SOUL. 



the foul poffetres a (jreat vai-iety of mental affeftions, which 

 necelTarily imply alteration, cfpecially melioration and depra- 

 vation, which is fomethina; fo fimilar to corrnption, that it 

 has iiniverfally obtained the fanie name, and which is cer- 

 tainly incompatible with natural and perfeft fimplicity. This 

 writer alleges alfo, in favour of the fyitem of materialifm, 

 that we hereby ^et rid of many difficulties, which mull em- 

 barrafs the oppoiite fvftem ; fuch, e. gr. as thefe — what be- 

 comes of the full durino- fl'-ep, in a fwoon, when tlie body 

 is feeminiily dead (as by drowning, or other accidents), and 

 efpecially after death ? alio what was the condition of it be- 

 fore it became united to the body, and at what time did 

 that union take place? what are the nature and ttate of the 

 fouls of brutes ? what is the ufe of the human body ? &c. 

 The fyftem of materialifm, he fays, which revelation \ini- 

 formly fuppufes, is clogged with no difficulties of this kind. 

 Man, according to this fyitem, is no more than what we 

 now fee of him. His being commences at the time of his 

 conception, or perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal 

 and mental faculties, inhering in the fame fubftance, grow, 

 ripen, and decay together ; and, whenever the lyltem is dif- 

 folved, it continues in a Itate of difl'olution, till it (hall 

 pleafe that Almighty Being, who called it into exillence, 

 to reltore it to life again. Accordingly the Chriftian fyf- 

 tem provides no reward for the righteous till the general re- 

 ■furreftion of thejull, nor any punilhment for the wicked till 

 the end of the world. Hence alfo the doftrine of the pre- 

 exiftence of human fouls, and that of the pre-exiltence of 

 Chrilt, is rejefted, as having no other foundation than the 

 notion of there being fomething in man quite different from 

 his corporeal organized fyftem. 



Dr. Prieflley argues in many parts of his work on the 

 luppofition, that, according to the ideas of modern imma- 

 terialifts, fpirit can have no relation to place, and is incapa- 

 ble of being prefent any where. But Dr. Clarke, and fome 

 others of the belt modern writers, did not entertain thefe 

 ideas of fpirit. Time and place arc neceil'aryto the e.xiltence 

 of all things ; and hence Dr. Clarke infers, that infinite 

 fpace and duration are the effential properties of the Deity. 

 Sir Ifaac Newton was alfo of the fame opinion ; and Dr. 

 Price obferves, that if fpirit exifts at all, it muft exift fome- 

 where, as well as in fome time. 



Dr. Prieltley deduces another argument in favour of the 

 material fyitem, from the confideration, that fpirit and body 

 have no common property, and that it muft, therefore, be 

 impoflible for them to aft upon one another : againft which 

 it has been objefted, that his principles tend to prove, that 

 the Deity is material, as well as all inferior beings : and if 

 matter be a power of attraction and repulfion united to ex- 

 tenfion, the Deity muft be the fame. But if this maxim be 

 not univerfally true, and the Deity be immaterial, as Dr. 

