machinery ; we cannot fee without eyes and light, nor 

 think without living bodies. All that they maintain is, 

 that thefe impulfes and movements are not feelings or 

 thought, but merely the occafions of feeling and thought, 

 and that it is impoffible for them to confound the material 

 motions which precede their fenfations, with the fenfations 

 themfelves, which have no conceivable affinity with matter. 



Dr. Prieltley farther argues, that all our ideas either pro- 

 ceed from the bodily fenfes, or are confequent upon the per- 

 ceptions of fenfe ; and hence infers, that the notion of the 

 pofllbility of thinking in man, without an organized body, 

 is not only deltitute of all evidence from aftual appearances, 

 but is direftly contrary to them. Moreover, if the mind 

 was naturally fo independent of the body, as to be capable 

 of fubiilting by itfelf, and even of appearing to more ad- 

 vantage after the death of the body, as fome of the advo- 

 cates for an intermediate (late have maintained, it might, he 

 fays, difcover fome figns of its independence before its 

 death, and efpecially when the organs of the body were 

 obltrufted, fo as to leave the foul more at liberty to exert 

 itfelf, as in a (late of fleep or fwooning, which mod refem- 

 ble the (late of death, in which it is pretended that the foul 

 is moll of all alive, moll adtive, and vigorous ; but, judg- 

 ing by appearances, the reverfe of all this is the cafe. Bc- 

 fides, if the mental principle was, in its own nature, imma- 

 terial and immortal, all its particular faculties would be fo 

 too ; whereas we fee that every faculty of the mind, with- 

 out exception, is liable to be impaired, and even to become 

 wholly extinil before death. Whence he infers, that the 

 fubltance, or principle, in which thefe faculties ex ill, mud 

 be pronounced to be mortal too. He adds, if the fentient 

 principle in man be immaterial, it can have no cxtcnfion, 

 but every thing within it, or properly belonging to it, muft 

 be fimple and indivilible ; and if this were not the cafe, the 

 foul would be liable to corruption and death. But Dr. 

 Pricdlcy obferves, that, whatever ideas arc in themfelves, 

 they are evidently produced by external objefts, and muft 

 tiicrefore correlpond to them ; and fince many of tlie ob- 

 jefts or archetypes of ideas are divifible, it necell'arily fol- 

 lows, that the ideas themfelves are divifible alfo ; and hence 

 he infers, that the fentient principle in man, containing ideas 

 which certainly have parts, and are divifible, and confc- 

 quently having extenfion, cannot be that fimple, indivifible, 

 and immaterial fubdance, that fome have imagined it to be ; 

 but fi)metlung that has real extenfion, and therefore may 

 have the otiier proiicrties of matter. To this reafoning an 

 excellent writer replies, that it would be as proper to alfcrt 

 that ideas are hard or round, as to alfert that they are divi- 

 fible. Perception is a fingle and indivifible aft ; and though 

 the objett perceived may be divifible, the perception of it 

 by the mind cannot be lo. Dr. PrielUey farther adds, that 

 3 C the 