 Prieftley himfelf afferts.it will follow, that fpirit may a£t upon 

 matter, without having any other common property with it 

 than being locally prefent to it ; and one of his chief argu- 

 ments for the materiality of the foul will be given up. Be- 

 fides, allowing this maxim, how is it poffible to avoid affert- 

 ing the impoffibility of the creation of the world out of 

 nothing ? For what common property can the Creator have 

 with nothing? Dr. Prieftley has laboured to prove, that the 

 fcriplures, both of the Old and New Teftament, fuppofe 

 and inculcate the doftrine of the uniform compofition of 

 man, or of the materiality of the human foul ; and that, in 

 conformity to this doftrine, the ftate of retribution does 

 not take place till after the general rcfurreftion. Accord- 

 ingly, his fyftem leads him to deny the natural immortality 

 ef the foul, and its confcious exiftence in the intermediate 



ftatc. To thofe who objcdt, that it the loul be not natu< 

 rally capable of furviving the body, or if death is unavoidably 

 its deftrutlion, then the refurreition muft be the refurrec- 

 ticm of a non-entity ; he replies, that though the power 

 of thinking cannot exift without its fubftance, which is 

 an organized fyftem, yet if this property of thinking necef- 

 farily attends the property of life, nothing can be requifite 

 to the reftoration of all the powers of the man, but the 

 reftoration of the body to a itate of life. And he appre- 

 hends that a refurreflion properly lo called (becaufe this 

 can be only a refurreftion of fomething that had been 

 dead, d/s. the body ), is manifcftly ufelefs, upon the fuppo- 

 fition of there being a foul diltincf from the body ; it 

 being, upon this hypothefif, the foul, and not the bodv, 

 that is the feat of all perception, and the fourcc of all ac- 

 tion. See Sleep of the Sou!. 



Dr. Prieftley conceives, that the three doftrines of mate- 

 rialifm, of that which is commonly called Socinianifm, and 

 of philofophical neceffity, are equal parts of one fyitem, 

 being equally founded on jutt obfervatious of nature, and 

 fair deduftions from the fcriptures ; and that whofoever (hall 

 duly confider their conneftion and dependence on one another, 

 will find no fufficient confiftency in any general fcheme of 

 principles that does not comprehend them all. But it has 

 been urged by another able writer, that if man be the 

 matter itfelf which conftitutes the man, and not its form or 

 arrangement, as Dr. Prieftley allows, the man will always 

 remain while the matter which conftitutes him remains, 

 however different its organization or arrangement may be : 

 that fince death does not deitroy the matter which conftitutes 

 man, it does not deitroy the man ; and that, confequently, 

 he goes on to exift after death, or is naturally immortal : 

 that, in order to the refurredfion of the fame man, the fame 

 matter mult arife ; and that it is no lefs polfible tor man to 

 have exifted before his birth, than it is, that he ihoiild exift 

 after his death ; and that, confequently, all the lupport to 

 the Socinian fcheme, which Dr. Prieftley derives from his 

 fentiments of materialifm, falls to the ground. To this 

 reafoning, however, he replies, that the pre-exiltence of the 

 materials of the man Jefus is a very difterent kind of pre- 

 exiltence from that of thofe who make Chrilt, or rather the 

 principal part of him, to have pre-exilted in an aftive (late. 

 We (hall here fubjoin the following argument, urged by the 

 learned Dr. Clarke againft Mr. Dodwell, in jjroof of the 

 immateriality and natural immortality of the foul. Tliat 

 the foul cannot be material, he fays, is demonftrable from 

 the (ingle confideration even of bare fenfe and conlcioufneis 

 itfelf. For matter being a divifible fubftance, confifting 

 always of feparable, nay, of aftual feparate and diltintl 

 parts ; it is plain, unlefs it were effentially confcious, in 

 which cafe every particle of matter muft confitt of innu- 

 merable feparate and diltinft confcioufnclTes, no fyftem of 

 it in any poffible compofition or divifion, can be an individual 

 confcious being : for fuppofe three, or three hundred particles 

 of matter, at a mile, or any given diltance, one from another, 

 is it polTible that all thofe feparate parts fhould, in that ftate, 

 be one individual confcious being? Snppofe, then, all thefe 

 particles brought together, into one fyftem, fo as to touch 

 one another, will they, thereby, or by any motion or com- 

 pofition whatfoever, become any whit lefs truly dillinft 

 beings than they were at the greateft diltance ? How then 

 can their being difpofed in any poffible fyftem, make them 

 one individual confcious being ? If you fuppofe God by 

 his infinite power fuperadding confcioufnefs to the united 

 particles, yet (till thofe particles, being really and neceffarily 

 as dillinft beings as ever, cannot be themfclves the fubjeft in 



which 



